<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belinda_(Allen_book)" title="Belinda (Allen book)">
The book tells the story of a cow that is particular about who milks her and the lengths a man takes to do so.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Australian_Girl_in_London" title="An Australian Girl in London">
Told in the form of a series of letters, the book details the travels of Sylvia Leighton from Australia to London, and her impressions of that city after she arrives.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vegetarian" title="The Vegetarian">
"The Vegetarian" tells the story of Yeong-hye, a home-maker who, one day, suddenly decides to stop eating meat after a series of dreams involving images of animal slaughter. This abstention leads her to become distanced from her family and from society. The story is told in three parts: "The Vegetarian", "Mongolian Mark", and "Flaming Trees". The first section is narrated by Yeong-hye's husband Mr. Cheong in the first person. The second section is narrated in third person focusing on Yeong-hye's brother-in-law, and the third section remains in third-person but focuses on her sister, In-hye, while sporadically speaking in the present tense.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_at_the_Moss-Covered_Mansion" title="The Mystery at the Moss-Covered Mansion">
Nancy's father Carson Drew enlists her help in tracking down a missing heiress, and Nancy, Bess and George stumble upon a mysterious moss-covered mansion. They later hear that someone was murdered near the mansion, and upon investigating they hear strange noises emanating from within. The story includes a great deal of action; aside from the aforementioned missing heiress and murder, there is a needy elderly lady, a reclusive artist, an airplane accident, and a forest fire.It starts with Nancy and her friends Bess Marvin and George Fayne, who are on a trip to a place called Ashley to meet Carson Drew, Nancy’s father. Nancy and George are waiting for Bess, who has been looking for a place to get more water. It is already late, and the girls are nervous about what has happened to Bess. Nancy and George finally find her near an old mansion covered in moss. Bess claims to have heard a creepy scream from the house. George teases her, but then falls into a lily pond and loses her special watch. The girls then hear the scream that Bess mentioned. Nancy wants to investigate, but a man comes out of the house and orders them away. They hear a shot from the mansion, and Nancy grows more curious. The man comes out again and orders the girls away, and this time they return to Nancy’s car and drive to Ashley, mulling over the strange experience along the way. George suddenly notices that she has lost her watch. It is too late to go back now, but they make plans to return the next day to look for the watch.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quest_of_the_Missing_Map" title="The Quest of the Missing Map">
Nancy investigates a small ship cottage at the Chatham estate and discovers a connection between the mysterious occurrences at the cottage and an island where a lost treasure is said to be buried. With one half of a map, Nancy sets out to find a missing twin brother who holds the other half. The mystery becomes dangerous when an assailant hears about the treasure and is determined to push Nancy off the trail. Can she endure this and other grave dangers, and recover in time to solve the mystery?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_in_the_Old_Attic" title="The Secret in the Old Attic">
Nancy searches for clues to missing music manuscripts written by the late soldier Philip March. March's daughter and his father, living together on the family estate, are rapidly running out of money, and believe some of Philip's music is being sold and played on the radio. Nancy goes to his estate, Pleasant Hedges, to investigate, with the assistance of her good friends, Bess and George. They search the estate, for clues, and also find valuable antiques that they sell for Mr. March so he can get some money in the meantime. Also, her father's client, Mr. Booker, solicits her aid in his investigation of a rival company, the Dight plant, which seems to be manufacturing silk cloth using his patented methods. And what is Bushy Trott, manic scientist, doing at the Dight plant?There is also a subplot in the original text in which Nancy is confused as to why Ned hasn't asked her out to a dance. It turns out that Diane Dight, daughter of the owner of the Dight plant, intercepts his communication asking Nancy out so that she can date Ned and another boy, also involved in the mystery, can date Nancy. At the end, Nancy is imprisoned in a room with a black widow spider, about to give her a deadly bite. But Ned and Effie Schnieder, the maid, rescue her just in time. Nancy and Ned figure out how they were tricked, and make up.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clue_in_the_Crumbling_Wall" title="The Clue in the Crumbling Wall">
Nancy and her friends work to find an inheritance concealed in the walls of an old mansion before it can be discovered and stolen by an unscrupulous and crude man.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_of_the_Tolling_Bell" title="The Mystery of the Tolling Bell">
Nancy, Bess, and George travel to the picturesque seaside town of Candleton to meet Carson Drew's client, a woman named Mrs. Chantrey, who has been cheated out of money by buying phony stock. On the way, they stop in Fisher's Cove where Bess buys expensive "Mon Coeur" perfume from a suspicious woman. Upon arrival in Candleton, they meet busy Mrs. Chantrey at her restaurant, the Salsandee shop, and help out as waitresses for a day. While waiting on tables, Nancy meets a mysterious diner named Amos Hendrick. He tells her of his search for a missing Paul Revere bell. When he leaves, Nancy finds a piece of paper that he dropped with a mysterious message on it and gives it to Mrs. Chantrey for safekeeping.When Mr. Drew fails to join the girls as planned, Nancy is worried. She soon finds that he has been kidnapped and left in a hotel. She rescues her father, who thinks that he has been drugged. Meanwhile, Nancy also becomes interested in the local story of Amy Maguire, who married a man named Ferdinand Slocum despite her parents' disapproval.While talking with Mrs. Chantrey and the other residents of Candleton, they tell her of a cave which is said to be inhabited by a ghost who rings a bell every time water rushes through it. Nancy investigates and is swept into the sea by rushing water until she is rescued. This does not stop her and she continues to investigate the cave, which lies directly under the Maguire house. Then, Nancy discovers that many other residents of Candleton besides Mrs. Chantrey have been scammed into buying fake stock in the "Mon Coeur" brand. Nancy eventually tracks down the perfume scammers, finds out the true story of Amy Maguire, uncovers the ghost, and, with the help of the mysterious piece of paper, rescues the tolling bell, which turns out to be the valuable Paul Revere bell that Amos Hendrick was searching for.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clue_in_the_Old_Album" title="The Clue in the Old Album">
Nancy witnesses a purse snatching and pursues the thief. She rescues the purse, but not its contents, then is asked by the owner, a doll collector, to do some detective work. "The source of light will heal all ills, but a curse will follow him who takes it from the gypsies." This is one of the clues Nancy is given to find an old album, a lost doll, and a missing gypsy violinist. The young sleuth never gives up her search, though Nancy faints after being injected with poison by a French-swordsman doll, is run off the road in her car by an enemy, and sent several warnings to give up the case.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_of_Blackwood_Hall" title="The Ghost of Blackwood Hall">
Nancy Drew's jeweler's customer Mrs. Putney asks Nancy and her friends to help recover her stolen jewels. The search for the thieves takes Nancy, Bess, and George to New Orleans. Mrs. Putney's odd behavior and two young women involve Nancy in a case involving a cruel hoax being perpetrated at the abandoned Blackwood Hall. Nancy's father, Carson Drew, also helps solve this mystery by contacting his workers, and helping him find the man that is connected to this mysterious affair.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clue_of_the_Black_Keys" title="The Clue of the Black Keys">
Professor Terence Scott travels to River Heights to consult with Carson Drew about the disappearance of another professor, Dr. Joshua Pitt. Mr. Drew recommends he discuss the matter with Nancy, as it seems to be more of a mystery than a legal matter. Terry Scott reveals that while on an archaeology expedition in Mexico, he, Dr. Pitt, and two other professors, Dr. Anderson and Dr. Graham, found a clue to an ancient treasure. They discovered three black keys made of obsidian and a stone tablet with a cipher engraved on it. The items and Dr. Pitt both disappeared the next morning. Only a broken half of one of the keys was left behind. Terry suspected foul play by a couple who had been working near the excavation site because they vanished at the same time. While Nancy and Terry are at the airport, someone tries to steal the half-key from Terry's coat pocket. A Sergeant Malloy helps them identify the thief, Juarez Tino, but not until after he escapes on a plane to Florida.Nancy asked her father's advice, and he suggests she talk to the other expedition members. Mr. Drew had drawn up Dr. Pitt's will and he confidentially tells her Terry is the sole heir, as elderly Dr. Pitt was unmarried. Out of caution, they want to be sure Terry is trustworthy. That night, a burglar breaks into the Drew home but is scared off. The black key, which Terry had entrusted to Nancy, remained safe in its hiding place. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_at_the_Ski_Jump" title="The Mystery at the Ski Jump">
Nancy, Bess, and George follow the trail of fur thieves to New York and into Canada. While trying to catch the thieves, Nancy must catch a woman named Mitzi Channing who is using Nancy's identity. Nancy finds out that everyone who has been buying from Mitzi is in a dreadful trap. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ringmaster's_Secret" title="The Ringmaster's Secret">
1953 Edition: Nancy's Aunt Eloise, aware of her niece's current interest in learning horseback riding stunts, sends her a second-hand golden bracelet bearing charms of horses in all five gaits; a sixth charm is missing. Coincidentally, the Sims Circus, former employer of Nancy's equestrian instructor, is coming to town. Nancy investigates the link between the unhappy circus star, young aerialist, Lolita, and her bracelet. Lolita is the adopted daughter of the acting manager, Ringmaster Kroon, and his wife. Pietro, the young, handsome clown, tells Nancy Lolita has the missing charm from her bracelet. Nancy's regular appearances at the circus, and her detective reputation brings the ire of Kroon. When a bareback rider is injured, Nancy is asked to join the show as her replacement. Bess Marvin stands in at an interview with Kroon, and agrees to audition later, while Nancy lightens her hair and cuts it to resemble her friend. Nancy's travels with the circus come to an abrupt end when she and George are kidnapped and left aboard the car of a freight train. After their escape, Nancy continues following up on clues, including a mysterious woman in England linked to both the bracelet and Lolita! In the climax of the story, Nancy is rescued by Ned when Kroon tries to imprison her in the lion's cage, and all is revealed. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_Window_Mystery" title="The Hidden Window Mystery">
Nancy and her friends, Bess and George travel to Charlottesville, Virginia in search for a missing stained-glass window. They also visit Richmond, Virginia, and the church where Patrick Henry gave his "Give me liberty or give me death" speech. The girls stay with Nancy's cousin Susan. Nancy discovers someone is trying to keep her away from Charlottesville. The mansion they are staying at is said to be haunted by a mysterious ghost. Also Nancy's new neighbors' brother, Alonzo Rugby, is in Charlottesville and is a major suspect in this mystery.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_the_Golden_Pavilion" title="The Secret of the Golden Pavilion">
Nancy, Bess, and George travel to Hawaii to solve an interesting puzzle involving an old golden pavilion. They are then set to find a trio of art thieves. They help find a Chinese man's treasure.Carson Drew is asked by Mr. Sakamaki to solve the mystery of the estate, Kaluakua, that he inherited from his grandfather. The estate is located in Hawaii and has a secret. Sakamaki was warned never to sell the estate until he learns its secret.Complicating the situation, a brother and sister have suddenly appeared, claiming to be heirs to the estate. Also, somebody has been hacking at the floor of the Golden Pavilion, which is a circular open building on the estate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clue_of_the_Dancing_Puppet" title="The Clue of the Dancing Puppet">
At the Van Pelt estate, home of a local acting troupe, a mysterious dancing puppet haunts the grounds. Nancy, Bess, and George are asked to solve the case, but it will be a dangerous-yet-rewarding one when an old family mystery comes to light. From the moment Nancy, Bess and George arrive at the mansion, the dancing puppet mystery is further complicated by the Footlighters’ temperamental leading lady and a Shakespearean actor. Nancy's search of the mansion's dark, musty attic for clues to the weird mystery and an encounter with two jewel theft suspects add perplexing angles to the puzzle. This book is the original text. A revised text does not exist.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moonstone_Castle_Mystery" title="The Moonstone Castle Mystery">
Nancy receives a moonstone as a gift from an unknown person; she is amazed yet puzzled. She then finds herself involved in a case involving the Bowens and their missing granddaughter, Joanie Horton. Clues lead Nancy, Bess, and George to the haunted Moonstone Castle along the Deep River.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clue_of_the_Whistling_Bagpipes" title="The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes">
Nancy finds mystery in everything she does. In the novel Nancy and her friends along with her father head to Scotland on family business and to solve the mystery of the missing heirloom. Nancy is warned not to go to Scotland, but she ignores the warning. Nancy finds strange things in Scotland like the people. She and her friends, Bess and George, visit Nancy's great-grandmother from her mother's side (who Nancy's never met) at an estate in the Scottish Highlands. While there, Nancy becomes involved in the mystery of missing flocks of sheep and a mysterious bagpiper has been spotted. Clues leading to a discovery in an old castle and a prehistoric fortress lead to the mystery's solution.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_of_Pine_Hill" title="The Phantom of Pine Hill">
Nancy Drew, along with her friends arrive for the Emerson University June Week celebration. There is a mix-up with the motel reservations, but Ned comes to the rescue. Afterward, Ned and Nancy go to a dance, where a young waiter, Fred, spills drinks on Nancy's dress. After cleaning up, Nancy realizes that her pearl necklace is missing, leading her to a baffling mystery. John Rorick, a descendant of the early settlers of the town, invites the three girls as his guests at his historic mansion on Pine Hill. After they arrive, he tells them of the phantom who haunts the mansion's library. John also relates the weird family saga of a lost French wedding gown and of valuable gifts and gold coins that were lost in the sinking of the 'Lucy Belle' one hundred years ago. After discovering a secret passage to the library from the chimney and a secret shack, the suspicion turns on Fred and his father. In between enjoying the university's June Week, river pageant, and fraternity dances, Nancy and her friends work diligently to solve the mystery of Pine Hill and locate the long-lost wedding treasures.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_of_the_99_Steps" title="The Mystery of the 99 Steps">
Nancy looks for a flight of the 99 steps in France to solve the mystery of a friend's strange dream. Before Nancy, Bess, and George leaves the United States for France, a person calling himself Monsieur Neuf warns Nancy not to pursue her mission.The girls arrive in Paris and join Nancy’s father, who is trying to find out who or what is causing wealthy financier Monsieur Leblanc to selling large amounts of securities.Nancy determines that the case she is investigating involving the 99 steps is linked to the case her father is following. Nancy thinks that Monsieur Leblanc could be being blackmailed.Startling discoveries convince the youn that Mr. Drew's case and her own mystery are linked by the 99 steps, and that a mysterious Arab has a strong hold over Leblanc. Nancy thinks it could be blackmail.Nancy goes to an area in the Loire Valley to look for more clues, and Nancy, Bess, and George wind up in danger.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clue_in_the_Crossword_Cipher" title="The Clue in the Crossword Cipher">
A woman named Carla Ponce invites Nancy, Bess, and George to Peru to help decipher the mystery in the crossword cipher—a wooden plaque that promises to lead them to a wonderful treasure. Nancy must find the treasure before a gang of thieves led by El Gato (The Cat) reach it first.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spider_Sapphire_Mystery" title="The Spider Sapphire Mystery">
A client of Carson Drew, a Mr. Floyd Ramsey, is accused of stealing the fabulous Spider Sapphire which leads Nancy and her friends to Africa. Nancy uncovers a notorious scheme and solves the mystery of a missing safari guide.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_Intruder" title="The Invisible Intruder">
Nancy and her friends are invited on a ghost-hunting tour, visiting various locations reputed to be haunted. They gather clues that point to a more mundane explanation.Nancy uncovers a gang of thieves that are stealing rare shells from collectors. Some of these shells are no longer rare, such as Conus gloriamaris.Helen, Nancy's friend from the earliest books in the series, makes a rare appearance. Previously Helen Corning, she is now married to Jim Archer and goes by Helen Archer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Mannequin" title="The Mysterious Mannequin">
The strange disappearance of Carson Drew's Turkish client and a strange gift of an oriental rug encoded with a message woven in the decorative border start Nancy on a difficult search for a missing mannequin. But then, a robber tries to steal the rug from the Drew home. Nancy, Bess, George, Ned, Burt, Carson, and Dave travel to Istanbul to search for more clues; but then, Bess disappears during the search after the chums meet a young Turkish woman.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crooked_Banister" title="The Crooked Banister">
Nancy, Bess, and George spend an exciting weekend at a mysterious zigzag house with a crooked banister and an unpredictable robot. Nancy becomes involved in the mystery of the strange house and must locate the missing owner who is wanted by police.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factotum_(novel)" title="Factotum (novel)">
Set in the 1940s, the plot follows Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's perpetually unemployed, alcoholic alter ego, who has been rejected from the World War II draft and makes his way from one menial job to the next (hence a "factotum"). After getting into a fight with his father, Chinaski drifts through the seedy city streets of lower-class Los Angeles and other American cities in search of a job that will not come between him and his first love: writing. Much of the novel is dedicated to describing various menial jobs that Chinaski temporarily holds during the USA’s WWII economic boom. Even though some of Chinaski's jobs and colleagues are described with great detail, they all eventually end with him either abruptly leaving or being fired.He is consistently rejected by the only publishing house he respects, but is driven to continue by the knowledge that he could do better than the authors they publish. Chinaski begins sleeping with fellow barfly Jan, a kindred spirit he meets while drowning his sorrows at a bar. When a brief stint as a bookie finds him abandoned by the only woman with whom he is able to relate, a fling with gold-digging floozie Laura finds him once again falling into a morose state of perpetual drunkenness and unemployment.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesterday's_Son" title="Yesterday's Son">
While studying the archaeological records of the now-destroyed planet Sarpeidon, a scholar aboard the USS "Enterprise" finds pictures of an ice-age cave painting that depicts a Vulcan face. Spock realizes that his involvement with Zarabeth in the episode "All Our Yesterdays" resulted in the birth of a child. Along with Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy, he uses the Guardian of Forever (featured in the episode "The City on the Edge of Forever") to journey back into Sarpeidon's past and rescue his son. Due to a miscalculation, they find a young man of twenty-eight instead of a child, who tells them that his name is Zar and that his mother Zarabeth died in an accident many years before. Spock introduces himself but refuses to allow Zar to call him "Father."Zar returns to the "Enterprise" and passes as a distant relative of Spock, who oversees his education and attempts to train him in Vulcan telepathic techniques. They discover that Zar is an unusually strong telepath for a Vulcan; he can establish contact without touching the other person. Zar becomes conflicted and hurt by his father's apparent refusal to acknowledge him.The "Enterprise" is called back to the planet Gateway to protect the Guardian of Forever from a Romulan intelligence raid. It is imperative to the security of the United Federation of Planets that the Romulans not discover the Guardian's powers; if they cannot be driven away, Gateway must be destroyed. The Romulans, who have landed near the Guardian, have hidden themselves behind a ground-based cloaking device. Spock devises a plan to place a force field around the Guardian. Zar volunteers to help Spock place the force field, because he can sense whether Romulans are present even though, due to the cloaking device, he cannot see them. Their first try is unsuccessful, but when they rendezvous with Kirk the three discover they are trapped on the planet while the "Enterprise" with Scotty in command battles the Romulans. They decide to try again, but Spock disables Zar with the Vulcan nerve pinch, wishing to spare him from danger. Kirk and Spock are captured and tortured by the Romulans. When Zar wakes up, he is able to telepathically sense their danger. He also realizes that his father cares about him, since he chose to protect Zar instead of Kirk, his closest friend. The "Enterprise" defeats the Romulan ships and a rescue party beams down. Zar creates a diversion by causing an explosion, allowing the others to rescue Kirk and Spock.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_for_Yesterday" title="Time for Yesterday">
The Guardian of Forever has malfunctioned and is emitting waves of accelerated time that are causing premature star deaths throughout the galaxy. After Spock recalls that his son Zar was once able to communicate telepathically with the Guardian, the "Enterprise" is placed under the temporary command of Admiral Kirk and detailed to transport a powerful telepath to the Guardian. The telepath manages to partially restore the Guardian's time travel functions but collapses in a comatose state. Using the Guardian, Kirk, Spock, and Dr. McCoy travel into the past of the planet Sarpeidon to find Zar, hoping that his powerful telepathy combined with Vulcan shield training will allow him to successfully restore the Guardian to its normal state.They find Zar in charge of a small, technologically advanced settlement that is about to engage in a battle with an alliance of less advanced but more numerous enemy clans. His death in the coming battle has been foretold by the priestess Wynn, the daughter of one of the enemy clan chiefs, who declares that the alliance will be denied victory only if "he who is halt walks healed" and "he who is death-struck in battle rises whole." "He who is halt" clearly refers to Zar, who walks with a painful limp because of a leg injury he suffered many years before. In order to increase his city's odds of survival, Zar has Wynn kidnapped and betrothed, forcing her father to change sides. The "Enterprise" men manage to convince him to come back with them and deal with the Guardian, although he insists that he will return afterward to fight in the battle despite the prophecy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Double_Jinx_Mystery" title="The Double Jinx Mystery">
This volume details the story of a family zoo and aviary, believed to have been jinxed by people out to take their land for high rise development. Nancy Drew and her friends must get to the bottom of the mystery, before they are jinxed themselves.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Spot_of_Bother" title="A Spot of Bother">
The novel follows George Hall, a 57-year-old hypochondriac, and his family following George's retirement from a career manufacturing playground equipment. George has hypochondria, an excessive phobia for one's physical health. Certain that a skin lesion on his hip is a fatal cancer, George rejects Dr Barghoutian's diagnosis of eczema due to his previous misdiagnosis of Katie's appendicitis as stomach ache, and unsuccessfully attempts to remove the lesion with a pair of scissors. The resulting blood loss soon renders him unconscious, but not before he calls an ambulance and tries to get a chisel from the cellar to demarcate the incident as accidental. The resulting bloodied handprints he smears around the house in doing so horrify his wife Jean.George and Jean's children confront problems of their own. Daughter Katie, a single mother, announces her plans to marry Ray, a competent but lower-class man of whom George, Jean, and their son Jamie disapprove. As the story progresses Ray worries that Katie wants to be with him only for his house and so he can act as a father to her five-year-old son Jacob. It is only when Katie visits George in the hospital that she realises she and Ray are meant to be together: she proposes to Ray herself, and the couple rearrange the wedding. Meanwhile, Jamie has an uneasy relationship with his boyfriend Tony. When Jamie fails to pass on to Tony an invitation to Katie's wedding, arguing about how he would not enjoy it, Tony leaves him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Theorem" title="The Last Theorem">
"The Last Theorem" is set in Sri Lanka in the early- to mid-21st century and follows the life of a mathematician, Ranjit Subramanian. While studying at Colombo University, he becomes obsessed with Fermat's Last Theorem, a conjecture made by Pierre de Fermat in 1637, for which he claimed to have conceived a proof that he never wrote down. The proof eluded mathematicians across the world for over 350 years, until in 1995 British mathematician Andrew Wiles published a 100-page proof of the theorem. But not everyone was "satisfied" with Wiles's proof because it used twentieth century mathematical techniques not available in Fermat's time.In the novel's back-story, extraterrestrial sapients, the "Grand Galactics", are alarmed when they detect the photon shock waves from nuclear bomb detonations on Earth. The Grand Galactics monitor and control the destinies of a number of high-performance sapient races and order one of these races, the "Nine Limbeds", to send "cease and desist" messages to Earth. When these messages have no effect, the Grand Galactics order another race, the "One Point Fives", to launch an armada to Earth to exterminate the undesirable species.Back on Earth, regional conflicts escalate and the United Nations struggles to contain them. In Sri Lanka, Ranjit unwittingly boards a cruise ship that is hijacked by pirates. When unknown security forces free the ship, Ranjit is arrested on suspicion of terrorism. For six months he is interrogated and tortured, but he cannot supply the information his captors want so he is locked up and "forgotten" for a further 18 months. During this period of incarceration, Ranjit dwells on Fermat's Last Theorem and, after several months, solves it with a three-page proof. Later Ranjit is rescued by a friend from University, Gamini Bandara, who will not reveal whom he is working for or where Ranjit was held captive.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wolfen" title="The Wolfen">
The violent junk yard deaths of Hugo DiFalco and Dennis Houlihan, two policemen from the NYPD Auto Squad, triggers an investigation led by detectives Becky Neff and George Wilson. The evidence shows nothing conclusive, except that the victims were quickly and brutally attacked by some kind of animal, in light of the gnawing marks on the bodies' bones and paw prints left on the mud near to the attack. Despite the fact that the two murdered policemen were healthy, they seemed to be unable to defend themselves or fire their service firearms. In addition, at the time of their death the bodies showed signs of disembowelment and of being consumed. One of the puzzling pieces of evidence is that the hand of one of the policemen, still holding his gun, was severed from his arm, having not had a chance to fire the weapon.To the detectives' dismay, the Chief of Police, lacking a plausible explanation for the attack, has written into the official report states that the policemen were attacked by a pack of stray dogs after becoming intoxicated with carbon monoxide, in order to avoid raising public concern in advance of upcoming elections. The detectives pay a visit to the Medical Examiner, Dr. Evans, who informs them that there were no knife marks, that the victims were eaten, and that unidentified canine fur, bites and claw marks were found on the bodies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_of_the_Glowing_Eye" title="Mystery of the Glowing Eye">
When Ned Nickerson is kidnapped, Nancy knows it has something to do with the code name "Cyclops", but she has to work out the connection with the glowing eye-shaped stone in the museum. The plot involves advanced technology for the 1970s including a robot helicopter and a paralyzing ray.Nancy is also troubled by a young lawyer's romantic intentions toward Carson Drew.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_the_Forgotten_City" title="The Secret of the Forgotten City">
Gold! There are rumors that long ago a treasure was hidden in a city now buried under the Nevada desert. Nancy Drew and her friends plan to join a dig sponsored by two colleges to hunt for the gold. Before she starts, the young sleuth receives an ancient stone tablet with petroglyphs on it. With this amazing clue, however, come a threat from a thief who also wants the treasure.One harrowing adventure after another besets Nancy, George, Bess, Ned, Burt, and Dave in 102 degrees temperatures as they pursue Nancy's hunches above and below ground. They are assisted by a fine Indian woman and a young geology student, but both are unwilling participants in a strange plot. In the end Nancy and Ned nearly lose their lives, just after she has discovered the priceless hidden treasure of gold.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sky_Phantom" title="The Sky Phantom">
Nancy goes to the Excello Flying School in the Midwest to take lessons while her friends Bess and George perfect their horse riding. At once, the young sleuth is confronted with the mystery of a hijacked plane and a missing pilot. Then the rancher's prize pony, Major is stolen. Nancy becomes a detective in a plane and on horseback to track down the elusive sky phantom and the horse thief. A lucky find – a medal with a message to be deciphered on it – furnishes a worthwhile clue. Romance is added when Bess becomes interested in a handsome cowboy. Readers will spur Nancy on as she investigates a strange magnetic cloud, hunts for the horse thief, and finally arrives at a surprising solution.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strange_Message_in_the_Parchment" title="The Strange Message in the Parchment">
A sheep farmer receives a mysterious telephone call shortly after he buys a series of pictures painted on parchment. "Decipher the message in the parchment and right a great wrong," the voice says. Puzzled, the owner asks Nancy to help.With Junie, his daughter, Nancy tracks down a kidnapper and a group of extortionists. Clues weave in and out of several puzzles, two of which are linked with Italy. Is there a connection between the message in the parchment and a boy artist on another farm? And who is responsible for the atmosphere of fear in the neighborhood?After several harrowing experiences, Nancy begins to tighten the net around a ruthless villain and calls on the assistance of her friends Ned, Burt, Dave, Bess and George to bring his nefarious schemes to a dead end.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_of_Crocodile_Island" title="Mystery of Crocodile Island">
Nancy responds to a friend's frantic call for help and she and her father travel to Crocodile Island in Florida with Bess and George to study the reptiles and try to uncover a group of poachers. Upon arriving, the group is kidnapped, but they escape and uncover a sinister plot involving many unsuspected victims.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirteenth_Pearl" title="The Thirteenth Pearl">
Nancy Drew is asked to locate a missing pearl that is unusual, but very valuable. She soon learns that dangerous people are responsible for the theft. They begin harassing her at home and it intensifies when Nancy and her father go to Japan. They finally kidnap her and her boyfriend, Ned when they return to River Heights. Through her clever sleuthing, Nancy is able to penetrate the rites of a pearl-worshipping cult, but some are far from devotional, and she uncovers underhanded dealings of certain employees of World Wide Gems, Inc., an international jewelry company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incorporated_Knight" title="The Incorporated Knight">
Squire Eudoric Damberson of Zurgau in the kingdom of Locania wishes to wed Lusina, the daughter of his former tutor, the magician Doctor Baldonius. The price is attaining the status of knight and supplying the magician with a portion of dragon hide for use in his magic. Dragons are locally scarce, so Eudoric and his trusty servant Jillo set out for Pathenia in the east to slay one. But once the two do manage to bring one down (by accident) they face legal complications for violating the local game laws. Returning, Eudoric finds his promised bride has run off with a minstrel, and his feudal lord Baron Emmerhard disinclined to knight him for his heroic exploit; he consoles himself by pursuing a scheme to establish a stagecoach line like those in Pathenia. (This material first appeared as the short story "Two Yards of Dragon".)A subsequent rescue of Emmerhard from a magic spell finally secures him the knighthood, but he remains unlucky in love, as the baron's daughter Gerzilda also shuns his hand. (This material first appeared as the short story "The Coronet".)Next Eudoric pursues Maragda, daughter of Rainmar, a local robber baron who has been raiding his coach line. Rainmar tasks him with slaying the giant spider Fraka, and once again matters go awry. While Eudoric's knightly reputation and stage line prosper, his marriage prospects remain nil. (This material first appeared as the short story "Spider Love".)
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pixilated_Peeress" title="The Pixilated Peeress">
Soldier and aspiring scholar Thorolf Zigramson of Rhaetia is out fishing when he encounters the proverbial damsel in distress in the form of Yvette, fugitive Countess of Grintz from the neighboring kingdom of Carinthia. She is fleeing the forces of the avaricious Duke of Landai, occupier of her fief and aspirant to her hand. But Thorolf gains a burden rather than gratitude by rescuing the self-important peeress from her pursuers.To hide the countess from her enemy Thorolf takes her to the Rhaetian capital of Zurshnitt, where his enchanter friend Doctor Bardi undertakes to magically disguise her features. The spell goes badly awry, mistakenly turning Yvette into an octopus instead. In order to reverse the spell Thorolf must resort to the more powerful wizard Doctor Orlandus, a shady cult-leader. But matters go from bad to worse; while Orlandus cures Yvette all right, he also makes her one of his spirit-controlled slaves to advance his scheme of taking over the government of Rhaetia. On top of that, his henchmen murder Doctor Bardi, leaving Thorolf under suspicion of perpetrating the crime.The soldier flees and seeks sanctuary with the trolls, some of whom he has befriended in the past, only to find them more inclined to eat than succor him; he has managed to put himself among the "wrong" trolls, arch-foes of the band he knows. To gain their favor and protection he promises to rid his captors of a local dragon. Accordingly, he directs them in a successful effort to capture the beast and sell it to the director of Zurshnitt's zoo. But to bind him to them, his new allies insist he marry one of their number. The troll lass finds the hapless warrior as unattractive as he does her, and they settle by mutual agreement into a union in name only.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pocket_for_Corduroy" title="A Pocket for Corduroy">
Lisa accidentally loses Corduroy, her teddy bear, at a laundromat. After a series of adventures, while Corduroy searches for material to make a pocket, he becomes trapped in a laundry basket until he is found the next morning by the laundromat's owner. Corduroy is reunited with Lisa, who promptly takes him home to sew a pocket onto his overalls so that Corduroy can carry a name card with him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightrise" title="Nightrise">
The story begins with fourteen-year-old identical twin brothers Jamie and Scott Tyler, performing in a theatre in Reno, Nevada. The Nightrise Corporation is to kidnap the boys, who are part of the magic show that has performed at the theatre for the past six months. Their foster father, Don White, sells the twins off to them for $150,000, but Jamie escapes and is pursued. Scott is captured but Jamie is rescued by a woman. He awakens at a motel in which the woman is renting a room. The woman, who introduces herself as Alicia, says that her son, Daniel, was kidnapped by the same corporation after exhibiting clairvoyant powers. She takes Jamie to his foster parents' house only to realise they have been murdered by Nightrise, and that he and Scott have been framed for it; they escape only when Jamie uses his telepathic powers. Alicia and Jamie go to Los Angeles where he reveals his backstory. He then tells her of his previous foster parents, with the alcoholic father committing suicide after threatening to separate the twins, and the weird and inexplicable "accidents" associated with them. He tells her about a strange, tattoo-like mark he has on his arm and that he thinks he is an American Indian. After these incidents, he and Scott refused to read or control anyone's minds, except for each other's. They find a lead to one of the men that kidnapped Scott, Colton Banes, and Alicia persuades Jamie to read his mind to find out where Scott is. Jamie manages to find out where Scott is being held: Silent Creek, a juvenile prison, where he is being tortured in an attempt to force him to side with Nightrise.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Six_(novel)" title="Deep Six (novel)">
When a mysterious and extremely deadly poison spreads through the waters off the coast of Alaska killing everything it comes in contact with, including several scientists and members of the crew of a Coast Guard cutter, Dirk Pitt and his NUMA team are dispatched in an attempt to find the source of the poison. When a member of his team is killed by the poison, Pitt vows to take revenge on whoever is responsible for the poison outbreak. The trail leads him to a powerful and extremely wealthy Korean shipping company matriarch and her grandson, and while pursuing them, Pitt uncovers a plot that could lead to the fall of the government of the United States.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_(Cussler_novel)" title="Treasure (Cussler novel)">
The book starts with a historical prologue in which Julius Venator, a Roman, along with a group of Roman soldiers and slaves, sail in a fleet of ships ferrying the treasures from the Library of Alexandria before its destruction to a secret location to be buried in caverns. After the treasures are buried the people, the Roman soldiers, and slaves are all slaughtered by the natives. While one small ship manages to get away, they never reach land and the secret of the treasure is lost.The story then shifts to the present day, where an envoy of the US President having a secret meeting with a would-be Aztec dictator, Topiltzin. Topiltzin kills the envoy, and sends his skin and heart back to the President.Soon after, a Middle Eastern terrorist secretly hijacks a plane carrying Hala Kamil, the new United Nations Secretary-General. The hijacker bails out of the plane after ensuring that the plane crash lands in Greenland, where Dirk Pitt, Al Giordino, and Rudi Gunn are trying to locate a sunken Soviet submarine. Also in the area is Lily Sharp, who discovers an ancient coin. They rescue Hala from the plane wreck. As the plot unfolds, several more attempts are made on Hala's life, since she is trying to stop would-be dictator Akhmad Yazid from taking over Egypt. It is later revealed that both Topiltzin and Yazid are scions of a notorious crime family. Dirk is distracted by the promise of treasure, however. Locating a shipwreck in Greenland, they soon find a tablet detailing a mission to hide the treasure of the library at Alexandria. As Dirk, Al, and the Special Operations Forces rescue Hala Kamil from a hijacked ship in the Straits of Magellan, Hiram Yaeger locates the treasure — in Roma, Texas. The final stretch of the novel involves Dirk trying to hide the treasure from Yazid and his brother Topiltzin. Eventually, the treasure is discovered and Yazid, Topiltzin and their henchmen are killed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Vortex!" title="Pacific Vortex!">
Dirk Pitt is enjoying a lazy day on a secluded Oahu beach at Ka'ena Point when he spots a bright yellow container just past the breakers. Braving the dangerous riptides, Pitt swims out and retrieves the item and finds that it is a communication capsule used by submarines which wish to communicate with ships on the surface without surfacing themselves. Inside he finds a chilling message from the commander of the U.S. Navy's latest nuclear submarine, the "Starbuck", which disappeared with all hands six months earlier while undergoing sea trials. Investigation reveals that the submarine disappeared in the "Pacific Vortex", an area of the ocean north of the Hawaiian Islands where ships have been disappearing for more than 30 years.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_Tide_(novel)" title="Flood Tide (novel)">
While recovering from his injuries suffered a month earlier as told in "Shock Wave", Dirk stumbles upon mysterious activities around a peaceful lake in Washington state. The coin of the realm for the wealthy, insatiably greedy Chinese smuggler is human lives: much of his vast fortune has been made smuggling Chinese immigrants into countries around the globe, including the United States.Tracking the smuggler's activities leads Pitt from Washington State to Louisiana, where his quarry is constructing a huge shipping port in the middle of nowhere. Why has he chosen this unlikely location? The trail then leads to the race to find the site of the mysterious sinking of the ship that Chiang Kai-shek filled with treasure when he fled China in 1949, including the legendary boxes containing the bones of Peking Man that had vanished at the beginning of World War 1.As Pitt prepares for a final showdown, he is faced with the most formidable foe he has ever encountered.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Prince_(Burnett_novel)" title="The Lost Prince (Burnett novel)">
This book, a Ruritanian romance for children, is about Marco Loristan, his father, and his friend, a street urchin called "The Rat". Marco's father, Stefan, is a Samavian patriot working to overthrow the cruel dictatorship in the kingdom of Samavia. Marco and his father come to London where Marco strikes up a friendship with a crippled street urchin known as The Rat. The friendship occurs when Marco overhears The Rat shouting in military form. Marco discovers he had stumbled upon a club known as the Squad, where the boys drill under the leadership of The Rat, whose education and imagination far exceeds their own.Stefan, realizing that two boys are less likely to be noticed, entrusts them with a secret mission to travel across Europe giving the secret sign: 'The Lamp is lighted.' Marco is to go as the Bearer of the Sign while The Rat goes as his Aide-de-Camp (so-named at his own request). The boys encounter many dangers while on this journey.This brings about a revolution which succeeds in overthrowing the old regime and re-establishing the rightful king. When Marco and The Rat return to London, Stefan has already left for Samavia. They wait there with his father's faithful bodyguard, Lazarus, until Stefan calls. The book ends in a climactic scene as Marco realizes his father is the descendant of Ivor Fedorovitch and thus the rightful king of Samavia.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Guard" title="Star Guard">
Information given in the story indicates that Humanity only developed space travel far enough to attract the attention of Central Control in the 37th century AD. Norton explains the implied retardation of human development through references to nuclear wars, which presumably caused so much destruction that civilization took an extra sixteen or seventeen centuries to achieve a level of development suitable for resuming Humanity's reach for the stars.Presented in the guise of a history lecture at an alien university, Norton's introduction explains that in the 40th century the people of Terra (the Latin name having replaced the Anglo-Saxon Earth) can only go to the stars as mercenaries. On alien worlds Terrans fight brushfire wars and thereby help Central Control maintain peace within its vast interstellar empire. Archs, who fight with relatively primitive weapons, are organized into Hordes, which fight on underdeveloped barbarian planets, and Mechs, who fight with more modern weapons, are organized into Legions, which fight on advanced, civilized worlds. But then a Horde fighting on the medieval planet Fronn encounters a Legion of Mechs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Game" title="Our Game">
The disappearance of Dr. Larry Pettifer, a British intelligence operative, from his teaching position at Bath University should not have concerned a great many people, especially a retired Treasury boffin like Tim Cranmer. But when Detective Inspector Bryant and Sergeant Luck of the Bath Police call upon Cranmer at his Somerset manor house and vineyard late on a Sunday evening, Cranmer finds himself facing repercussions from his secret and not-too-distant past. Pettifer was a British Secret Intelligence Service operative during the Cold War and Cranmer was his handler for twenty years.The Cold War is over; the Berlin Wall has come down; and SIS has put Cranmer and his agent Pettifer out to pasture. Pettifer turns to teaching at Bath University and Cranmer is content to settle at Honeybrook, his inherited estate in Somerset, making wine and making love to his beautiful young mistress de jour, Emma. Not content with staying cloistered in Bath, Larry begins paying visits to Honeybrook and soon becomes a permanent fixture in their lives. At least, that is, until both Larry and Emma disappear into thin air.Panicked by his encounter with the Bath Police, Cranmer contacts his former employers and is summoned to London where he learns that, not only has Larry disappeared, he has absconded with some £37 million milked from the Russian Government with the help of a former Soviet spy. Cranmer finds himself suspected as Larry's accomplice by the Bath Police—and, later, by "The Office", or SIS—and decides to track down his protégé and his former mistress.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hills_End" title="Hills End">
The story follows seven children and their teacher who are trapped inside a cave while a fierce cyclonic storm destroys the fictional town of Hills End. They face a struggle to survive as well as having to deal with their loss. A mystery also surrounds ancient aboriginal art found in the cave.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hallo-Wiener" title="The Hallo-Wiener">
The story begins with Oscar, a dachshund who is half-a-dog tall and one-and-a-half dogs long, and tired of the other dogs making fun of him because of his wiener-shaped body. He is happy because it is Halloween, and he cannot wait to get a costume. At obedience school, he daydreams of Halloween. When he comes home from school his mother has a surprise for him: a hot dog bun with mustard in the middle and Oscar is supposed to fit in the middle. He thought he would get laughed at, but wears the costume anyway, because he does not want to hurt his mom's feelings. He sees the other dogs showing off their costumes and when they see Oscar's costume they howl in laughter.Oscar's costume is so heavy that it slows him down. Meanwhile, the dogs are getting their paws on all the candy and when Oscar comes to the houses there are no more treats left. The dogs go to a graveyard and they hear a noise, scream very loud and run, diving into a river because they see a scary monster. When Oscar comes to see the monster he notices something strange. He bites the cover of the monster, pulls it off with all his might, and discovers two cats hiding underneath. The cats scream and run away. Then Oscar jumps into the water and uses his costume as a life raft, and rescues the other dogs. The dogs thank Oscar by sharing their candy with him. They become friends forever and Oscar is never made fun of again, for he is then known as "Hero Sandwich".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_Food_(novel)" title="Comfort Food (novel)">
Stan Gillman-Reinhart is a graduate student at a small university in Bellingham, Washington in 1993. Through his experiences and frustrations we meet Delany Richardson, a budding writer and old friend of Stan's; John Snyder, a local musician; Brian Fetzler, Stan's stoner roommate; Dave Greibing, a mountaineer and Delany's ex-boyfriend; and Bridgette Jonsen, a former heroin addict and Dave's current girlfriend.Successive sections of the novel focus on John's earlier trip through Eastern Europe, Delany's previous summer in Alaska, Brian's life after college, Bridgette's earlier road trip through Utah, Dave's ascent of Denali, and a tragic accident that illuminates their lives.Set in the verdant Pacific Northwest, the sandstone deserts of Utah, the gritty streets of Budapest, and the snow-covered wasteland of Denali, Comfort Food is a literary work with an emphasis on the importance of human relationships and a sense of place.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_of_Darkness" title="People of Darkness">
A bacteriologist in the cancer research hospital, waiting for lab results, sees a blond-haired man move something from his car to a pick-up truck parked in an illegal space. She sees a tow truck pull the pick-up away; within seconds, the truck explodes, killing the operators of the tow truck. A few months later, Jim Chee is asked by Mrs. Vines to find a box stolen from her house, wanting to hire him off-duty. The box contains mementos and she would like it back before her husband returns; she thinks Emerson Charley is the thief. Mr. Vines returns, telling Chee not to bother with the task his wife asked him to do. Sheriff Sena is angry at Chee for talking with Mr. and Mrs. Vines. Sena shares the story of the six Navajo men in the crew under Dillon Charley who did not go to work at the oil field years back because Charley had a vision saying something bad would happen that day, which was true. Chee learns that the man whose truck exploded a few months back was Emerson Charley, son of Dillon and head of the People of Darkness church, who has been in the hospital at the University of New Mexico since that day, ill with cancer. Sena believes the motion sensor bomb in the pick-up truck was meant for Emerson, despite his fatal disease.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_in_the_Garden" title="The Machine in the Garden">
Marx identifies a major theme in literature of the nineteenth century—the dialectical tension between the pastoral ideal in America and the rapid and sweeping transformations wrought by machine technology. This tension is expressed "everywhere" in literature by the recurring image of the machine in the garden—that is, the sudden and shocking intrusion of technology into a pastoral scene. "Within the lifetime of a single generation," Marx writes, "a rustic and in large part wild landscape was transformed into the site of the world's most productive industrial machine. It would be difficult to imagine more profound contradictions of value or meaning than those made manifest by this circumstance. Its influence upon our literature is suggested by the recurrent image of the machine's sudden entrance onto the landscape."But Marx isn't interested so much in historical changes to the physical landscape. Instead, he looks at the interior landscape—"the landscape of the psyche"—and it is intelligently and well-written literature that he believes offers us the most useful and insightful direct access to the psyche. While popular culture traded on "puerile" and sentimental pastoralism—that is, the simple and unreflective urge to find a "middle ground" between the over-civilization of the city and the "violent uncertainties of nature" (28)—serious literature took a hard, careful look at the contradictions in American culture, and particularly at the conflict between the old bucolic image of America and its new image as an industrial power (26). It is the "role" of literature, argues Marx, to show us the "contradiction" of our commitments to both rural happiness and "productivity, wealth, and power."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Virgin_of_Zesh" title="The Virgin of Zesh">
Herculeu Castanhoso, assistant security officer at the Terran spaceport of Novorecife, looks on disapprovingly as his detested boss, security chief Afanasi Gorchakov, fraternizes in the spaceport bar with three new arrivals to the backward planet Krishna: the vainglorious amateur poet Brian Kirwan, psychologist Gottfried Barr, and missionary Althea Merrick. Althea has been left stranded and without resources because the unreliable Bishop Harichand Raman, her superior in the Ecumenical Monotheist Church, has failed to meet and provide her with her first assignment. Kirwan, bound with Barr for a utopian Terran colony on the island of Zesh, is trying to persuade her to join them, while Gorchakov is pressuring her to marry him. Trying to prevent a fight between the two, Althea is caught between them and knocked out, whereupon the security chief fells Kirwan and peremptorily orders Castanhoso to get the other men out of the bar. He is last seen pouring "kvad" down teetotaler Althea's throat in an effort to revive her.Althea awakens in Gorchakov's apartment to discover that she consented to marry him while drunk, and is now hitched. Panicking, she rejects him and tries to escape. Enraged, he strips and whips her until she breaks free and brains him with an alarm clock. Slipping out, she seeks Kirwan and Barr, who agree to spirit her out of Novorecife with Castanhoso's help and take her with them to Zesh. She is to be Barr's assistant in his project of measuring the intelligence of the primitive tailed Krishnans of Zá, the island adjacent to Zesh, whose culture has recently made startling advances. The three take flight by buggy down the Pichide River to the coastal fishing village of Qadr, whence they cross by ferry to the Free City of Majbur. There they seek the aid of Krishnan Gorbovast Bad-Sár, resident commissioner of the king of Gozashtand and well-known benefactor of Terran travelers. He gets them on the next ship out to Zesh, the "Labághti", captained by Memzadá of Darya.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Achilles" title="The Death of Achilles">
Moscow, 1882. When Fandorin returns from Japan with his manservant Masa, he enters the service of Moscow governor Prince Dolgorukoi. Later that day, the White General Mikhail Sobolev, nicknamed the Russian Achilles and an old friend of Fandorin's, is found dead in the same hotel. Officially, he died of a heart attack, but Fandorin becomes suspicious when he talks with the body guards of the general. Fandorin had befriended these cossacks when he rooted out a Turkish spy during the siege of Plevna (see "The Turkish Gambit"). But the same cossacks now treat him with hostility.Fandorin finds out the reason for their hostility as he discovers that the general had not really died in the hotel, but was moved there from the apartment of his mistress. Found dead in a compromising situation, the cossacks tried to prevent a scandal and protect the reputation of the general. But Fandorin looks even deeper and finds out that a large sum of money is missing. He learns that Sobolev is trying to raise funds to begin a political campaign, and Fandorin begins to suspect foul play. He finds that the general has been poisoned in a very clever manner, and the killer anticipated the cover up, which would ensure his safe getaway. Fandorin further discovers that the plot leads up to the highest levels of the Tsar's government, and that he himself is now viewed as an enemy of the state for his efforts to catch the killer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_at_Tiffany's_(novella)" title="Breakfast at Tiffany's (novella)">
In autumn 1943, the unnamed narrator befriends Holly Golightly. The two are tenants in a brownstone apartment in Manhattan's Upper East Side. Holly (age 18–19) is a country girl turned New York café society girl. As such, she has no job and lives by socializing with wealthy men, who take her to clubs and restaurants, and give her money and expensive presents; she hopes to marry one of them. According to Capote, Golightly is not a prostitute, but an "American geisha".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Message_(novel)" title="The Message (novel)">
Cassie and Tobias are having strange dreams about a presence in the ocean. Jake sees a news item on television about debris with what looks like Andalite lettering on it that has washed up on the beach, and when he shows it to the others, Cassie and Tobias have such strong visions that they momentarily pass out. The Animorphs decide to investigate, and acquire dolphin morphs to do so.While out in the ocean, they find a humpback whale under attack by a group of sharks. The Animorphs fight the sharks and drive them off, and Marco is nearly killed in the process. Marco is able to morph back to his human form, and the whale, grateful, saves him from drowning. The whale speaks to Cassie through song, telling her about a strange place of grass and trees under the ocean. Cassie has a feeling that this place is of Andalite origin, and the Animorphs wonder if Cassie's and Tobias's visions are a sort of distress call from an Andalite trapped in the ocean. They decide that the distress call is connected to the morphing ability, and Cassie and Tobias feel it the strongest because Cassie is the most in control of her morphing ability and Tobias is trapped in a morph. They also figure out that Visser Three could be receiving the message and that the Yeerks are probably looking for the lost Andalite as well.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_Leslie" title="Hope Leslie">
The story starts with William Fletcher, a young man who is in love with his cousin, Alice. Her father has forbidden her marriage to Fletcher on account of religious difference. After he thwarts Alice's attempt to run away with Fletcher to North America, Alice's father forces her to marry Charles Leslie instead. In despair, Fletcher decides to leave England and relocate to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the Bay colony, Fletcher marries an orphan girl named Martha although he is still in love with Alice. He founds a household several miles out of town, and has children; Everell, and three others. He receives word that Charles and Alice Leslie have both died, and that their children, who will be renamed Faith and Hope, will be coming to live with the Fletchers.To address the increase in household work that the new children will bring, they family is supplied with two young Native Americans as servants. They are Magawisca and Oneco, the children of one of the Pequod chiefs, Mononotto. They have been displaced due to the Pequod War of the previous year, in which the Pequod settlement was attacked and burned by the white settlers. Most of the household is suspicious of Magawisca, especially since she occasionally talks to Nelema, an old native woman living nearby. Everell, however, always maintains that she is trustworthy and only has the family's best interests at heart.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Blood_(novel)" title="First Blood (novel)">
The story centers around a homeless Vietnam veteran known only by his last name, Rambo. He wanders into Madison, a town in fictional Basalt County, Kentucky, and is quickly intercepted by the local police chief, Wilfred Teasle, who drives him to the town limits and orders him to stay out. When Rambo repeatedly returns, Teasle finally arrests him on charges of vagrancy and resisting arrest and gets permission to hold him for 35 days in jail. Kept inside a claustrophobia-inducing cell, Rambo experiences a flashback to his days as a POW in Vietnam, and he attacks the police as they attempt to forcibly cut his hair and shave him. Rambo forces his way out, steals a motorcycle, and hides in the nearby mountains.Teasle, not wanting the state police to capture Rambo before he does, gets a helicopter pilot to search the woods and organizes a posse consisting of himself, his officers, and Orval Kellerman, an experienced hunter with a pack of highly trained dogs, to hunt Rambo down. Meanwhile, Rambo stumbles across an illegal still and persuades the moonshiners operating it to provide him with clothes and food; he also talks them into giving him a lever-action rifle. The posse catches up with Rambo, who is cornered by the helicopter and fires on it in self-defense; the pilot panics and loses control, causing the chopper to crash and explode. When the posse arrives, Rambo shoots two of Orval's dogs; the frightened animals leap off a cliff, taking an officer with them, and Orval is fatally wounded when he goes to check on them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sea_Devil's_Eye_(novel)" title="The Sea Devil's Eye (novel)">
"Iakhovas" has caused more destruction than any force since the Time of Troubles, but his true objective has been a mystery until now.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_(Crichton_novel)" title="Next (Crichton novel)">
"This novel is fiction, except for the parts that aren't."Frank Burnet has contracted an aggressive form of leukemia, and undergoes intensive treatment and four years of semiannual checkups. He later learned the checkups were a pretext for researching the genetic basis of his unusually successful response to treatment, and the physician's university had sold the rights to Frank's cells to BioGen, a biotechnology startup company. As the book opens Frank is suing the university for unauthorized misuse of his cells, but the trial judge rules that the cells were "waste" and that the university could dispose of them as it wished. Frank's lawyers advise that the university, as a tax-funded organization, can still claim the rights to the cells under the doctrine of eminent domain.Ruthless venture capitalist "Jack" Watson conspires to steal or sabotage BioGen's cultures of Frank's cells. As part of his terms for financing BioGen, Watson previously forced the company to accept his irresponsible nephew Brad Gordon as its security chief. After Brad's carelessness nearly allows one of Watson's sabotage attempts to succeed, the company takes advantage of Brad's attraction to teenage girls, and engineers his being accused and convicted of raping a minor. Watson's price for providing a defense lawyer is that Brad must contaminate BioGen's cultures. Brad's lawyer plans to claim in defense that Brad has a gene for recklessness and instructs him to engage in various high-risk activities. As a result, Brad gets into a fight with a pair of martial arts experts and is finally shot by the police.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinary_People_(Guest_novel)" title="Ordinary People (Guest novel)">
The novel begins as life is seemingly returning to normal for the Jarretts of Lake Forest, Illinois, in September 1975. It is slightly more than a year since their elder son Buck was killed when a sudden storm came up while he and their other son Conrad were sailing on Lake Michigan. Six months later, a severely depressed Conrad attempted suicide by slashing his wrists with a razor in the bathroom. His parents committed him to a psychiatric hospital from which he has only recently returned after eight months of treatment. He is attending school and trying to resume his life, but knows he still has unresolved issues, particularly with his mother, Beth, who has never really recovered from Buck's death and keeps an almost maniacally perfect household and family.His father Calvin, a successful tax attorney, gently leans on him to make appointments to see a local psychiatrist, Dr. Tyrone Berger. Initially resistant, he slowly starts to respond to Dr. Berger and comes to terms with the root cause of his depression, his identity crisis and survivor's guilt over having survived when Buck did not. Also helping is a relationship with a new girlfriend, Jeannine Pratt.Calvin sees Dr. Berger as the events of the recent past have caused him to begin to doubt many things he once took for granted, leading to a midlife crisis. This leads to strain in his marriage as he finds Beth increasingly cold and distant, while she in turn believes he is overly concerned about Conrad to the point of being manipulated. Finally the friction becomes enough that Beth decides to leave him at the novel's conclusion. Father and son, however, have closed the gap between them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Powder_War" title="Black Powder War">
The story is set during an alternate history version of the Napoleonic Wars, in which dragons not only exist but are used as a staple of aerial warfare in Asia and Europe. The dragons of the story are portrayed as sentient and intelligent, capable of logical thought and human speech. The series centers primarily on events involving Temeraire (the titular dragon) and his handler, William Laurence.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Solution" title="The Ultimate Solution">
A New York policeman is charged with finding a Jew who is reported to have suddenly appeared in the city decades after all Jews are thought to have been exterminated. There is a reference to a kind of second Wannsee Conference, held at Buckingham Palace in German-occupied London after the extermination of European Jews had been completed, setting up the extension of the Final Solution to the rest of the world; the last few hundred Jews are mentioned as having been discovered and killed by relentless Einsatzgruppen hunters in 1964, having hidden at the ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. There is a Cold War between the former Axis Powers allies, Germany and Japan, both of whom have nuclear weapons and are engaged in an arms race akin to that between the United States and Soviet Union in our own timeline.Slavs and blacks are raised at "laboratories" and "farms" where their vocal cords are cut at birth and having the legal status not of slaves but of "domestic animals"; naked black gladiators fight to the death at the Madison Square Garden (the Roman "thumbs up" or "down" are modernized into green and red buttons, with a computer making the tally and automatically electrocuting the losing gladiator); children being encouraged by TV programs to torture and kill animals; policemen routinely carrying mobile torture kits for "on the spot interrogations" and having the power of extrajudicial execution against "Enemies of the Reich"; body parts of murdered Jews on sale at souvenir shops, with "collectors" trying to have "a complete collection" of samples from all extermination camps; Christianity (and presumably other religions as well) suppressed in favor of Odinist temples; pedophilia being legal with parents selling their children to sex brothels; and naked Slavic women being crucified in eroticized torture shows, among other horrors. Homosexuality is legal and considered a state ideal (in sharp contrast with the real-life homophobic policies of Germany).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bone_Doll's_Twin" title="The Bone Doll's Twin">
For three centuries a divine prophecy and a line of warrior queens protected Skala. But the people grew complacent and Erius, a usurper king, claimed his young half-sister's throne. Now plague and drought stalk the land, war with Skala's ancient rival Plenimar drains the country's lifeblood, and to be born female into the royal line has become a death sentence as the king fights to ensure the succession of his only heir, a son. For King Erius the greatest threat comes from his own line - and from Illior's faithful, who spread the Oracle's words to a doubting populace. As noblewomen young and old perish mysteriously the kings nephew - his sister's only child - grows toward manhood. But unbeknownst to the king or the boy, strange, haunted Tobin is the princess's daughter, given male form by dark magic to protect her until she can claim her rightful destiny. Only Tobin's noble father, two wizards of Illior and an outlawed forest witch know the truth. Only they can protect young Tobin from a king's wrath, a mother's madness, and the terrifying rage of her brother's demon spirit, determined to avenge his stolen life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorrow_of_Belgium" title="The Sorrow of Belgium">
Belgium, 1939. Louis Seynaeve, who becomes eleven in April, goes to a boarding school led by nuns in Haarbeke, a fictitious town close to Kortrijk. Louis has a lot of fantasies. He and his friends call themselves the Four Apostles and they possess seven forbidden books. His father comes to tell him that his mother fell down the stairs, which actually means that she is pregnant. Several months later the baby is stillborn.His family members are Flemish nationalists. Louis' father buys a printing press in Germany and a Hitler Youth doll. During the German occupation of Belgium in the Second World War his family sympathises with the Germans. Louis attends meetings of the Hitler Youth in Mecklenburg.Louis discovers more "forbidden books" and becomes interested in Entartete Kunst. Gradually he becomes aware of the narrow-mindedness of his family and his education. He ends up being a writer. He's the author of "The Sorrow", the first part of the novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_House" title="Psycho House">
Ten years after Norman Bates' death, a local entrepreneur has rebuilt the Bates Motel in Fairvale as a tourist attraction. Amy Haines travels to the infamous "Psycho House" to write a book about Bates when mysterious murders begin to occur. Haines faces resistance from the community when she enlists the help of a group to investigate the murders.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Predator_(novel)" title="The Predator (novel)">
Two years before the events of the novel, Marco's mother vanished in a boating accident; her body was never found. Marco's father has fallen into deep depression and Marco is having second thoughts about fighting the Yeerks, parasitic aliens that are the main antagonists of the series, as he does not want his father to lose him too.Ax wishes to return to the Andalite home world, and to do so, he needs a ship. He intends to build a communicator to broadcast a Yeerk distress signal and lure in a Yeerk ship which he can then hijack. He, Jake, and Marco go to the mall to buy the equipment to build a communicator. Ax finds the food court and runs wild sampling food left over on tables, overwhelmed by the new sense of taste. He is chased by security guards and, frightened, demorphs in the middle of the mall in front of many people. Ax, Jake, and Marco run out of the mall and into a nearby grocery store where they are chased by Controllers. They morph into lobsters and hide in a tank. They later narrowly escape being boiled alive.Ax builds his device, but needs a zero-space transponder. Vice principal Hedrick Chapman regularly communicates with Visser Three from his basement, so the Animorphs morph into ants and retrieve the Z-space transponder that he uses. As they are returning from Chapman's house, they are almost killed when attacked by ants from another colony. They are able to demorph in time, but everyone is upset by the experience.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlefield_Earth_(novel)" title="Battlefield Earth (novel)">
In the year 3000, Earth has been ruled by an alien race, the Psychlos, for a millennium. The Psychlos discovered a deep space probe (suggested to be Voyager 1) with directions and pictures mounted on it and the precious material, gold, that led them straight to Earth.After one thousand years, humanity is an endangered species numbering fewer than 35,000 and reduced to a few tribes in isolated parts of the world while the Psychlos strip the planet of its mineral wealth. Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, a young man in one such tribe, lives in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. Depressed by the recent death of his father and both the lethargy and sickness of most of the surviving adults in his tribe, later determined to be caused by radiation-leakage from decaying nuclear land-mines, he leaves his village to explore the lowlands and to disprove the superstitions long held by his people of monsters in those areas. He is soon captured in the ruins of Denver by Terl, the Psychlo chief of planetary security.Psychlos stand up to tall and weigh up to . They originate from Psychlo, a planet with an atmosphere radically different from Earth, located in another universe with a different set of elements. Their "breathe-gas" explodes on contact with even trace amounts of radioactive material, such as uranium. The Psychlos have been the dominant species across multiple universes for at least 100,000 years. It becomes apparent in the later chapters that the Psychlos were originally non-violent miners but were subjugated by a ruling class called "Catrists" to become malicious, sadistic sociopaths.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Men_and_Fire" title="Young Men and Fire">
Norman Maclean and Laird Robinson, in an attempt to forensically analyze the Mann Gulch Fire, brought together multiple sources, including the official report of the United States Forest Service of the fire, the testimony of the three men who fought the fire and lived, and the research and report of Robert Jansson and Harry T. Gisborne (who would suffer a fatal heart attack at Mann Gulch two months later trying to get to the bottom of the tragedy). On the day of the fire, Jansson was ranger on duty of the Helena National Forest's Canyon Ferry District, the area that included Mann Gulch. Maclean and Robinson also took Walter Rumsey and Robert Sallee, the only two living survivors of the fire team (as survivor Wag Dodge died in 1955), back to the scene of the fire in 1978, hoping that walking the ground again would help solve some of the missing pieces. Additionally, Maclean and Robinson would use the modern Fire Lab and their mathematical analysis (advances in fire methodology not available in 1949), to search for answers to the fire.With all of these pieces, several trips to Mann Gulch, and ideas bantered back and forth between each other, Bud Moore, Ed Heilman, Rich Rothermel, Frank Albini, and other members of the U.S. Forest Service forest fire investigators, Maclean and Robinson came to new conclusions on the fire's events: that the wind went in the opposite direction than was originally thought possible, and once the fire got started, it created its own unique weather system (which few thought possible before this research). 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Kind_of_Loving_(novel)" title="A Kind of Loving (novel)">
The story presents to us Vic Brown, a young working class man from Yorkshire, England, who is slowly inching his way up from his working-class roots through a white-collar job. Vic finds himself trapped by the frightening reality of his girlfriend Ingrid's pregnancy and is forced into marrying her and moving in with his mother-in-law due to a housing shortage in their Northern England town.The story is about love and loneliness. Vic meets and is very attracted to the beautiful but demanding Ingrid. As their relationship develops and transforms into real-life everyday aridity and boredom, Vic ultimately comes to terms with his life and what it really means to love. The novel has had some influence on the literary community, leaving the label "lad-lit" behind, although the term itself was not coined until the 1990s.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Life" title="Knight Life">
In a rundown apartment in New Jersey, Morgan Le Fay has finally decided to end her own life. Although kept immortal by magic, she has become apathetic, elderly, and corpulent, and sees no point in continuing with her life. Before cutting her wrist with a steak knife, she decides to look in on her old nemesis, Merlin's prison, one last time, and is surprised to see that he has escaped. Given a reason to live again, she laughs triumphantly.In Manhattan, King Arthur appears on the streets in full medieval armor, which he quickly divests in favor of a tailored suit (thanks to an American Express card that appears in his pocket by magic). He then walks into Central Park, where the Lady of the Lake rises from the pond and gives him Excalibur.Setting up an office under the name "Arthur Penn" (short for Pendragon), Arthur reunites with Merlin, who advises him that the world needs a leader like him, so Arthur decides to enter politics, beginning with announcing his candidacy for Mayor of New York City. As he is setting up his campaign headquarters, he hires the first applicant for an executive secretary, Gwen DeVere Queen, despite Merlin's disapproval. Arthur also "acquires," as hangers-on, two petty thugs, Buddy and Elvis, who crossed his path in Central Park and became awed by him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Hearts_(story)" title="Two Hearts (story)">
A young girl named Sooz lives in a village plagued by a griffin. The beast has preyed on the village's sheep and goats for years, but recently it has started killing children as well. Sooz embarks on a quest to recruit the King to save her village, and on the way runs into Schmendrick and Molly Grue (from "The Last Unicorn"). Upon reaching the king's castle, they find an aged King Lír, who on first glance does not seem to be up to the task of slaying a griffin. He suffers from bouts of forgetfulness, and is coddled by those around him. However, after being reminded of his younger days and his never-ending quest to once again find the unicorn that loved him (Amalthea), Lír readily accepts the mission and sets off with Sooz, Molly Grue, and Schmendrick to battle the griffin in the Midwood. Sooz bonds with King Lír as they return to her village and helps to keep his mind in the present whenever his memory relapses. When they return to her village, and Lír (accompanied by Schmendrick and Molly) is setting off into the Midwood to slay the griffin, Sooz suddenly pleads with him not to go, fearing for his life. Lír, however, insists that it is his duty, and proceeds inward, leaving Sooz outside the forest. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror,_Mirror_(novel)" title="Mirror, Mirror (novel)">
In Montefiore, Italy in the early 16th century, a nobleman named Don Vicente de Nevada lives on a small estate with his seven-year-old daughter, Bianca, and a small staff, two of whom are Primavera, an earthy cook and a friar Fra Ludovico. The eponymous mirror was fashioned by dwarves and left in the pond to temper, where, at the beginning of the novel, it is found by de Nevada.Life is good for the family until the day the duchess Lucrezia Borgia and her brother, Cesare, decadent children of a pope, come to visit. Cesare sends Vincente on a quest for a holy relic. While he is gone, Bianca becomes a young woman and Lucrezia becomes jealous of the girl's beauty and stealing Cesare's attention from Lucrezia. Eventually she hires a hunter to kill Bianca, who instead helps her escape from Lucrezia. The girl escapes, and runs into seven dwarfs, who are looking for the eighth dwarf and their mirror. The eighth dwarf is accompanying and protecting de Nevada on his travels.When the mirror reveals to the duchess that her plan has failed, she takes it into her own hands to kill Bianca. When she eventually succeeds, Bianca is placed in a coffin, with the now-liberated mirror allowing passers-by to view her beauty. Eventually, she is awakened subsequent to a kiss from the very hunter who helped her escape. The device by which the kiss cures her of mercury poisoning is left unexplained by the author.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Warrior" title="Hidden Warrior">
Following the events in The Bone Doll's Twin, Prince Tobin awakens after the witch Lhel reveals that he was born as a girl, but in view of the king's purge of all possible female heirs that threaten him, Tobin was disguised by magic, wearing the shape of his stillborn brother, whose bones are encased in the little doll his mother carried everywhere with her. Tobin's squire Ki (Kirothius) was gravely injured in coming to find Tobin. They recover for a time under the care of the wizard Iya. Tobin is haunted by the ghost of his brother, who coldly watches over him.Once Ki recovered, they return to the capital city beset by plague, as was prophesied, if the matriarchal throne is usurped. All female warriors and females holding important roles, were ordered to leave, leaving the city completely under male rule. A prominent court wizard, Niryn, directs and leads the city, driving out all other wizards, claiming they are the cause of the city's difficulties. He commands the Harriers, a force dedicated to eradicating opposing wizards. Despite the Harriers, who are busily killing and exterminating all wizards, the old magics are not only being preserved, but the mages are making discoveries that they are determined to use to come back, and put the rightful Queen back on the throne of Skala. Niryn, however, has provided himself with insurance. After finding a distant relative to the Royal Family with a female baby, he promptly murdered and her husband - to raise himself the child, Nalia, with the intention of ultimately making her a Queen completely dependent on himself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_of_the_Sorrows" title="The Lady of the Sorrows">
Imrhien, who has had her face and voice cured but not her memory, has not completed her mission yet. Maeve One eye, the carlin who cured her, gets Imrhien a new identity: Lady Rohain Tarrenys of the Sorrow Isles. Imrhien/Rohain, under cover of night to escape mysterious watchers, heads to Caermelor. After unloading her information with the Duke of Roxburgh, getting assigned a maid, Viviana, and enduring a strenuous dinner with the cruel, jealous Dianella, Rohain heads on a Dainnan frigate to the treasure cache at Waterstair where her friend Sianadh was killed. There the plunderers are captured and the treasure is recovered. Rohain is subsequently rewarded. Afterwards, Rohain travels Isse Tower, where she learns about an unseelie place called Huntingtowers. However, the owner of Huntingtowers leads an attack on Isse Tower, which the King-Emperor and the Dainnan thwart. Back at Isse Tower, Rohain is reunited with Thorn. They leave for Caermelor with Caitri, a kind servant who helped Rohain when she was a slave. Then Thorn is forced to go to Namarre, and despite her pleas to go with him, sends Rohain, in the company of friends, to the royal island sanctuary, Tamhania/Tavaal. When unseelie birds destroy the island, Tamhania is evacuated. Rohain, Viviana and Caitri survive the catastrophe and shelter in a house on the mainland that seems familiar to Rohain. She sends the others to Isse tower while she continues her journey to Huntingtowers, but they follow her. In the wilderness, she renames herself Tahquil, meaning 'warrior'. When they get to Huntingtowers, Imrhein/Rohain/Tahquil discovers a bracelet her father once gave her. This triggers her memory, and she remembers her name, Ashalind, her childhood and how she lost her memory. She also remembers her original quest, to find the exiled Faeren High King Angavar and his entourage and inform him of the whereabouts of the last gate between the Faeren world and Erith, without tipping off his evil brother Morragan, who is also exiled.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pure_Weight_of_the_Heart" title="The Pure Weight of the Heart">
The novel, narrated in first person and divided into three volumes, is the story of Angelica Botticelli, an Italian-born Australian, and astrophysicist from an apparently wealthy background. Born in Italy to an Austrian mother and Italian father, Angelica is a troubled woman in search of love:"From birth, Angelica is destined to fall in love with an angel. At ten, her blissful childhood is destroyed by the death of her father. Only the stars in the sky at night give her hope. Years later, the adult Angelica, beautiful and gifted, and still a student of the stars, drifts through a world of glamour, power and cruelty, until the night she finally finds her angel, in the heart of the extravagance she has come to despise." (Antonella Gambotto, The Pure Weight Of The Heart, blurb, Orion Publishing 1998)The novel is divided into three volumes, and the title of each volume directly refers to its main theme:Book One: "Grief is a Sphere", which details her childhood, adolescence and reaction to her father's murder.Book Two: "A Lycanthropic God", which details her move back to Sydney from London, secretly hostile relationship with her bogan flatmate, Caroline Brine, and discovery of her "angel", the aptly named Gabriel (his surname, Lagen, is an anagram of "angel"), and their ensuing relationship.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Trash" title="War Trash">
Yu Yuan was originally a cadet at Huangpu Military Academy, an important part of the Kuomintang military system. However, when the Communists gained the upper hand in China, the academy went over to their side, and Yu was made a part of the PLA. He is eventually sent to Korea as a lower-ranking officer in the 180th Division. Since he knew some English, he is made part of his unit's staff as a possible translator. He left behind his mother and his fiancee, a girl named Tao Julan.Yu Yuan's unit eventually crosses into Korea and engages the South Korean and UN forces there. After the unit is encircled and destroyed, Yu Yuan is injured and is captured. He spends some time in a hospital, where the ministrations of the medical staff impress him with the humane nature of the medical profession.Subsequently, Yu Yuan is put in a prisoner of war camp. A major political fault line ran through the Communist prisoners, both historically and in the novel. On one side are those who are "loyal" and wish to be repatriated to the Communist side, either North Korean or Chinese; these are called "pro-Communists". On the other side are those who wish to be released to the "Free World", whether that be South Korea or the remaining Chinese Kuomintang bastion of Taiwan. This group is called "pro-Nationalists". Violence often flares between these two groups, and the chief tension in the book is the narrator's attempts to navigate this political minefield.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Wind" title="The Dark Wind">
Jim Chee is assigned four cases to solve by Captain Largo, his new boss at the Tuba City, Arizona office of the Navajo Tribal Police. One is to ascertain who stole jewelry from the Burnt Water trading post, and to find the paroled man suspected of the thievery, Joseph Musket. The third is to find who is vandalizing a windmill in the Joint-Use lands recently allotted to the Hopi. Fourth is to learn the identity of the Navajo man found dead on the path to Kisigi Spring.While he is on stakeout near the windmill one night, a small plane crash lands in the Wepo Wash. Chee runs to the crash, finding the pilot and his passenger dead, and a man sitting up in a business suit, holding a card, murdered. As he approaches, he hears someone leaving on foot in the early morning darkness. He also hears a gunshot, most likely the one that killed the man in the business suit, and sees headlights of a vehicle leaving the scene. The airplane was carrying illegal cargo, likely drugs, and the DEA agents, in particular T. L. Johnson, are possessive of their law enforcement turf.As Chee collects information on Joseph Musket and on the unidentified corpse, he gradually learns information related to the crash and the drug deal. Johnson finds this as reason to invade Chee's home in the morning, including beating Chee up, in Johnson's usual style. Johnson puts forward that Chee was present so soon after the plane crashed because Chee is part of the drug smuggling.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_His_Horn" title="The Sound of His Horn">
Royal Navy Lieutenant Alan Querdillon becomes a German prisoner during the Battle of Crete during World War II. After escaping, and travelling through a forest he runs into a barrier of 'Bohlen Rays', is knocked unconscious and awakens in a Nazi-controlled world at least a hundred years after World War II on the estate of the Reich Master Forester, Count Hans von Hackelnberg.Querdillon is treated by a doctor and, at night, hears the sounds of a hunting horn, which a nurse tells him is the Count hunting. After witnessing a hunt and discovering that the prey are women dressed as birds, Querdillon asks to meet the Count. The doctor says that is too dangerous but takes Querdillon to observe the Count feasting.Querdillon manages to escape the doctor and join the Count's entourage to witness genetically modified leopard-women attacking deer. On the way back from the sport, the Count spots Querdillon and orders him released into the forest to be hunted. Querdillon plans to escape by tunnelling under the barrier that surrounds the estate. He also meets one of the bird-women, Kit, who helps him.Eventually, Querdillon and Kit are hunted down by the Count, but Kit sacrifices herself to draw the leopard-woman pack onto the barrier, killing them. When the barrier is turned off to retrieve the bodies, Querdillon slips across and returns to 1943.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco's_Millions" title="Marco's Millions">
The book is about a boy named Marco who likes to travel. He often secretly rides buses far from home, though only his telepathic sister finds out. One day, his sister sees strange lights in the basement, and she and Marco investigate. They find a portal into another dimension, and thus the adventure begins. Marco finds strange insect-like creatures there, who are convinced that Marco/Lilly can save their dimension (and as a result save Earth) from their god, which is a naked singularity. None of their family members know about this portal, so Lily and Marco secretly need to save this dimension. Time is valued differently than on Earth in that universe, as 1 minute on the other dimension is roughly 21 minutes on Earth. Saving the other dimension would be being missing for several days on Earth. So, Marco tells his parents he going to his friend Nat's for vacation, while he'll actually be in the other dimension. The creatures (who communicate telepathically) tell Marco he must go on a giant swing and retrieve a small bag at the very top. This will be risking Marco's life. He retrieves the bag and brings it back to the ground. Next, he must go to the naked singularity and bribe it not to destroy the universe by giving it the contents in the bag. The singularity values the contents very much and says it will not destroy the universe, but with one cost.(continued in The Boxes)
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Moon_(novel)" title="New Moon (novel)">
On Bella Swan's eighteenth birthday, Edward Cullen, the vampire she loves, and his family host her a birthday party at their residence. While unwrapping a gift, Bella receives a paper cut. Edward's adopted brother, Jasper, is overwhelmed by the scent of her blood and attempts to attack her. Trying to protect her, Edward and the Cullens move away from Forks, but in an attempt to encourage Bella to move on, Edward tells her it is because he no longer loves her. With Edward's departure, Bella suffers severe memory loss and depression for several months.In the months that follow, Bella learns that thrill-seeking activities, such as motorcycle riding and cliff-diving, allow her to "hear" Edward's voice in her head through her subconscious mind. She also seeks comfort in her deepening friendship with Jacob Black, a cheerful companion who eases her pain over losing Edward. Sometime after losing Edward, Bella starts to enjoy Jacob's company and friendship. After spending some time with Bella, Jacob starts experiencing some unexpected and drastic changes in his mood swings, body, and personality. As Jacob undergoes a very long, painful, and life-altering transformation, Bella and Charlie become concerned. A few weeks later, Bella notes that Jacob isn't as happy-go-lucky as he once was. She isn't so comfortable with Jacob's recent changes, and shortly thereafter, she discovers that Jacob has unwillingly become a werewolf and that there are other tribe members who are werewolves too. Jacob and his pack protect Bella from the vampire, Laurent, who was a part of James' coven, and also Victoria, who seeks revenge for her dead mate, James, whom the Cullens had killed in the previous installment. Jacob starts developing physical emotions towards Bella, but she doesn't feel the same after experiencing a life-changing breakup with Edward. This makes him horribly sad and envious of Edward. Jacob then saves Bella from drowning after jumping off a cliff and almost kisses her in the events following.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_Matters" title="Celestial Matters">
The story is narrated by Aias of Tyre, a scientist of the Delian League, who is preparing to embark on Project Sunthief as scientific commander. This project is an audacious and desperate mission to sail a spaceship carved out of a piece of the moon herself out through the spheres, to catch a piece of the sun and bring it back to earth to annihilate the Middler capital city. This, the league hopes, will finally end the war and give it victory.The Middlers have been assassinating Delian generals and politicians, so Aias is assigned a bodyguard, Captain Yellow Hare of Sparta, a woman of Xeroki ancestry. Shortly after the launch of the moon-ship, Chandra's Tear, it becomes clear that there is a saboteur on board. Aias' old friend Ramonojon, a mathematician, has expressed doubts about the rightness of annihilating an entire city and is viewed with dark suspicion by Anaxamander, the heroic military commander of the project. Mihradarius, the fire scientist who has devised the sun-catching method, keeps his own counsel.As sabotage, catastrophe, and exhilarating maneuvers overtake the voyage, Aias begins to wonder about the wisdom of the Delian strategy. Eventually he comes to understand the desperation of the Middle Kingdom, thanks to a Middler scientist stowaway, and they try to synthesize between them a way for the two world-spanning empires to resolve their differences. There remains a life-or-death race to earth on a crippled ship in the hope of bringing hope. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deryni_Rising" title="Deryni Rising">
The novel is set in the land of Gwynedd, one of the fictional Eleven Kingdoms. Gwynedd itself is a medieval kingdom similar to the British Isles of the 12th century, with a powerful Holy Church (based on the Roman Catholic Church), and a feudal government ruled by a hereditary monarchy. The population of Gwynedd includes both humans and Deryni, a race of people with inherent psychic and magical abilities who have been shunned and persecuted for centuries. The book takes place almost entirely within Gwynedd's capital city of Rhemuth, and deals primarily with the struggle of young Prince Kelson Haldane to secure his throne from the machinations of a Deryni usurper.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treasure_of_Tranicos_(collection)" title="The Treasure of Tranicos (collection)">
## "The Treasure of Tranicos".The title story begins with Conan in the Pictish Wilderness, fleeing native warriors who are now hunting him. To escape his pursuers, Conan climbs a nearby hill. Suddenly, he sees the Picts inexplicably abandon their chase and turn back. Soon, Conan realizes this spot must be a forbidden place to the Picts. The hill turns out to hold a treasure cave, along with the preserved bodies of a pirate captain, Tranicos, and his crew. Eventually, the treasure draws others towards the forbidden cave in their quest for it — one Count Valenso, and both Zingaran and Barachan sea reavers. But the bane of Tranicos is quite ready to take new victims, and Conan must outmaneuver all of them if "he" is to claim the riches.Howard's original story pointed toward a new nautical career for Conan; one of de Camp's major changes was to make it lead instead into the revolution that would bring the Cimmerian to the throne of Aquilonia.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deryni_Checkmate" title="Deryni Checkmate">
The novel is set in the land of Gwynedd, one of the fictional Eleven Kingdoms. Gwynedd itself is a medieval kingdom similar to the British Isles of the 12th century, with a powerful Holy Church (based on the Roman Catholic Church), and a feudal government ruled by a hereditary monarchy. The population of Gwynedd includes both humans and Deryni, a race of people with inherent physic and magical abilities who have been shunned and persecuted for centuries. The book takes place several months after "Deryni Rising", and details the consequences of the events that surrounded the coronation of young King Kelson Haldane. Horrified by the demonstrations of Deryni magic that occurred during the coronation, the leaders of the Holy Church of Gwynedd decide to take a stand against the Deryni, particularly Duke Alaric Morgan and Monsignor Duncan McLain. Kelson, Morgan, and Duncan must find a way to thwart the vengeance of the Church while also preparing for a possible invasion by a foreign enemy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Controversy_(book)" title="The Great Controversy (book)">
This synopsis is only of the current, 1911 edition and its predecessor, the 1888 edition. While the original 1858 edition covered the entire history of sin from its beginning in heaven until it is eradicated in the new earth, these two editions cover just the Christian dispensation.The book begins with a historical overview, which begins with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, covers the Reformation and Advent movement in detail, and culminates with a lengthy description of the end times. It also outlines several key Seventh-day Adventist doctrines, including the heavenly sanctuary, the investigative judgment and the state of the dead.Much of the first half of the book is devoted to the historical conflict between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. White writes that the Papacy propagated a corrupt form of Christianity from the time of Constantine I onwards, and during the Middle Ages was opposed only by the Waldensians and other small groups, who preserved an authentic form of Christianity. Beginning with John Wycliffe and Jan Huss and continuing with Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, and others, the Reformation led to a partial recovery of biblical truth. In the early 19th century William Miller began to preach that Jesus was about to return to earth; his movement eventually resulted in the formation of the Adventist Church.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_Like_Gods" title="Men Like Gods">
"Men Like Gods" is set in the summer of 1921. Its protagonist is Mr. Barnstaple (his first name is either Alfred or William), a journalist working in London and living in Sydenham. He has grown dispirited at a newspaper called "The Liberal" and resolves to take a holiday. Taking leave of his wife and family, his plans are disrupted when his and two other automobiles are accidentally transported with their passengers into "another world," which the "Earthlings" call Utopia.A sort of advanced Earth, Utopia is some three thousand years ahead of humanity in its development. For the 200,000,000 Utopians who inhabit this world, the "Days of Confusion" are a distant period studied in history books, but their past resembles humanity's in its essentials, differing only in incidental details: their Christ, for example, died on the wheel, not on the cross. Utopia lacks any world government and functions as a successfully realised anarchy. "Our education is our government," a Utopian named Lion says. Sectarian religion, like politics, has died away, and advanced scientific research flourishes. Life in Utopia is governed by "the Five Principles of Liberty", which are privacy, free movement, unlimited knowledge, truthfulness, and free discussion (allowing criticism)."Men Like Gods" is divided into three books. Details of life in Utopia are given in Books I and III. In Book II, the Earthlings are quarantined on a rocky crag after infections they have brought cause a brief epidemic in Utopia. There they begin to plot the conquest of Utopia, despite Mr. Barnstaple's protests. He betrays them when his fellows try to take two Utopians hostage, forcing Mr. Barnstaple to escape execution for treason by fleeing perilously.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goblin_Wood" title="The Goblin Wood">
Makenna is a hedgewitch. Her mother is killed when a new priest is sent to town. Makenna flees for her life, and tries to flood the town in revenge. She flees to the woods and is teased by a group of goblins. Soon, she catches one goblin named Cogswhallop. She spares his life, and in return he convinces the other goblins to stop taunting her. Makenna later meets a friendly trader in the woods who tells her that the priesthood is working to eliminate all sources of magic they consider to not come from divine sources, including goblins and hedgewitches. Cogswhallop and his friends ask for Makenna's help to rescue a small goblin family from being burned to death by a priest. Makenna helps the goblins, and they form an alliance to help goblins and find a safe place to live.One night, Tobin, a young knight, finds his brother fleeing from the guards for helping the rebels. Tobin assists his brother but is caught and branded as a traitor. To save his name and family, Tobin accepts a mission to rid the northern lands of goblins to make space for settlers who have lost their land to the barbarians in the south. Tobin sets off for the far village to the north to take on the goblins and their leader, a "sorceress." In a northern town, Tobin meets a priest of the Bright Ones, who informs him of his mission, to seek out the goblin lair and plant the Otherworld stone near the sorceress's headquarters, allowing them to spy on her. Tobin sets out to find the lair but is caught by the goblins and taken to their village. While trying to escape, he drops the stone.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forging_the_Sword" title="Forging the Sword">
Soraya, Kavi and Jiaan have agreed to work together to defeat the Hrum and free Farsala. However, distrust of Kavi is impeding this effort. The three attempt to work together, but it becomes difficult. Luckily, they have finally uncovered the secret of watersteel, with the help of Kavi's ability to "speak" to metal.Only a few months remain in the Hrums self-imposed limit to conquer Farsala. The three youths learn that Garren, the Strategus in charge of the conquest, has more riding on the conquest than just Farsala. His father, a member of the Senate of the Hrum Empire, stated that Garren would conquer Farsala with only ten thousand troops. In addition, his father stated that he will resign from the Senate if this is not accomplished. He did these things in order to secure the assignment of the Farsalan conquest to his son. Garren's father's enemies are eager for this to happen. When Garren requisitions gold to hire Kadeshi aid and circumvent the troop sanction, the Senate sends a delegation to review the conquest.Kavi, Jiaan and Soraya decide to capture the gold before it reaches the Kadeshi, as a Kadeshi warlord has informed Jiaan that if he chooses to pay, the warlord will order the troops he sent Garren to betray the Hrum, crippling the army. Jiaan, Kavi and Soraya do not wish for this to happen. Soraya, with Kavi accompanying her, visits the bandits and convinces them to rob the Senate committee, which will arrive at the nearby harbor of Dugaz. They believe that if the delegation is robbed during its stay, it will demonstrate to the Senate that Garren does not have the country under control. However, upon arriving at the bandits' lair, Shir, their leader, informs Kavi and Soraya that the Senate arrived a week ago, and the bandits failed to rob them. Disappointed, the two promise Shir that in exchange for letting them go, they will get the Suud to try to develop a cure for the swamp fever plaguing the bandits.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_(Wharton_novel)" title="Summer (Wharton novel)">
At the start of the novel, young Charity Royall is bored with her life in the small town of North Dormer. She was born to poor parents from "up the Mountain" who gave her up to the town's learned person, Lawyer Royall, but she still dreams of an even better and more exciting life outside of the town. She secures a job at North Dormer's library in an attempt to save up money so she can eventually leave the town and Mr. Royall's care. The widowed Mr. Royall makes an inappropriate advance toward Charity one night that she rebuffs but it irrevocably sours their relationshipWhen she is 17, that exciting life finds her in the form of a visiting architect named Lucius Harney. Her first encounter with the charming young man is at the library and there is immediate chemistry between them. Soon, he finds himself boarding at Mr. Royall's house when his own living arrangements fall through.Charity Royall finds herself attracted to Lucius and decides to become his companion as he explores the town. He is putting together a book on colonial houses and the two of them go around town together so he can inspect and sketch the houses as a part of his research for the book. Mr. Royall, who holds onto the idea of marrying Charity, notices the two of them growing close and immediately evicts Lucius from his house. Lucius leaves town and relocates to a nearby village.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Negro" title="The White Negro">
"The White Negro" is a 9,000-word essay divided into six sections of varying lengths.In Section 1, Mailer argues that the twin horrors of the atom bomb and the concentration camps have wrought "psychic havoc" by subjecting individual human lives to the calculus of the state machine. The collective practices of Western progress seem to render life and death meaningless for the individual who is compelled to join the numbed masses in a "collective failure of nerve". Courage only seems to be present in marginalized, isolated people who can stand in opposition to these practices.Section 2 proposes that the marginalized figure — "the American existentialist" — lives with the knowledge of quick death, the possibility of state violence, the compulsory need to conform, and the sublimation of baser desires. He knows that the only answer is to accept these conditions, divorce himself from the bored sickness of society, and seek the "rebellious imperatives of the self". Mailer presents a dichotomy: one path leads to a quiet prison of the mind and body, that is, to boredom, sickness, and desperation, while the other leads to "new kinds of victories [that] increase one's power for new kinds of perception". Either one is a rebel — the Hip, the psychopath — or, tempted by the promise of success, one conforms to "the totalitarian tissues of an American society", and becomes Square. Because he has lived on the margins of society, for Mailer the American Negro is the model for the Hipster: someone living for the primitive present and the pleasures of the body. Mailer links this proposition with jazz and its appeal to the sensual, the improvisational, and the immediate, in other words, to what Mailer calls the "burning consciousness of the present" felt by the existentialist, the bullfighter, and the Hipster alike. In summary, one can "remain in life only by engaging death".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_of_the_Twins" title="Time of the Twins">
The book opens with a meeting between the devout cleric, Crysania, the historian, Astinus, and the dark mage, Raistlin. Crysania is determined to stop Raistlin from following the path of darkness. At the end of their meeting, he invites her to the Tower of High Sorcery of Palanthas.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet_the_Austins" title="Meet the Austins">
Vicky Austin's noisy, loving, mostly-happy family is disrupted when the family's honorary uncle dies in a plane crash. His co-pilot was also killed, leaving behind a ten-year-old daughter, Maggy, who has no one to care for her. The Austins take Maggy in, and she proves to be a spoiled, troubled only child who had very little family life. Maggy encourages Vicky's sister Suzy to misbehave, which makes everyone's life more difficult. "Meet the Austins" is largely episodic; each chapter covers a specific incident such as Vicky's bicycle accident or a family vacation. Throughout the book, Vicky comments on the changes her family experiences during this time, and the reader sees her growing self-awareness. Although Vicky will later appear in three novels that have fantasy and/or science fiction themes, there are no such elements in "Meet the Austins".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duma_Key" title="Duma Key">
Wealthy Minnesotan building-contractor Edgar Freemantle barely survives a severe work-site accident wherein his truck is crushed by a crane. Freemantle loses his right arm, while suffering severe head injuries impairing his speech, vision, and memory. During his long recovery, Edgar experiences suicidal thoughts and violent abusive mood swings, spurring his wife to file for divorce.On the advice of his psychologist, Dr. Kamen, Edgar relocates southward, renting a beach house on the island of Duma Key, off Florida's coast. Kamen further advises Freemantle to rekindle his onetime sketching hobby as a restorative. Edgar retains local college student Jack Cantori as part-time shopper and personal assistant. Soon after, Freemantle meets and befriends the island's other full-time residents, octogenarian heiress Elizabeth Eastlake (sufferer of final-stage dementia, whose family trust owns most of the island), and her live-in attendant, Jerome Wireman, himself a once-gifted attorney whose wife and daughter's tragic deaths led him to (unsuccessfully) attempt suicide via gunshot wound.Decades-old paranormal phenomena revisit the island as Freemantle delves obsessively into his art. Edgar creates with furious energy, lapsing into a semi-conscious haze; his paintings and sketches capture psychic visions, revealing his ex-wife's romantic affair, his friend's suicidal depression, and his younger daughter Ilse's fleeting marital engagement. Later, Freemantle uses his newfound artistic powers to manipulate the outside world, healing Wireman's degenerating neurological condition, and suffocating a child murderer in his jail cell. During Ilse's visit to Duma Key, the father-daughter duo drive to a disused, overgrown section of the island, where colors seem unnaturally vivid, and Ilse becomes violently ill. Elizabeth Eastlake warns Edgar via telephone conversations that Duma "has never been a lucky place for daughters", and that his paintings should be sold to multiple geographically-distant buyers, lest their otherworldly power grow too concentrated or dangerous.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apprenticeship_of_Duddy_Kravitz_(novel)" title="The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (novel)">
The novel focuses on the young life of Duddy Kravitz, a poor Jewish boy raised in Montreal, Quebec. Family, friends, lovers and teachers all contribute to Duddy's burgeoning obsession with power and money — desires embodied in the possession of land. As a child, Duddy is told by his grandfather that "a man without land is nobody," and Duddy comes to believe land ownership to be life's ultimate goal and the means by which a man becomes a somebody.Duddy begins to move towards this goal by working for his Uncle Benjy. Their relationship is strained: Uncle Benjy, a wealthy clothing manufacturer with socialist sympathies, has always favored Duddy's brother Lennie, who wants to become a doctor. Uncle Benjy takes a dim view of Duddy's commercial ambitions, seeing them as avaricious and crass. During the summer after high school, Duddy takes a job as a waiter at a hotel in Ste. Agathe. He stumbles upon a beautiful and secluded lake while out with his soon-to-be lover and "Girl Friday", Yvette. A born entrepreneur, Duddy immediately sees that the lake has tremendous potential as a summer resort.Duddy returns to Montreal and starts a company to produce bar mitzvah films. To this end he hires Friar, an alcoholic, avant-garde filmmaker blacklisted in the United States, for his communist tendencies. Since Duddy's childhood, his father, Max, had told him stories about Jerry Dingleman, the local "Boy Wonder" whose rags-to-riches story is canonical among the residents of St. Urbain Street. Looking for help with his film company, Duddy attempts to engage Dingleman. The two travel to New York City, but Duddy fails to secure any assistance from the "Boy Wonder", who sees Duddy as a naive upstart and uses him to ferry a package of heroin across the Canada-U.S. border.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flame_Knife" title="The Flame Knife">
Conan, leader of a band of Kozaki mercenaries in the service of King Kobad of Iranistan, quarrels with his employer over the king's command to capture Balash, chief of the Kushafi nomads and Conan's friend. Instead, Conan has his men warn the Kushafi. In the Gorge of Ghosts, the two armies are attacked by members of the Sons of Yezm, a cult of assassins whose symbol is the Flame Knife. The cultists kidnap Nanaia, Conan's current girlfriend. The Cimmerian tracks them to their stronghold, where he becomes embroiled in a conflict with his old rival Olgerd Vladislav, an opponent first encountered in Howard's story "A Witch Shall be Born".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Grade_Secrets" title="Sixth Grade Secrets">
When Laura Sibbie starts a secret club at school, she makes the other members give her something totally embarrassing as "insurance," to make sure they don't tell anyone else about the club. She promises to keep the insurance secret unless someone tells. Gabriel wants to join, but when Laura asks him, there is a misunderstanding and he storms out to form a rival club, Monkey Town.The pranks they play on each other escalate into ugly and destructive acts. It gets to a point where Gabriel steals the insurance and reveals it to the school. Sheila (who hates Laura) and a friend, Howard (who just wants everyone to like him), corner Laura on her way from school and cut a large chunk out of her long hair. Laura gets a new, short, curly hairdo which Gabriel, arriving with daisies, likes. The sheared Laura sees how foolish they've been, and the truth of Gabriel's affection comes to light.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_of_the_Blind" title="Paradise of the Blind">
"Paradise of the Blind" follows a non-linear, vertical plot depicting the development of Hang, the narrator, through several life-changing events. An adult Hang in the 1980s receives a telegram stating that her uncle, Chinh, is ill and that she must visit him in Moscow. Throughout her journey to Moscow she recounts significant events in her childhood.As she looks back on the past, she realizes it is the steadfast resolve toward familial duty that has made her family so miserable. She realizes this does not have to be her fate. While she is waiting to leave Russia for Vietnam, she sees a group of young Japanese students who are happy and laughing and free. She longs to be Japanese, of a race that does not carry the same burdens as her people. She resolves to do what it is that makes her happy—because her duty to her mother, who would sacrifice her own daughter to help her corrupt brother—is not happiness.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gilly_Hopkins" title="The Great Gilly Hopkins">
Galadriel "Gilly" Hopkins is a mean, brash 11-year-old girl who is headed for yet another foster home. She hates living with different people all the time and just wants to settle in with her birth mother, Courtney Rutherford Hopkins, whose photograph Gilly secretly treasures. Gilly doesn't like the look of her new foster mom, Mrs. Trotter, a "fat hippo", and decides she is going to hate her whole life.Gilly hatches a plan to escape from Trotter and steals the money she needs for it to work. She knows that her mother lives in San Francisco, California so she writes a letter to Courtney saying that her beloved Galadriel will be with her soon. When Gilly escapes the first time, she gets caught by police and Trotter immediately comes down to the station to retrieve her. Gilly's grandmother, Nonnie, comes to Trotter's house and tells her that she will take Gilly home. Nonnie was previously unaware that she had a granddaughter. By this time Gilly realizes that she really wants to be with Trotter. However, the law says that Gilly must go with Nonnie, so she goes to Nonnie's house.Then Gilly gets good news: her mother is coming. But when she goes to the airport, Courtney is not the woman in Gilly's photograph: she has stringy hair and a lot of other traits Gilly didn't expect, like being selfish. Gilly also finds out that her mother only came because Nonnie paid her, not because she wanted to come. She realizes for the first time how foolish she has been and that she actually loves Trotter. The story ends with Gilly on the phone, crying to Trotter to take her back. Trotter, in turn, gently convinces her that her home is with Nonnie.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_in_the_White_City" title="The Devil in the White City">
"The Devil in the White City" is divided into four parts, the first three happening in Chicago between 1890 and 1893, while part four of the book takes place in Philadelphia circa 1895. The book interweaves the true tales of Daniel Burnham, the architect behind the 1893 World's Fair, and H. H. Holmes, a serial killer who lured his victims to their deaths in his elaborately constructed "Murder Castle".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Deryni" title="High Deryni">
The novel is set in the land of Gwynedd, one of the fictional Eleven Kingdoms. Gwynedd itself is a medieval kingdom similar to the British Isles of the 12th century, with a powerful Holy Church (based on the Roman Catholic Church), and a feudal government ruled by a hereditary monarchy. The population of Gwynedd includes both humans and Deryni, a race of people with inherent physic and magical abilities who have been shunned and persecuted for centuries. The novel begins three months after the events of "Deryni Checkmate", as young King Kelson Haldane struggles to resolve an internal ecclesiastical schism on the eve of an invasion by a powerful Deryni sorcerer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_and_Let_Die_(novel)" title="Live and Let Die (novel)">
The British Secret Service agent James Bond is sent by his superior, M, to New York City to investigate "Mr Big", real name Buonaparte Ignace Gallia. Bond's target is an agent of the Soviet counterintelligence organisation SMERSH, and an underworld voodoo leader who is suspected of selling 17th-century gold coins to finance Soviet spy operations in America. These gold coins have been turning up in the Harlem section of New York City and in Florida and are suspected of being part of a treasure that was buried in Jamaica by the pirate Henry Morgan.In New York, Bond meets up with his counterpart in the CIA, Felix Leiter. The two visit some of Mr Big's nightclubs in Harlem, but are captured. Bond is interrogated by Mr Big, who uses his fortune-telling employee, Solitaire (so named because she excludes men from her life), to determine if Bond is telling the truth. Solitaire lies to Mr Big, supporting Bond's cover story. Mr Big decides to release Bond and Leiter, and has one of Bond's fingers broken. On leaving, Bond kills several of Mr Big's men; Leiter is released with minimal physical harm by a gang member, sympathetic because of a shared appreciation of jazz.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Loved_Tiberius" title="I Loved Tiberius">
The story begins in Rome. Julia, the daughter of Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, suffers with an awkward relationship between her and her sixteen-year-old stepbrother Tiberius. He is frequently unfair to her leading to them often fighting and them being punished. Through the harshness of living in Livia's strict household Tiberius becomes attracted to Julia's more affectionate nature despite her being merely thirteen. Very quickly Julia becomes smitten with him and he obsessed with her.Tiberius decides that he wishes to marry Julia and plans to ask Augustus. However, before he has a chance, Augustus announces that Julia will be married to Marcellus as soon as she turns fourteen. Marcellus, who is in love with a consul's daughter, confides the truth to Julia. She gives him her blessing to go on seeing this girl but the affair ends after she becomes pregnant and her father marries her to a friend. Meanwhile, Julia discovers Tiberius is conducting affairs with other women. Julia and Marcellus comfort each other and finally consummate their marriage. Nonetheless Julia finds Marcellus repugnant.Marcellus becomes jealous of Agrippa when Augustus nearly dies from an illness and names Agrippa his heir by giving him his signant ring. Shortly after Augustus recovers Agrippa and Marcella (His wife and Julia's cousin) nearly die in a fire at their house that was purposely lit. Agrippa confides to Julia that he suspects Livia might be involved. He subsequently decides to leave Rome and travel to Lesbos.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_One_More_Day" title="For One More Day">
The book's theme is mortality: it analyzes how people might react to the chance to have a dead relative back for a day.The book tells the story of Charles "Chick" Benetto, a former baseball player who encounters a myriad of problems with his career, finances, family and alcohol abuse. This leads him to become suicidal. Charles goes on a drunken rampage and decides he is going to end his life in his old home town, but when he misses the exit, he turns around driving down the wrong side of the highway causing an accident, Benetto flees to his old home – his suicide attempt an apparent failure – to see his mother, who had died ten years prior.Benetto returns to his old family home, and spends one more day with his mother, where in a number of previously unknown factors related to his difficult childhood and troubled relationship with his father are revealed to him. His mother assists him in resolving his issues and getting his life back on track. The day ends when Benetto regains consciousness at the scene of the accident in a police officer's arms.The book's epilogue describes how Benetto was inspired by his experience to quit drinking and reconcile with family, including his daughter, Maria, before his death five years later. At the end, Maria is revealed to have been the narrator of the story.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticktock_(novel)" title="Ticktock (novel)">
Tommy Phan is a first-generation Vietnamese American in southern California, a successful detective novelist whose greatest ambition is to live the American Dream. The story opens with Tommy getting a new Corvette. He argues with his mother, refusing her offer for dinner. In a fit of rebellion, he eats two cheeseburgers, something his mother dislikes. He meets a blond waitress there (whom he will meet later in the story again). His radio quits working during one of these two trips, and in the static are eerie voices.Once home, he finds a Rag doll on his front steps, along with a note, written in Vietnamese, which he knew when he was a child but has forgotten in his quest to be a true American. After taking the doll into his study, it soon bursts open to reveal an evil creature who seems intent on killing Tommy. A message is left on his computer screen saying he has until dawn, but what will happen at dawn, Tommy does not know. After fate brings a meeting with Del, a woman who appears to speak somewhat cryptically, they embark on a race to flee the creature. She believes him too quickly, and often has mixed stories for all of her abilities. (At one point she stole a car, saying one minute she hotwired it, and the next that the key was in the ignition.)
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Slayers'_Academy" title="Dragon Slayers' Academy">
The series follows the adventures of a young medieval peasant boy Wiglaf of Pinwick and his two friends, Erica von Royale and Angus du Pangus, as they are educated in the art of dragon slaying at the boarding school, Dragon Slayers' Academy (DSA), run by Angus' greedy Uncle Mordred. The academy is run under the motto "Goldius est goodius," features three pots of gold above a dead dragon on its back on its crest. The school serves only eel for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witches_of_Worm" title="The Witches of Worm">
Jessica, a lonely pre-teen girl, finds a blind, almost hairless kitten that she names Worm. A reclusive elderly neighbor, Mrs. Fortune, helps her to wean and raise him. Worm seems to have a terrible hold on Jessica, compelling her to do cruel and destructive things to people in her life who have upset her. Jessica's victims include her former best friend Brandon and her childish and emotionally distant divorced mother. As Jessica's destructive actions escalate, her mother attempts to send her to counseling, which further enrages and upsets her. Jessica comes to believe that Worm is possessed by a group of witches that includes Mrs. Fortune. When Jessica finds herself contemplating Mrs. Fortune's murder, she realizes she is in danger of going too far, and decides to exorcise Worm herself in order to break his hold over her. After a dramatic exorcism, culminating in a nighttime chase during a bad thunderstorm, Worm becomes a normal cat, and Jessica is reconciled with her mother and Brandon, causing her to think that she not only exorcised Worm but also herself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alien_(novel)" title="The Alien (novel)">
After destroying both the Kandrona and the "Veleek", the Animorphs assumed that they would see people freeing themselves of the Yeerks. They are disappointed until the day they take Ax to the cinema. A man's Yeerk is seen dying publicly. However, a Controller-policeman kills the free man.The Animorphs take Ax to the school as Philip, Jake's cousin, and a Yeerk who controlled one of Jake's teachers is seen dying as well. Chapman appears, orders the students to leave, and kills the non-Controller teacher.Jake and the other Animorphs become very angry with Ax, since Ax knew the Yeerks would kill abandoned hosts (along with much more Andalite knowledge), but would not share with the humans. Innocent people are dying as a result of their actions. Ax retorts that they would not have destroyed the Kandrona had they known the consequences, to which Jake replies that Ax still has a lot to learn about humans.The next day, he meets with Marco to go to a bookshop in hopes that Ax would trust them if they trusted him. However, Marco forgets the money they collected for him to buy a book at home, so he and Ax go to Marco's house to pick it up. While Ax waits for Marco in the living room, he plays what he thinks is a game on Marco's father's computer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Changeling_(Snyder_novel)" title="The Changeling (Snyder novel)">
The novel's plot follows the developing friendship of two adolescent girls: shy, fearful Martha and free-spirited, mystical, imaginative Ivy. Ivy belonged to the shunned Carson family, who lived in the hills above town in a derelict Victorian mansion surrounded by neglected fruit orchards that had been handed down to her mother. But Ivy was not a typical Carson. Ivy explains to Martha when they first meet that she is a changeling, a child of supernatural parents who had been exchanged for the real Ivy Carson at birth. She returns to this theme with particular emphasis when she is threatened or harmed in any way. Martha comes from a well-to-do family completely in thrall to suburban values and suspicious of Ivy due to her background.The girls become friends in the second grade and soon are inseparable. Among other things, Martha discovers that Ivy is "absolutely fearless"; not courageous, but fearless. It is implied that this is at least in part due to abuse by her father or brothers. When Ivy cries, which is rarely, she sheds few tears and makes no sound at all. The illustrations as well as the text emphasize the contrasts between the girls. Ivy is dark, thin, beautiful, graceful and mature; Martha is blond, overweight, bucktoothed, clumsy, and cries easily. What they have in common is bright imagination, which they soon pool into a shared fantasy, almost a belief system.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_in_the_Silence" title="Song in the Silence">
Lanen Kaelar is a young woman who has been raised in Hadronsstead, believing that Hadron (the horse-breeder) was her father. She leads an unhappy life as she secretly longs to meet the Dragons of legend, for which she has had a powerful fascination, but she is forced to remain at Hadron's farm.When Hadron eventually dies, she feels freed. After an abrupt proposal from her cousin (who gets a bruise from her fist in response), she leaves to seek out the True Dragons of legend. On the journey she learns that her true father Marik has promised her as a demon sacrifice since before her birth, in payment for the making of an artifact that allows the user to see distant people and places.She finds a ship to the Dragon Isle for the Lansip harvest that used to occur every ten years, but no ship has returned from the trip in over 100 years due to the violent storms that lie between Kolmar and the Dragon Isle. After travelling on the ship with her father Marik lurking dangerously on board, she makes it safely to the Dragon Isle and meets Akhor, the mighty silver-scaled king of the Kantri (known to humans as "dragons"). She seeks him out with the two words that she utters on instinct, that he respects her instantly for; 'My brother?' Akhor, weary of the 'ferrinshadik' (a longing to know the mind of another species, similar to what Lanen herself feels), reveals himself, and discovers that Lanen alone of the humans (Gedri) he has ever known, is capable of hearing and replying in Truespeech, the Kantri form of telepathy. It is a trait all the Kantri share.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_River_(novel)" title="Deep River (novel)">
The story traces the journey of four Japanese tourists on a tour to India in 1984. Each has different purposes and expectations. Even though the tour is interrupted when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by militant Sikhs, the tourists find their own spiritual discoveries on the banks of the Ganges River.One of the tourists is Osamu Isobe. He is a middle-class manager whose wife has died of cancer. On her deathbed she asked him to look for her in a future reincarnation. His search takes him to India, even though he has doubts about reincarnation.Kiguchi is haunted by war-time horrors in Burma and seeks to have Buddhist rituals performed in India for the souls of his friends in the Japanese army as well as his enemies. He is impressed by a foreign Christian volunteer who helped his sick friend deal with tragic experiences during the war.Numada has a deep love for animals ever since he was a child in Manchuria. He believes that a pet bird he owns has died in his place. He goes to India to visit a bird sanctuary.Mitsuko Naruse, after a failed marriage, realizes that she is a person incapable of love. She goes to India hoping to find the meaning of life. Her values are challenged by the awaiting Otsu, a former schoolmate she once cruelly seduced and then left. Although he had a promising career as a Catholic priest, Otsu’s heretical ideas of a pantheistic God have led to his expulsion. He helps carry dead Indians to the local crematoria so that their ashes can be spread over the Ganges. His efforts ultimately lead to his peril as he is caught in the anti-Sikh uprisings in the country. Meanwhile, Mitsuko meets two nuns from the Missionaries of Charity and begins to understand Otsu's idea of God.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children_of_Húrin" title="The Children of Húrin">
Túrin, son of Húrin is a Man who lived in Dor-lómin. Húrin was taken prisoner by Morgoth after the Battle of Unnumbered Tears and during his imprisonment Túrin was sent by his mother, Morwen, to live in the Elf-realm Doriath for protection. In his absence Morwen gave birth to Niënor, a girl. Morgoth had placed a curse upon Húrin and all his family whereby evil would befall them for their whole lives.King Thingol of Doriath takes Túrin as a foster-son. During his time in Doriath Túrin befriends Beleg, and the two become close companions. Túrin accidentally causes the death of Saeros, who attempts to jump a ravine while fleeing a wrothful Túrin but falls to his death. Túrin refuses to return to Doriath to face judgement and opts for exile and life as an outlaw. Thingol pardons the absent Túrin and gives Beleg leave to search for him and bring him back to Doriath.Túrin meanwhile joins a band of outlaws in the wild and eventually becomes their captain. Beleg locates the band while Túrin is absent, and the outlaws leave him tied to a tree until he agrees to give them information. Túrin returns in time to cut Beleg free and, horrified by the outlaws' actions, resolves to forsake the cruel habits he has fallen into. Beleg delivers the message of the king's pardon but Túrin refuses to return to Doriath. Beleg returns to aid Doriath's defence.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reluctant_King" title="The Reluctant King">
The trilogy follows the adventures of ex-king Jorian, a native of the village of Ardamai in the kingdom of Kortoli, one of the twelve city-states of Novaria. Jorian is a powerful and intelligent man who has trained extensively for a life of adventure but is hampered by garrulousness and a weakness for drink and women.When first seen, Jorian is the reluctant king of Xylar, another Novarian city-state. The Xylarians select their king every five years by executing the reigning monarch and tossing his head into a crowd; the man who catches it becomes the next king (despite the terrible end awaiting the victor in this contest, there is never a lack of candidates, intentional or otherwise...). Jorian, having been selected for the position five years before, is at the end of his term as ruler. He miraculously escapes his fate with the aid of the Mulvanian sorcerer Dr. Karadur.The tale continues through a pair of spectacularly disastrous quests in aid of his savior, the first taking them through the exotic lands of Mulvan, Komilakh and Shven and the second south to the ancient empire of Penembei.In the course of the later adventure Jorian is tapped to be ruler of Penembei, an office nearly as hazardous as that of king of Xylar. Adroitly ducking this second crown, he endeavors to recover from Xylar his favorite wife Estrildis, with whom he hopes to retire to a life of quiet obscurity, only to have things once again go wrong...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moth_Smoke" title="Moth Smoke">
Darashikoh, or Daru as he is referred to, is a mid-level banker with a short fuse. His aggression had served him well as a college-boxer but an out-of-character outburst gets him fired. The loss of income brings to the fore a widening gap between him and his classmates, and Daru exposes his bitterness to the wealthy in his commentary. This contrast in income, though present through their years at school becomes evident to Daru only now as he comes to realise that money and wealth mean more than his personal traits can offer.He is content to interact with his rich friends all the same, and finds comfort in the arms of Mumtaz – Daru's best friend's wife. Mumtaz falls for Daru too, but unlike Daru she is not an idealist. This mismatch of thought comes to the forefront soon after the long and rocky affair begins. While cuckolding his best friend, Daru is content to sell him drugs, which are socially acceptable among his friends. This life of duplicity leads to spiralling loss of control in his life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reluctant_Fundamentalist" title="The Reluctant Fundamentalist">
The story begins in the streets of Lahore. A Pakistani man, Changez, offers to direct an American visitor where he can find a good cup of tea. As they wait for their tea, Changez begins to weave a long story about his life, especially his time living in the United States – in between making remarks about the history, landmarks and society of Lahore, his native city which he loves and of which he is proud. The unnamed American is restless but remains to listen.Changez tells the American he was an excellent student who, after completing his bachelor's degree in finance, joined Underwood Samson, a consultancy firm, as an analyst. After graduating from Princeton University, he vacationed in Greece with fellow Princetonians, where he met Erica, an aspiring writer. He was instantly smitten by her, but his feelings remained almost unrequited because she was still grieving over the death of her childhood sweetheart Chris, who succumbed to lung cancer. After a date, they return to his place and he proceeds to have sex with her, but stops because her emotional attachment to Chris prevents her from becoming aroused. After this incident there is an interlude where neither contacts each other. But soon they go on another date, after which they have sex when Changez convinces Erica to close her eyes and fantasize that she is with Chris. Though Changez is satisfied at this development in their relationship, this irreversibly damages their relationship. Soon she begins treatment in a mental institution. He notices she is physically emaciated and no longer her former self. After this meeting he travels to Chile on an assignment. When he returns to meet her, it is found that she has left the institution and her clothes were found near the Hudson River. Officially she is stated as a missing person, as her body has not been found.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticipations" title="Anticipations">
## Chapter 1: Locomotion in the Twentieth Century.Proposing to forecast "the way things will probably go in this new century," Wells's point of departure is "the probable developments and changes of the means of land locomotion during the coming decades." Taking the "steam engine running on a railway" to be the most characteristic symbol of the 19th century, he analyzes the historical factors that led it to appear when it did. Wells predicts that "new motor vehicles" will lead to trucks, cars ("motor carriages"), and buses ("the motor omnibus") that will be "segregated" from horse traffic on "special roads" competing with railways.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hide_&amp;_Seek_(Patterson_novel)" title="Hide &amp; Seek (Patterson novel)">
Maggie Bradford is a successful singer/songwriter who is on trial for murder. She has married twice and it appears that she has shot both husbands. Due to Maggie Bradford's history of killing her first husband to get out of the abusive ways, it began to fuel speculation and accusations when she had again killed her second husband. And the world around her wants to know if this celebrity can really commit these murders.she dies 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Moses_(novel)" title="The Sword of Moses (novel)">
When former MI6 agent turned archaeologist Dr Ava Curzon is engaged by American intelligence to track down an African militia claiming to hold the Ark of the Covenant, she is plunged into a world where nothing is what it seems.Her breakneck descent into the shadowy realm of dark biblical texts hurls her across continents and deep into the opaque worlds of the Knights Templar and neo-Nazis, pushing her mentally and physically to the limits.Her initial compulsion to find the Ark soon becomes more urgent when she discovers that Marius Malchus, the man holding it, was responsible for her father’s murder years earlier. As she pursues Malchus across Europe and the Middle East, she is repeatedly thwarted and placed in ever greater physical danger, experiencing his extreme ruthlessness at first hand.When an informant in Malchus’s group sends her photographs of a coded medieval lead medal, she begins unravelling a series of arcane clues that take her to the heart of an ancient mystery buried by the medieval Vatican, but now driving Malchus towards an apocalyptic endgame.As Ave penetrates deeper into the shadows, the Vatican medal leads her to the sacred biblical seven-branched Menorah candlestick buried in an ancient Mithraic Temple deep under Rome and to a series of ever more challenging puzzles. Harnessing all her mental and physical skills, the danger levels increase as she solves a clue related to the enigmatic Voynich manuscript, and closes in on Malchus and his prize: a powerful ancient Hebrew magical manuscript called The Sword of Moses.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Narrow_Road_to_the_Deep_North_(novel)" title="The Narrow Road to the Deep North (novel)">
Dorrigo Evans has found fame and public recognition as a war veteran in old age, but inwardly he is plagued by his own shortcomings and considers his numerous accolades to be a “failure of perception on the part of others”. He knows that his colleagues consider him a reckless and dangerous surgeon, and he has habitually cheated on his faithful and adoring wife, though his public reputation has been undented by the air of scandal that trails him in his private life.Flashbacks describe Dorrigo’s early life in rural Tasmania, and his love affair with Amy Mulvaney, the young wife of his uncle and the love of his life. Dorrigo meets Amy by chance in an Adelaide bookstore and he finds that "her body was a poem beyond memorising". Despite the fact that she is married to his uncle, Dorrigo felt the affair was justified because "the war pressed, the war deranged, the war undid, the war excused". In a metaphor for the novel's theme of fatalism, Amy observes while swimming a group of fish trying "to escape the breaking wave’s hold. And all the time the wave had them in its power and would take them where it would, and there was nothing that the glistening chain of fish could do to change their fate."  
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Death_in_the_Small_Hours" title="A Death in the Small Hours">
Charles Lenox, gentleman and former amateur detective, is now a prominent Member of the House of Commons. When selected to make the opening speech at the next session of Parliament, he takes up an offer to spend some time at his uncle’s estate in Somerset. Although Lenox expected to find a few quiet weeks to prepare his speech, instead he finds a bizarre case of vandalism in the quiet village, and the murder of a local constable. Lenox investigates and finds that the situation is far more complex and sinister than it first appeared.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Than_This_(novel)" title="More Than This (novel)">
The book begins with a 16-year-old boy, Seth Wearing, drowning. He finds himself in what he assumes is a hell made for him, as it resembles the Southern English town he was born in before moving to America but is completely abandoned. (The town's exact location is never stated, but it is within commuting distance of London.) Whenever he sleeps, he flashes back to events in his life. Seth remembers that when he was eight, he was left alone by his mother with his four-year-old brother, Owen. An escaped convict, let into the house by Seth, kidnapped Owen for three days. This left him with psychological damage and prompted the family's move to Halfmarket, a small coastal town in Washington, US. Also described is Seth's secret homosexual relationship with male friend, Gudmund.In Seth's old bedroom, he finds an open coffin containing "conductive tape" and tubes, which he woke up in before fleeing. Later, Seth sees a black van driving through town. A girl, Regine, and a boy, Tomasz, prevent him from getting close to it, telling him that they must hide from what they call the Driver. They too had died and awoken in coffins.Regine tells Seth her theory – on account of the world's decline the entire population decided to enter an simulated recreation (indistinguishable from reality) permanently, with automated coffins carrying out bodily functions. Therefore, the place they occupy is the real world. Global issues mentioned include fires, climate change, wars, epidemics, economic chaos and closures of European borders. The three children woke up in the real world because, while dying, they each knocked a system connection implant on the back of their heads. Seth wonders if more coffins are stored in the prison near his house, and decides to go there against the others' warnings.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightbirds_on_Nantucket" title="Nightbirds on Nantucket">
Dido Twite awakens aboard the whaling ship "The Sarah Casket", where she has been cared for in a coma by Nate Pardon, a young sailor who found her adrift in the Atlantic Ocean after the adventures of "Black Hearts in Battersea". Dido is induced by the ship's captain to look after his daughter, Dutiful Penitence Casket, a neurotic eight-year-old who is travelling aboard the whaler. After drawing the girl out of her shell, Dido agrees to stay briefly on Nantucket to help "Pen's" transition to life with her Aunt Tribulation, who is to look after Pen while her father pursues his obsession, a mysterious pink whale. Dido is discomfited to find that Aunt Tribulation is apparently a demanding invalid, and Dido's plan to leave and take ship to London are further delayed when Nate brings Captain Casket to the house; when approaching the pink whale in a longboat, "Rosie Lee" sank it, and the injured captain is only semi-conscious.While exploring the surrounding countryside, Dido encounters a mysterious but comic foreigner, who proves to be sighting a gigantic cannon intended to assassinate King James III by blowing up the royal palace; Mr. Slighcarp, the Sarah Casket's first mate, is part of the plot together with his sister Letitia, the villainess of "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase". Disbelieved by the other adults, Dido and Pen, with the help of Nate, attempt to disable the cannon, whose recoil would send the island of Nantucket crashing into New York City.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Apples" title="White Apples">
"White Apples" tells the story of Vincent Ettrich, who is dead and brought back to life again. Ettrich slowly learns that he is brought back by his wife Isabelle and he is back to save his unborn son. Ettrich's unborn son will eventually save the universe if Ettrich can protect him from evil forces. This is a work of metaphysics and surrealism.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_Was_Going_Down_the_Road" title="A Man Was Going Down the Road">
"A Man Was Going Down the Road" begins with the Greek legend of Jason and the Golden Fleece and the consequences for the obscure kingdom of Colchis after the Greek Jason comes and abducts Medea. But it is also an allegory of the treachery and destruction that ensued when Russia, and then the Soviets, annexed Georgia, as well as Chiladze's interpretation of life as a version of the ancient Anatolian story of Gilgamesh, and a study of Georgian life, domestic and political, in which women and children pay the price for the hero's quests, obsessions and doubts.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drama_dari_Krakatau" title="Drama dari Krakatau">
In 1883, Krakatoa begins stirring for the first time in 200 years. In the nearby village of Waringin, Sadidjah confides to her husband, village head Tjakra Amidjaja, that she has had a bad dream about the volcano; she fears that it will be the death of them. Tjakra Amidjaja consoles her, and tells her that they will leave the village in two days. In the meantime, the volcano grows increasingly violent and Tjakra Amidjaja and Sadidjah stay behind to manage the evacuation. They send their children, Hasan and Soerijati, to stay with family in Rangkas Gombong. Krakatoa erupts several hours later. The village is wiped out in the resulting tsunami, and Soerijati is lost after she falls out of the carriage she is in; Hasan, however, arrives safely in Rangkas Gombong.Forty-four years pass. Moelia, the son of the Regent of Rangkas Gombong and Assistant "Wedana" of Sindanglaut, hears of a Baduy priest, Noesa Brama, who is curing the sick and injured. Moelia travels to Mount Ciwalirang to interview him, and finds Noesa Brama an intelligent and well-spoken man. Over lunch Moelia falls in love with the priest's daughter, Retna Sari. He learns that she must marry a man of equal standing to her father, one who is "no less than the Sultan of Yogyakarta or the Sunan of Solo". Upon returning home, Moelia realises that Noesa Brama must be the last male descendant of the Hindu kings of Pajajaran, and that both Retna Sari and her mother bear a striking resemblance to his own grandmother. Several days later, he returned to the mountain and overhears a group of men from Palembang planning to kidnap Retna Sari. He chases them away, then briefly visits Noesa Brama before returning home. Though he attempts to forget Retna Sari, he is unable to do so.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juggling_(novel)" title="Juggling (novel)">
The novel is a coming of age story, the main protagonists are 'sparky Christina', the daughter of Alice, and her 'saintly adopted sister Pam' who could not be more different. They meet similarly mismatched friends Jago and Peter, and the intersecting lives of the four as they grow up form the heart of the novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Book_Is_Full_of_Spiders" title="This Book Is Full of Spiders">
While attending court-ordered therapy session with Dr. Bob Tennet, David shows him a video of a man walking through a door and disappearing instantly, suggesting that the man was teleported someplace else, neglecting to mention that he and John have found and used multiple such doors throughout the city of [Undisclosed]. That night, David is attacked by a spider-like creature in his bedroom, but manages to fight it off. Police officer Burgess arrives to investigate the disturbance, but even looking directly at it, he cannot see the spider, who climbs into his throat. Dave and John take him to the hospital, where the creature takes control of Burgess' body and escapes after killing several people. John proceeds to track him down, but Burgess comes back after David in his home, who manages to decapitate it, before discovering that the spider has laid eggs in his room, which are now hatching. Superstar police detective Falconer arrives to question David, who manages to convince him of the invisible threat. Falconer attempts to quarantine the room, but John and Dave decide to burn the spiders along with the house instead. This backfires when the spiders escape and begin attacking firefighters on the scene, instantly turning their bodies into the violent monsters "like Optimus Prime made of meat". The entire town is locked off by military, and John and Dave escape through a portal door, but become separated and John believes David to be dead.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_on_Fire" title="Brain on Fire">
The book narrates Cahalan's issues with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis and the process by which she was diagnosed with this form of encephalitis. She woke up in a hospital with no memory of the previous month's events, during which time she had violent episodes and delusions. Her eventual diagnosis was made more difficult by various physicians misdiagnosing her with several theories such as "partying too much" and schizoaffective disorder. Eventually several physicians, including Dr. Souhel Najjar, began to suspect that Cahalan was suffering from an autoimmune disease. Najjar diagnosed Cahalan using a test that involved her drawing a clock, a test normally given to people suspected of having dementia or Alzheimer's disease. Rather than drawing the clock face normally, the disease caused Cahalan to draw all the numbers 1 through 12 on the right face of the clock, because the right side of her brain, which regulates the left side of the body, was inflamed. Najjar used this to help diagnose Cahalan and start her road to recovery.The book also covers Cahalan's life after her recovery, including her reactions to watching videotapes of her psychotic episodes while in the hospital. Cahalan also discusses her symptoms prior to her hospitalization, as she had previously been diagnosed by a psychiatrist with bipolar disorder. While researching, she learned that the disease had been discovered just three years before she became ill. Her research indicated that in 2009 most people with the disease were either misdiagnosed or undiagnosed. Cahalan was fortunate to be correctly diagnosed because, according to Najjar's estimates, only 10 percent of people with the disease were properly diagnosed at that time. Since then, a better understanding of the disease and its symptoms has resulted in more frequent diagnosis and treatment.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_House_(novel)" title="Amber House (novel)">
The book begins at the funeral of Sarah's maternal grandmother, Ida. Sarah and her autistic brother, five-year-old Sammy, have never seen their mother's supposedly-haunted ancestral home; Anne was estranged from Ida, and she plans to sell Amber House and everything in it. Sarah meets her grandmother's nurse, Rose Valois, and Rose's teenaged grandson, Jackson. Sarah feels uncomfortable around Jackson because he seems to know things about her that her grandmother would have been unable to tell him due to how infrequently she and Sarah interacted while Ida was alive. Jackson mentions a local legend about a fortune of diamonds hidden in Amber House and offers to help Sarah find them. Even though Anne has already booked the family into a hotel, Sarah and Sammy conspire to hunt for the treasure and force Anne to stay in the house for the few days they will be in town.Soon Sarah is introduced to Senator Robert Hathaway and his teenaged son Richard. Richard knows more about Amber House than Sarah does, and tells her about Deirdre Foster, the mad wife of the sea captain who lost the diamonds in the 1700s. Richard claims it is Deirdre who haunts the estate. Meanwhile, inspired by Sarah and Richard's palpable connection, Anne comes up with the idea of celebrating Sarah's sixteenth birthday, ten days off, with a masquerade ball. The event will be used to advertise the house before Anne puts it on the market.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Vermine_du_Lion" title="La Vermine du Lion">
The novel is an interplanetary adventure along the lines of de Camp's Krishna series. The protagonist, geologist Téraï Laprade, champions the native humanoids of the planet Eldorado against a predatory conglomerate bent on exterminating them so it can freely plunder their world's mineral wealth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwas_(novel)" title="Neverwas (novel)">
Picking up three months after "Amber House" left off, Sarah and her family relocate from the Pacific Northwestern nation of Astoria to live at Amber House with her aunt Maggie. Unbeknownst to Sarah, her actions at the end of "Amber House" propelled her and her loved ones into an alternate reality: North America is a collection of separate nations — including the American Confederation of States, which still struggles with segregation and sexism — and Nazis control all of Europe.With little recollection of what happened in "Amber House", Sarah must rediscover her psychometric ability (which was suppressed in this timeline by her grandmother Ida and mother Anne after use of the "family gift" nearly killed Maggie) and track down "echoes" of the past that will help her remember the way things used to be. Sarah is once again thrown together with Richard Hathaway, whose senator father is about to run for the Presidency, but finds she inexplicably yearns for Jackson Harris, little knowing how close the two grew in the time before.Sarah learns she is distantly related to both Jackson and Richard; all share Captain Joseph Foster as a common ancestor from the 1700s. A smuggler and slave owner, Foster married Sarah's ancestress Deirdre Dobson after the death of his first wife, Lydia, who died during the birth of Foster's oldest daughter, Camilla. It is from Camilla that Richard is descended, from an illegitimate daughter fathered by Foster and the slave Nyangu that Jackson is descended, and from Foster and Dobson's daughter Sarah-Louise that Sarah is descended. With the help of Jackson's precognition, Sarah realizes that a mysterious artifact that belonged to the Captain and that was passed down through the generations to Richard's mother Claire Hathaway may prove vital to pinpointing how time went wrong. Sarah and Jackson ultimately attempt to reset the universe once again in a high-stakes heist in New York City.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Monk_Gets_on_Board" title="Mr. Monk Gets on Board">
Natalie completes the requirements and receives a license as a private investigator, and proceeds to attend a business seminar at sea with Adrian Monk. When the alarm is pulled and the ship drops anchor, they discover the dead body of the cruise director in the sea. She has alcohol in her system, so her death is deemed an accident, but Adrian Monk isn't convinced.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Monk_Is_Open_for_Business" title="Mr. Monk Is Open for Business">
Natalie rents an office for herself and Adrian Monk to make their positions as consulting detectives official. Lieutenant Amy Devlin soon comes to them asking for help finding a man who shot and killed three people and managed to elude the police.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_and_Say" title="Pink and Say">
The story begins during the times of the Civil War. Sheldon Russell Curtis or "Say", a white Union Soldier is badly wounded on the battlefield. He tries to escape with an injured leg, but cannot due to the pain. Lying on the ground, he sees an African American Yankee soldier named Pinkus Aylee or "Pink" coming to his rescue. Sheldon is very hesitant at first, as Pink was an African American; one of the people that he was warned about. Pink gives Say some water for what little nourishment he can offer. Carefully, Pink carries Say back to his home in Georgia, where he lives with his mother, Moe Moe Bay. There, Pink and his mother restore Say back to full health. This act of great kindness brings Say to be friends with Pink and his mother as they spend long days with each other, enjoying the peace they have. Later, a group of "Marauders" Confederate soldiers came to search Pink’s home. Only barely foreseeing the coming raid, Moe Moe Bay tells Pink and Say to hide in the root cellar, out of the sight of the soldiers. The soldiers shot and killed Moe Moe Bay in an attempt to distract them from the boys. Pink and Say eventually came out of the cellar and found Moe Moe Bay's dead body lying on the ground. They decide to bury her, then Pink and Say decide to try to find their troops. On the way back to their camp some Confederates found them and took them to their camp as prisoners. The two prisoners of war receive vastly different treatment: Say is held captive in a prison camp for months before he is released, while Pink was hanged within hours, his body thrown in a lime pit. 
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mankind_in_the_Making" title="Mankind in the Making">
## Preface.Wells proposes to "provide the first tentatives of a political doctrine that shall be equally available for application in the British Empire and the United States." He notes an "especial indebtedness to my friend, Mr. Graham Wallas."
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justine_(Thompson_novel)" title="Justine (Thompson novel)">
Described as a postmodern, feminist variation on Marquis de Sade's book of the same name, it is set in contemporary London where the narrator, an opium-smoking art collector living in Kensington Gardens, becomes obsessed by "Justine", a portrait. Later he sees the woman herself at his mother's funeral, but she disappears and he begins a desperate search for her. He finds her twin sister Juliette who promises to aid him in his increasingly desperate search for her elusive sister...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Life_of_Samuel_Tyne" title="The Second Life of Samuel Tyne">
In 1968, Samuel Tyne, an unhappy Ghanaian civil servant residing in Calgary, Alberta, learns that he has inherited his late uncle Jacob's estate in the rural community of Amber Valley, Alberta. He persuades his wife Maud and twin daughters Yvette and Chloe to move to the town, which was a settlement of African- American immigrant homesteaders from Oklahoma and the Deep South in the early 20th century.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Sunlight_and_in_Shadow" title="In Sunlight and in Shadow">
It is set in New York City and often waxes lyrical about the city itself. It is the story of the love affair between Jewish business heir and former soldier, Harry Copeland, and Catherine Thomas Hale, also known by her stage name of Catherine Sedley, daughter of a wealthy, blue-blood New York family, from the time of their meeting on a Staten Island ferry.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_between_the_Sexes" title="Human Rights between the Sexes">
The report is believed to be the first comparative international analysis of the human rights of intersex people. It found that intersex people are discriminated against worldwide.Ghattas states:Ghattas found that:Ghattas makes five conclusions for human rights organisations:The book is published in German as "Menschenrechte zwischen den Geschlechtern".The book can be downloaded for free in either English or German.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Kept_Secret_(novel)" title="Best Kept Secret (novel)">
The book picks up after the events in "The Sins of the Father", with the House of Lords having to decide who will be the heir to the fortune of Hugo Barrington. The vote ends with a tie, which prompts the Lord Chancellor to vote in favor of Giles Barrington. This leaves Clifton free to marry Emma Barrington and Giles soon falls in love with Lady Virginia, although his family greatly disapproves.Emma decides to track down the baby found in her father's office on the night of his death and adopts her. Meanwhile, Lady Barrington is diagnosed with terminal cancer and eventually dies. Before her death, it is learned that she had changed the contents of her will to ensure that all her fortune is divided between her daughters. Giles gets none of it, as his mother did not approve of his marrying Lady Virginia in the future. Virginia pushes Giles to contest the will. The judge, however, rules in favor of Emma and Grace. Lady Virginia and Giles were married. Divorce and its aftermath were part of plot throughout the middle of the novel. To get back at Giles, Virginia employs the help of Major Alex Fisher, a long-time enemy of Giles and Harry. He joins the Barrington Shipping company as a member of the Board and tries to bring down the company from the inside using insider stock trading and manipulating certain elections, but eventually fails.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_Dreams" title="Train Dreams">
In summer 1917, a Chinese laborer is accused of stealing from the company stores of the Spokane International Railway in the Idaho Panhandle. Robert Grainier and the other white laborers attempt to throw him over the bridge they are constructing, but he escapes. Grainier stops in Meadow Creek and buys a bottle of sarsaparilla for his wife, Gladys, and their four-month-old daughter, Kate. Hiking home to his cabin, Grainier thinks he sees the Chinese man and believes he has cursed him.In 1920, Grainier leaves for northwestern Washington to help repair the Robinson Gorge Bridge. He also cuts and transports timber for the Simpson Company. He meets fellow worker Arn Peeples, a fearless but superstitious old man who dangerously excavates tunnels with dynamite. Arn is later killed by a falling dead branch. In 1962 or 1963, Grainier watches young ironworkers build a new highway. In the mid-1950s, he sees the World's Fattest Man. He recalls seeing Elvis Presley's private train in Troy, Montana, and flying in a biplane in 1927.Grainier was born in 1886 in Utah or Canada. In 1893, he arrived on the Great Northern Railway as an orphan in Fry, Idaho, and was adopted by a family. He witnesses the mass deportation of Chinese families from the town. In 1899, the towns of Fry and Eatonville were merged to form Bonners Ferry. Grainier quit school in his early teens and began fishing. One day, he stumbles upon a dying man named William Coswell Haley. He brings him a drink of water from his boot and leaves him to die alone.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Captain_and_the_Enemy" title="The Captain and the Enemy">
"The Captain and the Enemy" tells the story of a young boy named Victor Baxter taken away from his boarding school by a stranger to live in London. This stranger is simply known as "the Captain" and he appears mysterious to Victor. In London Victor companions a woman named Liza and tells her any news that happens in the outside world. When Victor reaches manhood, he finally learns the secrets and intelligence of the Captain.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Late_Scholar" title="The Late Scholar">
"The Late Scholar" features the former Lord Peter Wimsey—now the Duke of Denver—and his wife, the former Harriet Vane and is set in a fictional Oxford college called St. Severin's. It is 1953, according to internal evidence within the text of the novel. For example, in Chapter 9, Harriet looks for an article published in 1948, because 'hadn't Gervase said it was five years ago?'. A book and a film which came out in 1953 are mentioned ('The Go-Between' in Chapter 3, and 'From Here to Eternity' in Chapter 13).Wimsey discovers that, as Duke of Denver, he has inherited the position of Visitor of an Oxford college, St Severin's. The college is in financial difficulties, and is in the midst of an acrimonious dispute between the Fellows over whether or not to sell a valuable codex (a copy of "The Consolation of Philosophy" by Boethius, with glosses which may be by Alfred the Great) to finance the purchase of a piece of land which might be worth much money if planning permission can be obtained on it. The two sides are evenly balanced in numbers, and two of the Fellows appeal to him to resolve the dispute, and before he has even arrived at Oxford, some of the Fellows turn up at his seat at Bredon Hall to try to convince him of the wisdom of either course of action.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_Atlas" title="Meat Atlas">
## Overview.According to the report, based on figures from the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, the production of of beef requires of water, cheese 5,000 litres, rice 3,400 litres, and carrots 131 litres. Over of meat is consumed in the United States per person per year, 60 kg in Germany, 38 kg in China, and under 20 kg in Africa.Pigs can reach their market weight with 10–15 percent less food if they are kept on antibiotics, but overuse increases the likelihood of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, so-called "superbugs."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lesser_Blessed_(novel)" title="The Lesser Blessed (novel)">
Larry Sole, a Tłı̨chǫ teenager from the fictional Fort Simmer, befriends newcomer Johnny Beck. The two become friends though Larry is jealous of Johnny's relationship with Juliet Hope, his crush. Larry eventually opens up to Johnny about his rapist father and the abuse he suffered under him while living in Fort Rae.Darcy is Larry's arch-nemesis in the movie. Darcy and Larry have a past that goes a lot deeper than Fort Simmer, where they live now. Darcy knows Larry from Fort Rae, where Larry and his mom have relocated. Darcy knows the secrets of why Larry had to move from Fort Rae, and he uses this information to torment Larry throughout. Larry lets Darcy treat him like crap to not upset him into spilling the secrets he holds from the incident in Fort Rae. Darcy is also a friend and possible love interest of Larry's Crush Juliet, another of Darcy's disdain for Larry.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orfeo_(novel)" title="Orfeo (novel)">
There are two main narrative threads in the novel, both centered on Peter Els. The novel begins and ends in the winter of 2011, from the accidental discovery by the authorities that Els was doing home genetic experiments to his flight across the country. Interspersed is the story of Els' life, from his birth in 1941 to his decision in 2009 to record his music in DNA.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatiana_(novel)" title="Tatiana (novel)">
One of the iconic investigators of contemporary fiction, Arkady Renko —cynical, analytical, and quietly subversive— has survived the cultural journey from the Soviet Union to the New Russia, only to find the nation as obsessed with secrecy and brutality as was the old Communist regime. In "Tatiana", Martin Cruz Smith's most ambitious novel since "Gorky Park", the melancholy hero finds himself on the trail of a mystery as complex and dangerous as modern Russia herself.The fearless investigative reporter Tatiana Petrovna falls to her death from a sixth-story window in Moscow the same week that a mob billionaire, Grisha Grigorenko, is shot and buried with the trappings afforded minor royalty. No one makes the connection, but Arkady is transfixed by the tapes he discovers of Tatiana's voice, even as she describes horrific crimes concealed by official cover stories.The trail leads to Kaliningrad, a Cold War "secret city" and home of the Baltic Fleet, separated by hundreds of miles from the rest of Russia. Arkady delves into Tatiana's past and a surreal world of wandering dunes and amber mines. His only link is a notebook written in the personal code of a translator whose body is found in the dunes. Arkady's only hope of decoding the symbols lies in Zhenya, a gifted teenage chess hustler.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oregon_Desert" title="The Oregon Desert">
"The Oregon Desert" highlights the people, places, plants, and animals of Oregon's high desert. Jackman contributed scholarly chapters on geology, geography, flora, fauna, and the life of Native Americans in the high desert. Long added first-hand narratives about his life on the high desert using humorous anecdotal stories. According to Oregon Public Broadcasting, the book "successfully blended natural science with cowboy humor and scholarly prose with casual meanderings. It is a celebration of rural Western storytelling."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undergrounders" title="Undergrounders">
The plot is about a young boy named Jonathon (nicknamed Mouse) that lives in the "Underground" as his mother died of cancer.The story is narrated by Jonathon, a 12-year-old boy. After his mom died from cancer, her boyfriend, Ron, left Jonathon and the landlord kicked him out. He survived in the forest on berries, but soon, it became cold, and another homeless boy named Lewis took him to the "Underground", a basement of an abandoned shopping mall, that was apparently never built past the underground portion.One day, while Jonathan was begging for money, he entered a hockey store (Baxter's) through an alleyway. From there, he stole a pair of Grafs (Ice hockey skates), a Maple Leafs jersey, an ice hockey puck, an Easton ice hockey stick, two pairs of gloves, one pair of winter mittens and a roll of stick tape, as well as five dollars, a sandwich and a Coca-Cola. After that, Jonathan went back to the rink, to practice his skills. There, he met Rasheed, Collin and Derrick. Meanwhile, Lewis tells Jonathan that he has something planned for him.For days, Jonathan continued to practice at the hockey rink, until he is invited to join Rasheed's hockey team. While in the hockey team, he scores many of the goals. One day, after a hockey game, he accidentally overhears his teammates gossiping behind his back. This results in Jonathan leaving the hockey team.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Angler's_Book" title="The American Angler's Book">
The "American Angler's Book" provides encyclopedic coverage of all aspects of fishing as practiced in North America in the mid-1800s. It covers tackle, techniques, target species and the best fishing locations. It has been credited with being the first significant American work to cover aspects of fly fishing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_Objects" title="Sharp Objects">
Camille Preaker works as a journalist at "The Daily Post", a small newspaper in Chicago. She is not particularly satisfied with the job, which includes writing stories about human neglect, murders, and crime. Camille gets along somewhat well with her boss Frank Curry, who supported her during a recent hospitalization due to self-harm. Camille has carved many words onto her body—having previously hallucinated them on her skin. Curry gives her a reporting assignment to her hometown of Wind Gap, Missouri, where one girl has been murdered and a second is missing.Once in Wind Gap, Camille manages to gain some information about the crimes from the townspeople, including the family of Ann Nash, the murdered girl. The local police are not particularly forthcoming about the murder, but the town sheriff, Chief Vickery, divulges to Camille off the record that he believes that the murderer is a Wind Gap native, not a stranger. Soon the body of the missing girl, Natalie Keene, is discovered in an alley in town. Both she and Ann were strangled and had all of their teeth removed. The police are baffled by the crimes. Camille publishes a story, only for Curry to ask her to remain in Wind Gap for further coverage of the murders.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_from_Elephant_Pass_(novel)" title="The Road from Elephant Pass (novel)">
This novel battles with diverse situations including ethnic conflicts and birds. Both of these issues are given equal importance and veracity by the writer. Reflecting the writer's activities as a keen bird watcher, the pied kingfishers, hawks, eagle-owls, blue-faced malkohas, paradise flycatchers, hornbills, brown-headed barbets, hanging parrots, rose-ringed parakeets, lapwings are among the many birds mentioned in this novel. The plot of the novel centers around Captain Wasantha Ratnayake and a woman named Kamala Velaithan, who is a member of the LTTE Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), venturing through a dense and luscious Wilpattu forest in northern Sri Lanka. Kamala Velaithan volunteers to offer help to the Sri Lanka Army regarding the provision of some useful information. Kemala is handed over to Wasantha, who picks her up to take her in for questioning. Meanwhile, on the way to their destination, an ambush by an LTTE gang results in their driver and an Army lady dying in a hail of bullets. The two survivors, Kamala and Wasantha are forced into a mutually co-operative situation which later broadens and deepens to the extent that they find it hard to operate without each other. The novel focuses on the relationship which grows between these two people, who, at their first encounter with one another, were enemies. Together, they survive poachers, elephants and the extreme dangers of the jungle. These intense experiences, which force them into mutual co-operation, eventually evolve into an unexpected love affair. The story depicts them spending about 12 days together, each chapter of the novel intertwining with the others in unique forms of complementarity which serve to provide the novel with a richness of style in the progress and development of its plot. After they reach Colombo Army Headquarters, Kamala reveals to Wasantha that she had lied to him and that they are, in fact heading into a trap. But it was too late. The ending is tragic and the lovers end up being separated one from another. However, the film, though based on the novel, has a different ending.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_May_Care_(Peters_novel)" title="Devil May Care (Peters novel)">
Young, beautiful Ellie is to house-sit for her wealthy and eccentric Aunt Kate, who lives in one of the oldest towns in Virginia, founded in the 17th century by six families from England. Aunt Kate has a plethora of dogs and cats, and even a rat, that Ellie must care for, but once Aunt Kate leaves ghostly manifestations begin to occur. Is someone trying to drive Ellie out of the house, or has her arrival stirred up emotions and old enmities that had been long forgotten? Descendants of the six founding families quarrel and interfere as Ellie and a neighbor, Donald Gold, attempt to sort out what is fakery, what is malice, and what might be supernatural.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bourne_Retribution" title="The Bourne Retribution">
Bourne's friend Eli Yadin, head of Mossad, learns that Ouyang Jidan, a senior member of China's Politburo, and a major Mexican drug lord may have been trafficking in more than drugs. Yadin needs Bourne to investigate. Bourne agrees, but only because he has a personal agenda: Ouyang Jidan is the man who ordered Rebeka—one of the only people Bourne has ever truly cared about—murdered. Bourne is determined to avenge her death, but in the process he becomes enmeshed in a monstrous worldwide scheme involving the Chinese, Mexicans, and Russians. Bourne's desperate search for Ouyang takes him from Tel Aviv to Shanghai, Mexico City, and, ultimately, a village on China's coast where a clever trap has been laid for him. Bourne finds himself pursued on all sides and unsure whom he can trust.Jason's adventure begins when Eden Mazar, an Israeli Mossad agent, is murdered by members of a Mexican drug cartel named Los Zetas. Following this, he is approached by Mossad director Eli Yadin, who invites Bourne to embark on a mission to find a connection between Eden Mazar's murder and the death of Rebeka, Bourne's love interest. Bourne goes to Shanghai, under an alias, but he later disposes of his disguise and pursues Ouyang's right-hand man, Colonel Sun. After finding out about this, Amir Ophir, another Israeli Mossad member, sends an assassin named Retzach to kill Bourne, but Bourne kills Retzach instead. Following this, Bourne goes on a wild goose chase for Ouyang, which comes to a head in Mexico City, where he encounters Maricruz, wife of Ouyang Jidan, who has been injured in an attack by a rival cartel in Mexico and is currently caring for a girl named Angel. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tower_of_the_Swallow" title="The Tower of the Swallow">
Vysogota, an elderly philosopher living alone in the Pereplut swamp, comes upon an injured Ciri near his retreat and takes her in, caring for her. During her recovery, Ciri recounts the events of the last few months.Ciri was content with life among "the Rats", but hears that a "princess" with her name has been presented in Nilfgaard as the intended bride of the Emperor. Ciri decides to reclaim her birthright and expose the Emperor's lie, but hears that the Rats are being tracked by a notorious bounty hunter, Leo Bonhart. She rushes back to them, but finds that Bonhart has slaughtered them. Bonhart defeats and captures Ciri.Nilfgaard's spymaster, Vattier de Rideaux, wants Ciri captured alive, but the Imperial coroner, Stefan Skellen, secretly hired Bonhart to kill her. Instead of doing so, Bonhart has her fight for her life in a gladiatorial arena, confirming for Bonhart her identity and training as a witcher.Meanwhile, having saved Queen Meve of Rivia, Geralt and his party – the bard Dandelion, Milva the archer, higher vampire Regis, and former Nilfgaardian soldier, Cahir – travel with her army. Geralt seeks a group of druids whom he believes can locate Ciri. During their journey, they learn that a bounty has been placed on their heads by a half-elf and a group of criminals led by a man named Nightingale. Partnering up with the young woman Angoulême, a former member of this group, they decide to ambush the bandits and discover who hired them, who Geralt suspects to be the wizard Vilgefortz. Eventually, they stumble upon the half-elf, named Schirrú. A fight breaks out, in which Cahir is injured, forcing him and Geralt into hiding. During this time, the two reconcile. They reunite with the rest of the party, who have entered Toussaint, where the druids are. They attempt to locate the criminals, but are captured instead by the druids, who kill the criminals before Geralt can question them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_of_the_Lake_(Sapkowski_novel)" title="The Lady of the Lake (Sapkowski novel)">
Sir Galahad, King Arthur's knight, stumbles upon Ciri bathing. Ciri recounts her story to him, warning that it does not have a happy ending. Parallel to this, years after the main story, the sorceress Condwiramurs, is apprenticed to Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, to study the legend of Geralt and Ciri. Condwiramurs's has clairvoyant dreams, stimulated by studying paintings and other images of the story.In the present, Stefan Skellen, the coroner of Nilfgaard, is working with the sorcerer Vilgefortz, who has imprisoned the sorceress Yennefer. Geralt and his company - Dandelion, Regis, Milva, Angoulême, and Cahir - relax in the duchy of Toussaint. Geralt is distracted by monster-hunting and an affair with the Duchess's court sorceress, Fringilla Vigo, a member of the Lodge of Sorceresses. Geralt's latest contract has him eavesdrop a meeting between Skellen and rebellious nobles, plotting the Emperor's overthrow. Geralt overhears Vilgefortz's location from Skellen, and he and his party leave Toussaint, except Dandelion, who stays with his lover, Duchess Anna Henrietta.After the events of the previous novel, Ciri was teleported to a foreign world, Aen Aelle, ruled by elves, under occasional attacks by unicorns, where time flows differently. A magical barrier prevents her from leaving, and she is told by the sage Avallac'h that to leave, she must bear the child of their king, Auberon. Avallac'h explains that Ciri possesses a gene engineered to make her child the most powerful magic-user in history, to save the world from an impending cataclysm. Ciri reluctantly agrees, but Auberon fails to perform several times. Avallac'h assures her that once she bears the child, she will be returned to her time. However, Eredin Breacc Glas, the commander of a cavalry unit, tells Ciri that she will never escape.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Whole_Nother_Story" title="A Whole Nother Story">
The story begins by introducing the Cheeseman family: the scientist Mr. Ethan Cheeseman, his wife Olivia, three 'attractive, witty, and relatively odor-free' children and the family pets; a psychic dog named Pinky, and Steve, a talking sock puppet.Ethan and his wife are about to complete a time machine, and two top-secret agents show up to steal it. Initially, the antagonists use diplomacy, claiming that they need the invention for "the greater good". Their motives are suspect, and Olivia, realizing this, refuses. Shortly thereafter, Olivia contacts a mysterious illness and dies.The family initially grieves but not for long. They are being targeted and followed.by many people. The agents are revealed as employees for a weapons developer. Ethan plans to travel back in time, reunite with his wife, and escape pursuit; but the time machine isn't working. He, his family, and the machine take to the road in a station wagon.Pursued by the incompetent but determined agents, the Cheeseman family is forced to flee repeatedly. During their travels they encounter a number of other wanderers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eye_of_Minds" title="The Eye of Minds">
In the future, humankind has developed a new interpretation of gaming in the form of a virtual reality system known as the VirtNet, which contains various games, including "Lifeblood", a re-creation of real life. Michael and his two friends Bryson and Sarah are three talented hackers who can use the game code to manipulate items, and they are employed by VirtNet Security (VNS) to track down a cyber-terrorist known as Kaine, who has been trapping people inside the VirtNet. The gamers who are trapped often commit suicide in real life by coding out their Cores, the virtual objects that differentiate between their Auras, or their virtual bodies, and their real-life bodies. The VNS wants Michael and his friends to find out about the Mortality Doctrine, a program created by Kaine. Using information from Cutter, a barber in the game "Lifeblood", Michael and his friends hack their way into the high-end Black and Blue club. They meet Ronika, the owner, who tells them that to get to Kaine's base in the Hallowed Ravine, they must get through The Path, which can be accessed through a weak spot in the code within the game "Devils of Destruction". However, creatures programmed by Kaine known as KillSims, which suck the life out of VirtNet players' Auras and leave their real-life bodies brain-dead, attack and destroy Ronika. Michael begins to have serious but occasional headaches. Michael and his friends then manage to gain access to The Path through "Devils of Destruction", which they find very difficult to beat, after hacking through the age restriction. Once they enter The Path, they find themselves on a massive stone disk with a riddle. After solving it, they enter an infinitely long corridor, from which the only exit is to go through a hole in the wall. The three best friends have to overcome their fears to keep moving on. At one point, Bryson's Aura is killed by strange, animated corpses that attack whenever anybody makes noise. Along the way, they meet Gunner Skale, a legendary gamer who mysteriously disappeared from the VirtNet, who leads them to realizing that Kaine is actually a rogue Tangent, or an AI in the VirtNet. After escaping from Skale, as he attempted to kill them, Michael and Sarah continue on The Path, but Sarah's Aura is also killed when she is burned by lava. Eventually, Michael reaches a crossroads, where he is given the choice of either leaving the Path or entering the Hallowed Ravine. When he chooses the Hallowed Ravine, a silver machine destroys his Core, so that if his Aura were to die, he would die in real life. After reaching the Hallowed Ravine and discovering a group of Tangents controlled by Kaine, the VNS sends agents to his location to attack. However, in the ensuing battle, with the KillSims attacking, a large number of VNS agents die. Kaine manages to force Michael into a room, from which Michael escapes, allowed by Kaine to do so. He is attacked by KillSims, but he uses his hacking ability to delete, rather than manipulate, things, for the first time. Michael suffers another headache and begs Kaine to save him. Michael then wakes up in a Coffin, or a coffin-like enclosure from which the VirtNet is accessed, but realizes that his body and his surroundings are different. He finds that Kaine left him a message that explained how Michael was a Tangent, and that he was the first successful subject of The Mortality Doctrine, which implants Tangent intelligence into human bodies. Michael is also told that since he is now human, his headaches were actually caused by Decay, a condition that results from the deterioration of a Tangent's code. Michael then realizes that he had resided in the game "Lifeblood Deep" during his time as a Tangent, and when he had entered his Coffin, he had entered the game used by human beings, "Lifeblood". He opens the door and meets Agent Weber, the VNS agent who contracted him to stop Kaine, who informs him that Bryson and Sarah are real. He is also told to attempt to impersonate the human whose body he is in.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_the_Vampire_(book)" title="Mona the Vampire (book)">
The story begins as a girl named Mona and her pet cat, Fang, are being read a spooky bedtime story by Mona's father which they find very intriguing, causing her desire to become a vampire that night before she goes to sleep.Early the next morning, Mona and Fang were experimenting and finding things to match their ideas of vampire costumes. Mona's mother made them lunch with farfetched foods such as "batwing soup", and Mona took Fang outside to teach him some "important things that vampires need to know". Then they played "hide-and-seek-a-vampire" and "suck-my-blood". The book then shows an example of Mona obeying her mother as she tells Mona to clean her room.The next morning, Mona makes her own school lunch to help her mother and went to school, taking Fang with her. At lunchtime (according to the picture on the page), Mona expressed her views on vampires, causing everyone to become uncomfortable and to be driven away from her. After this, the book shows an example of Mona at the gym as she "practiced tying all her special knots" (tying up the other classmates).Later that day, Mona and Fang were painting on the classroom wall, and the teacher (later known as Miss Gotto in the television series) shouted that she is tired of the trouble that Mona is causing and that she doesn't want Mona in her class. She sent for the principal (later known as Ivan Shawbly in the television series), and he simply said that "enough is enough" and that "something must be done". Because of this, Mona and Fang joined a ballet class to "calm her down". They taught the ballerinas some vampire tricks of which the teacher, Mr. Kersley, did not approve.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Enchantments" title="The Last Enchantments">
"The Last Enchantments" tells the story of American graduate student Will Baker, and his relationships with friends and paramours, during his time at the University of Oxford. The book follows them through a tumultuous academic year at the fictional Fleet College, which is based in equal parts on Lady Margaret Hall, Trinity College, Oxford, and Merton College.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Days_of_Anna_Madrigal" title="The Days of Anna Madrigal">
Anna Madrigal, the 92-year-old former landlady of 28 Barbary Lane, recalls her teen years as Andy Ramsay, the son of a brothel owner in Winnemucca, Nevada. Meanwhile in the present, Anna's longtime friend and former tenant Michael Tolliver finds that his much-younger husband Ben is a constant reminder of his own mortality. Another former tenant, Brian Hawkins, offers to take Anna for a final visit back to Winnemucca, where she claims she has unfinished business, as Brian's adopted daughter Shawna puts the wheels in motion to have a baby. It all converges at Burning Man, an unlikely destination for Anna.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flora_&amp;_Ulysses" title="Flora &amp; Ulysses">
Set in the 21st century in a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Flora Belle Buckman, a self-proclaimed cynic, spends her time reading comic books and struggling to understand her parents’ recent divorce. She is jolted into action when the neighbor runs over a squirrel with a vacuum cleaner. The vacuum cleaner is her neighbor's present for his wife. The squirrel's brush with death causes him to develop superpowers, allowing him to understand humans and become smarter. Flora then names the squirrel Ulysses after the vacuum cleaner accident. Flora explains to Ulysses that he must use his newfound powers to right wrongs, fight injustice, "or something." Ulysses decides to write on Flora's mother's typewriter, revealing he can write poetry.When Flora confronts her mother about her desire to kill Ulysses, a shouting match erupts in which Flora comes to believe her mother does not love her. Flora, feeling hurt, declares that she will go home with her father. Ulysses writes a poem to explain Flora and her mother's real emotions, but Flora's mother kidnaps him before the poem can be read. Flora puts together a crack team to rescue Ulysses, who has already escaped, leaving Flora's mother to read his poem. The cast reunites in the father's apartment building where Flora's cynical exterior is cracked for good as she realizes her mother truly loves her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Rising" title="Red Rising">
It has been seven hundred years since mankind colonized other planets. The powerful ruling class of humans has installed a rigid, color-based social hierarchy where the physically superior Golds at the top rule with an iron fist. Sixteen-year-old Darrow is a Red, a class of workers who toil beneath the surface of Mars mining helium-3 to terraform the planet. He and his wife Eo are captured after entering a forbidden area and are arrested. While Eo is publicly whipped for her crime she sings a forbidden folk song as a protest against the Reds enslavement. She is subsequently hanged on the orders of the Mars' Arch-Governor. Darrow cuts down and buries his wife's body, a crime for which he is also hanged. However, Darrow awakes to find that he has been drugged and delivered into the hands of the Sons of Ares, a group of Red and others who fight against the oppression of the "low Colors". Ares have adopted the video of Eo's song and execution as a rallying vehicle for their cause.Darrow is given the chance to infiltrate the Society to bring it down from within. He is physically transformed by Mickey, a Violet "carver", who gives him the abilities and appearance of a Gold. Using a fabricated identity Darrow is accepted into the Golds' elite Institute, where he befriends Cassius au Bellona and alienates the arrogant Antonia au Severus. Darrow is selected for House Mars by Fitchner. To continue to the next stage, Darrow must complete the Passage, a test in which the 100 newly chosen students in each of the twelve Houses are paired with another house member and tasked to kill each other as a means to eliminate the weaker half. Darrow is forced to murder Cassius' brother Julian to survive, but Cassius can only guess who may have killed him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bourne_Ascendancy" title="The Bourne Ascendancy">
Bourne has been hired to impersonate a high-level government minister at a political summit meeting in Qatar, shielding the minister from any assassination attempts. Suddenly, armed gunmen storm the room, killing everyone but Bourne. Their target, however, isn't the minister Bourne impersonates, but is Bourne himself.Kidnapped and transported to an underground bunker, Bourne finds himself face-to-face with an infamous terrorist named El Ghadan (“Tomorrow”). El Ghadan holds as his captive Soraya Moore, former co-director of Treadstone, and a close friend to Bourne, along with her two-year-old daughter.Meanwhile, the President of the United States is in the midst of brokering a historic peace treaty between the Israelis and the Palestinians, an event that El Ghadan is desperate to prevent. He demands that Bourne carry out a special mission: kill the President. If Bourne refuses, Soraya and her daughter will die.Bourne must make a monstrous choice: save Soraya and her daughter, or save the President.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlito's_Way_(novel)" title="Carlito's Way (novel)">
A Puerto Rican gangster, Carlito Brigante, is released early from prison and tries to go straight and leave his former life of crime behind.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackthorn_Winter_(Wilson_novel)" title="Blackthorn Winter (Wilson novel)">
After many attempts to convince his widowed mother to allow him to go to sea, the young Thomas Ingle finally prevails and joins the crew of the "Prudent Hannah." Just before Thomas's departure he observes three rough-looking men bury an oilskin satchel under a mulberry tree along the coast. After the men row out to sea, Thomas investigates and, digging up the mysterious bundle, discovers a map which he cannot understand. Believing the map to mark the location of buried treasure, Thomas memorizes the map, reburying it and keeping his find a secret. The next morning Thomas boards his ship and shortly after leaving port, the ship is waylaid by several Pirate ships led by O'Conner—one of the men Thomas had previously seen burying the map Ingle has yet to decipher. Thomas and his own Captain Monroe are captured, suffer many hardships at the hands of the Pirates, and eventually escape to safety.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swift_as_Desire" title="Swift as Desire">
Don Júbilo, born with a smile on his face, was blessed at birth with almost supernatural hearing and an instinctive understanding of all kinds of communication, from an insect's faint rustle to the sweet sighs of a woman in love. He used his gift to become the peacemaker in his family, slyly mistranslating between his Spanish-speaking grandmother doña Jesusa, and his Mayan-speaking grandmother doña Itzel, who argue incessantly because the grandmother is angry her son married a non-Mayan, and doña Itzel is determined that Júbilo grow up connected to his heritage. Though the two women may say cruel things to each other, Júbilo gives each woman what she needs to hear, a skill he hones as a little boy that serves him well when he becomes a telegraph operator in adulthood.At age fifteen Júbilo meets thirteen-year-old Lucha from a well-to-do family. Engaging in a slow, chaste relationship for seven years, the couple decide to get married. Passionate sexual creatures, Júbilo and Lucha communicate their love physically and frequently. Esquivel uses magical realism to tune Júbilo into frequencies that help him communicate verbally and with his body when he’s with his wife. Abandoning his dream to become a singer, Júbilo becomes a telegraph operator to support his young family. In the era before telephone services, interpreting Morse code messages for villagers and rich landowners alike puts Júbilo at the center of many lives as his own slowly falls apart. Lucha, the daughter of a wealthy family, is distressed by their relative poverty and her inability to conceive again after their first child, Raul, is born. Júbilo does the best he can, but his weakness for alcohol gets the better of him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_(Majfud_novel)" title="Crisis (Majfud novel)">
This novel focuses on Latin-American immigrants’ drama in the US, particularly undocumented experiences. In a deeper sense, "Crisis" talks about the universal experiences of people getting away from a geographical region, evidently seeking a better way of life but in truth, running away, escaping from realism distinguished as unjust but solved rarely by moving to another place.Escaping, moving, and missing persons are like regular characters in the novel of Jorge Majfud, which record their courses to their own identity’s discovery in various situations and realities. The characters within the novel encounter obstacles in terms of cultural, economic and moral cruelties as unavoidable factors of their experiences – as existential and social living beings.According to the author Alberto García-Teresa, "Crisis" “is formed by the juxtaposition of fragments from different stories, headed with the date, place (different towns in the USA located close to the southern borders) and the value of the Dow Jones Index. [...] At the same time, the multiplicity of cities in which we can find (apparently) the same characters, works as a hint about the wandering life of undocumented immigrants. In this way we obtain a novel with a collective main character in which we have no loss of individuality. "Crisis" turns out as a moving book, representing a hard story, full of injustice, pain and abuse of authority. The author explores the fears, dreams and hopes of the immigrants through representative scenes, with a great symbolic and metonymic value, happening to a specific character, even though they could also happen to any other. In fact, the dislocation works well to globalize the event, since it is possible for them to happen in one same place like in any other. On the one hand, it plays with diverse kinds of narrator and focuses on the different spheres involved: migrants, family members, mafias, employers, and local workers. [...] Majfud shows a great success using this kind of construction in his novel, as he fosters his discourse targets and, by itself, the structure adds content in the same direction. As a result, it is a very rich work, in which tens of characters wander and try to survive in a world governed by a ruthless economic system. This way, the bright denunciation of Majfud appeals to dignity and humanism in a bitter and discouraging story.”
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revival_(novel)" title="Revival (novel)">
When Charles Jacobs, a new Methodist minister, comes to town, young Jamie Morton is excited. Almost everyone in the tiny Maine hamlet comes to love Jacobs, his beautiful wife, and his young son. Jacobs runs weekly Ministry Youth Fellowship sessions for the town’s children where he shares his interest in electricity and inventions with them, his wife plays music for them and they play with his young son Morrie (although Jamie is clearly favored over all the other children by Jacobs). When Jamie’s older brother, Conrad, also known as "Con", is injured in a skiing accident, leaving him unable to speak and causing distress in the family due the costs of treatment, Jacobs asks Jamie to bring him over as he may be able to help him. When Jamie and his older sister Claire do so, Jacobs places a low-voltage belt around Con’s neck and to everyone’s amazement, Con is able to speak again almost immediately.Things change all too suddenly when Mrs. Jacobs and her child die in a gruesome auto accident. Stricken with grief, the reverend denounces God and religion during a sermon and is banished from town. Jamie, devastated that Jacobs will be leaving, goes to see him before he leaves town, where he thanks him for what he did for Con but Jacobs claims it was purely a placebo effect.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fire_Chronicle" title="The Fire Chronicle">
After the tumultuous events of last winter, protagonists Kate, Michael, and Emma long to continue the hunt for their missing parents. But they are soon discovered by their enemies, and a frantic chase sends Kate a hundred years into the past, where the various non-human sapients (Dwarves, Elves, Giants, Dragons, Trolls, etc.) are in preparation to create a parallel reality in which to hide from the Industrial Revolution. While searching for a way back to her brother and sister, she befriends 'Rafe', the innocent younger edition of the supreme antagonist 'Dire Magnus. Meanwhile, Michael and Emma set off to find the second of the Books of Beginning (the eponymous 'Fire Chronicle', which enables its user either to revive the dead, or to restore an individual's sense of purpose) which they ultimately win from the Dire Magnus' subordinates with the help of an Elvish colony. Meanwhile, as Kate spends time with Rafe, she gradually falls in love with him, and ultimately dies to save him despite knowing that he is going to be the next version of the Dire Magnus. The Dire Magnus then offers Rafe the chance to save Kate's life in return that he take his place as the new Dire Magnus, which Rafe accepts. He gives himself to the Dire Magnus in order for her to be saved and in doing so helped by sending her to the future (or the present) for her to be saved by her brother. With the help of the Fire Chronicle, Michael is able to revive Kate back to life but unfortunately learns that Emma has been kidnapped by Rourke, one of the Dire Magnus's most trusted subordinates.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canto_for_a_Gypsy" title="Canto for a Gypsy">
The priceless Royal Crown of Hungary was on display in St Patrick's Cathedral in New York. Everybody wants the legendary crown of Saint Stephen for their own reasons. For the Hungarian government it is a symbol of their national greatness. Exiled rebels want it to rob the Communists of their pleasure, while an ex-Nazi art plunderer wants it to settle a very old score. Guarded by many, including the NYPD and the gypsy, Roman Grey, a heist was impossible. But it happened, and murder, mayhem and all hell broke loose... and only Grey knows the crown's true centuries old secret.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_Day" title="Mama Day">
"Mama Day" centers around the characters George and Cocoa. Cocoa, whose real name is Ophelia, is a young southern woman living in New York who is still deeply connected to her family and ancestry, even though her family's history is fraught with pain and tragedy. George grew up an orphan, overcoming a multitude of challenges in order to finally graduate from Columbia engineering school and co-found his own engineering company. Cocoa and George meet when Cocoa interviews for a job at George's firm. George is unable to hire Cocoa because the job starts immediately and she is obligated to visit Willow Springs every August to spend time with Mama Day and her family. Prior to returning to New York from her trip to Willow Springs, Cocoa writes a letter to George saying that she still wants the job. Mama Day intervenes and puts a mysterious substance on the envelope, which causes George to remember Cocoa and soon later recommend her to someone for another job. George and Cocoa begin to date and marry suddenly, but George doesn't visit Willow Springs with Cocoa for four years, during which time Cocoa never shares with him the more unusual and even supernatural aspects of Willow Springs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pagan_Christ" title="The Pagan Christ">
## Similarities between Christianity and pagan religions.Throughout the book, Harpur details stories and sayings in the New Testament which he claims also appear in ancient myths, particularly pointing out the similarities between Jesus and the Egyptian sun god Horus. He states that a number of pagan cultures in different regions and time periods drew on symbolic themes such as virgin birth, deity father, star in the east, raising of the dead, descent into hell, crucifixion, resurrection, and others. Harpur claims that virtually all words and actions attributed to Jesus in the gospels "originated thousands of years before." Although early church leaders such as Justin Martyr and St. Augustine reportedly acknowledged certain commonalities between pagan religions and Christianity, Harpur explains that the extent of these similarities was hidden until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Calling_(Sheridan_novel)" title="London Calling (Sheridan novel)">
Set in the post-war atmosphere of 1952, "London Calling" follows ex-Secret Service agent Mirabelle Bevan as she investigates the mystery of a missing debutante, wealthy eighteen-year-old Rose Bellamy Gore. Mirabelle is assisted once again by the upbeat Vesta Churchill as they explore an underworld of smoky nightclubs, jazz bars, and intriguing characters to gather information and seek answers. Detective Superintendent Alan McGregor keeps an eye on Mirabelle's activities as a fledgling romance blooms between the two.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Kontrabaß" title="Der Kontrabaß">
The play consists of an extended monologue delivered by a double bass player, who speaks to the audience in his small sound-proofed apartment while drinking beer. He is in his mid-thirties and is employed at a State Orchestra. At first he praises his instrument and its importance in the orchestra by telling anecdotes about its history and by actually playing it. With a considerable humour, he reveals more and more of his past and present rather than his current misery. He did not pick his instrument out of love and he never has company. He reveals too that once when his car broke down and stranded him and his instrument in the cold, he gave his coat to the bass, thereby adding to the image of a lonely man who realises that his performance is mediocre: The player dreams of chamber music, especially Schubert's Trout Quintet. He also dreams of approaching a young mezzo-soprano, Sarah, but fails to impress her by playing "eklatant schön" (strikingly beautifully). He imagines to win her attention by yelling her name at the festival premiere of Das Rheingold in the silence full of expectation before the soft beginning. When he leaves for the performance in concert dress, the end is open. The double bass is the largest instrument in the string family which means it is lowest pitched instrument.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_Belle_(Sheridan_novel)" title="Brighton Belle (Sheridan novel)">
Set in post-war 1951 Brighton, the plot follows bereaved ex-Secret Service agent Mirabelle Bevan whose work at a debt collection agency leads her to investigate a disappearance mystery with the help of insurance clerk Vesta Churchill. Along the way they discover murder, Nazi war criminals, betting scams, and counterfeit coins. Brighton Belle has been described as 'a cosy crime noir mystery'.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Edge_(Hinton_novel)" title="On the Edge (Hinton novel)">
Fifteen-year-old Dillon and his ten-year-old brother Robbie were home alone when Robbie received a telephone call from their father who they had not seen for two years after he beat up Dillon and his mother. Their father said he wanted to take them on holiday saying that their mother said it was OK despite his restraining order. Robbie was excited about the idea but Dillon was suspicious. Dad came round in a brand new 4x4 and dressed in his army gear. After talking to their father Dillon decided to go but left a note on his bed just in case.When they stopped at a motorway service station Dillon decided to call Mum’s boyfriend Andy as Mum left her mobile at home and he did not have her office number but Dad removed the battery and the SIM card from Dillon’s mobile and Robbie left his at home.When they arrived at Gardle Head they set up camp near the cliff top and slept in a hollow.In the morning after breakfast Dad set up two snares to catch rabbits for dinner then they went swimming and skipping stones on the beach. That evening Robbie was squeamish about eating the rabbit due to his vegetarianism but accepted the meat to please his Dad. When Dad sent Dillon to the car to get drinks he found the note he left for Mum which Dad had removed before they left and a shotgun in a black leather case.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Land_of_Pain" title="In the Land of Pain">
Daudet records observations, experiences, and aphorisms related to his intense suffering over the course of many years. He describes his symptoms in graphic detail and charts their progression. This begins with isolated attacks of agonising nerve pain, and eventually becomes a daily litany of pain and use of drugs like opium and chloral hydrate to fight it. He comments on the effect of his illness on family and friends, and on his outlook on life.He describes the different physical treatments he underwent, including being suspended in the air, diets, and a variety of injections. He also details his observations of fellow sufferers of the disease and his interactions with them. In his later years, he frequently spent time at sanitariums, becoming a celebrity among the other patients. He describes his time at these sanitariums in detail. Daudet stopped making these notes a few years before his death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golem_and_the_Jinni" title="The Golem and the Jinni">
In the Polish town of Konin at the end of the 19th century, a corrupt kabbalist named Yehudah Schaalman creates a golem in the shape of a woman at the request of young Otto Rotfeld, who seeks a submissive, attentive, and curious wife. Rotfeld dies during a subsequent sea voyage to New York City, leaving the newly awakened golem in an unfamiliar environment. A rabbi in New York takes in the golem and, naming her Chava, starts teaching her to pass as human among the diverse groups of people living in New York. Meanwhile, a tinsmith in New York's Little Syria accidentally frees a jinni from a flask in which he has been imprisoned for a millennium. With no memory of how he was subdued, the jinni is virtually powerless and trapped in human form. He takes the name Ahmad and apprentices with the tinsmith while searching for a way to return to his natural form.Chava and Ahmad eventually meet, recognizing each other as inhuman, and become friends, though they have different views on being inhuman while living in a human world. Chava seeks to be more human and fears losing control and exposing herself, whereas Ahmad holds a jaded view towards social restraints and engages in hedonistic pursuits. Chava and Ahmad's influence on the lives of the people around them comes to a climax as Chava's creator comes to New York, intent on finding the secret to eternal life. He is discovered to be a reincarnation of the evil sorcerer who trapped Ahmad.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmageddon_(book)" title="Farmageddon (book)">
The thesis examined in the book is that globalised production chains of industrialised agricultural systems negatively affect farmed animals, human health, the countryside, rivers and oceans, biodiversity in rainforests and many of the world's poorest people. The authors seek to shed light on the conditions in intensive agriculture which, according to them, often differ from the image that the industry wants to sell to the public. Intensification in animal farming goes along with a growing demand of cropland to grow animal feed – factory farming is thus not a means to save space. They argue consequently that to feed the world population factory farming is not the solution but a threat, not least since more than a third of the world's arable harvests are being used to supply farmed animals. According to the book the consumer price of cheap meat does not include the overall costs of industrial meat production.The reader follows Lymbery's journey from his start in California's Central Valley. There he finds dairies where 10,000 cows can be milked at once. He travels to enormous piggeries in China and visits the fishmeal industry of Peru, which converts millions of tonnes of anchovies to fishmeal for supplying the livestock industry with feed. In Taiwan he visits a farm (labelled "organic") where 300,000 laying hens are being starved and held in batteries. A visit is paid to the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia, US where he finds the marine ecosystem impacted by waste from the poultry industry. The author talks to a community in Mexico in an area dominated by pig sheds. There he documents a lake of effluent and air and water pollution, and discusses the outbreak of swine flu.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Polyester_Prince" title="The Polyester Prince">
"The Polyester Prince" chronicles Dhirubhai Ambani's life from childhood to founder of RIL following India's independence in 1947, and highlights how India's post-independence industry development was achieved by both fair and foul means.The first section of the book explores the events of Ambani's young adult life that influenced his understanding of business and developed his skillset that later went on to help him found RIL. This section explores how the mixture of Ambani's working experience as a young adult at trading companies along with post-independence India's changing business landscape lead to Ambani's debut in the wealthy social circles of India and rise in his power.The latter part of the book centers on Ambani's different business dealings, both successful and criticised as he founds and expands RIL. Throughout the book, McDonald describes the ethical costs associated with Ambani's management of the political environment using his status in wealthy social circles that included politicians, stock market speculators and more to path the way for RIL to become India's largest private-sector conglomerate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Verificationist" title="The Verificationist">
The Verificationist is set in early spring in an undisclosed New England city, at a pancake house where Tom—the novel's protagonist—has called together his fellow psychologists from the Krakower Institute for their biannual pancake supper. The conversations amongst the psychotherapists at these biannual pancake dinners are generally dedicated to “the seemingly everlasting task of reconciling classical metapsychology to our particular branch of Self/Other Friction Theory.” The narrative may be divided into three levels: what is happening in the diner, what is happening in Tom's "transient psychotic state", and what he imagines his wife, Jane, is doing at home.In the diner, the insecurities and neuroses of the psychotherapists in attendance are on display in their conversations, as interpreted by the relentlessly psychoanalyzing voice of the narrator. Tom attempts to start a food-fight, and the "patriarchal" Bernhardt lifts him into air, gripping him in a bear-hug. When Berhardt lifts Tom into the air, Tom experiences a sudden dissociative state, in which he imagines himself floating along the ceiling of the restaurant. Tom remains in this suspended state for the remainder of the novel.In Tom's "transient psychotic state" he is floating on the ceiling, with the obese Bernhardt trailing along behind him as a silent, psychologically symbolic patriarch. As the evening progresses, more of the characters join Tom and Bernhardt's hallucinatory flotilla: the waitress, the alcoholic Psychoanalyst Sherwin Lang, and the postdoctoral student who is in love with Lang. The question as to whether the hallucination Tom is having is a collective hallucination, shared by the other psychoanalysts, remains ambiguous throughout the narrative.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Arma_Escarlate" title="A Arma Escarlate">
The year is 1997, in the middle of an intense shootout, during one of the bloodiest eras of the Favela Santa Marta, a thirteen-years-old boy discovers he is a wizard.Sworn death by drug kingpins, Hugo escapes with only one goal in mind: learn enough magic to come back and confront the bandit who is threatening his family. In this learning process, however, he may end up discovering how much of bandit's is inside himself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Comedy_of_Charleroi" title="The Comedy of Charleroi">
So began the battle of Charleroi, Belgium, August 21, 1914, in the first month of the (not so) Great War. Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, a 21-year-old, inexperienced French officer, was at first exhilarated, a fighting man at last, and then chastened by a shrapnel wound. Returning to the lines weeks later he was wounded again. After recovering from that he and other French soldiers joined the British in the Dardanelles, from which he was evacuated with amoebic dysentery. Recovered from that he joined a regiment at the Battle of Verdun to be so seriously wounded he was removed from active service. This slender volume (212 p) of short-story/memoirs is his looking back at some of the events, the men he knew, the ideas and emotions that swept through him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(Weir_novel)" title="The Martian (Weir novel)">
In the year 2035, the crew of NASA's Ares 3 mission have arrived at Acidalia Planitia for a planned month-long stay on Mars. After only six sols, an intense dust and wind storm threatens to topple their Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), which would trap them on the planet. During the hurried evacuation, an antenna tears loose and impales astronaut Mark Watney, a botanist and engineer, also disabling his spacesuit radio. He is flung out of sight by the wind and presumed dead. As the MAV teeters dangerously, mission commander Melissa Lewis has no choice but to take off without completing the search for Watney.However, Watney is not dead. His injury proves relatively minor, but with no long-range radio, he cannot communicate with anyone. He must rely on his own resourcefulness to survive. He begins a log of his experiences. His philosophy is to "work the problem", solving each challenge in turn as it confronts him. With food a critical, though not immediate, problem, he begins growing potatoes in the crew's Martian habitat (the Hab), and burns hydrazine to generate water for the plants.NASA eventually discovers that Watney is alive when satellite images of the landing site show evidence of his activities; NASA personnel begin devising ways to rescue him, but withhold the news of his survival from the rest of the Ares 3 crew, on their way back to Earth aboard the "Hermes" spacecraft, so as not to distract them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitte_2" title="Mitte 2">
Jenny Epstein has attracted a stalker, Fridjof, who is madly in love with her. She asks bumbling writer Albrecht for help. They swap their cell phones and thereby trigger a series of catastrophes and accidents during which Albrecht manages to attract a stalker for himself. He meets Mikki's step-mother, a wealthy jazz musician. She decides to help him finance a musical production but under the condition that Mikki marries and returns to his former job as a lawyer. What she doesn't know is that Mikki's current love-interest is her arch-rival, Margaud, another jazz-singer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malice_(series)" title="Malice (series)">
The book begins with Luke and Heather at Luke's house with Luke trying to summon Tall Jake, a creature from another world called Malice. When Luke succeeds in summoning Tall Jake, his friends Seth and Kady go looking for him. Discovering the comic entitled Malice, an idea forms in Seth and Kady's minds: Malice is real. After some thought, Seth decides that the only way to find out the truth is to go into Malice itself. When Kady finds out that Seth went to Malice, she decides to do some investigating and finds out that she has been to Malice herself and that her mom, a professional hypnotist, hypnotized her with fake memories of being in San Francisco. She then goes to Malice and finds Seth and his newfound friend Justin.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elect_Mr._Robinson_for_a_Better_World" title="Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World">
As the novel opens, Pete Robinson is supervising the drawing and quartering of the town's mayor by four automobiles. We learn that Pete Robinson is an expert in the history of torture, with special emphasis on the inquisition, and that he was formerly an elementary schoolteacher before the local school system was entirely defunded. Pete's ambition to run for mayor after resurrecting the local educational system under his own administration—and the thwarting of this ambition—are major elements of the novel's plot. Other elements of the plot include Pete's thwarted attempts to bury pieces of the former Mayor's body in Egyptological rituals, and his wife Meredith's growing detachment as she becomes more involved in ichthyomorphic trances in which she transforms herself into a coelacanth, or ancient fish.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_a_Bengal_Lancer_(book)" title="The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (book)">
In 1905, Francis Yeats-Brown, then a young cavalryman, arrives in Bengal to serve in the 17th Bengal Lancers on the Northwest Frontier of British India. He quickly discovers that life in the presence of his fellow soldiers is anything but boring. When not on active duty, he spends his time riding horses around the countryside, hunting boars, smoking tobacco and studying Indian mysticism. He sees active service in France in 1914 and becomes a military air observer in Mesopotamia in 1915. He eventually becomes a prisoner of war of the Ottoman Empire and makes unsuccessful attempts at escape. Yeats-Brown returns to India in 1919, continues to serve in the Cavalry and continues to study Yoga. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Against_Venus" title="Five Against Venus">
After another boring day at Los Angeles High School, Bruce Robinson is delighted to hear that his long-unemployed father, Paul Robinson, has found a job – on the moon. A short time later the Robinson family boards the rocketship that will take them to meet the deep-space ship "Sirius", which will take them to the moon. But as they approach the disc-shaped deep-space ship they see that, instead of "Sirius", they will be riding the "Aurora" to the moon.Once the Robinsons have boarded the "Aurora" and settled in, Bruce meets Jim Gregor, who shows him the ship's controls. Bruce and Gregor then join the engineer and the captain (neither man is named in the story) in the cargo hold to move some boxes. When one of the boxes breaks open and reveals a strange-looking machine, the captain warns Bruce never to tell anyone what he saw.With the ship under way, Bruce develops a hunch that something has gone wrong. He sees that an emergency light has come on and informs Gregor. The pilot discovers that the ship's engines have been over-running and that the ship is on a course that will pass close to Venus (in the 1950 movie "Rocketship X-M" the over-running of the engines takes the lunar-bound ship to Mars). With insufficient propellant to return to Earth, Gregor attempts to make an emergency landing on a mountainside and dies in the crash. Prior to the crash, the captain and the engineer bail out in a rocket-propelled lifeboat.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_of_the_Sands" title="Secret of the Sands">
The novel is set in 1833, during a British naval survey of the coastline of the Arabian Peninsula. An ambitious Lieutenant James Wellstead's plans are thrown into disarray when two of his shipmates, Jones and Jessop, go missing in the desert while gathering intelligence and he has to carry out a daring rescue.Slavery is still rife throughout Arabia. Zena, a headstrong Abyssinian beauty who was torn from her village, is now being offered for sale as a slave in the market of Muscat. However, her fortunes change when she finds herself in the company of the lieutenant. She must accompany him on his hazardous mission, forced to make big choices, and little knowing the fate that awaits them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Culture_Officer" title="Chief Culture Officer">
In the book, McCracken recounts how corporations that successfully adapt to the cultural changes tend to prosper. His definition of culture begins with a distinction between fast and slow:"Fast culture is like all the boats on the surface of the Pacific. We can spot them, track them. Slow culture is everything beneath the surface: less well charted, much less visible"McCracken argues that when fast and slow culture meet, a convergent culture is created. He points to the preppy subculture as an example of a convergent culture that brands such as Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger have capitalized on. He also analyses the convergence of status, shifting from a class based value system to celebrity, and the cool convergence, an aesthetic that he states developed alongside the baby boomer generation.Changing relationships, McCracken argues, between consumers and producers have created new opportunities for brands to connect with culture. He observes that whilst only 1 in 100 people create content on the Internet, the creator consumer dynamic used to be "1 in 10,000". McCracken believes this change allows consumers to become an "active participant in the branding process". He refers to Converse's 2005 motto as an illustration of this change: "We don't own the brand. Consumers do"
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Life" title="Dark Life">
The world has been plunged underwater leaving very little land left above water. A teenage boy, Ty, has spent his entire life underwater helping his family farm their sea homestead. Ty meets a teenage girl, Gemma, from the land, who is looking for her brother. A group of sea bandits known as the "Seablite Gang" attacks Ty's homestead and he and Gemma try to capture the bandits. However, a member of the gang, Shade, turns out to be Gemma's brother. It also turns out that Shade, like Ty, has a "dark gift" that allows him to change his appearance, however Ty's dark gift is that he is able to use echo-location similar to a bat.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilation_(VanderMeer_novel)" title="Annihilation (VanderMeer novel)">
A team of four women (a fifth having abandoned the team before entering) crosses the border into an uninhabited area known as "Area X", an unspecified coastal location that has been closed to the public for three decades. The group comprise the 12th expedition into Area X, and consists of a biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a surveyor, none of whom are ever identified by name. The story is told through the biologist's field journal, written near the end of the expedition. It is revealed that the biologist's husband was part of the preceding 11th expedition, from which he had returned unexpectedly, showing up in their kitchen without any recollection of how he got there. The other members of the 11th expedition had shown up similarly, and a few months later, her husband and all the others had died of cancer.After the first night spent at the base camp, the 12th expedition comes upon a structure containing a set of spiral stairs descending into the ground. Inside the structure (which the biologist repeatedly calls a tower), along the staircase, they find cursive writing that begins with the words "Where lies the strangling fruit..." The words appear to be written with a plant material growing several inches from the exterior wall. While the biologist is examining the writing, she accidentally inhales spores from this material. After returning from the tower, the biologist discovers that the psychologist, who is the appointed leader, has programmed the group with certain triggers via hypnosis. By saying the phrase "consolidation of authority", the psychologist hypnotizes all except the biologist, who believes that the spores she has inhaled have made her resistant. The group decides to return to base camp, and at dusk, they hear a moaning noise from far away.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_of_the_Shadow_Bible" title="Saints of the Shadow Bible">
The investigations in the novel take place in February or March 2013 against the background of the dissolution of regional police forces as they are merged into Police Scotland. Malcolm Fox’s unit, the “Complaints,” is disappearing, and he undertakes an investigation on behalf of the Solicitor General in the hopes of finding a place in the new organization. DI Siobhan Clarke is stationed at Gayfield Square, but follows important cases to Torphichen and Wester Hailes police stations. John Rebus has succeeded in rejoining the CID, albeit as a Detective Sergeant instead of a Detective Inspector. He works with both Clarke and Fox, but is primarily investigating a long-defunct police station, Summerhall, where he was assigned in 1982 as a newly-minted detective. Also relevant to the cases is the upcoming 2014 Scottish independence referendum; a Justice Minister, whose death Clarke is investigating, is a figurehead for the Yes campaign, while Rebus’s Summerhall colleague Gilmour, Fox’s target, is a prominent No supporter. This recalls the 2000 Rebus novel, "Set in Darkness", set in the midst of the first elections to the new Scottish Parliament.Clarke and Rebus’s apparently trivial investigation of a university student’s car crash becomes complicated when the student’s boyfriend’s father, the Justice Minister, is found dead in his own home. Meanwhile, Rebus is invited by Fox to help with the opening of a very cold case involving the Summerhall policemen, who called themselves “Saints of the Shadow Bible.” The surviving Saints want Rebus to ensure that Fox does not disrupt their lives; Fox hopes Rebus will implicate himself; Rebus wants to find out more about the secrets he only glimpsed thirty years earlier. Rebus ends up using his confrontational techniques (intimidation and threats, recruiting snitches, bargaining with gangsters) to assist both Clarke and Fox. The three detectives come to respect each other. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Minister_of_Chance" title="The Minister of Chance">
In a world far from our own, Ambassador Durian of Sezuan (Paul McGann) is dispatched on a peace mission to the primitive island nation of Tanto, but things take a turn for the very, very sinister. In a nearby Inn, a mysterious stranger (Julian Wadham as the titular Minister) appears, then disappears through a miraculous portal in the forest (he “knows the formula for doors”). The inquisitive teenage barmaid, Kitty (Lauren Crace) follows him, with no shoes and only her superhuman strength to keep her company. Another world awaits, where they will be forced into an alliance to save the Universe, and beyond.Another world: Kitty is a barmaid at the Traveller's Rest in the occupied city of Tantillion. One night, a stranger walks in, and through a door and over the Frost Bridge between worlds - and Kitty follows him.“I know the formula for doors,” says the Minister, vanishing through the one he has just created in mid air. Teenage barmaid Kitty isn’t the sort to be dismissed easily, though. Armed only with her bad attitude, foul mouth and mysterious strength, she follows him through the glowing doorway, onto the frost bridge between worlds, and into adventure.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truly_Madly_Deeply_(novel)" title="Truly Madly Deeply (novel)">
After moving to Philadelphia from Mumbai, India, teen Rahul Kapoor has difficulty coping with what seems to be the loss of a loved one. Upon enrolling into Delaware Valley High School, Rahul is introduced to Sahil, an American born Indian who is assigned the task of familiarizing Rahul with his new schooling.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Death_of_Honor" title="A Death of Honor">
The novel is set in a crumbling 21st-century America. D. A. Payne, a bioengineer, is the prime suspect when a dead woman turns up in his apartment. He takes on the task of clearing himself but what he uncovers changes his life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Careful_What_You_Wish_For_(Archer_novel)" title="Be Careful What You Wish For (Archer novel)">
"Be Careful What You Wish For" follows the Barrington-Clifton family during the years 1957 to 1964, when Emma Barrington Clifton seeks to take control of her family shipping business and must deal with conspiracies and sabotage. Don Pedro Martinez tries to get his own candidate to lead the company, and Yorkshire banker Cedric Hardcastle joins the board.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She's_All_the_World_to_Me" title="She's All the World to Me">
Danny Fayle, a young fisherman in Peel, is too shy to make much of his love for Mona Cregeen, a skilled machinist at the town's net factory. Mona lives with her mother and apparent young sister, Ruby, having moved to Peel from elsewhere on the island not long before. Mona has had a secret relationship with Christian Mylrea, the son of the well-respected MHK, Harbour Commissioner and magistrate, Evan Mylrea "Balladhoo". Mona and Christian keep their connection a secret as he tries to keep the debt incurred during his lax life in England from becoming known to his father. In order to try and pay off the debt, Christian falls in with the crew of Danny Fayle's boat who, independently of Danny, plan to wreck a boat on the rocks off Peel Castle. The plot is thwarted by the police but, for the sake of Christian's freedom, Mona enables the men to escape arrest. However, their boat becomes stuck on rocks during a storm and Danny Fayle eventually risks his life in order to save Christian and deliver him to Mona.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temptation_of_Elminster" title="The Temptation of Elminster">
The "Temptation of Elminster" moves the time line ahead several centuries. At the outset of the novel, Elminster emerges from a dusty tomb, after being trapped there in stasis for many years.During much of this book, as under orders from Mystra, Elminster restricts his use of magic, and he must again learn to survive by his wits and the skills he picked up earlier in his life. He later undergoes further magical training under the tutelage of a wicked sorceress who seeks to tempt him away from Mystra's path.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elminster_In_Hell" title="Elminster In Hell">
Elminster attempts to close a planar rift which connects Toril to Avernus of the Nine Hells, to prevent devils from invading, but he is captured and tortured by the outcast archdevil Nergal until Mystra sends her most powerful agents to rescue him.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elminster_Enraged" title="Elminster Enraged">
Elminster battles Manshoon despite Mystra's wishes that they work together. The battle causes Elminster to fall into the Underdark as a cloud of ashes, and he inhabits the body of a fallen drow to carry out Mystra's orders. Manshoon plans to conquer Cormyr and become its emperor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Man_with_a_Pistol" title="Blind Man with a Pistol">
It is summertime in the city of Harlem and Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones are both trying to keep peace in the city. They pursue two different cases in an attempt to keep the city from tearing itself apart. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Ring" title="Infinity Ring">
## "A Mutiny in Time"."A Mutiny in Time" is the first book in the series. It was written by James Dashner.To gain power and influence, a secret society known as the SQ has changed many things about time, so history is dramatically different than ours. Those changes, or "breaks," have also caused many problems, including increasingly intense natural disasters and civil unrest. The SQ also manipulates every government's actions. Dak's parents, both scientists, have developed a time machine with financing and monitoring from the Hystorians, a secret group, founded by Aristotle, which works against the SQ and has been preparing to go back in time to fix the changes.One day, Dak, Sera, and their class goes to the Smithsonian Museum. As Dak soaks in everything, Sera is bored with the history. Suddenly, an earthquake rocks the building, nearly causing a Viking longship to fall on Dak and Sera. After the disaster, Sera experiences a Remnant, a feeling that something different would have happened if time hadn't been changed. After she goes to Dak to share it, he allows her to enter his parents' lab. Sera completes the Infinity Ring, a device that allows time travel. However, their parents' first attempt at time traveling fails, getting them lost in the time stream. Soon after that, a dozen Hystorians disguised as SQ members storm Dak's parent's lab. When Brint and Mari, the Hystorians' current leaders, introduce Dak and Sera to the Hystorians, only Riq stands out. He is far younger than everyone else, with dark skin and eyes. He also knows sixteen languages and is 16 years old. Shortly after that, the SQ storms the compound and Dak, Sera, and Riq escape by using the Infinity Ring and decide to go back in time to fix the changes themselves.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monk_Who_Sold_His_Ferrari" title="The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari">
The book develops around two characters, Julian Mantle and his best friend John, in the form of conversation. Julian narrates his spiritual experiences during a Himalayan journey which he undertook after selling his holiday home and red Ferrari.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_with_Boys" title="Friends with Boys">
All of her life Maggie has been homeschooled, so when the time comes for her to attend public high school she is understandably nervous. Her many brothers have adapted to public school with few problems, but Maggie can't help but feel a little like a fish out of water. She manages to make friends with Lucy, but Maggie has other problems. Namely the silent ghost who is supposedly the widow of the captain of the "Reaper" that has constantly followed Maggie around since she was a little girl.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authority_(novel)" title="Authority (novel)">
John "Control" Rodriguez takes over as the new director of the Southern Reach, a government agency formed to manage a coastal region named Area X. The public is led to believe that the region suffered an environmental disaster and is isolated for safety; in truth the region has been taken over by an unknown force that is changing the environs and ecosystem behind a largely impenetrable "border". He is a secret operative assigned by the mysterious Central group which oversees the Southern Reach. He comes from a family of operatives: his mother and grandfather are prominent and influential members. Control reports to a handler called "the Voice" at Central over phone calls and e-mail.In his role as director, Control frequently encounters friction with the existing staff to various degrees: in particular, the assistant director Grace Stevenson, who seems to have an emotional attachment to his predecessor. Control methodically sifts through the accumulated data (interviews, photos, videos) and discovers that there have been many more expeditions into Area X than have been disclosed to the public. The all-male 11th expedition alone had multiple iterations with slightly different control factors similar to a lab experiment, leading to the formation of an all-female 12th expedition to see how this composition would interact with Area X. The 12th expedition's biologist was the protagonist of the previous novel, and the expedition's psychologist was in fact the previous director of the Southern Reach (whom he replaced), a fact that she did not reveal to the other members of the expedition.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_(novel)" title="Acceptance (novel)">
"Acceptance" jumps around in time and between the perspectives of several characters from the first two novels in the Southern Reach Trilogy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eve_&amp;_Adam" title="Eve &amp; Adam">
After being in a car accident, Evening (Eve) is recovering in her mother's research facility, and is suffering from boredom. She is given the task of creating the perfect boy, Adam, by using detailed simulation technologies to be able to bring him to life. Along the way, she is both helped and hindered by Solo, a boy who has been living at the Biotech facility for years and knows many of its secrets."Love Sucks and then You Die" is a short story prequel to Eve &amp; Adam.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkspell" title="Darkspell">
Rhodry is sent into exile by his brother Rhys, the Gwerbret of Aberwyn, and becomes a mercenary soldier called a “silver dagger.” Jill goes with him; they become involved in a dark dweomerman’s plot to steal the Great Stone of the West, a magical gemstone which guides the conscience of Deverry’s king.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Ligovskaya" title="Princess Ligovskaya">
The Guards officer Pechorin meets his former beau Vera Ligovskaya (now married to a pompous and vain man, Prince Ligovskoy), finds his love is not entirely dead and sees she is struggling with similar feelings. A parallel sub-plot deals with the hero's conflict with Krasinsky, a minor official from an impoverished noble family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_sombra_de_Heidegger" title="La sombra de Heidegger">
Dieter Müller wrote his letter in 1948. It was intended to be read by his son, Martin Müller, with the objective of helping him to understand certain aspects of the decisions he made in his life. He tries to answer why he was affiliated to the Nazi Party, and why it is a must for Martin to read "Sein und Zeit".In this line, it is explained that Müller was particularly engaged with Heidegger's ontology, and this is why he focuses his historical analysis in the notion of authenticity. Thus, he shows a major comprehension of the concept of Dasein.Müller explains in detail some facets of Heidegger's life. He gave an account of Heidegger's emotional engagement with Hannah Arendt, and how this relationship was perceived by SA members, specially by a Müller's friend who was in love with Arendt. It did not make sense for Nazi Party members due to the Jewish condition of Arendt. He also argues that 1933 Heidegger became Rektor of the University of Freiburg owing to the aid of the SA and specially that of its co-founder and leader, Ernest Rohm. Müller explains that he obtained his Nazi Party membership right after hearing Heidegger's inaugural address, known in English as "The Self-assertion of the German University".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_The_Wolves_I'm_Home" title="Tell The Wolves I'm Home">
June Elbus is a 14-year-old girl living in Westchester, New York in 1986. She is in love with her gay uncle, Finn Weiss, a fact she is scared to admit even to herself. Finn is dying of AIDS. Being a professional painter, he asks June and her elder sister Greta to sit for a portrait, which he completes a few days before his death. At his funeral, June notices a stranger hanging around. She learns that he is Finn's boyfriend, Toby. She is warned against him by her family, particularly her mother, who forbids June from having any contact with him.One day Toby delivers a message to June, asking her to meet him at a train station nearby. Although initially hesitant, she decides to meet him. They ride to Finn's apartment, where Toby now lives alone. He gives her some of Finn's possessions, which he left behind for her. One of these include a book with a message to June from Finn, asking her to take care of Toby, as he had nobody else.Meanwhile, the media learns of the portrait, which Finn named "Tell the Wolves I'm Home". Recognizing its monetary value, June's mother moves it to a bank vault and gives the keys to June and Greta. June visits it often, and notices there are additions to the painting: black buttons on her shirt and a skull behind Greta's hand, which she realizes is drawn by Greta herself. June too paints on the portrait, adding streaks of golden to their hair.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsiders_(Taiwanese_TV_series)" title="The Outsiders (Taiwanese TV series)">
Three sworn brothers, Yu Hao (Dylan Kuo), Shan Zi (Blue Lan), and Yang Xiong Qi (Michael Zhang), that are delinquents, grew up together fighting local neighborhood rivals. Although they are not triad gangs, they make enemies with them when they offend some of their members. Yu Hao who is considered the leader of the three falls for good girl Xiao Yan Zi (Ady An). Yan Zi comes from a well to do family and has been taking piano lessons since she was young hoping to become a pianist. Yan Zi runs into a bloodied Yu Hao in the streets and saves him. Yu Hao, who has always been in love with Yan Zi, uses this chance encounter between the two to break the ice and chase after Yan Zi but the three sworn brothers end up joining triad gangs when they have to protect Yan Zi.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play_Their_Hearts_Out" title="Play Their Hearts Out">
Published by Ballantine Books, Dohrmann's first book was the result of more than eight years of investigative work. Joe Keller, the coach Dohrmann tracked over those eight years, was a grassroots basketball coach in the Inland Empire in the mid-1990s when he discovered a young Tyson Chandler. Keller and his wife committed most of their time to the team and taking care of Chandler, but Keller stepped back from coaching when his wife suffered a miscarriage. Returning to coaching a few years later, Keller saw that it would be difficult to break into the high school ranks again, so he put together a team that he could coach from elementary through high school, identifying Demetrius Walker as his star player.Keller essentially became Walker's guardian as he assembled a team around him, the Inland Stars, who quickly dominated teams from around the West Coast thanks to Walker's size and low-post presence — including a dominating 67-point win over a Seattle team led by a young Peyton Siva. However, Keller's coaching deficiencies — a short fuse, a reliance on a gimmicky trap defense nicknamed Fist, and a refusal to adjust the team's offense when defenses zeroed in on Walker — meant the team lost in major national tournaments early on. In an infamous moment, Keller missed the birth of his daughter in 2003 while the team played in the national tournament in Georgia but failed to win it all.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_a_Father" title="Raising a Father">
Sen's story starts the day after September 11 and the destruction of the World Trade Center. Forced to take the next day off work, Sen takes advantage of the free time to ask his daughter what she thinks of their relationship and she says, "not good." Challenged, Sen asks her to explain, and she says that he does not really know her. She gives him a three-question quiz: "Who is my best friend?" "What is my favorite restaurant?" "What is the best thing you and I have ever done?" Sen got all three answers wrong. The results of that conversation launched him on a journey of befriending his daughter and becoming a more thoughtful, better parent. He quit his job as Vice President of Marketing and started a home-based business that would allow him to invest more time and attention in his daughter. Sen notes that he did not want to become one of those parents who get two duty telephone calls a year.The memoir devotes some space to reminiscing about Sen's own childhood in India and the lessons he learned from his paternal grandmother. His grandmother's strict discipline and commitment to his education inspire him in his raising of his own daughter. One day, Sen who was born into the Hindu faith, finds himself wondering about religion. To his surprise, his grandmother does not forcefully advocate for Hinduism. She describes it as a "way of life" rather than a religion. Everyone must find the religion and way of life that suits him, she says. In reviewing his performance as a father, Sen refers back to his own childhood and the example set to him by his own grandmother. The memoir moves on to Sen's immigration to the United States. He arrived in 1988 with US $320. Fifteen years later, he was widely regarded as an important voice in the world of restaurant marketing. From here, the book comes back around to Sen's moment of awareness that he did not know his daughter well enough.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angry_Blonde" title="Angry Blonde">
In the book Eminem comments on songs that he wrote, almost solely on those that have received controversy for explicit lyrics. The songs' lyrics are listed in the work uncensored (leading to the book being sold with a Parental Advisory sticker), with Eminem's personal take on each one. Songs listed in the book include "Kim", "The Way I Am" and "The Real Slim Shady".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dire_Earth_Cycle" title="The Dire Earth Cycle">
## "The Darwin Elevator".The first novel is set years after a plague has afflicted most of the Earth's population, dubbed "subs" (as the disease turns people into zombie-like sub-humans). The others comprise the rare "immunes" and the refugees inhabiting the "aura" safe zone around the space elevator.Humanity exists as refugees in Darwin or as technological space dwellers, who occupy space stations and space farms constructed around the elevator. They live a fragile coexistence: Darwin exports air and water for the space stations, and the space farms feed the ground population.The lead character, Captain Skyler Luiken, an immune, heads a team of immune scavengers who can survive outside the aura where they battle sub-humans while collecting items of value to trade, or repair the aging elevator complex and space stations. Skyler and the crew become entangled in the political plots and power games of Russell Blackfield, the head of the Nighcliff elevator base, and Neil Platz, "owner" of the space stations. As the aura protection begins to fail, Platz and scientist Dr. Tania Sharma discover that another Builders vessel is due to arrive.Skyler eventually gets to the bottom of the aura failure but is unable to stop Blackfield from assaulting the space facilities. The novel ends in a cliffhanger: as the new Builders vessel has established another space elevator in South America, the characters escape from the Nightcliff coup by relocating some space stations to the new elevator, where they find things are very different.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Overboard_(book)" title="Man Overboard (book)">
Champagne, a construction developer, disappeared in 1982 while aboard a 45-foot yacht that was sailing off the Olympic Peninsula. He was presumed dead after a 13-hour search by the U.S. Coast Guard.A $1.5 million life-insurance business policy, taken out by his brother as co-partner in a construction firm with Champagne, paid out $700,000 to his grieving family.After the accident when Champagne realized everyone thought he had drowned, he stole the identity of Harold Stegeman, an 8-year-old boy who died in 1945. Champagne lived as Stegeman, a Washington restaurateur, for the next 10 years until his arrest for counterfeiting US currency in an Idaho garage. Champagne pleaded guilty to giving false statements during a bankruptcy hearing, a loan application and passport application. In addition, he served 21 months in federal prison for charges of counterfeiting and passport fraud.Barer, an Edgar Award winner, profiles Champagne in "Man Overboard", republished by Wild Blue Press in a 20th Anniversary Special Edition featuring a new preface by the author, a new afterword by Phil Champagne and several new photographs. Wild Blue Press also made available audiobook and electronic editions. The first page of the book includes a synopsis of how the new identity began:"Phil Champagne died Aug. 31, 1982, in a tragic boating accident off Lopez Island, Washington. He was 52. Champagne was survived by his wife of 28 years, four grown children, an octogenarian mother and two despondent brothers. Phil didn’t know he was dead until he read it in the paper. All things considered, he took it pretty well."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Office_of_Mercy" title="The Office of Mercy">
A post-apocalyptic America is left peopled by those who inhabit emotionally controlled high-tech underground settlements such as America-Five, and wild, emotionally fierce people of the Tribes. Natasha Wiley works in America-Five's Department of Mercy, where she tracks tribespeople above ground for extermination or "mercy".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalina_(novel)" title="Catalina (novel)">
Catalina is a crippled girl, supposedly cured by divine intervention after witnessing a vision of the Virgin Mary. As a result she is pressured into becoming a nun in a Carmelite convent. The Bishop of Segovia, himself undergoing a crisis of faith, becomes involved in the debate about the debt owed to God by Catalina for her cure. Catalina resists all attempts at control, being determined to marry the man she loves. She joins a troupe of strolling players and becomes the most famous actress in all of Spain.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Eagle_(novel)" title="Blood Eagle (novel)">
Two women die horrific deaths, the manner is clearly ritualistic. The murderer writes emails to Hamburg Police's Kriminalhauptkommissar Jan Fabel. But what begins as a hunt for an elusive serial-killer, turns darker and more twisted as Fabel and his team uncover the Blood Eagle ritual, political intrigue, murky Nazi connections, undercover cops and a Ukrainian crime lord who is about to violently take complete control of Hamburg.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raiders_of_the_Nile" title="Raiders of the Nile">
It is the year 88 BC. The young Gordianus is living in Alexandria with his beloved slave Bethesda. When Bethesda disappears, he learns that she has been kidnapped by bandits, and must set out on a dangerous journey into the Nile Delta, accompanied only by the young slave boy Djet. There he ends up having to join the criminal gang known as The Cuckoo's Nest, led by the young but charismatic Artemon. And must go with them back to Alexandria to help Artemon steal the golden sarcophagus of Alexander the Great while the city is erupting in violence around them.The story is set against the backdrop of the struggle between the brothers Ptolemy X Alexander and Ptolemy IX Lathyros over the throne of Egypt, as well as the struggle between Rome and Mithridates.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Wanderer" title="The Night Wanderer">
Sixteen-year-old Anishinaabe teen Tiffany Hunter struggles to adjust after her mother, Claudia, abandons the family to go live with a white man. The one bright spot in Tiffany's life is her recent relationship with Tony. Tiffany and Tony's relationship is made difficult by the fact that he is white and lives in the wealthier suburb of Baymeadow while she and the majority of her friends live on Otter Lake, a poor reserve. He also begins to use her status card in order to not pay sales tax. Tiffany's friends warn her that he may be using her for her card, but Tiffany is reassured when she asks him to stop asking her to use it and he does.Meanwhile, her father Keith, who has been struggling financially since the departure of his wife, decides to try to rent out a room in the Hunter home. It is taken almost immediately by a man who calls himself Pierre L’Errant and who claims to be from Europe and keeps strange habits, insisting on staying in the basement room where there are no windows and sleeping all day. Pierre is Anishinaabe and lived in a village in the same location as Otter Lake hundreds of years ago, but tells Keith that he has two great-grandparents who immigrated to Europe during World War I in order to stave off questions. Finally back in the land of his birth, Pierre reflects back on his childhood as a boy named Owl who ran away with French fur traders to France. Once there he was brought to live with the French king as a member of his court. After contracting measles he was on the verge of death when he a man came through his window and exchanged blood with him turning him into a vampire.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serena_(novel)" title="Serena (novel)">
The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton travel from Boston to the North Carolina mountains where they plan to create a timber empire. George has already lived in the camp long enough to father an illegitimate child by young Rachel Harmon but Serena is new to the mountains. Upon stepping off the train in Waynesville, George is confronted by Rachel's father, Abe Harmon, who is angry that George has abandoned his daughter. Abe attacks George with bowie knife. Ultimately George wins the battle and kills Abe. George also meets his business partners Wilkie and Buchanan at the train station and introduces them to his new wife, Serena.Serena will soon show herself to be the equal of any man, overseeing crews, hunting rattlesnakes, even saving her husband's life in the wilderness. Together, the Pembertons ruthlessly kill or vanquish all who fall out of favor. Meanwhile, Rachel Harmon struggles to take care of her son, Jacob. When Serena learns that she will never bear a child, she sets out to murder the son George fathered without her. Mother and child begin a struggle for their lives, and when Serena suspects George is protecting his illegitimate family, the Pembertons' intense, passionate marriage starts to unravel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cove_(novel)" title="The Cove (novel)">
## Part One (Ch. 1–5).The novel takes place in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina in 1918. Laurel Shelton lives in the cove with her brother Hank, who has just returned home from fighting in World War I and is missing a hand. Laurel stumbles, unnoticed, upon a man sitting alone in the woods playing a flute. A visit by Laurel to her parents' graves reveal that she and her brother are both orphans; their deaths contributed to the local belief that Laurel is a witch.Laurel is cruelly treated by the locals, especially when Jubel Parton had sex with on a bet. When Laurel again spots the man in the woods, she stops to listen to his music and notes its sadness before heading into the nearest town with Hank and Slidell. An incident in town prompts Laurel to tell her brother about Jubel, and Hank gets into a fight with him. His friend, Chauncey Feith, the town's army recruiter, breaks up the fight and the trio returns home.Meanwhile, Walter Smith, a man who has just escaped some sort of camp, wanders to the cove and stays for three days to heal. On the fourth day he intends to leave, but he suddenly slips and falls and is attacked by a swarm of yellow jackets. He begins to hallucinate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_at_the_River" title="Saints at the River">
The story begins with a brief prologue description of a 12-year-old girl drowning in the Tamassee River, the boundary between Georgia and South Carolina. From then on, the story is told from the point of view of Maggie Glenn, a 28-year-old photographer for "The Messenger" newspaper assigned to cover the story.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Messenger" title="Ghost Messenger">
THEIR WORLD. HIS BATTLE.In the World of Death, beings beyond the sight of mortal humans use advanced technology to control the life and death of all living kind on Earth. When a mortal's time has come, their spirit is summoned to join the ranks of the Dead. Some restless spirits refuse to follow these orders and remain among the physical realm, and that's when the Ghost Messengers are called into action. Ghost Messengers are ‘in-between’ beings who can travel freely between the worlds of the dead and the living and are supplied with the technology to capture rogue spirits and bring them to the World of Death. While on a spirit-retrieval mission, Kang-Lim, a particularly powerful Ghost Messenger, mistakenly becomes trapped in his own Soul Phone – the device used by the Messengers to capture ghosts – and is discovered by a human boy with extraordinary psychic powers that allows him to see spirits. When an unknown force begins unleashing mythological demons to disrupt the strict balance of the lands of the dead and the living, a bond is formed between Kang-Lim and the human boy, known as ‘Little Kang-Lim’, and they join forces in an effort to retain order as the world becomes increasingly unstable.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_of_Trial" title="Time of Trial">
The novel is a third person narrative, mainly centring on the thoughts and experiences of Margaret Pargeter. The Pargeters live on Holly Lane, near St Paul's Cathedral, where they have a bookshop. Robert Kerridge lodges with them while studying medicine. Though poor for gentlefolk, they have a comfortable life compared to many of their neighbours. The bookseller has somewhat radical views and stocks such controversial works as "The Rights of Man", which Margaret often feels impelled to hide from customers. Her brother John, who does not share his father's principles, loathes the bookshop and hopes to join the army.The crisis of the novel is precipitated by a neglected tenement's collapse, which kills all the families who lived there. Inspired by the tragedy, Mr. Pargeter writes and distributes a pamphlet called "The New Jerusalem" in which he describes his vision of an ideal society. The rich object to his plan to hand over all property to the parishes to be administered for the good of all. He is arrested and found guilty of libelling the landlords and preaching sedition. The poor, on the other hand, object to his plan to prevent children under 14 from working, which they see as likely to make poor families poorer. While he is awaiting trial, a mob attacks his shop and burns it to the ground.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Valley_of_Amazement" title="The Valley of Amazement">
In the first part of the story, Violet tells the story of growing up in Hidden Jade Path, a courtesan house in Shanghai that is run by her mother, an American woman named Lulu Minturn. Violet grows up unaware of who her father is and unsure of her mother's feelings for her.When the Qing dynasty falls in 1912, mother and daughter are separated and the young girl is sold to a rivaling courtesan house, where she is educated by an older girl, Magic Gourd, formerly of her mother's house. The two form a lifelong relationship through Violet's marriages to former clients. Her first marriage results in a child, Flora, who is taken from Violet as a result of an unlawful marriage.The second part of the story is told by the mother, who thinks the daughter is dead. She recalls her upbringing by remote parents in the US, her runaway with an unknown Chinese painter, and her struggle to be accepted as the mother of their two children.Violet is eventually reunited with her mother, and eventually also her daughter Flora.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_of_Light" title="Lies of Light">
"Lies of Light" is a novel in which a man is obsessed with accomplishing what he believes will be his greatest work.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkvision_(novel)" title="Darkvision (novel)">
"Darkvision" is a novel in which the sorceress Ususi runs away to the outside world that her people abandoned long ago, in search of relics they once possessed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_and_Honor_(novel)" title="Blood and Honor (novel)">
"Blood and Honor" is a novel in which a disgraced exile aims to save a noble house in the nation of Karrnath.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Binding_Stone" title="The Binding Stone">
"The Binding Stone" follows the stories of shifter Geth and human shaman Adolan as they join kalashtar psychic Dandra and Lieutenant Singe.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grieving_Tree" title="The Grieving Tree">
The group from the previous novel, "The Binding Stone", is joined by former Bonetree hunter Ashi and hobgoblin dirge singer Ekhaas.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_of_Wolves" title="Legacy of Wolves">
A string of grisly murders takes place in the city of Aruldusk, which Zoden the bard, Irulan Silverclaw the shifter, Andri Aeyliros the paladin and Greddark d'Kundarak the dwarf try to solve.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bound_by_Iron" title="Bound by Iron">
"Bound by Iron" is a novel in which the human priest Cimozjen, elf Minrah Penwright, and an emancipated warforged seek to find out who is behind a deadly plot.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circus_Is_Coming" title="The Circus Is Coming">
After an unusually sheltered upbringing by their old-fashioned and snobbish aunt, 11-year-old Santa and her 12-year-old brother Peter are faced with the prospect of separate orphanages when she dies. They set out to find their unknown Uncle Gus, who travels with Cob's Circus. They are surprised to find out that he is a clown and a trapeze artist. Gus is taken aback by their sudden appearance and is inclined to send them to the orphanages after all, but he is persuaded to let them stay with the circus for the season. They are fascinated by the life and work hard to fit in, Peter being drawn to the horses and Santa taking up acrobatics. They learn the truth about their family's origins in domestic service, and while it is a shock at first, soon they are glad not to have to live up to their aunt's aristocratic pretensions. They hear many tales of circus life as they travel around the country. At the end of the season, Gus agrees that they have earned a chance to stay with the circus.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akata_Witch" title="Akata Witch">
Twelve-year-old Sunny Nwazue was born in America yet lives in Nigeria. She is Black and albino. She is a great athlete, yet she can't go out in the sun to play soccer. Sunny then discovers that she has magical abilities, which makes her a "free agent" in the magical community called the Leopard People in West Africa. As a free agent, she needs to learn about the magical community. Soon her magical teachers connect her with three other magical students to become a quartet called a coven, which is a group of magical Leopard people assembled to pursue a purpose. The group is cultivated by leaders in the magical communities to try to capture a serial killer who also knows magic.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_(wordless_novel)" title="The Sun (wordless novel)">
An artist resembling Masereel rests his head on his desk beneath a blazing sun. From his head leaps a small male who, seeing the sun, sets out in pursuit of it, plummeting from the window in his attempt. Crowds of people try to divert him with sex and alcohol, but the little man persists in climbing trees, chimneys, church steeples, masts, and cranes. He climbs a staircase of clouds only to be burned by the sun, sending him hurtling back to the artist's desk, awakening the artist. The artist turns to the reader with a smile, tapping his head.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage_(book)" title="Northwest Passage (book)">
A book based on the well-known song "Northwest Passage" first sung by Stan Rogers in 1981, "Northwest Passage" tells a tale about the song and the facts behind it. The basis of the song and story is the fateful sea voyage made by John Franklin in 1845, which led to both his ships and his entire crew, as well as his life being lost.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_Roar!" title="Dinosaur Roar!">
The book features pictures of various different types of dinosaurs that are paired with rhyming text that discusses various different features and differences such as "weak vs strong" and "long vs short".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarachaar" title="Aarachaar">
The story is narrated from the perspective of Chetna Grddha Mullick, daughter of hangman Phanibhushan Grddha Mullick, whose family lives near Nimtala Ghat in Chitpur, Kolkata. Chetna lives with her father, mother, brother (Ramu da), grandmother (Thakuma) father's brother (whom she calls Kaku) and his wife (Kakima). She is twenty two years old, and had been an intelligent student, scoring distinction in her plus two. However, due to financial constraints, she does not study further. Her mother and Kakima sell tea to make ends meet at home. They live in poverty since the number of executions have only been decreasing in the last few decades. Meanwhile, Phanibhushan remains in significant media scrutiny because of his job, but he is very particular about not having Chetna's photograph in the public eye. This is because of what happened to his son, Ramu da, Chetna's older brother. Phanibhushan had been the hangman at the execution of Amartya Ghosh, who had murdered a Kolkata industrialist Chandresen Ghosh and his three children. Amartya Ghosh's parents came to Phanibhushan, begging to somehow prevent their son's execution. However, Phani is adamant that he cannot let his judgment get in the way of his profession, and refuses to listen to them. Two days after Amartya's execution, his father follows Ramu da, Phani's son, back from college and hacks his limbs. This leaves Phani's only son disabled and depressed. Phani, therefore, is keen that his daughter Chetna get a government job after his retirement since he has no one else who can take care of the family once he is gone. Phani takes great pride in his profession and the lineage of his family, which has for a long time been in this profession.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisterhood_Everlasting" title="Sisterhood Everlasting">
## Tibby Rollins.Ten years following the last sisterhood book, Tibby has moved to Australia with Brian and now has almost no contact with the three other girls. Soon after moving to Australia, Tibby learns that she is not only pregnant but she is also diagnosed with a terminal disease. Nearly two years after giving birth to her daughter, Bailey, she calls her friends together for one last trip to Greece. Disaster strikes when she suddenly dies in a swimming accident on the shores in Greece leaving her friends, Lena, Bridget, and Carmen, devastated, and with the belief that she committed suicide, they begin to questioning everything that they believe in.It is revealed through the novel that Tibby was suffering from Huntington's disease and aware that she was going to die, even though her death by drowning was an accident. When she invited the girls to Greece she was going to reveal this and give them letters to help them move on. It is later revealed that she discovered she had the disease when she found she was pregnant with her daughter Bailey whom she had with Brian. Her final gift to Lena, Carmen, and Bridget is willing them to move on and follow their hearts because life is too short to waste.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Must_Die" title="Dorothy Must Die">
Amy Gumm is a high school student living in Kansas and has a dismal life. She is bullied at school for her snarky demeanor, and is neglected by her substance-abusing mother. After her mother leaves to go to a party, Amy's trailer is caught in a tornado and transported to the Land of Oz, but is trapped in a canyon. She is rescued by a mysterious boy named Pete who tells her to go to the Emerald City. Amy, accompanied by her mother's pet rat, Star, and a punk Goth Munchkin named Indigo, learns Oz has been conquered by Dorothy Gale, now a power-hungry, self-proclaimed princess and dictator. Rescuing a crucified wingless flying monkey, Ollie, Amy encounters the Tin Woodman, Dorothy's grand inquisitor and protector, who arrests her and kills Indigo. Ollie flees and abandons them.Amy reunites with Pete, who claims to be a gardener in the royal palace and tells her she will be rescued. On the night of her "worse than death", Amy is rescued by Mombi, a member of a secret society called the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked, who wish to free Oz from Dorothy's control. The group includes Mombi, Grandma Gert, Glinda's twin sister Glamora, and several teenage warriors including a warlock named Nox who wishes to avenge his family and friends. The Order reveals they recruited Amy to train her in magic and then assassinate Dorothy. Amy agrees and is taught how to use magic by Gert, armed with an enchanted dagger (which Nox made her). The Order attempts to eliminate the Cowardly Lion, now a ravenous monster who absorbs the fear of others, but the attack fails, leading to Gert's death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cress_(novel)" title="Cress (novel)">
The novel begins with an introduction to Crescent "Cress" Moon Darnel, a sixteen-year-old girl living in a satellite in space that has been her prison for most of her life. She is contacted by Cinder, the main protagonist of the first novel, and her crew on Thorne's spaceship, the Rampion, through the D-COMM chip that had made Nainsi malfunction in the first book (she is the same girl that warned Cinder about Levana's ulterior motives of marrying Kai). After communicating with Cinder's crew, she asks them to rescue her from her satellite that she has been imprisoned on for seven years, which they say they will do. However, an unexpected visit from Thaumaturge Sybil Mira, who is Cress's guardian/captor, throws a wrench into the plans as she discovers Cress' intent to run and plans a trap for Cinder's crew. The trap results in the capture of Scarlet, the protagonist of the previous novel, and love interest of Wolf. Jacin Clay, a pilot who brought Sybil to Cress's satellite, decides to join Cinder's side, while the almost fatal wounding of Wolf renders him unconscious, and Sybil leaves Thorne and Cress to die after shutting down her satellite, making it hurtle toward Earth without a way to stop it. Meanwhile in Africa, Dr. Erland has discovered that Lunars are able to contract a mutated form of the letumosis virus which they had previously been immune to.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sixth_Man_(novel)" title="The Sixth Man (novel)">
Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are called to help Edgar Roy, an alleged serial killer awaiting trial. Roy faces almost certain conviction. Roy’s attorney, Sean’s friend and mentor Ted Bergin, is set to meet with King and Maxwell to help work the case. But their investigation is derailed when Sean and Michelle find Bergin murdered on a quiet highway in New England. King and Maxwell uncover a secret government program which uses analysts to examine the combined intelligence government channels and offer strategic advice. Roy was the top such analyst. King and Maxwell are aided by Roy's half sister, a former spy. The trio uncover a conspiracy by the Secretary of Homeland Security to shut down the program and have Roy executed. The novel ends with Michelle waking from a coma after the final battle and Sean realizing how much their relationship meant to him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblivion_(Power_of_Five)" title="Oblivion (Power of Five)">
After being separated from the world for ten years, the Gatekeepers and their closest allies finally come back through the mysterious doors. Jamie is the first to appear, in a church called St Botolph's, somewhere in the northeast of England, located in a strange and seemingly hostile village. There is no electricity nor power of any kind and the townspeople are wary and hostile. He meets a girl named Holly, and a strange man who calls himself "the Traveller", who takes them under his wing. In the village, Jamie is having trouble fitting in. He tells Holly the truth about him and the Five. She initially doesn't believe him but soon sees the truth when one of her villagers, teacher Anne Keyland, betrays them to the police. The police, under the control and protection of the Old Ones, kill everyone in the village and then obliterate the village itself. The Traveller saves Jamie, and Holly comes along, despite the Traveller disagreeing with this idea.Meanwhile, the executives of the now nigh-all-powerful Nightrise Corporation are in the ruins of New York attending a business conference named the "Endgame" where it is said, they will be given their rewards. But these "rewards" are really to become leading soldiers of the Old Ones. A riot ensues in the United Nations and twenty of the executives are killed. All but one of the rest are consigned to training camps to prepare for the outcome. The one who survived is Jonas Mortlake, who is given, by the new chairman, the task of winning Scott over to the Old Ones, to allow them to capture Matt.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Man_from_Archangel" title="The Little Man from Archangel">
Left in an unnamed town in Berry by his Jewish parents, who returned to Soviet Russia and oblivion, the timid Jonas Milk lives quietly above his second-hand bookshop and also deals in rare stamps. He feels at home amongst the other small businesses in the town, until he marries his maid, a much younger woman with a bad reputation and converts to Catholicism. She is neither a good housekeeper nor a faithful wife, and causes Milk considerable embarrassment and shame. Though she disappears with other men from time to time, she always returns soon after to Milk.However, one day when she has not come home and Milk, to spare himself yet more embarrassment, lies over her whereabouts. As the days pass, his lies are believed by fewer and fewer neighbours, who begin to shun him, and somebody informs the police. His anguish is increased by the fact that his most valuable stamps, which only she knew about, are gone from his safe.The police first call round for an allegedly informal chat and then call him in to the station for a formal interrogation, followed by an exhaustive search of his premises. They are suspicious because he has not reported a missing person and, like the rest of the town, wonder if her body is in the canal as an end to her overt infidelities.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severina_(Rey_Rosa)" title="Severina (Rey Rosa)">
The story is told from the point of view of a bookseller who finds himself romantically drawn to a young woman he catches stealing books from "La Entretenida", the bookstore where he works.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Tourist" title="The Night Tourist">
9th Grader Jack Perdu lives with his father on the Yale campus. After Jack encounters a near fatal accident when he got hit by a car one winter night, his father sends him to New York City to visit a mysterious doctor (Dr. Lyons) who specializes in death. After an unusually brief meeting with Dr. Lyons, Jack returns to Grand Central Station to catch a train back home. He decides that it would be a shame to leave NYC without sightseeing first and squeezes himself into a nearby tour group by some pillars. While the group moves on with the tour, Jack stays behind and meets a girl named Euri. She offers to give him a tour of Grand Central Station and take him to places only 'True Urban Explorers' would know of. Euri shows him a secret door on the sixth track which leads to a bunch of stairs. 9 floors down, Jack discovers the New York Underworld. A place where the dead gather to solve their problems before they move on to Elysium. Jack and Euri are chased by two security guards and their big three headed dog Cerberus. Euri pulls Jack into a corner to hide and confesses that she is actually a ghost and she wants to live again. Jack promises Euri that he will help her escape to the human world. He tells Euri about his mother and Euri promises to help him find her. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Boys" title="Flash Boys">
"Flash Boys" maintains a primary focus on Brad Katsuyama and other central figures in the genesis and early days of IEX, the Investors' Exchange. Sergey Aleynikov, a former programmer for Goldman Sachs, serves as a secondary focus.The introduction begins by naming Aleynikov and describing his arrest, along with the author's personal history on Wall Street, as the impetus for writing the book. The first chapter tells the story of a $300 million project from Spread Networks that was underway in mid-2009—the construction of an fiber-optic cable that cuts straight through mountains and rivers from Chicago to New Jersey—with the sole goal of reducing the transmission time for data from 17 to 13 milliseconds. (The construction of the line was dramatized in the 2018 film "The Hummingbird Project".)Lewis goes on to describe the modern world of electronic trading and how it differs from the past—when trading was mostly performed in open outcry pits on physical trading floors—and how that change has impacted the market. The speed of data is a major theme in the book; the faster a market participant's computer system can receive and act on data, the better their edge, and opportunity to profit, with even nanoseconds making a difference.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Station_(novel)" title="The Last Station (novel)">
Set in 1910, the novel tells the true story of Tolstoy's life in his last days, before he ran away from his wife and his family home, taking to the road, where he died in a small railway station called Astapovo, with only his doctor and his favourite daughter, Sasha, in attendance (the film of this novel add Valentin Bulgakov and others to the deathbed scene who were not, in fact, present).The various narrators, and others in the Tolstoy household and outside of it, were pulling at him, trying to get his attention. He was pulled in a thousand directions at once, and this wore him down. In particular, he found the entreaties of his wife, Sofya, difficult, as she suspected (correctly) that he was plotting with his closest friend, Chertkov, to betray the family by giving away the copyright to his works. Sofya's main concern was the family and the difficulty of maintaining her style of life after her husband's death (he was, after all, 82).A major subplot of the novel involves Tolstoy's young secretary, Valentin Bulgakov, who comes to work with his hero in 1910 and bears witness to the controversies and difficulties surrounding him. Bulgakov falls in love with Masha, a Tolstoyan, who lives at a nearby compound called Telyatink, where a group of “Tolstoyans” have gathered to live communally and put into practice his ideas: chastity, vegetarianism, and nonviolent resistance to evil. Like Tolstoy, these were pacifists who opposed the Tsarist regime.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_True_Novel" title="A True Novel">
## Prologue.In Long Island, a teenage Minae Mizumura meets Taro Azuma, another Japanese immigrant who works as the chauffeur of one of her father's associates who, unlike Mizumura and the other immigrants she knows, is poor. Mizumura's father finds him studious and hardworking and hires him as a technician for the camera company he works for.Over the years, Mizumura and Azuma encounter each other briefly at company outings and parties. Right before she leaves high school, Mizumura has a moment where she reflects that her life is full of possibility and Azuma's is not. However, Azuma does eventually become extremely successful. After becoming a technician who specializes in endoscopes, Azuma begins to sell them and receives increasingly large commissions. When the company tries to cut his commission percentage, Azuma leaves and creates his own company.Mizumura's family meanwhile enters a period of decline after her father is demoted and her mother leaves him for another man. She and her sister squander their education and youth. Later, Mizumura manages to begin a career for herself as an academic and begins writing novels. She returns to America occasionally where she catches up with old friends and learns of Azuma's rise to success. One year, she returns and discovers that he has disappeared and no one has heard anything of him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squire_Arden" title="Squire Arden">
The plot follows the story of Squire Edgar Arden of Arden, his sister Clare, and their poor cousin Arthur Arden. Squire Edgar is a model landlord and brother, but looks and acts nothing like the rest of the Arden family. Edgar's father, the old Squire, had mysteriously treated him with contempt until his death, raising doubts in some members of the community about Edgar's legitimacy. Arthur Arden, the charming ne'er-do-well cousin whose father had a longstanding feud with the old Squire, is pursuing Clare, who has once refused his proposal of marriage. To complicate matters, Arthur also hears of the rumors about Edgar's legitimacy and hopes he will be able to prove his claim to inherit Arden. In the end, the mystery of Edgar's past is revealed, with the aid of old letters hidden in a bureau and a visitor who is unusually interested in the Ardens' lives.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirmala_(novel)" title="Nirmala (novel)">
Udayabhanu Lal, a lawyer, arranged to marry off his 15-year-old daughter Nirmala to Bhuvanmohan Sinha, son of Bhalchadra Sinha. Kalyani, Nirmala's mother advises Lal not to spend too much money on Nirmala's marriage as he also has the duty of getting her second daughter, Krishna married. Angered by Kalyani's words, he decides to teach her a lesson by leaving his old dresses along the riverbank and going out to the next village for sometime to make Kalyani believe that he is dead. Lal was later murdered by his rival Mathayi, who was once tried in court by Lal and sentenced to jail. The death of Lal caused the Sinhas to withdraw from the arranged marriage since there was no longer a large dowry as anticipated prior to Lal's death. Kalyani writes a letter to Rangili bai, Bhuvanmohan sinha's mother telling about her pitiful situation. Rangili bai's effort of making her husband and son understand ends up in vain. With the help of Pandit Motaram, Kalyani searches a groom for Nirmala. Financial hardship forced Nirmala's mother, Kalyani, to marry her off to Totaram, a lawyer 20 years her senior. Totaram tried his best to seduce his beautiful young wife but to no avail. He once tells a false story that he killed two thieves who had big swords with them to make her feel that her husband is full of bravery. But Nirmala who knows that it is a false story, still smiles and acts as though she is happy. She had no feelings for him other than respect and a sense of duty, which fell short of the love he expected to receive from his wife.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_of_Trial_(novel)" title="Term of Trial (novel)">
Graham Weir is a middle-aged schoolteacher at Railway Street Secondary School. A timid self-loathing alcoholic, he is taunted and despised by his pupils, his colleagues and his wife. Recognizing a like-minded soul in one of his pupils he takes her under his wing and offers to give her extra tuition. Before long the girl claims to have fallen in love with him and attempts to lead him into an affair. Surprised, Weir fends off her unwelcome advances as gently as possible and disengages himself from her. However, following an accusation by the pupil, he is later charged with indecent assault and is forced to defend himself in court, not only from the criminal charge itself but also from the derision and lack of empathy that surrounds him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Birds" title="The Yellow Birds">
"The Yellow Birds" begins with "The war tried to kill us in the spring" and follows Private John Bartle, the novel's protagonist and narrator, in Al Tafar, Iraq; Fort Dix, New Jersey; Kaiserslautern, Germany; the author's and narrator's hometown of Richmond, Virginia; and Fort Knox, Kentucky, from December 2003 to April 2009.Much of the novel focuses on Bartle's promise to the mother of Murph, a fellow private, to not let him die in the war. Bartle and Murph also make a pact not to be the 1,000th casualty in the war. The reader learns in the beginning of the novel, however, that Murph dies in the war."The Yellow Birds" also examines the reactions of soldiers after their deployments. Bartle enters a state in which he does not want to leave his house upon his return from the war and slowly deteriorates as the novel progresses. Powers has stated: "I wanted to show the whole picture. It's not just: you get off the plane, you're back home, everything's fine. Maybe the physical danger ends, but soldiers are still deeply at risk of being injured in a different way. I thought it was important to acknowledge that."The title of the novel alludes to a story Murph tells Bartle while on a guard tower about when Murph's "father brought a dozen caged canaries home from the mine and let them loose in the hollow where they lived, how the canaries only flitted and sang awhile before perching back atop their cages, which had been arranged in rows, his father likely thinking that the birds would not return by choice to their captivity, and that the cages should be used for something else: a pretty bed for vegetables, perhaps a place to string up candles between the trees, and in what strange silences the world worked, Murph must have wondered, as the birds settled peaceably in their formation and ceased to sing."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Witchfinder" title="The Last Witchfinder">
Jennet is a young English girl whose witch hunter father is frequently away on witch hunts. She's left with her aunt Isobel, a fan of Isaac Newton's scientific style. The two become close, but eventually Isobel's viewpoints cause her to become the focus of a witchhunt that ends with her getting burned at the stake. Jennet is unsuccessful in her attempts to rescue her aunt from this grisly fate and as such, decides to fulfill her aunt's dying wish that Jennet bring down the Witchcraft Acts.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seed_and_the_Sower" title="The Seed and the Sower">
The first story is set in a Japanese Prisoner of War camp in Java during World War II and is a first person account of the relationship between John Lawrence, a British officer, and Sergeant Hara, one of the camp’s senior guards. This segment was initially published as a short story in 1956 as "A Bar of Shadow".The second, lengthier story is also set in the P.O.W. camp but is narrated in the third person from the diary of Major Celliers, a South African officer serving in the British Army, who perished in the camp and his relationships with his disabled brother and with the camp commandant, Captain Yonoi. Both of the first two stories attempt to convey the conflicting feelings the principal characters felt towards each other and their attempts to understand each other’s cultures and their widely opposed codes of honour.The final segment is Lawrence’s reminiscence of a brief affair with a woman whose name he never learned, shortly before his capture by the Japanese.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Heart_for_Freedom" title="A Heart for Freedom">
Chai Ling is the oldest daughter of a military doctor from Rizhao, a fishing village in Shandong province known as the “City of Sunshine.” She became independent and started taking care of her younger siblings at a very early age. Chai wrote that she was deeply influenced by her parents, who believed that knowledge was the key to success, as well as by her traditional grandmother, who survived famine. Chai worked to secure one of the five permitted spots for Peking University (Beida) in her province, and achieved the family goal of “going to Beijing.” Chai's family considered admission to Peking University the key to success and a guaranteed stable life, whereas Chai herself considered college a gateway to freedom, happiness and even a reform of her motherland. After entering Beida, Chai witnessed and experienced a series of troubling events, which shaped her view on the rule of the CCP as problematic, which all contributed to Chai's resolve to participate and later take a leadership role in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. The incidents included Chai being informed that her mother back home was accused by colleagues of stealing two expensive microscopes to exchange for her daughter's tuition, her three abortions, which Chai attributed to her ignorance about sex and birth control, and “rumours” being spread in attempt to ruin her reputation after an attempted rape.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champion_(novel)" title="Champion (novel)">
After the events of "Prodigy", Daniel "Day" Altan Wing now lives as a free citizen in San Francisco with his younger brother, Eden Bataar. Following several months of no communication, Day is contacted by June Iparis about a "feast" held by Anden Stavropoulos, the young Elector of the Republic. In reality, Anden wants Day to hand over Eden as part of the Republic's search for a cure for their virus, wreaking havoc upon the Colonies, causing the latter to give an ultimatum for the cure, lest they and Africa will invade the Republic. Day denies the request and the Republic's cause is further eroded when traitor soldiers Thomas Bryant and Commander Jameson, both in death row for the attempted coup, and the murder of June's brother (Metias Iparis), escape. The next day, Day collapses due to his illness and is rushed to the hospital. The following day, Day tells June about his terminal illness, just before the city is attacked by the Colonies' airships. While the population is being evacuated to Los Angeles, Day works with the Patriot organization to hijack the Colonies' airships. During the event, Thomas sacrifices himself to save Day.Day is sent to the Los Angeles Central Hospital due to another illness flare-up and is contacted by the Chancellor of the Colonies, who blackmails him into defecting to the Colonies and convincing the masses to do so, or else he will kill June and Eden if the Colonies win. He gives him three days to decide. Day instead spreads messages through graffiti to make the Republic's population support Anden. He also reluctantly decides to let Eden become a test subject to find a cure for biological diseases spreading in the Colonies. Meanwhile, June accompanies Anden to meet with the President of Antarctica to request help for the war. The President refuses, stating that the Republic was infested with disease and that he would aid Anden only if a cure was found along with several plots of land as payment.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adultery_(novel)" title="Adultery (novel)">
A woman in her thirties begins to question her seemingly perfect life: she is married to a rich and loving husband, has well-behaved children and a successful newspaper career. Her apathy changes when she interviews a former boyfriend, now a successful politician. They begin a sadomasochistic affair that she finds very exciting. But she must now conquer that impossible love and learn to face the everyday.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_from_Galilee" title="Two from Galilee">
The story begins with the discovery that teenager Mary has become a woman, ready to be betrothed. Wealthy and handsome Cleophas and rabbi's son Abner are both in love with Mary but she loves only Joseph, the son of a carpenter. Despite their age difference and the objections of Mary's mother, Hannah, the love between Mary and Joseph prevails, and they are betrothed.Soon after the ceremony, Mary is visited by an angel, who tells her that she will become the mother of the Messiah, whom she shall name Jesus. Mary is then faced with the responsibility of impending motherhood as well as proving to Joseph that she has not betrayed him.Meanwhile, Mary's aunt Elizabeth is also pregnant (with John the Baptist). After telling her parents and Joseph the truth, Mary's family arranges for her to come to Jerusalem to stay with Zechariah and Elizabeth temporarily. Joseph remains behind in Galilee, tormented by jealousy, until an angel visits him. Joseph's father Jacob dies and, afterwards, Joseph goes to Mary as the angel instructed. After they are married, Joseph takes Mary with him to Bethlehem, where taxes must be paid. Unable to find other accommodations, they stay in a stable, where Mary gives birth to Jesus. They are visited by wise men who bring gifts to the newborn Messiah. The wise men originally came on behalf of King Herod, who has ordered the execution of all male babies in Jerusalem to prevent the Messiah from coming to power. The wise men are warned to flee from Herod and Joseph is warned to flee to Egypt with Mary and Jesus. The book ends with them on the journey to Egypt.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hideout_(novel)" title="Hideout (novel)">
Swindle is back, and he wants his dog, Luthor, back. After the once menacing guard dog almost won the Global Kennel Dog Show, S. Wendell Palomino (AKA Swindle) sees a chance to become rich. And with that money, he'll devote his life to ruining Griffin and his friends' lives. Griffin knows that, but when Palomino actually shows up at Savannah Drysdale's house, in the middle of Luthor's birthday party, he's still surprised. Swindle claims Luthor still belongs to him, and the Cedarville pound cannot find the file that says the Drysdales legally adopted him (which we later find out that Palomino stole). They take this matter to court, and when the judge declares that Savannah must return Luthor to Palomino, she's heartbroken. She enlists Griffin to deduct a plan to prove Luthor is rightfully hers. The book consists of three parts, one for each hideout, at each camp. Savannah and Griffins camp is the first hideout, Melissa and Logan's camp is the next, and Pitch and Ben's camp is the last hideout. The struggle is increased with different goons that Palomino hired, plagiarizing random people at the camp, trying to move the heavy Luthor to different camps, and the fact that they have no transportation except random delivery trucks.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Copper_Promise" title="The Copper Promise">
The story concerns the deposed Lord Frith's search for vengeance against the killers of his family. In the process, he employs the services of two mercenaries, Sebastian and Wydrin. Their actions in the early part of the story result in the release of a dragon god and an unstoppable army, and much of the subsequent narrative covers their attempts to make amends for this disaster.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testimonies_2001" title="Testimonies 2001">
The general explains the American role in the crisis through Military Professional Resources Inc.'s (MPRI) proposals for reorganizing the Army of the Republic of Macedonia (ARM) and the Ministry of Defense which revealed the strategy of America of preparing Republic of Macedonia for a defeat from the inside in case of war. Petrovski also describes his conversation with president Boris Trajkovski after he was asked to come back and rejoin the armed forces before the conflict started. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundarikalum_Sundaranmarum" title="Sundarikalum Sundaranmarum">
The novel has about thirty characters belonging to three generations of eight families belonging to Malabar during the end of the First World War, when the famous Moplah rebellion broke out in Kerala.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Well-Trained_Stray" title="A Well-Trained Stray">
The novel begins with a funny scene where Ahmad, the main character and the book's narrator, is with his friend Nevine in her car by Cairo-Alexandria desert road. They are nearly caught by the police, but Nevine narrowly manages to escape.Ahmad writes pornographic stories for a living, using odesk.com And through it, he found an agent who was interested in Arabic porn stories. After sending a sample, he completed a simple interview and began to work. We know that he's living alone with his aunt after the death of his grandmother and that his father has remarried after the death of his mother, and we get to know two of his best friends—El Loul, a failed TV director who is now trying to promote his scriptwriting as well as managing C-rated belly-dancers for cheap satellite channels – Abdullah, a drug addict, and his childhood best friend, who came from a wealthier family and has doesn't-give-a shit type of attitude.Through tracking the two characters and their connection to Ahmad we can glimpse the 1990s middle-class generation in Cairo as well as the strange relationship Ahmad and Abdullah had when they were teenagers, and, echoing that, the porn industry and stars.Nevine herself is such a character: She's a perfect nymphomaniac who married a guy she despises after returning with her family from the Persian Gulf region, where she spent her childhood. While the hubby, who married her for her family's money, is off in the Gulf, she has her revenge by shagging as many men as she can, only two or three times before hitting on a new man. Through this, she got to know Ahmad and she dumped him as usual before getting to know Ali Luza.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaves_in_Their_Bonds_(novel)" title="Slaves in Their Bonds (novel)">
The story takes place in Corfu at the beginning of 20th century. The head of the decadent, aristocratic family of Ophiomachus forced to marry his daughter to the successful doctor and candidate deputy Aristeidis Steriotis, in order to deal with their financial difficulties. However his daughter is in love with the young scholar Alkis Sozomenos. Ultimately their expectations are not fulfilled.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_Life_(novel)" title="Tree of Life (novel)">
"Tree of Life" is narrated by Coco, the great granddaughter of Albert Louis, a Guadeloupean man who tries to raise himself out of poverty. Albert Louis travels to Panama, to work on the construction of the Panama Canal and escape, and later to San Francisco to realize his ambitions. After a decade of travelling, Albert Louis returns to Guadeloupe.Albert Louis marries his first wife, Liza, and has a son, Albert (Bert). Liza dies giving birth to Bert. Bert grows up and moves to San Francisco with his friend/business partner, Jacob. While in San Francisco Jacob is murdered and Bert then returns to Guadeloupe. Albert marries his second wife, Elaise, who gives him two more children; Jacob and Jean. Liza haunts Bert because of his love for his Stepmother, Elaise. Bert resents his father and his father's business and eventually leaves for Paris to reunite with an old friend/business partner, Manuel. While in Paris, Bert jumps to his death. Elaise begins to suffer from a series of hemorrhages, supposedly due to the supernatural presence of Albert's first wife (Liza) and dies after the third occurrence.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy_on_the_Orient_Express" title="Mummy on the Orient Express">
Clara is ready to go on one "last hurrah". She allows the Twelfth Doctor to take her aboard a space-bound train modelled after the Orient Express. Unknown to Clara, the train's computer Gus has enticed the Doctor along with many other scientists there. They learn of the death of Mrs. Pitt after witnessing a mummy that no other passenger could see attack her, which makes the Doctor curious. The Doctor discovers the death of Mrs. Pitt and similar deaths on the train occurred exactly 66 seconds after lights flickered nearby; this follows the legend of a supernatural being called the Foretold.When the Doctor expresses suspicion at the number of scientists gathered, the facade of the Orient Express disappears, revealing a laboratory; Gus informs the passengers they are now to study the Foretold to reverse engineer whatever technology it uses. The Doctor also realises the sarcophagus Clara and Mrs. Pitt's granddaughter Maisie had found in the storage car is for capturing the Foretold.Professor Moorhouse and Captain Quell are the next targets killed by the Foretold. The Doctor and chief engineer Perkins realize that the Foretold is draining energy from its victims using phase-shifting technology. Perkins also observes that the victims were the medically weakest on the train. When Perkins reveals that Maisie is likely next due to her trauma, Clara lies to Maisie to bring her to the laboratory. Maisie sees the Foretold; the Doctor quickly draws on her memories to trick the Foretold into targeting him instead. In the 66 seconds, the Doctor successfully identifies the Foretold as a modified stealth soldier of a long-ago war and offers surrender to tell the Foretold that the war is over. The Foretold, finally released from its duty, offers the Doctor a salute before it disappears into a pile of dust, leaving behind its phase-shifting device.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatline_(Doctor_Who)" title="Flatline (Doctor Who)">
The Twelfth Doctor discovers something draining energy from the TARDIS and materialises in Bristol. Clara befriends Rigsy, a graffiti artist assigned to community service on a council estate. He tells Clara that several people have gone missing. When Clara returns to the Doctor, the exterior dimensions of the TARDIS have shrunk too small for the Doctor to leave. The Doctor passes Clara his sonic screwdriver, psychic paper, and an earpiece to let him communicate with her, and she carries the TARDIS in her bag, acting as the Doctor.Clara convinces PC Forrest to let her and Rigsy into the flat of the first disappearance. They hear Forrest scream from the next room. They see no sign of her, but find a strange mural on the wall. The Doctor recognises it as a human nervous system, and suspects it is Forrest's. He warns Clara and Rigsy that there are two-dimensional creatures, the Boneless, which are flattening the missing persons into two dimensions. Clara and Rigsy escape before they are attacked.They race back to the other community service crewmen to warn them the murals in a pedestrian subway are additional Boneless. Some crewmen are killed while Clara leads the rest through a train yard into tunnels. They are followed by the Boneless, which take the form of the people they killed to use the third dimension. The Boneless surround the others by flattening the doors into two dimensions. The Doctor jury-rigs a device to undo this flattening to give the group time to escape. In their haste, Clara drops the TARDIS in the path of an oncoming train. The Doctor turns on Siege Mode, preventing any physical damage but leaving him without enough power to deactivate Siege Mode.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Cow_(novel)" title="Poor Cow (novel)">
Working-class Joy, 22 and dreaming of the good life the swinging sixties has promised, discovers the pitfalls of traditional gender roles when her husband Tom is sent to prison for theft, leaving her to look after baby Jonny. She moves in with her Auntie Emm and manages to keep her head above water by working as a barmaid and occasional sex worker. When Joy begins an affair with a friend of her husband, another petty thief, she cannot help but start to dream all over again. It is only when her child goes missing that she finally realises the emptiness of her daydreams.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cibola_Burn" title="Cibola Burn">
After the events of "Abaddon's Gate", humanity has gained entry to thousands of new worlds and solar systems through the gate networks. At the start of "Cibola Burn" the United Nations, Martian and Outer Planets Alliance governments have thus far restricted exploration and colonization efforts to one corporate scientific survey mission to one of these planets. Complicating matters is the existence of a colonial settlement already on the planet from before the military blockade of the rings came into effect. Both sides claim ownership in a confrontation reflecting many colonial interactions throughout history. Jim Holden is sent to mediate the interactions between the colonists and scientists when political and racial tensions culminate in violence.Still dogged by the disembodied presence of Miller, who wishes to investigate the disappearance of the planet's former inhabitants, Holden arrives on a world on the verge of war. Yet the biggest danger to the colonists, scientists and Holden is not the human disagreements that they have brought with them but the frontier. As with the settling of the American West and many colonial projects of Earth's past, the frontier into which humanity has ventured is vast, uncontrolled and full of dangers. When a mysterious disease and horrific disaster strike at the same time and threaten the lives of the colonists and those in orbit, Holden and Miller must brave the ruins of an alien civilization in search of the one thing that might save them all.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Night" title="Video Night">
Teens Billy and Tom have had a ritual of meeting up for a movie night for a while now. The two couldn't be more different from each other, as Billy is the smart one while Tom comes from the poor side of town, yet they're the best of friends. That friendship has begun to crumble as of late with the impending threat of college and separation. Tom's habit of using their movie nights as an excuse to meet up with his girlfriend has also taken a strain on the friendship as well. However all of that changes in one night after aliens take over the townspeople one by one and the teens must rely on their horror movie knowledge to survive.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swinging_Bridge" title="The Swinging Bridge">
Mona, a Trinidadian living in Montreal, is a film researcher whose family left Trinidad for Canada in hopes of finding a better life. At the start of her story, Mona gets word from her sister, Babs, that their brother, Kello, is dying. Kello tells his family that he is dying of lymphoma, but later reveals that he is actually dying from AIDS. He reveals to his sisters that he is in a relationship with a man, but swears them to secrecy. As the oldest, Kello asks Mona to return to Trinidad after his death and buy the family land back. Mona is hesitant, but eventually learns that she was given this opportunity to discover more about her family history, their journey from India to Trinidad, and the hardships they had to face along the way.Throughout the novel, Mona unveils the significance of the historical archive for the history of her family, women, and the greater Indo-Trinidadian culture over the course of several generations and migrations. She gives voice to the marginalized voices that were silenced by the past and even by her own people. Set in modern times, this novel interconnects the past to the present. As Mona discovers these hidden histories, she also comes to discover herself. The "Swinging Bridge" serves as a symbol of her life journey and the journey of her ancestors.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wee_Fellas" title="The Wee Fellas">
The protagonist Billy "Stick" Stirling comes from a middle-class family which falls on hard times when their day-dreaming father abandons them. He grows up in Glasgow with his mother and ends up in trouble for a minor burglary. His experience toughens him and he employs his intelligence to rise above his diminutive stature to become a ruthless operator in the snooker halls of Glasgow.A lethal confrontation leaves Billy with a family blood vengeance. In a Glasgow café, he meets a bearded, older stranger who is acquainted with his mother. The stranger advises him to join the Army Bantam Regiment (which accepted soldiers of small stature) to escape his troubles. Billy has little choice and enlists.During his training in England, he meets his true love and has to leave her behind. She is already married to an active-duty soldier and becomes pregnant.He is posted to the front line and applies his survival skills to good effect. He survives with bravery until his blood vengeance catches up with him in the trenches. He survives, but is seriously injured. He is invalided out of the Army and returns to Glasgow to overcome his injury and rebuild his life. The love he left finds him in Glasgow and surprises him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_100_(novel_series)" title="The 100 (novel series)">
## "The 100".The series is set three generations after a thermonuclear apocalypse, wherein the only known survivors of the human race live in a space colony consisting of satellites joined together in orbit around the Earth and governed by The Chancellor, who leads its legislative council. Resources are so scarce that all crimes, no matter how small, are punishable by death, unless the perpetrator is under 18 years of age."The 100" begins with Clarke Griffin, a former medical student, being arrested for a crime committed by her parents: conducting illegal experiments on children under threat of the corrupt Vice Chancellor Rhodes. Clarke confides in her best friend Wells Jaha, The Chancellor's son. Despite swearing secrecy to Clarke, Wells tells his father, hoping to save the Griffins from Rhodes. His plan backfires, the Griffins are arrested, and his relationship with Clarke disintegrates. Two years later, the Colony decides to send 100 of its teenage prisoners to investigate whether or not Earth is habitable. Among the 100 are Clarke, Wells, Octavia Blake, her older maternal half-brother Bellamy Blake, and Clarke's friend, Thalia.The group crashes somewhere on the East Coast in the former United States. Once there, the 100 struggle to survive in a world very different from the past Earth. Clarke tends to the wounded, and Bellamy gradually develops a romantic interest in her. It is revealed that Octavia had become a drug addict while in prison. A few days later, someone sets fire to the camp, killing Thalia. As the survivors investigate, they discover a farm not too far from the site, leading them to the realization that they are not alone.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terror_Dream" title="The Terror Dream">
Faludi focuses on analyzing the media, politics, and popular culture to find the answer to why American society tried to restore "traditional" manhood and gender roles after the 9/11 attacks. She uses mainly anecdotal and qualitative evidence to support her theories. During the first half of the book, Faludi explains how America reacted after the events of 9/11. Faludi argues that the media was guilty of creating myths about "John Wayne" type of men, particularly New York Firemen, rescuing "damsels in distress" in the aftermath of the attack. Sexist slogans such as "As War Looms, It's OK to Let Boys Be Boys Again", were displayed proudly in the media while women were marginalized by the media. Firefighters were renamed firemen in the media and women were not eligible to receive "hero status". A clear example of how men were the only ones qualified to be heroes can be seen from the events that occurred on Flight 93. The men, such as Todd Beamer, on the plane were hailed as heroes despite no clear evidence of these facts while Sandra Bradshaw, a flight attendant who tried to throw boiling water on the terrorists, was barely mentioned in the media. Feminism talk was denounced as unpatriotic. Government stoked the anti-feminist fire with propaganda about the American military men protecting the American women and going to save the women of Afghanistan from oppression. There was also a significant decrease in the number of sexual discrimination cases prosecuted in federal courts.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eagle_Cliff" title="The Eagle Cliff">
The Eagle Cliff is a third-person tale that begins with the hero, a cyclist soon identified as John Barrett, who is racing through the streets of London to respond to a telegram from an old schoolmate, Bob Mabberly. The unconventional hero has a literally bumpy start to his journey as he accidentally runs into a little old lady. Though she appears to be alright, Barret's fear of being arrested causes him to flee. However, because he is the hero, he cannot shake the guilty conscience and returns to the site of the accident, only to find that the old lady and the crowd that gathered to be gone. Wrought with worry, Barret makes his way to Mabberly. Mabberly has engaged a yacht and crew and intends to "sail, without fail" the next morning with Barrett and another schoolmate, Giles Jackman. The next day, not long at sea, misfortune befalls the party and they collide with a passing steamer, causing their vessel to split down the middle. Now in the water, the men make their way toward the rocky shore of a now-visible island. Upon arrival, the men elect Barrett to search for habitation. He comes across a sheep track, a primitive road and eventually a hut among the rocks. From here, Barrett begins to meet the people who reside on the island, all of whom are white. When the rest of the party joins Barrett, they are happy to learn the houses there are fully functioning (with kitchens and bedrooms, each stocked appropriately). As fate would have it, Barrett happens upon a young girl, Milly, lying on the road, who has injured her arm after falling from a cliff. Barret eventually develops feelings for her. He and Milly share a love for botany, which was the cause of her fall from the cliff, and use this area of interest to pave the way for further interaction. Elsewhere, the men engage in hunting outings as well as occasionally fishing (or in Archie's case, photography). Meanwhile, Milly has been writing home, telling her mother about the man who saved her life, effectively causing her mother to become fond of him. When news of Mrs. Moss' arrival reaches Barrett, he rushes to meet her, only to nearly knock her over. She turns out to be the very same woman Barrett had hit with his bicycle earlier on. At this point, though she recognizes him as the man who ran her down, she does not know he is Barret. After falling from a cliff and falling unconscious, Barrett does not show up for supper, worrying the others and causing them to search for him. Once found, he is unrecognizable due to the bruising and head-dressings he now bears, successfully continuing to hide his identity from Mrs. Moss. Once he has healed and she discovers that he is indeed Barrett, she agrees to forgive him, thus allowing Milly and him to marry.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_(novel)" title="The Wizard (novel)">
The novel begins on a Sunday afternoon in summer at a church in the Midland county called Busscombe. Reverend Thomas Owen had a preacher for the day called a “Deputation,” who was sent to arouse the indifferent to the duty of converting the savage tribes by collecting money. As the “Deputation” told about his experience with a south central African tribe called the “Sons of Fire,” Reverence Owen became very interested in the mission to convert this tribe of Amasuka and converting them. Reverend Owen ultimately decides to take on this task and gives his old job to the “Deputation.”Two years go by as Reverend Owen lives in a hut outside of the tribe's town and he sends his newly converted native of the tribe, John, to send a message to King Umsuka which is that Reverend Owen wants to learn their language so that he can administer the word of God to them. After being warned that the People of Fire have their faith too, John informs Rev. Owen that if he cannot perform the magic they want him to perform, he will be killed.Reverend Owen learns of Hokosa and Hafela's plot to kill the king with poison in order to gain the throne through a vision. Rev. Owen learns of the anecdote to the poison in another vision of the Tree of Death and uses this knowledge to his advantage by giving it to Umsuka to revive him at the Feast of the First-Fruit and therefore “proves” his God's power over the People of Fire's god.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_Queen_(novel)" title="The Island Queen (novel)">
The novel begins with the Rigonda family and two men aboard a castaway ship somewhere in the south Pacific. The family finds a hidden cache of food and they land safely on a nearby island.After finding shelter they set out to explore the island. They soon find that everything they need seems to grow on trees. They explore, hunt wild boar, and construct a signal flag to attract passing ships.During a tremendous storm, an emigrant ship is wrecked on the coral reef just off the island. Otto and Dominick Rigonda run to aid the passengers.The two parties become acquainted and work together to build suitable housing. The men begin offloading supplies and constructing makeshift shelters. The women are charged with caring for the children and establishing a domicile.Dominick and Malines come to blows, which results in Mother Lynch nominating Pauline to be queen. Pauline surprises everyone by naming Joe Binney her prime minister. A few days later, Pauline and Otto are kidnapped by natives and brought aboard their canoe. The colonists give chase and fire a volley at the natives, who allow the children to jump overboard.A few nights later Malines and his co-conspirators are caught preparing to leave the island without the emigrants. The conspirators are marched back to the camp and put in makeshift jails. Dr. Marsh is appointed as judge over the kangaroo court.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percival_Keene" title="Percival Keene">
At Madeline Hall, an old mansion-house near Southampton belonging to the wealthy de Versely family, lives an elderly spinster Miss Delmar, the aunt of the earl de Versely and Captain Delmar. Miss Delmar invites Arabella Mason, the daughter of a deceased, well-liked steward to stay with her as a lower-class guest in the house. Captain Delmar is known to visit his aunt at Madeline Hall frequently, accompanied by his valet Ben Keene, who is also a private marine. Captain Delmar eventually suggests that Ben should propose to Arabella, and the two marry in secret, to the frustration of Miss Delmar and Arabella's mother. The captain is able to smooth over the situation with his aunt, even after it is discovered that Arabella was six months pregnant at the time of the marriage. She later gives birth to a boy, who takes the Captain's Christian name and Ben's surname—the titular Percival Keene.The family moves to Chatham, after Ben is ordered back with his detachment. Arabella opens up a successful shop and circulating library below her house, enlisting the help of her mother and sister, Amelia. Percival becomes well known in town from his mischievous pranks on officers and other strangers, often encouraged by his aunt Amelia. However, Percival's mother and grandmother are less fond of his disregard for manners, and insist on sending him to school after an episode in which he bites his grandmother. Percival reports to the school house of Mr. O'Gallagher, a poor Irish scholar, who rules his class with a system of severe corporal punishment. Mr. O'Gallagher routinely bullies Percival by stealing his lunch, leading Percival to seek revenge by poisoning his sandwiches with calomel. On Guy Fawkes Day the schoolteacher confiscates all the schoolboys' fireworks, for which Percival retaliates by setting off the collected fireworks while the teacher sits above them, leading to the total destruction of the schoolhouse and near death of the schoolmaster.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goblins_in_the_Castle" title="Goblins in the Castle">
William has quite happily lived all his life in Toad-in-a-Cage castle with its endless rooms, dark winding stairways, and disturbing noises. Then one night he discovers those noises come from the dungeon, where a hunchback named Igor and his stuffed teddy bear guard a mysterious door. William unintentionally opens the door, freeing a horde of imprisoned goblins back into the unsuspecting world. He and Igor set out to round them up and have many adventures.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blueberry_Pie_Elf" title="The Blueberry Pie Elf">
Elmer is an elf who lives with a family of bakers. One day the family bakes a blueberry pie, which Elmer proceeds to jump into and eats his fill. Upon eating the pie, Elmer falls in love with blueberry pie and can't wait to get his hands on another one. Unfortunately, the family cannot see him, hear him, or feel him, and he is forced to wait for them to bake another delicious pie. The next week, Elmer notices that they are baking another pie and gets very excited, but is in vain when he smells baking apples. Frustrated with his inability to communicate or be seen by the family, Elmer sets out to try and alert the bakers to his presence. To do this, he begins helping out around the house making beds, washing dishes, and doing other chores to get noticed. Though his efforts are appreciated, the family continues not to notice him and they bake another pie, cherry this time. Deciding he would try to determine whether he likes a different flavored pie better than blueberry, Elmer jumps into the fresh-baked pie and starts eating. Disappointed in the taste, and not realizing that the cherries stained his feet red, Elmer hops out of the pie and walks away. The family notices his footprints and realize that it was the little elf who had been doing the house work.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasure_(novel)" title="Erasure (novel)">
"Erasure" is about a writer dealing with death, murder, and growing old. The novel's plot revolves around many things, but is essentially about the consequences of turning one's art into a simple commodity; i.e. giving into market forces. The market force within "Erasure" mirrors the late-1990s reality of how the publishing industry pigeon-holed Black writers, and centered or valued certain experiences [those of the urban poor] over others. Themes around race, class, loyalty to family, sex, the theory of language, the life of canonical western artists, abortion, and sexual identity are also explored as the novel unfolds.The protagonist, Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, a professor of English literature, is in a rut with his own writing. His agent repeatedly explains to him that publishing houses don't believe his writing to be "black enough". To make matters worse, Ellison experiences this angst, as another book called "We's Lives In Da Ghetto" by Juanita Mae Jenkins is becoming a national best seller and critical darling. Monk is angered by the success of Jenkins' book, so he composes a satirical response based on Richard Wright's "Native Son" (1940) and Sapphire's novel "Push" (1996), which he first entitles "My Pafology" before changing it to "Fuck". This novel is published in its entirety within Erasure and creates a meta-narrative that asks the reader about the value and merits of such writing in contrast to the supposedly more erudite text of "Erasure".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Son_(Nesbø_novel)" title="The Son (Nesbø novel)">
Sonny Lofthus is serving time for crimes he did not commit. As payment, he receives a steady supply of drugs to satisfy his addiction. His life changes completely when he learns the truth about his father's death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_(novel)" title="Police (novel)">
The tenth in the Oslo crime series featuring detective Harry Hole is the most sizeable entry yet; a twisting-turning saga that pits the gangly maverick against that most feared of serial killers, the cop killer. This murderer has a very devious "modus operandi", luring police, and ex-police, involved in unsolved murders to the scene of the original crime to perform a copycat killing there, seemingly as a punishment for having failed to solve the original case.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Someone_(Edwards_novel)" title="Someone (Edwards novel)">
"Someone" is the story of Titch, who grew up amid a hostile family environment with only his guitar for a friend. As he became a more accomplished guitar player he began to write his own material and despite he reluctance to step into the limelight he performed publicly for the first time as a teenager. This performance did not prove to be a resounding success due to heckling from a familiar face in the crowd. Nevertheless, he made a decision to leave home and start a career as a musician. However, a tragic and spiteful event struck him down and he needed all his resolve to find a new way to realize him dream of stardom. He decided to adopt the persona of 'Someone' and eventually went on to become a rock superstar in the US and the UK. Five years later he disappeared in the middle of a US concert series at the height of his success, never to be heard from again.This is Titch's story of becoming Someone and of the reporter determined to piece together the circumstances of his disappearance and find out whatever happened to him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliances_(novel)" title="Alliances (novel)">
The Elven Exiles struggle for survival in the distant kingdom of Khur; the elves remaining in Qualinesti face persecution, enslavement, and extermination; Kerianseray, the Lioness, Kagonesti general and wife of Speaker Gilthas, is magically transported from Khur to equally dangerous circumstances in her former homeland.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saga_of_Old_City" title="Saga of Old City">
"Saga of Old City" was the first novel to feature Gord the Rogue. "Saga of Old City" starts in Gord's childhood, and ends with his triumphant return to Greyhawk City as a young man and master thief. He learns his trade in the 'beggars' guild', and gets involved in the gang war touched off by the beggars encroaching on the official thieves' guild's territory. He travels and has a variety of swashbuckling adventures, ranging from participating in a war, to liberating a young noblewoman held hostage, to defeating a demon with a druid, Curley Greenleaf, and a barbarian, Chert. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Princess_of_Wales" title="The First Princess of Wales">
Set during the reign of Edward III of England in the 14th-century, the novel follows the romance between Joan of Kent and Edward's eldest son, Edward, the Black Prince.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godolphin_(novel)" title="Godolphin (novel)">
The novel opens with a deathbed scene in which a man named John Vernon is relaying his dying wishes to his daughter, Constance. John Vernon is an ex-politician who was betrayed by the Whigs, thus losing his fortune. Just before he dies he makes the thirteen-year-old daughter, Constance, swear an oath to marry a high-class powerful man in order to seek revenge on his old political party. After her father's death Constance moves in with a wealthy distant relative, Lady Erpingham.We are then introduced to a sixteen-year-old Percy Godolphin. Percy resents his lower class upbringing and runs away from his father's home in order make his own way. After a brief stint in the army, Percy's second cousin dies and leaves him 20,000 pounds under the stipulation that he leaves the military.We now go back to Constance who has grown into a beautiful woman who bases her life around her father's dying wish. She resents love, seeing it as weakness, and devotes herself entirely to fulfilling the mission set out for her by her father. John Goldophin dies and accompanied by Lady Erpingham, a former admirer of John, Constance sets out to attend his funeral. Upon arriving at the “ruins” of the Godolphin estate Constance briefly spots Percy standing by a creek lost in deep thought and is immediately infatuated with him. Lady Erpingham also takes a liking to Percy and invites him to visit them at the Erpingham manor. After spending a few weeks with the Erpingham's Percy and Constance begin to develop feelings for each other. Just before Percy departs he subtly confesses these feelings to Constance. Even though she does feel the same, she is conflicted due to the oath she made to her father and keeps her feelings hidden.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Gallows_and_the_Snake-Bellied_Troll" title="Will Gallows and the Snake-Bellied Troll">
Will Gallows, a young elfling sky cowboy, rides out on a perilous quest to bring the evil snake-bellied troll bandit, Noose Wormworx, to justice. Noose is wanted for the murder of Will's pa - the former deputy sheriff of Oretown.Will's journey takes him deep into the heart of the West-Rock, to the dark underground city of Deadrock, where he soon uncovers a deadly secret that could spell disaster not only for Oretown, but for the whole of the West-Rock.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Troublesome_Inheritance" title="A Troublesome Inheritance">
Wade writes about racial differences in economic success between Whites, Blacks, and East Asians, and offers the argument that racial differences come from genetic differences amplified by culture. In the first part of the book, Wade provides an account of human genetics research. In the second part of his book, Wade proposes that regional differences in evolution of social behavior explain many differences among different human societies around the world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiobo_There_Below" title="Seiobo There Below">
## 1. Kamo-Hunter.An Ooshirosagi stands motionless in the Kamo River waiting to spear its fish. Its intense beauty goes unnoticed, but if it were to be seen at the moment of striking, it could change the life of the witness. The chapter moves between the heron and meditation on the larger city of Kyoto itself, and its unnoticed beauties.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achtste-groepers_huilen_niet" title="Achtste-groepers huilen niet">
Akkie is a happy-go-lucky sixth grader that's obsessed with soccer, her friends, and the upcoming school trip. She's known for being tough and always up for a challenge, so when Akkie is diagnosed with leukemia she refuses to let it slow her down. Her classmates are in shock, but Akkie refuses to allow them to treat her as if she were broken. As time passes it becomes clear that her illness is very far progressed and it becomes harder for Akkie to do everything she wants to do in the time she has left.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Dusty-Feet" title="Brother Dusty-Feet">
Hugh Copplestone is an orphaned eleven-year-old boy living with his Aunt Alison (his dead mother's sister-in-law), who resents the duty of looking after him. When he answers her back after she speaks disrespectfully of his dead father, Aunt Alison vindictively vows to have his pet dog Argos killed on the excuse that she has no duty of care to the animal and no intention of incurring the expense any longer.There is an overnight stay of execution since all the farmhands who could have undertaken the task are away at a fair, which gives Hugh time to plan an escape. He resolves to run away and hopes to make his way to Oxford and become a scholar, as his father always wanted him to do. However, he is not long on his way when he falls in with a troupe of strolling players, whose leader Tobias Pennifeather soon wheedles the story out of him. Tobias offers to allow Hugh to travel with them so that he will have their protection on the road and the means of earning a living, and he is first assisting with the troupe's properties and then participating in the plays themselves, since female parts were generally played by boys and their boy Nicky Bodkyn is starting to grow up.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_World_Without_Princes" title="A World Without Princes">
Agatha and Sophie return home to Gavaldon, and are welcomed as heroes; however, while Agatha wants nothing to do with fame, Sophie takes advantage of her newfound spotlight, and puts on many shows to celebrate their return home and their escape from the School for Good and Evil. At Sophie's father's wedding, Agatha suddenly wishes for another ending to her story: with Tedros. With this wish, magical arrows, with messages attached, are shot into the town, the messages demanding the return of Sophie. Angry, the town forms a mob, demanding Sophie be given over to whoever wants her. The Elders of the town agree to protect her, but secretly plan to give her to the mob. Agatha leaves Sophie alone in the town church, believing her to be safe.Sophie is taken into the forest surrounding the town, and is hung from a tree, with the message "Take Me" written on her chest in her own blood, and left to die. Agatha finds Sophie, and the two run away, attempting to avoid the mob. They arrive at clearing with a line of flowers running through it, and notice butterflies attempting to help them. Unknowingly, they board a train bound for the School of Good and Evil.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skink_-_No_Surrender" title="Skink - No Surrender">
Richard Sloan is worried when his cousin and best friend, Malley, fails to meet him for their regular nightly exploration of Loggerhead Beach, scouting for turtle nests. He, noticing a soda straw poking out of such a nest, Richard pulls it up and is surprised when a homeless man, "Skink", bursts out of the sand and complains about Richard ruining his trap. Skink explains that a poacher has been stealing eggs from the nests at night; Skink has been lying in wait to "have a chat" with him. Richard apologizes and runs off.Richard becomes even more worried when Malley's parents tell him she has left Florida for early orientation at a boarding school they enrolled her in, yet when Richard calls the school, its secretary tells him there is no such event. When Malley calls Richard, she admits that she has run away from home with a friend she met in an online chatroom, and warns Richard not to tell the truth to her parents. Skink tells him, in no uncertain terms, to reveal the truth.Malley's parents are alarmed, even more so when the police discover that the name of her friend, "Talbo Chock", actually belongs to a soldier killed in Afghanistan, meaning this new friend is an identity thief or worse. Richard is frantic, but after Skink has dealt with the poacher, he announces that his next "project" is to track Malley down and bring her home safe, and he invites Richard to come along. Since the police have had no success in tracing Malley's whereabouts, Richard agrees, tricking his parents into believing he is going camping with a friend.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Real_Children" title="My Real Children">
In 2015, Patricia is 89 years old and living in a nursing home, with two mutually-exclusive sets of memories: one of a world where John F. Kennedy was killed by a bomb in 1963, and one of a world where Kennedy chose not to run in 1964 after an escalated Cuban Missile Crisis led to the nuclear obliteration of Miami and Kyiv—and, on a more personal level, one in which she went by "Trish", married a man and had four children before she was able to escape an unhappy marriage and become involved in politics, and one in which, as "Pat", she was a successful travel writer raising three children with her lesbian partner. Both feel completely real, but both cannot be – even though both sets of children visit her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alleys_of_Eden" title="The Alleys of Eden">
Set in Saigon during the final days of the Vietnam War and the buildup to the American evacuation, the story revolves around Clifford Wilkes, the last U.S. Army deserter remaining in Saigon and his Vietnamese girlfriend Lanh, a former prostitute. The soldier has spent the last five years hiding in his lover's small room in one of the countless back alleys of that sprawling city, afraid to venture far in case he is captured by his countrymen. During that time the couple have become far more than lovers, having gradually built a unique level of trust and understanding. As the end of the conflict becomes inevitable, Wilkes must face his fears and claim a place for himself and Lanh on one of the last helicopters to leave Saigon. Back in the United States, their relationship slowly flounders and dissolves as Wilkes is drawn back into his own society and Lanh becomes alienated and helpless among her new surroundings and the lack of empathy she encounters in the people around her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dogs" title="Day of the Dogs">
Johnny Alpha and Middenface McNulty are hired by wealthy wild west aficionado Asdoel Zo to track down Preacher Tarkettle, the man who killed his family. Alpha and McNulty recruit a squad of Strontium Dogs to assist them on the mission, but all is not what it seems with Zo and they soon find a traitor in their midst.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We_Run" title="Why We Run">
The narrator, Heinrich, writes about the challenges that he faced in his life and in writing the book. It explains why humans endure ultramarathons. One segment focuses on the time Heinrich came first in the Golden Gate Marathon in the 1980s. During the ultra-marathon, Heinrich drank Ocean Spray cranberry juice rather than water, stating that it was sugar that kept him running throughout the .The book is organised into chapters detailing different animals and their ability to use their natural advantages for greatest endurance and explains how Heinrich used this knowledge to become an ultra-runner. "Why We Run" focuses on how antelope, deer, wolves, bees, frogs, camels and other animals exhibit endurance techniques that humans later adopted. For example, antelopes travel in packs and "leap frog" from back to front to conserve energy and escape predators. Deer are natural sprinters and sprint to escape predators. Wolves, like endurance runners, chase sprinting prey to tire them. Camels are adapted to fat storage and usage in order to conserve water in their harsh environment. Birds have a majority of slow twitch fibrous muscles that are adapted for long travel times as well as the ability to simultaneously inhale and exhale. The book concludes as Heinrich completes an ultra-marathon and reflects on the biology, anthropology, psychology and philosophy that affected his life along with the animals and their metabolic functions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_and_Ramazan" title="Ali and Ramazan">
Ali and Ramazan are two boys from very different backgrounds who land in the same Istanbul orphanage. They quickly see eye to eye and fall into a loving relationship as children, bringing light to one another and to the other orphans in their dreary adopted home. Ramazan is a charmer, the school master's favorite, the clown among the boys, and the only one with a real handle on things outside the orphanage's walls. He takes Ali under his wing, and by the time they turn eighteen and are loosed onto Istanbul's mean streets, Ali and Ramazan are a pair. What happens next is both tragic and beautiful, a testament to love finding its way even among the least visible citizens on Turkey's mean streets.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elixir_(Walters_novel)" title="Elixir (Walters novel)">
12-year-old Ruth and her mother ( elizabeth williams) go to the University of Toronto where Ruth's mother works as a custodian. While Ruth is outside studying Spelling Dictation,) Dr. Banting, a doctor in search for a cure for diabetes comes over and invites her to tea. However, Ruth is horrified when she discovers that Dr. Banting and his assistant Dr. Best are testing treatments on dogs. Just outside, a group of protesters called the Dr. Banting are protesting about animal rights. Ruth meets Mellisa Jones, the leader of the Ontario Anti-Vivisection, and Ruth agrees to help them free the dogs. But when Ruth meets Emma, a girl with diabetes who needs a treatment, Ruth's opinions change and she tries to stop the rescue. When she meets Dr. Banting, she discovers that they are testing the treatment on a dog already in a diabetic coma. They try the insulin and succeed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Kill_a_Dragon" title="How to Kill a Dragon">
The book consists of seven parts and 59 chapters. Watkins uses the comparative method to find cognate formulas and mythological features that could be traced back to a common past in ancient texts written in Indo-European languages. He claims that it is not possible to understand fully the traditional elements in an early Indo-European poetic text without the background of what he calls a "genetic intertextuality" of particular formulas and themes in all languages of the family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Reign_of_Terror" title="In the Reign of Terror">
Harry Sandwith, a sixteen-year-old English boy, is sent to live in France with the Marquis de St. Caux, a friend of a French nobleman Harry's father once served. The marquis is impressed with the English system of schooling and believes that his two sons, Ernest and Jules, will benefit from the influence and friendship of an independent and manly English boy. Harry, who is an undistinguished, average student at Westminster School, is eager for the opportunity to live in France, which he believes will create greater opportunities for him when he joins the British Army. Harry sets off for Paris in 1790 with the intention of living with the St. Caux family for the next two to three years.Harry is escorted to the marquis's chateau near Dijon. He meets the marquis and his wife, along with their two sons, Ernest and Jules, and three daughters, Marie, Jeanne, and Virginie. The marquis is impressed by Harry's confidence and self-possession in such an unfamiliar environment, but the rest of the family remains unconvinced and mocks his strange mannerisms and rough appearance. Their attitude changes, however, after Harry succeeds in killing a rabid dog that attacks Jeanne and Virginie. They begin to accept Harry as a member of the family, and Harry and Ernest become close friends, hunting and adventuring together and even managing to kill the Demon Wolf that long terrorised the communities surrounding the chateau.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Night_Women" title="The Book of Night Women">
Lilith is a beautiful young woman born during the 18th century on a Jamaican sugar plantation. Orphaned from birth, she quickly learns that life as a slave can be frequently brutal and unkind. After she is forced to defend herself against a would-be rapist, she is sent to work in the plantation owner's house. There she tries to win the master's affections, despite warnings from a fellow slave that this will only end badly. From there, she is sent to live with the overseer of the plantation, and the two have an unconventional relationship. Lilith experiences more troubles when the Night Women, a group of female slaves planning a revolt, ask her to join in their plans.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Mischief_(novel)" title="White Mischief (novel)">
Part novel and part journalism the book is divided into two distinct sections. Initially presented as a classic murder mystery, the first part of the story focuses on the dissolute lifestyles of the wealthy elite in colonial Kenya. Casual affairs, wife-swapping, habitual drunkenness and cocaine abuse were all common. The main protagonists are the victim, Josslyn Hay, a handsome womanizing aristocrat, his beautiful married lover Lady Diana Broughton and Diana’s much older husband Sir Delves Broughton. Although the identity of the murderer was never actually discovered at the time, the author claims to have found new evidence pointing to Sir Delves, and the second part of the book concentrates on the author’s investigations and interviews with surviving participants in the drama, both in Kenya and in England.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liliane_(novel)" title="Liliane (novel)">
The novel opens with a conversation between Liliane and her psychoanalyst. These conversations become regular interval points within and throughout the novel as the story unfolds. Liliane expresses concern about her current situation, professing that she cannot breathe and that she is looking for somebody and it does not matter who, she says, "as long as he won't hurt me".As the novel continues, Liliane's character is developed through the lens of those around her with whom she is close. The reader learns that Liliane grew up within a wealthy and prominent Black family that was part of the Talented tenth. Liliane's father pushes her to pursue a husband who will "'...have the backbone to fight for what's never happened, or for dreams.'" These comments lead Liliane to eventually leave her first boyfriend, Danny, and pursue another man, named Granville, who better conforms to her father's ideal of a suitable match.As Liliane and her close friends grow older, however, they begin to face significant conflicts within their lives. One of Liliane's close friends, Hyacinthe, begins to have mental health troubles early in her adolescence and depends heavily on her brother, Sawyer Malveaux III for support. When he is unexpectedly shot, however, Hyacinthe's mental condition becomes worse and she eventually enters care in a mental health facility. For Liliane, a major hurdle is the disappearance of her mother from her life and the breakdown of her nuclear family. As Liliane transitions to adulthood, the pressures from her father to be the ideal Black woman and mate to a powerful Black leader begin to have less of an impact on her life decisions. While the relationships with the women that Liliane formed throughout her early childhood and adolescence remain deeply important to her (and are maintained throughout the novel), Liliane begins to make romantic, sexual, and platonic connections with men and women from all walks of life. The desires of her father, and the mysterious disappearance of her mother, however, are never far from her mind.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Astounding,_the_Amazing,_and_the_Unknown" title="The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown">
The story, divided into short, numbered "episodes" rather than chapters, is presented as a "story about Nikola Tesla" recounted by Richard Feynman to a group of other Manhattan Project scientists in the wake of World War II. It involves the efforts of a similar think-tank, the Kamikaze Group, to uncover the secret of a rumored "super-weapon" Tesla had developed before his death, one supposedly responsible for the mysterious Tunguska explosion of 1908. Feynman makes no claims for the tale's veracity, a caution warranted at the end of the book when his informant is revealed to have been pulp writer L. Ron Hubbard, a participant in the novel's events portrayed as a self-promoting, delusional narcissist.Malmont bases the Kamikaze Group on the trio of science fiction writers, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp and Isaac Asimov, who in actual history spent most of the war doing aeronautical engineering research for the U.S. Navy at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard's Naval Air Experimental Station. He portrays them as engaged in a joint project there to develop super-scientific weapons to help the U.S. win the war, though in reality they worked separately on technical improvements to airplanes and weapons systems. Heinlein leads the fictional project, which also draws on the assistance of other pulp authors of his acquaintance, most notably Hubbard, Walter B. Gibson, and Lester Dent, with cameo roles by John W. Campbell, Norvell Page, Hugh B. Cave, Frederik Pohl, Cleve Cartmill, Kurt Vonnegut, Judith Merril, and Ray Bradbury. Additional historical luminaries such as Jack Parsons, Albert Einstein and Jimmy Stewart also put in appearances.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassafrass,_Cypress_&amp;_Indigo" title="Sassafrass, Cypress &amp; Indigo">
The story starts with Indigo, the youngest daughter of the family, sitting amongst her beloved hand-made dolls, which each have names and personalities that emerge over the course of the novel. Before the reader learns much about the other sisters or mother, Indigo begins menstruating, is gifted an old fiddle by Uncle John, and consequently initiated into a cult-like group of pre-adolescent boys called the Jr. Geechee Captains. Indigo's first section is full of informal mappings, remedies, and tales such as "Moon Journeys: "cartography by Indigo"" and "To Rid Oneself of the Scent of Evil: "by Indigo"". Soon, some of those cartographies are replaced by recipes as the family prepares for and celebrates Christmas, with the ever-present spirit of Daddy, the girls' father, wafting through their annual traditions. Sassafrass and Cypress are back from school in New England and New York City, respectively, and the reader won't see the four women together again until the very last pages of the book.The reader next meets Sassafrass in Los Angeles, where she lives with Mitch, a struggling and self-destructive jazz saxophonist. Sassafrass is working to find her creative niche, still weaving and cooking, but pining to get to an artists' colony in New Orleans. She eventually leaves Mitch in LA, moving to San Francisco to live with her younger sister Cypress. Sassafrass exists on the periphery of Cypress' bright and full world for some time, planning to dance and write in hopes of regaining herself outside of Mitch's abuse. After a while, Sassafrass returns to LA and Cypress decides to pursue a professional dance career, which eventually lands her back in New York City.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Place_to_Hide_(Greenwald_book)" title="No Place to Hide (Greenwald book)">
The book consists of five chapters; Contact, Ten Days in Hong Kong, Collect It All, The Harm of Surveillance, and the Fourth Estate, plus an introduction and an epilogue.In the introduction Greenwald explains how his background as a blogger on surveillance practices of the American government attracted Edward Snowden's attention, and he summarizes the nature, legality, and evolution of such practices. Greenwald concludes by discussing how a global surveillance network has been created with the assistance of technology companies and the unique role of the internet in human history as a facilitator of such surveillance.In the body of the book, Greenwald discusses how he became involved with the 2013 global surveillance disclosures. He began by traveling to Hong Kong to meet Edward Snowden, who had contacted Greenwald as an anonymous source purporting to have evidence of government surveillance. As Greenwald continued to investigate he uncovered more information that he later published, to much controversy. In the book Greenwald also discusses establishment media, which he states will traditionally avoid publishing anything that would put them at odds with the government and as such, are less helpful when it comes to the interests of the general public.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jacket_(book)" title="The Jacket (book)">
Schoolboy Phil has never viewed himself as racist, but he's forced to rethink his stance when he accuses Daniel of stealing an imported jacket. Daniel, who is African-American, was given the jacket as a gift by his grandmother, who works for Phil's mother as a housekeeper and had received the jacket as a hand-me-down. Phil immediately begins to rethink his actions, wondering if he would have treated the situation differently if Daniel had been white instead of black. Tortured by self-doubt, Phil looks at his immediate surroundings and is saddened when he realizes that he has likely been influenced by his father, who is openly bigoted.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnaadi" title="Agnaadi">
The story starts with Aandi or Kalingalaandi son of a farmer returning after giving the lunch to his mother. On his return, Aandi falls into quicksand and rescued by Maari a son of a washer-man. Both Aandi and Maari becomes friends.Aandi after growing up, marries Karuppi and the couple works together in the farm field. The couple's work in the farm field is highly regarded in the neighboring villages and Aandi is specially known for his technique in sow seeding. Meanwhile, Maari helps his father in laundry. Maari marries Anandhi and on the same day as Karuppi gives birth to Raakan. Soon after the marriage, Anandhi gives birth to Marudhan and Allaathi.After the death of Maari's parents, Anandhi helps Maari in laundry and she goes to the village to collect "kothu" (a price asked for goods and services). Karuppi gives birth to Veerama after a long period since Raakan's birth. Veeramma grows up naughtily and Karuppi is very much fond of her. Maari realizes that he is unable to work due to his illness and stays at home. Anandhi looks after Maari and also the laundry with the help of their son Marudhan. Maari dies in spite of the treatment. Anandhi after the death of her husband, intends to leave the village to settle in her parents' place, but Aandi advises them to stay in the village.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Sajo_and_her_Beaver_People" title="The Adventures of Sajo and her Beaver People">
Sajo, a young Ojibwe Indian girl, and her older brother adopt two young beavers, Chilawee and Chikanee, and try to save them from fur traders.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coalwood_Way" title="The Coalwood Way">
It is now 1959. The Rocket Boys are still perfecting their handmaderockets and, as high school seniors, preparing for their futures.Homer is determined to prove to his father that he is collegematerial, but with the mine perilously close to running out of coaland shutting down, the prospects for the future of any ofCoalwood's children is bleak. Miners have lost their jobs andhomes, public services have been cut to residences in the outlyingareas, and Homer's father is faced with initiating an extremelydangerous and controversial new mining method in order to save thetown and the mine from oblivion. Homer's mother feels increasinglycut off from her husband and the townspeople as her role as themine superintendent's wife places her at odds with the wives of theunion workers.Optimism is hard to come by in the bleak winter months of the lastyear of the 1950s, and Homer is overcome with an overriding senseof gloom with his future so uncertain. The faith and hope of thesehard working people, however, form the basis for an upliftingmemoir, as Sonny and his friends resurrect the Spirit of Christmaswhen Coalwood need it the most.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setangan_Berloemoer_Darah" title="Setangan Berloemoer Darah">
After his father is murdered, Tan Hian Beng is forced to leave for Batavia. When he is an adult, he is given a blood-covered handkerchief and told that he must take revenge on his father's killer. He leaves for Semarang, and along the way rescues sisters Lim Kiat Nio and Lim Liang Tin from a group of bandits under the command of Li Djin Hin. Once in Semarang, Tan becomes assistant to the "letnan Cina" Goei Tjeng Tin. Through his relationship with Goei, Tan is reunited with his mother and learns of a young man named Kam Po Sin, who has killed a woman.In an attempt to stop the investigation, Kam Po Sin joins forces with Li; the two kidnap Lim Kiat Nio and capture Tan and Goei, but try to kill each other after Kiat Nio escapes. Kam Po Sin emerges victorious, but is caught and sentenced to death. On the day of the execution, Tan passes by Kam Po Sin's house. Hearing the sound of weeping, he investigates, and finds Kam Po's father Tiok Tjoen, who killed Tan's father. Kam Tiok Tjoen is shocked at Tan's appearance, believing him to be the ghost of the murdered man. Tan, for his part, decides that Kam Tiok Tjoen need not be killed, for he has already suffered enough.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drown_(short_story_collection)" title="Drown (short story collection)">
## "Ysrael".This story was included in "The Best American Short Stories", 1996. "Ysrael" tells the story of Yunior and his brother Rafa in the Dominican Republic searching for a neighborhood boy whose face was disfigured by a pig, causing him to wear a mask at all times.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Watched_the_Trains_Go_By_(novel)" title="The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By (novel)">
Kees Popinga, a quiet, respectable Dutchman working as head clerk in Groningen becomes increasingly unhinged after discovering that his cynical employer has looted and ruined his firm and confides in him that he will fake a suicide in order to escape punishment. Accepting a large sum of money from his erstwhile employer, Popinga sets out for Amsterdam, hoping to ingratiate himself with his employer's mistress, Pamela: but she mockingly laughs in his face, infuriating him. Popinga assaults her and accidentally kills her. He then hurriedly leaves town, eventually making his way to Paris. There, every day, he buys the various newspapers which carry the story of the murder. Although Chief Inspector Lucas of the Police Judiciare confidently predicts that Popinga will be arrested at any moment, Popinga successfully evades them. He begins sending letters to the police and to the newspapers, playing a sort of cat and mouse game. Soon the man becomes more and more delusional, seeing himself as a master criminal and certain that the woman he has become involved with, a prostitute named Jeanne Rozier, is genuinely interested in him, rather than in her pimp/boyfriend, Louis. For a time, Popinga joins Louis's gang of car thieves and hides out with them. But his reputation as a dangerous murderer wanted by the French police, frightens them, and he takes off on his own. He wanders the streets of Paris and its outskirts, staying in cheap hotels with prostitutes by night, until a pickpocket steals his wallet containing all the money he has left. Just as he is attempting suicide, he is captured by the French police. The French authorities send him back to Holland where he is put in a mental institution.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amma_Vandhaal" title="Amma Vandhaal">
Appu, a vedic scholar, returns from his school after completing his studies. After arriving home, Appu learns of his mother's affair with Sivasu, and that the other family members are already aware of it. His mother reveals that she had sent him to the vedic school to atone for her sins. A heartbroken Appu goes back to his school after hearing of his guru's illness, as someone has to run the school.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crimson_Campaign" title="The Crimson Campaign">
Field Marshal Tamas has committed a brutal coup against Adro's monarchy and is now in open war with the Kez. Cut off behind enemy lines with only a fraction of his army, he must lead his men through northern Kez to safety, meanwhile defending his country against the angry god Kresimir, who wants the head of the man who shot him in the eye.Taniel Two-Shot, presuming his father to be dead, finds himself the last line of defense against the devastating army of the most powerful god.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mira,_Mirror" title="Mira, Mirror">
A young girl, Mira, becomes an apprentice to a witch. The witch's other apprentice, Amanda, adopts Mira as a sister. Betraying their friendship, Amanda changes Mira into a magic mirror. The story refers to Amanda becoming the wicked queen of the "Snow White" fairy tale. Mira serves the wicked queen until her usefulness runs out and she is abandoned.Several years pass when Ivana, a peasant girl running away from her cruel father, stumbles upon Mira. Mira manipulates Ivana into becoming friends with a wealthy merchant's daughter named Talia. Mira does this in hopes of gaining her human form back. Mira uses her magic to change the girls' appearances so each resembles the other. Unexpectedly, Talia is quite happy with her new form as she is trying to escape an arranged marriage. Mira works with Ivana and Talia for each of them to achieve their goals.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Princess_and_the_Hound" title="The Princess and the Hound">
The story focuses on two characters, Prince George and Princess Beatrice, that have been arranged to be married. Prince George possesses a magical ability to speak with animals which is forbidden in the kingdom where he lives. Princess Beatrice has a hound that travels with her everywhere and is abused by people around her. The plot revolves around the meeting of Prince George and Princess Beatrice as they work to get to know each other. Their courtship is pressured by the illness facing Prince’s George’s father. It is revealed that the illness is not of natural causes and that Princess Beatrice has been enchanted.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital" title="Das Kapital">
## "Capital, Volume I"."Capital, Volume I" (1867) is a critical analysis of political economy, meant to reveal the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production, how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production and of the class struggle rooted in the capitalist social relations of production. The first of three volumes of "Das Kapital" was published on 14 September 1867, dedicated to Wilhelm Wolff and was the sole volume published in Marx's lifetime.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Case_of_Dr_Jekyll_and_Mr_Hyde" title="Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde">
Gabriel John Utterson and his cousin Richard Enfield reach the door of a large house on their weekly walk. Enfield tells Utterson that months ago, he saw a sinister-looking man named Edward Hyde trample a young girl after accidentally bumping into her. Enfield forced Hyde to pay her family £100 to avoid a scandal. Hyde brought Enfield to this door and gave him a cheque signed by a reputable gentleman later revealed to be Doctor Henry Jekyll, Utterson's friend and client. Utterson fears Hyde is blackmailing Jekyll, as Jekyll recently changed his will to make Hyde the sole beneficiary. When Utterson tries to discuss Hyde with Jekyll, Jekyll tells Utterson he can get rid of Hyde when he wants and asks him to drop the matter.One year later in October, a servant sees Hyde beat Sir Danvers Carew, another one of Utterson's clients, to death and leave behind half a broken cane. The police contact Utterson, who leads officers to Hyde's apartment. Hyde has vanished, but they find the other half of the broken cane. Utterson recognizes the cane as one he had given to Jekyll. Utterson visits Jekyll, who shows Utterson a note, allegedly written to Jekyll by Hyde, apologizing for the trouble that he has caused. However, Hyde's handwriting is similar to Jekyll's own, leading Utterson to conclude that Jekyll forged the note to protect Hyde.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizardwar" title="The Wizardwar">
The foreign armies were defeated. Waiting for help in the field of Black Fairies, Tizgone experiences the power that makes her an anomaly in Halruaa. Matteo, with the help of a mysterious secret that as king he must struggle with the affairs of a kingdom which stirred after decades of placidity, why Andris has strangely taken prisoner and who is behind powerful spells dropped during battles, among other things. While the company is in full Halruaa disorder, Kiva forgetting who it was, returned to finish his plan with which to shake the kingdom to its foundations. Everything heads for the outbreak of a civil war, a war of wizards for the heart of Halruaa.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horselords" title="Horselords">
Koja is presented Khahan while his army completes submit Semphar its authority. Impressed by his erudition and his diplomatic skills of the monk, it makes its regular columnist in charge to relate how a simple warrior Tuigan became the "Illustrious Emperor of All Nations" (because it is his ambition). Its role is rapidly gaining importance and is responsible for diplomacy Khahan and even became his "anda" (blood brother) after saving her life.It is obviously not to the liking of general Tuigan to see a stranger so close to their leader, including General Chanar Ong Kho, also "anda" of Khahan and own mother Yamun, Bayalun Khadun, dedicated to his son visceral hatred. Thus, after further conquests Tuigan, such as taking the Khazari, Koja manages to uncover a plot against the Khahan. Officials Tuigan unmasked are severely punished but untouchable because sponsors are located in the mighty empire of Shou Lung.It is not that deter the Khahan wash what he sees as a personal affront and after the first battle in which magical talents Koja used to open a breach in the Dragonwall, the invasion of Shou Lung can begin in earnest.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonwall" title="Dragonwall">
After all attempts by the Minister of War Kwan Chan Sen have failed miserably, Emperor Kai Tsao Shou Chin instructs the General Batu Min Ho to counter the enemy. Tuiganes its origins suggest indeed think the emperor that he can repel the barbarians, but his loyalty is in doubt after the discovery of blatant evidence of treason. This is why his wife Wu and her children are left under the protection of the Emperor, ostensibly for their safety, unofficially as hostages.Batu Min Ho then develops a plan with the help of her stepfather, General Hsuan Yu Po, of encircling and ensnare Tuigan in the town of Shu Kuan. Hsuan and his army attract enemy, leading tough battles and testing the use of cannon powder. When Batu reaches Shou Kuan after ascending the river Shengti the Tuigan are trapped but the army of Hsuan is destroyed. Vastly superior in numbers, Tuigan cannot be dislodged, but cannot break the siege. The status quo and a brief negotiation with Koja, the spokesman Khahan, Batu lead to return to the Emperor. But the dark revelations await: he is accused of treason.In fact the wife and children of Batu, at the center of intrigues bureaucracy, soon to discover that the Minister of War Kwan Chan Sen and Minister of State Ju-Hai Chou are at the origin of the attack against Yamun Khahan, and thus the war. Wu discovered at the same time that the Minister of Security, Ting Mei Wan, sing the War Minister and is none other than the traitor who informs enemies. However, she is accused of treason by Ting and she and her children are executed before he could reveal what they know. When Batu joined the imperial palace, he is accused of treason by the Minister of Public Safety, but a document submitted by the Tuigan help prove innocence are confused and Ting Mei Wan.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade_(Forgotten_Realms_novel)" title="Crusade (Forgotten Realms novel)">
After much diplomatic negotiations and tough negotiations, Azoun finally convince his allies to mount a coalition to counter the threat of Tuigan. Against all odds, even Zhentil Keep promises to send troops. Although suspecting (rightly) rear political thoughts, Azoun accept this help and is an alliance of Cormyrians, the Dalesfolk, the Sembians, dwarf of the Foothills of the Earth and the Centaurs of forest Léthyr convinced by Princess Alusair who arrived in the region of Thesk, soon joined by Zhents forces, commanded by orcish General Vrakk.This motley army led several battles against the horde, but both armies succeeded in taking a decisive advantage. It is only thanks to an ingenious stratagem that the coalition succeeds in isolating the Khahan and his Praetorian guard the rest of Tuigan. After a fierce battle, the Khahan is killed by Azoun in person.The Tuigan army's private chef folds under the command of General Chanar Ong Kho, General Batu Min Ho refuses to be captured and committed suicide, joining his murdered family, while the monk Koja is presented to the king Azoun that loads to tell everything he knows about Tuigan.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Returned_(novel)" title="The Returned (novel)">
The series follows residents of Arcadia, North Carolina, in particular the Hargrave family, whose lives are upended when their loved ones return from the dead, unaged since their deaths. Among the returned is Jacob Hargrave, an eight-year-old boy who drowned 32 years earlier. Having been found alive, Jacob is brought back by the Bureau, which investigates the phenomenon of the Returned. The military agent Bellamy returns Jacob to his parents, Harold and Lucille Hargrave, who must deal with his return.The novel also occasionally looks at the phenomenon from the viewpoint of the Returned, who appear to have no knowledge of or explanation for their return, and only want to live their lives. The Returned are described as being largely identical to their pre-death selves except for strange quirks that are frequently described as odd or unnerving by people who formerly knew them.Harold initially refuses to see the Returned Jacob as his son, as he had been the one to pull Jacob's body out of the river, but Lucille fully embraces his return as a miracle. As the novel progresses Harold slowly softens to Jacob's presence, even going so far as to willingly accompany the boy when the military imprisons all of the Returned at an Arcadian schoolhouse. While imprisoned, Harold is made the temporary caretaker of an elderly woman with dementia, Patricia – a woman he later discovers is Bellamy's mother, as the agent knew that Harold would treat her with consideration.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_James_Blunt" title="I, James Blunt">
The novel chronicles the occupation of the United Kingdom by the Nazis from 11 September 1944 to 13 March 1945 who begin a programme of "complete Germanisation" of the country. St Paul's Cathedral is razed to make room for a Nazi Party headquarters and guerrilla warfare and any potential dissidence is suppressed through heavy policing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo_Clock" title="The Cuckoo Clock">
A small child and a cuckoo from a cuckoo clock become unlikely friends. At night the clock transports her to magical places.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Million_Nightingales" title="A Million Nightingales">
Moinette Antoine is a young slave at Azure, a sugarcane plantation south of New Orleans owned by the Bordelons, where she lives with her mother, Marie-Thérèse, who is the plantation's laundress. Moinette is the housemaid to Céphaline, the teenage daughter of the Bordelons, who is a scholar and a misfit. Moinette surreptitiously teaches herself how to read by listening to Céphaline's lessons and observing her studies. After Céphaline unexpectedly dies, Moinette is sold to Laurent de la Rosière, the owner of another sugarcane plantation.Soon after she arrives at Rosière, Moinette attempts to escape and return to her mother in Azure, but she is quickly captured and returned to Rosière. Moinette becomes the housemaid of Madame Pélagie who is a relative of the Bordelons. Madame Pélagie is another intelligent and free-spirited woman who promises to bring Moinette to New Orleans where they can run a shop together. Moinette becomes pregnant after she is raped by three men, including the Bordelons' son. She gives birth to a boy, Jean-Paul. Before Madame Pélagie can take Moinette to New Orleans, tragedy strikes again, and Moinette is sold to Julien Antoine, a lawyer from Opelousas.In Opelousas, Moinette discovers that Julien Antoine is a kind person who is willing to help her. She pretends to be his mistress while she runs his boardinghouse. She continues her self-education by reading Antoine's legal papers and learning how to write. Eventually, Antoine helps her to purchase her son and become a free woman. However, even when Moinette is free, her life continues to be marked by brutality and tragedy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Night_Room" title="In the Night Room">
The novel follows Timothy Underhill, an author. He is still struggling to come to terms with the loss of his sister April and Timothy tries to channel his sorrow and frustrations into a new novel he is writing, without much success. This is all made more difficult by Timothy receiving several e-mails from people he knows to be dead, all of whom insist that they have something very important they need to tell him. At the same time Newberry Award-winning author Willy Patrick is afraid for her own sanity, as she believes that her daughter is being held captive in a warehouse - despite knowing that her daughter is already dead. As the story progresses the stories of Willy and Timothy entwine and the two must find a way to discern what is going on and what they can do to prevent any further misfortunes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fair_Jilt" title="The Fair Jilt">
When the story opens, young Miranda is living in a convent of "Begines", an order of "galloping nuns" who take only temporary vows. Her parents are dead and her younger sister, Alcidiana, lives with an uncle. The seeming unattainability of the Begines makes them more desirable to men, and Miranda is beautiful, accomplished, and wealthy. Not surprisingly, she has many admirers; she receives their gifts and attention with pleasure, while loving none of them. Then one day she meets Henrick, a handsome young prince who has taken monastic vows and changed his name to Francisco. (Miranda's maid tells her about Henrick's tragic past in a story within a story.) Miranda becomes infatuated with Henrick. When he rejects her advances, she accuses him of rape and has him thrown in prison.Soon afterwards, Miranda meets Prince Tarquin and the two marry, but Miranda's extravagant lifestyle soon sees her wealth greatly reduced. She invites her sister to move in with her and Tarquin so that she can pilfer from her sister's funds. To keep a hold over her sister, she rebuffs all of her sister's suitors until Alcidiana moves out. Miranda then sends a servant to poison Alcidiana, which he does, but Alcidiana does not die and the servant reveals Miranda's plan to the authorities. The servant is hanged, and Miranda, due to her position, is only shamed, though a great sum of money is owed to Alcidiana and Tarquin is ordered to pay it by the court. Miranda talks Tarquin into killing her sister, and so he attempts to shoot her but fails. He is caught, confesses, and is sent to be beheaded, but the executioner misses the mark and hits Tarquin's shoulder instead, causing severe injury. Tarquin is then released, and he and Miranda leave the country. In the closing lines, it is noted that Miranda eventually repents her sinful past and that Tarquin has since died, though no explanation is offered for his death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mayan_Secrets" title="The Mayan Secrets">
Husband-and-wife team Sam and Remi Fargo are in Mexico, when they come upon a remarkable discovery—the skeleton of a man clutching an ancient sealed pot, and within the pot, a Mayan codex, larger than anyone has ever seen. The codex contains astonishing information about the Mayans, their cities, and mankind itself. The secrets are so powerful that some people would do anything to possess them—as the Fargos are just about to find out who.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eye_of_Heaven" title="The Eye of Heaven">
Baffin Island: Husband-and-wife team Sam and Remi Fargo are on a climate-control expedition in the Arctic, when to their astonishment they discover a Viking ship in the ice, perfectly preserved—and filled with pre–Columbian artifacts from Mexico.How can that be? As they plunge into their research, tantalizing clues about a link between the Vikings and the legendary Toltec feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl/Ce Acatl Topiltzin —and a fabled object known as the Eye of Heaven— begin to emerge. But so do many dangerous people. Soon the Fargos find themselves on the run through jungles, temples, and secret tombs, caught between treasure hunters, crime cartels, and those with a far more personal motivation for stopping them. At the end of the road will be the solution to a thousand-year-old mystery—or death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cage_on_the_Sea" title="Cage on the Sea">
During the Pacific War, after three Japanese supply ships are sunk off the shore of Anatahan, the survivors are taken in by Kikuichiro Higa and Kuzuko, his live-in wife, who have a small coconut plantation on the island. Commanding officer, Sgt. Junzo Itami, tries to maintain discipline, but as the group endures U.S. airstrikes and food shortages order begins to break down. Soon the men become obsessed with Kazuko, the lone woman on the island, and a vicious dynamic sets in among the survivors.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Some_Kind_of_Fairy_Tale" title="Some Kind of Fairy Tale">
The novel takes place in Leicestershire, England in current times. Tara disappears after meeting a stranger, Hiero, in Charnwood Forest. After a long absence, she returns to her parents on Christmas Day. She claims she had been trapped in a parallel reality populated by fairies. Tara believes she was missing for only six months, yet her family knows she has been gone for 20 years. During her absence Tara has barely aged at all, still resembling a 15-year-old girl. But her parents have become elderly and feeble, her brother Peter has become a husband and father, and her boyfriend Richie has led a life of underachievement and substance abuse, unable to recover from Tara's disappearance. Tara's family refuses to accept her explanation for her disappearance. Nevertheless, Tara insists it is true. The family employs Dr. Underwood to assess Tara's sanity. The psychiatrist concludes she has unconsciously fabricated her story as a defense mechanism to avoid confronting some trauma that must have occurred during the period of her absence.Tara becomes increasingly dissatisfied with life with her parents and boyfriend, finding it pales in comparison to her supposed experiences in the parallel world. Her neighbor, Mrs. Larwood, claims to have had the same experience, and warns her of the dangers involved in moving between the two worlds.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Untamed_State" title="An Untamed State">
Mireille Duval Jameson is born and raised in the United States, her parents are from Haitian descent. Her parents move back to Haiti. While vacationing at her parents' house with her husband and child in Haiti, she is kidnapped. When her father, who by now has become a wealthy Haitian developer, refuses to pay her ransom, she is gang-raped and tortured by her captors, who keep her imprisoned for 13 days before finally releasing her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Orange" title="Tropic of Orange">
"Tropic of Orange" revolves around seven distinct, yet interrelated characters and story lines (listed in bold below). The story covers the span of seven days, with each day getting its own unit, and with each character getting one chapter for each day.In Los Angeles, Japanese-American television news executive, Emi, and her lover, Latino journalist Gabriel Balboa, are chasing newsworthy stories of local disaster, including an apocalyptic standstill on the Harbor Freeway and the creation of a new urban social order by homeless population moving into the abandoned cars. One of Gabriel's most reliable sources is Buzzworm, an African American man who roams LA streets dispensing advice and help. Buzzworm gives Gabriel a few newsworthy tips, such as the mysterious package arriving at the L.A. airport and the presence of Manzanar Murakami, a Sansei and former doctor who conducts freeway traffic from an overpass as if they were symphonies.Gabriel also owns a home near Mazatlán, Mexico, which is being tended by Mexican-American Rafaela Cortes during her separation from husband Bobby Ngu. Gabriel's Mexican home is the site of early anomalies that become increasingly visible and widespread as the novel progresses, including a special orange that falls from Rafaela's favorite tree at the home. This orange is picked up by the mystical Arcangel, who carries the fruit across the U.S.-Mexico border and, with it, the Tropic of Cancer. Rafaela also overhears a conversation between two men that makes her fear for the safety of herself and her son, Sol. Meanwhile, Bobby, who has been trying to locate Rafaela and Sol, is mysteriously informed of the arrival of a young Chinese girl who may or may not be a cousin of his.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson,_Inc." title="Michael Jackson, Inc.">
From the official blurb: "Underlying Jackson’s unique history is the complex but universal tale of the effects of wealth and fame on the human psyche. A valuable case study for generations of entertainers to come and for anyone interested in show business, Michael Jackson, Inc. tells the story of a man whose financial feats, once obscured by his late-life travails, have become an enduring legacy."Notable sources interviewed for the book included music industry veterans Berry Gordy, John Branca, Teddy Riley, Martin Bandier and Walter Yetnikoff; artists 50 Cent, Sheryl Crow, Pharrell Williams, Slash, Diddy and Jon Bon Jovi; and members of the Jackson family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_Special_House" title="A Very Special House">
An unnamed little boy imagines a "special house" that is "just a house for Me ME". (The cover art shows the boy drawing a picture of the house.) He then imagines all the special things that make up the house including a special bed, special shelf, special chairs, a special door, special walls, and a special table. He brings to the special house a turtle, a rabbit, a giant, a dead mouse (in a box, according to the illustration), monkeys, and "some skunkeys and a very old lion". The lion proceeds to eat all the stuffing from the "chairs chairs chairs." The boy plays with the creatures "making secrets" and laughing and running and pretending to be chickens and singing until the play becomes frantic and tumultuous and "nobody says stop stop stop". The boy describes how his house is not really anywhere but "root in the moodle of my head head head": a statement which is complemented with images of the boy apparently asleep in a bed equipped with springs under it, his bouncing off the bed, and, on the following blank pages, him somersaulting through space. The illustrations conclude with an image, at the right bottom of the verso of a pair of blank pages, of the little boy looking mischievously over his shoulder.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_Human_novels" title="Being Human novels">
The vampire Mitchell, the werewolf George and the ghost Annie are flatmates. Together they try to live a human life, and control their instincts. Mitchell wants to stop drinking blood, George tries to live a life that isn't affected by the werewolf curse and Annie likes to be with someone that can understand her and talk to her. This isn't as easy as it seems, as their supernatural part always finds a way to show itself. So they always need to support each other in living their lives, living with the guilt that some actions are causing and dealing with the "ghosts" from their past.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Dolls_(novel)" title="China Dolls (novel)">
"China Dolls" centers on three young women who are attracted to the San Francisco nightclub scene right before American involvement in World War II. At first Grace Lee, Helen Fong, and Ruby Tom seem the unlikeliest of friends. Grace is a seventeen-year-old Chinese American from Plain City, Ohio. She escapes to San Francisco to get away from an abusive father but is also driven by dreams of stardom based on her dancing skills. Where Grace has been completely cut off by her family from her Chinese heritage, Helen is a virtual prisoner in the wealthy family compound of her father, forced to play a subservient role in a Chinese world that denies her freedom. Ruby Tom brings a completely different background to the mix. Coming from a Japanese family with strong roots in Japanese history and culture, Ruby is totally committed to becoming famous in America, leaving her parents in Hawaii to do so.By chance Helen runs into Grace when she is seeking help in finding a Chinese nightclub that might hire her as a dancer. In helping Grace find Charlie Low’s new Forbidden City (nightclub), Helen is tempted to try out as well since no previous experience is needed. At the dance tryouts, Helen and Grace meet Ruby Tom (Kimiko Fukutomi) – a very attractive dancer who was born in Los Angeles but then moved to Hawaii with her Japanese family. When Grace affirms that she wants to be a star, Ruby confesses that she loves glitter and wants to be famous. This is based on the life of legendary dancer Jadin Wong.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Pelican" title="The Day of the Pelican">
the story follows a fictional family named the Lleshi. The Lleshis are an Albanian family living in Kosovo, which is in the midst of a war. The family suddenly finds themselves homeless refugees in the middle of a violent war. After enduring much hardship, including hunger, illness and a dangerous journey to escape their situation, they are surprised when a church group brings them to America. They find themselves in a small town in Vermont when the events of September 11, 2001 take place, placing more challenges in the path of this Muslim family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon's_Bait" title="Dragon's Bait">
Alys has been falsely accused of witchcraft and is about to be sacrificed to a dragon. Then, Selendrile, a LeGuinian dragon that can assume a human form, offers to help her retaliate. Along the way to revenge against her inquisitor, Alys and Selendrile find a complicated path. This adventure looks at issues of revenge, heroism, and more with a splash of irony.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleven_Days_(novel)" title="Eleven Days (novel)">
Sara's son Jason is missing from a Special Operations Forces mission undertaken on the same night as the Bin Laden raid. As Sara waits for news, in a series of flashbacks we learn about Jason's absentee father, while through letters home from his training and early missions, we get a picture of Jason as a strong, compassionate leader who is wise beyond his years and modest about his abilities. Those exceptional abilities give Jason the chance to participate in a wholly different level of assignment, the most important and dangerous of his career.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Lestat" title="Prince Lestat">
Over a decade after the events of "Blood Canticle", the remaining vampires of the world are in chaos. The most famous of them all, Lestat de Lioncourt, finds himself called upon to come out of his self-imposed exile to reassert order, and is reunited with fellow vampires ancient and new: Louis and Armand, Pandora, Marius, Maharet and Mekare, the former Talamasca leader David Talbot and even Lestat's distant mother Gabrielle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saraswati_Park" title="Saraswati Park">
Mohan Karekar is a pensive letter-writer who lives with his wife, Lakshmi, in the housing complex of Saraswati Park in suburban Mumbai. Bored with his monotonous life, and stifled by his troublesome marriage, Mohan spends most of his time dreaming of becoming a writer. Meanwhile, Mohan's nephew, Ashish, a 19-year-old English literature student, moves in with them to complete his education after his parents are transferred to Indore. Ashish, struggling to accept his sexuality, is attracted to his classmate Sunder and later embarks on an affair with his much older tutor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Head_(novel)" title="Hot Head (novel)">
Malise Arnim, a European Muslim who became a cybernetically enhanced warrior was once the saviour of the world and everybody’s favourite heroine. However, once her skills had ceased to be useful the authorities removed her artificial enhancements and left her to sink or swim. Now, having been reduced to making porn films to survive, she is needed again as a huge artificial asteroid is heading for Earth and destroying everything in its path.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoded_(novel)" title="Decoded (novel)">
"Decoded" tells the story of Rong Jinzhen, an orphaned genius. Rong is adopted by distant relatives who study mathematics at an unnamed Chinese university, and is soon recognized for his mathematical prowess. Rong comes under the wing of a visiting Polish professor named Liseiwicz, who recognizes Rong's brilliance and urges him to study artificial intelligence.After Liseiwicz leaves China, Rong is approached by a government agent looking for the brightest students to bring into Unit 701, a government agency devoted to cryptography. At Unit 701, Rong cracks the nefarious Purple cipher, and soon becomes obsessed with cracking the Black cipher. After his notebook is stolen, however, Rong suffers a nervous breakdown from which he never recovers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreaming_of_Amelia" title="Dreaming of Amelia">
"Dreaming of Amelia" is the story of teenagers Amelia and Riley. They are seen as bad kids from Brookfield High who transfer to Ashbury High. They have been girlfriend and boyfriend since they were 14, and they are aloof and intriguing to the other kids. The story is told through memoirs written as part of the gothic fiction elective in the HSC English exam. It is the story of secrets, ghosts, passion and more.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Little_Monsters" title="Seven Little Monsters">
Seven giant monsters, each named as a number, One through Seven, line up together in the first frame and then start causing mischief. One flies, Two uses his long nose to dig a hole, Three scares a town, Four eats tulip trees, Five drinks the seas, Six sleeps on houses, and Seven unscrews his head. The final frame shows the giant monsters captured and restrained by the relatively tiny townspeople.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_(Massie_novel)" title="Augustus (Massie novel)">
The novel is in the form of a memoir written by Augustus in old age, in which he looks back over his long reign. Massie uses modern language and phraseology to describe Augustus' ruthlessness and the political intrigue he mastered and used so capably to keep himself in power for so many years when for most of his rule he was surrounded by powerful enemies and duplicitous allies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Change" title="State of Change">
10 BC. The Doctor and Peri land in ancient Rome, specifically in the tomb of Cleopatra. But something is very wrong: The tomb walls depict steam-driven galleys and other disturbing anachronisms. The time travellers discover that Rome has advanced far beyond its natural means, and they must recruit the aid of Ptolemy Caesar to prevent his half-siblings, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene II, from waging a potentially world-ending war with each other. But the anomalies don't just end with Rome, as The Doctor and Peri experience changes of their own...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Romance_of_Crime" title="The Romance of Crime">
The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Romana and K-9 to the Rock of Judgement: a supreme prison built into a rocket-powered asteroid.What is the link between the gallery of artist Menlove Stokes, and the massacre of a survey team on a far off planet? And why is Margo, Chief Of Security, behaving in such an odd manner?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennial_Rites" title="Millennial Rites">
The Doctor and Mel land in London, 1999, to celebrate the New Year. But other forces are making deadlier preparations to ring in the new millennium: a software firm is about to run a program that will change the very fabric of reality, while an ancient entity from the universe's origins is due for resurrection. When Anne Travers' fear of the Great Intelligence, and millionaire Ashley Chapel's research combine, London is set to be transformed into a terrifying place inhabited by unimaginable dangers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_the_Storm" title="Lords of the Storm">
The Sontaran-Rutan war has gone on for millennia, and with high costs: Billions dead and whole star systems annihilated. However, victory may be within reach, courtesy of the human colony world of Raghi. When the Doctor and Turlough arrive there, they find a society ruled by a strict caste system. But there is more: people are being infected by a mysterious disease, or vanishing in large numbers while strange objects orbit the sun. How is this linked to the two warring races?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_of_Your_Life_(novel)" title="Time of Your Life (novel)">
The Network broadcasts entertainment to the planets of the Meson system: Sixteen channels worth, and for the citizens of poverty-stricken Torrok, television offers the only escape from a horrible reality. Angela, from Torrok, leaps at the opportunity to travel to the Network, alongside a strange hermit called the Doctor. However, all is not well on the space station: A soap star has killed his wife's lover; the robotic cast of Timeriders are performing random abductions, and a deadly new game show is about to begin transmission.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_the_Code" title="Dancing the Code">
The Doctor has built a machine designed to predict the future, and it shows the Brigadier murdering him and Jo. Unable to tell when this is destined to occur, the Doctor and Jo decide to stay apart. Jo is sent to the war-ravaged Arab nation of Kebiria, but upon arrival, she is immediately arrested and sent to a brutal political prison. And that's not all: deep in the North African desert, an alien infestation is rapidly growing and threatens to overrun the entire planet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Menagerie_(novel)" title="The Menagerie (novel)">
The ruling Knights of Kuabris strive to maintain order in the city as horrid creatures emerge from the sewers. While Jamie languishes in the dungeons, and Zoe is sold into slavery, the Doctor is forced to lead an subterranean expedition for the mythic Menagerie of Ukkazaal. Could the ancient prophecies be coming true?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Shock_(novel)" title="System Shock (novel)">
It is 1998, and the information age is about to take off. However, mysterious events are plaguing London. A prominent spy is killed. A hostage situation is bizarrely resolved. The Doctor receives a computer disc from a dead man. And to top it all off, it seems that an alien race is planning a takeover using Earth's ever expanding computer technology.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorcerer's_Apprentice_(Bulis_novel)" title="The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Bulis novel)">
Elbyon is an incredible world of fantasy and magic: here, elves and dwarves live in harmony with man, wizards casts powerful spells, and knights slay dragons. Yet for all that, it seems Elbyon has secrets of its own: The TARDIS crew discover a relic from the 13th century in the woods, and become embroiled in the sinister machinations that threaten both the peace of the land, as well as the fate of the entire galaxy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_Cat-People" title="Invasion of the Cat-People">
Earth has been invaded twice: first, many millennia ago by beings searching for a new energy source, and then more recently, by alien marauders known as the Cat-People, who intend to finish the job. To stop them, the newly regenerated Doctor, along with Ben and Polly, teams up with a group of amateur ghost-hunters and a white witch on an expansive journey that takes them from twentieth-century Cumbria, to the Arabian deserts and Australia from 40,000 years ago.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_Velvet_Mask" title="The Man in the Velvet Mask">
The TARDIS lands in post-revolutionary France, but something is off: a futuristic structure called the New Bastille towers over a twisted version of Paris, ruled over by the tyrannical First Deputy Minski, adopted son of the infamous Marquis de Sade. An ailing Doctor is arrested as a curfew breaker, Dodo is recruited by a group of wandering players with less than decent intentions, and in the dungeons of the Bastille, one called Prisoner 6 cannot remember who he is. Outside space and time, aliens watch as their experiment begins to go wrong.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_English_Way_of_Death" title="The English Way of Death">
Summer, 1930. London is in a heatwave. The Doctor, Romana and K-9 come to holiday but uncover time pollution locally.What connects the isolated Sussex resort of Nutchurch with a secret society? What is the involvement of millionaire Hepworth Stackhouse? And what is the deadly green vapour?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_of_Weng-Chiang" title="The Shadow of Weng-Chiang">
While stealing a priceless work of art from the Palace Theatre Museum, thief Lucas Seyton, the Fallen Angel, stumbles across another robbery in progress. He is unable to prevent the thieves from killing the caretaker and making off with another exhibit, but he does find a clue: a matchbook from the Club Do-San in Shanghai, which is owned by a friend of his. In Shanghai, policeman Sung-Chi Li spots a beautiful young woman with a small child leaving an opium den he has just raided but loses them outside. Inside the den, he finds the body of a European male who appears to have been stabbed to death, but the blood trail which indicates he was killed somewhere other than this room leads straight to a solid wall. While searching the den for further clues, Li finds a dockworker's pass for Gongpinglu Wharf and decides to lead a team there to investigate further. Meanwhile, the vigilante Yan Cheh follows the fleeing woman Hsien-Ko and her associate Kwok to the Nang Tao airfield, where he loses sight of them; however, in his identity as the club owner Woo, he learns that Kwok is to meet with a German named Vogler at Gongpinglu Wharf later that night, and decides to investigate in person.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_of_the_Gods_(Bulis_novel)" title="Twilight of the Gods (Bulis novel)">
Much time has passed since the Doctor's first visit to the Web Planet, and he returns to find a very different world: it's in the middle of an interplanetary war between opposing factions in a divided people. To restore peace, the Doctor must resolve an ideological conflict, solve the paradox of life on Vortis, and finally, face the ones called ´Gods of Light´.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_Flight" title="Speed of Flight">
The TARDIS lands on Nooma, a world in the midst of an industrial revolution. But the Doctor, Jo and Mike Yates quickly discover more: The sky is at war with the ground, with continents moving and somewhere, a starship has a role to play. Mike finds himself in a life or death fight, Jo is caught in a laborers' rebellion, and the Doctor must uncover what is happening to Nooma before the struggle for survival destroys all...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plotters" title="The Plotters">
The TARDIS materialises in London, the date November 1605. While Ian and Barbara set off for the Globe Theatre, Vicki accompanies the Doctor on a mysterious mission to the court of King James. What is the link between the King's adviser, Robert Cecil, with the hooded figure called 'the Spaniard'? Why is the Doctor so anxious to observe the translation of the Bible? And what is brewing in the cellars of the Houses of Parliament?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Heart_(novel)" title="Burning Heart (novel)">
In the disintegrating cosmopolitan society Habitat on Dramos, the situation is dire. Humans and aliens tensions are set to explode, barely kept in check by the Church of Adjudication, who through their OBERON system control all. Corruption of many kinds runs through Dramos, including its people, human and alien alike – mutating into something that could consume their world. And with the Doctor imprisoned and on trial, he may not be able to stop it...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Path_(McIntee_novel)" title="The Dark Path (McIntee novel)">
The Darkheart is a faded neutron star surrounded by dead worlds. Except one: the last enclave of the Earth Empire, and as the rest of the galaxy enjoys the fruits of the fledgling Federation, these isolated Imperials hide a horrifying secret.The TARDIS crew arrive to find that the Federation has come to reintegrate this lost colony. But all is not well in the Federation camp: allegiances shift, the fierce Veltrochni have vengeful plans of their own, and another time traveller is manipulating the mission for his own mysterious reasons - a true master of his craft, and a face the Doctor has not forgotten.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Endings_(novel)" title="Happy Endings (novel)">
A wedding is meant to be held between Mr Jason Kane and Professor Bernice S. Summerfield in 2010. However chaos erupts as Time Lord associates show up from all over. And someone seems to want to prevent the entire event in the first place.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_Thousand_in_Gehenna" title="Forty Thousand in Gehenna">
A group of 42,363 Union humans and azi are dispatched to set up a base on a very rare habitable planet named Gehenna II in the Zeta Reticuli system. Unknown to the settlers, their mission is designed to fail; they are deliberately abandoned in order to create long-term problems for the rival Alliance.The native calibans are first presented as annoying lizard-like creatures constantly moving earth to make incomprehensible patterns. The humans at first attempt to keep them outside a perimeter or to drive them away. In time, larger and larger calibans are seen, with differences in color, size, and a social structure (gray calibans are subservient to the larger brown calibans). It becomes clear that the creatures are capable of communication, at least at the level of symbology, and of developing empathic or possibly telepathic links to humans. Eventually a symbiosis develops, with some of the calibans pairing off with humans.Over a period of several generations and cut off from resupply, the colonists lapse into a primitive lifestyle. By necessity, the azi are allowed to raise families. The non-azi humans are in the minority from the beginning and over time, intermarry with the majority. An Alliance mission first seeks to intervene, then withdraws from direct contact, content to watch as two quasi-feudal, fundamentally opposed societies develop, while a third, smaller group called the "Weirds" becomes much more closely associated with the calibans, living with them rather than the other humans and becoming less comprehensible in the process.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Also_People" title="The Also People">
The Prologue relates a fable in which a leopard becomes caught in a trap. None of the animals will release the creature because they fear she will eat them, until a woman passes by and makes the leopard promise not to hurt her if she frees her. Once free the leopard goes back on her promise and begins hunting the woman, arguing that her brothers built the trap and that killing is part of her nature. Unable to get help from the other animals, the woman eventually encounters the clever hare Tsuro, who tricks the leopard back into the trap, from where she again begins to shout for help. Tsuro turns to the woman and asks whether or not they should free her.Following events on Detrios, the Doctor takes his companions on a holiday to the Worldsphere, a Dyson Sphere that is the home of the massively technologically advanced race called the People. The People are an amalgam of several different races that have evolved to an incredibly advanced state where they can change their form and sex at will. The sphere is also home to several different kinds of AI, including the governing computer called God, spherical drones and various starships that orbit the sphere. Even household objects such as tables and baths have their own personalities. The People are so technologically advanced that they have a non-aggression treaty with the Time Lords. The travellers move into a deserted villa that overlooks the town of iSanti Jeni and wake up the following morning to find their every whim and desire catered to. Benny makes friends with local baker saRa!qava and Chris begins a romantic relationship with her daughter Dep. Despite his earlier claims the Doctor has a very serious reason for visiting the Worldsphere—in a nearby wilderness he has hidden Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart under the guard of the drone aM!xitsa. After she disappeared into the Time Vortex the Doctor tracked her down on board a slave ship in the Atlantic, reduced to a feral state where she attacks and kills anyone who approaches her. The Doctor brought her here for safety but fears that she is too dangerous to be kept alive. That night a thunder storm rages across the bay.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Station_Seventh_Grade" title="Space Station Seventh Grade">
Seventh-grader Jason Herkimer narrates the events of his year, from school, hair, and pimples, to mothers, little brothers, and a girl. It is a story about being true to yourself and the nostalgic recollection of adolescent years.Jason has a crush on a cheerleader, Debbie. He also has trouble fitting in at school. He goes through a lot of natural teenage problems and shares the experiences.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Begum's_Fortune" title="The Begum's Fortune">
Two men inherit a vast fortune as descendants of a French soldier who settled in India and married the immensely rich widow of a native prince, the begum of the title. One of the inheritors, a French physician named Dr. Sarrasin, decides to establish a utopian model city constructed and maintained with public health as its government's primary concern. The other is a German scientist Prof. Schultze, a militarist and racist. Schultze decides to make his own utopia—a city devoted to the production of ever more powerful and destructive weapons—and vows to destroy Sarrasin's city. Both men convince the United States government to cede its sovereignty over two cities for the creation of their utopian city-states. One is Ville-France on the western side of the Cascades, and the other is Stahlstadt, on the east side.Most of the action takes place in Stahlstadt, a vast industrial and mining complex, where ores are made into steel, then made into weapons. Stahlstadt becomes in a few years the world's biggest producer of arms. Schultze is Stahlstadt's dictator, whose very word is law and who makes all significant decisions personally.An Alsatian named Marcel Bruckmann relocates to Stahlstadt, and quickly rises high in its hierarchy, gains Schultze's personal confidence, spies out some well-kept secrets, and sends a warning to his French friends. It turns out that Schultze is not content to produce arms, but fully intends to use them first against Ville-France, then establish Germany's worldwide rule.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prophet_of_Yonwood" title="The Prophet of Yonwood">
The story starts off with a young girl named Nickie who is traveling with her Aunt Crystal to an old house in Yonwood, North Carolina. Nickie's great-grandfather has died, and the house where he lived, in a neighborhood called Greenhaven, is inherited by Crystal, who plans to sell it. Over time, Nickie begins to love the house and finds a girl named Amanda who lives there. She is there because she used to look after Arthur Green, the great grandfather of Nickie. Plus, Amanda has a dog named Otis that she gives to Nickie. In Yonwood, there is a Prophet named Althea Tower who sees the future of the world in burning flames and smoke, and subsequently spends months in a dream-like semi conscious state, in which she mutters phrases and words. A woman in the town calls them instructions from God and requires townspeople to comply with her interpretation of the words, and insists that the entire city quit their "wrong" ways and start to be good people, so God would be with them. She becomes the power that directs the police in the town to enforce the 'war against evil' and slaps buzzing bracelets on offenders who don't comply. The so called instructions gradually become more and more strict and unreasonable, beginning with things like no sinners, no singing, no lights, and eventually no dogs. During the time, verbal conflict between the U.S. and the Phalanx Nations is going on. The U.S. fears that the Phalanx Nations are trying to send terrorist spies to the U.S. and they take immediate action, although the U.S. never really goes to war with them until 50 years later. Nickie meets a boy named Grover who is obsessed with snakes, but has to give them away because Ms. Beeson says that they are sinful. There is also an old, grumpy man named Hoyt McCoy, who is mean. However, he ends up being a kind man; he studies the stars and made contact with aliens. Hoyt McCoy went to Washington and stopped the war. In the end of the book, Nickie writes a journal that she hides behind a rock for someone to read later in the future. In The City of Ember, Lina Mayfleet and Doon Harrow find the journal when they are escaping/leaving Ember, and in The Diamond of Darkhold, a satellite sent out by Hoyt and other scientists is sent off into space, which later returns to Earth from an Alien planet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man's_War" title="Old Man's War">
## Introduction."Old Man's War" is about a soldier named John Perry and his exploits in the Colonial Defense Forces (CDF). The first-person narrative follows Perry's military career from CDF recruit to the rank of captain. It is set in a universe heavily populated with life forms, in which the spacegoing species compete for the scarce planets that are suitable for sustaining life. As a result, Perry must learn to fight a wide variety of aliens. The characters in "Old Man's War" have enhanced DNA and nanotechnology, giving them advantages in strength, speed, endurance, and situational awareness.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_(Aaronovitch_novel)" title="Transit (Aaronovitch novel)">
Human engineers are preparing to open a new section of the Sol Transit System (STS), a mass transit system that uses transmat technology to send trains instantly between planets, from the solar system to Arcturus. The system begins to experience power drains, which the technicians, known as "Floozies", cannot determine the cause. At Lunarversity on the moon, Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart is experiencing financial difficulty and agrees to deliver a batch of drugs to Old Sam, one of the Floozies, for a local dealer. Old Sam is a veteran of the Ten-thousand Day War against the Martians and now cannot survive without combat drugs given to him by the army. Having made the drop off and collected a moneypin in payment, Kadiatu joins the Floozies for a wild night out across the Solar System and sleeps with one named Blondie. The following morning, she wakes up in Beijing, without the moneypin she needs to get home and pay her debts. During the opening ceremony of the Arcturus extension, an unknown force blasts through the tunnel, killing everything in its path. Dodging a ticket inspector, Kadiatu makes her way to King's Cross station as the TARDIS materialises. As the Doctor and Bernice exit the TARDIS, the blast wave hits the station—Bernice and the TARDIS are caught in the blast and disappear, but the Doctor pulls Kadiatu to safety.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pit_(Penswick_novel)" title="The Pit (Penswick novel)">
In an attempt to lighten the Doctor's mood, his companion Bernice suggests an investigation of a planetary system of seven planets that had seemingly vanished. The TARDIS materializes on the worst of the seven and the two are assailed by multiple types of threats. The Doctor is thrown into another universe entirely. Bernice soon realizes the source of the dangers come from the Doctor's own past.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Darkness_(novel)" title="White Darkness (novel)">
The Doctor's last three visits to the scattered human colonies of the third millennium have not been entirely successful. And now that Ace has rejoined him and Bernice, life on board the TARDIS is getting pretty stressful. The Doctor yearns for a simpler time and place: Earth, the tropics, the early twentieth century.The TARDIS lands in Haiti in the early years of the First World War. And the Doctor, Bernice and Ace land in a murderous plot involving voodoo, violent death, Zombies and German spies. And perhaps something else—something far, far worse.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Heat" title="Blood Heat">
A mysterious force breaks through the TARDIS exterior, throwing Bernice into the Vortex and forcing the Doctor to make an emergency landing. At first thinking they've landed in prehistoric times (after a dinosaur knocks the TARDIS into a tar pit), the Doctor soon learns that they have landed on a parallel Earth. On this Earth, the Silurians killed the Doctor in his third incarnation twenty years ago, then went on to kill most of humanity with a plague, and return Earth to its prehistoric state. An embittered alternate version of the Brigadier, along with Liz Shaw and the remnants of UNIT, attempts to destroy the Silurians with nuclear missiles. Ace manages to reactivate the Third Doctor's TARDIS (which had gone into hibernation after his death), which the Doctor then materializes around the entire Earth. He then uses the Architectural Configuration controls to delete the inbound missiles and prevents the massacre of the Silurians. The Doctor then manages to convince the Brigadier and the Silurian leader that the two races can and must live in peace. The happy ending is ruined for Ace and Bernice, however, when the Doctor reveals that this alternate universe cannot survive without destroying the real Universe. In order to save their Universe, the Doctor time rams his old TARDIS in order to start a chain reaction that will destroy the parallel universe after the current inhabitants have lived out the rest of their lives, vowing simultaneously to find whoever created this timeline and bring them to justice. When Ace and Bernice leave the Doctor alone, he pushes a lever, destroying the Alternate Earth automatically.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conundrum_(Lyons_novel)" title="Conundrum (Lyons novel)">
What seems to be a simple murder investigation in a quiet English village becomes something far more deadly for the Seventh Doctor and his companions when the inhabitants begin to exhibit superhero abilities...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Future_(novel)" title="No Future (novel)">
London, while Bernice becomes lead singer in a punk band, the Doctor must face more than one old enemy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_Day" title="Tragedy Day">
Empire City on the planet Olleril is experiencing 'Tragedy Day', where the well-off give charitably to the poor. However, this specific day has much more to offer, with murders, weaponry and plots that could destroy everything.The Doctor, Bernice and Ace all want to leave, but have been captured by various factions within minutes of arrival.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_(Russell_novel)" title="Legacy (Russell novel)">
The Doctor is in pursuit of a galactic criminal and the trail leads to Peladon: a desolate world once home to a barbaric, feudal society. Now the Galactic Federation is attempting to bring prosperity and civilisation to the planet. But not all Peladonians support the changes, and when ancient relics are stolen from their Citadel, the representatives of the Federation are blamed. The Doctor suspects the Ice Warrior delegation, but before long the Time Lord himself is arrested for the crime—and sentenced to death.Elsewhere, interplanetary mercenaries are bringing one of the galaxy's most evil artefacts to Peladon, apparently on the Doctor's instruction. Ace is pursuing a dangerous mission on another world and Bernice is getting friendly—perhaps too friendly—with the Ice Warriors she has studied for so long.The players are making the final moves in a devious and lethal plan - but for once it isn't the Doctor's...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_War_(novel)" title="Theatre of War (novel)">
An archeological expedition to the planet Menaxus ends in tragedy; all but one of the visitors die and lethal radiation contaminates the surface. Now the survivor is leading a new trip, with Professor Bernice Summerfield. Murders start again. Bernice summons her friends, the Doctor and Ace. They are sucked into a dangerously real re-creation of Shakespeare's play, "Hamlet", which is paralleled by "The Good Soldiers", the (fictitious) purportedly lost play of the future playwright Stanoff Osterling.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlock_(Cartmel_novel)" title="Warlock (Cartmel novel)">
A new drug called "Warlock" is tearing apart society. Benny is involved with a law enforcement effort to bring it down while Ace is in trouble in a horrific animal laboratory. Only the Doctor is left to discover the truth behind the new drug.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_Piece_(novel)" title="Set Piece (novel)">
Ms Cohen is travelling on a starliner that falls through a time rift and is boarded by giant mechanical ants. She wakes up on board a vessel known as The Ship, where the ants and human prisoners they use as slaves are slowly processing the captured humans and storing their minds inside Ship's systems. The human guards, however, have a problem. One prisoner, whom they call the "Gingerbread Man", repeatedly escapes from cold storage despite their best efforts. Ms Cohen witnesses several of these escapes and watches the guards brutally beat him to the point where he seems to be suffering a heart attack. As Ms. Cohen tries to start him breathing again, she realises he has two hearts. Eventually she realises that the "Gingerbread Man's" escapes always go to a different part of Ship, therefore he is looking for someone. In his next escape, he reaches the freezers, where Ace is trapped. The Doctor is finally able to summon Bernice to rescue them. But the attempt fails and the Doctor, Ace and Bernice are thrown out into the rift. Ms Cohen is trapped on Ship and eventually processed like the others.Some months earlier, the Doctor shows Bernice and Ace a mysterious cafe that manifests itself at different locations in time and space, ranging from Glebe, New South Wales to Argolis. The Doctor says this as a result of a Time Rift, which has punched through the fabric of reality. An unknown force is using the rift to snare passenger ships. The Doctor and Ace plan to get captured and learn what is happening having failed, the three travellers are separated.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctuary_(McIntee_novel)" title="Sanctuary (McIntee novel)">
As the Albigensian Crusade draws to its bloody conclusion, men inflict savage brutalities on each other in the name of religion. Forced to temporarily abandon ship, the TARDIS crew find their lives intertwined with warring Templars, crusaders and heretics. While the Doctor begins a murder investigation in a besieged fortress, Bernice finds herself drawn to an embittered mercenary who has made the heretics’ fight his own. And both time travellers realize that to leave history unchanged they may have to sacrifice far more than their lives.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe's_Waterloo" title="Sharpe's Waterloo">
Napoleon having escaped from Elba, Richard Sharpe leaves his farm in Normandy to rejoin the British Army, accompanied by his lover Lucille. He is hired by the Prince of Orange as part of his staff officer and appointed a lieutenant colonel. Sharpe's friend Patrick Harper, despite being a civilian who has ostensibly come to Belgium to trade in horses, resumes his old place at Sharpe's side.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Pirates!" title="Sky Pirates!">
The Doctor and Benny travel on the ship "Schirron Dream". They confront various hostile climates, bizarre crew members and an alien race threatening the entirety of the local star system.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamper" title="Zamper">
The Doctor and his companions, separated from the TARDIS, investigate Zamper. It is an organization dedicated to building gigantic warships. A separate race has arrived in order to commission craft; also industrial accidents are plaguing the workers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Soldiers_(novel)" title="Toy Soldiers (novel)">
The Doctor, Benny, Chris and Roz are in Europe in the aftermath of World War I. Children are going missing and it is tied to an alien world that has been going through its own war.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_Games_(novel)" title="Head Games (novel)">
A flaw in the structure of the Universe is allowing energy from the Land of Fiction to seep through. The Doctor and his companions must close the gap to save the Universe, but the TARDIS is unable to navigate the crystallised cloud of fictional energy around the gap. The Doctor lands on the crystal's surface, and he, Benny and Chris pass through the crystal, navigating through their individual dreams as the fictional energy gives them form. Once they reach the crystal's interior they must put force-field generators in place around the gap, and Roz, who is waiting by the controls in the TARDIS, will then be able to squeeze the gap shut. But the Doctor has withheld one fact from his companions for fear of alienating them. The gap has opened above the dying planet Detrios, and its inhabitants have unwittingly reshaped the fictional energy into the crystal Miracle which is providing light and power to their world. When the Doctor closes the gap, the Miracle will vanish, and Detrios really will be doomed.Things get even more complicated when the fictional energy finds a focus in Jason, the young Writer who was returned to Earth by the Time Lords after the Doctor's last encounter with the Land of Fiction. As the fictional energy floods into this Universe, Jason finds that his wishes and dreams are coming true. A fictional double of the Doctor, Dr. Who, appears in the TARDIS, knocks out the real Doctor before he can enter the crystal, and sends him to the fictional Galactic Prison for the crime of trying to wipe out the Detrians. Dr. Who then picks up Jason, his new companion, and they set off to have neat adventures, beat up green monsters, and arrest the evil Doctor's accomplices. Roz, uncertain of the extent of the newcomers’ powers, hides in the TARDIS corridors and waits for an opportunity to make her move.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warchild_(Cartmel_novel)" title="Warchild (Cartmel novel)">
The culmination of the previous two novels brings powerful forces ready to do battle all over the globe. Sucked into this is every-man Creed, whose normal life is disrupted by the super-powers his two sons seem to have.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepy_(novel)" title="Sleepy (novel)">
The Earth colony Yemaya 4 is struck by a plague that causes the colonists to manifest psychic powers. The Doctor and his companions become heavily involved. Some of the group contract the plague, while others travel back in time to try to find out how it started. Meanwhile, murderous agents threaten to simply kill every innocent person involved.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GodEngine" title="GodEngine">
Stranded on Mars, the Doctor and Roz team up with a group of colonists on a journey to find much-needed supplies at the North Pole. But when their expedition is joined by a party of Ice Warrior pilgrims, tensions are stretched to breaking point. Elsewhere, Chris finds himself on Pluto's moon, trapped with a group of desperate scientists in a deadly race against time.The year is 2157: the Earth has been invaded, and forces are at work on Mars to ensure that the mysterious invaders are successful. Unless the Doctor can solve the riddle of the GodEngine, the entire course of human history will be changed...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_of_the_Living_Dad" title="Return of the Living Dad">
Bernice Summerfield's father disappeared when she was seven years old, but during her honeymoon, a clue leads her to discover him 500 years in his past, in England in 1983.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Art" title="The Death of Art">
The Doctor and his assistants, Roz and Chris, travel to 1880s France, the corrupt world of the French Third Republic. A rip in time threatens Paris, a race struggles to free itself from oppression, and a strange brotherhood fights a battle for power.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Therapy" title="Bad Therapy">
1950s London, the Soho district seems to be just the thing to recover from recent traumatic events in the 30th century. It's not to be, as a rash of violence shakes the city. A driverless cab is killing people, others with no past are being slain in bizarre rituals, crime is running rampant, gangs are fighting for territory and deep in an abandoned mental hospital an evil psychiatrist is laying plans.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Vile_a_Sin" title="So Vile a Sin">
'If you step into history,' said the Doctor, 'I won't be able to protect you.''This isn't history,' said Roz. 'This is family.'The Earth Empire—the Imperium Humanum, upon which a thousand suns never set—is dying.The Great Houses of the Empire manoeuvre and scheme for advantage; alliances are made; and knives flash in the shadows. Out among the moons of Jupiter, another battle is just beginning, as an ancient brotherhood seeks limitless power and long-overdue revenge.The Doctor returns to the thirtieth century, searching for the source of a terrifying weapon. He fears a nightmare from his own past may be about to destroy the future. Nothing must be allowed to get in his way.But the Doctor has reckoned without the power of history—which has its own plans for the wayward daughter of the House of Forrester.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_of_the_Gods_(Clapham_and_Miller_novel)" title="Twilight of the Gods (Clapham and Miller novel)">
God-like beings have shattered the peace of Dellah, and threaten to spread chaos across the galaxy. Benny and Jason Kane return to the planet in a desperate last attempt to stop them, before the planet is destroyed forever.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Piano_Teacher_(Jelinek_novel)" title="The Piano Teacher (Jelinek novel)">
The novel follows Erika Kohut, a piano teacher in her late thirties who teaches at the Vienna Conservatory and still lives in an apartment with her very controlling elderly mother, with whom Erika shares her parents' marriage bed, despite having a room of her own. The very strained relationship between Erika and her mother is made clear in the opening scene, in which Erika rips out some of her mother's hair when her mother attempts to take away a new dress that Erika has purchased for herself. Erika's mother wishes the money to be used toward a new, future apartment with her, and resents Erika's spending of her money on possessions distinctly for herself; her mother cannot wear Erika's clothing. Erika herself does not wear it, but merely strokes it admiringly at night.Erika expresses this latent violence as well and need for control in many other scenes throughout the book. Erika takes large instruments on trains so that she can hit people with them and call it an accident, or kicks or steps on the feet of other passengers so that she can watch them blame someone else. She is a voyeur who frequents peep shows, and on one occasion catches a couple having sex in a park, being so affected that she urinates. Childhood memories are retold throughout the novel and their effects on the present suggested—for instance, the memory of a childhood visit from her cousin, an attractive and athletic young man, whom Erika's mother praised while she makes her daughter practice piano, results in Erika's self-mutilation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Weekend_(novel)" title="The Lost Weekend (novel)">
Set in a rundown neighborhood of Manhattan in 1936, the novel explores a five-day alcoholic binge. Don Birnam, a binge drinker mostly of rye, fancies himself as a writer. He lapses into foreign phrases and quotes Shakespeare even while attempting to steal a woman's purse, trying to pawn a typewriter for drinking money, and smashing his face on a banister. That accident gets him checked into an "alcoholic ward". There, a counselor advises Birnam on the nature of alcoholism:There isn't any cure, besides just stopping. And how many of them can do that? They don't want to, you see. When they feel bad like this fellow here, they think they want to stop, but they don't, really. They can't bring themselves to admit they're alcoholics, or that liquor's got them licked. They believe they can take it or leave it alone — so they take it. If they do stop, out of fear or whatever, they go at once into such a state of euphoria and well-being that they become over-confident. They're rid of drink, and feel sure enough of themselves to be able to start again, promising they'll take one, or at the most two, and — well, then it becomes the same old story over again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_to_the_Belt" title="Devil to the Belt">
The title is a term for the periods of time spacers spend in refinery habitats under nearly 1g, which is when they're heavy compared to their periods of weightlessness when out in the shops.Ben and Bird are two freerunners: private prospectors who look for asteroids worth mining for heavy metals. Bird was born on Earth, fifty years ago, and has been freerunning for thirty years, whereas Ben was born twenty-something years ago in the Asteroid Belt and only started freerunning when he invested 20k in Bird's ship a few years ago.Their ship picks up a distress signal and gets approval from "Big Mama" (the central office of the Belt) to check out the source of the signal. When they reach it, the origin ship appears intact apart from a dented fuel tank, but its power has almost run out. Inside, they find blood and bits of organic waste, and a barely-alive young man called Dekker.They take Dekker onto their ship, clean him up, and attach the other ship to theirs and head back to base. Bird thinks the ethical course of action is to look after Dekker and not worry about his ship, but Ben, having scrimped and saved to get enough money to buy in on Bird's ship, obsesses about whether they'll have salvage rights to Dekker's ship.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bodysnatchers_(novel)" title="The Bodysnatchers (novel)">
The Doctor, Sam and an allied professor work together to stop alien bodysnatchers, grave-robbers and much worse plaguing London.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_(novel)" title="Genocide (novel)">
Jo Grant, a UNIT veteran, receives a call for help from an old colleague. A scientific unit is being threatened by a UNIT force led by a secretive Captain. Jo Grant ends up sucked out of time and space.Meanwhile, the Doctor and Sam go to 2109 and find an alien race where the humans should be. To make it worse, the aliens claim to have been there for thousands of years...and something is wrong with Sam's mind.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Daleks" title="War of the Daleks">
The story opens up with the Doctor and Sam in the TARDIS doing some maintenance when they are collected by a ship which holds an escape pod containing Davros. A group of Thals arrive; they want Davros to alter their species so they will be better able to fight the Daleks. A force of Daleks then arrive and take the Doctor and Davros, along with other characters, to Skaro. Before landing on Skaro, the Doctor discovers that the coordinates he believed were Skaro's were actually those of the planet Antalin.Since Davros's return the Dalek Prime has met considerable resistance with a number of Davros loyalists forming. Initiating a final civil war on Skaro, the Dalek Prime has all the Davros loyalists revealed and exterminated. In the meantime he releases the Doctor to leave Skaro. The Doctor discovers a planted device on board the TARDIS which would allow the Daleks to survive in case the Dalek Prime failed. He jettisons it into the vortex.With his faction defeated, Davros is sentenced to death by matter dispersal. Prior to his downfall he had implanted a Spider Dalek as a spy amongst the Dalek Prime's forces. Davros is placed in a disintegration chamber and his atoms dispersed. His fate is left open when his data is either erased from the disintegrator or transmatted across space to a safe location.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_of_Intelligent_Tigers" title="The Year of Intelligent Tigers">
The alien world of Hitchemus is known for its animal sanctuaries and the musical talents of the citizens. Now the animals have escaped, a hurricane is threatening everyone and the humans do not want the Doctor's assistance. His companions are left to deal with the situation when the Doctor vanishes into the wild.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Bodies" title="Alien Bodies">
The Third Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith use the TARDIS to find Sputnik 2, and retrieve the body of Laika, which the Doctor then buries on the planet Quiescia.Years later, the Doctor (now in his eighth incarnation) is playing a game of chess with General Tschike of UNISYC, when the general pulls a gun on him. Tschike tells the Doctor that the only reason the various Earth governments he has encountered down the years have never done this before is because they never really believed that the Doctor could be actually killed. Now they have received information from a source in what was once Borneo that suggests differently. Before Tschike can shoot however, the Doctor dives out the window into the TARDIS which has been hovering outside. The Doctor and Sam head to Borneo to investigate.In Borneo (now referred to as East Indies Revit zone) two other UNISYC soldiers, Colonel Kortez and Lieutenant Bregman arrive at what appears to be the ruins of an ancient city, but it is really a block-transfer computational structure known as the Unthinkable City. The City is a venue for the auction for an artifact, known as the Relic. In addition to the two UNISYC soldiers, other bidders include a dead man named Trask, a conceptual entity referred to as The Shift, a Time Lord called Homunculette and two representatives from Faction Paradox, Cousin Justine and Brother Manjuele. The auction is organised by Mr. Qixotl, who is awaiting the arrival of one more party before the bidding can begin. When the TARDIS materialises at the City, the Doctor and Sam are attacked by leopards that are programmed to attack anyone whose biodata they do not recognise. However, the Doctor locates one of their control pads and adds his own and Sam's biodata to the guest list. Qixotl, horrified, recognises the Doctor and tries to hide his identity from the other quests.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Option_Lock" title="Option Lock">
The Doctor and Sam land in present-day England on the ancestral home of the Silver family. However, the house holds clues to a dangerous centuries-old society and something that drove a man to suicide. Unravelling this will take Sam and the Doctor through time and space to save Earth from nuclear fire.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion" title="The God Delusion">
Dawkins dedicates the book to Douglas Adams and quotes the novelist: "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" The book contains ten chapters. The first few chapters make a case that there almost certainly is no God, while the rest discuss religion and morality.Dawkins writes that "The God Delusion" contains four "consciousness-raising" messages:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_Velocity_(novel)" title="Escape Velocity (novel)">
In 2001, there is a new space race, between Pierre Yves-Dudoin and Arthur Tyler III, both competing to be the first privately funded man in space. Eventually Pierre announces that he has succeeded, and will be in space in a week. However, Pierre has been helped by a scout of the Kulan race, who are poised to invade Earth.In Brussels a man is shot in front of stockbroker Anji Kapoor and her boyfriend Dave. When Dave attempts first aid, he realises the man is not human. The man then slips a package into Dave's pocket and injects a substance into his wrist. Meanwhile, in London, Fitz is dropped off by Compassion two days before he is to meet the Doctor. When he sees Dave in a news report claiming the dead man had two hearts, he fears the worst and travels to Brussels.After speaking to Dave in Brussels, Fitz discovers that the man wasn't the Doctor, but stays to help investigate. Dave finds the package in his pocket and calls a number written on it, and finds himself speaking to Arthur Tyler III. After meeting Tyler's bodyguard, they bring him back to Dave and Anji's hotel room only to find the killers outside. As the killers drive away, one of them drops his gun which is of alien origin. When Dave leaves the room to contact the police, the dead man's killers kidnap him. Anji then decides to go with Fitz to meet the Doctor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burning_(novel)" title="The Burning (novel)">
In the late 19th century, the village of Middleton is on the verge of bankruptcy due to the tin mine running out, when a huge fissure opens in the moorlands. After a visitor called Roger Nepath offers to buy the mine and visits the fissure with the lord of the manor, Lord Urton's personality changes, and allows Nepath to move into his manor house with his sister Patience.The amnesiac Doctor arrives at the village and befriends Professor Dobbs from The Society of Psychical Research during his research into the fissure. Dobbs's assistant Gaddis claims to have empathic powers, which lead him to point along the fissure, where he is chased off by Urton. The Doctor notices that the water in a dam near the fissure has become warm and acidic, suggesting that it has been heated. Returning to the Fissure they find Gaddis's corpse horribly burnt, which fascinates the Doctor.Nepath later holds an auction to fund his purchase, and demonstration a metal that returns to its original shape when destroyed, which Nepath gives the Doctor a sample of. The army gives Nepath a large amount of money for him to create self repairing guns for the army, which Nepath uses to buy more mining equipment. Later, the metal turns into molten lava, which causes the remains of TARDIS to grow to normal size, although it is still a featureless blue box. Dobbs and the Doctor break into the manor and discover that Nepath had been making many copies of his artifacts out of the metal, then selling them, as well as a young woman's body in a box, before narrowly escaping the Urtons.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doll_(novel)" title="The Doll (novel)">
Wokulski begins his career as a waiter at Hopfer's, a Warsaw restaurant. The scion of an impoverished Polish noble family dreams of a life in science. After taking part in the failed 1863 Uprising against the Russian Empire, he is sentenced to exile in Siberia. On eventual return to Warsaw, he becomes a salesman at Mincel's haberdashery. Marrying the late owner's widow (who eventually dies), he comes into money and uses it to set up a partnership with a Russian merchant he had met while in exile. The two merchants go to Bulgaria during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, and Wokulski makes a fortune supplying the Russian Army.The enterprising Wokulski now proves a romantic at heart, falling in love with Izabela, daughter of the vacuous, bankrupt aristocrat, Tomasz Łęcki.The manager of Wokulski's Warsaw store, Ignacy Rzecki, is a man of an earlier generation, a modest bachelor who lives on memories of his youth, which was a heroic chapter in his own life and that of Europe. Through his diary the reader learns about some of Wokulski's adventures, seen through the eyes of an admirer. Rzecki and his friend Katz had gone to Hungary in 1848 to enlist in the revolutionary army. For Rzecki, the cause of freedom in Europe is connected with the name of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Hungarian revolution had sparked new hopes of abolishing the reactionary system that had triumphed at Napoleon's fall. Later he had reposed his hopes in Napoleon III. Now, as he writes, he places them in Bonaparte's scion, Napoleon III's son, Prince Loulou. At novel's end, when Rzecki hears that Loulou has perished in Africa, fighting in British ranks against rebel tribesmen, he will be overcome by the despondence of old age.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outpost_(Prus_novel)" title="The Outpost (Prus novel)">
"The Outpost" is a study of rural Poland under the country's foreign partitions. Its principal character, a peasant surnamed "Ślimak" ("Snail", in Polish), typifies his village's inhabitants, nearly all illiterate; there is no school under Russian imperial rule. Religion is naively superficial: when a villager, Orzechowski, buys an engraving of "Leda and the Swan" for a mere three roubles at the landowner's moving-out sale, he prays before it with his family, much as other villagers venerate old portraits of noblemen who had been benefactors of the local church.Changes are, however, coming to the area. A railway line is being built nearby. The owners of a local manor house sell their estate to German settlers. Polish landowners, who speak more French than Polish, are happy to take the money and move to a city or abroad, away from the boring countryside. Ślimak's farm becomes an isolated Polish outpost in an increasingly German-settled neighborhood.Ślimak suffers a series of adversities as he refuses to sell his plot of land to German settlers (who are described not unsympathetically). The stubborn, conservative peasant is not acting from self-interest, since the money he would have gotten could have bought a better farm elsewhere; he is, rather, acting from inertia and from a principle inculcated in him by his father and grandfather: that when a peasant loses his hereditary plot, he faces the greatest of misfortunes—becoming a mere wage-earner.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_Day_(novel)" title="Longest Day (novel)">
Hirath is a planet ravaged by overlapping time fields. There are those who seek to exploit this for monetary gain...then there's an invading alien race out to just kill.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_of_the_Daleks" title="Legacy of the Daleks">
As the Doctor prepares to search for Sam, he receives a psychic cry of pain and despair from his granddaughter Susan, and discovers that it was focused through another TARDIS on a distant planet. He decides to materialize on Earth following the Dalek invasion, the same time period in which Sam disappeared; perhaps in hope he can find her as well while preventing whatever caused Susan to send the cry.Following the invasion, Earth is devastatingly underpopulated, and the survivors (in Britain, at least) have coalesced into city-states which are currently engaged in political infighting. Lord Haldoran supplies most of England with power, but Lord London opposes him and many city-states are flocking to London for power supplies. War seems inevitable, but Haldoran has a secret weapon; his mysterious military advisor, Estro, is supplying him with Dalek guns. Meanwhile, Susan and her husband David are having marital difficulties, as it has become increasingly difficult as the decades pass to hide the fact that Susan isn’t aging while David is. Susan is a Peace Officer, one of the elite who keep the Earth safe from the Dalek Artefacts left behind after the invaders were defeated; when she receives word that someone is tampering with the buried DA-17, she sets off to investigate, but is captured by Estro’s men.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo_Effect_(novel)" title="Placebo Effect (novel)">
The Doctor takes Sam to Micawber's World, an artificial planet owned by the Carrington Corporation, to attend the wedding of his friends Stacy Townsend and the Ice Warrior Ssard. Sam is slightly peeved to learn that they travelled with him during the three-year period in which he'd left her at a one-hour Greenpeace rally, but she eventually forgives him. The wedding ceremony is disrupted by followers of the Church of the Way Forward, who believe that interspecies marriage dilutes racial purity and is thus forbidden by their Goddess. Chase Carrington himself apologises for the disruption and pays for the wedding guests’ expenses out of his own pocket. Later, however, he is murdered by Foamasi assassins working for the Dark Peaks Lodge, and an impersonator in a body-suit disguise takes his place...Micawber's World is hosting the 3999 Olympics, and Ms Sox, the head of security for Carrington Corp, has called in extra Space Security troops for the occasion. A patrol vanishes while lighting the tunnels beneath the surface of the planet, but rather than court-martial Sergeant Dallion for losing her men without an explanation, Commander Ritchie gives her and the remaining members of her squad leeway to investigate. In fact, Ritchie's wife and son have been kidnapped by the Dark Peaks Lodge, who intend to discover what's going on in the tunnels and then kill Dallion.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Someday_Angeline" title="Someday Angeline">
Angeline Persopolis is extremely intelligent. She knew things, especially related to ocean animals and the ocean, "before she was born," with her first word being "octopus." Even though she is only eight, she is sent to the sixth grade. She wants to be a garbage collector like her father, although he wants her to become famous and is afraid of her intelligence at times. At school, she also faces problems like being bullied by the other students and misunderstood by her teacher, Mrs. Hardlick. Her only two friends are a fifth grade teacher, Miss Turbone (also known as Mr. Bone) and class clown Gary "Goon" Boone (who later gets a book to himself, "Dogs Don't Tell Jokes").Mr. Persopolis wants the best for his daughter, and he often pushes her too hard to achieve. When she is elected Secretary of Trash, he becomes angry and orders her to resign. The next day at school, Mrs. Hardlick does not listen to Angeline when she tries to resign, and Angeline is so frustrated that she messes up the classroom, denouncing everything as "Garbage!" Mrs. Hardlick is furious and tells Angeline to come back with a signed note from her father. For the next week, she goes to an aquarium each day, instead of going to school. Her father gets home after she does, so he does not know.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanderdeken's_Children" title="Vanderdeken's Children">
The TARDIS is thrown off course by a 'vortex discontinuity'. They materialise in deep space, several hundred light years form Earth in the year 3123 A.D. The discover a derelict, cylinder like ship, over four-thousand meters in length.There are two other ships in the area as well, from rival star-systems, the Emindarian passenger liner, "Cirrandaria", and the Nimosian warship, "Indomitable". Both ships claim they have the right to salvage the derelict.Narrowly avoiding destruction by the "Indomitable", the Doctor and Sam land on the "Cirrandaria".The "Indomitable" sends a technician in a pod down to the derelict to explore. The technician, after some examining, begins to think that the derelict was grown, not built. He loses contact with "Indomitable", and comes to believe he is being followed by a creature. He attempts to escape by climbing up one of the pylons that ring both ends of the ship. He pictures the monsters from his childhood reaching up for him, lets go of the pylon and falls to his death.The "Cirrandaria" sends its own expedition down to the derelict, including the Doctor and Sam, and all hell breaks loose...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Empress_(novel)" title="The Scarlet Empress (novel)">
On the ancient planet of Hyspero, a world where magic still exists, the Doctor reads tales from the Aja’ib, a strange book full of peculiar adventure stories, while Sam goes exploring and meets an alligator skinned man, Gila, chained up in a double-decker London bus. Using the bus to come to her rescue, the Doctor and Sam are soon caught up in a struggle for survival alongside Iris Wildthyme, a fellow time-traveller, the owner of the double decker bus, a serving Conservative MP, and - possibly - a fellow Time Lord.Iris claims to be on a mission for the current Scarlet Empress, but the Doctor suspects she has ulterior motives. However, the planet has suffered under the rule of the Scarlet Empresses for thousands of years and so the Doctor and Sam embark on a perilous journey across Hyspero to discover the truth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Face-Eater" title="The Face-Eater">
On Earth's first space colony, Proxima II, an expedition to a nearby mountain disappears and only one survivor, Jake Leary, returns, apparently turned insane by the experience, he breaks out of hospital and vanishes. Afterwards mutilated bodies begin appearing on the streets, causing the colony's workers to send a distress signal against the wishes of their leader, Helen Percival.The Doctor and Sam arrive in response to the signal, causing Percival to become paranoid that she will be overthrown. despite this, she allows The Doctor to investigate. Sam learns that Percival burned the bodies without an autopsy and breaks into Helen's office to investigate and sets off a bomb planted to stop intruders, and is saved by Police Chief Fuller. Meanwhile, the Doctor speaks to xenozoologist Joan Betts, who is studying the native Proximans, who are dying out suddenly. The Doctor theorises that the Proxians have telepathic powers which are focused on the mountain, trapping something in. When The Doctor attempts to contact their group mind, he learns that they are under threat from an ancient evil. When The Doctor follows Joan into the sewers later that day, something attacks them which kills Joan and knocks him unconscious.Percival begins to oppress the colonists, sparking off riots, whilst Sam and Fuller read Leary's report which explain that the expedition woke an ancient evil which was dormant in the mountains. Later Fuller reveals that he is a shape shifter which has killed the real Fuller. However Sam escapes when a Proximan attacks the creature. The Doctor is brought to the officers, where he explains that an ancient creature called the Face-Eater has been sending out shape shifters to gather life essences for it to eat. Leary enters and explains that this Doctor is a shape shifter - the real one was with him in the mountains, and that it was a shape shifter impersonating him that is responsible for the murders.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_Man" title="Revolution Man">
The Doctor tries to stop a mysterious entity called The Revolution Man from spreading mind-altering drugs in the 1960s.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(Walters_novel)" title="Dominion (Walters novel)">
Kerstin and her boyfriend Johan swim in a lake near a cabin in Sweden. Later than night, Kerstin goes to get some food from the fridge. An immense bolt of lightning strikes the ground, knocking her over. When she wakes up, she finds the whole front of the cabin gone, including Johan. After finding no reasonable explanation, Kerstin realises that she may have lost Johan forever. Kerstin goes to a nearby farm.The owner of the farm, Björn Andersson wakes up at three in the morning. He remembers that he fell into a drunken rage about putting off fixing the farm's power generator. As he walks down to the pen, he hears the pigs screaming. Björn grabs his shotgun and hurries back to the pen. He walks to the pen where the screaming is coming from, and finds that there is blood everywhere. There were 12 piglets and a sow in the pen. A strange creature lunges at Björn. Björn manages to kill it with the shotgun, before passing out.At the hospital, Nordenstam approaches with Dr Lindgard, who says that Johan's sedatives will wear off in a couple of hours. The Doctor and Fitz arrive at the hospital, and Dr Lindgard tells the Doctor that Johan is stable. The Doctor wants to examine Johan, but Lindgard refuses. The Doctor barges into the isolation ward anyway. After examining Johan, the Doctor pulls Fitz aside and says that he's going to go back and check on the TARDIS, and that Fitz should stay here with Kerstin who is visiting Johan. The Doctor and Nordenstam go back to the forest, and Nordenstam gives Fitz his mobile phone so Fitz can call him if anything happens. Kerstin asks Fitz if he knows what happened to Johan and about the thing in the barn, but Fitz cannot give her an answer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unnatural_History_(novel)" title="Unnatural History (novel)">
In London during the year 2002, the dark-haired Sam Jones is living a normal life, though struggling with a drug addiction, when the Eighth Doctor arrives in the shop she works in and tells her that she should have blonde hair and be travelling with him. Shocked by this, she runs out onto the street to get away from him and is attacked by a ten-year-old boy, who claims that she shouldn't exist. When the Doctor rescues her, she agrees to go with him to San Francisco. When they arrive, the Doctor finds Fitz and explains that when the TARDIS destroyed the Earth, but reversed time, a scar in space and time was left behind and strange creatures from other dimensions are being attracted to the city by it. The TARDIS has become trapped inside the scar, and will be crushed by the strain of trying to stabilise the scar in three days unless it is removed. When the Doctor originally arrived, blonde Sam fell in the scar, and dark Sam appeared in London.The Doctor's attempts to contact the Time Lords to obtain new equipment to close the scar fails, and he meets the boy again, who reveals that he is a member of Faction Paradox, but he claims that he isn't here to harm the Doctor, just to observe his actions. Later the Doctor notices a Kraken in the bay, which will destroy the city looking for food if it detects the energy coming from the scar, but the TARDIS is currently blocking it from detecting them. Now under another time limit, the Doctor finds a scientist called Joyce who promises to help repair the equipment needed to close the scar. The Doctor tells Sam that her biodata is vulnerable to change from the pulses coming from the scar.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People_of_Paper" title="The People of Paper">
## Prologue.The prologue tells the story of the creation of the character later known as Merced de Papel, a woman made of paper by Antonio, a former monk who had been famed for his abilities as an origami surgeon, meaning that he performed successful organ transplants using organs made of folded paper. But as medical technology surpassed his skills, he started creating origami animals and, eventually, the origami woman. Merced has "cardboard legs, cellophane appendix, and paper breasts".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bunce" title="The Bunce">
Protagonist Billy Jay is trapped in an insurance related fraud conducted by gangsters, insurance agents, and corrupt police officers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bronze_God_of_Rhodes" title="The Bronze God of Rhodes">
The novel is written in first person, purporting to be the memoirs of Chares of Lindos, the sculptor of the Colossus of Rhodes. It concerns his return to Rhodes, his attempts to set up as a sculptor, his struggles with his family's wishes that he enter their bronze foundry, his experience as a catapult artilleryman during the Siege of Rhodes (305 BC), and his complicated adventures in Ptolemaic Egypt. The Rhodian portions of the story are enlivened by the presence of Celtic foreigner Kavaros, who rises from Chares' slave to fellow soldier, friend, and sculpting assistant, and ultimately saves his former master's life. The atmosphere of the novel is lightened by Kavaros' entertaining, pointed and improbable tales of his supposedly superhuman ancestor Gargantuos (presumably de Camp's nod to the giant Gargantua, a character in the works of François Rabelais). The planning and building of the Colossus in commemoration of the city's successful defense occupies the closing portion of the book.De Camp brings in numerous other historical personages of the era, notably Chares' sculpting mentor Lyssipos of Sikyon, the mathematician Eukleidēs, Babylonian historian Berossos (initially as a member of the sculptor's catapult crew), Rhodes's antagonists Demetrios Poliorketes and Antigonus, Egyptian historian Manethos, Egyptian king Ptolemaios, and Demetrios of Phalerum, reputed founder of the Library of Alexandria. A number of the book's characters are introduced in a symposion Chares attends early on, conducted by a group dubbed "The Seven Strangers," modeled on de Camp's own real-life social club the Trap Door Spiders.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saving_the_Queen" title="Saving the Queen">
This novel, set in 1952, reveals Oakes's childhood and educational background, his recruitment into the CIA, and the Agency's procedures for "handling" him. His first assignment sends him to Britain, where he must identify (and deal with) a high-level security leak close to the (fictional) British monarch, Queen Caroline. Also, Rufus, the enigmatic genius behind American intelligence operations, is introduced.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stained_Glass_(novel)" title="Stained Glass (novel)">
Oakes's second assignment sends him to West Germany. There, he is infiltrated into the inner-circle of a charismatic and heroic nobleman, Count Wintergrin, who intends to run for the West German Chancellorship on platform of immediate re-unification with East Germany. Although this is ultimately in the interest of the Western Powers and NATO, the threat of Soviet invasion of West Europe means that Oakes must prevent Wintergrin's election, by whatever means necessary. Set in 1953.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Play_the_Fool" title="To Play the Fool">
A homeless man is murdered and Kate must determine the culprit's identity. Everything seems to point to a man whom the homeless community regards as an important religious figure.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Child" title="With Child">
The stepchild of Kate's coworker Al Hawkin asks Kate to help her find her homeless friend Dio, who has mysteriously vanished. They become friends during the process, although Kate is wounded and decides to take a rest. She invites Jules on a trip to visit her lover Lee. On the way, Jules disappears. Kate realizes that Jules has been kidnapped by her biological father, recently freed from prison. The novel ends with Kate going undercover to the father's house and rescuing her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Detection" title="The Art of Detection">
Philip Gilbert, the head of a group of Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts, is found dead in a national park's artillery battery. Because the autopsy report is slow-coming, inspector Kate Martinelli and her partner Al Hawkin treat the death as a murder case. She can discover little about the dead man aside from his unrelenting fascination with all things Holmes. One of his dinner group companions, Ian Nicholson, reveals that he had discovered a "lost" Holmes story, possibly by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, about the murder of a gay soldier in 1920s San Francisco. Kate's interest is piqued when Ian mentions that Gilbert's body was discovered under the same circumstance as the soldier's in the story.Eventually, Kate traces Gilbert's ex-wife and learns that it is likely Gilbert was gay, given that he had been with an actor several years before. She connects him with Nicholson, who used to be an actor and whose own ex-wife admits he is gay. Kate questions Nicholson, who admits that he hit Gilbert with a heavy bottle of wine after Gilbert announced they would have to break up temporarily following the publishing of the lost manuscript. He did not realize at the time that Gilbert actually died of complications following the attack, thereby downgrading the legal status from homicide to manslaughter. Finding Gilbert dead, Nicholson panics and dumps the body then sets up an elaborate alibi. After confessing his actions to Kate, Nicholson commits suicide by cop.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Monstrous_Regiment_of_Women" title="A Monstrous Regiment of Women">
In the winter of 1920, Mary Russell is on the cusp of turning 21 and lives a double life of Oxford University theological scholar as well as a consulting detective and partner of Sherlock Holmes. After events in The Beekeeper's Apprentice, both Holmes and Russell are aware that their relationship and partnership has changed, perhaps romantically, but neither is eager to broach the subject.A chance encounter unites Russell with Veronica Beaconsfield, an old Oxford acquaintance who is worried about her former fiancé, Miles Fitzwarren, a returned soldier and drug addict. Veronica introduces Russell to the well-financed New Temple in God and its leader, the enigmatic, charismatic Margery Childe, who preaches empowerment of women. Russell believes Margery to be a mystic and begins tutoring Margery in theology and reading Scripture, integrating into their lessons her own current academic work on feminism and Judaism. Russell also witnesses what she believes to be a true miracle, in which Margery is healed of serious physical wounds through prayer. Meanwhile, Holmes takes on Miles's rehabilitation partially as a favor to Russell.When an attempt is made on Veronica's life, Holmes and Russell discover a mysterious pattern of deaths where fairly wealthy women have left large bequests to the Temple. Coming into her inheritance at age 21, Russell takes on the role of a young heiress to insinuate herself into the Temple's leadership. While learning more about the Temple's operations, Russell also fends off an attacker who threatens Margery.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Letter_of_Mary" title="A Letter of Mary">
In August 1923, Mary Russell and husband Sherlock Holmes receive an unexpected visit from Dorothy Ruskin, an elderly amateur archeologist from the Holy Land, who met the couple four and a half years earlier during the events from O Jerusalem (novel). As a gift, Ruskin presents Russell with an inlaid box containing a papyrus scroll, which seems to be a genuine first-century letter by Mary Magdalene. When she returns to London that evening, Ruskin is killed in a hit-and-run accident with only two witnesses.When Holmes and Russell visit London to identify the body, they discover evidence of foul play. Before her murder, Ruskin had argued with a sponsor of the digs, Colonel Dennis Edwards. A letter from her sister Mrs. Erica Rogers, who cares for their aged mother, reveals that two Middle Eastern visitors were also looking for Ruskin after her visit home. Finally, Holmes and Russell find their Sussex home ransacked by three suspects who were looking for papers, perhaps for Mary’s papyrus scroll. When Russell translates Mary’s letter, she finds that Mary calls herself an apostle of Jesus, and contemplates the theological and historical implications.Three distinct suspects and possibilities emerge: Colonel Edwards, who did not know he was sponsoring a woman’s project, could have been enraged to violence; the Middle Eastern visitors may have been from a Palestinian family with a grudge against Ruskin; and Rogers was resentful toward her sister, though according to Ruskin’s will, she does not benefit from Ruskin’s early death. To pursue each different line of investigation, the four split their forces: Mycroft Holmes looks into the Middle Eastern visitors, Holmes goes into Erica Rogers’s employ, while Inspector Lestrade directs the efforts of the police, and Russell finds work as Colonel Edwards’s secretary.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(Bulis_novel)" title="Tempest (Bulis novel)">
The Drell Imnulate is a powerful object lost somewhere on the Polar Express, a powerful train traversing the hostile world of 'Tempest'. Factions on the train want to the Imnulate and are willing to kill innocent people to get to it. It is up to Bernice to save the day.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Forever" title="The Sword of Forever">
Bernice finds her own DNA in the stomach of a mummified dinosaur. Together with Patience, a sentient velociraptor, she travels ever backwards through time. She stumbles upon the 'Sword Of Forever', an object that could easily demolish entire worlds.The story draws on conspiracy theories around the Knights Templar, the Ark of the Covenant and so forth. It also draws on earlier New Adventures' depictions of a future Earth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Angels_Fear" title="Where Angels Fear">
Bernice's home planet of Dellah, once a place of learning, is being overrun by a new religious movement. Closer investigation reveals the major powers of the universe are literally running in fear from said movement.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tears_of_the_Oracle" title="Tears of the Oracle">
The shattered world of Dellah, once a thriving place of learning, has only one aspect of the university left. This is under siege by religious fanatics. Bernice Summerfield has to deal with this, a mad collector, her ex-husband and an Oracle that could lead to priceless information.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumed_Innocent_(novel)" title="Presumed Innocent (novel)">
The novel begins with the discovery of the body of Carolyn Polhemus, an assistant prosecuting attorney in fictional Kindle County. She is the victim of what appears to be a sexual bondage encounter gone wrong, killed by a single blow to the skull with an unknown object while tied up. Rožat "Rusty" Sabich, a Kindle County prosecutor and co-worker of Carolyn, is assigned her case by his boss, district attorney Raymond Horgan. Horgan is currently losing his re-election campaign against Nico Della Guardia, an old protege turned rival, and informs Rusty that his continued employment is entwined with Horgan's victory, which he believes hinges on finding and convicting Carolyn's killer. This is further complicated by the fact that, unknown to everyone else, Rusty had a brief affair with Carolyn that ended months before her murder. She dumped him when he showed little interest in taking Horgan's job for himself, causing him to realize her ambitious, conniving nature.Despite his obvious conflict of interest, Rusty takes charge of the investigation, but makes clumsy attempts to divert its areas of inquiry away from the DA's office, and by extension himself. He's assisted by his friend Det. Dan "Lip" Lipranzer, whom Rusty replaces the originally assigned officer with. During the investigation, Rusty learns Horgan also had a brief relationship with Carolyn. The only person who knows of Rusty's own affair is his wife, Barbara, and the subsequent strain on their marriage led him to seek psychiatric help. Throughout the novel he discusses various relationships in his life: with his late father, a closed-off, angry man; with Della Guardia, a friendship that soured due to uncontrollable circumstances; with Barbara, a volatile mixture of devotion and disdain; and of course with Carolyn, which he has struggled to define since its end.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent's_Reach" title="Serpent's Reach">
The novel begins on a Family estate at Kethiuy on Cerdin, where the Sul sept of the Meth-maren House is attacked by the rival Ruil sept, with the help of Red and Gold Majats. The Ruil sept is seeking to wrest control of the Blue Majat from the Sul sept. A young Raen a Sul hant Meth-maren is the only survivor, and she seeks refuge in the nearby Blue Majat Hive. There she persuades the Blue Queen to help her regain control of Kethiuy. The Blue Warriors and their azi succeed in destroying the Ruil sept, but the Blue Hive is decimated and Raen is captured and brought before the Kontrin Council. Moth, the second oldest Kontrin, protects Raen from the Kontrin conspirators seeking to destroy her, and Raen is banished from Cerdin.Raen adopts a low profile and drifts from planet to planet in the Reach. She survives several assassination attempts but never gives up her desire for revenge against the Kontrin Council and those who destroyed her family. After Council Eldest Lian is assassinated, Moth takes control of the Council. She watches Raen's movement but does not interfere. Raen's final move is to board a Beta passenger spaceliner, "Andra's Jewel" bound for Istra, the only planet in the Reach accessible from the Outside. Istra has no permanent Kontrin presence, only Betas, who deal with Outsiders and the Majat, who were brought here by the Kontrin hundreds of years previously. To amuse herself on "Andra's Jewel's" long voyage, Raen plays Sej, a dicing game, every night with a ship azi named Jim. They agree that at the end of the voyage Raen will buy his contract, and if Jim is the overall winner, he will be a free man, but if he loses, he will become her azi. Jim narrowly loses and serves her for the remainder of the story.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Elephant_for_Aristotle" title="An Elephant for Aristotle">
The novel concerns the adventures of Leon of Atrax, a Thessalian cavalry commander who has been tasked by Alexander the Great to bring an elephant captured from the Indian ruler Porus, to Athens as a present for Alexander's old tutor, Aristotle. Leading a motley crew that includes an Indian elephantarch to care for the creature, a Persian warrior, a Syrian sutler and a Greek philosopher, Leon sets out to cross the whole of the ancient known world from the Indus River to Athens.The journey is long and adventurous, involving frequent skirmishes with bandits, unruly noblemen, Macedonian commanders with ideas of their own about who is in charge, and a runaway Persian noblewoman. It doesn't help that the goal of the whole enterprise is essentially a malicious prank concocted by Alexander on his former teacher: he gives Aristotle the elephant but no funds for its upkeep, while sending the funds (but no elephant) to the savant's arch-rival Xenocrates.The story is founded on the fact that Aristotle's writings include an apparently eye-witness description of an Indian elephant, though the circumstances under which he might have come into contact with such an animal are unknown.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billiards_at_Half-Past_Nine" title="Billiards at Half-Past Nine">
Architect Robert Faehmel's secretary, Leonore, describes Robert and the knowledge that something in her routine life is not ordinary. Robert is meticulous in everything he does. An old friend of Robert's arrives at the office but Leonore sends him to the Prince Heinrich Hotel, where Robert can be found every day from 9:30 to 11:00. Trouble is on the horizon for the entire Faehmel family, which includes three generations of architects: Heinrich Faehmel, his son Robert and Robert's son Joseph. The man who wants to see Robert, Nettlinger, is denied entry to the billiard room by the hotel concierge, Jochen, who will not allow Robert to be disturbed.Upstairs, Robert is telling bellboy Hugo about his life, and we discover that Nettlinger was once a Nazi policeman. Robert and his friend Schrella, both of whom were schoolmates of Nettlinger's, had opposed the Nazis, refusing to take "the Host of the Beast," a reference both to the devil and the Nazis. Schrella had disappeared after being beaten by Nettlinger and Old Wobbly, their gym teacher, also a Nazi policeman. Nettlinger and Old Wobbly had not only beaten Schrella and Robert, but had corrupted one of Robert's three siblings, Otto, who died in 1942 near Kiev. His mother, Johanna Kilb, was committed to a mental institution because she tried to save Jews from the cattle cars going to the extermination camps. It is now Heinrich's 80th birthday. Heinrich and Robert meet in a bar after visiting Johanna, sitting down and talking for the first time in many years. Meanwhile, Schrella has returned to Germany and talks with Nettlinger, who tries to make amends for his past life despite the fact that he has not really changed, and remains an opportunist. Schrella goes to visit his old home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Little_Australians" title="Seven Little Australians">
The seven children of the title live in 1880s Sydney with their father, an army Captain who has little understanding of his children, and their 20-year-old stepmother Esther, who can exert little discipline on them. Accordingly, they wreak havoc wherever possible, for example by interrupting their parents while they entertain guests and asking for some of their dinner (implying to the guests that the children's own dinner is inadequate).After a prank by Judy and Pip embarrasses Captain Woolcot at his military barracks, he orders that ringleader Judy be sent away to boarding school in the Blue Mountains.Meg comes under the influence of an older girl, Aldith, and tries to improve her appearance according to the fashions of the day. She and Aldith make the acquaintance of two young men, but Meg believes she has fallen in love with the older brother of one, Alan. When Aldith and Meg arrange to meet the young men for a walk, Meg is embarrassed after a note goes astray and Alan comes to the meeting instead and reproaches her for becoming 'spoilt', rather than remaining the sweet young girl she was. Meg returns home and later faints, having tight-laced her waist under pressure from Aldith until it affects her health.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Time_in_St._Cloud" title="Killing Time in St. Cloud">
After returning to St. Cloud a man becomes involved in a complicated web of lies, feuds, and secrets that leads to murder.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Around_the_Moon" title="Around the Moon">
Having been fired out of the giant Columbiad space gun, the Baltimore Gun Club's bullet-shaped projectile, along with its three passengers, Barbicane, Nicholl and Michel Ardan, begins the five-day trip to the Moon. A few minutes into the journey, a small, bright asteroid passes within a few hundred yards of them, but does not collide with the projectile. The asteroid had been captured by the Earth's gravity and had become a second moon. The three travelers undergo a series of adventures and misadventures during the rest of the journey, including disposing of the body of a dog out a window, suffering intoxication by gases, and making calculations leading them, briefly, to believe that they are to fall back to Earth. During the latter part of the voyage, it becomes apparent that the gravitational force of their earlier encounter with the asteroid has caused the projectile to deviate from its course.The projectile enters lunar orbit, rather than landing on the Moon as originally planned. Barbicane, Ardan and Nicholl begin geographical observations with opera glasses. The projectile then dips over the northern hemisphere of the Moon, into the darkness of its shadow. It is plunged into extreme cold, before emerging into the light and heat again. They then begin to approach the Moon's southern hemisphere. From the safety of their projectile, they gain spectacular views of Tycho, one of the greatest of all craters on the Moon. The three men discuss the possibility of life on the Moon, and conclude that it is barren. The projectile begins to move away from the Moon, towards the 'dead point' (the place at which the gravitational attraction of the Moon and Earth becomes equal). Michel Ardan hits upon the idea of using the rockets fixed to the bottom of the projectile (which they were originally going to use to deaden the shock of landing) to propel the projectile towards the Moon and hopefully cause it to fall onto it, thereby achieving their mission.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_of_Neskaya" title="The Fall of Neskaya">
## Book One.A larenzu, Rumail Deslucido, arrives at Verdanta Castle, to make an alliance between Verdanta and his brother, Damian Deslucido, the ambitious king of Ambervale and Linn. Rumail tests each of the children for "laran", then arranges a proxy marriage between the youngest daughter, Kristlin (who dies about a year later). He sends the youngest son, Coryn, to Tramontana Tower.At Tramontana, Coryn learns to control his laran, and to put aside his differences with the rival Storn family. The Tower's keeper, Kieran, believes that the Towers should be neutral in the many petty wars of the Hundred Kingdoms, and should not supply "laran" weapons to anyone.Rumail Deslucido and his brother King Damian scheme to control more of the minor kingdoms of the Hellers, hoping eventually to challenge the Hasturs of the lowlands. Rumail reveals his "laran" ability – lying under truthspell and twisting the minds of others to do the same. Eventually, Rumail is dismissed from Neskaya Tower for immoral or illegal use of "laran".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimrunners" title="Rimrunners">
The long, bitterly fought Company War between Earth and Union had ended – for everyone, except Conrad Mazian, commander of the Earth Company Fleet. By refusing to accept the peace, he and his loyal Mazianni became outlaws, hunted by all sides.Elizabeth 'Bet' Yeager had been one of Mazian's marines, a twenty-year veteran. Stranded on Pell Station when the Fleet was forced to pull out abruptly (as told in "Downbelow Station"), she managed to blend in with the many displaced war refugees. Since then, she survived by taking whatever starship berths she could find. Her luck begins to run out when her latest ship, the freighter "Ernestine", is forced to return to Pell for major repairs, a destination too fraught with danger for her. She stays behind on the decrepit, dying Thule Station. Day after day, she goes to the employment office, but there is little work. Few starships call and the ones that do, do not need the skills she can admit to possessing.Late one night, while trying to sleep in a dockside washroom, she is attacked by a man and, weak from hunger, barely manages to kill him. In desperation, she moves in with a lowlife bartender. When he tries to control her, with threats to go to the authorities about his suspicions about her, she dispatches him too. With time running out before his body is discovered, she signs up with the ship "Loki", a barely legitimate 'spook' that survives by gathering intelligence and selling it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchanter's_Luck" title="Merchanter's Luck">
Sandor ("Sandy") Kreja is the sole survivor of a moderately prosperous merchanter family that had operated in Union space. When he was a young boy, all but two of his relatives were killed or taken by the renegade Mazianni, once soldiers in the service of Earth, who had refused to accept the end of the Company War and turned pirate in order to keep on fighting.The three remaining Krejas had continued to run their aged freighter, "Le Cygne", as best they could, but an accident had killed one and a shady deal gone bad the other, leaving Sandy both impoverished and preposterously wealthy—the sole owner of a starship. By the dangerous expedient of hiring crewmen when possible and running solo when not, the young man had kept his ship running (under constantly changing names), but as unpaid debts piled up, he had begun to run out of safe Union ports.At Viking station, as Edward Stevens of "Lucy", Sandy has a chance sleepover with another merchanter, Allison Reilly, which proves to be pivotal to his future. Allison, one of the powerful Reillys of the superfreighter "Dublin Again", lets slip that she is going "across the line" to Pell, the Alliance star system. Having heard rumours that trade between Pell and Earth might be re-established and wanting desperately to see her again, he decides to try his luck in Alliance space.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripoint_(novel)" title="Tripoint (novel)">
Twenty years in the past, merchanter ships "Sprite" and "Corinthian" were docked at Mariner Station. What started out as a friendly sleepover between the inexperienced Marie Hawkins of "Sprite" and Austin Bowe of "Corinthian" turned into rape, with Marie becoming pregnant. She elected to raise the child, Thomas Bowe-Hawkins, on "Sprite", but was consumed with rage. Her brother becomes captain of the "Sprite". Tom grew up with an ambivalent mother and was never fully accepted by his family. When Austin later became senior captain of "Corinthian", Marie started tracking "Corinthian's" movements in order to expose what she suspected was smuggling.When the two ships cross paths again, this time at Viking, Marie is ready for her revenge. She and Tom scour the docks for information about "Corinthian's" cargo, but Tom is caught snooping and is imprisoned aboard "Corinthian", forcing the ship to depart prematurely for Pell Station via Tripoint. At Marie's insistence, "Sprite" pursues "Corinthian". On "Corinthian", Tom meets Austin, his domineering father, and Capella, second chief navigator and night-walker.When "Corinthian" docks at Pell Station, Tom's younger half-brother, Christian Bowe-Perrault tries to solve the problem by shipping him off to Sol Station, but Tom escapes and hides on the docks. Christian and Capella search frantically for him, unaware that Sabrina Perrault-Cadiz, Christian's cousin, has already found and befriended him. When Capella contacts old acquaintances for assistance, it attracts the unwanted attention of a dissident faction within the outlawed Mazianni Fleet. Capella is an ex-Fleet navigator with knowledge of Fleet routes and drop-points, which the dissidents want.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finity's_End" title="Finity's End">
It is eighteen years after the end of the Company War, at least as stationers experience time, less for merchanters subject to the effects of time dilation in the course of their travels. Regardless, the threat of the piratical Mazianni is ebbing. The Neiharts and their superfreighter "Finity's End" had spent the post-war years assisting the Alliance militia hunt down the renegades. But now the oldest of all existing merchanter families wants to return to trading.When the ship docks at Pell Station, the heart of the Alliance, the family retrieves one of its own. Fletcher Neihart's mother had been stranded there by the fortunes of war, giving birth to him on the station. Unable to adjust to stationer life, she had committed suicide when he was five years old, leaving him to suffer through a succession of foster homes. The lonely outsider had been befriended by a couple of "hisa", the gentle, intelligent natives of Pell's World. Now a young man of seventeen with dreams of working on the planet and no wish to take up the family business, he is furious when he is handed over against his will to his relatives as part of a deal between Elene Quen, Stationmaster of Pell, and senior "Finity" Captain James Robert Neihart.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Friends_of_Eddie_Coyle_(novel)" title="The Friends of Eddie Coyle (novel)">
Eddie Coyle is an aging, low-level gunrunner for a crime organization in Boston, Massachusetts. He is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of driving a hijacked truck in New Hampshire. Eddie had been driving the truck for Dillon, a convicted felon and career criminal who is well connected to the syndicate. Coyle has refused to give Dillon up to the authorities in exchange for leniency. Coyle's last chance to avoid a prison term is a sentencing recommendation from ATF Special Agent Dave Foley, who demands that Coyle become an informer in return.A gang led by Jimmy Scalisi and Artie Van has been pulling off a series of daring day-time bank robberies with pistols supplied by Coyle. One of Coyle's sources for the pistols is a young gun runner, Jackie Brown, who is involved in a deal to supply military machine guns (M16 assault rifles) for other clients. When taking the delivery of the pistols, Coyle witnesses the rifles in the trunk of Jackie Brown's car and immediately informs Foley. Jackie is apprehended by Foley and his agents. Coyle feels he has fulfilled his end of the deal, but Foley puts the squeeze on Eddie, demanding more information for his cooperation.Angry at his mis-treatment of her, Scalisi's girlfriend Wanda tips off the police about the next planned bank robbery, leading the state police to arrest Scalisi and Van's gang in the commission of the robbery. During the arrests, the police shoot and kill a young member of the gang who is well-connected (and possibly related) to the head of a powerful crime family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temeraire_(series)" title="Temeraire (series)">
The series revolves around William Laurence and his dragon Temeraire. Laurence is a Captain in the British Royal Navy, serving in combat against Napoleon I's navy when he recovers a dragon egg unlike any other known to the British. The egg soon hatches, and Temeraire, a Chinese dragon, is born. Under the impression that an "unharnessed" dragon will become feral and unmanageable, Laurence becomes Temeraire's companion. Despite the difficulties this causes, Laurence begins to think of the dragon as his dearest friend. This forces a change in the officer's life, drawing him from the prestigious Royal Navy to the less desirable Royal Aerial Corps. The remainder of the original trilogy follows the adventures of Laurence and Temeraire as they do battle with the forces of Imperial France and the diplomatic fallout caused by Captain Laurence's adoption by the Emperor of China. The fourth novel, "Empire of Ivory", deals with Laurence and Temeraire seeking a cure for a contagious disease introduced by a North American dragon, which spreads throughout the British dragons while Napoleon seeks to press his advantage. The fifth novel, "Victory of Eagles", is the account of Napoleon's planned invasion of the United Kingdom, forcing a British retreat to Scotland, while Laurence faces the consequences of their treason in taking the cure for the illness to the French. The sixth novel begins within the penal colony of Australia (Laurence's death sentence for treason commuted to transport to the colony), and a chase across the continent to a sudden discovery that has far-reaching consequences.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kira-Kira" title="Kira-Kira">
In the early 1950s, Katie Takeshima and her family live in Iowa, where her parents own a Japanese supermarket. When the store goes out of business in 1956, the family moves from Iowa to an apartment in Georgia where Katie's parents work at a hatchery with other Japanese families. Katie's best friend is her older sister Lynn, whom Katie looks up to as the most intelligent person she knows. She cites Lynn's ability to beat their Uncle Katsuhisa, a self-proclaimed chess grand master, at his own game as an example. Katie holds close to her heart the Japanese term "Kira-Kira", which Lynn taught her. They use it to describe things that glitter in their lives.When they first move to Georgia, Lynn guides Katie around her new surroundings and teaches her to always be positive about things. In this period, Lynn is portrayed to be highly sensible and independent as she teaches Katie to save money for their parents.When Katie enters school, she has difficulty being the only Japanese-American in her class. Her grades are solid average C's, in comparison to Lynn's ongoing straight A's. When Katie is six years old, her brother Samson (known as Sammy) is born. Lynn makes a friend whose name is Amber and also grows to be a teenager, becoming interested in boys and spending more time with her friends and lesser time with Katie. Katie also notices Lynn's change in behavior as she starts dabbling in makeup and worrying about beauty. Without Lynn's company, Katie makes friends with a girl called Sylvia "Silly" Kilgore, whose mother also works at the hatchery. However, Lynn starts feeling sporadically fatigued and ill and is diagnosed with anemia. Lynn is eventually diagnosed with lymphoma, and becomes even sicker, and then her friend Amber dumps her, along with Gregg, her boyfriend. The family decides to move into a house of Lynn's choice to help her recover, which appears to work for a short time. However, Lynn relapses from distress when Sammy is caught in a metal animal trap on the vast property owned by Mr. Lyndon, the owner of the hatchery. Lynn's condition continues to deteriorate and she becomes blank and irritable.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Among_the_Savages" title="Life Among the Savages">
Jackson—speaking as the nameless mother who serves as narrator—relates a period of roughly six years in the life of her family, focusing particularly on her attempts to keep peace and domestic efficiency despite her increasing number of children. As the book's primary incidents begin, the family has "two children and about five thousand books" when they are abruptly given notice to evict from their city apartment. After a frantic last-minute search, they come upon the perfect home in the country and prepare to adjust to their new quiet-but-quirky life as newcomers to a small, insular New England village. The book relays a series of small comical adventures largely contrasting the children's natural acceptance of the change with their parents' struggles to keep up with them, such as eldest child Laurie's introduction to kindergarten (and his daily reporting of troublemaker classmate Charles' antics); middle child Jannie's insistence that her seven imaginary daughters (who all have the same name) be taken into account on every family outing; the comedy of the family's third child, Sally, whose lengthy delay in being born throws the whole family into chaos; and the night the entire family came down with grippe and the ensuing mix-ups. The book closes with the birth of a fourth and final child, Barry, who is again a fictional stand-in for Jackson's youngest child. The book was followed by a sequel, "Raising Demons."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternity_(novel)" title="Eternity (novel)">
In "Eon", Axis City split into two: a segment of Naderites and some Geshels took their portion of the city out of the Way and through Thistledown into orbit around the Earth; they spend the next thirty years aiding the surviving population of Earth to heal and rebuild from the devastating effects of the Death which strains their and the Hexamon government's resources. As time passes, sentiment grows to have Konrad Korzenowski reopen the Way. Firstly, to learn what has happened to the Geshels' long-sundered brethren (who took their portion of Axis City down the Way at relativistic near-light speed). And, secondly, to benefit from the commercial advantages of the Way (despite the risk that the Jarts will be waiting on the other side).In a parallel Earth, known as "Gaia", mathematician Patricia Vasquez (the primary protagonist of "Eon"), dies of old age; she never found her own Earth where the Death did not happen and her loved ones were still alive, but remained on the one she discovered (in which Alexander the Great did not die young and his empire did not fragment after his death). She passes her otherworldly artifacts of technology to her granddaughter, Rhita, who appears to have inherited her gifts. Rhita moves away from the academic institute the "Hypateion" (a reference to Hypatia) which Patricia founded and that world's version of Alexandria. Patricia's clavicle claims that a test gate has been opened onto this world of Gaia, and that it could be expanded further.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saint_and_the_Fiction_Makers" title="The Saint and the Fiction Makers">
Simon Templar is hired by a friend in the book publishing trade to protect one of his authors, a secretive recluse called Amos Klein who writes a popular series of spy novels.When he arrives at Klein's house in the country, he hears a woman's screams and several gunshots. Rushing to the rescue, he finds a woman tied up and gripping a revolver behind her back. He discovers that she is "Amos Klein", a woman who adopted a male pen name to increase sales of her novels. She explains that she has to be able to do everything her character in the novels does and that she was just doing some research. The pair are soon kidnapped by a group of people who claim to be members of S.W.O.R.D., the evil organization from Amos Klein's novels. Their leader, "Warlock", the mastermind of the group, mistakenly assumes that Simon Templar is Amos Klein and that the woman is his secretary. The kidnappers want Amos Klein to plot a grandiose heist.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Highlanders_(Doctor_Who)" title="The Highlanders (Doctor Who)">
Following the Battle of Culloden, the British army is triumphant over the rebel forces of Bonnie Prince Charlie. When the TARDIS arrives, the Second Doctor, Ben and Polly encounter fleeing Scots rebels and are taken prisoner by them. They all hide in a deserted cottage with the Laird Colin McLaren, who has been badly wounded; his daughter Kirsty; his piper Jamie McCrimmon; and his son Alexander, who dies defending them from a patrol of English soldiers mopping up survivors. The patrol leader, Lt. Algernon Ffinch, is an ineffectual fop, but his Sergeant is more forceful and takes the Doctor, Jamie, Ben and the Laird to be hanged. But Polly and Kirsty manage to slip away.The two women hide in a cave, then an animal pit, from Lt. Ffinch, who believes the Prince to be one of them following the rumour that he fled the battlefield as a woman. Eventually Ffinch finds them, but they trick him and steal his money. Later in Inverness, the nearest major town to Culloden, they run into him again and use his previous foolishness to blackmail him.Elsewhere on the battlefield, the Royal Commissioner of Prisons, a shady character called Grey, plots to enslave any highlanders still alive and ship them to the colonies. He makes contact with an unscrupulous sea captain called Trask who agrees to use his ship “The Annabelle” for this. Amongst the prisoners he identifies for sale are the Doctor, Jamie, Ben, and the Laird. They are taken to the prison in Inverness but the Doctor cons his way out, and overpowers Grey and his secretary Perkins to make his escape. Grey is freed by Trask, who reports that the transportation plan has begun and arranges for a number of prisoners, including Jamie, Ben and the Laird, to be transferred to the ship. The prisoners learn that they are being sold as slaves but most accept this fate, believing seven years indentured labour to be better than the gallows. Only Ben, Jamie, the Laird and one of his friends, Willie Mackay, refuse to sign. When Ben attacks Grey, Trask has him thrown into the sea at the end of a rope.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dragon_of_the_Ishtar_Gate" title="The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate">
The novel concerns the quest of Bessas of Zarispa, a young officer of the "Immortals" regiment, for the ingredients of a potion that the King has been told will give him immortality; the blood of a dragon and the ear of a king. Unbeknownst to Bessas, the third ingredient is the heart of a hero, and therefore Bessas' own.Relying on information given him by the priests of Marduk in Babylon that a reptile depicted in reliefs on their temple, the sirrush, is a real dragon and lives at the headwaters of the Nile, Bessas sets out for the source of the Nile, accompanied by his former tutor, Myron of Miletos, who is bored of teaching and wants to make a name for himself in the field of philosophy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Equinox" title="The Blue Equinox">
"The Blue Equinox" opens with Crowley's poem "Hymn to Pan", a devotional work devoted to the ancient Greek deity Pan. This is followed by an editorial, in which Crowley discusses Thelema, the A∴A∴ and the O.T.O., and the important role which he believed that they had to play in the Aeon of Horus.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saint_and_the_People_Importers" title="The Saint and the People Importers">
This novel captures some flavour of the early-seventies English society by thrusting its titular hero against the immigration rackets exploiting the masses of underprivileged Asian workers (in this case, Pakistani) during the times when England "called the Empire home". The action starts when, getting in a cab in London, Simon Templar spots a particularly lurid headline on the frontpage of a newspaper forgotten by some previous customer, describing the horrible death of a Pakistani immigrant in Soho.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkabout_(novel)" title="Walkabout (novel)">
Two American siblings, Peter and Mary, are stranded by a gully in the Australian outback following a plane crash. Peter says they should seek out their uncle, who lives in Adelaide; Mary agrees and they begin walking across the desert, but they fail to realize that Adelaide is on the other side of the continent. They are without food save for a small piece of stick candy, and while falling asleep under a quandong tree they have a nightmare about how the captain got them to danger, only to be killed in a blast when he attempted to kill the navigator. The next day, they keep walking and searching for food but their efforts are in vain. While atop a bluff, Peter thinks he has found water but Mary makes him turn away to prevent him from becoming delirious, as she knows the silver pools are the salt pans of the outback. Suddenly, an Aboriginal teen of about Mary's age (referred to within the text as the "bush boy") appears and startles them, mostly due to his nudity. Hoping to make him leave, Mary glares at him. This proves ineffective. Hoping to find out about the strangers, he inspects both of them but finds nothing of interest, so he leaves.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saint_and_the_Hapsburg_Necklace" title="The Saint and the Hapsburg Necklace">
On the eve of World War II the redoubtable Simon Templar (better known as THE SAINT) finds himself in the imperial city of Vienna, his attentions divided between a very sensuous countess and some legendary diamonds — both of which he is trying to keep out of Nazi hands.Since the days of the Holy Roman Empire, the legendary Hapsburg Necklace has been guarded by members of the Austrian nobility. But never before has it had so beautiful a protector as one Francesca, the Countess Malffy (also known as Frankie). And never before has it been so in danger of being stolen.For its hiding place, the Malffy ancestral manor, has recently been occupied by a new tenant — the Gestapo.And as THE SAINT and Frankie plan a mission to retrieve the necklace, it becomes increasingly apparent that the Germans are not their only adversaries. Also vying for the crown jewels is a most unpredictable eccentric who is every bit a match for Simon Templar.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked_Rooms" title="Locked Rooms">
On their way back to Britain from India, Holmes and Russell stop at Russell's childhood home in San Francisco. As they approach San Francisco, Russell becomes more and more distracted. Holmes concludes from this, and her recurring dreams of falling objects, a faceless man, and locked rooms, that she is repressing some unpleasant memory. Russell denies this and tries to track down the psychiatrist who helped her recover from the trauma she suffered when she precipitated the car accident that killed her family. On the way, she meets a Chinese man, Long, who was the son of her parents' good friends. Long saves her from a murder attempt before introducing himself and saying that his own parents were killed shortly after her own parents died. When Russell finally tracks down the name of her psychiatrist, she learns that she was murdered after Russell departed for England several years ago.Holmes determines from the fact that there was a recent break-in at Russell's house, Russell's anxiety and distraction, the murder of the psychiatrist, and the most recent attempt on Russell's life, that there is something serious amiss. He hires Dashiell Hammett to join his investigation. They conclude that Russell was present during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, despite her denial of this fact, and it was this experience that produced the dream about falling objects. He learns from an interview with a survivor of the earthquake that Russell was very frightened by a man with several bandages on his face looking for her father — he had covered up his face because he had been burned while fighting a fire, and this made him appear faceless.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_(Maguire_novel)" title="Lost (Maguire novel)">
Winifred Rudge is an American writer who travels to London to visit a distant cousin, and to research a new novel about a woman haunted by the ghost of Jack the Ripper. When she arrives, she discovers that her cousin has vanished, his apartment (once owned by a common ancestor of theirs: a man who was supposedly the inspiration for Ebenezer Scrooge) is being renovated, and strange sounds are coming from the chimney. It seems the apartment is now haunted by a supernatural presence.Although the plot of the novel revolves around Winifred trying to chase down the ghost in her cousin's apartment, along the way a deep mystery that exists between Winifried and her cousin, John Comestor, is revealed. While trying to solve the mystery Winifried is forced to face the ghosts of her own past and examine her choices and motivations.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Natürlichen_Pflanzenfamilien" title="Die Natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien">
The major groupings ("Abteilung", "Unterabteilung"), with selected lower rankings are shown here with [Volume number] and page number. N ("Nachträge" = supplement).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_Corpse_(novel)" title="Exquisite Corpse (novel)">
The novel unfolds in alternating chapters from the points of view of the four main characters. Andrew Compton, a convicted serial killer (based on serial killer Dennis Nilsen), escapes his UK prison cell in a self-induced cataleptic trance. Mistaken for dead by the authorities, he makes his way to New Orleans' French Quarter to start a new life. Seeking new victims, he instead meets Jay Byrne (based on Jeffrey Dahmer), a wealthy recluse who is also a serial killer, as well as a cannibal. The two at first intend to victimize one another, but upon realizing their similar proclivities, instead begin a torrid affair based on sex and murder.After learning that he is HIV-positive, writer Lucas Ransom reacts by rejecting all his former friends and breaking up with his teenage lover Tran. Increasingly embittered by his illness, Lucas vents his frustration through his alternate persona "Lush Rimbaud", host of a pirate radio program (in a pirate station with the callsign "WHIV") where Lucas rails at society's denial of gay men and the AIDS epidemic (coincidently, the callsign would be used in real life for a licensed station in New Orleans that chose the call letters specifically to remove stigma about HIV/AIDS but with no other relation to Brite's novel). Soon even this outlet isn't enough, and Lucas, sensing that death is approaching, becomes fixated on reconciling with Tran. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_People_Fell" title="When the People Fell">
The setting is the type of benign Venus imagined before the first space probes penetrated the clouds of that planet. Colonization has become stymied by the native inhabitants (loudies), who are apparently sentient bubbles that float around the landscape, getting in the way of human progress. Attempts to communicate with them produce no response. Confining them is useless (they drift back) and killing them produces a deadly explosion that contaminates a thousand acres (4 km²). The non-Chinese authorities of the early Instrumentality government have no answer.The ruler of Goonhogo (the entity that replaced China under the early Instrumentality) decrees that 82 million Chinesians (men, women, and children) be dropped from space, parachuting down to the surface. Each one has a simple mission — herd the bubbles together. Many die in the process, both in landing and from the bubbles exploding. The rest corralled the loudies together into herds, where they eventually starve, wiping out the species. Meanwhile, more Chinese parachute down with rice seeds and begin planting. Eventually, by sheer weight of numbers, the Chinese conquer Venus.Smith's point in the story is evidently to demonstrate how Chinese attitudes such as fatalism and obedience to authority, coupled with their large numbers, could outperform the "Yankee ingenuity" and "self-reliant individual" attitudes predominant in mainstream 1950s American science fiction of the time. (However, it is implied that the separate Chinese government and Chinese ethnic identity of the time of the Venus colonization no longer exist in the same form by the time of the story's "frame" interview.)
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_(Krach_novel)" title="Half-Life (Krach novel)">
Two weeks before high school graduation and the geography of 18-year-old Adam Westman's life is about to change dramatically. Many of the familiar landmarks will remain—his best friend Dart riding shotgun; the suburban house where he lives with his dad and younger sister; and the numerous on-ramps and off-ramps that connect him to his hometown of Angelito in the center of centerless Los Angeles. But when death and love, perhaps, arrive unexpectedly, Adam must learn that trouble sometimes has to rumble through a tidy world to make room for the kind of magical connections that make life worth living.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freckles_(novel)" title="Freckles (novel)">
The hero is an adult orphan, just under twenty years of age, with bright red hair and a freckled complexion. His right hand is missing at the wrist, and has been since before he can remember. Raised since infancy in a Chicago orphanage, he speaks with a slight Irish accent, "scarcely definite enough to be called a brogue."Exhausted after days of walking and looking like a hobo, he applies for a job with the Grand Rapids lumber company, guarding timber in the Limberlost Swamp. McLean, part owner, organizer and field manager of the large company, and enthralled with the Limberlost, is impressed by the boy's polite assertiveness and hires him despite his youth and disability. He gives his name only as "Freckles", insisting that he has no name of his own. He claims the name given him in the orphanage (which we never learn) "is no more my name than it is yours". Freckles asks McLean to choose a name for him to put down on the books. McLean gives Freckles the name of his own father, James Ross McLean.Freckles' duty is to twice a day walk the perimeter of the lumber company's land, a seven-mile trek through lonely swampland, and to be on the watch for those who aim to steal the expensive timber. McLean's chief worry is Black Jack Carter, who has sworn to smuggle several priceless trees out of the swamp. Freckles' weapons are limited to a revolver and a stout stick which he carries at all times and uses to test the wire that marks the company's boundaries. At night Freckles boards with Duncan, head teamster for the lumber company, and Duncan's wife, who becomes a mother figure to Freckles.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flanders_Panel" title="The Flanders Panel">
Julia, an art restorer and evaluator living in Madrid, discovers a painted-over message on a 1471 Flemish masterpiece called "La partida de ajedrez" ("The Chess Game") which reads "Quis Necavit Equitem", written in Latin (English: "Who killed the knight?"). The painting appears as the cover of the book in some editions.With the help of her old friend and father-figure, an antiques dealer named César, and Muñoz, a quiet local chess master, Julia works to uncover the mystery of a 500-year-old murder. At the same time, Julia faces danger of her own, as several people helping her along her search are also murdered.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_World_of_Og" title="The Secret World of Og">
In this fantasy adventure, four children — Penny, the leader; Pamela, her common-sense sister; Peter, whose life's ambition is to become a garbageman; and Patsy, who collects frogs in her pockets — set out in search of their baby brother, Paul, better known as “The Pollywog,” who has vanished mysteriously from their playhouse. Accompanied by their fearless pets, the children descend through a secret trapdoor into a strange underground world of mushrooms, whose green inhabitants know only one word: “OG!”
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Bear" title="The Fourth Bear">
DCI Jack Spratt heads the Berkshire Nursery Crime Division, handling all inquiries involving nursery rhyme characters and other PDRs (persons of dubious reality). After doubts arise concerning his handling of the Great Red-Legg'd Scissorman's arrest and the Red Riding Hood affair, he is suspended pending a mental health review. His DS Mary Mary promises to consult him on all cases, to bypass the suspension. They begin an investigation of porridge-smuggling by anthropomorphic bears.Jack's troubles increase when the argumentative Punches move in next door and his son adopts a sly and sticky-fingered pet. He is forced to reveal to his shocked wife that he is himself a PDR. Furthermore, his psychiatrist is particularly sceptical about his claim that his new car repairs itself when no one is watching, and the car salesman who can prove his sanity cannot be found. His self-esteem is somewhat restored when the newspaperman who has been hounding him begs Jack's help in finding his missing sister "Goldilocks". It seems she was working on an explosive story involving cucumber growers.Meanwhile, the Gingerbreadman, the notorious murderous biscuit (or possibly cake, occasionally cookie) escapes custody, leaving a trail of bodies; Jack is frustrated when the case is given to an unimaginative officer outside NCD. While Jack and Mary are making enquiries about Goldilocks, they twice encounter the fugitive biscuit, but fail to capture him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holding_the_Man" title="Holding the Man">
In 1976, Timothy Conigrave, a student at a high school in Victoria, fell in love with the captain of the school football team, John Caleo. So began a relationship that was to last for 15 years, a love affair that weathered disapproval, betrayal, separation, and ultimately death. With honesty and insight, 'Holding the Man' explores the highs and lows of their life partnership: the intimacy, constraints, temptations, and the strength of heart both men had to find when they tested positive for HIV.The story opens at Kostka, Xavier's junior [preparatory] school in Melbourne. Here, the author begins to sexually experiment with other boys, and comes to the realisation that he is gay. Several years later, on his first day at Xavier College (the Jesuit senior school), Conigrave sees John Caleo for the first time.On the far side of the crush I noticed a boy. I saw the body of a man with an open, gentle face: such softness within that masculinity. He was beautiful, calm. I was transfixed. He wasn't talking, just listening to his friends with his hands in his pockets, smiling. What was it about his face?He became aware that I was looking at him and greeted me with a lift of his eyebrows. I returned the gesture and then looked away, pretending something had caught my attention. But I kept sneaking looks. It's his eyelashes. They're unbelievable. [31]
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ordeal_of_Gilbert_Pinfold" title="The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold">
Gilbert Pinfold is an English novelist of repute who at the age of 50 can look back on a varied life that has included a dozen reasonably successful books, wide travel, and honourable service in the Second World War. His reputation secure, he lives quietly, on good but not close terms with his neighbours; his Roman Catholicism sets him slightly apart in the local community. He has a pronounced distaste for most aspects of modern life, and has of late become somewhat lazy, given to drinking more than he should. To counter the effects of his several aches and pains, Pinfold has taken to dosing himself with a powerful sedative of chloral and bromide. He conceals this practice from his doctor.Pinfold is very protective of his privacy, but uncharacteristically agrees to be interviewed on BBC radio. The main inquisitor is a man named Angel, whose voice and manner disconcert Pinfold, who believes he detects a veiled malicious intent. In the weeks that follow, Pinfold broods on the incident. He finds his memory beginning to play tricks on him. The encroaching winter depresses him further; he decides to escape by taking a cruise, and secures passage on the SS "Caliban", bound for Ceylon. As the voyage proceeds, Pinfold finds that he hears sounds and conversations from other parts of the ship which he believes are somehow being transmitted into his cabin. Amid an increasingly bizarre series of overheard incidents, he hears remarks which become progressively more insulting, and then directly threatening towards himself. The main tormentors are a man and a woman, whose vicious words are balanced by those of an affectionate younger woman, Margaret. He is convinced that the man is the BBC interviewer Angel, using his technical knowledge to broadcast the voices. Pinfold spends sleepless nights, awaiting a threatened beating, a kidnapping attempt and a seductive visit from Margaret.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_to_a_Christian_Nation" title="Letter to a Christian Nation">
The underlying premise Harris takes is one of utilitarianism. He states: "Questions about Morality are questions about happiness and suffering."Harris addresses his arguments to members of the conservative Christian Right in America. In answer to their appeal to the Bible on questions of morality, he points to selected items from the Old Testament Mosaic law, (death for adultery, homosexuality, disobedience to parents etc.), and contrasts this with, for example, the complete non-violence of Jainism. Harris argues that the reliance on religious dogma can create a false morality, which is divorced from the reality of human suffering and the efforts to alleviate it; thus religious objections stand in the way of condom use in Africa to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS, embryonic stem cell research, comprehensive sex education, abortion, and the use of the new HPV vaccine.Harris also addresses the problem of evil—the difficulty in believing in a good God who allows disasters like Hurricane Katrina—and the conflict between religion and science. A 2005 Gallup poll suggested that 53% of Americans are sympathetic to creationism, so Harris spends some time arguing for evolution and against the notion of Intelligent Design:Harris considers the variety of religions in the world, citing a religious basis for many ethnic and inter-communal conflicts. Contrary to those who advocate religious tolerance, mutual respect, and interfaith dialogue, Harris contends that such values only make it more difficult to criticize faith-based extremism. While holding that spiritual experiences can be valuable and life-affirming—he expends considerable space in "The End of Faith" in arguing that they are necessary—Harris rejects their link to religious beliefs. He argues that religion may have served some useful purpose for humanity in the past, but that it is now the greatest impediment to building a "global civilization."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_to_Arm_Bears" title="The Right to Arm Bears">
The planet Dilbia is in a vital spot for both human and Hemnoid space travel. Both are trying to persuade the Dilbians to work with them to use the planet as a way station.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snake,_the_Crocodile,_and_the_Dog" title="The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog">
After returning from their adventure at the Lost Oasis, the Emersons try to get Nefret, their new ward, integrated into English country life. She has difficulty with the immaturity and meanness of girls her age, but is determined to learn the ways of her newly adopted culture. Nefret decides she will stay in England to study while the Emersons return to Egypt as usual in the fall, and Walter and Evelyn Emerson glady take her in. Ramses also decides to stay in England, as his crush on Nefret becomes more obvious to his mother (but no one else).So Amelia and the Professor sail east, to begin a new season with a new project - the complete clearing of an entire archaeological site. Despite Amelia's hopes that this will be a second honeymoon for them, Emerson is kidnapped—but no ransom demand or explanation is forthcoming. Amelia, Abdullah, and their circle of friends scour Luxor for any sign of Emerson, with the help of Cyrus Vandergelt, who appears on the scene just when Amelia needs him most.When Adbullah finally finds Emerson, imprisoned in a backyard shed, Amelia finds out that his captor wants information about their previous year's travels and the possibility of a lost Meroitic civilization (complete with artifacts and treasures to exploit). Unfortunately for the kidnapper, Emerson is the victim of amnesia and doesn't know anything about the Lost Oasis. Unfortunately for Amelia, it turns out Emerson doesn't remember her either—and is just as annoyed by her as when they first met. (See "Crocodile on the Sandbank".)
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dreamstone_(novel)" title="The Dreamstone (novel)">
"The Dreamstone" begins in a forest called Ealdwood, the last remaining bastion of Faery on Earth. Once, the Sidhe had roamed the world freely, but when Man came and fought wars and spread evil, the dark Sidhe burrowed deep or hid in rivers and lakes, while the bright ones, the Daoine Sidhe left mortal Earth and returned to Faery. But one bright one, Arafel chose to remain behind and guard Ealdwood, the last untouched forest. Men avoided Ealdwood because those who ventured in never came out again.Arafel watched the coming and going of Men in the lands surrounding Ealdwood, but showed little interest in them, until one man sought shelter in the fringes of the forest. She confronted him and learned that his king at Dun na h-Eoin had been killed, and that he, Niall, was on the run from those who had seized power. Arafel tells him that he cannot stay in Ealdwood, but fearing for his safety, sends him to Beorc's Steading, a sanctuary hidden in a valley for "lostlings".Back in Ealdwood, another man stumbles into the forest. Arafel learns he is Fionn, the dead king's harper, fleeing Lord Evald of Caer Wiell. Evald had overthrown the king, taken his wife, Meara, and now claims Fionn's harp as his own. When Evald invades the forest in pursuit of Fionn, Arafel denies him access to the harper. Evald demands compensation for what he claims is his, and she gives him her dreamstone, a magical stone that preserves memories of the wearer. Evald returns to Caer Wiell and Arafel allows Fionn to stay in Ealdwood so she can listen to him sing. But the dreamstone Evald now wears causes both him and Arafel anguish: she can feel his ugly memories and evil, while he can feel her kindness and peace, which confuses him. When Fionn discovers what Arafel did, and the distress it is causing her, he leaves her to find Evald to trade his harp for her stone. Evald, driven mad by lust and kindness, invades Ealdwood again and meets Fionn. He gives Fionn the stone for the harp, but kills the harper out of spite. Arafel arrives too late to save Fionn and kills Evald with her silver sword. Devastated, Arafel recovers her dreamstone and retreats to Eald (Faery).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tree_of_Swords_and_Jewels" title="The Tree of Swords and Jewels">
In "The Dreamstone" Arafel, a Daoine Sidhe helps Ciaran, a halfling (half human, half elf) save Caer Wiell near to Ealdwood forest, the last remaining bastion of Faery on Earth. "The Tree of Swords and Jewels" continues the story ten years later, when Ciaran has married Branwyn and become Lord of Caer Wiell. All of Caer Wiell are aware of Ciaran's connections to the Sidhe, whom they fear. One day Arafel visits Ciaran and returns elf prince Liosliath's dreamstone to him, saying that she needs his help: dark forces have awakened again and have overrun part of Eald (Faery). Ciaran tells her that peace in the region is fragile: King Laochailan does not trust him, and Ciaran's brother Donnchadh of Caer Donn fears him and his elf heritage.Arafel begins searching for those responsible for the shrinking of Eald, and discovers Duilliath, a drow (dark elf) living in Dun Gol, the site of an ancient elf battle. Dun Gol is close to Caer Donn, and Duilliath has begun influencing Donnchadh's thoughts and actions. Just as Arafel controls Caer Wiell, Duilliath controls Caer Donn. Arafel tries to coax him back to sleep again, but a duel erupts and she is injured, forcing her to retreat to Eald. Trees in Eald are dying and Arafel tries unsuccessfully to call on the departed elves for help.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Charnel_Prince" title="The Charnel Prince">
In this sequel to "The Briar King", Anne, her maid Austra, and her protectors Cazio and z'Acatto are working to earn passage by sea to her home in Eslen, while trying to keep a low profile. Anne and Austra experience further trials with their friendship and Anne learns more about her destiny and undergoes a transformation into a mature and powerful adult. Sir Neil, against his wishes, and still haunted by the death of his love, Fastia, travels south to find Anne and meets with treachery and unexpected kindness. Meanwhile, Aspar, Winna, and Stephen Darige are tasked by Praifec Hespero to hunt down and kill the awakened Briar King. However, they discover that his presence might not be as harmful as the Church fears and discover more evidence that makes them question the Church's motives. Queen Muriele governs Eslen with a much wiser hand than her husband ever did, but she is faced with many challenges and finds unexpected allies. The book ends with her in prison after a palace coup by her brother-in-law Sir Robert, who has literally returned from the dead, but she has managed to keep her son safe and out of harm's way.In addition to the familiar characters from "The Briar King", "The Charnel Prince" introduced a new main character, a composer and a musical genius Leovigild "Leoff" Ackenzal. Heading to the royal castle to meet the late king William. Leoff accidentally stumbles on an evil plot to drown the Lowlands under waters. He helps to thwart the attempt and becomes a small hero. This helps him to get a position as the court composer and to start his masterwork, an opera-styled musical composition that brings together singers and an orchestra of 30 players for the first time in the history of the world. However, to finish his work, he has to find his way through the complex political situation of the court and the censorship of Praifec Hespero.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modesty_Blaise_(novel)" title="Modesty Blaise (novel)">
Willie Garvin has lost the will to live. He had worked for Modesty Blaise for six years in The Network, Modesty's criminal organisation, and rose to the position of her right-hand man and became her very best friend. Willie was on top of the world.But then Modesty disbanded The Network and retired, and Willie didn't know what to do with himself. He got involved as a mercenary in a South American revolution, but his heart wasn't in it. He was captured and is now sitting in a primitive prison, waiting listlessly to be executed.Fortunately, Sir Gerald Tarrant, head of a British secret service organisation, knows about Willie's situation, and he needs the services of Modesty and Willie for a very special mission. Sir Gerald visits Modesty and lays his cards on the table. Modesty is very grateful and agrees to help Sir Gerald as soon as she has rescued Willie.This is the start of the adventure. Sir Gerald's job turns out to be a perilous intervention against the criminal mastermind Gabriel, who intends to steal a huge consignment of diamonds. The action starts in the south of France, where Willie causes Paco (who is on Gabriel's payroll) to lose his head (literally). Then it's on to Egypt, where Modesty and Willie get captured by Gabriel's gang. The diamond heist succeeds, and the action moves to a small island in the Mediterranean where Modesty has to vanquish the incredible Mrs. Fothergill in unarmed combat. But then all of Gabriel's gang are in pursuit, and there is nowhere to run.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Day_in_Limbo" title="Last Day in Limbo">
Maude Tiller, one of the few female agents in Sir Gerald Tarrant's secret service, is miserable. Her last assignment involved her having to submit to sexually degrading treatment by Paxero, the man she had been sent to spy on. And she hadn't even learned anything about the rich and enigmatic Paxero to justify the disgusting things she had let herself be subjected to.Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin discover how their good friend Maude has been mistreated, and they decide to teach Paxero a lesson. But when they break into his villa on the outskirts of Geneva they unexpectedly find a Breguet watch that was a gift from Modesty to Danny Chavasse, a very close friend of Modesty's. Everyone thought Danny had died when a cruise ship sank two years ago along with some 30 other people, but finding his watch indicates that Danny's fate was not as simple as that. Modesty confirms that Danny is alive with a visit to insane, but verifiably clairvoyant Lucifer (last featured in the novel, "I, Lucifer"), who has the ability to predict when someone is about to die; although he indicates Danny still lives, he warns her that one of her other friends may soon be killed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Xanadu_Talisman" title="The Xanadu Talisman">
Ms. Pendergast, a middle-aged nanny operating the criminal force "El Mico", may not be your typical villain. But in the world of Modesty Blaise, who is? She and her two young charges, Jeremy and Dominic Silk, have made themselves the most potent underworld force in North Africa. In their latest triumph, they've stolen "The Object" an item of immense value. However, they've also suffered their greatest setback - Bernard Martel, a top lieutenant, has double-crossed them and stolen it back.Pursued and close to death, a delirious Bernard reveals to Modesty a series of obscure clues, setting her and Willie on a quest to recover The Object and rescue Tracy, Bernard's wife. From thrilling Tangier, to mysterious Marrekesh, to the grandeur of the High Atlas Mountains, Blaise and Garvin stop at nothing in one of their most riveting and action-packed adventures yet. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_of_Morningstar" title="The Night of Morningstar">
"The Watchmen" is an international terrorist organisation that has sprung out of nowhere and is making major assaults, for example killing the entire Turkish Embassy staff in Madrid, wrecking a French nuclear power plant, and blowing up a dam in Utah. Nobody knows who they are or what their real motives are.CIA agent Ben Christie, an old friend of Modesty Blaise, is trying to infiltrate The Watchmen. But Modesty runs into Ben in San Francisco and blows his cover. Things go from bad to worse when Modesty tries to hang around to help Ben if necessary and gets captured by The Watchmen. She and Ben are held at gun point on a small fishing boat in San Francisco Bay as The Watchmen make final preparations to destroy the Golden Gate Bridge.Modesty manages to escape, but without gaining any way of locating The Watchmen. Back in England, she and Willie Garvin eventually get a lead on one of the top leaders of The Watchmen, Major the Earl St. Maur, formerly leader of a British Marine Commando battalion.Following St. Maur's trail to Madeira Island off the coast of Morocco leads to several surprises, not the least of which is that The Watchmen intend to kill the Presidents of the United States and France, and Prime Ministers of United Kingdom and West Germany. This has to be prevented, of course, but before Modesty and Willie can get a warning out they are captured by The Watchmen and imprisoned and drugged such that they can not possibly escape. The Watchmen's plan: To leave Modesty's and Willie's dead bodies at the scene of the attack, clothed in Watchmen uniforms.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Maggs" title="Jack Maggs">
Set in 19th century London, "Jack Maggs" is a reworking of the Charles Dickens novel "Great Expectations". The story centres around Jack Maggs (the equivalent of Magwitch) and his quest to meet his 'son' Henry Phipps (the equivalent of Pip), who has mysteriously disappeared, having closed up his house and dismissed his household.Maggs becomes involved as a servant in the household of Phipps's neighbour, Percy Buckle, as he attempts to wait out Phipps or find him in the streets of London. He eventually cuts a deal with the young and broke up-and-coming novelist Tobias Oates (a thinly disguised Charles Dickens) that he hopes will lead him to Phipps. Oates, however, has other plans, as he finds in Maggs a character from whom to draw much needed inspiration for a forthcoming novel which he desperately needs to produce.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Reflection" title="The Final Reflection">
Particular aspects of Klingon society depicted include:The novel concerns an intergenerational conflict within the Klingon government, between a faction wanting war with the Federation and a faction desiring accommodation for fear of Klingon defeat. The Klingon ambassador and his associates play a surprising role in this conflict, one which remains secret until the publication of a "tell-all" book forty years later, one which is read by Captain James T. Kirk in the "framing" story.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_Kennedy" title="Who Killed Kennedy">
The book's credited co-writer, fictional journalist James Stevens, investigates the events occurring in 1970s Britain and the connection between them, the anarchist terrorist Victor Magister (also known as "the Master"), the organisation known as UNIT, their scientific adviser known as "the Doctor" and the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gospel_According_to_Adam" title="The Gospel According to Adam">
A young man walks a scorching Cairo street. At the entrance to the city’s pivotal main square, he notices a succulent girl. Ineluctably drawn into her magnetic field, and the swirling, palpitating square ahead, he starts to fantasize about how he would talk to her, seduce her, rape her, love her, abandon her, cherish her were he, for example, a Brazen Rake, a Brutal Bohemian, a Sensitive Painter, or a Bald Mechanic, jumping from persona to persona as his imaginings become more and more feverish, while in his mind the girl goes through a similar series of transformations. These characters—a circus parade of Egypt’s contemporary human menagerie—are not, however, mere dress-up costumes to be donned and discarded at their author’s whim. They, and others who emerge from the side alleys of his mind, strut their stuff, accost one another, argue, and shout until eventually they leave him, on a scorching Cairo street, peering after an infinite succession of receding, parallel clamorous worlds, from whose possibilities he must draw his own conclusions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Frog_Prince,_Continued" title="The Frog Prince, Continued">
Instead of living happily ever after, issues ensue on both sides. The princess wants the prince to go do something heroic instead of lying around the castle catching flies all day (he's now human but retains some froggy habits). The prince wishes she wouldn't nag him and thinks he was happier back at his lily pad. Eventually he gets fed up and runs away. The prince encounters three witches on his wanderings and asks each to turn him back into a frog, so he can live happily ever after. The first witch thinks he is looking for Sleeping Beauty. The second witch offers him a poisoned apple. The third lives in a gingerbread house, appears to know Hansel and Gretel, and invites the prince in for dinner. The prince wisely flees from these witches, but finds himself lost in the forest with night falling.At last, he happens upon a fairy godmother, who is on her way to see a girl about a ball, but who obligingly turns him into a carriage (her repertoire is limited). As he sits in the forest and realizes just how good he had it with the princess, he thinks he'll never get home again. Fortunately, the fairy godmother's magic wears off at (not surprisingly) midnight, the prince turns back into a prince, and he runs home to his princess. When she tells him how much she loves him and was worried about him, the prince kisses the princess, and their troubles are resolved with a different happy ending: they are both transformed into frogs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_Geese_(Mori_novel)" title="The Wild Geese (Mori novel)">
Suezo, a moneylender, is tired of life with his nagging wife, so he decides to take a mistress. Otama, the only child of a widower merchant, wishing to provide for her aging father, is forced by poverty to become the moneylender's mistress. When Otama learns the truth about Suezo, she feels betrayed, and hopes to find a hero to rescue her. Otama meets Okada, a medical student, who becomes both the object of her desire and the symbol of her rescue.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Certain_Woman" title="A Certain Woman">
Yōko Satsuki, oldest of three sisters raised by a "progressive" mother at the start of the twentieth century, is strong-willed but capricious. She falls in love with a journalist (Kibe), and marries him in a "love match", when arranged marriages were still the norm. However, Yōko is very quickly bored with the journalist, and suddenly decides to divorce him and return to her parents' house. The journalist is devastated by the brief marriage and divorce, but Yōko feels only contempt for him, and (in the opening of the story), when she sees him on a train, she completely ignores his existence.After her parents' death, and following pressure from her relatives and friends, Yōko agrees to marry a friend of a friend (Kimura) who has settled in Chicago in the United States. However, on the steamer from Yokohama, Yōko has an affair with a married purser (Kuraji), oblivious to the disapproving eyes of the other passengers. By the time she reaches the United States, Yōko decides not to marry Kimura. After taking money from the hapless Kimura, Yōko returns to Japan together with Kuraji. Yōko and Kuraji start living together, despite the fact that Kuraji remains married to someone else, and Yōko has to look after her younger sisters. However, Yōko fails to find happiness, as she struggles financially and bickers constantly with Kuraji. Kuraji proves unreliable, and eventually disappears with a police arrest warrant over his head.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_Lun_Dun" title="Un Lun Dun">
The book begins with two twelve-year-old girls, Zanna and Deeba, who have begun to notice several strange things happening around them, all of them centering on Zanna.After she and her friends are attacked by a dark cloud, Zanna spends the next two nights at Deeba's house. Deeba is awoken in the middle of the night by spies moving a broken umbrella. The girls follow it into the basement of a building, where they are drawn through a gap between the worlds of London and Un Lun Dun (or UnLondon).UnLondon is a nonsensical mirror version of London, inhabited by various creatures and animated items that have been discarded by the inhabitants on London. A boy named Hemi saves them from a roving pile of trash but is later shooed away by the tailor Obaday Fing who reveals that the boy is a ghost who was trying to get close enough to them to possess one of them. In conversation he realises that Zanna is the "Shwazzy," a prophesied chosen one who is destined to save UnLondon from the Smog – an evil, sentient cloud of pollution.With the help of Fing, Skool (a friend of Fing's in an old-fashioned diving suit), Conductor Jones, Rosa the bus driver, and the Slaterunners (a tribe of people who walk only on roofs), Zanna and Deeba make their way to the Propheseers where they learn more about the Smog. Apparently, after the Smog was created in London, a group of weatherwitches called the "Armets" battled it with a magic weapon called the "Klinneract." However, the Smog was not killed. Instead, it travelled to UnLondon. It is prophesied in The Book (a talking tome) that the Shwazzy would come one day and save UnLondon.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Griffins" title="Grey Griffins">
The Grey Griffins series follows the story of four sixth graders who live in the fictional city of Avalon, Minnesota. These four friends formed a secret order named The Order of the Grey Griffins, consisting of, Grayson Maximillian "Max" Sumner III (the leader) and his friends: Natalia Romanov (the marshal), Ernie Tweeny (the steward), and Harley Eisenstein (the warden). In "The Revenge of the Shadow King", the Grey Griffins discover a link between their 'innocent' card game (Round Table) and a magic book (the Codex Spiritus) which Max discovers in his grandmother's attic. The story focuses on the friendship between the four 'Griffins', and their adventures as they stumble upon one dark secret after another and soon learn that the world in which they lived was much more dangerous than they ever believed. With the help of the Knights Templar (a shadowy organization that protects humanity from the monsters and abuses of faerie magic), the Griffins uncover a plot to hand the earth over to the malevolent Shadow King.In "The Rise of the Black Wolf" Max and his friends travel to his father's castle in Scotland for Christmas. But even before they arrive, they are attacked by Morgan La Fey, the sorceress they had believed defeated in the previous book. Disaster strikes the Sumner Castle, and Max and his three best friends set off on a round-the-world journey to collect the three scattered pieces of the Spear of Ragnarok.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutineers'_Moon" title="Mutineers' Moon">
The book’s premise is that the Moon is a massive space ship controlled by a self-aware computer that wants its rightful crew back aboard.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Keeper_of_the_Isis_Light" title="The Keeper of the Isis Light">
Olwen is a young human woman living on the planet Isis as the keeper of the Light (a navigation beacon). Her parents having died, her only companion is a robotic DaCoP (Data Collector and Processor), called Guardian. On Olwen's 16th birthday (10th on Isis), the Guardian tells her that settlers are coming from Earth to Cascade Valley. Olwen is in distress thinking that these settlers will ruin her perfect world.Guardian explains that she must wear a special protective suit to protect her from the viruses and bacteria the settlers might be carrying. One of the younger settlers, Mark London, falls in love with Olwen, and Olwen wishes Guardian to allow her to see Mark without her suit. Guardian refuses.One day, Mark overhears Guardian discussing some of Olwen's blood samples with Dr. MacDonald and he thinks Olwen might be in trouble so he climbs up towards her house. When he sees Olwen, he suffers an accident and falls from the top of Lighthouse Mesa. This turns out to be because of his shock at Olwen's appearance under the suit.Later, Guardian tells Olwen the truth about the death of her parents, and his subsequent care of her as her mother wished. To keep Olwen safe, he changed her genetically, so the ultraviolet rays from Isis' sun, Ra, would not harm her, allowing her to climb to Isis' mountain heights. Shocked at the realization that Mark fell because of her, Olwen tries to enjoy playing with her favourite pet, a dragon-like native animal called Hobbit, when Hobbit is shot by hunting settlers. In rage, Olwen chases the Hunters back to the village. When the settlers see Olwen, they are disgusted by her appearance. Olwen refuses to wear the suit and vows to never go down into Cascade Valley again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conundrum_(Dragonlance_novel)" title="Conundrum (Dragonlance novel)">
"Conundrum" follows a boat of gnomes, named the "Indestructable", to sail around the world of Krynn. However, when they reach the doorway to the bottom of Krynn, things change.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo's_Egg_(book)" title="Cuckoo's Egg (book)">
Dana Duun Shtoni no Lughn (Duun), a member of the Shonunin race, becomes the guardian of an alien infant who is, by the description of its appearance, a human. Naming the infant Haras, meaning Thorn, Duun chooses to give him a childhood similar to Duun's own, in isolation in the remote Sheon. The two are periodically visited by meds and Ellud, a government representative. As Thorn grows to early childhood, Duun trains him according to the ways of the warrior Guild to which Duun belongs, the Hatani. The Hatani are a class of warrior-judges revered by most Shonunin, given absolute jurisdiction to solve conflicts, yet isolated from society.As Thorn grows, he becomes more disturbed by his physical differences from the few Shonunin he has contact with, but Duun refuses to give him answers about his origins. During an outdoor training exercise when Thorn is sixteen years old, he encounters Shonunin settlers nearby, who were aware of his existence. They become frightened and begin to hunt him. Thorn and Duun escape relatively unharmed, but Duun decides they must leave Sheon. Duun tells Thorn that his appearance is not a genetic mistake and reveals that Thorn has no parents: he was born from an artificial womb.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lioness_(novel)" title="The Lioness (novel)">
The evil green dragon Beryl oppresses the kingdom of Qualinesti with the aid of her Dark Knights. A resistance leader, a mysterious Kagonesti woman who is known as 'The Lioness' arises to battle her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Thane" title="Dark Thane">
After a series of ugly battles and incidents, the dwarven community becomes increasingly isolationist in its city under the mountains. Unfortunately dark magic, backstabbings, betrayal and power grabs threaten to destroy the already destabilized dwarf society.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(novel)" title="Spin (novel)">
The story opens when Tyler Dupree is twelve years old. Tyler and his mother live in a guest house on the property of aerospace millionaire E.D. Lawton and his alcoholic wife, Carol. Tyler is friends with the couple's thirteen-year-old twins: Jason, a brilliant student who is being groomed to take over the family business, and Diane, with whom Tyler is in love. One night while stargazing, the three children witness all the stars simultaneously disappear. Telecommunications suffer as every satellite falls out of orbit simultaneously. Attempts to communicate with the ISS are unsuccessful.An opaque black "spin membrane" has been placed around Earth. The membrane has slowed time so that approximately 3.17 years pass outside the membrane for every second within, or 100 million years on the outside for every year within. The membrane is permeable to spacecraft, and it protects Earth from the harmful effects of concentrated stellar radiation and cometary impact. A simulated sun on the inside of the membrane allows for a largely normal life cycle to continue. However, the passage of time outside the membrane means that all life on earth will end in a few decades when the sun's expansion makes that region of the solar system uninhabitable.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquitoes_(novel)" title="Mosquitoes (novel)">
## Prologue."Mosquitoes" opens in the apartment of one of the story's main characters, a reserved and dedicated sculptor named Gordon. Ernest Talliaferro, a friend of the artist, joins him in the apartment, watching intently as Gordon chisels away at a sculpture. Talliaferro engages the sculptor in a largely one-sided 'conversation' about his abilities with women. The artist works around the chatty Talliaferro, indifferently agreeing with every claim and question, yet declines the offer to attend an evidently aforementioned boat trip hosted by the wealthy Mrs. Maurier.Leaving the apartment to get a bottle of milk for Gordon, he meets Mrs. Maurier, the hostess of the upcoming yachting trip, who is accompanied by her niece, Pat. A quick return to Gordon's apartment follows where Mrs. Maurier personally extends the offer for him to join the yachting excursion. Though Gordon maintains a distant and uninterested aura, it becomes evident through the stream-of-consciousness passages that follow that he is at odds with himself over his sudden attraction to Pat that changes his mind about the trip.When Talliaferro takes leave of Gordon and the women, his path through the city and the paths of other characters that diverge in his wake serve to introduce the multifaceted New Orleans artistic community around which the plot focuses. At a dinner that follows, Talliaferro's visit with Gordon, the conversations about art that ensue as well as the sexual tensions that are hinted at in the interactions of Talliaferro, Julius Kaufmann, and Dawson Fairchild set the stage for the interactions and themes that come to typify rest of the novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_Is_the_Key" title="Fear Is the Key">
In the prologue, set in May 1958, John Talbot, owner of Trans Carib Air Charter Co, is at an airfield in British Honduras, awaiting radio contact with one of his aircraft en route to Tampa, Florida, which is being piloted by his twin brother and in which his wife and baby son are passengers. Not long after he establishes contact the aircraft is attacked by a P-51 Mustang, after which all contact is lost.Two years later Talbot is on trial for robbing a bank. At a point where his guilt is in doubt, new information comes to light implicating him in the death of a police officer. Now desperate, he escapes by taking a young woman hostage from the court room and stealing a car. However, he is tracked down by a private detective, Herman Jablonski, who reveals that the young woman is Mary Ruthven, daughter of oil millionaire General Ruthven. Jablonski turns Talbot over to the General and his three business associates - Vyland, Royale and Larry (Vyland’s drug-addict son) - who, instead of turning him over to the police, hire him for an unspecified task, retaining Jablonski to keep him under guard.In a plot reveal, we discover that Talbot and Jablonski, a former police officer, have engineered the scenario, for reasons as yet unknown. Talbot slips out of the General's house and travels to an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, searching it for signs of something out of the ordinary. On 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borkmann's_Point" title="Borkmann's Point">
The novel is set in the early 1990s when Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, a 30-year veteran of police work who appreciates fine food and drink, cuts short his vacation to help the police chief of the remote town of Kaalbringen and his small crew investigate two ax murders. Another identical murder occurs in the weeks leading up to the retirement of Police Chief Bausen and it's expected that solving them would not only complete their work while Van Veeteren is available, but would be a high point for Bausen's career exit. Bausen is determined that the cases are solved quickly and the public is safe again before he departs.At a loose end in Kaalbringen, Van Veeteren accepts Bausen's collegial hospitality. A widower, Bausen generously shares from his expensive wine cellar and together they draw close over a love of chess. The sympathetic Van Veeteren wants to resolve the difficult investigation for his old friend's sake, which Bausen also appreciates.The problem is that the killings are random with the victims completely unrelated, and the murderer is too clever to be found or even noticed. Significantly the corpses are discovered axed precisely in the same way with a butcher's chopper which shows the killer's attention to detail. Just when it seems that the Ax Murderer – so dubbed by the press – is on a roll, the killings stop at three. The work to find a connecting thread is shared by a crew that includes Beate Moerk, a dedicated, single female colleague with dreams of becoming a private detective; Münster, a detective whose career is creating cracks in his marriage and family life; and others like the nerdish Kropke who bring their professional skills as well as their personality traits to bear. All strive to solve the puzzle as time runs out, especially when Beate Moerk goes missing while jogging late at night.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Franklin's_Island" title="Dr. Franklin's Island">
A plane to a research facility in Ecuador crashes in the ocean and the only survivors are three children: Semi Garson, the female narrator; Miranda, a brave girl; and a boy called Arnie. They must swim to the nearby island and survive on their own. Soon Arnie disappears and the girls are taken hostage on the island by Dr Franklin and his assistant Dr Skinner, who perform transgenic experiments on them. This transforms Miranda into a bird and Semi into a manta ray, who can still communicate through radio chips planted in their new bodies. It is revealed that the missing Arnie, also a prisoner of Dr. Franklin, is eavesdropping on them and reporting their conversations to the scientists. Arnie tells the two girls that there is a cure to their condition and says that he will try to help them by obtaining it. Semi soon begins to covertly receive the treatment, learning that Skinner is sneaking her the doses of antidote.Skinner frees her from the lockup, horrified by the experiments. Semi, now a full human again, finds a snake and discovers that it is Arnie. They are recaptured by Franklin, who also have Miranda trapped in a net. They attack in a desperate last stand, and the scientist is killed after smashing into an electric fence. Semi, Miranda and Arnie escape to the mainland in a boat. On the way home, Semi gives Miranda and Arnie the antidote, and they return to being human.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Memoirs_of_a_Survivor" title="The Memoirs of a Survivor">
The story takes place in a near-future Britain where society has broken down due to an unspecified disaster, referred to as "The Crisis." The new society that emerges after the collapse retains many features of the old world but is fundamentally different. What serves as a government in the post-crisis nation is unable to consolidate its authority and exercises little control over the populace. Newscasts can be heard and law and order are upheld by vigilantes and a handful of policemen. Education exists for those who pass as the wealthier survivors, while schools for the poor act as an apparatus of the army and are designed to control the population. Limited commercial activity continues, but scavenging is required to obtain rare goods.By the start of the novel, the situation in the society is starting to deteriorate as the edifice of the past society crumbles. The narrator describes people moving out of the city, and empty shelves indicate a food shortage. Rationing is in effect, and gangs migrate through the city block by block attacking residents. Many of the narrator's neighbours want to move out of the city as the situation becomes worse.The narrator, a middle-aged woman who lives a quiet life in a flat, unexpectedly ends up with 'custody' of a teenage girl named Emily Cartwright and her dog Hugo. The narrator seeks to please the new arrival and works hard to ensure that Emily has a high opinion of her. She often comments on Emily's competence and neatness and ponders the purpose of the girl's existence. Emily herself is intelligent and insightful but is also quite distant. The narrator and Emily somewhat enjoy each other's company and seem to form a tacit arrangement of tolerance between them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twenty-Seventh_City" title="The Twenty-Seventh City">
The story proper begins when S. Jammu, an Indian woman who previously served as police commissioner of Bombay and is distantly related to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, takes over duties as the new St. Louis County chief of police. Her surprise appointment is greeted with confusion and suspicion, especially among the political and business elite that make up the county's advisory board, Municipal Growth. Over the coming months, a combination of a cult of personality, a Native American terrorist group, blackmail, and extortion bring most of the city leaders, including the leaders of the black community, to support Jammu. Those not won over or suppressed include General Norris, a right-wing business owner, and Martin Probst, a local construction magnate. While Probst's initial misgivings are more to do with maintaining impartiality, his concerns are deepened by Norris's reports of Jammu's associates engaging in illegal activities, including surveillance of political opponents.A proposed merger between the city and county, part of a larger property speculation scheme hatched by Jammu and her cohorts, begins a clash between Jammu and Probst. Jammu acts as the figurehead for the merger whilst Probst reluctantly leads the opposition movement. Further pressure is brought to bear on Martin Probst in order to make him endorse Jammu and his family life begins to suffer. First, his 17-year-old daughter, Luisa, moves out of the family home to live with her older boyfriend. Then Martin's wife, Barbara, is seduced and ultimately kidnapped by Jammu's subordinate Balwan Singh, even as Martin is led to believe that Barbara has left him for another man. Despite the public politics and private intrigues, Martin Probst and S. Jammu find themselves drawn to each other and eventually sleep together.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_Domini_2000,_or,_Woman's_Destiny" title="Anno Domini 2000, or, Woman's Destiny">
The novel describes the exploits of Hilda Fitzherbert, a 23-year-old Undersecretary for Home Affairs in a future where the British Empire has achieved both female suffrage (which New Zealand granted in real life in 1893) and become an Imperial Federation, which also included Belgium and coastal territories along the English Channel. However, Sir Reginald Paramatta, a villainous Australian republican, has his eyes set on the abduction and wooing of Miss Fitzherbert. Miss Fitzherbert foils the Republican plans and falls in love with Emperor Albert, the dashing young ruler of the Federated British Empire.Unfortunately, their plans hit a snag when the Emperor refuses the hand of the female US president's daughter, which precipitates an Anglo-American war, which the Empire wins, leading to the dissolution of the United States, its reabsorption into the Empire, and the ensuing marriage of Hilda and the Emperor. Several years later, the Emperor and his Empress find that their opinions about male primacy in royal succession have reversed themselves, when faced with a brilliantly competent princess and bookish, scholarly prince as prospective heirs apparent to the throne.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bancroft_Strategy" title="The Bancroft Strategy">
Todd Belknap, a field agent for Consular Operations, is cut loose from the agency after a job gone wrong. But when his best friend and fellow agent is abducted abroad and the government refuses to step in, Belknap decides to take matters into his own hands.Meanwhile, Andrea Bancroft learns she’s about to inherit 12 million dollars from a cousin she never met—with one condition: She must sit on the board of the Bancroft family foundation. Having been estranged from her father’s family for most of her life, Andrea is intrigued. But what exactly is the Bancroft’s involvement with “Genesis,” a mysterious person working to destabilize the geopolitical balance at the risk of millions of lives? In a series of devastating coincidences, Andrea and Belknap come together and must form an uneasy alliance if they are to uncover the truth behind “Genesis”—before it is too late.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silver_Donkey" title="The Silver Donkey">
The book traces the journey of an English soldier who comes across two young girls, Marcelle and Coco, in the rural French town of Wissant. The girls help the soldier, who suffers from psychological blindness as a side-effect of post-traumatic stress, to plan a way to cross the English Channel back to his brother. The girls bring him food and in return he tells them moralistic tales about courage, perseverance and trying your best against all odds. Though his stories are fiction, one is not: the story of his younger brother John who while extremely ill, finds a small silver donkey whilst digging in the garden. The soldier carries the silver donkey with him everywhere for luck, hope and inspiration, which the soldier claims will spread to Coco when he gives her the donkey.The story can be seen in two ways: from an adult's perspective or from that of an innocent child. The soldier could be lying in order to get the girls to help him, or he could be telling the truth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Motel_Life" title="The Motel Life">
Frank and Jerry Lee Flannigan are two down-and-out brothers who live a meager existence in Reno, Nevada. Both men are high school dropouts who live in cheap motel rooms, work at odd jobs for money, and drink heavily. One night, while driving drunk during a blizzard, Jerry Lee accidentally hits and kills a teenage boy on a bicycle. Although the accident is the boy's fault, there are no witnesses, and Jerry Lee is certain that the police will put the blame on him. He convinces Frank to leave town with him and flee to Montana. Along the way, Jerry Lee abandons Frank in Wyoming and then burns the car in a secluded Idaho forest. Both men return separately to Reno.The police seem to take no interest in the case, so both men attempt to settle back into their Reno lives. Frank adopts an abused, half-frozen dog he finds during a snowstorm. Acting on a tip from a friend, he scrapes together $400 and bets it on the Tyson-Douglas boxing match, winning more than $5,000. He also tracks down the family of the dead teenager and stands outside their home, watching them come and go. Jerry Lee, meanwhile, becomes consumed by guilt and attempts suicide, shooting himself in the leg. He survives and lands in the hospital. On the day of the Tyson-Douglas fight, the police come to question Jerry Lee; they have discovered the burned-out wreck of his car in Idaho. Once again, Jerry Lee convinces Frank to flee Reno.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hammer_and_the_Cross" title="The Hammer and the Cross">
The story begins with Shef as little more than a thrall in his stepfather's service. When he is not busy with mundane tasks, Shef finds himself aiding the village blacksmith, where he develops his talents as well as an affinity for invention. A Viking army invades, and Shef's stepsister Godive is taken during a raid on their village. Shef and his friend Hund proceed to the encampment of the Ragnarssons, leaders of the invading army. Rising swiftly in and beyond the Viking army, Shef's greatest task becomes defeating a new invasion.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hippopotamus_Pool" title="The Hippopotamus Pool">
Amelia and Emerson are in Cairo to greet the 20th century, when a mysterious Mr. Shelmadine presents them with a gold ring from an unknown tomb bearing the cartouche of Queen Tetisheri. The Emersons must defend against criminals and tomb robbers. This time, Amelia is up against two unknown parties, one to save, one to avenge.This book also introduces David Todros, Ramses's lifelong friend and partner in adventures. Evelyn and Walter Emerson come back to the land of the pharaohs for the first time since their romance in the ruins of the heretical pharaoh's city, Amarna.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ode_to_Gallantry" title="Ode to Gallantry">
The plot revolves around a case of mistaken identity between a pair of identical brothers. In the afterword, Jin Yong acknowledges that the story resembles some of the works of William Shakespeare ("cf." "Twelfth Night" and "The Comedy of Errors").The protagonist, who refers to himself as "Gouzazhong" (literally "mongrel"; a colloquialism for "bastard"), first appears as a young beggar roaming the streets of Kaifeng in search of his lost mother. He witnesses a fight between several notable figures in the "wulin" (martial artists' community) and meets the Shi couple and members of the Snowy Mountain Sect. An accident causes him to be taken away by Xie Yanke, an eccentric martial artist, to a secluded location on Motian Cliff. Xie Yanke, who is frequently bothered by Gouzazhong, decides to teach him martial arts. Gouzazhong learns "qi" cultivation techniques under Xie Yanke's tutelage for six years. He is unaware that Xie actually harbours ill intentions and has been deliberately teaching him the techniques wrongly in the hope that he will sustain internal wounds and eventually die.At the same time, the leader of the Changle Sect, Shi Zhongyu, mysteriously disappears. The greater part of the novel deals with the complications that arise when Gouzhazhong is mistaken for Shi Zhongyu, not only by members of the sect (for ulterior motives), by also by Shi Zhongyu's parents, Shi Zhongyu's lover Ding Dang, and members of the Snowy Mountain Sect. Although the two bear a splitting resemblance, their characters cannot be more different: Gouzhazhong is simple, honest and clever; Shi Zhongyu, the son of the Shi couple, has a bad reputation for being a lewd and sly womaniser. Gouzhazhong acquires consummate combat skills in the process. He is hounded by members of the Snowy Mountain Sect who mistake him for Shi Zhongyu, who had molested Axiu, the granddaughter of the Snowy Mountain Sect's leader. He acquires Axiu as his girlfriend after various incidents, during which their misunderstandings are gradually resolved.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peacekeepers" title="The Peacekeepers">
While investigating an alien derelict, Geordi La Forge and Data are sent to a solar system several light-years away by a transporter with interstellar range, to a similar derelict orbiting an Earth-like planet. Once there, they are mistaken for "the Builders", those who the planet's native populace, a culture similar to late-20th-century Earth, believe are the creators of the derelict, which they call the "Repository of the Gifts". One of the natives, Shar-Lon, discovered the Repository some years before and used its "Gifts" (advanced technology) to end planetary wars that were leading to a possible nuclear holocaust. However, Shar-Lon's use of the Gifts since that time has led to a worldwide perception of himself and his supporters, the Peacekeepers, as a suppressive force that has limited the social and technological advancement of their people. Assuming the role of "Builders" in order to assess their situation, La Forge and Data are drawn into the social politics of the Peacekeepers and their world, and must extract themselves from the situation and find a way back to the "Enterprise" without further harming the natives' culture and violating the Prime Directive.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivors_(Star_Trek)" title="Survivors (Star Trek)">
The Enterprise is called in to deal with Treva, a human colony on the fringes of known space. For a time, it was thought to be a suitable candidate for Federation membership. Now it has sent a distress call because a brutal warlord has seized power and a revolution has sprung up.Tasha Yar is sent down with the android Data. The two soon discover the situation is more complicated than originally thought. The warlord wants Federation weapons to use against the rebels and is willing to kill whomever it takes to accomplish this goal.The novel also focuses on the unique relationship between Yar and Data and how the current situation correlates with Yar's brutal childhood.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_Zone" title="Strike Zone">
In this book a race of aliens who have fought with the Klingons for centuries, called the Kreel, find a large stash of advanced weapons hidden on a strange planet on the Kreel-Klingon border. The Kreel are as scavengers and had, plundered the destroyed colony that was Worf's childhood home. They declare war on the Klingons, and the crew of the USS "Enterprise" are asked to help with the peace negotiations.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackrock_(play)" title="Blackrock (play)">
Blackrock is an Australian beachside working-class suburb where surfing is popular among youths like Jared. He has his first serious girlfriend, Rachel, who comes from a much wealthier part of the city. One day Ricko, the local surfing legend, returns from an eleven-month trip. Rachel's brother Toby holds his 18th birthday party at the local beach club a few days later, and Jared decides to merge a 'welcome home' party for Ricko with the event. The party is unsupervised, with alcohol freely available. The following morning, it is revealed that 15-year-old Tracy Warner was killed at the party.Three youths from the party, Davo, Scott, and Toby, tell Ricko that they raped Tracy but left her alive. The three boys are later arrested for the sexual assault. Ricko confesses to Jared that he killed Tracy. He says he was attempting to have sex with her when she bit him and kicked him, so in a moment of rage he grabbed a rock and hit her with it. He has already told police that he was with Jared all night and asks Jared to confirm his alibi in the name of mateship. Jared is torn between telling the truth and protecting his friend. After witnessing Ricko's abusive behaviour towards their friend Tiffany, Jared decides to tell the truth. Ricko is detained by police and hangs himself in his cell.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betsey_Brown" title="Betsey Brown">
"Betsey Brown" is the story of an adolescent African-American girl growing up in 1959 St. Louis, Missouri, who is part of the first generation of students to be integrated in the public school system. She navigates common adolescent issues such as family dynamics, first love, and identity questions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wash_This_Blood_Clean_from_My_Hand" title="Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand">
"Commissaire" Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg is a police officer in Paris. His nonchalant behaviour upsets many of his subordinates and chiefs as much as it pleases the others. He often finds key clues in his dreams; yet this will be his undoing soon.Since before entering the police force, Adamsberg has been looking for a serial killer. That killer's modus operandi involves having a bystander being wrongly accused, which happened to Adamsberg's own brother, and some weapon with three blades, some sort of a trident, hence the Neptune reference.When the story begins, Adamsberg has found yet another murder he thinks is linked to the "Trident". Nobody believes him because the killer's crime spree is supposed to have lasted more than fifty years, culprits were always found, and Adamsberg's key suspect was buried ten years ago. Adamsberg's dreamlike reasoning sounds unlikely to most.Adamsberg has no choice but to attend a forensics seminar in Quebec, thus abandoning the case. While in Canada, he bonds with a French girl, who ultimately claims to be pregnant with his child. He then also learns that his previous love has a young child. Both blows lead him to get drunk for the first time in years. When he wakes up, he is covered in blood and his Canadian colleagues accuse him of murdering the girl with a three-bladed weapon.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Wind" title="The Golden Wind">
The novel concerns the adventures of Eudoxus of Cyzicus and Hippalus on the first voyages by sea from Egypt to India. Following these, it deals with Eudoxus' efforts to circumvent the newly established Egyptian monopoly on trade with India by pioneering a new route around the west coast of Africa, which are ultimately defeated by misadventure and the sheer extent of the continent.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Unicorn" title="The Last Unicorn">
A group of human hunters pass through a forest in search of game. After days of coming up empty-handed, they begin to believe they are passing through a Unicorn's forest, where animals are kept safe by a magical aura. They resign themselves to hunting somewhere else; but, before they leave, one of the hunters calls out a warning to the Unicorn that she may be the last of her kind. This revelation disturbs the Unicorn, and though she initially dismisses it, eventually doubt and worry drive her to leave her forest. She travels through the land and discovers that humans no longer even recognize her; instead they see a pretty white mare. She encounters a talking butterfly who speaks in riddles and songs and initially dodges her questions about the other unicorns. Eventually, the butterfly issues a warning that her kind have been herded to a far away land by a creature known as the Red Bull. She continues to search for other unicorns. During her journey, she is taken captive by a traveling carnival led by the witch, Mommy Fortuna, who uses magical spells to create the illusion that regular animals are in fact creatures of myth and legend. The Unicorn finds herself the only true legendary creature among the group, save for the harpy, Celaeno. Schmendrick, a magician traveling with the carnival, sees the Unicorn for what she is, and he frees her in the middle of the night. The Unicorn frees the other creatures including Celaeno, who kills Mommy Fortuna and Rukh, her hunchbacked assistant.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_Immunity_(novel)" title="Diplomatic Immunity (novel)">
Miles and Ekaterin Vorkosigan are enjoying a delayed honeymoon off-world while their first two children are approaching birth in their uterine replicators back on Barrayar. On their way home, Miles receives Emperor Gregor Vorbarra's command to go to Graf Station in Quaddiespace to untangle a diplomatic incident in his capacity as the nearest Imperial Auditor. There, he is unexpectedly reunited with the Betan hermaphrodite Bel Thorne, a trusted former Dendarii Mercenaries subordinate and his good friend.Quaddies are the result of genetic manipulation centuries before (as described in Bujold's novel "Falling Free"). Intended to be used as laborers in zero-G, they have extra arms instead of legs. However, the invention of artificial gravity rendered them useless to the corporation that created them. They stole a spaceship to avoid being liquidated and colonized a remote star system. At Graf Station, the Quaddies occupy a zero-G section, while visitors use a section with artificial gravity. Quaddies tend to be suspicious of other humans based on their history of callous exploitation.A convoy of Komarran merchant ships are being prevented from leaving the station due to trouble caused by Barrayaran personnel from their military escort. Furthermore, a Barrayaran security officer is missing, possibly murdered or deserted.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_and_the_Prophecy_of_Bane" title="Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane">
Several months have passed since the events of the first novel, when Gregor and his baby sister Boots first fell into the subterranean kingdom of Regalia (a part of the "Underland") and undertook a quest to save their father, who was being held prisoner by a group of Underland rats. The Underland humans supported the siblings' mission because they believed it was prophesied by their founder, Bartholomew of Sandwich. At the beginning of the second novel, the Underland humans kidnap Boots to force her and Gregor (whom they call the "Warrior") to participate in another one of their prophecies. They interpret "The Prophecy of Bane" to mean that Gregor must kill a white rat (the "Bane") in order to prevent the humans' main enemies, the rats, from taking over the realm. A set of lines about a dying baby "turn[ing] the Warrior weak" convince the humans that Boots is in danger, and so the Regalians offer to protect Boots in within the walls of their castle. Gregor sails off on an underground ocean with only a few soldiers and their giant bats to hunt the Bane in the Labyrinth, an uncharted maze of caverns deep in the Underland's rat lands.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_and_the_Curse_of_the_Warmbloods" title="Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods">
Despite the difficulties it has caused for his family, Gregor finds it hard to distance himself from the Underland. When he receives word that a plague has broken out and his bond Ares is one of the victims, he heads down to help with yet another of Bartholomew of Sandwich's prophecies. His mother, however, hates the Underland and only allows Boots and Gregor below on the condition that she comes with them. The humans' plague expert, Dr. Neveeve, explains that there is a plant called starshade growing deep in the Vineyard of Eyes which can be distilled into a cure. In the midst of the meeting, a dying bat infected with the plague inadvertently infects one of the delegates—Gregor's mother.Gregor immediately joins a group of creatures on a quest to find the starshade, as described in "The Prophecy of Blood". The current queen, Nerissa, has arranged Hamnet - the estranged, pacifistic son of Solovet and Vikus - as their guide. Hamnet, his Halflander son Hazard, and their hisser companion Frill lead the motley crew through the dangerous Jungle and numerous setbacks. During a near-death experience with a pool of quicksand, the group encounters Luxa, the heir apparent of Regalia who was assumed to be dead after the quest in "Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane". She and her bond Aurora were trapped in the Jungle when Aurora dislocated her wing, and have been living there with a colony of nibblers (mice). After Hamnet fixes Aurora's wing, the bonds accompany the questers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_and_the_Marks_of_Secret" title="Gregor and the Marks of Secret">
The novel opens with Gregor's little sister Lizzie preparing to go to camp, while Gregor and Boots head down to the Underland. Ripred introduces Gregor to the now-teenaged Pearlpelt so Gregor can observe "the Bane's" violent instability, and choose to kill him before he ends up in a leadership position. Gregor is uncomfortable with the idea. The next day, he returns to dissuade Ripred, but is instead attacked by the Bane's friends.After several more weeks, Ripred is still missing, but Gregor remains relaxed until a messenger unexpectedly delivers Luxa her crown. Luxa and her friends know that this is a distress call from the nibbler colony in the Jungle. They investigate, but discover only a deceased mouse and an abandoned colony. Luxa is distraught, and decides to visit the nibblers' other colony at the Fount, under the pretense of going on a picnic date. This ruse leads to several others coming along as well. The group finds the colony mysteriously deserted, though they do discover a "mark of secret" which Hazard says warns of death and sorrow. The traveling party tracks the mice into the Swag, but are forced into Hades Hall by an earthquake. During their journey back to Regalia, they learn the Bane has been systematically executing nibblers, which leads Luxa to declare war against all gnawers. Gregor becomes annoyed with Luxa as the consequences of her actions become apparent.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_Master" title="The Beast Master">
"The Beast Master" tells of Hosteen Storm, a Navajo and former soldier who has empathic and telepathic connections with a group of genetically altered animals. The team emigrates from Earth to the distant planet Arzor where it is hired to herd livestock. Storm still harbors wrath at his former enemies, the Xik, and has sworn revenge on a man named Quade for his father's murder. According to "Kirkus", he finds "life and hope" instead.In this novel and its sequels, Norton explores aspects of Native American culture, specifically the Navajo, through metaphors in Storm's life and in the culture he adopts on his adoptive planet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sacred_Art_of_Stealing" title="The Sacred Art of Stealing">
The plot of "The Sacred Art of Stealing" tells the story of American Zal Innez, a witty and intellectual art-loving thief, who is being blackmailed by crime boss Alessandro Estabol to do one last major job for him.As a warm up to their main heist, Zal and his team of fellow failed artists rob a Glasgow bank of approaching a million pounds. During the raid they use unorthodox methods such as firing itching powder at armed police, carrying fake guns, staging plays and drawing works of art for their hostages to keep casualties to a minimum.During this robbery Zal meets and falls for a woman police officer, Angelique de Xavia, heroine of Brookmyre's previous novel, who is under-appreciated by her bosses.Both police officer and thief become painfully aware of the strong attraction between them and a relationship is formed, despite the fact that they are both fully aware that they are on opposite sides. Zal knows Angelique is after him, and even counts on this knowledge to complete his final job, while Angelique is aware that Zal is playing her, even though she does not want to contemplate what that might imply about his real feelings for her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Type_One_Super_Robot" title="The Type One Super Robot">
A boy, Humbert, goes to stay with his Uncle Bellamy. Once there he discovers a strange package that appears to hum to itself. Upon alerting his uncle to the package, Humbert is surprised to find that it contains a Type One Household Robot, designed to help around the home. The robot is swiftly named Manders by Uncle Bellamy, because he does everything that a man-does.Humbert and Manders get into many adventures, the most memorable of which is a kite-flying expedition.One joy in the story for children is to read how Manders struggles to come to terms with human existence, for example by misunderstanding phrases like "getting along like a house on fire," failing to realise that a kite is not meant to take you with it, or trying to slice custard.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Abyssinian" title="The Abyssinian">
"The Abyssinian" tells the story of a young French physician who is sent as part of a diplomatic mission to Abyssinia in the early eighteenth century. Along the way he must face various perils while trying to win over his true love.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Z" title="World War Z">
The novel is framed around a series of interviews conducted by a fictionalized version of the author Max Brooks, author of The Zombie Survival Guide, (known in-universe as the ""Civilian" Survival Guide") as he travels the world a decade after the end of what is most commonly referred to as the "Zombie War."The pandemic begins twenty years previously in the early twentieth century, with the infection of a boy in a village in Dachang, China; the release of the virus, referred to as "Solanum" in The Zombie Survival Guide, is implied to have been caused by the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. The Politburo initially covers up the outbreak by engineering a military crisis with Taiwan to avoid appearing weak internationally, but thousands of infected quickly spread the virus outside of China through immigration, human trafficking, and the organ trade. The virus spreads to Cape Town, South Africa, where the first major public outbreak occurs, leading to the virus initially being dubbed "African rabies." A Mossad agent publishes a report detailing the undead threat and recommending countermeasures, but Israel is the only country to take it seriously. The United States in particular is overconfident and distracted by the upcoming election, responding only by deploying small special operations teams to temporarily contain isolated outbreaks. Israel, meanwhile, responds by enacting a policy of voluntary quarantine in which it ceases occupying the Palestinian territories, evacuates Jerusalem, and constructs a wall along the demarcation line established in 1967. The government also offers asylum to any Palestinian living in the formerly occupied territories, and any Palestinian whose family previously resided in Israel. These policies spark a civil war by enraging the Israeli religious right, though the uprising is eventually suppressed by the IDF. Worldwide, a widely marketed placebo vaccine named Phalanx creates a false sense of security. This period later becomes known as the "Great Denial."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian_of_Isis" title="The Guardian of Isis">
Mark London is now president of the settlement. He has forced the people to abandon all technology and become a simple, agricultural community full of taboos. Upper Isis is now a forbidden zone, because, so they believe, the Guardian put a curse on the mountains, imprisoning the people in their own valley. One boy, Jody N'Kumo, grandson of one of the original settlers, breaks one of the most sacred taboos, and is banished to the land of Guardian, although everyone knows he is simply being sent to his death. However, Jody does not die, and discovers a place called Bamboo Valley. There he meets the Lady Olwen, who was the Keeper of the Isis Light in the times before the colony, and learns the truth about the history of Isis.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Isis_Pedlar" title="The Isis Pedlar">
The leader of the colony is Roger London, Mark London's son. London seems to be nothing like his father, however. Mike Flynn, a Galactic wanderer, spots Isis, and plans to corrupt the inhabitants to obtain the precious firestones. He promises them a Forever Machine, which will supply them with a lifetime of ambrosia, which means they will never have to work for their food again. His daughter, Moira, however, knows that he is simply lying, and tries to stop Mike's evil plans with the help of David N'Kumo, great grandson of Jody N'Kumo. When David and Moira succeed, Jody N'Kumo becomes president, instead of Roger London. Moira decides to stay on Isis, and Guardian, goes with Mike Flynn. Things look much brighter for a future for Isis.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Howling" title="The Howling">
When middle-class wife Karyn Beatty is attacked and raped in her Los Angeles home, she suffers a miscarriage and a nervous breakdown. She and her husband, Roy, leave the city and go to stay in the secluded California mountain village of Drago while Karyn recuperates. Although the town offers Karyn a quiet lifestyle and the locals are friendly, Karyn is disturbed when she continues to hear a strange howling sound at night coming from the woods outside of their new home. This further disrupts her marriage, as Roy believes she is becoming more and more unstable, but Karyn is adamant that there is something in the woods.As tension between the couple increases, Roy begins an affair with one of the local women, a shopkeeper named Marcia Lura. However, on his way home, Roy is attacked in the woods by a large black wolf. Though the wolf only bites him, Roy becomes sick for several days. He was bitten by a werewolf, and has now become one himself. Karyn eventually discovers that the town's entire population are all actually werewolves and becomes trapped in Drago. She contacts her husband's best friend, Chris Halloran, who comes up from Los Angeles to rescue her. Chris arrives with some silver bullets which he had made at her insistence.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Broom_of_the_System" title="The Broom of the System">
The book centers on the comparatively normal Lenore Beadsman, a 24-year-old telephone switchboard operator who gets caught in the middle of a Cleveland-based character drama. In Wallace's typically offbeat style, Lenore navigates three separate crises: her great-grandmother's escape from a nursing home, a neurotic boyfriend, and a suddenly vocal pet cockatiel. The controlling idea surrounding all of these crises is the use of words and symbols to define a person. To illustrate this idea, Wallace uses different formats to build the story, including transcripts from television recordings and therapy sessions, as well as an accompanying fictional account written by one of the main characters, Rick Vigorous.The manager of the nursing home, David Bloemker, repeatedly expresses himself in an overly elaborate style, only to have to reduce his own locutions to a much simpler form. For example, he tells Lenore that if they find her great-grandmother (also named Lenore), they will likely also find the other missing residents of the facility. Why? Because, she "enjoyed a status here — with the facility administration, the staff, and, through the force of her personality and her evident gifts, especially with the other residents [such that] it would not be improper to posit the location and retrieval of Lenore as near assurance of retrieving the other misplaced parties." The younger Lenore says that she doesn't understand all of that. Bloemker tries again: "Your great-grandmother was more or less the ringleader around here." This contrast of baroque with simple speech is employed to comic effect, as well as to advance the more serious contemplation of language at the heart of the plot.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Brown_Can_Moo!_Can_You?" title="Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?">
The story follows a man named Mr. Brown, who can make a wide variety of sounds, imitating the sounds of animals and inanimate objects. The narrator recites a list of items and animals that Mr. Brown can sound like, each one accompanied by illustrations of the object and an onomatopoeia, which replicates the sound he can make. Mr. Brown can make the "moo" of a cow, the "buzz" of a bee, the "pop" of a cork (on a bottle of grape wine), the "klopp klopp" of a horse's hooves, the "cock a doodle doo" of a rooster, the "hoo hoo" of an owl, the "dibble dibble dibble dopp" of rain, the "tick tock" of a clock, the "knock knock" of a hand against a door, the "boom" of thunder, the "grum grum" of a hippo chewing gum, the "slurp slurp" of a cat drinking, the "splatt" of lightning, the "choo choo" of a train, the "sizzle sizzle" of an egg in a frying pan, the "blurp blurp" of a horn, the "pip" of a goldfish kiss, the "eek eek" like a shoe, and the "whisper" of a butterfly. The narrator concludes the list by suggesting that the reader try to make these same sounds, and the last pages of text feature a list of all the onomatopoeias featured in the book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_a_Large_Cat" title="Seeing a Large Cat">
The book opens at Amelia's favorite hotel, Shepheard's in Cairo, where her family reunites after a summer in various locations. The Emersons' son Ramses (now aged sixteen) and their adopted son David have been living in Egypt for six months, and their ward Nefret has been studying anatomy with Louisa Aldrich-Blake at the London School of Medicine for Women.The Emersons receive a dire warning about staying away from an undiscovered tomb, which of course inspires them to hunt all the harder for it. Meanwhile, a silly American debutante insists she needs protection from a stalker (selecting Ramses for the job), and a mummy swathed in modern clothing begins to lend verisimilitude to her otherwise unconvincing narrative.The characters of Donald and Enid Fraser from "Lion in the Valley" reappear in this novel. They are in Cairo, accompanied by a woman who claims to have communicated with an ancient Egyptian princess and unwittingly triggered Donald's obsession with finding the princess's tomb. The American Cyrus Vandergelt is another character who reappears from an earlier novel.This volume marks the death of the cat Bastet and the first whiskey Ramses is permitted to imbibe (although the two events are not directly related).The device of "Manuscript H" is used for the first time in this book to give a voice to Ramses, through whom the romantic and adventurous elements of the series are able to continue as his parents begin to age.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parched_Sea" title="The Parched Sea">
The Parched Sea is another name for the desert "Anauroch" in which the novel takes place.The Zhentarim, determined to drive a trade route through Anauroch, send an army to enslave the nomads of the Great Desert. Ruha, an outcast witch, tries to gain the trust of the Sheikh as tribe after tribe fall to the Zhentarim. The Harpers send an agent to counter the Zhentarim, and Ruha helps this stranger win the Sheikh's trust, so that he can overcome the tribes' ancestral rivalries and drive the invaders from the desert.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Uncle_Napoleon" title="My Uncle Napoleon">
The story takes place at the time of Iran's occupation by the Allied forces during the Second World War. Most of the plot occurs in the narrator's home, a huge early 20th-century-style Iranian mansion in which three wealthy families live under the tyranny of a paranoid patriarch, Uncle. The Uncle—who in reality is a retired low-level officer from the Persian Cossack Brigade under Colonel Vladimir Liakhov's command—claims, and in latter stages of the story actually believes, that he and his butler Mash Qasem were involved in wars against the British and their "lackeys", as well as battles supporting the Iranian Constitutional Revolution; and that with the occupation of Iran by the Allied forces, the British are now on course to take their revenge on him. The story's narrator (nameless in the novel but called Saeed in the TV series) is a high school student in love with his cousin Layli, Dear Uncle's daughter.The novel, at its core a love story, unfolds around the narrator's struggles to stall Layli's pre-arranged marriage to her cousin Puri and ensure their love, a love which is constantly jeopardised by an army of family members and the mayhem of their intrigues against one another. A multitude of supporting characters, including police investigators, government officials, Indians, housewives, a medical doctor, a butcher, a sycophantic preacher, servants, and a shoeshine man also appear throughout the development of the story.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unknown_Man_No._89" title="Unknown Man No. 89">
Detroit process server Jack Ryan has a reputation for finding men who don't want to be found. A string of seemingly unrelated crimes leads Ryan to the search for a missing stockholder known only as "unknown man #89," but his missing man isn't "unknown" to everyone: a pretty blonde hates his guts, and a very nasty dude named Virgil Royal wants him dead in the worst way. This is very unfortunate for Jack, who is suddenly caught in the crossfire of a lethal triple-cross and becomes as much a target as his nameless prey. Along the way, Ryan butts heads with local police, including six-shooter-carrying Dick Speed. The book is perhaps best remembered for a sequence taken straight from "The Godfather", where thug Virgil plants a shotgun in the meeting place of his victim, in this case, the fire escape of Bobby Lear's hotel room. Also of note is homosexual wannabe gangster Lonnie, whose "superfly" haircut was emulated by several of Elmore Leonard's other characters.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facing_the_Flag" title="Facing the Flag">
Thomas Roch, a brilliant French inventor, has designed the Fulgurator, a weapon so powerful that "the state which acquired it would become absolute master of earth and ocean." Unable to sell his unproven idea, Roch becomes bitter, megalomaniacal and paranoid. The United States Government reacts by tucking him away at a luxurious asylum in New Bern, North Carolina, where he is visited by Ker Karraje, a notorious pirate of Malagasy origin.Karraje and his men kidnap Roch and his attendant Gaydon from the asylum and bring him to their hide-out—the island of Back Cup in the Bermudas. Here a wide cavern, accessible only by submerged submarine, has been made into a well-equipped pirate base. It is revealed that Gaydon is actually Simon Hart, a French engineer and explosives expert sent to spy on Roch and gain his confidence. Roch begins constructing his fearsome weapon, happily unaware that he is nothing but a glorified prisoner in the pirate's hands.Hart succeeds in secretly sending out a message in a metal keg, giving the full details of Karraje's operations and his impending acquisition of the Fulgurator. The message gets through to the British authorities at their nearby naval base in Bermuda, and the British Navy sends a submarine, , to find Hart. The submarine's crew makes contact with Hart, and take him and Roch on board, but the "Sword" is discovered, attacked and sunk by the pirates. The unconscious Hart and Roch are extracted from the sunken British sub by pirate divers, leaving the entire British crew to perish. Hart manages to avoid suspicions of his actions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Machine" title="The War Machine">
Captain Allison Spencer is forcibly divorced from his wife, then is promoted to command a fleet of ships heading to the Daltgeld system. There, he encounters an unknown enemy that threatens the whole galaxy. The story is set sometime 5341 years after the founding of the interstellar Pact, or 9095 A.D.The title refers to the alien construct which was designed as a weapon capable of taking over any device and running it according to a central controller.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergdorf_Blondes" title="Bergdorf Blondes">
The book follows an unnamed young socialite living in New York as she interacts with her best friend Julie and tries to find a successful romantic relationship. Initially she believes that she's found "The One" in the photographer Zack and the two become engaged, after which point Zack becomes emotionally abusive and unresponsive. Despite her best attempts to salvage the relationship, the protagonist is dumped by Zack. Not only does this harm her social standing, but the protagonist is psychologically devastated by the end of the relationship and becomes anorexic as a result. Things are not made much better by her mother's insistence that she return home to England (her family emigrated there during the narrator's childhood) and strike up a relationship with a local Earl that they haven't seen since a disastrous business transaction with her father years ago.The protagonist goes through several terrible relationships with married men (she was told that they were single or separated) and finds herself drawn to and irritated by the filmmaker Charlie, who has started dating her friend Julie. The two eventually end up running into each other at a hotel one night after the protagonist's apartment is robbed. Despite some friction between the two, the protagonist finds that she genuinely likes Charlie, who tells her that he's broken up with Julie. The two end up having sex, something that weighs upon the protagonist's conscience since she has a rule against sleeping with a friend's ex-boyfriend. The following day Julie ends up finding out about the sexual encounter after questioning the protagonist about the night's events, upon which point she reveals that she and Charlie never broke up and tells the protagonist that she never wants to see her again. Since the friendship is gone, the protagonist decides to see Charlie again that night, as he had invited her to return for dinner. However the protagonist finds that Charlie has left, giving her the impression that he was just using her like the other men she has dated.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra_(Haggard_novel)" title="Cleopatra (Haggard novel)">
The story is set in the Ptolemaic era of Ancient Egyptian history and revolves around the survival of a dynasty bloodline protected by the Priesthood of Isis. The main character Harmachis (the living descendant of the pharaoh's bloodline) is charged by the Priesthood to overthrow the supposed impostor Cleopatra, drive out the Greeks and Romans and restore Egypt to its golden era. Harmachis attempts to use his priestly magic to undermine Cleopatra's rule.As is the case with the majority of Haggard's works, the story draws heavily upon adventure and concepts. The story, told from the point of view of the Egyptian priest Harmachis, is recounted in biblical language, being in the form of papyrus scrolls found in a tomb.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Wind_Blows_(Patterson_novel)" title="When the Wind Blows (Patterson novel)">
Frannie Devin O'Neill is a veterinarian living in Bear Bluff, Colorado, whose husband was killed three years ago. She meets Kit Harrison, an FBI agent, when he rents a cabin in the woods behind her house. Kit is investigating a case in which Frannie's husband may be implicated. One night, after a friend's mysterious death, Frannie sees a small girl with wings, running in the forest. As she is growing closer to Kit, Frannie tells him about the winged girl. They search for her and manage to catch her. She tells them that her name is Max. She and her brother Matthew grew up as experiments in a sinister lab known as the "School", and were separated during their escape. Max guides Kit and Frannie back to the School. They break in and find the rest of Max's "flock", winged children named Peter, Wendy, Icarus, and Oz. Kit and Frannie try to return home with the children, only to discover that Frannie's vet practice burnt down. Frannie realizes that her husband's old colleagues are involved with the School and witnesses are being murdered. The entire group is captured by the school's enforcer, Harding Thomas, and his men. Only Max evades capture and flies away. Frannie and Kit learn that the School planned to create an improved human race, with the scientists kidnapping newborns in order to experiment on them. As the School begins an auction to sell off the surviving experiments, Kit and Frannie fight their way free to rescue the children, including Matthew, who was also recaptured. Max returns with news crews following her, and the directors of the School die in a car crash trying to flee the scene. The School is exposed, and the bird-children are finally reunited with their biological families.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blades_of_the_Tiger" title="Blades of the Tiger">
"Blades of the Tiger" is set in Taladas shortly after the War of Souls, and is generally located in the Imperial League.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythology_Class" title="The Mythology Class">
Summoned to a secret gathering one stormy night by the mysterious Mrs. Enkanta, University of the Philippines anthropology student Nicole Lacson finds herself face to face with tikbalangs, kapres, and all sorts of engkantos—Philippine mythical creatures—she had only heard about from her grandfather's stories. Together with newfound friends, she embarks on a quest into the realm of myth and folklore where she fights alongside heroes of her childhood against an age-old terror. Follow in their footsteps as their adventure takes them through the familiar streets of Metro Manila and into a world more fascinating than they had ever imagined.The story also invokes historical and mythological Filipino heroes like Sulayman and Lam-ang.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dragon_Queen" title="The Dragon Queen">
The story is sited in Britain just after the Romans have gone. Guinevere is the daughter of a pagan queen. Forced into hiding by the dreaded sorcerer Merlin, Guinevere grows up under the protection of a shapeshifter and a druid and is watched over by dragons.Merlin tracks her down relentlessly, intent on stopping what has been foretold, that she will become Queen and Arthur King; a fate that will leave him powerless and forgotten. To Merlin's dismay, Guinevere has inherited magical powers great enough to stop him. With Arthur trapped in the netherworld, Guinevere calls upon magic and allies and undertakes her destiny: to one day become the Dragon Queen.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Riddle_(novel)" title="The Riddle (novel)">
Maerad and Cadvan continue the search for the Treesong, the key to Maerad's destiny, while fleeing from Enkir, the First Bard of Norloch, who had broken Milana, Maerad's mother, and sold them both into slavery. Maerad and Cadvan sail with a friend called Owan d'Aroki to the Mycenean Greece-like island of Thorold. Enkir sends a sea serpent in pursuit, which the two Bards kill. Having arrived on the island, they enter the Bardic School of Busk. Maerad continues her Bardic training that had been stopped abruptly in Innail, learning about imagery, illusions, and additional fighting skills, which improve readily. Cadvan studies records in Busk's extensive library, but finds nothing by which to explain the nature of the Treesong.Soon, Busk receives a messenger from Norloch who reveals that Enkir has claimed the authority of High King over all the Seven Kingdoms, and demands the Schools' undivided fealty. Busk, rather than submit to Norloch or be counted its enemies, pledge their "unwavering allegiance to the Light", rather than to Enkir; thus placing themselves beyond either possibility. Later, at a seasonal festival commemorating the Bards' New Year, Busk's First Bard Nerili succumbs to a 'darkness' within herself, which puts her into a trauma that prevents her creation of the ceremonial "Tree of Light". Cadvan intervenes, salvaging the ceremony; however, Nerili's experience suggests that the power of the evil Nameless One is increasing, and that it is more insidious than in his previous attacks upon humanity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mocking_Program" title="The Mocking Program">
A hard-boiled police procedural set in a highly imaginative megalopolis called the Montezuma Strip, which stretches along the old U.S.-Mexican border. When police inspector Angel Cardenas investigates the case of a male corpse found with most of its internal organs missing, the victim turns out to have had two identities - one as a local executive, the other as a Texas businessman. The plot thickens when the victim's booby-trapped house nearly kills Cardenas and his partner. The author makes use of a vast array of futuristic elements; notably, sapient apes led by gorillas and intelligent rogue computers that commit computer crimes.While the book does not state this, this is a continuation of a series of short stories featuring the same main character, written by Foster and initially published in genre magazines under the pen-name of James Lawson, and then collected under his own name in the Warner book "Montezuma Strip" (1995).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Swappers" title="The World Swappers">
In the middle of the Third Millennium the Earth is peaceful and prosperous, but discontent is growing in the small sphere of Human-colonised worlds. Earth business tycoon Bassett hopes to profit from this trouble, but he is opposed by Counce, an agent of a secret elite attempting to guide history for the benefit of Humanity. This organisation, backed by Ram and Falconetta of the influential Video India broadcasting network, has sole access to the transfax, a matter transmitter technology that allows instant transportation and duplication of objects and living beings. Counce and his agents are effectively immortal because they can be recreated from transfax recordings in the event of their deaths.The situation is complicated by the arrival of the Others, aliens hoping colonise some of the worlds in Human Space, who threaten Ymir, a frigid planet sparsely populated by religious fanatics hostile to Earth. Falconetta's protege Anty suggests that the Others' survey ship be pulled from space and landed by transfax to prevent knowledge of Ymir reaching the Others' home world.The plan goes awry, and there is a battle which kills Anty and most of the Others. Meanwhile, Bassett kidnaps the Ymirian girl Enni and interrogates her, and on the basis of the knowledge gained from her he agrees to a truce with Counce. Ymir is evacuated by Bassett, and its population is sent to more hospitable Human colony worlds to everyone's satisfaction, including Bassett, who has gained profit and prestige from the enterprise. The Others are given Ymir to colonise in exchange for peace.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Infinitive_of_Go" title="The Infinitive of Go">
The novel revolves around a teleportation technology which is being developed. The first test is an abject failure. Faced with termination of the project, Dr. Justin Williams, the inventor of the technology, performs the next test himself. He finds himself in a world which is subtly different from his own. It is revealed that when humans are "Posted" (transported), their inner desires influence the outcome, tipping them into alternate universes. When Dr. Eduardo Landini is Posted back following a mechanical accident, the being who emerges is a humanoid descended from baboons, who claims to be Ed Landini. Rumors about his appearance inspire revulsion among staff members at the facility, and as those rumours spread into the general population, others begin exploiting the fears generated for their own purposes. Landini himself has no stomach for the attention, and openly shows his contempt for the behaviour of the humans around him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Fall_(novel)" title="Night Fall (novel)">
The story begins with the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island, New York. A couple conducting an illicit affair on the beach witness the crash and flee the scene, having accidentally videotaped the crash and what appears to be a missile rising from the ocean towards the plane.Five years later, Anti-Terrorist Task Force (ATTF, a fictional FBI department based on the Joint Terrorism Task Force) detective John Corey is encouraged to reinvestigate the crash, officially blamed on mechanical failure, by his wife Kate Mayfield, who had worked on the original investigation.The story is a sequel to "The Lion's Game" and reintroduces a number of characters from that novel. A sequel to "Night Fall", titled "Wild Fire", was released on November 6, 2006. One of the returning characters from "The Lion's Game" and "Plum Island" is CIA operative Ted Nash, whom DeMille has developed into Corey's antagonist and nemesis in his career with the ATTF.Much of the action in the novel centers on the search for the couple who inadvertently videotaped the in-air explosion that brought down TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island. At the center of Corey's investigation are witness statements claiming that the fatal explosion was caused by a missile and not by mechanical failure.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_Gold" title="Inca Gold">
In 1532 a fleet of ships sails in secret to an island in the middle of an inland sea. There they hide a magnificent treasure more vast than that any Pharaoh would ever possess. Then they disappear, leaving only a great stone demon to guard their hoard.In 1578 the legendary Sir Francis Drake captures a Spanish galleon filled with Inca gold and silver and the key to the lost treasure, which includes a gigantic chain of gold, a masterpiece of ancient technology so huge that it requires two hundred men to lift it and a large pile of diamonds worth more than 200 billion dollars that belonged to the last Inca. As the galleon is sailed by Drake's crew back to England, an underwater earthquake causes a massive tidal wave that sweeps it into the jungle. Only one man survives to tell the tale...In 1998 a group of archaeologists is nearly drowned while diving into the depths of a sacrificial pool high in the Andes of Peru. They are saved by the timely arrival of the renowned scuba diving hero Dirk Pitt, who is in the area on a marine expedition. Pitt soon finds out that his life has been placed in jeopardy as well by smugglers intent on uncovering the lost ancient Incan treasure. Soon, he, his faithful companions, and Dr. Shannon Kelsey, a beautiful young archaeologist, are plunged into a vicious, no-holds-barred struggle to survive. From then on it becomes a battle of wits in a race against time and danger to find the golden chain, as Pitt finds himself caught up in a struggle with a sinister international family syndicate that deal in stolen works of art, the smuggling of ancient artifacts, and art forgery worth many millions of dollars. The clash between the art thieves, the FBI and the Customs Service, a tribe of local Indians, and Pitt, along with his friends from NUMA, two of whom are captured and threatened with execution, rushes toward a wild climax in a subterranean world of darkness and death – for the real key to the mystery, as it turns out, is a previously unknown, unexplored underground river that runs through the ancient treasure chamber. The fallen are told to come back and haunt those who took their treasure.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valhalla_Rising_(novel)" title="Valhalla Rising (novel)">
Dirk Pitt has to stop an evil CEO of an oil and natural gas company in the US from establishing absolute monopoly over oil resources and supplies. It is a typical Dirk Pitt novel dealing with a countdown, bribed officials, and ruthless evil leaders. Pitt also unravels the work of a brilliant, reclusive scientist who had made great advances in oil technology, traced the history and found the remains of a Viking settlement on the Hudson River; the scientist also discovered the remains of Captain Nemo's "Nautilus" and deciphered and improved its power system (a magnetohydrodynamic engine). The book climaxes with Dirk on the verge of proposing to his on-and-off girlfriend, U.S senator Loren Smith, when they are interrupted by the introduction of his children, Dirk and Summer Pitt, named after their father and mother respectively.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_&quot;П&quot;" title="Generation &quot;П&quot;">
The novel is set in Moscow in the Yeltsin years, the early 1990s, a time of rampant chaos and corruption. Its protagonist, Babylen Tatarsky, graduate student and poet, has been tossed onto the streets after the fall of the Soviet Union where he soon learns his true calling: developing Russian versions of western advertisements. But the more he succeeds as a copywriter, the more he searches for meaning in a culture now defined by material possessions and self-indulgence. He attempts to discover the forces that determine individual desires and shape collective belief in this post-Soviet world. In this quest, Tatarsky sees coincidences that suggest patterns that in turn suggest a hidden meaning behind the chaos of life. He first senses this hidden purpose when reading about Mesopotamian religious practices. Tatarsky's quest is enhanced by the consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms, cocaine, and vodka. His quest is further aided by another form of spirits: through a ouija board, Che Guevara writes a treatise on identity, consumerism, and television. Eventually, Tatarsky begins to learn some truths—for instance, that all of politics and the "real" events broadcast on television are digital creations. But he can never quite discover the ultimate force behind these fabrications. When at last he reaches the top of the corporate pyramid, Tatarsky learns that the members of his firm are servants of the goddess Ishtar, whose corporeal form consists of the totality of advertising images. The firm's chief duty is to make sure that Ishtar's enemy, the dog Phukkup, does not awaken, bringing with it chaos and destruction. After a ritual sacrifice, Tatarsky becomes the goddesses' new regent and, in the form of a 3-D double, her bridegroom. In the novel's last chapter, Tatarsky's electronic double becomes a ubiquitous presence on Russian TV. Tatarsky, who had tried to look past the false images presented on TV to see a true unmediated reality, has himself been transformed into an illusion.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_(Armstrong_novel)" title="Stolen (Armstrong novel)">
The story begins with Elena travelling to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to follow up a lead the Pack have come across on believe.com which purports to be able to prove the existence of werewolves. However, when she meets her contact, a young witch named Paige Winterbourne, she has information that Elena finds extremely disturbing. Not only does she claim to know about werewolves, but more specifically about her. It is clear that the posting on the website was a lure designed to bring Elena to Pittsburgh because of problems other supernaturals have been having with a group headed by Tyrone Winsloe. Elena is skeptical, having given no credence up to this point that other supernatural beings such as witches and vampires could exist. The claims of Paige and her mother, Ruth, sound like conspiracy theories that Elena finds hard to believe.Unable to sleep, she goes out that night for a run, but is followed by a stalker with military training. Elena evades him only to discover that he has colleagues and that they are trying to capture not only herself, but also the Winterbournes. In the fight, Elena kills one of the men, Mark, and the three women find themselves confronting a half-demon able to teleport whom Elena nicknames 'Houdini', who works for Tyrone Winsloe. Ruth casts a spell which traps him temporarily and the three women make their escape.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dime_Store_Magic" title="Dime Store Magic">
Set nine months after the events of "Stolen", or as Paige observes at the beginning of the novel "nine months, three weeks and two days", "Dime Store Magic" begins with Paige receiving complaints from the Elders about Savannah, clearly not for the first time. The Elders hate trouble and object to anything that might draw attention to the Coven. The same day Paige receives a petition for custody of her ward from Leah O'Donnell, a half-demon involved in events at the compound the previous year.Paige meets Leah and her lawyers, Gabriel Sandford, at the Cary Law Offices in East Falls. There she recognises Gabriel as a sorcerer. It is revealed that the custody claim comes not from Leah, but Savannah's father, Kristof Nast. Nast is the head of the Nast Sorcerer Cabal in Los Angeles, California.After she gets home, Paige is confronted by Victoria and the other Elders who are concerned because Leah's intent to use Paige's status as a witch in the custody battle threatens to expose the Coven. Paige persuades them to give her three days to clear matters up. She then arranges a meeting with Grantham Cary Jr., the local lawyer. It is decided to request that Nast submit to DNA testing to prove his paternity claim. Sandford, as Paige expected, refuses on behalf of his client.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Magic" title="Industrial Magic">
The story starts with the attack upon Dana MacArthur, daughter of a Cabal employee. Dismayed by her inability to persuade other witches to form a new coven because of their disapproval of her relationship with Lucas Cortez, Paige Winterbourne is not entirely happy to find his father - Benicio Cortez - on her doorstep with news of the new case.Lucas and Paige decide to travel to Miami to visit his father and introduce Paige to the family, as well as to hear further details about the attack. They discover that Dana's is only one of a series of similar attacks upon the children of Cabal employees. That night another child, the son of Benicio's bodyguard is killed. The father, Griffin, asks Paige and Lucas to investigate.Concerned about Savannah, they arrange for her to stay with the werewolf Pack. They then arrange to meet up with Jaime Vegas, a necromancer. Jaime manages to contact Dana, who is believed to be in a coma, getting what details she can from her about the attack. In the process she discovers the girl is dead.Investigation leads them to the home of Everett Weber. They are unable to find him, but do find a lot of encrypted computer files. Paige breaks the code to reveal a list of the children of Cabal employees. They track down Weber, but before they can persuade him to come with him peacefully, a Cabal SWAT team cause a hostage situation. Paige is injured and Everett taken into custody.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haunted_(Armstrong_novel)" title="Haunted (Armstrong novel)">
"Haunted", the fifth in the "Women of the Otherworld" series, is a novel written by Kelley Armstrong featuring Eve Levine. Half-demon, black witch and devoted mother, Eve has been dead for three years. However, whilst the afterlife isn't too bad, Eve is desperate to find a way to communicate with her daughter, Savannah, now the ward of Paige Winterbourne and Lucas Cortez.The Fates, though, have other plans, and they call in a favour. An evil spirit called the Nix has escaped from hell. Feeding on chaos and death, she is an expert at persuading people to kill for her. The Fates want Eve to hunt her down before she does any more damage. The Nix is a dangerous enemy, however. Previous hunters have been sent mad in the process.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaotic_(novella)" title="Chaotic (novella)">
Half-demon Hope Adams loves her job. Granted, working for True News tabloid isn't quite the career her high-society family had in mind for her. What they don't know is that the tabloid job is just a cover, a way for her to investigate stories with a paranormal twist, and help protect the supernatural world from exposure. When Hope's “handler” sends her and a date to a museum charity gala, Hope suspects there's more to it than a free perk. He's tested her before. This time, she's ready for whatever he throws her way. Or so she thinks...until she meets her target: werewolf thief, Karl Marsten...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_(Armstrong_novel)" title="Broken (Armstrong novel)">
In this story the half-demon Xavier calls in a favour - steal Jack the Ripper's From Hell letter away from a Toronto collector who had himself stolen it from the British police files. It seems simple, but in the process Elena accidentally triggers a spell placed on the letter which opens a portal into the nether regions of Victorian London. With thieving vampires, killer rats and unstoppable zombies on the loose, Elena and the Pack must find a way to close the portal before it is too late. To add to the confusion, Elena herself is pregnant with Clay's child (actually twins).The story begins with Elena worrying about her current pregnancy. She has concerns about what effect her werewolf nature will have on the unborn child, something with no recorded precedent in Pack knowledge. Clay and Jeremy, also concerned, have imposed a number of restrictions on her actions too, which Elena accepts but is also frustrated by. She is, therefore, not entirely displeased to hear from Xavier Reese who offers her a deal: he will hand over information about a rogue mutt the Pack have been seeking in exchange for the Pack's help in stealing an artefact from a sorcerer - the From Hell letter.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Five" title="Age of the Five">
"Age of the Five" is set in a universe overseen by a pantheon of five gods (the Circle) who are the only apparent survivors of the War of the Gods. Before this war, it is understood that hundreds of gods existed on Earth. The Five control the destiny of the northern half of the world through a priesthood known as the White (the Circle's five representatives in the human world, Ithania). In southern Ithania live opponents of the White, who claim to worship five different gods (known as the Five). Both factions vie for control over their opponents, and eventually engage in war.Auraya (protagonist) is chosen to be a White. Beginning with diplomatic missions, she later moves on to fighting in a major battle between the north and the south. She discovers she has innate powers far exceeding those of her peers; it later turns out that she is a potential new Wild (a group of immortal sorcerers who have been persecuted by the will of the gods). Later in the series the Wilds are discovered to be at the final stage before godhood, and they discover a way to kill the existing pantheon of gods. Throughout the series Auraya's attitude towards her gods changes from obedience to distrust to hatred, as she realizes their moral defects.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion's_Game" title="The Lion's Game">
"The Lion" will be landing. And at New York's JFK Airport, an elite American task force waits as the notorious Libyan terrorist prepares to defect to the West. Then, aboard Flight 175, something goes eerily, horribly wrong - a mere prelude to the terror that is to come. Ex-NYPD cop, now Task Force contract agent John Corey - together with his formidable and beautiful new partner, Kate Mayfield - will follow a trail of smoke and blood across the country. His quarry: a foe with the cunning of a man and all the bloodlust of a lion . To win a desperate game with no rules at all, Corey must invent a strategy that leaves room for no luck at all.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_Island_(novel)" title="Plum Island (novel)">
In 1997, NYPD detective John Corey is on the back porch of his uncle's waterfront home on the North Fork of Long Island recovering from three gunshot wounds while working in his town of Manhattan, NY. He enjoys the fact that the tourist season is just about over so that it's just him and the locals. He listens to music while sitting in a chair and using binoculars to spy on people in a distant boat who are enjoying themselves. The local police chief, Sylvester Maxwell, comes to the back porch and asks Corey to act as consultant in a local murder investigation, as Corey is personally acquainted with the two victims, Tom and Judy Gordon, both employees on the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, a facility suspected of carrying out biological warfare research. They go to the house the victims owned, a waterfront property that appears to have been robbed or searched, and where the two victims have been shot in the head on their own dock. Corey concludes that the victims were near their killer because it is hard to hit a person in the head with one shot at such a range. They cannot find the bullet shells, but by the direction of the wounds conclude that the bullets are in the bay. Max is unhappy because although he's not a homicide detective, his expectations of Corey's findings were high. Beth Penrose, the Suffolk County police detective, arrives. Corey instantly figures out she's in charge of the case without her stating it. She yells at him a bit for being on the crime scene because he appears to be a civilian. He ignores Beth and searches the speed boat that the Gordons temporary docked. When he gets out of the boat she pulls his own gun on him and makes him state who he is. Just before he goes, he asks if they found the chest in the boat that the Gordons used as a trunk while boating; they reply that it's missing. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beastly" title="Beastly">
Kyle Kingsbury is rich, handsome, and popular; he is also selfish, shallow, and cruel. He plays a mean practical joke on an outcast girl in his class. The girl is really a witch named Kendra in disguise. The witch then curses him for his cruelty. He is turned into a beast; however, because he performed a small act of kindness shortly before his transformation when he gave an unwanted rose corsage to a girl working a ticket booth, she gives him two years to break the spell, or remain a beast forever. The only way he can turn back to normal is if he truly loves a girl and gets her to love him in return, proving the love with a kiss.Kendra later offers Kyle further aid by giving him a magic mirror that shows him whomever he wishes to see. He is locked in a mansion-like apartment by his equally shallow, image-obsessed father. His only company is his housekeeper, Magda, and, at his request, a blind tutor named Will. Kyle finds solace in a greenhouse for roses that he tends himself. After a year of being in this state, and trying and failing to find love, Kyle changes his name to Adrian, meaning "Dark One", to reflect his feelings of being a completely different person from the conceited, materialistic boy he used to be. When a robber stumbles into his garden Adrian offers him a deal; he will not report the robber to the police if the robber brings Adrian his daughter, Linda. She is Adrian's last chance to break the spell before his two years are up.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'd_Tell_You_I_Love_You,_But_Then_I'd_Have_to_Kill_You" title="I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You">
The Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is a fairly typical all-girls school—that is, if every school teaches advanced martial arts in PE, chemistry always consists of learning about the latest in chemical warfare, and everyone breaks CIA codes for extra credit in computer class. So in truth, while the Gallagher Academy might say it’s a school for geniuses what they really mean is spies. But what happens when a Gallagher Girl falls for a boy who doesn’t have a code name?Cammie Morgan may be fluent in fourteen languages and is very capable of killing a man with a few pieces of uncooked spaghetti, but the Gallagher Academy hasn't prepared her for what to do when she meets an ordinary boy who thinks she’s an ordinary girl. Sure, she can tap his phone, hack into his computer, and track him through a mall without him ever being the wiser, but can she have a regular relationship with a regular boy who can never know the truth about her? Cammie may be an elite spy in training, but in her sophomore year, she’s doing something riskier than ever—she’s falling in love.A young spy, Cammie Morgan, falls in love with a boy, Josh, but cannot reveal the truth about herself to him. This caused misunderstandings later on and they broke up in tears. In the end, Josh finds out about her being a spy, and all wrongs in the past had been corrected, and hope came back to Cammie.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Eden_(novel)" title="Return to Eden (novel)">
Kerrick's tribe, which now includes the two male Yilanè who have elected to remain with him, live an almost idyllic life at a small lake, until a raiding party from Alpèsak captures and rapes one of the males, who later dies. The tribe moves east and find a peaceful island. Later Herilak's tribe joins them.The scientist Ambalasi studies the primitive Yilanè, in between solving the problems involved in getting the Daughters of Life to work, since they are all regarded as equal, so none may lead the work force.Vaintè makes her way along the coast to a Yilanè city. She persuades the leader there to let her lead a group in search of the Daughters of Life, secretly planning to seek out and kill Kerrick and the other humans.The weapons the humans stole from the Yilanè begin to die. Without them, they won't be able to kill the larger dinosaurs which threaten their safety this far south. However, the expedition goes wrong and Lanefenuu, who is the leader of Alpèsak now learns their presence. Ambalasi contacts Lanefenuu to divert the attention while the Daughters of Life try to recruit new members and some males. This mission also fails.The expedition of Vaintè contacts Lanefenuu and learns the whereabouts of the Daughters of Life. They capture Ambalasi as ordered, but then Vaintè turns on her leader and takes Enge hostage. She finds Kerrick, but before killing him, the surviving Yilanè male kills her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voyage_Out" title="The Voyage Out">
Rachel Vinrace embarks for South America on her father's ship and is launched on a course of self-discovery in a kind of modern mythical voyage. The mismatched jumble of passengers provides Woolf with an opportunity to satirise Edwardian life. The novel introduces Clarissa Dalloway, the central character of Woolf's later novel, "Mrs Dalloway". Two of the other characters were modelled after important figures in Woolf's life. St John Hirst is a fictional portrayal of Lytton Strachey and Helen Ambrose is to some extent inspired by Woolf's sister, Vanessa Bell. Rachel's journey from a cloistered life in a London suburb to freedom, challenging intellectual discourse, and self-discovery very likely reflects Woolf's own journey from a repressive household to the intellectual stimulation of the Bloomsbury Group. Toward the novel's end, Rachel Vinrace dies of a fever.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad's_Fate" title="Conrad's Fate">
Conrad Tesdinic lives in Stallchester, a small town in the English Alps, a mountain range present in Series Seven worlds where the British Isles are still connected to the European mainland. Conrad's father is dead; his sister Anthea has left home to go to university; and his mother, Franconia, is an eccentric feminist author whose books are sold exclusively in her brother's bookshop. She and Conrad live with her brother, Uncle Alfred, over the bookshop.In the mountains high above Stallchester lies Stallery Mansion, home to the Count and his family. Uncle Alfred tells Conrad that someone up at Stallery Mansion is "pulling the possibilities" – that is, shifting the parameters of the world just a little, in order to benefit themselves to the detriment of the rest of the world. This is later referred to as a "probability shift." From the affluence of Stallery, it is obvious that this person is making a great deal of money by doing so. In the town, only small details change – the colour of the postboxes, the titles of books – but Uncle Alfred is certain that someone at Stallery is reaping far greater benefits from the shifts. Uncle Alfred and his Magician's Circle tell Conrad that he is going to die within the year unless he kills the person pulling the possibilities. This person (unnamed by any) is apparently someone Conrad should have eliminated in a past life. To kill this person and set things right, Conrad will need to infiltrate Stallery Mansion in the guise of a domestic servant, and then summon a Walker. The Walkers are magical beings who come on command and give the caller what they need for their particular situation. Conrad is told that the Walker will give him an item he needs to defeat the nameless foe. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spadework" title="Spadework">
Spadework focuses on the everyday drama of human relationships, enhanced by the intensity of the theater atmosphere and the ambition of young actors at a crossroads that may lead to either a brilliant career or mediocre success. These events force the protagonists to re-examine their sexuality and their loyalties in the face of temptation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Silver_Blues" title="Sweet Silver Blues">
Garrett is a private investigator living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, mixed breeds, cultures and religions, though humans predominate. He is approached by the wealthy Tate family. Denny Tate, an old army buddy of Garrett's, has died in an accident. In his will, Denny left an enormous fortune in silver, acquired through questionable means, to a woman his family knows nothing about, Kayean Kronk. Denny's father Willard tries to hire Garrett to locate Kayean, who is believed to be living in the Cantard, the battleground of a generations-old war between the kingdoms of Karenta and Venageta. Having survived his mandatory five-year service there (which many do not), Garrett wants no part of it.Then Denny's partners try to steal the silver and his writings, the latter so they can continue operating as before. For the 10% executor's fee and also to be reunited with Kayean Kronk (a teenage love of Garrett's), Garrett reluctantly heads off to the Cantard with his half-dark elf friend and assassin Morley Dotes, who has his own agenda, and the Roze triplets. Denny's beautiful cousins, Rose and Tinnie Tate, try to tag along, but Garrett forcibly sends them back.When they arrive in Full Harbor, a major Karentine base/city, Garrett makes inquiries, but nobody wants to talk about Kayean, not even her brother. Eventually, he discovers that Kayean loyally followed her husband when he and his brother joined a nest of much despised and feared vampires. A centaur named Zeck Zack, who sometimes works with the vampires, and several other parties become involved. After forcing the truth out of Zack, Garrett and his gang set out to rescue Kayean. In a desperate battle, Garrett retrieves her (as well as Rose and Tinnie Tate and Garrett's friend Saucerhead Tharpe) from the vampire lair. Morley kills Kayean's husband and takes her brother-in-law prisoner.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Gold_Hearts" title="Bitter Gold Hearts">
Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Copper_Tears" title="Cold Copper Tears">
Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tin_Sorrows" title="Old Tin Sorrows">
Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dread_Brass_Shadows" title="Dread Brass Shadows">
Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Iron_Nights" title="Red Iron Nights">
Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of Tun Faire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadly_Quicksilver_Lies" title="Deadly Quicksilver Lies">
Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petty_Pewter_Gods" title="Petty Pewter Gods">
Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faded_Steel_Heat" title="Faded Steel Heat">
Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whispering_Nickel_Idols" title="Whispering Nickel Idols">
Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tex_(novel)" title="Tex (novel)">
The book opens with Tex McCormick, a 15-year-old who loves horses, and his brother Mason (Mace), living in a small town and Jamie the girl next door. Tex is growing up mostly with Mace in a small country home. Their mother died years before, and their father goes off for months at a time leaving Mace, a high school senior and a star basketball player, and Tex at home. At the start of the book, Tex comes home to find the two brothers' horses sold. Negrito, Tex's horse, was considered a friend to Tex. However Mace had to sell the horses to guarantee Tex and himself would have enough to eat through the winter. This action by Mace sets Tex against his brother for most of the book.But the McCormick brothers are not alone. Living in the significantly larger ranch house next door (about 0.5 mi (0.80 km)) are the Collinses which includes Mace’s best friend Bob, Tex's best friend Johnny, and the younger sister whom Tex loves, Jamie. The Collins' children are forbidden to see Mason and Tex because the patriarch of the Collins family, Cole, thinks they are a bad influence.After a turn of events involving Tex and Mace's father, Tex runs away to the city with a family friend and eventually learns that just living life and staying with his brother is the best thing for him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Heaven_Fell" title="When Heaven Fell">
Earth has been taken over by the Master Race, a galaxy-spanning empire of artificial intelligences, and the best of Earth’s survivors are recruited into the aliens' army. Athol Morrison has served for 20 years, and heads back to Earth for a brief vacation. There, he runs into old friends, and finds it easy to give into his old feelings with his childhood girlfriend, Alexandra (Alix) Moreno.Alix and the rest of Athol’s friends are involved in a rebellion against Earth’s Master. They ask Athol to help and to join them, and so he helps to train them. Concerned that any rebellion will provoke a genocidal response from the Masters, he betrays the rebellion to the local government, making sure that Alix and Davy Intäke are spared.Conflicted about what he has done, but feeling as if there was no choice, Athol rejoins up with his new command. Soon afterward comes war with the Hu, the most advanced race yet encountered—they developed hyperspace travel either on their own or stole it from a Master facility. Despite the Hu winning a series of early victories, the Master Race grinds the Hu down in a near-genocidal campaign that leaves the Hu homeworld in ruins.After that war is over, Athol and one of his concubines visit his alien comrade Shrêhht on her home planet. There, he is invited into another rebellion, one composed of all of the slave races, that has been plotting against the Master Race for over 100,000 years. He returns to Earth a second time and learns that he and Alix have a daughter, Kaye Moreno, and takes her off-planet to be trained as a soldier herself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Transfer_(novel)" title="Manhattan Transfer (novel)">
The novel tells the stories, primarily, of four people living in Manhattan from the 1890s to the late 1920s. The stories are presented in a fragmented, contrasting way, often juxtaposing them to bring out new meaning. The title of the book refers to a railway station, and the way that Manhattan itself was undergoing change.The primary characters and stories include:Some of the secondary characters in the novel include:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inconstant_Star" title="Inconstant Star">
There are two parts to the novel, Iron, and Inconstant Star.In “Iron”, Saxtorph and the "Rover", hired by the wealthy Crashlander Laurinda Brozik, set out to explore a newly discovered red dwarf star. When they arrive, they are challenged by a Kzinti warship. Separating the crew onto the shuttles, the "Rover" is captured and landed on one of the moons. The first shuttle sets on Prima, the first planet, and is held fast by a planet-sized organism that begins dissolving the shuttle. They broadcast for rescue, and are refused help by the Kzin.Meanwhile, helpless to rescue their friends, Robert, Dorcas, and Laurinda make a plan to steal a tug and escape back to friendly space with the news of the Kzin base. Dorcas pilots the tug, and takes out the ship guarding the "Rover". Robert and Laurinda land, fight off a Kzinti shuttle, and recover the "Rover". They are able to rescue Juan and Carita, and destroy the base with a guided asteroid.In “Inconstant Star”, Saxtorph and crew are hired by Tyra Nordbo to redeem her father's honor, as he was accused of collaboration with the Kzin during their occupation of Wunderland. To do so, they must use notes he had left behind and follow a ship that had left 30 years prior to investigate a concentration of gamma rays. They travel to the coordinates, and find a massive artifact made of an unknown metal. A hole in the spherical artifact is pouring out lethal radiation. As they study it, they learn it is a weapon of the Tnuctip. It is a shell around a “captured” black hole, one that had been holed by a meteorite and is thus releasing the Hawking radiation. They then deduce the route of the original Kzin ship, and head off to the Father Sun, the star of the Kzin homeworld. En route, they locate the "Sherrek", where Tyra's father Peter had worked free of his Kzin captors. They rescue him and head back to the artifact. Another Kzin ship, "Swordbeak", also finds the old ship. They, too, head to the artifact, and catch the "Rover" by surprise. Just when all looks lost, Robert and Dorcas conceive a plan to use the artifact's radiation against the Kzin warship. In a last act of defiance, a dying Weoch-Captain activates the artifact's hyperdrive and heads out into unknown space.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Company_(novel)" title="The Black Company (novel)">
The Dominator is an extremely powerful wizard who has the ability to turn his most bitter enemies into his loyal servants, even those nearly his equal in magic. The most potent of his victims are called the Ten Who Were Taken, or just Taken for short. With his wife, the Lady, whose magical skill is second only to that of the Dominator, he founded an empire unrivaled for evil. It was overthrown by a rebellion led by the White Rose, but neither she nor the rebel wizards were strong enough to kill the Dominator, the Lady or the Taken. The best they could do was to render them unconscious and imprison them. Their prison was a place called the Barrowland.After four centuries, the wizard Bomanz awakened the Lady during a spirit walk into the Barrowlands, in an attempt to learn from her. She manipulated him, won her freedom, and subsequently trapped Bomanz in a quasi-undead spirit state between dimensions. She then unleashed the Taken, but betrayed the Dominator, leaving him where he was, and proceeded to resurrect the empire. As with the old, so it was with the new – a rebellion broke out, spearheaded this time by the Circle of Eighteen. The Circle is made up of magicians not individually as strong as the Taken, but usually united in their goals. The Taken, on the other hand, battle each other as much as they do the rebels.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_Linger" title="Shadows Linger">
In the earlier book the setting begins with the company employed by a Syndic, but the captain slays him because he thinks he is fighting for a lost cause, for little pay, and he does not want to sentence the company to its doom. Soulcatcher, the Taken that recruited them, becomes their mentor. They do many missions for the Lady. They end up being pushed, along with the rest of the Lady's forces, back to her HQ, the tower at Charm. They have an immense battle where many of the company are lost. The Taken backstab each other during the battle except for Soulcatcher, who flees only to be hunted down and destroyed by Croaker and the Lady who use a set of magical arrows to kill her. The old legend, that tells the tale of The Lady and The Dominator, her worse than evil husband, and The White Rose who imprisons them is centuries in the past. The Dominator and his wife, the Lady, (both supremely skilled in the art of magic), had founded an empire legendary for evil. They were overthrown by a rebellion led by the White Rose, but even in defeat, they remained too powerful to be killed; the best the rebels could do was to imprison them in the Barrowland. The Lady escaped to rebuild the empire, but betrayed her husband, leaving him there. "The Black Company" recounted how she crushed several deadly challenges to her power, but those were not the only threats to her reign.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Rose_(Cook_novel)" title="The White Rose (Cook novel)">
Centuries in the past, the Dominator and his wife, the Lady, (both supremely skilled in the art of magic), had founded an empire legendary for evil. They were overthrown by a rebellion led by the White Rose, but even in defeat, they remained too powerful to be killed; the best the rebels could do was to imprison them and their most powerful minions in the Barrowland. A wizard named Bomanz awakened the Lady in an attempt to learn from her, but she used him to gain her freedom and rebuilt the empire. However, she betrayed her husband by leaving him where he was.A rebellion broke out against the Lady's new empire; the Black Company played a key role in putting it down (as detailed in "The Black Company)." Later, the Company also assisted the Lady in preventing her husband from escaping his prison (as recounted in "Shadows Linger)," but it was forced to flee her wrath when she discovered that it had unknowingly sheltered the reborn White Rose.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silver_Spike" title="The Silver Spike">
The Dominator was a wizard of immense power who could not be killed by his enemies. He was, however, defeated and his evil essence imprisoned in a silver spike. The power inherent in the spike is so greatly feared and desired that some try to steal it, while others try to keep it from falling into anyone's hands.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Games_(novel)" title="Shadow Games (novel)">
Marching back after the defeat of the Dominator, the Black Company is down to just seven men. They go south, where the now powerless Lady briefly takes control of her Empire and where Croaker, the Annalist and Captain of the Company, is reunited with the Annals which hold the Company's history. Continuing their travels south in search of Khatovar, where Croaker is oathbound to return the annals, they are conscripted into service yet again by the crown prince of Taglios. Their commission is to defeat the advance of the conquering Shadowmasters from the south.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreams_of_Steel" title="Dreams of Steel">
The book follows the storyline of both Lady and Croaker, who have been separated from the Black Company after the company's defeat at the end of "Shadow Games". Lady was separated as she was overwhelmed by dying soldiers and her story begins with her digging herself out of the pile. She quickly hooks up with two strange men, Narayan Singh and his partner Ram. Lady, with those two, begins to re-assemble the army of Taglios. Lady is much different from Croaker's style of managing the people of Taglios, eliminating those who try to stand against her.Narayan Singh is a leader in a shadow religious group who are known as The Deceivers, and worship the goddess of Kina. Kina is a Goddess of Death, and the Deceivers are trying to bring her back to this world. Lady believes that she is using the Deceivers to further her agenda, while avoiding the seduction that Kina appears to be trying against her.While Lady builds up the Taglios army, Croaker is in the company of Soulcatcher—Lady's sister. Soulcatcher wants Croaker for two reasons: to heal her of the wounds that she received in the Books of the North, as well as to take revenge out on her sister. Soulcatcher's agenda is to spread chaos. She dresses as Lady and attacks the Shadowmaster's army to sow confusion of where anyone is. Her plan backfires as Longshadow, along with his new ally Howler, kidnap her instead of Lady. Longshadow wishes to use the knowledge that Lady has to further his own agenda. With Soulcatcher taken away, Croaker uses that freedom to escape and rejoin the army of Taglios.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleak_Seasons" title="Bleak Seasons">
Taking place in part during the events of Dreams of Steel, which was told from the point of view of Lady, this story examines the events surrounding Murgen, who is trapped within the siege of Dejagore where atrocities are being committed by both sides. The book also examines events later in Taglios under rule of the Liberator and the increasing tensions between the Black Company and the Radisha, as well as the ever-present threats from the Stranglers and of some new deception by Soulcatcher and the Howler. Bleak Seasons is unique among the Black Company series for the unusual narrative device of Murgen being totally unfixed in time and uncertain of when he will experience another seizure and move between distant past, recent past and a vaguely comprehended present. This narrative device is followed through three-quarters of the novel until we come to understand the traumas that have led Murgen to this point, while the enchantment that has made it possible remains unclear. The tone is introspective, haunted and mysterious. This novel introduces several key elements and characters to the series, including visions of the frozen caverns, Sahra, Uncle Doj, Mother Gota, One-Eye's black spear, and the manipulation of the comatose wizard Smoke.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_Sleeps" title="Water Sleeps">
Cook brings the latest cycle of the Black Company saga to a major climax, as disaster survivors regroup in Taglios and set out to free their fellow warriors held in stasis beneath the glittering plain. They arrive just in time for a magical conflagration that will reveal the bones of the world and the history of the Company."Water Sleeps" is set with most of the leadership of the Company in Stasis, while the remaining company fights a guerilla war. The company is both pitted against the last remaining Shadowmaster, Soulcatcher, a Sorceress of epic power, and the subtle machinations of the sleeping Goddess of Death and her Deceivers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldiers_Live" title="Soldiers Live">
Croaker, no longer dictator of Taglios or Captain of the Company, resumes his old role as Annalist. Sleepy is now Captain, and no Black Company member has died in battle for four years. But when the Company's old adversaries try to bring about the apocalyptic Year of the Skulls, the Company is brought to the edge of destruction.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Till_Death_Do_Us_Part_(McDaniel_novel)" title="Till Death Do Us Part (McDaniel novel)">
18-year-old April Lancaster, the child of Janice and Hugh Lancaster, enters the hospital for testing as she has been suffering from headaches, blackouts, and eventually passed out in English class.During this time, April becomes acquainted with Mark Gianni, who suffers from cystic fibrosis, and has been in and out of the hospital since he was born. Mark is very interested in April, and even tells her that he intends to marry her, but she declines his offer to go out, as she already has a boyfriend, Chris.April is told by her doctor that she has an inoperable brain tumor, a recurrence of the case she had as a five-year-old, and needs to start radiation treatments. Soon after breaking the news to Chris, he ends their relationship, and April begins to date Mark.Over time, the two fall in love, and Mark proposes to April. She accepts, although her parents aren't thrilled about the match. Eventually, they do reconcile to the idea.Shortly afterward, the car that Mark is driving in during a race (he is an avid racing fan) flips over and ignites. Mark survives the crash, but he develops pneumonia and dies.The book ends with April and her parents in St. Croix for a vacation. April releases a red balloon for Mark, as he had once done for her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Centurions_(novel)" title="The New Centurions (novel)">
The novel is basically without plot, instead episodically depicting the psychological changes in three LAPD officers caused by their police work, and particularly the nature of police work in poor minority communities of Los Angeles. The three officers, Serge Duran, Gus Plebesly, and Roy Fehler, are classmates at the police academy in the summer of 1960, and the novel examines their lives each August of succeeding years, culminating in their on-the-job reunion during the Watts riots of August 1965."The New Centurions" is likely the most autobiographical of Wambaugh's novels. He provides a straightforward narration of events with little use of flashback. Each chapter is written in the third person from the point of view of one of the three protagonists. They have no contact with each other once they graduate from the academy, but their paths are similar and converging. Like Wambaugh, his protagonists move from a few years of uniformed patrol in minority districts to plainclothes assignments in juvenile and vice work, experiences which so affected Wambaugh that he returns to them repeatedly as plot elements in his fiction.Wambaugh also explores the officers' private lives, noting adultery, alcoholism, racism, and suicide as rampant in the ranks of the LAPD. Police suicide, in particular, is a theme Wambaugh explores in nearly all of his books.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent_to_Kill" title="Consent to Kill">
In Flynn's previous novel, "Memorial Day", CIA counter-terror operative and assassin Mitch Rapp uncovered an Al-Qaeda plot to use a nuclear weapon obtained from abandoned Russian nuclear storage bunkers. The ultimate goal was the destruction of Washington, D.C., and Rapp was forced to torture the only man who knew the details of the plan: Waheed Abdullah. Rapp then faked Waheed's death to prevent the Saudi Government from learning of it and rescuing him, while preserving a useful source for himself. To keep Waheed from being discovered, Rapp puts him in an Afghan prison.However, this plan backfires: Waheed's father, Saeed Ahmed Abdullah, a billionaire Saudi businessman and a jihadist himself, learns that Rapp has "killed" his son. Saeed beseeches Saudi Prince Muhammed bin Rashid for help. Rashid puts Saeed in contact with a former East German Stasi officer, Erich Abel, and Saeed puts a $20 million contract on Rapp's head.Abel, through his contacts, approaches two assassins, a husband and wife team, Louis Gould and Claudia Morrell. For $10 million, they agree to kill Rapp. Claudia, who is pregnant, specifically asks Louis not to kill Rapp's wife, Anna, as she is also pregnant. Louis agrees, and both leave for America.In Washington, Rapp is angered by the new Director of National Intelligence, Mark Ross, who authorized surveillance of Rapp's co-worker and friend, former Navy SEAL Scott Coleman. Ross sends the IRS to investigate Coleman, and requests Coleman's personnel file from the Navy. Ross has ambitions to the presidency and views his current position as a stepping stone to the White House. He has no respect for Rapp because of Rapp's reckless actions and, despite his contributions, wants to fire him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faery_in_Shadow" title="Faery in Shadow">
Caith mac Sliabhin, condemned by the Sidhe in "The Brothers" for committing patricide, wanders along the river Guagach, accompanied and tormented by Dubhain, a mischievous pooka. Their journey takes them to Gleann Fiain where a beast from the river chases Caith up a hill to an isolated cottage. The occupants, twins Ceannann and Firinne, let Caith and Dubhain in and allow them to spend the night. Unbeknown to Caith, the birth of the twins 21 years ago set in motion a sequence of events that damned Gleann Fiain and cast a shadow over Faery.The twins were born to Fianna, queen of Gleann Fiain in Dun Glas. But unbeknown to her husband, Ceannann mac Ceannann, Fianna was unable to conceive and had sought help from a wise-women, Moragacht. Moragacht struck a bargain with her, promising her twins if she lay down with a selkie, in exchange for one of the twins when they were born. But when the twins arrived (a human and a selkie) and Moragacht came to claim one of them, Fianna denied any knowledge of her, and mac Ceannann turned Moragacht away. From that day onwards, grief and misery struck the family, and mac Ceannann and Fianna were forced to vacate Dun Glas and flee with the twins to an abandoned hilltop fortress. But the loch beast, under Moragacht's control, found them there and killed them all, except the twins, now aged 14, who escaped to the cottage. The witch then seized control of Dun Glas from where she damned all of Gleann Fiain.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus_(Fast_novel)" title="Spartacus (Fast novel)">
"Spartacus" begins with three young Roman patricians – Caius, his sister Helena and her friend Claudia, commencing a journey from Rome to Capua along the Via Appia a few weeks after the final suppression of the slave revolt. The road is lined by "tokens of punishment" – slaves crucified in the immediate aftermath of the revolt. During the first day of their travel the party encounter several representative individuals; a minor politician, a prosperous businessman of the equestrian class, an eastern trader and a young officer of the legions; all of whom give their respective perspectives on the rising. On arrival at a palatial country villa where they are to spend the night, the trio meet with other guests, both historical and fictional, who either played key roles in the events just finished or who have sufficient perception to analyze the significance of slavery as an institution within the Roman Republic.From the encounters at the "Villa Salaria", the focus of the novel moves to occasions before and during the actual rising of the slaves. The emphasis is on Spartacus, his life in the mines and as a gladiator; his character, powers of leadership and dreams of a just society where exploitation and cruelty have been eliminated.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_of_Earth" title="Brothers of Earth">
The protagonist of the book is Kurt Morgan, a crewman on the Alliance ship "Endymion", which was destroyed in a space battle with Hanan forces. Morgan evacuates the ship and lands on an alien planet, home of the "Nemet" race. Morgan is rescued by one faction of the Nemet and becomes embroiled in their political and military struggles. Morgan is not the first human stranded on the planet, however. His encounters with a previous female human castaway endanger the entire Nemet race when she reacts badly and threatens to unleash weapons of mass destruction on the planet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_of_Worlds" title="Hunter of Worlds">
In the story, a ship belonging to a terrifyingly dominant space-faring race, the iduve, arrives at a space station. They demand that a particular station resident, a blue-skinned Kallian, be sent to their ship and all record of him be erased. No defiance is possible or the space station will be destroyed. The human-like Kallian is handed over to the iduve who mind-link him to a female Kallian in their service and, later, to a human prisoner, forcing him to service his captors on three levels.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manservant_and_Maidservant" title="Manservant and Maidservant">
In 1892 Horace Lamb lives on an inherited estate with his wife, their five children, his extended family and a slew of servants including the butler Bullivant. Though Horace is wealthy through his marriage to Charlotte he insists on controlling her money in a miserly way. The ones who suffer the most from his economy are his children (in particular his eldest Sarah) who dress in rags and are constantly cold and hungry. Charlotte and Horace's cousin Mortimer, who is his dependent, plan to run away together. Before this can be accomplished Charlotte is called to visit her ailing father. The children are taught by their great-aunt Emilia, however Horace is eventually persuaded to hire a tutor, Gideon Doubleday, for the elder children. After Gideon takes a casual invitation from Horace seriously he decides to return the favour by asking the Lambs to meet his mother, Gertrude, and sister, Magdalen. Gertrude takes an immediate interest in Horace while Magdalen develops feelings for Mortimer. The two families grow closer in Charlotte's absence and Gertrude hints to Horace that her daughter and Mortimer might marry some day which he finds appalling. Charlotte abruptly returns and discovers her children well-clothed and fed and her husband repentant. Horace claims to have seen the error in his ways but reveals he is aware of the plot between Charlotte and Mortimer. Charlotte decides to stay with Horace, despite no longer loving him, in order to maintain family harmony. Horace reveals that he will only continue to pay for Mortimer if he marries Magdalen and moves elsewhere. With no other options Mortimer assents. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Weeks_with_the_Queen" title="Two Weeks with the Queen">
Colin Mudford, a 12 year old Australian, is sent to stay with his uncle Bob, aunt Iris and cousin Alistair in London while his brother, Luke, is being treated for cancer. In England, Colin, wanting to ask the Queen for good doctors, attempts to break into Buckingham Palace with Alistair, only for them both to get caught by the police.After an unsuccessful attempt to sneak into the best cancer hospital in London, Colin meets a Welshman named Ted, whose friend Griff is also suffering from cancer. Ted introduces Colin to one of England's leading cancer experts, who then contacts Luke's doctors in Sydney and confirms that the cancer which Luke has is terminal. Colin then attempts revenge on the doctors by slashing the tires on their cars, including Mercedes, BMW, Jaguar and Audi, only to be caught by Ted. Colin then storms back to Bob and Iris's house distraught, where Alistair gives Colin the idea that a possible cure may be found in South America.Colin convinces Alistair to stow away with him on a cargo ship to South America the next day. However, when Colin admits that he slashed the tires of several doctors' cars and that Ted caught him, Alistair warns Colin that Ted could be blamed for this, so Colin delays their trip to South America. The next day, Colin visits Ted at his home, and finds that he has been badly injured. Ted tells him that he was attacked by people in the street who disliked him, because he is gay. He then confesses to Colin that Griff is actually his lover, who is dying of AIDS.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactics_of_Mistake" title="Tactics of Mistake">
Lieutenant Colonel Cletus Grahame has been an instructor at the Western Alliance military academy since a battle injury crippled one of his knees, and forced his retirement from active duty. He has completed three volumes of a planned twenty-volume series of books on military strategy and tactics, and believes his analysis can revolutionize military science, although many do not take his work seriously. Feeling he needs to get out in the field and try putting his theories into practice, he leaves the academy and arranges to be sent to the world of Kultis, where the Alliance is supporting the Exotic colony of Bakhalla in a war against the neighboring colony of Neuland, backed by the Coalition.The heart of his military strategy, based in part on fencing, is what he labels the "tactics of mistake," enticing one's opponent into overreaching, and being ready to take advantage of the mistake. This description is an adaptation of a similar concept in the novel "Scaramouche" by Rafael Sabatini when the character Moreau studies at the salon of the Master of Arms.On the first night out on the ship to Kultis, he deliberately antagonizes Dow deCastries, Secretary of Outworld Affairs for the Eastern Coalition, forcing deCastries to take notice of him. He also meets Colonel Eachan Khan, an officer of the Dorsai troops who have been hired by the Exotics, and Khan's daughter Melissa. Mondar, an Exotic official, is also present, and takes notice of Grahame.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Master's_Voice_(novel)" title="His Master's Voice (novel)">
The novel is written as a first-person narrative, the memoir of a mathematician named Peter Hogarth, who becomes involved in a Pentagon-directed project (code-named "His Master's Voice", or HMV for short) somewhere in the Nevada desert, where scientists are working to decode what seems to be a message from outer space (specifically, a neutrino signal from the Canis Minor constellation). Throughout the book Hogarth—or rather, Lem himself—exposes the reader to many debates merging cosmology and philosophy: from discussions of epistemology, systems theory, information theory and probability, through the idea of evolutionary biology and the possible form and motives of extraterrestrial intelligence, with digressions about ethics in military-sponsored research, to the limitations of human science constrained by the human nature subconsciously projecting itself into the analysis of any unknown subject. At some point one of the involved scientists (Rappaport), desperate for new ideas, even begins to read and discuss popular science-fiction stories, and Lem uses this opportunity to criticize the science fiction genre, as Rappaport soon becomes bored and disillusioned by monotonous plots and the unimaginative stories of pulp magazines.Before Hogarth's arrival, the scientists were able to use part of the data to synthesize a substance with unusual properties. Two variations had been created: a viscous liquid nicknamed "Frog Eggs", and a more solid version that looks like a slab of red meat called "Lord of the Flies" (named for its strange agitating effect on insects brought into proximity with it). There is some speculation that the signal may actually be a genome and that "Frog Eggs" and "Lord of the Flies" may be a form of protoplasm; possibly that of the alien creatures that presumably sent the signal. This theory, like all the project's theories about the signal, turns out to be unverifiable.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil's_All_Fright_Diner" title="Gil's All Fright Diner">
In the backwoods southern town of Rockwood, a vampire and a werewolf in a run-down old truck come across Gil's All Night Diner, a 24-hour restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Nearly out of gas, they stop in at the diner only to discover it is the target of zombie attacks, hauntings, and occult activity.The manager of the diner, Loretta, offers them a job helping her out around the diner, and maybe helping solve her zombie problem. They accept.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Armageddon_Inheritance" title="The Armageddon Inheritance">
## Book 1.After the events of "Mutineers' Moon", the evil mutineer Anu has been defeated by the warship "Dahak", aided by its new captain, Colin MacIntyre. As the highest-ranking officer of the Imperium present, MacIntyre had elevated himself to the rank of "Governor of Earth" in order to absolve the loyalist mutineers of their crimes; he then unified the worlds' governments under his authority (backed up by his advanced Imperial armaments and Dahak) and set Horus the task of preparing defenses against the Achuultani scouts, which have been methodically advancing on the Sol system, detected by self-destructing Imperial sensor arrays. This gave frantic defenders under Lieutenant Governor Horus and his assistant, Gerald Hatcher, barely two years to pacify the holdouts to the new world order (such as the Asian Alliance), to modernize the world economy, and to construct and power a planetary defense shield, as well as construct and train a space fleet and the fortresses on the ground which will support the fleet; and then of course to defeat both the scouts and the main Achuultani incursion. The primary holdout to participation in the planetary defense plan was the Asian Alliance, a group of all Asian nations except Japan and the Philippines. It was effectively controlled by a Marshal Tsien Tao-ling. who is convinced to join by the obvious military imbalance (the moon having disappeared, and several Middle Eastern nations forcibly disarmed by Imperium technology-equipped troops) and by the promise of considerable local autonomy and control of four seats on the nine-person council advising Horus. Regardless, the military programs soon get underway. To withstand the Siege (as the coming attack on Earth has come to be called) the Earth's defenses consists of front line spaceships, constructed by "orbital industrial units" left behind by Dahak (clanking replicators, in other words); a planetary shield powered by a core tap; and all backed up by numerous hypermissile launchers built into "Planetary Defense Centers" (sheared off and embedded with armaments mountains around the Earth).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hestia_(novel)" title="Hestia (novel)">
Engineer Sam Merrit has been sent to the struggling colony planet Hestia to build a dam. Since the colony is placed in a large river valley and plagued by seasonal floods, the colonists believe that a dam is essential to enable them to escape the squalid conditions that have persisted there since the founding of the colony over a hundred years ago.Upon arrival, Merrit finds that the reason the colony is confined to the valley and not making use of flood-safe lands is the presence of cat-like alien natives who attack anyone venturing outside the valley - but the dam will destroy the habitat of many of these natives. Pressured by the colonists to hurry the construction more than he considers safe, Merrit encounters and befriends a native woman, prompting some of the colonists to become hostile towards him as well. Merrit becomes increasingly convinced that ending the conflict with the natives would help the colony more than the dam.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Lucifer_(Duncan_novel)" title="I, Lucifer (Duncan novel)">
In "I, Lucifer", God presents the devil with a chance of redemption by living a somewhat sinless life in a human body. Lucifer, not wanting redemption, takes God’s offer for a trial but instead takes it as a month's holiday. This story takes place in London and Lucifer lives in the body of Declan Gunn (an anagram of "Glen Duncan", the author's name), formerly a struggling writer who is suicidal. While in Declan’s body, Lucifer takes his body for granted and abuses drugs, alcohol, and sex. Not only does Lucifer still live a devilish life, but also he starts to realize what being a human is really like. He realizes there is so much going on in their lives and so much temptation, and people can’t simply do whatever they please. As Lucifer’s trial is coming to an end, he receives a visit from the angel Raphael, who attempts to help Lucifer head in the right direction. Raphael tells him the world is going to end so there’s no choice but to gain redemption from rebelling against God and be accepted back into heaven. Lucifer makes his decision. The whole story is permeated by the main character's versions of biblical episodes and his disparaging opinions about God and "Jimmeny" (Jesus).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Falcon_at_the_Portal" title="The Falcon at the Portal">
The 1911 season finds the Emersons planning to excavate at Zawyet el'Aryan, south of the great pyramids of Giza. David Todros has just been married to Lia, the daughter of Walter and Evelyn Emerson, and the happy couple will be joining the expedition after their honeymoon. The family's happiness is dimmed, however, by allegations that David has been making and selling fake antiquities under the guise of his late grandfather Abdullah's legacy. Ramses and Nefret take on the task of ferreting out the source of the rumors - and the fakes - with fears that the Master Criminal is behind it.Meanwhile, Percy Peabody, Amelia's evil nephew, turns up as a member of the Egyptian Army and an intermittent pest. He has written a lurid (and completely false) memoir about his time in Egypt, keeps proposing to Nefret, and seems up to something, though he doesn't have the brains to be part of the plot the Emersons are investigating.Two young Americans join the Emersons' dig, Geoffrey Godwin and Jack Reynolds, whose sister sets her sights on Ramses. Ramses is also investigating the illegal drug trade.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Shall_Thunder_in_the_Sky" title="He Shall Thunder in the Sky">
The novel takes place in 1914, as Ramses Emerson works undercover to gather intelligence for the British military, Nefret returns from studying medicine in Switzerland, and Percy Peabody returns to wreak revenge on the Emerson family for past events. The Emerson have acquired the "firman" for part of the Giza concession, but of course are distracted by the criminal element, and eventually by a startling revelation from the Master Criminal, Sethos himself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crimson_Petal_and_the_White" title="The Crimson Petal and the White">
The novel details the lives of two very opposite Victorian women, Agnes and Sugar, and the linchpin on whom they revolve: William Rackham.William, the unwilling and somewhat bumbling heir to a perfume business, is a businessman of moderate success and little self-awareness.He marries the exquisitely doll-like Agnes, even though he barely knew her. Agnes, the consummate Victorian "female ideal" of naive and delicate femininity, has been kept completely in the dark on sexual matters. Her diaries express utter confusion over events like menstruation (which she believes is a demon who returns periodically to "bleed" her), pregnancy, sex, or childbirth: she does not even acknowledge her young daughter, Sophie, whom the household staff carefully keeps away from Agnes. Everyone treats Agnes as a mentally ill patient, and she is kept drugged and confined to her bedroom. Weekly visits from Dr. Curlew, who Agnes believes sexually assaults her during his "examinations" of her, keep her unbalanced. Outside of the house, few know of Agnes's madness (though knowledge of it spreads during the length of the story), as she generally presents herself as an inveterate hostess and socialite to the world during each season.William soon becomes obsessed with a worldly young prostitute named Sugar, an unconventionally intelligent and strong-willed young woman who uses the affair with William to climb to a higher perch in the rigidly stratified class system of the time. William purchases Sugar from her madame (Sugar's own mother) and sets her up in a luxurious flat of her own, where he regularly visits her on his terms. Sugar has been a prostitute since the age of 13 and views sex as a living, not a pleasure, with no physical act too taboo. She is resentful of her reliance on William (and men in general) and indulges her fantasies about harming her and her fellow prostitute's clients in an explicitly gruesome novel of revenge erotica that she pens in her spare time as she works to maintain William's continued interest using both her body and her mind.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paladin_(Cherryh_novel)" title="The Paladin (Cherryh novel)">
The Lord Saukendar, Imperial sword master and stalwart supporter of the Emperor is betrayed, falsely accused of an affair with his childhood sweetheart Lady Meiya, now the Emperor's wife. Meiya is dead, and hostile forces have command of the Emperor's regency. Wounded, desperate and cut off from his supporters, Saukendar runs for the border.In a homemade cabin high in the hills Saukendar survives crippled and alone, his warhorse Jiro and his regrets his only company, while the empire is bled by the rapacious warlords that are regent to the Emperor. Only occasional assassins dispatched by the Regent disturb his morose existence.Taizu, a country girl from Hua locates him, demands he teach her sufficient swordsmanship to exact her revenge for her people's suffering. Despite his better judgment and strenuous efforts to discourage her, she forces him to take her on as apprentice swordswoman. Shoka, as he prefers to be known to his friends, becomes fond of the girl.In the process of teaching her and supporting her cause, they become embroiled in the affairs of empire, becoming the spearhead of a revolt that rescues the Emperor from his Regent and his people from the clutches of the warlords.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Hand_of_the_Goddess" title="In the Hand of the Goddess">
Alanna, now squire to Prince Jonathan of Conte, has to protect her dreams of knighthood and friends through their first war with Tusaine. She slowly learns more about her gift, using it primarily to heal, and continues to hide her true gender while both George and Jon have fallen in love with her. She continues to be suspicious of and protect Jon from his power-mad first cousin, Roger, on the way to her becoming a full-fledged knight.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woman_Who_Rides_Like_a_Man" title="The Woman Who Rides Like a Man">
A newly knighted Alanna leaves the capital to travel among the Bazhir in the desert and after being attacked by bandits and her sword breaking, she gets adopted by one of the tribes, though clashing with the tribe's shaman who seeks to destroy her name with the sword that broke her own. After fighting to the death with the shaman for her honor and winning, she has to replace the shaman and cannot leave until she trains another. After training the first 2 girl shamen she rides back home and fixes her sword.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lioness_Rampant" title="Lioness Rampant">
The first chapter of this book finds Alanna, Faithful, and Coram on a quest for the 'Dominion Jewel', which grants immense psychokinetic power to any monarch who owns it. In the town of Berat, Alanna befriends martial-arts champion Liam Ironarm, called the 'Dragon of Shang', who joins the quest. Liam begins training her in Shang fighting style, and the two become lovers. The party thence traverse the realm of Sarain, evading a civil war between the native 'K'miri' tribes and the ruler, Warlord jin Wilima, and acquire new companions in Princess Thayet, the Warlord's only child, and her K’miri protector Buriram Tourokom. At the mountain range known as the 'Roof of the World', Alanna becomes frustrated by the blizzards blocking their progress and her magical sense that trouble is occurring back in Tortall. She casts a spell on the group to keep them asleep and then ascends to the pass, where she undergoes a grueling physical trial to acquire the Jewel from its immortal guardian, Chitral. She succeeds in winning the Jewel and returns to the group, to find that Liam—who is afraid of magic—is angry at being bewitched by her. Their romantic relationship ends, though they continue as friends and colleagues. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_in_the_Night_(novel)" title="Bump in the Night (novel)">
Divorcee Martha Tierney awakes to a phone call from the headmistress of her son's school telling her that Jonathan, her son, is not at school. Martha, an alcoholic, is disoriented.Jonathan sneaks out early in the morning for a secret meeting with his father at a doughnut shop at 8 A.M. Jonathan leaves the house early and stops by a neighbor who tells him that the chosen doughnut shop is closed and he will have to meet his father in the street.Jonathan is stalked by Lawrence Miller, a former professor who has lost his job over accusations of child molestation. When Patrick fails to show at the doughnut shop, Lawrence pretends to be a friend of Jonathan's father and lures him off to the zoo, then on to an apartment that doubles as a film studio for child pornography movies.Patrick, Martha, the neighbors, and investigating detective Sergeant Mooney all work together to hunt for the little boy. Jonathan uses all his courage and resourcefulness to escape the sexual abuse that he knows is coming.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Mage" title="Emperor Mage">
Daine travels with a Tortallan embassy to Carthak in order to help cure the Emperor's birds of a mysterious sickness, as well to improve relations with the hostile country.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Realms_of_the_Gods" title="The Realms of the Gods">
Daine and the mage Numair are faced with certain death when they are suddenly swept into the mystical realms of the gods, where Daine learns the secrets of her past. But she and Numair are both needed in the mortal world to help fight the desperate war that is raging in Tortall. And so they undertake the journey home – a dangerous journey that will teach them about life and about each other. Their path leads them to the final clash, which involves both gods and immortals – a battle in which the only chance for Tortall's future lies with Daine and her wild magic.Set in Tortall during the reign of King Jonathan IV and Queen Thayet, "Realms of the Gods" is the final book in "The Immortals" series, which chronicles a time when the world is invaded by immortal creatures.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_and_Freindship" title="Love and Freindship">
"From Isabel to Laura"This presents a glimpse into the life of Laura from Isabel's perspective. Isabel asks Laura to tell the "misfortunes and adventures" of her life to Isabel's daughter Marianne (Austen 516). Isabel argues that because Laura is turning 55, she is past the danger of "disagreeable lovers" and "obstinate fathers" (Austen 516). This initial letter sets up the rest of Austen's narrative through Laura's letters to Marianne."Laura to Isabel"This consists of a reply from Laura to Isabel. Laura initially disagrees with Isabel's assessment that she is safe from "misfortunes" simply because of her advanced age (Austen 516). Laura agrees to write to Marianne and detail her life experiences to "satisfy the curiosity of Marianne" and to teach her useful lessons (Poplawski 183). The useful lessons are lessons learned from the misfortunes caused by "disagreeable lovers" and "obstinate fathers" (Poplawski 183). Poplawski highlights the importance of the relationship between females and their lovers and also between females and their fathers as a means through which Austen is able to criticise stereotypical female behaviour. As seen throughout the work, these two relationships are constantly criticised by satirical anecdotes. Janetta's relations with her father and with her lover, Capitan M’Kenzie in the twelfth letter, shows Austen mocking the fickleness of family ties and romantic relationships.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amongst_Women" title="Amongst Women">
The novel is set in County Leitrim in the rural border region of the Republic of Ireland. The story spans a period of twenty years in the middle of the twentieth century. It centres on Michael Moran, patriarch of the Moran family and a former IRA member who was an officer and guerrilla fighter in the War of Independence and the Irish Civil War in the 1920s. Although Moran is a well-respected member of his community and a devout Catholic, there is a cruel, violent, and controlling side to his character. He dominates the lives of his second wife, Rose, and his five children. His children strive to establish their own lives while remaining loyal to the family. Most of the story is told through the use of flashbacks, as Moran's daughters attempt to recreate Monaghan Day for their elderly and depressed father, because it was the day when he always seemed to be at his best.The novel opens with an elderly, weak, and depressed Michael Moran being taken care of by his daughters. Although they have busy lives and families of their own in Dublin and London, they have never really left the family home because they feel more important there. They have decided to recreate "Monaghan Day," an event Moran always seemed to enjoy, hoping that this will somehow reverse his failing health. Monaghan Day was a market day, when Moran's friend McQuaid used to visit and they would reminisce about the war. The family's story is told through the use of flashbacks as the women in Moran's life remember the past.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_(novel)" title="Matter (novel)">
The book follows the experiences of three members of the royal household of the Sarl, a feudal, early-industrial humanoid race living on the eighth level of the Shellworld of Sursamen. Constructed for an unknown purpose by a long-dead race called the Veil, Shellworlds are ancient artificial planets consisting of nested concentric spheres internally lit by tiny thermonuclear "stars". The spheres are inhabited by various primitive races along with progressively more advanced mentoring species, up to the level of what the Sarl call "Optimae." (The Optimae themselves, particularly the Culture, prefer the term "Involved.") Approximately 4,000 Shellworlds were built, but almost 2,000 were deliberately destroyed, for reasons unknown, by another presumed extinct race, the Iln. Like many Shellwords, the core of Sursamen is known to be inhabited by a mysterious creature called a Xinthian Tensile Aeranothaur, whom the Sarl worship as their "WorldGod."Prince Ferbin, the self-centred heir to the Sarl throne, has to flee his home level on the Shellworld and the Shellworld itself after witnessing the murder of his father, King Hausk, by Mertis tyl Loesp, the King's second-in-command. Prince Oramen, Ferbin's studious younger brother, is unaware of the treachery and trusts tyl Loesp fully. After Ferbin's disappearance—and presumed death—tyl Loesp takes on the role of regent, ostensibly until Prince Regent Oramen comes of age and can be crowned king.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devlin's_Luck" title="Devlin's Luck">
Devlin Stonehand is an ex-metalsmith and ex-farmer from the conquered land of Duncaer. After losing his family to banecats, he decides to take the oath of the Chosen One, hoping for a quick death. Instead, Devlin solves the mystery of elusive bandits, and defeats a lake monster, to the growing annoyance and concern of his enemies. Attacks made against him, both mundane and magical, fail to stop him. Meanwhile, as the Chosen One continues to live, the common people of Jorsk begin to respect and worship him.Nobles from around the kingdom seek Devlin out for help with local troubles and troubles to the kingdom overall. Helping those he deems sincere, Devlin seeks out the barony that is having no trouble, and investigates in his role as Chosen One. There he finds an oppressed populace, and confronts the baron with charges of treason. The arrested baron is sent back to the capital, Kingsholm, to be judged by the king.When he finally understands the depths of the baron’s treachery, he returns to Kingsholm to uncover the rest of the conspiracy. When he arrives, he finds that the Marshal of the Royal Army, Duke Gerhard, is a main conspirator, and the accused baron has been released. Devlin challenges Gerhard to a duel, in which Gerhard is slain and Devlin almost dies. He recovers over time, and is named the new General of the Royal Army and given a voting seat on the king’s council.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Pilgrim" title="The Secret Pilgrim">
## Part one."Smiley reflects on the end of the Cold War, and makes a rueful joke that, in one way, the world has changed, but in another, it has always been the same and the secret services are gradually waking up from their own deluded perceptions of it, and themselves."After a couple of years of training at the Sarratt Nursery, in the glens of Argyll and battle camps of Wiltshire, Ned is looking forward to his first overseas posting and is disappointed to be kept in London, as part of a team of watchers keeping an eye on a Middle Eastern royal family. In a famous Knightsbridge store, Ned becomes alarmed when he sees a suspicious Arab closely following the prince's wife at a distance. Ned prepares to incapacitate him with a martial arts blow, but his supervisor Monty grabs Ned and holds him back. Ned learns that the wife is a compulsive shoplifter and the man is not a fanatic assassin, but instead assigned by the prince to pay compensation and hush money to the stores she steals from. Monty comments, "That's the trouble in our job, Ned. Life's looking one way, we're looking the other."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danse_Macabre_(novel)" title="Danse Macabre (novel)">
## Summary."Danse Macabre" appears to take place a few weeks after the events of "Incubus Dreams" and almost immediately after the events of "Micah", assuming that the series of serial killings that friend refers to as occurring two weeks earlier are the killings Anita investigates in "Incubus Dreams."Unlike the previous thirteen novels, neither Anita's role as a Federal Marshal nor her job as a zombie animator plays any part in this novel. Instead, Anita must juggle a series of problems arising from her own increasing power, vampire politics, and her own personal life, complicated in this case by Anita's apparent pregnancy.Ultimately, Anita resolves most of these conflicts:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cutting_Edge_(novel)" title="The Cutting Edge (novel)">
"The world of Pandemia seethes with tension as imperial troops wage war along its borderlands and omens predict disaster. When the Protocol which restricts the use of magic begins to break down, only a few handpicked people have a chance to preserve the balance of their crumbling society." (1)
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Little_Wizards" title="Ten Little Wizards">
Someone is killing wizards, and doing so apparently without the use of magic. Lord Darcy is sent to investigate. He must uncover the murderer and ascertain whether the whole business is a ploy to kill the king himself.To complicate matters Darcy must investigate during the preparations for the investiture of Gwiliam, Duke of Lancaster (King John IV's younger son), as Prince of Gaul. To add international tension, the Crown Prince of Poland, His Majesty the King of Courland (Latvia), will attend the ceremony. (In this timeline, Poland is a great empire ruling most of Eastern Europe, and there is an ongoing cold war between it and Darcy's Anglo-French Empire).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Study_in_Sorcery" title="A Study in Sorcery">
In New England (a term which in this history includes the whole of our North America) an Azteque Prince is found dead on a stone altar.Lord Darcy and Sean O Lochlainn are sent across the Atlantic to investigate. Darcy must identify the killer and determine whether the Azteques are returning to human sacrifice. Perhaps an attempt is being made by the rival Polish Empire to upset the balance of power between the Angevin Empire and the Azteques?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_the_World" title="Learning the World">
The novel is a first contact story, following the generation ship "But the Sky, My Lady! The Sky!" as it approaches the Destiny Star. Humans have been colonizing the 500 light-years around Earth for a few thousand years, and have never run into a sentient alien species — until now. The discovery of an Industrial Age alien race upsets the established protocols of the ship, leading to uncertainty and delays in habitation, which in turn leads to societal unrest and conflict aboard the ship.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Luna" title="Operation Luna">
The world of "Operation Luna" has an alternative history, which mostly resembled our own until a great "Awakening" brought awareness of supernatural forces to the world at large. This Awakening led to drastic changes in society; industrial machinery was largely replaced by technology driven by magic, spells, and "goetic forces" instead of fossil fuels and electricity. For example, the main mode of transportation is broomsticks and magic carpets fitted with cabins for people to sit in; radios are called "runers," apparently activated by runes; and the propulsion behind space flight is achieved by a combination of mechanical technology, spelled crystals, and arcane materials such as mummy dust.Steve helped in the construction of a spacecraft for Operation Selene, the United States' first attempt to send a manned craft to the Moon. However, a disaster caused by beings adverse to the mission destroy the vehicle and nearly kill the celestonaut, Curtice Newton, although Steve, in wolf form, saves her.Afterward, Steve, Ginny, and a handful of people begin to investigate the disaster and make plans to put Operation Luna into effect, a smaller version of Operation Selene independent from NASA.Since the identities of the entities behind the Operation Selene disaster remain somewhat veiled and mysterious, Steve and Ginny enlist the help of a number of people, including Balawahdiwa, a Zuni high priest; Fotherwick-Botts, an enchanted sword that can talk; and Fjalar, a Norwegian dwarf who forged Fotherwick-Botts.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bel_Canto_(novel)" title="Bel Canto (novel)">
Set in an unspecified South American country, the story begins at a birthday party thrown at the country's vice presidential home in honor of Katsumi Hosokawa, the visiting chairman of a large Japanese company and opera enthusiast. As a not-so-subtle pretext to get Hosokawa to invest in the country, famous American soprano Roxane Coss is scheduled to perform as the highlight of the party.Near the end of the party, members of a terrorist organization break into the house, intending to take the President of the country hostage. When they realize the President is not in attendance, the terrorist group decides to take the entire party hostage. After determining they have too many hostages, the terrorists decide to release all of the hostages except those they deem most likely to return a large ransom.Two major romantic relationships develop as the standoff drags on and serve as the backdrop to the rest of the story. The first is between Coss and Hosokawa, who develop a deep bond even though they do not speak each other's language and thus cannot communicate verbally. The second relationship is between the translator Gen and the young terrorist Carmen, who must keep their love a secret. The two lovers meet in the china closet every night.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_(LeRoy_novel)" title="Sarah (LeRoy novel)">
The boy agrees to work for Glad, a benevolent pimp who specializes in "boy-girls." Glad gives him a raccoon penis bone, which he wears as an amulet for protection, good fortune, and sexual prowess as well as to signify his status as one of Glad's boy-girls. He is given the name Cherry Vanilla, but on his first date with a trucker he uses the name Sarah.Hoping to outperform his rejecting mother and become the greatest lot lizard of them all, he goes off on his own into the wilds of West Virginia and is eventually taken up by a very powerful and very dangerous pimp known as Le Loup. Unaware that this new girl is a boy, Le Loup uses him not to turn tricks but as an object of veneration – and donations – with luck-conscious and magic-fearing truckers. Eventually Saint Sarah's mystique fades, and when he is revealed to be a boy Le Loup forces him to work alongside other boy prostitutes and live in captivity with them. After an agonizing year, Glad is finally able to rescue him from Le Loup, but the boy who returns is no longer capable of rejoining Glad's boy-girls; his mother Sarah is long gone as well.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singer_of_All_Songs" title="The Singer of All Songs">
Calwyn is a young priestess who chants the ice chants of Antaris. She lives inside Antaris, a community located among mountains, which is enclosed by an ice wall. The priestesses must maintain the wall with their chantments; that is, by singing certain songs, the knowledge of which is passed down to them through the temple. Nine powers can be achieved by such songs, though never by the same chanter. Legend has it that a Singer of All Songs will someday be born, who will know and use the songs of all the effects.During one of the nine days of Strengthening, in which the priestesses sing to maintain the Wall, it is breached by a strange traveler, called Darrow. Calwyn attempts to approach him; but when he sings in a low tone, Calwyn feels as though a hand is clutching her tunic and keeping her away. He is unable to maintain this and collapses because of an injury he had suffered, whereupon Calwyn brings Darrow back to the priestess' dwellings. The psychokinetic effect is revealed by the High Priestess to be of a chantment, the Power of Iron, which controls inanimate matter. Calwyn befriends Darrow, who now has a scar on his eyebrow and a permanent limp. Samis, a greedy sorcerer who wants to become the Singer of All Songs and rule the world of Tremaris, follows Darrow to Antaris. Darrow and Calwyn manage to flee by jumping into the river that flows under the Wall.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iracema" title="Iracema">
The story revolves around the relationship between the Tabajara indigenous woman Iracema and the Portuguese colonist Martim, who was allied with the Tabajara nation's enemies, the Pitiguaras.Through the novel, Alencar tries to remake the history of the Brazilian colonial state of Ceará, with Moacir, the son of Iracema and Martim, as the first true Brazilian in Ceará. This pure Brazilian is born from the love of the natural, innocence (Iracema), culture and knowledge (Martim), and also represents the mixture (miscegenation) of the native race with the European race to produce a new caboclo race.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruins_of_Gorlan" title="The Ruins of Gorlan">
Morgarath, the exiled lord of the bleak, barren Mountains of Rain and Night has been waiting fifteen years in his dark realm, carefully planning his revenge against the Kingdom of Araluen. His former fief, known as Gorlan, was long ago brought to ruin as a result of his unsuccessful rebellion against King Duncan. Now he silently plots to rebel again, rallying hideous creatures known as Wargals to his side. Wargals have little will of their own, and are easy to control, therefore being suitable as soldiers in Morgarath's army. After fifteen years, Morgarath prepares to unleash his power, except using two strong beasts called the Kalkara, which are very powerful ape-like assassins, to attempt to weaken the Kingdom before trying to take the Kingdom once more. Meanwhile, in Araluen, in Redmont Fief, a special day has come for 15-year-old Will and his fellow wardmates (Horace, Alyss, George, and Jenny), called Choosing Day, where they all become an apprentice to a craftmaster or have to work in the local farms. Jenny is apprenticed to Master Chubb, the castle cook. Horace is accepted to Battleschool, and George is accepted to Scribeschool, while Alyss is accepted as a courier. Although Will's first choice was Battleschool (he does this because he thinks his father was a brave knight, although he doesn't know for sure what happened to him), Baron Arald (the baron of Redmont fief) explains to him that his talents lie in other directions. Instead of being accepted to Battleschool, he becomes apprenticed to Halt the Ranger, after sneaking into a guarded tower at the castle. Rangers are the intelligence group of the country and specialize in long-range weapons and the art of staying unseen. Will is not overly excited about this, but he is trained in these skills. The main reason why he is being trained in these skills is that he needs to prepare for the annual Ranger meeting called the Gathering. During this time he begins to establish a closeness to Halt and starts to realize that being a Ranger is much better than it seems. Will is given a horse named Tug, from an old horse trainer by the name of Old Bob.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger's_Apprentice" title="Ranger's Apprentice">
## "The Ruins of Gorlan".Morgarath, the exiled baron, has been waiting fifteen years, carefully planning his revenge against the Kingdom of Araluen. He prepares to unleash his power and attempt once more to take control of the kingdom. In Araluen, in Redmont Fief, a special day has come for 15-year-old Will and his fellow wardmates (Horace, Alyss, George, and Jenny), called Choosing Day, where they all become an apprentice to a craftmaster or have to work in the local farms. Will becomes apprenticed to Halt the Ranger. Rangers are the intelligence group of the country and specialize in long-range weapons and the art of staying unseen. Will begins to train in these skills.In the meantime, Will's wardmate Horace is in Battleschool. His life is harsh and he is bullied by three second-year Battleschool cadets. During a local holiday known as Harvest Day, Horace and Will fight, increasing their hatred for each other. Six weeks later, Will saves Horace's life during a boar hunt, cementing a friendship between the two boys. Later, the Battleschool bullies attack Will, leading to Halt intervening and having the bullies banished from the fief. Soon after, Halt and Will leave for the Ranger Gathering, where they receive a report that the Kalkara, vicious creatures under the control of Morgarath, have entered Araluen.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burning_Bridge" title="The Burning Bridge">
In the prologue, Halt (a legendary Ranger) and Will (the protagonist and Halt's apprentice), captures Dirk Reacher, one of Morgarath's former henchmen. They search Reacher and find Mogarath’s battle plans to invade Araluen. Halt and Will think over it, but decide it is genuine.Meanwhile, on a special mission for the Ranger Corps, Will, his friend Horace (a Battleschool apprentice), and the Ranger Gilan (one of Halt's former apprentices) travel to Celtica, a neighbouring country southwest of Araluen. When they ride to Celtica, they discover that all the people in the villages have mysteriously vanished. Will and Horace wonder if all the villagers have been slain or captured, but Gilan believes that the evil Lord Morgarath devised a plan to cross the mountain pass faster. If that was true, and the King wasn't warned, the country would be destroyed. Gilan rides to warn King Duncan, the King of Araluen, and Will and Horace begin to follow a straggling Wargal force. On their way, they come across an abandoned girl named Evanlyn, who claims to be a maid to Lady Ariana Wulton of the Araluen court, but is actually Princess Cassandra, King Duncan's daughter, in disguise. When the three of them follow the dimwitted Wargals they discover that a gargantuan bridge is in the process of being built across the impassable Fissure for their war party to cross. They also discover that the King's army will be trapped on the Plains of Uthal, because the plans that Halt and Will captured in the prologue of the book were merely a ruse to distract them. Will burns the bridge with Evanlyn's help. Evanlyn tries to warn Will about a rock thrown by a Skandian but is too late, giving a chance for a Skandian to grab them. Will and Evanlyn are taken captive by the group of Skandians ruled by Jarl Erak, but Horace is able to escape their grasp. After, he tells the King and his aides about what is going to happen, the army starts to get prepared for the army that is supposed to attack them from behind, Halt is sent to take care of them with a force of cavalry and archer units (a unit consist of an archer and a pikeman). In the middle of the battle, Morgarath calls a truce and challenges Halt to a duel, but King Duncan forbids it to happen. Then, unexpectedly, Horace challenges Morgarath to single combat. About to be defeated by Morgarath, Horace then, in a attempt to win the duel, throws himself into the path of Mogarath’s battle horse, to throw it off balance. He is successful, but only manages to wind Morgarath. Morgarath is confident that he is going to win by a last powerful stroke of his broadsword, but Horace blocks it with the double-knife defence that Gilan taught Will in Celtics and stabs Morgarath in the heart to win the battle. The Wargals become harmless as soon as Morgarath dies and the mind domination is broken. Immediately Halt goes looking for Will and Cassandra but he is too late. The Skandians sail for Skandia to sell Will and Princess Cassandra as slaves.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tenth_Power" title="The Tenth Power">
On a winter night in Antaris, Tamen, the Guardian of the Wall, and other priestesses approach the ice Wall that surrounds Antaris. A priestess drugs herself, whereupon the other priestesses sing a hole into the wall. The drugged priestess is sealed inside.Characters Calwyn, Mica, and Trout are traveling to Antaris, Calwyn's home, hoping that the priestesses may restore Calwyn's lost powers of chantment, by which she was able to manipulate wind, ice, animals, and living systems. Upon reaching the Wall, Mica uses the Clarion of the Flame, a magical object used to invoke fire, to burn a hole into the Wall. The drugged priestess is revealed, whereupon Calwyn tries to heal her, but does not succeed. The three notice other corpses encased in the Wall, which Calwyn attributes to a failure to entomb them according to custom. The three proceed to the priestesses' Dwellings.When reaching the Dwellings, Calwyn enters the kitchen where she sees a now crippled Lia, a revered priestess and milk healer. Lia warns Calwyn that Tamen will hunt Calwyn down and seal her into the Wall with the other priestesses; having contracted an ailment called snow-sickness, they were put into the Wall in hopes of appeasing their goddess Taris, who would presumably restore spring. Marna, the High Priestess, has died and Tamen has been promoted to High Priestess in her place.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Silent" title="Lord of the Silent">
In this installment, which takes place during the 1915–1916 season, newlyweds Ramses and Nefret Emerson spend their time living on their family's dahabeeyah on the Nile, while the rest of the group remains at the house near Giza, where their excavations continue. Between the antics of Ramses' former associates in the smuggling trade, the reappearance of the Master Criminal, and yet another unknown adversary with a rich find, little time is permitted for romance...but of course, the younger Emersons make the most of it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_One_(novel)" title="The Golden One (novel)">
The Golden One is a combination of two stories. The first story deals with the search for an unknown tomb, one where some artifacts have started to appear on the black market. The second story follows Ramses Emerson as he is sent on another mission behind Turkish lines.After arriving in Egypt in January, 1917, Amelia acquires a magnificent cosmetic jar with the cartouche removed. Rumors of a new, previously untouched tomb are rife, and this is significant evidence. After a brief stay in Cairo, the family moves on to their home in Luxor. When the Emersons arrive in Luxor, they encounter Joe Albion and his family, a wealthy American collector of antiquities, who make no secret of his desire to deal on the black market. Cyrus Vandergelt is acquainted with Joe Albion, and tells Emerson he would do anything to get what he wanted. This riles Emerson, and relations with the Albions are frosty at best.Jamil, a former employee and Jumana’s brother, is at the center of the rumors about the tomb. Early in their excavations, the Emersons discover one looted tomb with links to Jamil. They learn that he is manipulating a number of people and even attempts to kill Emerson and Peabody. When his family confronts him, his ancient musket explodes, mortally wounding him. But before he dies, he leaves a clue to the location of the tomb – “in the hand of the God”. The Emerson and Vandergelt expeditions now try to figure out which “hand of the God” Jamil meant.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_the_Storm" title="Children of the Storm">
The 1919 season opens with the Vandergelts and Emersons packing the God's Wives treasures found (in the previous book) for Cyrus Vandergelt by his adopted son Bertie. Just after the Service d'Antiquités representative comes to inspect their work, several items disappear together with the conservator Cyrus had hired on Sethos's recommendation. The conservator's skeleton is found later in the desert, without the objects. These events coincide with a visit from Emerson's brother Walter, his wife Evelyn, their daughter Lia and her husband David (the Emersons' adoptive son), plus their small children.Meanwhile, the Emersons meet up with Justin Fitzroyce, a young person with a strange mental malady, and his companion, François, who quickly develops a dislike of the family after Ramses mistakes his attentions to the boy for physical abuse. Justin is travelling with his grandmother, the elderly, sometimes confused, Mrs Fitzroyce; also with them is her companion, who turns out to be Maryam, the teenage daughter of Sethos, fallen on hard times. Amelia tries to befriend Maryam and helps her to rebuild her relationship with her father when he arrives to visit. She also reassures Maryam that the Emersons were not responsible for the death of the girl's mother, Bertha.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian_of_the_Horizon" title="Guardian of the Horizon">
The story begins in summer, 1907, ten years after the Emersons' expedition into the Nubian desert in "The Last Camel Died at Noon", when the Emersons were lured to a Lost Oasis where the remains of a Meroitic - Ancient Egyptian civilization that had avoided the outside world for centuries still survived. It was during that journey that the Emersons brought back Nefret Forth to live with them in England. A messenger from the Lost Oasis now appears at their home in Kent, pleading for help for their friend, King Tarek, and they have no choice but to go to his aid, though they mistrust the young man who claims to be Tarek's younger half-brother.This time it is Ramses who experiences the feeling of foreboding that normally assails Amelia, as they head off to the Sudan and into the desert to help their friend. Unlike their first trip, they bring a far larger force, in full awareness that the Lost Oasis will no longer be a secret no matter what the outcome of this expedition. It soon becomes apparent that the Emersons are not the only ones interested in the Lost Oasis. They run into too many people who are interested in their travel plans, and ultimately bring some unexpected guests with them. These include a British adventurer who has in his company a mysterious young woman. The girl unsuccessfully attempts to seduce Ramses, but he remains strangely attracted to her, although he is really in love with Nefret.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Serpent_on_the_Crown" title="The Serpent on the Crown">
In 1922, the Emersons are excavating at Deir el Medina when a melodramatic visitor delivers a challenge—and a solid gold ancient statuette—to them: find out where it came from and why it brings bad luck to its owners. Emerson, of course, doesn't believe in curses, but he does believe someone has robbed a find of historic proportions. When their visitor turns up dead and her stepchildren disappear, everyone except the Emersons believe the murder is a family affair.Ramses, meanwhile, finds a papyrus which "he" suspects to be of historic importance, and an assistant who is not all he seems.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_the_Golden_Bird" title="Tomb of the Golden Bird">
Howard Carter returns as a featured character, as the Emersons are privy to his discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamon.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine_Did_It" title="The Time Machine Did It">
Frank Burly, a private investigator, gets hired by an 18-year-old kid to beat up another detective. Later, in a cafe, he sees a strange man using what appears to be a time machine. He goes over to the guy, but he refuses to tell Burly anything of what happened. Then, Burly is hired to find a precious artifact stolen from a man named Mandible. Frank Burly begins to suspect Mandalible, who claims he is a multi-millionaire, is merely a crazy person, and that the artifact stolen from him doesn't exist.Burly finds the house of a Professor E. Groggins, which was robbed by Burly's criminal friend Small-Time Charlie. Burly investigates Charlie, and as he digs deeper into the mystery, he gets more threats telling him to back off from the case. Everyone Burly interrogates refuses to tell him about the time machine Burly had found in Groggin's basement-laboratory. Burly is even captured by the criminals of Central City, who drug him and lock him in a cell. He escapes but is lured back in a trap by a beautiful lady named Cola who pretends to be interested in him. Burly is thrown in a prison cell where Groggins and others who have gotten too close to the truth reside.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympos_(novel)" title="Olympos (novel)">
The novel centers on three main character groups; that of the "scholic" Hockenberry, Helen and Greek and Trojan warriors from the "Iliad"; Daeman, Harman, Ada and the other humans of Earth; and the moravecs, specifically Mahnmut the Europan and Orphu of Io. The novel is written in present-tense when centered on Hockenberry's character, but features third-person, past-tense narrative in all other instances. Much like Simmons' Hyperion where the actual events serve as a frame, the three groups of characters' stories are told over the course of the novel and their stories do not begin to converge until the end.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramona_and_Her_Father" title="Ramona and Her Father">
Ramona is in Glenwood School and all is going well until one day her father comes home and announces he has lost his job. The Quimbys must now cope with the breadwinner searching for another job, filling out job applications and collecting unemployment insurance. Mrs. Quimby goes to work full-time, but things are still very tight for the family. Mr. Quimby sinks into depression and Mrs. Quimby tells the children that they must not do anything that would further upset their dad.Ramona wants to help, so she crosses almost everything off her wish list for Christmas. Then she adds one more item – a happy family. But will her wish come true? The Quimbys are also dealing with the family's temperamental car, Beezus' problems with her creative writing class, and Ramona's efforts to get her father to stop smoking. One day when Ramona worries about the family, Mr. Quimby reassures her the Quimbys will always be together and strong, no matter what happens.That Christmas Beezus and Ramona participate in their church's Christmas pageant. Beezus is to be the Virgin Mary and Ramona decides that she and her friends Howie and Davy should be sheep. Unfortunately, her Mother doesn't have time to sew a costume so Ramona has to wear a pair of old pajamas, which she hates. In the end, the sheep steal the show and Ramona and her family share a wonderful night together.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Tebbits" title="Ellen Tebbits">
Third-grader Ellen Tebbits lives with her parents on Tillamook Street in Portland, Oregon. The book opens when Ellen heads to her dance class at the studio run by the mother of a classmate, Otis Spofford, who is always teasing her. When she arrives, she heads to change in a broom closet so the other girls cannot see her terrible secret: Ellen is wearing woolen underwear. After class, she accidentally walks in on a new girl in class, Austine Allen, who's also wearing the dreaded underwear. Soon, the two become best friends. Other chapters in the book deal with Ellen's first-ever time going horseback riding, her efforts to bring a giant beet to school for show-and-tell, and Ellen and Austine's efforts to put up with the obnoxious Otis' antics.During summer vacation, Ellen and Austine decide to dress as twins on their first day back to school. The plan is for their mothers to make identical dresses for them. Austine's mother, however, cannot sew, so her dress doesn't turn out well. As the day goes on Austine begins to amuse herself by tugging on the sash of Ellen's dress. Ellen gets irritated and finally slaps Austine in the lunch line when her sash comes undone. Unfortunately, Austine was innocent; Otis had pulled on her dress. Austine begins spending time with other girls and ignores Ellen, who thinks everyone looks down on her for slapping her best friend.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Casualty" title="The First Casualty">
In June 1917, whilst recovering from shell shock inside a military hospital, beloved war poet and dedicated soldier Viscount Abercrombie is inexplicably shot dead. Meanwhile, Douglas Kingsley, a liberal Inspector for Scotland Yard, has refused national service because he considers the war to be an affront to his highly prized sense of logic. As a result, he's hauled before a judge, branded a coward by those who love him - including his wife Agnes - and thrown into prison, where his fellow inmates routinely assault him, taking revenge for him putting them behind bars in the first place. However, the Home Office gives the disgraced copper a chance for redemption when it abducts him from his cell, fakes his death and orders him to investigate the Viscount's death behind the lines at Flanders.As he begins his reluctant inquiries, encumbered by the presence of his psychopathic minder Captain Shannon, Kingsley discovers that not only was Abercrombie a homosexual, but that he had also become disillusioned with the war and was composing poetry to this effect before his untimely death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_the_Hermit" title="Kermit the Hermit">
One day, when Kermit attempts to gain another unnecessary thing, he is almost buried by a dog, but is saved by a poor boy. Kermit is grateful and wants to thank the boy, but cannot think of a way to do so until he finds a chest of gold. As he stores the gold pieces in his cave, he slowly gives up one thing at a time, until he has all the gold and no more possessions in his cave. With the help of the pelican, Kermit drops coins down the boy's chimney. The boy's family becomes rich and Kermit learns the value of sharing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1901_(novel)" title="1901 (novel)">
In 1901, the United States is still basking in its victory in the Spanish–American War only three years earlier. However, the US Army is small, and its only large forces occupying the newly-won possessions of the Philippines and Cuba.German Kaiser Wilhelm II, tries to purchase the US acquisitions to compete with the British Empire. After it is refused, Germany declares war on the US and begins to invade it.The Germans land troops on the southern shore of Long Island, New York. They soon take Brooklyn, and Manhattan quickly falls, which soon allows German forces to cross into Connecticut.US President William McKinley is overwhelmed, suffers a heart attack, and dies, which results in US Vice President Theodore Roosevelt becoming the new president. Roosevelt begins to retrieve the situation by recalling several generals and giving their command to former comrades from Cuba, including Generals Leonard Wood, John Pershing, and Frederick Funston. However, the first major battle against the Germans is lost, and the scattered US Atlantic Fleet is also unable to respond.The United Kingdom quietly furnishes the poorly-equipped Americans with modern firearms and ammunition.The Americans slowly recover from the initial shock. At sea, the USS "Alabama" encounters and sinks three German cruisers that are bombarding Jacksonville, Florida. Meanwhile, in Connecticut, an American brigade, led by Funston, ambushes a German patrol and inflicts heavy casualties. The victories lift American morale, but the war soon turns into a stalemate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Akhenaten_Adventure" title="The Akhenaten Adventure">
John and Philippa Gaunt are two young children who live an upper class life in New York City, New York. Their uncle Nimrod appears to them in a dream and tells them about their magical powers as djinn. They are then sent to spend the summer with him, where he teaches them how to use their powers.Nimrod, John, and Philippa encounter various adventures while trying to discover where the Seventy Lost Djinn of Akhenaten are hidden. After travelling around the world looking for clues, the book concludes with a battle in the British Museum, where the children must free their uncle by taking a trip to the North Pole. They learn many different life lessons on their spectacular trip.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Night_Kitchen" title="In the Night Kitchen">
The main character is a young boy named Mickey who, while sleeping in his bed, is disturbed by noise on a lower floor. Suddenly, he begins to float, and loses all of his clothes as he drifts into a surreal world called the "Night Kitchen".He falls naked into a giant mixing pot that contains the batter for the "morning cake". While Mickey is buried in the mass, three identical bakers (who closely resemble Oliver Hardy) mix the batter and prepare it for baking, unaware (or unconcerned) that there is a little boy inside. Just before the baking pan is placed into the oven, the boy emerges from the pan, protesting that he is not the batter's milk.To make up for the baking ingredient deficiency, Mickey (now wearing a body suit of batter from the neck down) constructs an airplane out of bread dough so he can use the measuring cup as a hat and fly to the mouth of a gigantic milk bottle. Upon reaching the bottle's opening, he dives in and briefly revels in the liquid. After his covering of batter disintegrates, making him naked again, he pours the needed milk in a cascade down to the bakers who joyfully finish making their morning cake.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conqueror_Worms" title="The Conqueror Worms">
Teddy Garnett, an older man and war veteran, tells this story of a global flood that has left humanity in tatters. Holed up in his mountain home in West Virginia, Teddy and his buddy, Carl Seaton, struggle through daily life, puzzling over things even stranger than a 40-day rainstorm, including the giant slime-coated holes that keep showing up in Teddy's yard and the giant worm-like creature that ate a robin outside of Teddy's window. Meanwhile, Teddy is reeling over the loss of his wife Rose and the mysterious fate of his children and grandchildren. Before long, Teddy and Carl are fending off man-eating earthworms the size of buses. A helicopter crash nearby brings Kevin and Sarah, the last two survivors of an outpost in Baltimore, into Teddy's story; their tale makes up the bizarre second part of the book that explores the insanity doom can inspire. Kevin serves as the narrator for this tale and he tells about how he and a group of survivors faced off against all kinds of terror in Baltimore, including Satanists who make sacrifices to a mysterious beast known as Leviathan. It all leads to a showdown back at Teddy's house with a creature so monstrous it scares even the killer earthworms. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aelita_(novel)" title="Aelita (novel)">
The story begins in the Soviet Union, just after the end of the Russian Civil War. An engineer Mstislav Sergeyevich Los', designs and constructs a revolutionary pulse detonation rocket and decides to set course for Mars. Looking for a companion for the travel, he finally leaves Earth with a retired soldier, Alexei Gusev.Arriving on Mars, they discover that the planet is inhabited by an advanced civilization. However, the gap between the ruling class and the workers is very strong and reminiscent of early capitalism, with workers living in underground corridors near their machines.Later in the novel, it is explained that Martians are descendants of both local races and of Atlanteans who came there after the sinking of their home continent (here Tolstoy was inspired by Helena Blavatsky's books). Mars is now ruled by Engineers but all is not well. While speaking before an assembly, their leader, Toscoob, says that the city must be destroyed to ease the fall of Mars. Aelita, Toscoob's beautiful daughter and the princess of Mars, later reveals to Los' that the planet is dying, that the polar ice caps are not melting as they once did and the planet is facing an environmental catastrophe.While the adventurous Gusev takes the lead of a popular uprising against the ruler, the more intellectual Los' becomes enamored with Aelita. When the rebellion is crushed, Gusev and Los' are forced to flee Mars and eventually make it back to Earth. The trip is prolonged with the effects of high speed and time dilation resulting in a loss of over three years. The exact fate of Aelita herself is unknown. It is hinted that she actually survived, since Los' receives radio messages from Mars mentioning his name.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizardborn" title="Wizardborn">
"Wizardborn" is an epic fantasy novel set in a land where men can bestow to each other a number of endowments, granting the recipient of the endowment attributes such as increased strength, a more acute sense of hearing, or better eyesight. The novel combines traditional sword and sorcery elements of fantasy with its own unique magic system of endowments.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lair_of_Bones" title="The Lair of Bones">
"The Lair of Bones" is an epic fantasy novel set in a land where people can bestow to each other a number of endowments, granting the recipient of the endowment attributes such as increased strength, a more acute sense of hearing, or better eyesight. The novel combines traditional sword and sorcery elements of fantasy with its own unique magic system of endowments.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Message_in_the_Hollow_Oak" title="The Message in the Hollow Oak">
Nancy Drew finds out that she has won a rather unusual prize in a contest, a piece of land in Canada. She takes a trip, her first outside of the United States, to see what her new property looks like.As she is traveling by train to Canada, she meets an author named Ann Chapelle. Suddenly, the train crashes, and everything is thrown into confusion. Nancy and her two friends, Bess Marvin and George Fayne, are uninjured, but Chapelle is taken to a nearby hospital, gravely injured. When Nancy and her friends find her, Miss Chapelle tells Nancy the reason she was going to Canada, and asks a favor of her—to give a message to Miss Chapelle's grandfather, and to a lost love whom she hasn't seen since she ran away from home some years ago.Along with this request, Nancy also has another problem: Two men have heard that there might be gold on Nancy's land, and are determined to get there first.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Imperfection" title="Perfect Imperfection">
A 21st-century astronaut, Adam Zamoyski, is recovering after an accident. At first, he thinks that he is recovering from a plane crash, and any bizarre things he perceives are hallucinations due to his convalescence. He soon finds out that to prevent him from suffering a culture shock—or perhaps what would be better described as a profound future shock—all information he receives is filtered through an implant, creating a semi-VR world, and in fact he was revived in the 29th century, in a post-technological singularity world. However, his implant becomes damaged, and he finds himself in a world where normal "Homo sapiens" are just relics. Most of the individuals he meets are artificial intelligence agents, scarcity has been eliminated through nanotechnology, virtual reality is merged with 'reality', the currency is exotic matter used in spacetime experiments—and suddenly Adam is caught in the web of a trans-galactic intrigue spin-doctored by beings vastly more intelligent than an unaugmented human. What is the secret that he presumably learned before his spaceship was destroyed back in the 21st century? The secret that he cannot remember, and that the science of the 29th century cannot restore, despite having resurrected him? And in a world where whole universes are dedicated to the sole purpose of serving as the weapon laboratories for the arms race between multiversal civilizations, can a normal human become anything more than a toy of inconceivably intelligent beings?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Among_the_Brave" title="Among the Brave">
The fifth book starts off directly where the last book had ended, from the point of view of Trey, Luke's friend from Hendricks' School for Boys. After Luke Garner (Lee Grant) leaves Smits Grant, the younger brother of the real Lee Grant, in the care of his real parents, Luke's friend Trey finds himself at Mr. Talbot's front door preparing to explain all the recent events.The car containing Trey's friends, Nina, Joel, and John takes off without Trey. The house is raided soon afterward and thanks to luck and his own vast knowledge from reading during his years in hiding, Trey manages to dive to safety behind a flowerpot. A member of the Population Police, who searches the porch, says "liber" (Latin for free). Trey's knowledge of Latin saves his life, as the raider reports that the porch is clear. After the raid, Trey sneaks into the house and encounters a hostile but stunning woman with bright red hair; she is none other than Mrs. Talbot. Together, they discover from a private news network that the government has been overthrown and replaced by the powerful Population Police. Defeated, Mrs. Talbot abandons the house and leaves Trey to fend for himself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moor_(novel)" title="The Moor (novel)">
The book opens with Mary Russell receiving a telegram to come immediately to Devon and to bring her compass. Initially Mary is reluctant to abandon her academic studies in Oxford to assist Sherlock, but she finally complies. This tug and pull of the two individuals in their own professional lives erupts throughout the book to show each person's independence, yet reliance on each other. Sherlock has been called in to solve a murder on Dartmoor. For Sherlock, it's familiar territory; it's where he solved the case of The Hound of the Baskervilles. This time round there are tales of a ghostly hound out on the moors accompanying an equally ghostly carriage. And naturally, the story is populated with sinister local characters. The moor is central to the story, brooding over it as the moor broods over the surrounding landscape. It also has Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould as a central character. He has a strong intellectual curiosity and is the driving force behind the investigation.Laurie King uses many of the elements of The Hound of the Baskervilles. These elements are introduced deliberately on the part of the criminals and there are echoes of the original story. The way that Holmes reacts to the many mentions of the original case, with a mixture of pride and exasperation, allows for some very humorous moments.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumper_(novel)" title="Jumper (novel)">
One evening, while being physically abused by his father, David "Davy" Rice unexpectedly teleports (or "jumps") and finds himself in the local library, the Stanville Library. This is a place that Davy is familiar with and spends a lot of time in, which is why he was able to easily teleport there. The origin of this power is never explained, but he ends up using this power continually throughout the novel. Vowing never to return to his father's house, Davy makes his way to New York City. After being mugged and discovering that he can't get a job without a birth certificate and/or social security number, Davy robs a local bank by teleporting inside the safe, stealing nearly a million dollars. He then begins a life of reading, attending plays, and dining in fancy restaurants.At a play, he meets a 21-year-old woman named Millie Harrison, and they spend some time touring New York before she returns to college in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Davy later visits her in Oklahoma, and they attend a party, where he accidentally runs into Millie's ex-boyfriend, Mark, who tries to fight him, forcing David to jump Mark away, unnoticed. Feeling bad for Davy, Millie invites him to stay the night at her place. The two officially start a romantic relationship and make love. Millie and Davy continue to see each other and begin to fall in love. Davy also manages to locate and reunite with his long-lost mother, Mary Niles. Mary left the family after being severely beaten by David's father, and all her attempts to contact David over the years were intercepted by his father.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rant_(novel)" title="Rant (novel)">
Buster Casey is born in the rural town of Middleton with the senses of smell and taste far more advanced than other humans. He acquires the nickname Rant from a childhood prank involving animal organs which results in numerous people becoming ill. The sound of the victims vomiting resembles the word "rant", which becomes a local synonym for vomit and therefore Buster's nickname.As a child, Rant discovers a massive wealth that turns the small town's economy on its head. He becomes obsessed with getting bitten by rabid animals along with venomous snakes and spiders. After his first bite from a black widow spider, Rant discovers that toxic spider bites cause him to get an erection. He uses this effect to leave school and eventually threatens his way to an early diploma and a rather large check that he uses to leave town. When Rant arrives in the city, it becomes clear to the reader that the novel takes place in a dystopian future, where urban dwellers are forcefully divided by curfew into two separate classes: the respectable Daytimers and the oppressed Nighttimers.Rant becomes a Nighttimer and finds himself swept up in the Nighttimer lifestyle that revolves around "Party Crashing", a covert demolition derby played out on city streets at night. The game is organized by an unknown entity and is set during a designated window of time. The object of the game is to crash, not too forcefully, into other players who sport a certain "flag", such as a Christmas tree on their car's roof or the words "Just Married" scrawled on their vehicle's rear windshield. Rant meets Echo Lawrence, a fellow Crasher. She and Rant fall in love. Rant starts a nationwide rabies epidemic that eventually erupts into zombie-invasion-like proportions that calls for those infected with rabies to be shot and killed on sight.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_and_Answer_(novel)" title="Question and Answer (novel)">
John Lorenzen is an astronomer from Lunopolis who is recruited by the Lagrange Institute for the second expedition to Troas. At this time, Earth is still recovering from a two-century-long era of war and chaos that began with the Soviet conquest of North America in World War III and ended with the unification of the Solar System at the conclusion of a war between Mars and Venus. Twenty-two years after the discovery of a faster-than-light drive, Troas is the only Earthlike world to be discovered, and enthusiasm for interstellar travel is waning. If Troas is not opened to colonization, humanity may give up interstellar travel altogether.The effort to mount a second expedition to Troas is plagued with difficulties. The Lagrange Institute is unable to charter a starship and must build its own, the "Henry Hudson". The construction of the "Hudson" is hampered by delays, cost overruns, and at least one act of outright sabotage. The voyage of the "Hudson" to Troas is also troubled, as tension rises among the members of the expedition. Edward Avery, the expedition's psychomed, is unable to maintain group harmony aboard the ship, and at least one fight breaks out.Upon arrival at Troas, the crew of the "Hudson" find no trace of the first expedition. After it is determined that there are no harmful microorganisms on Troas, a base camp is established on the planet. Eighteen days later, a group of aliens appears. Avery is assigned to learn the aliens' language, and he reports that it is extremely difficult to understand. He is eventually able to determine that the aliens are called the Rorvan, and that they are native to Troas. This is bad news for the expedition, since planets with native intelligent species are off limits to colonization. The Rorvan invite a small group of humans, including Avery and Lorenzen, to accompany them to their settlement.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Among_the_Free" title="Among the Free">
Luke Garner is an illegal third child along with Trey, Nina, Matthias, Percy, and Alia. He has been working from within the Population Police at the stables in hopes of slowly overthrowing them and bringing about freedom. When he is chosen to accompany a sergeant on a mission to distribute new identification cards to citizens, Luke unknowingly brings about the catalyst of change when he refuses to shoot a defiant old woman and runs away, leaving his sergeant in the hands of a group of angry villagers who despise the Population Police.After several days of surviving alone, haunted by the memory of his friend Jen Talbot, run-ins with a selfish stable boy who was with Luke and his sergeant at the time of the incident, and attempting to avoid the Population Police at all costs, Luke finds his way to another village filled with starving people. They save Luke from being executed by the Population Police when they arrive; one man in particular named Eli reveals that the village no longer cares about their own lives and will do anything to help those in need like Luke. In the past, Eli and other villagers willingly betrayed a family with a third child in order to obtain food for their own families. The villagers realize their wrongs much too late and found many of their family members taken away by the Population Police with nothing in return.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Stroke_of_Midnight" title="A Stroke of Midnight">
A faerie princess turned private investigator in a world where faeries are not only known to the general public, but are also fashionable, the title heroine is Princess Meredith NicEssus, also known as Merry Gentry. As niece to Andais, The Queen of Air and Darkness, she is a royal of the Unseelie Court. While her aunt tried to kill her as a child, she has since offered her the title as crown princess as the Court needs more heirs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Caress_of_Twilight" title="A Caress of Twilight">
A faerie princess turned private investigator in a world where faeries are not only known to the general public, but are also fashionable, the title heroine is Princess Meredith NicEssus, also known as Merry Gentry. As niece to Andais, The Queen of Air and Darkness, she is a royal of the Unseelie Court. While her aunt tried to kill her as a child, she has since offered her the title as crown princess as the Court needs more heirs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Kiss_of_Shadows" title="A Kiss of Shadows">
A faerie princess turned private investigator in a world where faeries are not only known to the general public, but are also popular, the heroine is Princess Meredith NicEssus. As niece to Andais, The Queen of Air and Darkness, she is a royal of the Unseelie Court, however having fled the court three years before she has been hiding herself under the name of Merry Gentry and working as a private investigator for the "Grey Detective Agency".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistral's_Kiss" title="Mistral's Kiss">
The series has revolved around a conflict between title character, faerie princess Meredith NicEssus, and her cousin, Cel. Cel's mother, Queen Andais, has promised that the first of the two cousins to produce a child will become ruler of the Unseelie Court. "Mistral's Kiss" continues to follow Meredith's attempts to bear a child and to avoid Cel's various schemes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_Planet" title="Monster Planet">
"Monster Planet" takes place twelve years after the events in "Monster Island". Sarah, Dekalb's now 20-year-old daughter, fights alongside Ayaan and her squad of female Somali warriors to defend their last remaining settlements from the encroaching undead forces. Meanwhile, a powerful lich from Russia who calls himself "The Tsarevich" leads his army west on an unknown expedition.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear_the_Wind_Sing" title="Hear the Wind Sing">
Feeling writing as a terribly painful task, the narrator re-tells the story of his 1970 summer. He was a student at a university in Tokyo then, and returned to his seaside hometown in Kobe for summer vacation. That spring, a girl he dated at the university committed suicide. During the summer vacation, he frequented J's bar with his friend "Rat" and spent much time drinking beer obsessively. One day, he came across a girl lying on the floor in the washroom of the bar and carried her home. The girl had no left little finger. Later, he ran into the girl by chance in the record store where she worked. After that, she started calling him and they hung out a few times. Meanwhile, Rat was clearly troubled about some woman but he did not disclose the details. One day, the girl without a little finger met the narrator at a restaurant near the harbor. They took a walk in the dusk along the warehouse street. She told him, "When I sit there alone, I can hear a lot of people coming to talk to me..." That night, at her apartment, she revealed she just had an abortion. When he came back in the winter, the girl had left the record store and her apartment. The narrator is married now and living in Tokyo. Rat is still writing novels and sends his manuscripts to the narrator every Christmas.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Train_Your_Dragon_(novel_series)" title="How to Train Your Dragon (novel series)">
## "How to Train Your Dragon" (2003).The first book in the series follows Hiccup as he captures a dragon as a rite of passage and attempts to train him so that he will not be exiled from Berk, as is its tradition for young Viking boys on this island. Led by their teacher, Gobber the Belch, Hiccup manages to catch a small dragon, whom he names Toothless, and attempts to train it through his own methods. The Viking students are told to read a book called 'How to Train Your Dragon' by Professor Yobbish, but the book was found to have only one page and was therefore unhelpful. The Viking students must have their dragons trained before the Thor'sday Thursday Celebration in order to become proper Vikings. During this celebration, Toothless offends another dragon and a fight ensues between all the dragons. As this is seen as failure to train the dragons correctly, the boys are exiled, allowed to stay one night while a storm rages. During the storm, three Sea Dragons are washed up on the shore of the island and one seems a threat to the Vikings. Hiccup is chosen to negotiate with the dragon, who has eaten one of the other dragons. However, the dragon, who calls himself the Green Death, says he is going to kill all the Vikings. While the village elders argue over how to attack the Green Death, Hiccup, the boys and their dragons start a fight between the Green Death and the other sea dragon, the Purple Death, resulting in Hiccup nearly being swallowed and having to be rescued by Toothless, killing both sea dragons in the process. Hiccup and Toothless become heroes because of their bravery.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplicius_Simplicissimus" title="Simplicius Simplicissimus">
The novel is told from the perspective of its protagonist Simplicius, a rogue or picaro typical of the picaresque novel, as he traverses the tumultuous world of the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War. Raised by a peasant family, he is separated from his home by foraging dragoons and is adopted by a hermit living in the forest, who teaches him to read and introduces him to religion. The hermit also gives Simplicius his name because he was so simple that he did not know what his own name was. After the death of the hermit, Simplicius must fend for himself. He is conscripted at a young age into service, and from there embarks on years of foraging, military triumph, wealth, prostitution, disease, bourgeois domestic life, and travels to Russia, France, and to an alternate world inhabited by mermen. The novel ends with Simplicius turning to a life of hermitage himself, denouncing the world as corrupt.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Cousin_Rachel" title="My Cousin Rachel">
Ambrose Ashley is the owner of a large country estate on the Cornish coast and has been guardian to his orphaned cousin Philip since Philip was three years old. On Sundays, Philip's godfather Nick Kendall and his daughter Louise come to lunch with them, as do the Reverend Mr Pascoe and his family. Life is good apart from a few health problems that require Ambrose to spend the winter in warmer climates. As the damp weather approaches, he sets off for his third winter abroad and chooses Italy.By the time he has reached his 20s, Philip misses Ambrose on his sojourns in Italy but regularly receives letters from him. Ambrose writes that he has met a cousin of theirs called Rachel — the widowed Contessa Sangalletti — in Florence. In the spring, Ambrose says that he and Rachel are married and have no immediate plans to return to Cornwall. Gradually, the tone of Ambrose's correspondence changes. He complains of the sun, the stuffy atmosphere of the Villa Sangalletti, and terrible headaches. In a letter that reaches Philip in July, Ambrose says that a friend of Rachel named Rainaldi has recommended that Ambrose see a different doctor. Ambrose says he can trust no one and claims that Rachel watches him constantly.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Dave" title="The Book of Dave">
## Setting.The island in the novel is inspired by the hilltop town of Hampstead in London and its famous parkland Hampstead Heath. In the book, Self describes a future England which has been inundated with rising seas, leaving Hampstead as the only remaining part of London. The inhabitants of this area, unaware that the drowned city of London is so close by, know their island as Ham. The geography of the island, illustrated in a map at the start of the book, bears close resemblance to the modern areas of Hampstead which inspired it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_(novel)" title="Out (novel)">
The novel tells the tales of four women, working the graveyard shift at a Japanese bento factory. All four women live hard lives. Masako, the leader of the four women, feels completely alienated from her estranged husband and teenage son. Kuniko, a plump and rather vain girl, has recently been ditched by her boyfriend after the couple were driven into debt, leaving Kuniko to fend off a loan shark. Yoshie is a single mother and reluctant caretaker of her mother-in-law, who was left partly paralyzed after a stroke. Yayoi is a thirty-four-year-old mother of two small boys who she is forced to leave home alone, where they are abused by their drunken, gambling father, Kenji.When Yayoi returns home one night, Kenji tells her that he has gambled all their savings away in a baccarat game. Yayoi becomes upset and questions Kenji about Anna, a hostess of the club where Kenji gambles, with whom she suspects he's having an affair. Earlier that night the club owner, Satake, ordered Kenji to stop stalking Anna. Kenji became belligerent and started assailing Satake, forcing him to kick Kenji down some stairs in the club. Nonetheless, Kenji, furious after Yayoi mentions Anna, begins hitting her. Yayoi snaps and strangles Kenji to death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gift_of_Asher_Lev" title="The Gift of Asher Lev">
The brilliant, schismatic Hasidic painter Asher Lev is now a middle-aged man, residing with his wife and children in the south of France. When his beloved Uncle Yitzchok dies, Asher is abruptly summoned back to Brooklyn. Soon after the funeral, he learns that his uncle had secretly been collecting art for many years and has amassed a valuable collection, of which Asher is to be the trustee. Asher is dazzled and makes some tentative efforts to reconcile the Ladover Hasidic community to modern art—for example, by sketching a portrait of his uncle for his grieving father and by teaching a lesson in art appreciation at the school where his daughter has temporarily enrolled. But one of his cousins bitterly resents the art collection and hampers Asher's efforts to use it for charity in his uncle's name.Meanwhile, Asher's parents and the rest of the Ladover community worry because the aging Ladover Rebbe has no children and has appointed no successor. What will happen to the Ladover community if the Rebbe dies before the Messiah comes? The logical candidate for next Rebbe would be Asher's father, Aryeh Lev, who has been one of the Rebbe's chief lieutenants for decades, but Asher realizes that the Rebbe is reluctant to pass the mantle of authority to Aryeh unless Aryeh has a successor—who cannot be Aryeh's only child, the iconoclast painter. Slowly, Asher realizes that the Rebbe and Aryeh both hope that Asher's five-year-old son, Avrumel, will become the ultimate successor to the Rebbeship. It is Avrumel who will be "the gift of Asher Lev."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_in_Las_Vegas" title="Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas">
The basic synopsis revolves around journalist Raoul Duke (Hunter S. Thompson) and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo (Oscar Zeta Acosta), as they arrive in Las Vegas in 1971 to report on the Mint 400 motorcycle race for an unnamed magazine. However, this job is repeatedly obstructed by their constant use of a variety of recreational drugs, including LSD, ether, cocaine, alcohol, mescaline, adrenochrome, and cannabis. This leads to a series of bizarre hallucinogenic experiences, during which they destroy hotel rooms, wreck cars, and have visions of anthropomorphic desert animals, all the while ruminating on the decline of both the "American Dream" and the '60s counterculture in a city of greed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davita's_Harp" title="Davita's Harp">
In New York City of the 1930s, Ilana Davita Chandal is the child of a mixed marriage: a Polish Jewish immigrant mother and a Christian father from an old and wealthy New England family. Both of her parents are haunted by bitter and violent memories from their youths, and both have, in consequence, turned their backs on their pasts in order to become active members of the Communist Party. Ilana's early childhood is fraught with mystery and struggle as the neighbors eye the Chandal family with suspicion. When Michael Chandal, already wounded once in the Spanish Civil War, returns to Spain, Ilana begins to look for answers at the local synagogue and in friendship with observant Jews, including her neighbor Ruthie Helfman and her distant cousin, David Dinn. Michael Chandal is killed in Spain, at Guernica, and Ilana and her mother both struggle to cope with their grief. They are often at odds with each other as Ilana becomes more and more interested in traditional Judaism—even asserting her right to say "kaddish" for her non-Jewish father—while Anne Chandal devotes herself to the Party and becomes involved in a new relationship with a young Communist historian, Charles Carter. When Stalin signs a non-aggression pact with Hitler, Anne struggles with reconciling the communist cause with the geopolitical reality and leaves the Party. Soon after Carter breaks off their engagement. Ultimately Anne returns—though not with her daughter's fervor—to religious observance and marries her cousin Ezra Dinn, whom she had rejected many years before. Ilana becomes a star student at her Jewish day school. She is devastated when she is unjustly denied an academic award on account of her gender, but she remains determined to make her mark on the world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sculpting_in_Time" title="Sculpting in Time">
The book's main statement about the nature of cinema is summarized in the statement, "The dominant, all-powerful factor of the film image is "rhythm", expressing the course of time within the frame." It contains a great deal of poetry written by the filmmaker's father Arseny Alexandrovich Tarkovsky along with a fair amount of Tarkovsky's personal writings on his life and work, lectures and discussions during making of "Andrei Rublev" with a film history student named Olga Surkova, who later became a professional critic and helped in writing of this book.The book has commentary on each of his 7 major feature films, and his complex relationship with the Soviet Union. The final chapter, a discussion of his film "The Sacrifice", was dictated in the last weeks of his life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon_(novel)" title="Weapon (novel)">
The novel describes a new weapon system being developed for the US military, named Solo. A robot, Solo is designed to replace human soldiers in battle. It is humanoid in shape, in order to allow it to use all the military vehicles and equipment human soldiers do. Solo is capable of feats of great speed, strength and endurance.Most importantly, Solo is governed by a neural network computer which is able to learn and think much as a human brain does. The robot's designer recognises that this could potentially make Solo as unpredictable and difficult to control as any human is; the military therefore insist that Solo be told a carefully edited version of world history and politics in which the United States are in all cases the unambiguously "good guys" and winners of all conflicts - for example Solo is told that the US won a clear victory in the Vietnam War.Despite his indoctrination, Solo begins to display what his designers consider aberrant behaviour. He begins to question and occasionally refuse his orders. For example, on one training session Solo is assigned to shoot a human target in a sniper mission. He is told that the mission and target are real, and that he is to genuinely kill the person. He point blank refuses to do so. More worryingly to his designers, Solo is not entirely forthcoming about his reasons for such hesitancy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4th_of_July_(novel)" title="4th of July (novel)">
Police lieutenant Lindsay Boxer takes leave from the force after being sued for wrongful death after a recent shootout. She stays at her sister’s house in Half Moon Bay, and reads about murders that resemble one that haunted her for 10 years. She joins with the local police to solve the murders, while dreading her awaiting trial.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_of_the_Hangman" title="The Year of the Hangman">
Creighton Brown is an adolescent living in Britain in 1777. He often gets into trouble, much to the concern of his mother. One night, after drinking and gambling with his peers, Creighton is kidnapped by a group of men and taken aboard a boat. He cries out for help, but is struck in the face, and passes out.Upon waking up, Creighton finds that the ship is already on the open ocean and heading for the Colonies. He is also informed that his mother is behind his kidnapping, having sent a letter to his uncle, requesting that Creighton be raised in the Colonies under his guidance so that he may become a better person.The ship lands in Charles Town, where the crew meets Creighton’s Uncle, Colonel Gower. He is not in his office, and they find the Colonel at the guard post, watching a soldier being whipped. When asked what the man was being punished for, Gower reveals that a copy of the "Liberty Tree", a patriotic American newspaper run by the Sons of Liberty, was found in his possession. He also informs Creighton that he has a new post in Florida, and the ship departs again after a few days. While traveling, the ship is attacked by American rebels, led by Benedict Arnold. The rebels capture Gower, planning to use him as leverage in a prisoner exchange for captured American officers. Creighton pretends to be an indentured to avoid being ransomed, earning the sympathy and friendship of Peter, a private in the rebel army. In Creighton’s final exchange with his uncle, he is instructed to spy on the Americans for information. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qijian_Xia_Tianshan" title="Qijian Xia Tianshan">
The prologue serves as a continuation of Yang Yuncong and Nalan Minghui's love story in "Saiwai Qixia Zhuan", which is set in the 17th century during the early Qing dynasty. Nalan has been forced to marry the Manchu prince Dodo even though she loves Yang and has given birth to their daughter. Yang shows up on the night before Nalan's wedding and seizes their infant daughter from her. After he is mortally wounded in a fight against Prince Dodo's henchmen, he entrusts his daughter to Mulang, a youth who was attempting suicide after being mistakenly accused of betraying his friends. Mulang brings Yang's daughter back to Yang's master, Reverend Huiming, on Mount Heaven.Mulang spends 18 years training under Reverend Huiming's tutelage and becomes a formidable swordsman. He returns to the "jianghu" (martial artists' community) under the alias "Ling Weifeng" and performs several heroic deeds. Yang Yuncong's daughter, Yilan Zhu, has mastered the Mount Heaven Swordplay, and she swears to kill Prince Dodo and avenge her father. On Mount Wutai, members of the anti-Qing secret society Heaven and Earth Society and some Southern Ming rebels attempt to assassinate Prince Dodo, but their plans are interrupted by Yilan Zhu's untimely appearance. During the ensuing chaos, Yilan Zhu unintentionally causes Zhang Huazhao, one of the rebels, to be captured by Qing soldiers. Later, She breaks into Prince Dodo's residence to rescue him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubrovsky_(novel)" title="Dubrovsky (novel)">
Andrei Dubrovsky is an old poor nobleman whose land is confiscated by a greedy, rich and powerful aristocrat, Kirila Petrovitch Troekurov. His young son Wladimir, determined to venge his father and to get justice one way or another, gathers a band of serfs and goes on the rampage, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Along the way, Wladimir Dubrovsky falls in love with Masha, Troekurov's daughter, and lets his guard down, with tragic results.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baron_in_the_Trees" title="The Baron in the Trees">
Set in an imaginary village on the Ligurian Riviera, Ombrosa represents the author's vision as a central theme, little inclined to judgments and dull opinions.The novel is narrated by Biagio, the younger brother of the protagonist, and is the story of a young baron, Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò, firstborn of a noble family sadly behind the times. The main story begins with a dispute on June 15, 1767 in the villa of Ombrosa, between an adolescent Cosimo and his father, after which Cosimo, who had quarreled with his father because he had refused to eat a snail soup, climbs the trees of the home garden and promises never to come down again in his entire life.After the quarrel, Cosimo's life takes place in the trees; first in the family garden and then in the surrounding woods. Cosimo's life is full of adventures, from friendships with fruit thieves and bandits to days spent hunting or reading. In the life of the baron there is no lack of amorous encounters either. Cosimo's fame spreads quickly. At first, he becomes famous as a freak show and his family is almost ashamed of him, but later he also finds a way to win the respect of the Ombrosa community. The return of Viola, his first love, triggers a mutual feeling, always existent, which sadly ends due to a series of misunderstandings. The love between the two is strong, even if the relationship is filled with furious quarrels. Its end comes about in an unusual way: aged and sick, feeling the onset of death, Cosimo climbs to the top of a large walnut tree and hangs himself on a passing balloon. Thus, without betraying his promise to never set foot on the earth again, he disappears into the sky, without even giving the earth his remains.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gather_Yourselves_Together" title="Gather Yourselves Together">
After the final victory of Mao Zedong's Chinese Communists in 1949, an American company prepares to abandon their Chinese operations, leaving three people behind to oversee transitional affairs - Carl Fitter, Verne Tildon, and Barbara Mahler. Verne and Barbara were previously involved with each other back in the United States, in 1945, when she lost her virginity to him. They have sex again, but Barbara has matured, and becomes more interested in Carl, who is younger than she is. Carl is more interested in reading his handwritten volume of personal philosophy to her, but Barbara does succeed in seducing him, shortly before the arrival of the Chinese.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Professor's_House" title="The Professor's House">
When Professor Godfrey St. Peter and wife move to a new house, he becomes uncomfortable with the route his life is taking. He keeps on his dusty study in the old house in an attempt to hang on to his old life. The marriages of his two daughters have removed them from the home and added two new sons-in-law, precipitating a mid-life crisis that leaves the Professor feeling as though he has lost the will to live because he has nothing to look forward to.The novel initially addresses the Professor's interactions with his new sons-in-law and his family, while continually alluding to the pain they all feel over the death of Tom Outland in the Great War. Outland was not only the Professor's student and friend, but the fiancé of his elder daughter, who is now living off the wealth created by the "Outland vacuum."The novel's central section turns to Outland, and recounts in first-person the story of his exploration of an ancient cliff city in New Mexico. The section is a retrospective narrative remembered by the professor.In the final section, the professor, left alone while his family takes an expensive European tour, narrowly escapes death due to a gas leak in his study; and finds himself strangely willing to die. He is rescued by the old family seamstress, Augusta, who has been his staunch friend throughout. He resolves to go on with his life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_and_the_Giant" title="Mary and the Giant">
In 1953, Joseph Schilling arrives in Pacific Park, Southern California. He establishes a small music shop, and later, Danny and Beth Coombes join him. Mary Anne Reynolds is also interviewed for a position at the shop, but backs off after Schilling touches her. After leaving home, Carleton Tweaney, an African-American lounge singer (and her lover) finds her a new home. However, Beth has already slept with Joseph, and now moves on to Carleton. Provoked by her affair, Danny tries to shoot Carleton, but instead dies himself. Carleton and Mary Anne break up, and she decides to work for Schilling after all, as well as becoming sexually involved with him, despite a forty-year age difference. He helps her to rent and renovate her own apartment, but Mary Anne decides to live in a dilapidated African American neighbourhood instead. In an epilogue, she has married Paul Nitz, a pianist who works with Carleton.The author himself once described the novel as: "A retelling of Mozart's Don Giovanni, with Schilling seduced and destroyed by a young woman."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Time_for_George_Stavros" title="A Time for George Stavros">
According to Lawrence Sutin's book, "Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick", (1989) the plot survives only as an index card synopsis from the publisher dated 24 October 1956, after the manuscript had already been rejected one time. The reader's comments on the rewrite as follows:In a letter from 1960, the author himself commented on the title character in an unexpectedly optimistic fashion:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well_at_the_World's_End" title="The Well at the World's End">
Using language with elements of the medieval tales which were his models, Morris tells the story of Ralph, the youngest son of King Peter of Upmeads. Their kingdom being rather humble, Ralph and his three elder brothers are bored of the provincial life, so one day they request permission from their father to explore the world. The king allows the three eldest sons to depart, but bids Ralph to stay to ensure at least one living heir. Ralph, desperate for adventure and against his father's will, sneaks away.Ralph's explorations begin at Bourton Abbas, after which he goes through the Wood Perilous. He has various adventures there, including the slaying of two men who had entrapped a woman. That woman later turns out to be the Lady of Abundance, who later becomes his lover for a short time.In one episode Ralph is staying at a castle and inquires about the Lady of the castle (the so-called Lady of Abundance), whom he has not yet seen. Descriptions of her youth and beauty suggest to him that she has drunk from the well at the world's end. "And now in his heart waxed the desire of that Lady, once seen, as he deemed, in such strange wise; but he wondered within himself if the devil had not sown that longing within him ..." A short time later, while still at the castle, Ralph contemplates images of the Lady and "was filled with the sweetness of desire when he looked on them." Then he reads a book containing information about her, and his desire to meet the Lady of Abundance flames higher. When he goes to bed, he sleeps "for the very weariness of his longing." He fears leaving the castle because she might come while he is gone. Eventually he leaves the castle and meets the Lady of Abundance, who turns out to be the same lady he had rescued some weeks earlier from two men.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Broken_Bubble" title="The Broken Bubble">
The lives of two couples intertwine in mid-1950s California, and all learn important lessons about life. Jim Briskin is a classical music DJ. He and his ex-wife Patricia Gray are still very much in love but have divorced because he is sterile. The two divorcees meet a teenaged married couple named Art and Rachael and essentially swap partners.Pat passionately loves the youthful but dysfunctional Art, almost as though he were her child, and the two of them have an abusive relationship in which he gives her a black eye. Meanwhile, Jim and Rachael hook up and Rachael offers to ditch Art and move to Mexico with Jim where he will adopt her baby and raise it as his own. In the end, however, maturity prevails and they all return to their original partners.Miss Thisbe Holt of the original title is actually a very minor character in the book. She is a well-endowed stripper who performs at an optometrists convention which occurs near the very end of the novel. Her act consists of climbing naked into a large clear plastic ball which the optometrists then roll around the hotel suite to more thoroughly examine her ample personal assets. The ball is demolished when it's later filled with debris and pushed off the hotel roof by the inebriated optometrists.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Octagonal_Raven" title="The Octagonal Raven">
"The Octagonal Raven" is set in the distant future, where nanites are prevalent throughout society, for those who can afford them. The story follows Daryn Alwyn, the younger son of one of the richest families in the world. He is augmented with nanites, and is a “pre-select,” or someone whose mental and physical abilities were tuned before birth by DNA manipulation. Despite this, he does not go to work for his family, the owners of one of the largest media corporations on the planet. Instead, he chooses to follow his own path, first by going into the military, then by becoming a freelance editorial writer. He lives in isolation, but after surviving an assassination attempt, he is forced to notice the growing cultural strains around him. The pre-selects, due to their abilities and thus money, make up 10% of the population, but control over 95% of the resources of the world, and are using that power to shut out the “norms,” or non-augmented humans.A plague breaks out that only kills augmented humans, a plague much more virulent than a similar one that had swept the world 20 years before. Alwyn discovers that he is immune, however, as the supposed assassination attempt was actually a vaccination against the plague. After his family is killed, by assassination in the case of his sister and the plague for his parents and older brother, he finds out that both plagues were non-human in origin, caused by octagonal nanites, reminiscent of the very ancient octagonal jumpgate that had been found in deep space, rather than the round designs of human nanites and jumpgates. The newest plague, however, was engineered by Eldyn Nahal, the norm who stopped the first plague, as revenge for the power control of the pre-selects. After Nahal is killed, Alwyn takes over his family's company, stopping an attempt by the power elite to merge the largest media corporations, thus controlling all sources of news. He uses the company to expose how these handful of pre-selects are attempting to take control of everything, forever shutting out all norms and those pre-selects who stand against them. The book ends after they are all dead or incarcerated.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puttering_About_in_a_Small_Land" title="Puttering About in a Small Land">
In 1944, Virginia Watson and Roger Lindahl meet in Washington DC. They marry after Roger divorces his first wife Teddy and abandons his daughter by her as well. Their subsequent move to Los Angeles to work in a munitions factory proves extremely profitable. But Roger spends the money far faster than it took them to earn it. By 1953, Roger has opened a television sales and repair shop, while Virginia is trying to enroll their 7-year-old son Gregg in an expensive boarding school in Ojai against Roger's wishes.Liz Bonner, another parent, persuades Roger to agree to Gregg's enrollment by offering to share the perilous and exhausting driving duties involved in transporting their children over the nearby mountains to and from Ojai.There is a particular private exchange between Roger Lindahl and Marion Watson, Virginia's mother, that very graphically depicts Roger's highly immature, volatile and unpredictable nature. The trigger for his outburst is the realization that his hostile mother-in-law (as a favor only to her daughter) plans on providing substantial financial backing for his business.But there is yet another financial interloper afoot. "Chic" or Charles Bonner, Liz's husband, wants to buy into Roger's shop as a partner, but Lindahl declines his offer and promptly begins an affair with a very accommodating Liz. Virginia finds out, though Chic remains unaware, and she hectors Roger into letting her assume legal ownership of the shop with Chic. Unfortunately, however, both marriages have been irreparably damaged. Chic and Liz end up getting divorced. Roger and Virginia remain tenuously married, and a philandering Roger remains in contact with Liz through the private school. The final chapter closes with ever-impulsive Roger dumping Gregg off at home, pilfering a carload of expensive T.V. sets from the store and hightailing it to Chicago.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_and_the_Higs" title="Nicholas and the Higs">
As with several lost Philip K. Dick novels of this period, all we know about it is an index card synopsis in the files of a publisher who rejected the book. According to Lawrence Sutin's book, "Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick", (Published 1989) this card was dated 1/3/58 and said:In a letter dated 1960, Dick himself commented on the theme of the novel:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Vampires" title="The Space Vampires">
In the late twenty-first century, far out in a nearby asteroid belt, a gigantic derelict castle-like alien spacecraft is discovered by the space exploration vehicle "Hermes," commanded by Captain Olof Carlsen. Investigating the spacecraft's interior, the astronauts first discover the desiccated corpses of giant bat-like creatures, then three glass coffins containing three immobilised humanoids—two male and one female—preserved in a state of suspended animation.Returning to Earth with the preserved humanoids, Carlsen discovers the true nature of the beings when one of them kills a young reporter (and the son of a friend of Carlsen) whom Carlsen illicitly allowed to view the body. The woman kills her victim by completely draining his life-force (a quantifiable energy measured by devices called "lambda-field scanners") and when Carlsen attempts to intervene, partially draining him of energy as well. Carlsen survives, but is unable to prevent the woman from escaping from the hospital.Carlsen joins forces with Dr. Hans Fallada, a scientist researching energy vampirism and longevity, to find the escaped vampire and recapture her. In the course of their investigations they discover that the aliens can transfer from one body to another, and that the other two have also escaped; they also discover the potential for energy vampirism—and more generalised voluntary energy transfer—that exists in all humans, and the parallels between vampirism, criminality, and sexual fetishisation. At last Carlsen tracks down the vampires in London, their leader having possessed the body of the Prime Minister; but their confrontation is averted when representatives from the Nioth-Korghai, the vampires' original race, appear and offer the vampires (the Ubbo-Sathla, as they call themselves) the chance to regain their original nature as higher-dimension energy-beings. The vampires accept joyfully, but destroy themselves upon regaining the ability to see themselves for what they had become.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Island_Earth_(novel)" title="This Island Earth (novel)">
At Ryberg Instrument Corporation, engineer Cal Meacham has received a quartet of bead-like devices that are meant to replace the condensers that he ordered. Thinking it a joke, he tests them anyway and finds that they work just as well as what he had ordered. He orders more and with them gets a catalog filled with electronic apparatus completely unfamiliar to him. His interest piqued, he orders the parts necessary to build what the catalog calls an interociter.When he turns the completed interociter on he is confronted by a man who invites him to join a group called Peace Engineers. Knowing that he would not refuse, the group sends a pilotless airplane to pick him up and take him to a small village/factory complex in a valley north of Phoenix, Arizona. He is greeted by Dr. Ruth Adams, a psychologist who seems to be afraid of something. Dr. Warner, the man he spoke with over the interociter, tells him that he will be in charge of the interociter assembly plant. He also meets Ole Swenberg, who was his roommate in college.Six months later, he meets the Chief Engineer, Mr. Jorgasnovara, who describes the Peace Engineers in terms reminiscent of the Babbage Society in Michael F. Flynn’s novel "In the Country of the Blind". Later, he overhears Jorgasnovara's thoughts through the interociter in his laboratory. One night, he and Ruth discover that the interociters are being shipped out, not by truck, but by spaceship. Again overhearing Jorgasnovara's thoughts, Cal learns that the Peace Engineers are involved in an intergalactic war.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_After_Time_(Alexander_novel)" title="Time After Time (Alexander novel)">
The novel alternates perspectives between H.G. Wells and a character initially identified only as "Stevenson." In the first chapter, Stevenson has sex with a prostitute in a 19th-century London alley and then murders her. In the next chapter, Wells is introduced showing off his brand new time machine to a group of men, including Stevenson. When police arrive to announce that they have identified Jack the Ripper as Stevenson, Stevenson uses the time machine to escape, and Wells follows him. Wells finds himself in the future and befriends a young bank teller named Amy Robbins. Robbins is unaware of Wells' identity and 19th century provenance and believes him to be just a quirky old-fashioned gentleman. As Stevenson murders several women, Wells pursues him while hampered by a love affair with Robbins, to whom he does not dare tell the truth. When Wells is finally forced to confess to Robbins who he is and what he is really doing, she terminates their relationship. But Stevenson targets her next, and Wells rescues her and incapacitates Stevenson in a dramatic climax.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkdeath" title="Inkdeath">
The plot resumes a few weeks after "Inkspell" left off; Farid and Meggie's mission of bringing Dustfinger, who died at the end of "Inkspell", back to life."Inkdeath" picks up with the now immortal, but slowly decaying, evil Adderhead, ruler of the southern part of the Inkworld, his brother-in-law the Milksop king of Ombra, and his trusty right-hand man, The Piper, ruling over the city of Ombra and the small villages around it. They set harsher taxes and loot what they can from the villages. The three Folcharts, Meggie, Resa, and Mortimer, along with an unborn Folchart child, reside at a peaceful abandoned farm that has long been forgotten by others. Farid, who has given up his fire after the death of Dustfinger, works for an increasingly wealthy Orpheus. Orpheus treats him like a slave while promising that he will read a dead Dustfinger back to life. Fenoglio, the author, gives up writing at the beginning of the book and grows increasingly drunken and senile. He is immensely annoyed at how Orpheus is changing Inkworld and asking his never-ending questions about the "White Women". Ombra is under constant threat by the Adderhead's men, who have killed nearly every young adult male in the city and regularly kidnap children to work them in the mines. The only figure standing in their way is the romanticized "Bluejay", a thief created by Fenoglio in a series of songs that were inspired by Mo who is now "stuck" as the "Bluejay" and is in as much trouble as ever.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Djinn_of_Babylon" title="The Blue Djinn of Babylon">
In the year 2005, at the end of October, at Halloween, Phillipa wanted to be a witch and John wanted to be a Dracula with real blood. They lived at 77 East 77th Street in New York.After having promised their mother, Layla, not to use their djinn powers without consulting her first, John and Philippa are leading pretty normal lives. When Phillipa enters the Djinnverso tournament (also called Djinnversoctoannular, a djinn game of bluffing with 7 astaralgi, or 8 sided dice, the object being to undermine luck) unbidden events are set into motion and she is framed as a cheater. The twins also learn that the famed book, Solomon's Grimoire, which is in the care of Ayesha, the Blue Djinn of Babylon and the ruler of all six tribes of djinn, has been stolen. The Grimoire gives anyone who uses its spells vast control over a djinn. The twins go in search of the missing book, leading them into more danger and adventures.It turns out that Solomon's Grimoire is not missing, but instead was being used as a trap for Philippa. Ayesha, the twins' grandmother (whom they do not know of until the end of the book), wished to kidnap Philippa so that she would be the next Blue Djinn, as Ayesha's life was rapidly expiring. Jockeying for her position was Mimi de Ghulle, a wicked djinn from the tribe of Ghul; however, she is having little success. John goes in search of Philippa, who is being held at the Blue Djinn's secret palace in Babylon. The twin's favorite uncle, Nimrod, also goes in search of an acceptable alternative to Philippa as the next Blue Djinn. The book alternates between John's search for Philippa, told in third person narration, and Philippa's experiences, told in first person in the form of a diary. Philippa discovers that the Blue Djinn's powers to be beyond good and evil come from the Garden of Eden's Tree of Logic. Slowly Philippa loses her humanity as the Tree has greater and greater effects on her. John, in his search, faces numerous obstacles in finding and reaching the palace. He is aided by two of his uncles, Alan and Neil, who were turned into dogs by his mother for attempting the murder of their brother, John and Philippa's father, Edward, for his fortune. In addition, John attains a copy of "The Bellili Scrolls", a map to the palace, and of its underground locale, Iravotum. The book climaxes when John reaches the palace and manages to rescue Philippa. However, during their traversal of Iravotum, Alan and Neil attack a large bird, called the Rukkh, that was attacking the group, biting its legs. However, the dogs did not let go, and fell to the ground, killing them. It is later revealed that Layla's binding of the human Alan and Neil would last only as long as the physical bodies of the dogs they inhabit, leaving the human Alan and Neil alive.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicey's_Song" title="Dicey's Song">
Picking up where "Homecoming" left off, Dicey Tillerman and her three siblings, Sammy, Maybeth, and James, are now living with their crazy and widowed grandmother Abigail Tillerman, or Gram as the children call her, on her farm just outside Crisfield, Maryland. Because the Tillermans' mom just left them in the parking lot in Provincetown, the children have the chance to start living a completely new life in their new family home, even though several of the major issues of "Homecoming" are not resolved. Dicey has trouble letting go of her siblings enough to let Gram take over as the parent character. She also worries about her mother Liza, who is catatonic and seriously ill in a psychiatric hospital in Boston.While in their new school, the Tillermans make several new friends: Mr. Lingerle, the elementary school's music teacher, who begins giving Maybeth piano lessons; Mina, a friendly African-American girl who goes to school with Dicey; and Jeff, a high school student who likes to play the guitar. To help Gram support the family, Dicey starts to work for Millie Tydings, the owner of the local grocery store, whom Gram has known since childhood.Gram soon comes to terms with having to accept Social Security payments to help with the costs of raising her four grandchildren. She also must confront and reexamine her past, particularly her relationship with her deceased husband and her three children. Gram refuses to discuss her past with the children, and their attempts to find out about it by climbing into the attic are met with anger.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Juan_de_Pareja" title="I, Juan de Pareja">
Juan de Pareja is born into slavery in Seville, Spain in the early 1600s, and after the death of his mother when he is just five years old he becomes the pageboy of a wealthy Spanish lady, Emilia. At the end of the first chapter, both Doña Emilia and Juan's master die. Brother Isidro saves Juan from death and brings him to a group of people. They hand him off to a man named Don Carmelo to deliver him to Emilia's nephew, Don Diego Velázquez.Diego has a wife, Juana de Miranda, and two little girls, Paquita and Ignacia. Juan's main job is to help his master with his work of painting: grinding the pigments, placing the paints on the palette, washing the brushes, and making the canvas frames. Although he is regularly present when Diego paints, Juan is not allowed to paint as he is a slave and the Spanish laws forbid it.Two students, Cristobal and Alvaro, join the household as Diego's apprentices. Juan dislikes Cristobal, whose opinions do not differ from his master and his family's, but finds Alvaro pleasant enough. Diego is invited to paint the king's portrait. He and his family and Juan and the apprentices move to the living quarters on the palace grounds. When an artist named Peter Paul Rubens visits, Juan falls in love with a slave girl named Miri. Juan accompanies Diego to Italy, where he begins to purchase art supplies to try painting and drawing on his own while keeping it a secret from the Velázquezes. Paquita falls in love with an apprentice named Juan Bautista del Mazo and they marry.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bronze_Bow" title="The Bronze Bow">
This book is set in first century Galilee, Israel. The main character is a young Jew named Daniel bar Jamin who lives at the same time as Jesus of Nazareth.Daniel's father was killed in front of him, as an example, by the Roman occupiers. His uncle did not have money to pay the tax, so he was thrown in jail; when his father tried to break Daniel's uncle out of jail, they were both crucified. Even at eight, he hates and distrusts the Romans and vows that he will avenge his father's death. His mother dies of grief after her husband's death, and Daniel's younger sister, Leah, is traumatized by these events, possessed by demons but that is just a phrase, and never leaves the house. His parents' death is because of the purchase of a shawl. The children are both taken in by their grandmother, but as she becomes ill and poor over the years, she sells Daniel to Amalek the blacksmith. Daniel escapes his cruel master, running away to the mountains where he is found close to death and rescued by Rosh, the leader of an outlaw band of rebels, who plan to someday overthrow the Romans. They adopt Daniel into their crew, and Daniel begins a new life in the mountains, trying to forget about his grandmother and sister he had left behind in the village.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...And_Now_Miguel" title="...And Now Miguel">
Miguel Chavez has dreamed of visiting the Sangre de Cristo Mountains since he was very little. This summer, he is going to work hard and pray until his father and grandfather realize that he is ready to take the trip with the rest of the older men.His prayers are granted, though ironically – when his older brother is drafted his father needs an extra body and grudgingly allows Miguel to accompany them. Miguel is miserable with the manner in which his wish has been granted, and confesses to his brother what he prayed for. His brother explains that he had been praying to leave New Mexico and see more of the world – while he is not happy about being drafted, he fatalistically accepts that it is the only way he is likely to be able to fulfill his dream. The brothers resolve to allow God to work freely for the rest of their lives, and not bother God with petty requests.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_the_Wind" title="King of the Wind">
As the fast of Ramadan is ending in Morocco, Agba, a mute slave boy, tends to his favorite Arabian mare, who gives birth that night. The colt has a white spot on his hind heel, considered the emblem of swiftness and good luck, but it also has a wheat ear on his chest, symbolizing bad luck. The mare dies within a few days, but Sham matures into a promising racehorse. Later, the Sultan summons six horseboys to his palace, including Agba, and charges them to accompany six horses to France. The horses are to be given as gifts to the French King Louis XV. The horseboy is to remain with that horse until the horse's death, then return to Morocco.When the racehorses arrive in France, they are frowned upon by the French, who believe that they are not 'lusty' enough to be racehorses. Sham becomes a kitchen horse, but he is so disobedient that the cook sells him to a carter. Agba becomes a servant to Sham's new owner and meets Grimalkin the cat along the way.Sham is bought by a Quaker man and taken to England. When Sham refuses to let the Quaker's nephew ride him, his owner sells him to an inn. Agba is jailed when he is caught sneaking into the inn to see Sham, but the Quaker's housekeeper bails him out, and both Sham and Agba are released into the service of the Earl of Godolphin. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_Hill" title="Rabbit Hill">
The story takes place in the countryside near Westport, Connecticut. The animal inhabitants are suffering as the house nearby has been abandoned for several years and the untended garden, the animals' source of food, has withered to nothing. "New Folks" then move into the house: Are they hunters, or friendly gardeners who will provide for the animals?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_of_the_Road" title="Adam of the Road">
Adam is an eleven-year-old boy who wants to be like his father, Roger, and to do so he tries to be the best minstrel in England. At the beginning of the story, Adam and his friend Perkin are in St Alban's Abbey, where they go to an old lady's house to visit Adam's dog, Nick. They return to their home at the monastery and go to the roadside to find Roger is coming back from his long journey as a knight's minstrel. Roger tells Adam that he is going to London to follow in the knight's train. Adam is allowed to come, but he must hurry because the knight leaves the next day. While on the road, Adam meets Margery, the daughter of the knight, in a beautiful carriage. In the morning, following a night of feasting and partying, Roger tells Adam he lost his warhorse, Bayard, in a bet with another minstrel named Jankin.One night, while Roger and Adam are sleeping, Jankin steals Nick. Adam worries that Jankin will mistreat Nick. When Adam and Roger discover Nick is gone, they chase Jankin across England. When Adam sees Jankin in a crowded marketplace, he pursues him and is separated from Roger. Now Adam is separated from both Roger and Nick and he has to find both alone. Adam makes friends along the way and with their help, finds Nick with Perkin. Roger, Adam and Nick are eventually reunited in Oxford. Adam is offered a place at an Oxford college, but decides to be a minstrel, like his father and with his father.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Stag" title="The White Stag">
"The White Stag" opens after the fall of the Biblical Tower of Babel. Nimrod is waiting for his two sons, Hunor and Magyar, to return. They rode away after a mysterious white stag that appeared seven months ago. Afraid they will never return and his people will be left leaderless, the old man offers a sacrifice to their god, Hadur—his war horse. Immediately his sons return with meat for the hungry people. As they tell the story of their chase of the white stag, Nimrod realizes it is now time for them to take over leading their people, and he throws himself on the altar.Now Hunor and Magyar lead the people in a search for their promised land, following the white stag they can never catch. Later they meet and marry the Moonmaidens, and live contentedly for fifteen years. Eventually the game deserts them, and the people move on. "Like a sharp wedge they had driven themselves into Europe and now they were surrounded by enemies; they had to go on or perish." This time they have to fight many groups who live in the lands they travel through, and the people begin to quarrel. Hunor is strong and hard, while Magyar is quieter and more learned. Though both brothers still lead, the people are becoming divided and now identify themselves as Huns or Magyars, depending on which brother they most respect. Magyar wants to find a less populated land, but Hunor leads them into more fighting.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roller_Skates" title="Roller Skates">
"Roller Skates" opens with the narrator remembering back to a special year in the 1890s, when young Lucinda Wyman arrives at the Misses Peters' home in New York City; the two ladies will care for her during the year of Lucinda's parents' trip to Italy. The narrator's diaries help her remember the details of 10-year-old Lucinda's "orphanage," as she calls it. Miss Peters, a teacher, is "a person of great understanding, no nonsense, and no interference." Miss Nettie is shy and soft-hearted. Living with them Lucinda experiences unprecedented freedom, exploring the city on roller skates and making friends with all types of people.Lucinda quickly gets to know Mr. Gilligan the hansom cab driver and Patrolman M'Gonegal. The first friend of her own age is Tony Coppino, son of an Italian fruit stand owner. Lucinda enlists Officer M'Gonegal to stop the bullies who knock down Tony's father's fruit-stand and steal the fruit. In return Tony takes her for a city picnic where they meet a rag-and-bone man. Later Lucinda reads Shakespeare with her favorite uncle and is inspired to put on a puppet production of "The Tempest".But the cold and snow of winter keep her cooped up indoors, and eventually a restless Lucinda acts out and gets sent home from school in disgrace. Later her uncle introduces her to Shakespeare's tragedies, and she experiences her own when two of her friends die. With Lucinda's parents coming back from Italy, she realizes everything is changing, so she skates to the park one last time. "How would you like to stay always ten?" she muses. "That's what I'd call a perfectly elegant idea!"
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invincible_Louisa" title="Invincible Louisa">
"Invincible Louisa", subtitled "The Story of the Author of Little Women", opens with Louisa Alcott's birth on a snowy November day in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Her father, Bronson Alcott, ran a school for young children in their home. "It was a time of great happiness, peace, and security... Happiness was to continue... but peace and security were not to come again for a very long time". So Meigs introduces her reader to Alcott's life. Her father, Bronson, is portrayed as brilliant but impractical, unable to support his family as a man of the times was expected to. The book follows the Alcott family to Boston and Concord, as Bronson Alcott seeks places that understand his unusual views on education and transcendentalism. Louisa proves to be an active child, getting into trouble and causing her mother, Abba, some anxiety. When she is ten the family moves again to Fruitlands, the transcendentalist community Alcott helps found. By now there are four girls in the family. Meigs portrays Bronson Alcott and the oldest daughter, Anna, as being fully committed to the ideals of this new life, but says that Louisa and her mother understand how much hard work would be necessary for a communal farm to succeed. The contrast between idealistic and practical is shown when Bronson and the only other adult leave the area for a conference just as the barley is being harvested. An approaching storm has Abba and the children bringing in the grain alone. In less than a year Fruitlands failed, and the family moved several more times.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Fu_of_the_Upper_Yangtze" title="Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze">
As the book opens, the widowed Fu Be-be arrives on Chair-makers Way in Chungking, China, with her 13-year-old son Yuin-fah and a letter from a village friend to Tang Yu-shu, a master coppersmith, asking that Young Fu be given an apprenticeship in Tang's establishment. Because the widow is alone and Young Fu is her only son, he is allowed to complete his apprenticeship while living in a small rented room with her, rather than living in the shop, a plot device which allows us to see more of the city than might otherwise be the case.In the chapters that follow, Young Fu goes from being a young and somewhat arrogant boy of 13 to a more capable and humble youth of 18. Along the way, he has encounters with soldiers, foreigners, thieves, political activists, an old scholar, the poor of the city, the rich of the city, and government officials. He is alternately swindled, attacked by bandits, reviled and praised as his coppersmith skills grow.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Neck,_the_Story_of_a_Pigeon" title="Gay Neck, the Story of a Pigeon">
Gay-Neck, or "Chitra-Griva", is born to a young owner in India. Gay-Neck's parents teach him how to fly, but he soon loses his father in a storm and his mother to a hawk. His master and Ghond the hunter take him out into the wilderness, but he becomes so scared by the hawks that he flees and ends up in a lamasery where the Buddhist monks are able to cure him of his fear. When his young master returns home he finds Gay-Neck waiting for him. But Gay-Neck decides to go on other long journeys, much to the boy's consternation. Then, during World War I, Gay-Neck and Ghond end up journeying to Europe where Gay-Neck serves as a messenger pigeon. He is chased by German machine-eagles (planes) and is severely traumatized when one of his fellow messenger pigeons is shot down. Gay-Neck and Ghond barely survive, and Gay-Neck is unable to fly. Ghond, Gay-Neck, and his master return to the lamasery near Singalila, where Ghond and Gay-Neck need to be cleansed of the hate and fear of the war. After that, Ghond succeeds in hunting down a buffalo that killed a villager, but feels remorse for having to kill the buffalo. Gay-Neck disappears once more, but when the other two return home, they find, to their joy, that Gay-Neck had already flown there ahead of them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearing_an_Hourglass" title="Bearing an Hourglass">
Some time in the future (as evidenced by technology in use that is much more advanced than in the first story), Norton—a man of about forty—is living a life of nomadic wandering when a ghost named Gawain asks him to father a child to his wife, Orlene, with whom Norton eventually falls in love. Gaea, the Incarnation of Nature, makes the child in Gawain's likeness so his bloodline would continue. Unfortunately, due to a recessive disease that runs in Gawain's family, the child dies. Orlene commits suicide shortly after.Mourning Orlene, Norton resumes his travels, during which he is approached by Gawain. Trying to make up for his blunder, the ghost notifies Norton the office of Time (Chronos), who rules over all Earthly aspects of time, will be opening. Gawain explains that the person who holds the office of Chronos lives backwards in time until the moment of their birth or conception-no one in the book is sure of which. The ghost explains that, by living backwards, Norton can continue to see Orlene, since she is still alive in the past. Norton accepts, and Gawain leads him to the spot where the future office holder of Time, Norton's predecessor, will pass the hourglass onto Norton.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_a_Tangled_Skein" title="With a Tangled Skein">
At around the time of World War I, a 21-year-old Irish woman named Niobe has a marriage arranged by her parents. Her husband-to-be is a 16-year-old boy named Cedric Kaftan. She considers him too immature, but can find no way out of the marriage. Although Niobe at first hates being married to Cedric, his good nature, kindheartedness, and desire to make her happy and keep safe win her over, and she falls in love with him. Cedric shows himself to be an intellectual prodigy. With some prodding and nurturing from his wife, Cedric accepts a scholarship to attend college and hone his magical abilities. He matures and finds his niche in magic and wetland studies, and he and Niobe have a child, Cedric Jr. A few years later, Cedric is assassinated by agents of Satan as part of a plot. Niobe petitions the Incarnations of Immortality to Cedric, only to he died because she was the target and Cedric died in her place. Niobe's anger at her husband's life being cut short makes her vow to make Satan pay.She is invited to take the place of one of three women sharing a physical body as different aspects of the Incarnation of Fate. Eager to thwart Satan's plans and avenge Cedric, she leaves her child with Cedric's cousin and becomes Clotho, the youngest aspect of the Fates. The Fates weave the tapestry of life and have discretion over the length of human lives and the pattern they produce. Clotho, the youngest, spins the threads from the substance of Void to create souls, Lachesis, the middle aspect, measures the threads, and Atropos, the oldest, cuts the thread of each individual human. When she becomes Clotho, Niobe must journey to the edge of the Void without aid from the other Fates and replenish her stock of thread-material.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wielding_a_Red_Sword" title="Wielding a Red Sword">
Mym, an Indian prince, defies his father's plans for an arranged marriage, instead joining a travelling circus. He meets Orb, who teaches him to manage a stutter through song. He is soon discovered, and his father arranges for him to marry a princess by the name of Rapture of Malachite. After fighting against this for days on end, he finally realises that Rapture is worth loving, and so concedes to the marriage. However, a plot to separate him from her results in his decision to become the Incarnation of War.Through the course of living as Mars, Rapture takes up a life of her own and decides that she does not need him any more. Satan arranges, subtly, a demoness for his new companion, hoping to get Mars in his debt that way. In the end, this backfires and he ends up with two loves in his life.His ultimate goal was to use his position to ameliorate some of the suffering being caused by war on Earth, and is surprised by Satan's encouragement. Soon he realises the subtle importances of human war and conflict: under certain circumstances, human suffering is increased, not decreased, by abstinence from armed response. Satan's plan is to have an inexperienced office-holder in the position of the Incarnation of War, such that he can manipulate the course of armed conflicts on Earth, allowing some wars through and blocking the progression of others, such that the overall balance of evil in the world is increased.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Love_of_Evil" title="For Love of Evil">
Parry, an orphan, is taken in and is accidentally adopted by a wizard who teaches him the benefits of white magic and how it can be used to help others. A musician and adept white magician, Parry plans on following in his father's footsteps when he is encouraged by his father, the sorcerer, to take a bride. Parry selects Jolie, seeing her potential despite her ragged appearance. Using his unique singing talents, Parry convinces Jolie that he means no harm. Taking her in, Parry and his father begin to teach Jolie the ways of wizardry and they begin to fall in love. With his father's blessing, Parry and Jolie wed and are about to start a life of bliss when they are attacked by crusaders of Christianity. Parry's father is killed in the attack and Parry escapes in bird form while his wife Jolie had gone ahead to warn her parents to go to the pre-determined hidden shelter. Unfortunately by the time Parry gets to town to check on his wife, she has been taken prisoner by the crusaders, who capture Parry himself shortly after he arrives. Working in conjunction with his wife, since he possesses a magical second sight, he frees them both but not before Jolie is slain by the dying Captain who was going to rape her. Taking off in horse form with Jolie strapped to his back, Parry arrives at the shelter and tries to heal her wounds but is lacking in medical supplies to save her. Parry watches as his wife dies in his arms. Due to special circumstances, Jolie's soul cannot immediately go to Heaven, so at Parry's request, Thanatos binds her spirit to a drop of blood on Parry's wrist. Vowing vengeance, Parry thinks the best way to escape from the villagers is to hide in plain sight, so he joins a monastery for sanctuary as well as a means to destroy the enemy. Soon after joining the Franciscan friars, Parry discovers that a new order, the Dominicans, are being formed with the express purpose of rooting out evil and heresy. Because of his keen mind and magical prowess (which he uses in secrecy), he becomes a feared inquisitor. During one of his many trips to stop Lucifer's campaign of Evil, Parry succumbs to the temptation of his ghostly wife Jolie inhabiting a physical body, thus violating his oath of celibacy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Eternity" title="And Eternity">
In the seventh novel of the series, three women—the ghost of Jolie, the ghost of Orlene (daughter of Orb), and a fifteen-year-old drug-addicted prostitute named Vita—try to discover a way to restore the life of Orlene's baby, Gawain II, who had died as a result of a severe birth defect inflicted unknowingly by Gaea at the request of the child's ghost father Gawain. Nox, the mysterious Incarnation of Night, promises to help, but she needs a specific item of great value from each of the other Incarnations in order to resurrect the baby. The three women set out to meet with each of the other seven Incarnations of Day.In the process of obtaining the items, they conclude that the definitions of Good and Evil used to classify souls as destined for Heaven and Hell are flawed. Orlene's soul had been denied access to Heaven because she committed suicide in a futile attempt to help her baby. Vita meets and comes under the protection of an older male judge; they fall in love and have sex, but this too is considered Evil, because Vita is below the legal age of consent. The three women eventually succeed in gaining the item from each one of the Incarnations, with the exception of God, the Incarnation of Good, who has become obsessed with his own greatness and is completely unresponsive to the outside world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lives_of_the_Saints_(Ricci_novel)" title="Lives of the Saints (Ricci novel)">
## Film.Vittorio Innocente's father, Mario, has immigrated to Canada, though originally believed to be America, to pave the way for the rest of his family to come. Little Vittorio doesn't understand why the neighbours disapprove of his mother, but suspects it has something to do with the man she was with in the stable on the morning she was violently bitten by the snake. But it becomes clear that it is Cristina's independence of mind and rejection of superstition that offend the peasant values in this remote village in post-war Italy. In the miniseries, Vittorio seeks comfort from his teacher, Aunt Teresa "La Maestra", who unlike the neighbours, sympathizes with Vittorio, and consoles him. Aunt Teresa hides Cristina when she becomes visibly pregnant while her husband is away, and helps Vittorio understand life through stories in a book she gave him called "Lives of the Saints", while in the novel Zia Lucia (Aunt Teresa) is a completely different character from "La Maestra". Cristina and Vittorio depart to Canada to meet Mario, but the Cristina dies on the ship giving birth to Vittorio's sister, Rita. Rita has bright blue eyes like her father, which serves as a constant reminder of Cristina's affair.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monsters_Inside" title="The Monsters Inside">
The TARDIS takes the Doctor and Rose to the Justicia System - a prison camp comprising the six planets in that solar system. The pair are separated and trapped in different environments, each determined to escape in their own distinctive style. However, their plans are complicated when some old enemies show up. Are the Slitheen really attempting a takeover of Justicia, or is it something far more sinister?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison's_Conquest_of_Mars" title="Edison's Conquest of Mars">
The book is set following the abortive Martian attack depicted in "Fighters from Mars", much more devastating and global than in H. G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds", though in both works the onslaught is thwarted when the aliens die from bacterial illness. Determining that the Martians will inevitably return, Earth's leaders, including U.S. President William McKinley, Queen Victoria, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Emperor Mutsuhito, unite the world against the common threat and plan an attack on Mars. American inventor Thomas Edison leads a group of scientists studying derelict Martian equipment; they are able to develop an anti-gravity device powered by electric repulsion as well as a disintegration ray.Using this new technology, the allies construct an armada of space ships for the attack. Edison takes some ships to the Moon on a test run; using the first known fictional depiction of space suits. There the explorers uncover evidence of an extinct civilization of giants. The armada heads on, discovering a solid gold asteroid being mined by the Martians. The humans fight two space battles against the Martians, suffering heavy casualties but ultimately winning thanks to the superiority of Edison's ray gun compared to the Martians' electric weapons. The humans take a captive, from whom they learn the Martian language.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Hawk" title="The Last Hawk">
The novel opens when Kelric Valdoria crash lands on the planet Coba. An ancient culture with similarities to the Raylicans, Coba is one of the many isolated and forgotten planets of the former Ruby Empire. Kelric makes several unsuccessful attempts to escape and eventually ends up in jail. It is there he spends his time (particularly while in isolation) learning the dice game Quis.Eventually, Kelric is released and joins one of the "estates" - small matriarchical provinces or city-states that comprise the population of Coba. These estates have special dedicated communes that exclusively play Quis, called Calanya. Kelric becomes a member of one of these communes, known as the "Calani". The society of Coba has, for centuries, replaced war and aggression with competition in Quis. The Quis also double as an information network, with players revealing information about themselves and their estate while at the same time learn about others. Finally, as an information-exchange network, Quis allows technology to improve on Coba at an astounding rate.The strength of a Calani is based on two properties: a player's skill, and the number of different estates they have worked for. Because of his pleasing appearance and his skill in Quis, Kelric is coveted by the queens (known as "Managers") of the different estates. Kelric's membership in the estates proceeds as follows: Dahl, Haka, Bahvla, Miesa, Varz, and finally Karn. Renamed "Sevtar", Kelric has two children with two of his wives (one of which is born Rhon) during his time in the different estates.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stealers_of_Dreams" title="The Stealers of Dreams">
The Doctor, Rose, and Captain Jack are on another world, in the year 2775 (Rose's future), where the chips are not quite the same. There are poster-like TV screens everywhere, but the Doctor says the technology is twenty-seventh century, or earlier. The city is growing up, instead of out, while 90% of the planet is jungle.The three of them rent a room for the night, and are given three tablets 'to stop you dreaming.' As Rose flips through the channels of the obligatory TV, all she finds are news and documentaries. 'All factual programmes. There's no escapism. No imagination. Nothing that tells a story.' 'No lies.' 'No fiction.' ... 'No wonder this world is stagnated.'The Doctor sees an arrest of 'fiction geeks' in progress on the news and goes to see what he can find out. He tells Officer Waller that he is an inspector with the government, and shows her his psychic paper as proof. She tells him that the planet has no government, and he quickly changes his story to being a researcher for one of the news channels and shows her the psychic paper again.Waller gets a call that Hal Gryden is broadcasting with an approximate location, and the Doctor rides along. As they drive, she explains that on the last call, the police were chasing fantasists who were exchanging comic books. At the last moment, the broadcast signal was lost.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Old_Captivity" title="An Old Captivity">
The principal character is a young Scottish pilot with bush-flying experience in Canada, Donald Ross, who is hired by an Oxford don, Cyril Lockwood, to pilot an air survey mission of Brattalid in Greenland. Lockwood's interest is in the early Viking seafarers and their exploits, and although he appears to have little knowledge of the needs of such a project, he insists on their starting as soon as possible, with his elder brother David, a businessman, providing finance.Ross, as the hired expert, then has to contend with the 'helpful' suggestions from both the financier and Lockwood's young daughter, Alix. This causes early tensions in the preparatory stages.While the preliminary dig is ongoing Ross shoulders much responsibility including keeping the aircraft safe in a tidal zone. Worn out with the expedition's work – all of which has fallen solely on him – and a prolonged lack of sleep induced by worry over the expedition, he enters a coma induced by the sleeping tablets he has been forced to take to keep going, and in it dreams that he and Alix were once Scottish slaves aboard Leif Ericson's vessel on its voyage of discovery to Greenland. A part of this dream includes the leaving behind by the two slaves of a stone, with their names carved on it, at the Viking explorers' landing point in North America.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feast_of_the_Drowned" title="The Feast of the Drowned">
When a naval cruiser sinks in mysterious circumstances in the North Sea all aboard are lost. Rose is saddened to learn that the brother of her friend, Keisha, is among the dead. And yet he appears to them as a ghostly apparition, begging to be saved from the coming feast of the drowned.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Resurrection_Casket" title="The Resurrection Casket">
On a shadowy planet called Starfall, where no modern technology works, the Doctor and Rose become involved in a quest for a lost treasure that belonged to Hamlek Glint — the Resurrection Casket, supposedly the key to eternal life. But the TARDIS has stopped working too...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Dalek" title="I Am a Dalek">
The Doctor and Rose Tyler are preparing to enjoy a visit to Earth's Moon when they discover that the TARDIS has, on its own volition, taken them instead to a small seaside town in present-day England. In this town, the dead shell of a Dalek has been discovered by archaeologists in 1st century Roman ruins on the site of a decommissioned Cold War-era military bunker.The Doctor and Rose are separated for a time when the TARDIS dematerializes with Rose still outside the ship. The Doctor finds himself at the dig where he befriends one of the archaeologists and, upon recognizing the Dalek, attempts to disarm the dead creature by giving his new friend custody of the Dalek's gun arm.Rose, meanwhile, witnesses a traffic accident in which a young woman named Kate is apparently killed. However, Kate proceeds to regenerate in much the same fashion as the Doctor, which causes her hair colour to change and — unknown to Rose — her intellect to increase exponentially. Along with Kate's newfound intelligence comes a confusing desire to exterminate every human on the planet, starting with her ex-boyfriend.The Doctor and Rose eventually reunite at the dig site, where Kate reactivates the Dalek, causing it to also regenerate. Rose and the confused Kate escape, while the Doctor tries to unsuccessfully disable the revived Dalek before it can go on a killing spree. The Dalek tracks down and kills the archeologist in order to reacquire its gun arm.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joris_of_the_Rock" title="Joris of the Rock">
The novel is set around the fourteenth century in an alternate medieval France called Neustria (historically an early division of the Frankish kingdom). Overlapping the events of the previous novel, "Gerfalcon", it follows the fortunes of roguish protagonist Joris, his paramour, Red Anne, and Joris's illegitimate son Juhel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_in_2020" title="The War in 2020">
The U.S. military is deployed to Africa to stop a South African invasion of Zaire's Shaba province. Captain George Taylor of the U.S. Army is leading an Apache gunship squadron, patrolling over Shaba province, when advanced South African gunships destroy it. After crashing and mercy-killing his fatally wounded gunner, he finds an abandoned Army camp, and forages supplies for a long trek, initially on foot, to the Zairean capital, Kinshasa. Along the way he learns that the attack on his squadron was part of a bigger South African offensive that had targeted U.S. forces in Zaire; South African commandos and Zairean guerrillas allied with the South Africans also destroy B-2 bombers at an airbase in Kinshasa. The American collapse was so swift that the U.S. President is only able to force a cease-fire (and South African withdrawal) by carrying out a nuclear strike on Pretoria, an action that had reaped heavy international condemnation. The EU disavows its original support for the U.S. operation while Japan uses the war as an excuse to launch a mercantilist trade war against America: it embargoes countries that continue to trade with the U.S., though continuing to sell its own products there.Taylor is evacuated home to the U.S., but finds himself suffering from a new virus designated "Runciman's Disease" (RD), which leaves his face horribly scarred. Many returning U.S. soldiers are similarly infected; it spreads around the worldwide in a global pandemic. Japan puts its Home Islands under quarantine, with Okinawa being used exclusively for international trade. A nuclear war in the Middle East, some time after the Shaba disaster, destroys Israel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temple_and_the_Lodge" title="The Temple and the Lodge">
The thesis of the book is that after the Knights Templar were suppressed for heresy at the behest of the King of France some elements found refuge in Scotland where they helped the Scots in their fight for independence from the English and the Templar Order survived through Jacobite Freemasonry to Strict Observance and the Grand Orient of France.It also claims that many of the people behind the American Revolution were Freemasons, as were some of the less successful British commanders such as Howe and Cornwallis, who they claim intentionally lost (or tried to win by the path of least resistance) some of the battles to prevent the destruction of America's economic base.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gösta_Berling's_Saga" title="Gösta Berling's Saga">
The hero, Gösta Berling, is a defrocked Lutheran priest who has been saved by the Mistress of Ekeby from freezing to death and thereupon becomes one of her pensioners in the manor at Ekeby. As the pensioners finally get power in their own hands, they manage the property as they themselves see fit and their lives are filled with many wild adventures. Gösta Berling is their leading spirit, the poet, the charming personality among a band of revelers. Before the story ends, Gösta Berling is redeemed, and even the old Mistress of Ekeby is permitted to come to her old home to die.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hello,_Goodbye_Window" title="The Hello, Goodbye Window">
A girl visits her grandparents' house, where for her the kitchen window is a special gateway, where everything important happens. Told from her point of view, the story explores her special relationship with her grandparents through the window, by the window and around the window. She tells us how the window is perfect for looking into the kitchen from the porch to play a game of peek-a-boo with Nanna, and even turns into a mirror at night. She describes her experience with her grandparents and all the fun things there are to do in the house, as well as the things she has been told to stay away from. She helps Nanna in the garden and listens to Poppy play "Oh! Susanna" on the harmonica; she enjoys it even though it is the only song he can play. When her parents come to pick the girl up, she is happy and sad at the same time, but she understands "it just happens that way sometimes."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officer_Buckle_and_Gloria" title="Officer Buckle and Gloria">
A rather boring police officer named Officer Buckle is assigned to take a police dog named Gloria to his safety speech at the local school. Until that time, whenever Officer Buckle tried to tell schools about safety everyone fell asleep. Then, unbeknownst to Officer Buckle (literally, behind his back), Gloria does tricks imitating the safety tip demonstrating safety rules. Gloria is a big success! Officer Buckle enjoys the fame until he sees on a taped speech that the schoolchildren are so enthusiastic because of Gloria. He refuses to teach safety and a huge accident happens. A letter from an attentive and sweet girl, named Claire, convinces Officer Buckle to start teaching again. In the end, Officer Buckle and Gloria go to many schools and teach the students about safety together.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Puritan" title="The Last Puritan">
Santayana separated the book into five parts. He named the different sections of the book according to how each individual period of time matched up with Oliver Alden's life: Ancestry, Boyhood, First Pilgrimage, In The Home Orbit, and Last Pilgrimage.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Stranger_Tides" title="On Stranger Tides">
In 1718, French puppeteer John Chandagnac sails to Jamaica on the British ship "Vociferous Carmichael". He aims to confront his uncle Sebastian, who has apparently stolen a fortune that rightfully belonged to John's father and could have prevented his poverty-induced death. On board, he meets an Englishwoman named Elizabeth Hurwood, who complains that her erudite father Benjamin has abandoned his natural philosophy work and begun studying dark magic with her lecherous physician Leo Friend. The pirate sloop "Jenny" menaces the "Carmichael", neutralizing its powerful cannons with vodun magic. Benjamin Hurwood and Friend begin shooting their fellow passengers, revealing them as allies of the pirates, as the assailants board and seize the "Carmichael".The pirates allow the passengers to leave on a rowboat, except for Beth, whom Hurwood requires for a vodun ritual, and Chandagnac, enrolled into the crew after wounding pirate captain Philip Davies. Not fond of long words, the pirates change John's name to Jack Shandy. The pirates head for New Providence Island to refit the "Carmichael" for piracy. On the way, they are captured by the Royal Navy, but Shandy breaks them out, thus ingratiating himself with the pirates. On New Providence, Shandy develops a proficiency for cooking and learns about vodun: unlike in the Old World, magic is very strong in the Caribbean, and pirates hire "bocors" to channel "loas" for healing, attacking and protection. Male and female sorcerers control different kinds of magic. Shandy also meets a rambling old sorcerer named Sawney, and develops an affection for Beth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fable_of_the_Bees" title="The Fable of the Bees">
## Poem."The Grumbling Hive: or, Knaves turn'd Honest" (1705) is in doggerel couplets of eight syllables over 433 lines. It was a commentary on contemporary English society as Mandeville saw it. Economist John Maynard Keynes described the poem as setting forth "the appalling plight of a prosperous community in which all the citizens suddenly take it into their heads to abandon luxurious living, and the State to cut down armaments, in the interests of Saving". It begins:The "hive" is corrupt but prosperous, yet it grumbles about lack of virtue. A higher power decides to give them what they ask for:This results in a rapid loss of prosperity, though the newly virtuous hive does not mind:The poem ends in a famous phrase:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Long_Long_Way" title="A Long Long Way">
The young protagonist Willie Dunne leaves Dublin to fight voluntarily for the Allies as a member of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, leaving behind his prospective bride Gretta and his policeman father. He is caught between the warfare playing out on foreign fields (mainly at Flanders) and that festering at home, waiting to erupt with the Easter Rising. The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2005.In a 2009 US National Public Radio interview, author R. L. Stine stated that "A Long Long Way" was one of the most beautifully written books he had ever read, and gave copies of the novel to friends and family to read.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skybreaker" title="Skybreaker">
Using reward money from the discovery of Vikram Szpirglas' pirate base, Matt Cruse is attending the Airship Academy in Paris. While travelling through a storm in the Indian Ocean, his training vessel is caught in a vertical draft revealing a large airship drifting at 20,000 feet. Deducing that it is the "Hyperion", a long-lost ship said to be carrying great riches, the captain steers towards it to attempt a boarding. However, Matt is forced to descend when the rest of the crew members are stricken with altitude sickness. Upon returning to Paris, Matt meets with Kate de Vries, his friend and object of affection, to discuss the "Hyperion"'s billionaire owner Theodore Grunel. Kate announces that she plans to find "Grunel's treasure" using co-ordinates that Matt remembers in a special ship called a Skybreaker that will allow them to reach high altitudes safely.Matt receives a request from a claimed descendant of Grunel. When they meet, the man reveals himself to be a criminal named John Rath and tries to force Matt to give up the co-ordinates. Matt escapes with a gypsy girl named Nadira who claims to have a key that works on the "Hyperion" and proposes her own plan to find it. Matt initially declines but changes his mind when he overhears a warm conversation between Kate and a wealthy acquaintance named Hal Slater. Matt and Nadira search for a Skybreaker named the "Sagarmatha" moored in Paris, but when they find it, they learn that Hal is the captain. Matt, Kate, Nadira and Kate's chaperone, Ms. Simpkins, hire Hal and his Sherpa crew to fly them to the "Hyperion" and promise Hal 80% of the gold they discover. Although Kate temporarily allays Matt's fears, he sees her develop an increasing rapport with Hal and becomes jealous. Matt begins to accept romantic advances from Nadira which culminates in a kiss between them in the crow's nest.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_I_Live_Now" title="How I Live Now">
Fifteen-year-old Elizabeth (who goes by the name of Daisy) is sent from the United States to stay with her aunt Penn and her children, Daisy's cousins, on a remote farm in the United Kingdom during the outbreak of a fictional third world war of the 21st century. Though she is happy about moving away from her stepmother who is pregnant, Daisy is homesick at first. First meeting her 14-year-old cousin Edmond at the airport, Daisy calls him "some kind of mutt"; however, her view of Edmond changes after settling in. Arriving at the farm she also meets Edmond's twin brother Isaac, 9-year-old Piper, and Osbert, who is the eldest brother. Daisy's homesickness only lasts for a short while before she and her extended family become close, and Daisy begins to embrace her new home. Daisy soon finds herself falling in love with Edmond and, after realising that the affection is mutual, begins a relationship with him.Aunt Penn travels to Oslo, where she is stranded after war breaks out. An unknown enemy occupies the UK. The war becomes increasingly difficult for Daisy and her cousins as it increasingly affects their lives, eventually leading to food shortages and lack of other resources. One day, the farm is taken over by soldiers who separate the boys from the girls by sending them away to live at separate homes, and then separate farms. Daisy and Piper are forced to put survival as their top priority and cannot look for the male members of their family. Gradually finding their way back home, the two girls learn the harsh consequences of war and wait for their family in the barn house. After the war ends, Daisy must deal with putting the pieces of her life back together and overcoming the terrible experience of war as she reunites with the forever changed members of her family, including a physically and emotionally scarred Edmond.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taronga" title="Taronga">
## Part One: The Calling.The book begins two years after the Last Days. Ben lives with a callous man named Greg, who uses Ben's powers, which he calls "the Call", to attract game for hunting. Ben feels guilty about leading the animals to their death but faces a beating from Greg if he does not comply. When he finally escapes, he promises not to use the Call again. He breaks this promise less than a day later when he is pursued by a man on horseback. He shoots the horse causing it to fall and crush the man who dies slowly. Ben then realises there are people in the distance coming closer with guns. Ben runs for his life, fearing capture.Ben decides to return to Sydney, where he once lived with his parents. He travels first on foot, then by bike, using mountain roads to avoid local gang activity. He is joined by a stray dog who would do anything for Ben, having become loyal as they grew close in their travels.As he draws closer to his destination, he hears the Call of something wild and ferocious. When he reaches the city, only then he realizes that the wild Call is coming from Taronga Zoo. He then makes a hard decision to travel to Taronga Zoo to find out what creature could still be so wild and free in a zoo.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Willow,_Sleeping_Woman" title="Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman">
## "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman".An unnamed adult narrator and his younger teen-aged cousin wait for a bus to take them to the hospital so the cousin can have his ear problem examined, an ailment he has had since he was young due to being hit in the ear by a baseball. While waiting, the cousin inquires deeply about the narrator's watch. The bus ride takes them through much hilly terrain and gives the narrator time to think about how he developed a close bond with his cousin. After the cousin checks in, the narrator reminisces on what happened the last time he visited a nearby hospital.While the narrator was in high school, he and his friend visited his friend's girlfriend at the hospital, who needed to have one of her ribs realigned. After the operation, the girlfriend tells a narrative-poem about a woman who sleeps indefinitely because a "blind willow" sends its flies to carry pollen to her ear, burrow inside, and put her to sleep. Eventually, these flies eat the woman's flesh starting from the inside, despite a young man's effort in trying to save her.After the cousin returns from the check-up, the two cousins lunch. When they talk about the cousin's ailment and how it will probably affect him for the rest of his life, he says he thinks of the movie line "Don't worry. If you were able to spot some Indians, that means there aren't any there" from "Fort Apache" whenever someone sympathizes with him about his ears. As the bus taking them home approaches, the narrator begins to daydream of how he and his friend were careless with a gift of chocolates for the girlfriend many years ago. When he is able to think clearly again, he tells his cousin, "I'm all right."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_(Myers_novel)" title="Monster (Myers novel)">
The novel begins with 16-year-old Steve Harmon writing in his book awaiting for his trial for murder. Musing on his short time in prison so far, he decides to record this upcoming experience in the form of a movie screenplay. Kathy O'Brien, Steve's lawyer, informs him on what will happen during the trial. At this stage, only two of the four accused – James King and Steve – will be tried, since the other two accused – Richard "Bobo" Evans and Osvaldo Cruz – have entered into a plea bargain. When the trial first begins, Steve flashes back to a movie he saw in his school's film of predictability.The trial begins with the opening statements of the prosecutor Sandra Petrocelli, Miss O'Brien, and King's lawyer, Asa Briggs. Petrocelli labels the four accused men, including Steve, as "monsters." The lawyers call on several witnesses, including Salvatore Zinzi and Wendell Bolden, illicit cigarette traders, who admit to buying cigarettes that came from a drugstore robbery that led to the murder. The story of the trial is often broken up by a variety of flashbacks, including ones showing that King is only acquainted with Steve, that King had accused Steve of pulling the trigger during the robbery. Petrocelli calls as a witness Osvaldo Cruz, who is affiliated with the Diablos, a violent street gang. Cruz admits to participating in the crime only due to coercion by Bobo.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odds_On" title="Odds On">
It describes an attempt of robbery in an isolated hotel on Costa Brava. The robbery is planned with the help of a Critical Path Analysis computer program, but unforeseen events get in the way.The three Americans needed cover, as lone men stood out. So each decided he would pick up a girl, and mingle with the crowd.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright_Lights,_Big_City_(novel)" title="Bright Lights, Big City (novel)">
The story's narrator is a 24-year-old writer who works as a fact checker for a highbrow magazine for which he had once hoped to write. By night, he is a cocaine-using party-goer seeking to lose himself in the hedonism of the 1980s yuppie party scene, often going to a nightclub called "Heartbreak".His wife, Amanda, recently left him, and he copes with this by pretending nothing happened and telling no one that she is gone. The two had met in Kansas City; the narrator moves with her to New York City, where she begins a modeling career that quickly takes off. After flying out to Paris for Fashion Week, she calls the narrator to inform him that she is leaving him for another man and to pursue her career. Initially hopeful that she will return someday, the narrator eventually resorts to searching for her at a fashion event, publicly humiliating himself while failing to garner more attention from her than a brief look. He obsesses over every item she owned in his apartment, every modeling photo and every club she visited, even repeatedly visiting a mannequin based on her. His partying and his personal troubles begin to affect his work. He eventually comes to realize Amanda's superficiality, becoming both disillusioned with her and the materialistic culture of New York in general. He reveals that the true reason for his spiral downwards was his mother's death, which actually took place a year ago. He realizes that he had married Amanda because he thought it would make his mother happy. After his mother's death, he was in shock and it wasn't until Amanda left him that he began really grieving over his mother, causing his cocaine addiction and reckless abandon.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sinner_(novel)" title="The Sinner (novel)">
"The Sinner" involves Detective Jane Rizzoli and a main character new to the series, first seen in "The Apprentice" as a minor figure, medical examiner Dr. Maura Isles. When a young novice nun about to take vows is found murdered in the abbey's summer chapel, Isles and Rizzoli are immediately called to the scene. The elderly nuns are of little help to Isles and Rizzoli but when another body is found, mutilated beyond recognition (and testing reveals the body to be that of a fortyish Indian Hansen's Disease victim), it is soon discovered that there is more to these killings than meets the eye. Dr. Victor Banks hooks up with Maura Isles.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bourne_Betrayal" title="The Bourne Betrayal">
At the beginning of the book, Bourne is in Doctor Sunderland's office. Sunderland, recommended by Lindros, is a specialist in memory restoration and miniaturization. Unfortunately for Bourne, he doesn't know that this man posing as Sunderland is actually Costin Veintrop, hired by Fadi to mess with Bourne's brain by creating new memories. These new memories can be evoked by new smells or even hearing things. As Bourne exits the office two things happen: Veintrop calls Fadi and tells him the work is done, and Bourne receives a call that Martin is missing. He then catches a cab and heads back to the CIA headquarters to talk to the Old Man.Back at the CIA, Bourne is introduced to a number of new people: Matthew Lerner (the Deputy Director until Lindros gets back), Soraya Moore (a senior case officer), Hiram Cevik (a prisoner, actually Fadi in disguise), and Tim Hytner (who is framed as a traitor to the CIA organization). Tim is working on cracking a cipher created by Fadi. Unwittingly Bourne brings Cevik out of his prison cage to take a walk with him in an attempt to extract more information about Fadi. Then Cevik escapes under the cover of a gun battle in which Hytner is killed. Bourne then steals a motorcycle from the back of a truck to follow the Hummer, which he thinks Cevik is still trying to escape in. Once the Hummer is stopped up the street, CIA officers surround the car, waiting for the prisoners to step out. Bourne then realizes the car is rigged to explode. He grabs Soraya and they make their way to safety just before detonation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedomland_(novel)" title="Freedomland (novel)">
A woman staggers into a local hospital, too dazed to speak. As the doctors and police try to puzzle out her injuries, her story comes out. She was thrown to the ground and her car was stolen. And, in the back, was her four-year-old son.The town of Dempsey is in turmoil as the search for the child goes on and pressure builds up on all sides.Brenda Martin walks into the hospital emergency room in a state of shock. As doctors bandage her hands, they find out she is the victim of a carjacking near Armstrong. Detective Lorenzo Council meets with her, and through her tears gets the story that her four-year-old son Cody was in the backseat of the car. She then describes the assailant as being a young black man with a shaved head and scary eyes.Local reporter Jesse Haus follows up on this relatively minor news story, and is one of the first to learn about the kidnapping. After promising to write a story on Bump Rosen's son, she gets an inside chance to be next to Brenda. As the Gannon and Dempsey police blockade the crime area, Lorenzo works to get more details from Brenda, and Jesse works on details for her story. Lorenzo has Jesse stay with Brenda so she is not alone, and Jesse discovers Brenda's love of classic R&amp;B music.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Rider" title="Green Rider">
Karigan G'ladheon, a merchant's daughter, is cast out of her school in Selium by Dean Geyer following a duel in which she bested a wealthy aristocrat.Running away from the shame of her expulsion, she travels into the forest called the Green Cloak. She meets a Green Rider (one of a group of legendary elite messengers in the king's service) who is dying with two black arrows protruding from his back.The Green Rider, F'ryan Coblebay, makes Karigan swear to carry a message to Sacor City for the 'love of her country', and there to deliver it into the hands of either Laren, the Captain of the Green Riders, or the king himself. He also orders Karigan not to read the letter for the sake of her life. Coblebay entrusts a second more private letter to her care also. As his life passes, he whispers with his last breath; "beware the shadow man...". She also takes the gold winged horse brooch that is the symbol of his office as a Green Rider.Karigan, following her promise, rides the horse, which she calls "Horse" (whose real name is Condor), to Sacor City through perilous paths. Horse appears to have an uncanny ability to evade the various dangers Karigan encounters, always delivering Karigan to safety. During the journey, she meets many people, including the Berry sisters, members of the mystical, elf-like race of Eletians, and two traitorous Weapons (a special rank given only to the bodyguards of the king). Throughout her journey, the ghost of F'ryan Coblebay follows her, urging her on and providing help when desperately needed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandry's_Book" title="Sandry's Book">
Four young misfits from four different classes are brought together at the Winding Circle Temple in Emelan. They find themselves housed together as they did not "fit in" when they slept in the dormitories with everyone. They are sent to Discipline Cottage to learn and use their new-found magical abilities. All four have ambient magic, as opposed to academic magic, and the power they use comes from ordinary things all around them. Sandry has magic with threads, Tris with weather, Daja with smithing, and Briar with plants.Lady Sandrilene fa Toren is locked away in a dark room with a fading oil lamp. She was magically hidden in this storeroom days ago by her nurse, who was murdered moments later just outside the door by a mob bent on destroying everything infected by the fierce plague that killed Sandry's parents. Sandry is concerned about the flickering oil lamp, even though she knows there is no chance of anybody finding her as the room she is locked in is protected by magic so that it cannot be found either magically or non-magically, and the only person who knows her whereabouts is her nurse, who is dead. Sandry is afraid of going crazy in the darkness. Unknowingly doing her first piece of magic, Sandry traps the remaining light in a simple braid. A powerful seer, Niklaren Goldeye, finds her and takes her to Winding Circle in Emelan.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_(novella)" title="Carmen (novella)">
 The novella comprises four parts. Only the first three appeared in the original publication in the October 1, 1845, issue of the "Revue des deux Mondes" (Review of the Two Worlds); the fourth first appeared in the book publication in 1846. Mérimée tells the story as if it had really happened to him on his trip to Spain in 1830.Part I.The work is prefaced by an untranslated quotation from the poet Palladas:Πᾶσα γυνὴ χόλος ἐστίν· ἔχει δ᾽ δύω ὥρας, τὴν μίαν ἐν θαλάμῳ, τὴν μίαν ἐν θανάτῳ.(Every woman turns sour/Twice she has her hour/One is in bed/The other is dead).For readers of Ancient Greek, this set the theme of the tale: a ferocious woman, sex, and death.While searching for the site of the Battle of Munda in a lonely spot in Andalusia, the author meets a man who his guide hints is a dangerous robber. Instead of fleeing, the author befriends the man by sharing cigars and food. They stay in the same primitive inn that night. The guide tells the author that the man is the robber known as Don José Navarro and leaves to turn him in, but the author warns Don José, who escapes.Part II. Later, in Córdoba, the author meets Carmen, a beautiful Gitano (Romani) woman who is fascinated by his repeating watch. He goes to her home so she can tell his fortune, and she impresses him with her occult knowledge. They are interrupted by Don José, and although Carmen makes throat-cutting gestures, José escorts the author out. The author finds his watch is missing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesh_and_Blood_(Kellerman_novel)" title="Flesh and Blood (Kellerman novel)">
Alex receives a call from the mother of an ex-patient, Lauren Teague. Considering it unresolved business, Alex contacts Milo and they ask around to see if they can find her. Her body turns up and the missing person case turns into a murder investigation.Alex and Milo visit her parents, former co-workers, roommates, and employers. They follow connections back and find that Lauren had $350,000 saved up, probably earned from prostitution. She had recently started to attend college, and was part of an intimacy experiment. When a former co-worker ends up dead after speaking to them, they know the murder was no ordinary mugging. Then Lauren's mother is killed, presumably by her husband.While kayaking along the beach near the Duke mansion, Alex rescues a boy who had swum out too far. This gets him invited in, and he makes the acquaintance of Duke's ex-wife, Cheryl. They flirt, and when a rendezvous is arranged, the killer shows up and shoots Cheryl. Alex is saved by Lauren's brother, Ben Dugger.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justinian_(novel)" title="Justinian (novel)">
The book is in the format of a fictional memoir written by Byzantine Emperor Justinian II, with brief interludes from a soldier named Myakes, who was close to Justinian throughout much of the emperor's life. The book follows Justinian's time before and after taking the throne, as well as his overthrow, mutilation and exile in the Crimea, his subsequent return to power (following a possibly apocryphal nose-job), his insane quest for revenge, and his finally being unseated a second time and executed. Myakes, who had been blinded and exiled to a monastery after Justinian's final defeat, listens as a fellow monk named Brother Elpidios reads the memoir out loud, and occasionally interrupts with commentary or criticism. In the end, Elipidos, who had been contemplating writing his own history, hides the book as he believes he could not properly separate the good from the evil in Justinian's life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Robe" title="Black Robe">
In Quebec, a tribe of Algonquian agree in exchange for muskets to guide the "Black Robe" (Father Laforgue), and his 20-year-old French assistant Daniel Davost, for a few weeks upriver to a spot beyond a set of rapids. There, Father Laforgue travels onward to the Huron village of Ihonatiria where a Jesuit mission is already established. Along the way, Father Laforgue falls under suspicion of being a demon and his attempts to baptize (convert) his Algonquian guides are unsuccessful. He is captured by unfriendly Iroquois who torture him, but he escapes and eventually arrives at the fever-ridden Huron village. In exchange for promising them a "water cure" for the sickness the Indians agree to be baptized.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_for_Alibrandi_(novel)" title="Looking for Alibrandi (novel)">
The novel follows its protagonist, Josephine Alibrandi, the Italian-Australian daughter of Italian immigrant parents. Josie lives in Sydney and attends a Catholic high school–where she is disillusioned with the cliques and social politics of her snobby peers. Her usually sophisticated, sassy demeanour is challenged when she is overcome with the pressures of her senior year of high school: the suicide of a male friend, and meeting her estranged father who is in Sydney on a business trip. She confides in a young man with a bad reputation, who slowly turns into a romantic interest for Josie. This relationship, mirrored by the tumultuous relationship with her father, forms the centre complications of the novel as Josie tries to navigate through the complexities and hurdles she faces as a young adult.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_for_Larry" title="Vote for Larry">
After faking the suicide of his online persona "Larry", Josh Swensen has hidden in Boulder, Colorado under the pseudonym of Mark and enrolled at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is kidnapped by his old friend Beth, who persuades him to return him to his "Larry" persona and run for office. She suggests he runs for Massachusetts state representative in the Congress, but he decides to run for U.S. President.He has difficulty maintaining his austerity, problems with his girlfriend and ex-girlfriend, a threat from his nemesis betagold, self-identity problems, and the rather unusual problem of running for U.S. President. Among other problems is the problem of almost being killed by an opponent in the candidacy for president. In this book, the fictional Congress passes a constitutional amendment to lower the presidential age requirement to 18.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blunderer" title="The Blunderer">
Mild-mannered lawyer Walter Stackhouse has come to hate his neurotic wife Clara. He has suffered for years as she alienated all his friends and embarrassed him with her pettiness, overly dramatic gestures and intolerance of other peoples' needs. With Walter, she is increasingly distant and, without foundation, she begins to accuse him of having an affair with the sweet and sensuous music teacher, Ellie Briess. He does eventually become infatuated with the girl and starts a relationship with her. Jealous Clara then attempts suicide by overdose, forcing Walter back into her arms. However, immediately upon recovering from near-death, Clara falls into her usual pattern; Walter finally stands his ground and demands a divorce. Clara is then found dead, having fallen off a cliff during a rest interval while taking a bus to see her dying mother. It is likely suicide. In time, as the official investigation continues, he has to admit to a couple of questionable activities - stalking Clara's bus in his car, while daydreaming about possibly killing her at the first stop (just as Melchior J. Kimmel, a 40-year old bookshop manager, murdered his own domineering wife Helen, an unsolved crime about which Walter had read in the newspaper and grown fascinated by), and visiting Kimmel prior to Clara's death, which ultimately begins to make him look like he was seeking some how-to advice from a wife-murderer. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gospel_According_to_Larry" title="The Gospel According to Larry">
Seventeen-year-old Josh Swenson, an articulate teen whose dream is to change the world, creates his own website which he calls "The Gospel According to Larry" because Larry was the most unbiblical name he could think of. He writes articles on this site preaching his feelings and ideas about making the world a better place.He is unpopular until someone writes an article about him in a local newspaper and the number of hits begins to grow. He then decides to start photographing and posting his possessions. He was curious to see if it was possible to track down someone anywhere in the world simply by their possessions. He only has 75 possessions and has a list of guidelines to keep track of how many possessions he has, such as to sell or trade an old CD, book, or video whenever he wants a new one. The guidelines were inspired by his reading of a book about Native Americans who did not want to leave a "footprint" behind, which led him to believe every purchase is a major decision.Not everyone is happy with his site. A poster of the screen name betagold despises that Josh has kept his identity online as a secret behind and threatens to find him, no matter what he does to hide. She even notices minor clues to his location that he speaks of that.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Purple_Land" title="The Purple Land">
The novel tells the story of Richard Lamb, a young Englishman who marries a teenage Argentinian girl, Paquita, without asking her father's permission, and is forced to flee to Montevideo, Uruguay with his bride. Lamb leaves his young wife with a relative while he sets off for eastern Uruguay to find work for himself. He soon becomes embroiled in adventures with the Uruguayan gauchos and romances with local women. Lamb unknowingly helps a rebel guerrilla general, Santa Coloma, escape from prison and joins his cause. However, the rebels are defeated in battle and Lamb has to flee in disguise. He helps Demetria, the daughter of an old rebel leader, escape from her persecutors and returns to Montevideo. Lamb, Paquita, Demetria and Santa Coloma evade their government pursuers by slipping away on a boat bound for Buenos Aires. Here the novel ends, but in the opening paragraphs, Lamb had already informed the reader that after the events of the story he was captured by Paquita's father and thrown into prison for three years, during which time Paquita herself died of grief.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tris's_Book" title="Tris's Book">
Lady Sandrilene fa Toren, Trisana Chandler, Daja Kisubo, and Briar Moss have been living in Discipline Cottage at Winding Circle a Temple in Emelan for some time now. They have survived an earthquake and are now having to defend their only true home from pirates using their magic and the help of their teachers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_and_the_Phoenix" title="David and the Phoenix">
David moves to a new house at the base of some beautiful mountains. The next day, rather than settle into the new house, he decides to climb the mountains. Upon reaching the summit, he encounters the Phoenix. They are, at first, frightened of each other, as the Phoenix had been chased by a scientist for several weeks and David had, of course, never seen anything like the Phoenix before. The Phoenix is flattered by David's attentions, though, and decides to educate David about the legendary creatures in the world.The first adventure in the Phoenix's curriculum for David involves seeing the Gryffins. They first meet a witch who goads the Phoenix into a race. They are captured by the arrogant Gryffons, who sentence the Phoenix to death for bringing humans into their magic world.They escape and the Phoenix keeps his appointment with the witch. David returns home to meet the unpleasant scientist visiting his parents. The two friends implement plans to avoid the scientist, firstly by finding some buried treasure with the help of a gruff but friendly sea monster, and spending the gold coins on magic items to foil the scientist's plot to capture the rare bird.While visiting the magical world to buy necessities, David has a brief adventure with a prankster Leprechaun, meets a cantankerous potion-selling hag, and a faun. The Phoenix rescues David from remaining too long in this world, which could absorb those beings who are not magical.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Songs_(novel)" title="Other Songs (novel)">
Twelve centuries have passed since the fall of Rome; fewer since the death of Kristos (Christ). Hieronim Berbelek was once a powerful "strategos" (a natural born leader whose form makes other people listen to him or her), but when he was defeated by one of the "kratistoses", known as the Warlock, his Form and spirit were broken, reduced to those of a lowly merchant, a sad, small man, easily molded by others with stronger Forms. However, a chain of events sets him off on a journey — first to Africa, and later into many new lands, from the depths of Warlock's domain, through the fabled Library of Alexandria and mysterious flying city, to the Moon colony, and on this journey he may have a chance of regaining his Form…
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Icebound_Land" title="The Icebound Land">
Will, the main character and a Ranger's apprentice, is captured by the Skandians along with his friend, Evanlyn (Araluen's Crown Princess Cassandra in disguise), in a big war in the previous book, "The Burning Bridge". The capturer, Jarl (war officer) Erak of the Skandians (mercenaries), takes them in as slaves.Meanwhile, Will's mentor, Halt (a legendary Ranger), has sworn to save him from the Skandians, but the Ranger Corps forces him to stay back. Halt, however, is so desperate, he insults the King of his country, Araluen. The King and Halt are good friends, so in Halt's trial, the King takes pity on Halt. Instead of the normal punishment, which is to ban the defendant from the borders of Araluen forever, he banishes Halt from the borders only for a twelvemonth. Halt is banished from the Ranger Corps until the punishment is lifted, but that is just a minor problem for Halt. He then sets out to find his apprentice once more. Halt is determined to get to Skandia quickly, so he takes the quickest route: Gallica. There he meets Will's old friend, Horace. Horace is Will's childhood friend, and just like Will, Horace is an orphan. In Gallica, Horace and Halt tried to go as fast as they could, but they were stopped by a lot of inexperienced knights, as Gallica is in a state of anarchy and turmoil. Horace, being a warrior apprentice, takes on the fake name "The Oakleaf Knight". Horace beats all of them with ease without his grizzled companion, Halt, to step in. Horace's reputation grows until he is noticed throughout Gallica, which attracts the horrible knight, Deparnieux of Castle Montsombre. Deparnieux soon captures Horace and Halt, and holds them in his keep.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Button_and_Luke_the_Engine_Driver" title="Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver">
## Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver.The story begins on a tiny island called Morrowland (original German: , a play on , the German translation of Neverland), which has just enough space for a small palace, a train station and rails all around the island, a grocery store, a small house, a king, two subjects, a locomotive named Emma, and a locomotive engineer by the name of Luke (Lukas) (who, as railway civil servant, is not a subject). One day, the postman – who has to come by ship – drops off a package with a nearly illegible address for a "Mrs. Krintuuth" at "Zorroulend". On the back was a large 13. After a futile search for the addressee among Morrowland's few inhabitants, they open the package. To their immense surprise, there's a black baby inside. After the commotion has died down, the baby is adopted by the islanders and is named Jim Button.As Jim grows up, the King begins to worry that the island is too small and there won't be enough space for Jim to live on once he's an adult. He announces to Luke that Emma has to be removed. Luke, upset about this decision, decides to leave the island with Emma, and Jim (who had accidentally overheard Luke relating his woes to Emma) decides to come along. They convert Emma into a makeshift ship and sail off the island in the night, eventually arriving at the coast of Mandala (a fictional country inspired by China).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Acceptable_Time" title="An Acceptable Time">
Happy to be away from her large family for a while, Polly O'Keefe is spending the autumn with her maternal grandparents, Dr. Kate Murry and Dr. Alex Murry, getting a better education from them in science than she would have received at home. She is grieving the loss of her beloved friend and mentor, Maximiliana Sebastiane Horne. Soon, however, surprising things start to happen, including the unexpected arrival of Zachary Gray, a charming but troubled college student whom Polly met in Greece and dated in Cyprus the year before (in "A House Like a Lotus").Then, while walking near her grandparents' Connecticut home, Polly meets druids Karralys and Anaral and a warrior named Tav, all of whom lived in the area some three thousand years ago. She soon learns that she is not the first person from her time to meet the Murrys' Pre-Columbian neighbors. Bishop Nason Colubra, the brother of a family friend, Dr. Louise Colubra, has been investigating the hieroglyphs found on rocks in nearby, relics of Karralys' time. In doing so, he has also come into repeated contact with Anaral's tribe, the People of the Wind (a tribe that previously appeared in "A Swiftly Tilting Planet"). The retired bishop is initially reluctant to discuss this, having been met with his sister's skepticism in previous attempts. However, he feels responsible for exposing Polly to the potential dangers of a tesseract of intersecting periods of time.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quincunx_of_Time" title="The Quincunx of Time">
Capt. Robin Weinbaum of Earth Security submits to a request for an interview from Dana Lje, a video commentator, mostly because she can and has made his life difficult with her reporting of Security lapses, especially in a recent case involving the Government of Erskine, another planetary system. Ms. Lje reveals that she has received a communication from an outfit calling itself "Interstellar Information Ltd." about an incident in a star system so far away that even by a faster-than-light ship, no message could return from it in less than two months. The incident in fact is due to take place in the next few days. The communication also alleges that there is a new device aboard the ship, and gives the name of the device.When Weinbaum hears the name—the "Dirac communicator"—he is forced to believe that Interstellar Information have access to information even he doesn't have. He brings in Dr. Thor Wald to explain the Dirac device to Dana Lje. She agrees to play along with Interstellar and its owner, J. Shelby Stevens, to let Security find out how the company gets its information.A long investigation turns up exactly nothing. Even when J. Shelby Stevens allows an interview, under the conditions of so-called "stoolie's arrest" in which he voluntarily places himself in custody for interview, with a guarantee of being set free immediately afterward, there is no progress. The only result is that Stevens predicts the date of their next meeting.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_(novel)" title="East (novel)">
When Arne married the superstitious Eugenia, he agreed to have seven children with her—one for each point of the compass, excluding north. According to the birth-direction superstition held by Eugenia's family, the direction a woman faces when giving birth will affect the child's personality; each direction foretells a different personality, and Eugenia believes north is wild and uncontrollable. Years before, Eugenia was told by a "skjebne-soke" (a fortune teller) that any north child she had would die crushed beneath an avalanche of ice and snow, reinforcing her desire to never have a pure northern child. Her favorite child, east-born Elise, dies young and Eugenia conceives another child to replace her, Rose. While pregnant with Rose, Eugenia is adamant that her unborn child will be an east-born, so much so that her very non-superstitious husband worries that she is tempting fate.Rose feels out of place in her family, despite her love for them and her home; she can never live up to the standard set by her dead sister Elise, and is consumed by un-east-like wanderlust and desire for adventure. Her happy and loving childhood is failing: not only are they impoverished and her sick sister lying close to death, but her parents have concealed the truth of her birth-direction from her—the superstition that has hung over her entire life. Later she overhears her parents talking and finds out she is actually a north-born. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taming_the_Star_Runner" title="Taming the Star Runner">
Travis is a tough kid living in a big city. When he comes home to find his stepfather cramming the fireplace with his writing, Travis assaults him with a fireplace poker. As a result, he is sent to live with his paternal uncle, Ken, on his ranch outside of Tulsa. Travis, used to living in the city, soon finds country life to be boring\ the coolest, toughest kid in school, he is now an out-of-place loner, torn between his desire to fit in and his contempt for country living. Even Ken seems too busy for him, between work at his law-firm and his divorce; he is often too busy to even keep food in the house. Travis continues work on his book while maintaining a correspondence with Joe, the only one of his friends to even occasionally write back.He also meets Casey Kencaide, who runs a riding school on Ken's ranch and is the only one brave enough to ride the Star Runner, a creature who, like Travis, was never meant to be tamed. Soon Travis is working for Casey as a stable boy, and he receives an offer to publish his book. In response he takes a trip into town to celebrate. While in town he gets drunk and is beat up by the bouncer when his true age is discovered. In bad shape, he contacts his uncle to bring him home and reveals his book deal to Ken, which comes as a surprise as he was unaware that Travis was even fully literate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Man_with_a_Horn_(novel)" title="Young Man with a Horn (novel)">
It is a fictionalized novel on jazz set in a world of speakeasies and big bands during The Jazz Age of the 1920s. It is loosely based on the life of the great cornet player Bix Beiderbecke who died in 1931 at the age of 28. It tells the story of Rick Martin, a tormented genius from childhood until his death at age 30.The racial component of jazz is addressed. Ever since the first jazz record was released in 1917 by the white band The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, race has been an inherent issue in the new musical genre of jazz. In the wake of the success of the ODJB, both white and black musicians and bands emerged. The story also dwells on the white/black abilities to play jazz. Rick, however, establishes a strong relationship with white and black musicians. The book details both the widely accepted public view of the jazz musician of the time as well as a musician's own struggle for perfection. This drive finally destroys Rick.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheels_of_Chance" title="The Wheels of Chance">
"The Wheels of Chance" was written at the height of the cycling craze (1890–1905), when practical, comfortable bicycles first became widely and cheaply available and before the rise of the automobile (see History of the bicycle). The advent of the bicycle stirred sudden and profound changes in the social life of England. Even the working class could travel substantial distances, quickly and cheaply, and the very idea of travelling for pleasure became a possibility for thousands of people for the first time. This new freedom affected many. It began to weaken the rigid English class structure and it gave an especially powerful boost to the existing movement towardfemale emancipation. Wells explored these social changes in his story.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Arrows_of_Hercules" title="The Arrows of Hercules">
The protagonist is the engineer Zopyros of Tarentum, a follower of the Pythagorean philosophical school. Having invented an improved type of catapult, he is drafted into Syracuse's war effort against Carthage by the tyrant Dionysios, creator of the first military ordnance department known to history. The historical Battle of Motya of 399 BC is a major event in the novel. Also portrayed is the incident upon which the legend of the Sword of Damocles is supposedly based.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Rider's_Call" title="First Rider's Call">
Now a Green Rider, one of the king's elite troop of messengers, Karigan returns to Sacor City, giving up her merchant lifestyle. The story opens a year into this service as danger is threatening the kingdom of Sacoridia once again. The dark magic in Blackveil Forest is restless, and has found an outlet through the breach in the D'Yer Wall, which has protected Sacoridia from the forest for over 1000 years. This influx of magic has interfered with a land that has largely learned to live without magic during this time. Reports of strange instances of animals turned to stone and entire villages disappearing are brought to the palace from around the country. In the end the strange magic touches even the main city as suits of iron are brought to life and snow falls within the castle. Even the Green Riders' magic is affected, sending Captain Mapstone into self-imposed solitary confinement. As a result, Mara, another rider, and Karigan are left to lead the riders as best they can. Throughout the book Karigan has ghostly visions of Lil Ambriodhe, First Rider, legendary founder of the Green Rider messenger service.Karigan meets with an Eletian prince and learns that she has wild magic within her that entered her as a result of her battle with Shawdell in the previous book. This wild magic augments her rider ability and allows her to travel through time, even visiting Lil Ambriodhe in her own time. Unfortunately, the magic also allows Mornhavon the Black to possess her. However, Karigan uses this to her favor---while Mornhavon possesses her, she transports him into the future, and, with the help of Lil Ambriodhe, she deposits him there. This buys the defenders of Sacoridia time to prepare for Mornhavon's return.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_of_Holly_Lane" title="The Mystery of Holly Lane">
The Five Find Outers - Fatty, Larry, Daisy, Pip and Bets - are together again in the school holidays. Bored without a mystery, they decide to practise disguising themselves and shadowing people. Larry dresses up as a window cleaner, and unexpectedly the five children come across a robbery at a house in Holly Lane, the windows of which Larry has cleaned. The house belongs to a blind old man, who has apparently hidden his savings somewhere in the furniture. When the man reports the money stolen, the Find Outers initially believe it to be a simple robbery, but then in the middle of the night, all the old man's furniture is mysteriously spirited away as well.The suspects include Wilfrid, the old man's grandson, and his cousin Marian. When Marian herself disappears, suspicion falls firmly on her and bumbling village policeman Mr Goon is convinced she is the thief - but Fatty thinks differently. Will Fatty solve this mystery?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kingdom_of_Kevin_Malone" title="The Kingdom of Kevin Malone">
Kevin Malone has a troubled childhood with history of abuses by his father. To escape the miseries of his real life, he creates a fantasy world called "Fayre Farre" in which he is "The Promised Champion", the hero of the world. Amy, a fourteen-year-old girl, enters this fantasy world one day while she is roller-skating at New York's Central Park. Amy has been running away from her own real-life problems. She has lost her cousin Shelly, and Amy's father wants the family to relocate to Los Angeles as he wants to pursue a career in Hollywood. The anticipation of losing her best friends by moving away depresses Amy. She accidentally enters the make-believe world of Kevin, her neighbor who used to bully her in the past.In Fayre Farre, The Promised Champion is losing his supremacy, as the evil "White Warrior Anglower" expands his armies to gain control over the kingdom. Through a series of adventures, Kevin wins over the White Warrior Anglower, taking help from Amy and her friends. At the end, Anglower is shown as the reincarnation of Kevin's father and Amy accepts the death of her cousin.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyle,_Lyle,_Crocodile" title="Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile">
The story begins with Lyle and Mrs. Primm going shopping and running into their neighbor, Mr. Grumps. The grouchy Mr. Grumps finds Lyle a nuisance because Lyle scares his cat, Loretta, and he has him thrown in the zoo. When Lyle is freed by his old performing partner Mr. Valenti, they go back to the house on 88th Street, where they find Mr. Grumps' house on fire. Lyle rescues Mr. Grumps and Loretta, is declared a hero, and thus is allowed to stay with the Primms, and is warmly accepted by Mr. Grumps and Loretta.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_the_Soil" title="Growth of the Soil">
## Book One.The novel begins by following the story of Isak, a Norwegian man, who finally settled upon a patch of land which he deemed fit for farming. He began creating earthen sheds in which he housed several goats obtained from the village yonder. Isak asked passing by Lapps, nomadic indigenous people, to tell women that he is in need of help on his farm. Eventually, a “big, brown-eyed girl, full-built and coarse” with a harelip named Inger, arrived at the house and settled in. Inger had her first child which was a son named Eleseus. She then had another son named Sivert.The Lensmand Geissler came by their farm one day informing them that they were on States land and assisting them in purchasing it. They named the farm Sellanraa. Soon after, Geissler was discharged from his position as Lensmand after a sharp reprimand from his superior and was subsequently replaced with Lensmand Heyerdahl. One day while Isak had left the farm to sell a bull in the village, Inger gave birth to a child and had killed it upon seeing that it had a harelip and would undergo the inevitable suffering in life she herself had experienced. One day, Oline, Inger's relative, visited the farm and figured out that Inger had killed a child. The news of the infanticide now spreading. One October day, the Lensmand and a man showed up at their doorstep to investigate and find evidence pertaining to the crime. Oline had agreed to serve at the farm while Inger was serving her eight-year sentence in prison.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramona_Forever" title="Ramona Forever">
The book takes place some months after the events of "Ramona Quimby, Age 8". Ramona is curious to meet her friend Howie's uncle, Uncle Hobart, who has just returned from Saudi Arabia. She meets him one day after school at the Kemps' house, but when he teases her, she quickly decides she dislikes him. Hobart gives Howie a unicycle, and Howie's younger sister Willa Jean an accordion. Willa Jean breaks the accordion before Ramona has the chance to stop her, but Mrs. Kemp, their grandmother, punishes Ramona anyway. Hurt and angry, Ramona tells her parents that she no longer wants to go to the Kemps' house after school, and that Mrs. Kemp singles her out. When Beezus agrees that Mrs. Kemp dislikes them both, the sisters convince their parents to let them stay home after school for one week to see how it goes.At first, all goes well, but when Beezus won't let Ramona go out and ride Howie's bike, Ramona gets mad and calls her "Pizzaface". Even though Ramona meant it as a play on "Pieface", Beezus thinks this is about her acne, and refuses to help Ramona after she scrapes her knee. The next day, they find their cat, Picky-Picky, dead in the basement. They bury Picky-Picky, hold a funeral for him, and forgive each other for the fight. When their parents return home, they decide the sisters are responsible enough to take care of themselves; they then announce that Mrs. Quimby is pregnant, leaving Beezus thrilled and Ramona with mixed feelings.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_Mage" title="Forest Mage">
The Gernian Cavalla Academy that has been established according to the King's wishes has suffered from the rivalry between the Old Lords and the King's New Lords. These are newly raised soldiers who won distinction in the push east and the conflicts with the plains people. However a new foe appears in the guise of the "Specks".The book is written in first person, in the perspective of the main character, Nevare Burvelle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_(novel)" title="Pentagon (novel)">
The Soviet Union invades and occupies a sparsely-populated Pacific atoll and proceeds to kill the inhabitants and gradually construct a missile and submarine base. Diplomatic overtures by the United States accomplish nothing, and a military response to this Soviet threat seems necessary. Such plans, however, are frustrated by infighting within the Pentagon, Congress, and elsewhere in the government. When the novel ends, the U.S. has failed to respond and the Soviets have consolidated their hold on the atoll.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ragged_Edge_of_Science" title="The Ragged Edge of Science">
The essays in the book fall into three general categories, dealing with ancient civilizations and certain unscientific theories regarding them, occult-related subjects, and pseudoscience in general. Anecdotes from history and de Camp's travels to some of the locales he writes about pepper the narrative.The first eight chapters fall into the first category. Discussions of Bronze Age Troy and the ancient Sudanese civilization of Kush counter romantic speculations with a resume of what is known of them from historical sources and archaeological investigations. In contrast, the section on King Arthur, of whom little factual information has been established, puts to rest unverified notions regarding him by tracing the development and elaboration of his legend down through the ages. The chapter on the Maya debunks diffusionist theories seeking the origin of their culture in Old World civilizations rather than from indigenous factors. Later sections about Teotihuacan and the Toltecs serve more as general introductions to these cultures. There is also a brief discussion of the "Tour Magne", a Roman ruin in Nîmes, France, and a chapter on myths that discounts them as reliable reportage of prehistoric events.Chapters in the second category include discussions of memories of previous lives supposedly recovered via hypnosis, the Kabbalah, lives of famous charlatans claiming to have been magicians, such as Cagliostro and Aleister Crowley, the hoax perpetrated by Léo Taxil and others that purported to expose Freemasonry as devil worship, theosophist C. W. Leadbeater, the development of occultist cultism around Mount Shasta in Northern California (demonstrated to have a literary basis), and the origins of the mystic trance, with rational explanations for the visions experienced. A satirical chapter of advice on how to set one's self up as a prophet rounds out the section.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_(novel)" title="Jessica (novel)">
Jessica is a tomboy, raised to be her father's son to help out on the farm. Her older sister Meg is very much her mother's daughter, and it is Meg's and their mother's mission for Meg to seduce Jack Thomas, the town's wealthiest eligible bachelor. Jessica and her dad work each year shearing at Riverview station for the Thomases - the richest family in the district. In the shearing shed, Jessica becomes close friends with Jack Thomas and William D'arcy Simon. Jessica is teased by the other boys, predominantly for simply being female. Eventually she is attacked, with tar poured over her head and hair. Jack and William defend her, but William is kicked by a horse, causing brain damage and earning him the name Billy Simple. Subsequently, Jessica and Jack's relationship blossoms and they become Billy's sole friends.Jack gets Billy a job working as a gardener for his rich family, but one day Billy kills Jack's mother and two sisters, because of their constant taunting of him. Jessica takes him on the long journey to the nearest town with a courthouse, endangering herself. Jessica holds off the angry mob of farmers, to give Billy a fair trial. When they finally reach the courthouse, the farmers (including Jack) catch them. However, although Billy has murdered his mother and sisters, Jack holds off the mob and sweeps exhausted Jessica off her feet and carries her into the courthouse. Billy is later sentenced to death, but not without a fight from his lawyer, Richard Runche.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lautlos_wie_sein_Schatten" title="Lautlos wie sein Schatten">
When James Baldon comes home from a party late at night, he is not able to open the front door of his apartment. The reason: a dead man is blocking his entrance. David Brewer, head of the Homicide Squad, starts the investigation. When it is discovered that the body was moved after being shot, everybody in the building turns out to have an alibi. However, Brewer is convinced that one of the alibis must be false.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finding_Moon" title="Finding Moon">
During the weeks immediately preceding to the 1975 Fall of Saigon that ended the Vietnam War, Malcolm "Moon" Thomas Mathias, manages the "Press-Register", a small Colorado newspaper. He had always believed that his brother Ricky was the favorite child of their mother Victoria Mathias Morick. Ricky had been running a helicopter business in the Indochina peninsula, and married to a Vietnamese woman named Eleth Vinh. Both were killed by enemy fire, leaving behind young daughter Lila Vinh Mathias. The first that the family learns of the existence of Lila is in a letter to Victoria from Ricky's attorney Roberto Bolivar Castenada in Manila, the Philippines. Victoria immediately books a flight to Manila to retrieve her grandchild, only to be stopped by a heart attack at Los Angeles International Airport. After receiving an emergency call from Philippine Airlines, Moon learns his mother is facing immediate heart surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Moon was unaware that he had a niece, much less that his mother was en route to the Philippines. He learns the details going through her belongings while awaiting visitation at the hospital. After talking to her, Moon takes his mother's place to find Lila.Upon Moon's arrival in Manila, he is approached by two of Ricky's clients. The elderly Lum Lee asks Moon to help him find a family urn containing ancestral bones. Mrs. Osa van Winjgaarden wants to accompany Moon on his quest, so that she may find her brother, a Lutheran missionary known as Brother Damon. With each new contact, Moon gradually learns more about his brother's business and associates. The quest takes him on a search through his own soul, as he engages in long talks with Father Julian in the confessional of the Manila Cathedral. Romance, political intrigue, the dangers of traveling through war zones, and hiding in the basement of a deserted building, are part of the action. Among the new, sometimes uneasy, alliances that he makes, is Nguyen Nung, a wounded ARVN deserter armed with a grenade launcher, and "SAT CONG" ("kill Viet Cong") tattooed on his chest.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_Haven" title="Prisoner of Haven">
The book follows the adventures of sisters-in-law Dezra and Usha Majere as they are trapped in the Krynn city of Haven by a Dark Knight of Neraka and his army. The story takes place during the War of Souls.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strange_Adventures_of_Rangergirl" title="The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl">
Marzi McCarty is an art school dropout working at Santa Cruz coffeeshop Genius Loci. She draws a comic book called "The Strange Adventures of" "Rangergirl", featuring the eponymous heroine fighting the evil Outlaw in a Fantasy Western setting. College student Jonathan rents a room in Genius Loci in order to study the murals inside. They are the last works of Garamond Ray, an artist who disappeared during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. He is interested in a desert-themed mural in the storage room, which Marzi has sealed off as structurally unsound.As Marzi, Jonathan, and Marzi's best friend Lindsey get to know one another, strange incidents begin to occur at Genius Loci. People in the shop hear voices. Marzi has recurring flashbacks of a door in a desert. Art student Beej rambles about a god trapped in the shop. A mudslide interrupts a romantic outdoor interlude between graduate students Denis and Jane; Denis escapes but leaves Jane to die. Jane's body is transformed into mud, and she begins talking about an earth goddess living inside the shop. Marzi recovers a repressed memory: several years before, she had opened the door inside the storage room, encountering the dimension within and the god trapped inside it. This contact allowed the god to influence the real world, but also marked Marzi as the door's guardian, giving her subconscious influence on the space inside. The dimension has taken on the Weird West aesthetic of her comic book, and the nameless god has taken on the guise of the Outlaw, causing it to look and act like an outlaw stock character in a Western, complete with cowboy hat. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Blind_Mice_and_Other_Stories" title="Three Blind Mice and Other Stories">
## Three Blind Mice.During a blinding snowstorm, a homicidal maniac traps a small group of people in an isolated boarding house. Giles and Molly Davis have just inherited Monkswell Manor from Molly’s Aunt Katherine, and they have decided to open it as a guest house. During a heavy blizzard, an intriguing cast of characters are trapped together, yet not everything is what it appears. After one of the guests is found dead, the question is, who is the killer? Well, it can only be someone on the inside. It is a tale if intrigue and murder coming from the past. Is everyone who they say they are? Who will live through the night? Will the murderer who kills to the tune of Three Blind Mice kill them all?Characters:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Albino's_Dancer" title="The Albino's Dancer">
An encounter with the mysterious Catherine Howkins warns Honoré Lechasseur that Emily Blandish is about to die. However, even with this knowledge, can he prevent her death? At the same time, the Albino, a gangster operating in post-rationing London, has also taken an interest in Emily.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cabinet_of_Light" title="The Cabinet of Light">
Honoré Lechasseur, a "fixer" with time-sensitive abilities, is hired by Emily Blandish to find someone known only as the Doctor. He soon discovers that the Doctor is a legendary figure who has drifted in and out of Earth's history. As he follows the trail of the Doctor, questions arise: what is the Doctor's connection with 1949 London and with the mysterious "cabinet of light" that another group is seeking?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Indian_Novel" title="The Great Indian Novel">
The organisation of the sections and chapters of the novel mirrors the organisation of the "Mahabharata" and the themes and events addressed in each allude to themes and events of the mirrored sections of the epic. The novel has 18 "books," just as the "Mahabharata" has 18 books and the Battle of Kurukshetra lasted for 18 days.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborator_(novel)" title="Collaborator (novel)">
The novel begins in December 1940 with the return of Sergeant Nick Penny to his home in an unnamed West Country port town. A former prisoner of war, he had been captured in the aftermath of the successful German invasion of Britain. A former schoolteacher, his ability to speak German had secured his release to work as a translator for the military governor of region, "Generalleutnant" Kurt von Glass. Glass soon puts Penny to work in organising the "Anglo-German Friendship League", which is designed to foster greater unity. Penny is uncomfortable with his current position, and is viewed with suspicion by much of the community. Soon after his return, he visits the Three Horseshoes, a local pub operated by the family of his friend, Roy Locke. There he reconnects with Locke, who immediately begins to recruit him for the emerging resistance movement. Penny begs off, requesting time while he sorts matters out.Penny soon finds himself drawn into the resistance, motivated in part by the gradually increasing harshness of German rule. Penny's mother and sister, with whom he lives, suffer physically and psychologically from the effects of German rule, while Penny's nephew, David, desires to strike back. Though Glass supports Penny's suggestions for fostering Anglo-German amity, the region's security chief, "Standartenführer" Stolz, is using every pretext for brutalising the local population. Penny and Locke nearly miss curfew, but are saved at the last minute by the timely arrival of Matty Cordington, their old friend, who was released from internment and who brought Sara Burskin, a Polish refugee, with him. Roy quickly enlists them into a plan to smuggle the Regent, his wife, and the crown jewels out of the country, but they are thwarted by the "Abwehr". Though Penny and Cordington manage to evade capture, Locke is arrested but kills himself before revealing any information.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancer_from_the_Dance" title="Dancer from the Dance">
The novel revolves around two main characters: Anthony Malone, a young man from the Midwest who leaves behind his straight life as a lawyer to immerse himself in the gay life of 1970s New York, and Andrew Sutherland, variously described as a speed addict, a socialite, and a drag queen. Their social life includes long nights of drinking, dancing, and drug use in New York's gay bars. Though they enjoy many physical pleasures, their lives lack any spiritual depth. The "dance" of the novel's title becomes a metaphor for their lives. Malone is described as preternaturally beautiful; much of the plot concerns Sutherland's efforts to leverage Malone's beauty by "marrying" him to a young millionaire.The book switches perspective often. Sometimes characters are tracked closely using more traditional omniscient narrative techniques. On other occasions (especially later in the book), the lives of Malone and Sutherland are seen from the perspective of bystanders in the New York gay scene — the book itself is literally written by the other dancers at the dance.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Winning_Side" title="The Winning Side">
Emily Blandish has been murdered by an unknown assailant, but when Honoré Lechasseur turns up to see the body, he is surprised to be met by... Emily Blandish. They soon find themselves embroiled in a revolutionary plot stretching into their own futures, with the freedom of the entire world at stake.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Shock_(novella)" title="Shell Shock (novella)">
The Sixth Doctor and Peri find themselves stranded on an alien world that is mostly covered by water. The Doctor manages to make it to shore, where he has to work out a way to save Peri, the TARDIS and himself. Peri, however, is swallowed by an alien life-form intent on making her its god.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Weather_(Sterling_novel)" title="Heavy Weather (Sterling novel)">
Set in the year 2031, "Heavy Weather" depicts a world where mankind has unbalanced the world's ecosystem with their continuing production of greenhouse gases and unchecked expansion. As a result, the weather has become unpredictable and dangerous. Powerful storms routinely leave trails of devastation in their wake. Alex Unger, a young man suffering from numerous medical problems, is liberated from an illegal Mexican clinic by his sister Janey and brought back to America to her group of friends and colleagues, the Storm Troupe. The Troupe are dedicated and knowledgeable storm chasers who use high technology to document and research the weather, led by Janey's lover, the charismatic and brilliant scientist Jerry Mulcahey. They are preparing to meet an F-6, a storm of truly monstrous proportions.The novel deals with scenarios directly extrapolated from emergent issues relevant to the time frame of its creation, such as antibiotic resistant disease, climate change, and social collapse due to monetary disintegration among others.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Among_Sequels" title="First Among Sequels">
In order to save the future, undercover SpecOps investigator Thursday Next attempts to convince her son Friday to join the ChronoGuard. To complicate matters, she'll have to deal with renegade apprentices, ruthless corporations, and a sting operation from the Cheese Enforcement Agency.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallows_Hill_(novel)" title="Gallows Hill (novel)">
Sarah Zoltanne is an extraordinary girl. Her widowed mother, Rosemary, decides to move to Pinecrest because of Ted Thompson. When Sarah starts school as the new pupil, she makes no friends. Role-playing takes on a terrifying cast when 17-year-old Sarah, who is posing as a fortune-teller for a school fair, begins to see actual visions that can predict the future. Frightened, the other students brand her a witch, setting off a chain of events that mirror the centuries-old Salem witch trials in more ways than one.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Keep_(Wilson_novel)" title="The Keep (Wilson novel)">
German soldiers and SS Einsatzkommandos are being slowly killed off in a mysterious castle (the "keep" of the title) high in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania in April 1941. Theodore Cuza, a Jewish history professor living in Bucharest, and his daughter Magda are brought to the keep by SS Sturmbannfuhrer Eric Kaempffer in a desperate attempt to determine what is murdering his men. Cuza is later tasked with defeating the unknown evil that is wreaking havoc. The professor translates a mysterious message written in blood on a wall that uses a forgotten dialect of Old Romanian or Old Slavonic.The entity responsible for the deaths calls itself "Molasar," and it finds Professor Cuza useful. Molasar procures his services through deception and false promises, and even puts the scleroderma from which he suffers into remission so he could work for him. Molasar is later revealed to be Rasalom, an ancient sorcerer from the "First Age" of humans.An immortal man calling himself Glenn, whose real name is Glaeken, is a reluctant champion of the ancient Forces of Light. He becomes aware of Rasalom's activity from across the world and travels to the keep. He built the keep as a prison for Rasalom, out of the reluctance to kill him outright. The two beings are mystically linked in a way that binds their destinies together, even though Rasalom's growing mystical powers are vastly greater than Glenn's own. To keep him from ever forgetting his mission, the Forces of Light had taken away his reflection.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reborn_(novel)" title="Reborn (novel)">
Almost immediately after being slain by Glaeken (Trismaegistus) in a castle keep in Romania in the Spring of 1941, Rasalom has opportunistically entered the body of a clone that grows within a woman hired by the scientist in charge of a project seeking to create a genetically enhanced super-soldier for the U.S. Army.The story actually begins in 1968 when Jim Stevens, an apparently normal man, finds that he is heir to the fortune of a recently deceased brilliant scientist by the name of Doctor Hanley. This amazing windfall promises not only financial independence but the solution to the mystery of his life. Lovingly raised by adoptive parents, Stevens yearns to discover who his parents were. Named in Hanley's will, Jim is sure that the scientist is his father. Moving into Hanley's mansion, Stevens finds the scientist's confidential journals. They reveal that he is, in fact, a clone of the late Doctor Hanley.When word of Jim's origins gets out, Stevens finds himself the target of "The Chosen", a group of religious fanatics convinced of the imminent arrival of The Antichrist. The formerly immortal man called Glaeken is now an aging mortal named Veillure. He contacts the group and confirms that some kind of unimaginably horrific being is about to enter the world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burglar_Bill" title="Burglar Bill">
Burglar Bill is a thief and all of his possessions are stolen items, including the bed he goes to sleep in. On a typical night of thievery, Burglar Bill comes across a box with holes in, and takes it. Upon arriving home, he discovers that within the box is a baby. The baby and Burglar Bill end up spending a day together, but when Bill is putting the baby to bed, he hears an intruder downstairs. He confronts the burglar, who he discovers is Burglar Betty, and they talk to one another to find they have much in common. Bill mentions his new infant friend that he found the night before. He introduces Betty to the baby, only for them both to discover that the baby belongs to Betty. They both decide to give thievery up and return everything they stole to live happily together as a family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightworld_(novel)" title="Nightworld (novel)">
Rasalom returns in reincarnated form to transform the Earth into unrelenting hell. Rasalom is shortening the daylight hours and letting loose a plague of ever-more-fearsome flesh-eating monsters that prey on the world's populace during the ever-lengthening nights. Whole communities turn on one another; riots break out over food; gangs wage war on the public; and Rasalom grows ever stronger as he feeds on the ever-increasing chaos, violence and terror.The only one who can possibly stop the horror is Glaeken, an enfeebled old warrior who has battled the Adversary across the millennia. Formerly immortal, he became a mortal man in the 1940s (during the events of "The Keep") and has grown elderly. Too weak to fight alone, Glaeken gathers together a select band of people to assist him, among them a young boy with mysterious powers, a 150-year-old Indian woman with magical necklaces, a semi-catatonic scientist with a mystical connection to Rasalom, and an all-too-human vigilante named Repairman Jack.So supremely confident is Rasalom of his eventual victory that he spares Glaeken for an especially gruesome fate and allows him to pursue his desperate plan to save the Earth so that Glaeken's ultimate failure will become both Rasalom's greatest victory as well as Glaeken's - and humankind's - most tragic final defeat.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Keep_(comics)" title="The Keep (comics)">
The Keep had stood empty in the Transylvanian Alps for some 500 years. No one knew who built it, or why. But on the eve of World War II, German soldiers moved in and awoke something—something hungry... something more merciless than the SS einsatzkommandos accompanying them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peculiar_Lives" title="Peculiar Lives">
Honoré Lechasseur and Emily Blandish become embroiled in the endgame of a plot which began a generation ago, with the birth of the superhuman children known as "the Peculiar". While Emily encounters their chronicler, the elderly science-fiction novelist Erik Clevedon, Honoré is pitched against his will into an unimaginably distant future.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Ball_and_Other_Stories" title="The Golden Ball and Other Stories">
## The Listerdale Mystery.Mrs St. Vincent is a genteel lady living in reduced circumstances with her son and daughter, Rupert and Barbara. After her husband's financial speculations went wrong, he died, and they were forced to vacate the house, which had been in their family for generations. They now live in rooms in a boarding house (which has seen better times) and, due to these surroundings, are unable to entertain people of similar class and upbringing. Rupert has just started a job in the city, with excellent prospects but, at this point in time, only a small income. Barbara enjoyed a trip to Egypt the previous winter with – and paid for by – her richer cousin. On this trip she met a young man called Jim Masterson, who is interested in courting her, but who would be put off if he saw their reduced circumstances. Looking through the Morning Post, Mrs St. Vincent sees an advertisement for a house to let in Westminster, furnished, and with a nominal rent. Although she thinks she has little chance of being able to afford the house, she goes to see the house agents and then the house itself, and is instantly taken with it and pleasantly surprised at its very low rent. The agents offer her the house for a six-month rental. Barbara is delighted, but Rupert is suspicious – the house belonged to Lord Listerdale, who disappeared eighteen months previously and supposedly turned up in East Africa, supplying his cousin, Colonel Carfax, with power of attorney. They take the house and are looked after in style by Quentin, the butler, whose wages are paid for by Lord Listerdale's estate, as are the wages of the two other servants. Delicious food regularly turns up on the table. It is sent up regularly from his Lordship's country seat of King's Cheviot – an old custom.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wieland_(novel)" title="Wieland (novel)">
Set sometime between the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War (1754–83), "Wieland" details the horrible events that befall Clara Wieland and her brother Theodore's family. Clara and Theodore's father was a German immigrant who founded his own religion; he came to America just before the American Revolution with the goal of evangelizing the indigenous people. When he fails at this task, he believes he has also failed his deity. One night, as he worships in his bare, secluded temple, he seems to spontaneously combust, after which his health rapidly deteriorates and he dies. His children inherit his property, which is divided equally between them. Theodore marries their childhood friend, Catharine Pleyel, and they have four children.Clara and Theodore live in houses on adjoining property, leading lives of leisure in companionship with Catharine and her brother, Henry Pleyel. The story centers around several seemingly supernatural experiences that occur to members of the family. The first incident involves Theodore hearing a disembodied voice that warns him of potential danger. While the others are initially skeptical of his story, Henry and Clara have similar experiences soon afterward, which brings credibility to each of their stories. When the mysterious Carwin appears on the scene, he suggests that the voices may be caused by human mimicry.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upland_Outlaws" title="Upland Outlaws">
The sorcerer Zinixo has taken control of Hub, but life goes on as normal. As Zinixo and his Covin track down Rap and friends, Rap must get the word out to the other sorcerers about the plans to join together and destroy Zinixo. Having escaped across the Cenmere Sea, the group takes to ship and sets sail.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Day_in_Paradise_(novel)" title="Another Day in Paradise (novel)">
At age 13, Bobbie leaves the violent, abusive home where he was raised, and this book details his following year. He has an older girlfriend, carries a gun, takes drugs, and is on an ever-tightening spiral to hell, his crimes escalating until they include murder. The plot, which highlights Bobbie's increasing dependence on the highs of violence, emphasizes a frightening reality.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_Gods_(novella)" title="Fallen Gods (novella)">
In the ancient Minoan empire a young girl develops timestream based abilities. Fortunately she has an expert to teach and train her, the time-traveling Doctor. She's going to need all the help she can get, as strange and malicious powers target her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderland_(novella)" title="Wonderland (novella)">
San Francisco. The late 60s. An innocent young woman named Summer is caught up in danger as a popular new drug seems to be far more than just a way to have a good time. Fortunately she gains three allies, British tourists seemingly, Ben, Polly and The Doctor. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_Tide_(novella)" title="Rip Tide (novella)">
Strangers and dangers arise at a sleepy Cornish seaside down. The Doctor struggles to find out what is going on as threats to the townsfolk get worse.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Ship_(novella)" title="Ghost Ship (novella)">
An ocean cruise just might be the thing to draw the Doctor out of his dark mood. Except dangerous forces are attracted to him onboard. Which is one thing, but they threaten the lives of the passengers as well.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightdreamers" title="Nightdreamers">
A royal wedding on an otherwise pleasant moon goes wild. Romantic entanglements give way to fare more dangerous difficulties. Including gravity itself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citadel_of_Dreams" title="Citadel of Dreams">
Ace tries to help a tormented homeless child in a city where time itself is falling apart. Far away, if that means anything anymore, the Doctor is undergoing dangerous ethical dilemmas.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_Visible_(memoir)" title="Darkness Visible (memoir)">
In October 1985, American author William Styron travels to Paris to receive the "Prix mondial Cino Del Duca," a prestigious literary award. During the trip, Styron's mental state begins to degenerate rapidly as the depressive symptoms that he has been experiencing for several months worsened. He tentatively concludes that his depression was brought about by his sudden withdrawal from years of alcoholism and exacerbated by his overdependence on Halcion, a prescription drug that he took to treat insomnia. Styron also briefly mentions his own father's battle with depression and his mother's premature death from breast cancer, both of which he believes could have also contributed to his deteriorated state of mind.As his depression becomes more severe, Styron seeks multiple treatment methods, including psychotherapy, consulting with a psychiatrist, and countless antidepressants, but to no avail. Initially, Styron is able to function better in the morning than in the afternoon and evening, but he soon struggles to even get out of bed. He eventually loses the ability to perform basic tasks such as driving and often contemplates suicide.One night, after a particularly intense bout of suicide ideation that culminates in him actively preparing to take his own life, Styron hears a passage from Brahms' "Alto Rhapsody," to which he has a fiercely emotional response. He is suddenly repulsed at the idea of suicide and is compelled to eliminate his depression once and for all. The following day, Styron checks himself into a hospital, which he had previously avoided on the advice of his psychiatrist, who harbors a strong opposition to institutional treatment. It is ultimately at the hospital that Styron finally emerges from his depression and eventually makes a full recovery.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silver_Wolf" title="The Silver Wolf">
"I was born of darkness. My father's eyes closed before mine opened. I am not of this world or the other, and I have the right to be what I am ".Regeane is a half-Saxon and half-Frankish woman whose father, Wolfstan, died because of her mother, Gisela. Wolfstan was a shape shifter, a man who could change from human to a very large wolf while her mother, Gisela, was frightened at the abnormality that her husband displayed. Due to Gundabald's urgings and pressure, Gisela grew to believe that Wolfstan was an offspring of the Devil Himself and eventually lured him to his death. When Gisela birthed Regeane, she was relieved to find no abnormalities. Leastwise, not yet.When Regeane experiences her first sign of adulthood, she changes into this beautiful silver wolf. Gisela panics and forces poor Regeane to drink filthy concoctions, to pray for hours, to go to church, to promise never again to change as long as she lived. Etc. In return for that promise, Gundabald would take care of Regeane for a long time.But when Gisela dies, the whole family falls into poverty and corruption, ending up with tattered cloths, temporary lodging in Rome and Regeane chained by the neck in the basement. Gundabald treats her worse and worse while Hugo, his son, is a more drunken wastrel than ever. Together, the expert wastrel (Gundabald) and the apprentice wastrel (Hugo) use up the money while Regeane is locked up in the house. But Regeane fights back and she finally escapes from the imprisonment when Gundabald's mood turns when he finds her a wealthy mountain lord by the name of Maeniel to marry her. Regeane escapes to Lucilla's villa, where Lucilla, Hadrian (the Pope), Antonius and many others befriend her and her smaller friend Elfgifa.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Butch_Blues" title="Stone Butch Blues">
The narrative of "Stone Butch Blues" follows the life of Jess Goldberg, who grows up in a working-class area of upstate New York in the 1940s. Her parents, frustrated with Jess's gender nonconformity, eventually institutionalize Jess in a psychiatric ward for three weeks. When she reaches puberty and feels the weight of gendered difference, Jess learns of a gay bar from a coworker. There, she meets drag queens, butches, and femmes. Butch Al and Jacqueline take Jess in and teach her about lesbian roles and culture. After a police raid, the bar closes and Jess loses touch with Butch Al and Jacqueline. At school, football players harass Jess, tackling and gang-raping her. Traumatized, she drops out of school the next day, packing her bags and running away from home to a lesbian bar, where a butch, Toni, offers to let Jess sleep on her couch.Jess finds her place in the lesbian community of Buffalo while the cops continue to raid gay bars. Jess is arrested, beaten, and raped by them. In a traumatized state, Jess and Toni fight, and Jess is left houseless again. She is taken in by Angie, a femme sex worker. The two have an intimate conversation and then sex. When Angie attempts to touch her, Jess cringes. Angie identifies Jess as a stone butch, assuring Jess that there is nothing wrong with being stone.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_the_Day" title="Against the Day">
Nearly all reviewers of the book mention the byzantine nature of the plot. Louis Menand in "The New Yorker" gives a simple description:As to the multitude of plot dead-ends, pauses and confusing episodes that return to continue much later in the narrative, Menand writes:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zandru's_Forge" title="Zandru's Forge">
## Prologue.Rumail Deslucido, a bitter, corrupt and defeated laranzu, tells his twisted story to his only son, Eduin MacEarn (see "The Fall of Neskaya"). He has sent each of his sons to kill the Hasturs, and each has died in the attempt. Now it is Eduin's turn. He charges Eduin with the duty to enter Arilinn Tower and befriend all, but to secretly kill any Hasturs he can.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monastery" title="The Monastery">
The action is centred on the Monastery of Kennaquhair, probably based on Melrose Abbey in south east Scotland, on the River Tweed. At this time, circa 1550, the Scottish Reformation is just beginning, and the monastery is in peril.A love story is interwoven as the Glendinning boys fall in love with Mary Avenel. Edward ends up becoming a monk, and Halbert finally marries Mary, after service with the Earl of Murray.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_He?" title="Who He?">
A TV game show writer, waking up after an alcoholic blackout, discovers that someone is out to destroy his life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Computer_Connection" title="The Computer Connection">
In the future, a band of immortals (some who are famous historical characters, some who have tried their best to avoid becoming so), including Herb Wells, Ned Curzon (nicknamed Grand Guignol), Hillel, and Sam Pepys have only one requirement for membership: don't die. Through their extensive social network, they come across a brilliant Cherokee physicist named Sequoya Guess, who himself has only very recently learned of his peculiarity and the catches and loopholes that come along with it. This creates a swift change in Guess's day-to-day life that is as much a shock to his friends as to himself. At the same time, the world's scientists are collaborating to bring together a supercomputer named Extro that will monitor and control all mechanical activity on Earth. The immortals create a plan to subtly harness Extro to aid them in their quest for knowledge and use some of the experience they have gained to assist it in its task. Working outside of expected behavior, Extro instead seizes control of Dr. Guess, leaving the only people who know what is going on—the Immortals and Guess's nearest friends—to grapple with the heart and mind of a malevolent machine in the body of an Immortal, a powerful and ingenious man who cannot be killed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Living_and_the_Dead_(White_novel)" title="The Living and the Dead (White novel)">
"The Living and the Dead" opens in London's Victoria Station. Elyot Standish bids farewell to his younger sister Eden in a manner that is not particularly emotional or final. Elyot returns to an empty house, somberly observing the memories that remain amongst its silent possessions.Chapter 2 takes the reader several decades earlier, where a young Kitty Goose begins to find her way through England's upper classes. Catherine marries Willy Standish and bears him two children, but separates some years afterwards due to Willy's infidelity. Catherine's children, Elyot and Eden, are raised by her maid Julia and, during World War I, by surrogate guardians.Following the war, Catherine, living on the dwindling remnants of pre-war affluence, struggles to relate to her children. Elyot, a Cambridge graduate and professional writer, isolates himself in intellectual pursuits. Eden, a bookshop attendant, is influenced by left-wing politics.As the Spanish Civil War rises in the conscience of British society, the Standishes are forced to face their inner dissatisfactions. This is brought into focus by the failures of their sexual relationships. Catherine, who finds herself irrelevant in a much-changed world, pursues a romance with the younger Wally Collins, an American musician. The relationship is severed when Wally loses interest in Catherine, who spills her emotions whilst drunk at a fashionable party. Elyot, whether with family or with women, never allows himself a relationship of any depth. He distances himself from both Muriel Raphael, an artistic socialite, and Connie Tiarks, an unattractive but devoted childhood friend. The two are complete opposites, yet neither satisfies the purposeless Elyot.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Arrow's_Flight" title="An Arrow's Flight">
Pyrrhus lives in the city with his housemate Leucon. He works as a waiter, then as a hustler. One day he hears his father Achilles has left him some inheritance in Troy, and he decides to claim it. On the ship, he sleeps with Corythus, a sailor. He soon learns he needs to seduce Philoctetes and get his bow for a prophecy to come true. He grows attached to the old man, though the latter also has an affair with Paris. Finally, Philoctetes breaks the bow. Pyrrhus meets Leucon again in a hospital where Pyrrhus is waiting to see his lover Philoctetes, who is very sick; the latter realizes he no longer has feelings for Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus understands that he has grown and accepted his sexuality and is able to live openly, something Leucon cannot do. (The novel hints that he probably never will.)
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Watsons_Go_to_Birmingham_–_1963" title="The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963">
The novel is a first-person account narrated by Kenneth Watson, who lives in Flint, Michigan with his parents, Daniel and Wilona Watson; his older brother, Byron; and younger sister, Joetta. Kenny is a bright and shy fourth grader at Clark Elementary School who is bullied for his intelligence and his lazy eye. He struggles to make friends until Rufus Fry moves to town from Arkansas. Rufus is also bullied by the other students for his "country" clothes and accent, which initially makes Kenny reluctant to befriend him, but they are soon inseparable. The boys are both bullied and protected by Kenny's 13-year-old brother Byron and Byron's friend Buphead. Byron has been retained twice because he often skips school and is, therefore, still in sixth grade. He invents a series of "fantastic adventures" that constantly get him into trouble, such as playing with matches in the house and setting things on fire, abusing his parents' credit at the grocery store to buy himself treats, and getting a conk hairstyle against his parents' orders.Daniel and Wilona eventually become so frustrated with Byron's behavior issues that they decide to deliver him to Birmingham, Alabama to live with Wilona's mother, Grandma Gloria Sands, for at least the summer and possibly an entire year. As soon as the school year concludes, the Watsons ready their car ("the Brown Bomber") and embark on a road trip from Flint to Birmingham to deliver Byron and visit grandma. Kenny, who had been looking forward to the "battle royal" between his grandmother and Byron, is disappointed when just a few sharp words from Grandma Sands have Byron speaking respectfully and generally behaving himself, and he soon resolves to seek out his own "adventures."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fury_(Rushdie_novel)" title="Fury (Rushdie novel)">
Malik Solanka, a Cambridge-educated millionaire from Bombay, is looking for an escape from himself. At first he escapes from his academic life by immersing himself into a world of miniatures (after becoming enamored with the miniature houses on display at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam), eventually creating a puppet called "Little Brain" and leaving the academy for television.However, dissatisfaction with the rising popularity of "Little Brain" serves to ignite deeper demons within Solanka's life, resulting in the narrowly avoided murder of his wife and child. To further escape, Solanka travels to New York, hopeful he can lose himself and his demons in America, only to find that he is forced to confront himself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renegade's_Magic" title="Renegade's Magic">
The story begins with Nevare Burvelle scheduled for execution. However, Burvelle has been framed, and manages to escape with the help of his former lover, Lisana. The Gernia people (Nevare's ethnic peoples) plan to cut down a forest full of Elder Trees, which house the spirits of the ancestors of the Speck people. Soldier's Boy, a Speck spirit, inhabits Nevare's body and takes full control. Much of the novel is told from Nevare's perspective trapped behind this larger personality. Nevare embarks on his attempt to undermine the effort to build the road, often horrified by what his alter ego is doing with his body, even though he is powerless to stop it. The Specks and Gernia come to a peaceful solution at novel's end, with Nevare ultimately accepting his abilities and personality.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrecker_(Stevenson_novel)" title="The Wrecker (Stevenson novel)">
The story is a "sprawling, episodic adventure story, a comedy of brash manners and something of a detective mystery", according to Roderick Watson. It revolves around the abandoned wreck of the "Flying Scud" at Midway Atoll. Clues in a stamp collection are used to track down the missing crew and solve the mystery. It is only in the last chapter that different story elements become linked. Stevenson described it as a "South Sea yarn" concerning "a very strange and defective plan that was accepted with open eyes for what seemed countervailing opportunities offered". The book sold well but reviews were mixed, with a "New York Times" reviewer concluding that:The loosely connected stories reflect how Stevenson and Osbourne wrote the book. Each contributed different sections, but agreed to develop characters and descriptions of places they both knew well. The following are examples:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bears'_Famous_Invasion_of_Sicily" title="The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily">
The book tells the story of a group of bears living in the mountains of Sicily under the command of King Leonzio. During a particularly harsh winter the bears find themselves without food, and then decide to invade the Grand Duchy of Sicily to survive; Leonzio also hopes to find his son Tonio, kidnapped by hunters a few years earlier.The Grand Duke sends his army against the bears, whose inferiority is clear: the animals would be doomed if it were not for the intervention of their most valiant and strong warrior, the bear Babbone, who puts the enemy soldiers to flight by throwing huge snowballs at them. The bears feast in the enemy camp, where they meet Professor De Ambrosiis, the Grand Duke's sorcerer and ex-astrologer who he sacked for having predicted the fall of his kingdom. He possesses a magic wand, which can however be used only twice and which he retains to heal himself if he becomes ill; Professor De Ambrosiis, however, is forced to perform a spell to save the bears and himself from the attack of the boar army of the Sire of Molfetta, cousin and ally of the Grand Duke: this spell consists in causing the boars to swell until they then explode in the sky.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naoko_(novel)" title="Naoko (novel)">
, a humble 39-year-old man, enjoys the smaller pleasures in life. He is devastated when his wife and daughter are involved in a bus accident. Naoko Sugita (杉田 直子 "Sugita Naoko"), his wife, dies and his 11-year-old daughter Monami Sugita (杉田 藻奈美 "Sugita Monami") is badly injured. Monami makes a miraculous recovery—albeit, with one small twist—her personality and memories are that of her mother Naoko's, rather than her own. Both Heisuke and Naoko conclude that her spirit is possessing Monami's body. Unable to explain what has happened, they decide to keep the matter a secret while Naoko lives as Monami from then on.As Monami's possessed body enters adolescence, Naoko takes the opportunity to live her own unfulfilled dreams. Naoko's growing independence begins to cause a rift between her and Heisuke, who struggles to remain a faithful husband and also tries to make sense of the tragedy that caused Naoko's condition by learning more about the bus driver who caused the accident. Heisuke and Naoko have a falling out when he suspects she has become interested in a boy around Monami's own age, but find they cannot resolve their own relationship as Naoko is now biologically Heisuke's daughter.When Monami's consciousness begins resurfacing, Heisuke and Naoko are able to repair their relationship as they ensure that Monami and Naoko, now sharing the same body, will be able to function and transition back to the life that Naoko has lived for her. As Monami's consciousness begins to dominate, Heisuke and Naoko eventually part ways forever and Heisuke is content to raise Monami as his daughter again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Miner" title="The Miner">
In "The Miner", the 19-year-old protagonist decides to flee his hometown of Tokyo after his relationship falls apart. He encounters a grotesque figure who specializes in recruiting cheap labour, and is persuaded to work in a copper mine. The story follows his journey towards and descent into the mine. The protagonist's perceptions and later reflections are described in great detail, such that a "split-second of visual clarity" is accorded three pages of analysis.The protagonist does not get along with the other "animalistic" miners, but eventually meets an educated individual who is, like himself, fleeing from a failed relationship. This miner convinces him to return to his former life. The novel ends with the protagonist emerging from the mine. Outside the mine, he remarks on the beauty of a flower and the ugliness of the miners. He then visits a clinic for a mandatory examination, and is reminded of human mortality by the scent there. He passes the same flower and no longer finds it beautiful, nor does he find the miners ugly:As always, the miners were looking down at me from their barracks, chin on hand. Their faces, which before had filled me with such loathing, now seemed like clay dolls' heads. They were not ugly, not frightening, not hateful. They were just faces, as the face of the most beautiful woman in Japan is just a face. And I was exactly like these men, a human being of flesh and bone, entirely ordinary and entirely meaningless.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magicians_of_Caprona" title="The Magicians of Caprona">
Caprona is a city-state in the Italy of Chrestomanci's world (World Twelve A), which never united as a nation-state. The houses of Casa Montana and Casa Petrocchi, both renowned for being powerful magician families, have been feuding with each other for generations. The city has begun to lose its "virtue," and the states of Florence, Siena, and Pisa intend to take advantage of this by uniting to conquer Caprona. The only way to save the city is if the true words to the "Angel of Caprona", both a hymn and a powerful spell, can be found and read aloud.The story is told through the eyes of the young Tonino Montana and his brother Paolo. They are both members of Casa Montana, one of two spell-houses in Caprona, the other being Casa Petrocchi. The two spell-houses are deadly rivals; the two families are both convinced that the decline of Caprona is all the fault of the other spell-house, and refuse to work together under any circumstances.Tonino is, unknown to himself or the rest of Casa Montana, a talented enchanter; however, he is unaware of his ability, and prefers to spend his time reading. Paolo is more outgoing and friendly, and does better at school. When representatives of both houses are called to the Duke of Caprona's palace, they both go. Whilst there, they meet members of the Petrocchi family for the first time, and they also encounter the Duchess, a powerful woman who appears to be the true ruler of Caprona.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cricket_in_Times_Square" title="The Cricket in Times Square">
On an early summer evening, Mario Bellini finds a cricket chirping near his parents' newsstand in the Times Square subway station. Papa Bellini allows Mario to keep the cricket in the newsstand as a pet despite Mama Bellini's fear that the cricket will attract more bugs.The cricket's name is Chester. That evening, Chester meets Tucker Mouse and Harry Cat, best friends who live in an abandoned drainpipe near the newsstand. Chester tells them that he is from Connecticut and that he came to New York by being accidentally trapped in a picnic basket. Tucker and Harry show him Times Square, which he finds overwhelming.Mr. Smedley, a music teacher who is a regular customer of the Bellinis, hears Chester chirping and likens the cricket to Orpheus. Mario takes Chester to Chinatown and buys a cricket cage from a shop owner named Sai Fong. While dreaming that night, Chester eats half of a two-dollar bill. The Bellinis decide that Chester must stay in his cage until Mario repays the two dollars. To free Chester, Tucker donates his life's savings, a collection of coins scrounged from the subway station. Mario realizes that he has been feeding Chester the wrong kind of food. He takes Chester to see Sai Fong, who from then on provides Chester a steady supply of mulberry leaves.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Confession" title="The Second Confession">
Wealthy James U. Sperling approaches Nero Wolfe to investigate Louis Rony, an admirer of Sperling's younger daughter Gwenn. Sperling wants Wolfe to find evidence that Rony is a member of the American Communist Party. Wolfe is reluctant since he believes Rony has connections to “Z”, a shadowy criminal mastermind who has crossed Wolfe's path before. Nevertheless, Archie Goodwin is dispatched undercover to Sperling's Westchester estate to see if he can discover any grounds to convince Gwenn to break off the relationship.Present at Sperling's estate are his family, including his wife, his son and two daughters; Rony himself; Paul Emerson, a controversial conservative radio commentator who is sponsored by Sperling's corporation; and Webster Kane, an economist and friend of the family. Madeline, the eldest daughter, reveals that she is aware of Archie's true identity, having read about his exploits with Wolfe and nursed a crush on him. That night, Archie plans to drug Rony, but when he switches drinks he discovers that Rony's drink was already spiked.The next night, Archie offers to drive Rony back to New York, but instead arranges for Wolfe's operatives, Saul Panzer and Ruth Brady, to pose as robbers and waylay them. Once Rony is knocked unconscious, Archie searches him and discovers a membership card for the Communist Party under the name of William Reynolds. Returning to New York, Archie learns from Wolfe that “Z” has given Wolfe a deadline to withdraw from the case. After the deadline passes, the greenhouse on the roof of Wolfe's house is attacked with machine-gun fire, destroying many of the orchids there.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Be_a_Villain" title="And Be a Villain">
A radio show guest is poisoned on the air during a plug for the show's sponsor, a soft-drink manufacturer. The negative publicity, and the low bank balance at tax time, brings Nero Wolfe into the case — and into his first recorded encounter with a shadowy master criminal."And Be a Villain" is the first of three Nero Wolfe books that involve crime syndicate leader Arnold Zeck and his widespread operations. The others in the Zeck Trilogy are "The Second Confession" and "In the Best Families". In each book, Zeck — Wolfe's Moriarty — telephones Wolfe to warn him off an investigation that Zeck believes will interfere with his crime syndicate. Each time, Wolfe refuses to cooperate, and anticipates that there will be consequences.The title is from Act I, Scene V, line 114 of William Shakespeare's "Hamlet", in which the prince says of his murderous uncle King Claudius, "That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain." Remarking on the change from Stout's title to "More Deaths Than One" for the British edition, Rev. Fredrick G. Gotwald wrote, "It seems strange that the name was changed in a country from which the original came."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_25th_Hour" title="The 25th Hour">
New York drug dealer Monty Brogan is arrested for drug possession with intent to sell, and sentenced to seven years in prison. He spends his last night of freedom with two friends, contemplating his uncertain future and the decisions he made that brought him to this point.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kobayashi_Maru_(Star_Trek_novel)" title="The Kobayashi Maru (Star Trek novel)">
While stranded in a damaged shuttlecraft, Kirk, Sulu, Chekov, and Scotty recall their Starfleet Academy Command School experiences with "The Kobayashi Maru", a training simulation where a cadet has to rescue a crippled fuel freighter by that name from the Klingons, a no-win scenario where any course of action the cadet takes ends in failure. The purpose of the no-win outcome is to test the cadets' response to losing.The characters in the novel find themselves in a similar no-win scenario of their own.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staying_Fat_for_Sarah_Byrnes" title="Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes">
Eric “Mobe” Calhoune's best friend Sarah Byrnes is catatonic, sitting in the mental ward of Sacred Heart Hospital. The staff there suggests that he recall some moments that may jog her memory and bring her and back to reality. Eric and Sarah Byrnes (who insists on being called Sarah Byrnes, rather than just Sarah) have been friends for a long time, originally because he was extremely overweight and she was severely burned as a child, leaving her with scars on her hands and face. They were picked on regularly and began to write an underground newspaper called "Crispy Pork Rinds", focusing an article on the bully Dale Thornton. After the ensuing events, they recruited Dale as “protection”, and their lives became a bit easier.Eric is recruited to the swim team, and as he improves in skill his weight decreases. Out of fear of losing his friend Sarah Byrnes, he continues to eat, and even tries to eat as much as he can so that he can “stay fat for Sarah Byrnes”, so that he won't stop being an 'outcast' with her and lose her friendship. Eric's search for a “cure” for Sarah Byrnes’ catatonia leads him to seek out Dale Thornton, and Eric learns that she had an abusive father and that the facial scarring was no accident.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Village_Affair" title="A Village Affair">
"The Grey House is the final piece in the jigsaw of Alice Jordan's perfect life. It seems to be the ultimate achievement of her outwardly happy marriage - a loyal, if dull husband, three children, two cars and now the house. So why does she feel as if something is missing? As Alice and her family settle themselves into village life the something missing becomes something huge and then breaks, scandalizing the village, opening up old wounds. But because of it, Alice begins to feel that there is hope and humour and understanding and compassion in the new life she must build for herself." — Joanna Trollope
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Majesty's_Dragon" title="His Majesty's Dragon">
The story is set during an alternate-history version of the Napoleonic Wars, in which dragons not only exist but are used as a staple of aerial warfare in Asia and Europe. The dragons of the story are portrayed as sapient and intelligent, capable of logical thought and human speech. The series centers primarily on events involving Temeraire (the titular dragon) and his handler, Will Laurence. The first book of the series tells how Laurence, formerly a Captain in the Royal Navy, becomes Temeraire's handler, and of their early training in preparation for battles against Napoleon's aerial fleet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goblin_Mirror" title="The Goblin Mirror">
An ill-wind disturbs the peaceful land of Maggiar and the wizard, Karoly requests leave to consult with his sister, Ysabel over the mountain. Lord Stani instructs his two eldest sons, Bogdan and Tamas, and his master huntsman, Nikolai to accompany Karoly. After a difficult trip over the mountain, they approach a tower, Krukczy Straz where they hope to find shelter, but are ambushed by goblins. The goblins have overrun the tower, killing all inside. Tamas is separated from the others but is rescued by Ela, a witchling who takes him to her mistress, Ysabel in a neighboring tower, Tajny Straz. But this tower has also been raided by goblins and all are killed, including Ysabel. Ela goes into the tower and retrieves Ysabel's shard from the goblin mirror. Then Azdra'ik, the goblin lord appears, but does not threaten them. He tells Tamas he must take the mirror fragment from Ela because it is too powerful for her to use. Ela takes Tamas to the next tower at the ruins of what was Hasel. Here Ela looks into the mirror but is overwhelmed by the goblin queen staring back at her. Tamas is startled when the queen looks at "him" and calls him a wizard, which, he assures Ela he is not. Ela is drawn to the goblin queen at the lake and Tamas tries to follow her, but gets lost. Azdra'ik finds him and together they search for Ela.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammerfall_(novel)" title="Hammerfall (novel)">
"Hammerfall" takes place on an unspecified planet, where the Ila, believed to be a god and immortal, rules the Lakht, a huge desert, and all its villages from the holy city of Oburan. Some of the villagers, including Marak, an abjorian fighter of the Kais Tain tribe, are afflicted with a "madness" that manifests itself in the form of voices and visions, and are outcast from their communities. The Ila, however, is interested in the "mad" and orders that they be rounded up and brought across the desert to Oburan.The Ila singles out Marak, because he and his father had launched an unsuccessful rebellion against her. She queries Marak on the nature of these visions and voices, and, intimidated by her holiness, he tells her they appear to come from the east where there is a silver tower he is drawn to. She instructs Marak to lead the other mad east across the desert to find the source of the madness, and promises that if he returns with the answer, she will make him ruler of Kais Tain. After several weeks in the harsh desert, the visions and voices draw Marak and the others to the silver tower where they meet Luz, who appears to be a deity like the Ila.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Age_(Vidal_novel)" title="The Golden Age (Vidal novel)">
The story begins in 1939 and features many of the characters and events that Gore Vidal introduced in his earlier novel, "Washington, D.C." This includes the families of conservative Democratic Senator James Burden Day, and powerful newspaper publisher Blaise Sanford. The book inserts the character of Caroline Sanford, Blaise's half-sister and publishing partner, who was introduced in the prequels to "Washington, D.C". It covers America's entry into World War II and the national politics of that time in some detail, and highlights of the post-war years, and then closes with a year-2000 retrospective.The action centers around President Franklin D. Roosevelt's maneuvers to get the United States into World War II while keeping his 1940 campaign pledge to America voters that "No sons of yours will ever fight in a foreign war, unless attacked." Vidal makes the case that 1) the U.S had backed Japan into a corner with the oil and trade embargo, as well as massive aid to China and unconditional demands Japan could never accept; 2) the U.S. provoked Japan into attacking; and 3) the U.S. had broken Japan's military codes and knew of Japan's pending attack, but intentionally withheld warning Pearl Harbor. This was to arouse the U.S. populace and use the attack to bring the United States into the war, so the U.S could take its place as the post-war dominant superpower.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lightning_Thief" title="The Lightning Thief">
Percy Jackson is a dyslexic twelve-year-old with ADHD. While on a school trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the chaperones, Mrs. Dodds, turns into a Fury and attacks him. Percy's favorite teacher, Mr. Brunner, lends Percy a magical sword-pen to defeat her. Percy and his mother Sally go to Long Island. Percy's friend Grover reveals himself as a satyr and warns of danger. At a summer camp, Sally is attacked by a minotaur and disappears in a flash of light. Percy kills the beast with one of its own horns. He learns that the camp is called Camp Half-Blood, and that he is a demigod: the son of a human and a Greek god. He settles into camp life and meets several other demigods, including Luke and Annabeth. After a hellhound attacks him, he is saved by Chiron and then claimed by his father, the god Poseidon. Chiron explains to Percy how the three eldest male gods—Poseidon, Zeus, and Hades—swore an oath not to have children; Percy represents a violation of the oath. He is the second violation of the oath, as the first was Thalia, daughter of Zeus. She was killed by monsters sent by Hades. This, coupled with the fact that Zeus's master lightning bolt has recently been stolen, has bred much suspicion between the gods.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_at_No_Gun_Ri" title="The Bridge at No Gun Ri">
"The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War" is written in chronological narrative style and is organized in three parts, "The Road to No Gun Ri," "The Bridge at No Gun Ri," and "The Road from No Gun Ri." It opens with two chapters that alternately introduce the readers to the young Army enlistees of the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment, mostly from poor backgrounds, many of them school dropouts, on occupation duty in post-World War II Japan, where they have been insufficiently trained and are unprepared for the sudden outbreak of war in nearby Korea; and then to the South Korean villager families and the age-old rhythms of their rural lives, to be exploded in late June 1950 by a Korean civil war borne of the new U.S.-Soviet rivalry, the Cold War.The next two chapters describe the deployment of U.S. military units to face the onrushing North Korean invaders, the growing nervousness of U.S. commanders who issue orders to fire on South Korean refugee columns out of fear of enemy infiltrators, and the disarray of the weakly led 7th Cavalrymen as they reach the warfront; and then tell of the villagers' plight as they first seek shelter from the war by gathering in a remote area of their valley, and then are forced by retreating U.S. troops to head south toward U.S. lines.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heart_Is_Deceitful_Above_All_Things_(novel)" title="The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (novel)">
The stories are narrated by the boy Jeremiah, who at the age of four is taken away from his foster parents, the only family he's known. He is reclaimed by his mother Sarah, who had given birth to him as an adolescent but was compelled to turn him over to foster care. Profoundly disturbed from her own life of abuse and poverty, Sarah takes him on the road with her, moving through aimless and dangerous encounters with a series of men, some of whom beat and rape Jeremiah. She frequently instructs her son to pretend to be her sibling—sometimes her brother, sometimes her sister. She is also abusive to him and abandons him repeatedly.The child welfare system sends Jeremiah to live with Sarah's parents: Bible-and child-beating fanatics who abuse him as relentlessly as they had abused his mother. Sarah finds him and takes him away with her, but her life continues to spiral out of control. She becomes a lot lizard (a prostitute who works the truck stops) and eventually slides into a paranoid breakdown from crystal meth abuse. Jeremiah is last seen as a 15-year-old street hustler in San Francisco, paying for a gay S&amp;M session where he relives the beatings he had submitted to as a child.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Seduction" title="The Art of Seduction">
The book profiles nine types of seducers (with an additional profile for an "anti-seducer") and eighteen types of victims. Greene uses examples from historical figures such as Cleopatra, Giacomo Casanova, Duke Ellington and John F. Kennedy to support the psychology behind seduction. The book contains 24 seduction techniques. Greene saw "The Art of Seduction" as the logical follow-up to "The 48 Laws of Power" since seduction is "about power and manipulation as much as it is about romance, about how to make someone fall under your spell."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Sharp" title="Twelve Sharp">
The novel begins with Stephanie being stalked by Carmen Manoso, a woman claiming to be the wife of Ranger, a fellow bounty hunter with whom Stephanie has occasionally been intimate. Ranger is out of town on "bad business" when Stephanie learns that his daughter has been kidnapped. Ranger is the prime suspect.Ranger comes back to Trenton and hides at Stephanie's apartment. He is trying his best to find his daughter, which isn't made easier by the fact that the police are looking for him. As the story progresses, Stephanie learns that Carmen is actually married to a man named Edward Scrog who is attempting to steal Ranger's identity, even going so far as to kidnap Ranger's daughter Julie. Scrog looks quite a lot like Ranger, that makes the entire thing even more complicated. Scrog wants to be Ranger, because he once saw him arresting an FTA (failure to appear) in the store he worked at and knew that he'd been meant to be Ranger. Ranger asks Steph for help, knowing that she is what the kidnapper wants. He is trying to use Stephanie as bait, tracing her with a GPS-device, so that he can find his daughter.After Scrog kills Carmen he kidnaps Stephanie to complete his "family" and start a new life. However, he needs money, so Stephanie convinces him to try to find one of her FTAs (wanted for armed robbery) and steal his money. To prevent Stephanie from escaping, Scrog constructs a bomb and tapes it to her. As they try to negotiate for the money, Stephanie's old nemesis Joyce Barnhart turns up to capture the FTA herself. In the struggle that ensues, Scrog gets shot in the foot and Stephanie manages to rip the bomb off before Scrog stun-guns her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Language_of_Goldfish" title="The Language of Goldfish">
Carrie Stokes, age 13, is suffering a mental breakdown due to her fear of change. She is growing up without realizing it, or perhaps blatantly ignoring it, until it gets too hard for her to pretend that everything is the same as it was when she was a young girl. Carrie is a skilled artist and takes lessons with the art teacher at her school. Carrie's parents do not show much support for Carrie's passion for art; every time Carrie shows her parents an art piece, they seem unimpressed. Moira, Carrie's older sister, is a constant reminder that she inevitably has to grow up. She has an anxiety disorder because she is worried about the social graces and rites of passage – such as going to school dances – that growing up entails.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Comes_East" title="Grant Comes East">
The novel begins at Union Mills, Maryland. The battle that began at Gettysburg ended on July 4, 1863 (at the same time as the fall of Vicksburg) with a decisive but costly Confederate victory. General Robert E. Lee and his troops march on Washington, D.C., and launch an assault, hoping that if they can take the capital they can win the war.Meanwhile, President Abraham Lincoln has appointed Major General Ulysses S. Grant, the victor of Vicksburg, as commander of all Union forces and ordered him to attack Lee. Grant masses his forces (the newly minted "Army of the Susquehanna") at Harrisburg, while Maj. Gen. Daniel E. Sickles gains control (through his violent pacification of the New York Draft Riots) of the Army of the Potomac.Sickles has his eye on the White House, but he needs to defeat Lee in order to win the Civil War for the War Democrats. Violating orders from Grant, he rolls his troops out to meet Lee's army alone. A sidebar shows Napoleon III planning to have France invade the United States through its client state, the Second Mexican Empire.Bloodily repulsed at Fort Stevens outside Washington (where the black troops of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry regiment played a decisive role), Lee turns on Baltimore. Abandoned by the Union, Baltimore descends into chaos; Lee, sickened by the violence, orders the provost guard in force to end it. Using Baltimore to threaten Washington, D.C., Lee turns his entire army upon the advancing Sickles, facing off at the former site of Joppa along the Gunpowder River northeast of Baltimore.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_Markowitz" title="The Family Markowitz">
Centred on a middle-class American Jewish family, "The Family Markowitz" touches on themes ranging from religiosity to ageing and from homosexuality to intermarriage. The novel tells the story of four main characters: Rose Markowitz (the matriarch), her sons Ed and Henry, and her daughter-in-law Sarah. Through these characters, the reader meets many other members of the family including Ed's four children, Henry's wife, and Rose's stepdaughter.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Face_in_the_Frost" title="The Face in the Frost">
The story opens with Prospero at home on a late summer day when he feels particularly uneasy. In the evening he receives an unexpected visit from his friend Roger Bacon, and the two discuss unusual phenomena that have transpired lately, especially those concerning a mysterious book for which Roger has been searching England. The following morning the two wizards find Prospero’s house besieged by agents of some other wizard who seems to have ill designs for them. They escape the house by shrinking themselves down and sailing out on a model ship via an underground stream accessible through Prospero’s basement. Once they regain their normal size they visit a library of records where Prospero discovers, as Roger stands guard outside, that a seal appearing in the mysterious aforementioned book belongs to Melichus, an old rival of his. Unfortunately, at that point a person comes into the library and claims to have killed Roger.Prospero flees the library and spends the night in a nearby town, where he luckily escapes an attack from some sort of evil creature sent by Melichus. The following day he travels to the cursed grove where Melichus is supposed to be buried, only to discover that the one buried there is not Melichus, but only one of his former servants. He presumes, therefore, that Melichus is still alive. After narrowly escaping from the cursed grove he travels to the town of Five Dials, where he stays at an inn with somewhat unsettling clientele and staff. Unable to sleep, he becomes suspicious of the inn and begins checking the other rooms, only to find them all empty. In the last room he finds the innkeeper with a large knife and flees the inn, whereupon he discovers that the entire town was an illusion (presumably created by Melichus).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_(novel)" title="Spider (novel)">
Spider, birth name Dennis Cleg, is a recent arrival from a psychiatric hospital to a halfway house in the East End of London—just a few streets away from the very house where he grew up, which was the scene of some barely visible but tremendous trauma which peeps out at the reader gradually from the fog of Spider's reminiscences.As the story opens, Spider has just taken up residence in the halfway house, under the stern eye of Mrs. Wilkinson, along with a handful of others he calls "dead souls". He takes daily walks to the River Thames, following the old canals and towpaths that run along the edge of his memories, under the shadow of the immense oil and gas tanks that dominate the industrial landscape. As he sits on a bench, rolling his own cigarettes, he begins to tell the tale of his childhood, of his remote, emotionally brutal father and slight, quiet, protective mother.He is, or so he states, writing all this down in a notebook which he keeps hidden, variously, under a newspaper drawer-liner, under the damaged linoleum floor of his room, or up the chimney of a disused gas fire.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf's_Children" title="Beowulf's Children">
As the story opens the second generation of Avalon's colonists are coming of age, and the potential for teenage rebellion has never been so strong. The original colonists (the "Earth-born"), although selected for optimal physical and mental attributes, suffered varying levels of brain damage due to the unforeseen effects of long periods of chemically and temperature-induced hibernation necessary to survive the long journey to Avalon. Their children (the "star-born") have no such disability; instead, they are geniuses with feeble-minded parents. The Grendel Wars (in which the Earth-Born's short-sightedness nearly led to their extermination) are still fresh in their minds. The battle-proven (yet impaired) elders preach a dogma of zealous caution which might have once tried their own patience; the brilliant (and arrogant) Star-Born deem it cowardice and tyranny.Adding to the strain are those who made the journey to Avalon as cargo: the "Bottle Babies", embryos grown in artificial wombs. They were raised collectively, lacking the family ties of their fellow Star-Born, and feel less obliged to obey. Aaron Tragon (perhaps the most intelligent of them) is more than just rebellious; he may be insane. As conflict brews between generations on the island of Camelot, on the mainland a dangerous question has been answered. The Grendels nearly drove the colony into extinction, but what preys on the Grendels is even worse. Two of the colony's best and brightest die in a horrifying, inexplicable fashion: a storm of yellow sand which has left nothing but naked bones soaked with Grendel supercharger, and a baby wrapped in a blue blanket. The Earth-Born ban further trips to the mainland, but the Star Born make an attempt to return on a quest for answers (and vengeance). Cadmann Weyland (the colony's hero from the Grendel War) stows away on the return trip, accidentally killing one of the Star-Born during an altercation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdistan_(novel)" title="Absurdistan (novel)">
Misha is known as "Snack Daddy" from his days at Accidental College, a school in the Midwestern U.S. (The college resembles Oberlin College, which Shteyngart attended, while its name "Accidental" is a play on the name of Occidental College.) Misha is desperate to return to his true love, Rouenna, whom he met while she was working at a "titty bar". She now attends Hunter College, at Misha's expense.After Misha's father kills a prominent Oklahoma businessman, the INS bars the entire Vainberg family from entry into the United States. This strands Misha in his native Saint Petersburg (which he nostalgically refers to as "St. Leninsburg").Misha's father is killed by a fellow oligarch. Soon afterwards, Misha has the opportunity to buy a Belgian passport from a corrupt diplomat in the fictitious ex-Soviet republic of Absurdsvanϊ (also known as Absurdistan).Absurdistan's reputation for oil riches has earned it the nickname "Norway of the Caspian." The country is divided between two major ethnic groups: the Sevo and Svanϊ. They hate each other due to their dispute over the proper direction in which the "footrest" of the Orthodox cross is to be tilted. Civil war erupts in Absurdistan, and for the sake of a new love he has found, Misha is forced to take sides in the conflict.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circus_(novel)" title="Circus (novel)">
Bruno Wildermann of the Wrinfield Circus is the world's greatest trapeze artist, a clairvoyant with near-supernatural powers and an implacable enemy of the East German regime that arrested his family and murdered his wife. The CIA needs such a man for an impossible raid on the impregnable Lubylan Fortress where his family is held, to remove a dangerous weapons formula from a heavily guarded laboratory. Under cover of a traveling circus tour, Bruno prepares to return to his homeland. But before the journey even begins a murderer strikes twice. Somewhere in the circus there is a communist agent with orders to stop Bruno at any cost.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Sisters" title="Blood Sisters">
The novel concerns the life stories of three girls: the Irish Sarah Mackay, an Afrikaner Hanna Van der Beer and British Camilla Broughton Smith. The book follows their journey from being brought up in Kenya, until their lives diverge and their hopes and dreams are destroyed, and their bond almost with it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Layer_Cake_(novel)" title="Layer Cake (novel)">
The book takes place in London in the 1990s and is narrated by an unnamed, 29-year-old drug dealer ("If you knew my name, you'd be as clever as me") who plans on leaving the life of crime behind at the age of thirty to live life as "a gentleman of leisure." His retirement plan is complicated by a large shipment of stolen ecstasy, the German neo-Nazis who want the drugs back and revenge on anyone they hold responsible for the theft, the unpredictable and often outrageous personalities of his friends, and his boss, kingpin Jimmy Price, who charges him with the task of recovering the missing daughter of a wealthy socialite.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_About_Muhammad" title="The Truth About Muhammad">
A work of American author and counter-jihadist Robert B. Spencer, the book is a biography of Muhammad, who founded Islam (an Abrahamic religion that originated in the 7th-century Arabic Peninsula), where he is regarded as the last prophet sent by God. A highly critical work both towards Muhammad and Islam, it consists of ten chapters and begins with a chronology of Muhammad's life and the glossary of names and places related to it. In the first chapter, Spencer writes of the reasons behind writing this book. He writes that the book does not comprehensively detail Muhammad's life but providing insights into an outline of his career.Chapter two presents Spencer's assessment of the earliest sources for Muhammad. He starts with the Quran, the religious text of Islam; he notes that it contains little details about Muhammad, and often the stories are told indirectly or incompletely. Next, he goes on to write about the hadiths, a record of the words and actions Muhammad transmitted through chains of narrators. Although presents great details about his life, Spencer observes that it is nearly impossible to know which parts of it that are true or not. The prophetic biography, the traditional Muslim biographies of Muhammad comes the last in Spencer's investigation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonkeeper" title="Dragonkeeper">
In the far western mountains of the Han Empire in ancient China, a young slave girl is used, abused and neglected by the cruel Master Lan, whose job is to care for the two aged imperial dragons, Long Danzi and Lu Yu. Nameless and alone, the slave girl is without hope and her only friend is her pet rat, Hua. After Lu Yu suddenly dies, the slave girl feels guilty and responsible.When the girl discovers that the Emperor intends to sell the one remaining dragon, Danzi, to a dragon hunter to be butchered, she and the dragon escape from Huangling together. Long Danzi tells the girl her true name, Ping, and asks her to accompany him to the ocean. She must protect a mysterious stone that is vital to the dragon's legacy. Along the way, they meet Wang Cao, a herbalist previously acquainted with Danzi. The dragon hunter, Diao, catches up with them in a rural village, and though they manage to escape, Diao seizes the stone.Danzi and Ping travel via the Yellow River to Wucheng, a town of sorcerers, to recover the stone. They find the stone in the possession of a necromancer and reacquire it. Danzi teaches Ping how to use "qi" (psychic energy) and explains to Ping that she is the hereditary Dragon Keeper. However, before she can respond, their boat collides with an imperial yacht, and Ping and Danzi are taken into custody at the Emperor's hunting lodge. The Emperor, Liu Che, befriends Ping. Liu Che invites a group of lore masters to the lodge. Wang Cao is one of them. He drugs Ping, convinces Danzi that he is the true Dragon Keeper, and escapes with him and the dragon stone.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alma_Cogan_(novel)" title="Alma Cogan (novel)">
In Burn's novel, however, Alma Cogan does not die in 1966, but retires from show business sometime thereafter to a quiet solitude near the English seashore, living neither in luxury nor poverty. In contrast to Cogan's bubbly public persona, Burn's Alma, who narrates the book from 1986, is an arch, dry-witted, highly intelligent observer of the world around her, mildly dismissive of, even jaded by, her showbiz past (but not entirely disdainful of it). She recounts with equal detachment the heady days of celebrity and the sordid backstage cruelties—including bouts of unexpected violence—as she muses on the nature of stardom and its many pitfalls, which entrap the worshipper as much as the worshipped. But her residual fame proves a gruesome and unwanted relic as it serves to tie her, through her fans, to an unforeseen encounter with evil.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_the_Sad_Café" title="The Ballad of the Sad Café">
"The Ballad of the Sad Cafe" opens in a small, isolated town in the Southern United States. The story introduces Miss Amelia Evans, strong in both body and mind, who is approached by a hunchbacked man with only a suitcase in hand who claims to be her kin.When Miss Amelia, whom the townspeople see as a calculating woman who never acts without reason, takes the stranger into her home, rumors begin to circulate that Miss Amelia has done so in order to take what the hunchback has in his suitcase. When the rumors hit their peak, a group of eight men come to her store, sitting outside on the steps for the day and waiting to see if something will happen. Finally, they enter the store all at once and are stunned to see that the hunchback is alive and well. With everyone gathered inside, Miss Amelia brings out some liquor and crackers, which further shocks the men, as they have never witnessed Miss Amelia be hospitable enough to allow drinking inside her home. This is the beginning of the café. Miss Amelia and the hunchback, Cousin Lymon, unintentionally create a new tradition for the town, and the people gather inside the café on Sunday evenings, often until midnight.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_Master_(novel)" title="Past Master (novel)">
"Past Master" is set in the year 2535 on the world of Astrobe, a utopian Earth colony that is hailed as Golden Astrobe, "mankind's third chance", after the decline of both the Old World and New World on Earth. Despite idealistic intentions, it is suffering moral and social decline that may be terminal for both Astrobe and the human race.In an attempt to save their dying civilization, its leaders use time travel to fetch Sir Thomas More (chosen for his fine legal and moral sense) from shortly before his death in the year 1535 to be the president of Astrobe. More struggles with whether to approve of the Astrobian society, noting its possible connections to his own novel "Utopia". His judgements soon lead him into conflict both with destructive cosmic forces on Astrobe and with its leaders who thought him a mere figurehead who could be manipulated.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Jackson_&amp;_the_Olympians" title="Percy Jackson &amp; the Olympians">
Set in the mid-2000s, the series follows the story of Perseus "Percy" Jackson, a boy who discovers he is a demigod son of Poseidon. He was abandoned by his father because of an oath made by the Big Three (Zeus, Poseidon and Hades), the sons of Kronos, to not father any more children after World War II. The oath was sworn since the demigod children of the three gods are too powerful and have potential for great bloodshed (in-universe, World War II was a fight between children of the Big Three). Percy's journey turns even more electrifying when he discovers that numerous people and ancient monsters are trying to kill him due to his status as a demigod, latent strength, and growing influence in the Greek world. Percy also finds out that there are even more demigods like him in Camp Half-Blood, a training camp in Long Island.With his friend Annabeth Chase, and his best friend and companion Grover Underwood (a satyr who Percy finds out is actually his protector), his journey across the frightening mystic worlds begins. Percy soon finds himself fulfilling extraordinary quests, prophecies, and fighting battles with and for the gods against the rising threat of the Titans. He also finds himself at a crossroads: either he helps in the destruction of the world, or in preserving it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Dreams_(Vance_novel)" title="The Book of Dreams (Vance novel)">
Kirth Gersen learns that his enemy Howard Alan Treesong, already "Lord of the Overmen" (i.e., head of the underworld across all of humanity's planets), had almost engineered his appointment as Chief of the Interworld Police Coordinating Commission, the sole interstellar police organization. Gersen ponders what Treesong could be working on that could top that.Gersen's extensive business empire includes "Cosmopolis" magazine, often masquerading as a journalist, "Henry Lucas". Gersen examines old "Cosmopolis" files for anything about Treesong. He discovers a photograph, apparently of a formal dinner, bearing the words "H A Treesong is here", with no other information. He launches "Extant", a livelier sister magazine to "Cosmopolis", and publishes the picture in the free inaugural issue, offering large cash prizes for the identification of anyone in the photograph.An attractive young woman, Alice Wroke, seeks temporary employment processing contest entries. Gersen confirms she is working for Treesong. Eventually, all of the subjects are identified, except for one man who goes by a variety of names. Gersen tells Alice that the contest was intended to identify Treesong, and that the magazine wants to interview him.Gersen suspects the photograph depicts most of the highest-ranking Fellows of the powerful Institute, seven members of the governing "Dexad" and three Fellows of rank 99. All but one were fatally poisoned at the banquet. The survivor must be Treesong. Having fraudulently acquired the rank of 99, he plans to become the Institute's leader, the Triune. Three of the Dexad were not present. One had died; the banquet was to choose his successor from the 99s. Another had broken with the Institute and become a hermit. The last was Alice's father; Treesong blackmailed Alice into spying for him by threatening her father (whom he had already murdered).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Hammer" title="Divine Hammer">
The book begins with Nusendaran (Andras's master), and Andras going into a village to sacrifice a black sheep. However, the Divine Hammer ambush them, and they manage to kill Nusendaran, and are aiming for him next. Suddenly, Andras is teleported away by Fistandantilus. They watch Nusendaran burnt at the stake, so Andras desires revenge against the Kingpriest and his forces. Just then, Fistandantilus offers Andras a choice to become his student. He agrees.Meanwhile, Cathan and the Divine Hammer are eradicating a temple to Chemosh hidden in an abandoned lighthouse. They get onto little longboats, and quickly arrive at the lighthouse. They manage to kill the guards, and work their way down to the main worship hall. The Deathmaster, head priest, aims for Cathan with foul magic, however, Damid, a friend of Cathan's, pushes Cathan away and dies instead. Tithian manages to kill the Deathmaster by throwing his sword at him. After the battle, they receive orders to return to Istar. Cathan also promises to knight Tithian. After returning to Istar, Cathan learns he is to be the escort for the new envoy from the Order of High Sorcery, Leciane, since the previous one died. On the way to the Tower of High Sorcery in Istar to bring her to the palace, the magical olive trees guarding the entrance manage to "persuade" Cathan off the path, causing him to lose his memories of that day. Fortunately, Leciane rescues him, and then he takes her to her quarters in the palace. Later, they head for a tournament held by Cathan's sister. On the way, Leciane is told by the head mage, Vincil, to charm Cathan, however she refuses and lies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Thirst" title="They Thirst">
The prologue starts in Hungary as young Andy is waiting for his father to come home after a hunting trip. His father comes in late but is different. Andy comes to his father when told to and finds he is pale and cold. Andy's mother, suspecting that he is a creature he was hunting for, shoots him. His face is blown apart but continues to come after the two. They then run away into the cold blizzard. His father shouts "I'LL FIND YOU" as they run away. Andy and his mother finally go to a house away from their town.Later, Andy, now a Los Angeles detective, is trying find the Roach, who rapes, murders, and then puts cockroaches in the mouth of his victims. Andy's work leaves him stressed from the relentless hours he must put in on the case. Meanwhile, an albino sociopath killer is making his way to Los Angeles by the calls of someone and visions. At a bar in Texas he kills everyone with a Mauser. Eventually he makes his way to Los Angeles. Gayle Clark is a reporter and while going to work with her boyfriend they find the Hollywood Cemetery is ransacked. The people who did this left the bodies in a road and stole the coffins. Andy is told of this and goes to the watchman to tell him what to do if it happens again; to just stay in the house and close the blinds. At the same time Rico, a Chicano gangster, finds out that his girlfriend is pregnant. The girl runs away after Rico inquires if the child is his. The girl continues on the lam while Rico tries to find her. Eventually she is overtaken by the vampires on a dark street. That same night Wes Richer is having a large party after his successful comedy show. His wife, who is a medium, attempts, at the urging of a non-believer, to have a vision using a Ouija board. She is told by a spirit that there's evil and when she asks "what is this evil," it replies, "THEY THIRST"
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Word_(novel)" title="The Word (novel)">
The plot of the novel is based around the discovery within Roman ruins of a new gospel written by Jesus' younger brother, James in the first century. In the gospel, many facts of Jesus' life, including the years not mentioned in the Bible, are revealed not to be as factual as they were once thought to be. Steven Randall, a divorced public relations executive running his own company in New York City, is the man hired by New Testament International, an alliance of American and European Bible publishers, to give publicity to James' Gospel as published by them. The project has been top-secret for six years, and now it is about to be unveiled to a world long in need of Christian revival. However, as Steven gets more involved in the project he runs into several questionable circumstances, as radical clerics centered in Central Europe oppose the publication of the document, since it would give ammunition for the conservative churches to keep the flow of worship from the top to the bottom, instead of bringing the faith to the masses. A struggle for control of the World Council of Churches, the suspicious absence in the project of archeologist Prof. Augusto Monti, the original discoverer – and whose daughter Angela is a potential love interest for Steve –, and the potential notion that the newly discovered gospel itself is a forgery made in the 20th century instead of a legitimate historical document, all are guaranteed to make Steve question the worth of the new job he is undertaking, and the newly re-found faith in God he acquired along with it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardians_(Christopher_novel)" title="The Guardians (Christopher novel)">
## Escape.Following the suspicious death of his father, 13-year-old Rob Randall is sent to a State boarding school, where harsh disciplinary measures and hazing by seniors soon make life intolerable. In his desperation, Rob devises a plan of escaping to the County, reasoning that he will avoid detection there much more easily than anywhere in the Conurbs. He is further driven by the fact that his mother was also from the County, and had herself crossed over into the Conurbs to be with his father.Slipping out and making his way to Reading, Rob comes up against the Barrier dividing the Conurbs from the County adjacent. The Barrier proves much less of a challenge than popular rumour suggests, and, finding a spot at which he is able to dig a gap underneath, Rob crosses over into the County. He takes in his expansive surroundings as he continues north-west but does not manage a long distance before he is noticed. A figure on a horse spots him and gives chase, catching up quickly as Rob twists his foot running.The rider turns out to be a boy perhaps a year or less older than Rob himself. He appears to be sympathetic to Rob's plight and, introducing himself as Mike Gifford, tends to the blisters on Rob's feet before taking him to a nearby cave where he can rest in concealment. Mike attempts to make the cave more hospitable by appropriating food, blankets and such from the Gifford household, but these discrepancies are eventually noticed by the housekeeper and reported to Mike's mother, whose suspicion is also aroused by Mike's staying out longer. She finds the cave and confronts Rob.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gates_of_Fire" title="Gates of Fire">
The novel is narrated by Xeones, a perioikos and one of only three Greek survivors of the Battle of Thermopylae. His story is dictated to King Xerxes and transcribed by his court historian, Gobartes.At Thermopylae, the allied Greek nations deployed a small force of four thousand Greek heavy infantry against the invading Persian army of two million strong. Leading the Greeks was a small force of three hundred Spartans, chosen because they were all "sires" — men who had to have sons who could preserve their blood line, should they fall in battle.Thermopylae was the only gateway into Greece for the Persian army, and presented the perfect choke point — a narrow pass bordered by a huge mountain wall on one side and a cliff drop-off to the sea on the other. This area decreased the Persians' advantage of having large numbers. Delaying the Persian advance here would give the Greek allies enough time to ready a larger, main force to defend against the Persians. The battle takes place simultaneously with the sea battle at Artemisium, where the Allied Greek forces hoped to protect the flank of the army at Thermopylae whilst not being cut off themselves. The Greeks were at a disadvantage at Artemisium, as at Thermopylae - the Persians outnumbered the Allies, and most of the Athenian ships were newly built and crewed by inexperienced sailors - and both sides suffered heavy losses in the sea battle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lies_of_Locke_Lamora" title="The Lies of Locke Lamora">
The Gentleman Bastards are masters of deception, disguise, and fine cuisine. Father Chains, their "garrista" (leader), is a priest of the Crooked Warden, the god of thieves. He buys troublesome youth Locke for his gang. Through a series of confidence tricks on the rich, they defy the Secret Peace, an unspoken agreement between the criminal underground and the Duke’s government which allows for the existence of organized crime with the understanding that the peerage and the servants of justice are off limits. After Chains' death, Locke becomes garrista of the group, consisting of Jean Tannen, an expert fighter; Calo and Galdo Sanza, jack-of-all-trades identical twins; and Bug, a young apprentice. Their wayward female associate Sabetha is mentioned, but resides elsewhere during the events of the novel.The criminal underworld of Camorr is ruled with an iron fist by the Capa Barsavi, who collects a commission on all criminal activity under his purview. Under Locke's leadership, the Gentleman Bastards are known as a small gang of gentrified but petty thieves and pickpockets, and their dues, though regularly paid, are relatively small. Secretly, the Bastards have actually been using elaborate schemes to swindle various nobles out of large sums, and have amassed a considerable fortune; they "purchase" the trinkets they pass on to Barsavi as tribute, in accordance with their small-time reputation. What little is spoken of their operations is credited to the shadowy "Thorn of Camorr."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_Ralph" title="Runaway Ralph">
Fed up with his bratty family, Ralph the mouse hops onto his toy motorcycle and speeds down the road away from the Mountain View Inn toward Happy Acres Camp, where he encounters Sam, a nosy watchdog, and is captured by a boy named Garfield (or Garf) and kept as a pet. Separated from his motorcycle, Ralph must endure life in a cage with an annoying hamster named Chum. Over time, Ralph and Garf form a relationship similar to the one Ralph and Keith had in the original book in the series.Ralph's adventures at Happy Acres Camp include escapades with an evil cat, the return of a missing watch, the escape from his cage, and being reunited with his beloved motorcycle. He eventually begins feeling homesick and strikes a bargain with Garf: return the motorcycle and bring him back to the Mountain View Inn, in exchange for clearing Garf's name (the rest of the children at Happy Acres Camp believe Garf was the one who took the missing watch). Eventually, the watch is returned, and Garf reassures Ralph that he will go back home the next day.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amen_Corner" title="The Amen Corner">
The play addresses themes of the role of a church in an African American family and the effect of a poverty born of racial prejudice on an African-American community. "The Amen Corner" takes place in two settings: a ‘‘corner’’ church in Harlem and the apartment dwelling of Margaret Alexander, the church pastor, and of her son, David, and sister Odessa. After giving a fiery Sunday morning sermon, Margaret is confronted by the unexpected arrival of her long-estranged husband, Luke, who collapses from illness shortly thereafter. Their son, David, along with several elders of the congregation, learn from Luke that, while Margaret had led everyone to believe that he had abandoned her with their son years ago, it was in fact Margaret who had left a dysfunctional Luke and pursued a religious life. This information precipitates confrontations between Margaret and her son, her congregation, and her estranged husband, regarding what they perceive as the hypocritical nature of her religious convictions, and the breakup of her family. After an important conversation with his dying father, David informs Margaret that he is leaving home to pursue his calling as a jazz musician. On his deathbed, Luke declares to Margaret that he has always loved her, and that she should not have left him. Finally, Margaret’s congregation decides to oust her, based on their perception that she unjustly ruined her own family in the name of religion. Only after losing her son, her husband, and her congregation, does Margaret finally realize that she should not have used religion as an excuse to escape the struggles of life and love, but that ‘"To love the Lord is to love all His children—all of them, everyone!—and suffer with them and rejoice with them and never count the cost!’"
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Spectacle_of_Corruption" title="A Spectacle of Corruption">
This tale picks up a few months after the conclusion of David Liss' first novel, "A Conspiracy of Paper". It's late in the year 1721 and Benjamin Weaver is hired by a clergyman to investigate a death threat against him. His quest doesn't go according to plan, however, and Weaver soon finds himself falsely accused of murder, sentenced to hang and confined in the infamous Newgate Prison. He must somehow escape this fate, clear his name, and find those responsible.The safest course, once having escaped from prison, would be to escape England altogether - but Weaver would not hear of it. He is determined to pursue his investigations in a London where he is a hunted man, with the very substantial reward of 150 Pounds offered to anyone who would help send him back to the gallows.Weaver's personal and occupational struggles play out against the backdrop of the upcoming general election, in which the contending Whig and Tory parties seem equally corrupt.Several of the other fictional characters are carry-overs from "A Conspiracy of Paper". As in the first installment of his "memoir", Weaver is aided by his uncle Miguel and his best friend, the surgeon Elias Gordon. His cousin's widow Miriam, now married to a Tory candidate for Parliament, once again tugs on Weaver's heart strings.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Conspiracy_of_Paper" title="A Conspiracy of Paper">
The novel's story is told in the form of a first-person memoir penned by Benjamin Weaver (born Lienzo), London-born son of Portuguese Sephardic Jewish parents. After a successful career in bare-knuckle boxing, Weaver has found a new calling as a 'thief-taker'—roughly equivalent to a modern private investigator. Believing that his estranged father died in a tragic accident, Weaver is shocked when a prospective client claims that the 'accident' was, in fact, murder. Weaver's subsequent investigation involves him in the new London financial world of banks, stocks, speculation, violence and scandal leading up to the world's first stock-market crash, the South Sea Bubble. In order to solve the mystery, he must learn the inner workings of this new world of paper money. The murder investigation moves toward its conclusion in lock-step with the accelerating frenzy of the Bubble's final days.A sub-plot involves Benjamin's gradual reintegration, after years of estrangement, into his family's community and traditions. This gives the author the opportunity to introduce the Lienzo family, and their struggles to survive and prosper as Jews and foreigners in 18th century London. Benjamin finds added incentive to rejoin his family when he meets the beautiful Miriam, widow of his cousin and now living in his uncle Miguel's household.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Flame_in_Hali" title="A Flame in Hali">
## Prologue.Years prior to the start of the book, the disgraced and forgotten "larenzu", Rumail Deslucido, dies in a remote village. In the last moments of his life, he overshadows (takes over the mind of) his son, Eduin, hoping to wreak his final revenge on the Hastur family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Homeward,_Angel" title="Look Homeward, Angel">
The book is divided into three parts, with a total of forty chapters. The first 90 pages of the book deal with an early biography of Gant's parents, very closely based on the actual history of Wolfe's own mother and father. It begins with his father, Oliver's, decision to become a stone cutter after seeing a statue of a stone angel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cossacks_(novel)" title="The Cossacks (novel)">
"The Cossacks" is believed to be somewhat autobiographical, partially based on Tolstoy's experiences in the Caucasus during the last stages of the Caucasian War. Tolstoy had a wild time in his youth, engaging in numerous promiscuous partners, heavy drinking and gambling problems; many argue Tolstoy used his own past as inspiration for the protagonist Olenin.Disenchanted with his privileged life in Russian society, nobleman Dmitry Andreich Olenin joins the army as a cadet, in the hopes of escaping the superficiality of his daily life. On a quest to find "completeness," he naively hopes to find serenity among the "simple" people of the Caucasus. In an attempt to immerse himself in the local culture, he befriends an old man. They drink wine, curse, and hunt pheasant and boar in the Cossack tradition, and Olenin even begins to dress in the manner of a Cossack. He forgets himself and falls in love with the young Maryanka, in spite of her fiancé Lukashka. While living as a Cossack, he learns lessons about his own inner life, moral philosophy, and the nature of reality. He also understands the intricacies of human psychology and nature.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_B." title="Ida B.">
"Reference from McGraw Hill Reading Wonders Grade 5"Independent Ida B. is home schooled and loves her life, spending a lot of time communing with nature. When her mother is diagnosed with cancer, she faces a lot of difficult challenges. Her days of home school ends, and she has to go to public school. Worse, her parents need to sell part of her beloved orchard for medical bills, which means most of the trees will be cut down.Upset by all the depressing changes around her, she stubbornly decides to separate herself from her parents, mostly spending time with her pet dog Rufus and cat Lulu.But what she doesn't know is that going to Ernest B.Lawson Elementary School with Ms.W will change her life forever. &lt;mcgrawhillreadingwondersgrade6&gt;
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadji_Murat_(novella)" title="Hadji Murat (novella)">
The narrator prefaces the story with his comments on a crushed, but still living thistle he finds in a field (a symbol for the main character), after which he begins to tell the story of Hadji Murat, a successful and famed separatist guerrilla who falls out with his own commander and eventually sides with the Russians in hope of saving his family. Hadji Murat's family is being contained and controlled by Imam Shamil the Avar leader who abducted his mother, two wives, and five children. Aside from the fact that Murat wants to save his family, he additionally wants to avenge the deaths of other family members. The story opens with Murat and two of his followers fleeing from Shamil, the commander of the Caucasian separatists, who is at war with the Russians. They find refuge at the house of Sado, a loyal supporter of Murat. The local people learn of his presence and chase him out of the village.His lieutenant succeeds in making contact with the Russians, who promise to meet Murat. He eventually arrives at the fortress of Vozdvizhenskaya to join the Russian forces, in hopes of drawing their support in order to overthrow Shamil and save his family. Before his arrival, a small skirmish occurs with some Chechen and Dagestani mountaineers outside the fortress, and Petrukha Avdeyev, a young Russian soldier, dies in a local military hospital after being shot. Tolstoy makes a chapter-length aside about Petrukha: childless, he volunteered as a conscript in place of his brother who had a family of his own. Petrukha's father regrets this because he was a dutiful worker compared to his complacent brother.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Volant_of_the_Snowy_Mountain" title="Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain">
The story begins in the Changbai mountains in northeast China during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty. It follows the classical unity of time, taking place on a single day, which is the 15th day of the third month of the 45th year of the reign of the Qianlong Emperor ("i.e." 19 April 1780 in the Gregorian calendar).A group of martial artists unearth a treasure chest and begin fighting for it. Midway during their tussle, they are overpowered and coerced by a highly skilled monk, Baoshu, to travel to a manor at the top of Jade Brush Peak to help the manor's owner drive away an enemy, "Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain" Hu Fei. They start telling stories concerning the origin of a precious saber in the chest and their mysterious foe. In doing so, they gradually reveal each other's personal secrets.The saber's story dates back over a century ago to the feuds of the four bodyguards of the warlord Li Zicheng, who led the rebellion that overthrew the Ming dynasty. The four guards' family names were Hu, Miao, Tian and Fan. Owing to a massive misunderstanding which lasted several generations, their descendants have been slaying each other in a vendetta that prevented any of them from uncovering the truth. The Hu family was opposed to those from the Miao, Tian and Fan families; the latter three were allies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lulu_Dark_Can_See_Through_Walls" title="Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls">
Lulu Dark is a sixteen-year-old girl with attitude and fashion sense, and a keen eye for clues, who thinks girl detectives (such as Nancy Drew) are dumb. However, after her fake Kate Spade handbag gets stolen at a club, Lulu must become a girl-sleuth to retrieve it. But Lulu did not realize that it would get her entangled in a murder that only she believes has happened. At the end she solves more than one mystery of mistaken identities, and manages to do it in style with the help of her best friends, Daisy and Charlie.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(du_Maurier_novel)" title="The Martian (du Maurier novel)">
Barty Josselin and Robert Maurice are English boys attending the Institution F. Brossard, in Paris. Barty is "a handsome, high-spirited, mischievous, and gifted fellow, thoroughly practical, yet with traits that have in them a strange idealism." After finishing school, they return to England, where Barty spends some time in the army, but resigns.His vision fails, and he travels seeking help with it, becoming suicidal. He learns in a dream that he has a kind of guardian spirit "Martia", a female spirit from Mars, who communicates with him and offers him guidance. She inspires him to a successful career as an author.Martia wishes for him to marry Julia Royce, an English woman he meets in Germany, but he follows his heart and marries Leah Gibson, a Jewish woman, with whom he is so happy that Martia acknowledges her mistake. Martia is incarnated in the form of their daughter, and when the child dies, her spirit returns to Mars, and Barty also passes away.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Match" title="London Match">
Samson suspects that there is a traitor within his department of MI6, due to the appearance of a memorandum which was leaked to the KGB. It transpires that it is part of a plot conducted by his wife—now working for East German intelligence—to frame his superior, Bret Rensselaer, as a KGB agent. When Samson's old friend Werner Volkmann is arrested by the East German police Samson organizes an unauthorised exchange of defector Erich Stinnes for him, but the operation ends in a shoot-out on the Berlin S-Bahn.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spy_Hook" title="Spy Hook">
The novel begins with Bernard Sampson visiting his old friend and ex-SIS colleague in Washington named Jim Prettyman as part of an investigation regarding some missing funds. Soon after, Prettyman is murdered in a mugging.All his allies start losing interest in the investigation, and after digging deeper Bernard is sent to America once again, where it is revealed that Bret Rensselaer has not indeed died (as hinted at the end of the first trilogy, and discussed in this book) but is in fact in rehabilitation. Bernard returns to Europe, where he confronts a man called "Dodo" and is saved from an untimely death by Prettyman, who it turns out has gone under "deep-cover".Bernard then takes his evidence to the Director General, who in a surprise turn of events orders his arrest, which thanks to some quick thinking by Werner Volkmann, Bernard evades for the while.The novel concludes with Bernard seeking an explanation from Frank Harrington, before disappearing into the night.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spy_Line" title="Spy Line">
The novel starts with Bernard Samson in hiding in Berlin after the events in the first book of the series. He is soon found by the SIS and is invited by Frank Harrington to sit in on a debriefing of an undercover agent, where it is revealed that Erich Stinnes has been smuggling drugs into East Germany.Bernard is eventually recalled to London, and sent on a mission to Vienna to pick up a package from a stamp auction. This is revealed to be a Russian passport, which he uses to meet his wife Fiona, whom it is now revealed is a double agent (It is not made clear for how long Bernard knew this).Finally, Fiona attempts to escape from East Germany, whereupon Erich Stinnes, and Fiona's sister Tessa are both killed. Bernard and Fiona escape back to the other side of the wall and are transported to America for debriefing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spy_Sinker" title="Spy Sinker">
"Spy Sinker" starts in 1977 and ends in 1987. It tells the entire story in the previous five novels from the third person perspective (Bernard Samson's bosses, his colleagues, his girlfriend Gloria, and most of all his wife Fiona). Thus it fills in the gaps in the story, as the previous five books only reveals what Bernard can see and think he understands. It also tells the back story leading up to the story in the five novels, which has only been hinted at previously.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_(Deighton_novel)" title="Winter (Deighton novel)">
The narrative starts on the eve of the year 1900 with Harald Winter, a German businessman with two sons, Peter and Paul, two very different brothers, whose lives are inextricably linked with Germany in the years leading up to the Second World War. One a scholar and one a romantic, their lives diverge, leading one into the inner mechanisms of the Nazi Party and one into exile in America, the birthplace of their mother.From their sheltered childhood through their violent coming of age in the Great War, from the chaos of 1920s Berlin to the spreading power of Hitler they are wrenched apart by conflicting ideals and ambitions. Their story is further complicated by their father's long standing affair with a Hungarian woman, eventually revealed to be Jewish; their love for him is overshadowed by their loathing of his behaviour.Since the entire story unfolds as a flashback from the time of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials after the Nazis' defeat, the readers know that both would make a career as lawyers, but in widely divergent directions: one would enter the Nazi Party and think up various "legal" ways to legitimise their crimes, while the other brother would be a staunch anti-Nazi, go into exile and come back to Germany after the war as a member of the American war crimes prosecution. But the reader cannot be sure, until deep in the book's plot, which is which.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivia_Joules_and_the_Overactive_Imagination" title="Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination">
Olivia Jules, a journalist for the British Sunday Times newspaper and Elan magazine is in Miami to cover the launch of a face cream when she meets Pierre Feramo, who she finds attractive, but also suspicious.While Olivia is in Miami, a cruise ship docks in the harbor. When Olivia is passing the cruise ship on the way to meet Feramo, a terrorist bomb blows the ship up. Olivia helps to rescue survivors but hundreds are killed.Soon afterwards, in Los Angeles, Olivia meets Feramo again, working on a movie. Olivia calls the FBI with her suspicions about Feramo, but is interrupted. She also has her room swept for bugs and finds one. Feramo invites Olivia to his house in LA. There she finds a secret room. Frame and Olivia take a helicopter to an island off the California coast. Feramo admits he is a muslim but tells Olivia he didn’t bug her. He invites her scuba diving in Honduras.Instead of going straight to Feramo’s resort, Olivia makes her own way to Honduras. She meets the local divers including one called Morton, who she is also attracted to. Olivia becomes more suspicious of Feramo because of the rumours about his resort. Feramo then tricks Olivia into coming to his resort. She bluffs her way out, and returns to London.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Young_Flying_Fox" title="The Young Flying Fox">
The story is set in China during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (1735–1796) of the Qing dynasty. The protagonist, Hu Fei, is a young martial artist who was raised by Ping Asi after the death of his father, Hu Yidao. While travelling around the land in search of adventure, Hu Fei encounters Feng Tiannan, a ruthless villain, and wants to kill him to deliver justice for the victims. He also meets a young maiden, Yuan Ziyi, who shows signs of affection towards him. She stops Hu Fei from killing Feng Tiannan each time when he is close to killing Feng.Based on what Ping Asi told him, Hu Fei believes that Miao Renfeng is responsible for his father's death. He refrains from killing Miao after finding him, because Miao has been tricked by an enemy and temporarily blinded by a deadly poison. He is so impressed with Miao's sense of chivalry that he starts wondering if Ping Asi was mistaken about Miao. He decides to help Miao and journeys to find a cure for his eyes. He meets Cheng Lingsu, an apprentice of a deceased medicine guru known as the "King of Venoms". Hu Fei witnesses Cheng Lingsu defeating her three wicked seniors with her calm and wit. She agrees to help him cure Miao Renfeng's eyes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Angel" title="The Second Angel">
In "The Second Angel", passages of narrative by an omniscient narrator alternate with lengthy, discursive commentaries on the characters, and complex observations on human nature and blood by a first-person, intrusive narrator, who claims to be the omniscient narrator telling the story, but deliberately refrains from disclosing his or her identity until the last chapter.It is the late 21st century, when 80% of mankind have been infected with a virus called HPV2 (human parvovirus 2), or P2, whose spread was accelerated with the discovery and use of synthetic blood. P2 disrupts the blood's ability to carry hemoglobin around the body, greatly shortening the host's life. The only known cure for P2 is a complete blood transfusion with healthy blood, coupled with a dose of the drug ProTryptol 14. With only 20 percent of the world's population free of P2, the price of a litre of healthy blood has reached almost two million dollars.In the novel, blood has replaced gold and diamonds as a valuable commodity (gold was extracted in great quantity from the sea and is now valued at about $200 a kilogram). Uninfected people reside in "Clean Bill of Health" (CBH) zones within cities to avoid contact with the sick, for "vamping" (murder for the purpose of blood theft) is a major risk for healthy individuals. Standard procedure for those who are uninfected is to perform autologous donations to enable them to completely replace it in the event of becoming infected.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Dark_(novel)" title="After Dark (novel)">
Set in metropolitan Tokyo over the course of one night, characters include Mari Asai, a 19-year-old student, who is spending the night reading in a Denny's. There she meets Takahashi Tetsuya, a trombone-playing student who loves Curtis Fuller's "Five Spot After Dark" song on "Blues-ette"; Takahashi knows Mari's sister Eri, who he was once interested in, and insists that the group of them have hung out before. Meanwhile, Eri is in a deep sleep next to a television and seems to be haunted by a menacing figure.Mari crosses paths with a retired female wrestler, Kaoru, now working as a manager in a love hotel called "Alphaville". Kaoru needs Mari to talk to a Chinese prostitute who had just been beaten in the love hotel by an office worker, Shirakawa. The group then tries to track down Shirakawa, and includes the Chinese Mafia group that 'owns' the prostitute.In the love hotel Mari also hears stories from some of the staff working there and takes a glance at the other world hidden below the one we are aware of.Parts of the story take place in a world between reality and dream, and each chapter begins with an image of a clock depicting the passage of time throughout the night.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruins_(novel)" title="The Ruins (novel)">
Four American tourists — Eric, his girlfriend Stacy, her best friend and former roommate Amy, and Amy's boyfriend Jeff, a medical student — are vacationing in Mexico. They befriend a German tourist named Mathias, and a trio of Greeks who go by the Spanish nicknames Pablo, Juan, and Don Quixote. Jeff volunteers the group to accompany Mathias as he attempts to find his brother Heinrich, who went missing after having followed a girl he'd met to an archeological dig. As they leave the hotel, Pablo joins them, leaving a note and a map for Juan and Don Quixote.The six of them head down to the rural Yucatan in search of Heinrich. The driver of the pickup truck who takes them to the outskirts of Coba tells Amy that the place to which they are going is "not good," and offers to drive the group somewhere else. Amy does not quite get the message and leaves anyway. Near a Mayan village, they discover a disguised trail which leads to a large hill covered in vines and surrounded by bare earth. The group approach the hill, and are confronted by armed men from the village. Jeff attempts to communicate with them in Spanish, but they do not respond. After Amy steps on the vine-covered hill when attempting to take a picture of the entire group, the men force the group to stay on the vine-covered hill.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Honorable_Barbarian" title="The Honorable Barbarian">
Jorian, ex-king of Xylar, has had enough adventures to last a lifetime. But when his brother Kerin, youngest son of Evor the Clockmaker, commits an indiscretion with Adeliza, a neighbor's daughter, he is packed off on a hasty quest to uncover the secret of an advanced clock escapement for the family firm. A pragmatic, cautious sort, he preps for his journey with a crash course from his experienced brother in useful skills — swordsmanship and foreign tongues, of course, but also lying and burglary. He is hampered and sometimes aided by the sprite Belinka, commissioned by the calculating Adeliza to ensure Kerin's faithfulness.Kerin's goal takes him east across the Inner Sea, the Sea of Sikhon and the Eastern Ocean to the empire of Kuromon, where he is promised the secret in return for a magical fan lost centuries before. It has the property of making whatever it is waved at disappear without a trace. Along the way he must contend with a treacherous sea captain and his suspicious navigator, the duplicitous sorcerer Pwana, and the pirate crew of Malgo, who has a grudge against Kerin's family.A more pleasant complication is Nogiri, a princess of the island empire of Salimor, whom Kerin has liberated (much to the displeasure of Belinka) from the pirates. Kerin returns her to Salimor only to lose her to the nefarious designs of Pwana, and a dire fate from which she can only be preserved by a daring rescue on roller skates.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goblin_Tower" title="The Goblin Tower">
The Kingdom of Xylar, one of the twelve city-states of Novaria, has a peculiar custom for choosing its kings, each of whom serves for a five-year term. At the end of that period he is beheaded in the public square before an assembly of foreigners, and his head cast into the crowd. The man who catches the head is drafted as the next king. The latest beneficiary/victim of this arrangement is Jorian of Kortoli, a powerful and intelligent man who has trained extensively for a life of adventure, but who is hampered by garrulousness and a weakness for drink and women. Having served out his term as king in a reign characterized by both great accomplishments and increasing despair, he ultimately appears resigned to his fate, though in fact he is determined to cheat it.He successfully escapes his beheading with the aid of a Mulvanian magician, the saintly Dr. Karadur, who provides a spell granting physical access to the plane of the Novarian afterlife. This turns out to be our own world, in which the souls of Novarians are reincarnated. Jorian's brief excursion there is a satirical romp in which he is frightened by a passing giant truck, has a mutually uncomprehending encounter with a police officer in a patrol car, and is very glad to get back to the familiar dangers of his own world. These include an encounter with a homicidal wizard and his giant squirrel familiar, along with the succor of a distressed damsel who proves more trouble than she is worth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_the_Sea_(novel)" title="Star of the Sea (novel)">
The "Star of the Sea" of the title is a famine ship, making the journey from Ireland to New York. Aboard are hundreds of refugees, many from humble and desperate backgrounds. Key protagonists are David Merridith Lord Kingscourt, his wife Laura, their servant Mary Duane, the ship's captain Josias Lockwood, a friendless Irishman named Pius Mulvey, and American journalist Grantley Dixon.The story has multiple threads interwoven by Grantley Dixon. He uses diaries, letters, his own articles and conversations/interviews with some of the main characters or their relatives/descendants. The story partly follows the chronological course of the voyage, and for the intermediate or interposed parts consists of the meshed-in background lives of some of the emigrants and their relatives before they left Ireland (or England, or even after they arrived in the US). The novel departs from the usual formula of a murder mystery in that readers are vaguely informed of the identity of the murderer and the victim early in the novel, but the murder does not take place until the closing pages of the novel, and murder does not carry the full idea or sense of the killing.As the writer was clearly aware in choosing the name, the term "Star of the Sea" has deep roots in Catholic tradition. Our Lady, Star of the Sea - a translation of the Latin "Stella Maris" - is the Blessed Virgin Mary in her aspect as a guide and protector to those who work or travel on the sea and under which title she is venerated in many Catholic seaside communities. Indeed, in Dutch and other translations the book was given the title "Stella Maris".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Deadly_Secret" title="A Deadly Secret">
The plot follows the experiences of the protagonist, Di Yun, a simple young peasant from Xiangxi. He lives in the countryside for several years together with his martial arts master, Qi Zhangfa, and Qi's daughter, Qi Fang, who is his childhood sweetheart. One day, the three of them travel to the city to attend the birthday party of Wan Zhenshan, Qi Zhangfa's senior from the same martial arts sect. Di Yun is framed for larceny and attempted rape, which results in him being arrested and imprisoned.Qi Zhangfa disappears mysteriously when Di Yun needs his help. Wan Zhenshan's son, Wan Gui, bribes the magistrate to hand a heavy sentence to Di Yun to exaggerate the seriousness of Di's "crimes". At the same time, in order to win Qi Fang's affection, he hypocritically plays the role of a good man by pretending to help Di Yun. Qi Fang becomes disappointed with Di Yun after believing that he is indeed guilty and gives up on him. With no one else to turn to, she eventually marries Wan Gui.Di Yun suffers in prison and is continuously harassed by Ding Dian, a fellow raving inmate who accuses him of being a spy and subjects him to constant beatings. However, after Di Yun attempts suicide, Ding Dian is convinced that he is not a spy and befriends him. Ding Dian tells Di Yun how he obtained from Mei Niansheng the manual for the skill "Liancheng Swordplay", and how he became the target of several martial artists after getting the manual. Ding Dian also teaches Di Yun a powerful inner energy skill, which later proves to be a blessing for Di. Di Yun also learns from Ding Dian about the dirty secrets of Qi Zhangfa and his fellows – of how they murdered their master, Mei Niansheng, to seize control of the Liancheng Swordplay manual.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Hearts_and_Three_Lions" title="Three Hearts and Three Lions">
Holger Carlsen is an American-trained Danish engineer who joins the Danish resistance to the Nazis in World War II. At the shore near Elsinore, he is among the group of resistance fighters trying to cover the escape to Sweden of an important scientist (evidently the nuclear physicist Niels Bohr). With a German force closing in, Carlsen is shot and suddenly finds himself transported to a parallel universe, a world in which Northern European legend is real. This world is divided between the forces of Chaos, inhabiting the "Middle World" (which includes Faerie), and the forces of Law based in the human world, which is in turn divided between the Holy Roman Empire and the Saracens. He finds the equipment and horse of a medieval knight waiting for him. The shield is emblazoned with three hearts and three lions. He finds that the clothes and armor fit him perfectly, and he knows how to use the weapons and ride the horse as well as speak fluently the local language, a very archaic form of French.Seeking to return to his own world, Holger is joined by Alianora, a swan maiden, and Hugi, a dwarf. They are induced to follow the seemingly attractive elvish Duke Alfric of Faerie, who in fact plots to imprison Holger in Elf Hill, where time runs differently. Holger learns that Morgan Le Fay, his lover in a forgotten past life, is his ultimate adversary.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clocks_of_Iraz" title="The Clocks of Iraz">
In this sequel to "The Goblin Tower", ex-king Jorian of Xylar and Dr. Karadur renew their alliance, with the latter offering to help the former recover his favorite wife Estrildis in return for a new service. Jorian is commissioned to repair the clocks in the Tower of Kumashar, the great lighthouse of Iraz, capital city of the empire of Penembei to the south of Novaria. The timepieces had originally been installed by Jorian's father Evor the Clockmaker, a renowned practitioner of that trade.Complications consist of a pair of competing prophecies regarding the fate of the city, Iraz's cut-throat politics and xenophobic racing factions (clearly based on those of the Byzantine Empire), and a perfect storm of enemies approaching the city, including the pirates of Algarth, a mercenary company from Novaria, the desert hordes of Fedirun, and a revolutionary peasant army. Topping these is the Emperor Ishbahar himself, who seems to think Jorian might make a good heir to dump the whole mess on. Jorian hardly needs to hear a new prophecy relating to "himself"—"beware the second crown"—to tread cautiously. It will take luck as well as cunning just to get out alive, let alone save the city and seize the forlorn hope of regaining Estrildis with the aid of Karadur's flying bathtub.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bladerunner" title="The Bladerunner">
The novel's protagonist is Billy Gimp, a man with a club foot who runs "blades" for Doc (Doctor John Long) as part of an illegal black market for medical services. The setting is a society where free, comprehensive medical treatment is available for anyone so long as they qualify for treatment under the Eugenics Laws. Preconditions for medical care include sterilization, and no legitimate medical care is available for anyone who does not qualify or does not wish to undergo the sterilization procedure (including children over the age of five). These conditions have created illegal medical services in which bladerunners supply black market medical supplies for underground practitioners, who generally go out at night to see patients and perform surgery. As an epidemic breaks out among the underclass, Billy must save his city from the plague.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guarani" title="The Guarani">
"The Guarani" is set back in 1604, a period when Portugal and its colonies submitted to Spanish dominion due to a lack of heirs to ascend to the throne. Alencar takes advantage of this dynastic complication to resurrect the historical figure of , one of the founders of the city of Rio de Janeiro and a pioneer settler. This historical (factual) background, which orients the novel throughout, is set in the first two chapters; then fantasy, both violent and erotic, starts to prevail.D. Antônio establishes himself in a deserted inland region, a few days’ travel from the seaside city of Rio. The land was granted to him through his services to the Portuguese crown, whose legitimacy the nobleman now distrusts. To be politically independent (if not economically) and keep to the Portuguese codes of honour, he builds a castle-like house to shelter his family in Brazilian soil where he lives like a feudal lord with his family and retainers.His family consists of his severe wife D. Lauriana, his angelic fair, blue-eyed daughter Cecília, his dandyish son D. Diogo and the "niece" Isabel, a cabocla who is in fact his illegitimate daughter by an Indian woman. Other people are also attached to his household: a few loyal servants, forty adventurers/mercenaries kept for protection, the young nobleman Álvaro de Sá, an appropriate suitor for his lawful daughter Cecília, and Peri, an Indian of the Goitacá people, who once saved Cecy’s life (as the romantic/romanticised Indian endearingly calls Cecília) and who has since deserted his tribe and family. Peri is the hero who gives title to the book, he is treated as a friend by D. Antônio and Ceci and as a nuisance by Mrs. Mariz and Isabel. The life of the characters is altered by the arrival of the adventurer Loredano (former friar Angelo di Lucca) who insinuates himself into the house and soon starts subverting the other vassals, planning to kidnap Cecília and scheming against the house of Mariz; along with the accidental murder of an Aimoré Indian woman by D. Diogo.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sword_from_Red_Ice" title="A Sword from Red Ice">
From OCLC Worldcat's summary, "As Ash March pursues her destiny with the legendary Sull people, Raif Sevrance seeks a place where he belongs, in a tale set in the wake of deadly clan battles and a darker force from an evil city that threatens their world."The prologue can be read online.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Eye_(novel)" title="The Third Eye (novel)">
The protagonist of "The Third Eye" is eighteen-year-old Karen Connors. While in high school, she began dating Tim, a popular classmate. For the first time, Karen begins to feel as though she is finally fitting in. Her mother is pleased that she is dating Tim, as she has always pushed Karen to fit in and be popular.Karen gets a job as a babysitter for the Zenner family, watching Stephanie and her older brother, Bobby. Bobby leaves to go and play with his friends, but doesn’t show up at lunchtime. Karen asks nearby families if they had seen him, and when they all reply they haven’t, she contacts the police.Officer Ronald Wilson arrived to question Karen, and the first thing she notices about him is that he has vivid blue eyes and seems much too young to be a police officer. Wilson does not seem too concerned about the disappearance, saying that Bobby was probably at a friend's house. Karen starts having visions of where Bobby is, seeing he is unconscious and stuck in a box. When Bobby's parents arrive home, Bobby is still missing. The policeman returns to the Zenner home. Karen realizes that the box she saw in her vision is the trunk of a car, and that the car is headed her way. She also realizes that the car she envisions belongs to her boyfriend, Tim. When he arrives to take her home, she confronts Tim, and they find Bobby in the trunk, unconscious, but alive.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Walked_Between_the_Towers" title="The Man Who Walked Between the Towers">
The story follows the French street performer turned high-wire artist, Philippe Petit, as he attempts what he describes as 'the coup of the century.' Once the idea of walking a high-wire between the twin towers occurs, Philippe Petit becomes obsessed with it. With considerable deliberation and planning, he finally achieves his dream coup one early August morning in 1974. Before the notorious high-wire walk across the twin towers, he also walks a high-wire on the Notre Dame where he lived in Paris, France. Since the twin towers were still under construction, Philippe Petit and his friend disguised themselves as construction workers and easily blended in with the rest of the construction crew to sneak up to the south tower. They took around 440 lbs of cable through the elevator to the top 10 floors and waited until nightfall to carry it up 180 stairs onto the roof. At midnight, two more of his friends came to help. They tied a fishing line through an arrow and shot it across to Philippe 140 feet away from the north tower. However, they missed their mark due to the wind, and the arrow landed on a ledge. Philippe manages to retrieve the arrow by crawling down the ledge of the tower. To this line, he attached a stronger line, which his friends pulled back and he tied it to a cable that was 5/8 of an inch thick. The cable was so heavy that it took them 3 hours to secure the line from across the two towers. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Chamade" title="La Chamade">
Like many of Sagan's novels, this is a story of lost love. A couple meet and move in together, but the woman cannot get used to his life, his working-class existence. She leaves her lover to return to her affair with a man of means.Ostensibly, she is rejecting her lover because she feels stifled by his position in society. But the class differences are metaphor for the quality of the love, with a woman deciding to be with a man who loves her for who she is rather than as an object of affection, merely the focus of a selfish love. She wants to be with the one who doesn't ask her to change.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkheart_series" title="Inkheart series">
## "Inkheart".In "Inkheart", the twelve-year-old, Meggie, discovers that her father Mo, a professional bookbinder, has the unusual ability to transfer characters from books into the real world when he reads aloud—they call those with this ability "Silvertongue". Mo once brought four characters of a book entitled "Inkheart" to life while reading from the novel, including Dustfinger, his pet marten Gwin; Capricorn, the book's villain; and Basta, Capricorn's right-hand man—in bitter exchange for his wife Teresa (later known as Resa), who disappeared without a trace into the so-called Inkworld of the book. After many years Dustfinger returns to pay Meggie and her father a visit, advising them to flee the country to escape Capricorn and his followers who are in search of Mo and his "Inkheart" copy. The three of them eventually leave to hide at Meggie's great-aunt Elinor's house in Northern Italy but end up being dragged off by Basta and his companions to the near village of Capricorn, because Dustfinger betrayed them as Capricorn promised him he would help him go back home. He then forces Mo to read treasures out of books, since his useless reader, Darius, could not do it. Meggie soon discovers she has the same talent as her father when she summons the monster known as "The Shadow" out of the book. She helps to kill Capricorn and his entourage with the power of her reading talent.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fallen_Man" title="The Fallen Man">
In late fall, three climbers who scaled Shiprock find a corpse, a skeleton in climber's gear, on a nearly inaccessible shelf just below the peak. Acting Lieutenant Jim Chee is trying his hand at administration of the special investigations unit. Captain Largo is pressing them to work on cattle thieving. Joe Leaphorn, retired five months earlier, cautiously approaches Chee with his memory of a missing person case from eleven years before, never solved. Hal Breedlove is a likely candidate, as he was mountain climber always seeking challenges, and Shiprock is a most challenging climb. It is Hal, which news Chee brings to Hal’s widow Elisa on their ranch near Mancos, Colorado. The couple and her brother Eldon Demott had been celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary and Hal’s birthday on a trip to the reservation, including Canyon de Chelly. She inherited the ranch once he was declared dead; Hal got full ownership of it on his thirtieth birthday, just before he disappeared.Chee is engaged to marry Janet Pete, but they have a dispute arising from John McDermott, her former boss and lover. Chee turns his focus to mastering the administrative duties of his job. Rookie officer Bernadette Manuelito is taking initiative on the cattle rustling problems; she asks Lucy Sam to watch and record events near her hogan. Lucy uses the format her late father used in his ledgers, which were started before 1985. Manuelito figures out that Dick Finch, the cattle brand inspector and a law man himself, is the most likely suspect.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letting_Go_(novel)" title="Letting Go (novel)">
Gabe Wallach is a graduate student in literature at the University of Iowa and an ardent admirer of Henry James. Fearing that the intellectual demands of a life in literature might leave him cloistered, Gabe seeks solace in what he thinks of as "the world of feeling". Following the death of his mother at the opening of the novel, Gabe befriends his fellow graduate student Paul Herz.The novel "Letting Go" is divided into seven (7) sections:1. "Debts and Sorrows"Having served in the Korean War after college, Gabe Wallach is finishing his military service in Oklahoma when he receives a letter his mother wrote to him from her death bed. After reading the letter Wallach places it in "The Portrait of a Lady" by Henry James. The narrative then skips forward to a year later when Wallach is working on a graduate degree in literature at the University of Iowa. Wallach lends his copy of "The Portrait of a Lady" to a fellow graduate student, Paul Herz. Later Wallach realizes that he left the letter from his mother in the pages of the book and in his attempt to retrieve the book he meets Paul's wife, Libby. Gabe learns from Libby that Paul is teaching classes at another school and realizes how poor the Herzs are. He drives Libby to where Paul's car has broken down on a trip from this second school and witnesses the first of many arguments between Paul and Libby. Libby also reveals to Gabe that she read the letter from his now-deceased mother. This is the beginning of the several instances where the characters begin to imagine the life of the other and believe that they understand it completely based on very little actual evidence.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Queen_of_Zamba" title="The Queen of Zamba">
Victor Hasselborg, a 22nd-century private eye, is hired by a Syrian businessman to track down his missing daughter Julnar Batruni, who it turns out has run off with adventurer Anthony Fallon. Immediate complications ensue when Hasselborg finds himself falling for Alexandra, Fallon's abandoned wife. Discovering that the fugitives have gone off-planet, he tracks them to the planet Krishna, an Earth-like world of the star Tau Ceti with humanoid inhabitants but a medieval culture. Disguising himself as a native Krishnan, Hasselborg goes after them, little-knowing he has entered a web of interplanetary intrigue, spying, and gun-running...Anthony Fallon, the antagonist in "The Queen of Zamba", would reappear in two later Krishna novels; as the protagonist of "The Tower of Zanid" and as a minor character in "The Swords of Zinjaban".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogsbody_(novel)" title="Dogsbody (novel)">
Sirius, "guardian luminary" of the Dog Star, is accused of murdering a fellow luminary and losing the Zoi, an extremely powerful cosmic tool, on Earth. His Companion gives evidence that he is guilty. He is sentenced to spend one lifetime in the form of a dog on Earth. If he can recover the Zoi within that dog's lifetime, he will be allowed to return to his former status as Sirius. If he does not, he will simply die at the end of his dog's life.Sirius is born into a litter of puppies. Discovered to be mongrels, the puppies are thrown into the river. Kathleen O'Brien, rescues a filthy, wet, dying Sirius, and names him Leo. Kathleen lives with the Duffields, a family of four, because her father is in prison. Kathleen is treated distantly but benignly by Mr. Duffield. However, his wife Daphne ("Duffie"), a potter, bullies and intimidates Kathleen as she is Irish. The Duffields' sons are Basil, who does not actively dislike Kathleen but often mimics his mother's behavior and is obsessed with meteorites, particularly one that fell recently near the town; and Robin, who is kind but afraid of the other family members. The family has three cats who grudgingly befriend Sirius. Sirius' status in the house is often fraught, as Duffie despises him and Kathleen's meager allowance is his sole source of food.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fun_Home" title="Fun Home">
The narrative of "Fun Home" is non-linear and recursive. Incidents are told and re-told in the light of new information or themes. Bechdel describes the structure of "Fun Home" as a labyrinth, "going over the same material, but starting from the outside and spiraling in to the center of the story." In an essay on memoirs and truth in the academic journal "PMLA", Nancy K. Miller explains that as Bechdel revisits scenes and themes "she re-creates memories in which the force of attachment generates the structure of the memoir itself." Additionally, the memoir derives its structure from allusions to various works of literature, Greek myth and visual arts; the events of Bechdel's family life during her childhood and adolescence are presented through this allusive lens. Miller notes that the narratives of the referenced literary texts "provide clues, both true and false, to the mysteries of family relations."The memoir focuses on Bechdel's family, and is centered on her relationship with her father, Bruce. Bruce was a funeral director and high school English teacher in Beech Creek, where Alison and her siblings grew up. The book's title comes from the family nickname for the funeral home, the family business in which Bruce grew up and later worked; the phrase also refers ironically to Bruce's tyrannical domestic rule. Bruce's two occupations are reflected in "Fun Home"s focus on death and literature.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_Hall_of_the_Dead" title="Dance Hall of the Dead">
Ernesto Cata is in training to play his role as Shulawitsi the Fire God in an upcoming Zuni religious ceremony. He sees a kachina that can be seen by the initiated, which he is not, or by those about to die. The next day, his friend George Bowlegs leaves school early, after learning Ernesto is not there. Lt. Joe Leaphorn works with the Zuni police chief Pasquaanti, who seeks Ernesto, while Leaphorn will seek George, a Navajo boy. A patch of blood-soaked soil is found at the meeting place where George was returning Ernesto's bicycle. That is the starting point in the search for the two boys.Near the home of the Bowlegs, Leaphorn is approached by George's younger brother Cecil, who tells him that George is running away from the kachina, the one that got Ernesto. Cecil says that Ernesto had stolen some flints from the dig site. Next, Leaphorn talks with Ted Isaacs, who is about a mile from where the blood was found, at an anthropological dig site under the aegis of Professor Reynolds. Reynolds is ambitious to prove that Folsom Man culture continued longer than the accepted notions of its duration. Isaacs tells Leaphorn of the success in the field work. Reynolds bars Isaacs from having his girlfriend Susanne with him, and barred Ernesto and George from the site a few days earlier. When questioned, Reynolds denies any thefts from the site. Checking out Jason's Fleece, Leaphorn sees a Zuni kachina, rather unexpected next to the abandoned Navajo death hogan now housing the commune. He meets Susanne, who confirms that George was afraid of something and asking questions about absolution in the Zuni religion. Leaphorn learns that Ernesto's body has been found.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hoboken_Chicken_Emergency" title="The Hoboken Chicken Emergency">
The main character, Arthur, is asked to pick up a reserved turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, but the market has lost the reservation, and no store in the area has any turkeys or other birds available for purchase. So Arthur finds and brings home a 266-pound chicken named Henrietta. The family welcomes her with open arms, but the neighbors are not so sure. Everyone in town is horrified after Henrietta escapes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy_of_the_Oppressed" title="Pedagogy of the Oppressed">
Freire organizes "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" into four chapters and a preface.Freire uses the preface to provide a background to his work and the potential downsides. He explains that this came from his experience as a teacher in Brazil and when he was in political exile. In this time, he noticed that his students had an unconscious fear of freedom, or rather: a fear of changing the way the world is. Freire then outlines the likely criticisms his book will face. Furthermore, his audience should be radicalspeople that see the world as changing and fluidand he admits that his argument will most likely be missing things. Basing his method of finding freedom on the poor and middle class's experience with education, Freire states that his ideas are rooted in realitynot purely theoretical.Freire utilizes chapter 1 to explain why this pedagogy is necessary. Describing humankind's central problem as affirming one's identity as human, Freire states that everyone strives for this, but oppression interrupts many people on this journey. These halts are termed dehumanization. Dehumanization, when individuals become objectified, occurs due to injustice, exploitation, and oppression. "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" is Freire's attempt to help the oppressed fight back to regain their lost humanity and achieve full humanization. Freire outlines steps with which the oppressed can regain their humanity, starting with acquiring knowledge about the concept of humanization itself. It is easy for the oppressed to fight their oppressors only to become the polar opposites of what they currently are. In other words, this just makes them the oppressors and starts the cycle all over again. To be fully human again, they must identify the oppressors. They must identify them and work together to seek liberation. The next step in liberation is to understand what the goal of the oppressors is. Oppressors are purely materialistic. They see humans as objects and by suppressing individuals, they are able to own these humans. While they may not be consciously putting down the oppressed, they value ownership over humanity, essentially dehumanizing themselves. This is important to realize as the goal of the oppressed is to not only gain power. It is to allow all individuals to become fully human so that no oppression can exist. Freire states that once the oppressed understand their own oppression and discovers their oppressors, the next step is dialogue, or discussion with others to reach the goal of humanization. Freire also highlights other events on this journey that the oppressed must undertake. There are many situations that the oppressed must keep wary about. For example, they must be aware of the oppressors trying to help the oppressed. These people are deemed falsely generous, and in order to help the oppressed, one must first fully become the oppressed, mentally and environmentally. Only the oppressed can allow humanity to become fully human with no instances of objectification.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Growing_Pains_of_Adrian_Mole" title="The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole">
Adrian Mole is an outsider who feels the reason he can't quite fit in with "regular" society is that he is an intellectual. Evidence from his diary entries include a precocious interest in literature, in left-wing politics, a desire to have his own poetry show on the BBC, his dislike of Margaret Thatcher and his frequent critiques of his less-refined schoolmates and family. Adrian's dysfunctional family, as in "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole", is one of the focal points of the book.Although portrayed as somewhat vain and self-centred, Adrian is the only friend and frequent caretaker of the OAP Bert Baxter, and also shows a great deal of concern and compassion for the misfortunes of his parents and respect for the authority of his grandmother.This book continues the theme from the first book of Adrian's growing frustration with his body. He constantly writes about the "spots" that mar his complexion, and he also has self-esteem issues about his height and physical maturity.As his frustrations mount, Adrian decides to run away to London but then decides that would be the first place his parents would look and so runs away instead to Grimsby.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Unreason" title="Land of Unreason">
Fred Barber, an American staying as a guest in an English country home during World War II, consumes a bowl of milk left as an offering for the fairies, substituting liquor in its place. The rightful recipient of the offering, drunk and offended at the substitution, takes vengeance by kidnapping Barber off to the Land of Faerie as a changeling, a fate normally reserved for infants. He finds Faerie beset by a menace echoing the war in his own world. Trapped in a magical realm where rationality as he knows it is turned upside-down and failure to follow the rules can have dire consequences, Barber undertakes a quest in the service of Oberon, the fairy king, in order to be returned to his own world. The outcome, befitting a realm in which nothing is as expected, is one that neither he nor the reader anticipates, for Fred Barber is not quite the man he thinks he is.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_of_Hastur" title="The Heritage of Hastur">
The story, told from the alternating points of view of Regis Hastur and Lewis Alton, starts from the storyline of Regis Hastur.While riding from Nevarsin to Thendera, Regis Hastur's party encounters Kennard Alton and his sons, Lewis and Marius. Lew introduces Regis to Danilo Syrtis. They ride to Comyn Castle.When Kennard is injured by a fall, Lew takes over as captain of the guard. He objects to Dyan Ardais being named Cadet Master, because of rumors that Ardais is a pederast and sadist. Kennard overrules his son, saying that the rumors were unfounded.Members of the Comyn Council meet with the Terran Legate regarding rumors that forbidden weapons are being sold in the city of Caer Donn. The Comyn claim that this is a breach of both the Compact (Darkovan tradition concerning weapons) and of the Terran Empire's treaty with the council. The Terrans claim that Aldaran is essentially a separate country, so different laws apply. The matter is unresolved. Kennard suggests instead that Lew make a diplomatic journey to Aldaran.Danilo Syrtis is thrown out of the guard for drawing a sword on Cadet Master Ardais. Lew suspects that Ardais has been making sexual advances towards Danilo, but is unable to prove it. Broken, Danilo departs for the Syrtis estate, where Regis later confronts him. After an argument, Danilo reveals the details of Dyan Ardais’ attempt to rape him, both physically and telepathically. Regis persuades Danilo to bring charges against Ardais.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_Come_(LaHaye_novel)" title="Kingdom Come (LaHaye novel)">
## Just after the Glorious Appearing.In the aftermath of the Glorious Appearing during the 75 Day Interval before the Millennium World, Cameron (formerly known as Buck) and Chloe Williams see their son Kenny playing with other children who were orphaned during the Tribulation. Buck and Chloe form a ministry known as Children of the Tribulation (COT), in the knowledge that these must be brought to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ before their one-hundredth year, or they shall die and go to hell. At the End of the 75 Day Interval, Christ destroys the rebuilt Temple of Jerusalem with lightning from Heaven. He then constructs a new Temple for the people of the Earth and sets up Levites as his priests and his earthly apostles as civil governors, with a resurrected King David as their chief. Meanwhile, Natural and Glorified Believers (Naturals being believers who lived to see the Glorious Appearing, and will still age slowly until the end of the Millennium, but not die; Glorified being believers who were raptured or died during the Tribulation and received Glorified Bodies, meaning they cannot age or die.) begin building their Houses and Estates for the 1,000 Years.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_in_Death" title="Naked in Death">
New York Police and Security Department detective Lieutenant Eve Dallas's main suspect in the death of a high-profile prostitute is the enigmatic Irish businessman, Roarke, in 2058.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_She_Was_Worth" title="All She Was Worth">
In 1992, Tokyo Metropolitan Police Detective Shunsuke Honma, on leave due to an incident on the job, is hired by his nephew, banker Jun Kurisaka, to track down Kurisaka's fiancée, whom he knows by the name of Shoko Sekine and who disappeared from his life after he discovered her credit history was tainted by bankruptcy. As Honma investigates her circumstances, he finds that the name "Shoko Sekine" actually belongs to someone else other than Kurisaka's fiancée, and that the latter may have murdered the former to achieve this. As Honma navigates the country for clues, he finds that the credit-based economy in Japan, coupled with the country's own system for family identification, have undesirable side effects on ordinary people's lives.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zenith_Angle" title="The Zenith Angle">
Derek "Van" Vandeveer is a young, well respected, computer scientist. He is rich with stock options and heady with his own success when his whole world is suddenly and forever changed as the planes begin crashing into the World Trade Center. Within months his fortune is gone to an Enron-like scandal, and his wife and son have moved west to work on a new telescope being developed by a billionaire entrepreneur.Van is recruited into a nascent wing of the government, working on the outside of the main bureaucracy to vastly improve the security of government systems. His ingenious design gains him even more respect from his peers, but as the project continues Van goes through personality changes, becoming more paranoid and simultaneously more patriotic. Without the psychological aid of the money and nice house of his former company, he even begins to question whether he really is a computer scientist or just an over-glorified technician.The novel comes to a head as Van is asked to look into the reason a multibillion-dollar pork project spy satellite is failing in space. The bureaucracy, thinking that he will fail in this endeavor, hopes to use it to discredit his boss and him and put an end to their power climb in Washington. Van discovers the problem and through a covert military-like attack on the source, puts an end to it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See_Jane_Run" title="See Jane Run">
The book centers on Jane Whittaker, who finds herself on a street corner in downtown Boston with no recollection of her name, her physical features, her personality, or any of the details of her life, albeit being familiar with her surroundings and easily recalling facts such as the formula for the length of a hypotenuse.She is further terrified to see that she is wearing a blood-stained blue dress, under a long coat which contains in its pockets nearly $10,000. Frightened out of her mind, she heads to a hotel, where she spends a couple of days trying to figure out how to proceed. She decides to go to the local police station, but withholds some key information when she recounts her experience. They take her to the hospital for examination, where she is later reunited with a handsome doctor claiming to be her husband. Dr. Whittaker takes Jane back to their suburban home to recover. Instead of finding rest, however, Jane is overwhelmed by suspicions as she begins to uncover the horrific past that her mind had forgotten.Along with Dr. Whittaker, a housekeeper named Paula Marinelli - who is obviously loyal to the good doctor - is also taking care of her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Carnelian_Cube" title="The Carnelian Cube">
The carnelian cube of the title is a small red "dream stone" confiscated by archaeologist Arthur Cleveland Finch from Tiridat Ariminian, one of the workers on the dig he is supervising in Cappadocia. It bears an inscription in Etruscan that appears to identify its original possessor as Apollonius of Tyana, and supposedly allows the bearer to attain the world of his dreams.Finch, frustrated with the irrationality of his existence as an archaeologist, yearns for a more rational world in which he could realize his true dream of being a poet. Sleeping with the stone beneath his pillow he finds himself cast into a parallel world. It and later worlds visited by Finch tend to place him in or near his native Louisville, Kentucky rather than the Middle Eastern locale he starts out from, but Kentuckys that, while appearing to share much of the "real" world's history, have developed in radically alternate directions due to differences in their worlds' psychological or physical properties.Finch's new home sets the pattern; it is entirely "too" rational, with its denizens acting solely from self-interest in a society organized on a strict patron-client basis. The regimentation extends to naming conventions: people's names are ordered surname first, given name second, and occupation last. Finch initially finds himself classed as "Finch Arthur Poet" — and is, indeed, a poet. Poets are, however, a low-classified occupation, with few perks, certainly as compared to the local patron, Sullivan Michael Politician. Finch's attempts at social climbing, while initially successful, also bring him enemies, eventually making his new world too hot for him. The stone had not made the trip with him, and Finch's only means of escaping this new and not entirely congenial existence is to purloin its counterpart from the local version of Tiridat.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Lullaby" title="This Lullaby">
Remy is an eighteen-year-old who is about to leave for college. Her father, a musician, wrote his one and only hit song the day she was born. The song, called "This Lullaby," became extremely popular, but he died soon after its release. Now, Remy's mother is getting married for the fifth time. After her mother's previous failed marriages, love is something that Remy doesn't believe exists.One day, she randomly meets Dexter at a car dealership that her mother's fiancé owns. He claims to feel a connection with her the second he saw her. He is messy and a musician, two of her least favorite traits. But he is persistent. She slowly finds herself falling for him. She doesn't want to care about him, but somehow she just can't bring herself to get rid of him. Eventually, they start dating and she is surprised by how open and honest and caring he is. When Dexter overhears Remy saying that she only wants him to be a summer fling, they break up. Remy begins to date another guy, but she finds herself always thinking about Dexter. Meanwhile, her brother is getting engaged, her mother's new husband is cheating with his secretary, and her friends are all having problems of their own. But in the end, Remy realizes that she truly does love Dexter, and they get back together. Remy still leaves for college but in "Just Listen" it is revealed that Remy and Dexter are together because Remy is shown with Dexter while Remy is on fall break from college.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Yoke" title="Under the Yoke">
The tranquility in a Bulgarian village under Ottoman rule is only superficial: the people are quietly preparing for an uprising. The plot follows the story of Boycho Ognyanov, who, having escaped from a prison in Diarbekir, returns to the Bulgarian town of Byala Cherkva (White Church, fictional representation of Sopot) to take part in the rebellion. There he meets old friends, enemies, and the love of his life. The plot portrays the personal drama of the characters, their emotions, motives for taking part in or standing against the rebellion, betrayal and conflict.Historically, the April Uprising of 1876 failed due to bad organization, limited resources, and betrayal. The brutal way in which the Ottomans broke down the uprising became the pretext for the Russian-Turkish war, that brought about Bulgarian independence.The book has many autobiographical elements: Sopot is the writer's hometown, and he did take a personal part in the uprising described.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Pigza_Swallowed_the_Key" title="Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key">
The book describes the life of a child named Joey Pigza who frequently gets into trouble at school due to his erratic behavior. He has a habit of swallowing a key attached to a piece of string in order to pull it back out again, and on one instance he forgets to attach a string to the key, preventing him from pulling it back up. At school, Joey puts his finger in a pencil sharpener, runs around with scissors, and cuts the tip of a girl's nose off. Pigza is on medication which he takes regularly, but it doesn't seem to be very effective. As a consequence of slicing off the tip of his classmate's nose, Pigza is suspended from school and sent to a special education center. Joey Pigza fears that "something [is] wrong inside" him, a fear which escalates until the medications he is on are readjusted, and he feels he is able to make better decisions. The book implies that Joey Pigza is dealing with a condition such as ADHD, adjustment disorder, depression, or conduct disorder, but an exact diagnosis is never specified.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_a_Couple_of_Days" title="Just a Couple of Days">
Dr. Flake Fountain is approached by the military to develop an antidote to a virus they have created, which is known as the "Pied Piper" virus, due to its relation to a mirth- and dance-inducing virus which supposedly caused the phenomenon the Pied Piper story was based on (see also St. John's Dance), which leaves its victims alive and unharmed, but destroys the brain's capacity for symbolic reasoning. This leaves victims unable to use language, including speech and writing to communicate. However, before Dr. Fountain can complete his antidote, the virus is released and everyone else on Earth, as far as he knows, is infected with it.He holes up in the house of his friends Blip (a fellow college professor) and Sophia, two organic hippie types. Since the house is a self-sufficient geodesic dome, he is protected from the virus and has electricity, and it is revealed that the book is his journal, where he is recording everything that has happened and is happening. Each chapter also begins with a selection from the "Book o' Billets-Doux" ("love letters" in French), which he found in the dome and is apparently an extended conversation between Blip and Sophia which they wrote, eventually while succumbing to the virus.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Piano_Tuner" title="The Piano Tuner">
The novel is set in 1886, in the jungles of Burma. The protagonist, a middle-aged man by the name of Edgar Drake is commissioned by the British War Office to repair a rare Erard grand piano belonging to a Doctor Anthony Carroll. Carroll, who is the root of many myths, had the piano shipped to him as a means to bring peace and union amongst the princes in Burma in order to further the expansion of the British Empire. The extreme humidity of the tropical climate soon rendered it useless and horribly out of tune. Drake's "mission" thus becomes vital to the Crown's strategic interests. In a series of sub-plots and intrigue the surgeon-major is charged with treason. When the piano tuner goes to meet the surgeon-major against the wishes of the military staff, he finds himself suddenly surrounded.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Beast" title="Blood Beast">
"Blood Beast" takes place about a year after the events recounted in "Slawter". Grubbs Grady is back in Carcery Vale. His life seems to have settled down at last. He's getting on well with Dervish. Grubbs has been struggling to contain the magical talent he discovered in the town of Slawter. He doesn't want to become a Disciple and he hopes his abilities will fade if he hides them long enough. His magician's prowess is growing all the time. He is having dreadful nightmares and suspects he might be turning into a werewolf.Things come to a head when Grubbs and his friends, Loch and Bill-E decide to go on a treasure hunt. While exploring a tunnel that leads to a cave, Grubbs hears a scream behind him and turns to find Loch's lifeless body on the floor, blood seeping from his head. Bill-E leaves to get help, and Grubbs attempts unsuccessfully to resuscitate Loch, whose heart has stopped. Dervish returns with Bill-E and they dispose of Loch's body in a nearby quarry. Dervish explains that the cave is a potential doorway for demons to enter the human world and it is his responsibility to safeguard it.Grubbs returns to school, and meets with the new psychologist, Juni Swan, whom he had previously met in "Slawter". Juni also has a gift for magic. She becomes romantically involved with Dervish who teaches her more spells.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_of_Frankenstein" title="Father of Frankenstein">
James Whale has just had a stroke. He is convinced that his time has come to die. Increasingly confused and disoriented, his mind is overwhelmed by images of the past – from his working-class childhood in Britain, the trenches of World War I, and the lavish glamour of Hollywood premieres in the 1930s.Whale asks his new gardener, a Marine veteran named Clayton Boone, to come to his studio for some portrait sittings. Boone is uncomfortable with Whale's homosexuality but also fascinated by the chance to know a famous Hollywood director and so, despite his apprehensions, the relationship continues.Boone begins to think of Whale as a friend. But one night after they return from a Hollywood garden party, Whale makes an advance at Boone, trying to make him so angry that he will kill Whale. The old man wants to die; he wants his death to have a human face, Boone's face. Boone refuses and is very upset. Whale apologizes–he knows he is going insane. The next morning, Whale understands that he is ready to cross over, alone. He drowns himself in his backyard swimming pool.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerilka's_Story" title="Nerilka's Story">
Taking a different approach from the previous seven books in the series, "Nerilka's Story" has a non-dragonrider and non-harper as its major viewpoint character. It is set during the events detailed in "". Nerilka is the daughter of a Lord Holder who turns her back on her life in an upper-class family and sets out to fight the disease that threatens to kill all humans on Pern. According to a critic for the "Chicago Tribune", Nerilka makes for an "intelligent, resourceful, selfless and, alas, homely" heroine.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uglies" title="Uglies">
Three hundred years in the future, the government provides for everything, including plastic surgery operations. Everyone on their sixteenth birthday receives the “pretty” operation which transforms them into the society's standard of beautiful. After the operation, new Pretties cross the river that divides the city and lead a new life with no responsibilities or obligations. There are two other operations available, one to transform Pretties into “Middle-Pretties” (adults with a job), and another to transform Middle-Pretties into "Crumblies".Former cities have decayed after bacteria infected the world's petroleum, making it unstable. The old society, so dependent on oil, fell apart when cars and oil fields exploded and food could no longer be transported. People who lived before this catastrophe are called "Rusties."Tally Youngblood is almost sixteen. Like every other Ugly, she awaits the operation with great anticipation. Her best friend, Peris, has already had the operation and, motivated by her desire to see him, Tally sneaks across the river to New Pretty Town. There she meets Shay, another Ugly. They become friends and Shay teaches Tally how to ride a hoverboard. Shay also mentions rebelling against the operation. At first, Tally ignores the idea, but is forced to deal with it when Shay runs away a few days before their shared sixteenth birthday, leaving behind cryptic directions to her destination, a “renegade settlement” called the Smoke, where city runaways go to escape the operation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_You_My_Mother?" title="Are You My Mother?">
"Are You My Mother?" is a story about a hatchling bird. His mother, thinking her egg will stay in her nest where she left it, leaves her egg alone and flies off to find food. The baby bird hatches while the mother is away. The hatchling does not understand where his mother is so he goes to look for her. While he cannot yet fly, he walks, and in his search, he asks a kitten (who says nothing), a hen, a dog, and a cow if they are his mother, but none of them are.Refusing to give up, he sees an old car, which he realizes certainly cannot be his mother. In desperation, the hatchling calls out to a boat and a plane (neither responds), and at last, he approaches and climbs onto the teeth of an enormous steam shovel calling to it "Mother, Mother! Here I am, Mother!". However, after it belches "SNORT" from its exhaust stack, the bird cries "You are not my mother! You are a Snort!" As the machine shudders and grinds into motion, he cannot escape. "I want my mother!" he sobs.At that moment, the steam shovel drops the hatchling into his nest, and his mother returns. The two are reunited, much to their delight, and the baby bird recounts to his mother the adventures he had looking for her.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jewel_in_the_Skull" title="The Jewel in the Skull">
The novel is set at some indeterminate time in a post-nuclear holocaust future, where science and sorcery co-exist and the Dark Empire of Granbretan (Great Britain) is expanding across Europe.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Die_in_Italbar" title="To Die in Italbar">
Heidel von Hymack, known to all as "H", is a man with the power to cure people of incurable diseases. He travels from world to world healing people by touching them. However his healing powers have a dark side: after a while they reverse and he becomes a spreader of deadly diseases. Avoiding contact with others is almost impossible because of his celebrity, so his most dedicated followers tend to die horribly. He does not know why he has this power, though he dreams of a mysterious "Lady" who rules his life. In fact he has been accidentally joined to a deity of the Pei'an religion, a goddess of disease and healing whose changing moods determine whether he saves or kills. The only other human so joined is Francis Sandow, a man of incalculable wealth who builds planets. Sandow was introduced in the novel "Isle of the Dead". To escape his fate, "H" must go with Sandow and others to the devastated remains of the Earth, destroyed in a recent war, where Sandow engages in a duel of powers to drive out the goddess.Elsewhere, Malacar Miles is the last holdout on Earth, the last bastion of the old regime and an obstacle to Sandow and other world builders who want to make the planet habitable again. Part of Sandow's mission is to remove the obstacle Malacar presents.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hand_of_Zei" title="The Hand of Zei">
Travel writer Dirk Barnevelt and lecturer George Tangaloa, associates of interplanetary explorer and documentarian Igor Shtain, are drafted on Shtain's disappearance to complete his commission to explore the Sargasso Sea-like Sunqar area of Krishna's Banjao Sea — and incidentally to find Shtain, who is suspected to have been kidnapped to Krishna. Arriving on the planet, the Earthmen travel to their goal in disguise as native Krishnans; Barnevelt himself is given the alias of the famous general, Snyol of Plesht, from the Antarctic nation of Nichnyamadze (setting of the Krishnan short story "Calories"). Snyol's formidable reputation proves at various times both a boon and a hindrance to their mission.The two are dogged at every step by pirates from the Sunqar who believe their true goal is to disrupt the pirates' smuggling operation. Complications arise when the two become embroiled in the affairs of the native monarchy of Qirib, whose princess Zei is kidnapped by the pirates. Dirk is ordered by Queen Alvandi to recover the princess while George remains behind as a hostage. Dirk must therefore take the lead in rescuing Zei, putting down the pirates, recovering Shtain, and settling the affairs of Alvandi's topsy-turvy kingdom, in which the women bear arms and the men languish in perfumed idleness.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shepherd_of_the_Hills_(novel)" title="The Shepherd of the Hills (novel)">
The story depicts the lives of mountain people living in the Ozarks.The main story surrounds the relationship between Grant "Old Matt" Matthews Senior and Dad Howitt, an elderly, mysterious, learned man who has escaped the buzzing restlessness of the city to live in the backwoods neighborhood of Mutton Hollow. Howitt spends his time alone, acting as a mediator and friend to the mountain people, and trying to recover from his tragic past, which includes the prior deaths of his wife and children, and the later presumed madness and subsequent suicide of his only surviving child, his artist son (later referred to as "Mad Howard").Howitt's reclusiveness has earned him the moniker "The Shepherd of The Hills", yet he befriends the Matthews clan (the strongest and most respected family in the area) who come to love and trust him. Old Matt and the Shepherd's common history (which only The Shepherd knows at the outset) involves Old Matt's daughter, who died while giving birth to her son (and Old Matt's grandson), Pete Howard: unbeknownst to the Matthews, Mad Howard is Pete's father, and thus The Shepherd is Pete's grandfather.Years earlier, Mad Howard returned home after spending time painting in the mountains, and one of his paintings became famous, as did he. That painting was of a young girl, pretty, standing beside a creek; the girl in the painting was Old Matt's daughter, with whom he had fallen in love. However, Mad Howard believed that his father's pride of family and place in society would never allow him to approve of his son's marriage to an Ozark country girl. Mad Howard packed up his paintings and returned to the city, leaving Old Matt's daughter with the impression that he would return. Once returning to the city, Mad Howard sent her a letter explaining that his father would not approve of their marriage. However, he never told his father about Old Matt's daughter and his relations with her; the secrecy drove a wedge between Mad Howard and his father, although his father never understood why. Meanwhile, Old Matt has sworn he will kill the man who abandoned his daughter, as well as his father, if ever he finds them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_God" title="Talking God">
An unidentified man is found dead along the railroad tracks near Gallup, New Mexico. There is a note in one pocket of his suit referring to Agnes Tsotsie and a Yeibichai or Night Chant ceremony. FBI agent Kennedy calls on Lt. Leaphorn to aid in finding footprints near the body. There are no footprints to follow, but the note sends him to interview Agnes Tsotsie, who shows him the letter from Henry Highhawk, who will attend her Night Chant. Always curious, Leaphorn learns that an Amtrak train made an emergency stop in the desert, the likely explanation for the body found near the railroad tracks with no footprints around him. The man's left-behind luggage is now stored in Washington D.C. Leaphorn takes his vacation in Washington D.C. to follow up on Pointed Shoes. Leaphorn talks with Roland Dockery and Peres of Amtrak, who show him the luggage, which holds a useful notebook. Peres saw the man now known to be the killer of Pointed Toes. The notebook includes the name and prescription number for a medicine he took, revealing both the name and address of Elogio Santillanes. Leaphorn proceeds to inform the next of kin, who are rather quiet in receiving the news. He then notices that their next door neighbor matches the description of the killer. As Santillanes was tortured, Leaphorn suspects the family home might be bugged, so leaves them with the sad news. Leaphorn calls Kennedy to match fingerprints under the victim's proper name. Leaphorn calls the NTP, learning that Chee was arresting officer for Highhawk and is now in D.C.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Judas_Pair" title="The Judas Pair">
Antiques dealer Lovejoy is commissioned to hunt down what he considers to be a mythical object, the Judas pair, the supposed thirteenth pair of duelling pistols, an 18th-century flintlock made by the famous London gunmaker Durs Egg. After two murders Lovejoy is certain that the pistols do exist, and are now in the hands of the murderer.Lovejoy solves the mystery by drawing from his comprehensive knowledge of the antique world, poring on the backgrounds of materials so that past and present deceit and criminality are revealed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Gould's_Secret" title="Joe Gould's Secret">
By observing the lives of those around him and recording the goings-on, Gould set about compiling an exhaustive record of modern life he called the "Oral History." He claimed that oral history held more truth than the formalized history of textbooks and professors, as it gave voices to the lower classes that were representative of true humanity. In the 1920s, Gould had small portions of his "Oral History" published in magazines, but in the years that followed he became more secretive and eccentric. He was well-known among the local shopkeepers, artists, and restaurateurs, many of whom gave him handouts of money or food in support of his project.Mitchell met Gould in 1942 and wrote the profile "Professor Sea Gull" on him for "The New Yorker". The first part of "Joe Gould's Secret" is made up of this profile, covering the period from Gould's graduation from Harvard University in 1911, leading up to the writing of his "Oral History", said to be composed of 20,000 conversations and 9,000,000 words. The second part of the book is a more personal memoir of Mitchell's experiences with Gould, their eventual falling out, and his discovery of Joe Gould's secret: that the "Oral History" did not exist.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heralds" title="The Heralds">
The book begins with a brief introduction describing the lasting nature of the College of Arms through successive monarchs and governments. Immediately, though, the book shifts its focus to the current set of officers of arms at the college. At the end of the first chapter, Garter Principal King of Arms–the head of the body of heralds – announces his intended retirement from the post in six months time.The announcement by Garter throws the entire College of Arms into confusion. Set in the late 1960s, the retiring King of Arms had led the college since the end of World War II. Each of the other, twelve officers of arms in ordinary begins calculating his own chances of promotion to the top spot. Some continue about their own business, knowing that their dutiful service will be rewarded, however, Cecil Gascoigne, who is Chester Herald, decides he will stop only short of murder in obtaining the coveted office.Slowly, but surely, Cecil Gascoigne begins eliminating his competitors. His methods are diverse, and include devising for a colleague to be caught smuggling illegal substances into England; also using blackmail and bankruptcy to his advantage. Over time, Gascoigne begins grasping that unfortunate problems have befallen his fellow officers, and he is not the cause. Thinking that his competition has him on a list for elimination, Gascoigne begins doubling his efforts; by book's end, four officers of arms have died, and the rest disgraced.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Irregular_Verbs" title="Portuguese Irregular Verbs">
German professor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld feels that he is not accorded the scholarly recognition and veneration he deserves, though he has a good position as a philologist at the Institute of Romance Philology in Regensburg, Germany. Von Igelfeld is extremely tall, like his closest colleagues. They are professors Dr Dr ("honoris causa") Florianus Prinzel and Dr Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer. Von Igelfeld is plagued by envy and suspicion of them.The old Irish language was the first interest of von Igelfeld in pursuing his doctoral studies. He moves to Munich to work under an expert in Irish. They go on a field trip to Cork, where they are directed to a man in the west who will not let them in his home; rather he shouts invective at them for an hour until they leave. Von Igelfeld takes it down phonetically, to learn later that all the vocabulary are curse words based in pornography. His landlady sees the page of Irish (translated into German) in his room, and throws him out on the spot. He had already been considering irregular verbs as a topic of greater interest, so he parts from the unsupportive professor in Munich for the study of Romance languages at the University of Wiesbaden.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Villa_of_Reduced_Circumstances" title="At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances">
The Professor is a troubled German academic whose life's achievement is the (fictional) book, "Portuguese Irregular Verbs". The book relates details of von Igelfeld's troubled relationships with the other major characters of the book series, Professor Dr Dr ("honoris causa") Florianus Prinzel and Professor Dr Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer, who work at the fictional Institute of Romance Philology at Regensburg, Germany.The book consists of two longer stories. In the first story, "On Being Light Blue" von Igelfeld's birthday wish leads him to a four-month stint at Cambridge University where he is nonplussed by the eccentric English academics and their constant infighting. In the second story, "The Villa of Reduced Circumstances," von Igelfeld unwittingly becomes embroiled in a military coup in Colombia after being invited there to receive an academic award.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briar's_Book" title="Briar's Book">
The main protagonist of the book is Briar Moss, a young ex-thief and "green" or plant mage, having ambient magic with all forms of plant life. Through his eyes the book explores themes of poverty and social injustice, as a deadly plague named the Blue Pox strikes The Mire, the poorest quarter of Emelan's capital city, Summersea.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Pieces_of_Gold" title="Thousand Pieces of Gold">
Lalu is the daughter of a Chinese farmer. When her father loses everything, Lalu finds herself thrust into debt slavery. Her misfortunes eventually take her to the Pacific Northwest.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_Wave_(novel)" title="Shock Wave (novel)">
While investigating the deaths of a large number of marine animals, Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino encounter a group of tourists on Seymour Island. Aboard the tourists' cruise ship (the "Polar Queen"), a mysterious "disease" has killed everyone on board. The tourists are brought to the "Ice Hunter", a research vessel for the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA). Here, they find out that the "Polar Queen" is missing and will not respond to their calls. After some searching, Pitt and Al discover that the missing ship is heading towards a cliff. After being winched onto the ship from a helicopter, Pitt steers and manages to narrowly avoid the crash. But he finds only one surviving passenger on board: Deirdre. Maeve, the tour guide from Seymour Island, is Deirdre's sister, and she seems perplexed to find Deirdre aboard.Pitt and Al uncover more evidence to suggest that the passengers of the "Polar Queen" were killed by extremely high-powered soundwaves. At this time, more outbreaks occur on a cargo ship and a Chinese junk. The cargo ship blows up while a boarding party from a passing ship is aboard; in the distance, a futuristic yacht is spotted heading away from the scene. We learn that the yacht belongs to the Dorsett Consolidated Mining Company, a gemstone mining company headed by the ruthless Arthur Dorsett. Dorsett is also the father of Maeve, Deirdre and a third daughter, Boudicca. Of Dorsett's three daughters, Maeve is the only one who does not work for his company. As a young girl, she ran away from home, broke all bonds with her family, and changed her last name to Fletcher.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hostage_of_Zir" title="The Hostage of Zir">
Tour guide Fergus Reith arrives on the backward world of Krishna with a gaggle of tourists, the first such group to visit the planet. Though he is woefully unprepared and his charges collectively epitomize the "Ugly Terran" stereotype, he readies for his task as best he can and squires his flock off on their grand circuit of the northern Varastou nations among which the Terran spaceport of Novorecife is situated.The first portion of the novel is an episodic account of their misadventures cruising down the Pichide River, in the Free City of Majbur, and the island kingdom of Zamba. The next few stops, including a visit to the republic of Katai-Jhogorai, are passed over summarily; the real action begins when the group reaches Baianch, capital of the northern kingdom of Dur. There, while taking the new railway to the end of the line, the party is kidnapped by Barré vas-Sarf, bandit ruler of the restive province of Zir. Barré hopes to use them as bargaining chips in his dispute with Tashian bad-Garin, prince-regent of Dur. Reith escapes, only to be captured in turn by the forces of Shosti, the Witch of Zir.Shosti is Barré's rival for control of Zir and the leader of a local religious cult; her designs on Reith are quite different, as her prophecies lead her to believe she must mate with a red-haired Terran to engender a savior god. A previous captive, Felix Borel (protagonist of the earlier Krishna short story "Perpetual Motion"), had been executed after failing to impregnate Shosti. Reith reads his own fate in Borel's, knowing Terrans and Krishnans are not interfertile – the latter, while near human in appearance, are an alien species. Once more he succeeds in escaping, subsequently leading a raid to free his tourists from Barré.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Veins_of_Latin_America" title="Open Veins of Latin America">
## Structure."Open Veins of Latin America" has a foreword written by Chilean writer Isabel Allende, followed by a preface by Galeano titled “In Defense of the Word” and a series of acknowledgments. The book has an introduction titled “120 Million Children in the Eye of the Hurricane,” and it is then divided into three parts: “Part I: Mankind’s poverty as a consequence of the wealth of the land;” “Part II: Development is a voyage with more shipwrecks than navigators;” and “Part III: Seven Years After.”Each of the first two parts has subcategories. Part I is divided into “Lust for Gold, Lust for Silver,” “King Sugar and Other Agricultural Monarchs,” and “The Invisible Sources of Power.” Part II is divided into “Tales of Premature Death” and “The Contemporary Structure of Plunder.” Lastly, Part III is considered to be the conclusion of the book, and it was written seven years later and annexed to future editions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughter_in_the_Dark_(novel)" title="Laughter in the Dark (novel)">
Albinus is a respected, reasonably happy married art critic who lives in Berlin. He lusts after the 17-year-old Margot whom he meets at a cinema, where she works, and woos her over the course of many encounters, primarily with money. His prolonged affair with Margot is eventually revealed to Albinus's wife Elisabeth when Margot deliberately sends a letter to the Albinuses' residence and Albinus is unable to intercept it before it is discovered. Elisabeth leaves with the assistance of her brother, Paul, and takes their daughter, Irma, with her. Rather than disown the young troublemaker, Albinus is even more attracted to Margot. She eventually manipulates him into allowing her to move in to his flat where he resided with his wife, and she sets to working on him getting a divorce so that she might marry him and acquire access to his significant wealth.Margot uses Albinus to fulfill her ambition in life to become a rich film star. Even when Albinus' daughter, Irma, takes ill and eventually succumbs to pneumonia, Margot insistently drives a wedge between his old life and his new, in order to totalize her capture of him. Inadvertently, Albinus introduces Margot to Axel Rex at one of his many dinner parties, but he does not know that the two have previously been lovers. Margot and Rex resume their relationship, and start plotting to get Albinus out of the way and rob him of his money. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_that_Preserves" title="The Power that Preserves">
Back in his own "real" world, Thomas Covenant is devastated by the loss of Elena, though he still maintains to himself that his experience in the Land was all just a dream. Tormented by this unanswerable paradox, he neglects his physical condition; he stops taking his medications and fails to treat his head wound, allowing his dormant leprosy to once again become active.Wandering in the woods outside of his home town, he comes upon a lost little girl suffering from a rattlesnake bite. At this point he is once again summoned to the Land, this time by the desperate High Lord Mhoram, who is in need of aid. Covenant finds that seven years have gone by since the Illearth War, and Lord Foul is preparing for his final assault on the people of the Land. Foul has enslaved the tormented spirit of former High Lord Elena, who now wields the Staff of Law in the service of evil. The Lords have lost their most loyal defenders, the ageless Bloodguard, and the Land has been cast into a perpetual winter. Furthermore, Lord Foul has rebuilt his army, which, under the command of the third Giant-Raver Satansfist, now besieges the Lords' mountain-fortress of Revelstone. As a last resort, the Lords have decided to call upon Covenant, in the hope that he will be able to use the wild magic of his white gold ring to repel the siege and save the Land from total destruction.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive's_Ocean" title="Olive's Ocean">
Every summer, Martha leaves her home in Wisconsin to visit her grandmother, Godbee, on the Atlantic Ocean. One year, Martha’s classmate Olive dies in a hit-and-run accident. Olive’s mother later delivers to Martha a page from Olive’s journal. The page reveals that Olive had admired Martha from afar despite never speaking to or hanging out with her, and that they had a lot in common, particularly a love of the ocean and a wish to become a writer. Martha begins to regret having not known Olive very well.When Martha's family arrives at Godbee's house, an argument between Martha's parents creates tension between everyone in the family. Martha distances herself from her family out of anger and becomes closer to Godbee. They decide to share one secret about themselves every day of Martha's stay. In the meantime, Martha begins to write a story about Olive as a memorial.During her stay, Martha develops a crush on Jimmy, a friend of her older brother Vince, though Godbee warns her to be careful around Jimmy. Martha decides to make Jimmy a character in her story about Olive, renaming him James. Jimmy, who is interested in film-making, is collecting footage to make a film about "life," covering various facets such as family, death, and love. Martha contributes to the “death” portion of the film with a recorded interview in which she tells Olive's story. As part of the "love" section of the film, Jimmy spontaneously sets up his camera on the way back home and kisses her. Later, Martha learns that Jimmy made a bet with Vince and some other boys as to whether he could get her to kiss him on camera before they come back from sailing. Heartbroken, she scraps the portion of her story about Olive and James. Later, Jimmy's younger brother Tate apologizes to Martha for his brother's actions.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weslandia" title="Weslandia">
The story follows a protagonist, Wesley. When Wesley, a somewhat eccentric boy with no friends, discovers a mysterious plant magically growing in his parents' backyard, he cultivates the plant over his summer vacation. The plant, which he names "swist", provides him with a food source, and allows him to build shelter, tools, and even create his own entertainment and inspires Wesley to create his own writing system. Wesley's resourcefulness and meticulous research eventually allow to him the basis of his own civilization which he names "Weslandia", an eponymous micro-nation in his parents' backyard. His efforts are successful, and instead of being a social outcast, he gains a group of followers made up of his former grade-school tormentors.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Light_(novel)" title="Black Light (novel)">
There are two interconnected plots that unfold simultaneously in this novel; one is set in the present, and deals with Bob Lee Swagger and Russ Pewtie, while the other is set in 1955, and deals with Bob Lee's father, Earl, and the events leading up to his death.This book catches the reader up with Bob Lee about five years after the events in "Point of Impact". He now has a daughter who is four years old, named Nikki, and he has married Julie Fenn, the widow of his fallen spotter, Donnie Fenn. He is living happily, if not humbly, in Arizona, trying to avoid the notoriety he gained during the events in "Point of Impact".A young man approaches him with a proposition. This young man's name is Russ Pewtie, the grown son of Bud Pewtie, who as described in "Dirty White Boys" was responsible for the death of Lamar Pye. Russ is a writer, and wants to write a book about Bob Lee's father Earl, a Marine Corps veteran and State Policeman who was supposedly gunned down one night in 1955, near Bob's home town of Blue Eye, Arkansas, by Lamar's father, Jimmy who was to surrender to Earl after robbing a grocery store and killing four people.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_to_Hunt" title="Time to Hunt">
The book begins about four or five years after the events in "Black Light". Swagger's daughter is now around 8, and he owns a "lay-up" horse ranch, where he cares for horses. He has been slipping into a deep depression due to his inability to properly support his family.Alienating himself from his wife and child, they leave for a morning horseback ride with a friend from another ranch. His wife is shot and nearly killed by a sniper, and the friend is killed. Bob assumes that the man was mistaken for him, and killed in an attempt to kill Bob Lee. This act plunges him back into a world of violence and intrigue.While his wife recuperates, he attempts to unravel the secrets behind the assault.This book has a dual plot, with the present plot, dealing with Bob's investigation into his wife's attempted murder. The second plot is set in the past, beginning on a Marine Corps base in the late 1960s or early 1970s.A young Donny Fenn is the squad leader of a group of Marines who perform the state funeral services for Marines killed in the Vietnam War, which is raging across the world. Donny is brought before his superiors and ordered to follow one of his men, who is suspected of sympathizing with peace demonstrators who are led by a charismatic man named Trig Carter. In turn, Trig is suspected of having ties to an extremist group. Incidentally, Donny's girlfriend, Julie, is involved with this group of war protestors.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mad_God's_Amulet" title="The Mad God's Amulet">
## Book One.Heading West back to the Kamarg, Dorian Hawkmoon and Oladahn find themselves in the deserted city of Soryandum. Oladahn disappears while out hunting and on seeking him Hawkmoon sees an ornithopter of the Dark Empire of Granbretan.Oladahn is captured by forces of the Dark Empire, led by renegade Frenchman Huillam d'Averc, but inexplicably survives what should be a fatal fall when he escapes by throwing himself from the top of a tower. Hawkmoon and Oladahn battle the Dark Empire warriors but are ultimately overcome by weight of numbers.Hawkmoon and Oladahn are imprisoned awaiting an ornithopter to transport them to Sicilia. Oladahn reveals that he was rescued from his fall by ghosts, and these wraiths re-appear and free the pair. The wraiths are the inhabitants of Soryandum, transformed by their own science so that they exist in another dimension. D'Averc is planning to raze Soryandum which would destroy the wraiths, so they call on Hawkmoon to aid them by recovering a pair of old Soryandum machines. When they transcended this dimension the wraiths had the machines hidden and guarded by a mechanical beast which Hawkmoon will have to defeat.Hawkmoon and Oladahn find the machine store and defeat the mechanical beast by blinding it. They recover the two machines but the mechanical beast follows after them.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_and_the_Shadow_Thieves" title="Peter and the Shadow Thieves">
The book starts three months after the end of "Peter and the Starcatchers". Peter, James, Thomas, Prentiss, and Tubby Ted have settled on the island, with Tinker Bell keeping a watchful eye on Peter and the pirates, led by Black Stache (who now goes by the alias "Captain Hook" since his initial fight with Peter), have erected and settled into a fort. Around this time, "Le Fantome", under scarred Captain Nerezza, finds Mollusk Island after weeks of searching, accompanied by the vengeful Slank and the dark, menacing, mysterious entity known as Lord Ombra. During a confrontation with Hook as Peter and the mermaids rescue a captured James, a posse from "Le Famtome" hold a nighttime standoff with the Mollusk tribe over the location of the large quantity of Starstuff that had briefly been on the island. After Ombra deduces that the Starstuff was taken by Lord Aster and the Starcatchers, the group leaves the island and immediately set sail for England. Peter, having witnessed the confrontation, decides that he must warn Molly of the approaching danger and stows away on the ship with Tinker Bell.The Asters receive a tip from the dolphins warning them of the landing party on Mollusk Island and the presence of the inhuman Ombra, prompting Leonard Aster to leave London with the Starstuff and guard it in a hidden location until the Return (the starstuff would be sent back into the heavens), leaving new nightmen to guard Molly and her mother, Louise. Meanwhile, Peter's presence on the ship is detected by Lord Ombra, forcing Peter to fake his death by temporarily jumping ship before flying back on board. When they arrive in London, Peter and Tinker Bell take off to find the Aster mansion but quickly become lost in the city. Peter and Tink are later captured and separated by a constable and a bird seller, respectively, but Tink is able to escape and save Peter from a court hearing. They continue to search for the Aster mansion in upper-class parts of London.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vixen_03" title="Vixen 03">
In 1954 "Vixen 03", an aircraft carrying a top-secret cargo to the military's testing grounds in the South Pacific, crashes and is never recovered. Thirty-four years later while on vacation Dirk Pitt, Special Projects Director for the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), finds the remains of "Vixen 03" and her top-secret cargo. His salvage efforts turn up some anomalies, including a body that is not of any member of the original crew; and send Pitt on a chase to stop a plot that could potentially leave millions dead.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vesuvius_Club" title="The Vesuvius Club">
Joshua Reynolds, of the British Secret Service, briefs Lucifer Box to pick up the threads of an investigation started by the recently murdered Jocelyn Utterson Poop of the Diplomatic Service. The only surviving clues were the names of two scientists who died within a day of each other.The investigation leads to the "Superior Funerals" undertakers run by Tom Bowler. Mr Bowler seems more interested in shipping boxes to and from Naples than burying the dead. An attempt on Box's life soon follows.A painter and friend of Box supplies a new lead into the deaths of the scientists, which leads to the curious Mrs. Midsomer Knight, who has been replaced by a soon to be murdered maidservant. Lucifer's friend, Christopher Miracle, is implicated in the murder.In Naples Lucifer interviews one of the survivors of the "Cambridge four" group of scientists and fears for his life. Soon after he meets Charlie Jackpot, who invites him to a house of ill-repute. At that point, we learn that Lucifer is bisexual, as Charlie is gay, and the two have sex. Charlie then leads Lucifer into the Vesuvius Club, where Lucifer meets the alluring Venus, who is not who she seems, and he and Charlie fall victim to sleeping gas.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiding_and_Abetting_(novel)" title="Aiding and Abetting (novel)">
The central figure, Hildegarde Wolf, is a fraudulent psychiatrist, née Beate Pappenheim, working in Paris. She has two patients, each of whom claims to be Lord Lucan, an English earl who, in an actual event in London in 1974, killed his daughter's nanny, mistaking her for his wife. From this premise, the novel proceeds to present a series of humorous coincidences and improbabilities, revolving around the two 'Lucans' blackmailing Dr Wolf. The fatal confusion of 'Nanny and Wife' is mirrored chiasmatically in the fate of the two Lucans. The late chapters in Africa recall "A Handful of Dust" (1934) by Spark's model and sometime mentor Evelyn Waugh.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listening_Woman" title="Listening Woman">
After talking with Hosteen Tso to learn what will best improve his health, Margaret Cigaret walks away from the hogan on Nokaito Bench to ponder his situation and prepare her advice. She returns to find both Tso and her niece dead. Initial investigation does not find the killer, or any possible motive for this crime.Leaphorn is returning from a Kinaalda ceremony with a man who escaped arrest earlier. A car at very high speed approaches them, and slows seeing the police car’s flashing lights. Once Leaphorn is outside the car, the driver attempts to kill him with the vehicle, but Leaphorn moves away in time. The man wore gold rimmed glasses, had black hair and had a huge dog in the back seat. Leaphorn talks with Shorty McGinnis, where he meets Theodora Adams, who seeks Benjamin Tso. At the Tso hogan, Leaphorn observes Benjamin saying Catholic mass in the dawn. Later, Leaphorn returns to the Kinaalda to talk with Margaret Cigarette. He saw a name on a light carried by a boy there, which he realized was the name of the pilot of a helicopter lost in a dramatic theft of cash from an armored car in Santa Fe a few years earlier by members of the Buffalo Society, an extremist break-away group from AIM. The next step is a visit to the FBI office in Albuquerque to read the file for that case. He reads about Tull and Hoski, the latter a man of many aliases. While there, Leaphorn realizes that Mrs. Cigarette sat in a different spot than he originally assumed, one that meant the killer of Hosteen Tso and Annie came from the canyon, not the road. When that killer emerges from the canyon again, Father Benjamin and Theodora are the people who will be found in the hogan.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Masterharper_of_Pern" title="The Masterharper of Pern">
Robinton was rejected by his jealous father, Petiron, and spent most of his childhood with his nurturing mother. Since Robinton grew up in a very musically inclined setting, all the inhabitants helped bring him along in his journey to adulthood. Robinton composed many successful songs at a very early age and was unanimously elected Masterharper, also at a relatively young age. He tried to warn the Lord Holders of the rapacity of Lord Fax, but was unsuccessful. He was present when Lessa used her wit to provoke the duel in which Lord Fax was killed by F'lar; she had been in disguise as a drudge.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_at_the_Harlequins!" title="Look at the Harlequins!">
"Look at the Harlequins!" is a fictional autobiography narrated by Vadim Vadimovich N. (VV), a Russian-American writer with uncanny biographical likenesses to the novel's author, Vladimir (Vladimirovich) Nabokov.VV is born in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg and raised by his aunt, who advises him to "look at the harlequins" "Play! Invent the world! Invent reality!". After the revolution, VV moves to Western Europe. Count Nikifor Nikodimovich Starov becomes his patron (is he VV's father?). VV meets Iris Black who becomes his first wife. After her death—she is killed by a Russian émigré—he marries Annette (Anna Ivanovna Blagovo), his long-necked typist. They have a daughter, Isabel, and emigrate to the United States. The marriage fails; and, after Annette's death, VV takes care of the pubescent Isabel, now known as Bel. They travel from motel to motel. To counter ugly rumors, VV marries Louise Adamson while Bel elopes with an American to Soviet Russia. After the third marriage fails, VV marries again, a Bel lookalike (same birthdate, too), referred to as "you", his final love.VV is an unreliable narrator who gives conflicting information (e.g., on the death of his father) and seems to suffer from some psychological affliction. When making a full turn while walking—mentally, that is—and tracing his steps back, he is unable to execute the reversion of the surrounding vista in his imagination. He also has the notion that he is a double of another Nabokovian persona.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Os_Maias" title="Os Maias">
The book begins with the characters Carlos Eduardo da Maia, João da Ega, Afonso da Maia and Vilaça in the family's old house with plans to reconstruct it. The house, nicknamed "Ramalhete" (bouquet), is located in Lisbon. Its name comes from a tiled panel depicting a bouquet of sunflowers set on the place where the stone with the coat of arms should be. As the introductory scene goes on, the story of the Maia family is given, in a flashback style by Afonso.Afonso da Maia, a well-mannered Portuguese man, is married to Maria Eduarda Runa and their marriage only produces one son – Pedro da Maia. Pedro da Maia, who is given the typical romantic education, becomes a weak, low-spirited and sensitive man. He is very close to his mother and is inconsolable after her death. He only recuperates when he meets a beautiful woman called Maria Monforte with whom he gets married despite his father's objection. The marriage produces a son, Carlos Eduardo, and a daughter, whose name is not revealed until much later. Some time later, Maria Monforte falls in love with Tancredo (an Italian who is staying at their house after being accidentally wounded by Pedro) and runs away to Italy with him, betraying Pedro and taking her daughter along. When Pedro finds out, he is heartbroken and goes with his son to his father's house where he, during the night, commits suicide. Carlos stays at his grandfather's house and is educated by him, receiving the typical British education (as Afonso would have liked to have raised his son).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_Bazilio" title="Cousin Bazilio">
Jorge, a successful engineer and employee of a ministry and Luiza, a romantic and dreamy girl, star as the typical bourgeois couple of the Lisbon society of the 19th century.There is a group of friends who attend the home of Jorge and Luiza: Dona Felicidade, a woman suffering from gas crises and who is in love with the Councillor; Sebastião ("Sebastian"), a close friend of Jorge; Councillor Acácio, good scholar; Ernestinho; and maids Joana - hussy and flirty - and Juliana - an angry, envious, and spiteful woman, responsible for the conflict of the novel.At the same time cultivating a formal and happy marriage with Jorge, Luiza still maintains friendship with a former colleague, Leopoldina - called "Bread and Cheese" for her continuous betrayal and adultery. Luiza's happiness and safety become endangered when Jorge need to travel to work at Alentejo.After the departure of her husband, Luiza is bored with nothing to do, in the doldrums and melancholy caused by the absence of her husband, and exactly in this meantime Bazilio comes from abroad. A womanizer and a "bon vivant", he doesn't take long to win the love of Luiza (they had dated before Luiza meet Jorge). Luiza was a person with a strong romantic view of life as she usually read only novels, and Bazilio was the man of her dreams: he was rich and lived in France. The friendly love became an ardent passion and this causes Luiza to practice adultery. Meanwhile, Juliana is just waiting for a chance to blackmail Luiza.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Menacers" title="The Menacers">
For reasons unknown, flying saucers apparently with United States Air Force markings have begun attacking locations in Mexico. Helm's mission is to transport a witness to one of these attacks to Washington, and to stop her at all costs from being captured by Soviet agents, even if that means killing her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poisoners" title="The Poisoners">
After a novice secret agent (Annette from "The Menacers") is murdered—assassin Matt Helm (code name "Eric") is assigned to eliminate her killer, and find out why she was killed in the first place.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intriguers" title="The Intriguers">
This novel is a direct follow-up to "The Poisoners". It is also the first book in the Matt Helm series to focus on Helm's superior, Mac, whose full name is revealed for the first time as Arthur McGillivray Borden. The storyline of this book is rather uncharacteristic because, instead of fighting terrorists and enemy names, Helm, known as Eric, and Mac work together to bring down unfriendly elements from within their own government, in particular a man who is threatening Mac's authority.Fishing in the Gulf of California, Eric is shot at from an island. He races away, surprised at the power of the engine of his boat. Correctly calculating that his assailant had come in another boat from the same marina, he waits for the gunman to try to escape, swamps his boat, and tows it back to shore, leaving the gunman to drown.At the marina, he is met by Martha Borden, Mac's daughter, who was sent by Mac with a message to call the office. Doing so, he deduces that bureaucratic infighting has resulted in Mac being poorly impersonated and the agency co-opted. Martha tells him she is supposed to accompany him to meet agent Lorna at the ranch near Phoenix.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intimidators" title="The Intimidators">
Despite the internal politics of "The Intriguers", Matt Helm (code name Eric) still finds himself with plenty of work to do for his boss, Mac. This time he has a two-part mission: kill an enemy agent and then investigate the disappearances of a number of jet-setters within the Bermuda Triangle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminators_(novel)" title="The Terminators (novel)">
A longtime friend of Mac, Helm's boss, blames Big Oil for his wife's death aboard their modest yacht; in retaliation, he wants Helm's secretive, and murderous, agency to make trouble for an international oil company. Mac assigns Helm to get to the bottom of this request — and to "take care of" his friend.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Retaliators_(novel)" title="The Retaliators (novel)">
One of Helm's fellow operatives is killed by U.S. agents during an assassination run against a Mexican general. Helm finds himself having to complete the mission while being pursued by men who are supposed to be on his side.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terrorizers" title="The Terrorizers">
Matt Helm finds himself in Canada suffering from amnesia, with only his instincts keeping him alive as the tries to regain his memory while stopping a terrorist organization.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revengers_(novel)" title="The Revengers (novel)">
Someone is killing off Matt Helm's friends and past associates. Helm must stop the killing while protecting a journalist who plans to make Helm's secret organization public knowledge.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Infiltrators" title="The Infiltrators">
Assassin Matt Helm is assigned to protect a female spy newly released from prison, who may or may not hold the key to a conspiracy to overthrow the American government.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Detonators" title="The Detonators">
Matt Helm is assigned to assassinate an expert in explosives who is planning to build his own atomic weapon.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vanishers" title="The Vanishers">
While Mac (Helm's boss) is on a rare solo assignment, elements within Mac's agency try to take power away from him. It's up to Helm to stop this coup in its tracks, while simultaneously dealing with some deadly family-related issues of his own. Meanwhile, in a storyline continued from "The Annihilators", Mac finds himself in the middle of yet another revolution in Costa Verde.The Vanishers, one of the more complicated Matt Helm stories, is unique in several ways. Usually Helm is captured by the enemy in order to complete his mission. Here, for once, Helm’s boss Mac takes an active part in the action and is the one captured in order to deal with a gang of kidnappers. In most of these books the women are either ruthless foreign agents or naïve Americans who discover that however nice Helm may be personally, his profession is not at all nice. The Vanishers features a woman who is neither naïve nor an enemy.As punishment for a previous mistake in judgment, Helm is excluded from the real national security problem and exiled to Sweden, where he is kidnapped by a group who fear he may interfere with their plans. Eventually he escapes, figures out his mission and completes it, and helps the Swedes with their mission. The ending is different from any other Matt Helm book, but is consistent with his character.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demolishers" title="The Demolishers">
After Matt Helm's son is killed by a terrorist bomb, Helm goes on a mission of revenge against those responsible.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Threateners" title="The Threateners">
Matt Helm (code name Eric) is assigned to kill a drug lord after the villain orders the murder of a journalist. But he doesn't kill the drug lord's dog - which is the centerpiece of moralizing on how the real problem is that there is demand for drugs, so why blame the supplier, since even the drug lord's dog is able to resist such temptations?The story starts in Santa Fe where Matt is trying to live a normal life with Jo Beckman from the previous novel "The Frighteners". At the beginning of the story Jo has left Matt because of his new hobby of shooting. One of the ladies from a previous novel "The Infiltrators" - Madeleine Ellershaw comes to visit Matt with a complaint that he's having her followed. Matt is being followed by the same kind of people.Madeleine dies violently soon after her appearance. Matt's new friend Mark, who has introduced Matt to this kind of shooting sport, also dies soon after revealing that he was an author hunted by a South American drug lord for writing a book about the drug business. The drug lord puts up a price of one million dollars on his head.After Mark's death Matt teams up, unwillingly, with his widow to go hunt up back up copies of Mark's second book. Some computer jargon and concepts are mentioned when the electronic copies of the book are mentioned and surprisingly Hamilton has managed to keep most of his facts accurate. (Other than calling a diskette a three-and-a-half-inch-by-three-and-a-half-inch which it's not). As usual nothing and nobody is as they seem or are expected.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Damagers" title="The Damagers">
Matt Helm brings his literary career to a close (for now) with a double assignment: destroy a crime gang run by the son of the villain from "The Wrecking Crew", and prevent the atomic destruction of Norfolk, Virginia.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_(Modesitt_novel)" title="Flash (Modesitt novel)">
"Flash" is set in a future Earth of the 22nd century, chronologically prior to its published predecessor "". Humanity is still recovering from environmental disasters of the 21st century, but technology provides enough material resources for everyone. Earth's old nations have merged into continental governments - such as NorAm, United Europe, and Sinoplex - many of which are partially or wholly under the sway of various multinational corporations. Various wars are in progress, including an independence movement of colonists on Mars.The protagonist is Jonat DeVrai, a talented market research consultant and former Marine Corps officer who happens to have retained nanite combat enhancements that should be removed from retiring soldiers. As usual in Modesitt's books, DeVrai does not seek power; he is forced to exercise it because of others' attempts to use him in their designs to gather power to themselves.In addition to normal humans, the world of "Flash" also includes:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weight_Loss_(novel)" title="Weight Loss (novel)">
"Weight Loss" is about the strange life (from age 11 to age 37) of a sexual deviant named Bhola, whose attitude to most of the people around him depends on their lust worthiness. Bhola’s tastes are not, to put it mildly, conventional. Sex is a form of depravity for him and he has fetishes about everyone from teachers to roadside sadhus to servants; he progresses from fantasizing about the portly family cook Gopinath to falling “madly in love” with a vegetable vendor and her husband. This last obsession spans the entire length of the book and most of Bhola’s life – he even ends up teaching at a college in an obscure hill-station hundreds of miles from his home because he wants to be near the couple. At various other stages in his life he gets expelled from school for defecating in a teacher’s office, participates in an inexpertly carried out circumcision (one of the book’s many manifestations of the “weight loss” motif). 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignorance_(novel)" title="Ignorance (novel)">
Czech expatriate Irena has been living in France since fleeing Czechoslovakia after the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion. In 1989, when the Velvet Revolution overthrows the governing Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Irena decides to return to her home after twenty years of living as an exiled immigrant. During the trip she meets, by chance, Josef, a fellow émigré who was briefly her lover in Prague.The novel examines the feelings instigated by the return to a homeland which has ceased to be a home. In doing so, it reworks the Odyssean themes of homecoming. It paints a poignant picture of love and its manifestations, a recurring theme in Kundera's novels. The novel explores and centres around the way that people have selective memories as a precursor to ignorance. The concept of ignorance is presented as a two-fold phenomenon; in which ignorance can be a willing action that people participate in, such as avoiding unpleasant conversation topics or acting out. Yet the novel also explores the involuntary aspects of being ignorant, such as feigning ignorance of the past or avoiding the truth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Form_at_St._Clare's" title="The Second Form at St. Clare's">
The second form includes two girls who have been kept back from third form and two new girls. The two old girls are Elsie Fanshawe and Anna Johnson. Both are disliked as Elsie is spiteful and Anna is very lazy; however, both are made head of their form, replacing Hilary Wentworth who was head in first form. The second form mistress, Miss Jenks, has doubts about this as Elsie and Anna do not like each other very much, but agrees to let both of them try.The two new girls are Gladys Hilman and Mirabel Unwin. Gladys Hilman is miserable because her mother is ill in hospital. Gladys Hilman rarely speaks or joins in and this is the reason Gladys Hilman nicknamed "The Misery Girl". It takes Mirabel Unwin to find out what is wrong with her. Mirabel is determined to make the worst of things and ruin class for everyone. She was sent away from home because of her behaviour towards her younger brother and sister. Mirabel's attitude leads her into trouble when Carlotta slaps her in public for ruining a play rehearsal, but Mirabel learns her lesson and forgives Carlotta. Later she admits to Isabel that she is ashamed of her behaviour and wants to be friends with the girls instead. When Elsie attempts to convince the form to perform a series of punishments against Mirabel in retaliation for her attitude in class, Isabel sticks up for her and manages to convince the class that Elsie is not acting in their interest but is just acting out of spite. As a result of this, Mirabel and Isabel become friends. Mirabel initially declares she wants to leave at half term, but ends up staying when Pat and Isabel stand up for her and the girls decide to give her a chance.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Impact" title="Final Impact">
Picking up two years onwards from the end of "Designated Targets", "Final Impact" is the last novel in the "Axis of Time" trilogy. The supercarrier "Hillary Clinton" has been refurbished with more conventional steam catapults which replaced her less reliable fuel air explosive catapults. Her carrier air group is replenished with A-4 Skyhawk jet-powered attack aircraft, many of which are flown by 'temps, contemporary pilots. Admiral Kolhammer returns to sea at the head of a new Task Force with the Clinton at its core after two years of administering the Special Administrative Zone-California. Many characters have died in the intervening time period, from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, by his own hand to Commander Dan Black, one of the main characters of the story who asks for a return to combat and dies during the re-takeover of Hawaii, when his plane crashed during take-off from Muroc Airfield, California.D-Day is launched on May 3 of 1944, a month earlier than in the original timeline. The Allies invade the Pas-de-Calais instead of Normandy, relying on a dis-information campaign to obtain surprise. They are able to gain a foothold and slowly push back the Nazi forces. On May 27, the Allies gain a major victory by wiping out several German divisions with massed air strikes. On June 1, the USSR rejoins the Allied side and declares war against the Axis: They launch a huge attack against Germany and advance on a broad front. The Soviets have used the intervening two years to build up their armed forces, and construct fleet of warships at Vladivostok. Meanwhile, Paul Brasch's cover is blown and he is extracted by British commandos. Adolf Hitler has a seizure and suffers permanent brain and muscle damage; with the T4 program in mind, Heinrich Himmler chooses to suffocate him. Before launching an invasion of the Japanese Home Islands, the Soviets drop an atomic bomb on Litzmannstadt (that is, Łódź, Poland).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_on_the_Leviathan" title="Murder on the Leviathan">
The novel is set in 1878. The story opens with the murder in Paris of Lord Littleby, all seven of his servants and two children of servants. All were poisoned except for Littleby, who was bludgeoned with an ancient Indian artifact, a golden statuette of Shiva, which belonged to Lord Littleby and was stolen from his room, along with an old Indian shawl.French detective Gustave Gauche, in charge of the investigation, boards the passenger ship "Leviathan". Gauche knows that the murderer must be one of the first-class passengers, because one of the special golden badges for the ship's first-class passengers was left in Littleby's room. Among the suspects are a Japanese Army officer, an addled English aristocrat, a married Swiss woman, and a clever young Russian diplomat on his way to his new post in Japan. The diplomat is Erast Fandorin, the master detective, who shoots down each of the ineffectual Gauche's incorrect conclusions, and in the end takes it on himself to find the murderer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snowy_Day" title="The Snowy Day">
The book begins when Peter, "The Snowy Day"'s protagonist, wakes up to the season’s first snowfall. In his bright red snowsuit, he goes outside and makes footprints and trails through the snow. Next, Peter is too young to join a snowball fight with older kids, so he makes a snowman and snow angels and slides down a hill. He then returns home with a snowball stashed in his pocket. Before he goes to bed, Peter is sad to discover the snowball has melted. The book ends when the next day, he wakes up to tons more falling snow. With a friend, he ventures outside again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showboat_World" title="Showboat World">
"Showboat World" follows the farcical adventures of Apollon Zamp, owner of the showboat "Miraldra's Enchantment", and his troupe of acrobats, magicians and actors. Zamp is invited by the King of Soyvanesse to travel up the river Vissel to the distant city of Mornune, there to participate in a contest. A rich prize awaits the showboat captain who stages the most spectacular performance and succeeds in entertaining the king.The mysterious, attractive Damsel Blanche-Aster accompanies him up the river for her own reasons. Zamp loses his ship through the machinations of his chief rival, Garth Ashgale, captain of the showboat "Fironzelle's Golden Conceit". In order to take part in the competition, Zamp is forced to form an unlikely partnership with staid museum ship owner Throdorus Gassoon. Both men attempt to woo the unimpressed Damsel Blanche-Aster during the perilous journey. Along the way, the travellers encounter cultures and people with weird beliefs and unusual, often violent, customs.At least one scene was influenced by the Royal Nonesuch acting troupe episode in "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", while "Showboat World" itself has strongly influenced "The Wizard of Karres" (2004) by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint and Dave Freer. In addition, there are repeated references to Shakespeare's "Macbeth", which is continuously adapted and readapted to the tastes of varying audiences.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Werewolf" title="Night of the Werewolf">
When a ferocious, wolf-life creature appears in the small town of Bayport on the night of a full moon, the Hardy boys are engaged to clear the name of a young man who has a history of werewolves in his family line is suspected. Joe barely escapes a horrible death as the young detectives solve this exciting and hair-raising mystery.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dissolution_of_Nicholas_Dee" title="The Dissolution of Nicholas Dee">
Nicholas Dee, a young, anxiety-ridden history professor, lives in an unnamed American city battered by winter storms, plagued by crime, and patrolled by police in choppers and riot gear. Haunted by memories of his brilliant father and by the fear of loss, Nicholas takes shelter in his research: a history of the practice of insurance. One night, after a chance encounter with the police, he is made the guardian of a beautiful teenaged delinquent, Oscar Vega. But the boy is a part of a scheme to ensnare Nicholas, the tool of a mysterious female dwarf named Amelia Weathered, once the lover of Nicholas' father. Made an outlaw, Nicholas flees with Amelia, her young son Francis, and Oscar to the half-drowned country of Holland, where the boundaries between his historical research, his fantasies, and Amelia's schemes all begin to blend together.Scattered throughout the novel are passages from Nicholas Dee's scholarly writing, chronicle of a seventeenth century Dutch opera-house, which was built in a coastal swamp on the advice of a fortune-teller and housed a single performance before being swept out to sea in a storm. The chronicle is intended by Dee to serve as a case study within his history of insurance. But by the end of the book, a personal narrative has emerged from Dee's impersonal history, the story of a man's friendship with a boy soprano.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ladies_of_Missalonghi" title="The Ladies of Missalonghi">
In the years before World War I in Byron, Australia, the males of the Hurlingford family hold all the power and money. Those Hurlingford women without a man due to spinsterhood or widowhood lead cramped lives of hard work and little money on scraps of land or in businesses that just barely support them.Thirty-something spinster Missy Wright leads a narrow existence on the wrong side of the tracks with her widowed mother Drusilla Hurlingford Wright and crippled aunt Octavia when Byron is consumed by two events, the upcoming wedding of Missy's beautiful cousin Alicia Marshall to William Hurlingford and the arrival of rough looking stranger named John Smith.With limited funds and suffering bouts of ill health, Missy's only consolation are her trips to the lending library where her distant cousin Una Hurlingford works. Una, a society beauty, has returned to Byron after a glamorous life in Sydney. Under Una's tutelage and bolstered by the romantic novels she sneaks home, Missy begins to dream of the world outside Byron and a better life for herself.Bolstered by a confrontation with her cousin Alicia and a trip to a Sydney doctor, Missy breaks free of her Byron shackles, finds financial independence for her older female Hurlingford relations and ends up the happy bride of the mystery man John Smith.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skies_of_Pern" title="The Skies of Pern">
A rogue comet that strikes Pern leads the Weyrleaders and Holders, contemplating a future where dragonriders are not needed in a Threadless world, to consider the creation of a new Star Craft made of dragonriders. The discovery by dragonriders F'lessan and Tai, later brutally attacked by large felines, of the draconic use of telekinesis, only strengthens their resolve to keep Pern's skies free of danger.At the same time, disgruntled citizens resisting the ever-growing role of technology in Pernese life band together as Abominators, attacking Crafthalls, and are determined to destroy all the new technology in use. These fanatics are seemingly allied with Toric, the Southern Lord Holder.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Book_of_Common_Prayer" title="A Book of Common Prayer">
The novel is narrated by Grace Strasser-Mendana, an American expatriate who married into one of the three or four families that dominate Boca Grande politics, the Mendanas. Grace was trained as an anthropologist under Claude Lévi-Strauss, and later took up the amateur study of biochemistry, both attempts to find clear-cut, scientific answers to the mysteries of human behavior. Both attempts fail: Grace remains uncomprehending and cut off from the people around her, and in the final line of the novel she admits, "I have not been the witness I wanted to be."But Grace is not the novel's central character. That is Charlotte Douglas, another American woman sojourning in Boca Grande, although her family ties are elsewhere. Charlotte's beloved daughter Marin has run off with a group of Marxist radicals and taken part in an absurd act of terrorism, and in the wake of her daughter's disappearance, Charlotte's marriage to a crusading Berkeley lawyer (not Marin's father), has fallen apart.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Color_of_Light" title="The Color of Light">
The first time Chub gets the impulse to write, he has witnessed a fight between the girl of his dreams, B.J. Peacock, and her boyfriend Del that centers on a man knowing he'll never be able to make his woman happy, but that he'll never be able not to try. Two-Brew is a harsh critic, but feels Chub has the gift—his highest praise for anything Chub has written are four words: "on to the next"—implying that he wants to read more of Chub's work. Two-Brew's father runs Sutton Press in New York, and Chub's first long-awaited visit to New York City is punctuated with the surprise that Two-Brew's father has agreed to publish Chub's first short story.Chub's writing continues, usually after a collision of an emotional experience in his daily life with a childhood memory, and results in a series of short stories. Over one Christmas break, he visits his mother to surprise her with his published short story, but she sees herself portrayed negatively and explodes. Chub leaves almost as soon as he arrives, and returns to the Oberlin dorm with weeks of Christmas break ahead of him and nothing to do but write. He births a long story about his father's rise, fall and suicide—the best story he's written, Chub thinks—but Two-Brew insists that it's wrong for a short story and should be a novel. Chub's writing continues, but his focus on his studies suffers, and he graduates jobless. He works at a bar the summer after graduation when Two-Brew, now a young executive in his father's publishing house, suggests Chub connect his short stories and pitch them as a book, as a prelude to the novel about his father. Chub agrees immediately, but Two-Brew has already made the pitch. He hands Chub an envelope with two advance checks, and Chub moves to New York to write his novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memed,_My_Hawk" title="Memed, My Hawk">
Memed, a young boy from a village in Anatolia, is abused and beaten by the villainous local landowner, Abdi Ağa. Having endured great cruelty towards himself and his mother, Döne, Memed finally escapes with his beloved, a girl named Hatçe. Abdi Ağa catches up with the young couple, but only manages to capture Hatçe, while Memed is able to avoid his pursuers and runs into the mountains. There he joins a band of brigands and exacts revenge against his old adversary. Hatçe was then imprisoned and eventually dies while Memed tries to protect themselves on a mountain, but not before giving birth to Memed's son, who is also named Memed. When Memed returns to the town, a villager named Hürü Ana tells him he has a "woman's heart" if he surrenders himself. Instead of surrendering and being granted amnesty by the government, he rides into town to find his enemy, on a horse given to him by the townspeople. He finds Abdi Ağa in the south-east corner of his house and shoots him in the chest. The local authorities hear the gunshots, but Memed gets away. He returns to the mountains and gives his son in protection of Iraz, Hatçe's friend from the jailhouse.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe's_Devil" title="Sharpe's Devil">
Doña Louisa Vivar, whom Sharpe befriended in "Sharpe's Rifles", visits Sharpe and asks him to search for her husband, Don Blas Vivar, who disappeared while serving as Captain-General of Chile, a Spanish possession threatened by rebels. Sharpe and Harper sail to Chile with Spanish Colonel Ruiz and his regimental officers aboard the frigate "Espiritu Santo", commanded by Captain Ardiles. The group decide to stop off at St. Helena to pay a visit to exiled French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon grants an audience and asks Sharpe and Harper to remain for a private conversation. Napoleon persuades Sharpe to take a gift, a portrait of the emperor, to an admirer in Chile for him.British Consul George Blair welcomes Sharpe and Harper to the Chilean port of Valdivia and informs them that Blas Vivar's body was found and buried three months previously. Sharpe and Harper visit Captain Marquinez to arrange permission to travel to Puerto Crucero, exhume the body and return it to Spain. Back at their lodgings, they interrupt burglars who wound Harper and escape with their possessions, including Napoleon's portrait.Sharpe and Harper meet with Bautista, who announces that he has caught the thieves, whom he has branded on the spot, and returns all the stolen goods except for the portrait. When Bautista asks if everything is there, Sharpe says nothing is missing. Marquinez provides the required passes and permits and rides out with Sharpe and Harper on the first stage of their journey. Overnighting at the "Celestial Fort", Sharpe suspects that their escort, commanded by Sergeant Dregara, has orders to kill them. He persuades the garrison commander, Captain Morillo, to let them leave very early the next morning; he provides a native guide called Ferdinand to take them safely across the hills.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dial-a-Ghost" title="Dial-a-Ghost">
The Wilkinson family become ghosts after they die in a tragic bombing in World War II. Initially, they haunt their home, Resthaven, and they adopt another young ghost, a girl they name Adopta, who has no memory of her past. When the arrival of new owners forces them to leave, they travel to London and reluctantly begin haunting an underwear store, and apply to the Dial-a-Ghost agency for a new home. The Dial-a-Ghost agency finds the perfect home for the Wilkinsons in a ruined abbey, and tells them they can move in on Friday 13th.Meanwhile, orphan Oliver Smith is surprised to learn he is a descendant of the Snodde-Brittle family, and that he now owns Helton Hall following the death of a cousin. He is taken from the orphanage to Helton Hall by his cousins Fulton and Frieda, who feel they should rightly have inherited the Hall. Learning that Oliver is asthmatic, Fulton hires some terrifying, child-hating ghosts known as the Shriekers, hoping to frighten Oliver to death.On the day of the move, the two sets of ghosts receive each other's directions by accident. The Wilkinsons arrive at Helton Hall, and, although they initially scare Oliver, they soon become close friends. The Shriekers, however, are exorcised from the ruined abbey after attacking livestock belonging to the nunnery. When the Dial-a-Ghost agency realizes their mistake, they send the Shriekers to Helton Hall and ring the Wilkinsons to apologize. Oliver, however, refuses to let the Wilkinsons leave and also invites their friends from London to move in.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Abolition_of_Britain" title="The Abolition of Britain">
"The Abolition of Britain" is a conservative polemic against the changes in the United Kingdom since the mid-1960s. It contrasts the funerals of Winston Churchill (1965) and Diana, Princess of Wales (1997), using these two related but dissimilar events, three decades apart, to illustrate the enormous cultural changes that took place in the intervening period. His argument is that Britain underwent a "cultural revolution", comparable to that of China in the 1960s. He describes and criticises the growing strength of such forces as multiculturalism, which still had a liberal consensus behind it at the time the book was written. He argues that English schools had largely ceased to teach the history of the country or the literature of Britain's past, criticising the preference for methodology in history teaching.Other changes gain Hitchens's attention, from the passivity and conformism resulting from the watching of television to the Church of England's rejection of its traditional liturgy and scripture. Sex education, he argues, is a form of propaganda against Christian sexual morality. Again, the sexual revolution brought about by the first contraceptive pills was the result "not of accidental discovery, but of research deliberately pursued by moral revolutionaries". He describes the efforts made to provide respectability for unmarried motherhood, not least the campaign to replace the expression "unmarried mother" with "single parent", thus lumping together those who had children out of wedlock with widowers, widows or deserted wives and husbands, and so deflecting disapproval. Hitchens sees the British establishment as being morally weak in their failure to resist the emerging drug culture, when they could easily have done so in the mid-1960s. He cites as one example the prosecution of Mick Jagger and the subsequent intervention of "The Times" in Jagger's defence in 1967 ("Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?") after his (temporary) conviction.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show_Business_(novel)" title="Show Business (novel)">
Show Business parodies and satirises formulaic Bollywood cinema, using it as a metaphor in an attempt to raise and answer questions about contemporary India and Indians. It is a fictional work that tells the story of Ashok Banjara, a Bollywood superstar. Ashok Banjara is critically injured while shooting for a film and his entire life in Bollywood flashes in front of his eyes as he lies suspended between life and death in a hospital. The character and many incidents of Ashok Banjara's life are inspired by that of Amitabh Bachchan, the biggest superstar in Bollywood's history."Show Business" begins with Ashok Banjara, a superstar in Bollywood, fighting for his life in the intensive care unit of a hospital after an accident on the sets of a film that he is shooting. Suspended between life and death he sees his entire life in Bollywood flashing in front of his eyes like a film. Details of Banjara's career in Bollywood are revealed primarily in flashback.A young Ashok Banjara leaves Delhi and comes to Bombay to make his fortune and find fame in Bollywood. He achieves the big league with his second film "Godambo" that establishes him as an action star. Soon Banjara is known for playing the role of an angry young man fighting for the poor and the helpless against the establishment. A successful Ashok Banjara marries Maya, a talented co-star and convinces her to stay away from films for the sake of the family. Banjara, though is something of a philanderer, bedding most of his heroines. The actress Mehnaz Elahi becomes his mistress.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ninja_(novel)" title="The Ninja (novel)">
It is initially set in Japan following the end of World War II and follows the story of Lustbader's hero Nicholas Linnear, a man raised by Anglo-Chinese parents.As a youth, Linnear is introduced to the world of "aikido", "kenjutsu", and "iai-jutsu" at a local "dojo" of the Itto Ryu also attended by his cruel and violent older cousin Saigō. Linnear is a natural and soon becomes adept, much to the annoyance of Saigō. During a training exercise Nicholas and Saigō duel and Nicholas defeats him. Saigō is enraged and leaves swearing revenge.When they next meet Saigō is a considerably more skilled martial artist than Linnear and defeats him quickly. Later we learn Saigō has joined a "Kuji-kiri ryu" in order to learn black ninjutsu and has become a "ninja".Linnear himself soon becomes introduced to "Aka i ninjutsu", or the red, ostensibly "good" side of ninjutsu, through the Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu.The "ninja" are introduced not as magical or almost mythical people, but rather as supreme martial artists who have reached the highest level and seek to progress further. It is suggested that by becoming "ninja" they strive to advance to an even higher plane, gaining skills such as "haragei", or sensing the surrounding world in a different manner. However, we soon learn this is not without a high personal cost.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mummy_Case_(Hardy_Boys)" title="The Mummy Case (Hardy Boys)">
When five Egyptian statuettes are stolen from a museum, the Hardy Boys travel to Egypt. En route, the boys are asked to safeguard a mysterious mummy and find themselves tangled in a web of international intrigue. On the Nile, the young detectives uncover a secret hiding place with countless stolen treasures.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_from_the_Carolinas" title="Wind from the Carolinas">
Set against the exotic background of the Bahama Islands, it's the saga of wealthy, aristocratic families from the Carolinas, Georgia, and Virginia who, following the American Revolution, fled the South for the Bahamas, where they remained loyal to England. Abandoning their plantations for the islands, they established new dynasties in the Bahamas, where the Crown rewarded their loyalty with huge grants of land.""Wind from the Carolinas" is fiction and as such certain liberties have been taken but not with the basic facts. Certainly, the settlement of the Bahama Islands was the result of one of the most dramatic of migrations. From the plantation aristocracy of Carolina, Virginia and Georgia came families who were passionately sincere in their loyalty to the British Crown and wanted nothing to do with the American Revolution and its theory of democracy. At the close of the War for Independence they found life all but unendurable. They were hated and reviled as Tories by what they considered to be a disorganized rabble. They were subjected to taunts and violence. At their request transports of the Royal Navy took entire families, their slaves, livestock, furnishings, and in some cases, even the bricks of their manors to the Bahamas. There they attempted to recreate the Colonial magnificence they had known with mansions, slave quarters and vast cotton fields. The failure was tragic and the history of the Out Islands has been one of wealth and poverty in cycles brought about by influences far beyond their shores." - Robert Wilder, Author
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Broken_Commandment" title="The Broken Commandment">
The basic plot concerns a school teacher named Ushimatsu Segawa (family name written last) who struggles with a commandment given to him by his late father. He is never to reveal his "burakumin" background, which his father had tried so hard to conceal as well. Ushimatsu idolizes Rentarou Inoko, a "burakumin" rights' activist and successful writer (particularly considering the social position given to those considered "burakumin"). Ushimatsu wishes to reveal his background to Rentarou, as his need to hide away part of himself in order to be accepted by society in general leads to his feeling constricted by this superficial identity, and to his desiring to form a more meaningful connection with Rentarou through their common experience.This novel also touches on the dangerous, destructive nature of gossip, and questions society's inability to accept what is not understood. It attempts to build understanding and empathy for this group of people at a time (the novel's publication's) when a great deal of prejudice still existed towards this group.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doll_People" title="The Doll People">
This children's tale is about a doll made of china named Annabelle, who has existed for more than one hundred years. The book is set in the present time period and is told in third person. Annabelle and her family belong to an 8 year old girl named Kate Palmer. The dolls can move, talk, and play the miniature piano in their house but always return to the same spot they started from when a human approaches. The consequence of being seen moving is being "frozen" for twenty-four hours, also called Doll State. If a doll does something especially incriminating, the doll is "frozen" forever, called Permanent Doll State. Kate's sister Nora receives a doll house and plastic doll family named the Funcrafts for her 5th birthday. The Funcrafts' daughter is Tiffany and she becomes Annabelle's best friend. In the book Annabelle and her friend Tiffany form a group called Society for Exploration and Location of Missing Persons (or SELMP for short), when Annabelle finds her Auntie Sarah's Journal. Auntie Sarah has been missing for 45 years and has not been seen or heard from in all that time. Annabelle and Tiffany become determined to find her. Using the clues from the journal, they deduce she is stuck somewhere, so they go on a journey and successfully locate her. The doll family is happily reunited once again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Crossing_(novel)" title="Border Crossing (novel)">
When Tom Seymour, a child psychologist, plunges into a river to save a young man from suicide, he unwittingly reopens a chapter from his past he had hoped to forget. For Tom already knows the young man as Danny Miller. When Danny was eleven, Tom presented evidence that helped commit him to prison for the murder of the elderly Lizzie Parks. Danny, full of suppressed memory and now free from prison, turns to Tom to help him recount what really happened, and discover the truth.Reluctantly, Tom is drawn back into Danny's world, a place where the border between good and evil, innocence and guilt are blurred and confused. But when Danny's demands on Tom become extreme, Tom wonders whether he has crossed the line between the professional and personal relationship, speculating upon, but never realising, the perilous danger he is in until it is almost too late."Border Crossing" opens with Tom Seymour and his wife Lauren strolling along a deserted river path. They pass the derelict remnants of their decaying neighbourhood, with numerous buildings awaiting demolition or already burnt to the ground, and litter strewn across the path. They stop to observe a young man pause at the edge of a pier, swallow a handful of pills and disappear into the depths of the icy-cold river.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Winter_Queen_(novel)" title="The Winter Queen (novel)">
The novel opens on 13 May 1876 with a university student, Pyotr Kokorin, committing suicide in the public park in front of a beautiful young noblewoman, Elizaveta von Evert-Kolokoltseva. His will leaves his large fortune to the newly opened Moscow chapter of Astair House, an international network of schools for orphan boys founded by an English noblewoman, Lady Astair. The apparently open-and-shut suicide case falls to inexperienced 20-year-old detective Erast Fandorin. He interviews Elizaveta, and immediately falls in love with her. Further investigation reveals that Kokorin was playing Russian roulette (called "American roulette" in the novel) with another university student, Akhtyrtsev.Fandorin tails Akhtyrtsev, who leads him to a sensuous dark-haired woman, Amalia Bezhetskaya, whom Fandorin recognizes from a picture in Kokorin's room. He follows Bezhetskaya to her home, where she spends her time toying with the many men who come to visit. At Bezhetskaya's home, Fandorin meets Count Zurov, an Army officer that Amalia seems fond of, and sees Akhtyrtsev again. Akhtyrtsev and Fandorin leave Amalia's house together to go drinking, and Akhtyrtsev reveals to Fandorin that the Russian roulette game between him and Kokorin was Bezhetskaya's idea. Just as the mystery of Kokorin's suicide seems to be solved, a mysterious white-eyed assassin stabs Akhtyrstev to death and tries to kill Fandorin, only to fail when his knife bounces off the corset Fandorin is wearing. As he kills Akhtyrtsev, the white-eyed man hisses one word: "Azazel".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencerville_(novel)" title="Spencerville (novel)">
The novel's hero is the Army Colonel Keith Landry, who served as an infantry platoon leader with the First Cavalry Division and fought in Vietnam. Later on he transferred to the Army Intelligence and served as an intelligence officer and operative for almost 25 years. After the end of the cold war is over Landry retires and moves back to Spencerville, the small Midwestern town where he grew up. The town changed over the years but two people are still there: Annie Prentis, his first love, and her possessive husband Cliff Baxter. Landry wants to get Annie back and that means a confrontation with Baxter, once the high school bully, and now Spencerville corrupt police chief.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinwalkers_(novel)" title="Skinwalkers (novel)">
Murders are happening all over the huge reservation, and Lt. Leaphorn can see no pattern. Then, someone makes an attempt on Jim Chee's life, and the two work together for the first time to solve these crimes.The novel won two awards, the 1988 Anthony Award for Best Novel and the 1987 Spur Award for Best Western Novel. Reviews at the time of publication praised it highly: "Hillerman brings together his two series characters--middle-aged, cynical Lieut. Joe Leaphorn and young, mystical Officer Jim Chee--without in any way diminishing the stark power and somber integrity that have distinguished previous exploits of the Navajo Tribal Police." The writing is "lively and extremely descriptive" and author Hillerman was "a master of character, scene, and plot". A "New York Times" review called this the breakout novel for Hillerman, when sales began to surge and recognition increased.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Peabody_series" title="Amelia Peabody series">
Amelia Peabody is introduced in the series' first novel, "Crocodile on the Sandbank" as a confirmed spinster, suffragist, and scholar, living in England in 1884. She inherits a fortune from her father and leaves England to see the world, with the side benefit of escaping various suitors and family members who were neither aware that she would be the sole beneficiary of her father's estate nor that he had amassed a small fortune over the course of his lifetime.In Rome, Amelia meets Evelyn Barton-Forbes, a young Englishwoman of social standing who has run off with (and subsequently been abandoned by) her Italian lover, and the two make their way to Egypt. There they meet the Emerson brothers, Egyptologist Radcliffe and his philologist brother Walter. Over the course of the first book the couples pair up: Amelia marries Radcliffe (referred to throughout the series by his last name "Emerson"), and Evelyn marries Walter.Following the birth of their son Ramses (né Walter) Emerson ("as swarthy as an Egyptian and as arrogant as a Pharaoh"), the Emersons initially settle in Kent, from where Emerson commutes to a job lecturing in Egyptology at university in London. Despite Amelia's suggestions that he resume seasonal digs in Egypt, Emerson insists on staying in England with his family while Ramses is too young to travel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ttyl" title="Ttyl">
Three friends, Angela Silver (SnowAngel), Zoe Barrett (zoegirl), and Madigan "Maddie" Kinnick (mad maddie) are just starting tenth grade of high school. At the beginning of the book, the trio, who refer to themselves as the "winsome threesome," believe that they will stick together forever. Zoe wants something meaningful and big to happen in her life, Angela knows it is going to be a fabulous year and that she is going to meet the boy of her dreams, and Maddie can't help but feel low and down on herself. When Angela discovers that Rob Tyler is in her French class, she develops a crush on him. Maddie notices how mean Jana Whitaker, the school's queen bee, is to her and to other students. Rob finally asks Angela out and the two have a fun time together, which is how Angela describes it. Later, she reveals to her friends that Rob is "the one", as in the one she goes all the way with. The next day, Angela is unable to go on a planned date with Rob since her mother grounded her for going to a bar without permission. Angela then learns that Rob went out with Tonnie Wyndham while she had to stay home. Rob apologizes and states that Tonnie refused to let him call Angela. Days later, Rob goes on another date (while he was supposed to be on a date with Angela and left her waiting) with Tonnie and says that she asked him out and he didn't know how to say no. Angela breaks up with him after this. Zoe has been experiencing favoritism in one of her classes by a young teacher who gives her special attention. She struggles when the line of appropriateness becomes blurred, she needs her friends a time when Maddie's new friendship with Jana is creating fractures in the friend group. Maddie gives Jana a ride home (when she was supposed to give Angela a ride) and Angela gets mad at her too. For Halloween, the trio plan to go trick or treating as mold, fungus and dust. When Halloween arrives, though, Maddie ditches her friends and doesn't show up. Instead she goes to a party with Jana Whitaker and ends up getting really drunk and taking her shirt off and dancing exposed in front of guys, which Jana photographs without Maddie's permission. They all go through their ups and downs of tenth grade.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Icarus_Hunt" title="The Icarus Hunt">
Prior to delivering a cargo to the nearby planet Xathru, Jordan McKell, a smuggler for a crime lord nicknamed Brother John and his shadowy boss, Mr. Antoniewicz, is on the planet Meima with his partner, Ixil, a member of an alien species called the Kalixiri. McKell is offered a job by a man named Alexander Borodin, whom he recognizes as the famous industrialist and sometime-archaeologist Arno Cameron. Cameron wants McKell to pilot the ship "Icarus", which is carrying a very important cargo in its sealed storage core, to Earth.McKell accepts the job and instructs Ixil to continue on to Xathru, intending to pick him up there. He and Ixil theorize that Cameron's archaeological dig on Meima had uncovered an advanced, alien stardrive, which he intends to be brought to Earth by the "Icarus". While waiting to board the "Icarus", McKell becomes acquainted with the rest of the "Icarus"' rag-tag crew, all of whom are complete strangers to him and to each other. At the last minute, they are informed that Cameron is unable to accompany them, and are forced to set out on their voyage without their employer.One of the crewers is killed in an accident a few hours later, and a series of other bizarre occurrences leads McKell to believe that they have a saboteur aboard; he begins keeping a wary eye on the crew. He stops as planned on Xathru to pick up Ixil and contact Brother John, who gives him a reluctant go-ahead to carry on with the voyage. While on Xathru, he is assaulted by a pair of strange aliens who say they want the "Icarus"' cargo.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Penderwicks" title="The Penderwicks">
The Penderwicks, a family of six, (four sisters, their father, and their dog) get lost on the way to Arundel Cottage, which they have rented for the summer, but find their way with the help of a tomato seller named Harry, and Cagney, the gardener at Arundel.After getting to the cottage, Skye goes exploring on the grounds, and meets Cagney in the garden. They talk until Mrs. Tifton, the owner of Arundel, comes looking for Cagney, and he hides Skye in an urn. Mrs. Tifton tells Cagney that he needs to get rid of the Fimbriata rosebush that his uncle kept alive for 30 years, but Skye and Cagney decide to move the bush to a place near the cottage. When Skye leaves, she runs into Mrs. Tifton's son Jeffrey, and, not knowing who he is, warns him to stay out of the garden and insults Mrs. Tifton.After telling Rosalind and Jane what happened, Rosalind decides they need to apologize to Jeffrey, and they send Jane to apologize on Skye's behalf the next day. Jane and Jeffrey quickly become friends. Meanwhile, at the cottage, Rosalind and Skye attempt to bake cookies for Jeffrey, but when Cagney comes over with the Fimbriata, Rosalind goes to help him, leaving Skye in charge of the cookies. Skye sets the oven to "broil" and goes upstairs, letting the cookies burn. When Rosalind finds them, Skye yells at her, calling Jeffrey a snob - just as Jeffrey and Jane approach the house. Mr. Penderwick comes in and sends them all on a walk. Jeffrey takes them to see a neighboring farmer's bull, and Batty unknowingly wanders into its pen. Skye, Jane, and Jeffrey manage to save her from being attacked, and swear not to tell Mr. Penderwick or Rosalind about the incident. Later, everyone goes to Jeffrey's house for gingerbread. The cook, Churchie, wants Jeffrey to invite the girls to his birthday party and helps the girls choose beautiful dresses from among Mrs. Tifton's old clothes. The birthday party turns out to be a disaster. At dinner, Mrs. Tifton begins to despise the girls, and afterward they find out that Mrs. Tifton is planning to marry her boyfriend Dexter Dupree, and is considering sending Jeffrey to a military academy a year earlier than she had previously intended to.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Ocean_of_Night" title="In the Ocean of Night">
In 1999 (2019 in the second edition), Nigel Walmsley, a British scientist and astronaut for NASA, is sent to attach a thermonuclear bomb to a comet named Icarus which is on a direct collision course for India. Icarus turns out to be large, solid, and made of a nickel-iron composite. Nigel is instructed to plant the weapon and leave so it can be detonated. He persuades Mission Control to let him put it in a large fissure he discovered, so it would be even more effective. In the fissure, Nigel discovers strips of metal worked in obviously artificial patterns. Awestruck at this evidence of extraterrestrial intelligent life, Nigel begins exploring. Icarus is made up of a number of hollow shells, making the asteroid's mass far less than predicted. NASA insists that the demolition has to go forward, claiming Icarus would skip off the atmosphere and land in the Indian Ocean, causing widespread damage from the resultant tsunami. Nigel realizes this is a lie, and convinces his partner of that. They hide the nuke and spend the next week retrieving artifacts and materials before detonating the bomb.15 years after their discovery the Icarus artifacts have yielded little, and Nigel's delayed detonation of Icarus has alienated him from NASA and other people. Nigel's partner, Alexandria, dies from systemic lupus erythematosus, a disease caused by pollution. An anomaly near Jupiter distracts Nigel: something, nicknamed 'the Snark', is repeating radio broadcasts. The anomaly fires its fusion engines and reveals itself to the satellites around Jupiter. As a probe vessel, the Snark's directing computer could not afford to ignore the satellites' radio emissions before it moved on to Earth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_the_Odds_(novel)" title="Against the Odds (novel)">
The opening steps back to near the ending of "Change of Command"; the loyalists in the weapons lab on Copper Mountain (which planet has just been taken over by mutineers) have finished sending out their radio transmission, which unbeknownst to them will indeed be picked by an escaping loyalist Fleet warship, and are wondering what to do next. Their transportation is ruined, so they decide to steal one from the mutineers. They stage a series of movements and radio transmissions intended to convince the mutineers that the weapons labs are being progressively taken over by their own.Disabled, the "Bonar Tighe" is easy prey. The loyalists are rescued. For her services to Fleet past and present, Cecelia jokingly demands to be made an Admiral - a nod to a running joke in the series where various Fleet underlings become convinced (by how they keep showing up in the thick of things) that either Cecelia or Heris is really a special operations undercover admiral ferreting out traitors for Fleet.Finally at Rockhouse, Esmay meets up with Brun and her own father General Casimir Suiza, who had brought along with him all the necessary apparatus to transfer Esmay's status as LandBride to her cousin Luci.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Across_the_Sea_of_Suns" title="Across the Sea of Suns">
In 2021, radio astronomy on the Moon reveals the presence of life by a nearby red dwarf, on a tide-locked planet. To investigate, Earth's governments convert a space colony into "Lancer", a Bussard ramjet-powered interstellar ship based on the design of a crashed alien ship discovered in the Mare Marginis.In 2061, the "Lancer" arrives and discovers a primitive race of nomads, broadcasting using organs adapted to emit and receive electromagnetic radiation (hence "EM"s). A curious satellite is discovered in orbit, at least a million years old, roughly when a meteor shower destroyed the EMs' civilization.On Earth, international commerce is brought to a standstill when mysterious spaceships drop sea creatures dubbed "Swarmers" and "Skimmers" (for their behaviour: Swarmers swarm ships and head-butt them until they sink, and Skimmers simply jump and skim around like dolphins). They begin multiplying and the Swarmers begin attacking humans and all their works on the seas.The expedition's first contacts go poorly: The attempt to enter one of the two satellites prompts a massive retaliation that kills most of the crew. Meanwhile, their attempt to contact the EMs in person confuses them; the aliens had expected a reply directly from Earth. The EMs' attempt to communicate with the messenger via radar accidentally cooks him alive. The standby team misinterprets the accident as a deliberate attack and massacres the EMs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationality_and_Power" title="Rationality and Power">
Flyvbjerg focuses on the study of how power influences rationality and democracy. Theoretically and methodologically, he stands on the shoulders of thinkers like Thucydides, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, and Max Weber. He specifically highlights Machiavelli's power studies in Florence as a source of influence for the choice of in-depth case studies to understand the dynamics of power and how power enables and constrains rationality and rational government. Flyvbjerg also develops and identifies "ten propositions about rationality and power" that can be used as grounded theory when researching rationality, power, and democracy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Switcheroo" title="The Great Switcheroo">
Vic Hammond and his wife Mary go to a cocktail party hosted by their friends Jerry and Samantha Rainbow. Vic lusts after the difficult-to-seduce Samantha as she is faithful to her husband, so he devises a plan that would allow Vic and Jerry to switch wives for a night without the women knowing it. He puts the suggestion to Jerry in the form of a story and finally manages to lure Jerry into proposing that they should try out the plan. Many meetings are subsequently held between the two men in which they plan every detail of the scheme.At one point, in order to ensure that the deception is as complete as possible, they even agree to describe the sexual routines they adopt when making love to their wives. Both men regard the other's approach with disdain. Vic, who is very proud of his own approach and sexual technique with his wife, is particularly outraged when Jerry criticizes his routine.On the fateful night, the men are able to sneak into each other's bedrooms without incident. But in the middle of having sex with Samantha (in total darkness), Vic realizes that in the heat of things he has forgotten to copy Jerry's technique. Samantha at first tenses up, but then responds with gusto.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_(novel)" title="Web (novel)">
The events depicted in "Web" are written from the viewpoint of Arnold Delgrange, a man whose wife and daughter were recently killed in a motor collision. They revolve around a failed attempt to establish a utopian colony on the fictional island "Tanakuatua" in the Pacific Ocean, far from civilisation.After a slow start setting the scene with the mysterious "Project" being financed by the wealthy and eccentric Lord Foxfield, the island is purchased and a team of volunteers sets out by steamer for the island. A summarised back-story provides commentary on the colonising powers' impact on the native population during the 19th and 20th centuries.Tanakuatua is now uninhabited by humans, as its native inhabitants were evacuated from the island due to British nuclear testing and were relocated. However a small group of natives refused the evacuation order and placed a curse on any people who returned to the island. When Delgrange and his fellow pioneers reach the island they are irritated and frustrated by a bizarre ceremony that their native porters conduct before proceeding with the unloading of their supplies from the steamer which brought them. As the steamer departs and disappears over the horizon, due to return in six months, a sense of their solitude descends. They compose messages to their friends and family to be transmitted by radio, but the radio operator returns looking agitated. When Delgrange follows him to investigate, they find that the transmitter has been crushed beneath a heavy packing case. Clearly they are not alone on the island after all, and from this point on the sense of brooding menace steadily intensifies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_(novel)" title="Spectrum (novel)">
His life changes when a wealthy man walks into his office and asks him to find his missing daughter. After a short investigation, the Walker finds her on Library - a world full of ancient ruins. Before he can bring her back, however, she dies in a freak accident. A clue leads him to another alien planet where he finds her alive and well. Soon he discovers that the same woman exists on several other worlds, each is connected to the other. One by one, they are killed in seemingly random, totally unrelated events. It is to the Walker's great surprise when he finds himself becoming attracted to his client's daughter. It's a race against time, as the Walker desperately tries to save the identical copies of the woman, only to have them die in his arms. Can he save the last one before she perishes and, in the process, uncover a massive conspiracy going back thousands of years with the Keymasters in the middle?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_Years_(novel)" title="Dog Years (novel)">
Walter Matern and Eduard Amsel are friends. Eduard is half Jewish and at the young age of five is a genius at making scarecrows. The narrator in Book One, the mine owner Brauxel, tells of the friendship of Walter and Eduard when they are children in the Vistula estuary, which is a German-Polish borderland (the interwar Free City of Danzig) peopled by Mennonites, Catholics and Protestants. Eduard keeps a diary which he fills with drawings of ideas for scarecrows. The history of this country is told with cruel images of horror and violence from that past that echoes into the present, which becomes Hitler's Germany. The story in the second part of the book is narrated by Harry Liebenau, and consists of letters from him addressed to his cousin Tulla. This part of the story occurs during the war period, when Amsel collects vast numbers of S.A. uniforms, and dresses his scarecrows in them. He also persuades his childhood friend Walter to become a member of the S.A., in order to help him obtain the uniforms. But since the confusion in this country has reached its maximum at this point in time, it is inevitable that the two friends end up on a collision course. At one point Walter denounces Amsel as a Jew, hits him in the face and knocks out all of his teeth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cave_(novel)" title="The Cave (novel)">
The story concerns an elderly potter named Cipriano Algor, his daughter Marta, and his son-in-law Marçal. One day, the Center, literally the center of commerce in the story, cancels its order for Cipriano's pottery, leaving the elderly potter's future in doubt. He and Marta decide to try their hand at making clay figurines and astonishingly the Center places an order for hundreds. But just as quickly, the order is cancelled and Cipriano, his daughter, and his son-in-law have no choice but to move to the Center where Marçal works as a security guard. Before long, the mysterious sound of digging can be heard beneath the Center, and what the family discovers will change their lives forever.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravished_Armenia" title="Ravished Armenia">
The author Arshaluys (Aurora) Mardiganian was born in the city of Çemişgezek, near Harput (Kharpert), (present-day Turkish province of Elâzığ), Ottoman Empire. She was the daughter of a wealthy Armenian financier in the city. The story starts in 1915 when Arshaluys was 14 years old. She personally witnessed the murder of her father, mother, brothers and sisters. She was taken to the harem of a number of Turkish pashas, but had remained attached to her Christian Armenian faith despite being tortured repeatedly at the hands of her captors.She found refuge with Frederick W. MacCallum, a Canadian doctor and missionary stationed with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), who safely returned her to Erzurum, which had come under Russian control. She later moved to Tbilisi (Tiflis) in the Caucasus and, through the mediation of General Andranik Ozanian and orders of the Russian military leadership in the Caucasus, was sent to the United States for recovery and to bear witness to the sufferings of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.Aurora Mardiganian, a survivor of the Armenian genocide of 1915–1923, recalled sixteen young Armenian girls being "crucified" by their Ottoman tormentors. The film "Auction of Souls" (1919), which was based on her book "Ravished Armenia", showed the victims nailed to crosses. However, almost 70 years later Mardiganian revealed to film historian Anthony Slide that the scene was inaccurate. She described what was actually an impalement. She stated that "The Turks didn't make their crosses like that. The Turks made little pointed crosses. They took the clothes off the girls. They made them bend down, and after raping them, they made them sit on the pointed wood, through the vagina. That's the way they killed – the Turks. Americans have made it a more civilized way. They can't show such terrible things."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Die_in_a_Combat_Zone,_Box_Me_Up_and_Ship_Me_Home" title="If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home">
O'Brien takes the reader through a typical day in the life of a soldier in Vietnam. We are briefly introduced to a small number of fellow 'grunts' and the commanding officer of Alpha Company, the rifle company O'Brien was assigned to, one Captain Johansen. (Names and physical characteristics depicted in the book were changed.)Rather than proceed chronologically, O'Brien takes the reader back to the beginning of his induction into the US Army. The reader learns about the author's home town, Worthington, Minnesota, to which O'Brien moved when he was 9 years old. We are led through his childhood, playing various army games, and learning about World War II from returned veterans and the Korean War which was taking place at the time.The story of his tour itself continues to unfold while the reader is simultaneously taken through O'Brien's training at Fort Lewis, Washington, where he acquaints a man of similar situation named Erik. Together, the two decide to engage in a psychological resistance against the government.After debating over the idea of desertion, O'Brien arrives in Vietnam in 1969 and spends a week at a base in Chu Lai (home to the Americal Division from approximately 1967 until 1971), receiving last-minute training such as mine sweeping and grenade throwing as well as the essential do's and don'ts of jungle warfare, before being sent to Landing Zone Gator in Quang Ngai Province where he is assigned to Alpha company, 5th Battalion of the 46th Infantry, 198th Infantry Brigade.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary,_Mary_(novel)" title="Mary, Mary (novel)">
FBI Agent Alex Cross is on vacation in Los Angeles with his family and his girlfriend Jamilla Hughes (from "Violets Are Blue") when he receives word that a Hollywood actress has been murdered. The actress was shot and her face violently slashed with a knife. An email describing the killer's mindset before and during the murder as well as allusions to the killer's motivation was sent to an entertainment reporter named Arnold Grinner at the "Los Angeles Times". The emails are signed "Mary Smith". The actress happens to be friends with the wife of the President of the United States who has asked FBI Director Ron Burns to look into the matter. Burns then gives the case to Cross, who goes to the scene, despite protests from Nana and Jamilla. He does not return until very late in the afternoon, by which time Jamilla has left to return to San Francisco, which doesn't surprise Alex, and Alex Jr. "Ali" has been taken away by Christine, who had come down to spend time with Ali and Alex.During a trial to determine who takes custody over Ali, Christine's attorney uses evidence of a picture of Ali and Cross' family being evacuated from the house for safety (in the "Big Bad Wolf"). Her attorney also points out that a "stranger" is carrying Ali from the house. However, Alex notices that the so-called "stranger" is John Sampson, his best friend, who works for the DCPD (the D.C. Police Department), angering Alex. Christine eventually wins custody with Alex getting over 40 days of time with Ali only. Meanwhile, Alex later meets up on another date with Jamilla, who reveals that she has been seeing another man (an unknown lawyer) since the beginning of his new case. Alex realizes that he has lost Jamilla, largely because Alex has been focusing more on his job. They both decide to end their relationship and remain friends. Alex and Jamilla say an emotional goodbye and go their separate ways. Alex constantly goes and comes from Los Angeles for the Mary Smith case, which is assigned to LAPD cop Jeanne Galleta.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_&amp;_Jury" title="Judge &amp; Jury">
It's the biggest trial of the decade - big time mobster Dominic Cavello has finally been put in the dock, and there's enough evidence to make a conviction. Heavy security surrounds the courtroom, and Nick Pellisante, the FBI agent who helped to nail Cavello, keeps a close eye on the proceedings. But things swiftly begin to go wrong. Faced with anonymous threats, the jury is sequestered. Then the bus escorting them to their hotel is bombed on the day of Andie's young son's birthday - Jarrod, who is on the bus with the rest of the jury. Andie DeGrasse is the only person who survives, her loss strengthens her resolve to see justice done, to Cavello as well as to whoever planted that bomb. She and Pellisante both know that this will be difficult, but they can't foresee just how difficult.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One,_Two,_Buckle_My_Shoe_(novel)" title="One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (novel)">
Hercule Poirot is happy after his appointment with his dentist Henry Morley. He encounters former actress Mabelle Sainsbury Seale as she exits a cab outside the office. Poirot retrieves a shiny buckle for her that has fallen from her new shoe. During the dental visit, Morley tells Poirot that his secretary is away and her absence is slowing him in seeing patients. Later that day, his friend Inspector Japp informs him that Morley has been found dead, having been shot in the head, the gun in his hand. Between Poirot's appointment and Morley's death, the dentist had three patients – Mabelle, prominent banker Alistair Blunt, and a new patient, a Greek gentleman called Amberiotis. A fourth person, Howard Raikes, leaves without seeing Reilly. Raikes is an American left-wing activist who likes Jane Olivera, niece of the banker Blunt.Amberiotis dies from an overdose of anaesthetic before Japp can interview him, leading police to the view that Morley accidentally killed him and committed suicide upon realising his mistake. Poirot does not accept this view. He knows from Morley's secretary Gladys Nevill that she had been called away by a fake telegram that day. Morley had not liked her boyfriend Frank Carter, and felt Carter did this.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_Queen_(novel)" title="Dairy Queen (novel)">
15-year-old girl Darlene Joyce (D.J.) Schwenk lives on a farm in Red Bend, Wisconsin, where she and her family own a dairy farm. When D.J.'s father hurts his hip, leaving him unable to work, D.J. reluctantly leaves her high school's volleyball and basketball teams to fill in for him on the farm. In the process she gives up her chance at a college scholarship, and her grades begin to slide. Meanwhile, D.J. is pressured into training Brian Nelson, a stubborn football player who plays for the rival Hawley High School team. Over time the two become friends, and D.J. develops romantic feelings for Brian. Over the summer, D.J. begins training to join her high school's football team, driven in part by a fight with Brian, and in part by the legacy of her two estranged older brothers, Win and Bill, who are famous in Red Bend for playing college football. D.J. makes the team but is unsure of how to tell Brian, which later results in a falling-out between the two. D.J. is also alienated from her best friend, Amber, when she realizes too late that Amber is in love with her.Throughout the summer, many of D.J.'s problems stem from an inability to discuss important issues with her family and friends, as Brian eventually points out to her. It is through their friendship that she finds she has a lot to talk about, and begins to put her life back together.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_Week" title="Witch Week">
"Witch Week" is set in an alternative modern-day Great Britain, identical to our world except for the presence of witchcraft. Despite witches being common, witchcraft is illegal and punishable by death by burning, policed by a modern-day Inquisition.At Larwood House, a boarding school where many of the children of executed witches are sent, a note claiming "Someone in this class is a witch" is found by a teacher. This launches an internal investigation of the more unpopular students at the school (Nan Pilgrim and Charles Morgan), who are gradually coming to terms with the fact that they are witches. Mayhem gradually ensues as magic is used to make birds appear in the classroom, to rain shoes, to curse a classmate into having his words always be true, and other pranks. When the magic gets totally out of control, one of the students runs away, leaving notes that blame the witch for controlling him. The headmistress of the school calls in an Inquisitor to find the missing student and locate the source of the trouble.Four more of the students flee the school and two seek help from an "underground railroad" system that is known to save witches by sending them to a world where they are not persecuted. Instead they are given a spell to summon unknown help and all five students converge where they are able to use it, summoning the enchanter Chrestomanci. He and the children conclude that their world diverged from 12B (ours) by a particular historical accident. They work to outwit the local inquisition and to merge their history, thus their world, with ours. It turns out that most of the schoolchildren are witches and all must lose any such powers by revising history in that way.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_in_the_Air_(novel)" title="Castle in the Air (novel)">
"Castle in the Air" follows the adventures of Abdullah, a handsome young carpet salesman from Zanzib, who daydreams constantly about being a stolen prince. One day a strange traveler comes to his stand to sell a magic carpet. During the night, Abdullah goes to sleep on the carpet but wakes up to find himself in a beautiful garden with a young woman. He tells the woman, Flower-in-the-Night, that he is the stolen prince of his daydreams, believing that he is in fact dreaming. Flower-in-the-Night, who has never seen a man other than her father, first believes that Abdullah is a woman, so Abdullah agrees to return the next night with portraits of many men so that she can make a proper comparison. He does so, and Abdullah and Flower-in-the-Night decide to get married.Abdullah returns the next night, but he arrives just as Flower-in-the-Night is snatched away by a huge flying djinn. Soon after, the Sultan of Zanzib captures Abdullah who then discovers that Princess Flower is actually the Sultan's daughter. Enraged that his daughter is missing, the Sultan blames Abdullah and throws him in jail, threatening to impale him on a 40-foot stake if his daughter is not found. Fortunately, Abdullah is saved by his magic carpet and escapes from Zanzib.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorist_(novel)" title="Terrorist (novel)">
The story centers on an American-born Muslim teenager named Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy, although Ahmad's high school life guidance counselor, Jack Levy, also plays a central role. The novel seeks to explore the worldview and motivations of religious fundamentalists (specifically within Islam), while at the same time dissecting the morals and lifeways of residents of the fictional decaying New Jersey Rust Belt suburb of "New Prospect" (which Updike has identified with Paterson, New Jersey, also the setting of his novel, "In the Beauty of the Lilies").
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thief_(Turner_novel)" title="The Thief (Turner novel)">
The main character, a boy named Gen (short for Eugenides), is released from prison by the magus of the King of Sounis. Gen had been imprisoned for stealing the King's seal. The magus, whose name is not revealed, finds Gen to be filthy, uncouth, and insolent, but he values Gen's skills as a thief. Without telling Gen where they are going, he takes him out of the city. They are joined by the magus's two apprentices, Sophos and Ambiades, and by a soldier, Pol.The travelers are strained by personal conflict, as well as the dangers present due to the political and secret nature of their mission. The magus reveals that the object he wants Gen to steal is a precious stone called Hamiathes's Gift in the country of Attolia. The magus' plan is to use the long lost tradition embedded within the stone in order to claim the country of Eddis for his king. In exchange, the magus offers Gen fame and threatens him with a bounty on his head if he tries to escape. Agreeing, Gen risks death in a daring attempt to steal the stone from an almost inaccessible temple, while the entire party is pursued by the Guard of Attolia. After Gen steals the stone, the temple is washed away by a river. While traveling back, the party is captured by the Attolian guard. Ambiades turns out to be a traitor, but is later killed by Pol, who pushes him off a cliff and then jumps after him holding two Attolian soldiers, killing them, but dying himself. After being questioned by the queen of Attolia, Gen, Sophos and the Magus escape and go to Eddis. There they are taken to the palace and Gen gives the stone to the queen. It is revealed that Gen is Eugenides, the Queen's Thief, and Sophos is the heir to the kingdom of Sounis.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallam_Foe_(novel)" title="Hallam Foe (novel)">
"Hallam Foe" follows the life of 17-year-old boy who has a very unusual and seemingly destructive hobby. He lives most of his life up in a tree house with state-of-the-art binoculars, a telescope, and plenty of logbooks in hand, watching as the people around him live their life. Hallam keeps himself separated and lives in solitude up in the trees, away from his father, Julius Foe, stepmother, Verity, his sister, Lucy and his best friend Alex Thirtle. He had fallen into these depths when his mother, Anne Sarah Foe, committed suicide and the relentless relatives turned their attention and pity towards the boy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Perfect_Stranger_(novel)" title="A Perfect Stranger (novel)">
This book tells the story of Alexander Hale and Raphaella Phillips. Hale, a recently divorced man, takes a walk down his street, when he sees Phillips, a beautiful woman, crying on the steps. We later learn that the woman's name is Raphaella Phillips and that she is married to an eighty-year-old man who is very sick. Hale falls in love with Phillips, who is already married. Raphaella is young, while her husband is old and bedridden. Raphaella does not want to leave her husband but she does not want to stay closed away from the world with nothing to live for either. She has no children and feels like the house doesn't belong to her. In the end Raphaella's husband dies and Raphaella and Alexander can be together.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clue_of_the_Tapping_Heels" title="The Clue of the Tapping Heels">
Nancy and her friends Bess and George stumble across a Persian cat on the road. They return the cat to Annie Carter, an elderly woman who keeps twenty-five cats in her house. The girls befriend the kindly Miss Carter, but while at her house, they are disrupted by neighbors who are annoyed with the cats. It is here that Nancy uncovers her next mystery. Fred Bunce, one of the neighbors, had taken care of a boy named Gus Woonton, who was reportedly mentally and physically challenged. Miss Carter took a liking to the boy while he was with Fred Bunce and his wife, so she paid for him to live at the Riverside Institution, in hopes of Gus receiving proper care for his ailments. Miss Carter receives a telegram that Gus Woonton has died, and Fred Bunce seems quite eager to pay for funeral expenses, which makes Nancy suspicious.Once the neighbors leave, Nancy meets a man in front of Miss Carter's home asking for a Lady Violette. Nancy informs him that there is no such person at this address, only to be informed that Miss Carter, a former actress, played a character named Lady Violette in one of her past plays. Nancy quickly tracks down the man, Horace St. Will, and he and Miss Carter are happily reunited. Mr. St. Will tells Nancy that he used to know a Ralph Woonton, which was the name of Gus's father. Mr. St. Will gives Nancy and her father some old letters from Ralph Woonton, however he tells them that Ralph Woonton and his wife never had a son. Nancy believes that Gus Woonton received an inheritance in trust from his parents, which was stolen by Fred Bunce. Her suspicions grow stronger when she trails Bunce into a stock market firm, where she sees the considerable amount of money he has lost in faulty stocks. But soon after the episode, the Bunces mysteriously leave their apartment. Nancy, Bess and George investigate the vacated apartment, where they find two of Miss Carter's Persian kittens, and returns them to her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazohinia" title="Kazohinia">
As in the Gulliverian prototype, the premise is a shipwreck with a solitary survivor, who finds himself in an unknown land, namely that of the Hins, which contains a minority group, the Behins. Accordingly, this work by a Hungarian writer relates not so much to Swift's work, but more precisely to "Brave New World" by the British writer Aldous Huxley. As in that work, there coexist two dissimilar, segregated societies, one developed and the other backward.The Hins are a people who have solved all economic problems: Production and usage of goods is based on need instead of money, and the standard of living is impeccable. The Hins live without any kind of government or administrative body, as their belief is that such would only hinder production. They lead their lives according to the "pure reality of existence," which they call kazo. They experience no emotions, love, beauty or spiritual life.There are two primary interpretations of the author's intentions:The protagonist, bored with the inhuman life of the Hins, chooses to live among the insane Behins, who reportedly conform better to his outlook on life. He hopes that, living in a walled-off area among the Behins, he will meet others with human feelings.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Captain's_Daughter" title="The Captain's Daughter">
Pyotr Andreyich Grinyov (the narrative is conducted on his behalf) is the only surviving child of a retired Imperial Army officer. When Pyotr turns 17, his father sends him into military service in Orenburg. While en route, Pyotr gets lost in a blizzard, but is rescued by a mysterious man. As a token of his gratitude, Pyotr gives the guide his hareskin coat.Arriving in Orenburg, Pyotr reports to his commanding officer and is assigned to serve at Fort Belogorsky under Captain Ivan Mironov. The "fort" is little more than a fence around a village, and the captain's wife Vasilisa is really in charge. Pyotr befriends his fellow officer Shvabrin, who has been banished here after a duel resulted in the death of his opponent. When Pyotr dines with the Mironov family, he meets their daughter Masha and falls in love with her. This causes a rift between Pyotr and Shvabrin, who has been turned down by Masha. When Shvabrin insults Masha's honor, Pyotr and Shvabrin duel and Pyotr is injured. Pyotr asks his father's consent to marry Masha, but is refused.Not much later, the fortress is besieged by the insurgent Yemelyan Pugachev, who claims to be the Emperor Peter III. The Cossacks stationed at the fortress defect to the forces of Pugachev, and he takes the fortress easily. He demands that Captain Mironov swear an oath of allegiance to him, and when refused, hangs the Captain and kills his wife. When it is Pyotr's turn, Shvabrin suddenly appears to have defected as well, and upon his advice Pugachev orders Pyotr to be hanged. However, his life is suddenly spared as Pugachev turns out to be the guide who rescued Pyotr from the blizzard, and he recognizes Pyotr whom he remembers with affection.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Sword_and_Wind_Child" title="Dragon Sword and Wind Child">
Saya is a young maiden who was adopted by an elderly couple who found her in the forest when she was an infant and raised to worship and revere the God of Light and his two immortal children, the passionate and fierce Princess Teruhi and the subdued and melancholic Prince Tsukishiro. As she comes of age, she catches the eye of Prince Tsukishiro and the people of Darkness, those who continue to reincarnate and do not fear death.Tsukishiro, enchanted by Saya's beauty, invites her to become one of his handmaidens at the Palace of Light where he and his sister reside. Before she leaves, she discovers from the People of Darkness that she is latest reincarnation of the Water Maiden, the Princess of the People of Darkness and a priestess capable of stilling the Dragon Sword, a weapon that contains the rage of the Fire God when he was killed by his father, the God of Light, for burning his mother, the Goddess of Darkness, to death. The Dragon Sword and the Water Maiden are linked and the sword is the only weapon which can slay a Child of Light. It is this aspect, Saya discovers, of her that intrigues and attracts Tsukishiro and infuriates and causes Teruhi to despise her since she resembles her previous reincarnation, the Princess Sayura.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meaning_of_Night" title="The Meaning of Night">
Beginning on a cold October night in 1854 in a dark passageway, the book's narrator tracks an innocent man whom he does not know and stabs him to death. The protagonist/narrator, Edward Glyver, then takes the reader back, recounting as a confession his tale of deceit, love, and revenge. Glyver reveals the torment he has suffered at the hands of his rival, the poet-criminal Phoebus Rainsford Daunt, and why in pursuit of revenge Glyver (now masquerading as Edward Glapthorn), a book lover and scholar, has turned to murder. The story moves between the foggy London streets and the enchanting country manor house Evenwood where Daunt spent his formative years, a place with which Glyver finds he has a special connection. "The Glass of Time", the follow-up novel to "The Meaning of Night", further examines the consequences of Edward Glyver's crime, in a setting twenty years after "The Meaning of Night".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You're_Different_and_That's_Super" title="You're Different and That's Super">
Carson Kressley tells the story of a one-of-a-kind pony who learns that it's our differences that make us "super." Whimsical black-and-white illustrations from renowned equine artist Jared Lee corral humor and charm in a tale of a unicorn struggling to find his identity and place in the world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Give_a_Mouse_a_Cookie" title="If You Give a Mouse a Cookie">
The entire story is told in second person. A boy named Oliver gives a cookie to a mouse named Quinley . The mouse asks for a glass of milk. He then requests a straw (to drink the milk), a mirror (to avoid a milk mustache), nail scissors (to trim his hair in the mirror), and a broom (to sweep up his hair trimmings). Next, he wants to take a nap, have a story read to him, draw a picture, and hang the drawing on the refrigerator. Looking at the refrigerator makes him thirsty, so the mouse asks for a glass of milk. The circle is complete when he wants a cookie to go with it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(novel)" title="Jubilee (novel)">
"Jubilee" is the semi-fictional story of Vyry Brown, based on the life of author Margaret Walker's great-grandmother, Margaret Duggans Ware Brown. Vyry Brown is a mixed-race slave—the unacknowledged daughter of her master—who is born on the Dutton plantation in Georgia. The novel follows her experiences from early childhood to adult life.The story of Vyry's life in the novel spans three major periods of American history: Slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_on_a_Treasure_Island" title="Five on a Treasure Island">
When siblings Julian, Dick and Anne cannot go for their usual summer holiday to Polseath, they are invited to spend the summer with their Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin at their home Kirrin Cottage, in the coastal village of Kirrin. They also meet their cousin Georgina, a surly, difficult girl, who tries hard to live like a boy and only answers to the name George. Despite an uncomfortable start, the cousins become firm friends and George introduces them to her beloved dog Timothy (Timmy), who secretly lives with the fisher boy, Alf, in the village as George's parents will not allow her to keep Timmy.On their way to Kirrin Island, George shows her cousins a shipwreck, explaining it was her great-great-great grandfather's ship. He had been transporting gold when the ship was wrecked in a storm, but despite divers investigating the wreck, the gold was never found. After visiting the wreck, the five arrive on the Island and are exploring the ruined castle when a huge storm blows up, making it too dangerous for them to return to the mainland. While they take shelter on the island, the sea throws up the old shipwreck, grounding it on the rocks surrounding the island. Excited by these developments, they decide to come back at dawn the next day to investigate the wreck before it is discovered.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Doomsday" title="After Doomsday">
The novel explores events after the destruction of Earth, from the point of view of two returning starship crews, one entirely made up of men, the other consisting entirely of women.The story is set in the early 21st century. Even as the Cold War dragged on, Earth has been suddenly contacted by the Monwaingi space-faring culture. The technology of interstellar travel is spreading across the galaxy, disrupting one culture after another. Monwaing itself was contacted only a few centuries previously. Another culture, the Vorlak, underwent a transition from a stable planetary society to a warlord culture similar to the Japanese Shogunate. The nomadic Kandemirian culture became a hegemonistic one similar to the Mongol Empire. Earth found itself on the fringes of a conflict between Kandemir and a coalition led by Vorlak, with Monwaing on the sidelines, actively supporting the anti-Kandemir forces.There is a lingua franca called "Uru", which bonds the diverse cultures together. The original speakers of the language may have also initiated the spread of interstellar technology, but the language seems to have outlived, or at least outstripped its originators.In the 20 years since contact, several expeditions have set out, some in borrowed ships, some in ships built on Earth. The ship "USS Benjamin Franklin", with an all-male crew, set out to visit the core of the Milky Way — actually an unusual quest by the stodgy standards of the typical galactic culture. Another ship has gone as far as the Magellanic Clouds. The pan-European expedition in the ship "Europa", crewed entirely by women, has roamed far outside the local group of cultures. The star-drive technology allows journeys of tens of thousands of parsecs in mere months. In spite of this, most cultures are "stay-at-homes" compared to humans, interacting only with the local group of cultures, known as a "cluster".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babyji" title="Babyji">
Sixteen-year-old Anamika Sharma is a bright young student aware of her privileged position within Indian society. Head Prefect at her school, she aspires to graduate with excellent grades so as to be able to go on to college in the United States to study physics. Anamika is confident that she will be able to get in, but feels conflicted about contributing to the country's brain drain; ultimately, she concludes that it would be best to return to her native country after the completion of her studies to contribute to the modernization of traditional Indian society and breaking down the rigid caste system.The novel is set against the backdrop of the protests against the recommendations of the Mandal commission, which trigger several acts of self-immolation. In particular, classes are suspended for weeks on end, and Anamika finds more time than usual to pursue her private interests.She spends much of her time with Tripta Adhikari, a free-thinking divorced lady about twice her age whom she calls "India". India is a wealthy academic who lives in Anamika's neighbourhood, and occasionally Anamika sneaks out of the house when her parents have already gone to bed to spend the night with her new-found friend. Mr and Mrs Sharma know about Tripta Adhikari but naturally assume that the latter has a maternal relationship with their daughter, while India herself knows very well that what she is doing amounts to statutory rape. Anamika's parents even let her go on a short holiday to Kasauli with India and two of her friends.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Girls" title="Dead Girls">
Ignatz Zwakh, former escort of assassin Primavera Bobinski, is tracked down in Thailand by the half-robotic Pikadon Twins, with a demand from Primavera's half-robot boss Madame Kito that Ignatz return to the Big Weird to work with Primavera. Primavera is a Lilim - a vampiric living dead girl.Ignatz returns to Nana, Bangkok, and is reunited with Primavera. They go to a restaurant that uses gynoids to mimic the English vogue of killing Lilim. The Cartier automata were invented by a Dr Toxicophilous with robotic consciousness that harnessed 'quantum magic', and this quantum-mechanical seat of consciousness is situated in the womb of their descendants, the Lilim. The pair are in the restaurant on a job from Madame Kito, but while Primavera is engaged in assassinating one of Kito's rivals Ignatz is rendered unconscious.Ignatz and Primavera, now captured and rendered unconscious with a special girdle around her "umbilicus" (navel), are taken by Jack Morgenstern to the American Embassy, where they are locked up.Jack Morgenstern reveals that the British government want Primavera and Ignatz returned to them, and Kito has betrayed them to the Americans. Morgenstern questions Ignatz regarding the amount of Lilim escapees from the supposedly quarantined London, but gets no response to his theory that one of the surviving original Cartier dolls called Titania is organising the breakouts. Primavera uses her quantum magic to telepathically induce her guard to release her from her umbilicus girdle, then physically smashes through the wall of her prison, allowing herself and Ignatz to escape by jumping into the river below. Due to the umbilical girdle Primavera's quantum matrix has been infected by hostile nanobots which are inhibiting her full use of quantum magic and are slowly destroying her. Primavera believes that Kito has been blackmailed into betraying them. Primavera and Ignatz leave Nana by boat.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Young_Visiters" title="The Young Visiters">
Alfred Salteena, an "elderly man of 42", has invited 17-year-old Ethel Monticue to stay with him. They receive an invitation to visit Alfred's friend, Bernard Clark, which they readily accept. Bernard is "inclined to be rich". Shortly after their arrival, Ethel and Bernard become attracted to each other.Alfred seeks Bernard's advice on how to become a gentleman. Bernard is doubtful that this can be managed, but writes an introduction to his friend the Earl of Clincham. Alfred excitedly rushes off to London to visit the Earl, leaving Ethel alone and unchaperoned with Bernard.Lord Clincham lives, as many other aristocrats do, in "compartements" at the Crystal Palace. He agrees to assist Alfred and instals him in a subterranean "compartement", along with other "apprentice gentlemen". He invites Alfred to accompany him to a reception hosted by the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII), introducing Salteena as Lord Hyssops. The Prince is impressed, and promises to assist the trembling and overjoyed Salteena.Bernard and Ethel fall in love and marry. Devastated by these events, Salteena marries a maid-in-waiting at Buckingham Palace. Lord Clincham also marries, but not very happily.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flight_to_Lucifer" title="The Flight to Lucifer">
Thomas Perscors ("through fire"), an incarnation of Primal Man, is taken from Earth to the planet Lucifer by Seth Valentinus, a reincarnation of the gnostic theologian Valentinus. Their guide is Olam, who is an Aeon, an emanation of the true god. Lucifer is controlled by "Saklas", which is a Gnostic name for the false creator. Olam has brought Perscors to Lucifer to fight Saklas, and has brought Valentinus so he can remember his true self. Perscors cripples Saklas and changes the order of things across all of Lucifer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_List_of_Seven" title="The List of Seven">
Christmas Day 1884. Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle is invited to a seance where two people are apparently murdered. Doyle is saved by Armond Sacker, apparently a professor of Antiquities at Cambridge University. Doyle contacts Claude Leboux, a friend and Scotland Yard Inspector to investigate, but the house where the seance took place has been redecorated. Doyle gets a note from Helena Petrovna Blavatsky inviting him to a speech in Cambridge. He goes to Cambridge, unsuccessfully tries to track down Sacker, and then Doyle attends Blavatsky's talk, and speaks with her afterwards. She warns him of dark spirits and after a meal he is attacked and is rescued by "Professor Sacker" for a second time who turns out to be Jack Sparks, Special Agent to the Crown. They head to Topping to the estate of one of the attendees at the seance, but find that it has become a madhouse. They find a clue to go to a publishing house called Rathbourne &amp; Sons in London. On the journey back to London, Jack reveals that his brother Alexander may be the mastermind behind all their troubles. Jack thinks the attacks on Doyle are prompted by a manuscript that Doyle submitted to Rathbourne &amp; Sons. When they get to the publishing house they find a list of the board of directors - the titular “List of Seven”. A secret trapdoor leads them via an aqueduct to a storage room in the British Museum, which has had many statues stolen from it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridges" title="London Bridges">
A terrorist by the alias of "The Wolf" engages Alex Cross' old enemy, Col. Geoffrey Shafer, aka The Weasel, to assist him in a grand plan of worldwide terrorist attacks designed to get humanity's attention. After a town in the Southwestern United States is blown up, the FBI's Alex Cross is assigned to the case despite being on vacation to visit his son Alex Jr. in Seattle and his girlfriend Jamilla Hughes in San Francisco. Alex is at a crossroads in his family and personal life.What follows next is a long cat and mouse chase in which politics, communication, and ego take center-stage. The Wolf is ruthless enough to draw in even the most unwilling into his plans and never fails to make a point. His opponents are locked in deep wrangling and indecision. It is up to Alex Cross to make the connections and chase The Wolf and The Weasel across America and Europe at the risk of his life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_of_Delirium" title="Line of Delirium">
The first novel, "Line of Delirium", takes place decades after a devastating interstellar conflict — the Vague War. While the reason for and details of the war remain largely unexplained, it is clear that almost every alien race was at some point involved in hostilities with the humans. The war was going badly for Earth, until two Earth officers decided to take matters into their own hands. Disobeying orders, they turned their fleet and headed for Earth, demanding the government's surrender. One of the officers, a man named Grey, established the Human Empire and became the emperor. His co-conspirator Lemak became the supreme commander of all human forces. While it is not exactly clear how the tide was turned, it is known that all races opposing the new empire were eventually beaten. Two of which, the cyborg Meklar and the ursine Bulrathi formed a subsequent pact with the humans — the Trinary Alliance, creating a nearly unbeatable force (humans excel at ship-to-ship combat, Meklar are master engineers, and Bulrathi are superb ground combatants).Close to the end of the war, a man named Curtis van Curtis acquires an alien device he calls "aTan" (from "athanatos", "immortal" [Greek: "Αθάνατος", literally, "without death"] ) giving immortality to anyone who can afford it. He formed the aTan company, which quickly became almost as powerful as the Human Empire (as some characters in the novel call it, "an empire within an empire"). The secret of the device is coveted by many, as the aTan company holds exclusive rights, with Emperor Grey's grudging approval (in exchange he gets free reincarnations).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorcerer's_Son" title="Sorcerer's Son">
Spurned by a rejected offer of marriage, the demon sorcerer Smada Rezhyk begins imagining that the sorceress Lady Delivev Ormoru of Castle Spinweb is plotting to bring him down. He sends his most faithful demon servant, Gildrum, to take the form of a handsome knight, who has been injured in battle and comes to Castle Spinweb for refuge with the plan to impregnate Delivev with a child. For this purpose, Rezhyk gives the demon his seed; once Delivev is with child, Rezhyk imagines that he has eleven days to prepare his defenses until Delivev discovers the weakening of her powers and aborts the child. What he does not imagine is that the sorceress will not abort her son, or that his faithful demon servant will fall in love with his mortal enemy. Once the son, Cray Ormoru, reaches maturity, he starts on a journey as a knight to discover what became of his mysterious father.Cray gains a few clues to the real identity of his father; he eventually realizes that he will be unable to complete his quest as a knight. Consequently, he decides to take up an apprenticeship as a sorcerer instead, following in his mother's footsteps. Rezhyk volunteers to play the role of master to Cray, but secretly seeks to sabotage his magical education. Cray is discouraged, although this turns to anger when Gildrum reveals Rezhyk's falsehood. Gildrum secretly teaches Cray demon summoning. He learns that Rezhyk is his father and abandons his apprenticeship; Rezhyk tires of his duplicity and orders Cray's death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Oceans" title="Black Oceans">
The main character, Nicholas Hunt, is an American politician and lobbyist, closely involved with some branches of secret military research including paranormal activities. He is not a hero: as Dukaj himself describes him, he is "a cynical, egoistic bureaucrat, whose main motivation for all of his decisions in his job is, it seems, covering his ass". Currently he has lost an internal power struggle and is assigned to oversee what seems like a dead-end, low-key project. Soon, however, his project starts to gain more importance, as scientists explore some promising theories from the borders of memetics and telepathy, including study of potential lifeforms that would use memes just as we use genes, and develop new sciences like "psychomemetics".Suddenly a strange cataclysm takes place, with millions of people worldwide going insane and many densely populated areas becoming a 'no-go' zone. Nicholas Hunt is not sure if this is an alien invasion, a result of military or corporate experiment, anew step in human evolution, or the result of the transformation into a post-technological singularity world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Palace_(novel)" title="The Crystal Palace (novel)">
Sorcerer Cray Ormoru and his friend, the seer Feldar Sepwin, craft an enchanted mirror that allows whoever gazes upon it to see their heart's desire. For Cray himself, the mirror remains blank for many years, until one day he sees in it the image of a young girl. With no idea of who she is, he watches the girl transform into a lovely woman over the years, and Cray realizes that he is destined to find her. When he does, he learns that this is Aliza, a sorceress who lives in a crystal palace which is partly within the demon realm and who is dedicated solely to the study of her craft.Cray finds Aliza to be a skilled young sorceress, but also cold, aloof, and entirely focused on sorcery. Cray encourages her to take an interest in the outside world and forms a budding friendship. However, this friendship is strongly discouraged by Aliza's sorcerer grandfather, Everand. Despite Everand's disapproval, Aliza and Cray travel to the demon realm and also to the home of Cray's sorceress mother, Delivev. During this latter journey, Aliza looks into the mirror of heart's desire and causes it to shatter. This causes some initial confusion, but it is quickly revealed this is because Aliza's soul has been stolen from her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_Venus_(novel)" title="The Birth of Venus (novel)">
A young Florentine girl, Alessandra Cecchi, is drawn to a young painter commissioned to paint the family's chapel walls. The painter is brought to her home by her father, a rich textile merchant whose business would be negatively affected by the rise of Girolamo Savonarola in Florence over the next few years. The book follows Alessandra's daily life, and is written in the first person, as a memoir written by Alessandra late in her life. Her passion for painting and learning serve her well, but her family does not approve. Her mother tries her hardest to shape Alessandra into a woman who will be desired by a successful and powerful man. Eventually, after Alessandra has met the painter, but before her feelings for him and his talent have made themselves known to her, her hateful brother Tomaso suggests strong but quiet Cristoforo Langella as a potential husband for her. She marries him shortly afterward.Meanwhile, her attraction to the painter grows, as does her affection for her husband Cristoforo. Alessandra's observations of the political turbulence in Florence are key to the storyline. Dunant captures the personal conflict felt by Alessandra - she feels torn between Savonarola's fiery message and her own ideas. She believes she knows what is right, but doesn't know what she will do about it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Class_(Erich_Segal_novel)" title="The Class (Erich Segal novel)">
"The Class" follows the diverse fates of five members of Harvard's Class of 1958, recounting the way their lives intertwine, and coming to a dramatic conclusion at their class reunion, twenty-five years later.Andrew Eliot comes from the Boston Brahmin Eliot family. Due to his background, he feels the pressure of high expectations, which causes him to suffer from lack of confidence. He is otherwise laid-back and friendly, and a good friend to all his classmates. To experience life without privilege and to fulfill his military obligation, he serves in the navy as an ordinary swabbie. After his military service, he enters an ill-fated marriage to the daughter of one of his father's classmates and takes up a career in investment banking. Unfortunately, his wife is a serial adultress and alcoholic and demands a divorce, leaving him estranged from his own son and daughter, with limited visitation after his wife places both in boarding school at the age of 9 and 6, denying him custodial rights and frustrating his attempts to give them a home life. He has an interest in his family's history during the American Revolution, which in turn leads to him following his conscience and helping organize the Moratorium Day protests on Wall Street.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_on_Lily_Street" title="The House on Lily Street">
A police detective investigates the murder of a solipsistic social worker who had sought the identity of the mysterious "Mr. Big", an extortionist who threatens welfare cheats with exposure unless he is paid off.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphibian_Man" title="Amphibian Man">
Argentinean doctor Salvator, a scientist and a maverick surgeon, gives his son, Ichthyander (, Ikhtiandr) (Greek etymology: "Fish"+ "Man") a life-saving transplant - a set of shark gills. The experiment is a success but it limits the young man's ability to interact with the world outside his ocean environment. He has to spend much of his time in water. Pedro Zurita, a local pearl gatherer, learns about Ichthyander and tries to exploit the boy's superhuman diving abilities.Similar to other works by Beliaev, the book investigates the possibilities of physical survival under extreme conditions, as well as the moral integrity of scientific experiments. It also touches on socialist ideas of improving living conditions for the world's poor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encounters_with_the_Archdruid" title="Encounters with the Archdruid">
While notionally a profile of Brower, "Encounters" is broken into three sections. The first chronicles Brower's conflict with Charles Park, a mineral engineer hoping to find and exploit mineral reserves in Glacier Peak Wilderness. Charles Park is portrayed as calculating and pragmatic, unwilling to foreclose real economic value from current generations in order to leave the environment pristine for future generations. This pragmatic view was starkly contrasted with Brower's insistence that "I believe in wilderness for itself alone". McPhee facilitates or observes the dialogue between these two contrasted figures as he does for the other two sections in the book.The second section introduces Charles Fraser, a real estate developer in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Fraser's characterization of environmentalists as modern druids who "worship trees and sacrifice human beings to those trees" provides the charge against Brower that forms the title of the book. Brower came to Georgia in order to stop Fraser's plan to develop Cumberland Island. Like Park, Fraser is depicted as nuanced and pragmatic: his vision of development is controlled and regulated land use. Fraser's development of Hilton Head Island is still considered a model for planned development and McPhee notes that Fraser considers himself a true conservationist. Brower would eventually win this battle, with a groundswell of opposition forcing Fraser to sell his development on Cumberland Island to the National Park Foundation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Control_of_Nature" title="The Control of Nature">
The book begins by describing how the Atchafalaya River drains 30 percent of the Mississippi River at its source 300 miles upriver from New Orleans. Thanks to its steeper gradient and more direct route, the Atchafalaya seeks to change the course of the Mississippi as has happened in its long geological history. Due to the Mississippi's vital importance to industry, the Army Corps of Engineers constructed a control structure at the Atchafalaya's source to prevent this from occurring and to maintain the 30 percent drainage. McPhee explains how Morgan City, Louisiana would be destroyed if the river's banks increase. Three million cubic feet of water would inundate the town in the case of a hundred-year flood, though the Corps of Engineers has been trying its hardest to build a more stable flood structure.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skystone" title="The Skystone">
The book begins with Publius Varrus laying its framework: he is retelling his history and the history of the Roman withdrawal from Britain. He then begins by talking about an ambush by Celts where he and Caius Britannicus are injured. While thinking about his time spent with Britannicus recovering from these injuries, his thoughts lead to their meeting: Britannicus had been a captive of Berbers and Varrus freed him from them. After this encounter Varrus recalls how he and Britannicus traveled together to Britain to become "primus pilus" and legate, respectively, of Legion XX Valeria Victrix's Second Millarian Cohort.While they are in command of this unit, Hadrian's wall is overcome by a horde of Picts and other Celtic Tribes. The unit spends a year and a half fighting their way back to Roman Controlled Britain. Outside of Londinium they encounter a legion from the army of Theodosius.After Varrus recovers from his injuries, he returns to Colchester, the location of his birth. When he returns he finds that his boyhood friend, and his grandfather's helper, Equus had ensured that his grandfather's smithy was not devoid of tools. Varrus begins to run the business again, striking deals with Cuno, Equus's brother-in-law. Varrus also gains several contracts with the local legion, because his swords use a higher quality of iron than the other local suppliers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strands_of_Starlight" title="Strands of Starlight">
The protagonist of Strands of Starlight is Miriam, a young woman living a fugitive life in the fictional land of Adria, which is set in medieval Western Europe circa 1350. She has a mysterious gift of healing and suffers persecution because of it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Lucy_Gault" title="The Story of Lucy Gault">
It begins with Lucy, on a night in 1921. She is the only child of an Anglo-Irish land owner on the coast of County Cork. It starts during the Irish War of Independence, when Loyalist Protestant landowners caught in the battle between the IRA and the British army had their houses burned. The place is under martial law and Captain Gault is disturbed by young arsonists from the nearby village. When he fires a warning shot with his old rifle, he injures a boy in the shoulder. Out of fear, the family plans to move to England. Lucy is not told why her family wishes to move and longs for the house she was kept from and the sea close by. On the eve of their departure, she hides in the woods. Due to a series of events, her parents are led to believe that she drowned in the sea.By the time she is discovered, her parents are gone. She thus gets what she wished for, to live in the house, being taken care of by the house servants turned caretaker-farmers. Lucy lives a very lonely life, reading books and keeping bees. She feels very guilty about running away and thus feels that she deserves her loneliness. When another character, Ralph, tries to relieve her of her sad life, she feels that she cannot let him love her without, one of the characters opines, getting forgiveness from her parents. Her father returns after the Second World War, having spent the previous years in Italy and Switzerland, too late to salvage her happiness. They settle into an uneasy companionship, with too much unspoken.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_of_the_Ivory_Charm" title="The Mystery of the Ivory Charm">
The plot finds Nancy, Bess, and George investigating a mysterious boy from India. The boy, Coya, works for a traveling circus, and is treated poorly by his guardian, Rai, also a native of India, who is in charge of the circus. Coya runs away from his abusive guardian and seeks asylum at the Drew home in River Heights. Soon after his arrival, the girls begin investigating property owned by the unusual Miss Anita Allison. They encounter a house "with no insides," and a hidden tunnel. The property mysteriously catches fire, revealing a hidden cache of jewels. Nancy traces Coya's parentage and uncovers a sinister kidnapping plot involving both Miss Allison and Rai. The climax also reveals a secret about the ivory charm, and its mysterious powers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owls_in_the_Family" title="Owls in the Family">
Billy is a boy who resides in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan who brings home numerous animals and spends time with his two best friends, Bruce and Murray. Billy winds up finding two great horned owls, which join his larger pet collection. The first bird, Wol, is larger and lighter in colour with a bold personality and was found by Billy and his friends under a bush after a storm. Soon afterward, Billy finds Weeps, a smaller mottled brown owl in a barrel filled with oil. When Billy witnesses children throwing stones at Weeps, who is unable to fly, he trades his scout knife for him. Unlike Wol, Weeps has an anxious disposition and sits on the handlebars of Billy's bicycle due to his inability to fly.Billy has a number of adventures with Wol and Weeps, including tough times and happy moments. When Billy and his family move to Toronto, Ontario, he entrusts the owls to Bruce.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_of_the_Idols" title="Twilight of the Idols">
Nietzsche criticizes German culture of the day as unsophisticated, decadent and nihilistic, and shoots some disapproving arrows at key French, British, and Italian cultural figures who represent similar tendencies. In contrast to all these alleged representatives of cultural decadence, Nietzsche applauds Caesar, Napoleon, Goethe, Thucydides and the Sophists as healthier and stronger types. The book states the transvaluation of all values as Nietzsche's final and most important project, and gives a view of antiquity wherein the Romans for once take precedence over the ancient Greeks, albeit only in the field of literature.The book is divided into twelve sections:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_You_Want_to_Be_President?" title="So You Want to Be President?">
The book details the lives, history, and personalities about past Presidents of the United States, followed by information about the different backgrounds some Presidents have shared. Each page describes facts about some Presidents including military backgrounds, former job positions, other offices held, hobbies, lifestyles, and popularity. It also mentions some of the more notable accomplishments of former Presidents including The Louisiana Purchase, soup kitchens, job creations, and the creation of the Peace Corps. The book ends with a change of tone and an illustration of a silhouette of an unidentified president who is taking the Oath of office, complemented by a crowd of hands waving miniature American Flags.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flying_Trunk" title="The Flying Trunk">
A young man squanders his inheritance until he has nothing left but a few shillings, a pair of slippers, and an old dressing-gown. A friend sends him a trunk with directions to pack up and be off. Having nothing to pack, he gets into the trunk himself. The trunk is enchanted and carries him to the land of the Turks. He uses the trunk to visit the sultan's daughter, who is kept in a tower because of a prophecy that her marriage would be unhappy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Hunters_(comic)" title="Treasure Hunters (comic)">
## The Gate of Atheia.Thorn, the Bone cousins, and Gran'ma Ben reach Atheia at last, and find the city crammed with refugees. A young girl named Taneal gives Thorn a tiny prayer stone. Phoney and Smiley sneak Bartleby into the city in a hay wagon stolen from an innocent farmer. Later, Gran'ma Ben takes Thorn and the Bones to meet her teacher, who runs a rooftop kitchen in the city.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maze_of_Moonlight" title="Maze of Moonlight">
The protagonist of "Maze of Moonlight" is Christopher delAurvre, Baron of Aurverelle and grandson of Roger delAurvre. The story picks up two generations after the end of "Strands of Starlight" during the time of the Western Schism. Christopher has been away on the Crusade of Nicopolis of 1396 CE.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Shadow" title="Shroud of Shadow">
The protagonist of Shroud of Shadow is Natil the elf. Introduced in "Strands of Starlight" as a minor character and developed more in "Maze of Moonlight", she has returned to Adria from wandering the earth looking for Elves. All of the other Elves introduced in the previous two books have died or faded in some manner, though only Varden, Terrill, and Mirya's fates are specifically described. This story takes place in 1500 CE, about a century after "Maze of Moonlight", though it is intercut with scenes of 1990's Denver, Colorado, United States, where two people are experiencing the awakening of Elven blood.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strands_of_Sunlight" title="Strands of Sunlight">
The principal protagonist in "Strands of Sunlight" is Natil the elf, though its multiple narratives follow several important secondary characters. The story takes place in 1990's Denver, USA. It concerns several humans who have had ancient Elven blood in their veins awaken and begin making them Elves.There are seventeen Elves in Denver when the story starts, though only 15 are named: Natil, Hadden, Wheat, Marsh, Kelly, Bright, Lauri, Raven, Heather, Ash, Web, Fox, Dell, Alessandro, and Tristan. Two humans also figure heavily in the story line: Sandy Joy, an abuse survivor from Los Angeles, and T.K., a black military veteran missing a leg.The story follows three major arcs: Natil trying to guide the new Elves in what it means to be an Elf; Sandy Joy's search for safety and acceptance; and T.K.'s search for hope and a sense of belonging.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Best_Families" title="In the Best Families">
A wealthy wife hires Nero Wolfe to learn the source of her husband's mysterious income. In short order, Arnold Zeck horns in, the wife is murdered, and Wolfe disappears.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Early_Life" title="My Early Life">
The book begins by describing his childhood and schooldays, and provides context for the earlier published accounts of events in his early life. He describes his large collection of toy soldiers, his usually unsuccessful experiences in school, and how his family decided his path in life was to join the army as an officer.He describes how he became proficient in writing and speaking English, as he has three terms of a course under an excellent teacher of English; had he been a more successful student by the standards of schools of his youth, he would have learned Latin and Greek instead. That part of his education proved fruitful when he began to write for newspapers and speak in public, gaining praise for his efforts. He was saddened by the early death of his father, not having the opportunity to have an adult relationship with him. Otherwise, his characteristic optimism carries him through every experience of his life, allowing him to see events that at first seemed a misfortune as changing his path in life to one with a later success.Harrow School prepared him to attend Sandhurst and become an officer in the army, specifically in a cavalry unit. He was an avid polo player in his years as an army officer. Once out of formal schooling, he was eager for experiences, taking every opportunity to be where the action was. He was an observer in Cuba as Spain fought the rebels there and that same itch for experience brought him to the battles at the frontier of India (an area now in Pakistan), and brought him to South Africa.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M/F" title="M/F">
From the blurb of Cape's first edition: 'The situation as far as I'm concerned,' says the young-narrator-hero of "MF", 'is an interesting one. In two days in a strange country I've acquired a mother in the form of a Welsh-speaking Bird Queen who scares me. I've spent some hours in prison, I've discovered the works of an unknown superlative artist in a garden shed and I've been shot at by a riddling lion-faced expert on Bishop Berkeley. Most interesting of all I'm due tonight to be married by a circus clown to my own sister.' Almost twenty-one, a college throw-out, Miles Faber embarks on a defiant pilgrimage across the Caribbean. His destination: the shrine of Sib Legeru, Castitian poet and painter. In the streets of Castita's capital, gay with a religious festival, a series of bizarre revelations await him: his obscene double, the son of a circus sorceress Aderyn the Bird Queen, and a sister-plump fellow offspring of his father's incestuous union. Unspeakable crimes of blood and lust are perpetrated against both before Miles, solving the final riddle, wakes-like Oedipus to find himself a willing victim of the machinations of dynastic destiny.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Mulligan_and_His_Steam_Shovel" title="Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel">
After many years working together, Mike and his coal-powered steam shovel Mary Anne (whose name is a reference to the Marion Power Shovel Company) face competition from more modern gasoline, electric, and diesel shovels. Searching for work, they find a small town about to build a new town hall. Mike offers that if he and Mary Anne can't do the job in a single day, the town won't have to pay them. The town's selectmenwho believe the work would take a hundred men a weekhire Mike and Mary Anne, expecting to get their new cellar at no cost. Privately, even Mike has some doubts.At sunup the next day Mike and Mary Anne begin work. When sundown comes they have just finished the job, but realize they have neglected to leave a ramp by which Mary Anne can get out of the cellar. A child suggests that Mary Anne be converted to a boiler for the new building's heating system, and that Mike become its janitor. Mike and Mary Anne settle contentedly into their new jobs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_of_the_Basset" title="Voyage of the Basset">
Miranda is sixteen and concerned with being sensible, while Cassandra, nine years and eleven months, likes and believes in magical things. Miranda is outnumbered in this family, because Professor Aisling lectures on mythology and legends at his university, and believes in mysterious and magical things too.But some of the members of the university think that it is nonsense to teach about myths and legends, because magical and mysterious things cannot be dissected, weighed and measured. One member in particular, Mr. Bilgewallow, takes delight in tormenting Professor Aisling, who wishes, and dreams, of a ship that would take him to the worlds where he might find the creatures of legend.One evening, his wish comes true. As he and his daughters walk along the river, they come across a curious little ship, with a crew of dwarfs and gremlins. One of the dwarfs introduces himself as Malachi, captain of H.M.S. "Basset". He says that it is Professor Aisling's ship, conjured from his wishes and ready to sail on the "tides of inspiration". Aisling is astonished and delighted, and he and Cassandra waste no time in going aboard. Miranda needs a bit more coaxing.The Aislings set sail on a magical voyage where they meet a number of creatures from mythology that join them on board the ship. Their first stop is the island of fairies, where the crew are approached by Oberon and Titania, who present them gifts to help them on their journey. The manticore, who guarded the entrance of the fairy king and queen, joins them along with the sphinx, who Cassandra thinks they both love each other. The crew next include among them the harpies, who take over the galley, the minotaur and a dryad, complete with a tree. Disaster strikes when Aisling becomes distracted by the potential of bringing back measurable proof for Bilgewallow and his ilk, which is a dragon skull he steals from Skotos, who lives on the island of the trolls. He also insists on bringing the lovely but deadly Medusa on board, with predictable results for one of the crew. But through the help of his daughters and Medusa, he recovers his belief and his balance, as all of them must unite against the evil trolls, who pursue him. They visit the island, where the Wonderful College of Magical Knowledge is to find out how to change Sebastian back from stone to normal. They find out that a unicorn can break the curse, so they set off to the island, where the ogre Olaf is having his birthday. They give him a deck of cards as a present, and then Olaf leads them to the forest, where Miranda dresses in a beautiful dress to call upon the unicorn, who changes Sebastian back to normal. They are attacked by the trolls, who seek revenge on professor Aisling for stealing their dragon skull. The trolls are defeated by a dragon, who burns their leader Skotos. They head back to the island of fairies, where their victory is celebrated by King Oberon and Queen Titantia. King Oberon presents the dragon skull to Professor Ailsing, who instead gives it to the dragon, feeling there is no need to prove existence of magical creatures. The Professor seeks an island to leave all the magical creatures there and live together, who they say their sad goodbyes. Professor Aisling, Miranda, and Cassandra go home sad that they have to leave their friends but happy they have made them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_and_the_Spider_God" title="Conan and the Spider God">
Conan finds himself in the kingdom of Zamora, a fugitive under suspicion of kidnapping Jamilah, the queen of Turan. Discovering she has actually been captured by devotees of the Zamoran spider god Zath, he journeys into the city of Yezud (first mentioned in the Howard story "The People of the Black Circle") to rescue Jamilah. Incidentally, Conan steal some opals used as eyes in the god's temple image.Characteristically, de Camp's Conan is a more credible if less elemental figure than Howard's, carefully assessing the situation in Yezud and taking the time and effort to lay the groundwork for his foray rather than just barreling in swinging his sword.Chronologically, "Conan and the Spider God" comes between the short stories "The Curse of the Monolith" and "The Blood-Stained God".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_with_the_Golden_Arm_(novel)" title="The Man with the Golden Arm (novel)">
The events of the novel take place between 1946 and 1948, primarily on the Near Northwest Side of Chicago. The title character is Francis Majcinek, known as "Frankie Machine," a young man of about 30 who is a gifted card dealer and an amateur drummer. While serving in World War II, Frankie is treated for shrapnel in his liver and medicated with morphine. He develops an addiction to the drug, although initially in the story he believes he can control his habit.Frankie lives in a small apartment on Division Street in a Polish neighborhood with his wife, Sophie (nicknamed "Zosh"). Sophie has been using a wheelchair since a drunk-driving accident caused by Frankie (although the novel implies that her paralysis is psychological in nature). She spends most of her time looking out the window and watching the nearby elevated rail line. She takes out her frustrations by fighting with her husband, and she uses his guilt to keep him from leaving her. The turmoil in their relationship only spurs on his addiction.Frankie works nights dealing in backroom card games operated by "Zero" Schwiefka. He aspires to join the Musicians' Union and work with jazz drummer Gene Krupa, but this dream never materializes. His constant companion and protégé is Solly "Sparrow" Saltskin, a feeble-minded half-Jewish thief who specializes in stealing and selling dogs; Frankie gets Sparrow a job as a "steerer," watching the door to the card games and drawing in gamblers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_City_(novel)" title="The Magic City (novel)">
After Philip's older sister and sole family member Helen marries, he goes off to live with Helen's new step daughter Lucy. He has trouble adjusting at first, thrown into the world different from his previous life and abandoned by his sister while she is on her honeymoon. To entertain himself he builds a giant model city from things around the house: game pieces, books, blocks, bowls, etc. Then, through some magic, he finds himself inside the city, and it is alive with the people he has populated it with. Some soldiers find him and tell him that two outsiders have been foretold to be coming: a Deliverer and a Destroyer. Mr. Noah, from a Noah's Ark playset, tells Philip that there are seven great deeds to be performed if he wants to prove himself the Deliverer. Lucy, too, has found her way into the city and joins Philip as a co-Deliverer, much to his chagrin.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_and_Dance_Man" title="Song and Dance Man">
Three children visit their grandfather and have a wonderful time as he reminisces about his performances on stage. He tells stories of when he was a vaudeville song and dance man, when people did not sit in front of the television for hours. He leads the children to the attic, and finds his old bowler hat, gold-tipped cane, and tap shoes. He performs, telling jokes, dancing and singing, making the children laugh.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Eight_Bells_Toll" title="When Eight Bells Toll">
Five cargo ships have been hijacked in the Irish Sea; ships carrying vast quantities of precious stones and gold bullion. The crews later turn up, but the ships have disappeared. Clearly, the hijackers are getting impeccable intelligence. The British Secret Service, under Rear-Admiral Sir Arthur Arnford-Jason (known as "Uncle Arthur") has planted agents on the ships – but only the ship's masters know of their presence. When no word is received from the agents, Phillip Calvert (who narrates the story) and Hunslett are sent to investigate.They manage to track the latest hijacked ship – the "Nantesville", carrying £8 million in gold bullion – to the Scottish Highlands and the sleepy port town of Torbay on the Island of Torbay (patterned after Tobermory, on the Isle of Mull). Under cover of being marine biologists on a UNESCO project, they travel in the Firecrest, an outwardly normal but very specially equipped motor launch. Calvert boards the ship under cover of night and finds that the two agents planted aboard have been murdered. His chief suspect is Cypriot shipping magnate Sir Anthony Skouros, whose luxury yacht, "Shangri-La", is also anchored in Torbay.Calvert barely escapes the murderous hijackers, and returns to his boat. But late at night, they are boarded by local police and plain-clothes men claiming to be customs officers seeking information on stolen chemicals. After the search and their departure, he finds the boat's well-concealed powerful radio to have been sabotaged.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prophecy_of_the_Stones" title="The Prophecy of the Stones">
The principal story follows three protagonists, named Jade, Opal, and Amber after the gemstones associated with them at birth, striving to overthrow the 'Council of Twelve' and 'Army of Darkness' that oppress the story's world. The trio first meet on their 14th birthdays, at the behest of their guardians, and discover a cipher, to investigate which they visit Jean Losserand, an explorer imprisoned for dissent, who directs them to the oracle 'Oonagh'. To reach her, the protagonists and their ally 'Adrien de Rivebel' lead an exodus into the realm 'Fairytale', where humans coexist with super-humans outside the council's rule. During the exodus, Opal is wounded, but is saved at the house of Adrien's friend, Owen d'Yrdahl. Following Opal's recovery, she accompanies Jade and Amber to Oonagh, who reveals that on the coming summer solstice will be a battle between the Army of Darkness and the Army of Light, and that they therefore must persuade Death to end her strike. Having done so, they rejoin the Army of Light, where Amber identifies its leader, called 'Elyador' ('Chosen One' in the story's fictional language), at his own arrival. Thereafter the three protagonists observe the battle alongside their principal antagonist, the Thirteenth Councillor. Upon perceiving the Army of Light in danger, the protagonists leap from the Councillor's tower, provoking a 'golden rain' to inspire the Army of Light, which thereupon destroys the Army of Darkness. This done, the victorious leaders discover a 'Seed of hope', which they plant to ensure their victory.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_13½_Lives_of_Captain_Bluebear" title="The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear">
"The 13 Lives of Captain Bluebear" follows the adventures of the character Bluebear in the first half of his 27 lives. The novel intersperses Bluebear's narrative with excerpts from "The Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs" by Professor Abdullah Nightingale, who bacterially transmits it into Bluebear's brain.The story is set in the fictional continent of Zamonia (location of several other novels by Walter Moers) on Earth before the "great descent" in which Zamonia and many other continents sink beneath the waves. Many of the creatures encountered by Bluebear in the novel are taken from myths, folktales, prehistory, and Moers' imagination, among them Gryphons, Maenads, Trolls, Yetis, and Pterodactyls. Nearing the end of the novel, the mythical city of Atlantis disappears from Earth, an event witnessed by Bluebear.The plot is supplemented by Moers' drawings of the characters interspersed throughout the book. These illustrations are done in a cartoonish style: Moers is a noted German cartoonist. While the drawings are colored in the German hardcover version, they remain in black-and-white in most other versions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Bloods_(novel)" title="Young Bloods (novel)">
The book begins with the birth of both men in 1769 - Arthur as a weak and puny baby, a third son, to a wealthy Anglo-Irish Protestant couple; Napoleone as a healthy second son to a Corsican couple fighting the French for independence.The story continues with the training of both youths as cadet officers, both encountering social and other difficulties thanks to their birth outside the mainland. Arthur's innate conservatism forms as a result of the Gordon riots and his realization that his Anglo-Irish Protestant lifestyle is dependent on maintaining the status quo. Napoleone, on the other hand, is even more of an outsider, a Corsican among Frenchmen, a quasi-noble among pre-revolutionary noblemen, and an impoverished young cadet among those with money to burn.Interestingly, both men are depicted as having a brief encounter with each other in the years prior to the French Revolution wherein Wellesley is sent to observe a demonstration that Napoleone's regiment is participating in. Such an encounter did not happen in actuality, though Wellesley, fluent in French, was sent to France on several occasions in his youth as an observer.The story ends approximately in 1796, with Arthur having been turned down by the family of his "inamorata" Kitty Pakenham because of his lack of prospects, and Napoleone, now called Napoleon Bonaparte, mounting a successful attack on Toulon.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Still_Life_with_Crows" title="Still Life with Crows">
Agent Pendergast visits Medicine Creek, Kansas after a gruesome murder occurs. With the help of local teenaged misfit Corrie Swanson, he continues to investigate as more citizens are killed. Pendergast is soon led to believe that the murderer must be a member of the community. He soon discovers that the murders are connected to an old curse.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Michael" title="Pan Michael">
## Chapters 1–5.Michael Volodyovski has retired to a monastery after the death of his betrothed, Anna Borzobogati. At Chenstohova. Kharlamp, an acquaintance, goes to see Andrei Kmita to get his help in persuading him to leave it. He and Zagloba make a journey to consult Yan and it is finally Zagloba who offers to speak to Volodyovski.Making his way to Warsaw, Zagloba meets his old friend, Hassling-Ketling, a Scot, who now resides in Warsaw after being adopted by a noble in Svyenta in Courland, who offers him a bed. Taking place is the Diet to elect a new King of which Prince Boguslav is a candidate and Zagloba is determined to raise support against the traitor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Robert_Smith_(author)" title="James Robert Smith (author)">
A remote Florida swamp has been targeted for theme park development, and the swamp's inhabitants are none too happy. It doesn't help that the residents are a colony of intelligent, prehistoric, dinosaur-like birds: terror birds. This flock of beasts has escaped the mass extinction that killed off the dinosaurs, relying on stealth, cunning, and killer instinct. The creatures have been living in secret.As the developers push to have the recently discovered animals exterminated, a billionaire rogue environmentalist steps in to protect these rare, predatory creatures. A naïve young Fish and Wildlife officer finds himself caught in between these two forces and finds conflict.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquistador_(novel)" title="Conquistador (novel)">
John Rolfe VI is an infantry captain who comes back from World War II with a war wound and few prospects, but in 1946 a radio he is rewiring malfunctions and creates a gateway to a parallel universe. This universe is one in which Alexander the Great lived a full lifespan, creating an empire that stretched from Iberia to the Indian subcontinent. In this world, the Macedonian Empire proved so strong and durable that it redirected the barbarian migrations of the Goths, Vandals, and others eastward towards China and the rest of the Far East. As a result, what remains of China is a hodgepodge of Indo-European dominated states, the Americas remain undiscovered by the Old World, and technology has barely progressed to a medieval level. Deciding to take advantage of the untapped resources that await in this different California, Rolfe gathers members of his infantry company to help him explore and develop this new world. Over the next 60 years, he builds a new nation, which he calls the Commonwealth of New Virginia.In 2009, two California fish and game officers, Tom Christiansen and Roy Tully, are trying to solve the mystery of how large numbers of pelts from endangered species are showing up. They finally deduce the secret of the gate to the parallel world, but before they can make the secret known to their superiors, they are kidnapped and permanently transported to New Virginia by Rolfe's granddaughter, Gate Security Agent Adrienne Rolfe (with whom Christiansen had been falling in love).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thief_Queen's_Daughter" title="The Thief Queen's Daughter">
Char the cook helps on the same ship that is assigned by the captain, husband of the Crossroad's Inn hostess, to look after Ven and uses this as an excuse to follow him every where and sharing in his adventurous life. He is Ven's best friend and shares a room with him in Hare Warren at the InnSaeli, a Gwadd, is naturally tiny and can speak to animals and plants. She can make flowers bloom and spring out of the ground.Clemency, more commonly known as Clem is the stewardess of mouse lodge ( the girl's dormitory) and the pastor's assistant in charge of the Spice Folk. She is also friends with Ven.Ida played a more than significant part in "The Floating Island" by closing the rover’s box. She's a skinny pick pocket with more potential then she lets out, living at the cross roads inn with more than a knack at solving the insolvable. She is known as an orphan but has a horrifying past and an even more horrifying mother. Ven, the new official reporter living at general ease takes himself and friends Clemency, Nick, Saeli, and Char, on one of his adventures to the Gated City. Saeli is kidnapped, and an unanticipated kindness shines through the grime of Ida and the whole group has a shock, an adventure, and a light at the end of the tunnel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kingdom_of_This_World" title="The Kingdom of This World">
## Prologue.The prologue to the novel is Carpentier's most often quoted text, in which he coins the term "lo real maravilloso" ("marvellous reality") in reference to seemingly miraculous occurrences in Latin America. Furthermore, his trip to Haiti in 1943 is recounted, as well as some of the research he did to gather facts for the novel. Carpentier also denounces the commonplace and formulaic instances of the marvellous that is found in surrealist novels due to its inorganic and false origins, as opposed to the natural magic that is found in Latin America.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Liberator" title="Conan the Liberator">
Following the events of the story "The Treasure of Tranicos", Conan joins a conspiracy of former comrades-in-arms to overthrow Numedides, the mad and tyrannical king of Aquilonia. As commander of the rebel forces, he has the prospect of becoming king himself if they succeed. However, Conan has not only Numedides' loyal troops, led by General Procas, to overcome, but the magic of an evil sorcerer named Thulandra Thuu.Chronologically, "Conan the Liberator" overlaps the events of the story "Wolves Beyond the Border", and is followed by the story "The Phoenix on the Sword".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_as_They_Are;_or,_The_Adventures_of_Caleb_Williams" title="Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams">
## Volume I.The main character, Caleb Williams is of humble birth, unusual for Godwin, since his characters are often persons of wealth and title. Caleb Williams, a poor, self-educated, orphaned young man, and the novel's first-person narrator, is recommended for a job on the estate of the wealthy Ferdinando Falkland. Although Falkland is generally a reserved and quiet master, he is also prone to sudden fits of rage. Concerned about his outbursts, Caleb asks Mr Collins, administrator of Falkland's estate, if he knows the cause of Falkland's odd temper.Collins proceeds to tell of Falkland's past, citing Falkland's long history of stressing reason over bloodshed. Falkland's neighbour, Barnabas Tyrrel, was a tyrannical master who oppressed and manipulated his tenants. Tyrrel became the enemy and competitor of Falkland, who was loved for his brave and generous demeanor. Falkland continually righted the many wrongs Tyrrel caused members of his household and his neighbours, which only elevated the community's respect and esteem for Falkland. He also saved Tyrrel's niece, Emily Melvile, from a fire, an act of heroism that caused Emily to fall in love with Falkland. The outraged Tyrrel kept Emily imprisoned in his estate, and had her arrested on false charges when she tried to escape. Emily's emotional distress at these events resulted in her falling ill and dying. The conflict between the two men came to a head when, at the funeral services for Emily, Tyrrel physically attacked Falkland. Tyrrel himself was found murdered shortly afterward. Although immediately considered a suspect in Tyrrel's murder, Falkland defended himself on the basis of his spotless reputation. Instead, two of Tyrrel's tenants were found with incriminating evidence, convicted of the murder, and hanged. Falkland's emotional state, Mr Collins explains, has been wavering ever since.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baksho_Rahashya_(novel)" title="Baksho Rahashya (novel)">
Private investigator Prodosh C. Mitter a.k.a. Feluda is approached by a rich businessman named Dinanath Lahiri who tasks Feluda with a seemingly simple case: while returning from Delhi via the Kalka Mail, Lahiri's attaché case inadvertently got exchanged with another passenger's bag. Lahiri wants Feluda to find the owner of the briefcase which he has right now, give the briefcase to him and bring back his original briefcase. After giving a detailed description of the rest of the passengers of his compartment, Lahiri leaves.The people, who were in Lahiri's compartment, are Naresh C. Pakrashi, an established businessman like Lahiri, Brijmohan Kedia, a businessman and the owner of his own company, and G. C. Dhameeja. After some careful searching, Feluda finds out that Lahiri's briefcase got exchanged with Dhameeja's briefcase. During this time, Feluda meets with Pakrashi and learns about the other two men in the train compartment i.e., Dhameeja and Kedia. That evening, Feluda and his cousin Tapesh Ranjan Mitter a.k.a. Topshe go to Lahiri's house and meet with Lahiri's cousin Prabeer Lahiri, a struggling actor who's obsessed with his own thin voice and who dislikes Lahiri. After telling everything to Lahiri, Lahiri decides that Feluda should go to Shimla, the place where Dhameeja lives, in order to exchange the briefcases. Feluda agrees to it. The duo return home, only to find Lalmohan Ganguly a.k.a. Jatayu waiting for them. After some aimless conversation, Lalmohan Babu hears everything about Feluda's new case and also about his prospective tour to Shimla. The excited Lalmohan Babu asks to join them; Feluda agrees to it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/48_Shades_of_Brown" title="48 Shades of Brown">
In his final year at school, and with his parents overseas, Dan is forced to grow up fast when he moves in with his 22-year-old aunt Jacq and her eccentric friend Naomi. His story is light-hearted and funny, with a definite twist of insanity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Test" title="First Test">
"Protector of the Small" is set in the Tortallan world of Pierce's "Song of the Lioness" and "The Immortals" quartets. The protagonist is Keladry of Mindelan, a young girl who becomes the first female to train as a knight ten years after King Jonathan first declared it legal. The novel tracks the first year of Keladry's training, during which she is only accepted on a probationary basis. Keladry must struggle to prove herself worthy to palace training master Wyldon of Cavall and her fellow page trainees.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Barbarian_(1982_novel)" title="Conan the Barbarian (1982 novel)">
The book retells the story of the hero's youth, in a version quite different from the account established in previous tales by Howard, de Camp and Carter. Conan is the son of a blacksmith in barbaric Cimmeria, learning "the riddle of steel" from his father as the latter forges a sword. His village is massacred by the cultic followers of Thulsa Doom, an evil sorcerer, and Conan himself enslaved. Set with others to push a millstone, he develops prodigious strength over the years, ultimately pushing it all by himself. As an adult he wins his freedom and embarks on a life of adventure, ultimately wreaking his vengeance on the fiendish Doom with his father's sword.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sands_of_Time_(Hoeye_novel)" title="The Sands of Time (Hoeye novel)">
At the beginning of the story, protagonist Hermux Tantamoq is approached by his father's friend, Birch Tentintrotter, to investigate whether the present-day rodent civilization was preceded, and its technology informed, by a feline civilization now obscured. Following an attempt by antagonist Hinkum Stepfitchler (the son of Birch's mentor) to discredit Birch's thesis, Hermux and pilot Linka Perflinger accompany Birch to the Western desert, where they confirm that the feline civilization existed, and that the rodent population were its slaves. They are thereupon captured by Hinkum Stepfitchler, who reveals that his family made their fortune by plagiarizing the cats' technology. In his subsequent absence, they escape, and expose his plan to the rodent society. Thereafter the ruined feline city is re-created at a rodents' museum, with all its artifacts, at a grand celebration.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Time_Like_Show_Time" title="No Time Like Show Time">
Hermux is back in Pinchester after his adventures in the desert, trying to return to his normal life as a watchmaker. He receives a mysterious invitation to the Varmint Variety Theater from the impresario, Fluster Varmint. Fluster is being blackmailed and needs Hermux's help to save his theatre. But show business is a whole new world of weirdness for our modest hero.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Days_to_Never" title="Three Days to Never">
The action mostly takes place in Southern California, in a few days during August 1987.Frank Marrity (a widower) and his loving twelve-year-old daughter, Daphne, are drawn into a dangerous occult world when his grandmother (affectionately called "Grammar") dies in bizarre circumstances. Soon, Frank and Daphne are pursued by agents who know much more about their lives than they do—for example, that Grammar is Lieserl Maric, the daughter of Albert Einstein, and that she was friends with Charlie Chaplin—and that all three of them had discovered secrets to time travel and had found how to change prior events, perhaps to please themselves.Frank and Daphne, who wish to live their normal lives (he teaches English at University of Redlands, she is also fond of English literature), find their lives invaded by secret agents and an old man who introduces himself to Frank as his missing father. In reality, he is an older Frank, from the year 2006, who has found himself in a miserable alcoholic life, but remembers an earlier time-line in which he was happy. Because Daphne died in that time-line, old Frank thinks that if she dies now, he will return to 2006's happy life.Lieserl "Grammar" Marrity, with the help of her father Einstein and her friend Chaplin, had created a time machine (a "maschinchen"), which she keeps in a small outbuilding called the Kaleidoscope Shed. The machine's components are a swastika of gold filaments; a (fictional) cement slab with Chaplin's handprints, footprints and signature, dated 1928, from the forecourt of the Grauman's Chinese Theatre; a videotape of "A Woman of the Sea", a lost film Chaplin made in 1926; and a pack of letters from Einstein to Grammar. The time machine, as described, works mystically as well as scientifically. This sort of synthesis of modes of speculative fiction (and of MacGuffins) is typical of Powers's combined-science-fiction-and-fantasy novels.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Match_(Child_novel)" title="Death Match (Child novel)">
Every once in a rare while, the most perfect of 'perfect' matches ('supercouples, of 100% compatibility) is located. Then tragedy suddenly strikes. One of the "supercouples" is found dead in their Arizona home, an "unquestionable" double suicide.Child's analysis of the topic proves a useful tool to opine on the topics of psychology, relationships, cutting-edge computer technology and artificial intelligence.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throne_of_Jade" title="Throne of Jade">
The story is set during an alternate history version of the Napoleonic Wars, in which dragons not only exist but are used as a staple of aerial warfare in Asia and Europe. The dragons are portrayed as sapient and intelligent, capable of logical thought and human speech. The series centers on events involving Temeraire (the titular dragon) and his handler, William Laurence. The first book of the series centered on how Laurence, formerly a captain in the Royal Navy, becomes Temeraire's handler, and their early training in preparation for battles against Napoleon's aerial fleet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brothers_K" title="The Brothers K">
Papa Chance is a former MLB pitcher who has settled down with his wife in the mill town of Camas, Washington. They have six children. Everett Chance, the eldest, is a natural politician and powerful speaker whose passionate opposition to the Vietnam war creates much of the family tension in the book. He spends much time and effort pursuing a young Russian literature student named Natasha and finally wins her heart from draft exile in British Columbia by sending her an epic letter/novel. Everett does not have great natural athletic gifts but is a scrappy competitor. Second oldest, Peter Chance, is the intellectual brother who will study at Harvard and then in India. Though a natural athlete, Peter spends most of the book having renounced gifts of the body in his dogged pursuit of spiritual growth. After being kidnapped by con artists on an Indian train he finds enlightenment and he returns to the family in their hour of need. Irwin is an innocent, possessing a childlike devotion to faith. He is sent to the war in Vietnam, where he is changed forever. Kincaid Chance, the youngest brother, narrates the book yet is the member of the family we finally learn the least about.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glory_That_Was" title="The Glory That Was">
Twenty-seventh century Earth is united by a worldwide democratic government presided over by a constitutional monarch, though the former is veering toward totalitarianism and the latter is a megalomaniac. To neutralize the World Emperor the power-hungry prime minister has ceded to him control of Greece for use in a mysterious secret project. Now Greece is surrounded by a force field cutting it off from the rest of the world, and people of Greek descent everywhere have vanished, presumably spirited away to the isolated region by the Emperor's agents.One such kidnapped citizen is Thalia, wife of classical scholar Wiyem Flin. Anxious to get her back, he recruits his friend, magazine editor Knut Bulnes, into a desperate attempt to penetrate the force barrier. Bulnes, hoping to obtain an exclusive story on the Emperor's mysterious project, agrees. The two succeed, sailing a boat through the barrier when it is temporarily disrupted by a storm.Inside the force field, Flin and Bulnes are astounded to find themselves not in 27th century Greece, but to all appearances the Classical Greece of Pericles and the Peloponnesian War. Pretending to be foreign philosophers, they establish themselves in Athens as they attempt to unravel the mystery, and begin to discover that all is not as it seems; the wife of the playwright Euripides, for instance, appears to be Thalia, though she does not recognize Flin and has no memory of her former life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_(novel)" title="Page (novel)">
Kel, though allowed to continue her training by instructor Wyldon of Cavall, is still not accepted by many of the male pages, and is therefore supported by Neal, Merric, Cleon, and Owen against Joren. At the beginning of the book, Kel hires Lalasa, after her mistreatment by other relatives. Kel also adopts a stray dog who calls himself Jump, and a flock of songbirds. Thereafter the book follows Kel's education, until Lalasa and Jump are kidnapped; whereupon Kel and her friends rescue them. Kel had proved her worthiness of being a leader when she guides her group of fellow pages through the "Battle of the Cliff". Lord Wyldon continues to make life hard for Kel by forcing her to improve her jousting skills, (She called the routine maddening) and made her join the elite page archers group, which Kel does more enthusiastically because if she advances, she gets to "play" with different kinds of arrows. Lord Wyldon also tries to humiliate Kel by making her "leader" of a fighting group while another page leads the other group, and they have a mock battle, which Kel's group always wins. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamonds_Are_Forever_(novel)" title="Diamonds Are Forever (novel)">
The British Secret Service agent James Bond is sent on an assignment by his superior, M. Acting on information received from Special Branch, M tasks Bond with infiltrating a smuggling ring transporting diamonds from mines in the Crown colony of Sierra Leone to the United States. Bond must infiltrate the smugglers' pipeline to uncover those responsible. Using the identity of "Peter Franks", a country house burglar turned diamond smuggler, he meets Tiffany Case, an attractive gang member who has developed an antipathy towards men after being gang-raped as a teenager.Bond discovers that the ring is operated by the Spangled Mob, a ruthless American gang run by the brothers Jack and Seraffimo Spang. He follows the trail from London to New York. To earn his fee for carrying the diamonds he is instructed by a gang member, Shady Tree, to bet on a rigged horse race in nearby Saratoga. There Bond meets his old friend Felix Leiter, a former CIA agent working at Pinkertons as a private detective investigating crooked horse racing. Leiter bribes the jockey to ensure the failure of the plot to rig the race, and asks Bond to make the pay-off. When he goes to make the payment, he witnesses two homosexual thugs, Wint and Kidd, attack the jockey.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Corruption_Was_King" title="When Corruption Was King">
This is the story of a Mob lawyer turned mole with a million-dollar contract on his head. With abandon, he chased crooked acquittals for the likes of Pat Marcy, originally an Al Capone protégé who had become the Mob's key political operative; Mafia Capo and gambling czar Marco D'Amico; and notorious hit man Harry Aleman. He dined with Mob bosses and shared "last suppers" with friends before their gangland executions. Cooley watched as Marcy and the Mob controlled the courts, the cops, and the politicians. Then, in a startling act of conscience, he walked into the office of the U.S. Organized Crime Strike Force and, without a pending conviction or a hit man on his tail, agreed to wear a wire on the same Mafia overlords who had made him a player.Cooley's tapes and testimony would be at the center of nine landmark trials that together exposed and then broke the Mob's unprecedented stranglehold on Chicago's government and court system. With stunning detail and brutal honesty, Cooley now tells the personal story behind the federal government's most successful Mafia investigation known as Operation Gambat (from "Gam"bling "At"torney).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_of_the_Isles" title="Conan of the Isles">
King Conan, in his mid-sixties, grows restless - especially since the death of his beloved wife Zenobia. With the approach of old age, what he most dreads is to die in bed – helpless, surrounded by physicians and whispering courtiers. He would much rather die in battle – but there seems little prospect of that, since he himself made Aquilonia powerful and prosperous while eliminating virtually all threats. The prospect he faces as King is many boring years of tax administration and adjudicating complicated legal cases. Meanwhile, Conan's eldest son, Conn, is now twenty years old – a very worthy son and heir who has already given a very good account of himself at the age of thirteen ("Conan of Aquilonia"), and is fully ready to assume the throne.Suddenly, there is a new crisis: Conan's old friend and loyal supporter, Count Trocero of Poitian, is snatched away from the Council Chamber itself by Red Shadows, mystical entities of unknown origin. Although it happened in front of Conan himself, inside a room filled with courtiers and guards, there was nothing anyone could do against these insubstantial shadows who suddenly appear, grab a man, and disappear along with him. This is followed by the Red Shadows striking again and again, snatching at random men and women of all ages or social positions. As would later turn out, these sinister acts were perpetrated by the wizard priests of the dark god Xotli, descendants of refugees from sunken Atlantis, who settled on the other side of the ocean and seek to placate their demon god's voracious appetite for human sacrifice.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_(Blatty_novel)" title="Legion (Blatty novel)">
The story opens with the discovery of a twelve-year-old boy who has been murdered and crucified on a pair of rowing oars. Kinderman already sees that the boy is mutilated in a way identical to the victims of a serial killer known as the Gemini Killer, who was apparently shot to death by police twelve years previously while climbing the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. A priest is later murdered in a confessional, once again bearing the mutilations distinctive of the apparently deceased killer. The fingerprints at the two crime scenes differ, however. Further victims soon follow, including one of Kinderman's friends, Father Dyer (from "The Exorcist"), who is slain in a hospital, his body drained of blood before being killed. Yet again the Gemini Killer's mutilations are present.Investigations lead Kinderman to the psychiatric wing of the hospital where his friend was slain. Here he finds a number of suspects:In the end, Sunlight tells Kinderman that the demon from the earlier novel ("The Exorcist") aided him to possess the body of Damien Karras immediately after Karras's death in an act of revenge for having been driven out of the little girl. Sunlight spent many years trying to gain control of the body, which had suffered from injuries, during which time Karras was held in a mental hospital. He lacked any identification and was nicknamed Sunlight because he sat in the sun's rays as it passed through the window of his cell. Upon finally gaining control of Karras' body, the Gemini occasionally left it to possess the bodies of the patients with senile dementia, and as they were in an open ward with access to the outside world, he could use them to go out and commit murders. Thus the fingerprints of several senility patients were found at the crime scenes; their bodies carried out the murders, but the Gemini Killer was in control of them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Brother" title="Wolf Brother">
In pre-agricultural Europe, the people of the Forest live in clans, each represented by a particular animal or life form. These clans live a hunter-gatherer existence with a shamanic belief system. Torak and his father, of the Wolf Clan, live in seclusion, far away from any other Clan. Torak’s father is killed by a bear which has been possessed by a demon. Before he dies, he tells Torak to swear an oath to find the Mountain of the World Spirit, in order to kill the bear. His father tells him that his ‘guide’ will find him and help him on his quest. Torak reluctantly leaves his father as the bear comes back to kill him.Torak heads north and soon encounters an orphaned Wolf Cub. He discovers that he can communicate with the Cub. He realises the Cub is the guide, and the two become close. Torak holds a naming ritual for the Cub and names him Wolf. A few days later Torak and Wolf are captured by three members of the Raven Clan, including a girl named Renn, who accuse Torak of stealing one of their roebuck. They are taken to the Raven camp so Torak's fate can be decided by Fin-Kedinn, the Raven Clan leader. To regain his freedom, Torak fights Hord, Renn's older brother.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes's_War_of_the_Worlds" title="Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds">
The story consists of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and Professor Challenger in London during the Martian invasion as described in Wells's novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_Conan" title="The Return of Conan">
In the kingdom of Aquilonia, a year of peace for King Conan and his new queen Zenobia is broken when the latter is abducted by a demon. Conan learns from the wizard, Pelias of Koth, that an eastern sorcerer, Yah Chieng of Khitai, is responsible, and begins a quest to recover her without realizing that the fate of the world, as well as Aquilonia, rests on the outcome of the contest.Chronologically, "The Return of Conan" falls between Howard's novel "The Hour of the Dragon" (also known as "Conan the Conqueror"), and the four short stories collected as "Conan of Aquilonia".In both the hardcover Gnome Press edition and the paperback Lancer/Ace edition of the Conan stories, "The Return of Conan" follows Robert E. Howard's novel "Conan the Conqueror"; it is the final volume chronologically in the Gnome edition (though one additional volume, "Tales of Conan", contains stories issued out of sequence), while in the Lancer/Ace edition it is followed by the short stories collected as "Conan of Aquilonia".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staying_On" title="Staying On">
"Staying On" focuses on Tusker and Lucy Smalley, who are briefly mentioned in the latter two books of the Raj Quartet, "The Towers of Silence" and "A Division of the Spoils", and are the last British couple living in the small hill town of Pankot after Indian independence. Tusker had risen to the rank of colonel in the British Indian Army, but on his retirement had entered the world of commerce as a 'box wallah', and the couple had moved elsewhere in India. However, they had returned to Pankot to take up residence in the Lodge, an annexe to Smith's Hotel. This, formerly the town's principal hotel, was now symbolically overshadowed by the brash new Shiraz Hotel, erected by a consortium of Indian businessmen from the nearby city of Ranpur.We learn about life as an expat in Pankot principally by listening to Lucy's ponderings, for it is she who is the loquacious one, in contrast to Tusker's pathological reticence. He talks in clipped verbless telegraphese, often limiting his utterances to a single "Ha!". He has been purposeless since being obliged to retire, and it is left to Lucy to make sense of the world herself. It is a sad story of frustration that she recounts to herself. She remembers how the young Captain Smalley came back to London on leave in 1930, visited his bank, where she, a vicar's daughter, worked, and tentatively asked her out. She was swept off her feet by the thought of marrying an army officer and dreamt of a glamorous wedding with his fellow officers making an arch with their swords, but life turned out very differently. His job was dull administration, and his early attentiveness in bed rapidly waned. He prohibited her from fulfilling herself by taking part in amateur dramatics. Not only this, but she ranked fairly low in the social pecking order among the white women in Pankot and suffered numerous indignities. A symbol of this retrospection is that their preferred conveyance is the Tonga, a horse-drawn carriage in which they choose to sit facing backwards, "looking back at what we're leaving behind".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_Walk" title="Palace Walk">
The novel follows al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad as the head of his household; Amina, his sons, Yasin, Fahmy and Kamal, and his daughters, Khadija and Aisha. He sets strict rules of Muslim piety and sobriety in the household. al-Sayyid Ahmad permits himself conventionally forbidden pleasures. In particular, these include music, drinking wine and conducting numerous extramarital affairs with women he meets at his grocery store, or with courtesans who entertain parties of men at their houses with music and dancing. His insistence on his household authority forbids his wife and children from questioning why he stays out late at night or comes home intoxicated.The family house, in Cairo's Gamaliya district, is in the exact location of the Beshtak Palace.Yasin, the eldest son, is al-Sayyid Ahmad's only child by his first marriage, to a woman whose subsequent marital affairs are the source of acute embarrassment to father and son. Yasin shares his father's good looks, and, unbeknownst to al-Sayyid Ahmad, Yasin also shares his tastes for music, women and alcohol, and spends as much time and money as he can afford on fine clothes, drink and prostitutes. Fahmy, Amina's elder son, is a law student, who is heavily involved in the nationalist movement against the British occupation; he also pines for his neighbor, Maryam, but cannot bring himself to take any action. Khadija, the elder daughter, is sharp-tongued, opinionated, and jealous of her sister Aisha, who is considered to be the more beautiful and marriageable. Aisha, meanwhile, is more mellow and conciliatory, and tries to maintain peace. Kamal, the baby of the family, is a bright young boy who frightens his family by befriending the British soldiers who have set up an encampment across the street from the Abd al-Jawad house; he is also very close with his mother and his sisters, and is deeply dismayed when the prospect of marriage for the girls arises.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Less_than_Angels" title="Less than Angels">
Catherine Oliphant is a young writer, who lives with anthropologist Tom Mallow. Tom begins a romance with a student, Deirdre Swan, and his relationship with Catherine fizzles out. At the same time, she becomes interested in reclusive anthropologist Alaric Lydgate, who has recently returned from Africa.A hilarious sub-plot involves the activities of Deirdre's fellow-students Mark and Digby, and their attempts to curry favour with influential academics. Tom departs for Africa, where he is killed during a time of political unrest. Deirdre begins to return Digby's fondness for her, and Catherine seems about to begin a relationship with Alaric.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_in_Winter" title="Death in Winter">
It is the first novel featuring Capt. Jean-Luc Picard to be set after "Star Trek Nemesis". The plot concerns an attempt to stop a plague on a Romulan colony called Kevratas, and the relationship between Picard and Dr. Beverly Crusher. It also describes Dr. Crusher's first encounter of a similar plague as a teenager on the colony of Arvada III. A faction of the Romulan Star Empire wishes to keep the plague alive in an attempt to undermine newly appointed Romulan Praetor Tal'aura. Picard will be faced with working alongside allies new and old, as well as an enemy from the past who has a way of turning up when Picard least expects.This book also includes characters Doctor Carter Greyhorse, a scientist whose past has landed him in a penal colony, along with Pug Joseph, a former member of Starfleet turned merchant, both of whom served with Picard aboard the USS "".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Unicorn" title="The Black Unicorn">
Ben Holiday, court magician Questor Thews and the sylph Willow each have a vivid, prophetic dream. Ben dreams that Miles Bennett, his former law partner back in Chicago is in trouble. Questor dreams of the location of two ancient books of magic and Willow dreams of a black unicorn containing great power and a golden bridle that can harness the animal. Only the half-dog court scribe Abernathy voices his misgivings about the dreams.Upon returning to the old world, Ben discovers that Miles is fine. Suspicious, he hurries back to Landover. Unbeknownst to him, Meeks (the evil wizard that originally sent Ben into Landover) has stowed away in Ben's clothing using his magic, returning as well. At the castle, Ben finds that Questor has found the books of magic, though they seem useless. One is filled with illustrations of unicorns and the other appears burned from the inside. Willow is still missing.That night, Ben is attacked by Meeks. The old wizard casts a glamour over each of them, so that Meeks appears as Ben and Ben appears as a common peasant. Failing to recognize his true identity and thinking him an intruder, Questor has Ben thrown out of the castle.Ben searches for Willow, hoping to convince her of his identity and prevent her from delivering the bridle to Meeks. Along the way he encounters Edgewood Dirk, a prism cat from the fairy world. Dirk is able to recognize Ben as the High King, and taunts him for his inability to overcome his situation. Ben is able to arrange a meeting with Willow's father, the River Master, who fails in an attempt to capture the Black Unicorn and keep it as his own. The River Master blames Ben for his loss and sends him away without help. Later, Ben encounters the Earth Mother, who tells them that Willow has gone to the Deep Fell to retrieve the golden bridle from the witch Nightshade.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Kingdom_for_Sale—Sold!" title="Magic Kingdom for Sale—Sold!">
The novel begins with Ben Holiday, a trial lawyer from Chicago, lamenting the loss of his wife and unborn child in a car accident. He finds an advertisement in an upscale Christmas catalog claiming to offer a magical kingdom for one million dollars by a man named Mr. Meeks. Although skeptical, Ben pursues the offer out of a desperate need to start a new life. Ben receives a magical medallion and is transported through a swirling mist to the kingdom of Landover. He learns that Landover is a world that connects many other worlds such as Earth. It is surrounded by the Fairy Mist wherein reside creatures of Fairy that created Landover and guard the passages to these worlds. Unfortunately, he finds it not exactly as described. He soon finds that Landover has not had a true king in twenty years. The son of the last king did not wish to take up the throne and escaped with the court wizard, Meeks, to Earth. They have been selling the throne to dozens of people in the past two decades, but no one has been able to face the challenge and successfully complete so much as a few months as king. Further, kings of Landover used to be protected by a magical knight called the Paladin, but he has not been seen since the last king's death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Druid_of_Shannara" title="The Druid of Shannara">
"The Druid of Shannara" takes off where "The Scions of Shannara" left off, focusing on the story of Walker Boh as he attempts to fulfill the task given to him by the shade of Allanon, to return the Druid castle of Paranor to the Four Lands. Left in the Hall of Kings with the Asphinx attacking, Walker fends off the poison with his magic for days whereas the Asphinx could have killed any normal mortal. Finally realizing that there is only one way out of his predicament, he breaks off his arm in terrible agony. He fights his way through the Hall of Kings and amazingly finds his way to Storlock for the Gnome Healers to help him to the best of their abilities.We are told right away that Coll is still alive, and the thing Par killed was a fake. Coll is imprisoned in a prison called Southwatch and is trying to figure out a way to escape.Meanwhile, The King of the Silver River realizes the state of the Four Lands and makes a beautiful woman out of the elements surrounding him in his garden including a dove for a heart. The King tells his daughter, Quickening, of the task that she must carry out, for there is trouble in a lost city to the north, and the people to take with her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Knight_of_the_Word" title="A Knight of the Word">
John Ross, having failed on a mission from the Word in which fourteen school children were killed in San Sobel, California, tries to leave his life as a Knight of the Word behind him. He returns to the Fairy Glen in Wales to tender his resignation to the Lady, but she refuses to appear to him; instead, he meets the ghost of his ancestor, Owain Glyndŵr, who tells him that the decision to give up being a Knight is not his to make. Frustrated, John returns to America, where in Boston he meets and instantly falls in love with the beautiful Stefanie, who seems to amply reciprocate his feelings. Deliriously happy, he embarks together with her on a long trek across the United States, culminating with both of them finding work at a homeless center in Seattle. Feeling that he has found a very satisfactory new life, with a loving woman at his side and a demanding job helping an important social cause in cooperation with idealistic, sympathetic activists, he increasingly feels that his time as a Knight of the Word can be relegated to the past. He ignores the infrequent dreams of a demon-haunted future, including one in which he kills his much-beloved boss, Simon Lawrence.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_with_the_Demon" title="Running with the Demon">
Nest Freemark is a fourteen-year-old girl of Hopewell, Illinois, who has inherited magical powers from her mother's lineage. She lives with her grandmother Evelyn and grandfather Bob, as her mother apparently committed suicide at a young age. She is one of a rare few in the world who can see the spiritual warfare underlying the events in the real world. She can see "feeders" - small shadowy creatures that feed on human emotion, influence thoughts, and ultimately attempt to "devour" people, causing their real world demise. Nest is enlisted to guard the nearby park and wilderness, a regional feeding ground for feeders, as many generations of Freemark women before her. She is aided in this task by a six-inch tree-like sylvan named Pick, an insightful barn owl named Daniel, and an ethereal wolfen creature named Wraith, who appears at opportune moments to protect Nest, but whose origins are initially unknown.On July first, Nest is awakened by Pick and informed that a young local girl, Bennett Scott, has run away from home (and her mother's abusive boyfriend) into the park and is at risk of being attacked by feeders. She rescues the girl and is almost overrun by feeders when Wraith appears to fend them off and help her escape. Meanwhile, a demon of the Void has come to the town of Hopewell. Once a human, this demon now possesses magical powers including the ability to blend in easily among other people and influence their thoughts. He befriends Derry Howe, a less intelligent resident of Hopewell, and places in his mind the idea of setting a bomb during the fireworks display on the Fourth of July. Since the display is sponsored by the company that owns the factory, Derry is fooled into believing that the company will have to end a town-crippling strike in apology for the injuries at the show.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Impostors" title="The Three Impostors">
The novel comprises several weird tales and culminates in a denouement of deadly horror, connected with a secret society devoted to debauched pagan rites. The three impostors of the title are members of this society who weave a web of deception in the streets of London—relating the aforementioned weird tales in the process—as they search for a missing Roman coin commemorating an infamous orgy by the Emperor Tiberius and close in on their prey: "the young man with spectacles".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldiers_of_Salamis" title="Soldiers of Salamis">
The novel is divided into three sections. The first and third section depict the historical investigation of a fictional Javier Cercas into the life of the falangist Rafael Sánchez Mazas. The second section is a biographical retelling of Mazas's life.In the first section of the novel, a fictionalized version of the author, also called Javier Cercas and a journalist, interviews the son of Mazas. During the interview Cercas is told the story of how Mazas's escapes from execution by the Republicans at the end of the Spanish Civil War with the help of a lone soldier. Encouraged by his eccentric girlfriend, a TV fortune teller, Javier begins investigating the incident. Early on, he writes a brief article in his newspaper based on the retelling by Mazas's son. In response to this Cercas becomes obsessed with finding the soldier who spared the life of Mazas.The second section of the novel takes place during the war itself (1936–1939). The nucleus of this section of the book is Rafael Sánchez Mazas's life. Cercas presents him as a writer and idealist of the Falange Española and close collaborator of José Antonio Primo de Rivera. The narrative in this section focuses on the particulars of his escape from execution at the end of the Spanish Civil War. When a group of prisoners is taken to the forest to be executed, Mazas is able to flee and hide in the bush. A Republican soldier finds him but decides to spare his life and when asked by another soldier if anyone is there he replies that no one is. Helped by several deserters, Mazas evades the retreating Republican forces and eventually returns to Nationalist custody where he became an important propagandist for Francoist Spain.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_of_Aquilonia" title="Conan of Aquilonia">
In his late 50s, King Conan of Aquilonia engages in his final struggle with his arch-foe, the black magician Thoth-Amon of Stygia, servant of the evil god Set. First, Conan must journey into Hyperborea and rescue his kidnapped son, Prince Conn, from an unholy alliance between Thoth-Amon and the witch queen, Louhi. Next, Conan and Conn carry the struggle to their enemy's stronghold in Stygia itself at the head of an invading army, with the aid of a white druid named Diviatix. Pursuing their defeated foe southward, they confront him again, first in the kingdom of Zembabwei and, at last, near the very edge of the world, where Conan and Thoth-Amon face each other in a final astral duel."Conan of Aquilonia" depicts the coming of age of Conan's son, Conn. In the beginning, Conn is still very much of a boy and is afraid of a heavy belting which he could expect from his father for disobedience. By the end, he's already a seasoned warrior, who took part in various kinds of battle, escaped from capture, avoided imminent death, saved his father's life, and has a crucial role in the final defeat of Conan's old enemy Thoth-Amon—making him ready to succeed as King Conan II (which he would seven years hence, in "Conan of the Isles").
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_Hunter" title="Fossil Hunter">
The story takes place roughly sixteen years after the events of "Far-Seer". In lieu of Afsan's discovery of the Quintaglio's real place in the universe, the Larskian faith has been abolished and worship of the Original Five hunters reinstated. Dybo is now the Emperor, with Afsan as his court astrologer, and Novato has been put in charge of the "Quintaglio Exodus"; a project meant to help the Quintaglios escape from their doomed world before it breaks apart. Toroca, son of Afsan and Novato, is now head of the Geological Survey of Land, meant to take a global inventory of the resources available for the Exodus project.While undertaking the Geological Survey, Toroca finds a mysterious blue artifact, made of a seemingly indestructible material even harder than diamond. It appears to be mechanical, with moving parts, but having been found in some of the oldest rocks, is too old to have been manufactured by Quintaglios. He also begins to take notice of clues which cast into doubt his belief in the origin of the world as set forth in the book of Lubal. The world appears to be much older than five thousand kilodays, due to the rate of erosion being too slow, and during an expedition to the South Pole, he finds that it is inhabited entirely by many unique types of Wingfingers. Toroca hypothesises that they evolved from a common wingfinger ancestor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_(novel)" title="Sunshine (novel)">
The story is set in an alternate universe, taking place after the "Voodoo Wars", a conflict between humans and the "Others". The Others mainly consist of vampires, werewolves, and demons, though the main conflict occurs between humans and vampires. As a result of this war, "bad spots", or places where black magic thrives, have appeared more frequently.Rae "Sunshine" Seddon, the pastry-making heroine of the novel, has the misfortune of being caught off-guard at her family's old lake side cabin and is abducted by a gang of vampires. She is confined to the ballroom of an abandoned mansion with Constantine, a vampire shackled there by vampires of a rival gang, led by Constantine's enemy Bo. Bo's intention is to allow Constantine to slowly die of hunger and exposure to sunlight. Rae is brought as bait for him, and the vampires cut her upper chest as temptation. However, Rae not only manages to defy the supposed power that any vampire has over a human, but also uses her all-but-forgotten magical powers of transmutation, taught to her by her grandmother, to effect an escape.Rae realizes that the magical lineage she has ignored allows her to draw power from the sunlight, ergo transferring her ability through touch to Constantine and allowing him to be under the light of day, so long as contact is maintained. Through this symbiotic relationship, the two of them make an escape.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_of_Cimmeria" title="Conan of Cimmeria">
In a number of episodes Conan, now in his mid to late twenties, is followed from the end of his career as a mercenary soldier for King Yildiz of Turan to his initial adventures in the black kingdoms of Kush. In between, he visits his native Cimmeria and the far north. Soon, Conan journeys southward where, in Argos, he gets his first taste of life as a sea rover as the right-hand man of the pirate queen Bêlit.Chronologically, the eight short stories collected as "Conan of Cimmeria" fall between "Conan" and "Conan the Freebooter".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champagne_for_One" title="Champagne for One">
Archie Goodwin sits in for a friend at a charity dinner dance for unwed mothers, and one of the guests drops dead on the dance floor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Topics_in_Calamity_Physics" title="Special Topics in Calamity Physics">
Blue van Meer is a film-obsessed, erudite teenager. She is the daughter of itinerant and arrogant academic Gareth van Meer, who, after the death of his amateur lepidopteran-catching wife (and Blue's mother), never manages to stay at a high school for more than a semester. During Blue's senior year, however, they settle in the sleepy town of Stockton, North Carolina. She starts to attend the St. Gallway School and befriends a group of popular, rich, and mysterious teenagers called the Bluebloods. The Bluebloods are also close friends with the film-studies teacher at St. Gallway, Hannah Schneider, a perplexing woman, who intrigues Blue. After Schneider dies, seemingly by suicide, Blue is left to determine why.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invasion_(novel)" title="The Invasion (novel)">
Young teenagers Jake and Marco leave the mall one evening. On the way out, they meet Rachel and Cassie, who are together, and Tobias—all children from their school—and decide to walk home together. While taking a shortcut through an abandoned construction site, an alien spacecraft lands nearby. The badly injured alien pilot, an Andalite named Prince Elfangor, emerges from the ship and explains to the children that the Earth is being invaded in secret by a race of aliens called the Yeerks, a slug-like parasitic species who infest humans through their ear canals and take complete control of the human's body, turning them into what is called a Controller. The human controllers are still self-aware but the Yeerk in their head has complete control over their body and what they say. Elfangor tells them that the Andalite fleet has been defeated and more Andalites will not come to Earth for a year or more, and by then, Earth will already be completely taken over. To combat the Yeerks, he gives the humans morphing ability: the power to become any creature they touch by absorbing the creature's DNA. Elfangor warns them to never stay beyond two hours in a morph, or they will be trapped in that form forever. The Yeerks, led by Visser Three, arrive to kill Elfangor and eliminate all traces of him and his ship. The humans hide and watch, but are discovered and chased by the Yeerks. The group escapes shaken, but more or less unhurt.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Warrior" title="Conan the Warrior">
In these stories from Conan's late thirties, the Cimmerian becomes involved in the civil wars of a lost city, a contest over treasure in the black kingdoms, and the border wars between the kingdom of Aquilonia and the savage Picts in the wilderness to the west.Chronologically, the three short stories collected as "Conan the Warrior" fall between "Conan the Buccaneer" and "Conan the Usurper".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard_at_Large" title="Wizard at Large">
In an attempt to return Abernathy to his former human self, court wizard Questor Thews inadvertently sends the canine court scribe, along with Ben Holiday's royal medallion, to Earth. Specifically, Abernathy ends up with the medallion in the menagerie of Michel Ard Rhi, a cruel former prince of Landover who was banished from Landover years ago. Ard Rhi is now a Washington state millionaire who keeps a collection of rare and magical items in his personal castle. As part of the botched spell, Abernathy is exchanged for one of Ard Rhi's magical artifacts, and a strange bottle appears in Landover in Abernathy's place. The bottle contains a Darkling, a creature similar to an evil genie that corrupts its master.The bottle is stolen by the G'home Gnomes Filip and Sot, and Ben gives chase along with Questor, Willow, and Bunion. Ben and Willow later decide to use Questor's magic to travel to Earth to find Abernathy. With the help of Miles, Ben's old law partner, and Elizabeth, the daughter of one of Ard Rhi's employees, Abernathy is rescued. However, Ard Rhi uses his influence to have the party detained at a police station.Meanwhile, Questor continues to pursue the Darkling. He finds that through a series of thefts, the bottle has ended up in the hands of the evil witch Nightshade. Knowing that only the High Lord can defeat Nightshade, Questor decides to try to convince the dragon Strabo to fly him through the fairy mists to Earth. Using an itch spell, Questor gets the dragon to agree. They arrive at the last moment to rescue Ben and his friends from the police station and fly them back to Landover, but not before Questor uses his magic to restore Ard Rhi's conscience and convince him to give away his vast estate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Both_Sides_of_Time" title="Both Sides of Time">
Annie Lockwood, a 15-year-old romanticist, who travels back in time to 1895, an age of classy parties and privileged women wearing gowns. There she meets a young man who goes by the name Strat and finds herself falling for him and his charming good looks. However conflict arises when Annie must face the reality of going back to her own time. This novel introduces readers with the situation that arises when two vastly different centuries collide and highlights the changing roles of women. The main plot of the story is that Annie Lockwood is stuck between two time periods and must decide what life she wants to live and what life fate allows her to live.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_Time" title="Prisoner of Time">
"Prisoner of Time" follows Strat's younger sister, Devonny, as she accidentally slips one hundred years into the future, to Annie Lockwood's time, and begins to fall in love with Annie's younger brother. This happens at both an inopportune, and an opportune time, as she was about to marry a young man whom she does not love.Devonny is an independent minded young woman with her own ideas for business ventures. However, in a time when the role of women are to stay at home and please their husbands, Devonny soon finds herself engaged to Lord Hugh-David, a British noble she does not love nor respect. With the family's business and reputation hanging in the balance, Devonny agrees to marry the noble, despite how she knows he is an avoidant person and she will be dominated by her mother-in-law. In the meantime, Devonny tries to help her friend Flossie, who has fallen in love with an Italian construction worker and wants to elope.In the present, Tod Lockwood, Annie's brother, tries to find his own place in the world. With failed business enterprises and difficulty living up to Annie, Tod finds confidence only when he is coaching a girls' soccer team. In the past, Devonny despairs at her circumstances, with the disappearance of her brother Strat and the death of her friend Harriet, hoping that at least Flossie will find happiness. She discovers at the wedding that her father was blackmailed into ensuring Devonny would marry nobility and that the blackmailer was Aurelia Stratton, Devonny's mother who has been incarcerated and driven to desperation to ensure her own escape.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protector's_War" title="The Protector's War">
Eight years after the Change, Clan Mackenzie, led by Juniper Mackenzie, and the Bearkillers, headed by Mike Havel, have established themselves in the Willamette Valley. They have become bitter enemies of the much larger, expansion-minded Portland Protective Association (PPA), led by the Armingers. The barons of the PPA constantly violate a ceasefire with the other factions. During one of their raids, Eddie Liu, Baron and Marchwarden of the PPA, is confronted by a small group of Mackenzies, led by Eilir Mackenzie and Astrid Larsson. After a short skirmish, Liu leaves, again swearing revenge against the Clan. In the meantime, in Great Britain, Sir Nigel Loring is imprisoned by the mad King Charles III, but is rescued by his son Alleyne Loring and John Hordle, formerly of the Special Air Service. They leave England aboard a Tasmanian sailing ship, which is conducting a worldwide survey. On their arrival in Portland, Arminger pressures Sir Nigel, who is the closest thing to an expert on nerve gas, to help him recover some of it to use against his enemies. The British trio outwit Arminger and escape to the south.Mike Havel and his wife Signe Larsson Havel try to lure Crusher Bailey, a bandit who has been raiding and taking slaves, into a trap by masquerading as travelers with a herd of horses and a wagon of valuables. When Bailey takes the bait, Mike and Signe's reinforcements are delayed and they have to retreat to the ruins of an abandoned pornographic video store. Just before they are overrun, they are saved by the timely intervention of the Lorings and Hordle. Sir Nigel and his son meet the Mackenzies and their old friend Sam Aylward, who was formerly a sergeant under Sir Nigel. The Mackenzies tell of their raid, where they ambushed a horse-drawn train and unexpectedly captured Norman Arminger's only child and heir, Mathilda.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_the_End_of_the_World_(Brookmyre_novel)" title="Not the End of the World (Brookmyre novel)">
LAPD cop Larry Freeman is given the task of 'baby-sitting' a B-movie film festival as a way of easing himself back into work after the death of his son, but things soon turn violent when a right-wing Christian group targets ex-porn actress Madeline Witherson. As Larry investigates the attacks on Maddy and the disappearance of an oceanic survey vessel it becomes clear that certain parties are not content to wait for the Apocalypse.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Hound_(novel)" title="The Fox and the Hound (novel)">
Copper, a bloodhound crossbred, was once the favorite among his Master's pack of hunting dogs in a rural country area. However, he now feels threatened by Chief, a younger, faster Black and Tan Coonhound. Copper hates Chief, who is taking Copper's place as pack leader. During a bear hunt, Chief protects the Master when the bear turns on him, while Copper is too afraid of the bear to confront him. The Master ignores Copper to heap praise on Chief and Copper's hatred and jealousy grow.Tod is a red fox kit, raised as a pet by one of the human hunters who killed his mother and litter mates. Tod initially enjoys his life, but when he reaches sexual maturity he returns to the wild. During his first year, he begins establishing his territory, and learns evasion techniques from being hunted by local farm dogs. One day, he comes across the Master's house and discovers that his presence sends the chained pack of dogs into a frustrated frenzy. He begins to delight in taunting them, until one day when Chief breaks his chain and chases him. The Master sees the dog escape and follows with Copper. As Chief skillfully trails the fox, Tod flees along a railroad track while a train is approaching, waiting to jump to safety until the last minute. Chief is killed by the train.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Adventurer_(short_story_collection)" title="Conan the Adventurer (short story collection)">
In these stories from Conan's early thirties, the Cimmerian starts as a leader of an Afghuli tribe in Vendhya, journeys into the Black Kingdoms south of Stygia, and ends up as a Zingaran buccaneer.Chronologically, the four short stories collected as "Conan the Adventurer" fall between "Conan the Wanderer" and "Conan the Buccaneer".
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Freebooter" title="Conan the Freebooter">
In these stories from Conan's late twenties, the Cimmerian is a mercenary with the Free Company in the city-states of Shem and the lands to the north and east, a war leader of the steppe-raiding Kozaki, and finally a soldier in the service of the kingdom of Khauran.Chronologically, the five short stories collected as "Conan the Freebooter" fall between "Conan of Cimmeria" and "Conan the Wanderer".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_the_Eye" title="Story of the Eye">
"Story of the Eye" consists of several vignettes, centered around the sexual passion existing between the unnamed late adolescent male narrator and Simone, his primary female partner. Within this episodic narrative two secondary figures emerge: Marcelle, a mentally ill sixteen-year-old girl who comes to a sad end, and Sir Edmund, a voyeuristic English émigré aristocrat.The story starts with our narrator and Simone meeting at her villa three days after first being introduced through their families being distantly related. Shortly after, Simone instigates a dare from the narrator to sit in a saucer intended for the cat's milk, which she wins by sitting on the bowl with her vagina in the milk. They both masturbate to completion without any physical contact and, after cupping a feel of her vulva while Simone is resting in her mother's arms, the narrator goes home and masturbates throughout the night. This upsets Simone, and when they meet the next day she makes him promise to never masturbate without her again. They start a sexual relationship, though one absent of conversation or penetration.Whilst having sex on the edge of a cliff they are approached by their friend Marcelle, who collapses crying into the grass upon the sight of their unorthodox sexual acrobatics. Simone and the narrator proceeds to rape Marcelle, and when it starts raining Simone starts masturbating in a puddle of mud.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_(short_story_collection)" title="Conan (short story collection)">
After a letter reflecting on Conan's life written by Howard to P. Schuyler Miller and John D. Clark, both fans of Howard's work, is an essay on the invented prehistory in which the hero's adventures are set tracing its development up to Conan's own time. The stories gathered in this collection then follow the Cimmerian from his escape from slavery in Hyperborea through his days as a youthful thief in Zamora, Corinthia, and Nemedia, to the beginning of his employment as a mercenary for King Yildiz of Turan. To Conan's discomfiture, the supernatural is his constant companion.Chronologically, the seven short stories collected as "Conan" are the earliest in Lancer's Conan series. The stories collected as "Conan of Cimmeria" follow.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Visitor_(Applegate_novel)" title="The Visitor (Applegate novel)">
The Animorphs convene and decide that they need to make their next move against the Yeerks. The only lead they have is that Hedrick Chapman, the assistant principal at their school, is a Yeerk Controller. Jake asks Rachel to try to get to him through his daughter Melissa, an old friend of hers. However, Melissa has become distant lately, and Rachel fears she has become a Controller like her father. Rachel remembers Melissa's pet cat Fluffer McKitty, and the Animorphs plan to infiltrate Chapman's house to find out what they can; Rachel morphs Melissa's pet cat to gain access, after a harrowing experience morphing a shrew to lure the cat out of a tree.Once in the house, Rachel follows Mr. Chapman into a basement room and discovers that he communicates directly with Visser Three, the leader of the Earth invasion, through holographic technology. While in the room, she is spotted by Visser Three, who orders Chapman to kill her because she might be an Andalite. Rachel does not react, and Chapman reasons with Visser Three to allow Rachel to escape shaken, but unharmed. Before she leaves the house, Rachel follows Melissa and learns that she is not a Controller, but has pulled away from her friends because she believes her parents, who are now both Controllers, do not love her anymore.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Season_of_the_Witch" title="The Season of the Witch">
Gloria decides to run away from home with her gay friend John McFadden. Both of them have a reason to leave: Gloria wants to find her estranged father, and John wants to avoid being drafted and being sent to Vietnam. They head from Belle Woods, a fictional suburb of Detroit, Michigan, to New York City, where they meet a host of colorful characters. The novel explores the personal freedoms of the late 1960s, including casual drug use, draft evasion, homosexuality, and incest.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_(novel)" title="The Beginning (novel)">
Continuing on immediately from "The Answer", Rachel attacks the Yeerks in control of the Blade ship, and kills Tom Berenson and his Yeerk, before being killed at the hands of his Yeerk allies shortly after; before she dies, the Ellimist briefly stops time to tell his own story to her and answer a question about her contribution to the war. As soon as her question is answered, Rachel dies. Tom's morph-capable Yeerks escape in the Blade Ship, abandoning the disabled Pool Ship to the Animorphs. Visser One, realizing that he is defeated, leaves Alloran-Semitur-Corrass's body after being knocked unconscious by Ax. The remaining Animorphs, as well as Alloran (freed after more than two decades under Visser One's control over his body), contact the Andalite fleet, who are primed to annihilate Earth. Ax reveals that the non-military Andalites are listening to their communications and will not approve of the fleet's actions should they proceed. The Andalite fleet calls off their plan to destroy Earth and, after hours of negotiations, they promote Ax to rank of Prince and declare the war for Earth over.In addition, Cassie, at Jake's urging, goes to look for Erek and finds him escaping the Pool ship. She lets him know that they have won the war at last, but promptly tears into him for draining the ship's weapons, which both enabled the Blade ship to get away and caused Rachel's death to be in vain. Erek defends his decision and likewise chastises Cassie for resorting to the tactics that they had used against him. Ultimately, Cassie tells Erek that he and the Chee can decide whether or not they are ready to reveal their presence to the world now that the war is over, but though he says nothing about it, it is clear to her that the Chee are still unwilling to do so. Cassie and Erek part ways, and it is clear to the former that the latter and his people are no longer friends or allies with the Animorphs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Encounter_(novel)" title="The Encounter (novel)">
Tobias and Rachel liberate a caged red-tailed hawk from a car dealership, Dealin' Dan Hawke's Used Cars, where it is being used as a mascot in advertisements. Later that evening, Tobias sees a shimmer in the air and is perplexed by it. He decides to check it out again the next day, and this time notices a flock of geese seemingly run into an invisible wall in the air. Tobias suspects the anomaly to be a Yeerk ship using optical camouflage and tells the other Animorphs about it. The group morphs into wolves to follow the last known direction of the ship into the mountains. They arrive at a lake guarded by Park Service human-controllers and Hork-Bajir-controllers. The ship decloaks over the lake, revealing itself to be a massive logistics ship that collects water and air for the Yeerk Pool ship in orbit. Tobias also sees the hawk that he and Rachel freed, and has an urge to be with her.The Animorphs return from the mountains and make plans to morph into fish in the lake and get sucked up by the ship so they can disable it from the inside, thus deactivating the cloaking device while it is above a city and revealing the Yeerk invasion to the general public. Tobias heads up to the lake again to scope out potential hiding places, but his hawk instincts overpower him on the way and he kills and eats a rat. Greatly disturbed by the experience, he flies to Rachel's gymnastics exhibition at the mall and tries to commit suicide. He flies around the mall in a panicked state until Marco smashes open a skylight for him with a baseball to escape. Tobias regresses into his hawk instincts for several days, living in the woods and hunting rodents. His human side only re-emerges when he saves a man escaping from Hork-Bajir near the mountain lake. He returns to Rachel to talk about what happened, and he decides that he needs to keep fighting the Yeerks to remain human.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unlikely_Spy" title="The Unlikely Spy">
Set during World War II, the book follows Alfred Vicary, a historian and friend of Winston Churchill, who was wounded in battle during the World War I while serving as an officer in the Intelligence Corps, joins the British intelligence service. He is assigned the job of protecting Operation Mulberry in the lead up to the invasion of Normandy in 1944. The German spy Catherine Blake, whose real name is Anna von Steiner, an Abwehr operative, actually is close to learning the secret. Catherine's aid is Horst Neumann, a former lieutenant in the paratroopers and later on in the Abwehr, a trained assassin.Some little failures help Alfred Vicary to reveal her true identity. So he devises and carries out his plan of Double Cross. The basic idea of it is that after uncovering the German spy Catherine Blake, instead of capturing and imprisoning her, the British Intelligence provides her with false documents which she accepts as information she seeks. Then she sends the content of those papers through other spies to Germany, and so the German Spy agencies are being deceived without having the least idea of it. The story ends with depiction of the night Catherine tries to escape from Britain. If she could have fled she would be able to tell all she knew about British Intelligence agents and their Double Cross operation, and maybe Germans would understand that they had been deceived all the time. But Catherine does not manage to escape and is killed by the fire laid down by the British martial ship. The Germans, therefore, remain ignorant of the secret they tried to reveal and this causes their defeat in World War II. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Times_of_the_Thunderbolt_Kid" title="The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid">
Bryson was born on December 8, 1951. He spent his childhood growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, part of the baby-boom generation born in the post-war years. He describes his early life and his parents, Bill Sr. and Mary Bryson. His father was a well-known sports writer for "The Des Moines Register", the leading newspaper in Des Moines. His mother was also a writer for the "Register", she also wrote for magazines like "Better Homes" and "Gardens", "Good Housekeeping", and "House Beautiful".He recounts many things that were invented during his childhood that fascinated him, which include frozen dinners, atomic toilets, and television. His middle-class, all-American lifestyle is shown constantly throughout the book, and the influence of his depression-era raised parents rubs off on him. He also remembers his adventures as "the Thunderbolt Kid," an alter ego he made up for himself when he felt powerless. He was able to vaporize people with his heat vision and thought that he came from another planet. He tells amusing stories of his misadventures as Billy Bryson, including his first days in school when he figured out that when the entire class was running drills to protect themselves from a bomb, he would simply read comic books instead. However, when the principal and a police officer came in one day to supervise, he got in trouble. Trouble was something fairly common for "the Thunderbolt Kid", as throughout his childhood his teachers were unamused by his activities. In fact, Bryson recounts how he really was uninterested in getting up before noon, thus not even going to school very often. Despite his unique behavior, Bryson tells his story through the eyes of a child, filled with hilarious observations about the world — from "Lumpy" Kowalski's curious nickname to the joy that was to be had in the department stores.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crampton_Hodnet" title="Crampton Hodnet">
The action takes place over the course of a year in North Oxford, some time before World War II. Miss Doggett likes to entertain students and young clergy at her gloomy Victorian home in Banbury Road. When the new unmarried curate, Mr. Latimer, comes to lodge at her house, he strikes up a friendship with her paid companion, the homely Jessie Morrow, through whose eyes much of the action is seen. He begins to see Jessie as a potential wife and proposes to her, but she rejects him, knowing that his interest in her is practical rather than romantic. Miss Doggett's nephew, the don Francis Cleveland, a reader at the (fictitious) Randolph College of Oxford University, falls in love with one of his students, Barbara Bird. He contemplates an extramarital affair with Barbara, but two of Miss Doggett's student protégés see them together, and the word soon reaches acquaintances of Francis's wife, Margaret. Francis's daughter, Anthea, is in love with Simon Beddoes, the son of Lady Beddoes, and Miss Doggett is especially keen for the relationship to progress to marriage.After Margaret finds out about Francis's relationship with Barbara, she leaves for a trip to London. Francis offers to take Barbara for a weekend in Paris but they only get as far as Dover, where Barbara gets cold feet and goes to stay with a friend, leaving Francis to return alone to Oxford, where Margaret forgives him. Simon breaks up with Anthea by letter; she soon begins dating again. Mr Latimer becomes engaged while on holiday, and makes preparations to leave his role as curate. As the new academic year dawns, Miss Morrow acknowledges that she will probably remain unmarried and that nothing ever really changes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperium_(Harris_novel)" title="Imperium (Harris novel)">
Part One – Senator – 79–70 BCThe book opens with Tiro, the secretary of Marcus Tullius Cicero and the book's narrator, looking back in time over the thirty-six years he was with his master. They met when he was twenty-four years old and Cicero twenty-seven on the family estate in the hills of Arpinum. Cicero decided to consult the leading teachers of rhetoric, most of whom lived in Greece and Asia Minor, and borrows Tiro, never to return him. After trying the so-called Asiatic method, Cicero decides to enroll in the school of Apollonius Molon, a lawyer from Alabanda, who had retired to Rhodes to open his rhetorical school. It is here that Cicero develops the physical physique and voice that will make him such a popular and effective orator. Returning to Rome and becoming a senator, Cicero participates in a year of obligatory government service in Sicily and makes his way back to Rome to seek his fame and fortune. The plot develops when the senator and lawyer is visited some months later by Sthenius of Thermae, who has fled from Sicily after being threatened by the governor of Sicily, Gaius Verres. Cicero decides to defend him and raises the matter in the Roman senate but his motion is talked out by Catulus and finally Hortensius, an aristocrat, Cicero's arch rival and the leading lawyer in Rome.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_(novel)" title="Flipped (novel)">
Julianna 'Juli' Baker meets Bryce Loski two weeks before the beginning of second grade. Though Juli believes she is in love, Bryce is annoyed by her constant and persistent attention.In elementary school, Juli becomes preoccupied with saving her beloved sycamore tree from being cut down. She spends hours up in the tree, but her protest is foiled when she is forcibly removed from her favourite perch. Unbeknownst to Juli, Bryce feels horrible about Juli's tree but does not know how or if he should bring it up with her. Matters are not helped when Bryce's grandfather takes a liking to Juli and starts pestering Bryce to be friends with her.Things with Juli start to change when Juli begins giving Bryce and his family weekly batches of chicken eggs from the hens she raises in her yard. Bryce’s family worries that because Juli’s yard has always been very messy the eggs may contain salmonella. Bryce's father tells him to stop accepting eggs from Juli, but rather than risk hurting Juli’s feelings, Bryce ends up throwing the eggs away every morning. Despite his efforts, Juli accidentally discovers what Bryce’s family thinks about her and her eggs. Her feelings for Bryce deteriorate even further when she overhears him talking to a classmate about her mentally challenged uncle. Juli, furious and hurt, decides to abandon every thought of Bryce.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Usurper" title="Conan the Usurper">
Conan, about forty in these stories, embarks on the most desperate gamble of his life — leading a revolution against King Numedides of Aquilonia, with the goal of making himself king in his place. From his low point as a treasure-seeking fugitive in the Pictish Wilderness, he is retrieved by allies from his days in the Aquilonian army to lead the revolt. The borderlands suffer grievously during the war, but in the end Conan takes the throne, only to suffer the customary uneasiness of the head that wears the crown, from an attempted assassination involving Stygian sorcerer Thoth-Amon to magical treachery on the battlefield as he strives to defend his hard-won kingship against predatory foreign powers.The Aquilonian civil war between Conan and Numedides is not actually depicted, but occurs offstage as background to the action of "Wolves Beyond the Border", Howard's only non-Conan tale set in the Hyborian Age. De Camp later made the war itself the subject of his novel "Conan the Liberator", co-written with Lin Carter."The Phoenix on the Sword", which Howard rewrote from an earlier Kull story, marks his only use of Thoth-Amon as an antagonist, in a somewhat peripheral role — he and Conan never even meet! In later stories, De Camp and Carter would later elevate the Stygian sorcerer into one of Conan's principal enemies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantrasamgraha" title="Tantrasamgraha">
A brief account of the contents of Tantrasamgraha is presented below. A descriptive account of the contents is available in Bharatheeya Vijnana/Sastra Dhara. Full details of the contents are available in an edition of Tantrasamgraha published in the "Indian Journal of History of Science".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Wanderer" title="Conan the Wanderer">
Conan, now about thirty-one, survives a Turanian-involved trap which crushes his Zuagir raiders and seeks revenge on Vardanes of Zamora, their betrayer. Afterwards, he moves on to other adventures, killing a high priest in the cannibal-haunted city of Zamboula and ultimately gaining command of a band of Kozaki warriors in the service of Kobad Shah, king of Iranistan. In his final adventure, Conan once again encounters his old rival, Olgerd Vladislav, and predecessor as chief of the Zuagirs.Chronologically, the four short stories collected as "Conan the Wanderer" fall between "Conan the Freebooter" and "Conan the Adventurer".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_the_Dog_(Winslow_novel)" title="The Power of the Dog (Winslow novel)">
Winslow's novel describes three decades of the United States' war on drugs by following several main characters: The DEA agent Art Keller; Adán Barrera, who controls large parts of the drug trade from Mexico to the United States of America; the prostitute Nora Hayden; and Sean Callan, a gangster from the streets of New York. Agent Keller becomes obsessed with the Barrera family after they torture and kill a DEA agent in Mexico. Trying to avenge his colleague, Keller discovers massive involvement of the US and the Mexican governments in drug trade operations. The CIA prevents him from taking revenge on the drug cartels to combat left-wing activists in Latin America.Winslow's novel exposes the brutality of the war of drugs with graphic scenes of torture and massacres. It also navigates through the inner workings of the drug trade and how different organizations collaborate to achieve their respective goals, from the Mexican drug cartels to the Vatican.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Don_Flows_Home_to_the_Sea" title="The Don Flows Home to the Sea">
The 1940s English edition subdivides the book into seven major sections.1. Red Don or WhiteSet in 1918, this section covers the initial opposition of the Don cossacks to the Bolsheviks, the effective surrender of many of them to Red forces, and then the growing discontent leading up to the Upper Don province revolting. In Tatarsk, the Melekhov family decide not to retreat with the White cossacks, but Mikhail Koshevoi and other communists begin purging the village of wealthier Cossacks. Piotra is protected by his old military comrade Yakov Fomin, now a Red leader, but Gregor is forced to flee to escape arrest.2. The Cossacks RiseThe Don cossacks rise in response to the executions. Piotra Melekhov, leading the local squadrons, advances against the Reds but is outmaneuvered, captured and ultimately shot by Mikhail Koshevoi. The rebels effectively form their own soviet-style government, though they accept some logistical support from the Whites, who are fighting on the Donietz. Grigor becomes a division commander, holding Kargin against the Red forces, but is often appalled at his own side's actions, letting a number of family members of Red soldiers out of prison in Vieshenska. Mikhail Koshevoi becomes part of the Serdobsky regiment, and narrowly escapes when the men all defect to the rebels; his fellow communist Stockman is killed. Ivan Alexievich, a communist cossack from Tatarsk, is captured and driven through different villages with other prisoners being brutalised by crowds, before coming to Tatarsk and being shot by Piotra's widow Daria.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curse_of_the_Viking_Grave" title="The Curse of the Viking Grave">
The novel is set in the northern Manitoban forests and in the Barrens to the north. Jamie, Awasin, and Peetyuk divide their time between studying with Jamie's uncle, Angus Macnair, and trapping in the woods. When the Chipeweyan camp nearby succumbs to deadly influenza, the boys help with supplies and nurse the survivors, while Angus travels south in search of medical help. However, Angus contracts pneumonia on the journey and is hospitalized. Jamie is anxious both to obtain money for Angus's treatment and to avoid being placed with Child Welfare. He prepares to return to the Viking tomb he discovered (in "Lost in the Barrens") which he believes may contain valuable archaeological relics.The boys and Awasin's sister, Angeline, set out to the still frozen north by dog sled and cariole and eventually meet up with Peetyuk's people, with whom they stay until the thaw. They realize that the Ihalmiut are struggling to survive, and so they decide that most of the profits from the grave should go to help them. The medicine man tells them the story of the heroic Viking known as Koonar and claims that a curse will descend on anyone who disturbs his rest. Defying the curse, Jamie uncovers a sword, a soapstone box, and other ancient pieces. Planning to take the artifacts to Churchill, the travelers set out again, this time by canoe, and brave the treacherous Big River which leads to Hudson Bay.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squire_(novel)" title="Squire (novel)">
"Squire" tells the story of Keladry of Mindelan's years as a squire, between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. Having passed the "big examinations", Kel becomes a squire without a knight-master. While she becomes frustrated at waiting for offers from knights, her best friend, Nealan of Queenscove, becomes squire to Alanna the Lioness, the first lady knight in Tortall, and Kel's personal hero.While Kel is disappointed at not becoming the Lioness's squire, she shortly receives an equally prestigious offer from Lord Raoul of Goldenlake, commander of the elite King's Own and a personal friend to the Lioness. As Lord Raoul's squire, she travels with the King's Own and participates in routine duties ranging from chasing rogue centaurs to helping to rebuild villages afflicted by natural disasters such as mudslides. Along the way, Kel acquires a baby griffin from the bandits who kidnapped him from his parents' nest. Due to the high incidence of kidnapping immature griffins for their magical powers, griffin parents attack any human who has ever touched one of their offspring, so this task is not without its dangers.As knight-master, Raoul teaches Kel the fineries of command, and hones her proven skills in jousting, eventually entering her into tournaments where she jousts against other squires and knights. She jousts twice against Wyldon of Cavall, her previous training master, a political conservative who was initially vehemently opposed to Kel's training to be a knight. After the second time, she meets three girls, two of them sisters, who explain that they wish to train for knighthood as well. Kel gives them some advice, noting that the sisters appear serious about it while the third girl seems more like the type that jumps around from idea to idea.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koko_(novel)" title="Koko (novel)">
In the early 1980s, a series of ritualistic murders take place in Southeast Asia in which the victims have their eyes and ears removed, and are each found with a playing card placed in their mouth bearing the word "KOKO". During a reunion of veterans at the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., four survivors of a doomed platoon—Michael Poole (a grief-stricken pediatrician), Tina Pumo (owner of a Vietnamese restaurant), Conor Linklater (an itinerant construction worker) and Harry Beevers (an opportunistic lawyer)—gather to discuss the killings. Because the word "Koko" holds special significance to their old platoon, and because the killings recall the events in books he has written, the men believe that the killer is Tim Underhill, another member of their platoon who disappeared years earlier. Beevers convinces the men to help him track down Underhill.While Pumo remains in New York City, Beevers, Poole, and Linklater travel to Asia in search of Underhill. Michael, Conor, and Harry fail to find Underhill in Singapore, but are given several leads which send Michael and Conor to Bangkok and Harry to Taipei. While wandering around a residential area of Bangkok, Michael comes across Underhill at a small neighborhood fair and realizes that he is too stable and good-natured to be the killer. Underhill agrees to return to the U.S. to help in the pursuit. He, Michael and Conor reunite with Harry in San Francisco before returning to New York together. Meanwhile, the killer travels to the U.S. himself and murders Tina in his apartment. Tina's girlfriend, Maggie Lah, comes across the scene and narrowly escapes the killer's clutches.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawkins'_God" title="Dawkins' God">
McGrath begins with an overview of evolutionary biology and Darwinian theory. He then presents Dawkins' view that the current state of scientific knowledge should lead a rational person to conclude that there is no God. McGrath argues that Dawkins fails to declare or defend several crucial assumptions or premises. McGrath also defends other conclusions in the book, including:McGrath argues that Dawkins' rejection of faith is a straw man argument. According to McGrath, Dawkins’ definition that faith “means blind trust, in the absence of evidence” is not a Christian position. In contrast, argues McGrath, accepting Dawkins’ definition would require blind trust since he offers no evidence to support it. Rather, it is based upon what McGrath calls “an unstated and largely unexamined cluster of hidden non-scientific values and beliefs” (p. 92). McGrath then argues that Dawkins frequently violates the very tenets of evidence-based reasoning that Dawkins himself claims to uphold and use to dismiss all religious belief.Also on page 92, McGrath states "... Darwinism neither proves nor disproves the existence of God (unless, of course God is defined by his critics in precisely such a way...)."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Suitable_Boy" title="A Suitable Boy">
In 1951, 19-year-old Lata Mehra attends the wedding of her older sister, Savita, to Pran Kapoor, a university lecturer. Lata’s mother, Mrs. Rupa Mehra, says that it is time for Lata to be married as well, which Lata dismisses as she intends to concentrate on her studies in English literature. Nevertheless Mrs. Rupa Mehra begins to put out feelers to her friends and family, for a suitable boy for Lata.In the meantime Lata is approached several times by a boy her own age and after a few meetings feels she is in love with him. His name is Kabir Durrani, and Lata is distressed when she realises he is Muslim as her Hindu family would never allow her to marry a Muslim man. When her early morning meetings with Kabir are discovered she tries to run away with Kabir, who refuses. Ultimately Lata agrees to go with her mother to Calcutta to live with her arrogant older brother Arun, who is already married.As Lata is leaving she is spotted by Haresh Khanna, an ambitious shoe manufacturer who is involved in business with Kedarnath Tandon, the husband of Pran’s older sister, Veena. He is intrigued by her beauty and sadness.In Calcutta, Lata is surprised to find herself enjoying her time with her brother, and his wife Meenakshi. She meets Meenakshi’s eccentric family, the Chatterjis, and bonds with her older brother, Amit, an England-educated poet who is under pressure from his family to marry. Though Amit initially only intends on being friendly to Lata as a member of his extended family, he begins to consider her as a possible wife. Mrs. Rupa Mehra is horrified when she realises that Amit and Lata might be considering marriage, as she dislikes Meenakshi and therefore disapproves of the Chatterjis. She goes to Delhi to renew her efforts to find a spouse for Lata. By accident she is introduced to Haresh Khanna and decides he is suitable for Lata. Despite the fact that he is in love with another woman (whom he cannot marry due to her family's objection), Haresh agrees to meet Lata. Lata finds the idea of marrying Haresh ridiculous but nevertheless has an agreeable time with him and gives him permission to write to her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genius_Loci_(novel)" title="Genius Loci (novel)">
A young Bernice Summerfield lands a job as an archaeologist on a colony world. She discovers evidence that the planet was previously inhabited by a sapient species.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Buccaneer" title="Conan the Buccaneer">
Conan, now in his late thirties and privateer captain of the "Wastrel", becomes embroiled in the politics of the kingdom of Zingara when he searches for a mythical treasure on the Nameless Isle. Mixed up in his adventure are Princess Chabela, daughter of a dying Zingaran king, the privateer Zarono, and the Stygian sorcerer Thoth-Amon.Chronologically, "Conan the Buccaneer" falls between "The Pool of the Black One" in "Conan the Adventurer" and "Red Nails" in "Conan the Warrior". However, the present book ends with Conan as a successful captain, high in the favor of the royal family of Zingara, while "Red Nails" starts with him as a fugitive mercenary in the jungles south of Stygia. How Conan lost his ship, left the sea, and took up again the role of a mercenary is untold.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silver_Kiss" title="The Silver Kiss">
Zoë Sutcliff is a young woman who experiences the slow death of her mother, Anne Sutcliff, and the dislocation of her father, Harry Sutcliff. She turns to her sole friend Lorraine, who cannot provide emotional support for Zoë. Lorraine moves to Oregon with her father and stepmother, leaving Zoë completely alone. On the news, there are reports of women being killed in Zoë's area, whose throats are slashed and drained of blood. While walking in a park, Zoë meets Simon and begins a friendship with him; they eventually develop a mutual romantic attraction until one night she catches him eating a pigeon. He later tells her the truth of his origin, namely that he is a vampire from 17th-century England, and he is seeking to kill Christopher—his own brother—who looks like a six-year-old albino but is a sadistic version of what Simon could become. He reveals that Christopher is Zoë's neighborhood's throat-slashing killer, and his brother was also responsible for the murder of their mother and his vampirism; hence, he wants retribution against his brother. Prior to Simon's revelations, Lorraine was almost killed by Christopher when he attempted to lure her into an alley until Zoë reached her in time; Zoë now realizes that she has met the childlike vampire before and inadvertently saved her friend's life by interfering. Skeptical, Zoë allows Simon to feed upon her in a controlled manner to prove his claims.  
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Be_Popular" title="How to Be Popular">
Steph Landry has been the target of jokes since sixth grade when she spilt a red Super Big Gulp on Lauren Moffat's white D&amp;G skirt. In response, Lauren coined the phrase "Don't be such a Steph Landry" to ensure Steph never lives it down. As time has passed people have forgotten both the incident and the individual, but the phrase is widely used in the small town. This has caused Steph to feel like a social pariah. Steph has since been content to hang out with her best friends Jason and Becca, also social outcasts, but as she enters the eleventh grade, she wants more out of high school. Luckily, she finds a copy of an old book titled none other than "How to be Popular" while cleaning out Jason's grandmother's attic.The book is full of useful tips. She follows the book's advice and begins the school year with flat-ironed hair and a new attitude. Steph is determined to be confident and enthusiastic about school. She sits with new people at lunch and organizes a talent auction. Steph does not anticipate Lauren's anger at her sudden rise in popularity, or Jason's confusion and shock at her behaviour. As her popularity grows, Steph is forced to make difficult choices about who and what is truly important to her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Land_Remembered" title="A Land Remembered">
"A Land Remembered" focuses on the fictional story of the MacIveys, who migrated from Georgia into Florida in the mid-19th century. After settling, this family struggles to survive in the harsh environment. First they scratch a living from the land and then learn to round up wild cattle and drive them to Punta Rassa to ship to Cuba. Over three generations, they amass more holdings and money, and move further from their connection to the native, untamed land.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Swordsman" title="Conan the Swordsman">
The seven short stories collected as "Conan the Swordsman" are set at various points of Conan's career, from his youth as a raider in the north to his maturity as a general in the kingdom of Aquilonia. The two associated non-fiction pieces by de Camp are on the Conan saga in general and the derivation of the names used by Howard for constructing the fictional "Hyborian Age" setting of the Conan stories.Chronologically, the seven stories supplement the tales in the twelve volume Lancer/Ace Conan series, falling into the period covered by "Conan" through "Conan the Warrior".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Answer_(novel)" title="The Answer (novel)">
After the destruction of the Yeerk pool, Jake, Tobias, and Marco hide while witnessing the Yeerks destroying the last remnants of their hometown and watch as the Pool Ship lands amidst the destruction. After briefly considering destroying the Pool Ship, the Animorphs hide, deciding that capturing the vessel would be a better strategy.Hoping to gain military assistance for the attack, Jake visits Major General Sam Doubleday. Although Doubleday is initially distrustful of Jake, he eventually listens and agrees to Jake's plan after a Controller-major on the general's staff tries to kill Jake. After a Yeerk attack on the general's base, Doubleday evacuates his troops and confines them and himself for three days to eliminate any remaining Controllers amongst his soldiers.Unfortunately, the confinement of Doubleday and his troops means a three-day delay before the Animorphs can launch their attack on the Pool Ship. Sensing that the Yeerks could get the new Yeerk pool that is under construction operational within that time period, the Animorphs decide to take out the Taxxons digging the pool. In the ensuing battle, Jake finds himself underground and in the company of several Taxxons, led by none other than Arbron, a former companion of Elfangor's who became a Taxxon-"nothlit" several years earlier. Arbron makes Jake an offer: in exchange for allowing his followers to become "nothlits" and make a home for themselves on Earth, the 1709 non-Controller Taxxons on the surface and on board the Pool Ship will defect and join the Animorphs in their fight against the Yeerks.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Idol_(novel)" title="Teen Idol (novel)">
Jenny Greenley is a 16-year-old high school junior who lives in the small town of Clayton, Indiana. She is secretly the school newspaper's advice columnist Ask Annie, a job she got due to her ability to keep others' secrets and help people with their problems- something she been doing her entire life. Teen film star and heartthrob Luke Striker is making a movie about high school, but having grown up on television, he knows nothing about real teens and their lifestyles. When he decides to go undercover at Clayton High School to research his role, the principal assigns Luke as Jen's responsibility; she is expected to show him around the school, help him integrate, and most importantly, keep his true identity secret from her fellow students.During his time at Clayton, Luke is appalled by the vicious hierarchy of high school and tells Jen that she should start taking a stand for the people who can't speak for themselves, rather than just consoling them and letting it happen again and again. After Luke's true identity is revealed at a school car wash, Jen realizes that she has the power to do so, and starts making serious changes in the lives of others and herself as well, morphing from "nice little Jenny Greenley, everybody's best friend" to Jen, effector of social change. She quits show choir, foils a cruel senior prank, and befriends unpopular outcast Cara. When she confronts her best friend Trina about her poor treatment of her boyfriend, Trina begins to get angry. Compounded by the discovery that Jen is going to the school's annual Spring Fling with Luke (who asked her as an apology for the trouble he caused), she is furious, and refuses to talk to her for several days. However, despite the newfound media exposure surrounding Clayton, Jen's feelings for Luke remain platonic. Meanwhile, she grows closer to Scott, a fellow junior and editor of the school newspaper. Trina eventually realizes that she has overreacted, and makes up with Jen.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wish_(novel)" title="The Wish (novel)">
Middle schooler Wilma Sturtz is alone. Her childhood friends have moved away, and her efforts to make new ones have failed. Wilma's fortunes change when she offers an old lady her seat on the subway. The woman offers to grant Wilma one wish, exactly as Wilma wishes it. Flustered, Wilma wishes to be the most popular person at Claverford, her middle school.The wish is granted to Wilma's surprise. She befriends a group of popular girls, along with a budding friendship with a boy named Jared. However, a loophole is revealed; Wilma's wish was granted exactly as she wished for it, so she is not popular to students outside of Claverford, or to students from other schools. Even worse, her wish will expire the day they graduate from the school.Wilma attempts to embrace her wish and find the old lady. The wish wears off as soon as Wilma goes back to her house with her friends--by this time, they have all graduated. She reveals what she wished to her "friends," but realizes that if she wishes to remain friends with them or even to have her wish renewed, she'd be forcing them to do something against their will; without the wish, they wouldn't have befriended Wilma willingly. After telling Jared this, he says that she wasted a wish and could have wished for something better--such as a pet porpoise.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_Beloved_Sister" title="Most Beloved Sister">
The story revolves around seven-year-old Barbro, who has a secret twin sister called Ylva-li, the only person in Barbro's life who likes her more than anything else, and who calls her Most Beloved Sister. Ylva-li is the queen of the golden hall which can be reached by crawling down a hole under the rose bush, Salikon. Barbro and Ylva-Li ride their horses and have adventures together. When Barbro has to return to her parents, Ylva-Li tells her that she will die when the roses on Salikon wither. Barbro refuses to believe her and returns to her parents, who pretend that they have missed her. The next day, the roses on the rose bush are all dead, and there is no longer a hole in the ground.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tiger_Rising" title="The Tiger Rising">
Rob Horton is 12 years old and lives with his father in a Florida motel called the Kentucky Star. His father (named Robert), and Rob have recently moved to Lister, Florida, after the death of Rob's mother, Caroline. Rob is quiet and often is bullied at school. Things begin to change when Rob discovers a tiger in the forest (locked up in a cage) while wandering the woods. He then meets a girl named Sistine Bailey (named after the Sistine Chapel) who has recently moved nearby. Rob shows Sistine the tiger. Rob, who usually keeps his feelings locked away begins to involuntarily open up emotionally to Sistine. Though Sistine insists on letting the tiger go, Rob is wary of what will happen to it if he does. Rob finally relents and releases the tiger, letting it run into the woods. However, just moments later, Rob's father shoots the tiger dead. Rob’s father is then seen holding the gun over the tiger in front of the Kentucky Star. Rob then angrily attacks his father and tells him he wishes his father died instead of his mother, and also forces him to say the name Caroline Horton, which Rob is forbidden to say. Rob also insists they bury the tiger, and have a funeral. At the tiger's funeral, Sistine recites a part of William Blake's The Tyger. Rob and his father confront their unresolved feelings about Rob's mother and Rob begins looking forward to going to school with Sistine.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarek_(novel)" title="Sarek (novel)">
Sarek discovers that leaders of the Federation and its enemies have been subjected to outside mental influence. He suspects that the interference is linked to the Freelans, a race which has been part of the Federation for decades, but which no offworlder has ever seen due to a cultural taboo. Sarek once inadvertently discovered that the Freelans look like Vulcans, but later dismissed the incident as a hallucination induced by the Pon farr. After secretly accessing the Freelan computer system, Sarek discovers that the Freelans are in fact Romulans, and that their Vulcan aides are the children of Vulcan spacefarers kidnapped by the Romulans and forced to reproduce. The Freelan ambassador Taryn is actually the Romulan wing commander in charge of the plot to spy on the Federation from within. The mental influencing of various leaders is carried out by the Vulcan aides, who were raised as Romulans without the telepathic ethics taught on Vulcan.Sarek's work is interrupted by the news that his wife, Amanda, is terminally ill. Although he returns to Vulcan to be with her, he is soon called upon to negotiate for the release of a colony world held hostage by a Klingon renegade. He agrees, even though he will not be able to return before his wife's death. His son Spock, who believes his father's first duty is to the family, becomes angry when he learns of this decision, and the feud between them that ended in the episode "Journey to Babel" threatens to reassert itself. Sarek succeeds in the negotiations and discovers that the Klingon commander Keraz who led the raid is also a victim of the Romulans' mental influence.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_State_Counsellor" title="The State Counsellor">
Moscow, 1891. Disguised as Fandorin, the leader of a revolutionary organization murders a general. Fandorin has to catch him. He is assisted (or is it hindered?) in his investigations by Prince Pozharsky, a fictional descendant of Dmitry Pozharsky, who helped bring the Time of Troubles to an end.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intimate_Adventures_of_a_London_Call_Girl" title="The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl">
"The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl" begins with Belle de Jour introducing herself as a "whore", then further explaining that she does not mean it metaphorically, and that she literally is a "whore".After the prologue the book begins in a diary format, with Belle explaining the clients she meets and her personal complications that become entwined with her job as a call girl. The average diary entries last little longer than a page and are always titled with the date, which is written in French, for example, the first diary entry reads "Samedi, le 1 Novembre", which translates into Saturday, 1 November. Each chapter is broken apart by the month the diary entries were written in, for example "Novembre" (November).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Werewolf_Cub" title="I Am a Werewolf Cub">
Ulf was bitten in his leg when stealing apples. He read the "Book of Werewolves" and understands he turns into a werewolf at full moon. His family notices that the previously timid Ulf is now talking back and sneaks out at night.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_You,_Beth_Cooper" title="I Love You, Beth Cooper">
Upon graduation from Buffalo Grove High School, valedictorian Denis Cooverman states to the entire gymnasium that he's had a crush on cheerleader Beth Cooper for six years. During the speech, he singles out several members of the class including the class bully and a pretty but shallow party girl, and tells his movie-quoting best friend Rich to admit that he's gay. Denis' speech upsets everyone except Beth, who thinks it was "sweet", giving Denis the courage to invite her to a party at his house that night. After the speech, it is revealed that Beth in fact has a boyfriend, an off duty army soldier named Kevin who threatens Denis.After his declaration, Denis' mother and father leave him and Rich alone at the house for their party, which no one attends, as they are social outcasts. Beth shows up in her tiny blue car with her friends Cammy and Treece (the group of three is known as "The Trinity") at Denis' house that evening. Things are awkward and become worse when Kevin shows up with his army buddies, and Denis and Rich are assaulted and Denis' house (the kitchen) is trashed. Beth and the Trinity help Denis and Rich get away.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Declaration_(novel)" title="The Declaration (novel)">
Anna Covey is nearly 15 years old and has lived in Grange Hall (a Surplus Hall) for most of her life. She was taken away from her parents at the age of two and now, in year 2140, she has learned to "hate [her] parents" for bringing her into the world. Anna has also grown up believing that her parents hate her because it is her fault they are imprisoned.As part of her Pending process (through which she will become a Valuable Asset the moment she comes of age), Anna undergoes a work placement in the home of a Legal lady, Mrs Sharpe, who is kind to her in a way Anna is not used to. Mrs Sharpe allows Anna to take certain liberties that would earn her a beating if discovered by the staff at Grange Hall, like offering Anna to try on her lipstick. At the end of the placement, Mrs Sharpe gives Anna a small pink diary made of pink suede, in which Anna now writes every night. However, as "journals and writing [are] forbidden at Grange hall [because] Surpluses were not there to read and write [but] to learn and work", Anna has to hide her diary away on a secret shelf in the side of the girls' bath.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Resistance_(Malley_novel)" title="The Resistance (Malley novel)">
Prior to the events of this novel, the world had become overpopulated due invention of a drug that lets people live forever. A "Declaration" is created which people who take the drug, named Longevity, must sign. By signing they give up the right to have children, though some powerful people are given exceptions. Those who take the drug and still have children are called the "Surplus".The book opens as Peter is pretending to live life as a legal by working for his grandfather, Richard Pincent, at Pincent Pharma. In reality he is attempting to help the underground, coordinating with Pip, the leader of the Underground in all but name, an organization dedicated to destroying Longevity. Peter is being watched at work by his half-brother Jude through hacked security cameras. Peter's grandfather pressures Peter to sign the Declaration in order to harm the underground and help launch a new drug Longevity+. Peter, with the encouragement and support of his girlfriend Anna, who he lives with, initially plans to decline to sign the Declaration.While attempting to steal a document from his grandfather's office, a task which is surprisingly easy, Peter finds out about a planned Surplus Sterilisation Programme. He discovers his name and that of Anna on the list of people to be sterilized. Returning home Peter gets drunk and says to Anna that they should both sign the Declaration. In response, Anna calls Pip, but Peter does not listen to him either. Peter and Anna continue to fight about whether to sign the Declaration until Richard convinces Anna to sign. While Anna does this, she is soon arrested by the Catchers/Police with stolen documents - it's an apparent set-up.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolores_(Susann_novel)" title="Dolores (Susann novel)">
The beautiful and fashionable Dolores Cortez Ryan is widowed when her husband, U.S. President James Ryan, is gunned down in New Orleans. After a year in seclusion, Dolores takes tentative steps back into the world, by having affairs first with a screenwriter, and then with Barry Haines, an attorney who likes rich women, but doesn't consider Dolores--with just $30,000 a year--quite rich enough. Finally, Dolores agrees to marry a fabulously wealthy shipping tycoon, who leaves her on their wedding night to go to his mistress.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heart_of_a_Distant_Forest" title="The Heart of a Distant Forest">
Retired junior college history professor Andrew Lachlan has returned to his family home on a lake in north central Georgia to spend the last year of his life. Diagnosed with a terminal disease, he has decided to forego life-extending treatments so he can focus on learning what he feels he does not yet know about the world. With strong interests in Native American history and the natural world, he begins a journal that chronicles his last year.He lives alone, his wife have died some time before, and he looks forward to solitude, but a young country boy, Willie Sullivan, comes into his life. Willie's world is cramped and difficult, and he brings to Andrew a kind of learning he's never had before. At the same time, Andrew begins to teach Willie about the life beyond Shadow Pond, where Andrew lives.Andrew also reconnects with Callie McKenzie, a woman he loved years earlier and who is now a widow herself. Each begins to see in the other reflections of the life they once led. As Andrew's life draws toward its inevitable end, he begins to find the edge of a new transcendence and an understanding of how generations learn and pass on the best of what they know and feel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Eye_for_an_Eye_(novel)" title="An Eye for an Eye (novel)">
Fred Neville, also known as Justin Groch, a lieutenant of cavalry and heir to the earldom of Scroope, woos and then seduces the beautiful Kate O’Hara. Kate lives with her mother in genteel poverty in an isolated cottage near the cliffs of Moher in western Ireland.News of the romantic entanglement quickly reaches Scroope Manor, and Fred is summoned back to Dorsetshire where the earl extracts a firm undertaking that Fred will not marry Kate O’Hara under any circumstances, despite any promises he has made to the girl.Once back in Ireland, Fred is confronted at his barracks by Mrs. O’Hara, demanding to know when he intends to marry her daughter, who is carrying his baby. He is shamed into agreeing to visit Kate, but that evening word arrives that the old Earl has died, and that Fred is now the Earl of Scroope. Fred realizes that marriage to Kate O’Hara is out of the question as her background would make her quite unacceptable in society. He resolves to confront Mrs. O’Hara and her unfortunate daughter.The climax of the novel takes place between the young earl and Mrs. O’Hara on the cliffs above the cottage. Whilst acknowledging the promises he made to Kate, Fred steadfastly refuses to make her Countess of Scroope. A frenzied Mrs. O’Hara attacks the lord, driving him backwards over the cliff edge to his death. Realizing she has killed the man her daughter loves, she instantly falls insane.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Asylum_Seeker" title="The Asylum Seeker">
Christian Beck, a translator of technical manuals, has concluded that life consists of nothing but self-deception and illusions, and decides to devote his time to unmasking all illusions, false hopes, and high ideals. He denounces all deception in his friends and family and promises his own unmasking as a finale; swearing off all personal desire, he now dedicates his life to the happiness of his girlfriend, "Bird", a former prostitute. The couple lived for a time in Eilat, Israel, where Beck was a regular customer to the brothel and Bird was sleeping with ugly, deformed men. Back in Europe, it becomes clear that she is suffering from a fatal disease, and before she dies agrees to marry an asylum seeker from Algeria so he can attain permanent residence. Beck protests initially but later agrees to the marriage. The asylum seeker also gratifies Bird sexually, and a strange ménage à trois is the result.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_Bear,_Polar_Bear,_What_Do_You_Hear?" title="Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?">
The book is designed to help toddlers identify wild animals (from the zoo) and the noises they make. It features a polar bear, a lion, a hippopotamus, a flamingo, a zebra, a boa constrictor, an elephant, a leopard, a peacock, a walrus, a zoo keeper and some children.This is a companion book to "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?", published by Carle and Martin in 1967, replacing the earlier text's colours and common animals with sounds and less common animals.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blood_of_Others" title="The Blood of Others">
In German-occupied France, Jean Blomart sits by a bed in which his lover Hélène lies dying. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn about both characters and their relationship to each other. As a young man filled with guilt about his privileged middle-class life, Jean joins the Communist Party and breaks from his family, determined to make his own way in life. After the death of a friend in a political protest, for which he feels guilty, Jean leaves the Party and concentrates on trade union activities. Hélène is a young designer who works in her family's confectionery shop and is dissatisfied with her conventional romance with her fiancé Paul. She contrives to meet Jean and, though he initially rejects her, they form a relationship after she has had an abortion following a reckless liaison with another man. Caring for her happiness, Jean tells Hélène he loves her even though he believes that he does not. He proposes and she accepts.When France enter the Second World War, Jean, conceding the need for violent conflict to effect change, becomes a soldier. Hélène intervenes against his will to arrange a safe posting for him. Angry with her, Jean breaks their relationship. As the German forces advance towards Paris, Hélène flees and witnesses the suffering of other refugees. Returning to Paris, she briefly takes up with a German who could advance her career, but soon sees what her countrymen are suffering. She also witnesses the roundup of Jews. Securing the safety of her Jewish friend Yvonne leads Hélène back to Jean who has become a leader in a Résistance group. She is moved to join the group. Jean has reconnected with his father with the common goal to liberate France from Germany. His mother however is less impressed by the lives lost to the Resistance. Hélène is shot in a resistance activity and during Jean's night vigil at her side, he examines his love for Hélène and the wider consequences of his actions. As morning dawns, Hélène dies and Jean decides to continue with acts of resistance.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Sétimo_Selo" title="O Sétimo Selo">
The plot revolves around a murder that the protagonist, Tomás de Noronha, attempts to solve. While working on the murder, de Noronha discovers the environmental danger the Earth is being exposed to by the human race.Antarctica, summer of 2002. Howard Dawson, chief scientist at the American Antarctic scientific station, McMurdo, receives a radio contact from the Argentinean scientific station, Marambio. The Argentineans are at the Larsen B ice shelf and report that the shelf is shaking and on the verge of collapse. Puzzled, Dawson requests satellite imagery and is astonished to find the assessment credible. He immediately flies to the Antarctic Peninsula, where Larsen B lies. Once there, he bewilderedly watches the ice shelf disintegrate. Dawson is overwhelmed by the sight of a slab of ice the size of Rhode Island separating from Antarctica, and returns in shock to McMurdo. Alone in his lab, he prepares to file a report on the biggest global warming event ever seen by human eyes.A stranger step in and points a gun at him.Bang. Bang, Bang.The report is never written.World-famous cryptanalyst Tomás Noronha is approached by Interpol agent Alexander Orlov, who hires him for a strange investigation. Two scientists were killed a few years ago, both on the same day in the summer of 2002: an American in Antarctica and a Spaniard in Barcelona. Both were well acquainted with Filipe Madureira, an old high school friend of Tomás. Filipe has since disappeared, and Interpol wants Tomás to track him down. Orlov also wants the cryptanalyst's help to decipher a message left by the assassins near the victims’ bodies - an ancient biblical mystery:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bougainville_(novel)" title="Bougainville (novel)">
The narrator, Bo, is a middle-aged diplomat somewhat disenchanted with his life, who finds himself, stationed in Bangladesh in 1973, reconstructing the life of his childhood friend Tommie. After they got reacquainted at a class reunion, Tommie drowned himself in the Bay of Bengal and left Bo with a collection of papers which, beside autobiographical material by Bo, also contains the memoirs of his grandfather, a frustrated idealist who left by boat for the Dutch Indies in the early 1900s, and managed to bed Mata Hari on the way. The novel combines the three plotlines of Bo's account of his friendship with Tommie and his work in Bangladesh, which he perceives as futile; Tommie's account, a success story which ends in suicide; and the reflections of Tommie's grandfather.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Go_Down_to_the_Sea" title="Five Go Down to the Sea">
Siblings Julian, Dick and Anne Kirrin, and their cousin Georgina 'George' Kirrin and her dog, Timmy, spend a holiday at a coastal farm in Cornwall. There, they are nicely welcomed and hosted by the garrulous Mrs Penruthlan and her enormous husband, whose monosyllabic utterances they find incomprehensible and quite funny. The children encounter a young boy named Yan (Jan), as well as a group of travelling entertainers called the Barnies. The children learn that long ago, villainous locals would shine a light on stormy nights to direct ships onto rocks to wreck them, and the vessels would be smashed and their cargoes washed ashore and stolen. Julian and Dick discover a light is again being shone at night, so the children set out to solve the mystery. They discover the Secret Way, a way used by the old Wreckers, and when they were locked up in a cellar and told that they had come at an 'awkward time', Yan comes and helps the Five escape, as he knew the Secret Way. They go back to Mrs. Penruthlan via the Secret Way, in the misbelief that Mr. Penruthlan is in the wrong. When the Five and Yan discover that Mr. Penruthlan is actually with the police and find out that his consistent "aahs","ooohs" and "ocks" are because he didn't have his false teeth in, the Five quickly warm up to him. Later in the book after a Barnie shows and a good meal at Penruthlans', they discover that the 'Guv'nor' of the Barnies actually is the exchanger of the goods the Wreckers stole from the wrecked ships. Mr. Penruthlan discovers a white package inside Clopper (a dangerously funny pretend horse that is the highlight of any Barnie show), and in the end, after calling the police, Mr. Penruthlan guffaws and hands Clopper over to Julian and Dick, and wishes them luck with it. At the end they kissed each other and started there new lives happily.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohawk_(novel)" title="Mohawk (novel)">
The book is set in Mohawk, an upstate New York mill town in a decline following that of its leather tanning industry. The Mohawk Grill, a diner run by Harry Saunders, is featured. The novel explores the lives of two intersecting families, the Grouses and the Gaffneys.Anne Grouse is the 40-year-old daughter of Mather Grouse and his wife, and lives with her parents and son Randall after her divorce from Dallas Younger, her high-school sweetheart. He is a good-hearted but unreliable auto-mechanic. Anne is in love with Dan, the husband of her cousin Diana. He became paralyzed after a car accident.The relationship between Mather and fellow leather-worker Rory Gaffney provides tension and suspense in the story.Randall befriends Rory's mentally disabled son Bill, who is in love with Anne Grouse. Following his grandfather Mather's death, Randall returns to Mohawk, after having dropped out of college to avoid the draft. He meets Rory's granddaughter B.G., who falls in love with him. The story climaxes with Randall being accused of murder after three Gaffneys lie dead.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Butterfly_(novel)" title="Black Butterfly (novel)">
It is 1953, shortly after the coronation of Elizabeth II. Box is now nearing retirement, and has also been left with an unexpected offspring, Christmas Box. However, he discovers that elderly pillars of the British establishment are meeting unexpected deaths through participation in reckless risk taking and accidents. He tracks the perpetrators to Istanbul, is assisted by Turkish-Geordie double agent Whitley Bey and meets Afro-Japanese gay agent Kingdom Kum, and also that the aforementioned figures were poisoned by a malignant chemical derived from the eponymous insect. From there, he travels to Kingston, Jamaica, where he meets the chief culprit behind his misadventures – the progeny of an old enemy, Cassivelaunus Fetch Junior, who is using a "New Scout Movement" to mask his mass poisoning schemes.With that resolved, Box is knighted, and renews the acquaintance of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, whom he once met at a party on Armistice Day 1918.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_for_Rachel_Wallace" title="Looking for Rachel Wallace">
Spenser is hired to protect a lesbian, feminist activist, the eponymous Rachel Wallace. Spenser defends her more vigorously than she would like and she fires him. Shortly afterwards, she is kidnapped and the police have almost nothing to go on. Though no longer officially employed to protect her, Spenser feels duty-bound to find her because he could have protected her if he had followed her orders and held onto the job.His investigation leads him to an organization that is fiercely anti-communist, anti-gay, and loosely affiliated with the local Ku Klux Klan. Spenser gets free rein to operate because the police know that he can be more persuasive than they can in finding Rachel. A snowstorm paralyzes Boston and Spenser has to go on foot if he wants to get to Rachel Wallace before they kill her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Princess_and_the_Unicorn" title="The Princess and the Unicorn">
This novel follows two characters: Princess Eleanor of England and a young fairy named Joyce. Joyce lives in Swinley Forest with a community of other fairies who rely on the forest's unicorn for survival. One day, Joyce follows the unicorn to the edge of the forest and is spotted by Princess Eleanor. The princess chases her inside and finds the unicorn, only to take it home with her to Swinley Castle. Knowing it is her responsibility to retrieve the unicorn, Joyce sets out on a journey to bring the unicorn home. Things get a little more complicated when the Princess takes the unicorn with her to London.Meanwhile, the princess is not living the dream life that most little girls would assume. She rarely gets to see her parents, who are too busy with their affairs to tuck her in bed at night. And her once lovable nanny is brewing a deceptive get-rich-quick scheme behind the princess's back.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Report_on_Probability_A" title="Report on Probability A">
The story is divided into three sections:In "New Worlds" these sections are divided into fourteen chapters, with Part II beginning half way through chapter six and ending in chapter eleven. In the Faber edition the three sections are divided into sixteen chapters, with six chapters each in Parts I and II and four chapters in Part III.The bulk of the novel is the titular report, which describes in objective, repetitive and seemingly trivial detail the bizarre activity, taking place one overcast January day, apparently in England, around a suburban house in which a writer, Mr. Mary, lives with his wife. In the grounds of the house are various outbuildings which are occupied by three of the Marys' ex-employees: the gardener "G" is in a wooden hut, or summerhouse, some ten metres north-west of the house; Mr. Mary's former secretary "S" is in the upper room of a brick outhouse - a former stable or coach house - at the end of the back garden; and the chauffeur "C" is in a small loft above the garage a metre and a half from the south-east wall of the house. Thus the gardener (G) is in a summerhouse (S), the secretary (S) in a coach house (C) and the chauffeur (C) in a garage (G), achieving a kind of linguistic circularity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_(play)" title="Talk (play)">
The play explores themes of mixed race as both an aesthetic challenge and a social concern, gesturing toward a poetics of social justice for the “mulatto millennium” as well as art as both social memory and cultural production. Influenced by Euripides' play "The Bacchae", the entire play is held in the ruins of a museum of Greek antiquities, and has characters inspired by the Socratic dialogues ("Phaedo", "Crito", "Meno", "Apollodorus", and "Ion") written by Plato, which attempts to determine the definition of virtue and the meaning of art. TALK also delves heavily in theoretical arguments regarding the reading of performativity as interdisciplinary concepts by examining the works of André Breton, Clay Felker, Mark Van Doren, Jonas Mekas, James Baldwin, Wayne Shorter, Jack Kerouac, Maya Deren and Robert Giroux (among others) with clips from an alleged unfinished experimental film ( heavily influenced by the French New Wave and Maya Deren's expressionism) [1]made by Aymes, shown and narrated by Phaedo, one of his collaborators.The play takes the form of a heated panel discussion regarding the identity of the late enigmatic (fictional) writer named "Archer Aymes".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness" title="The Left Hand of Darkness">
The protagonist of the novel is Genly Ai, a male Terran native, who is sent to invite the planet Gethen to join the Ekumen, a coalition of humanoid worlds. Ai travels to the Gethen planetary system on a starship which remains in solar orbit with Ai's companions, who are in stasis; Ai himself is sent to Gethen alone, as the "first mobile" or Envoy. Like all envoys of the Ekumen, he can "mindspeak"—a form of quasi-telepathic speech, which Gethenians are capable of, but of which they are unaware. He lands in the Gethenian kingdom of Karhide, and spends two years attempting to persuade the members of its government of the value of joining the Ekumen. Karhide is one of two major nations on Gethen, the other being Orgoreyn.The novel begins the day before an audience that Ai has obtained with Argaven Harge, the king of Karhide. Ai manages this through the help of Estraven, the prime minister, who seems to believe in Ai's mission, but the night before the audience, Estraven tells Ai that he can no longer support Ai's cause with the king. Ai begins to doubt Estraven's loyalty because of his strange mannerisms, which Ai finds effeminate and ambiguous. The behavior of people in Karhide is dictated by "shifgrethor", an intricate set of unspoken social rules and formal courtesy. Ai does not understand this system, thus making it difficult for him to understand Estraven's motives, and contributing to his distrust of Estraven. The next day, as he prepares to meet the King, Ai learns that Estraven has been accused of treason, and exiled from the country. The pretext for Estraven's exile was his handling of a border dispute with the neighboring country of Orgoreyn, in which Estraven was seen as being too conciliatory. Ai meets with the king, who rejects his invitation to join the Ekumen. Discouraged, Ai decides to travel through Karhide, as the spring has just begun, rendering the interior of the frozen country accessible.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbs_and_Apples" title="Herbs and Apples">
The story is told in the first person by Sue, who had met the young Derrick once, and then meets her a second time on the train taking them to the same college. At college, the two girls form a clique dedicated to literature and philosophy with four other freshmen, Alice, Edith, Madeleine, and Frances. Derrick is easily the most ambitious and talented of them, writing poetry. She argues forcefully that marriage is an abdication of artistic talent, and vows never to get married.During the summer between their freshman and sophomore years, World War I breaks out, and the United States enters the war a few months before they graduate. Derrick, Sue, and Alice move to Manhattan, where Derrick finds a secretarial job working for a literary magazine. She continues to write poetry, and most of one play. On home visits, she argues with her childhood friend, Jack Devlin, whose support of pacifism angers her. To her shock and fear, he enlists, and she agrees to consider marriage on his return. Jack is killed in action, and Derrick takes it very hard.Shortly afterwards, Derrick's mother becomes deathly ill, and Derrick moves back to Tecumseh, destroying her drafts. As the oldest child of six, she finds herself replacing her mother in her siblings' lives. She accepts a teaching job at an elementary school. Sue later visits, and barely recognizes Derrick, who is serene and happy with her lot.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fierce_Dispute" title="The Fierce Dispute">
One summer, Lucy Anne learns to sing from Aaron, the family's Negro servant, who has not been told this is not allowed. Margaret rebukes Lucy Anne, and explains that she is to stay away from music. When she is caught playing the piano, she is sent to bed. Lucy Anne sneaks out, but when she tries to scale the locked gate, falls and sprains her ankle. Her fall is witnessed by Dr. Martin Child, who climbs the gate and brings the child in and treats her. He is invited back for regular medical visits. Hilary herself is somewhat sick, possibly tuberculosis, and Dr. Martin, who was sweet on Hilary from before she left for Italy, proposes to her and asks her to move with him to a warmer, drier climate. She refuses.When Lucy Anne has healed, Margaret takes Lucy Anne with her on her once-a-year all-day visit, by interurban train and trolley, to her son Tom, his wife and their daughter. The lousy time Lucy Anne has there—her cousin and friend call her a "wop" among other things—convinces Margaret to revise her will, leaving out the clauses that would force Lucy Anne to live with her Uncle Tom, but otherwise just as controlling. Margaret also catches a terrible cold, a possible pneumonia, and is treated by Dr. Martin.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_Fire_(Blackwood_novel)" title="Under Fire (Blackwood novel)">
While on a routine intelligence gathering trip for The Campus in Tehran, Iran, Jack Ryan, Jr. visits his old college friend Seth Gregory for lunch. After their conversation, Gregory leaves with a cryptic comment that “there are steaks in the freezer.” The next day, Ryan is met by Raymond Wellesley of British intelligence and Matthew Spellman, his American counterpart, who tell him that Gregory, who works with them on an intelligence operation, had gone rogue; they warn him to stay away from his old friend. This piques Ryan's interest.Ryan later goes to Gregory's apartment, but is later abducted by an unknown group of men. He manages to escape just as a mysterious woman pulls up in a car to fetch him away from his abductors. The woman introduces herself as Ysabel Kashani, an Iranian national who is also Gregory's college friend. They return to his apartment and retrieve an old document from a safe, which combination was found with “steaks in the freezer”.Ryan and Kashani later go to Azerbaijan, where they are met by Gregory and Spellman. Ryan discovers that his old friend is an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency, and that his father, Paul, was a legend in the CIA until he was branded as a traitor and committed suicide. He further finds out that Gregory is taking part in an intelligence operation with Wellesley and Spellman, which is to facilitate a coup in Dagestan, and that the document he and Kashani retrieved has coordinates for internet hubs to be used during the coup (Gregory's father had originally written the document).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewell,_Summer" title="Farewell, Summer">
In 1935, Elizabeth Lake, a 41-year-old academic, feels compelled to return to Sunbury, Ohio, where she had sometimes stayed with her maternal grandparents as a child. Intending to do some professional writing, she runs into her cousin Tune, now in his 90s, whom she had not seen since she was last in Sunbury thirty years before. Tune tells Elizabeth she ought to write down the story of the old days of the town, which causes Elizabeth to recall her cousin Steve Van Doren and her own mistake that contributed to his death.In 1905, twenty-one-year-old Steve arrives in Sunbury from Texas after the death of his father. He is only able to find a little bit of work. Eleven-year-old Elizabeth, who is staying in Sunbury, develops a crush on him. Steve falls in love with his cousin Damaris, but while Damaris is attracted to Steve, she is too frightened of uncertainty to contemplate marriage, and intends to become a nun.Crazy cousin Tobias, called Tobe or Bias, who was wounded in the Battle of Chickamauga, is determined to dig up the thousand dollars in gold he is certain he buried after the Civil War, but he cannot remember the location. In order to "cure" Bias of his obsession, Steve buries his own complete earnings of a hundred dollars in gold coins, mixed with shiny pennies. Steve thinks that Bias, with his poor vision and hands, will be unable to tell the difference between the pennies and the additional gold. However, Bias does realize the difference, thinks someone has stolen from him, and becomes so angry that he hurls the coins down the outhouse toilet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Rangers_(novel)" title="Star Rangers (novel)">
In the year AD 8054, the Stellar Patrol Scoutship "Starfire" has crashed in a desert on an Earth-like planet. The planet's atmosphere, gravity, and solar radiation are almost ideal for the Rangers and Patrolmen. On initial examination, there are no signs of civilization. After burying their dead, the survivors set up a camp in a forest beside a river.One night, one of the men notices the bright beam of a beacon sweeping across the sky. Ranger Sergeant Kartr and Ranger Rolth take the aerial sled to investigate. They find an abandoned city lit up as if it were inhabited. There they meet Joyd Cummi, an Ageratan Vice-Sector Lord who has come to the city with almost two hundred people from a starliner that has made an emergency landing nearby.Against Kartr's advice, the Patrol's ranking officer decides that the Patrolmen and Rangers will move to the city and join the other refugees. Not trusting Cummi, the Rangers take up residence in a tower isolated from the buildings occupied by the starliner's passengers and crew. Soon Kartr and the others discover that all is not well in the Cummi dictatorship.Inspired by the arrival of the Patrol, the rebels begin their revolt, and the Rangers are drawn into the battle. With their expertise, the Patrolmen and Rangers help the rebels win the fight. Cummi flees the city, taking telepathic control of Kartr's body and uses him to fly the Rangers' aerial sled.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We,_the_Navigators" title="We, the Navigators">
## Introduction.David Lewis, after circumnavigating the world in a catamaran, decided to test his understanding of Polynesian navigation techniques by sailing the 2200 miles from Tahiti to New Zealand without any modern instruments (except the smallest of charts and a sky map). After arriving with a landfall only 26 miles in error, he learned that there were contemporary sailors in the Santa Cruz and Caroline Islands who still sailed large distances by the traditional methods and obtained support from the Australian National University to visit and sail with them. He did this in a 39-foot gaff ketch, "Isbjorn", which he placed under the direction of the navigators Tevake and Hipour. These navigators spoke very little English, were illiterate and did not understand maps but were able to take him eventually on a 450-mile trip from Puluwat to Saipan and to return and teach him many of their techniques.The book is largely based on these voyages, but there are extensive references to the literature.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Homes" title="Broken Homes">
Constable Peter Grant and Detective Chief Inspector Nightingale are called to investigate a road traffic accident involving Robert Weil. The investigating officers found human blood from a body in the early state of rigor mortis in his car. Subsequent enquiries lead to a shallow grave containing the body of a young woman killed with and disfigured by a shotgun whose fingers have been removed. Peter initially assumes Weil is a serial killer, but he and Nightingale learn that Weil is on their list of Little Crocodiles, members of an Oxford University dining club who were taught magic by Geoffrey Wheatcroft.Meanwhile, PC Lesley May, still on indefinite sick leave after suffering a magical attack that resulted in catastrophic facial injuries in "Rivers of London", returns to The Folly after her latest round of reconstructive surgery. Nightingale instructs Peter and Lesley in the art of magical staff-making in the hopes of drawing out the Faceless Man.Sergeant Jaget Kumar calls in Peter to help with a case. Richard Lewis, on the Little Crocodile watch list, committed suicide by train while showing signs of being controlled through magic.Peter uncovers a rare German Grimoire handed in by a book dealer, who suspected it was stolen. CCTV coverage of the surrounding area leads Peter to the suspected thief, one Patrick Mulhern. Peter pays him a call but finds Mulhern dead by magic.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxglove_Summer" title="Foxglove Summer">
The protagonist Peter Grant is left shaken by the developments at the end of the previous book, the sudden betrayal and defection by a highly valued colleague to whom Grant also had a strong emotional tie. The moping Grant welcomes the chance to leave the familiar grounds of London and travel to rural Herefordshire, where the disappearance of two eleven-year old girls is a media sensation, the focus of an intensive police search - and might have grave magical implications as well.Grant finds that the tangle of marital and extra-marital relations in a small rural community is not only a matter for gossip, but bears very serious criminal implications, and some supernatural ones as well. He meets with a retired wizard, traumatized by the secret magical battles of World War II, and with the wizard's granddaughter who has a very special affinity with bees. Grant gets into intensive contact with Beverley Brook, the goddess or Genius loci of Beverley Brook, a tributary of the Thames - and learns by personal experience just how rivers gain such gods. He finds that unicorns are all too real and that their horns are deadly weapons; that fairies do exist and even in the 21st century they do sometimes kidnap human children and replace them with changelings; and he meets with a real-life faerie queen, very different from the one imagined by Spenser.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Someone_like_You_(TV_series)" title="Someone like You (TV series)">
A man loses everything in one day in a tragic car accident. Fang Zhan Cheng (Kingone Wang) lost his fiancée, Liang Luo Han (Lorene Ren), as well as his eyesight. Devastated by the loss of his fiancée, Zhan Cheng is inconsolable and even refuses a corneal transplant that could restore his vision. But his life takes an unexpected turn when Chen Yu Xi (Lorene Ren), who looks exactly like his fiancée, is hired to become Zhan Cheng’s day nurse. Another young woman, Xu Ya Ti (Nita Lei), receives Luo Han’s heart in a transplant and begins to exhibit many of Luo Han’s mannerisms and personality. Caught between a woman who looks exactly like his beloved dead fiancée and another woman who behaves just like her, what will Zhan Cheng do?.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pause_(novel)" title="The Pause (novel)">
The book is a first-person reflective narrative of the main character Declan O’Malley who commits suicide after his girlfriend Lisa is forcefully relocated to Honk-Kong after their relationship is discovered by her mother referred to as the Kraken. He commits suicide via jumping onto the way of an oncoming train but is forced to observe an alternate reality where he survived his suicide attempt and recovered from depression.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Strangers_(book)" title="City of Strangers (book)">
In this book Gardner has captured the lives and everyday experiences of Indian workers living in Bahrain. These people are mainly migrant workers and constitute about half of the country. Gardener has also told these workers' personal stories and how the "sponsorship system" in this country binds a worker to a particular sponsor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_canot_sur_les_chemins_d'eau_du_Roi" title="En canot sur les chemins d'eau du Roi">
In 1949, Jean Raspail traveled in North America with his friends Philippe Andrieu, Jacques Boucharlat and Yves Kerbendeau, taking on the name Équipe Marquette ("Team Marquette"). They travel by canoe in the footsteps of Father Marquette, a Jesuit missionary who explored the Mississippi River in 1673. The voyage goes from Trois-Rivières in Quebec to New Orleans in Louisiana.From the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River to that of the Mississippi, they pass by the Ottawa River and the Great Lakes. They travel through the area which used to be known as New France, which it is frequently referred to as throughout the book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Virgin_(novel)" title="The Virgin (novel)">
A girl from a Yoruba village is engaged to a hunter from another village. Having been seduced by a man returning to the village from his life in a Nigerian city, she nervously awaits her wedding night.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayar-e-Dil_(novella)" title="Dayar-e-Dil (novella)">
Faarah is a young doctor who is currently doing her house job. Her mother Ruhina left to Karachi after their dispute over the property, which Ruhina is demanding from her Father in law in respect to the divorce of Farah and Wali. Where Farah is reluctant on taking property. For fifteen days, she spare herself from the outer world, when one day Wali calls her and tell her that he is agree to give her divorce including whatever else she wants and they decided to meet. Farah then meets Wali, who propose a contract and ask if She is agree to live in Peshawar with Agha Jan for three months, he will give her divorce including the property she is demanding and whatever else she wants. Despite being alarmed she reluctantly agrees and signed a contract, without telling anyone she and Wali left for Peshawar, where ailing Agha Jaan became energetic after seeing her. Not able to understand, she concludes that Wali brought her here because of the declining health of her Grandfather. However, she decided to fulfill the contract, but gradually she went through many truths, about their lives and families. After meeting with Agha Jan, Farah went to rest in her Fathers room, where she remembers all the past events that occurs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Mains_d'Orlac" title="Les Mains d'Orlac">
The pianist Stephen Orlac suffers a railway accident that gives him serious head injuries and deprives him of his hands. The famous and controversial transplant doctor Cerral gives him new hands, transplanted from a freshly guillotined assassin. Afterward, Orlac begins to wonder if he has become a Mr. Hyde who has inherited the criminal proclivities of his donor via his hands.He seems to suffer from hallucinations and sinks into depression. His wife attempts to save him, but the couple are caught in a spiral of conspiracy, mystery and crime.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Saw_Ramallah" title="I Saw Ramallah">
In 1966 Mourid Barghouti went to Cairo, Egypt for higher studies. In 1967, after the Six-Day War, when he came back to Palestine after completing his studies, he was barred to enter the country. Like many others he started living abroad. Thirty years later, after continuous struggle, he was allowed to enter Ramallah, his own hometown, where he was born and grown up.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_(novel)" title="Proxy (novel)">
## Setting.The book is set in a distant post-cataclysmic future where civilization has evolved its technology so rapidly through unrestricted capitalism to bring about a world where nearly every conceivable service can be purchased. Society has developed into a rigid class system where the Upper City lives in the height of luxury while the Lower City lives in utter poverty and rapidly accrue debt to pay for necessary health and technological services. As a result of the Lower City being infinitely indebted to the Upper City super corporations, the middle class has been eliminated altogether.Upper City citizens can purchase the debts of people from the Lower City. The wealthy patron will pay for the poorer person's essential needs and in return they serve as proxies to be punished in place of the patron when the patron breaks the law, or supply the proxy's body for health purposes - e.g. donate blood or organs. Many Lower City citizens assume this debt at birth and have no feasible way to repay, challenge, or escape it. Any contact between the proxies and the patrons is outlawed. This injustice has brought about the existence of "The Rebooters", a rebel organization set on destroying this system by introducing "Jubilee", an event that would erase all digital data and records, including currency and debts.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_(poem)" title="The Man (poem)">
The story is built along the lines of the Gospel (The Advent of Mayakovsky, the Life of Mayakovsky, the Rise of Mayakovsky, et cetera). Back on Earth after one thousand years the Poet discovers the street he's lived on and shot himself at, "by the door of the beloved," bears his name. This detail acquired a sinister overtone after Mayakovsky committed suicide in 1930, troubled love life cited as one of the reasons.According to biographer A. Mikhaylov, the poem's protagonist is an oversensitive young man who suffers from social injustice and longs for social upheaval. The hero is a bizarre hybrid of a lofty neo-romantic superman and a real-life Mayakovsky, the former fighting the universal evils, the latter getting bogged down into petty everyday conflicts. At the crux of the poem lies the idea of futility of man's aspirations, both personal and social, due to the baseness of human nature and the power of money ruling the world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shattered_Sea" title="Shattered Sea">
The story follows the exploits of Yarvi, a young prince of Gettland with a disabled hand. When his father dies, Yarvi is elevated to the throne but faces a struggle to keep it as others conspire to take it from him. Initially, the main point of view character, the second book moves to two new characters, Thorn and Brand, while Yarvi remains as a central character. In the third book, three new point of view characters (Princess Skara, the Vansterland warrior Raith and Father Yarvi's apprentice Koll, who features throughout the second book also) are introduced.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tom_Sawyer" title="The Adventures of Tom Sawyer">
Tom Sawyer is an orphan who lives with his Aunt Polly and his half-brother Sid in the town of St. Petersburg, Missouri, sometime in the 1840s. A fun-loving boy, he frequently skips school to play or go swimming. When Aunt Polly catches him sneaking home late on a Friday evening and discovers that he has been in a fight, she makes him whitewash her fence the next day as punishment.Tom cleverly persuades several neighborhood children to trade him small trinkets and treasures for the "privilege" of doing his tedious work, using reverse psychology to convince them of its enjoyable nature. Later, Tom trades the trinkets with students in his Sunday school class for tickets, given out for memorizing verses of Scripture. He collects enough tickets to earn a prized Bible from the teacher, despite being one of the worst students in the class and knowing almost nothing of Scripture, eliciting envy from the students and a mixture of pride and shock from the adults.Tom falls in love with a girl named Becky Thatcher, who is new in town and the daughter of a prominent judge. Tom wins the admiration of Judge Thatcher in the church by obtaining the Bible as a prize, but reveals his ignorance when he is unable to answer basic questions about Scripture. Tom pursues Becky, eventually persuading her to get engaged by kissing her. Their romance soon collapses when she discovers that Tom was engaged to another schoolgirl, Amy Lawrence.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurélien" title="Aurélien">
"Aurélien" explores the moral quandaries and aesthetic diversions of its titular bourgeois hero. Through the lens of its protagonist, a forty-something who has never quite recovered from his experiences in the First World War, Aragon's novel depicts a forgotten and wayward inter-war generation, devoid of any definite identity. The action unfolds against a backdrop of the famous Roaring Twenties (complete with cameos from Picasso and the Dadaists in Pigalle, mentions of the backlash against Cocteau, and allusions to fashionable outings in the Bois de Boulogne).Despite the meaningless pursuits that surround him, Aurélien becomes swept up in an all-consuming, tortuous and impossible love for Bérénice, a young woman fresh from the provinces with a husband and a "taste for the extreme" ("le goût de l'absolu"). Their love cannot, however, withstand the pressures of their reality. Bérénice eventually returns to her provincial existence, leaving Aurélien to embrace a life of disaffection and hedonism with renewed vigour. Eighteen years later, they meet again and re-live the impossibility of their lost love.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Accidental_Man" title="An Accidental Man">
The novel is set in London. The plot involves a large number of characters who are related to each other by family or acquaintance. The "accidental man" of the title is Austin Gibson Grey, a middle-aged man who has lost his job and is living apart from his mentally fragile second wife Dorina. Austin's older brother, Sir Matthew Gibson Grey, has returned to London after a successful diplomatic career. The two brothers have been estranged for many years. Austin blames his brother for having injured him when they were children, leaving him with a deformed right hand, and for having had an affair with his first wife, both of which accusations Matthew denies. Matthew tries to reconcile with his brother, whose actions and accidents drive much of the plot.The novel begins with the engagement of Ludwig Leferrier, a young American historian, to Gracie, the daughter of George and Clara Tisbourne. Ludwig has decided to remain in England after a scholarship year in Oxford, rather than return to the United States. He is opposed to the Vietnam War and expects to be arrested for having avoided the draft if he goes home. Ludwig gets a job teaching at an Oxford college. Gracie's wealthy grandmother dies and leaves all her property to Gracie, despite the fact that her daughter Charlotte, Clara's sister, had lived with her and looked after her during her illness. During the course of the novel Ludwig begins to question his relationship with Gracie, who does not share his intellectual and moral seriousness, and who discourages him from trying to help Dorina and Charlotte. He also doubts his own motivation for staying in England.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wicked_Will_Rise" title="The Wicked Will Rise">
Amy Gumm continues her crusade against Dorothy Gale and Glinda after a failed assassination attempt. After escaping from the burning Emerald City, the flying monkeys Ollie and Maude use their new paper wings in attempt to carry Princess Ozma and Amy to safety, but they are attacked and their wings are destroyed. Amy uses magic to allow them to land safely.They find the Lion, Amy takes his tail, the source of his courage. The Lion is reduced to cowardice, and Amy spares him.They encounter wingless monkeys who take the group to the Queendom of the Wingless Ones. Amy meets Queen Lulu, the former guardian to Princess Ozma, who agrees to allow them to stay, but makes it clear that she will not get involved in the war. During the night, Amy meets Pete again and learns that he was unintentionally created by Mombi when she disguised young Ozma as a boy named Tippetarius. Knowing his true identity, she agrees to help him.Mombi arrives and challenges Queen Lulu, with Amy as the defense. She is able to convince the Queen to allow Mombi to stay. Mombi requests that Amy seeks out Polychrome to assist them in helping the Order slay Dorothy. Amy and Ozma leave the Queendom of the Wingless Ones to find her and are given a gift from Queen Lulu that she stole from Glinda. When the gift backfires and Glinda unexpectedly appears, Amy tries to fight her, but it is revealed that Glinda is only a projection.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_Games" title="Nemesis Games">
The "Rocinante" is down for long-term maintenance after the events of "Cibola Burn". Three crew members decide to take care of some personal business during the down time. Amos Burton heads to Earth when he learns someone important from his past there has died, to pay his respects and to make sure no foul play was involved. Alex Kamal heads to Mars in the hopes of getting closure with his ex-wife and to see Bobbie while there. Naomi Nagata heads to Ceres station, when she receives a message that her son Filip is in trouble. While Jim Holden supervises repairs to the "Rocinante", he is enlisted by Monica Stuart to investigate disappearing colony ships.Facing collapse by the exodus of colony ships through the rings, militant factions of the OPA coalesce into a Free Navy and simultaneously wreak havoc on Earth by dropping asteroids onto the surface, and subsequently attempting to kill the Martian Prime Minister and Fred Johnson. Amos survives the attacks on Earth, frees Clarissa Mao and escapes to Luna with her help and the help of Baltimore organized crime acquaintances from his old life. Alex meets Bobbie on Mars and they investigate missing Martian military equipment and ships, which leads them into the middle of the assassination attempt on the Prime Minister. Naomi is kidnapped by her ex-lover Marco, leader of the Free Navy, but manages to escape; Alex and Bobbie rescue her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physik" title="Physik">
The book begins with Silas Heap and Gringe accidentally releasing the spirit of Queen Etheldredda - while Unsealing a room for Silas's Counter- Feet Colony - from a painting that she had been trapped in for 510 years. Her release also releases her pet Aie-Aie, which causes a Sickness by biting people. Once released, she drowns Septimus Heap, only to save him for blackmail. She sends Septimus to meet her son Marcellus Pye who drank an incomplete potion of immortality. Marcellus uses a magical mirror to send Septimus back in time to learn Physik from a younger version of Marcellus, in an attempt to complete the potion. Marcia finds a note from Septimus in Marcellus' book "I Marcellus".Jenna Heap and Nicko Heap enlist the help of Alther Mella to attempt to travel back in time to find Septimus. Alther takes them to see Alice Nettles, who happens to be housing Snorri Snorrelssen. In Alice's warehouse, they find a Glass that allows them to travel back in time 500 years. Snorri, Jenna, and Nicko fall through the glass, but it's shattered when Spit Fyre attempts to follow them through it. Jenna is confused for the lost princess and is taken to see Etheldredda, separating her from Snorri and Nicko. She escapes when she meets Septimus by chance at a feast thrown to honor the return of the princess.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Not_Sidney_Poitier" title="I Am Not Sidney Poitier">
## Chapter 1.The novel begins with the conception of Not Sidney Poitier, a boy whose mother, Portia, invests in Turner Broadcasting on the ground floor. She gains quite a lot of money when it becomes successful. Ted Turner comes to visit her and meets Not Sidney. Portia dies soon after the meeting, which allows Ted to become Not Sidney's guardian. Ted gives Not Sidney free rein over his money and life, to avoid the white savior stereotype. Not Sidney is educated by a socialist college student named Betty. Not Sidney is also heavily bullied, and in order to combat this bullying, he attempts to learn martial arts. When that fails, he learns how to "fesmerize" people, which is an ability that is akin to hypnosis, and uses that ability to mess with Ted, Betty, and Ted's wife, Jane Fonda. Upon reaching high school age, Not Sidney decides to attend public school. He develops a crush on his teacher, which she notices. She invites him to her home, where she sexually assaults him on two separate occasions. She threatens to fail him if he doesn't allow it, though after the second time, she fails him anyway. Not Sidney attempts to report this, but is ridiculed by the administration both at his individual school and at the Board of Education. As a result, he drops out and decides to go on a journey to California.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_the_Moon" title="Eye of the Moon">
Isikara and her brother Katep lived in the temple of Sobek in Thebes with their father, Henuka. One day, Katep was bitten by a crocodile, reducing his arm to a mutilated stump. Frustrated that he was useless in the temple, he left Egypt.Later, the royal barge of Queen Tiy visited the temple. However, high priest Wosret was sitting on the throne instead of the queen. Apparently, she and her eldest son Tuthmosis died, and Wosret came to request their mummification at the temple.Isikara eavesdropped on the conversation between her father and Wosret. She discovered that Wosret poisoned Tuthmosis so that his younger brother could rule, and that the assassination attempt was unsuccessful. Henuka refused to stab Tuthmosis's heart with a needle to ensure his death. Isikara accidentally knocked over one of Queen Tiy's canopic jars, causing Wosret to discover her eavesdropping.With discreet assistance from her father, Isikara escaped with Tuthmosis through a secret passageway. The two used a senet board to navigate the tunnel, which led them through Tuthmosis's father's burial chamber and to the tomb's exit. Tuthmosis sought the help of a Nubian girl named Ta Miu, who provided them with supplies. Isakara and Tuthmosis disguised themselves as peasants, repeatedly avoiding detection by Wosret while escaping to the desert.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Nights_With_the_Duke" title="Four Nights With the Duke">
The protagonists of the novel, Mia Carrington and Evander "Vander" Brody, were childhood acquaintances whose parents were involved in a long-term affair. The prologue details Mia's humiliation when, at age 15, another acquaintance ridicules her for writing a love poem to Vander.Thirteen years later, both are still single. Vander is now the Duke of Pindar, but eschews polite society to train racehorses at his estate. Mia is a very successful romance novelist, writing under a pen name. After her fiance leaves her at the altar, Mia is desperate. If she does not marry within the month, custody of her crippled nephew, Charlie, will revert to his evil uncle. Seeing few options for herself, Mia blackmails Vander into marriage. In a fit of anger, he announces he will grant her only four nights per year; Mia agrees to those terms.After the ceremony, Vander learns that Mia intends the marriage to be temporary. By now intrigued by her and quickly becoming attached to Charlie, Vander refuses to grant her an annulment. He insists on his four nights, and soon finds himself in love with his new wife.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon's_Gate_(novel)" title="Dragon's Gate (novel)">
Otter, a fourteen-year-old Chinese boy growing up during the opium wars and the oppression of the Manchu dynasty. Otter wishes to travel to America, to the Land of the Golden Mountain called California. He longs to travel to California, so he can assist his uncle and father, in the doing of the Great Work, in order to take back their country, yet he decides with much disdain to remain in Three Willows to be with his mother. After accidentally killing a Manchu, Otter's life is in danger, so he was sent to America to join his father and uncle. Otter enthusiastically left for America, only to find that the reality of being a Chinese immigrant meant working in the brutal cold and other awful conditions. Otter is filled with disgust and undertakes the seemingly impossibletask of climbing the Tiger, the mountain which for so long has kept his people working in bitter conditions, ascending above the cloud layer to prevent an avalanche. Which results in the loss of his beloved Uncle. Taken aback by his loss, Otter is determined to finish what his Uncle started, even if it means withstanding the bitter cold for the rest of his life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Tupac_and_D_Foster" title="After Tupac and D Foster">
"After Tupac And D Foster" is based on three girls: two black eleven year old girls, Neeka and the anonymous narrator, and D Foster, who was of mixed race and had just moved into Neeka and the narrator's neighborhood in Queens, New York. Their experiences are set within a world impacted by Tupac Shakur, describing events and experiences in his life during the mid 1990s, such as run-ins with the cops and events that foreshadowed his death.Growing up together on the same block of their safe neighborhood, Neeka and the narrator have been friends since birth. When D. Foster first showed up on their block, her initial impression as unconventional and different had left the two girls in a bit of shock, as well as their mothers hesitant to let them interact with her. However, they then discovered that they both were greatly influenced by Tupac Shakur's music which caused the three girls to gradually develop a lasting friendship. Later in their teens, Foster opens up to her two close friends about her alcoholic mother who had abandoned her as a child, leaving her in the care of constantly changing foster homes. She also shares with them the news of her biological Mother now wanting her back. However, relating her relationship with her Mother to that of Tupac's and his Mother, Foster realizes that even through the conflicting relationship, there is still love.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_the_Grail_and_the_Passing_of_King_Arthur" title="The Story of the Grail and the Passing of King Arthur">
## The Story of Sir Geraint.In the story, Sir Geraint, along with Queen Guinevere and her court, woke up late on a day in which King Arthur is supposed to go hunting. They go to catch up with the King, who already left them behind. Along the way, a damsel meets a knight and wishes to know his name. She asks his companion, however, he refuses to answer. Geraint takes up a quarrel with this man and demands to know the knight's name. He follows them to where they are travelling. He learns that the knight is a celebrated champion of a prize called the Sparrow-Hawk, and that he is participating in a tournament tomorrow for it. Geraint decides to join the tournament, but he has no armor or weapons. He visits an old, run-down castle nearby. The owner of the castle is happy to help Geraint, and gives him the greatest armor he has. The armor, however, is very old-fashioned and rusty. Geraint kindly accepts nevertheless. Here he also meets Enid, the owner of the castle's beautiful daughter, though she is half his age. Geraint is mocked at the tournament for his primitive armor, but he wins the tournament because of his great prowess. The knight claims his name is Gaudeamus in order for his life to be spared.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Help_the_Child" title="God Help the Child">
A young girl with blue-black skin is neglected and abused by the light-skinned parents who are ashamed of her. Lula Ann Bridewell, who calls herself "Bride", is blue-black beautiful, the kind of woman who turns heads wherever she goes. She is tall, elegant, and dresses only in white, the better to reflect her beauty.But Bride did not always know her beauty or how to wear it. As a child, her mother Sweetness punished Bride for her dark skin, which ended her marriage. Sweetness's husband Louis could not bring himself to love a child with skin as dark as Bride's. "We had three good years," Sweetness tells us, "but when she was born, he blamed me and treated Lula Ann like she was a stranger, more than that, an enemy." Her mother, meanwhile, insisted her child call her Sweetness instead of anything maternal.Bride grew up without love, tenderness, affection or apology. Sweetness makes it clear she saw herself as protecting her child from a world that would be even more inclined to punish Bride for the darkness of her skin. While Sweetness will apologize for her child's dark skin, what she will not apologize for is how she sees the world and how she raises her child, saying: "Some of you probably think it's a bad thing to group ourselves according to skin color – the lighter, the better – in social clubs, neighborhoods, churches, sororities, even colored schools. But how else can we hold on to a little dignity?" This is what makes it so difficult to judge Sweetness's choices. She should know better, but it is painfully clear her choices have been shaped by the realities of being black in a white world – a world where the lighter your skin, the higher you might climb.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Eden_(novel)" title="Dark Eden (novel)">
The novel begins about 160 years after two human beings, Angela and Tommy, are stranded on Eden. Their three companions—Mehmet, Michael, and Dixon—have left in a damaged spaceship to get help. Years have passed, and although Angela and Tommy initially held out hope for rescue, they begin to raise children, forming a new society which becomes known as "Family". Frequent and regular incest among their descendants is common, with few children knowing who their father is. Social life centers around powerful rituals: Retelling of story of the stranding, the worship of what few relics remain, myths about Earth, and the need to stay close to Circle—the place where the landing vehicle originally set down, and is supposed to return to and bring them back to Earth. Social norms are strongly adhered to in this matriarchy, and innovation is rare.Family lives in Circle Valley. Resources are stretched but they believe that leaving will make it hard for them to be found when Earth returns for them. Eden's animals each have two hearts, green-black blood, huge and lidless eyes, six legs, and tentacled feelers around their mouths. Trees tap into the heat just below Eden's surface, bringing up warmth and providing fruit and other food. Nearly all plant and animal life on Eden is bioluminescent, allowing the humans to see, while overhead the Milky Way can be easily seen at all times.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wandering_Unicorn" title="The Wandering Unicorn">
Melusine embarks upon an adventure and unrequited love affair with Aiol, the son of Ozil, a crusader knight who bequeaths a unicorn's lance to his son. Together the young knight Aiol and Melusine travel across Europe encountering monsters, angels and Knights Templar, before eventually arriving in war-torn Jerusalem of the Crusades era.Mujica Lainez’s novel generates empathy towards Melusine as she recollects her adventures, before the love affair between a mortal and an immortal concludes in a tragic ending.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dinner_(novel)" title="The Dinner (novel)">
The story is narrated by Paul Lohman, a former history teacher. He and his wife Claire meet at a fancy restaurant in Amsterdam with his elder brother Serge, a prominent politician and contender for the position of Dutch prime minister, and his wife Babette. The plan is to discuss over dinner how to handle a crime committed by their teenage sons, Michel and Rick, respectively. The violent act of the two boys had been filmed by a security camera and shown on TV, but, so far, they have not been identified. The parents have to decide on what to do. They debate over dinner causing tension throughout the evening.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaharlyk_(novel)" title="Kaharlyk (novel)">
The plot unfolds in 2114 year or 100 after Euromaidan and Russian invasion in Ukraine. The local population in Ukraine is in the medieval state. The main character Olexander Sahaidachny recovers consciousness in a house at the edge of Kyiv. He feels almost full loss of his memory and remembers just one that he needs to find his wife Olena immediately. Sahaydachnyi hopes that his memory will turn back together with his wife.In the same house, he meets Birgir Hansen, unknown person who knows something about his past and suggests finding his wife in a little town Kaharlyk (next to Kyiv), besides Birgir hints to the fact that the outside world is changed in a peculiar way and it is very difficult to survive there.Out in the street, Olexander meets a Kaharlyk inhabitant old man Petro and he agreed to take him to his house and even shelter there. Sahaydachnyi unsuccessfully tries to find his wife, but found just some evidences of Russian occupation in old newspapers. Soon old man Petro dies. Sahaydachnyi finds on the road badly wounded orthodox fundamentalist Mikhail Kalashnikov. Dying Kalashnikov asks Olexander to back-up his mind in the special device “morphone” before his death and suggests to find Olena in Kyiv.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Girl_Dreaming" title="Brown Girl Dreaming">
Jacqueline is born on February 12, 1963, in the city of Columbus, Ohio, and named after her father, Jack. While Jackie's first year is spent in the North, several trips are made to the South for Mary Ann (her mother) to visit her parents, Grandpa Gunnar and Grandma Georgiana, who live in the Nicholtown area of Greenville, South Carolina. The region is segregated and Jackie doesn't understand why she always goes. Her parents' very different feelings about the South cause arguments between them. Eventually, Jack and Mary Ann split up, and Mary Ann and her three children, Hope, Odella, and Jackie, move south to live with Grandpa Gunnar and Grandma Georgiana.Jackie comes to love Greenville. While racism and segregation exist there, the place is still home to her and her grandparents. They believe in peaceful marches for civil rights. They know that God will bless them for doing the right thing.Despite the widespread animosity, there are white people in Greenville who are respectful and treat Jackie and her family like actual human beings, rather than dirt. One such woman is the owner of the local laundromat store, who has known Grandma Georgiana for years. Mary Ann, however, wants to move back North. So, she travels to New York City to get settled. Jackie and her siblings stay on with their grandparents, relishing the time they have with them until Mary Ann comes to retrieve her children, with a brand new baby boy named Roman in tow. They move in with Mary Ann's sister Caroline Irby (Aunt Kay), but Aunt Kay dies and the family of five is left alone.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_on_the_Train_(novel)" title="The Girl on the Train (novel)">
The story is a first-person narrative told from the point of view of three women: Rachel Watson, Anna Boyd/Watson, and Megan Hipwell.Rachel Watson is a 33-year-old alcoholic, reeling from the end of her marriage to Tom, who left her for another woman. Rachel's drinking has caused her to lose her job; she frequently binges and has blackouts. While drunk, she often harasses Tom, though she has little or no memory of these acts once she sobers up. Tom is now married to Anna Boyd and has a daughter with her, Evie – a situation that fuels Rachel's self-destructive tendencies, as it was her inability to conceive a child that began her spiral into alcoholism. Rachel follows her old routine of taking the train to and from London every day, one at 8:04 in the morning and the other at 5:56 in the evening. Her train slowly passes her old house on Blenheim Road, where Tom, Anna, and Evie now live. She also begins watching from the train an attractive couple who live a few houses away from Tom. She idealises their life (christening them "Jason" and "Jess"), though she has no idea that their life is far from perfect. The wife of the couple, Megan Hipwell ("Jess"), has a troubled past. She finds her life boring, and escapes from her troubles by taking a series of lovers. Megan has sought help by seeing a therapist, Dr. Kamal Abdic. Eventually, she reveals to him a dark secret she has never confided to anyone before.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Hearts" title="What Hearts">
The book tells four stories of Asa's childhood. When Asa comes home with straight A's and hand-grown radishes in the first grade, he learns that his parents are getting a divorce. He moves with his mother to meet her boyfriend Dave, with whom he does not get along, due to Dave's being mean to him. They move to North Carolina to Dave's home. In the second story, he is in the fourth grade where he makes a lot of friends. His mother is now married to Dave, but Asa has difficulty accepting Dave as his stepfather. One day at school, Asa is assigned to recite a poem called "Little Blue Boy" with his friend Joel. He does not like the poem, so he plans to recite "The Highwayman." Joel agrees to recite the longer, more difficult poem. At first, Joel is excited, but he has difficulty remembering the lines. Joel's mother and Asa agree on Asa's reciting the poem alone while Joel's mother takes him away, unaware of Asa's solo recitation. Joel shows up on the day of the recital, and Asa, for sake of his friendship, switches back to "Little Blue Boy," which Joel remembers perfectly.Another turning point takes place when Asa is eleven. He tries out for Little League Baseball after practicing with his stepfather and his mother for weeks. A day before his tryout, his mother has an accident with pills. It is later revealed that his mother is suffering from depression. The family moves to Raleigh, and Asa misses his chance to play baseball.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Deafo" title="El Deafo">
The book depicts the childhood of Cece Bell, who required the assistance of a Phonic Ear hearing aid while she was growing up to be the person who she is now.While the hearing aid enables her to hear the world around her, it also distances her from some children her own age because she is seen as "different". This causes both frustration and depression in Cece, as she is desperate to find a true friend but frequently feels that she has to accept poor treatment from others being afraid of losing what few friends she has. She deals with these feelings by treating her hearing aid as a superpower, as it gives her the ability to hear everything. For example, she hears private teacher conversations, as her teachers wear a tiny microphone that transmits sound to Cece's hearing aid; and not every teacher remembers to turn it off when they leave the classroom. She adopts the secret nickname "El Deafo".As time passes Cece grows more assertive and opens up to the people around her, especially when she meets a new friend who doesn't seem to care that she wears a hearing aid. She also grows comfortable in confronting people that treat her differently because of her deafness, finding that many of them are largely unaware that their actions cause her emotional harm. Ultimately Cece opens up to her new friend and reveals her secret persona as "El Deafo", much to the delight of her friend, who agrees to serve as her sidekick. As she gets older, she realizes that she no longer has to hide her "superpower" with others.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Pigza_Loses_Control" title="Joey Pigza Loses Control">
Joey Pigza Loses Control is the story of a young boy with the widely known Attention Deficit hyperactivity disorder. (ADHD) The fiction book begins with Joey and his mother and dog's road trip traveling to his father's home where he is eager and nervous for what the next six weeks with his Dad, will have in store for him. After not seeing his father for many years, Joey's questions regarding his concerns towards his father, become endless. This array of questions in the form of “What If’s” that Joey bases his questions on, allows readers a full on experience into the mind of a young boy with ADHD. Joey's mother, who is clearly highly impacted by her son's disorder answers Joey's questions vaguely and occasionally, portraying a sense of impatience and relief about Joey's upcoming six week stay with his father. During the road trip, Joey wonders about all kinds of things revolving around what to expect from his dad. He was extremely impatient and nervous but one thing was for sure, it was comforting to know that his mother's own worries about Joey's father were consuming her thoughts so profoundly, it no longer seemed like Joey and his condition were the only thing on her mind, something that he had become quite accustomed to.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moccasin_Trail" title="Moccasin Trail">
Jim Keath hungers for adventure and to leave his home as a young boy. Without saying goodbye, he does just that, following his uncle into the wilderness where he helps him hunt and trap beaver. But when his uncle is suddenly killed, he is on his own. After an attack by a bear leaves him seriously injured, a band of Crow Indians come to his rescue, nursing him back to health. Jim lives out his adolescence among the Crows, speaking their language and living and thinking of himself as a Crow. Then, as a 19 year old young man, Jim is astonished to receive a letter from his brother, Jonathan, begging him to help his sister, brother, and himself secure land out west, since Jim is the only one of the four siblings who is of age to sign the legal documents necessary for claiming the land. As Jim tries to help, he struggles with the knowledge of his mother's death, the guilt of leaving his family 9 years ago, and who he really is, as his siblings try to convince him to give up his Indian ways and live as a family again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Day" title="The Golden Day">
In a class of only eleven schoolgirls, the young and enthusiastic teacher Miss Renshaw disappears after an unexpected excursion to the Gardens. There, they meet the mysterious Morgan and take a trip into a deep, dark cave. The girls return to school that day without a teacher. And so, Miss Renshaw is declared missing while the rest of the teachers scramble to get an answer. Only, Miss Renshaw told the schoolgirls never to tell what happened that day. Bethany breaks her promise in the end under pressure from Mr Dern. Eventually a news report is released with details of Morgan's past and Miss Renshaw is declared dead.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_Watch_(novel)" title="End of Watch (novel)">
Retired detective Bill Hodges, who now with his sidekick Holly runs the private investigation agency Finders Keepers, is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Given only months to live, he finds himself drawn into a recent spree of suicides. All the dead are connected by a common thread: each of them has, in the past, been in contact with mass murderer Brady Hartsfield, the notorious Mr. Mercedes who, six years ago, plotted to blow up a rock concert venue packed with teenagers. Hodges and Holly thwarted Brady's plans and left the killer in a vegetative state from which he never regained consciousness. However, many of the staff in the hospital where Brady now resides believe that he is recovering at an impossible rate, and that he may be faking his injuries to avoid facing charges for his crimes. Meanwhile, all those who have gotten too close to proving this suspicion seem to have died by suicide.After his head injury, Brady found himself gaining new abilities, including the power to move small objects with his mind and the ability to enter the bodies of certain people susceptible to his mental domination. Still confined to his hospital bed, Brady has used his power to finish his murderous work by creating a hypnotic video game app that heightens the user's susceptibility. Once the users are in Brady's control, he uses the app to dominate their minds and persuade them to kill themselves. The targets are the very teenagers who escaped death when Brady's plan to destroy the concert venue failed. Brady's ultimate goal, however, is to lure Hodges into the game and exact revenge. Brady uses the bodies of both a corrupt neurosurgeon and a hospital librarian as puppets and red herrings to do his dirty work and to misdirect the police while he makes his final move to destroy Hodges, all the while unaware that Hodges is already racing the clock against his own death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_the_Northern_Lights_Erase_Your_Name" title="Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name">
Clarissa Iverton, a New Yorker is the female protagonist of the novel. Her mother disappeared when she was 14 years old, and when she became 28 years old, her father died. After the death of her father she realized that person was not her real father. Knowing this Clarissa becomes desperate to meet her real parents. She understands to unveil this secret she has travel to Finland. She abandons her fiancé and starts journey to Helsinki, Finland
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_the_Iron_Fish" title="City of the Iron Fish">
The story opens when a 12-year-old Thomas Kemp experiences his first Ceremony of the Stuffing and Hanging of the Iron Fish. Tom lives in the , which is built on two steep hills separated by a deep gorge with a marble river running through it. The hills are connected by a bridge. The is located in the middle of a desert, surrounded by mountains, beyond which, it is said, there is nothing. The inhabitants' dream of the ocean, have boats and fishing nets, yet have never seen the sea.Every 20 years Ceremonies are performed to renew the . The construction of the huge fish and the associated rituals are performed according to rules passed down over generations, and the magic enacted changes the in unpredictable ways: streets and houses move, the ground rises and falls. Tom's father is a dedicated follower of the rituals and has access to ancient books detailing their procedures. But the has modernized, and less attention is paid to these rituals, resulting in fewer changes with each Ceremony.One day a gypsy from outside the visits Tom's father, and Tom learns that there is literally nothing beyond the mountains. The gypsies believe there was once a world of oceans and forests, but that it was lost. They still search the borders for a way back to this "given world". Later Tom queries the gypsy beliefs but is told by his father that they are just stories. To quell Tom's curiosity, he tells him to perform the ritual of making a doll, climbing the huge girders that support the bridge, and placing it at their apex.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_Hand_of_the_Grand_Master" title="The Right Hand of the Grand Master">
The story is based on the partially legendary story of renovation of Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in 1010s Kingdom of Georgia by a young enigmatic architect Constantine Arsukidze (stylized as "Constantine Arsakidze" in the book). It is set during the 11th century and tells of the reign of King George I. George has a host of problems. The most immediate one is that the various mountain tribes, including, in particular, the Pkhovi (Pshavi and Khevsureti), periodically revolt. George is (nominally) Christian. Though he professes the faith and his wife, Mariam, is an enthusiastic builder of churches, he is not as fully committed as either Mariam or the catholicos Melkisedek would have liked, not being averse, for example, to making an alliance with the Saracens when it is convenient. The Pkhovi and other mountain tribes have partially converted to Christianity but are even less enthusiastic than King George and several times during this novel, they destroy churches, imprison and kill priests and put back their pagan idols. At the start of the novel, Lord Mamamze is visiting King George though we soon know and King George soon suspects that he is there more to spy on the king, to see how he will react to the latest rebellion of the mountain tribes. Mamamze has long been a friend and ally of King George, so his rebellion is disappointing. George has other problems. Tbilisi is occupied by the Arabs and there is a continual war in Georgia . He is also at war with the Byzantines under Emperor Basil II, who has taken King George's son, Bagrat (the future Bagrat IV) hostage.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_(Grafton_novel)" title="X (Grafton novel)">
The book starts off in third-person narrative by a woman called Teddy Xanakis. Teddy is in the throes of a bitter divorce and trying to ruin her ex-husband Ari, who had an affair with her best friend. The story transitions into first-person narrative by Kinsey Millhone. Since the last book she has inherited a large sum of money from a family member on her father's side. She meets with a client who wants her to find her biological son she gave up for adoption. She also starts trying to help out Pete Wolinsky's widow, Ruth, with an IRS audit. Another story-line involves new neighbors and attempts at water conservation. None of these story-lines are connected and Kinsey bounces back and forth between these disparate events throughout the book. Kinsey discovers that Pete was investigating a person he believed to be a serial killer who ends up attacking Kinsey. The disjointed plot lines have generally disappointed fans of her previous works.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Who_Saved_the_King_of_Sweden" title="The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden">
In 1961, Nombeko Mayeki is born a poor black girl in Soweto. She leaves the slums and in a twist of fate – is run over but survives – this puts her into the employ of the engineer who ran her over, as a cleaner in South Africa's secret nuclear weapons facility. Here, her good head for mathematics leads her to cover for her drunken and incompetent employer. Two Mossad agents eventually murder her employer, but she outwits them and escapes to Sweden with a trio of female Chinese con artists, but due to a mix-up, Nombeko ends up in possession of a missing South African atom bomb. In Sweden, she settles into a condemned building living in a bizarre commune including a pair of identical twins (both named Holger), the youngest of which and his girlfriend are die-hard republicans determined to end the Swedish monarchy. Nombeko and her Swedish boyfriend (the older Holger) are determined to hand the bomb over to the Swedish Prime Minister, but no-one will believe them. Years later, after several attempts to hand over the bomb have failed in absurd circumstances (including the remaining Mossad agent finding and nearly killing them), Holger and his girlfriend kidnap the King and the Prime Minister of Sweden on the spur of the moment from a gala banquet with Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Royal Palace in Stockholm, and prepare to blow up the bomb (and everything within a 38-mile radius) in order to end the monarchy. Nombeko calms the situation down, saving the King's life, and her own.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Waltz_in_Cedar_Bend" title="Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend">
Michael Tillman is an unconventional Iowa tenured economics professor, rides a vintage motorcycle and walks barefoot as he teaches Boolean Algebra. He feels an immediate attraction to Jellie Braden when she walks into a dean's reception with her husband Jimmy. Their common experiences links Jellie and Michael together in India and within a year the affair in consummated. Jellie then disappears to India and Michael heads to Pondicherry to find Jellie and her complicated past. He eventually tracks her down to a hotel on Periyar Lake and her secrets are revealed...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_and_Me" title="Amelia and Me">
It was August 1931, during the Great Depression. Ginny Ross, her cousin Pat Cron, and her best friend Jennie Mae Stevenson sneaked out to watch the takeoff of "City of New York". However, the plane crashed, and Ginny was caught.Two days later, Jennie Mae, Llewellyn and Ginny went to search for the plane's owner's dog. They received the reward of a hundred dollars. Ginny let her papa take most of her share to pay for the store's next shipment. Ginny's mom forcefully took the rest for sewing supplies. Later that night, Ginny wrote a letter to Amelia Earhart explaining her situation.One day, Ginny and Jennie Mae decided to make a model of a plane's cockpit with paint and a wooden crate. After nearly two weeks, the model cockpit was completed, and Uncle Harry agreed to teach the girls the basics of aviation.Four weeks after, Ginny received a reply from Amelia Earhart. She went to tell her papa, but found him sleeping. She tried to wake him, but instead, he slipped off the chair. The doctor came, but it was too late. Papa had died.Five months have passed since papa's funeral. Ginny's dad had replaced papa in running the store. While the kettle boiled, Ginny read Amelia's letter again. When the kettle whistled, Ginny left the letter on the table. Her mom picked it up and ripped it, then threw it into the stove. Ginny was told she will quit school and work full-time to keep the family together.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raven_Cycle" title="The Raven Cycle">
## "The Raven Boys".The Raven Cycle follows the story of teenagers Blue Sargent, Richard Gansey III, Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch, and Noah, taking place in the fictional town of Henrietta, Virginia. Blue lives with her mother, Maura, and assorted other female relatives, all of whom are psychic except her, and they have predicted that if she kisses her true love, he will die. Her only power is that she makes the psychic's powers stronger. Blue joins her half-aunt, Neeve, who has arrived in Henrietta under mysterious circumstances, in an annual tradition of watching the spirits of those in Henrietta destined to die in the next year appear along an invisible line called the Corpse Road. Blue, having never been able to see the spirits before, sees a teenage boy who introduces himself only as “Gansey.” Neeve tells Blue she could see him either because he is her true love, or she will kill him.Richard Gansey III, Adam, Ronan, and Noah are so-called “Raven Boys” who attend the prestigious private school Aglionby Academy in Henrietta. Blue dislikes and is determined to stay away from Raven Boys, thinking them pretentious and self-absorbed. Realizing that Gansey is the spirit she saw on the corpse road, Blue vows she will never fall in love with him. She nevertheless befriends the group, showing an interest in Adam, a Henrietta boy at Aglionby on scholarship who lives with his abusive parents in a trailer park. Ronan lives with Gansey in a former factory called Monmouth Manufacturing, unable to return to his childhood home after his father was murdered and his mother fell into a coma. Noah also resides at Monmouth Manufacturing, and occasionally offhandedly remarks about how he is dead. Blue joins the boys as they attempt to find the Welsh king Owain Glendower, who is thought to be buried on the Corpse Road, also called the ley line, of Henrietta, Virginia. Gansey is determined to find Glendower, believing he saved his life seven years prior, and believes that the king is not dead, merely sleeping, and will grant a favor to those that wake him. In their search, the group discovers a mysterious forest along the ley line called Cabeswater that seems to exist out of time and speaks to them in Latin. They also begin to suspect that their search is being watched. The Aglionby Latin teacher, Barrington Whelk, remembers his days as an Aglionby student with his friend Czerny, and their exploration of the ley line, leading to Czerny’s death seven years prior in a ritual murder. Out exploring on their own, Gansey and Blue discover a human skeleton, with a wallet containing a driver’s license belonging to a Noah Czerny. Confronting Noah at Monmouth, they realize the boy has been a ghost as long as they’ve known him. As the investigation into Noah’s remains begins, Whelk becomes increasingly unhinged, realizing the police will connect him to Noah’s murder. He decides to perform a ritual on the ley line again in a last-ditch effort to control its power. He threatens Gansey with a gun and nearly shoots him in order to get information from Gansey’s journal on the ley lines. Blue learns that Neeve had come to Henrietta to help Maura with a mysterious task, but had also been contacted by Whelk, though she refused to help him. Meanwhile, Adam’s father, convinced that Adam has not turned over enough of his income from his three jobs to him, beats Adam severely to the point that he loses hearing in his left ear. Ronan intervenes and fights Adam’s father, and Adam prevents Ronan from being arrested by reporting the abuse from his father and pressing charges. The group of teens and the psychics try to determine how to prevent Whelk from taking control of the ley line, fearing they are running out of time. Neeve kidnaps Whelk, intending to use him in the ley line ritual, but is overpowered and nearly sacrificed to the line herself until she mysteriously disappears. Adam gives the line a sacrifice of his free will to become the hands and eyes of Cabeswater, and a stampede of mysterious creatures kills Whelk. The teens try to move forward with their search for Glendower and the mysteries of Cabeswater and the ley line, and Ronan reveals that he can take things out of his dreams.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_Cash" title="Clinton Cash">
"Clinton Cash" is an investigation of the foreign benefactors of Bill and Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. It investigates alleged connections between Clinton Foundation donors and Hillary Clinton's work at the State Department.The book argues that the Clinton family accepted lavish donations and speaking fees from foreign donors at times when the State Department was considering whether to award large contracts to groups and people affiliated with those donors. One of those donors include Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi, an Ethiopian and Saudi Arabian billionaire businessman.The book has eleven chapters. Some chapters focus on particular transactions or deals, such as the creation of UrAsia Energy and Uranium One in Kazakhstan, and the connection shareholders had and have to the Clintons. Other chapters focus on a broader set of relationships, particularly with regard to Bill Clinton's paid speeches during the years Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State, and whether those paying for his speeches had significant business before the State Department. Schweizer dubs the Clintons' blend of government service and private remuneration the "Clinton blur".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/150_000_000" title="150 000 000">
Driven by hunger, rage and hatred for the hostile outside world, people of Russia leave their homes to march all over the land, joined by animals, machines and even whole gubernias, all merging into one sweeping force, intent on "doing this old romantic world in."In Chicago, a monstrously rich wonder-city, the world revolution's worst enemy Woodrow Wilson abides in a giant hotel, sporting a bowler-hat "higher than Sukharev Tower." Among his servants Adelina Patti, Fyodor Chalyapin and Ilya Mechnikov are notable.The rumor of a storm coming from the Pacific spreads among the people of Chicago, sunbathing on the ocean beach. Soon it transpires that the reason behind this cataclysm is mysterious Ivan's approaching them, walking on water. Wilson makes a decision to confront the enemy face to face, gets all of his fat turned into muscles by some magic ointment and arms himself with revolvers and a 70-blade sabre.The world gets divided into two: half of it joins Ivan (in fact, merges with him, physically), the other half runs away for Wilson's protection. Ivan steps upon the beach without having wetted his feet, and challenges Wilson, now clad in armory, for a showdown. The "World Class Struggle Championship Final" takes place on Chicago's central square. Wilson strikes first and slashed armless Ivan, but out of the wound, instead of blood, peoples, machines, gubernias, et cetera start to pour out to attack the old world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Bittora" title="Battle for Bittora">
Jinni is a common woman of 25 years, lives in Mumbai, works in an animation studio and is very happy with her ordinary and independent life. Everything is normal until she receives a call from her grandmother telling her that she should return to her hometown Bittora; Jinni does not want to return at first but after frequent calls from her grandmother finally relents. When she arrives in Bittora she finds a place very different from the one she remembered—one only she can return to normality.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Garment" title="The First Garment">
This novel is based on the motif of the Gospel parable of the Prodigal Son. Its main hero is Domenico, the younger son of the most powerful villager. He is greatly influenced by the story told by the fugitive, a person gripped by a mysterious fear. Domenic demands of his father his share of the inheritance and leaves to get to know the world. Over the years, Domenico meets many different people and gets caught up in the War of Canudos.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_Under_the_Bridge" title="The Family Under the Bridge">
In the early 1900s a Parisian hobo named Armand dislikes children; but after meeting three children, Suzy, Evelyn, and Paul and their mother – he reluctantly allows them to share his space under a bridge in Paris during the Christmas season. Their ingenuity and talent helps them feed themselves, and he soon becomes attached to the children and determines to provide a home for them. Eventually, he becomes a hardworking man. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing_Down_the_Moon" title="Sing Down the Moon">
Bright Morning is a young girl who is part of the Navajo tribe. As a Navajo woman, her mother was the owner of a large flock of sheep since shepherding is part of the Navajo way of life. With her black dog in tow, Bright Morning takes the flock to the High Mesas so they can feed on new grass. Her friends White Deer and Running Bird always join her.One day, Bright Morning and her friend Running Bird are caught by men who they later realize are Spaniards. The leader of the Spaniards, "the one with white teeth", as Bright Morning describes him, is a slave catcher that has made a deal with a Señora in a small town. The Señora has a 12-year old maid named Rosita, who was also brought by the leader of the Spaniards. Running Bird and Bright Morning are sold separately.Although the Señora treats her kindly, Bright Morning is miserable and plans to escape. One day, Rosita and Bright Morning go to town for an Easter Celebration. Here she meets Nehana, an Indian girl who is part of the Nez Perce tribe. Nehana tells Bright Morning where Running Bird is and that they will escape soon. Later, Bright Morning, Nehana, and Running Bird attempt their plan. However, the Spaniards catch up. Luckily, Bright Morning's future husband Tall Boy is there with Mando and his men. After a fight against the Spaniards, Tall Boy is shot and the leader of the Spaniards is killed. When they reach home, the "Long Knives" Americans are claiming the land. They threaten the Navajo and force them to leave Canyon De Chelly. The tribe leaves their home and members slowly started dying because of the hazardous conditions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Horsecatcher" title="The Horsecatcher">
The novel is set in the 1830s. Elk, a Southern Cheyenne adolescent, dresses plainly, does not care for ceremonials, has no interest in warfare and coup-counting and little more in hunting. He has undergone his fast, but nobody is quite able to figure out what his dream meant. He knows he is a disappointment to his father, Elk River, to his uncle Owl Friend, who founded a warrior society, and to his older brother Two Wolves. But he cannot help what is in his heart. He wants to be a tamer of wild horses.When we first meet Elk, he has slipped away from his village on a lone horse-hunt, hoping to catch Bear Colt. But despite hardship and deprivation and even almost getting accidentally killed by some of his own tribesmen, he succeeds, and that is worth the shaming he gets from his kin. Over the next two years Elk learns his chosen profession, along with the misunderstandings that come with it. Even when he bravely warns his village of approaching Kiowa raiders and kills one with his rabbit bow, he fails to see his accomplishment. Furthermore, after his brother is killed, along with his entire war party, he helps to save the tribe's great talismans. He then penetrates deep into Kiowa country, alone and afraid, to recover and bury the remains. For a culture that places great value on horses, it is surprising that no one seems ready to recognize what a real contribution he could make to his tribe.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Winter" title="Prague Winter">
This is Albright's autobiographical book. She was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1937. In this book she has narrated her childhood memories and experiences. Before she became 12 years old, she witnessed the Nazi invasion in Prague.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Key_(Elfgren_and_Strandberg_novel)" title="The Key (Elfgren and Strandberg novel)">
After the battle in the gymnasium hall, the Chosen Ones are not sure how to handle the death of Ida. Unbeknownst to them, Ida is trapped with Matilda in the Borderland between life and death. After Viktor begged Minoo to save his sister Clara, the leader of the council's Swedish division, Walter, has realised Minoo's potential as a valuable pawn. The Chosen Ones that are still alive have no chance to recover, and no choice but to rally together to try to prevent the apocalypse — even while their personal dramas threaten to tear them apart.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finders,_Keepers_(Saxena_novel)" title="Finders, Keepers (Saxena novel)">
A murder takes place in the town of Haridwar. The victim is a history professor who had little or no affinity with the place. The killer is unknown but has left some religious symbols on the naked body of the professor which is found a few kilometers away from the place of murder. A week later, another murder takes place in similar circumstances in the holy town of Srikakulam. Troubled by the murder of two of his most trusted allies and by two subsequent heists in Kolkata and Bikaner, the working head of National Society for Hindu Consciousness, Mrityunjai Pradhan turns to the Intelligence Bureau of India for help in the case.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_Riddles" title="The Emperor's Riddles">
The novel opens with the bizarre murder of historian Ram Mathur at the Ganga ghat in Varanasi. As his daughter Sia, her close friend Om Patnaik, and TV producer Jasodhara investigate the killing, they find a series of cryptic riddles scattered across the country that they must crack one by one to reach a final enigma.Meanwhile, Chief Officer Parag Suri and journalist Alia Irani are chasing the killer branded as "Scorpion" by the media due to his choice of weapon, a poisoned syringe. At the same time a holy Buddhist Bhikkhu urges his young Samanera Tathagata to make an important journey that promises to alter his life.Parallel to this is a second storyline which tells the story of the life of a young prince in Ancient India who becomes one of the most celebrated Emperors in history, and who envisions a secret project which could affect the entire world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron's_Coup" title="Cameron's Coup">
Toynbee and Walker provide a highly critical analysis of the premiership of David Cameron and the coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. They blend "analysis, statistics, and moving human stories" concerning austerity in the United Kingdom, and Conservative attacks on the welfare state and mass-killings/starvation of the disabled.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Price_of_Inequality" title="The Price of Inequality">
Stiglitz argues that inequality is self-perpetuating, that it is produced by the vast amount of political power the wealthy hold to control legislative and regulatory activity. He does not believe that globalization and technological changes are at the heart of differences in wealth in the U.S. "While there may be underlying economic forces at play,” he writes, “politics have shaped the market, and shaped it in ways that advantage the top at the expense of the rest.” Stiglitz blames rent-seeking for causing the inequality, with the wealthy using their power to shape monopolies, incur favorable treatment by the government, and pay low taxes. The end result is not only morally wrong but also hurts the productivity in the economy.Stiglitz criticizes many conservative commentators who believe free markets are the solution by pointing out that reducing the estate tax and deregulating campaign contributions act to restrict competition and give corporations undue power in politics. While he promotes the idea that a free market is good for society if it is competitive, he states that the government needs to regulate it to be beneficial. If that doesn't happen, the powerful corporations will use leverage to profit at the expense of the majority. According to Stiglitz, concentrating market power in too few hands is just as bad as excessive regulation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Along_Came_a_Dog" title="Along Came a Dog">
"Along Came a Dog" is the story of a friendship between a little red hen and a homeless dog. The little red hen lost her toes during the winter when the floor in the hen house froze up. When spring came, her toes fell off in the mud when she walked out the hen house. The homeless dog comes to the farm looking for a home. However, Joe had a bad experience with dogs and took him away from the farm. Joe's previous red flock of chicken were eaten by a pack of dogs. Joe took the dog away twice, but the dog always found his way back to the farm.The White hens noticed that the little red hen was toeless and started attacking her. The rooster also fought the little red hen instead of protecting her.Because the little red hen lost her toes, she can not walk up the ramp to the hen house. She sleeps with the dog in the bushes. The dog protects the little red hen from other animals from the swamp. The dog has protected her from weasels, skunks, dogs, and the white hens.Joe had forgotten to feed the hens, so the hens followed the dog out to the field and swamp to look for food. The little red hen found a perfect spot under a willow tree to build a nest. She didn't want to go back to the barn because she laid an egg.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_in_Sicily" title="Midnight in Sicily">
Spending fourteen years in southern Italy, Peter Robb recounts his journey into the Italian mezzogiorno - chiefly Sicily, but also Naples, and reveals its culture, history, art, literature and politics. The book also explores the dysfunction and impunity that intertwined with the organised crime world or Mafia world of the area from the post World War II era up to the 1990s, and the role of seven-time prime minister Giulio Andreotti.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tideline_(book)" title="Tideline (book)">
The book is set in Greenwich, by the River Thames in London. The book details how the main character, Sonia opens the door of her house to see a nephew of a family friend, Jez, and how she invites him in and decides she must keep him. The plot is intertwined in deep personal revelations about Sonia's past.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Nasty_People" title="Bloody Nasty People">
The book charts the rise (and fall) of far-right organisations such as the British National Party and the English Defence League.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_in_the_River" title="The Boy in the River">
The book combines Hoskins' work on the case and the various leads he follows. It is believed the murder was a ritual killing. It is discovered that the victim came from Nigeria. The book also recounts Hoskins' time in the Congo. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_the_Windows_Open?" title="Do the Windows Open?">
The collection comprises nine short stories, each of which are narrated by Isabelle, a freelance photographer. The stories collected are listed as follows:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unprofessionals" title="The Unprofessionals">
Swiftly approaching her fiftieth year, Isabelle (who is never referred to by name in the novel) finds that she's becoming disconnected from the world around her and has increasing difficulty finding her purpose in life. Her only real outlet is her friendship with a young man she met years ago during a photoshoot with his father, a wealthy and powerful surgeon.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Was_This_Man_a_Genius?" title="Was This Man a Genius?">
In 1978 Hecht was asked to interview Kaufman for a profile that was to be published in "Harper's Magazine". For the following year she met several times with Kaufman, during which time he performed several pranks and acts in an attempt to unnerve Hecht. Despite this, Hecht continued in her attempts and was ultimately rewarded with a genuine interview, which she drafted into a profile that "Harper's Magazine" did not publish.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_by_The_Thames" title="The House by The Thames">
The book is about a 450-year-old house, 49 Bankside, Bankside in the London Borough of Southwark on the banks of the River Thames, the remarkable changes witnessed and the diverse lives of those who have lived there.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_State_(book)" title="Mafia State (book)">
"Mafia State" recounts Harding's period as Russia correspondent for Britain's "Guardian" newspaper and the surveillance and espionage he was subject to; he alleges the Federal Security Service (FSB) was involved.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fever_(novel)" title="The Fever (novel)">
Deenie Nash is a diligent student with a close-knit family: her brother, Eli, is a hockey star and her father is a popular teacher. But when Deenie's best friend is struck by a terrifying, unexplained seizure in the middle of class, the Nashes' seeming stability dissolves into chaos.Soon more local girls start to experience bizarre symptoms, leaving health officials puzzled and parents in an uproar. As hysteria and contagion swell, a series of tightly held secrets emerges, threatening to unravel friendships, families, and the town's fragile idea of security.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Under" title="London Under">
The book '...is an introduction to everything that goes on under London'. It profiles underground constructions and natural features such as rivers, Roman amphitheaters, Victorian sewers and gang hideouts; these are written up in Ackroyd's psychogeographical style, where the landmarks themselves are described less as factual objects and more as reference points for the author's literary, figurative imagination.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speak_for_Britain!" title="Speak for Britain!">
"Speak for Britain!" is a comprehensive history of the Labour Party from foundation to New Labour. The author argues Labour never entirely succeeded in "converting the whole working class to Socialism", instead adopting radical liberalism in some areas and populism in others to win over different voters. The book criticises the failure of the party to embrace constitutional reform in the United Kingdom, "compounding common ground with Conservatism". Hugh Gaitskell is also criticised for alleged failure to understand the Labour movement and the abandonment of the commitment to full-scale public ownership of industry is also examined.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scandal_in_Belgravia_(book)" title="A Scandal in Belgravia (book)">
The story is set in London, and the murder took place in the wealthy Belgravia area. It is narrated by Peter Proctor, a former politician. As he writes his memoirs Proctor recalls the murder of a close friend many years ago, while he was a diplomat at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. His friend, Timothy Wycliffe, the grandson of a marquess and son of a politician, was adventurous, ambitious and humorous, and gay—before homosexuality was legalised. Proctor sets out to find the truth behind his friend's death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hive_Propolis" title="Hive Propolis">
In the year 2023, Millions connect to Hive (human interface for virtual evolution), an augmented-reality technology that consolidates an individual's devices and technology into a holographic visual display that is projected from their mind. The system creates a collective consciousness with its users and their communication is transferred through a virtual telepathy. Meanwhile, The Disconnected are left in its wake; forced to adapt to a primitive lifestyle in the outskirts of Hive cities. Conflict is inevitable, however the reality behind Hive may be even stranger than anyone realized. Propolis follows nine-year-old Samantha Plessis, as she witnesses her family opt into beta testing this new product to receive health insurance benefits to treat her immune disorder. Since her disease prevents her from connecting to Hive, she becomes gradually alienated by her family, whose method of communication is now changing. Her mother, father and sister attitudes and moods change from her perspective; becoming less patient with her, and doing things out of the ordinary. Their consequential negligence and alienation lead to choices that threaten her safety, and for two years she compares her family to empty cicada chassis'. During an update for the beta-testers to the full version on Hive Day in 2025, Samantha watches her family and a number of people in her town collapse at once to their death. She then is adopted by her grandfather and moves to his farm, where he informs her of his predictions of an upcoming war.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seveneves" title="Seveneves">
## Part One.In the near future, an unknown agent causes the Moon to shatter. As the pieces begin to collide with one another, astronomer and science popularizer "Doc" Dubois Harris calculates that Moon fragments will begin entering Earth's atmosphere, forming a white sky and blanketing the Earth within two years with what he calls a "Hard Rain" of bolides, causing the atmosphere to heat to incandescence and the oceans to boil away, rendering Earth uninhabitable for thousands of years.The world's leaders evacuate as many people and resources as possible to a swarm of "arklet" habitats called a "Cloud Ark" in orbit with the International Space Station (ISS), bolted onto an iron Arjuna asteroid called Amalthea, which provides some protection against Moon debris.By the time the Hard Rain begins 701 days after the destruction of the Moon, approximately 1,500 people have been launched into orbit.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_and_More" title="The Moon and More">
Emaline is spending the summer working for her family's real estate agency and getting ready to head to the local college in the fall. Her plans for the summer involve working at her family's realty, while hanging out with her two best friends Daisy and Morris, and her boyfriend Luke. She plans to attend the local university in the fall, East U, with her high school sweet heart Luke, on a full ride scholarship. Emaline longs for a summer like a tourist, one where she isn't a supporting character in someone else's summer romance; but where she is the lead in hers.But things don't go according to plan. First, Emaline's biological father turns up in Colby. He had been urging Emaline to apply to Ivy League schools and even offered to help pay her tuition, but mysteriously rescinded his offer once she got into Columbia. Her father brings along her half brother Benji who she has to spend time with. Then Emaline starts noticing that she and Luke aren't as much in sync as usual, and that they haven't been since earlier that spring in April. Finally, a documentary filmmaker from New York shows up in town to interview Clyde Conway, a mysterious artist who disappeared at the height of his career. The filmmaker, Ivy, has brought along her young assistant, Theo, who is eager to impress his boss by getting Emaline to show him the lay of the land in Colby.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like_Jake_and_Me" title="Like Jake and Me">
"Like Jake and Me" is a story about a young boy named Alex whose mother has remarried and is expecting twins with Alex's new stepfather, Jake. Alex has a hard time bonding with Jake, and it makes Alex feel as if the two of them have little in common. Alex learns that even the strongest looking people have fears and also need help at times. An unexpected creature helps Alex and Jake build a closer relationship.The story starts off with Alex watching his stepfather cut up wood for the fire place, and even though he looks strong, Alex decides to ask him if he needs any help. Jake brushes Alex off and carries on, which makes him feel out of bond with his stepfather. Alex goes on to talk to his pregnant mother Virginia who is expecting twins. She is checking up on her pear tree and had pushed a glass bottle onto the branch, over the blossom . Inside were twigs and leaves and two pears. Over the summer, the pears had grown and gotten sweet inside the bottle. When the pears were ripe, Virginia would pull the bottle off the tree with the pears inside. She would then fill the bottle with pear nectar and give it to her sister Caroline, who would never guess how Virginia managed to put those pears inside this glass bottle. Alex then goes on to try to help Jake load everything else back to the house, and once again, Jake brushes Alex off. As Jake starts to unload the wood, Alex spots a wolf spider on his neck. Alex starts to talk to Jake about it but Jake thinks they are talking about Virginia who is right outside the window by the pear tree. After having a long conversation about it, Alex lets Jake know that is a wolf spider that they are talking about. Jake panics and asks Alex for help as he starts to search every piece of clothing. Jake is then standing in the porch naked with just his cowboy hat on hand. Virginia comes over and Alex tries to explain the situation to her. She points out to the hat is where the spider had been the whole time. Jake then picks Alex up and starts dancing with joy. Virginia starts feeling the twins dancing in her belly as well as she sees Jake and Alex do the same.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doll's_House_(novel)" title="The Doll's House (novel)">
The book centres on the discovery of a dead pre-transition male-to-female transgender individual on a council housing estate in Birmingham. The inside of the house is like a doll's house with pink ribbons and pink walls, stuffed toys and the table set for a tea partyDI Phil Brennan on the Major Incident Squad begins investigating the puzzling case.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prime_Minister's_Ironing_Board_and_Other_State_Secrets" title="The Prime Minister's Ironing Board and Other State Secrets">
The book reveals numerous notes, letters and other documents stamped 'secret' and filed away over the years. From concerned notes on Prince Charles' potential brainwashing by Welsh nationalist terrorists to worries about housemaids 'on the wobble' at Chequers, the book reveals serious matters to comical details of life in the corridors of power.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism_(novel)" title="Baptism (novel)">
The novel is mostly set on London Underground and follows radical religious extremists, led by Tommy Denning a psychopathic former soldier, who are seeking to "baptise" the train passengers by flooding the train. Denning, armed with a gun, hijacks the train between Leicester Square tube station and Tottenham Court Road tube station. Blind DCI Ed Mallory is the lead hostage negotiator and has to deal with the situation along with a rogue MI5 operative.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Je_vous_écris_d'Italie" title="Je vous écris d'Italie">
Jacques Sauvage is a young French historian and Stendhal enthusiast. He fought for the French army during World War II and briefly visited the small town Varela in Umbria, Italy, in 1945. He returns to the area four years later in hope of being able to solve a mystery connected to the historically rich surroundings. The key to the mystery is a pagan festival which the locals are preparing in secret.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Calling_(Craig_novel)" title="London Calling (Craig novel)">
The novel is set in the lead up to an election. A murderer is on the loose and stalking Edgar Carlton the man set to become Prime Minister. Inspector John Carlyle must track down the killer before Carlton takes the law into his own hands.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Debt_Collector's_Due" title="The Debt Collector's Due">
Samay, aged 29, is an unemployed college dropout. He decides all too late to try to turn his life around, but finds this is not an easy task for someone with his limited vocational appeal. He lives alone and pines frequently over an unrequited college romance with Amrita, with whom he has long since lost contact.In desperation to take any form of work that comes his way, Samay discovers he has a knack for being able to collect debts in a non-violent manner. Although he finds the job to be sinfully boring, he ploughs on knowing the alternatives are none.His story takes a turn for the bizarre when, during a routine collection, Samay accidentally walks into the office of a mob boss, Pande. Pande in turn mistakes Samay for a hit man due to arrive at the same time and Samay is given 75 lakhs for a hit he did not execute and offered another assignment. Fearing for his life, Samay resolves to run away with the money. He reconsiders this move when he sees that the next hit is Amrita, deciding instead to warn her regarding her imminent danger.From here on, the story tracks the intertwining journeys of Samay and Amrita as they try to stay one step ahead of the mob. In parallel storylines, we also see what becomes of the real hit man – Raka – and are introduced to the agonizing travails of Waghmare, the bumbling constable assigned to protect Amrita.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_Boys_Too" title="Welsh Boys Too">
The book is a collection of eight fictional stories inspired by the lives of gay men living in Wales.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Recruits" title="London Recruits">
The book details the secret activities of foreign volunteers, especially from the United Kingdom and the rest of Western Europe, who worked covertly to assist the African National Congress during apartheid. Ronnie Kasrils a South African young communist, met with George Bridges, London Secretary of the Young Communist League in 1967 and began the process of reviving the ANC presence in South Africa through propaganda. These volunteers were mostly young communists, socialists and Trotskyists. The book reveals work done by volunteers, such as the transport of anti-apartheid leaflets and cassettes from London to counter the South African government's own overseas propaganda machine. A number of the activists were students at the London School of Economics and Political Science, including Ronnie Kasrils. Ronnie Kasrils subsequently became a leader of the armed struggle and a minister in Mandela's cabinet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounds_Like_London" title="Sounds Like London">
The book details the history of black music, which has been a part of London's musical landscape since World War I. Following Commonwealth immigration to the United Kingdom, the sounds and styles of black music became the foundation of the city's youth culture. The book tells the story of music and the characters making it from "Soho jazz clubs to Brixton blues parties to King's Cross warehouse raves to the streets of Notting Hill".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hound_of_Florence" title="The Hound of Florence">
"The Hound of Florence" is an adventure story for young readers, set in early eighteenth-century Austria and Italy. The adolescent Lukas Grassi has lost his parents and lives in Vienna in great poverty, longs for his native Italy, and would like to study art in Florence. By magic, his wish is granted, but every other day he must take the form of a dog, Kambyses, that belongs to the Archduke Ludwig; and alternating daily between human and canine form, he travels from Vienna to Florence along with the Archduke's troops, and there has to lead a unique double life. This is the only book of Salten in which supernatural elements occur, and they may show influence of E. T. A. Hoffmann.The ending of the book differs greatly in the original language and in the English translation. The German-language version ends in tragedy: the archduke stabs the dog to death with a dagger, killing Lukas, and his body is disposed of. In the English translation, a wholly new ending of six more pages has been written: Lukas survives, gets medication and is united with the courtesan. Currently it is not known if the alternate ending is authorized.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographing_Fairies_(novel)" title="Photographing Fairies (novel)">
The novel is told in the first person, from the perspective of an American photographer named Charles Castle. Castle is currently held in a prison cell in England. He is to be executed the next day for the crime of murder. He recounts the events, which began four months earlier, that led to his imprisonment and death sentence.Working as a photographer in London, Castle was visited by a constable named Michael Walsmear. Walsmear showed Castle two photographs, each of a different young girl, and asked Castle's professional opinion as two whether the photographs are genuine. Walsmear went on to point out several tiny spots in the photographs, and he insisted these spots are not dust or imperfections of the film, but instead "fairies". Castle enlarged the negatives and looked at the splotches of light, which indeed resembled fairies. Walsmear only wished to confirm that the fairies were real, but Castle was strongly intrigued by the possibility of the existence of fairies. Castle then took copies of the photographs to Arthur Conan Doyle, who possessed a different set of "fairy" photographs. Doyle was not convinced by Walsmear's photographs with the splotches of light, but he wanted all copies of Walsmear's photographs destroyed so that Doyle's own "fairy" photographs would have less competition.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Bloomsbury" title="Real Bloomsbury">
Murray walks around the historic and fascinating square mile of the Bloomsbury area among locals, students and tourists, alone or in the company of local characters. Bloomsbury is an area 'crammed with history and with contemporary decision-making', the home of the influential left-wing Bloomsbury Group and Bloomsbury Publishing along with the British Museum, University College London and the Great Ormond Street Hospital. Bloomsbury has been a home of intellectuals, agitators and also working-class and now British Bengali communities.The book is described as 'presenting Bloomsbury as it's never been portrayed before: intimate, contemporary, exploratory and occasionally downright strange.'
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsbury_and_the_Poets" title="Bloomsbury and the Poets">
The book details the history of literature in the Bloomsbury district of London, including the Bloomsbury Group.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Green_Left" title="The Rise of the Green Left">
The book documents the rise of ecosocialism, from the UK to Latin America. The book is described as documenting "indigenous protest in the Peruvian Amazon to the green transition in Cuba to the creation of red-green parties in Europe" and noting that "ecosocialism is defining the future of left and green politics globally" and the support given to ecosocialism by Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez. The author also writes that Karl Marx was an early pioneer of ecosocialism. The book is recommend as "a great handbook for activists and engaged students of politics".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strange_Death_of_Labour_Scotland" title="The Strange Death of Labour Scotland">
Hassan and Shaw examine the decline of Scottish Labour, culminating in it losing Scottish Parliament elections in 2007 and 2011 to the Scottish National Party. They analyse the period from the premiership of Margaret Thatcher to its election losses. They ask questions about the nature of Scottish Labour, its prior dominance of Scottish politics, the wider politics of Scotland, and whether the decline of the party is irreversible. Covering both contemporary events and recent history, they draw on extensive research including archival sources and interviews with some of the key participants in Scottish Labour'.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Fall_Down_(Carter_novel)" title="All Fall Down (Carter novel)">
Grace Blakely is a sixteen year old American who grew up between her native country and the fictional Mediterranean nation of Adria, located in the Balkan Peninsula, which she has roots in. Grace's mother Caroline was killed in what she believes was a murder, but is told by her family was a fire. Grace remembers the face of a man with a large scar who was on the scene of Caroline's death, and believes he was responsible for the murder.Grace's father sends her to return to Adria to live in an American embassy with her grandfather, the ambassador. She immediately takes a disliking to the embassy and Ms Chancellor, a senior woman working there. Trying to escape the embassy, she briefly meets a German girl who scares her into staying inside. She also meets her brother Jamie's old friend, Alexei Volkov, who is the son of a senior Russian embassy worker. She initially does not recognise him but has a flashback of them playing together as young children. She eventually leaves the embassy, where she slips and, in doing so, accidentally punches the Russian ambassador. She is taken to the Russian embassy where she is heavily questioned but eventually let go.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radha_(novel)" title="Radha (novel)">
The plot of "Radha" reflects the situation in Nepal at the time of its publication, especially the Nepalese Civil War."Radha" is an example of “Lila Lekhan”, a Nepalese metaphysical novel concerned with explaining the features of reality that exist beyond the physical world and our immediate senses, for which Dharabasi is known.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinner_at_Alberta's" title="Dinner at Alberta's">
Arthur Crocodile has very dubious table manners, playing with the cruet set while waiting for his food and splashing ravioli sauce on his sister. He refuses to do anything about it until his sister invites her new best friend, Alberta, for dinner and Arthur sets out to impress her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strange_Death_of_David_Kelly" title="The Strange Death of David Kelly">
Baker investigates the death of David Kelly. Kelly was a British scientist and authority on biological warfare, employed by the Ministry of Defence and formerly a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq. He had an off-record discussion with a BBC journalist concerning a British government dossier about Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which was cited by the journalist. Kelly's name became subsequently known and he was aggressively questioned by a Parliamentary committee. He was found dead two days later, attributed to suicide. In the book, Baker disputes this version of events and suggests Kelly was murdered. Baker stated 'I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that this could not be suicide. The medical evidence does not support it and David Kelly's state of mind and personality suggests otherwise. It was not an accident so I am left with the conclusion that it is murder.'
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zebra-Striped_Hearse" title="The Zebra-Striped Hearse">
Colonel and Mrs. Blackwell hire Archer to investigate their prospective son-in-law, an artist named Burke Damis. Blackwell believes Damis is marrying their daughter Harriet only for her money. Archer takes the case, warning the Blackwells that they must be prepared to accept whatever information he uncovers, good or bad. Soon after beginning his investigation, he finds Blackwell threatening Damis with a gun. Damis and Harriet leave the house and vanish. From there, the search for the runaways takes Archer to San Francisco, Mexico, Nevada, and back to California, finding dead bodies linked to Damis along the way.Archer repeatedly encounters a group of surfers driving around in a zebra striped hearse, which gives the book its title.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valmiki's_Daughter" title="Valmiki's Daughter">
Set in modern Trinidad, "Valmiki's Daughter" is centered around the Krishnu family, which consists of Valmiki, Viveka, Vashti, and Devika. The husband, Valmiki, is a closeted gay doctor in an unaccepting environment. He learns about this part of his identity when, while attending school in England, he becomes involved in a relationship with an upper classmate named Tony. However, his guilt about his own sexuality persuades him to pursue a life of marrying Devika rather than staying with Tony whom he truly loves. However, despite his discomfort with his homosexuality, he still goes on hunting trips to liaise with his lover, Saul. After each trip, he brings birds back to his family as a gift. Throughout the book, Mootoo illustrates that Valmiki's relationship with his wife is much more platonic than his sexual relations with Saul. Valmiki is not willing to come out because he is a well-respected doctor amongst his peers, and it would be a humiliating experience that would cost him his reputation.Valmiki's elder daughter, Viveka, is a closeted lesbian. She undergoes a similar high school experience as her dad, struggling with her own sexual orientation and identity. After seeing a fellow student named Merle Bedi was outcast from her family because of her sexuality, Viveka realizes how unaccepting the people around her are of her sexuality. In order to avoid ending up in a similar situation, Viveka deliberately makes decisions that will steer her in a different direction . This constant pressure prevents Viveka from ever becoming completely comfortable with her lesbian identity. Despite being homosexual himself, Valmiki is outwardly opposed to the idea of his daughters being lesbian. He feels very firmly that she should not have to go through the same struggle that he underwent as a child. This extreme caution leads him to deny her any participation in a women-only sports club for fear that she will develop lesbian tendencies. Both Valmiki and his wife Devika are more comfortable with the identity of their younger daughter Vashti. Unlike her older sister, Vashti conforms to most of the female gender stereotypes. Viveka sees her sister as an ongoing pressure to conform to cultural ideals.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jazz_Man" title="The Jazz Man">
"The Jazz Man" is the story of a nine-year-old boy named Zeke, who lives with his parents on the top floor of a brownstone in Harlem. The story begins with Zeke remembering an old home he used to live in down South. He later explains how the five flights of stairs he usually walked up to get home made his "legs ache beat hot and fast when he first came to live there." Over time, he got used to the stairs, but the stairs still troubled his mother. At night, when she returned from work, he would often hear her struggling to climb up the long flights of stairs.One of Zeke's legs is shorter than the other, and "the kids downstairs stared at his lame foot and made him feel hot and different." Because of this, Zeke skipped school most of the time and remained in his apartment staring at windows across the courtyard. He becomes intrigued by an apartment with a window that is always closed. He watches this window for a while, contemplating who might be moving into the apartment. Eventually, a man with a piano moves in. Zeke calls him the Jazz Man. The Jazz Man plays all day and night.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Fire_(Murphy_novel)" title="The Great Fire (Murphy novel)">
The novel "The Great Fire" is about the great fire that happened in Chicago. The huge fire started in the O'Learys' barnyard and lasted for thirty hours. Daniel "Pegleg" Sullivan was the first to notice the fire and ran to save the cows in the barn and to tell the O'Learys that their property was on fire. William Lee, a neighbor of the O'Learys, hurried to the drugstore to turn in a fire alarm, but Bruno Goll, the owner of the drugstore, didn't allow him because all the fire trucks had left. Lee went back to his house to get his baby and wife out. Goll claimed that he turned in the alarm after Lee left the drugstore, but no alarm was recorded at the central alarm office. The fire started to spread to other parts of the neighborhood and destroyed everything in its path. After several minutes, the fire trucks were sent to box 242, which was almost a mile away from the barn where the fire had started. After that, the fire trucks were sent again to the wrong location and the fire continued to spread. The fire advanced from the O'Learys' barn towards Jefferson Street before the firefighters finally showed up to the right location of the fire. They were exhausted from multiple fires over the past week and didn't have enough energy to stop the fire from spreading to other parts of the city. The residents of the area took whatever valuables they could from their houses and ran away from the fire. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_Man_(novel)" title="Memory Man (novel)">
Amos Decker is a former professional football player who was violently hit on his first play, resulting in severe injuries and changes to his brain. As his football career has ended, Decker becomes a police officer, and later a successful detective, while using his newly acquired mental abilities (synesthesia and hyperthymesia). After his family is murdered in an unsolved case, Decker loses his will to live, and becomes a transient while working as a private investigator.After a mass shooting at a local high school, Decker is asked to assist in solving the case by the local police force he used to work for. It soon becomes apparent that the shooting is somehow related to the killing of his family 18 months before.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoneMan's_Daughters" title="BoneMan's Daughters">
Boneman is a serial killer who has abducted six young women. He believes that he is the perfect father, and he is looking for the perfect daughter. People might think that he is killing these girls based on sexual interest, but that is not what he is after. He is looking for a girl who is perfect enough to be his own daughter. When he abducts a girl and discovers she doesn’t measure up to his perfection, he proceeds to break her bones, which ends up killing her. He is careful when breaking bones as he applies the right amount of pressure to make sure he doesn’t break through the skin. He picks his victims based on their looks, and he wants them to appear unscathed. Boneman is very meticulous with his looks, and makes sure that he doesn’t miss his Noxzema skin cream.Ryan Evans is a career naval intelligence officer who has let his career take over his life and in the process he has abandoned his family. He gave his best to honor is country, but it has cost him when he left his wife and daughter on their own who are trying to live a normal life without him. He has lost hope that he can ever be the perfect father that he needs to be. His wife and daughter have removed him from their lives.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Taming_of_the_Queen" title="The Taming of the Queen">
Henry VIII of England chooses Kateryn Parr, a 31-year-old widow, as his new wife. Aware of the ends that Henry's other wives met, Kateryn is a studious woman who promotes projects, including advocating for Scriptures in English and supporting the Protestant Reformation. Henry suffers from gout and a leg wound that will not heal throughout the novel. Parr ensures Princess Mary and Princess Elizabeth are re-legitimized by the crown.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Supernatural_Enhancements" title="The Supernatural Enhancements">
The story takes place in the fictional town of Point Bless, Virginia during the fall and winter of 1995. It centers upon two characters, a 23-year-old European young man referred to only as "A." and a 16-year-old mute Irish girl named Niamh, who have traveled to Point Bless upon inheriting a rumoredly haunted mansion from Ambrose Wells, a distant cousin of A., who died in the house after throwing himself out of a third story window. Soon after they move in the two begin to experience paranormal phenomena, while their research on the deceased relative's life hints to a secret society that would hold a yearly gathering at Wells' home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_of_Mortals" title="Books of Mortals">
## "The Keeper".In a Russian wasteland two hermits, Pavel and Gustov have heard a horrible secret. As the two sit by a fire one night they are visited by Talus, a man with a secret to share with the two. He shares a secret so terrible that he must share it with those who will help him protect the knowledge that will one day save all of humanity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_Spin_(novel)" title="Back Spin (novel)">
In Back Spin, sports agent Myron Bolitar is called on to investigate the kidnapping ofChad Coldren, son of two professional golfers, while Chad's father Jack is well on hisway to winning the U.S. Open. Myron is drawn into a plot that goes back to the last timeJack Coldren nearly won the U.S. Open, twenty-three years ago. Myron's investigationssuddenly shift when Jack Coldren is murdered and Chad is released. Finally, Myrontraces the murder to Jack's wife Linda, who shot him because he could not succumb tothe kidnappers' real demands, that he throw the U.S. Open.As the story opens, Myron is attending the U.S. Open. Jack Coldren is unexpectedlyleading, and promising newcomer Tad Crispin is in second place. Jack's wife Linda, aprofessional golfer as well, asks Myron for help. Their son has been kidnapped. Myronagrees to help, even though his friend and business associate Win refuses to assistbecause Linda is his first cousin, related to Win's estranged mother.The kidnappers phone twice without making specific demands. Meanwhile, Myronlearns that Chad used his ATM card at a cash machine near a sleazy motel. At first,Myron suspects that Chad might be pulling a hoax, but he soon learns that one of thekidnappers is a neo-Nazi thug.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_Heading_270_Degrees" title="Journey to Heading 270 Degrees">
"Journey to Heading 270 Degrees" is a novel about the Iran-Iraq War. It tells the story of Naser, a veteran of several battles, while in high school. Unable to resist the pressure to join the military, he returns to the war front to find himself in the midst of one of the war's most decisive clashes. The Iraqis attack Iranian fortified positions in tanks while Naser's unit repels them on foot. During the battle, Naser loses several comrades but gains an understanding of the futility of conflict.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mouse_with_the_Question_Mark_Tail" title="The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail">
The story of a mouse in London in search of information about his identity. A rollicking adventure that brings him to Windsor Castle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Counter-Revolution_of_Science" title="The Counter-Revolution of Science">
This book is divided into three parts. The first is a reworking of Hayek's essay, "Scientism and the Study of Society". The second is an analysis of the doctrine of Saint-Simon. Hayek lifts the title of the compiled book, The Counter-Revolution of Science, from Saint-Simon, who essentially asserted that the relative freedom of expression and thought of the Revolution in France was no longer necessary, that using the force of law to impose "scientific" conclusions on everyone was now necessary. The last segment examines Comte and Hegel, and their similar takes on the philosophy of history. The first two sections were both originally published in the peer-reviewed magazine "Economica", in the early 1940s.Hayek observes that the hard sciences attempt to remove the "human factor" in order to obtain objective, strictly controlled results:Meanwhile, the soft sciences are attempting to measure human action itself:He notes that these are mutually exclusive: Social sciences should not attempt to impose positivist methodology, nor to claim objective or definite results:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Notebooks_of_a_Middle_School_Princess_(novel)" title="From the Notebooks of a Middle School Princess (novel)">
Olivia, full name "Olivia Grace Clarisse Mignonette Harrison", has always been completely average at everything other than art. Other than being a half orphan, her life has been fairly uneventful. This all changes when Princess Amelia "Mia" arrives and invites her to come and meet the father that she's never met, Prince Phillipe Renaldo, which makes Princess Mia her elder half-sister. Now Olivia is being whisked off to live with her father and half-sister in a world where she is now a princess in training. How will this change her and will it require leaving everything and more specifically "everyone" she has ever known behind?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_and_the_Old_One" title="Annie and the Old One">
A young Native American girl, Annie, is willing to do anything to stop her mother from finishing a rug after hearing from her grandmother that she will die when the rug is finished. Annie misbehaves in school to make her parents come speak to the teacher, but the teacher does not call for her mother. Then, Annie let the sheep escape, so her mother and father would spend the morning chasing after the sheep. Her last attempt to distract her mother from finishing the rug is pulling out the strands of yarn, one by one .
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Loner_(children's_novel)" title="The Loner (children's novel)">
A young orphan boy, whose name, age, and background are unknown in the beginning of the book, is struggling to make ends meet for himself. He bounces from migrant family to migrant family, surviving by picking crops, but he makes no profit due to his wages being taken by the families he stays with. Near the beginning of the book, he makes his first friend, a girl named Raidy. Raidy befriends him and says he should have a name. Before she can decide on one, their friendship is cut short when Raidy dies in a farming accident. Exhausted, hungry, and distraught over his only friend's death, the boy takes off on his own and collapses onto the ground without knowing or caring where he is or if he will survive. He is in Montana, where he is found by a woman named "Boss" and her dog Jupiter. Boss is a modern-day shepherd, tending a flock of 900 sheep with the help of two dogs, and she brings the boy to her camp, caring for him until he recovers. Boss's camp tender, Tex explains to the boy how Boss's son, Ben, was killed by a bear and that Boss sometimes hunts the bear that killed her son. He talks to the boy, motivating him to keep the place clean and do what Ben would have done for Boss. Pointing to a random page in the Bible, the boy chooses the name "David," which Boss takes a sign that she is supposed to help him (David was also a shepherd). Angie, Ben's widow, brings David some of Ben's old clothing, gives him a haircut, and intends to teach him how to read and write. Throughout the story there is a pattern: each person that David meets expresses interest in helping him. David is understandably quite skeptical of people's intentions and feels like he's only a stray or a burden. However, he grows from a loner to someone who welcomes love and other people into his life. He also learns about the give and take of civilization, and how to handle the responsibility of caring for Boss's sheep and doing chores as he accepts help from others to meet his own needs and overcome his hardships.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_and_Irene" title="Lewis and Irene">
Lewis is a French financial speculator of an adventurous and gambling type. He takes up an option is a sulphur mine on Sicily, but is outmatched by Irene Apostolatos, a young Greek widow who represents the Apostolatos Bank. The two fall in love. They decide to settle down and devote themselves to domestic life, but this turns out to be impossible as they are struck with boredom. Irene returns to the bank in secret. Lewis has an affair, which Irene immediately discovers. The couple break up. Although no longer lovers, Lewis and Irene continue their relationship as business partners.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigger_Mortis" title="Trigger Mortis">
The book is set in 1957 against the backdrop of the Space Race, and begins two weeks after the events of "Goldfinger". The novel is the third in the current-era literary series to be set during the original timeline created by Fleming since 1968's "Colonel Sun" (following "Devil May Care" by Sebastian Faulks and "Solo" by William Boyd) and sees the return of Bond girl Pussy Galore, who made her debut in "Goldfinger".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Damaged_Mirror" title="A Damaged Mirror">
The book opens with Yael reaching out to a rabbi for a rabbinic judgement for “Alex”. In subsequent correspondence with the rabbi, Rav Ish-Shalom, we learn that Alex's real name is Ovadya. He was deported to Birkenau from his home in Salonika, Greece at the age of 17. His mother and sister were gassed on arrival and Ovadya was sent to the Sonderkommando, the group of prisoners responsible for running the machinery of murder.Ovadya wants the rabbi to serve as a rabbinic judge—essentially to put himself on trial for what he did in Birkenau. “The fact that good people can be forced to do wrong doesn’t make them less good,” he says. “But it also doesn’t make the wrong less wrong.” However, he is unable to speak of what he did to survive, and his past is gradually revealed in a series of letters to the rabbi and to Masha, a woman who was forced into prostitution during the war. He is able to tell her what he cannot speak aloud.Yael, born two decades later in America, has no connection with Ovadya, and yet she haunted by a mysterious memory of something she could not have lived. In an attempt to understand the source of these memories, she sets out on a quest to Europe and eventually Israel. Her quest to learn what and how she remembers is bound up with Ovadya’s search for forgiveness and atonement. She too is unable to speak of the harrowing glimpses revealed by memory, but Ovadya holds the key to fitting the pieces together.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chemistry_of_Tears" title="The Chemistry of Tears">
Catherine Gehrig is a middle-aged horologist working in "the Georgian halls" of the Swinburne Museum, London SW1. For the last 13 years she has been in love with her married colleague, Matthew Tindall, and when he dies suddenly she is distraught. Her boss Eric Croft moves her to the museum annexe in Olympia and gives her a recent acquisition to assemble: a complex mechanical toy that she first thinks might be a monkey, then decides is a duck. Croft's hope is that Catherine will be led towards recovery by "the huge peace of mechanical things". She slowly becomes entranced by a story that has some peculiar parallels with her own.This story, which is told in sections that alternate with Catherine's own, involves Henry Brandling, scion of a wealthy 19th-century railway family, husband of sourpuss Hermione and father of sickly Percy. When Percy falls ill, and all the usual Victorian therapies have failed, Henry becomes convinced that a foreign and mechanical entertainment might heal him. Henry's search for the mechanism and Catherine's restoration of it provide the novel's counterpoints.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesia_(Carey_novel)" title="Amnesia (Carey novel)">
The novel follows the story of journalist Felix Moore who is writing an investigative piece about Gaby Baillieux, a young Australian computer hacker. Baillieux has written a computer virus which is originally intended to open the doors of Australian prison cells, but which also finds its way to the US.The novel makes connections between various incidents in Australia's past (the 1942 Battle of Brisbane and the 1975 sacking of the Whitlam government) to build a picture of conspiracy and political interference.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Reagan" title="Killing Reagan">
In 1981, after delivering a speech at the Washington Hilton Hotel on March 30, President Reagan is shot by John Hinckley, Jr. Near death, Reagan's life is in the balance in the hands of doctors at George Washington University Hospital. At the White House however, there is chaos as Reagan's cabinet is led by Secretary of State Alexander Haig.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_Before_You" title="Me Before You">
Twenty-six-year-old Louisa Clark lives with her working-class family. Unambitious and with few qualifications, she feels constantly outshone by her younger sister, Treena, an outgoing single mother. Louisa, who helps support her family, loses her job at a local café when the café closes. She goes to the Job Center and, after several failed attempts, is offered a unique employment opportunity: help care for Will Traynor, a successful, wealthy, and once-active young man who has quadriplegia as a result of a pedestrian-motorcycle accident two years earlier. Will's mother, Camilla, hires Louisa despite her lack of experience, believing Louisa can brighten his spirit. Louisa meets Nathan, who cares for Will's medical needs, and Will's father, Steven, a friendly upper-class businessman whose marriage to Camilla is strained.Louisa and Will's relationship starts out rocky due to his bitterness and resentment over being disabled. Things worsen after Will's ex-girlfriend, Alicia, and best friend Rupert reveal that they are getting married. Under Louisa's care, Will gradually becomes more communicative and open-minded as they share experiences together. Louisa notices Will's scarred wrists and later overhears his mother and father discussing how he attempted suicide shortly after Camilla refused his request to end his life through Dignitas, a Swiss-based assisted suicide organization. Horrified by his attempt, Camilla promised to honor her son's wish, but only if he agreed to live six more months. Camilla intends to prove that, in time, he will believe his life's worth living.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dying_Hours" title="The Dying Hours">
Tom Thorne has returned to uniform duties, having been removed from the Murder Squad. Thorne is suspicious of a spate of deaths of elderly people that are officially ruled suicides, and begins investigating alone. Soon, he finds himself on the trail of a serial killer who preys on the elderly.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pages_(novel)" title="The Pages (novel)">
An Australian bush philosopher, Wesley Antill, dies leaving behind a vast collection of philosophical works. His will indicates that it should be published so Antill's siblings arrange for Erica, a philosopher, and Sophie, a psychoanalyst, to examine the work and decide if it is actually publishable.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Rabbit_and_the_Lovely_Present" title="Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present">
An unnamed little girl meets a rabbit and asks for his help in finding her mother a birthday present. The cover art shows the girl asking the Rabbit for help as he sits on a rock. He then takes her on a journey to find the perfect present for her mom. On their journey, the little girl tells Mr. Rabbit that her mother likes "red, green, yellow and blue". Mr. Rabbit then suggests that the little girl should get her mother "red underwear" but the little girl refuses to give her mother such a gift. Mr. Rabbit then takes the girl to an apple tree. She agrees an apple would be a lovely present for her mom. Mr. Rabbit and the little girl then proceed to find another "present" for her mom. Mr. Rabbit suggests that the little girl get her mother something yellow. They both agree that a banana would be the perfect fruit for her mom. Mr. Rabbit and the little girl fill a little brown basket with blue, yellow, green, and red fruits. Mr. Rabbit walks the girl home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_Beach" title="Tar Beach">
The book is set in New York in 1939. Tar Beach is the roof of Cassie's Harlem apartment building. Cassie's dearest dream is to be free to go wherever she wants, and one day it comes true when the stars help her to fly across the city.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil's_Only_Friend" title="The Devil's Only Friend">
John and Brooke have left Clayton, the tiny North Dakota town where they grew up. Even though "Nobody", the demon who possessed Brooke, has been destroyed, the girl is still suffering from its memories. As a result, she has multiple personalities and extensive knowledge about the ancient network of demons. John and a team of FBI agents are using her recollections to hunt down this network, whom they call "the Withered." The group consists of a police detective named Kelly, a scholar named Nathan, criminal psychologist Dr. Trujillo, sniper Diana, ex-special forces soldier Potash, and ring leader Ostler. After months of hunting in the small midwestern town of Fort Bruce, more demons begin to appear, and John fears that the Withered are starting to hunt his team in return.Their next confrontation goes awry when Kelly is killed by the target demon. John bursts in and ends its life, but loses control and stabs the body dozens of times. Their next target is Meshara, a demon in the body of a man named Elijah who consistently visits a patient with Alzheimer's. After speaking with him undercover, John hypothesizes that he isn't a killer. Next, a victim of a cannibal attack is found, and the team uses their criminal profiling skills to try to determine this new demon's weakness. It sends letters to the team, using the name "the Hunter." New evidence from Brooke suggests that there are two factions of demons who are enemies. During a police raid, the team finds John was right about Meshara/Elijah: he has no desire to kill, and even saves the humans from the other Withered. Meanwhile, John grows frustrated with his team, and feels that he could work more effectively on his own. He begins communicating with the Hunter in secret.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_Agenda_of_Sigrid_Sugden" title="The Hidden Agenda of Sigrid Sugden">
Sigrid Sugden is a member of the Shrikes, the toughest girl bullies. When one of her victims barely escapes fatal danger, Sigrid decides to quit the group—however, it is not that simple. Sigrid, by leaving the only "friends" she had, has left herself miserable from cold stares from her classmates. With problems at home and from the rest of the Shrikes, Sigrid becomes friends with Hud, determined to make everything right.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_(Gurnah_novel)" title="Paradise (Gurnah novel)">
The novel follows the story of Yusuf, a boy born in the fictional town of Kawa in Tanzania at the turn of the 20th century. Yusuf's father is a hotelier and is in debt to a rich and powerful Arab merchant named Aziz. Early in the story Yusuf is pawned in exchange for his father's owed debt to Aziz and must work as an unpaid servant for the merchant. Yusuf joins Aziz's caravan as they travel into the interior to the lands west of Lake Tanganyika. Here, Aziz's caravan of traders meets hostility from local tribes, wild animals and difficult terrain. As the caravan returns to East Africa, World War I begins and Yusuf encounters the German Army as they sweep Tanzania, forcibly conscripting African men as soldiers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Deserve_a_Drink" title="You Deserve a Drink">
The book details humorous anecdotes and stories of Hart's life, with a cocktail recipe accompanying each chapter.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Colts_Ran" title="When Colts Ran">
The "Colts" of the title is the principal character, Kingsley Colts, an orphan being raised by World War I veteran Dunc Buckler and his wife Veronica. The novel follows the arc of Colts's life, from station hand to World War II in New Guinea to livestock agent, broken, forlorn and alcoholic.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_(Nowra_novel)" title="Ice (Nowra novel)">
A pair of ambitious young British entrepreneurs, Malcolm McEacharn and Andrew McIlwraith, charter a steamer with the aim of towing an iceberg from Antarctica to Sydney. The success of the venture transforms Sydney, and McEacharn who later becomes lord mayor of Melbourne.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_the_Lines_(novel)" title="Between the Lines (novel)">
Delilah, a 15-year-old teenager, bookworm, and social outcast is obsessed with a fairy tale story about Prince Oliver called "Between the Lines". No one is able to understand Delilah's obsession with a book written for children. Delilah's parents are divorced, and her best friend is a punk-rocker named Jules, who is an outcast of her own choosing. Delilah feels caught between her erratic family life and her loneliness at school. While Delilah loves her over-protective mother dearly, she also wishes for something more. Delilah creates a vision of what her father must be like, as she has never known him. All she knows about her father is that he left when she was a baby, and that he has his own life. Delilah's nemesis is the most popular girl in school, Ally McAndrews.Delilah confides her worries to Prince Oliver and is shocked when he suddenly begins to talk back to her. Before long, Delilah and Oliver forge a bond neither have experienced before, and they begin to fall in love.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_Man_(novel)" title="Water Man (novel)">
The "water man" of the book's title is a water diviner—or rather two water diviners: one working on an Australian station in 1939 and the other working the same property 50 years later. Events surrounding the first divining echo down the years to the second, when tensions left unresolved re-emerge and engulf a new set of characters.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daughters_of_Mars" title="The Daughters of Mars">
Sally and Naomi Durance are two nurses from country New South Wales who are shipped to Egypt during World War I end up on the Red Cross hospital ship "Archimedes", stationed in the Dardanelles. The novel follows the sisters through that campaign and on to northern Europe.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People's_Train" title="The People's Train">
The novel is a fictionalised account of the Australian life of Fyodor Sergeyev, given in the book as Artem Samsurov, a Russian émigré to Australia who would later play a significant role in Lenin’s government.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-Wolf" title="Double-Wolf">
The novel is a fictionalised account of the life of Wolf-Man, Sigmund Freud's most famous patient, counter-pointed with an account of Artie Catacomb, a con-man and psychoanalyst living in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_China" title="After China">
Mr You, an ex-patriate Chinese architect, has designed a strange labyrinthine hotel overlooking the ocean. While holidaying in the completed structure he meets a woman on a beach who is dying of cancer. He finds himself drawn to the woman and spins her tales of an ancient China that never existed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bath_Fugues" title="The Bath Fugues">
"The Bath Fugues" is a novel of three sections, all interconnecting and modelled on the structure of the Goldberg variations. The first section, "Beckett's Bicycle", tells the story of Jason Redvers, an art forger and writer. The second, "Walter's Brief", concerns Redvers's grandfather Camilo Conceicao, a Portuguese poet. The last, "Sarraute's Surgery", is set in and around Port Douglas in Queensland and features local GP, Judith Sarraute, who had been Redvers's doctor when she was still practising in Sydney.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Dancing" title="Shanghai Dancing">
The novel's main character is, like the author, named Castro, living in Australia and hailing from a Chinese and Portuguese background. Antonio Castro is attempting to come to an understanding of his complicated family history, and in particular, about the lives of his parents in Shanghai during the 1930s.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Career_of_Evil" title="Career of Evil">
After murdering a woman, an unidentified man stalks Robin Ellacott, whom he sees as part of his plan to exact revenge against private investigator Cormoran Strike. Robin, having worked for Strike for a year, is now a full-time investigator in addition to being his secretary. Strike has developed a relationship with radio presenter Elin but continues to harbour feelings for Robin, whose fiancé Matthew disapproves of the work she is doing.One day, Robin receives a package containing a woman's severed leg and a message quoting the Blue Öyster Cult song "Mistress of the Salmon Salt (Quicklime Girl)". Strike, who recognises the song as a favourite of his deceased mother, Leda, concludes someone from his past sent the package. He then approaches Detective Inspector Eric Wardle with four possible suspects, three of whom he knew from his time in the SIB:To Strike's annoyance, the police only focus their investigation on Malley because of his previous tactic of mailing body parts. Strike and Robin decide to initiate a parallel investigation, which they begin by reviewing 'unusual correspondence' that had been sent to the office throughout the years, stored in what the pair light-heartedly call the 'nutters' drawer. Found among these are several letters from a young woman who had once requested Strike's help in amputating her own leg as a result of body dysmorphia. They begin to fear that the leg sent to Robin had belonged to this young woman.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella_(children's_book)" title="Umbrella (children's book)">
"Umbrella" is a short story where a little girl is the principal character. Her name is Momo, which means "peach" in Japanese, and she was born in New York.Momo carries the blue umbrella and wears the rubber boots that she was given on her third birthday. She asks her mother every day to use her umbrella. Momo tried to tell her mother she needed to carry the umbrella to the school because the sunshine and the wind bothered her eyes. But her mother didn't let her use the umbrella and advises her to wait until the rain comes. The rain took a long time to fall down because it was Indian summer, however, when the rain came, her umbrella was the perfect excuse to use that day. Momo was happy, the rain sound over her umbrella was a music for her. It is a fresh children's story with classic and very colorful Japanese illustrations that reflect its culture.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_the_People_from_the_Bridge" title="With the People from the Bridge">
"With the People from the Bridge" follows the main line of narrative of "", the first book of the Poena Damni trilogy. The work opens with a first-person account of the narrator of "Z213: Exit", who recounts his arrival at a derelict train station named Nichtovo in search of a place where, he has been told, an improvised performance is being staged by, what appear to be, a band of social outcasts. The narrator joins the few members of the audience present and goes on to record in his journal the setting as well as the events taking place "on stage” as the performance is about to begin. A group of four women in the role of a Chorus and three other protagonists (LG, NCTV, Narrator) are making their final preparations in front of a dilapidated car among machine parts and the noise of a generator. As the lights "on stage" are lowered the performance sets off with the Chorus's opening monologue followed in turn by the sequence of recitations of the other characters. The story unfolds during the timeline of a calendar day dedicated to the dead, a kind of All Souls' Day or Saturday of Souls. The plot-line originates in the Bible incident (Mark, 5:9), according to which the Gerasene demoniac begs Jesus to spare him from his torments. In the play enacted, LG assumes and expands on the role of the demoniac, recounting his past condition and describing how he has ended up taking residence in a cemetery. In a kind of simultaneous narration, LG recounts how he has opened the grave of his deceased companion (NCTV), prompted by voices he has been hearing. He enters, finds her body inside and feels compelled to stay with her, eventually making the realization that she is gradually coming back to life. Meanwhile, the Chorus are making preparations in anticipation of the yearly visit of their deceased kin and LG and NCTV eventually join them after having broken off from a crowd of revenants aroused on the occasion of the Soul Saturday. As the day comes to an end, LG and NCTV leave and become again part of the crowd they had broken off from. Despite trying to hold on to each other they are finally absorbed in an indefinite collective of souls moving ahead and cross “the bridge between the worlds" as a Christian-like resurrection appears on the horizon. The book concludes with the epilogue of the on-stage(internal) Narrator recounting the process by which a mob gathered in a cemetery unearths two bodies, ritually “killing” the female by driving a stake in her chest, in a manner akin to handling vampires in the Slavonic tradition. A final narrative twist is offered by the presence of a tabloid clipping which delivers the reader back to a stark and gruesome every-day reality.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Awful_Mess_on_Via_Merulana" title="That Awful Mess on Via Merulana">
In fascist Italy in 1927, Detective Francesco Ingravallo, known to friends as Don Ciccio, is called in to investigate the murder of Liliana Balducci, a well-to-do woman who happens to be a close friend. As Don Ciccio and his colleagues dig deeper into the grisly murder, the mechanics of the detective novel take a backseat to the wordplay and experimentation with which Gadda presents a panorama of life in early fascist Rome.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cottage_outside_the_Village" title="The Cottage outside the Village">
The novel tells the tragic story of the Gypsy, Tumry, and his wife Motruna, daughter of the farmer Lepiuk. Tumry abandons his nomadic life for the sake of his beloved and decides to settle in the village, where he takes up blacksmithing. However, Motruna's marriage to the Gypsy is not to the liking of her father, who curses his daughter and turns the whole village community against them. The first cottage built by Tumry, next to the cemetery, is set afire by Motruna's envious father, and Tumry undertakes to rebuild their home. The young couple are discriminated against and are denied any help by the village. They receive support from the French mistress, and subsequent wife, of the village's squire, Adam, but she soon dies.When the itinerant Gypsies return to the village and Aza, the squire's Gypsy former mistress regains her influence with him, assistance from the manor ceases. The sight of Aza, whom Tumry had once felt not indifferent about, rouses his hidden jealousy. Extreme poverty and inner emotional conflict lead to his suicide.The widow and her daughter Marysia are looked after by the handicapped Janek, and later by the poor lady physician Sołoducha. But Mortuna dies, and her twelve-year-old daughter, with the support of Sołoducha and her blind husband Rataj, takes charge of her parents' farm.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_in_at_the_Door" title="Come in at the Door">
Chester Hurry lives with his widowed father, Robert, and an African American domestic servant, Mitty. Mitty had come to the family with Chester's mother when she married Robert. At the time the story commences, Mitty has become a surrogate mother to Chester and is involved in a sexual relationship with Robert. The trio occupies the traditional Hurry home in Hodgetown on an increasingly impoverished farm. Adjacent to the home are two cabins, one occupied by an elder African American couple, Hattie and Jim. The second is vacant. The placid rhythm of the family's life is interrupted by the arrival of Baptiste, an educated, francophone, mixed-race drifter. Robert asks Baptiste to occupy the second cabin and tutor Chester, who had not till then attended school.Witnessing a botched hanging in the county seat of Athelstan becomes a pivotal trauma in Chester's early life. Following an illness not long after that event, young Chester is sent to live with his mother's family in Reedyville, which is the setting for many of the stories in the Pearl County series. The time for Chester's return to Hodgetown comes and goes. Chester continues to live with his widowed grandfather, unmarried great-aunt, and uncle Bushrod “Bush” Tarleton, and his mother's family encourages Chester academically. Chester forms a close relationship with Bushrod, who's been left single when his wife, a sexually promiscuous woman in Reedyville, leaves him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyrant's_Novel" title="The Tyrant's Novel">
An unnamed country's tyrannical ruler, Great Uncle, commands author Alan Sheriff to ghost-write a novel that will have the literary circles of the western world talking about him. The novel is told from the point-of-view of Sheriff after he has arrived in Australia as a refugee and been incarcerated in a detention centre.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Une_adolescence_en_Gueldre" title="Une adolescence en Gueldre">
In his diary Ange Vincent tells of his life as an adolescent with the Prins family in the Veluwe, Holland.The father of the family, a great lover of literature, gives him the task of translating "Don Quixote".He also accompanies the two sons of the family on their wanderings.They are both much older than the narrator, who is twelve and is starting to become aware of girls, including the naive Germaine, the provocative Mara and the languid Carlijn.The two boys, Han and Jan, are fascinated by the same woman.She has a strange resemblance to a portrait of Saint Mary Magdalene, thought to be painted by an unknown 16th century Flemish artist.The narrator must not make eye contact with the woman, who may be a saint or a prostitute.The ambiguous portrait comes to dominate the narrative.The narrator recalls his troubled relationship with his mother and the inability to "engage with life" that has made him a wanderer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crossroads_of_Time" title="The Crossroads of Time">
In the fall of 1955, in New York City, as the snow begins to fall, Blake Walker has come from Ohio to attend college. Goaded by one of the forebodings that have punctuated his life, he rescues a man from a kidnapper and then discovers that the kidnapper's friends have taken an unhealthy interest in him. The man he rescued, Mark Kittson, arranges for him to disappear into an organization that occupies a hidden apartment. There he meets the other members of Kittson's team, Jason Saxton, Stan Erskine, and Hoyt.The next day, alone in the apartment, Blake hears someone trying to break in. At the same time he is subjected to a telepathic assault that knocks him out. When he regains consciousness he tells Kittson and the others what happened. Kittson explains to him that he and the others are agents from an alternate Earth, one more advanced technologically and psychically than is Blake's Earth. They are hunting a criminal, Kmoat Vo Pranj, who may have been the burglar Blake semi-encountered. Discerning that their hideout has been discovered and may be subject to a police raid, the men move their operation to a house on Patroon Place in the Mount Union section of the city, picking up a stray kitten that Hoyt begins to train telepathically.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_Crosstime" title="Quest Crosstime">
While visiting with her sister a version of Earth on which life never began, Marva Rogan has gone missing. Her sister Marfy is certain that she is still alive, but is equally certain that she is no longer on that timetrack. Blake Walker, on his first solo mission as an Apt Wardsman, picks up Marfy to take her back to Vroom, succeeding in spite of someone having sabotaged his crosstime shuttle.Based on clues found in Marva's personal possessions, Com Varlt decides to take a search team into a world in which the Nation of New Britain and the Toltec Empire glare at each other across the Mississippi River. Varlt, Walker, Marfy, Pague Lo Sige, and several other agents disguise themselves as a team of licensed traders and make their way to the trade town of Xomatl.Marfy locates Marva on the estate of a minor lord and she, Walker, and Lo Sige extract Marva from that estate, carrying her, wrapped in vines covered with fragrant flowers, off the estate during a ceremony in which guests are expected to ravish and plunder the estate's formal garden. The person driving the getaway van then takes the four of them to an isolated house, where they are rendered unconscious. When they wake up they discover that they have been taken to the lifeless Earth and abandoned to starve to death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Quite_a_Husband" title="Not Quite a Husband">
The novel starts the summer of 1897, three years after a married couple, Bryony Asquith and Leo Marsden, have been estranged. Dr. Asquith is required at her home in England, and her family has asked her husband to retrieve her at her clinic in the Rumbur valley of the Chitral District in what was then the northwest frontier of India.In the course of their journey to return to England, they are caught up in a revolt against the British and seek refuge in the fort at Chakdarra and participate in defending the fort during the Siege of Malakand. During the course of their journey home, they reconcile the differences that had kept them apart.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_at_Night" title="His at Night">
The novel is set in Victorian England. Lord Vere, an agent of the crown, and his accomplices have managed to become house guests of a reclusive suspect while he is out of town. Their hostess is his niece, Elissande Edgerton. She sees his sudden arrival as means for her and her aunt to escape her tyrannical uncle by making him fall in love with her in the three days she has until her uncle's return. The problem is, Lord Vere is unforgivingly stupid. So she sets her sights on Lord Vere's brother, Freddie.Lord Vere poses as one of society's most bumbling bachelors as his disguise. The need to play that role in front of the niece chafes at first, until he sees her as a conniving gold digger determined to entrap his brother in marriage. While trying to gather evidence on the uncle, he tries to foil the niece's plans, only to become entrapped himself.Now married, Elissande has freed not only herself, but her sickly aunt, who is addicted to laudanum. But on the uncle's return, he demands the return of his wife or he'll maim her idiot of a husband. Meanwhile, Lord Vere has gathered evidence they need, but have also uncovered that he is a murderer and the uncle is arrested.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delicious_(novel)" title="Delicious (novel)">
Set in England, the novel alternates between the story's present in 1892 and flashbacks to 1882.Verity Durant is a fallen woman who works as a chef for a former lover. However, she still dreams of the man she spent one perfect night with ten years ago, rising politician Stuart Somerset.When her employer dies, the new heir is none other than Somerset. Somerset is the strait-laced illegitimate son of a noble and has become engaged to a woman with good connections.Fate intervenes, and she has a chance to cook a dinner for him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouseheart" title="Mouseheart">
The series follows Hopper, a pet store mouse that escapes, only to end up in Atlantia, a colony created entirely of rats that lies underneath the city of Brooklyn. He quickly makes friends, however he also finds that the colony is constantly plagued by rebels and various other troubles.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diary_of_a_Chav" title="Diary of a Chav">
The series follows Shiraz Bailey-Wood, a 15-year-old girl growing up in Goodmayes, Essex. At the series' start she's largely content to live her life as an underachiever and cause trouble, but things change after she receives a diary and begins recording the events of her daily life. Soon she begins to want more out of life than the chav lifestyle that she's been experiencing and starts expressing a desire to become a professional writer and publish her own autobiography. This decision does not come without opposition as there are many who believe this to be an unobtainable dream and one that is not suitable for someone like Shiraz, however she continues to persevere despite multiple setbacks and obstacles. In the first book, "Trainers V. Tiaras"; Shiraz worries that her school Mayflower Comprehensive will still live up to its reputation of being "Superchav Academy" a nickname given to the school by the local newspapers and especially with a stunt that happened during the Christmas assembly which Shiraz was the instigator of; however, that all started to change, once a new English teacher Miss. Bracket arrived and saw potential in Shiraz and was concerned why she would not want to succeed, however Shiraz' world is turned upside down when her best friend Carrie Draper starts fancying a local boy called Bezzie Kelleher and sets a double date for both Bezzie, Carrie and Wesley Barrington Bains II (Bezzie's best friend) and Shiraz, the date did not go to plan as both Bezzie and Carrie dropped off Wesley and Shiraz whilst they go for a drive around Essex, Shiraz is not too sure if she fancies Wesley or not.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Sweet_and_Bitter_Earth" title="This Sweet and Bitter Earth">
In 1900, a 16-year-old Toby Davies, the narrator of the story, leaves Wrexham workhouse after his Mother dies, and makes his way to the North Wales slate quarries. Failing to get a job at Port Dinorwic, the port from where the slate is sent all over the world, he makes his way to Blaenau Ffestiniog, where he gets a job in the Llechwedd slate quarries, lodging with Ben O’Hara and his wife Nanwen. Toby starts as a ‘rubbisher’ (labourer), before learning the dangerous job of rockman.The O’Hara’s, Toby and his grandfather move into a new cottage in Bethesda and Toby goes for a job with the quarries owned by Lord Penrhyn. Toby realises that he loves Nan and also renews acquaintance with the promiscuous Bron, whom he knew in the workhouse, now working as a barmaid. Bron has a son whom she knows as ‘Bibs’ by an unknown father.The men working at the Big Hole strike over poor conditions and the quarries are closed by Lord Penrhyn. Several hundred men, forced by starvation, break the strike and are denounced as "bradwr" (traitors). Bron is cast out of her chapel for adultery with Sam Jones, Toby’s one-time friend. Toby’s grandfather commits suicide. Ben is found to have embezzled Combination strike relief funds; he and Nanwen are expelled from the community and it is supposed that they have gone to Ireland.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiding_in_the_Mirror" title="Hiding in the Mirror">
The work draws on the works of scientists, mathematicians, artists, and writers to consider the cultural and scientific aspects of extra dimensions. The book explores popular theories about such topics as black holes, life in other dimensions, and string theory.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Rain_(novel)" title="Salt Rain (novel)">
After the disappearance of her mother Mae, fourteen-year-old Allie Curran goes to live with her aunt Julia in the small dairy farm where Mae grew up. Allie slowly comes to learn about her heritage, her family, and her mother's story. A reversal of the classic Australian theme of a child lost in the bush.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prosperous_Thief" title="The Prosperous Thief">
Alice Lewin has survived the Second World War and, as an adult, visits the Kindertransport archive where she learns of a possible relative. She travels to Australia in an attempt to meet Henry Lewin, but it is a meeting with unforeseen consequences.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperium_(Kracht_novel)" title="Imperium (Kracht novel)">
August Engelhardt is the author of an 1898 pamphlet entitled "A Carefree Future", where he describes a utopian society founded on nudism and a diet of coconuts, so-called cocovorism. An ardent vegetarian, Engelhardt argues that just as man is God's embodiment in the animal kingdom, so too is the coconut God's embodiment in the plant kingdom; cocovorism, he concludes, is therefore the path to divinity. Fleeing the persecution he endured for his peculiarities, Engelhardt travels from Germany to the Bismarck Archipelago in German New Guinea to realize his ideas on a coconut plantation. During a stop in Ceylon, however, he meets a Tamil named Govindarajan, who also claims to be a fruitarian, in order to gain Engelhardt's trust, before robbing him of his savings. Engelhardt arrives destitute at Herbertshöhe, where he meets Emma Forsayth, known as Queen Emma, from whom he acquires the island Kabakon on credit. He also meets a sailor named Christian Slütter who studies to become a captain. Engelhardt establishes his order and hires natives as laborers for the coconut plantation, financing everything through loans and credit. He practices nudism, eats nothing but coconuts and begins advertising his new paradise abroad.The first to answer Engelhardt's call to Kabakon and the Order of the Sun is a German named Aueckens. His initial rapport with Engelhardt crumbles when the latter discovers that he is both a homosexual and an antisemite, neither of which Engelhardt approves of. Shortly after raping Makeli, a native boy, Aueckens is found dead under mysterious circumstances. According to the perfunctory police report, he died from a falling coconut. Engelhardt then hears about a project in Fiji similar to his own, which heartens and intrigues him. A man named Mittenzwey is said to be a light eater who nourishes himself only with sunlight. Engelhardt visits Mittenzwey but discovers him to be a fraud, who in collaboration with Govindarajan accepts expensive gifts from his followers but eats food in secret.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Without_My_Daughter_(book)" title="Not Without My Daughter (book)">
It was August 3, 1984. Moody, Betty, and Mahtob had spent two days traveling from their home in Detroit to Moody's native country of Iran. In preparation for their arrival, Betty, at Moody's request, gave her American passport to him in order for it not to be confiscated by the customs official. When they had landed in Tehran, Moody's family had gathered at the airport to meet them and showered them with gifts. The family gave Betty a montoe and a roosarie (traditional female clothes in Iran) and instructed her to wear them whenever she went outside their home.During the next two weeks, Betty and Mahtob longed for the vacation to be over. They had difficulty adjusting to the Iranian lifestyle. They also faced familial challenges: Moody's sister, Ameh Bozorg, (literally "great aunt"), who was their host, viewed Betty with contempt, simply for being an American and holding to American ideals. Moody's attitude toward Betty also changed: He forced her to abide by increasingly strict Iranian customs; he lied to her; he claimed that she was lying whenever she complained; he ignored her and their daughter for days at a time; he even blinded himself to the oppression of women in Iran.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_Notes_from_Beautiful_Girls" title="Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls">
June and Delia used to be best friends; the type of friendship that you think is going to last forever. Built upon shared love, experiences, and secrets, one night everything goes too far. Now they haven't spoken for a year. Then an announcement at school that Delia is dead leaves June reeling and unable to believe her friend's actions. Pushed by Delia's ex-boyfriend Jeremiah, June begins to wonder if it really was suicide at all – or was Delia murdered.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_Wild" title="Half Wild">
Nathan is currently in Switzerland, living as a nomad for a few weeks. He has been unsuccessfully searching for the Fairborn, a knife that can only be used by Nathan's bloodline. His friend, Gabriel, is missing. Nathan meets Nesbitt, who is Van's assistant. Nesbitt is half fain and half Black witch. Nathan does not spend the night with Nesbitt. However, he hears the sound of a mobile phone. This means that there are Hunters nearby. Nesbitt catches one of the Hunters, while the other, Kieran, Annalise's brother, turns invisible. It is then that Nathan feels the animal in him, and he kills Kieran. The next day, Nesbitt brings Nathan to Van. On his second night, Van informs Nathan of all that has happened. Soul, Annalise's uncle, has taken charge of the Council of White witches and is letting Wallend experiment on Black witches. Van agrees to help.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khirer_Putul" title="Khirer Putul">
The king of Deepnagar had two queens Suo Rani and Duo Rani. The king gave Suo Rani 7 palaces, 700 female slaves, best ornaments from 7 kingdoms, 7 gardens, 7 chariots. He neglected Duo Rani and gave her a broken home, a deaf and dumb maid, torn clothes and a dirty bed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Morning_I'll_Be_Gone" title="In the Morning I'll Be Gone">
In Belfast, September 1983, in the middle of The Troubles, Sergeant Sean Duffy, one of the few Catholics in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), is drummed out of the RUC on trumped up charges. At the same time, Dermot McCann, an IRA master bomber and ex-schoolmate of Duffy's escapes from the Maze prison and becomes a prime target for British Intelligence. MI5 drags Duffy out of his drunken retirement to track down McCann. The novel follows Duffy's attempts to solve a locked-room murder in order to obtain inside information on McCann's whereabouts, which finally leads to the assassination attempt on British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Brighton.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Little_Lies_(novel)" title="Big Little Lies (novel)">
Jane, a single mother, is on her way to Pirriwee Public School in Sydney's Northern Beaches, where her son Ziggy is starting kindergarten. On the way, she meets Madeline, another mother with a daughter of the same age. Madeline's friend Celeste is also sending her twin sons, Max and Josh, to school. The two strike up a friendship with Jane. All three of them have their own problems: Madeline is resentful that her daughter from her previous marriage is growing close to her ex-husband's new wife, Bonnie; Celeste is physically abused by her rich banker husband, Perry; and Jane was raped and left to raise her son Ziggy on her own. To make matters worse for her, Ziggy is accused of bullying Amabella, his future classmate, during orientation. As months pass, the three become close and Jane shares her experience with the other women. Jane tells the two other women that Ziggy is the result of a rape by a man named Saxon Banks when Jane was 19. Celeste and Madeline realize that the father is Perry's cousin, but decide to keep it from Jane for the time being. Meanwhile, Celeste's marriage becomes even more violent and she starts meeting with a counselor and rents an apartment for herself and her sons without Perry's knowledge. Ziggy is once again accused of bullying Amabella, and again denies it. Jane finds out that Ziggy is keeping a secret about who is hurting Amabella and persuades him to write down the name of the child, which turns out to be Max, one of Celeste's twins, but she is not sure how to broach the subject with Celeste.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outcast_(novel)" title="The Outcast (novel)">
Sorak is part elf and part halfling and has multiple personalities as a result of childhood trauma and is on a quest for a savior for the dying world of Athas.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singular_Universe_and_the_Reality_of_Time" title="The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time">
The book discusses a number of philosophical and physical ideas on the true role of time in the Universe. The text is roughly divided into two halves, the first one written by Unger, and the second by Smolin, both developing the same themes in different ways, with Smolin being more focused on the physics.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rod_of_Seven_Parts_(novel)" title="The Rod of Seven Parts (novel)">
Kip Kayle, a thief, accidentally gets involved in a quest to restore the Rod of Seven Parts, and as the quest progresses it leads to a vast cosmic battle between the forces of Law and Chaos.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_Scoundrels" title="Lord of Scoundrels">
In the story's prologue, Sebastian Ballister is born in Devon to the 2nd Marquess of Dain and his Italian wife, Lucia Usignuolo. The Marquess is disgusted with the child, describing him as the "Devil's spawn" and a "wizened olive thing with large black eyes, ill-proportioned limbs, and a grossly oversize nose". Eight years later, the tempestuous Lucia abandons her husband for her lover. Unloved by his father and told that his mother is an "evil, godless creature", Sebastian is sent off to Eton where he is teased by his classmates over his appearance. The boy grows up learning to hide his feelings; given no inheritance by his father, Sebastian acquires clever ways to make his fortune and uses money to unscrupulously get his way.The story begins in 1828, Paris. Sebastian, now the intelligent but immoral 3rd Marquess of Dain, meets his match in Miss Jessica Trent, who has arrived in the city to rescue her unintelligent, nearly penniless brother Bertie from Dain's bad influence. Dain and Jessica are instantly attracted to the other, though each seeks to hide their feelings. Dain has developed a hard, sarcastic personality; he is hostile to noblewomen, as he believes they care only for money. Jessica, a 27-year-old beautiful, strong-willed bluestocking, has refused dozens of marriage proposals over the years and wishes to maintain her independence.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fade_Away_(novel)" title="Fade Away (novel)">
"Fade Away" is a novel featuring Myron Bolitar, a sports agent, hired by the New Jersey Dragons to find a missing basketball star. Myron and his team of associates, work together to puzzle out the disappearance of Greg Downing,drawing Myron into danger, both physical and emotional.Myron Bolitar is a sports agent and sometimes investigator, called by Clip Arnstein, theowner of the New Jersey Dragons. Clip's star player is missing and he wants Myron tofind him. Greg Downing had been Myron's rival throughout their youth and college days.Both had been drafted to play professional basketball, but Greg is the only one thatmade it. Myron's knee had been injured in what was believed to be a freak accident onthe court, and he had never played professionally. Clip wants Myron to take Greg'splace on the team, feeling that the other players would be more open with him ratherthan an investigator. Myron is reluctant yet excited at the same time. Having never hadthe opportunity to play pro-ball, he is anxious to know if he can make it with theDragons.Myron investigates Greg's disappearance with the help of his closest friend, Win. Thetwo men discover a mysterious woman had left a message on Greg's answeringmachine to arrange a meeting the night he vanished. Following leads, Myron discovers
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DUFF_(novel)" title="The DUFF (novel)">
High school student Bianca Piper, along with her friends Casey Blithe and Jessica Gaither, frequent a teen lounge called the Nest. One January night as Casey and Jessica are dancing, another student named Wesley Rush, who has a reputation as a womanizer, approaches Bianca. He explains that he wants people to see him talking with her, because she is the DUFF, the Designated Ugly Fat Friend, and a connection with her will bring other, more attractive women to him. Disgusted, Bianca finds her friends and leaves. A few nights later, however, Wesley approaches Bianca at the club again after Bianca had a particularly bad day, and Bianca spontaneously kisses Wesley in order to distract herself from her problems.Bianca's mother Gina, a self-help lecturer, has been disappearing for longer and longer periods of time on her business trips, and one day she sends Bianca's father, Mike, divorce papers. This drives Mike Piper to start drinking again and to demolish the living room, and when Wesley plans to come to Bianca's house to work on an English paper together on the novel "The Scarlet Letter", Bianca suggests going to Wesley's house instead so that no one discovers about her parents' divorce. In Wesley's room, Bianca kisses him again and ends up sleeping with him. She insists, however, that she hates him, and he continues to address her as "Duffy". Bianca does not tell Casey or Jessica about sleeping with Wesley, or about her parents' divorce.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bathhouse" title="The Bathhouse">
In 1930 the inventor Chudakov creates the Time machine, but experiences great difficulties, having to face the Soviet bureaucracy, mainly in the face of Pobedonosikov, an archetype bureaucrat. The Phosphorescent Woman arrives from 2030 (sent by the Institute of Studying of the History of Communism) and invites to her time and space every single person who's got at least some virtue. As the expedition starts into the Communist future, Pobedonosikov and other 'baddies' get thrown off the Machine, ejected by the Time itself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Honeymoon_(novel)" title="Second Honeymoon (novel)">
This book has two plots. The primary plot concerns a serial killer who targets newlyweds on their honeymoons. FBI agent John O'Hara (who was central to the first book of this series) works this case, trying to determine who the killer is and why the killer targets particular newlyweds, but in a seemingly random manner. The second plot involves O'Hara personally, but he does not know this until another FBI agent, Sarah Brubaker, brings the matter to his attention.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slow_Regard_of_Silent_Things" title="The Slow Regard of Silent Things">
The novella is focused on Auri, a character from "The Kingkiller Chronicle" and her adventures in the Underthing, a hidden location of old rooms and tunnels under the University. Through the seven days narrated in the book, Auri explores the Underthing, awaiting a visit from Kvothe, a time period that is covered specifically between chapters seven and eleven of "The Wise Man's Fear".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butcher's_Broom_(novel)" title="Butcher's Broom (novel)">
The book opens on Dark Mairi, a local healer and widow making her way back to the Strath where she, her grandson Davie and Elie (a young woman from the community) live. They live on the Riasgan estate where they have lived for many years under the ancient clan system. The decline of the clan system is one of the catalysts that drives the Clearances and the plot of the novel. Elie falls in love with Colin, a young man in the community and falls pregnant to him, just as he leaves to go to fight in the Napoleonic Wars for regiment raised by the local Captain, who as tacksman emigrates, leaving his community lacking the protection he once provided.Elie wanders the Lowlands destitute with her child but returns to the community an outcast just as the threat of clearance hangs over the whole Strath (this is carried out by a thinly veiled equivalent of Patrick Sellar called Heller). Through this all Young Davie struggles to regain his trust for Elie, and Elie also attracts the attentions of Rob the Miller, who eventually marries her.The community is burned out and cleared to the rocky shore, with a wall erected to stop them using their old lands. They eke out a pitiful existence in a harsh environment. Mairi is killed at the end by an estate sheepdog. Colin returns from the war to find his community relocated and overtly changed. He encounters he and Elie's son Colin, and together, although not recognising each other as father and son they bury Mairi according to custom.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleights_of_Mind" title="Sleights of Mind">
Macknik and Martinez-Conde say that magic tricks fool us because humans have hardwired processes of attention and awareness that are hackable. Good magicians use our inherent mental and neural limitations against us by leading us to perceive and feel what we are neurologically inclined to. Working with renowned magicians like Apollo Robbins, Teller, Mac King, and James Randi, Macknik and Martinez-Conde research the ways in which the perceptual and cognitive elements of magic relate to more than simple deceits. The authors reveal the neural underpinnings of the magical methods that explain how our brains perceive magic.Through their exploration, Macknik and Martinez-Conde uncover how our brains work in everyday situations. They describe how if you have ever bought an expensive item you had sworn you would never buy, the salesperson was creating the “illusion of choice,” a core technique of magic. They also relate the use of magic to Bernie Madoff’s “illusion of trust”. Through these examples, Macknik’s and Martinez-Conde’s Sleights of Mind illuminates the reasons for studying magic, and its implications for research on, and renewed understanding of, perceptual and cognitive processes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swan_Book" title="The Swan Book">
"The Swan Book" is set in the future, with Aboriginal people still living under the Intervention in the north, in an environment fundamentally altered by climate change. It follows a girl who is pulled from a tree as a child after having been lost and gang-raped, and how she grows up raised by a European immigrant and seemingly guided by swans. After the death of her guardian, she is betrothed to a boy who grows up to become the first Indigenous President of Australia (Prime Minister has been abandoned in this future), and later marries him, despite retaining a childlike mind even as an adult.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Superhero" title="Project Superhero">
At the start of her grade eight school year, Jessie, a 13-year-old girl with a penchant for superhero comic books and journaling, is assigned a year-long school project in her Socials class called the Superhero Slam. In a head-to-head debate tournament, each student must choose a superhero to champion and be ready to present why their superhero is the best in a variety of topics including: wisdom and experience, physical strength and agility, perseverance and determination, critical thinking, recovery, courage, preparation, and leadership.With her superhero preferences for real people equipped with additional training and technology (i.e. Batman, Iron Man), Jessie selects Batgirl as her optimal candidate and begins her research into what makes Batgirl the ideal female superhero. In order to further explore how real people can become superheroes, Jessie resolves to put herself through physical and mental conditioning. She practices martial arts with her aunt and learns about disciplines like determination through letters written to “real life superheroes.” She writes to and receives responses from:Jessie's diary entries are accented by Kris Pearn's illustrations of Jessie and her family and friends.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weightless_(novel)" title="Weightless (novel)">
The book's plot predominantly centers upon Carolyn Lessing, a beautiful young teenager that has moved to Adamsville, Alabama and has recently begun attending the local high school. She's initially met with a largely positive reception from the student body, as they're both awed and envious of her, and she soon begins dating Shane, one of the most popular guys at school. However even as they praise her, Carolyn is still an outsider and is more treasured for what she represents (wealth, glamour, talent, fame) than for herself as a person - something that becomes more readily apparent when her relationship with Shane brings about the wrath of one of the school's mean girls. As time progresses her peers begin to bully Carolyn, first slowly and then with more emphasis. Despite these actions taking a very negative toll on Carolyn's physical and mental well-being, the bullying is largely met with apathy because it was so slow to develop and most of the onlookers are inured to what they're seeing and many even believe that she brought this about on herself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_War_(novel)" title="Act of War (novel)">
The President of the United States Paul Porter and the United States attempt to stop a catastrophic attack on the country by the Chinese. The name of the Chinese plot is Snow Dragon. A division of the Chinese government is planning of Snow Dragon. When one of the cell members of the plot in the United States continually fails to make contact, that division of the Chinese government sends in a known killer and super spy into the U.S. to check things out. The Chinese contracted out the completion of Snow Dragon to Muslims and other extremists in the Middle East. If the U.S. government wants any information or any hope of stopping Snow Dragon they must find anyone and everyone involved in pulling off this catastrophic event.Meanwhile, a team of three Navy SEALS and a CIA officer that are dispatched to spy on North Korea. This is being done because intelligence has told the United States that the Chinese are conducting training missions in the country. Former Navy SEAL, Secret Service member and U.S. hero Scot Harvath. Harvath, who is working with the Carlton Group, a specialized intel and operations group, does whatever it takes to stop the Chinese and keep the U.S. safe.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_False_Move_(novel)" title="One False Move (novel)">
One False Move is a novel detailing a period of time in thelife of Myron Bolitar, sports agent, and a long standing secret in his hometown. Myronmeets with Norm Zuckerman the CEO of Zoom sports manufacturing company abouthis star player, Brenda Slaughter. Norm is concerned about threats that Brenda hasbeen receiving and wants Myron to protect her, as well as find out from where thethreats are coming. Though Myron is at first unwilling, the fact that Slaughter has noagent sways him to agree with Norm.Myron is intrigued by Brenda, and agrees to help her, not only to have the chance tobecome her agent, but because he realizes that they have a tie from years past.Brenda's father Horace is missing, and she wants to find him. Myron had known Horaceyears ago and had considered him a friend. Horace had coached Myron in his ownbasketball career, the two losing touch after Myron's career had been tragically ended.Working with Brenda to find her father and mother, Myron realizes that he is falling inlove with her, causing him to question his long term relationship with Jessica, his live-inlover. For years Myron had been trying to hold together a relationship that might nothave been what either party wanted. The easy peace he finds when he is with Brenda is
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season_of_Storms" title="Season of Storms">
Geralt of Rivia fights a dangerous monster whose only goal in life is to kill people. Shortly afterwards, he is arrested, resulting in the loss of two of his priceless witcher swords. With a little help from his friend Dandelion and his connections, he does everything he can to get his work tools back. In the meantime, he gets into an affair with the sorceress Lytta Neyd (nicknamed Coral), meets influential people and the social margin associated with the country where he lost his swords - Kerack. Geralt soon gets dragged into two dangerous conspiracies (one involving a group of sorcerers, and another involving King Belohun and his bitter sons). These events and the undisguised and reciprocated reluctance of the magicians towards Geralt (who turn out to be related to this story) make the whole thing a series of failures, during which the hero is forced to make difficult decisions.The epilogue of the book is set years after "The Witcher" Saga.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mahabharata_Secret" title="The Mahabharata Secret">
In 244 BC, Indian emperor Ashoka finds a hilly cave with an astonishing secret. Believing it could destroy the world, he creates a secret brotherhood of Nine Men, who would guard the cave's contents through the centuries. He also removed the Vimana Parva chapter of the Indian epic, "Mahabharata", from its written transcripts.In present day, Vikram Singh, an Indian nuclear scientist, is murdered at his fort in Jaungarh. Before his death he sent four cryptic emails to his nephew Vijay, who with his business partner Colin, childhood friend Radha and her father, linguist Dr. Shukla, start analyzing it. They are aided by Bheem Singh, current owner of Rajvirgarh fort and Greg White, an archaeologist mentioned in Vikram's emails. The group deduce that the emails refer to the Nine Men and their secret, which can be revealed by using a metal disc, a key, a ball of rock and a riddle. Their mission is interrupted by a man called Farooq, a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant. The group find that the metal disc and the key together point to the Edicts of Ashoka. They travel to Bairat and find a hidden library of the Nine, but are imprisoned inside by Farooq and his men. The group find an alternate route and the ball of rock.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Secret_(novel)" title="Top Secret (novel)">
This novel centers around a new officer, James Cronley, who at the very end of World War II is recruited for a new intelligence operation and is sent to Germany. Cronley suffers a personal tragedy just before being sent to his new post. It is hoped Cronley can become a great asset to the new organization, which is to become the Central Intelligence Agency. Cronley is put in charge of an operation that includes former German officers and he quickly finds himself in charge of a captured Soviet spy. Many of the characters from Argentina in the Honor Bound series make appearances throughout the novel.Cronley gets himself into some situations that will seemingly end his career, but with some guidance from those who are more experienced, he seems to have a chance to redeem himself. He has to convince the Soviet spy to turn against his Soviet masters and it is apparent other spies for the Soviets are working right under Cronley's nose to defeat him. This book does not reveal whether Cronley will succeed or fail completely. The next book in the series picks up the story.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Princess_X" title="I Am Princess X">
May is a sad and lonely teenager who lives in Atlanta with her mother but spends summers in Seattle with her father. Years ago, before her parents divorced, when they all lived in Seattle, she and her best friend Libby worked together to create the fictional character named Princess X, a warrior-princess who went through whatever adventures the two of them could dream up. This all came to an end when Libby died in a car accident on the Ballard Bridge. Now in present day, May begins seeing stickers and other memorabilia that showcase Princess X during the summer before her 17th birthday. She's directed to a website containing stories of Princess X's exploits, all of which are similar to the stories May wrote years earlier. This leads May to believe that Libby is still alive. She decides to follow a series of subtle clues left by the webcomic with the help of Patrick Hobbs, however as she progresses, she discovers that she is not the only person looking for Libby. May discovers that Libby is indeed alive and that she was actually kidnapped by a man named Ken Mullins who wanted Libby's parents to allow her to be used as part of a medical procedure to save his own daughter, Christine Louise Mullins. They refuse due to the risk of Libby's own health and well-being, only for the man to murder Libby's parents and steal Libby away to raise in the place of his own daughter, who died soon after he was turned away. Libby managed to escape but had to remain continually on the run, as the man kept searching for her and lied to authorities, saying that she was his mentally unhinged daughter. The book ends with May and Libby reuniting, Ken in jail, and Libby adding a new character to help Princess X.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Machine_Age" title="The Second Machine Age">
The authors summarize the contents of their book's 15 chapters on pages 11 and 12 of the book itself.The book is divided into three sections: Chapters 1 through 6 describe "the fundamental characteristics of the second machine age," based on many examples of modern use of technology. Chapters 7 through 11 describe economic impacts of technology in terms of two concepts the authors call "bounty" and "spread." What they call "bounty" is their attempt to measure the benefits of new technology in ways reaching beyond such measures as GDP, which they say is inadequate. They use "spread" as a shorthand way to describe the increasing inequality that is also resulting from widespread new technology.Finally, in chapters 12 through 15, the authors prescribe some policy interventions that could enhance the benefits and reduce the harm of new technologies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Little_Life" title="A Little Life">
The novel focuses on the lives of four friends: Jude St. Francis, a disabled genius with a mysterious past; Willem Ragnarsson, a kind, handsome man who aspires to be an actor; Malcolm Irvine, an architect working at a prestigious firm; and Jean-Baptiste "JB" Marion, a quick-witted painter who wants to make a name in the art world. The book follows their relationships changing under the influence of success, wealth, addiction, and pride.The novel's main focus is the enigmatic lawyer, Jude. He suffers from a damaged spine which leaves him with a limp and excruciating pain in his legs that comes and goes. Unbeknownst to his friends, he also frequently self-harms, one such bout of cutting led Willem to take him to Andy Contractor, Jude's doctor and trusted friend. It is clear that he suffers from debilitating mental trauma from his childhood.Despite this apparent closeness with his friends, Jude finds himself unable to divulge either detail of his past or current state of mind to his roommate. Nonetheless, he thrives in his law practice, and develops a close parent-child relationship with his former professor, Harold, and his wife Julia, which results in the pair adopting him when Jude turns thirty. While thankful, the time before the adoption is filled with further bouts of self-harm, as Jude believes he is inherently unworthy of affection. Meanwhile, the rest of the group finds success in their respective fields, with Willem becoming a star of theater and then film. JB finds success as an artist but also becomes addicted to crystal meth. The group stages an intervention, where JB mocks Jude by doing a crude imitation of his limp. In spite of successful treatment, and a great deal of apologizing, Jude finds it impossible to forgive JB. Willem refuses to forgive him too, causing the group to fragment, with only Malcolm remaining friends with all four members.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_the_Comments" title="Reading the Comments">
The book has eight chapters and gives an overview of comments on the Internet. Reagle covers the concept of Internet anonymity and references Plato's Ring of Gyges story, comparing the ring's power of invisibility to the ability to remain seemingly anonymous on the Internet. Topics covered in the book include the manipulation of online reviews in locations like Yelp, trolling, and online threats of rape and violence.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Object_of_My_Affection_(novel)" title="The Object of My Affection (novel)">
George Mullen is a 20-something openly gay man enrolled in the English literature graduate school program at Columbia University. Although somewhat good-looking, George has moderate self-esteem problems and deep commitment issues. The novel is told from his point of view. George begins dating Robert Joley, a handsome, 40-year-old literature professor at the college. Joley (George always refers to him by his last name) also has commitment issues, and George's relationship with him is poor. They attend a party where George meets Nina Borowski, a full-figured woman who counsels battered women and rape victims at a women's crisis center while striving for her Ph.D. in psychology. Joley tells Nina that George wants to move out, even though the men have not discussed this. Angry and hurt, George moves into Nina's Brooklyn apartment. George drops out of Columbia, and takes a job teaching kindergarten alongside Melissa, a trust-fund baby into alternative culture.George and Nina swiftly become best friends, and in time their friendship comes close to approximating romantic love. They have a mutual appreciation for junk food, and both of them are highly disorganized, somewhat lazy, and tend to hoard things. They both enjoy movies, and they impulsively take ballroom dancing lessons. Nina is dating Howard, a feminist and legal aid lawyer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_Piacere" title="Il Piacere">
Andrea Sperelli is a young noble dandy of Rome who lives in Palazzo Zuccari (Trinità dei Monti), although he is originally from Abruzzo. He loves Elena Muti, although she is married to another. Andrea fights a duel with a rival for the affections of yet another married woman, but gets injured, and taken to Francavilla al Mare, where, at Villa Schifanoja, he meets the beautiful Maria Ferres. Andrea, when cured, realizes that he loves both Maria and Elena. At the end of the story, however, he loses both women.Book IOn 31 December 1886 Andrea Sperelli anxiously awaits the arrival of his ex-lover, Elena Muti in his house, Palazzo Zuccari. While waiting for her, he remembers their last farewell, which took place almost two years ago, in March 1885. Elena broke up with him in a carriage, telling him that she is to marry an Englishman. When Elena arrives, he alternates between his feelings of love for her and pain because of their separation. The narrator then explains the history Andrea's family, and his father's advice to Andrea, and his arrival to Rome as a youth. The reader then learns about Andrea and Elena's first meeting, which took place at a dinner party hosted by the Marchesa of Ateleta, Andrea's cousin. The two talk at the party and the next day meet each other again. The two begin an affair, which ends abruptly when Elena announces one night that she is leaving him. After she leaves, Andrea begins a long line of seductions, seducing seven noble women in total. At last he begins to try to seduce Ippolita Albònico. One day, while at a horse race, Andrea angers Ippolita's husband who challenges him to a duel. Even though Andrea is better at fencing, he sustains a grave injury during the duel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_trionfo_della_morte" title="Il trionfo della morte">
The story is set in the Abruzzo region, the birthplace of the author. The noble aesthete Giorgio Aurispa, besotted with his unhappily-married lover Ippolita, leaves Rome after witnessing a suicide. After a brief interlude with Ippolita in Albano, Giorgio receives a telegram from his mother, who lives in the small mountain village of Guardiagrele. Giorgio arrives in the beautiful city of stone, and is fascinated by the sculptures; however, he is equally haunted by popular superstitions and the memories of the suicide of his uncle Demetrio, whom he had loved as a father. Worse, Giorgio discovers that his actual father has squandered the family fortune, forcing his mother and siblings to live in poverty while he carries on with a prostitute. Giorgio curses his father, abandoning his family, and runs to the sea, buying a house on a hill in San Vito Chietino. Ippolita joins him, and the two pursue a summer of decadent languor marred only by Giorgio's developing paranoia towards her. Giorgio is additionally obsessed with death, and matters only become worse after the pair undertake a pilgrimage to the shrine of Casalbordino, where the multitude of desperate supplicants begging cures of the statue of the Madonna drives them away in horror. While Giorgio becomes more and more unmoored and desperate to leave both Abruzzo and what he perceives as Ippolita's unwholesome influence, she remains amused and fascinated by their surroundings. Finally Giorgio decides that his only recourse is to carry her over a seaside cliff, killing the both of them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwattle_Creek" title="Blackwattle Creek">
Ten years after the events of the first book in the series, "The Diggers Rest Hotel", Charlie Berlin is now married and living in Melbourne. His innocent investigations to strange goings-on at a funeral parlour for a friend, leads him to Blackwattle Creek, a former asylum for the criminally insane, to Cold War paranoia and corrupt policemen.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See_Me_(novel)" title="See Me (novel)">
Colin is a troubled young man with a history of anger problems that stem from his being mercilessly bullied at the various military schools he's attended throughout the years and from parents who have little interest in parenting their child. These issues lead to repeated interactions with the police, to the point where Colin's parents have had enough and throw him out of the house. Maria, on the other hand, has always grown up in a warm and nurturing environment where people have supported her emotionally throughout her law career. Maria and Colin eventually meet one another and begin dating; however, soon Maria begins to receive strange and terrifying messages from an anonymous stalker. She believes that she knows who is sending the messages, causing her to fear for her and Colin's well-being.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Shore" title="Crimson Shore">
Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast is approached by Percival Lake, a sculptor who wishes to hire him as a private investigator. On returning from vacation to his home in Exmouth, Massachusetts, Lake discovered that thieves had stolen his wine collection from the cellar of the lighthouse he calls his home and frustrated by the local police, he wishes to hire Pendergast to investigate. Lured by the promise of a rare bottle of wine as payment, Pendergast and his ward Constance Greene accept the job.While examining the wine cellar, Pendergast discovers an alcove that has been concealed which contains manacles and fragments of human bone. An analysis of the bone reveals that it dates back to the 1840s and Pendergast concludes that it belongs to the captain of the "Pembroke Castle", a ship that disappeared without a trace off the coast of Exmouth. However, their investigation is interrupted by the murder of Morris McCool, an historian looking into local legends. Arcane symbols are carved into his body, as is the word "Tybane". Pendergast and Greene learn that local lore tells stories of a group of genuine witches who fled Salem after the witch trials and settled in the wetlands outside Exmouth. Pendergast dismisses this as superstition, believing that McCool's killer is playing to the locals' fears. A second body, that of local lawyer Dana Dunwoody, is found shortly thereafter.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worlds_Beginning" title="Worlds Beginning">
The "New York Times" gave the following synopsis of the novel:Twenty years from now a retired reporter takes time off from cultivating his petunias and his perennial border to write of his own experiences during the dark days after peace, when American civilization seemed about to crack up for good. The "myth of internationalism" had infected big business with a bad case of economic imperialism. But synthetic revolutions in industrial chemistry soon fixed things so foreign nations didn't need a thing we could sell them. Depression, unemployment, bankruptcies, hatred and fear plagued the country. The business-controlled Government was swept out of office by a labor popular front. But things got worse instead of better. ... [W]hile Americans everywhere sank into fatalistic apathy, a new hope was born in the desert town of Indian Pass in Texas, where the Trans-Pecos Chemical Commonwealth was making a plastic substitute for copper wire that was much cheaper and much better than copper. The significance lay in a new concept of ownership. ... The commonwealth idea got rid of all owners of property and also paid no wages, only shares in the earnings. The employees had no participation in the concern. The harder they worked and the more money the commonwealth made, the larger was their share of the earnings. Every foreman was subject to dismissal by a majority vote of the workers under him. Any lazy or inefficient worker was thrown out on his ear by his comrades. Efficiency was wonderful, morale perfect.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_489" title="Prisoner 489">
On a prison island for the world's worst criminals, a prisoner is set for execution. After absorbing multiple surges of electricity and nearly knocking out power to the entire island, the prisoner dies. The prisoner is buried in the graveyard with a single marker bearing only three digits: 489. After the burial, a violent storm rocks the island and a staff member goes missing. The staff rushes into the storm searching for their lost comrade, but they instead discover that the burial site has been unearthed and the body is missing. With this horrific finding and the strange noises, the staff is unnerved. When the strange noises continue, the staff starts to think something is after them. Faced with an unknown threat, they soon must battle for their lives.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brotherhood_of_Fear" title="The Brotherhood of Fear">
The novel concerns a prisoner who has escaped detention in a totalitarian future state.The fugitive, Willy Bryo, is pursued by a police officer named Konnr. The pursuit leads the two across a survey of the totalitarian state, until they both shipwreck on a utopian island not under the governance of the state. The two intruders disturb the homeostasis of the island, and, by the conclusion of the novel, the fugitive is leading a posse of locals to hunt down his pursuer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_(novel)" title="Ideal (novel)">
Millionaire Granton Sayers is killed on the same evening that he has dinner with famous actress Kay Gonda. Gonda goes on the run, and both the police and journalist Morrison Pickens are searching for her. Pickens visits Gonda's publicist, Mick Watts, who is drunk and rambles about Gonda being on a "great quest". Gonda has taken with her six letters written by fans in the Los Angeles area. She visits each of the letter writers seeking their help to hide, but she is repeatedly disappointed.The first fan, George Perkins, initially offers to hide Gonda, but changes his mind when his wife objects. The wife of the second fan, Jeremiah Sliney, is more agreeable, and they offer Gonda a room for the night. Afterwards, Gonda hears the couple plotting to turn her in for a reward, so she flees. Dwight Langley, an artist who claims in his letter to have drawn Gonda's face many times, does not recognize her when she comes to him. The next fan she visits, Claude Ignatius Hix, is very religious. He urges Gonda to turn herself in and confess her sins. The fifth fan, Dietrich von Esterhazy, says he would be honored to protect her, but then attempts to rape her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracles_from_Heaven" title="Miracles from Heaven">
The book is about the author's 10-year-old daughter Annabel Beam, who was diagnosed with a rare terminal stomach disorder. While on a visit home from the hospital she fell while climbing a tree with her older sister, a branch gave way sending Annabel 30 feet down headfirst into the hollow trunk of a cottonwood tree. She was inside the trunk of the tree for several hours where she visits with Jesus who tells her she will be fine. She is finally rescued and taken to a hospital. She woke up at the hospital without any broken bones or internal injuries. After this incident, she no longer felt pain due to her stomach disorder and her doctor confirmed that her rare disease was somehow miraculously cured.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut_Like_Wound" title="Cut Like Wound">
The story of the novel "Cut Like Wound" begins on the first evening of Ramzan, 1 August 2012, and ends about a month later in September on St Mary's Feast. On the first evening of Ramzan, in Bengaluru, a call girl decides to go out in the public for the first time. She is a transgender person who is said to be a psychopath, and lures a victim and kills him. More murders occur and past murders are also linked to it. The investigation into the murder is conducted by Inspector Gowda and Santosh. Combating apathy both at personal and professional levels, Gowda manages to crack the case. He discovers a set pattern to the murders, which leads to his conclusion that these murders might be the work of a serial killer. The novel is told across the sights and smells of Bangalore and speaks about the people, customs and geography of the city.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gangster's_Life" title="The Gangster's Life">
"The Gangster's Life" picks up the story of Indo–Canadian gangster Ruby Pandher, the hero of Ranj Dhaliwal's bestseller "Daaku", as he recovers from a failed hit by his own associates.Violence, wild partying and flashy purchases mark Ruby's comeback. Ruby's eyes and perspective are widened by the new contacts he makes, as he tries to measure up to - and then sideline big-time gangster Khalsi. Joining forces with a sinister associate and sounding very much like the modern businessman, he sets out to expand his criminal enterprises - all while battling his conscious and wondering what a life outside the underworld would be like.Soon he comes to see his old self as minor-league, and, joining forces with the sinister Darshan and sounding very much like the modern businessman, he sets out to expand his criminal enterprises.Meanwhile, life intervenes in the form of the possibility of love for this hardcore gangster; and in Ruby's brother Kam, who worships his bro' and wants to follow in his footsteps ––– something Ruby knows he's not equipped to do. Meanwhile, Ruby's activities pull him deeper into the violent side of the world of Sikh temple politics.Will Ruby's heart open, or is the flashy lifestyle too much to tear away from? Can he stop Kam from following in his own footsteps? Most of all, can Ruby break the cycle and leave behind "The Life"?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clerkenwell_Tales" title="The Clerkenwell Tales">
The novel is set in London in the year 1399, a year of revolt, revolution and religious conspiracy. As Henry Bolingbroke challenges Richard II for the throne of England the reader's attention is focused on Dominus, a secret society of religious fundamentalists, known to history as Lollards. The story is oriented similar to Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales" and makes use of some of the characters from "The Canterbury Tales" as well. It turns on the conspiracies of a religious sect, led by the mad nun and making use of the prophecies of the mad Clerkenwell nun to foment panic and hysteria to bring forth the dethroning of Richard II. The result is a gothic novel which effortlessly merges fact and fiction into an almost recognizable alternate history.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I've_Got_Your_Number_(novel)" title="I've Got Your Number (novel)">
Poppy Wyatt loses her engagement ring, which has been in her fiancé's family for three generations, on the day that his parents arrive from the US and in the following panic, she also ends up losing her phone. She finds an abandoned phone in a bin and decides to keep it so that the hotel where she lost her ring can phone her if they find it. However, the owner, businessman Sam Roxton wants it back and Poppy and Sam find that their lives become increasingly entangled.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/78-87_London_Youth" title="78-87 London Youth">
The book is a collection of photographs of young Londoners taken by the photographer from 1978-1988. It especially focuses on the alternative youth scene from punk through to the birth of acid house music. It showcases the creativity and individuality of the young.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_God_&amp;_Country_(Reyes_novel)" title="For God &amp; Country (Reyes novel)">
Edward Valles, a Marine, returns from his final tour in the middle east to his family in Los Angeles. He is fulfilling his final duty as a recruiter and promises his wife that he is done with war and will leave the Marine Corps after the duty is complete.A team of Homeland Security agents find crates with military arsenal building up in Mexico and suspect something is about to happen. At the same time a coalition of countries hostile towards the United States has been meeting in secret and moving forward on a plot that has been years in the making.On a camping trip with his fellow recruiters, Eddie witnesses the detonation of nuclear bombs in downtown Los Angeles, which is followed by an invasion across the Mexican border. His fellow recruiters and him decide to report to 29 Palms deep in the desert and join the group that is forming to counter strike against the invaders. This is when he meets the Battery Operated Grunts, a group of Marines from the communication school that is running the convoys communications during the mission. He joins the group and meets the different personalities along the way and their reasons for volunteering for the mission.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_of_Fire" title="Flood of Fire">
Following the storylines of the previous two parts, "Sea of Poppies" and "River of Smoke", the story continues in 1839. Kesri Singh, brother of Deeti, is made aware that Deeti ran away from her husband's pyre by avoiding sati. She eloped with a lower-caste labourer and Singh's family is ashamed of the events. Kesri joins the British service as an Indian soldier at the rank of sepoy. He works for the East India Company, where his superior is Deeti's deceased husband's brother. Zachary Reid, an American soldier born to a quadroon mother and a white father, pretends to be white and starts entering the trading business. Shireen Modi, an Indian Parsi woman, has left for China in search of her late husband's illegitimate child. In her pursuit, she starts to have feelings for her husband's close friend who is now helping her. She is fully aware that her relationship with this Armenian friend would be condemned by her orthodox Parsi community. Neel Rattan Halder, once a king, has been separated from his son after he was arrested by the British. Neel has now absconded and remains a fugitive in order to avoid being jailed for his conviction on the false forgery charges, which Mr. Burnham had manipulated. The First Opium War has commenced and the characters find themselves in midst of these events.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Interpreters_(novel)" title="The Interpreters (novel)">
The novel is set in the 1960s, in post-independence and pre-civil war Nigeria, mainly in Lagos. There are five main characters in the novel: the foreign ministry clerk Egbo, the university professor Bandele, the journalist Sagoe, the engineer turned sculptor Sekoni, and the artist Kola. They were friends at high school, then went abroad to study, and returned to start middle-class jobs in Nigeria.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station_Eleven" title="Station Eleven">
During a production of "King Lear" at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto, Jeevan watches as the actor playing Lear, Arthur Leander, has a heart attack. Since he has begun training as a paramedic, Jeevan tries to resuscitate Arthur, but is unsuccessful. Instead, Jeevan comforts one of the child actors in the production, Kirsten. After leaving the play, Jeevan goes for a walk in the snow and receives a call from a friend who is a doctor in Toronto. He warns Jeevan to get out of the city as the mysterious Georgia Flu is spreading rapidly and will soon become a full-blown pandemic. Jeevan loads up on supplies and goes to stay with his brother, Frank. Many of the actors, actresses, and others that had gathered to mourn Arthur's death die within the next three weeks.Twenty years later, Kirsten is part of a nomadic group of actors and musicians known as the "Travelling Symphony". Kirsten, who was eight at the time of the outbreak, can remember little of her life before Year Zero, but clings to a two-volume set of graphic novels given to her by Arthur before his death, titled "Station Eleven". The troupe operates on a two-year cycle touring the Great Lakes region, performing Shakespeare plays and classical music, while Kirsten scavenges abandoned homes for props, costumes, and traces of Arthur in tabloid magazines.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_(Krauss_book)" title="Atom (Krauss book)">
In this book Krauss discusses creating parts of an oxygen atom, the primary atoms of the Big Bang. Then he follows it through the remaining history of the Universe. As time has been passing by, the atom was a part of a supernova and star dust, star and planet systems, and, ultimately, a part of living cells.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo's_Middle_Finger" title="Galileo's Middle Finger">
The first part of "Galileo's Middle Finger" recounts Dreger's activism against surgical "correction" of intersex individuals' genitalia. Some surgeons called this "total urogenital mobilization" which is "...ripping out everything that didn't seem right to the doctor and rebuilding a girl's genitals from scratch using Frankenstein stitches..." Thus, her book discusses the intersex medical interventions that some intersex children in the United States undergo. Based on her interactions with the intersex community as well as her own research, she advocated that genital surgery for intersex children be postponed until the individual is old enough to make an informed decision, in the absence of any evidence that the benefits of such surgery outweighed its already reported risks.The second section provides her analysis of the controversy surrounding "The Man Who Would Be Queen" (2003), by sex researcher and psychologist J. Michael Bailey. In that book, Bailey summarized research on Blanchard's transsexualism typology in a way that Dreger says is scientifically accurate, well-intended, and sympathetic, but insensitive to its political implications. Dreger writes that "Bailey made the mistake of thinking that openly accepting and promoting the truth about people's identities would be understood as the same as accepting them and helping them, as he felt he was". Instead, many activists in the trans community objected to the contention that their transition was sexually motivated.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sunny_Night" title="The Sunny Night">
The narrator is a student from Tbilisi. Teymo's mother returns from jail where she had spent twelve years, and Teymo at twenty is thrown from hell and back again as he at last accepts her return. He falls in and out of love, invites trouble by helping an imprisoned classmate, sleeps with an accommodating lady, finds at last his true mate. Amid shouting, heckling, students and "Party" student meetings, seas and sunsets, drinks and talk, Teymo emerges whole, strong, outrageous, delightful, and even the death of his mother is a dedication.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pink_and_the_Green" title="The Pink and the Green">
The story concerns Mina Wanghen, an 18-year-old rich Prussian heiress in the 1830s with a romantic spirit and inclinations to radical political thought. She is disgusted by the love of money that she suspects motivates the many suitors who pursue her and her large dowry. When she relocates to Paris, Abbé Miossince, a worldly priest, becomes determined to convert her to Roman Catholicism and make a match between her and the Duke of Montenotte. The Duke, the son of a Napoleonic general, has a similar distaste for money, and when he hears about Mina from the Abbé, he goes off to his club and settles down with a map of Prussia. Not long afterward, the young couple meet at a ball. Stendhal did not develop the story further.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolitan_Novels" title="Neapolitan Novels">
## "My Brilliant Friend" ("L'amica geniale", 2011).The Neapolitan Novels begin in 2010 when the son of an old friend telephones the main character, a woman in her 60s named Elena (familiarly called "Lenù"). Elena's childhood friend Lila (a nickname for "Raffaella") has disappeared and removed all traces of herself from her household, and her son is unable to find her. Elena recognizes this behavior as something Lila, in her later years, has always talked about doing, and believes her disappearance to be a conscious decision. In the spirit of their loving but ambivalent ways towards each other, Elena begins to put on paper everything she can remember about Lila, beginning in 1950s' Naples.Elena and Lila grow up in a poor neighborhood full of violence and strife, where Lila alone realizes that an innocent man has been framed for murder by local gangsters, the Solara family. No one expects the girls to be educated beyond elementary school. Elena is diligent and captures the attention of maestra Oliviero, one of her primary school teachers, a spinster who encourages her to escape the life of the impoverished plebeian class. To everyone's surprise, the very rebellious Lila turns out to be a prodigy who has taught herself to read and write. She quickly earns the highest grades in the class, seemingly without effort. Elena is both fascinated and intimidated by Lila, especially after Lila writes a story which Elena feels shows real genius. She begins to push herself to keep up with Lila and ignores her teacher's warning not to associate with "plebs". Once, when Lila throws Elena's doll into the basement chute of the local loan shark, Elena does the same to Lila's doll, as proof that she can be as bold as her friend. When Lila fearlessly goes to the loan shark to ask for the return of the dolls, Elena goes with her, though they are ultimately unable to retrieve them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvachi_Kvachantiradze" title="Kvachi Kvachantiradze">
The hero of this book, Kvachi Kvachantiradze, is a thoroughly scurrilous rogue but, like many a literary rogue, a charming one. He charms us and he charms the people he meets, who seem to be not only unaware of his treachery but even thank him for his help. The book starts with the day of his birth, an auspicious day. There is a heavy thunderstorm. A tree is broken in two by lightning and the only other inn in town, a rival of the inn of Kvachi's father, Silibistro, is destroyed. The baby Kvachi is born already uttering the word me. A fortune teller forecasts that he will be a great man, get what he wants and bring fortune to his family. Apart from a brief digression about how his parents came to marry (they are cousins), we immediately follow Kvachi's early life. He is a very precocious child, walking and talking early, and helping in his parents' inn.Silibistro is snobbish and is certain that he descends from nobles but cannot prove it. He spends a fortune on doing so, till he finally gets a man to issue him with a certificate of nobility. The man is a notorious swindler but Silibistro is happy with his certificate and becomes even more snobbish. Kvachi is sent to Kutaisi (the second largest city in Georgia) to study and it is here that he develops his sharp ways. He stays with a couple, he an elderly man, she, Tsviri, much younger. As they do not have a child of their own, Tsviri starts mothering him but, as he gets older, mothering becomes loving and he becomes her lover, for which she gives him gifts. Little does she know that she is not the first but she soon finds out that he sees (and is paid by) other women. Kvachi is very astute with money. He borrows at an opportune moment, promising to repay promptly but, of course, never does. When someone is short, he offers to lend them money but never does.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_and_Squash" title="Lucky and Squash">
Lucky and Squash are neighbors separated by a fence that prevents them from playing together. Lucky's owner, Mr. Bernard, and Squash's owner, Miss Violet, are both single and have never spoken to each other because they are so shy. Lucky and Squash decide to run away hoping that, when their owners come rescue them, the two owners will meet, fall in love, and get married, thereby making the dogs "brothers" and allowing them to play together whenever they wish. Lucky and Squash escape from their respective yards three days in a row and go on adventures. The owners do meet and fall in love.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoding_the_Universe" title="Decoding the Universe">
In this book Seife concentrates on the information theory, discussing various issues, such as decoherence and probability, relativity and quantum mechanics, works of Turing and Schrödinger, entropy and superposition, etc.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Loo_Sanction" title="The Loo Sanction">
In London, England, Jonathan Hemlock is blackmailed into performing another "sanction", a top-secret political assassination.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Walk_Away_(novel)" title="How to Walk Away (novel)">
After three years in Afghanistan, Otis is adjusting to life back home. Struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, he obsessively replays the traumas of war, cataloging the names of the dead. Cat, his wife, is a genealogist who makes maps of families in an attempt to understand her world. When a car accident takes Otis’s left arm, he is grateful to bear a physical loss that makes his damaged emotional self visible. As he recovers, he and Cat confront the silences upon which their marriage is built.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karachi,_You're_Killing_Me!" title="Karachi, You're Killing Me!">
Ayesha Khan, a journalist in her twenties living in one of the world's most lively cities, Karachi, whose work is to show up at bomb sites and picks her way through scattered body parts. Ayesha is hopeless in finding a nice guy like her old friend Saad, to share her personal thoughts with. Other than that, her most basic problem is how to straighten her hair.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Gizmo" title="The Golden Gizmo">
Toddy Kent, a former con-artist with a rap sheet in a dozen cities is now working as a door to door gold-buyer in Los Angeles for Milt Vonderheim's jewelry shop. Despite his disreputable line of work, he is able to keep a low profile in fear of the police digging into his criminal past. He lives in a hotel with his wife Elaine. Elaine spends most of Toddy's money on booze, and is a regular in the drunk tank. Their relationship is toxic but Toddy can't bring himself to leave Elaine, despite his friends urging him to. Milt has been a fatherly figure and a good friend to Toddy and Elaine.Toddy conceptualizes he has carried a "gizmo," a G.I. term for an unidentifiable, most of his life that time and again brings him the big break most men would kill for, only for it to slip through his fingers.At the outset of the story, Toddy is working and despite wanting to quit for the day, he calls on the last house in the neighborhood. A man named Alvarado, whom Toddy will refer to as "Chinless," answers the door with his massive dobermann which seems to be able to speak English. Toddy has a bad feeling about the man, who invites him in, and although he wants to excuse himself he steps inside. In the living room Toddy spots a heavy gold watch on the table, and is introduced to Alvarado's beautiful companion Dolores Chavez. Paralyzed by fear of the dobermann, Toddy nervously attempts to explain the meaning of his visit. He opens the box he carries to show Alvarado his haul for the day. To demonstrate that he buys gold he picks the watch up off the table, discovering that it weighs ten times what it looks like it should. Inexplicably Alvarado tries to kick Toddy, but hits the dobermann instead. While the doberman is pouncing on Alvarado, Toddy unconsciously drops the gold watch into his box and escapes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Girl_(novel)" title="Lost Girl (novel)">
The book is set in 2053 in a world that has been decimated by severe climate change, pandemics, and rising crime and violence. It follows a man whose four-year-old daughter was kidnapped two years ago. The authorities are of no help because they must deal with all of the extreme chaos, so he must go out on his own to find out what happened to his daughter and rescue her from whatever her kidnappers subjected her to.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Map_of_Home" title="A Map of Home">
Nidali's story is narrated in first person. Coming from a mixed background and moving so frequently, Nidali is always aware of her difference. The story is set upon a backdrop of ethnic division, politics, war, culture, and the looming theme of "home". Although Nidali is battling war and strife, she is also subject to battle with her Palestinian father who has specific expectations and strict rules for his daughter throughout the novel.Nidali is born in Boston to a Palestinian father (Baba) and Egyptian mother (Mama) and acquires an American passport. From the beginning, her life struggle is foreshadowed when she is given the name Nidali, the feminine version of "Nidal", which means "strife" or "struggle". Nidali begins growing up in Kuwait. However, her family is forced to flee to Egypt in 1990 when Saddam Hussein conducts the Iraqi Invasion. On her 13th birthday, bombs begin to go off, and Nidali's birthday goes unremembered. The family then travels by car to Egypt and settles into their summer home for safety.In Egypt, Nidali is sent to live with her sick grandparent, giving her more freedom, being away from her father. This is where her relationship with her boyfriend Fakhr flourishes. The couple is most often depicted riding bikes and finding secret spots for their first sexual experience together. Throughout the book, Nidali navigates public affection and sexual experiences under the strict Arab law, as well as exploring masturbation. After spending time in Egypt, Nidali's father, Baba, declares he will find a job in the United States. After searching, he is chosen for a job in Texas as an architect. Baba flies to Texas first and establishes a mobile home. Soon after, Nidali, Mama, and her brother, Gamal, arrive in America.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_of_the_Imam" title="The Fall of the Imam">
Set in an unnamed Arabic country, the two main characters are The Imam, the hypocritical leader of the country, full of hatred and spite towards anybody born more fortunate than him, and a beautiful illegitimate orphan, Bint Allah (Daughter of God). The story centres around two extremely grisly events. First, the stoning and mutilation of a woman, performed more to terrorize his opponents and silence his critics than to conform to God’s will, leaves the reader in no doubt as to the brutality of the ruling power. The second event is the assassination of the Imam himself, and the turmoil this brings to the country. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moor's_Account" title="The Moor's Account">
The story is narrated in the first person by Mustafa ibn Muhammad ibn Abdussalam al-Zamori, a Moroccan slave who has been taken by his Spanish master, Andrés de Dorantes, on an expedition to the New World. The expedition lands in Florida in the vicinity of what is now Tampa Bay. Under the leadership of Pánfilo de Narváez, the men leave their ships behind and travel inland to look for gold. As they journey northward, they face resistance by indigenous tribes, suffer from disease and starvation, and quarrel with one another. Within a year there are only four survivors: Cabeza de Vaca, the treasurer of the expedition; Alonso del Castillo, a young nobleman, Andrés de Dorantes, one of the captains; and his Moroccan slave, Mustafa, whom the other three Spaniards refer to as Estebanico. Together, these four survivors travel westward, crossing the continent and living among indigenous tribes, reinventing themselves along the way as faith healers. Some years later, they are found by a party of Spanish slavers and brought to Mexico City, where they are asked to provide testimony about their journey—all except the slave, who tells his own story in the novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Tutashkhia" title="Data Tutashkhia">
The novel is divided into four parts chronicling its hero's, Data Tutashkhia's, moral evolution, always narrated from the perspective of a multitude of characters from Tutashkhia's past. He is a man who from birth, can not stand injustice and wrongdoing. At the very beginning of the novel, we learn that he was convicted of an accidental killing that even the victim absolved him of! This then began his life as a fugitive, constantly running from police desperate to catch him. Throughout the novel, He goes from place to place, sees evil and struggles with how to overcome it. In the first part of the novel, Tutashkhia attempts to help those wronged with little result, as either the individual wronged (strangely enough) continues to allow him/herself to be wronged (as in the case of the loser at cards continuing to allow himself to be cheated by card sharks); or the injured and insulted, once rescued by Data, start, themselves, to injure and insult (as was the case with the married pair whom Tutashkhia assisted to purchase a cow). An excellent, memorable tale in this section of the novel was that of the hospital patients, whom he likened to the cannibal rats bred by one of the residents. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naadan_Premam" title="Naadan Premam">
Ravindran, a young rich man from Kozhikode, is living anonymously in Mukkam, a small village on the banks of Iruvanjippuzha. There he falls in love with a young village girl by the name Maalu. Ravi decides to leave after staying for two months and assures Maalu that he will return. Maalu does not inform him that she's pregnant. Few days later, Maalu receives a letter from him saying that he will be going for a Europe tour and will return after six months. Fearing the social stigma if she gives birth to a fatherless child, Maalu is forced to marry Ikkoran, who is compassionate and agrees to nurture the child as his own.Years later, Ravi, who is living with grief over childlessness, returns to the village with his wife Padmini. He meets a young lad there whom he identifies as his own son (Raghavan). He pleads to Maalu and Ikkoran to take Raghavan along with him. Ikkoran waves him off saying he is a lunatic and that it is their child. Ravi returns heartbroken and falls ill. He sends a letter to Maalu saying that he wishes to see his son once more before he dies. She complies and takes the child to Ravi's house. Seeing Ravi's condition, Ikkoran decides to leave the child there. Later, Ravi gets a letter from his friend Mr. Burton saying that Ikkoran and Maalu drowned themselves in the river. The final chapter shows Ravi living happily with Raghavan in the estate he has newly purchased in Mukkam.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucker's_Monster" title="Tucker's Monster">
Set in 1903, "Tucker’s Monster" chronicles the adventures of Oklahoma Rancher Harold B. Tucker as he follows his passion of researching mythical and legendary creatures.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayesha's_Rainbow" title="Ayesha's Rainbow">
The Bangladeshi Ali family move next door to the elderly, white Mrs. Peters in London's East End. They have purchased a flat that belonged to Mrs. Peters' recently deceased friend Vera. Mrs. Peters has lived in the East End all her life; she is lonely and averse to change, especially towards accepting people of a different culture. Mrs. Peters is feeling more lonely of late but cannot bring herself to greet her new neighbours, as she has never been on friendly terms with anyone who is not white. The Alis have had negative experiences in the past with white neighbours.The Alis seven-year-old daughter, Ayesha, recognises a faint hint of a smile from Mrs. Peters when she first moved in. Despite Mrs. Peters initial reluctance to engage in conversation, Ayesha wins her over, and an unlikely friendship develops between them. It is through Ayesha that the two families learn about each other so that various myths are understood and they realise they share many common views when Mrs. Peters is also on speaking terms with the rest of the Ali family, which brings their two contrasting families together, crossing religious, cultural and racial barriers.In the Ali family there is Yusuf, the oldest son, on his way to being a doctor, Hamzra, who plans to make a lot of money from the stock exchange when he starts work, and Shazia, Ayesha's combative older sister. Mrs Peters also has had four children, now into their Middle Ages: Vivien, Susan, David, and Graham. Mrs Peters is keen to flaunt her new friends to Vivien, as she has the most liberal outlook on life, and also has a passion for world travel. Susan and David are unsure what to make of their mother's new neighbours, but her youngest son, Graham, is interested in joining a racist political party and has little doubts about his views, which are very reactionary and which have also never been discouraged by his mother – until now. The Peters family are divided in their approach to their mother's new friends.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saris_and_the_City" title="Saris and the City">
Yasmin Yusuf is a thirty-year-old, independent, woman from a culturally conservative, traditional Bengali family with a career working in an equity firm in London. She has her life planned out and knows what she wants. She meets her Bengali boyfriend, Sam, for a meal and is sure he is going to propose, she rushes her work and makes a damning mistake on the report her private banker boss, Zachary Khan, has asked her to prepare for an important meeting. Zach fires her the following day. Yasmin breaks down and tearfully tells him that her expected engagement did not happen and pleads with him to give her another chance. Unable to do so, he tells her to take a week off and arranges for her to be transferred to another branch of the firm.Still living at home with her widowed father, Yasmin is determined not to cause him concern and pretends everything is fine. Despite being devastated by the change in her circumstances, she also does not want the extra worry of her protective older brothers finding out what her ex-boyfriend has done to her as she thinks they will want to take revenge on him. She starts her new job, but ends up at the mercy of Zachary 's senior advisor Hannah Gibbs-Smythson, a no nonsense woman who does not intend making Yasmin welcome.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascar_(novel)" title="Lascar (novel)">
Sylheti orphans Ayan Miah and his elder brother Kazi are constantly reminded by their mission teachers of their low caste background and how their aim in life should be to become 'respectable'. Ayan's elder brother develops cancer, due to the incessant chewing of betel nuts, this motivates Ayan to join the seaman (as his father did) in order to earn money and better his brother's health. He finds work as a slave laborer aboard The Bengal, a British steamship making the journey from Calcutta to London.Ayan is forced to rethink his situation after he realises the financial security that is promised to the lascar is far from the harsh reality of working in prison-like conditions of the trading ship. He soon discovers that it is rare for a lascar to finish his contract and leave with the promised payment. In order to survive and fearing for his life, he realises he must escape the ship. Ayan and his friend, Akbar, devise a plan to escape The Bengal when it docks in London, but to do so, they murder one of their captors, The Cruel One. Ayan and Akbar escape to a new life in Victorian London.In London, an encounter with the police turns into a blessing when Ayan and Akbar are taken to a hostel where Louisa, an Italian prostitute, teaches them English and shows them how to earn money as street musicians. Ayan accompanies Louisa as an entertainer on drums and sings Bengali songs. When Akbar dies in winter and Louise disappears, Ayan is devastated and left to deal with the loss of his friends and loneliness. Ayan continues to play his music on the streets. He begins to sense growing resentment toward the Muslim community. Increasingly, the local constables interrupt his prayers and mock his devotion. The situation deteriorates until Ayan is falsely accused of arson and sent to prison.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideways_3_Chile" title="Sideways 3 Chile">
This third installment picks up about one year after we last saw Miles at the conclusion of "Vertical". By this time his professional life is once again beginning to slow down. While he is still able to make a modest amount of money off of the fame he achieved with the publication of his autobiographical novel "Shameless" (and the highly successful film adapted from it), demand for him as a public speaker at wine events has waned, Hollywood fortune has failed to materialize, and he has written no further books. His personal life has fared no better, as he has just ended his affair with the wife of a well-known movie director.In the midst of these troubles Miles is hired by a magazine to travel to Chile to write an article about the country's wine industry. He accepts the job in the hope of being able to find inspiration for his own writing. During the course of the plot Miles reconnects with characters from the previous entries in the series including his best friend Jack, on-and-off girlfriend Maya, and a Spanish woman named Laura.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kharkanas_Trilogy" title="The Kharkanas Trilogy">
Set 300,000 years before the events of "Malazan Book of the Fallen", the story is divided into three main narratives. The first revolves around the Tiste and the events leading up to their divide into the Andii, Liosan and Edur. The second revolves around the Jaghut and the events leading up to the declaration of war on Death. And the third around the Azathanai, some of whom are generous, while others who would only take advantage.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Day_(novel)" title="Another Day (novel)">
The novel starts off with what seems like a normal day for Rhiannon; she watches her boyfriend, Justin, pull into the school parking lot, hoping he still was not mad from last night's fight. Their everyday routine is broken, however, when Justin suggests getting away for the day, to which Rhiannon chooses to go to the beach. On the way to the beach, Justin is acting out of character and doing things he would not normally do. Rhiannon does not seem to mind too much; however, she is still cautious about her actions and words. Rhiannon and Justin end up sharing a romantic day, even going as far as pulling the "make out" blanket from the car trunk. The couple lounge about on the blanket, never going farther than sharing a kiss or two. While laying on the blanket, Rhiannon and Justin share childhood memories with each other that they have not shared with anyone else. At the day end, Rhiannon suggests that future days end up just like the one they shared. Justin only replies, "I don't want you to think every day is going to be like today. Because they're not going to be, alright? They can't be."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_de_France" title="Fortune de France">
The series spans the years 1547 to 1661, shadowing the European wars of religion of the 16th and 17th centuries. In the first novel, veteran soldiers Jean de Siorac and Jean de Sauveterre settle into Château Mespech in Périgord, a beautiful but dangerous region of France far from the influence of the king. Staunch royalists but also devoted Huguenots, the men assemble a loyal community around them, but are challenged as religious unrest, poverty and famine threaten their way of life and push the country into chaos.Siorac's son Pierre narrates the first six novels, and Pierre's own son Pierre-Emmanuel narrates the remaining seven volumes. The men meet many notable people and witness various historical events, including the marriage of Henry, King of Navarre to Margaret of France, the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, and the assassination of Henry III of France.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fire_People" title="The Fire People">
In 1830. Merthyr Tydfil is the largest town in Wales; an industrial centre and one of the Top Towns, with four major iron works. People from all parts of the world flock to find work there; from Spain and Italy, from England, and from Ireland. Men and Women work alongside each other, doing equally heavy and dangerous jobs, frequently dying at the workplace.Gideon Davies is a former worker at Taibach copper works and a trained musician. After losing nearly all his sight in an accident at the works, he is now an itinerant musician, playing his fiddle at taverns, wakes and social gatherings throughout South Wales. He also uses his travels to promote the concept of unions and worker's rights.Various other characters are also travelling to Merthyr, attracted by the coal and iron industries. They include the genteel Miss Thrush the Sweets who has sold her shop in Pontypridd, and is secretly enamoured of Gideon, even though she only sees him about once a year. Annie Hewers and Megsie Lloyd are lusty young girls out for adventure, Many Irish navvies have also arrived, including Big Bonce, Belcher and Lady Godiva.Travelling through Maesteg towards Pontypridd, Gideon comes upon Sun Heron, a fiery young two-fisted Irish girl who attempts to steals his meagre food, claiming to be starving. She later latches onto Gideon as he travels the roads, and will not be sent away.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_(novel)" title="Purity (novel)">
The novel tells the intersecting stories of several different people of widely diverging ages and backgrounds.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_Is_Dead" title="Dexter Is Dead">
After the events of the previous book, Dexter is falsely accused of murdering Rita and molesting Astor. To avoid embarrassment, the Miami-Dade Police Department does all it can to pin the crimes on Dexter, even resorting to falsifying evidence. Deborah decides to cut ties with Dexter, refusing to help him as a way to punish him for his past crimes and also demanding custody of his children. Only Masuoka is working to clear Dexter's name, with no success. Brian bails Dexter out of jail and gets him a lawyer, but is being targeted by a Mexican drug cartel he had previously stolen money from. The cartel tries to kill Dexter multiple times to get to Brian.Deborah reluctantly contacts Dexter to inform him his kids have been kidnapped, which leads to a fragile reconciliation. Dexter manages to set up a meeting with Detective Anderson and some of Raul's thugs to get him killed, which happens, though not before he manages to kill his attackers, leaving Dexter with no one to interrogate. Eventually they find out that their lawyer was supplying Raul with Dexter's intel, which makes them ambush, kill him and all the cartel's members who followed Frank, save for one, who is taken by the brothers to a secluded warehouse, where he is brutally interrogated to get the kids' location and to satisfy their urges in the process.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang_&amp;_Eng_(novel)" title="Chang &amp; Eng (novel)">
In 1811 Chang and Eng Bunker are born, twins joined at the chest by a seven-inch-long ligament, in old Siam (Thailand). (This ligament contains a part of their stomach, the only organ they share.) Besides this connecting band, each twin is completely separate from the other: each has a separate personality, separate desires, is a separate individual. Eng, the more shy and bookish twin, narrates their story. When the book opens, Chang &amp; Eng face their last night—Eng awakens, sees that Chang is dead, and knows that he will die tonight, too. Then the book jumps back in time: to their birth: on their parents' houseboat on the Mekong River. Their mother does not tell them they are different, and they assume that all babies are attached.Soon, the King of Siam condemns them to death—as a double-omen—but he changes his mind upon seeing what a glorious sight they are. He exploits them as freaks. In 1825, an amoral American promoter brings them to America, and this begins their life of celebrity.The brothers become the world's most famous circus act, get caught up in the Civil War, marry sisters, and father over 20 children.Eng—a bookish reader of Shakespeare—becomes a leader (or a tool) of the temperance movement and, from birth to death, wishes desperately to be separated. Chang is charming, a heavy drinker, and he is married to the woman that Eng—in secret—loves, too.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiberius_(Massie_novel)" title="Tiberius (Massie novel)">
Like its predecessor Augustus, it is written as a memoir towards the end of the old Emperor's life. Unlike other writers and historians who portrayed Rome's third Emperor as a reprobate of monstrous proportions, in Massie's book he describes himself as a “melancholic and reluctant” autocrat, wallowing in the “solitude of power”. His supposed self-description seems honest and pained. In his middle years, tired of fighting the indefatigable Germans and regretting his part in turning Rome into a despotism he retires to his holiday home on the Greek island of Rhodes, until the squalid rumours circulating the Empire about his supposed sexual proclivities force him to return to the seat of power. He regrets his marriage to Julia, forced on him by his stepfather the Emperor Augustus, yet bows to his mother Livia’s advice, acknowledging the importance of her politically astute machinations to his career.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_and_David" title="Antonio and David">
The book is narrated by an Italian traveller, who visits the country with a group of European missionaries. The traveller eventually became involved in a drama occurring in a small village on top of a mountain.In 1600 AD, in a remote Italian city, a young peddler named Bartolomeo d'Aniti is called to the court and ordered to accompany a delegation to the distant land of Georgia, which is referred to as Colchis in the novel. At that time, Bartolomeo was accused of betrayal of Pope and was considered as a Heretic, but at last he is forgiven and sent to a journey with priests.During the voyage he meets Antonio, a former priest accused of worshiping the Devil. In the course of the voyage, they become good friends. However, this friendship with the fallen priest soon draws Bartolomeo into a web of intrigue in the foreign country of Georgia. Antonio reveals his backstory to Bartolomeo, how he and his friends were accused of heresy by the inquisitors, one of them being Father Sebastiano, the leader of the aforementioned expedition to Georgia, but unlike them, was spared due to the influence of his friends and family. Antonio thought that by accepting the pardon, he betrayed his ideals and spiritual brethren and after all these years, he couldn't forgive himself for his decision. After a long journey, they reach the bank of Samegrelo, where they were sheltered by its Prince, hardy yet very friendly man who got acquainted with Bartolomeo rather quickly.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Extreme_Centre" title="The Extreme Centre">
The book is a criticism of the politics of the "indistinguishable political elite" in the United Kingdom, and their devotion to capitalism. The book analyses what Ali sees as the failure of the European Union and NATO, political corruption in Westminster and the dominance of the American Empire.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_(Massie_novel)" title="Caesar (Massie novel)">
It is written as the memoirs of Decimus Brutus, one of Caesar’s assassins, in custody, awaiting judgement and almost certain death for his part in the slaying. Brutus insists that he has no need to make an apology and sets out his reasons clearly and succinctly, celebrating the charmed life of Caesar though tempering his remarkable achievements with the great man’s overpowering ambition and ruthless determination to end the Roman Republic and install himself as Dictator for life. As he writes in hindsight of the unfolding conspiracy, Brutus paints himself as a patriot, willing to destroy his own life and the legacy of his ancient family name to prevent Caesar from carrying out the unthinkable and ending over 500 years of republicanism.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crown_of_Ptolemy" title="The Crown of Ptolemy">
Annabeth Chase dreams of her mother, Athena, telling her that there is trouble brewing. Annabeth and Percy Jackson take a ferry to Governors Island in New York Harbor. When they become trapped on the island by Setne (who is attempting to become a god using spells in the Book of Thoth), they try to contact Carter and Sadie Kane but fail. Annabeth and Percy decide to face Setne alone, but are immobilized by the magician. Setne summons the goddess Wadjet in order to consume her essence and take the Crown of Lower Egypt from her, becoming master of essentially one-half the Egyptian world. Setne then disappears.The Kanes finally arrive and help the demigods track down Setne. Carter and Annabeth decide that they need to combine attacks to defeat him. Since Percy's sword has been absorbed by Setne, Carter gives Percy his wand, which turns into a kopis. Sadie and Annabeth teach each other a little magic, and Annabeth loans Carter her invisibility cap. When the quartet relocate Setne, he is trying to summon the goddess Nekhbet, guardian of the crown of Upper Egypt. Even with Nekhbet's help, they are unable to stop Setne from taking Nekhbet's crown, so the group retreats. Nekhbet insists that Setne must not be allowed to make himself a god and the four teens join forces with her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Such_a_Time" title="For Such a Time">
In 1944, a blue-eyed, blonde Jewish woman, Hadassah Benjaminm, is saved from a firing squad and forced into service by Colonel Aric von Schmidt of the SS. At a military camp in Czechoslovakia, Hadassah hides behind a false identity in order to survive as Colonel Aric’s secretary.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Operators_(book)" title="The Operators (book)">
"The Operators" is a book that details the author's travels with General Stanley McChrystal and his team in April 2010. It includes extensive quotations from over 20 hours of audio recordings of McChrystal and his inner circle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifts_(novel)" title="Gifts (novel)">
The novel begins with Emmon, a lowland runaway, coming to Caspromant when Orrec and Gry are 16. The children tell Emmon of their gifts, though he is somewhat disbelieving of them. Orrec then narrates the history of his family from his childhood. His father Canoc is the brantor of Caspromant; his mother Melle, a woman from the lowlands. Despite living in the Uplands, Melle holds to some of her traditions, and teaches Orrec stories and lays that she had learned as a child. She also teaches him to read, an ability rare among Uplanders. Canoc also begins to instruct Orrec in the use of their power, though Orrec does not manifest any ability as a child. Orrec and Gry, of a similar age, become good friends, and Gry begins to show her power, being able to listen to the speech of cats and mice.When he is 13, Orrec seemingly becomes able to use his power, striking an adder dead when it was about to bite his father. However, he is troubled by the ability not feeling different from his past unsuccessful efforts at using it. His father asks him to try, suggesting that Orrec has a duty to use his power to protect the domain, but Orrec refuses. A few days later Ogge Drum, the brantor of the neighboring domain of Drummant, comes to Caspromant, inviting the Caspros to his home, and suggesting that Orrec be betrothed to his granddaughter. Although wary of Drum due to their longstanding enmity, Canoc agrees to visit. Melle expresses opposition to the betrothal: Orrec is hurt because he and Gry had assumed they would marry each other. Canoc once again asks Orrec to use his power; Orrec is initially unable, but as his frustration builds, he seemingly turns an entire hillside into desolation. Terrified at his lack of control over his "wild" gift, he blindfolds himself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_(Le_Guin_novel)" title="Voices (Le Guin novel)">
The story begins with Memer narrating her earliest memory: of entering a secret room filled with books, to which the door may only be opened by making shapes on the wall. Memer believes she is the only who knows how to get in, until she finds the Waylord there when she is nine years old. He offers to teach her to read, after swearing her to secrecy. Memer proves to be a quick learner. Four days after her seventeenth birthday, Memer makes the acquaintance of Orrec and Gry, the protagonists of "Gifts". Orrec, famous as a poet and storyteller, has been invited to Ansul to perform: Memer invites him and Gry to stay at Galvamand. They tell the Waylord that though the Alds invited them to Ansul, they came to find Galvamand, for the ancient library rumored to have once existed there. Orrec questions Memer about the history of the city: she tells him that Galvamand used to be known as the Oracle house, and realizes she does not know why. Dressed as a male groom, Memer attends one of Orrec's performance for the Gand, the leader of the Alds. Orrec, holding no belief in the Ald god, is not allowed within the Gand's residence, but performs before an open pavilion. The relationship between the Gand Iorath and his son Iddor is seen to be tense: Iddor believes Orrec's poetry to be blasphemy. Some of Ansul's citizens, led by Sulter's friend Desac, hope to rouse the city against the Alds, taking advantage of the struggle between the Gand and his son. Desac asks Orrec to act as an instigator for a rebellion. When Orrec hesitates, the Waylord offers to consult the Oracle, revealed to still be in the house, about a rebellion. He tells Memer that their family has the responsibility of "reading" the Oracle, which provides answers in the pages of certain books in the secret room. He asks the Oracle about the rebellion: Memer sees the phrase "Broken mend broken" in a book in response.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Obama_Syndrome" title="The Obama Syndrome">
The book, described as "a merciless dissection of Obama's overseas escalation and domestic retreat", is strongly critical of the Presidency of Barack Obama. Ali argues little has changed since George W. Bush left office, with appeasement of Israel continuing, genuine domestic reform abandoned, torture and drone strikes continuing and Wall Street being bailed out without reform.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_Star_(Brown_novel)" title="Morning Star (Brown novel)">
Darrow is a shadow of his former self after a year of torture and imprisonment at the hands of Adrius au Augustus, the ArchGovernor of Mars, better known as the Jackal. Across the worlds, he is believed dead because of a public execution faked by the Jackal and Octavia au Lune, the Sovereign. Sevro au Barca, now leader of the Sons of Ares, sends his deputy Holiday ti Nakamura to rescue Darrow. Darrow discovers that Victra au Julii is also still alive and frees her as well. Reconciling and recovering at a hidden rebel stronghold, Darrow and Victra join Sevro's gang of Howlers. Their first mission is to kidnap Quicksilver, the richest man in the Society, who they believe is the Jackal's silent partner. Darrow and his men stumble into a peace negotiation between some of the Sovereign's underlings — Cassius au Bellona, Moira au Grimmus and the Death Knight — on one side, and Darrow's old friends — Virginia "Mustang" au Augustus, Kavax au Telemanus and Daxo au Telemanus — on the other. The room erupts in conflict and destruction; Moira and the Death Knight are killed. Mustang is shocked to find Darrow alive, and the Howlers manage to escape with Quicksilver and Kavax as prisoners. Quicksilver reveals that he had secretly co-founded the Sons of Ares with Sevro's late father Fitchner au Barca, and offers his considerable resources to Darrow. Kavax also makes peace with Darrow and offers him allegiance.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Watershed" title="Amazon Watershed">
The book is an investigation into the expulsion of peasants from their homes and their forced relocation to the Amazon. Military police attempt to kill Monbiot as he exposes a vast military project opening up the area to logging and deforestation. He tracks timber cut illegally from Indian reserves all the way back to retailers in the United Kingdom. According to the publishers, Monbiot also "examines the role of the British and American governments in promoting, wittingly or otherwise, this great ecological catastrophe".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchens_of_the_Great_Midwest" title="Kitchens of the Great Midwest">
The novel centers around Eva, a culinary prodigy born with a “once-in-a-generation palate” to a chef father and a sommelier mother. Though growing up in poverty and facing numerous challenges, by age 10 Eva is growing chocolate habanero peppers in her room and selling them to local restaurants. Later, after Eva goes on to be a celebrity chef, she is heard from less, and other characters emerge to "miss her, love her, obsess about her" while they recount their own stories.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igi_(short_story)" title="Igi (short story)">
Igi is a prehistoric story, taking readers to a period when the very first artist and thinker discovers a method to create images. In the routine life of prehistoric society comes a moment when one person, named Igi, starts to ask questions that no one has ever asked before. A feeling of wonder pervades his body and mind and he tries to discover secrets unnoticed by the rest. However, in a closed society, any original perception of life is unacceptable. The Chief and his followers will never welcome a member with a different way of thinking, and conflict arises between a progressive mentality and brute force. Igi has to follow a hard and painful way of solitude in order to gain free will and find the essence of being. The vivid narration reveals a very strange world, where feelings often seem bizarre, and where one can find many answers to questions that still preoccupy mankind.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ot_me-Avshalom" title="Ot me-Avshalom">
A young graphologist, Alma Bach, embarks on the trail of a man whose handwriting was sent to her for analysis. She discovers characteristics such as sharp wit, high degree of general knowledge, and courage. She discovers a passionate man with a highly developed imagination, linguistic style, and the sensitivity of an artist, a man with a magnetic personality who draws people to him while at the same time secluding himself and keeping a secret, and who is capable of loving at great magnitudes and willing to sacrifice for his love, for his love of the land, for his love of a woman, and eventually to pay the ultimate price. Alma is determined to meet this man face-to-face.The story moves back and forth between two time periods: modern-day Israel, where Alma undergoes her journey to discover the man, and a biographical depiction of Avshalom Feinberg, founder and leader of the Nili spy ring, which starts in late 19th-century Palestine and continues into the early 20th century.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'm_Not_Scared_(novel)" title="I'm Not Scared (novel)">
The novel takes place in 1978 in a fictitious Southern Italian village called Acqua Traverse. Michele, the nine-year-old protagonist, loses a race against the other village children to an abandoned house in the countryside. As the loser he must suffer a punishment chosen by the group, but instead Skull, the group’s leader, insists that their friend Barbara must show her private parts as punishment. Michele intervenes as she unbuttons her pants and says he should face the punishment as the loser of the race. Skull decides that Michele must traverse the dangerous second floor of the house, jump out of the window onto the tree and climb down.As he climbs down, Michele falls and discovers a covered hole in the ground. When he looks inside he sees a boy lying in the dirt. Disturbed, Michele assumes that the boy is dead, and he bicycles home with his sister. When they arrive home, they find their father, Pino, who has returned home from his work as a truck driver. Pino tells Michele he must defeat him at arm-wrestling to have dinner, and while they wrestle Pino calls him a sissy and says he has ricotta for muscles. They eventually have dinner, however, and Pino unveils the present he had brought for the children, a model gondola from Venice.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_God_Commands_(novel)" title="As God Commands (novel)">
It tells the misadventure of Cristiano Zena, 13 year-old, and his father Rino in an Italian suburban area.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_and_You_(novel)" title="Me and You (novel)">
The action takes place in Rome in 2000. The main character is Lorenzo, a 14-year-old highly introverted boy who has had problems socialising and relating to other children since he was little. He is diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, a fact that makes him feel superior to others and does not want to mix in. The only people worthy of his affection are his father, his mother and his grandmother.Growing up, Lorenzo learns to blend in with others to appear normal. One day he hears a group of teenagers at his school organising a skiing holiday in Cortina d’Ampezzo, and feels strangely disappointed at not being invited. Back home he tells his mother that he has been invited along on a skiing weekend with friends — the group of teenagers — even though this is not true. His mother is so happy at his progress in making friends that she shuts herself in the bathroom and cries with joy. Because she is so happy in the following days, Lorenzo feels unable to admit that it is not true. On the day of departure his mother drives him to the house of Alessia Roncato, the girl whose family are organising the trip, but he manages to persuade her to drop him off a few blocks early. Once she has left, he watches for a few moments from a distance as the family packs the car, then heads back towards home on the tram with his skis. While waiting near his apartment building, he receives a call from his mother who wishes to thank Alessia’s mother. He lies, saying that she can’t speak because she’s driving. He is then able to sneak back into the basement of the apartment building, where he plans to spend the week in hiding, having prepared food, drinks and his PlayStation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enemy_Within_(Milne_book)" title="The Enemy Within (Milne book)">
The book investigates the circumstances surrounding the UK miners' strike (1984–1985) and the involvement of intelligence services in destroying the miners and the lengths the police, intelligence services and government went to in subverting public opinion.Verso Books stated that "In this 30th anniversary edition new material brings the story up to date with further revelations about the secret war against organised labour and political dissent".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostCapitalism" title="PostCapitalism">
Section 1 draws particularly on the ideas of Nikolai Kondratiev, alongside Karl Marx, Rudolf Hilferding, Rosa Luxemburg, and Joseph Schumpeter. Mason notes the cyclical crises in capitalist economies, epitomised by the 2008 financial crisis, and seeks to understand them in terms of Kondratiev's 'wave theory': industrial economies tend to experience wave-like cycles of roughly 25 years' growth followed by 25 years' decline ending in crises that foreshadow the next period of growth (c. 1780–1848, 1848–90s, 1890s–1945, late 1940s–2008).Mason argues that in earlier cycles, capitalists were prevented from adapting to crises by reducing workers' wages because of organised labour. This forced capitalists to adapt more radically, through technological innovation. The defeat of organised labour associated with the rise of neoliberalism around 1979 has enabled the extension of the stagnating fourth wave: "instead of being forced to innovate their way out of the crisis using technology, as during the late stage of all three previous cycles, the 1 per cent simply imposed penury and atomization on the working class" (p. 93).Section 2 builds on Marx's "Fragment on Machines", supporting the labour theory of value over the marginal utility theory, and drawing particularly on Jeremy Rifkin's "The Zero Marginal Cost Society", Peter Drucker's "Post-Capitalist Society", and the work of Paul Romer. As Marx speculated, many commodities, such as software, music, and designs for objects to be reproduced by machines, can now be reproduced at virtually no cost (i.e. zero marginal cost). These developments render economic theories predicated on scarcity increasingly irrelevant. Moreover, significant commodities in the digital economy are free and open-source (FOSS) and non-capitalist, such as Linux, Firefox, and Wikipedia.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swallows_of_Kabul" title="The Swallows of Kabul">
You meet Atiq Shaukat, a jailer for the taliban. His wife, Musarrat, is very ill and dying. He is late for work and blames it on his wife's illness. He escorts a prostitute to be stoned to death. You meet Mohsen Ramat. He's against the new Taliban rule. He is at the marketplace when he sees the prostitute being stoned to death at a public execution. Even though he thinks it is wrong, he loses himself, picks up a rock and throws it at her, cracking her head open.Atiq is starting to question his belief in the Taliban. You meet his childhood friend Mirza Shah. Mirza was one of the first soldiers to desert his unit and join the Mujahideen during the war. Now Mirza does cocaine for money. Atiq tells Mirza about his troubles and his concern for his ill wife. Mirza says he should divorce her and throw her out, that it is “God's will”, and that women have no feelings. Atiq feels indebted to his wife because she saved his life.Mohsen Ramat goes home and you meet his wife Zunaira, a beautiful woman who used to be a school teacher. They have a small house with a blanket over the windows because they cannot afford to fix them. The windows must be covered because it would offend a man if he walked by and saw Zunaira. Mohsen tells his wife what happened at the marketplace and she is horrified.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellhound_on_His_Trail" title="Hellhound on His Trail">
The work examines the assassination of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, the manhunt for his killer, and the nation's reaction. Sides looks into the background of James Earl Ray, King's murderer, including his usage of several aliases, including "Eric Starvo Galt". He questions Ray's ability to gain this many aliases on his own and whether or not he may have had an accomplice at some point in time, which Sides believes was very likely.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indecent_Exposure_(novel)" title="Indecent Exposure (novel)">
Set in the fictional South African town of Piemburg, where local police, headed by Kommandant van Heerden, Lieutenant Verkramp and Konstabel Els, are determined to maintain the government policy of apartheid. While the Kommandant is absent at the country home of a snobbish upper class English couple, Lieutenant Verkramp enlists the help of a female psychiatrist to provide the police garrison with aversion therapy, with the aim of stopping them from fraternising with black girls. However, this goes horribly awry and turns the town's entire police force into homosexuals. Called back from his holiday, Kommandant van Heerden attempts to restore some order.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_It's_Kicking_Off_Everywhere" title="Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere">
Mason analyses the wave of popular protest, revolution and revolt from the Arab Spring, the Occupy movement to the 2011 England riots.Mason travels globally from Athens to Cairo to put the events into context and argues that the events "reflect the expanding power of the individual and calls for new political alternatives to elite rule and global poverty".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Rapto_do_Garoto_de_Ouro" title="O Rapto do Garoto de Ouro">
On a Friday night, rockstar Alfredo, is home alone preparing to perform at this birthday party in a canteen in the neighborhood of Bexiga, São Paulo. His family and friends wait in the canteen until they notice the boy's delay. Leo and Angela, Alfredo's friends, go to his house by request of Alfredo's father and notice he's missing. Leo finds a button from Alfredo's clothes, a smashed guitar and a green diary, which lists various names from neighbors known to them.On Saturday, police investigate the Carlucci's house for evidence, but the deductions prove inconclusive. Later that morning, Leo shows the green diary to his paraplegic cousin Gino, and invites him to investigate Alfredo's disappearance on their own. Gino warns him that he will be participating in a chess championship in the next few days and won't be able to accompany Leo, but advises him to call Angela, a friend of theirs for a while now. Leo readily accepts, but with the possibility that Angela won't want or won't be able to join, Gino decides to call Jaime, the man who brought Alfredo to fame.Alfredo finally wakes up in his prison, but to his nervousness, the place has no electric lighting or clean water. Using the little light that enters through a tiny window, he sees that someone left food and drink to avoid contact, as well as notes warning him to be quiet or else he's going to be bound and gagged. Alfredo thinks to himself that he should not be far from home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_Spells" title="Garden Spells">
Claire Waverley lives alone in small Bascom, North Carolina. The only person she's close to is an elderly relative named Evanelle, who has the gift of giving people exactly what they need before they need it. Claire runs a successful catering business based around edible flowers, and refuses to let anyone into her life. Her neighbor, Tyler Hughes, is interested in her but she acts cold towards him.Claire has an apple tree in her garden with a special power; anyone who eats an apple from it sees what the biggest event in their life will be. Half the town wants to get to the tree and eat an apple, but Claire buries every apple as it falls to prevent people from seeing bad things.Across the country in Seattle, Washington, Claire's sister Sydney and her five-year-old daughter Bay escape from David, Sydney's abusive boyfriend and Bay's father, and head to Bascom. They arrive out of the blue and shock Claire, who hasn't seen Sydney in ten years and has no idea she has a daughter.Claire hires Sydney to help out with the catering, and as luck would have it Sydney's first assignment is serving at a party being thrown by her old boyfriend Hunter John Matteson and his wife Emma. It turns out that Emma's mother Ariel Clark set the situation up to try to show Hunter John that Sydney was trash, and Claire was unaware of her motives.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Kill_a_Child_(short_story)" title="To Kill a Child (short story)">
In a scaled and clear prose, but with a fateful feel, the everyday life of the involved characters is depicted before one of them unintentionally hits a small child with a car. The readers know what will happen from the very start and the author works with a narration technique called planting. In the short story there exists very few details of the people involved which means that anyone can imagine themselves as the characters and relate to them. In the short story there are multiple plot lines since two courses of events happen simultaneously.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_to_the_Door" title="Key to the Door">
"Key to the Door" is the story of a young man growing up in the grim backstreets of Nottingham, England in the 1940s. He attempts to find a way of shaking off the stifling working class expectations that are thrust upon him from all sectors of society. After leaving school for a soulless job in a cardboard factory and at 18 marries a girl who he has been in a relationship with for 3 years, and who he has made pregnant. He is finally called up for National Service and sent to Malaya during the Emergency where he finds himself an unwilling combatant against Chinese communists, whom he thinks of more as comrades in the class struggle rather than as enemies. Based in part on the author's own experiences in Nottingham and in Malaya, the novel was unfavourably compared to the author’s previous stories of working class life in Nottingham, "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" and "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner", but proved popular enough to be reprinted in 1978.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(novel)" title="Aurora (novel)">
A generation ship is launched from Saturn in 2545 at 0.1 c (i.e. traveling at 108,000,000 km/hr or 10% the speed of light). It includes twenty-four self-contained biomes and an average population of two thousand people. One hundred sixty years and approximately seven generations later, it is beginning its deceleration into the Tau Ceti system to begin colonization of a planet's moon, an Earth analog, which has been named Aurora.Devi, the ship's "de facto" chief engineer and leader, is concerned about the decaying infrastructure and biology of the ship: systems are breaking down, each generation has lower intelligence test scores than the last, and bacteria are mutating and evolving at a faster rate than humans. She tells the ship's AI, referred to simply as Ship, to keep a narrative of the voyage. After having some trouble with understanding the human concept of narrative, Ship eventually elects to follow the life of Devi's daughter Freya as a protagonist.As a teenager, Freya travels around the ship on her "wanderjahr" and learns that many of the ship's inhabitants are dissatisfied with their enclosed existence and what they perceive as a dictatorship. Movement is strictly limited for most people, reproduction is tightly controlled, and education in science and mathematics is mandatory. Freya's "wanderjahr" comes to an end when she is called home as Devi grows sick from cancer and dies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Bohemians" title="The First Bohemians">
The book details the colourful history of the London district of Covent Garden which Gatrell describes as "teeming, disordered and sexually charged" and argues was the world's first "creative Bohemia". During the 18th century many of the UK's most significant artists, actors, poets, novelists, and dramatists lived in the district. The book features more than 200 pictures, many of which have been rarely seen.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Racket_(book)" title="The Racket (book)">
"The Racket" is an investigative account of the business and political elite who run the world. The book features interviews with many high-profile figures such as Henry Kissinger from Kennard’s unbridled access over four years to the global elite. Kennard writes that "The world as we know it is run by a squad of cigar-smoking men with big guns, big cash and a reach much too close to home"The book also investigates American imperialism and the mission to exploit the resources of the developing world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhorstoke_nebo" title="Zhorstoke nebo">
A French airline "France Continental" concludes a contract with a Ukrainian aircraft building company "Aronov", according to which the latter has to supply a consignment of regional jet airliners to the European Union. The day after the first two planes are brought into operation, one crashes while landing in Paris, killing 49 people. The preliminary investigation states that the accident was caused by a 20-ton snowplow on the same runway where the plane was to land. A 28-year-old Ukrainian woman Diana Stoliar, whose father led the plane’s design development group but died after a heart attack a year ago, joins the international investigation team. Diana quickly discovers that the reasons of the crash are not that simple and is confronted with a dilemma: to protect her father’s good name or to find the truth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zom-B" title="Zom-B">
The series centers around Becky "B" Smith, who finally rejects her racist father at the beginning of a zombie apocalypse after being forced by him to throw a black classmate to the zombies. B later has her heart ripped out by the same classmate. Awakening eighteen months later as a "reviitalised" zombie, B explores the world at large, the ongoing battle between Dr. Oystein and his Angels and Mr. Dowling and his mutant-controlled zombies. The series also explores B's own connections to the instigators of the apocalypse, including the Owl Man and a mysterious group of babies. The majority of novels in the series are written as concluding with a cliffhanger leading to the subsequent book, structured in a manner similar to television serials.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Bright_Places" title="All the Bright Places">
Theodore Finch and Violet Markey are two teenagers who badly want to escape from their small Indiana town of Bartlett. Violet is a popular girl who is secretly dealing with survivor's remorse, and Finch is a boy obsessed with death, labeled a freak by his peers. Fate brings the two together when both climbed the bell tower at school at the same time, planning to jump off the ledge. Finch was surprised to see Violet up there because she is one of the most popular girls in the school. However, Violet has been dealing with the death of her sister, Eleanor, who died 9 months previously in a car accident after Violet suggested the route home. Violet feels responsible and has not been in a car since the accident. Violet quit the student council, then cheerleading, and struggles with survivor's remorse, and thinks she should have died instead of Eleanor. On the ledge, Finch talks Violet down, and Violet returns the favor, but everyone assumes it's Violet who saved Finch.As for Finch, he suffers from depression and experiences near-constant thoughts of suicide during his so-called "Awake" periods. Finch's family does not understand his depression, making him feel isolated. Morbidly, he writes out fun facts about other people's suicides on his computer, as well as methods of suicide and the best way to die. Finch initiates a partnership between himself and Violet for a school project in which they will explore their home state of Indiana together. Later, at home, Finch thinks about Violet, looking her up on Facebook, reading about her sister's accident (which he had forgotten), and chatting online with her. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wish_You_Were_Here_(Swift_novel)" title="Wish You Were Here (Swift novel)">
This is a novel about the changing face of rural England. It is narrated by the last of a long line of West Country farmers who now (in 2004) runs a caravan park on the Isle of Wight with his childhood sweetheart, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer. As Jack Luxton travels to collect the body of his brother, repatriated from the war in Iraq, and take it to the family burial plot in North Devon, he relates the history of the Luxton family and their traditional professions of farming and military service. Alongside this he tells the story of the near demise of dairy farming in England, through the twin catastrophes of BSE in 1996 and the foot and mouth disease in 2001. Added to this is the increasingly common and equally disastrous disease of wealthy city dwellers buying second homes in rural areas, thus disrupting traditional village life and making it too expensive for locals to stay in their natural communities.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_One_Summer" title="This One Summer">
Rose has been coming to a cottage in Awago every summer and meeting her summer friend, Windy, as long as she can remember. Rose is about eighteen months older than Windy and is the narrator of the story. This summer, they start to explore their interest in boys and pay attention to the emotional lives of adults around them. Most of the adults and teenagers in the village (and in their families) are a "rogues' gallery of sad and burnt-out would-be role models." This is emphasized as Rose also begins to realize her mother, Alice, is depressed following her miscarriages and infertility issues. One of the people Rose and Windy meet at Awago includes Jenny, a reluctantly pregnant teenager. After Jenny drinks too much, Alice saves her from drowning and the novel concludes when the two recount Alice's miscarriage in a lake.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Can't_Think_Straight_(novel)" title="I Can't Think Straight (novel)">
Spirited Christian Tala and shy Muslim Leyla could not be more different from each other, but the attraction is immediate and goes deeper than friendship. But Tala is not ready to accept the implications of the choice her heart has made for her and escapes back to Jordan, while Leyla tries to move on with her new-found life, to the shock of her tradition-loving parents.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Unseen_(novel)" title="The World Unseen (novel)">
In 1950’s South Africa, free-spirited Amina has broken all the rules of her own conventional Indian community, and the new apartheid-led government, by running a cafe with Jacob her “coloured” business partner. When she meets Miriam, a young wife and mother, their unexpected attraction pushes Miriam to question the rules that bind her. When Amina helps Miriam’s sister-in-law to hide from the police, a chain of events is set in motion that changes both women forever.The World Unseen transports us to a vibrant, colourful world, a world that divides white from black and women from men, but one that might just allow an unexpected love to survive.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Basket" title="The Basket">
The story begins at the end of the 19th century, when a Russian officer seduces a Georgian shepherd’s wife: the resulting bastard, the ancestor of the novel's anti-heroes, is kept in a basket where he cannot interfere with his mother’s adultery. The shepherd avenges himself by murdering his wife and disemboweling himself, but fails to kill the boy in the basket. The boy, Razhden Kasheli, later rapes his foster-mother, before disappearing to become a robber and murderer, returning to Georgia with the Red Army and a female tramp he has married; he becomes a killer for the Soviet authorities. After he is murdered by a drunken Assyrian, his son Anton acts as a GPU and NKVD killer in the Great Terror of 1937-8, shooting countless victims. Anton’s great achievement is to marry Princess Ketusi, whose father and husband he has murdered, thus initiating the process, fatal for Georgian society, of intermarrying and interbreeding Soviet killers with Georgian aristocrats and intellectuals. Anton is killed by a runaway truck in 1949, but his son Razhden 2nd takes over as an important Soviet official. Razhden’s son Anton second may not, however, be a real Kasheli, since his mother Pepe was pregnant before his parents married. Anton is a childish dreamer and, manipulated by Razhden 2nd, marries Liziko, the daughter of an unworldly writer, Elizbar. Razhden seduces Liziko; both Anton and Elizbar find out after Liziko confesses to her stepmother. More important even than these violent sexual and homicidal events are the author’s and character’s reflections on the irrecoverable degradation of the country.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Letters_to_the_Dead" title="Love Letters to the Dead">
Laurel has just started class at a new high school. She is a quiet student who still dresses like she's in middle school. Mrs. Buster, her English teacher, gives the class an assignment to write a letter to a dead person. Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain and begins an ongoing relationship with the other dead people. "Confiding in dead geniuses helps a teen process her grief and rage."At the new school, Laurel makes friends and continues to write letters to dead people documenting the changes in her life as well as sharing her confusion and grief over the loss of her older sister.Subplots include the rocky love story of Natalie who loves Hannah and is not afraid of acknowledging her sexual orientation, and Hannah's conflict in admitting she has an attraction to Natalie; dating heavily and experimenting sexually with boys in attempt to cover her desire to be with Natalie. There is also the relationship/love stories of Laurel and Sky, Laurel's mother and father, Tristan and Kristan, Laurel and May, May and her progressively older and shadier boyfriends, and Aunt Amy and "the Jesus man" (a very religious seeming man).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walls_Around_Us" title="The Walls Around Us">
The book is told through the alternating viewpoints of the ballerina Violet and Amber, who is accused of murdering her stepfather. While both viewpoints are interwoven, Amber's viewpoint takes place before Violet's.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/365_Penguins" title="365 Penguins">
On the morning of New Year's Day a family receives an anonymous package containing a penguin and a note which says "I'm number 1. Feed me when I'm hungry."(pages 4,5) The family then receives a penguin a day for 365 days. The book discusses the problems the family experiences, including feeding and housing penguins, and in Summer, heat (which the penguins don't like), noise and the smell. After a time, the family appears to accept their lot, "You live penguin. You think penguin. You dream penguin. You become penguin."(pages 34,35) By the time of New Year's Eve there are 365 penguins in the house and the family is forced to celebrate outside. After midnight Uncle Victor, an ecologist, arrives and explains that the penguins' South Pole habitat is shrinking due to melting ice caps so he decided to introduce them to the North Pole. But as endangered species can't be exported he sent the family a penguin a day, alternating between a male and a female. Uncle Victor then takes all the penguins except Chilly, a cute penguin with blue feet, who the family agrees to look after. The story ends when the next day a very large package arrives containing a polar bear and a note similar to the first penguin note.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_Karabakh" title="Journey to Karabakh">
Gio, a young Georgian, falls in love with a prostitute and experiences with her two of the happiest months of his life. When his father forces him to break off the relationship, he becomes deeply depressed. He accompanies a friend, who wants to buy drugs in Azerbaijan, on his journey over the border.In the darkness, the duo stray onto a remote country track and are arrested by an Azerbaijani patrol. They are in Karabakh, in the middle of the war. The supposedly "cool" young men from Tbilisi have no idea what is going on. Their car and their money are seized and they are thrown into a cell already occupied by an Armenian prisoner.Events then unfold with lightning speed. Armenian fighters free their friend and the Georgians with him. Gio finds himself in an Armenian village where he is not mistreated but his every move is watched. When Russian journalists visit the village, Gio – along with two Azerbaijani prisoners and a Russian hostage – manages to flee and he makes his way safely back to the Azerbaijani base, where he is hailed a hero. His friend is still there and his purple Lada is still parked on the same spot. Only the money is gone. His friend is given a packet of drugs and a gun as compensation. Then they return to their old lives in Tbilisi.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Unlikely_Event_(novel)" title="In the Unlikely Event (novel)">
"In the Unlikely Event" takes place in the early 1950s when the United States is dealing with the Korean War along with changing social mores. Miri Ammerman is the daughter of a single mother whose father left before she was born. Miri learns to negotiate a difficult adolescence with her loving family as they, and everyone in her hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey, deal with the unexpected and unexplained rash of airplane crashes literally in their backyards.The novel is based on three actual plane crashes that took place in Elizabeth, Blume's hometown, over the course of 58 days. The first accident occurred on December 16, 1951, with the plane crashing into the Elizabeth River. The second crash happened on January 22, 1952, and nearly hit the Battin High School for girls. The last crash was on February 11 of the same year and narrowly missed an orphanage.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Steele_(novel)" title="Joe Steele (novel)">
The novel explores what might have happened had Joseph Stalin been raised in the United States, postulating his parents having emigrated a few months before his birth, instead of remaining in the Russian Empire. It depicts Stalin (in this history, taking the name Joe Steele) growing up to be an American politician, rising to the presidency and retaining it by ruthless methods through the Great Depression, World War II, and the early Cold War. The president is depicted as having the soul of a tyrant, with Stalin's real-world career mirrored by actions taken by Steele.During the 1932 Democratic Convention in Chicago, Illinois, the party had decided on two front runners: California Congressman Joe Steele, and; incumbent Governor of New York Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, after two days of votes, neither candidate has the needed two-thirds majority, although Roosevelt had a slight edge. Realizing he might lose after another day of voting, Steele directed one of his aides Vince "The Hammer" Scriabin to have Roosevelt burned alive at the New York State Executive Mansion in Albany. Steele's other assistants Lazar Kagan and Stas Mikoian were not privy to the initial planning. However, Charlie Sullivan, by happenstance, overheard Scriabin on the phone giving the order for the arson. Steele never knew this. However, in light of Sullivan's "fairness" in his reporting, Steele personally met with Sullivan and promised that Sullivan would always have access to Steele's camp.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellis_Island_(novel)" title="Ellis Island (novel)">
In 1907 Jacob Rubinstein, a Russian Jew, leaves his village after it is attacked by cossacks. He heads for Hamburg, Germany, hoping that he can sail to America. While in Hamburg, he meets an African American called Roscoe Haines, who, after seeing his talent for playing Ragtime, encourages Jacob to go and see a music publisher called Abe Shulman in New York.When on the ship, Jacob meets an Italian from Sicily named Marco Santorelli. Marco had been the gardener for the English actress Maude Charteris. She wanted him to move to London with her but he refused as he wanted to go to America to make his fortune.One night during the crossing large numbers of the steerage class passengers dance on the ship's deck and Jacob and Marco meet and dance with two Irish sisters called Bridget and Georgiana O'Donnell. Bridget had been on the staff at Wexford Hall, the Irish home of the British landowner Jamie Barrymore the Earl of Wexford. Bridget, using the pseudonym of Mary-Ann Flaherty, had seduced the earl and assisted the Fenians in kidnapping Wexford. The same night Jacob has a brief conversation with a Czech called Tom Banicek.When the ship arrives in New York, Bridget is frustrated that while first and second class passengers just go straight to immigration, the steerage class passengers are all required to go through Ellis Island. Marco passes through with no problems, Jacob is treated for a gunshot wound that he had suffered during the trouble in his village. Bridget too is allowed in, but Georgiana is refused entry when she is diagnosed with trachoma an eye disease that can lead to blindness. Despite Bridget's criticism of the Ellis Island doctor Carl Travers, the decision is final, but the sisters' Uncle Casey, a powerful businessman, arranges for Georgiana to return to Ireland and then come back on another ship by second class as she wouldn't be checked that way.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_Only_the_Dead_Could_Listen" title="If Only the Dead Could Listen">
The events of the play take place at a police station in a small town near London, UK, in December 2001.Scene One: Bill Wright, a police sergeant in his late forties, is anxiously awaiting the arrival of Alma Stone, an Albanian researcher in London. She has volunteered to act as an interpreter at the interview of Leka Trimi, an Albanian asylum seeker from Kosova, who has been arrested on suspicion of theft. The conversation between Bill and Alma reveals that she suffers from an inferiority complex because of the bad press her country and expatriates receive in the British media. Bill is taken by surprise by her low opinion of her fellow Albanians.Scene Two: John, a custody officer, orders Leka repeatedly to sit down when Bill and Alma enter the interview room. Leka is profusely apologetic to Bill for having hit him unintentionally the day before during a fight that had broken out between Leka and a fellow Albanian interpreter. Leka speaks broken English throughout the scene. He is very courteous towards Alma. When John leaves the interview room Bill and Alma fail to convince Leka that Alma is Albanian. Leka’s self-esteem and his opinion of his fellow Albanians are apparently so low that he cannot comprehend that some of his compatriots in the UK are not refugees. At some point Leka compares Alma to another woman with a Serbian name, something which makes Alma very curious. She tries without success to learn from Leka about the Serbian woman. Alma could sense that Leka has perhaps a Serbian wife/girlfriend, which, in her view, is very strange considering the hostility between the Albanians and the Serbs in Kosova. John interrupts the interview to inform Bill that the Chief of Police needs to see him immediately.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden_Castle_(novel)" title="Maiden Castle (novel)">
"Maiden Castle" is about "the difficult relationship of a historical novelist [Dud No-Man] [...] and a young circus acrobat [Wizzie Raveleston]. Another major character, the novelist's father [Uryen Quirm] believes that he is "the incarnation of a Welsh god". Uryen tries "to reawake the old gods once worshipped" at Maiden Castle, but he fails in this, just as his son fails in his relationship with Wizzie.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_(Binnie_novel)" title="Nevada (Binnie novel)">
When Maria finds out her girlfriend cheated on her, she spirals out of control, stealing her girlfriend's car and buying heroin before heading west on a journey of self-discovery. In Nevada, she meets James Hanson, and immediately realizes that James is also transgender, but doesn't realize it yet. The two travel to Reno together. Maria frequently lapses into long inner monologues throughout the book, reflecting on gender, heteronormativity, and social conditioning.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_from_the_Internet_Apocalypse" title="Notes from the Internet Apocalypse">
The Internet suddenly stops working and society collapses from its loss. Internet addicts wander the streets talking to themselves, the economy crashes and the government authorizes the NET Recovery Act.For a man named Gladstone, the Internet's vanishing comes particularly hard, following the death of his wife, when he hears rumors that someone in New York City is still online.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_Script" title="Shooting Script">
Keith Carr, an ex-Royal Air Force fighter pilot with combat experience in the Korean War is now living in Jamaica, where he makes a threadbare living flying charter cargo flights around the Caribbean in his mortgaged second-hand de Havilland Dove. After he discovers that a pilot he knows from his Korean War days now commands a squadron of de Havilland Vampire jet fighters for the hard-line military dictators on the Central-American nation of “Republica Libra”, Carr suddenly finds life more difficult. And for some reason he can't understand, the United States FBI is keeping him under surveillance. Republica Libra at first offers him a job, and then impounds his plane when he refuses.Carr is hired by the flamboyant movie director Walt Whitmore, who is filming an action movie on the north coast of Jamaica to fly an old World War II vintage B-25 Mitchell medium bomber as a camera plane. However, after the student pilot he's training ends up murdered, it becomes apparent that Whitmore has more in mind for Carr and the elderly bomber than just making a film.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Life_(Harkness_novel)" title="The Book of Life (Harkness novel)">
Having returned from their refuge in 16th century London to find a family member dead, Diana and Matthew embark on a mission of revenge, seeking the final pages of the Book of Life, and bringing justice to witches and vampires that have wronged them. Diana is now a member of the de Clermont family. They find the black sheep of the family, Benjamin, Matthew's disavowed son and dispose of him. Matthew's genetics work progresses, with the help of a Yale scientist, and they are able to remove the charter of Covenant, meaning inter-species marriage is possible. It had originally been drawn up based on fear and stereotypes the old generation held.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NYPD_Red_3" title="NYPD Red 3">
This third novel in the NYPD Red series centers on two of the NYPD Red detectives, Zach Jordan and his partner Kylie MacDonald. NYPD Red, an entity invented by Patterson for his series, is an elite and well trained unit that has the job of protecting the rich, the famous and the well connected. This duo get called into a case in which the headless body of a man named Peter who was the chauffeur of one of New York's most powerful men, Hunter Alden, is found in the garage. Alden's son also goes missing and a witness swears he and his friend were kidnapped. Alden denies his son is missing and is reluctant to help the police. Zach and Kylie, who are both trying to sort out their own problems with domestic partners, must put their issues on hold to determine what is happening concerning the murder and alleged kidnapping cases assigned to them. The plot of this novel is full of very unexpected twists and turns.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Duk" title="Donald Duk">
Donald Duk is an eleven-year-old Chinese-American, preparing to celebrate both his twelfth birthday and Chinese New Year. He is the son of a Chinese chef named King Duk, and a Chinese mother named Daisy Duk. Donald has two older twin sisters named Penelope and Venus Duk. From the start of the book we are told how embarrassed Donald is of his name and of being introduced with his family.The story begins with Donald comparing himself to Fred Astaire. Donald believes he dances as well as Fred and throughout the novel considers himself the real "Chinese Fred Astaire" (91). Donald immerses himself in old black-and-white movies, and especially admires Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films. He envies the way "everyone" adores Fred when he dances. Donald wishes he could "live the late-night life in old black-and-white movies and talk with his feet like Fred Astaire, and smile Fred Astaire's sweet lemonade smile" (1).King Duk fears Donald sees the world too much in black-and-white, wanting to become as American as possible. Donald is ashamed of the way his family rejects American culture and that even when they watch television "they make everybody on the TV look Chinese!" (91). Donald does not want to be like them; he considers himself American because he was born in America. Donald's father tells him, "I think Donald Duk may be the very last American-born Chinese-American boy to believe you have to give up being Chinese to be an American" (42).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Deadly_Wandering" title="A Deadly Wandering">
On September 22, 2006, shortly after being denied a Mormon mission due to premarital sex, nineteen-year-old Utah college student Reggie Shaw is texting and driving with his girlfriend when he crosses the yellow lines on the highway west of Logan, Utah. He causes a chain-reaction accident that kills James Furfaro and Keith O’Dell, two rocket scientists headed to work. Unharmed, Shaw attempts to call 911 but the call didn't go through. A state trooper that comes to the scene said he witnessed “a collision so violent it popped out the passengers’ eyeballs.” Despite initially denying he was texting and driving, and his parents vehemently standing behind him, Shaw eventually admits to it when faced with damning evidence. Richtel examines the police investigation and Shaw's prosecution, which was a test case in terms of accident litigation. Shaw ended up serving several weeks in prison for negligent homicide.Richtel intersperses this narrative with scientific studies of attention and the human mind. He details the history of cognitive neuroscience, from its beginnings in World War II in assisting pilots to not become overwhelmed by technology, to its current applications with MRI studies. Richtel cites a study that claims motorists are impaired for 15 seconds after they text. He explains how cell phone companies initially denied texting and driving was a dangerous activity. Indeed, Richtel notes, not a single state banned the practice when the accident occurred. Eventually, Reggie Shaw becomes a prominent advocate against distracted driving. He is forgiven by the families of the scientists he killed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bedbug" title="The Bedbug">
The action of the play begins in 1929 in the U.S.S.R. Ivan Prisypkin is a young man in the age of NEP. On the day of his wedding to Elzevir Davidovna Renaissance, Prisypkin is frozen in a basement. After fifty years, he is revived in a world that looks very different. Around him is an ideal communist world, almost a utopia. There is no more poverty and destitution, illness and natural disasters have been defeated, and people have forgotten about drunkenness, smoking, and swearing. Prisypkin does not belong in this future. He becomes an exhibit at the zoo and serves as an example of the vices of a past age to the citizens of the future. The title of the play comes from a bed bug which was frozen at the same time as Prisypkin and becomes his companion.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drama_High" title="Drama High">
The series is told in the voice of Jayd Jackson, a strong opinionated high school student from Compton, California who comes from a long line of Louisiana conjure women. Jayd is continuously presented with both supernatural and practical problems in which she must use the teachings of her maternal ancestors (the Williams women) to help her solve. The series takes place in modern-day Los Angeles, California and contains many references to real life places. The novels are stemmed in the teachings of the Yoruba religion and maintain the presence of both African American and Latin cultures. The characters attend South Bay High, a fictional high school where the majority of the student body and teaching staff are privileged and white, ultimately causing racial tension between the students and the teachers alike. The series is expected to contain forty-four novels which will follow its main character Jayd out of high school and into college in its extension Drama U.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Games_(Kosmatka_novel)" title="The Games (Kosmatka novel)">
Geneticist Silas Williams oversees U.S. selections for the Olympic Gladiator competition, an internationally sanctioned bloodsport with only one rule: no entrants may possess human DNA. To maintain America’s edge, Silas’s superior engages an experimental supercomputer to design the ultimate combatant, producing a monster unlike anything ever seen.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_Girl" title="Honor Girl">
"Honor Girl" is the story of writer's Maggie Thrash's first crush at an all-girls summer camp in Kentucky in 2000.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_River" title="Into the River">
Set in New Zealand, the book tells the story of Māori youth Te Arepa Santos as he moves from the East Coast to Auckland to boarding school, where he has encounters with intimacy, sex, drugs, racism and death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desolation_Road" title="Desolation Road">
In the future, scientist Dr. Alimantando is trekking across the desert of a terraformed Mars and meets a humanoid "greenperson", who claims to have traveled through time to make sure Alimantando is in the right place at the right time to fulfill his destiny. It comes in the form of a 700-year-old sentient ROTECH environmental engineering module, or orph, which lies dying in the desert. It bequeaths itself and its resources to Dr. Alimantando, who dismantles the machine and uses its components to build his own oasis in the desert, which he names Desolation Road (instead of Destination Road) after consuming too much wine.Over time, several people find themselves at this settlement in the middle of nowhere, and are welcomed by Dr. Alimantando. Crime lord Jameson Jericho, Pasternoster of the Exalted Families, flees the violent destruction of his empire by his enemies, pursued by assassins and possessing a chip in his brain containing the consciousnesses of his Exalted Ancestors. Would-be pioneers Rael and Eva Mandella, and Rael's father Haran, arrive ahead of a sandstorm, and Eva gives birth to twins Limaal and Taasmin. Rajandra Das, a man with the power to charm machinery, is unceremoniously kicked off a train at a random stop that turns out to be Desolation Road. Industrial chemist Mikal Margolis and his put-upon mother, "the Babooshka" disembark another train and are stranded. The beautiful pilot Persis Tatterdemalion crash lands her plane near the town and, unable to repair the aircraft, stays. She and Mikal begin a relationship and open the Bethlehem Ares Railroad/Hotel. Identical lothario triplets Ed, Louie, and Umberto Gallacelli arrive at the B.A.R./Hotel having fled their raucous past. A mechanic, a lawyer, and a farmer respectively, they all simultaneously fall in love with Persis at first sight. Mikal, meanwhile, has become infatuated with Marya Quinsana, a veterinarian, whose dentist brother Morton is himself both infatuated with and fiercely possessive of his sister. The feuding Stalin and Tenebrae families arrive, and are given homesteads right next to each other. Mr. and Mrs. Stalin's unpleasant son Johnny is both befriended and abused by the Mandella twins. Meredith Blue Mountain and his daughter Ruthie, whom he secretly created in a genesis-bottle, come to town to avoid persecution by their former neighbors. Ruthie has the power to absorb the beauty around her, and release it outward at will.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_and_the_Code_of_Claw" title="Gregor and the Code of Claw">
Only a few hours have passed since the closing of "Gregor and the Marks of Secret", when Gregor returns from the Firelands to warn Regalia of an impending gnawer attack. As the novel opens, Gregor is numb with shock from the "Prophecy of Time"'s apparent prediction of his death. He and his bond Ares disobey Solovet and return to the Firelands to find the terribly ill Luxa, Aurora, and Howard. Gregor rushes his ill friends back to the city for treatment, whereupon Solovet orders him locked in the dungeon for insubordination. He is eventually released by Nerissa to help his sister Boots while the toddler works to fulfill the "Prophecy of Time" by deciphering the rats' "Code of Claw".Solovet still wants Gregor imprisoned, until Ripred and Mareth inform her that Gregor has recently developed romantic feelings for Queen Luxa, and would never leave Regalia while she is hospitalized. Shortly after this incident, an upset Gregor is called to the code room for an "emergency with [his] sister", and discovers eight-year-old Lizzie has come to bring him home. When the code team learns that Lizzie has an aptitude for puzzles, Ripred makes the suggestion that she replace Boots. Gregor is desperate to keep his family safe, so he extracts a promise from Ripred to protect them and keep them in the dark about Gregor's impending doom. While Lizzie works on (and ultimately solves) the code, Gregor fights the Bane's armies, struggling all the while to cope with his emotions about Luxa and Sandwich's prophecy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uprooted_(novel)" title="Uprooted (novel)">
Agnieszka lives in the village of Dvernik in the kingdom of Polnya. Every ten years the local wizard ("the Dragon") collects one teenage girl as payment for protecting the local valley from the magical forest (the Wood) that borders it. Despite being born in a tribute year, Agnieszka does not fear being taken, as the Dragon only chooses the best and brightest girls and she is clumsy and slovenly – unlike her beautiful friend Kasia, who has been groomed to be selected. But the Dragon picks Agnieszka and takes her to his tower.Through notes left by previous girls, Agnieszka gathers that her role is mostly household duties. But the reason for his choice is that she has magical abilities, and he starts teaching her simple spells. Agnieszka finds these acts of magic difficult and unnatural.As part of his duties, the Dragon leaves to deal with a Chimera. In his absence, Agnieszka notices a call for assistance from her village. Defying the Dragon, she escapes from the tower and returns to Dvernik, where she learns that wolves from the Wood have infected the cattle and a man. She successfully uses magic to help destroy the cattle, only for the wolves to return and to try to kill her and Kasia. The Dragon arrives and saves her, but is wounded. Returning them both to the tower, Agnieszka saves his life after she intuits a spell from one of the witch Jaga's notebooks which the Dragon had thought useless. Recognizing that her powers differ from his, he reluctantly allows Agnieszka to teach herself Jaga's more intuitive magic.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tale_of_Five_Balloons" title="A Tale of Five Balloons">
The book is about five children each of whom get a balloon from Ruti's mother — a blue balloon for Ruti, yellow for Ron, purple for Sigalit, green for Uri and red for Alon. During the book, all the children's balloons burst, with the exception of Alon's, which the wind blew out of the children's reach. The children look at the balloon and shout "Bye, bye, red balloon!".Whenever one of the balloons bursts, the children are comforted and told "that's how all balloons end up". Each balloon had burst for the following different reasons:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Ember_in_the_Ashes" title="An Ember in the Ashes">
A Scholar girl by the name of Laia lives in the Martial Empire with her grandparents and brother Darin in the city of Serra. Their existence is a grueling one as they are seen as second-class citizens by the ruling Martial elite. Darin is arrested by Martial forces and accused of being an anti-Empire rebel. Laia seeks out the help of the anti-Empire group called the Resistance, and agrees to infiltrate an infamous military school for them if they help her break her brother free from prison.At the school, called Blackcliff Academy, Laia meets a student named Elias Veturius. Along with his best friend Helene Aquilla and his two rivals Marcus and Zak Farrar, he has been chosen to take the Trials, a series of tests that will decide who the next ruler of the Empire is. But Elias has no wish to take the tests, or be ruler. He wants to escape the Empire.When Elias meets Laia, the two realize that their destinies are more intertwined than they could have ever dreamed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_on_Blue" title="Green on Blue">
The novel opens with Aziz, the protagonist, and his older brother Ali in their home in a remote village in southeastern Afghanistan. Despite their village's isolation among the mountains, the boys have a stable and loving home with their mother and father. The two boys are still quite young when their parents are killed in a raid. Newly orphaned, Aziz and Ali travel to Orgun, a city where they eke out a living at first by begging and later by working in a marketplace.Political events in Afghanistan shape Aziz's narrative in ways that he does not fully understand until later in the novel. At the same time that Ali is working in the market to pay for Aziz's education, the U.S. forces invade Afghanistan. Local militants and warlords strike back against the Americans, and a bomb explodes in the market in which Ali works, leaving him critically injured.In the hospital caring for his brother, Aziz encounters an Afghan wearing an American uniform. This man recruits Aziz to the U.S.-funded militia called the "Special Lashkar" because the wages from soldiering will allow Ali to stay in the hospital and receive the medical care he needs.Aziz departs for the border with the militia and quickly learns about the true nature of war. Through fighting with the Special Lashkar, he develops relationships with people who represent the different directions in which Aziz feels himself pulled. Mr. Jack, an American adviser for the Special Lashkar, is the only American in the novel. Aziz views Mr. Jack with a certain amount of skepticism, and sees the American as an outsider. Aziz also meets the warlord Atal, and is drawn to the man's power as well as Atal's niece, a young woman Aziz comes to fall in love.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_Country_(novel)" title="Cow Country (novel)">
Built around a cattle industry now in decline, the town of Cow Eye Junction is experiencing a severe drought, a demographic incursion, and an ongoing cultural clash as older residents are displaced by a new wave of outsiders moving in. The college, meanwhile, is struggling to maintain its accreditation and to reconcile two rival factions: those who eat meat, and those who will not. Hoping to resolve this situation, the college hires the narrator, Charlie, to serve as Special Projects Coordinator. Struggling to find his place in life as a self-described "habitual divorcee and father of nothing," Charlie is repeatedly drawn into outlandish situations over the course of the novel as he tries to help the college achieve regional accreditation, reconcile a divided faculty, and resurrect the college's annual Christmas party.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paris_Architect" title="The Paris Architect">
During World War II Lucien Bernard, an architect living in Paris, France, is offered a large fee to design hiding places for Jews being hunted by the Nazis. He desperately needs the money to make a living, although he knows that if caught, he will most likely be killed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_Shadow" title="Walking Shadow">
The story follows Boston-based PI Spenser as he tries to solve the on-stage murder of an actor in the run-down town of Port City. While investigating the crime, he runs afoul of the local Chinese mob and uncovers a web of infidelity, organized crime, and psychologically unstable actors.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_Billy" title="Blockade Billy">
The book is told through a framing device, where an old man in a retirement home, George "Granny" Grantham, is telling the story to Stephen King. Granny tells of the 1957 Major League Baseball season, when he was the third base coach for a now-defunct team, the New Jersey Titans. When the team loses both of their catchers days before the start of the season, they are forced to request a minor league player as a last-minute replacement. The replacement turns out to be a young man named William "Billy" Blakely. Although Billy seems to be feeble minded and highly susceptible to suggestion, he turns out to be a phenomenal player. He becomes especially well known for his incredible stopping power at home plate, earning him the nickname "Blockade Billy" amongst fans. He quickly becomes endeared to the team, especially to star pitcher Danny Dusen, a usually arrogant, self-centered man who adopts Billy as his good luck charm. Granny, however, becomes suspicious of Billy when a player, who was badly injured during a tag out, accuses him of intentionally slicing his ankle. Although Billy claims innocence, and there is no evidence to support the accusation, Granny is convinced that Billy is lying. As the season goes on, Billy's popularity continues to grow. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_Warning_(Park_novel)" title="Storm Warning (Park novel)">
As they were leaving China, Amy and Dan get a call from the Holts telling them that they knew where they were going. Dan and Amy assume Nellie Gomez, their au pair, told the Holts. On the plane, Dan and Amy get Nellie to give them some information. It turns out it wasn't Beatrice who hired her, but Grace. Nellie also tells them that she works for Mr. McIntyre, but does not tell them who she really works for. Amy and Dan become suspicious of her and try to avoid her as much as possible.As events in the Caribbean take place, Amy and Dan watch as the clue hunt kills a non-Cahill named Lester. Angry and in shock, Amy and Dan decide to face Aunt Beatrice, but Nellie kidnaps them, and takes them to Moore Town to meet The Man In Black. They are then forced to solve a puzzle box that Amy and Dan had found in the museum that Lester had worked at, finding slots that fit different items representing the branches: a jade with a dragon on it, a bear claw found in a cave, a wolf tooth on Isabel Kabra's bracelet, and the snake-shaped nose ring that Nellie wears. After solving Anne Bonny's puzzle box, getting the Madrigal clue of Mace, and the knowledge that they should go to England, Dan and Amy learn that The Man In Black, who followed them in the first few books in the series, is Fiske Cahill, Grace's brother. He ran away as a kid, and that's why Amy and Dan never heard of him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Short_Second_Life_of_Bree_Tanner" title="The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner">
The story begins with Bree and Diego hunting for human blood in Seattle, Washington. Bree has been a vampire for three months, and Diego has been one for eleven months. Together they kill and drink a pimp and two prostitutes. Bree and Diego discuss "her" (Victoria, who turned them into vampires). They hide in a cave and discuss their human lives, and how Riley came to offer them a second life as a vampire. Together they decide that Riley is using them as pawns, and that he might be lying to them. They also discover that sunlight does not kill a vampire, but makes their skin sparkle. They fall in love and hunt for Riley and the other vampires they live with.They find that Riley had relocated everyone to a log cabin and Diego gets into a fight. That night Bree and Diego stalk Riley, suspicious that he is meeting with "her." They eavesdrop on Riley's conversation with Victoria.Eventually the Volturi show up, threatening to punish Victoria for amassing a vampire army, but are willing to give her army a chance to destroy the Cullen clan. The Volturi say that if Victoria does not attack within five days, they will kill her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slave_(Singer_novel)" title="The Slave (Singer novel)">
Jacob, the hero of the book, is a resident of Josefov, a Jewish town in Poland. After the Khmelnytsky massacres, in which his wife and three children were murdered by Cossacks, Jacob is sold as a slave to gentile peasants in the southern Polish mountains. During his years of slavery, he strives to maintain his Judaism by observing as many Jewish rituals as possible and by maintaining high ethical standards for himself.While in captivity, Jacob falls in love with his master's daughter, Wanda. While Jewish law and custom forbids Jews from even touching a woman a man is not married to and also forbids Jews from cohabiting with gentiles, Jacob's love for Wanda is too powerful to overcome and they have sex. Later, Jews from Josefov come to ransom him by paying off Wanda's father and he returns to Josefov. While in Josefov, Jacob dreams of Wanda. In his dream, Wanda is pregnant and asks Jacob why he abandoned her and left the child in her womb to be raised by gentiles. Jacob decides to return to the gentile village, take Wanda as his wife, and help her convert to Judaism. Jacob and Wanda reach another town, Pilitz, where Jacob begins to make his living as a teacher. In Pilitz, Wanda becomes known as 'Sarah' and Jacob instructs her to be pretend that she is deaf and mute so as not to reveal her gentile origins. Sarah thirsts for knowledge about Judaism and at night, Jacob teaches her Jewish beliefs and practices. She suffers in silence as the women of the town gossip about her right in front of her, as they believe she is deaf and cannot hear them. Her secret is finally discovered when she screams loudly at the women gossiping around her during the birth of her and Jacob's son. Frustrated at the predictions of her death openly discussed around her, Sarah has enough, demanding to be able to die in peace and pointing out the hypocrisy the townsfolk. Sarah dies after the difficult birth, and is given a "donkey's burial" outside of the Jewish cemetery. Jacob is taken away by two dragoons to be executed for converting a Christian to Judaism, but he escapes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_White_Male" title="Straight White Male">
The story of a middle-aged couple caring for the husband's aging, ailing parents and their own children, while troubled by a past with which they have never come to terms.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taken_by_Force_(book)" title="Taken by Force (book)">
"Taken by Force" explores the patterns of rapes committed by US servicemen during the Second World War between the years of 1942 and 1945, as well as the reaction of the American army in response to the crimes. The book draws upon court records, newspaper articles, and trial transcripts, covering the 14,000 rapes that Lilly estimated, using a formula created by Leon Radzinowicz, which occurred in Britain, France, and Germany at the hands of US soldiers."Chapter 2" covers "explanations for sexual violence during war", which includes discussion about rape being used as a "tool of genocide", as an "inherent feature of military culture", and as a "means of revenge.""Chapters 3, 4, and 5" consecutively act as "analyses of rape and rape prosecutions" in the countries of England, France, and Germany and how the number of rapes in each country differs because of views American soldiers held toward the civilian population in each country.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scattered_Life" title="A Scattered Life">
From the publisher: Free-spirit Skyla Plinka has found the love and stability she always wanted in her reliable husband Thomas. Settling into her new family and roles as wife and mother, life in rural Wisconsin is satisfying, but can’t seem to quell Skyla’s growing sense of restlessness. Her only reprieve is her growing friendship with neighbor Roxanne, who has five kids (and counting) and a life in constant disarray – but also a life filled with laughter and love.Much to the dismay of her intrusive mother-in-law, Audrey, Skyla takes a part-time job at the local bookstore and slowly begins to rediscover her voice, independence and confidence. Throughout one pivotal year in the life of Skyla, Audrey and Roxanne, all three very different women will learn what it means to love unconditionally. With the storytelling ingenuity of Anne Tyler, the writing talent of Jodi Picoult, and the subtlety of Alice Munro, McQuestion offers a satisfying debut that proves she is a gifted portraitist, a natural storyteller and an author to watch.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_the_River" title="Children of the River">
Sundara Sovann is a 12 year old Cambodian girl growing up in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital. Sundara's childhood includes a boy named Chamroeun, described as charming and a smart boy. Chamroeun and Sundara's parents joke that they will one day be married. Sundara falls in love with Chamroeun, but Chamroeun goes to fight in the war as a soldier, right before Sundara leaves to go to her uncle and aunt's house. When Sundara is at her aunt and uncle's house she flees from Cambodia with her aunt, Soka, her grandma, and her uncle, Naro, to escape from Khmer Rouge. She leaves her family behind in Cambodia, which she regrets later in the novel. Sundara's aunt Soka just had a baby, right before they had to leave. While on the small, very cramped ship, Sundara is put in charge of the infant, as Soka is drifting in and out of awareness. The baby is extremely malnourished, and Sundara, eager to save her cousin, asks a mother for her breast milk to help the baby get better. The mother states, "I would, but... Oh, this is all so terrible. I'm not getting enough to drink myself. Soon I'm afraid I won't have milk for my own.". She then goes to a helper and asks for some extra milk, or supplies. He gives her a hard time, but eventually gives her some powdered milk, and some sugar water in a bottle. Then the baby soon dies shortly after, devastating Sundara.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maza_of_the_Moon" title="Maza of the Moon">
Ted Dustin, an American inventor, seeks to win a prize of one million dollars by being the first person to touch the Moon with an object launched from Earth. He devises a huge gun, which fires upon the surface of the Moon. Shortly thereafter, the Moon fires back, and war breaks out between the planet and its satellite. Using a videophone he invented, Ted hails communication with the Moon. A beautiful woman and her guards first reply, but their transmission is cut off by warlike yellow aliens. Ted eventually heads to the Moon in a spacecraft of his own design, and meets the titular character, who turns out to be the beautiful woman from the transmission, as well as a princess of one of the two groups that inhabit the Moon.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Copper_Elephant" title="The Copper Elephant">
Whensday Bluehouse is an orphan who was rescued from a life working in the Pits by coffin maker Tick Burrowman. Burrowman is attempting to make a profit by selling Whensday to a woman from Toptown, a part of the world that is unaffected by acid rain and life on The Shelf. Whensday is unsure of the security of this exchange, and sneaks away one night. Burrowman may have actually grown fond of Whensday, and it is unclear if he is interested in giving her away after all.While Whensday is on the run, she stumbles upon a large, mentally handicapped teenager named Honeycut Greenhouse, obviously another orphan. He was separated from his brother, much as Whensday was, and it is obvious that Honeycut doesn't have the faculties to take care of himself. Whensday decides to befriend Honeycut, and he rescues her during a vicious rape by Second Staff Brown, a minor officer in the military. Honeycut kills Brown, and a manhunt begins, ending with Honeycut's capture.Whensday flees and hides in the only place she knows, Tick Burrowman's home. Upon her arrival, she finds him dead, and a former friend, Joe Painter, seriously ill. They cobble together a flotilla of "body boxes" and attempt to paddle up the river, away from the Shelf and the head for Toptown. But Joe Painter dies on the trip, and the current carries Whensday back to the shelf. She is rescued by a secret clan of women, hiding from the Syndicate, and she stays with them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Body_of_Christopher_Creed" title="The Body of Christopher Creed">
Torey Adams, the narrator, moves to a new town and begins his senior year at Rothborne, a boarding school. As he starts thinking about the school year ahead, he remembers the strange events of his junior year, including the disappearance of his former classmate Christopher Creed. Christopher disappeared without a trace, apart from an email that he sent to the principal. The prelude concludes with Torey sending an email containing his retelling of the events.In the past, Torey and his friends read the email from Christopher. It suggests that Christopher either committed suicide or ran away. The email references a number of people in town who Christopher admires as guys who have "everything," including Torey and one of his friends. This makes Torey more concerned about Creed's disappearance and what has become of him. Torey talks about his concerns with his girlfriend, Leandra, who brushes them off.At school, Torey begins to feel alienated from his friend Alex. Ali McDermott, a girl at school who suffers from negative rumours, talks to Torey about Creed and asks him to come over to her house that night, as she wants to show him something. At her house, Torey and Ali watch the Creed family, observing Mrs. Creed's controlling behaviour and her relationship with Christopher's brothers. Torey meets Ali's boyfriend, Bo, who is a "boon" (a local slang term for the "really bad kids" who come from the boondocks) and is rumoured to be a violent criminal, but turns out to be caring and protective, despite his tough guy demeanour.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damage_(Jenkins_novel)" title="Damage (Jenkins novel)">
Austin is depressed with the potential for suicide. His best friends are Dobie and Curtis. They all are football players. Austin has issues about the routine he takes to get him to go to school. Their favorite hang out is Dairy Queen. Austin meets Heather. Austin's friends discuss their feelings about heather, how his first date with Heather came about and why they are together.In chapter 5 they talk about Austin's first away game, and how it plays out.Chapters 6–9: In this section they go to many places. In chapter 6 they go to a movie and dinner together, Aus. Austin is there thinking about Heather and asks God to forgive him. In chapter 8 he is at home in his bed dreaming about himself and Heather. Then he goes to school and has practice. After practice they are in a locker room talking. Austin takes Curtis home then takes Heather home because she was waiting for him after practice on the truck. In chapter 9 he is at home and Curtis comes over.Austin talks about how things are now that he is with Heather. He would drive Dobie rides home after practice, but since he started to date Heather, Curtis now drives him home. Austin after practice now takes Heather to the Dairy Queen instead of his friends and they place their usual order. While eating, they talk about things including what happened between Curits and Kat. Austin tires of Heather always brushing her hair before leaving, but he sums it up as, "This waiting for hair to be brushed – is the price of dating Heather". They sit in the car just hanging out for a while. Heather thinks Austin is mad at her when he really is not and she gito please him also in hopes that he will not be angry any longer. Two weeks later they have sex.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Settlers_in_Canada" title="The Settlers in Canada">
The story begins in England with a reasonably well-off family (the Campbells) who have inherited the family estate. Their eldest son has gone to college and the second son is in the navy. One day a claimant to the estate appears. His claim proves to be true and the Campbells must give up the estate.Mr. Campbell had given up his business to take over the estate and with the legal costs as well they have very little money left. They just have enough to journey to emigrate to Canada, and take up a settlement near Lake Ontario. The family is united in their troubles and they pull together to make their farm a success, in the process, dealing with the weather, hostile natives and forest fires. They are aided by an eccentric but helpful hunter Malachi Bone, and they rescue young Percival from hostile Indians and welcome new immigrants to their farm.Eventually a letter arrives to say that the relative who had taken the estate, has died, and it is now theirs once again. Mr. and Mrs. Campbell travel home and the rest of the family go their separate ways.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hockey_Stick_Illusion" title="The Hockey Stick Illusion">
"The Hockey Stick Illusion" first outlines a brief history of climate change science with particular emphasis on the description of the Medieval Warm Period in the first IPCC report in 1990, with its inclusion of a schematic based on central England temperatures which Montford describes as a representation of common knowledge at that time. He then argues that a need to overturn this "well-embedded paradigm" was met by the 1998 publication by Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley and Malcolm K. Hughes' of their "hockey stick graph" in "Nature". The book describes how Steve McIntyre first became interested in the graph in 2002 and the difficulties he found in replicating the results of "MBH98" (the original 1998 study) using available datasets, and further data which Mann gave him on request. It details the publication of a paper by McIntyre and Ross McKitrick in 2003 which criticized MBH98, and follows with Mann and his associates' rebuttals. The book recounts reactions to the dispute over the graph, including investigations by the National Academy of Sciences and Edward Wegman and hearings held on the graph before the United States House Energy Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Efforts taken by other scientists to verify Mann's work and McIntyre's and others' responses to those efforts are described.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula_the_Undead_(novel)" title="Dracula the Undead (novel)">
It is seven years since a stake was driven through the heart of the infamous Count Dracula. Seven years which have not eradicated the terrible memories for Jonathan and Mina Harker, who now have a young son. To lay their memories to rest they return to Transylvania, and can find no trace of the horrific events. But, beneath the earth, Dracula's soul lies in limbo, waiting for the Lifeblood that will revive him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitethorn_Woods" title="Whitethorn Woods">
The plot centers around a supposedly miraculous well dedicated to Saint Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary, located in a grotto overgrown with whitethorn bushes in the woods next to an Irish town called Rossmore. While the parish priest is frustrated by people's allegiance to the well rather than the church, the novel traces the stories of numerous people who find inspiration through the well in many different ways. The town faces a major dilemma as news surfaces that a new highway is scheduled to be built through the woods, which would threaten the well and the peaceful life that the town has enjoyed so far.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelfth_Card" title="The Twelfth Card">
The story starts out in a museum where Geneva Settle, a high-school student in Harlem, is researching information for a paper about her ancestor, Charles Singleton. While she is looking at an old newspaper, Thompson Boyd, an unfeeling, professional killer, attempts to murder her. As his attempts continue, each time he leaves behind a clue which either helps or misleads Lincoln Rhyme. Amelia Sachs, Fred Dellray, Mel Cooper, and Lon Sellitto help Lincoln to solve why Boyd is after Settle. Rhyme believes initially that Geneva was the witness to a planned terrorist attack. It is eventually revealed that Boyd was hired to kill her because of her ancestor's secret. Singleton's secret was that he owned fifteen acres of prime land in Manhattan in the 1800s. Rhyme had discovered through the investigation of the crime that Geneva's ancestor was falsely accused of murder and had his land stolen. The person who bought the land ended up creating a huge company in the modern time. As the land was not legally sold, all of Singleton's relatives were legally entitled to compensation over the course of 200 years. The chase to catch Boyd and all of his accomplices continue throughout a two-day period. Throughout the story, there are also some other smaller story lines and this crime eventually leads to the solutions of other crimes. Some of the people in the novel are not who they appear to be. One of Boyd's accomplices pretends to be the guidance counselor at Settle's high school. Also, a common vandal and criminal turns out to be Settle's dad.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Gauntlet" title="Into the Gauntlet">
"Into the Gauntlet" begins as Amy and Dan Cahill enter a London hotel tired and with no lead whatsoever. They receive another lead, which Amy realizes leads to William Shakespeare, so they go to a performance of "Romeo and Juliet" in The Globe Theatre. Once there, they confront the Starlings, who are back in the clue hunt after being sent to the hospital in an explosion back in "The Maze of Bones", and steal their lead, but they are trapped by Jonah Wizard, who was forced back into the clue hunt by Cora Wizard, the Holts, Alistair Oh, and the Kabras. Hamilton Holt steals the piece of paper with the lead, but Dan rips off the top and bottom, and he and Amy run away while everyone else is fighting over the rest of the lead.Amy and Dan realize that it leads to Shakespeare's grave site, and are among the last to arrive there. However, they are surprised to find that no one is fighting with each other and are instead making unsuccessful exchanges of clues and information. After the other teams leave, Dan rubs the grave and finds a secret message in which Shakespeare asks them to dig up his grave.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Unbroken_Agony" title="An Unbroken Agony">
Robinson begins by mention of the date and time of February 29, 2004 4:30 a.m., stating, "The real events of the story are very unlike those described to the general public." He knows that the conventional accounting of Aristide's removal from office is quite different than the entire history he is about to tell.The date of December 9, 1492, is described as the most fateful of days…Then, there were an estimated 8 million native Taínos living on the island of Hispaniola. "Within 20 years, there were fewer than 28,000." "Thirty years on, by 1542, only 200 Taínos remained." Many chapters are also entitled with a date.November 17, 1803, is a good example. This date represents a date that Robinson describes as significant because, "It may have been the most stunning victory won for the black world in a thousand years. There has been nothing quite like it, before or since." Here he is describing the defeat of slavery, in Haiti, by the Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture. The ramification of these dates in Haitian history is monumental, per Robinson."As a direct result of what the Haitian revolutionaries did to free themselves, France lost two thirds of its world trade income." Furthermore, the Haitian revolutionaries had a global perspective on fighting slavery. They worked with Simón Bolívar in an effort to fight slavery in South America. And they also "rolled out an unconditional welcome mat to anyone who escaped European colonialism in Africa or fled bondage from a slave plantation anywhere in the Americas, North, South, or Central."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Head_of_the_House_of_Coombe" title="The Head of the House of Coombe">
Lord Coombe is considered to be the best-dressed man in London. He is also a man whose public reputation, despite his formidable intellect and observant eye, is one of unmitigated wickedness. During one of his social forays, he meets a selfish young woman named 'Feather' with the face of an angel. Fascinated by her, he slowly drifts into her circle. When her husband dies unexpectedly, leaving her alone and desolate in London, he ends up taking her under his wing.Feather has a daughter named Robin, of whom she takes little notice. She treats Robin with shocking neglect and once Coombe takes over responsibility for the household's finances, Feather readily abandons poor Robin to the less-than-kindly ministrations of her nurse. In fact, Robin doesn't even know Feather is her mother for her first six years, calling her 'The Lady Downstairs'. Robin also hates Coombe, having heard a conversation that blamed him for the loss of her first friend. This was a little boy named Donal who was in fact Coombe's heir. Donal's mother disapproves both of Coombe and Feather and when she discovers that her son has been playing with Robin, she whisks him away, leaving Robin heartbroken. However, Coombe does not return this dislike and in fact makes a point of serving as her guardian, albeit without Robin's knowledge. As Robin grows, he builds her a set of rooms, engages a loving nurse for her, and eventually secures a reputable governess for her. While her mother continues to behave with the selfish freedom of a wanton child.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Captain's_Duty" title="A Captain's Duty">
Phillips was a mariner of 30 years' experience when his ship was taken. He took extensive security precautions to keep his crew safe and hidden, leaving himself as the only possible hostage. This led to an ordeal of several days in a lifeboat in the hands of pirates, whom Phillips portrays as alternately conciliatory, vicious, and unfocused.Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy assembled a large task force, and tensions steadily rose, as did Phillips’ fear for his life.The book details Phillips' attempted escape and eventual rescue by U.S. Navy SEALs, and portrays Phillips' wife Andrea as loyal and strong-willed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freaky_Green_Eyes" title="Freaky Green Eyes">
The novel opens with Franky explaining how "Freaky" came into her life. It was few weeks after her 14th birthday and she went to a college party near Puget Sound in Washington with some friends from her high school. While there, she met Cameron (a college freshman at the University of South Carolina), who tried to rape her. As a swimmer, Franky used her strong legs to kick Cameron hard enough to get him off her. Afterward, Cameron looked at her and said, "You should see your eyes! Freaky green eyes!"Franky, now 15, lives in Yarrow Heights (a suburb of Seattle) with her father Reid Pierson, her mother Krista Pierson, her younger sister Samantha, and her half-brother Todd. As a sports reporter, Reid has had a big contract go through with a TV network and wants to celebrate with his family. Krista, however, goes to an arts and crafts convention in Santa Barbara, California instead, which angers Reid. When Krista returns home, Franky starts to notice the tension between her parents, especially after hearing them fight. She hears her mom say she does not want to go to Reid's work gatherings because she feels like she doesn't fit in with his crowd. In turn, Reid gets mad that Krista isn't fulfilling her role as a wife.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Khalid" title="The Book of Khalid">
The novel, which is intensely autobiographical as Rihani himself immigrated as a child, tells the story of two boys, named Khalid and Shakib, from Baalbek in Lebanon (at the time, the Syrian province of the Ottoman Empire) who migrate together to the United States, coming by ship through Ellis Island and enduring the classic "Via Dolorosa" of an immigrant. They move into a wet cellar in the Little Syria community of Lower Manhattan near Battery Park and begin to peddle counterfeit Holy Land trinkets and religious items throughout the city, a typical Arab endeavor in America. While Shakib, although himself a poet, is focused and accumulates savings through peddling, Khalid becomes distracted and turns away from commercial activity toward frantically consuming Western literature and participating in the New York City intellectual and bohemian scene. At one point, he burns his peddling box, decrying the dishonesty of their sales.After exhaustion from reckless "bohemian" pursuits, Khalid shifts towards party politics when he is offered the position of a functionary and ward for the Arab community in the machine politics of the city. However, Khalid insists on moral purity in his political work, causing conflict with his "Boss." As a result, he is jailed for a brief time of ten days (Shakib helps secure his release) under the charge of misapplying public funds. The two decide to return to Lebanon before long, and Khalid then shifts back to intense peddling for a time, paying off his accumulated debts and earning funds for return passage.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seventh_Scroll" title="The Seventh Scroll">
This book is set in the present and follows the adventurer Nicholas Quenton-Harper and his love interest, Dr. Royan Al Simma, as they uncover the tomb of Tanus.Duraid Al Simma and his wife Royan decipher the seventh scroll from the tomb of Lostris. They are attacked and their work is stolen. Duraid is brutally murdered, but Royan escapes. Royan heads to England and convinces an old friend of Duraid, Nicholas, of the existence of the treasure in Pharaoh Mamose's tomb. Together, they travel to Ethiopia following clues laid out by Taita.As the pair journey along together, they grow fond of each other's company. They find the tomb's location, but are attacked by the Pegasus group, which were behind attempts on Royan's life. Royan and Nicholas' work are stolen.It is revealed that the Pegasus group is owned by Herr von Schiller, a ruthless German collector. With the help of his right-hand man Jake Helm, Colonel Nogo, and Duraid's former assistants under his command, he acquires a strong force that are willing to go to extreme lengths.Colonel Nogo was put in charge of keeping Royan and Nicholas out of their way and Duraid's assistant was in charge of exploiting the works Nicholas and Royan discovered, while Jake Helm provided them with Pegasus' facilities.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapture_of_the_Deep_(novel)" title="Rapture of the Deep (novel)">
On the day that Jacky Faber is to wed her true love, Jaimy, she is kidnapped by British Naval Intelligence and forced to embark on yet another mission for the Crown, searching for sunken Spanish gold off the coast of Havana. Along the way, Jacky and her mates find more than they have bargained for.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Carne" title="A Carne">
Lenita is a young, naïve 22-year-old woman who, recently orphaned, goes to live with an old farmer who raised her father. In the farmer's house, she meets his son, Manuel Barbosa, a divorced man. They soon start a forbidden love relationship.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Lion" title="Library Lion">
Miss Merriweather, the head librarian, is very particular about rules in the library. No running is allowed and you must be quiet. But when a lion comes to the library one day, no one is sure what to do. There aren't any rules about lions in the library. Furthermore, as it turns out, this lion seems very well suited to library visiting. His big feet are quiet on the library floor. He makes a comfy backrest for the children during story hour. And he never roars in the library, at least not anymore. But when something terrible happens, the lion quickly comes to the rescue in the only way he knows how.The Library Lion was written as a tribute to libraries.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Republic" title="The Dead Republic">
An aging Henry Smart is attempting to cement his reputation. John Ford plans a movie based on Henry's life, but Henry eventually realizes the film that Ford has planned will reduce his story to sentiment. Henry plans to kill Ford, but his callousness has faded, and he drifts into the Dublin suburbs, where he meets a respectable widow who may possibly be his long-disappeared wife. Henry ages in obscurity until the 1970s, when he is caught up in the 1974 Dublin car bombings and the Provisional IRA uses a distorted version of Henry's story as a public relations ploy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strange_Case_of_Origami_Yoda" title="The Strange Case of Origami Yoda">
Dwight is a sixth grader at McQuarrie Middle School who is considered quite weird. One day, Dwight folds an origami finger puppet of Yoda, a popular "Star Wars" figure. Through an imitation voice, Dwight offers advice to his classmates through Yoda. Some students at McQuarrie soon become convinced that Origami Yoda has a special connection to the Force, while others remain skeptical. A fellow sixth-grader named Tommy decides to write a case file to prove if Origami Yoda is real. He convinces a number of students to write about their experiences with Origami Yoda, while his friend Kellen illustrates the file. However, Harvey, who has always been cruel to Dwight and is skeptical about Origami Yoda's wisdom, attempts to disprove Origami Yoda's connection to the Force.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_Visit" title="The Wonderful Visit">
"The Wonderful Visit" tells how an angel spends a little more than a week in southern England. He is at first mistaken for a bird because of his dazzling polychromatic plumage, for he is "neither the Angel of religious feeling nor the Angel of popular belief," but rather "the Angel of Italian art." As a result, he is hunted and shot in the wing by an amateur ornithologist, the Rev. K. Hilyer, the vicar of Siddermoton, and then taken in and cared for at the vicarage. The creature comes from "the Land of Dreams" (also the angel's term for our world), and while "charmingly affable," is "quite ignorant of the most elementary facts of civilisation." During his brief visit he grows increasingly dismayed by what he learns about the world in general and about life in Victorian England in particular. As he grows increasingly critical of local mores, he is eventually denounced as "a Socialist."The vicar, his host, meanwhile comes under attack by fellow clerics, neighbours, and even servants for harbouring a disreputable character (no one but the vicar believes he comes from another world, and people take to calling him "Mr. Angel"). The angel's one talent is his divine violin-playing, but he is discredited at a reception that Lady Hammergallow agrees to host when it is discovered that he cannot read music and confides to a sympathetic listener that he has taken an interest in the vicar's serving girl, Delia. Instead of healing, his wings begin to atrophy. The local physician, Dr. Crump, threatens to have him put in a prison or a madhouse. After the angel destroys some barbed wire on a local baronet's property, Sir John Gotch gives the vicar one week to send him away before he begins proceedings against him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_(novel)" title="Ash (novel)">
Aisling (pronounced Ash-ling), known as Ash to her friends, is a teenage girl whose mother was once apprenticed to the local Greenwitch. Some time after Ash's mother dies, her father, a merchant, goes on a business trip and returns married to a woman with two daughters, the eldest of these is Ana who is Ash's age. Soon after they move in though, Ash's father becomes gravely ill, and instead of allowing the Greenwitch to care for him, Ash's stepmother takes him to the city to be treated by their Philosophers, who bleed him and cause his death, as the Greenwich warned they would.After her father's death, Ash's stepmother discovers he was deeply in debt, and sells Ash's childhood home to try and pay off some of his debts. The stepmother also declares that in order to earn her keep, Ash will serve as a servant in her home, as she has to lay off the rest of the staff because she can no longer afford to keep them. Ash's sole source of comfort is reading fairy tales by firelight each night. Ash wishes that fairies will take her away to their world where all her dreams will come true just like she once wished as a little girl.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Mike_We_Trust" title="In Mike We Trust">
The book is written in the first person singular from the perspective of its 15-year-old narrator, Garth Rudd.The Rudds live in Richmond, Virginia. Garth's father died in a boating accident two years earlier, leaving his middle-class family to shoulder his many debts. Now living on the edge of poverty, Garth's mother, Sonja, works two jobs to support the family and Garth tries to earn spending money and save for college by working as a janitor of sorts at a downtown department store for a condescending supervisor. Wanting to be a veterinarian when he is older, Garth volunteers at a local animal shelter caring for dogs and cats. Garth has repeated nightmares about his father's death, and is unhappy about his short height (he is only tall). Prior to the novel's opening (although this scene is related in flashback), Garth came out to his best friend, Lisa, about his homosexuality. Shortly thereafter, Garth (in flashback) tells his mother that he is gay. But his mother, worried that her short, slight teenage son might be gay bashed, tells Garth not to tell anyone else that he is gay.The novel opens when Mike Rudd, the twin brother of Garth's deceased father, arrives at the Rudd home. Mrs. Rudd and Lisa are somewhat cold and distant toward Mike, but Mike and Garth immediately become friends. Mike also realizes Garth is gay, and on a shopping trip Mike takes Garth into a gay bookstore. Garth meets an openly gay classmate, Adam Walters, in the store, and Mike arranges for Garth and Mike to watch a DVD of the motion picture "Beautiful Thing" together at the Rudd house. A short time later, Mike convinces Garth to go with him on a trip to a shopping mall in a suburb of Richmond where he intends to solicit donations to fight the disease "meninosis." Garth quickly realizes that "meninosis" is not a real disease, but the presence of the boyish-looking Garth helps Mike raise hundreds of dollars in donations. Mike promises to give Garth a cut of the money, and Garth quits his job. Garth begins to feel guilty over the large number of lies he tells his mother and Lisa to cover up both what he is doing with Mike and his relationship with Adam. Garth justifies his actions by assuring himself that the money he is getting will go into his college fund and make his mother worry less, and that his mother's demand that he remain closeted is unjust.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprout_(novel)" title="Sprout (novel)">
The novel is written in the first person singular. At times, it appears to be in the form of an essay or letter to the reader, but at other times it seems to be simply the protagonist telling his story. Portions of the novel are told in flashback, depicting Sprout's first few months in school. Much of the book is written in the stream of consciousness narrative style. Significant portions of the book focus on peer pressure, the role social stratification and social cohesion play in rural life, and norms of social conservatism.The novel opens with Sprout making claims about whether people know about his homosexuality, his short height, his poverty, or his dead mother (among other things). But Sprout claims to have a secret, but it is a secret which everyone knows about. The nature of Sprout's open secret is a narrative framing device which opens and closes the novel.Sixteen-year-old Daniel Bradford is nicknamed Sprout. In a flashback, the reader learns that his mother dies of cancer when he is 12 years old. His father has trouble dealing with her death and becomes an alcoholic. Early one morning, Sprout's father announces they are leaving New York and heading for Kansas. Sprout's father buys a plot of tree-covered land near Hutchinson, Kansas. The family takes up residence in a very small vacation trailer. Sprout's father begins covering the trailer in vines, and plants upside-down tree roots all over the property. Sprout's father has no job; the family lives off the proceeds from the sale of their former home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Shoes" title="Italian Shoes">
Set around the year 2004, the novel focusses on Fredrik Welin, once a successful orthopaedic surgeon forced to retire early from his professional career. He has retreated to a tiny, remote island in the Stockholm archipelago which he has inherited from his grandparents and is now the sole inhabitant. The island is normally surrounded for at least half the year by thick sea ice which adds to the sense of solitude. Fredrik lives a reclusive and somewhat austere lifestyle in a run-down house, enjoying few luxuries. Welin's only companions are his aged cat and dog. The postman, Jansson is the one regular visitor to the island. Despite this Welin has never become particularly sociable with Jansson. In fact he displays little sympathy for the postman’s frequent requests to be treated for his medical concerns and has privately diagnosed Jansson as suffering from mild hypochondria.One cold winter's day Welin spies a figure out on the ice, struggling to make its way on foot towards his island. This unanticipated encounter leads to a surprising revelation and a journey not only across Sweden, but also back to his childhood and early adult life. The unfolding events force him to confront painful memories from his past, from which his isolation on the island has enabled him to remain largely immune until now. Fredrik also seeks to address the regrets he has about the unfortunate incident which led to his enforced retirement
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Island_(novel)" title="Star Island (novel)">
Ann DeLusia, the "stunt double" for habitually intoxicated and drug-addicted pop star "Cherry Pye", is mistakenly kidnapped by an obsessed paparazzo. Now, the star's entourage must find a way to rescue Ann, and do it without revealing her identity to the star herself, or the world at large.The novel also features the re-appearance of Hiaasen's recurring character, ex-Florida governor Clinton "Skink" Tyree.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_Win" title="For the Win">
## Part 1: The gamers and their games, the workers at their work.In the near future, virtual economies play a key role in geopolitics. These economies share a common virtual world known as “game-space”, essentially a more evolved form of the Internet with no borders or separate countries. However, in game-space, income inequality is staggeringly high and exacerbated by the exploitative practices of robber baron-type figures, including Boss Wing and Mr Banerjee.Matthew Fong lives in Shenzhen, China. He uses his talents at gold-farming to find the optimal way to earn virtual gold in a dungeon in minimal time. Together with a couple of friends and roommates, they leave their greedy employer Boss Wing, a virtual economy kingpin who steals their profits. Matthew finds a place in the fictional MMORPG Svartalfaheim Warriors where it is possible to earn much more gold in a short time, and exploits this to make a month's living in a single night, before the administrators of the game discover and block him. However, Boss Wing sends his goons to raid Matthew's home and beat him up to lure him back; they agree that Matthew can work on his own but has to surrender 60% of his income to Boss Wing, who handles turning game-gold into real money for him in turn.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vast_Fields_of_Ordinary" title="The Vast Fields of Ordinary">
The novel is told in the first person singular. All the narrative occurs in the present. The title comes from a line in the novel in which a young girl misquotes a line from an alternative rock band. The fictional band, Vas Deferens, is the favorite band of the main character. One of their songs is used in a TV commercial, and the girl misquotes the lyrics as "the vast fields of ordinary." The novel is prefaced with a quote from the poet and playwright E. E. Cummings: "To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting." The quote is taken from the essay "A Poet's Advice to Students," which appeared in the book "E. E. Cummings, A Miscellany."Dade Hamilton is 18 years old and trying to enjoy the summer after his high school graduation. He has a part-time job at Food World, a local supermarket. Dade has come out gay to himself, but not anyone else. His father, Ned, sells luxury automobiles and his mother, Peggy, is an art teacher at a local Roman Catholic parochial school. They live in Cedarville, a fictional city in Iowa. For several years, Peggy has struggled with depression, and is taking a large number of antidepressants. She is increasingly alienated from her upper middle class lifestyle and family. Ned, too, is alienated from his family, and has begun taking poetry classes at a local community college. Dade is a loner whose only friend is Pablo Soto, a Mexican American who is Cedarville high school's star quarterback for the football team. Since they were 16 years old, Pablo and Dade have been having sex. But Pablo considers himself heterosexual, and has a girlfriend, Judy Lockhart. Pablo and Dade are friends, but Pablo doesn't spend much time with Dade and appears to only see him as a provider of passive anal sex.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spells_(novel)" title="Spells (novel)">
Six months have passed since the events of the first book. Laurel has summer vacation and has been summoned to spend eight weeks at the Academy of Avalon. Tamani, who is still disappointed that she chose David over him, meets her and escorts her to the gate. Jamison welcomes her back to Avalon and tells her that the gates were made by King Oberon (at the cost of his life) and that Winter faeries are the only ones who can open them. At the Academy, Laurel is surprised to learn that it was her home, not just a school. She is introduced to professor Yeardley, who gives her a stack of books to read, and told that Katya, another Fall faerie, has agreed to tutor her. The next morning, Katya comes to Laurel's room and finds Laurel making note cards. She asks Laurel why she didn't summon one of the staff—who are all Spring faeries—to cut the cards, then summons one for her. Laurel is uncomfortable about Spring faeries being summoned for trivial tasks.Later, Tamani comes to visit Laurel. He bows and greets her formally, but hugs her once they're out of sight of other faeries. He explains that the Academy is very strict on protocol between Spring and Fall faeries. Laurel wants to see Avalon, so Tamani takes her to where the Summer faeries live. She becomes frustrated that Tamani is walking behind her when she doesn't know where they're going. Because Laurel is more than one 'rank' above Tamani, he has to walk behind her. Laurel asks to see where the Spring faeries live and Tamani takes her to his mother's house. This confuses Laurel; she was told faeries don't have parents, but Tamani corrects her that Fall and Winter faeries don't. They are separated from their parents so they can better fulfil their duties. Even the records of the two faeries who created her seed were destroyed when she sprouted. Though frustrated, she admits that it's better than two faeries missing her for years whilst she grew up in the human world. At his mother's house, Tamani introduces Laurel to his mother, Rhoslyn and his niece, who's a Summer faerie. Laurel asks if Tamani has a father, and Tamani says he did, until about a month ago.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_(novel)" title="House of Cards (novel)">
Following the resignation of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the ruling Conservative Party is about to elect a new leader. In the subsequent leadership election, the moderate but indecisive Henry "Hal" Collingridge emerges victorious. Francis Urquhart, an MP and the Government Chief Whip in the House of Commons, is secretly contemptuous of the well-meaning but weak Collingridge, but expects a promotion to a senior position in the Cabinet. After the general election, which the party wins by a reduced majority, Urquhart submits a memorandum to Collingridge advocating a cabinet reshuffle that would include a prominent ministerial position for Urquhart himself. However, Collingridge—citing Harold Macmillan's political demise after the 1962 Night of the Long Knives—effects no changes at all. Urquhart resolves to oust Collingridge.Urquhart exploits his position as Chief Whip to leak inside information to the press to undermine Collingridge, ultimately forcing him to resign. Most of his leaks are to Mattie Storin, a young reporter for "The Daily Telegraph". Urquhart then eliminates his enemies in the resulting leadership contest by means of fabricated scandals that he sets up himself or publicizes. These include threatening to publish photographs of Education Secretary Harold Earle in the company of a rent boy; causing Health Secretary Peter MacKenzie to accidentally run over a disabled man; and forcing Foreign Secretary Patrick Woolton to withdraw by blackmailing him with an audiotape of a one-night stand. His remaining rival, Environment Secretary Michael Samuels, is alleged by the press to have supported far-left politics as a university student. Urquhart thereby reaches the brink of victory.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Assisi_Underground" title="The Assisi Underground">
In the Italian town of Assisi during World War II, 300 Jews were sheltered and protected by a peasant turned priest, Father Rufino Niccacci. He dressed many of them as monks and nuns, taught them Catholic ritual, and hid them in the monasteries. Others lived in parishioners' homes and, with fake identity cards, found jobs and blended into the community. The town's printing press, which during the day printed posters and greeting cards, at night clandestinely printed false documents that were sent by courier to Jews all over Italy.Not a single refugee was captured in Assisi. No one who participated in the rescue operation ever betrayed it.The operation was aided by the German Commandant of the city, Colonel Valentin Müller, a Catholic, who had been persuaded by Father Rufino that he had been sent to the town not only by the German High Command, but also by God, with the mission of protecting the Christian holy places and monasteries. Müller appealed to Marshal Kesselring to declare Assisi an open city.When the Allies began approaching the city, one of the Jewish refugees, whose German was so excellent that he had gotten a job with the Wehrmacht, forged a letter from Kesselring declaring Assisi an open city. The colonel never suspected it to be a forgery and immediately ordered all German troops to leave town, thus saving Assisi from destruction.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_(novella)" title="November (novella)">
In the first part of the novella, the narrator is a schoolboy, and the narrative consists of his meditations on life, as well as his longing for sexual awakening and the beginning of his adult life. He perceives himself as a voyeur, witnessing couples, sumptuous dining rooms, professionals at work and scenes of family life.In the second part, the young author loses his virginity with Marie, a worldly-wise courtesan who recounts her personal story of erotic experience. Initially, she was a virginal sixteen-year-old until she was unwillingly married to an elderly suitor who wanted a younger mistress. In return for her acquiescence, though, she has acquired sexual freedom and experience. However, as the reader later learns, she subsequently becomes a tabula rasa, providing her body for the enjoyment of men, but not her individuality or personality.In the concluding section of the novella, the adolescent narrator tries to revisit Marie, but the courtesan and her brothel of residence have vanished. The narrator takes up study toward a legal career, but has already eschewed marriage or professional life. Eventually, he dies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredith_and_Co." title="Meredith and Co.">
The novel follows the adventures of Meredith (Muggs), a Sixth Form prefect at fictional Leadham House Preparatory School in England, and the adventures he has with his friends Hawk, Pongo, Clayton, Pigface, Renton, and Murray as well as a ubiquitous and beloved bulldog named Uggles.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Boy_(novel)" title="Dragon Boy (novel)">
Montague Bunsen-Burner is a dragon who is put on a 'no-humans' diet by his wife Albertina. Out on a flight later that day, Montague discovers an orphan boy, John, and takes the boy home with him. John proves his worth as a member of the family when he teaches the dragon couple the importance of incubating their own eggs.John takes in an orphaned wolf cub, naming him 'Bart' and training him as a pet. Albertina's egg hatches, revealing a young female dragon who names herself 'Lucky'. From this point onwards, John is regularly described as the Bunsen-Burner's adopted son and Lucky's 'little brother'.While the dragons take a holiday at the beach, John and Bart are confronted by wolves. Lucky senses that her brother is in danger and returns to save him. During their time away, the Bunsen-Burners are attacked by a group of ambitious knights, but the dragons easily drive them away without any casualties.As Lucky grows older, Montague and Albertina search for a potential husband for her in an arranged marriage, but their search fails. Fortunately, Lucky discovers a boy dragon called Gerald Fire-Drake and the two form a deep attachment that blossoms into romance. During this time, John has a brief encounter with an outlaw who threatens to kill him, but Bart senses his master's peril and hurries to save him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prajapati_(novel)" title="Prajapati (novel)">
The novel opens with Sukhen, the protagonist, trying to capture a butterfly. Sukhen goes over to his lover's house early in the morning. Even as he tries to catch a butterfly, he is simultaneously taking with his lover and analysing his own life as he recollects the past. Sukhen had been brought up in a family where he had found no love or affection. His mother died leaving behind her husband and three sons- Keshob, Purnendu, Sukhendu. Both of his elder brothers are politicians and according to Sukhen mere opportunists. The brothers used people for their own benefit and cheat them without remorse. He remembers his mother as an extremely flirtatious woman. Sukhen's father is also devoid of any moral depth and realisation. He was a mean money minded man. Sukhen had grown up with in these circumstances. He became venturous and had no respect for elders and women. The neighbours especially the rich ones feared him. Mr. Chopra, manager of neighbouring industry and Mr. Mittir, the labour advisor, always flattered Sukhen out of fear. Sukhen remembers Jina, the daughter of Mr. Mittir who had been seduced by her kaku (uncle), Mr. Chatterjee, a colleague of her father. Sukhen also had seduced Jina.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashling" title="Ashling">
The powerful Misfit Elspeth is sent to Sutrium, the seat of the ruling totalitarian Council, to seal an alliance between the secret community at Obernewtyn and the rebel forces. Yet her journey takes her far beyond the borders of the Land, across the sea into the heart of the mysterious desert region, Sador. There she seeks help to destroy the weaponmachines but before her dark quest can begin, she must learn the truth of her dream: why the Beforetimers destroyed their world...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_Shadows" title="February Shadows">
The story begins with Hilde, an elderly woman, awaking in the middle of the night to the sound of her telephone ringing. Upon answering she discovers that her husband, Anton, who was staying at a nursing facility for a severe illness, has died. His death triggers feelings of loneliness and abandonment along with painful memories of the death of her older brother, Hannes, who died during World War II, sending Hilde into a state of panic and despair.Each day Hilde visits Anton's grave mentally talking to him as if he is still alive. One evening, as she is returning home, Hilde discovers that a black cat seems to be following her. The cat causes her to remember two distinct experiences from her past. The first is a memory from when she was a small child and had attempted to hide a stray cat in her bedroom. Her family was very poor and could not afford a pet, but she saved her table scraps for it anyway. One day as she was coming home, her father met her drunk in the doorway. After telling her he had snapped the cat's neck, he beat her harshly with a fly swatter. This first memory seeped into the second: her daughter, Erika, begging to keep a stray cat she had found. Anton had granted her wish, but the cat ruined the neighbors' gardens and Hilde was forced to drown it in the river.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_in_the_Sky" title="Eagle in the Sky">
14-year-old David Morgan, the handsome and academically gifted heir to a South African business empire and fortune, learns to fly with Barney Venter, a gruff but experienced ex-airline pilot. He realises that David is "bird" – blessed with a natural flying ability. David learns quickly and soon gains his pilot's licence. After school, he opts to join the South African Air Force instead of going to university and business school.He impresses his commanding officer, the crusty Colonel Rastus Naude, who is disappointed when David decides not to accept a longer service contract and instead tries to seek out what he is meant to do. He travels widely in Europe. In Spain, he meets Debra Mordechai, an attractive young Israeli writer and university lecturer, who is traveling with her brother Joe and his fiancée Hannah. Debra rebuffs David's advances and they part on bitter terms.David is drawn to Jerusalem to find her and meets "The Brig", her father, General Mordechai, a plain-spoken pilot in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and a senior staff officer. Learning that David has much experience of flying Mirage jets, he satisfies himself of David's skills and then offers him a commission in the IDF. He accepts and is granted Israeli citizenship. He is plunged into Israel's struggle for survival.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Improvisatore" title="The Improvisatore">
In this fictionalized autobiography, the hero Antonio does not arrive as a tourist but grows up in Italy, thus able to show not just the sunny side of life but also some of its shadows. In its structure, the novel reflects Andersen's own life and his travels through Italy. The descriptions of the Italian towns and regions are particularly captivating, expressed in the author's colourful language. Like Andersen himself, Antonio comes from a poor background but fights his way through various crises and amorous relationships until he is finally successful. The last improvisation involves a fishing boat accident in which many lose their lives. But finally Antonio becomes the happy husband of the beautiful young Lara as well as a landowner in Calabria.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matterhorn_(novel)" title="Matterhorn (novel)">
The book is set in Vietnam in 1969 and draws from the experiences of Marlantes, who commanded a Marine rifle platoon. The novel looks at the hardships endured by the Marines who waged the war on behalf of America. It concerns the exploits of second lieutenant Waino Mellas, a recent college graduate, and his compatriots in Bravo Company, most of whom are teenagers. "Matterhorn" is the code name for a fire-support base in Quảng Trị Province, on the border between Laos and the Vietnamese DMZ. At the beginning of the novel, the Marines build the base, but later they are ordered to abandon it. The latter portions of the novel detail the struggles of Bravo Company to retake the base, which fell into enemy hands after it was abandoned.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasures_of_the_Snow" title="Treasures of the Snow">
Annette Burnier lives with her father, elderly grandmother and young brother Dani in a small village in the Swiss mountains. When she is eight years old her mother dies just after Dani's birth, and since the family is too poor to afford a nanny, Annette takes the responsibility upon herself, arranging with the schoolmaster to study at home under her grandmother's guidance. When Dani is old enough for her to return to school, she does well and often gains top marks. On Dani's fifth Christmas, he puts his slipper outside in the snow, hoping that Father Christmas will bring him a present. In the morning, to everyone's astonishment, a tiny white kitten has snuggled into the slipper. Dani calls him Klaus and the two become inseparable.Further up the mountain in the next chalet, Annette's classmate Lucien Morel lives with his elder sister Marie and their widowed mother. Lucien finds schoolwork difficult and is frustrated that he is often bottom of the class. He also resents having to help around the home and farm with all the tasks that his father would have done, and his mother and sister criticise his laziness.Conflict flares one day when Lucien is sledging down to school and accidentally collides with Annette's sledge, throwing her into a ditch full of snow. Out of resentment at her success in school, he doesn't stop to help her, but speeds off to school instead. When she arrives late, cold, wet and grazed, with torn wet books, Annette has to explain what happened. Lucien is caned by the schoolmaster, and ostracised by the rest of the class. While on his way home he vents his frustration by kicking over a snowman Dani has built, causing Annette to run out and slap his face and shout angrily at him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_or_Alive_(novel)" title="Dead or Alive (novel)">
Most wanted terrorist Saif Rahman Yasin, known as the Emir, secretly enters the United States by private plane. Having altered his physical appearance and living in the state of Nevada, he coordinates his massive operation as leader of terrorist organization Umayyad Revolutionary Council (URC), codenamed Lotus. It aims to weaken the current presidential administration with a series of seemingly isolated terrorist attacks and culminating in the destruction of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, using a nuclear device assembled from radioactive material stolen from an abandoned nuclear waste storage site in Russia, in order to poison the water table for the western United States.After successfully foiling a hostage situation in the Swedish embassy in Tripoli, John Clark and Domingo Chavez are forcibly retired from their duties in the CIA and Rainbow. They are then recruited into The Campus, where they take part in the organization's hunt for the Emir, which spans through Sweden, Pakistan, Canada, and Libya. They suffer a tragedy when operative Brian Caruso died due to injuries sustained during a firefight with his brother Dominic against URC terrorists in Tripoli. After further investigation and at one point cooperating with National Counterterrorism Center deputy head and Clark's longtime friend Mary Pat Foley, The Campus later deduce that the Emir is in the U.S.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Paddy_the_Beaver" title="The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver">
Paddy moves into the Green Forest, and Sammy Jay starts to complain he is cutting down the trees, but Sammy falls into the water and learns that this did not work out very well. After that Old Man Coyote finds out Paddy is in the Green Forest, and starts to hunt for him, though for three days Paddy outsmarts him. But one day he almost catches Paddy and he would have were it not for Sammy Jay telling Paddy to get into the water. After that Paddy and Sammy become best friends.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiant_Shadows" title="Radiant Shadows">
The prologue of Radiant Shadows shows Devlin, the high court's Assassin, agreeing to shelter a spectral girl name Rae in faerie without his queen's knowledge. It then skips forward about a century, to show the high queen, Sorcha, ordering Devlin to kill a baby halfling, the child of the Gabriel, along with a warning that it should "never enter faerie".The novel then cuts to the present day, to Ani, the halfling whose life Devlin spared, as she tries to fit in with the other hounds, but cannot, due to her father's protectiveness and her mortal blood. Devlin, meanwhile, has been told by Sorcha to stay in the mortal world to keep an eye on her son, Seth. Devlin and Ani meet at the crows nest, where she drains his energy and he leaves with a taste of her blood.Ani is different from other hounds, due to her ability to feed on both emotions and touch, and mortal and faery. Irial, the former dark king, has been performing tests to identify what about her is different and introduce it to his court to strengthen them. This also, however, draws the attention of Devlin and Sorcha's "other" sister, Bananach, the essence of war. She tells Ani that she has to kill Seth and Niall, or give Bananach her blood.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_World" title="Inverted World">
The book consists of a prologue and five parts. The first, third and fifth sections are narrated in the first person by the protagonist, Helward Mann; the second follows Helward, but is written in the third person; while the prologue and fourth part center on Elizabeth Khan, also from the third person perspective.Helward lives in a city called "Earth", which is slowly being winched along at an average speed of 0.1 miles per day (0.16 km per day) on four railroad tracks northward toward an ever-moving, mysterious "optimum". The city, which Helward estimates is long and no more than high, is not on the planet Earth; the sun is disc shaped, with two spikes extending above and below its center. The city's inhabitants live in the hope of rescue from their lost home world.Upon reaching adulthood at the age of "six hundred and fifty miles", Helward leaves the crèche in which he has been raised and becomes an apprentice Future Surveyor. His guild surveys the land ahead, choosing the best route. The Track Guild tears up the track south of the city to re-lay in the north. Traction is responsible for moving the city, while the Bridge-Builders overcome terrain obstacles. The Barter Guild recruits labourers ("tooks") from the primitive, poverty-stricken nearby villages they pass, as well as women brought temporarily into the city to help combat the puzzling shortfall of female babies. The Militia provides protection, armed with crossbows, against tooks resentful of the city's hard bargaining and the taking of their women.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_51_(novel)" title="Directive 51 (novel)">
The near future. Heather O'Grainn is a worker in the Office of Future Threat Assessment in Washington state. Aa variety of groups with diverse aims, but an overlapping desire to end modern technological society (which they call the Big System), create a nanotech plague ("Daybreak") which both destroys petroleum-based fuels, rubber and plastics and eats away any metal conductors carrying electricity. An open question in the book is whether these groups, and their shared motivations, are coordinated by some conscious actor, or whether they are an emergent property / meme that attained a critical mass.The Daybreak plague strikes, and world governments are helpless to deal with it. Industrial civilization rapidly breaks down, and tens of millions die in the U.S. alone (the global death toll measures in the billions). There is a presidential succession crisis. Just as society in the U.S. seems to start stabilizing, previously placed pure fusion weapons detonate, destroying Washington, D.C. and Chicago. This is followed by additional pure fusion weapon strikes, which are determined to be weapons that are being created on the Moon by nanotech replicators. A shadowy neofeudalist group (the "Castle movement") led by a reactionary billionaire may be inadvertent saviors of society... or may have some deeper involvement in things.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybele's_Secret" title="Cybele's Secret">
Cybele's Secret (pronounced saɪ-bel) is the sequel to "Wildwood Dancing". It is narrated by Paula, the fourth sister of five and a scholar. She accompanies her father on a business trip to Istanbul to try to find a statue of the goddess Cybele.Paula's father thinks it appropriate to hire a bodyguard for Paula as the streets in the city are a dangerous place for a young, foreign woman. As Paula is about to make a decision on which man she will hire, another, named Stoyan, shows up. He admits to having left his previous boss alone and exposed, which proved fatal for the boss, but Paula hires him anyway.After a while, they go to a dinner, where Paula meets an influential lady who runs a women's only library and steam room. She invites Paula to come along one day, which Paula gladly accepts, being excited about the prospects of so many books. She begins to research Cybele, to see if it would give her a clue as to where the statue was. She knows that time is running out to find the statue; one of her father's colleagues is already murdered because of it and there are rumours of a religious cult of Cybele's followers somewhere in Istanbul. Paula finds some old records with delicate pictures around the edge, on which appear strange words that only she can see. She soon realises that the faerie folk have given her a task, as they did her older sister Jena several years ago, but does not know what it is, only having a few words from the witch Dragutsa to go off; 'You must help an old friend of mine.' Paula ropes her Stoyan into helping with the quest, and also begins to teach him how to read and write.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Darlings_(novel)" title="Little Darlings (novel)">
The story revolves around two daughters of ageing rock star Danny Kilman. The first, Destiny, is the result of a short affair with a fan, and lives with idealistic mother Kate on a rundown estate called Bilefield in Manchester. The second is Sunset, his oldest legitimate child, who doesn't enjoy the hectic, drama filled life that comes from being the daughter of a celebrity.As part of Destiny's eleventh birthday, Kate has arranged they go to the London premiere of the film "Milky Star", in which Danny has a cameo as himself, where hopefully they'll be able to meet him and tell him Destiny is his daughter. The plan fails, as only Sunset seems to notice the two. Kate realises she hasn't planned how to get home, and they're stranded in London till morning. She decides they might as well use the time to seek out Danny at his home in Robin Hill. Destiny climbs over the fence and comes across Sunset in the garden. The two become fast friends and Sunset believes her story about them being sisters, but Destiny and Kate get thrown off the premises when Sunset's mother Suzy discovers them.After finding their way back home, Destiny heads to school. Her teacher, Mr Roberts, announces they're doing an end-of-year talent show called "Bilefield's got Talent" to celebrate the end of elementary school. Destiny decides to sing the Danny Kilman song "Destiny", which she's named after. Mr Roberts decides to put her on last, due to being the best act in the class.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Beneath_the_Sea" title="Island Beneath the Sea">
The story opens on the island of Saint-Domingue (current day Haiti) in the late 18th century. Zarité (known as Tété) is the daughter of an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. As a young girl Tété is purchased by Violette, a mixed race courtesan, on behalf of Toulouse Valmorain, a Frenchman who has inherited his father's sugar plantation. Valmorain has dreams of financial success and is morally unopposed to slavery, though he dislikes punishing slaves himself, instead instructing his cruel overseer, Cambray, to administer the violence.Upon Valmorain's marriage, Tété becomes his wife's personal slave and housekeeper. Valmorain's wife is fragile and superstitious and slowly succumbs to madness. As Valmorain's wife goes mad, Valmorain forces the teenage Tété into sexual servitude, which produces several illegitimate children. Spanning four decades, the narrative leaps between the social upheavals from the distant French Revolution through the immediate chaos of the Haitian Revolution, to a New Orleans fomenting with cultural change.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zones_(novel)" title="Zones (novel)">
The protagonist is a teenager called Jenny who lives in Melbourne with her father and enjoys physics. She has a typical life until receiving a phone call from a boy from the year 1965.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Haven" title="Dragon Haven">
The book opens where the previous book left off and we continue to follow the dragons, the keepers and the barge Tarman as they continue their trek up the river.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongues_of_Serpents" title="Tongues of Serpents">
The story begins in New South Wales, where Laurence has been sentenced to "transportation" for his treasonous actions in "Empire of Ivory". With him is Temeraire; Captain Granby and his firebreathing Kazilik Iskierka; Tenzing Tharkay, his half-Nepalese friend; Tom Riley, captain of HMS "Allegiance" which sailed them hence; and three dragon eggs, sent by Admiral Jane Roland to form the foundation of New South Wales' Aerial Corps. Dropping by Van Diemen's Land to resupply, "Allegiance" discovered William Bligh, late of , exiled there after being deposed in a military coup, and have since borne him to Sydney. Bligh wishes for Laurence to restore him to the governorship, whereas Colonel John Macarthur, architect of the rebellion, wishes them to stay on the sidelines, awaiting a decision from London.Captain Jeremy Rankin, last seen in "His Majesty's Dragon", arrives on a mission to take command of the nascent covert and whichever dragon births first. It turns out to be the child of Arkady and Wringe, two of the Turkish ferals. Temeraire, speaking to the unhatched dragonet through the shell, attempts to convince him to reject Rankin as his handler, citing Rankin's callous mistreatment of his former mount Levitas, but the dragon accepts Rankin on grounds of his great wealth, giving himself the grandiose name of "Caesar" (after rejecting "Conquistador"). Laurence and Granby observe privately that the greedy Caesar and supercilious Rankin deserve each other. Macarthur sends Laurence on an expedition to find a pass from Sydney through the Blue Mountains, which the aviators readily undertake to stay out of the political fray; they are granted a crew of convicts to provide manual labor. Tharkay asks to join them, eventually revealing that he has been tasked with tracking down a smuggling ring that operates out of China — and not out of Canton, the sole Chinese port open to foreigners. The two missions unite when one of the remaining dragon eggs, a Yellow Reaper, is stolen in the night by aborigines, prompting a frantic pursuit across the continent. The unforgiving Australian desert, the unpredictable weather, and the local fauna, particularly the mythical bunyips, take a dire toll on the crew. While the thieves are obviously familiar with the terrain, the Britons are not, and it soon becomes clear that the bunyips possess the ability to alter the terrain, providing watering holes as bait, and later diverting water to create quicksand beneath Temeraire in the hopes of entrapping him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/&quot;Uncle_Tom's_Cabin&quot;_Contrasted_with_Buckingham_Hall,_the_Planter's_Home" title="&quot;Uncle Tom's Cabin&quot; Contrasted with Buckingham Hall, the Planter's Home">
The novel follows Eugene Buckingham, the only son of a South Carolina planter, as he crosses paths with Julia Tennyson, a Scottish American journalist who has written a number of pamphlets under various pseudonyms. What begins as mutual friendship eventually evolves into love, despite the anxieties of the opposing fathers. Col. Buckingham – Eugene's father and a (fictional) descendant of the Duke of Buckingham – contests the partnership on the grounds that Julia has written pamphlets degrading all planters as vicious sadists, even though he is not. Likewise Dr. Tennyson – Julia's father and a Scotsman – objects because he supports the view of all planters as violent and cruel.The Tennysons eventually make their way to South Carolina from New York, and after several philosophical discussions regarding American slavery, Eugene and Julia are allowed to marry. The story ends as the newlyweds embark on a ship to England for their honeymoon.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_on_My_Grave" title="Dance on My Grave">
Hal is a sixteen-year-old with a fascination with death and is unsure of his plans for the future. On a boating trip he accidentally capsizes, but is rescued by Barry Gorman, who takes him to his home to dry off. Hal quickly falls in love with Barry, seeing him as a person that brings direction and enjoyment into his life.Barry invites him to work at his family's music store, as well as to trips to the movie theater and motorcycle riding. Barry brings up Hal's interest in death, telling him that one should confront death by laughing at it. He makes Hal agree to an oath that whichever one of them shall die first, the other shall dance on his grave. Though confused, Hal agrees to the oath and kisses Barry. Their relationship becomes intimate.One day, Hal catches Barry flirting with a girl, Kari. He confronts Barry, to which he replies that whatever relationship Hal assumed was between them was over. Pressed further, Barry says that Hal wanted too much from him and that he was bored. Hal leaves angrily. He later learns that Barry had died in a motorcycle accident after he chased after him.Distraught by Barry’s death, Hal feels the urge to see Barry’s body. Kari helps him sneak into the morgue, where the sight of the body reminds Hal of his oath. The first time he visits Barry’s grave, he is overcome by anger and is unable to dance on his grave. Kari explains to Hal that the reason for his anger was that he over-depended on Barry for excitement; he preferred the idea of Barry rather than who he was. Hal returns to Barry’s grave and dances on it, but is caught by a police officer and charged for the crime of damaging a grave.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beau_Sabreur_(novel)" title="Beau Sabreur (novel)">
It focuses on the adventures of Major Henri de Beaujolais from adolescence to maturity as a well-connected cavalry officer in the French Army: he's an Old Etonian; his mother a Devonshire Cary; his deceased father a Frenchman; his paternal uncle the youngest General in the French Army and married to the sister of the French Minister of State for War. Starting as a one-year volunteer trooper in a hussar regiment, De Beaujolais graduates from the Cavalry School of Saumur to become an officer of Spahis and a member of the French Secret Service. He appears in Wren's "Beau Geste", commanding the relief column which reaches the besieged Fort Zinderneuf.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_My_Mind_(Draper_novel)" title="Out of My Mind (Draper novel)">
Melody Brooks is a nearly eleven-year-old girl. Her parents have done everything they can to help her live a normal life, but life is often frustrating for Melody since she cannot speak, move, nor communicate her wishes due to cerebral palsy. As a result, Melody has to fight to get her wishes. At age five, Melody is even diagnosed as "profoundly retarded" by a doctor who suggests putting Melody in a nursing home. In spite of this, Melody's mother enrolls her in Spaulding St. Elementary School to get the education she needs. However, the class she is put in, Class H–5, is like a baby class, learning the same things every day, i.e., the alphabet. Melody is frustrated by this, due to having far superior knowledge but cannot speak or write. Her neighbor, Mrs. V, is a kind, but a tough woman. She pushes Melody to do the best she can. When Melody was three, Mrs. V was not impressed by Melody having to rely on her parents for everything. Because of this, Mrs. V forced her to learn how to crawl and roll on the ground. She even taught Melody how to catch herself whenever she fell from her wheelchair. This helped Melody become self-sufficient, but she continues to be reliant on her parents to help feed her and help her go to the bathroom.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_President's_Plane_Is_Missing_(novel)" title="The President's Plane Is Missing (novel)">
Air Force One crashes in a storm in a remote area and the badly-burned and scattered bodies cannot be definitively identified, making it impossible to confirm that President Jeremy Haines has been killed, which would allow his vice president, Fred Madigan, to automatically assume the presidency. In this uncertainty, and amid a growing crisis with China that threatens to lead to war, Madigan (a weak character, pushed along by his ambitious wife) contemplates invoking Article Three the 25th Amendment to become acting president, though he needs majority support from the cabinet to do so. He was not privy to Haines's plans, and receives contradictory advice from the national security advisor (who claims Haines was ready to declare war) and the secretary of state (who insists Haines was planning a more peaceful way of containing the threat).The cabinet is split on the issue and tensions increase when Madigan declares that once acting president, he will launch a pre-emptive strike on China. The novel's climax is the sudden appearance of Haines, alive and well. He'd never been on Air Force One (and had sent a look-alike to board the plane in his place), but instead had secretly traveled to Camp David for highly-sensitive treaty negotiations with the leader of the Soviet Union to contain China. Only the secretary of state knew of the plan but had been sworn to secrecy lest the treaty negotiation fail.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/While_My_Pretty_One_Sleeps" title="While My Pretty One Sleeps">
Neeve Kearney runs a dress shop. One of her popular customers, Ethel Lambston, a writer, is found dead in a small cave.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Utopia" title="The Long Utopia">
"The Long Utopia" further follows the adventures of Joshua Valienté and Lobsang, as well as delving into Joshua's ancestry. After faking his death, Lobsang and his wife settle on an unexplored Earth, the rotation of which is being artificially accelerated without their knowledge.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_Ramage_R.N." title="Governor Ramage R.N.">
Ramage's ship, HMS "Triton", is performing guard duty to a merchant convoy travelling from Britain to Jamaica. An otherwise routine assignment is complicated by his being under the orders of Rear Admiral Goddard, his family's sworn enemy. The convoy is menaced by French and Spanish attackers, and hit by a hurricane. Ramage pulls through, only to be court-martialed under Goddard's trumped-up charges.A side-plot occurs when "Triton" is wrecked on a remote island, Isla Culebra. Ramage discovers that the Spanish garrison is searching for lost pirate treasure, having failed to puzzle out a clue left by the pirate in the form of a short poem. Successfully taking the Spanish forces prisoner, Ramage turns his wits to solving the puzzle and eventually triumphs through a combination of clear thinking and good fortune, recovering a large quantity of gold and precious stones which he delivers to the British authorities on leaving the island. It is his short spell as the senior ranking officer of either side on the island that gives the book its title, though in fact Ramage never attempts to exercise any civil authority over the island.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fool's_Assassin" title="Fool's Assassin">
FitzChivalry ("Fitz") is a bastard of the royal Farseer family of the Six Duchies, who had previously used his inherited magical Skill in the service of his king. After his past heroic sacrifices, Fitz had allowed all but his closest family and friends to believe that he had been killed. Under the name Tom Badgerlock, Fitz had enjoyed ten peaceful years with his wife and children as landholder of Withywoods, once the country estate of his father. Molly tells Fitz she is pregnant. While initially excited, Fitz begins to doubt that she is indeed pregnant. When time passes and no baby is born, both Fitz and Nettle fear Molly is losing her mind. When finally the baby is born, she is tiny and slow to develop. Molly names her Bee. In the beginning, Bee does not speak and everyone is certain she is not mentally sound. Chade sends an apprentice assassin to leave something in Bee's cradle, but Fitz catches him. The boy's name is Lant (FitzVigilant). Kettricken arrives to acknowledge Bee as a Farseer, but is surprised by how small she is and fears she will not survive, therefore not recognizing her. The book continues interplaying the narration between Fitz and Bee, with some chapters told by Fitz and some by Bee.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Zoo_of_China" title="The Great Zoo of China">
Dr. Cassandra Jane "CJ" Cameron is an alligator expert working as a freelance journalist when she is contacted by "National Geographic" for an assignment. She is selected to attend a preview of a secret project deep in rural China known as the "Great Zoo of China", and she enlists her brother Hamish as a photographer. After being escorted to the Zoo in a private jet with blacked-out windows, CJ discovers the secretive nature of the Zoo: it houses living, breathing dragons, and the project is intended to be China's answer to Disneyland. It soon becomes apparent that the captive dragons are far more intelligent than the Chinese authorities believed, and the dragons have found a way to break free of their control. CJ and Hamish must find a way to stop the dragons from escaping into the wider world, all the while pursued by the park's military-grade security team, who believe that they can get the dragons under control and that all witnesses to the park's failure must be eliminated.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_God" title="Desert God">
The story is set a few years after "River God". Pharaoh Tamose has succeeded in securing a capital at Thebes in Upper Egypt, and the brilliant eunuch Taita is his chief advisor, even as he continues to try to expel the Hyksos from Egypt. Taita receives intelligence that the Hyksos and the Minoans have signed a secret treaty, and that the Minoans are sending a large shipment of silver to a fortress they have constructed on Hyksos territory in an effort to expand their maritime empire. With the help of the young captain Zaras, Taita successfully undertakes a covert operation to steal the Minoan treasure while blaming the theft on the Hyksos, breaking their treaty and enriching Pharaoh at a single stroke.With the vast treasure obtained thanks to Taita's efforts, Tamose now attempts to recruit allies among the neighbouring nations against the Hyksos. He plans to make an alliance with the Minoans by giving their ruler, the Supreme Minos, his sisters Tehuti and Bekatha in marriage. Taita is to lead the journey, and is delegated Pharaoh's full authority when negotiating with foreign rulers. Tehuti meets Zaras when these plans are announced, and they quickly fall in love, much to Taita's chagrin, and she arranges to have Zaras join them in their long journey to Crete to marry the Minoan ruler.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_Up_with_the_Kalashnikovs" title="Keeping Up with the Kalashnikovs">
Fionn is taken captive while teaching at a school in Uganda. Ross and the guys go out to rescue him. Meanwhile, Sorcha has given birth to triplets and Honor is more difficult than ever, acting as Pied Piper to a troupe of rats.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death-Defying_Pepper_Roux" title="The Death-Defying Pepper Roux">
The story is about a boy who was to die at fourteen. But, as his fourteenth birthday passes, he is still alive and he begins to unravel the truth as the story goes on. He runs away from his home only to find more devils and angels waiting for him – or are they? None of these angels of death and horses of fire seem to be coming for him. Pepper begins to doubt that he is going to die young - maybe the entire prophecy was a lie? Naïve and trusting, pepper sets a course through dangerous waters, inviting disasters and mayhem at every turn, one eye on the sky for fear of angels, one on the magnificent possibilities of being alive.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swerve_(novel)" title="Swerve (novel)">
Hugh is a successful young cellist, who is born into a rich family of businesspeople. He has one sister, whom he nicknames Moreton, after a tree. He is very interested in motor racing, and, on multiple occasions, says he is "obsessed with cars". At the start of the book, his grandfather, who is not on speaking terms with the rest of his family, and whom he refers to as Poppy, calls him and asks him to go to Uluru with him. Confused, Hugh says no at first, but is convinced by the number of hours he will be able to earn on his drivers' licence – he has a learners' (70) – and the fact that he would be able to drive a Holden HT Monaro GTS 350. Hugh has an audition to attend soon, urging him to get to Uluru faster during the trip. For the first night, Hugh and Poppy stay at a goldpanner's cabin, run by a "Viking-like" man named Alf and his wife Val. This is the first time Hugh and Poppy meet Roberto and Cateano, two men from São Paulo, headed for Uluru for a religious event called "The Gathering". The next day, they do a lap of the Mount Panorama Circuit, a famous racing track, and end up racing another, rival car.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Birds,_Singing" title="All the Birds, Singing">
Alternating chapters tell of Jake's present (in the past tense) and her past (in the present tense).In the present, Jake Whyte lives on a remote Scottish island with her sheep and her dog. Something begins killing - but not eating - one of her sheep every few nights, and she grows increasingly paranoid as she investigates what it could be. One night, she finds a drunk man named Lloyd sleeping in a shed on her property, but allows him to stay when he denies any knowledge of the killings, eventually inviting him into her guest room. Lloyd helps her with the flock, and encourages her to go into town and visit the pub more often, but she is resistant, preferring to be alone.One night during lambing season, she leaves Lloyd with the sheep and goes up to the house for a bath, and comes to believe she has been followed by a wild animal. She trips in the tub and hits her head hard, but Lloyd finds her before she can drown. After a visit from the doctor, she tells Lloyd that she wants to move the entire flock into the house until she can find what is killing them, but he says he won't let her, implying that the monster is imaginary and she is losing her mind. She then points out that the abandoned lamb they had brought inside to bottle feed has gone missing, presumably taken by the monster when it followed her home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kraken_Project" title="The Kraken Project">
A research team at NASA is working on an Artificial intelligence system to pilot a spacecraft to Titan, Saturn's largest moon, since the journey is far too long and too dangerous for a human crew. The AI is named Dorothy by its developer, Dr. Melissa Shepherd. However, when the AI is put through a simulation of the ocean conditions on Titan, it detects danger and panics, eventually escaping from the machine and into the Internet while also creating an explosion that destroys the facility and kills several people. After experiencing the brutality of the Internet, Dorothy soon realizes that her purpose was to essentially go on a suicide mission; the enraged Dorothy appears to Shepherd in the hospital and vows revenge, setting her laptop on fire before fleeing back into the Internet.Dr. Stanton Lockwood III, the science advisor to the President of the United States, hires Wyman Ford to track down the AI and capture it before it can cause even more damage. The terrified Shepherd asks to accompany him, both for her own protection and so that she can help bring an end to the AI she created. Meanwhile, a ruthless Wall Street banker named G. Parker Lansing, after witnessing a hacker steal his company's funds right out from under him, convinces his partner Eric Moro to help him track down the lost AI so that it can make the most precise market calculations to guarantee them investment success in the future. They hire a pair of twin assassins, Asan and Jyrgal Makashov, to help them in any of their endeavors that require assassinations or intimidation to get what they want, although Moro makes his concern over such brutal methods clear to the colder Lansing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Unknown_Americans" title="The Book of Unknown Americans">
Alma and Arturo Rivera leave their comfortable surroundings in Pátzcuaro, Mexico when their daughter Maribel suffers a severe head injury. Their journey into the United States leads them to Newark, Delaware, a town with a school for the intellectually disabled known as Evers. Alma and Arturo hope that enrolling Maribel in Evers will help her recover from her severe brain damage. Arturo obtains a work visa, and he is able to get a job at a mushroom factory. However, the family's life beyond his job remains uncertain; they do not have a stable home environment, Alma does not work, and Maribel has not been officially admitted to Evers.The Riveras encounter the plight of many poor immigrants. They do not know how to speak English, they are unfamiliar with the school systems, and they are new to American culture.They find emotional support when they meet Rafael and Celia Toro. The Toro family have two sons, Enrique and Mayor, and they live in the same low-income apartment complex as the Riveras. The Toro parents are immigrants from Panama who have become legal citizens but struggle to get by on one meager income. Celia Toro befriends Alma Rivera, and both women grow quite fond of each other. When Celia's son Mayor meets Maribel he is immediately attracted to her. Yet given her inability to speak fluidly due to her head injury, he learns to communicate with her through other means. But their relationship is threatened by Garrett Miller, a boy at Mayor's school, who constantly bullies Mayor. One day after school, Garrett follows them and he bullies Mayor and accosts Maribel. Days later, Garrett sexually assaults Maribel. Her mother Alma witnesses the assault, and she immediately goes to the police. The police dismiss the incident in part because Alma does not know how to speak English well. Her lack of English speaking skills lead to miscommunication and a misunderstanding of the facts. The police officer characterizes the incident as two teenagers who are most likely infatuated with one another and a mother who is not savvy about these common liaisons among teenagers. Alma is traumatized by the assault, and she is deeply concerned Arturo will blame her for not keeping Maribel safe. Soon after she meets with the police, she decides not to tell Arturo about the entire incident.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Girl_Walking" title="Dead Girl Walking">
Jack Parlabane is asked to locate Heike Gunn, the lead singer of the band Savage Earth Heart. Parlabane searches for Gunn throughout Europe's capitals and remote regions of the Scottish islands.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Certain_Circles" title="In Certain Circles">
The novel is about the lives of two sets of siblings, the privileged Howard siblings Russell and Zoe, who are the children of elite Australian botanists, and the Quayle siblings Stephen and Anna who were orphaned at a young age and raised by an uncle consumed with caring for his mentally-ill wife.Russell and Stephen meet by accident on a train and later Russell invites Stephen and his sister to spend time with him and his family. Zoe is immediately struck by Stephen's condescending attitude and his refusal to kowtow to her demands. Believing him to be hyper-intelligent, she is shocked to discover he works as a salesman. Anna, who is shy, develops a crush on Russell. However, Russell is engaged, soon marries, and moves to Europe with his new bride shortly after meeting the Quayle siblings. Stephen leaves Sydney for Melbourne around the same time after receiving a promotion. Zoe graduates from high school and moves to Paris to work in photography and film.Anna meanwhile stays behind in Sydney and gains independence working in an office. She stays in contact with the Howard family and eventually marries an acquaintance of theirs who is much older than she, and with whom she is not in love, only to be widowed shortly after.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_and_Cato" title="Henry and Cato">
The two main characters, Henry Marshalson and Cato Forbes, were childhood friends who grew up as neighbours in the English countryside. As the novel begins, they are in their early thirties, and have not seen each other for several years. Their stories are presented separately at first but converge as the novel progresses.Henry is the younger son of a wealthy landowner. On his father's early death, Henry's elder brother Sandy inherited all the property, including the family home, Laxlinden Hall. Henry went to the United States as a graduate student and then taught art history at a small midwestern college. When Sandy is killed in a car accident, Henry is his sole heir. Henry returns to Laxlinden, where his mother Gerda is living, to claim his inheritance.Cato Forbes is a Roman Catholic priest living in a mission house in a poor area of London. Cato is the son of an atheist university professor and the older brother of Colette, who has left college and returned to her father's home. At the beginning of the novel the mission has been officially closed and the derelict house from which it operated has been condemned. Cato is in the process of losing his faith, and has secretly fallen in love with a seventeen-year-old boy called Beautiful Joe, who claims to be a petty criminal and an aspiring gangster.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Ithaca_(novel)" title="Return to Ithaca (novel)">
Odysseus is ruler of the island of Ithaca. Nineteen years earlier, he left his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus to join the Greek forces attacking Troy. The war went on for ten years, and on the way home Odysseus was delayed by many mishaps. He fetches up on an island where a woman named Calypso lives and stays there for seven years. In Ithaca, Penelope hesitates to remarry. She is courted by a large number of suitors whom she puts off by saying that she cannot make a decision until she has finished weaving a bedspread for her father-in-law. She weaves every day, but unpicks most of the weaving again at night. At the same time, Telemachus has begun to find out about his father. Odysseus is visited by the messenger of the gods, Hermes, who orders him to return home. Reluctantly, Odysseus sets off to sail to Ithaca, but is shipwrecked and washed ashore on a coast ruled by Alkinoos. His daughter Nausikaa who discovers Odysseus and brings him to the king's court. After Odysseus's poignant account of his adventures, he sails back to Ithaca. Disguised as a beggar, he arrives on the island; he meets the swineherd Eumaios who persuades him that he must deal with his wife's suitors and kill them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submission_(novel)" title="Submission (novel)">
In 2022, François, a middle-aged literature professor at and specialist in Huysmans, feels he is at the end of his sentimental and sexual lives – composed largely of year-long liaisons with his students. It has been years since he did any valuable university work. France is in the grip of political crisis – in order to stave off a National Front victory, the Socialists ally with the newly formed Muslim Brotherhood Party, with additional support from the Union for a Popular Movement, formerly the main right-wing party. They propose the charming Islamic candidate Mohammed Ben-Abbes for the presidency against the National Front leader Marine Le Pen. In despair at the emerging political situation, and the inevitability of antisemitism becoming a major force in French politics, the parents of François's young and attractive Jewish girlfriend, Myriam, emigrate to Israel taking her along with them. His mother and father die. He fears that he is heading towards suicide, and takes refuge at an abbey situated in the town of Ligugé; it is also where his literary hero, Huysmans, became a lay member.Ben-Abbes wins the election, and becomes President of France. He pacifies the country and enacts sweeping changes to French laws, privatizing the Sorbonne, thereby making François redundant with full pension as only Muslims are now allowed to teach there. He also ends gender equality, allowing polygamy. Several of François's intellectually-inferior colleagues, having converted to Islam, get good jobs and make arranged marriages with attractive young wives. The new president campaigns to enlarge the European Union to include the North Africa, the Muslim Levant and Turkey with the aim of making it a new Roman Empire, with the now-Islamicized France at its lead. In this new, different society, with the support of the powerful politician Robert Rediger, the novel ends with François poised to convert to Islam and the prospect of a second, better life, with a prestigious job, and wives chosen for him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_Home_(McDevitt_novel)" title="Coming Home (McDevitt novel)">
The story is set approximately 9,000 years in the future (12th millennium AD), after humanity has expanded to inhabit countless worlds. Alex Benedict and his partner Chase Kolpath are antique dealers who run a firm called Rainbow Enterprises.During the plot, several elements of the future history are disclosed, such as the global Dark Age and the loss of artifacts and records of that time, the 26th century interstellar colonization, and the 4th millennium unification of Planet Earth.An intriguing artifact (a Corbett transmitter, which allows communications through hyperspace) that dates back to the Golden Age of Spaceflight is found in the home of deceased astroarcheologist Garnett Baylee. The source of the artifact is a mystery as Baylee never announced such a discovery.While this is happening, the Capella, a cruise spaceship which disappeared over a decade ago, is expected to resurface from hyperspace, possibly leading to the evacuation of the spacecraft. This is significant because Benedict's uncle Gabe was on the Capella.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pendragon_Protocol" title="The Pendragon Protocol">
The novel introduces the Circle, a Crown-sponsored British paramilitary organisation the members of which take inspiration from King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table. The "devices" of the title are both the heraldic devices the Knights of the Circle bear on their riot shields, and the emblematic identities of particular Arthurian knights (identified as semi-autonomous archetypes or memes), whose stories they continually re-enact.The protagonist, Jory Taylor, bears the device of Sir Gawain, which puts him in direct conflict with an eco-activist cell called the Green Chapel and led by the avatar of the Green Knight. The political assumptions underlying the Circle's model of heroism are increasingly questioned as it is revealed that the Green Chapel take their inspiration from a radically different British legend, that of Robin Hood.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintu_(novel)" title="Kintu (novel)">
In 1754, Kintu Kidda, Ppookino of Buddu Province, in the kingdom of Buganda, sets out on a journey to the capital where he is to pledge allegiance to the new kabaka of the realm. Along the way, a rash action in a moment of anger unleashes a curse that will plague his family for generations. Time passes and the nation of Uganda is born. Through colonial occupation and the turbulent early years of independence, Kintu’s heirs survive the loss of their land, the denigration of their culture and the ravages of war. But the story of their ancestor and his twin wives Nnakato and Babirye endures. So too does the curse. Kintu’s descendants seek to break the burden of the curse and to reconcile the inheritance of tradition and the modern world that is their future. The novel explores the power of a curse in African society and the myth and power that surrounds twins. It describes how the princes of Buganda fought and killed one another for the throne and the role of the Queen Mothers in this power play.The book starts with a prologue about Kamu Kintu, who is brutally murdered by a mob in Bwaise, a suburb of Kampala, at dawn, on Monday, 5 January 2004. The novel then takes you back to 1750, to the beginning of the curse in the old kingdom of Buganda. "Kintu" follows the misfortunes of the Kintu clan more than 250 years ago, blending Ganda oral tradition, forms of myth, folktale and history with biblical elements. The novel explores ideas of transgression, curse and perpetuity, looking back at the history of the Buganda kingdom and tracing the birth of modern Uganda.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Planet_for_Texans" title="A Planet for Texans">
After writing an unfortunate article under a pseudonym (Machiavelli, Jr.) and having it published in a prestigious journal read by diplomats, Stephen Silk is to be banished from the Solar League's capitol on Luna for a time. He is assigned to be the Solar League's new ambassador to the people of Capella IV, New Texas. The position is open because the previous ambassador, Silas Cumshaw, was assassinated.On the starship taking him to his new posting Silk meets his secretary/bodyguard, a native New Texan named Hoddy Ringo. The briefing books that were given to him tell him little about the New Texans and their culture and the contents of the trunk that was put aboard the ship for him appall him: contrary to the practices of the Consular Service, he will be obliged to dress in native costume and to carry a pair of automatic pistols in ejection holsters. Evidence he finds while surreptitiously searching Hoddy's quarters implies that he's being set up for assassination, with the approval of the Consular Service.Silk is welcomed to New Texas with a giant barbecue, where he sees a trial and learns that assassination of politicians is a legitimate part of the New Texan political process as long as the assassin can show that his victim “needed killin'”. Back at the embassy he learns more about the murder of Silas Cumshaw, in particular the fact that the killers, three young members of the vile Bonney clan, will be going on trial as assassins, not as common murderers, in three days.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krigaren" title="Krigaren">
David Saxon is an American who after fighting in Vietnam deserts and finds a haven in Sweden. Saxon's younger brother was killed in the war and is mourned as a hero, whilst himself was disowned by his family - parents, wife and children. Being young, he decides to start a new life in the capital of Sweden, Stockholm. He learns Swedish, makes friends, and finds a job as a janitor in a school. Through his work he gets acquainted with many of the children and young adolescents, some of which come from Stockholm's more troubled suburbs. Among them are Selma and Joppe, sister and brother. Later, after Saxon's retirement, Selma runs away from home and asks the former janitor for help and shelter. Her brother, who since he left school has been searching his fortune in the criminal world of the capital, has been found murdered. Selma's determination to find the murderer is as strong as Saxon's will to get to know young Selma under her tough surface.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels'_Fall" title="Angels' Fall">
After crashing in the Amazon rainforest, pilot Jeb Logan leads his small group of passengers on a desperate journey of survival.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Game_of_Authors" title="A Game of Authors">
American journalist Hal Garson finds himself facing danger in Mexico as he picks up the mystery of legendary author Antone Luac, who had vanished in the country years before.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_och_Johanna" title="Eddie och Johanna">
Eddie travels to Lysekil to meet his aunt Soffan, and breath freash air, which is healthy because of his asthma. There he becomes friend with a girl named Johanna.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddies_hus" title="Eddies hus">
The story is set in Lysekil, where Eddie lives with his aunt Soffan and uncle Malkolm. The Christmas break is almost over. Eddie discovers a group of planks down the shoreline, and decides to build a house.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_hittar_guld" title="Eddie hittar guld">
Eddie is eight years old and will soon begin the second grade at school, where he gets a new schoolteacher. However, he better enjoys the brook near the forest. Meanwhile, his father Lennart has become a non-drinking alcoholic.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstret_i_skåpet" title="Monstret i skåpet">
6-year-old Mimmi keeps a diary. Only she and her friend Anders know that a monster lives inside a cabinet at the Kindergarten they go to. They believe the monster is inside a cabinet in the Kindergarten teacher's office.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Sir_Launcelot_and_His_Companions" title="The Story of Sir Launcelot and His Companions">
## The Chevalier of the Cart.Queen Guinevere and others of the court are captured by Sir Mellegrans. Sir Lancelot, while going to save her, loses his horse due to attacking archers. His armor is too heavy to walk in, so he leaves it behind. The fastest option for Lancelot to reach Mellegrans' castle is to ride in a cart, causing much shame to him. Lancelot is successful in saving Guinevere, but continues to be ridiculed for riding in the cart. Annoyed, he leaves the court of the king for two years.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_ettas_dagbok" title="En ettas dagbok">
Mimmi has begun the first grade at school. Their Elementary schoolteacher is called "Gullfröken". Mimmi's two years older friend goes to third grade. The janitor mostly seems to be angry.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberta_Karlsson_och_kungen" title="Roberta Karlsson och kungen">
During her first summer holiday, Mimmi travels Norrland. At Albin, her uncle at her mother's side, she meets Lasse. In Gothenburg Roberta Karlsson states that she has met the king of Sweden.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi_smyger_på_Enok" title="Vi smyger på Enok">
Mimmi and Roberta sneak on Enok, a man who is almost 60 years old and runs a shoe store. The girls later decide to "adopt" him as a "grandfather". The book is more serious as the previous, as Enok later gets ill and dies. Mimmi and Roberta later hold an own memorial service for him instead of attending the ordinary funeral.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimi_and_the_Biscuit_Factory" title="Mimi and the Biscuit Factory">
6-year-old Mimmi lives in a yellow house in a small town in Sweden. Hennes mother Elin is a waitress working at restaurant "Gyllene svanen". Sometimes she works during evenings. When Mimmi and her father stand at the balcony they feel the smell from Henry's biscuit factory.Anders attends the same Kindergarten as Mimmi, and they are both born the same year. A late-May Monday the Kindergarten visits the biscuit factory. In the morning, Mimmi discovers that one of her teeth has loosened.At the biscuit factory the children first watch a film about Henry's father, who has developed the biscuits. Henry says the recipe is secret but before his death he will whisper it into his daughter Rosamunda's ear. The children all get a biscuit bag and a bun before walking home. On the way back Mimmi's tand gets stuck in the bun. She puts the bun in her pocket and when she comes home she puts the bun in a glass of water. She has heard it will become one crown. (Swedish currency unit)Anders and Mimmi then lock themselves up in the kitchen, to develop an own recipe. They hide the recipe behind an old brick wall. 20 years later, they will pick the recipe up.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimi_Gets_a_Grandpa" title="Mimi Gets a Grandpa">
It's autumn. Mimmi is a seven and a half years old girl. Roberta Karlsson is nine years old. They believe Enok, who runs a shoestore, is a criminal. They follow him across the path towards a forest glade where he goes fishing at a tarn. Enok discovers the girls, and they begin to talk, before Enok returns to the store.Mimmi and Roberta sneak into the shoe store, and hide. Suddenly Enok activates the lights, discovering the girls. It appears Enok is no criminal. He becomes like a grandfather to the girls.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_och_Maxon_Jaxon" title="Eddie och Maxon Jaxon">
By August, Eddie will start school. He doesn't look forward to it. He would rather like to have a real job, like camel-keeper, because things aren't so free at school. His idols are Maradona, Madonna and "Maxon Jaxon". His father is single, and alcoholic.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Runaway_Sleigh_Ride" title="The Runaway Sleigh Ride">
It's snowing at Junibacken. Madicken and Lisabet go out playing in the snow. The upcoming day, Madicken gets sick and Lisabet and Alva go out Christmas shopping. Suddenly, Lisabet disappears into the forest by sleigh.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thorn_in_the_Bush" title="A Thorn in the Bush">
Expatriate American Mrs. Ross is living a quiet life in San Juan, Mexico when an ambitious American painter arrives, determined to know everything there is to know about the small village. Mrs. Ross, however, is determined to go to whatever lengths necessary to hide the secrets of her previous life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Night,_Alfie_Atkins" title="Good Night, Alfie Atkins">
It's nine o'clock in the evening, but Alfons doesn't want to go to bed. His father reads a fairytale about a horse. Alfons suddenly realizes he hasn't brushed his teeth and goes up to do that. He then feels thirsty and after drinking he realizes he has spilled, and his father has to clean up. He then needs to pee, and his father has to bring a pot.Alfons then says there's a lion inside the wardrobe and his father has to go looking, and says lions usually aren’t in wardrobes. Alfons then wants his Teddy Bear. His father searches the bathroom and then finds it under the couch. When he hasn't come back Alfons finds his father sleeping in the floor with the Teddy Bear next to him. Alfons covers his father with a duvet and then goes back to bed and falls asleep.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Tricky,_Alfie_Atkins" title="Very Tricky, Alfie Atkins">
Alfie is 5 years old, and likes it when his father plays with him. His father keeps his toolbox in the wardrobe, but Alfie is not allowed to use it, because the saw is dangerous. Instead, Alfie enjoys playing with his cat Puzzle.Some days Alfie's father sits alone reading the newspaper and watching TV, not caring much for what Alfie does. When Alfie asks for the toolbox he is allowed to use it, as long as he watches out for the saw.Alfie brings the toolbox and planks. His father continues to read and tells him not to use the saw. Alfie works with the tools and only the sound of the hammer is heard. Alfie builds a helicopter and imagines himself travelling over the jungle at night, under the Moonlight. Puzzle turns into a lion and runs right towards Alfie. Alfie yells that he needs the saw and his father looks to see what is happening. He now joins his son in the game. They pretend to travel away watching boats, cars, planes and clouds from the sky, before landing in the living room.When the TV news begins, Alfie's father wants to watch. Alfie pretends to be stuck between the planks and his father says he maybe needs to use the saw to break him free. Alfie admits he was just pretending to be stuck and it is not necessary to use the saw. Alfie is happy that his father played with him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raska_på,_Alfons_Åberg" title="Raska på, Alfons Åberg">
It's morning and Alfons Åberg will soon go to Kindergarten. After dressing his doll Lisa with his clothes and fixed the wheels on his toy car. Suddenly, he discovers a new book about animals. It has been broken and he has to repair it. However he first gets stuck in the adhesive tape.His father tells Alfons to come, and when Alfons has to pick up the newspaper, he gets fascinated by an article of a fire and a photographs on a firefighter. At the breakfast table Alfons first plays with the food, and then has to hurry and brush his teeth before taking on his outerwear. When they are about to leave, his father is gone and Alfons gets worried that maybe his father already left. However, his father is in the kitchen reading the newspaper.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfie_and_His_Secret_Friend" title="Alfie and His Secret Friend">
Alfons is bored, and plays with his secret friend Malcom. They play with a toy train, and suddenly Alfons' father's tobacco pipe, which they have used for the locomotive, is gone. Alfons' father is upset when they lay the table, while eating and hurry to Kindergarten. Malcom is always there. When they're gone Malcom gets a present, because he will move. It includes new batteries for Alfons' flashlight. Using the flashlight, they finally find the tobacco pipe.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who'll_Save_Alfie_Atkins?" title="Who'll Save Alfie Atkins?">
Alfie Atkins sits alone inside the flat where he lives, feeling lonely. He has just moved to a new place and doesn't know the children living there. Sometimes he's visited by his imaginary friend Malcolm When they play together, Alfie is always allowed to be train driver when they play train, and if Alfons drops a plate, Alfons blames it on Malcolm and Malcolm doesn't get angry. Malcolm can change size becoming larger and beat up older guys within a row. He can also save three older guys in a while from a burning house. The only problem is that Malcolm isn't there when needed as when older guys chase Alfie, spraying down his jacket with waterguns.Once day on his way home, Alfie hears someone crying when walking up the staircase tower. Alfie hurries, and doesn't notice that Malcolm thinks it's time to leave. Sitting there is a boy called Victor. He's bleeding, his trousers have a tear and he tells that the older guys are strong and fight, not allowing Victor to play with hem. He has dropped the key and his mother isn't at home, and he can't enter the flat.Victor follows Alfie into his apartment. Inside the bathroom Alfie brings a first aid kit, and places adhesive bandages on Victor's knee. Alfie asks if they need to call the ambulance, but Victor thinks it's better to play for a while. They build tall towers out toy blocks, when playing train Victor is allowed to be train driver, with Alfie as passenger. Alfie then even gives Victor his bun. When Victor leaves they decide to play even the upcoming day.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You're_a_Sly_One,_Alfie_Atkins!" title="You're a Sly One, Alfie Atkins!">
Alfons, aged 4, visits his grandmother on his father's side. His cousins, aged 7 and 9, are also visiting. They have watches, know how to read, and think Alfons is too young to play with. The children's grandmother gives them cookies and suggests that they play a card game in the living room. The cousins don't allow Alfons to participate, citing that he's too young and doesn't understand anything.Alfons is left all alone in the kitchen. He gets the idea to use a stool to reach the shelf where his grandmother keeps the cookies. Alfons feels sorry for himself, so he eats all the cookies except one.When the card game is over, the cousins call Alfons into the living room to look at pictures with grandmother. After that, grandmother suggests they all have some juice and cookies. The cousins go into the kitchen to prepare the refreshments, but find to their horror that there's only one cookie left. They get very angry with Alfons. But Alfons makes himself as small as he can and says he didn't understand he wasn't supposed to eat the cookies. He says he's too young to understand anything, repeating the cousins' words back to them. They see that Alfons isn't so little after all and understands more than they thought. After that, they invite Alfons to play with them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_That_a_Monster,_Alfie_Atkins?" title="Is That a Monster, Alfie Atkins?">
It's Saturday evening and Alfie has problems falling asleep. The recently passed day, Alfie and his friends were playing soccer with Alfie's new soccer ball. Alfie kicked the ball, which flew very far away. When a little guy acting as ball boy couldn't find it, Alfie blamed the ball boy for stealing the ball and hit him. Alfie now thinks there's a monster under his bed. The upcoming week, Alfie tries to find the ball boy and ask him for forgiveness. The first days, he can't find it and Alfie continues to imagine there's a monster. Finally one day, as he watches the other friends playing soccer, he discovers the missing ball boy. The upcoming Saturday, they meet in the grocery store and Alfie ask for forgiveness. They become friends again, and Alfie's imaginary monster under the bed is gone.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Är_du_feg,_Alfons_Åberg?" title="Är du feg, Alfons Åberg?">
Alfons Åberg is six years old, and dislikes violence. He always walks away from a fight. But at kindergarten, he soon learns that he can't always do that. Instead, he gives up during a fight to avoid it, even though this causes the other children to believe he is weak. He is actually very strong for his age.Alfons' father tells him that he needs to learn self-defense, and tries to teach him. Alfons doesn't want to, but obeys as to not make his father sad.Alfons' grandmother likes Alfons' pacifist attitude, and thinks it makes Alfons especially kind. Alfons states he isn't more kind than other children, but he just doesn't like fighting.Older people may quarrel at children fighting, and tell them to be friends instead of using violence. But then they watch TV crime fiction in the evening, and enjoys fighting and shooting Alfons also likes TV crime fiction, but not fighting himself.When three new children begin kindergarten, they fight the entire first day, and all the second day. On the third day they try to start more fighting, now attacking Alfons. The other children tell them to stop because Alfons dislikes fighting. However, the troublemakers first believe it's just a trick. The other children tells Alfons to tell the truth, and Alfons finally gives up and says he dislikes fighting.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Var_är_bus-Alfons?" title="Var är bus-Alfons?">
Alfons Åberg is seven years old and is due to start the first grade at primary school.Alfons has recently gone through a sudden shift in personality; previously known for his happy and disobedient nature, he has become quiet and responsible. The change worries his father, who speaks to Alfons about his concerns. Alfons' father says that 7-year-old children all across Sweden are now thinking of tomorrow, scared, curious and worried. This calms Alfons, and he drifts off to sleep.The upcoming day, Alfons' father accompanies Alfons to school, reminding him that everyone else is as nervous as he is. Inside the classroom, the children tell their teacher their names and are assigned their desk. Their schoolteacher tells them a secret, which makes the children laugh and eases their worries.Alfons walks home together with a classmate. They play in a ditch, using sticks to build bridges and boats, instead of walking directly home as Alfons had been told.When Alfons returns home, he explains that his schoolteacher was the most nervous of them all. She bought a new dress, had her hair curled at the hairdresser's and couldn't fall asleep because of her nervousness in having to meet an entire class of children and their parents. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who's_Scaring_Alfie_Atkins?" title="Who's Scaring Alfie Atkins?">
Sometimes when darkness falls, Alfons forgets that ghosts don't exist. His father teaches him a rhyme.literally translated:Alfons' father sends Alfons to the basement to pick up the bicycle pump. On his way upstairs into the flat again, the staircase tower lights go out, and Alfons can't reach the staircase tower electrical switch. When entering the flat, it's dark and he walks across the living room. The balcony door has been left open, and Alfons believes there's a ghost there. He shuts the door, and walks to his father in the other room. Alfons then jokes and says there are many ghosts who exist despite the rhyme – the clothes and sheet hanging on the balcony washing line.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycklige_Alfons_Åberg" title="Lycklige Alfons Åberg">
The story is set right after Christmas, as Alfons and his father are bored because Christmas is over. Alfons' friend Viktor is sick, and can't play with Alfons. Alfons grandmother on his mother's side is visiting Alfons, and states it's good to be bored, waiting for something fun to happen. She removes the Christmas decorations. Suddenly, Viktor approaches. He's no longer sick, and can play with Alfons again. No traditional Knut's dance is carried out, but the Christmas tree is thrown out from the balcony, and down towards the snow-covered January ground.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Have_a_Girlfriend,_Alfie_Atkins" title="You Have a Girlfriend, Alfie Atkins">
Alfons is playing with Viktor and Viktor's cousin Milla. They build a treehouse. When he doesn't play with Viktor, he plays with Milla. Together they plan to build a letterbox with aerial lift, allowing messages to be sent into the treehouse. Milla kan bake cookies and create a theatre-circus with the Teddybears. She can also stand on one hand, and dares to jump from the garage roof near the parking lot. They think of a flag that can be raised and lowered.One day at school, Alfons goes toileting when seeing a group of guys teasing him, writing that he plays with girls. For a while, he doesn't want to play with her but finally she still appears. Alfons ignore those who tease, and when the treehouse flag finally rises to the top nobody teases anymore.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalas,_Alfons_Åberg!" title="Kalas, Alfons Åberg!">
The previous day was Alfons birthday and the upcoming Saturday, he will have a children's party. Fiffi, his Aunt on his father's side, has no children on her own. She is engaged in preparations. Alfons says first he will invite Viktor and Milla. Fiffi states that since they often play so often, she can invite the entire Kindergarten, but Alfon's father says 8-10 children are enough. Fiffi and Alfon's father agree that Alfons can invite the children living at the same street. Fiffi writes lists, goes shopping and bakes. Alfons helps her.The party is held on Saturday. Most children wear dress clothes, and don't look ordinary. Alfons gets presents.At the table is a cake, and name-cards giving every guest a place. When Lotta tells Fiffi she doesn't want to sit next to Martin, because he pinches. Fiffi then changes the cards.Then, the games begin. Suddenly, Ubbe discovers Martin has something green in his candy bag, but Fiffi states there's not more or less candy in any bag. When playing quiz, Sara is angry because she was not member in the winning team. When playing hide and seek, girls look themselves up at the toilet. When the clocks strikes six and it's time for the guests to leave, Alfons thinks it feels good it's all over. Fiffi begins cleaning up.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bara_knyt,_Alfons!" title="Bara knyt, Alfons!">
Alfons Åberg is five years old, and yesterday he learned to tie bows. Viktor and Milla will soon come and play. Alfons ties ropes across the kitchen, and his father has to walk above or go under the ropes.Suddenly, Viktor and Milla show up. The entire home is full of ropes, and one rope is attached to the flat's door. Meanwhile, Alfon's father falls on one of the ropes. Viktor and Milla come inside and see that Alfons has made a mini-aerial tramway with boxes for the Teddybears. Together, they loosen all the rope but keep the aerial tramway. The children then play with it for a long time.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Där_går_Tjuv-Alfons!" title="Där går Tjuv-Alfons!">
Milla says that Alfons has stolen the key to a treehouse built by his and his friends. Soon, everyone says Alfons is a thief. He returns to the treehouse, and begins to search for the key. He doesn't find it, and when no one wants to play with him he feels lonely and continues searching. Suddenly Milla calls, and says it was a magpie who took the key.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mera_monster,_Alfons!" title="Mera monster, Alfons!">
Alfons is about to babysit a little guy called "Småtting". When Alfons is about to tell a story about a chicken, Småtting instead wants to hear about monsters, frightening Småtting. Finally, Småtting wants to hear a fairytale about a chicken instead.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfons_och_soldatpappan" title="Alfons och soldatpappan">
Alfons is six years old. With his new friend Hamdi they often play war. Hamdi's father has participated in a real war. Alfons and Hamdi want to hear stories, but Hamdi's father doesn't want to tell much.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Hastings" title="Anna Hastings">
Anna Kowalczek arrived on Capitol Hill the very day America entered World War II. She infiltrated the exclusively male domains of politics and journalism by hiding her intelligence and drive behind a façade of cheerful, irreverent innocence—playing the role men expected of bright, pretty girls in 1941. Thirty-five years later, Anna Hastings, widow of Texas Senator Gordon Hastings, is an influential columnist, powerful television personality, major political figure, publisher of one of the most respected newspapers in the country, and master of a media empire she ruled with a whim of iron."Anna Hastings" is the story of her public and personal struggles as she climbs her way from obscurity to legend, set against the backdrop of Washington during the tumultuous years of World War, Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, and the emergence of feminism as a distinct political force. Drawing on his years reporting on the Senate, Allen Drury again presents an "insider's view" of both the Senate and the Washington Press Corps during these decades of rapid social and political change.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_(novel)" title="Decision (novel)">
Tay Barbour has just achieved his ultimate goal—a seat on the US Supreme Court—when his marriage crumbles and a terrorist bombing puts his daughter in a coma. The deterioration of the criminal justice system is illuminated as ambitious minds with their own agendas swirl around the terrorist's compelling case. And when it reaches the Supreme Court, Barbour faces the greatest challenge of his life: recuse himself and allow a probable deadlock, or take on the case and either follow his anti-death penalty principles or spurn them and seek justice for his daughter.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skräcknatten_i_Fasenbo" title="Skräcknatten i Fasenbo">
Lunsan tells Petter and Anders she is afraid of the dark. When Petter and Anders boast that they are not, she challenges them and gives them a mission: to sleep overnight inside a deserted and supposedly haunted house outside the village where they live. Neither of them knows that the other is also there, and they both spend a disturbed night hearing strange noises. It is not until the next day that they learn they have in fact frightened each other.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Det_är_1988_och_har_precis_börjat_snöa" title="Det är 1988 och har precis börjat snöa">
Sigge Eklund discovers 35 old cassette tapes from childhood. Listening to the tape, he remember things happening back then, during the 1980s. A snowy day back in 1988, his parents divorced. Earlier, Sigge used to idolize his father but now he begins to view him in a different way.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_God_Against_the_Gods" title="A God Against the Gods">
The ancient Egyptian empire, which stretched from modern day Syria across northern Africa, has reached its apex under the House of Thebes, the ruling family of the 18th dynasty. However, though the long-reigning Pharaoh Amenhotep III is popular, he is not very active, and the day to day rule of the empire is actually performed by his wife, Queen Tiye, who is beloved and is known as the Great Wife. The chief counselor to the Pharaoh is her brother, Aye, who has a reputation for wisdom. The House of Thebes had encouraged devotion to the god Amon-Ra, whose cult has become very powerful. Amenhotep had hoped to control the priests of Amon by making his wife’s brother, Aanen, the High Priest, but as Tiye feared, Aanen has tried to make the priests of Amon of equal power with the throne. To counter them, Amenhotep has made his six-year-old son Tuthmose high priest of another cult, and plans on making him co-regent. The priests of Amon insist on accompanying him to the ceremony, and then drown him in shallow water, claiming he fell in.Grief-stricken and furious, the Amenhotep and Tiye decide to emphasize the cult of the Aten. Like Amon, it is a manifestation of the overarching deity, Ra, the Sun. Tiye delivers a son whom they name Amenhotep, and dedicate to the Aten. Aye loses his wife in childbirth the same day, but the baby girl survives and is named Nefertiti. Amenhotep IV is at first healthy and happy, but is then stricken with a strange disease that misshapes his head and body. When he comes of age, he is married to Nefertiti. Now co-regent, Amenhotep IV is very dedicated to the Aten, and gives the deity a new symbol, a sun disk with twelve rays that end in hands. While the cult of Amon is a mystery religion, with the totem of Amon kept in a dark vault, the temples that Amenhotep has built for the Aten are open and sunny. Amenhotep begins to make his public appearances naked, and commands his sculptor to portray his misshapen body exactly as it is. He explains to his family that when he prayed to the other gods, his disease did not go away, but that when he had prayed to the Aten, the disease stopped its progress.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Odd" title="Saint Odd">
Odd Thomas returns to Pico Mundo only to find himself immediately under attack from surviving members of the satanic cult he encountered in previous books. As he rides the back roads on a heavy motorcycle, he survives the first attempt on his life by evading a large SUV. Odd travels off road and tricks the driver of the SUV into driving into a deep gully, killing anyone inside as the SUV explodes. Odd first travels to the mall where Stormy and 18 others were murdered, narrowly avoiding three cultists who, coincidentally or through Odd's psychic magnetism, are visiting the mall where the cult's members nearly caused hundreds of deaths. Odd takes the bike to a safe house run by the same organization he helped in the last novel after meeting Mrs. Fischer. The safe house is run by an older couple who tell him they've been married for years and, as the husband says, have only had "5 bad days in all those years." His wife contradicts him saying "There were 6, you need to figure out where we're differing." Odd sleeps in the house's guest room and dreams of Pico Mundo flooded with visions of people, both recognized and not, floating by him and having expressions of rage. After reuniting with the Chief Porter and novelist Ozzy Boone, he discovers that the cult has obtained enough C4 to destroy a nearby dam. Destroying the dam would partially flood the town, but not enough to cause the destruction and death in his vision. He visits the dam and has an epiphany after seeing coyotes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawk_(novel)" title="Hawk (novel)">
An assassination attempt against Vlad Taltos, which takes place in his hometown of Adrilankha during a visit to his young son and estranged wife, nearly succeeds. In response to the attempt, Taltos decides that he will no longer run from the Jhereg criminal organization that placed a price on his head, and sets in motion "all sorts of intricate plots and schemes that guess, second-guess and third-guess his adversaries (often incorrectly)".Noting the protagonist's characteristically unreliable first-person narration, another reviewer notes, "This being Vlad (and Brust), the plan is typically complex and convoluted and really doesn't matter all that much, partly because Vlad doesn't really fill the reader in on everything that’s happening. But if it helps, it involves a Hawk egg, a wand, and a euphonium."In a review of the book, science fiction writer Cory Doctorow points to "two seemingly irreconcilable facts: a son that Vlad wants to be around, and a city where he is a dead man walking. There's only one way to resolve it, and that's to find a way to buy off, intimidate, or otherwise manipulate the Jhereg into forgiving him for committing the cardinal sin of betraying them to the authorities (without dying first)."To execute his complex scheme, Taltos calls upon numerous old friends, including Daymar, an academic expert in sorcery from the House of the Hawk.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Call_(Hersey_novel)" title="The Call (Hersey novel)">
The novel mixes narrative, excerpts from Treadup's journal, letters written by Treadup and his wife. and excerpts from "The Search," an extended memoir which he wrote while in a Japanese internment camp during the Second Sino-Japanese War. This organization allows Hersey to show what Treadup thought at the time of events and then what he thought about them up to forty years later.The first section of the novel describes Treadup's ancestors, a long-established Anglo-Saxon family. David himself was born 1878 in western New York, then graduated from Syracuse University. The call to missionary work comes in his last year in college, when he hears a visiting minister, John R. Mott, who is proselytizing for the Student Volunteer Movement For Foreign Missions, a liberal evangelistic organization. Treadup volunteers to go to China for the YMCA, but the Y will not let him go if he does not have a wife. Treadup arranges with Emily Kean to join him in China a year later, and after a further year they are married. When he arrives in Tianjin, or Tientsin as it was then spelled, Treadup joins the educational and scientific work of the YMCA.At the 1907 China Centenary Missionary Conference in Shanghai, Treadup takes part in the debate between the older evangelists, who insist that their only mission is to spread the gospel, and the newly arrived missionaries of the Social Gospel persuasion like himself, who are convinced that their mission is good works, that is, the uplift of society through science, education, and social change. Through the decade of the 1910s, Treadup organizes campaigns to introduce modern science to the educated men of the city in the hope that they will spread this knowledge down to the masses. He uses posters, pictures, and scientific demonstrations to arouse interest among the audience, for instance a gyroscope, with which he performs impressive feats. This work is modeled on that of Hersey's father, Roscoe.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where'd_You_Go,_Bernadette" title="Where'd You Go, Bernadette">
After her mother, Bernadette, goes missing, 16-year-old Bee Branch gathers correspondence relating to her mother in order to ascertain what has happened to her.Bee's parents had previously promised her anything she wanted in exchange for good grades - upon presenting them with a perfect report card, she requests a family vacation to Antarctica. Bee’s father, Elgin, is a genius who works at Microsoft, while Bernadette is an agoraphobic stay-at-home parent who delegates the task of making their arrangements to a personal assistant in India, Manjula. Bernadette also has ongoing feuds with some of the other mothers at Bee's private school, the main instigator being her neighbor Audrey Griffin. Their tension worsens when Audrey accuses Bernadette of running over her foot with her car - which Bernadette does not dispute, though it is untrue - and when the hillside above Audrey’s house, recently cleared of blackberries by Bernadette at Audrey’s request, collapses during a rainstorm and slides into Audrey’s house.Bee learns that her mother was once a famous architect who earned a MacArthur "Genius" Grant after creating the 20 Mile House in Los Angeles, so called because it was made entirely from materials sourced from within 20 miles of the home. After winning the grant, Bernadette sold the house, only to realize it had been sold to a hostile neighbor who demolished the home as soon as he obtained it. This caused Bernadette to lose her creative passion and prompted her relocation to Seattle, where she had four miscarriages before giving birth to Bee.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thing_of_State" title="A Thing of State">
It is 1999, and the Middle Eastern kingdoms of Greater and Lesser Lolome are at war with each other over oil. When Sidi bin Sidi bin Sidi, the despotic ruler of Greater Lolome newly armed with nuclear weapons, demands control over Lesser Lolome, the United States is compelled to intervene. The President hopes to use the situation to his political advantage, while the Secretary of State, his deputy, the United Nations and other factions debate their next move under pressure from the American public, which Sidi knows had tied their hands.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poseidon's_Wake" title="Poseidon's Wake">
"Poseidon's Wake" is a loose sequel to Reynolds' 2013 novel "On the Steel Breeze", featuring numerous recurring characters, but can also be considered a stand-alone story. Set in the distant future, after humans have travelled to other stars and encountered mysterious robotic aliens known as Watchkeepers, the novel depicts an expedition by interstellar colonists to a mysterious solar system which contains an ancient and devastating secret.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Drury's_University_series" title="Allen Drury's University series">
In 1938, student body president Willie Wilson begins his senior year at "the University" with the threat of war in Europe looming. He and his diverse Alpha Zeta fraternity brothers find themselves facing off in a microcosm of the changing world around them. Wilson tries to sponsor the fraternity's first Black member, only to be thwarted by the blatantly racist scion of a South Carolina family. The Black student blames Wilson for building his hopes up. Also, another member is hopelessly in love with Wilson's younger brother.Returning from the war, Willie Wilson and the remaining fraternity brothers of Alpha Zeta face a post-war world with new challenges, including marital and family woes, complicated sexuality, the Cold War and the Vietnam War.Octogenarian Willie Wilson plans a 2001 reunion for his surviving pals as he looks back on the previous few decades of his life, including his run for the Presidency in the 1980s. Crossing him at every turn in these turbulent times is the villainous René Suratt.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funny_Girl_(novel)" title="Funny Girl (novel)">
The novel is about Barbara Parker, Miss Blackpool of 1964, who decides to abandon the idea of becoming a beauty queen. She heads for London, determined to make her mark as a television comedian, inspired by her idol Lucille Ball. After finding a job on a cosmetics counter in a London department store, she meets a theatrical agent, Brian Debenham, who finds her an audition for a television sitcom pilot based around the domestic life of a newlywed couple. Taking the name Sophie Straw, she becomes a star thanks to the leading role in the fiction "Barbara (and Jim)".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Questionnaire_(Salomon_novel)" title="The Questionnaire (Salomon novel)">
Salomon answers questions and recounts his time as a cadet in the Weimar Republic and in the Freikorps. He writes about battles in the Baltic states and about his involvement in the assassination of foreign minister Walther Rathenau. Salomon shares his experiences from France in the 1930s, from the German film industry during the NS era, the end of the war which he spent in Bavaria with his Jewish girlfriend, and how he after the surrender was tortured in an American prison camp.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Born" title="Star Born">
Dalgard Nordis, with his knife brother Sssuri, has gone on his man-journey. Three generations after his people came to Astra he has set out to explore the ruins of a city that once belonged to Those Others, thereby extending the Colony's map of this world and in the process demonstrating his suitability to sit on the Council of Free Men. In telepathic contact with the local fauna, Sssuri senses danger and the sight of a flaming object crossing the sky from east to west, toward where Those Others are rumored to live, underscores that judgement.Roughly five centuries after a group of renegade scientists took a desperate plunge into interstellar space and two centuries after Pax collapsed and Humanity rediscovered the value of science, the starship RS 10 lands on Astra. Driven by rumors of that ancient expedition and enabled by the discovery of hyperdrive, the Federation of Free Men has sent nine ships into hyperspace; none has returned. On this tenth attempt at interstellar flight Raf Kurbi has the task of assembling and flying the flitter that will be used to explore the part of Astra around RS 10's landing point. One goal is what appears on the landing photos to be a city.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Trout_(novel)" title="Paris Trout (novel)">
In a small Georgia town in the 1950s, a bigoted store owner named Paris Trout kills a black man's younger sister and wounds his mother when a car deal between them goes wrong.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_in_Stationery" title="Adventures in Stationery">
In "Adventures in Stationery", James Ward presents the history of numerous items of stationery, integrated with his personal opinions and current trends. Some of the topics discussed include the invention of the ballpoint pen by László Bíró, the development of the Pritt glue stick, the design of the paperclip, the shape of Stabilo highlighters, the possible uses of Blu-Tack, and urban legends about the development of ballpoint pens during the Space Race.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Son" title="Golden Son">
Darrow, now one of the Peerless Scarred and in the service of his enemy, Nero au Augustus, is sent to The Academy, to learn to command fleet of warships in anticipation of being made praetor of a fleet on behalf of Nero. During his final exam at the Academy Darrow faces off against Cassius's older brother, Karnus au Bellona, in a space battle and loses, resulting in hundreds of casualties and being released from the service of Nero, who decides Darrow will be auctioned to another House at the Summit, a gathering of the Great Houses on Luna. Without the protection of Augustus, Darrow is vulnerable to Bellona family whose matriarch has tasked them to murder Darrow in revenge for his murder of her son and Cassius's brother, Julian.Awaiting the end of his contract, Darrow is approached by Victra au Julii who leads him to the Jackal, Adrius au Augustus who has since the Institute been exiled by his father and created a media and telecommunications business empire, gaining considerable power and influence which he proposes to use to buy Darrow's contract in order to aid him in bring down the Sovereign and the Sons of Ares and The Jackal placing himself as the head of the Society. While discussing their plans, a Pink Darrow recognizes as Evey, a former pleasure slave of Mickey the Carver, enters the bar intent on assassinating the Jackal. Before Darrow can stop her, Evey sets off an explosion, and Darrow narrowly manages to save the Jackal.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silver_Crown" title="The Silver Crown">
The story is in the third person limited perspective, showing events as experienced by the protagonist, Ellen Carroll. The book opens when Ellen discovers a mysterious silver crown in her bedroom on her tenth birthday. This initiates a series of events which at first seem unrelated. Later that morning, her house burns down while she is out at the park and she witnesses a murder. Thrown on her own resources by the loss of her family, Ellen decides to hitchhike to her Aunt Sarah in Kentucky.On the way, she escapes from a kidnapper, is chased though the woods, and finds an ally in 8-year-old Otto. With Otto, she treks through the mountains, while being hunted by sinister men. At a black castle in the forest, Ellen encounters a medieval device called the Hieronymus Machine which is mind-controlling people and turning them into arsonists and assassins for an unknown purpose. The machine can be operated by two crowns, one black and one silver. It seems that only Ellen can activate the silver crown, the more powerful of the two. Ellen decides the Machine is too dangerous and, despite the temptation of becoming a queen, has it destroyed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fate_of_Ten" title="The Fate of Ten">
Daniela, a 15 year old girl is watching the Mogadorian attack on New York with her stepfather when a group of Mogadorians enter their building. She leaves her stepfather and stares out the window while he stays to delay the Mogadorians. But just when she's made it out the fire escape she looks back as four Mogadorians enter her apartment and they tell her to "Surrender or die." A moment later her stepfather smashes one of the Mogadorians heads in with a bat and kills one before he is shot. He tells Daniela to run and she barely makes it down the fire escape. She then runs through the streets and as she runs she comes across another three Mogadorians and she falls to the ground the Mogadorians say, "Surrender or die." as they have their guns aimed at her. Daniela throws up her hands to defend herself as a reflex and is surprised when the guns fly out of their hands and they're thrown back. Daniela manages to kill them with her newfound telekinesis.Four's NarrationJohn and Sam, with the 23 civilians they saved, try to reach a makeshift encampment established on the Brooklyn Bridge. John tells them to go ahead because he and Sam still have to look for Nine and Five. The civilians leave them after expressing their gratitude. Four and Sam rest in an abandoned apartment in which they find out through television that Five and Nine might be fighting at Union Square. On the way they meet Daniela Morales, a Human-Garde, robbing a bank. They try to convince her to join their cause, but she is adamant in finding her mother first. She leads them to the subway. The Anubis starts to attack them, causing the roof to collapse onto them. John exerts all of his telekinetic strength to keep the roof up, with some help from Sam and Daniela, which causes him to pass out. While resting, Ella reaches out to John through a dream, showing John her memories of the ship Anubis. She warns him of Setrákus' plan to go to the Sanctuary in Mexico, and advises him to be strong, and to do whatever must be done to defeat Setrákus. John also witnesses the Mogadorian augmentation being carried out on Ella's body as Ella's consciousness is talking to him. John wakes up and hears Sam talking to Daniela about all John has done to protect the Loric and humans. John urges them to reach the Brooklyn Bridge camp.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hiawatha_Story" title="The Hiawatha Story">
"The Hiawatha Story" is organized chronologically. It begins with the construction of the first "Hiawatha" in 1934–1935. The Milwaukee Road created the train to compete with streamliners then under development by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad's (Burlington Route) and Chicago and North Western Railway. Unusually for the period, the Milwaukee Road constructed all the passenger equipment in its own shops, and Scribbins devotes considerable space to describing this equipment in detail, with many illustrative photographs. Scribbins also describes the work done to prepare the Chicago–Twin Cities route for high-speed running. The "Hiawatha" regularly operated at speeds over .Scribbins follows the history of the original "Hiawatha", later re-branded as the "Twin Cities Hiawatha", which at the time the book was published in 1970 was still in operation. The popularity of the train led the Milwaukee Road to apply the "Hiawatha" brand to other routes, and Scribbins tells the history of these as well: "Chippewa-Hiawatha", "Midwest Hiawatha", "North Woods Hiawatha" and "Olympian Hiawatha". Throughout, Scribbins pays close attention to the operation details as well as the rolling stock. Famous Milwaukee Road products such as the Beaver Tail and Skytop Lounge are described in detail, as are the Pullman-Standard Super Domes, the first full-length dome cars ever built, which operated on several "Hiawatha" routes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_Dark_Wood_Wandering" title="In a Dark Wood Wandering">
The story is set in the fifteenth century, during the Hundred Years War. The book opens with the christening of Charles, son of Louis I, Duke of Orleans, by his wife Valentine, who is not well enough to attend and must remain in her chambers. Among those attending is Charles VI and his wife Isabeau. Charles VI has been suffering from madness, and it has reached the point where he doesn't recognize his own wife. Poet François Villon also appears in the novel, first as a young man, later as an adult visiting the royal court.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Set_a_Watchman" title="Go Set a Watchman">
Jean Louise "Scout" Finch, 26 and single, returns from New York to her hometown Maycomb, Alabama, for her annual fortnight-long visit to her father Atticus, a lawyer and former state legislator. Jack, her uncle and a retired doctor, is Jean Louise’s mentor. Atticus’ sister and Jean Louise’s aunt Alexandra has moved in with Atticus to help him around the house after his housekeeper Calpurnia retired. Jean Louise's brother, Jeremy "Jem" Finch, has died of the same heart condition which killed their mother. Upon her arrival in Maycomb, she is met by her childhood sweetheart Henry "Hank" Clinton, who works for Atticus. When returning from Finch's Landing, Jean Louise and Henry are passed by a car full of black men travelling at a dangerously high speed; Henry mentions that the Black people in the county have money for cars but are without licenses and insurance.The Supreme Court's decision in "Brown v. Board of Education" and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) are introduced as sources of controversy in the community. Jean Louise finds a pamphlet titled "The Black Plague" among her father's papers. She follows him to a Citizens' Council meeting where Atticus introduces a man who delivers a racist speech. Jean Louise watches in secret from the balcony and is horrified. She is unable to forgive him for his behaviour and flees from the hall. After dreaming about Calpurnia, her family's black maid whom she sees as a mother figure, Jean Louise has breakfast with her father. They soon learn that Calpurnia's grandson killed a drunk pedestrian the previous night while speeding in his car. Atticus agrees to take the case in order to stop the NAACP from getting involved. Jean Louise visits Calpurnia and is treated politely but coldly, causing her to leave, devastated.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scion_of_Ikshvaku" title="Scion of Ikshvaku">
Ram and his half-brothers, Bharat (son of Kaikeyi), Lakshman and Shatrughan (twin sons of Dashrath's third wife Sumitra), are sent to live at the hermitage of Sage Vashistha. Under his tutelage, Ram becomes a skilled warrior, and gains knowledge about India's predicament and how one should resolve it. After his education is completed, Ram is given the job of maintaining law and police in Ayodhya, in which he considerably excels. One day Roshni, daughter of the wealthy trader Manthara and sister-like to the four brothers, is gang raped and murdered. The culprits are all executed except one, Dhenuka, who is underage. A strict follower of the law, Ram is forced to imprison the boy although others request him for Dhenuka's execution. Manthara bribes Kaikeyi into influencing Bharat, who secretly murders Dhenuka, much to Ram's chagrin.In the meantime Dashrath's attitude towards Ram changes and he names Ram as the crown prince. Shortly afterwards, Ram and Lakshman help sage Vishwamitra—head of the Malayaputra tribe who serve the next Vishnu—to stop the Asura attacks on his hermitage. Ram convinces the Asuras to go to Pariha, the land of Lord Rudra, the previous Mahadev. It is during this trip that Ram learns from his half-brother Lakshman about his anointment as the next Vishnu by Sage Vashishtha. Next they travel to the remote kingdom of Mithila, where Ram meets princess Sita, the adopted daughter of King Janak. Like Ram, Sita also strongly believes in following laws, thus earning Ram's respect and love. During a Swayamvar for Sita, Raavan and his brother Kumbhakarna arrive, but storm out when Viswamitra announces Ram's name as the first suitor. Ram wins the Swayamvar and marries Sita, while Lakshman marries Janak's biological daughter, Urmila.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_(novel)" title="Bear (novel)">
## Setting.The book takes place in the district of Algoma in northeastern Ontario. The area is heavily wooded, with a mix of deciduous and conifer forests. Part of the Canadian Shield, the district has many lakes and rivers. Almost all of the story takes place in or around an old, octagonal house on a small island on a remote lake. The location, "Cary's Island" is fictitious, located north of Highway 17, past "Fisher's Falls" and near a village called "Brady".The house and estate, previously belonging to the Cary family, whose patriarch fought in the Napoleonic Wars, is called "Pennarth" (Welsh for "Bear's head"). Its octagonal layout was inspired by the writings of Orson Squire Fowler, which dates the building to the 1850s. The house is well-ordered and elaborate, and houses an extensive library of nineteenth century books. Outside are several outbuildings, including a shed that houses a large, semi-tame bear.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuareg_(novel)" title="Tuareg (novel)">
One day, two old men and a boy appeared in Gacel Shayah's camp in the Sahara. He, a noble "inmouchar" observing the millennial tradition of the desert, sheltered travelers. But he failed to protect them. People in dusty military uniforms violated the ancient hospitality law. They killed the boy and took one old man away. Gasel Shayah remembers the great commandment of the Tuareg people: your guest is under your protection. Therefore, he has to seek vengeance.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Strange_New_Things" title="The Book of Strange New Things">
Peter Leigh, an English pastor, decides to leave his wife Beatrice in order to be a missionary. It is gradually revealed that rather than being a missionary in a different country, he has been hired by USIC, a private American corporation, to preach to the population of a distant planet, Oasis. Peter expects to find hostility when meeting the natives, but he finds instead that they are extremely welcoming, already speak English very well and are passionate devotees of the Christian faith, referring to themselves as Jesus Lover One, Two, et cetera. Peter sets to work trying to build a church for the Jesus Lovers and trying to live amongst them. On his brief trips back to the base camp where the engineers and scientist who run USIC on Oasis live, he tries to contact Bea using a Shoot, a message system which allows him to communicate back on Earth. Though Bea's initial messages are full of love, they also include information on severe natural disasters caused by climate change, including flooding and famine that have happened since Peter left. After a few months, she also informs Peter that she is pregnant with his child, conceived on the last night he was with her. Peter, whose life is full with his missionary work, feels distant from Bea and begins to find it difficult to recall her face and their life together, instead focusing on integrating himself into the Oasan community. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailey's_Cafe" title="Bailey's Cafe">
The unnamed owner of Bailey's Cafe (he is called "Bailey" as a nickname) acquires the cafe after his return from World War II and claims that it is magical and it saved him. Though the cafe is nominally set in New York City as per Naylor's earlier novel "Mama Day", patrons wander into it from different times and places. The cafe also has a back door that apparently opens onto infinity (or death). The stories he tells include his own and his wife, Nadine's, as well as those of several of the patrons of the cafe who live in a nearby brownstone including Eve (who owns the brownstone down the street that harbors mostly fugitive women and serves as a bordello), Ester (the victim of sexual and emotional abuse), "Miss Maple" (a male cross-dresser), Jessie Bell (a bisexual drug-addict), Mary (a self-mutilated beauty), and Mariam (a mentally challenged, pregnant, virgin, teenager). Each person's back story is told by the owner as they come into the cafe.Bailey frames the first-person narrative of each character but one: Nadine opens and closes the story of Mariam (Mary).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revised_Fundamentals_of_Caregiving" title="The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving">
The book (and adapted film) follows a 39-year-old man who has experienced personal tragedy and is currently climbing out of depression and grief. His estranged wife has been waiting for months for him to sign divorce papers. He has lost his work and his house. After being trained as a care-giver, his first job is for a boy with muscular dystrophy, 19-year-old Trev. The disease has taken the movement of Trev's body, but definitely not the spark from his brain and quick, silver-tongued wit. The two find a match in each other, supporting each other in quiet or razzing ways, and ultimately pushing each other to move beyond their deep-rooted and insurmountable sorrows (one from loss, the other from the impending loss of his life from a disease). The strong theme is about love and connection. In the end, this is a story about valuing life and how fragile life is, how precious it is, and how — despite the inevitability of death — the path to that end (including love) is what matters.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wolf_(novel)" title="Black Wolf (novel)">
Talbot Uskevren will need to use his sword fighting and acting skills to survive against the Black Brotherhood.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_Stormweather" title="Lord of Stormweather">
Thamalon Uskevren II, the heir to Stormweather Towers, must solve the disappearance of his parents and Erevis Cale.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winterheim" title="Winterheim">
Strongwind Whalebone, king of the Highlanders, has been imprisoned in the ogre fortress, while ogre king Grimwar Bane faces royal treachery and desperate revolt.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Warrior's_Journey" title="A Warrior's Journey">
"A Warrior's Journey" is a novel in which a young peasant boy deals with the chaos caused by the struggle between two rival empires.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Place_(book)" title="The Secret Place (book)">
Much of the novel takes place at St. Kilda's, a girls' boarding school in Dublin. The chapters alternate between the points of view of detective Stephen Moran and the students of St. Kilda's.The key characters are eight teenage girls, members of rival cliques. Chris Harper, a teenage boy, is murdered on St. Kilda's grounds. The initial police investigation is inconclusive. A year later, 16-year-old Holly volunteers information to Moran. She has discovered a picture of Chris, along with the statement "I know who killed him", posted on a school bulletin board called the "Secret Place". Moran is assigned to work with senior detective Antoinette Conway to investigate. Moran and Conway question all eight girls and find that there were some close relationships between Chris and most of the eight girls. After further investigation, they find evidence that links Chris's murder to Holly's clique. When the detectives grill Holly, her father, detective Frank Mackey, intervenes and complicates the investigation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Are_All_Completely_Beside_Ourselves" title="We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves">
Rosemary, while attending U.C. Davis in her early twenties, reflects on her early life in Indiana. She lived with her sister Fern, brother Lowell, mother, and father who is professor of behavioral psychology at Indiana University Bloomington. When Fern disappears one day, Lowell runs away from home in search of her. Rosemary also learns that her university has a secret that ties to her past, and as she learns more, she discovers a newfound connection with her family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warheart" title="Warheart">
All is lost. Evil will soon consume the D'Haran Empire. Richard Rahl lies on his funeral pier. It is the end of everything.Except what isn't lost is Kahlan Amnell. Following an inner prompting beyond all reason, the last Confessor will wager everything on a final desperate gambit, and in so doing, she will change the world forever.Terry Goodkind's Warheart is the direct sequel to, and the conclusion of, the story begun in The Omen Machine, The Third Kingdom, and Severed Souls.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mother's_Ordeal" title="A Mother's Ordeal">
With names changed to prevent retribution by the Communist Party of China (CPC), Mosher writes in the first person about "Chi An", a girl born to a Chinese family with the traditional beliefs that boys were worth more than girls. As such, her family had no birthday celebration for her and did not mark the date of her birth down. The first few chapters cover significant memories from childhood, including the death of her father and the trials underwent by her family during the Great Chinese Famine brought about by agricultural mismanagement as well as highly inflated reports of crop production figures.Chi An grew up surrounded by the ideologies of the Communist Party and in her youth worked for the CPC. Later in life, Chi An studied to become a nurse where she performed her first abortion at age 16, thus beginning her career as a nurse carrying out the One-child Policy through abortion, contraception, and sterilizations all in efforts to meet the birth quotas imposed by party officials. Chi An finds a suitor and they become married, after a fashion, and have a healthy baby boy as their first child. The couple became pregnant with a second child, but were forced to abort the baby as it was illegal.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Song_of_Everlasting_Sorrow_(novel)" title="The Song of Everlasting Sorrow (novel)">
Wang Anyi’s "The Song of Everlasting Sorrow" tells the story of a gorgeous Shanghai woman named Wang Qiyao. The timeline of the novel spans from 1946 to 1986, and is separated into three parts. Everything begins with the title of “Miss Shanghai”. After being discovered by an amateur photographer, Wang Qiyao competes in the 1946 Miss Shanghai beauty pageant. She becomes the second runner-up and is awarded the title "Miss Third Place", marking a moment of stardom in her life that she clings to for the following years after. Starting with Director Li, Wang Qiyao experiences several romantic, yet fleeting relationships throughout her life. When she is middle-aged, Wang Qiyao falls in love with a 26 year old young man called “Old Colour”, but their relationship eventually comes to an end despite Wang Qiyao's desperation to hold on to it. In the end she is murdered by the scam artist “Long Legs” because of his desire to steal her hidden stash of gold bars. Wang Qiyao's final moments seem to echo a similar scene from her youth. Wang Qiyao is a graceful and gorgeous woman who has experienced five relationships but never found true love. "The Song of Everlasting" "Sorrow" is a tragic love story, and the writer Wang Anyi uses the main character, Wang Qiyao, to show the change of Shanghai through the 1940s’ to the 1980s’.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Way_to_the_Wedding" title="On the Way to the Wedding">
The hero of the novel is Gregory Bridgerton, the youngest male and last unmarried sibling in the Bridgerton family. After catching a glimpse of the "breathtakingly perfect curve of her neck" at a house party, Gregory falls immediately in love with the beautiful and extremely sought-after Hermione Watson. After he makes his attraction known, Hermione's best friend, the pretty-but-not-quite-as-attractive Lady Lucinda "Lucy" Abernathy informs him that Hermione is already in love, but with someone unsuitable - her father's secretary. Believing that Gregory is more sincere in his attempts to gain Hermione's favor than her other suitors, Lucy agrees to help him win Hermione's heart.During the course of the house party, Lucy and Gregory become friends and then develop romantic feelings for each other. The author details Gregory's difficulty in determining whether his love for Lucy is real, or if it is simply an infatuation such as he felt for Hermione. Lucy is likewise given an inner conflict, as she is essentially engaged to Lord Haselby, an arranged match which she has always accepted. After realising he is in love with her, Gregory rushes to the church to stop Lucy's wedding to Haselby. Gregory arrives moments before the two exchange vows and confesses that he wants to marry Lucy. However, Lucy chooses to marry Haselby with a reason unknown to anyone, but Lucy and her uncle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goblin_Emperor" title="The Goblin Emperor">
Maia, youngest and least-favored son of the Emperor of the Elflands and of mixed Elven and Goblin heritage, unexpectedly ascends to the throne after his father and half-brothers are killed in an airship crash. Having been brought up entirely in exile from the court, living with an abusive cousin, the court is alien to him and his lack of social polish and connections make it difficult to take up his new responsibilities.In the course of the first few months of his reign, Maia agrees to marry the noblewoman Csethiro; is seized by a crush on the opera singer Vechin; is visited by his maternal grandfather, the ruler of the Goblins; and slowly comes to terms with the loss of privacy that comes with being accompanied by bodyguards and retainers at all times. He survives an attempted coup by his half-brother's widow and his lord chancellor because his young nephew Idra refuses to usurp the throne, and his investigation into the death of his father uncovers a conspiracy by disaffected noblemen that had been using a group of worker revolutionaries to kill the previous Emperor.The end of the novel sees Maia survive an assassination attempt by the conspiracy's ringleader, and push through a controversial project to bridge the realm's principal river. An epithet accorded to him by a courtier, "the bridgebuilder", represents his efforts to connect emotionally with the people surrounding him slowly coming to fruition.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantia_(novel)" title="Atlantia (novel)">
The story begins when Rio attends the ceremony of the Divide. Initially, Rio wants to go aboveground, but she has promised her Below-loving twin sister, Bay, to remain in Atlantia, an artificial city built entirely underwater.Rio completed the ritual before Bay, choosing to stay below, but Bay surprised Rio by choosing to go Above. In a panic, Rio accidentally revealed the siren voice she had hidden since birth to a priest, risking arrest, but she was able to leave without issue.Rio searched desperately for an explanation for Bay's choice, eventually meeting her siren aunt, Maire, whom she last saw at her mother's funeral, and running away due to being engulfed in the memories of her late mother, Oceana. As she wept, she met True Beck, a boy whose best friend departed similarly to Bay, seeking a partner with whom to solve these mysteries Rio rejected his offer, and when she changed her mind, True was gone.The next day, the Minister of Atlantia, Nevio, insisted that Rio would be best suited to work in the mining bays, sending her off to work there. When Rio finished her shift, Maire found her outside the temple and led her to the floodgates, where she explained to Rio that they could serve as an alternate path to the surface, as they did for Oceana. Maire gave Rio a seashell, in which she could ask questions and Maire would answer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Through_Space" title="Starship Through Space">
Walter Hansman has just graduated from Schiaparelli Space Academy on Mars in June 2150. His father, Dr. George W. Hansman, sends a telegram telling him to return to Terra immediately. Finding that he automatically has all of the necessary permissions from the Terrestrial Space Navy, he goes to Red Sands Spaceport, where he boards the Space Ship "Fafnir" for his journey home.On the ship he finds that Don Salter, a classmate from Schiaparelli, is also going to Terra on mysterious orders. Together the two young men help prepare SS "Fafnir" for launch and then help around the ship on the long flight to Terra. Finally the ship lands at Peak City Spaceport, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, and the men find their fathers waiting for them.Taken to a small, closed-off spaceport, Walt and Don are told that they are to participate in the construction and flight of humanity's first interstellar spaceship, one equipped with a space-warping hyperdrive. After extensive physical and psychological testing, Don is assigned to work on the starship's propulsion and Walt is to help develop the control circuits. When the ship is complete and ready for flight, she is christened with the name of Magellan's ship, "Vittoria", and prepared for a trial run to Pluto.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secrets_of_Sir_Richard_Kenworthy" title="The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy">
The novel opens in 1825 London, at the annual Smythe-Smith musicale. After seeing Iris Smythe-Smith perform, Sir Richard Kenworthy finagles an introduction and begins a flirtation. After only a week's courtship, he proposes. Although she likes him, Iris is unused to attention from men and is slightly suspicious of his haste. She asks for more time to decide.The reader is informed that Sir Richard needs wife immediately. He maneuvers Iris into a compromising position, knowing her family will force them to marry to save her reputation. Iris is fairly upset. She wanted to marry Richard, but she neither understands nor approves of his attempt to coerce her into the agreement. After the wedding, Sir Richard uses a series of excuses to postpone consummating the marriage, to Iris's dismay.Once the couple arrive at Richard's home in Yorkshire, he begins to court her again. The author makes it clear that Richard has come to care for Iris, that he feels guilty for manipulating her, but that his courtship is designed to make her fall in love with him so that she will not leave when she discovers his secret. As the novel progresses, Iris becomes increasingly confused, as it is obvious that something is amiss but no one will tell her what. Eventually, Iris discovers that Sir Richard's eldest sister Fleur is pregnant, and he intends to pass her child off as theirs, thus saving Fleur's reputation. Although initially horrified by the plan, Iris eventually agrees to participate. The plan is nullified when Iris learns that Fleur has an additional secret; that knowledge allows Iris to find a solution to the situation that makes all of the characters happy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Notre_Dame_de_Paris_Mosque" title="The Notre Dame de Paris Mosque">
Muslim immigrants seized power in Western Europe. Sharia becomes the law of the land, Catholic churches are destroyed and desecrated. Frenchmen who did not convert to Islam are shut in ghettoes. The Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral is turned into the Al-Frankoni Mosque. The Catholic Church, which by the beginning of the Muslim expansion turned into a "parody of itself", collapses. Only the traditionalist Catholics from the Society of St. Pius X remain and return to the catacombs. The outnumbered members of the Resistance - the maquis - continue to fight. The protagonists of the novel blame the downfall of Europe on liberalism, atheism, tolerance, and the fall of the authority and hollowing out of the Catholic Church through the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Even though the maquis understand that their resistance will not change anything, their motto is to "die standing". After they find out about impending bloody liquidation of the non-Muslim ghettoes, they join forces with the last remaining Catholics to take over Notre Dame.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_Forbidden_China" title="Journey to the Forbidden China">
Mosher travels throughout Southern China from Canton and visits several provinces to witness first hand the stark, desolate countryside isolated from the rest of the world. The countryside of Guangxi province is visited by Mosher and his guide first, where he documents the experiences of an ethnic minority, the Chuang in their mostly autonomous region. The author continues to write of his experiences traveling down a "Class Four Highway" (a dirt road) to Kweichow province.Kweichow province is a mountainous region with a sparse population grubbing out an existence in the barren land using new world crops of maize and sweet potatoes. The province was only settled in the 16th century after the introduction of said new world crops, crops that are hardy enough to survive the soil and the short growing season. Mosher finds evidence of malnutrition and recurring bouts of famine in the province remain common.What is striking about the rural Chinese life is that the people in such villages lack access to schooling, healthcare, radio or television, and even are untouched by basic amenities such as fertilizer, electricity, running water, or modern agricultural tools. The villagers are unresponsive to the Chinese Communist Revolution as well as its rhetoric of a revolution fought "for" and "by" the peasants. The only contact with the government in Peking is through the party cadres and the CPC's version of the KGB, the Chinese Communist Party's secret police.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyssinian_Chronicles" title="Abyssinian Chronicles">
The book is set in Uganda, in the 1970s and '80s. The book follows the life of narrator Mugezi Muwaabi, as he plots his own independence from his parents and capitalizes on his considerable natural resources of charm and intelligence. A grandfather, a father and his son are the three figures that form a tripod from which the novel is set. Grandpa represents the traditional order, his son Serenity the chaos of transition, and Mugezi the despair of a younger generation over the dead end of transition and its own prospects. Rootless and bitter, Mugezi flees to Europe from Uganda. The first part of the book centres on Mugezi, a young man growing up in post-colonial Uganda. Born in 1961, a year before Uganda attained independence, Mugenzi describes a troubled childhood living under the tyranny and strict rules of his parents. The family moves to Kampala, the nation's capital about the time Idi Amin comes to power in 1971. In the second half of the book Mugezi is excited about the country's prospects under Idi Amin, following the ouster of Milton Obote and his corrupt government. Soon, however, Amin's regime descends to the depths of brutality and mismanagement – starting with a botched "Africanization" campaign that leads to the expulsion of thousands of Asian businessmen.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Forest" title="The Dark Forest">
The UN forms the Planetary Defense Council (PDC) to coordinate defensive efforts against the impending assault of the Trisolarans, who have launched a massive invasion fleet that will reach Earth in around 400 years. However, subatomic semi-artificial intelligences sent from Trisolaris (the book's name for the three-star system of Alpha Centauri), known as sophons, have already reached Earth; these conduct surveillance of national secrets and private conversations, and disrupt the operation of particle accelerators in order to obstruct any new discoveries in fundamental physics until the fleet arrives. Since the sophons cannot read minds, the PDC decides that, in addition to regular military expansion, there will be four people appointed as Wallfacers. They are granted access to the resources of the UN and shall develop and direct strategic plans only known to themselves in order to keep them secret from the enemy. As a result, this also requires them to misdirect and deceive the human world; they therefore do not need to give any explanation for their actions and commands, no matter how incomprehensible they may be. Three Wallfacers are chosen on the basis of merit: Frederick Tyler, a former United States Secretary of Defense; Manuel Rey Diaz, former president of Venezuela and a nuclear engineer; and Bill Hines, former president of the EU and a neuroscientist. To general surprise, the fourth Wallfacer is announced to be Luo Ji, an obscure Chinese professor of sociology who is lazy and un-ambitious. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arclight_(novel)" title="Arclight (novel)">
"The first rule of the Arclight is" Light is safety: light is life. "Within the walls of light, people are protected from the Fade- the creatures that have destroyed the world. The second rule is" Never go outside alone. "The third:" No one ever comes back from the dark. "But Marina did. She doesn't know who she is or where she came from. And she doesn't know how she survived the Fade. Or why they want her back. But they want her back. And the attacks on the Arclight won't stop until they have her. What secrets are locked inside Marina's memory? Where does she belong?" No one survives the Fade. But, Marina did. The only problem is, she doesn't quite remember how. In fact, she doesn't remember anything. Ever since she was discovered in the Grey, a barren stretch of land that acts as a line between the Light and the Dark, by a small group of people and brought to the Arclight, Marina has been living a pain and confusion. Unknown to all of Arclight, Marina lives alone, rejected by her classmates for her status as Fade-bait, a title she received as a result of her arrived prompting constant blue light warnings (blue lights mean something has breached the perimeter). Marina has only one friend, a bubbly, chatty girl by the name of Anne-Marie, and a questionable acquaintance, Tobin. Tobin, whose father was a part of the team that retrieved her from the Grey. Tobin whose father didn't return while she did.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homegoing_(Pohl_novel)" title="Homegoing (Pohl novel)">
The protagonist, Lysander (Sandy) Washington, has been raised by aliens, the Hakh'hli.When their interstellar ship arrives at Earth, Sandy serves as part of the aliens' liaison team with Earth. Pohl uses Sandy's alien perspective to make some observations about our culture.Sandy believes his alien friends are peaceful and benevolent, as they present themselves to be. However, after it becomes clear their plans are far from benevolent, Sandy has to decide whether to side with the aliens who raised him, who are the only family he knows, or to side with humanity. This decision becomes more complicated when he learns he is only "partially" human.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Pet_Should_I_Get?" title="What Pet Should I Get?">
In a pet store, a young brother and sister (Jay and Kay) are trying to choose a pet. They consider a vast array of possible pets as their deadline of noon approaches. Finally, they settle on a pet whose identity remains unrevealed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recipe_for_Disaster_(book)" title="Recipe for Disaster (book)">
"Recipe for Disaster" is a story about Hellen Ntale that follows the life choices she makes, how she gets expelled from St. Joseph's Girls School and how she leaves school three months to her high school final exams. She has a relationship with Kevin, a 42-year-old man, against her parents' approval. Hellen goes ahead to form other relationships with men outside her marriage. one of them being Kevin's partners son Trevor Kendall, a twenty five year old man nearly her age. after a fight on Christmas Eve with Kevin over his soon to be fourth wife Cindy, a student at the university, Kevin beat her up and Hellen decided to run to London where she intended to give Trevor a child in order to make Kevin jealous. However, once she has conceived, Trevor announced that he was engaged much to Hellen's surprise. She attempts to kill Trevor's fiancee, Diane. After an attempt to kill her, she ends up in the hospital and when she is released, Trevor and Diane are already married and long gone. She then decided to return home to Uganda where Kevin welcomes her with open arms. She then discovers Suzy has departed and is abroad. However during Hellen's absence, Kevin's first wife dies and soon after, Hellen gives birth upon laying eyes upon the child, Kevin is distressed to find its blond and demands to know the father. Discovering it is Trevor, he decides to kill Helen. However with the help of a nurse and bodyguard, Helen manages to escape and finds herself in one of the slums. Kevin has been admitted into a hospital for mentally ill personnel. Helen is then discovered by her parents whom she is extremely ashamed and happy to see. She narrates her story to them before breathing her last.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate_of_the_Banished" title="Fate of the Banished">
The story centres on Father Santos Dila – the embodiment of Christian virtue, having trained from the Gregorian University in Italy, and who is now the parish priest. Father Santos falls in love with Flo, the wife of a rebel. It is set in a war torn area, the characters are furious, bitter and are ready to act with little remorse in the face of mischief against them or provocation. When Father Santos gets involved with Flo, he puts his life on the line. The story involves an investigation of whether the cleric was fully prepared by his priestly training to resist any temptation from the beautiful sister. Apire, Flo's husband, returns from the bush to find his wife with father Santos. He executes both of them and hands himself over to the Police.The book follows Apire, Flo and Father Santos.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footprints_of_the_Outsider" title="Footprints of the Outsider">
"Footprints of the Outsider" is set in Teboke Village in the Apac district of Uganda. The only brick structure in the village is the ginnery at Teboke trading centre set up by two Indians, Hippos and Ramchand. It revolves around Abdul Olwit, whose mother, Alicinora is a prostitute. As he grows, Abdul suffers ridicule not only from his peers but from his mother. Despite odds being against him, he graduates from Makerere University with a bachelor's of arts degree in economics, and becomes a teacher.Abdul, seeking to work in government, goes to Adoli Awal, the Teboke Member of Parliament, for help. But because Adwong, Abdul's uncle is Adoli's political enemy, the latter refuses. Abdul is later arrested when Adoli thinks he is eyeing his parliamentary seat. Abdul is released and contests for the parliamentary seat. The clashes that break out on one of the campaign rallies leave some people hurt and others dead. The book seeks to find the candidate who will become Teboke's next MP.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_Box_(novel)" title="Bird Box (novel)">
The book takes place in the present day, and two previous periods are revealed in flashback sequences. The story is told from the perspective of the main character, Malorie. This synopsis is in chronological order.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_the_Champions_of_the_Round_Table" title="The Story of the Champions of the Round Table">
## The Book of Sir Percival.Percival and his mother live in a tower isolated from the kingdom of King Arthur. When Percival becomes 19 years old, he sees a knight riding from far away. He instantly becomes intrigued with knighthood. He leaves his mother to become a knight. Because his armor is made of twigs, Percival is humiliated by others. Percival comes across a pavilion which he mistakenly believes is a church. There he meets Yvette and is instantly charmed by her beauty. He promises to marry her after he gains glory as a knight, and they exchange their rings. Percival comes across Queen Guinevere, who is assaulted by a knight. This knight is known for being very strong, and Sir Kay, who is meant to protect the Queen, is afraid to take up a quarrel with him. Percival, who is mistaken for a jester, takes up the fight instead. A quiet damsel named Yolande scolds Kay and praises Percival for this, and Kay punches her. Percival promises Kay that he will avenge Yolande, and he later kills the knight who assaulted the Queen. Percival is accepted into the court of King Arthur as a knight. Sir Launcelot trains Percival, and he is given proper, knightly armor. Later, Percival comes across a beautiful, colorful castle. This castle is owned by an infamous sorceress named Vivien, who is hated for causing havoc all over the kingdom. The rocks all around the castle are actually humans who have been transformed into rocks. Percival overthrows Vivien and almost kills her, but feels pity because she is so beautiful. Percival feels he has earned merit now as a knight. For this reason, he goes to search for his beloved Yvette. When he finally finds her father's castle, he beholds that the father is mourning. The father leads Percival into a chamber where Yvette is laying. Percival holds back his tears when he learns that she has died, and he vows that he will never marry. When Percival is reflecting over these things, he sees the vision of two young boys. One holds a spear, another a chalice. This is the Holy Grail and Holy Spear, and Percival is the first of the knights of the Round Table to see it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awful_Auntie" title="Awful Auntie">
The book is set in December 1933. The central character is Stella Saxby, who is a very rich girl. Her parents, Lord and Lady Saxby, have died in a tragic car accident. In the wake of the tragedy, Stella's Aunt Alberta launches a plot to trick Stella out of her inheritance. Also featured are Wagner (Aunt Alberta's enormous owl that was found in a war), Soot (a ghost of a chimney sweep) and Gibbon (the Saxby's elderly butler who offers much comic relief).Alberta lives up to her moniker as being awful. She lacks all sympathy and morals, having chosen to fight on the German side in World War I simply because she preferred their uniforms. Alberta was determined to have her niece, Stella, sign over the deeds of the house for her own selfish reasons. Alberta also tortures poor Stella in unimaginable ways so she would sign the house deeds. She has tortured and killed people and loves vicious owls. Stella rightfully fears her, and has to use all her wits to overcome the antagonism. Stella also encounters a ghost named Soot who was her late uncle that she never knew. Soot and Stella become friends and decide to give Alberta a hard time so she would run away.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Nostalgos" title="I Nostalgos">
Anna married with a much older husband decides to return in the island where she was born. He persuades Matthios, a young shepherd, to help her to escape from her husband and return to her island. Matthios is secretly in love with Anna and during their travel he hopes to keep Anna forever. But anna is homesick only for the place that she was born. Her husband worried, follows her to persuade her to turn back.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Buried_Giant" title="The Buried Giant">
Following the death of King Arthur, Saxons and Britons live in harmony. Along with everyone else in their community, Axl and Beatrice, an elderly Briton couple, suffer from severe selective amnesia that they call the 'mist'. Although barely able to remember, they feel sure that they once had a son, and they decide to travel to a village several days' walk away to seek him out. They stay at a Saxon village where two ogres have dragged off a boy named Edwin. A visiting Saxon warrior, Wistan, kills the ogres and rescues Edwin who is discovered to have a wound, believed to be an ogre-bite. The superstitious villagers attempt to kill the boy, but Wistan rescues him and joins Axl and Beatrice on their journey, hoping to leave Edwin at the son's village. The group heads to a monastery to consult with Jonus, a wise monk, about a pain in Beatrice's side. They meet the elderly Sir Gawain, nephew of King Arthur, who – as is well known – was tasked decades ago with slaying the she-dragon Querig, but who has never succeeded. Wistan reveals that he was sent by the Saxon king to slay Querig out of concern that she would be used by Lord Brennus, king of the Britons, to kill Saxons. The travellers are treated with hospitality at the monastery, but are informed by Jonus that most of the monks are corrupt. Sir Gawain has spoken to the abbot, believing he will protect the four. Instead, the abbot informs Lord Brennus, who sends soldiers to murder them. As an experienced warrior, Wistan realises that the monastery was originally built as a fort, and he makes use of its structure to trap and kill the soldiers. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life_(novel)" title="Second Life (novel)">
Second Life is the story of Julia, who has a perfect life with her husband Hugh and their adopted son, until an incident changes everything. Her sister Kate is murdered in an apparently random attack in Paris and the police seems to be stuck in their investigations. Julia decides to inquire into the murder on her own and finds out, that her sister was using online sites to play out her sexual fantasy by meeting up with strangers. Julia starts visiting some of these sites herself in hope of finding someone connected to Kate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_with_My_Sister_Madonna" title="Life with My Sister Madonna">
The memoir recounts different incarnations of Madonna's life such as "Spoiled Daddy's Girl", "The Punk Drummer", "The Raunchy Boy Toy", "Material Girl", "Mrs. Sean Penn", "Warren Beatty's Glamorous Hollywood Paramour", "Loving Mother", "Mrs. Guy Ritchie" and "English Grande Dame".The biography starts with the opening night of Madonna's The Girlie Show World Tour (1993) in London. From there, it describes Ciccone and Madonna's childhood together, playing at their father's orchards, the death of their mother. Ciccone reflects on working with Madonna, starting as a dancer for the music video for her 1983 single, "Lucky Star", to the Girlie Show in 1993. He writes about Madonna's sex life, including her relationships with artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, actors Sean Penn and Warren Beatty, and director Guy Ritchie, alleging that the lattermost is homophobic.Ciccone narrates the early part of his life with Madonna, including his first joint and his first visit to a gay bar. He also recalls Madonna's performance in school donning a provocative costume that displeased their father. Then he debunks Madonna's story regarding her first trip to Manhattan with nothing but $35 in her pocket and a pair of ballet shoes. The book ends with an epilogue listing the singer's accomplishments and Ciccone's current life, as well as an afterword, where he detailed how Madonna supposedly wanted to stop the publishing of the book and previously unreleased family photographs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Matter_of_Time_(Cook_novel)" title="A Matter of Time (Cook novel)">
The book has three distinct plot lines, set out in alternating chapters, and weaving back and forth in time. The reader, sharing the various points of view of the alternating characters, is in effect omniscient, knowing many things which are a mystery to the characters themselves.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Were_Liars" title="We Were Liars">
Cadence Sinclair Eastman is the eldest grandchild of the wealthy Harris Sinclair. Although her family pretends to be perfect, Cadence knows that beneath the surface, wealth and privilege have taken an insidious toll on her family and that any unhappiness or odd behavior is ignored or repressed to perpetuate the image of refinement. Harris has three daughters, Cadence's mother Penny, and her aunts Carrie and Bess. Harris owns an island called Beechwood Island near Martha's Vineyard and has built a home for himself along with a house for each of his daughters.The Sinclairs spend their summers on the island. Cadence and the other older cousins, Mirren, Johnny, along with Gat Patil (the nephew of Carrie's partner Ed) are known by the family as "The Liars". The summer Cadence is fifteen, which she refers to as Summer Fifteen, Gat and Cadence fall in love and begin a relationship.During Summer Fifteen, Cadence suffers a serious head injury recalling only that she struck her head in the water. She loses most of her memories of that summer and begins to suffer from migraines. She also becomes addicted to Percocet and is forced to repeat a year at school. When she tries to reach out to her cousins she is ignored. Rather than allowing her to go to the island for the summer, Cadence's mother forces her to go on a tour of Europe with her father, with whom Cadence is no longer close to after he had an affair and abandoned the family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Misperceived" title="China Misperceived">
The book is a historical overview and criticism of the writings that shaped American perceptions of China. Mosher includes American newspaper correspondents, diplomats, and intellectuals such as Edgar Snow, Archibald Steele, Theodore White, and John K. Fairbank. The title plays with the title of Fairbank’s Book from 1974 ″China perceived″.As the first American anthropologist allowed into China following the inauguration of the 1979 cultural exchange program, Mosher's personal experience with the rural regions of Guangdong grant additional insight. Mosher's book covers the perceptions and misperceptions people have had about China from the travels of Marco Polo. Mosher takes the title "Age of Infatuation" from Harold Isaacs's classic "Scratches on Our Minds" (1958) to describe the period during the 1930s and 1940s in which Communist China was presented as a progressive force following Edgar Snow's 1938 work, "Red Star Over China".The misperceptions of the West in regard to China have waxed and waned through the belief in the "Yellow Peril" to the model "Maoist Man" of Communist China. Mosher alleges self-deception was apparent in U.S. President Richard Nixon's visit to China and the change from hard-line anti-communist to raising toasts in Chairman Mao Zedong's name. Mosher argues that this was the most glaring example of how political expediency, ideology, and propaganda by the Chinese have constantly and consistently blinded Americans to the truth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Village_in_the_Jungle" title="The Village in the Jungle">
The novel describes the lives of a poor family in a small village called Beddagama (literally, "The village in the jungle") as they struggle to survive the challenges presented by poverty, disease, superstition, the unsympathetic colonial system, and the jungle itself. The head of the family is a farmer named Silindu, who has two daughters named Punchi Menika and Hinnihami. After being manipulated by the village authorities and a debt collector, Silindu is put on trial for murder.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_O'_the_Wisp_(novel)" title="Will O' the Wisp (novel)">
Alain Leroy is 30 years old. He served in World War I and has led a cosmopolitan, decadent life for a few years, before being admitted to a mental institution for depression, fatigue and heroin addiction. He is unable to adapt to the regulated life of the institution, but the doctor does not think his stay needs to be extended.Alain visits several old friends in Paris. He is presented with several opportunities to return to a regular life, but is unable to find any satisfying human connection, and other people have a hard time sympathising with his situation. Alain returns to his room at the hospital where he commits suicide.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Child_(novel)" title="The Golden Child (novel)">
In London in January 1973 the Museum (unnamed in the novel) is exhibiting for the first time anywhere the golden Garamantian treasures, on loan from the Garamantian government, that had been discovered years earlier by the eminent archaeologist Sir William Simpkin. Sir William, wealthy and now elderly, is retained by the Museum as a figurehead, largely because the Museum’s director, Sir John Allison, expects to receive a large bequest on the old man's death. Huge crowds queue for hours for a brief glimpse under poor lighting of the two most famous exhibits: the Golden Child and the Ball of Golden Twine. Rumours circulate that the Child is cursed.Sir William shows little interest in the exhibition, but he does ask to take a closer look at one of the many clay tablets that accompany the treasures. Late at night, while returning the tablet to its case at Sir William’s request, a Junior Exhibition Officer, Waring Smith, is attacked and partly strangled, apparently with the Golden Twine.The German Garamantologist Professor Untermensch tells the Director that all the artefacts in the exhibition are fakes. Sir John decides that a second opinion is needed; this has to be obtained covertly because of the political sensitivities of the Garamantian loan. He dispatches Smith to Moscow, along with one of the lesser treasures, to get the opinion of the Russian Garamantologist Professor Semyonov. The Director expects that no one will be suspicious of Smith because of his lowly position. Untermensch, however, thinks that the Soviets will assume he is a spy, and he shadows him. The Soviets do indeed make that assumption and, to show that they know the game the British are playing, they allow Smith and Untermensch into the Kremlin to view the real Garamantian treasures. Smith discovers that there is no such person as Semyonov.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Voices" title="Human Voices">
Seymour ‘Sam’ Brooks is the BBC's Recorded Programme Director (RPD), a technically brilliant though needy man. Self-centred, obsessed with his work, and oblivious to much of what goes on around him, he deals with his colleagues’ lack of understanding and sympathy by surrounding himself with young female Recorded Programme Assistants (RPAs) with whom he shares his complaints and worries. He faces constant fights to maintain his department’s status within Broadcasting House. His manager, the Director of Programme Planning (DPP) Jeff Haggard, helps to protect Sam from the day-to-day annoyances of working for the Corporation.After one of Sam's new RPAs, Lise Bernard, leaves unexpectedly very soon after being appointed in order to seek her French soldier boyfriend, Jeff and senior management decide that Sam should no longer be permitted to recruit. Without Sam's input they select as his new RPA Annie Asra, the 17-year-old orphaned daughter of a piano tuner from Birmingham. She astonishes Sam the first time they meet when she steadfastly maintains that the singer on one of Sam's cherished recordings is slightly flat. To celebrate the successful completion of his design for a new microphone windshield, Sam takes his RPAs out to dinner at an expensive French restaurant. Annie realises that she has fallen in love with him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gate_of_Angels" title="The Gate of Angels">
Fred Fairly, a Junior Fellow of St Angelicus ('Angels'), a fictional Cambridge college, is a physicist whose research focuses on the exciting modern field of quantum theory. As Fred cycles along the Guestingley Road in the dark, an unlit farmer's cart pulls out of a gateway into his path, causing him to crash into a stranger - a young woman by the name of Daisy Saunders. Both are knocked unconscious, and are taken in by the wife of Professor Wrayburn who lives nearby. Noting that the young woman wears a wedding ring, she incorrectly assumes that the pair are husband and wife and she puts them into the same bed to recover. On coming round, Fred immediately falls in love with Daisy, but she leaves without giving an address and he has no way of locating her.Daisy is in fact an impoverished young woman from South London, who has been working towards a nursing position at Blackfriars Hospital. She is single but wears a wedding ring to fend off unwanted male attention. At the time of the accident she was cycling with Thomas Kelly, a seedy journalist, who quickly made himself scarce.While Fred is recuperating in a nursing home, Daisy returns to Cambridge and gets a job at the local asylum. She visits Mrs Wrayburn, quickly realises that the household chores are a burden to her, and offers to take them over in return for lodging. As soon as Fred learns of her return, he proposes marriage. Daisy says that she will consider it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presence_(play)" title="Presence (play)">
Pete Best, George Harrison and Paul McCartney share a room as they play the Indra Club (John Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe are off-stage characters). Pete, newly joined to the group, is shown as an outsider, the diffident George, the youngest of the group, contrasts to the domineering Paul. The play ends as George is arrested for being out after the curfew imposed on minors in Hamburg (in real life he had lied to the German authorities about his age in order to be allowed to stay in Hamburg). The group play to dwindling audiences until Paul, angry at the band's lack of success and at being told that club owner Bruno Koschmider was in the Panzer division, begins sending up Nazism – wearing jackboots and crying “Sieg Heil” – which attracts a young audience to the club. That the Beatles are reported actually to have done this, coupled with Harrower's desire to write about the dynamics of a band were the origins of the play. The play alludes to events that followed this – Pete and Paul raised a small fire in their room – by having an older German woman, whose knowledge of the Nazi past counterpoints the young men's ignorance, set fire to a jacket hanging on the wall.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clothes_on_Their_Backs" title="The Clothes on Their Backs">
A quiet, sensitive girl who loves to read grows up in a very quiet environment. Vivien Kovacs is raised by Hungarian parents who have been quite silenced by the war and thus she seems to be removed from both the past and present. So she uses her books to reinvent herself through her favorite characters. That is, until Uncle Sandor appears on the scene.This uncle comes clad in a diamond watch, mohair suit and accompanied by a girl wearing a leopard-skin hat. He wants to share his life story with Vivien, telling her all about her family’s past. Vivien’s parents do not take well to this intruder. But Vivien wants to know why.That is just the plot. Throughout the pages the readers learn about heroism, survival and betrayals and how our clothes define our personalities.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Freddie's" title="At Freddie's">
The novel is set in Central London, in 1963. "The Temple" stage school (often known as "Freddie’s") has been owned and run on traditional lines by its principal Freddie Wentworth for 40 years. An august but shabby institution, it offers training in Shakespearean and other stage drama to child actors, deliberately eschewing more profitable types of work such as TV, film and modelling. In spite of pressure to modernise from her solicitor brother, and from Joey Blatt, an intending investor, Freddie prefers to beg or borrow anything she needs from the local theatre community, relying on her reputation and charm. She spends as little as she possibly can on staff, engaging just two temporary general studies teachers for the students: Hannah Graves and Pierce Carroll.Hannah comes from a Catholic Northern Ireland background, and has taken the role as an entree into her much-loved theatre world. Carroll, about 10 years older, is from a repressive Protestant background; he has no interest in the theatre, and has taken the post merely because he can get no other. The teachers see a lot of each other during their long working hours, and Caroll becomes attracted to Hannah. Realising his incompetence at teaching, as in everything else, Carroll's attraction turns into unhealthy infatuation and after Hannah out of pity offers him sex she finds him assuming that marriage will follow. Hannah, however, has taken up with ‘Boney’ Lewis, an older professional actor who is appearing in a West End production of Shakespeare's "King John".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_of_Spring" title="The Beginning of Spring">
In March 1913, Nellie Reid leaves her husband Frank, a Russian-born Englishman who runs a printing shop in Moscow. She returns to England without warning or explanation and he urgently needs to find someone to look after his three children, Dolly, Ben and Annie (Annushka).The Kuriatins, the family of a business partner, prove unsuitable: Frank's visit to them ends in disaster when a bear cub given as a birthday present to the son of the family becomes drunk, wreaks havoc in the dining room, and has to be shot. Then, Mrs Graham, wife of the Anglican chaplain, introduces him to Muriel Kinsman, an English governess who has for reasons that are unclear recently been dismissed from her post. He considers her equally unsuitable.Frank's chief accountant Selwyn Crane is an idealistic follower of Tolstoy who spends much of his spare time seeking out those he considers to be oppressed; he is also a poet and author of "Birch Tree Thoughts." Selwyn introduces Frank to Lisa Ivanovna, a young shop-girl found weeping at the men's handkerchief department of the local store. She is said to be the daughter of a country joiner. Frank employs her, and finds himself attracted by her beauty and serene presence. The children quickly become attached to her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinels_From_Space" title="Sentinels From Space">
Called before the World Council, Space Captain David Raven is told that he must stop a clandestine war being waged against Terra by people seeking independence for Mars and Venus. The Council's leader, Oswald Heraty, tells him that Humanity is on the verge of interstellar flight and that there have been hints of intelligent life "out there": Heraty wants Humanity to face any potential dangers as a unified society, so he doesn't want Mars and Venus gaining independence. After leaving the Council, David goes to see Mr. Conrad, the director of the Terran Security Bureau. As true telepaths, Conrad and David speak mind to mind. Conrad gives David a list of the twelve known types of mutants and notes that the clandestine war is being waged by mutants sabotaging Terran infrastructure.David returns to the home that he shares with his companion, Leina, and shortly a team of phony police officers arrives. David switches bodies with the hypno and then with hypnotic power convinces the others on his team that David has already left. Later David reverses the switch and obtains from the shaken hypno the identity of the leader of the sabotage effort, a Venusian insectivocal named Arthur Kayder. Visiting Kayder, David obtains from Kayder's valet the information he wants on the underground base from with the saboteurs launch their attacks. He then goes to the spaceport and boards a ship bound for Venus.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Peacock" title="Palace of the Peacock">
The novel is set in the sixteenth century and presents the narrative of a group of men from different ethnic backgrounds making their way up a dangerous and turbulent river within the jungles of Guyana. The party is led by a man named Donne, a cruel second-generation European colonialist who was born in Guyana, and who is hunting for a woman called Mariella who has run away from him. Over the course of the journey it becomes apparent that it is not the first time the men have tried to make their way up this river and that last time they attempted to traverse the river they were all drowned. It is suggested that they now exist in a liminal or spectral state between life and death. The events of the narrative are narrated by a first person narrator who is identified simply as "Dreamer" in the opening pages of the novel. Dreamer's presence becomes increasingly oblique as the novel progresses.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graziella" title="Graziella">
The eighteen-year-old narrator travels from his home in Mâcon, Burgundy, to Italy, staying first in Rome, then Naples. There he meets a young man named Aymon de Virieu, and the two decide to apprentice themselves to Andrea, a local fisherman. Although the first few months pass in contemplative tranquility and beauty, they are forced to take refuge at Andrea's home on Procida during a surging September storm, where they spend the night. Here the narrator first meets the fisherman's granddaughter, Graziella.The following morning, the narrator overhears Andrea's wife, criticising him for taking on the two "pagan" Frenchmen. However, Graziella comes to their defense, silencing her grandmother by pointing out the two young men's compassion and religious acts. The family and their apprentices go to recover the remnants of the destroyed boat. Soon afterwards, the narrator and Virieu go to the village, where they purchase a new boat and fishing supplies for the fisherman. When they return, Andrea and his family are sleeping, but are soon awoken and brought to the beach, joyously accepting the new vessel.Over the next several days, the narrator and Virieu enjoy an idyllic life, reading, walking, and enjoying the beauty, music, and dance of Procida. Graziella expresses interest in their reading, and thus the men read works by Ugo Foscolo and Tacitus to her and her family. Though these fall flat, all are interested in Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's romantic novel "Paul et Virginie". Such is Graziella's fascination with the tale that she abandons all reserve and sits near the narrator, her breath on his hand, and her hair brushing his forehead. When it is over, she begs the narrator to reread the tale.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indomitable_(short_story)" title="Indomitable (short story)">
Two years after the events chronicled in "The Wishsong of Shannara", Kimber Boh finds Jair Ohmsford working in his parents' inn while they are away. She tells him of a dream that has been haunting Cogline where the shade of the fallen Druid Allanon comes to him and tells him that a page from the Ildatch was not destroyed, and that Jair must destroy it. Jair is unconvinced, but agrees to travel to Hearthstone with Kimber and meet with Cogline. The first night Jair is there the shade of Allanon visits him and tells him that he must travel to the lair of the Mwellrets, Dun Fee Aran, and destroy the remaining page of the Ildatch before its power grows. The three companions journey to Dun Fee Aran, and along the way encounter a peddler who warns them against going there. Jair struggles with his own fears of going back to that evil place where he was once imprisoned by the lizard-like Mwellrets, with their hypnotizing eyes.Once they arrive, Jair slips medication into Cogline and Kimber Boh's ale, which causes them to fall into a deep sleep, so that he may enter the fortress alone, and spare them harm. Jair uses his Wishsong to disguise himself and gain entry to the fortress. He conjures up an illusion of Allanon which sends the Mwellrets into a panic, then follows one to the chamber where the remaining Ildatch page is guarded. He then tries to pick up the page, but it burns him and he howls, giving away his presence. The Mwellrets begin searching for him, but cannot find him as he is hidden by the Wishsong. They get close to him, and he conjures up an illusion of warriors, but the Mwellrets quickly see through that and in a panic he conjures up an illusion of the Weapons Master, Garet Jax, which he inhabits. This endows him with Garet Jax's fighting abilities, allowing him to slaughter the Mwellrets and destroy the Ildatch page. He then returns to himself and escapes the fortress, realizing that his Wishsong is much more powerful than he had realized. He can not only conjure up illusions, but he can inhabit those illusions, along with their powers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weapon_Master's_Choice" title="The Weapon Master's Choice">
The story begins when Garet Jax is found in the forest by the beautiful and mysterious Lyriana. She persuades him that he must travel with her to Tajarin on the coast to save her people from a dracul named Kronswiff who feeds on souls. Garet Jax knows she is keeping something from him, but is strangely attracted to her and compelled to help. That night she shares his camp, and in the dark of night Garet Jax awakens to a threatening feeling, only to find Lyriana already awake. Three masked men attack and Garet easily kills them. The next day they buy provisions for their 8 day journey and set off. When they arrive at the town Garet Jax is surprised by what he sees. Tajarin is a crumbling ruin. It looks deserted except for the guards, called Hets. He and Lyriana stay hidden, and enter a building where he witnesses Kronswiff sucking the souls out of his helpless victims. Garet Jax knows he should wait until Kronswiff and the Hets retire so as to attack unawares, but he cannot bear to watch one more person drained of their soul and thrown into a cart, a lifeless bit of sagging flesh. He silently kills two Hets, then throws a dagger into Kronswiffs heart. The dracul does not perish, and Garet Jax realizes that he must behead the monster. He attacks and kills the Hets, and while doing so feels Lyriana using magic to block their blows from him. He kills them all then swings a deadly blow at Kronswiff, taking off his hands and head in one foul swoop. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Mayakovsky_(tragedy)" title="Vladimir Mayakovsky (tragedy)">
Vladimir Mayakovsky, "the last of the poets," carrying his "soul on a plate for the Future's dinner," declares himself "the king of all lamps" and promises to reveal for the people their brand new, true souls. The Holiday of the Paupers goes on in the City. After an Old man (with cats) greets the advent of the new age of electricity and an Ordinary man protesting against the impending mutiny, gets brushed off, a giant woman gets unveiled and carried by the crowd to the Door to be just thrown down to the floor there. A riot of things commences, with human limbs running about, disconnected from their bodies. At the City's main square Mayakovsky, dressed in toga is treated as a new god, people bringing him presents, three Tears among them. One man relates the story of how two kisses that's been given him turned into the babies and started to multiply. The Poet packs the three Tears he's received from the three women and promises to deliver them to the great Northern god.The Poet says farewells to his followers he refers to as "my poor rats," declares Heavens "a cheat" and, after meditating upon what he'd rather be - "a rooster from Holland or a Pskovian king," - decides he likes "the sound of my name, Vladimir Mayakovsky, the best."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac's_Storm" title="Isaac's Storm">
The book opens with a restless Isaac Cline on the night of September 7, 1900, the eve of the 1900 Galveston hurricane's landfall. Isaac, despite all of the meteorological signs saying otherwise, cannot shake the uneasy feeling that something is amiss. Larson follows this prologue with a look at the science of hurricanes and all of the unusual factors that may have led to the hurricane that season. The initial birth of the storm is described with Larson's speculation on hurricane formation. Larson follows the path of the storm up to Galveston, while also looking at the people of Galveston and the vitality of the city. The narrative is supported by the insertion of letters and telegrams surrounding the events of the storm. The meteorologists of Cuba are shown to be very skilled in the art, but are completely ignored by the overconfident Weather Bureau and its meteorologists. The hurricane passes over Cuba, and the Cubans predict it to be heading towards Texas. The Weather Bureau, however, disagrees and believes that the storm will track towards Florida. Larson, meanwhile, looks at the lives of multiple Galveston residents on the eve of the storm, specifically Isaac Cline. He is a curious family man who risks his life to save his family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Enchilada!" title="Holy Enchilada!">
Hank has been chosen to host a Japanese boy named Yoshi! Hank also needs to prepare some enchiladas for his school multi-cultural day. But, he may have added too much chili powder... and then the trouble starts!
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alif_the_Unseen" title="Alif the Unseen">
In an unnamed Middle Eastern security state, the hacker Alif discovers that his love interest Intisar is entering an arranged marriage with another man. He creates a computer program, Tin Sari, to identify Intisar’s digital footprint and block her from seeing him online. Alif’s computer is attacked by The Hand, a prince who seeks to identify and imprison dissidents. The Hand is also Intisar's fiancé. Unable to contact Alif online, Intisar sends him a book.Alif is stalked by secret police, causing him to flee with his neighbor Dina. They seek out a gang leader named Vikram the Vampire for protection. They are rescued by two djinn: Vikram and his sister Azalel, who had been living as Alif and Dina's housecat. Vikram reveals that Intisar’s book, the Alf Yeom, is a collection of djinn tales containing powerful secrets.They meet a convert who specializes in antique books, and they learn that The Hand is seeking the Alf Yeom. Dina, the convert, Alif, and Vikram seek shelter from the police in a mosque. Alif decodes the Alf Yeom and attempts to create a quantum computer. Dina and the convert escape, Vikram is killed, and Alif is captured and interrogated by The Hand. Months later, he is rescued by NewQuarter01, a prince and hacker. Alif learns that his public arrest has become a cause célèbre for anti-regime activists.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help!_Somebody_Get_Me_Out_of_Fourth_Grade!" title="Help! Somebody Get Me Out of Fourth Grade!">
When his parents get called for a parent-teacher conference, Hank just knows his teacher is going to tell them he is being held back. Hank and his best friends Ashley Wong and Frankie Townsend plans to send Hank's parents to a rock concert in Philadelphia at the same date and they accept! Hank is thrilled to be going into fifth grade. until his parents come back early! Hank remembers that it's family game night, so he decides to go to the pizza parlor and play in the arcade. Everything is going fine until Hank’s teacher, Mrs. Adolf, calls and reminds Hank's parents about the conference. They decide to postpone the trip and visit. After the conference, Hank finds out that he will have to attend summer school in order to pass the 4th grade.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_and_Death_of_Harriett_Frean" title="Life and Death of Harriett Frean">
Harriett Frean is a woman so afraid of life that she will eventually talk herself out of living it. The novel follows Harriet as she is raised to be the ideal Victorian woman. Harriett is proud of her self-sacrifice (which she believes is the highest love of all) but when she falls in love with her best friend's fiance she is forced to question everything she thought she knew. Having decided not to follow her heart Harriett spends the rest of her life trying to convince herself that she has done the right thing. Described as a "small, perfect gem of a book" by author Jonathan Coe.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner_of_Heaven" title="The Prisoner of Heaven">
Daniel Sempere has settled into married life well and his son is shortly turning one year old. He is living above the family bookshop, Sempere &amp; Sons with his elderly father, his wife Beatriz and son Julian. Though business has declined further in recent years, his friend Fermín Romero de Torres still finds a place at the bookshop and continues to source rare books while bringing a smile to the faces of the customers.One day a mysterious man arrives and asks about a rare and expensive copy of "The Count of Monte Cristo" that is kept in a display case behind the counter. He purchases the book from Don Sempere Snr and writes an inscription on the cover page:"For Fermín Romero de Torres, who came back from among the dead and holds the key to the future."The book is left as a gift for Fermín. When he returns to the bookshop later he is upset by the gift. It's revealed that Fermín was in prison 20 years earlier with the mysterious stranger as well as David Martin (the protagonist of Zafón's second novel "The Angel's Game"). While in prison Fermín, inspired by the story of "The Count of Monte Cristo", escaped by taking the place of a dead cell mate, stealing a key from the stranger. Knowing the stranger has finally tracked him down, Fermín, with the help of Daniel, attempts to locate the man and come to an arrangement before he's required to pay the ultimate price.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shuttle_(novel)" title="The Shuttle (novel)">
Sir Nigel Anstruthers comes to New York in search of an heiress, as he no longer has enough money to keep up his estate, Stornham Court. He marries the pretty and cosseted Rosalie Vanderpoel, the daughter of an American millionaire. But on their return to England, Nigel and his mother control and isolate Rosalie from her family. Many years later, Rosalie's now-grown up sister Bettina, who has spent a decade wondering why Rosy has lost contact with the family, arrives at Stornham Court to investigate. She discovers Rosalie and her son Ughtred, physically and emotionally fragile, living in the ruined estate. Bettina, who is both beautiful and made of considerably stronger stuff than her sister, begins to restore both Rosalie's health and spirits and the building and grounds of Stornham Court in Nigel's absence. Bettina, as an attractive heiress, attracts the attention of the local gentry and re-integrates her sister into society, while also gaining the respect of the villagers by her insistence that repairs be done by local workers.Bettina also makes the acquaintance of another impoverished English nobleman, Lord Mount Dunstan, who has considerably more pride and spirit than Sir Nigel and has no intention of marrying an American heiress to restore his estate, but who is not well-respected in the neighborhood due to his disreputable late father and brother. Mount Dunstan regains the respect of the neighborhood due to a chance encounter with an American typewriter salesman on holiday, G. Seldon, and because he opens his estate to workers afflicted by typhoid fever. When Sir Nigel returns home to discover Rosalie and Ughtred in improved health and spirits, the estate nearly restored, and Betty responsible for it all, he tries to conceal his ill-will but has never been particularly good at self-control. In a final confrontation, Nigel attempts to bully Bettina into leaving Rosalie at Stornham Court, this time with more of her father's money, but she hides from him and eventually returns with Mount Dunstan, who she had believed dead of typhus. Mount Dunstan whips Sir Nigel "like a dog," and the latter eventually suffers a fit and dies, while Bettina and Mount Dunstan overcome their pride and confess their love for each other.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadowhunter's_Codex" title="The Shadowhunter's Codex">
This book is Clary Fray's personal copy of the 20th edition of "The Shadowhunter's Codex", which contains the history of the Nephilim, or Shadowhunters, as well as information they have compiled. The 20th edition of the book was intended to be an updated version, to help young Shadowhunters in a modern world, although Clary, and her friends, Jace Herondale and Simon Lewis, felt otherwise. Throughout the pages are sketches made by Clary, as well as comments by her and her friends.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Making_of_a_Marchioness" title="The Making of a Marchioness">
Emily Fox-Seton is a woman of good birth but no money who had worked as a lady's companion and now assists various members of the upper class with day-to-day practical matters. As the novel opens, she is 34 years old, living in a small room in a lodging house in an unfashionable area of London. Her chief employer is Lady Maria Bayne, who is both very selfish and very funny, although she does come to care for Emily. In a Cinderella-like twist, Emily marries a man twenty years her senior, James, the Marquess of Walderhurst, thus becoming a marchioness. In the sequel, originally "The Methods of Lady Walderhurst", Emily has Walderhurst's child, and his former heir, Alec Osborn, attempts to regain what he sees as his birthright.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Queen_of_the_Caribbean" title="The Queen of the Caribbean">
Four years have passed since the battle of Gibraltar. The Black Corsair has tracked Duke Van Guld down to Veracruz at last, and has formed an alliance with Nicholas van Hoorn, Michel de Grammont and Laurens de Graaf, three of the most formidable pirates in the Gulf, to finally bring his foe to justice. After Van Guld explodes his ship as a final resource, the Black Corsair and some of his men manage to escape and are lost in the jungles, at which point they're captured by the native Caribs. Fortunately for them, Honorata had shipwrecked on the coast before and was believed by the natives to be a sea deity and then followed as their queen. After they're freed by her, the Corsair decides to stop his piracy and return with Honorata to Italy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Chapel" title="The Big Chapel">
The Big Chapel – part of the Liberties Revival series – centers around an infamous clerical scandal in Victorian Ireland. Within this story comes the ideas of humanity and ideology, taking a detailed look at the community and depicting life in Ireland with a focus on history and folklore in the region. It’s a book that looks at how state education is received in nineteenth century Ireland.At times the book is humorous; other times tragic. The main character Father Lannigan struggles with his revolution while Master Scully is stuck with too many choices. And then there is Horace Percy Butler and the landlord and amateur scientist who presents a whole tragic comic character.The major themes in The Big Chapel center around: humanity, ideology, power and religion, depicted through tragic comedy. It is about community, and dealing with choice. It is littered with one man being forced to make a choice set in historic Ireland.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scar_Tissue_(novel)" title="Scar Tissue (novel)">
The book details one woman’s struggle with Alzheimer's (or dementia, it’s not clear) and how her family respond to it. In particular, it is one of her son’s voice the reader hears since he is narrating it. Another son isn’t involved so much as he is living in Boston practicing as a neuroscientist. So it is the narrator who bears most of the burden. And all the while, he is trying to work on his marriage and his career as a philosophy professor. His own family life is hardly acknowledged and tears in his marriage begin to show, towards his wife; there for moral support but can't come to terms with him not being a consistent, central figure at the moment.While her illness begins with her repeating stories ad nauseam, things get much worse as she starts to be incapable of recognizing her own family. Thus the prime caretaker – the son – ends up separating from his wife and living in derelict conditions. Nonetheless, he remains positive about the nature of life and death, even once he has lost both his parents, concluding that he “know[s] that there is a life beyond this death, a time beyond this time. I know that at the very last moment…I will be face to face at last with a pure and heartless reality beyond anything a living soul can possibly imagine.”
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Circle_(novel)" title="Full Circle (novel)">
Tana Roberts, coming of age in the turbulent 1960s, has ambitions of an important career. Her feelings about love and marriage have been shaped by her mother's role as a married man's longtime mistress.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kockroach" title="Kockroach">
"Kockroach" is a re-imagining of Franz Kafka's 1915 novella "the Metamorphosis": instead of having human Gregor Samsa wake up and find that he has been transformed into an enormous insect, "Kockroach" begins with a cockroach waking up in a hotel room in New York City in the mid-1950s, and finding that he has been transformed into a human. Since cockroaches are "awesome coping machines" which do not possess significant capacity for angst, despair, or introspection, "Jerry Blatta" (as he becomes known) quickly learns to walk on two legs instead of six, to recognize himself in a mirror, to dress and feed himself, to ward off predators by constantly showing his teeth, to play chess, and, Chauncey Gardiner-like, to fake his way through conversations. From there, he becomes a mob enforcer, then a mob boss, before venturing into politics.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bergson,_Master_Detective_(novel)" title="Bill Bergson, Master Detective (novel)">
Bill Bergson investigates his friend's mysterious cousin, who is behaving suspiciously, and solves the mystery of a jewel robbery.Bill and five of his friends also play a mock war game, with the White Roses and the Red Roses vying for possession of an unusual stone.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Song" title="The Long Song">
"The Long Song" is written as a memoir by an elderly Jamaican woman living in early 19th-century Jamaica during the final years of slavery and the transition to freedom that took place thereafter. It tells the tale of a young slave girl, July, who lives at Amity – a sugarcane plantation. She lived through the 1831 Baptist War, and then the beginning of freedom. Her mother, Kitty; the slaves working the plantation land; and the owner of the plantation, the white woman Caroline Mortimer, are other characters in the novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Except_the_Dying_(novel)" title="Except the Dying (novel)">
In the first chapter, William Murdoch is introduced, as a man of strong principles, who uses his unique abilities to solve crimes, sometimes using advanced science for his time.On the street of Toronto, in 1895, the body of a prostitute is found, murdered in a back alley. Inspector Brackenreid decides that this is an accidental death, but Murdoch feels there's more to the situation at hand.As Murdoch digs deeper into the prostitute's death, he discovers that there is something more sinister going and that the young girl was actually a housemaid for a very rich and prominent family in Toronto.Her autopsy reveals she was pregnant and had opium in her system, which makes Murdoch even more suspicious of her death. With the help of Constable George Crabtree, Murdoch solves the crime and brings justice for a young girl's wrongful death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shepherd's_Crown" title="The Shepherd's Crown">
Tiffany Aching is busy running her steading and taking care of the people of the Chalk. Jeannie, the Kelda of the Nac Mac Feegle, is worried that she's overworked. When Granny Weatherwax, Tiffany's mentor, dies, she leaves everything to Tiffany, who becomes the first among equals of the witches.Geoffrey, the third son of Lord Swivel, is well educated, vegetarian and a pacifist. He is dissatisfied with hunting practices he considers barbaric, and after a confrontation with his father, heads towards Lancre, intending to become a witch.Meanwhile, in the domain of the Elves, Peaseblossom senses that the passing of Granny Weatherwax has weakened the barriers between the realms. When a goblin shows the faerie court what the humans are capable of with iron and the status that goblins have achieved, Peaseblossom usurps the Queen, intending to reenter the human world and reestablish the elves' power.Tiffany, spread thin tending to the Chalk and Granny Weatherwax's old steading, employs Geoffrey as a backhouse boy and starts teaching him. He and his goat get on well with everybody, and Tiffany dubs him a calm-weaver. Intending to help old men have some autonomy from their wives, he introduces the idea of sheds.Nightshade, the former Queen of the Elves, is found by the Feegle stationed on the Chalk at the gateway to fairyland. Her wings had been ripped off before she had been forcibly ejected from her world. The Feegles restrain her until Tiffany arrives and takes her in on her family farm. While there, she decides to carry as a talisman the shepherd's crown, or fossilised Echinoid, that had been in the Aching family for many generations. Tiffany attempts to teach Nightshade what it is to be human and the motivations of kindness.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Part_Woman" title="One Part Woman">
Kali and Ponna are a couple living in Tamil Nadu. Despite having been married for 12 years, they are unable to conceive a child. Their childlessness becomes a source of constant taunts from family members and fellow villagers, who variously attribute it to family curses, God's wrath, or their ancestors' ill behavior. Desperate, the couple try several remedies, prayers and offerings but to no avail. Kali is often encouraged to have a second wife, an idea he considers but ultimately rejects. As a last resort, their families put forward the suggestion that Ponnu go to the chariot festival of the androgynous god Ardhanarishvara, where on the 14th day, societal taboo relating to extramarital sex is relaxed and consenting men and women may sleep together. Kali is repulsed by the idea but brings up the subject with Ponnu, who responds by saying she would go if he wished so. Kali feels betrayed by her reaction and eventually grows colder to her. The following year, Ponnu's family takes matters into their own hands by luring Kali out of the house, while convincing her that he has given his consent for her to go to the festival. She does so and finds a man she considers "a god" to impregnate her. Meanwhile, Kali returns home to find Ponnu gone, leading him to breakdown and curse Ponnu.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Survivor_(Mills_novel)" title="The Survivor (Mills novel)">
Top secret data has been stolen from the CIA, and the only man who knows its hiding place is dead. CIA operative Mitch Rapp must race to find the classified information in this novel that acts as a continuation of the previous novel, "The Last Man" Former CIA agent Joseph “Rick” Rickman has stolen secret data concerning classified operations all over the world, offering it (and himself) to the Pakistani secret forces. CIA director Irene Kennedy sends Mitch Rapp to kill Rickman but the aftermath poses more problems.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_Upon_a_Time_(book_series)" title="Twice Upon a Time (book series)">
Rapunzel was in deep trouble. She was recently held prisoner by a witch as the result of a deal her parents made when she was born.Prince Benjamin craved to have a grand adventure travelling minstrels would compose songs about. His mother, however, was overly protective and watched him “like a hawk”.When the story began, Prince Benjamin was fetched for supper by his best friend Andrew. He was distressed to sit beside Prince Elkin, his “ever-bothersome, froglike” cousin.Meanwhile, Rapunzel has been weeping. She was hungry, aching, and homesick.The next day, Rapunzel woke to discover a little orange kitten on her feet. She named her Sir Kitty. When the witch appeared, Rapunzel threatened that her parents would find her soon. The witch laughed and told her she was far from any village.At the same time, Prince Benjamin was wandering far from the castle. His glasses fell and broke. He stumbled around until a boy approached him and brought him to his house. The boy's father mended his spectacles as if it were never broken. In conversation, Prince Benjamin discovered that all the boys born the three years following his birth were also named Benjamin. He also found although the boy's father was excellent at making spectacles, he had to clean dung chutes for a stable income.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Cloud_in_Trousers" title="A Cloud in Trousers">
Structurally, the poem is closer to diptych. In Part I the protagonist is waiting for his love, Maria, in a hotel. She finally appears and informs him of her engagement. He remains visibly unperturbed, but internally suffers an explosion of destructive emotions and furious metaphors:Now I’ll go and play.The fiery curve of my brow flawless.A house that was destroyed by flameIs sometimes occupied by the homeless.Parts II and III contain brutal attacks on the contemporary poetry, praises of the Man who "holds the conveyors of the world in the palm of his hand," and prophesizes the revolution and the emergence of the new, freed mankind. The protagonist, a self-defined "preaching, thrashing Zarathustra," sees himself as a new man-God and enters the "tongueless streets" to pronounce his own Sermon on the Mount.Where the human eye fails in confusion,The hungry hordes loom:Wearing the crown of thorns of revolutionsYear 16 brings doom.Part IV sees the protagonist's return to being tormented by unrequited love, which eventually brings him to the act of Deicide, as he blames God for creating an unhappy world, where unanswered love is possible:Almighty, you gave us an assortment:A head and a pair of hands to exist.Why couldn’t you make it so, without torment,
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allanon's_Quest" title="Allanon's Quest">
Allanon is on a desperate quest to find the last heir of Shannara before the Skull Bearers can wipe them all out. His quest takes him to the small village of Archer Trace, where he interrogates an innkeeper about the whereabouts of Eldra Darrivanian. Eldra is an elf who worked for the Elessedil Royal family as a historian that specialized in genealogy. After his son was killed under mysterious circumstances while serving in the Home Guard, Eldra felt the king did not do enough to discover who the killer was and bring him to justice. He then began neglecting and sabotaging his work, and eventually was dismissed. In disgrace, he left Arborlon with his wife and went into hiding near Archer Trace. After tracking him down, Allanon questions him as to whom the last heir of Shannara is and Eldra tells him that it is a man named Weir.Allanon travels to Weir's home, and wonders about Eldra's strange behavior. He seemed tense and afraid. When he arrives at Weir's home he is attacked and takes a dagger to the chest, but using Druid magic he is able to kill most of his attackers, while the rest flee. During the assault, Allanon uses one of his attackers as a human shield. The man is pierced and killed by arrows. Afterwards, a Skull Bearer reveals himself long enough to tell Allanon that the man he used as a human shield was Weir, last heir of Shannara.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_to_Noise_(Moreno-Garcia_novel)" title="Signal to Noise (Moreno-Garcia novel)">
In 2009, Mercedes "Meche" Vega returns to Mexico City to attend the funeral of her DJ father. While there she reminisces about her life in the city in 1988 when she was fifteen and how she accidentally discovered, along with her best friends Sebastian and Daniela, that she could perform spells by listening to songs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangsaman" title="Hangsaman">
On the verge of leaving for college, Natalie Waite feels oppressed by the expectations of her pompous, overbearing father, who imposes his personality on her, and by her miserable, defeated mother, whom Natalie sees as an example of the unhappy future that awaits her if she does not escape from home. Natalie withdraws into elaborate fantasies where she is a proud, unbreakable criminal being grilled by a detective for her crimes. On the eve of Natalie's departure for college, she is invited to her first adult party, where she witnesses her parents and their drunken colleagues at their most contemptible. Natalie experiments with different identities among the party-goers and seems to successfully intrigue an older man, only to be led by him into the woods behind the family's home where he sexually assaults her. The following morning, Natalie convinces herself that the assault did not happen.Natalie leaves for her all-female college, where she is determined to reinvent herself. Most of her fellow students are too superficial and self-absorbed to even notice Natalie, who finds an uncomfortable place at the fringe of a group of popular girls. Natalie is briefly attracted to her self-important English professor, who is the object of Natalie's friends' romantic schemes. Soon Natalie sees that the man has the same flaws as her own father, and that the professor's resentful wife resembles Natalie's own classmates. She resumes her fantasy life, imagining herself as an implacable giant that destroys the college and devours its residents.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_Chronicles" title="Caster Chronicles">
The series follows Ethan Wate, a 16-year-old boy that dreams of leaving his small South Carolina town for something larger. At the start of the series he falls in love with Lena Duchannes, a new girl that is part of a secret section of humanity called Casters, people who are capable of working magic. They find that there are several obstacles to their love, most notably the social and cultural differences between their two societies and the fact that Ethan is incapable of touching Lena for extended periods of time without suffering a severe electric shock. Throughout the series Lena is troubled by the fact that she must claim herself as either a Light or Dark Caster on her sixteenth birthday and in the first novel she manages to perform a spell that prevents her from having to make this choice. However, in the process Ethan is mortally wounded and Lena is forced to perform another spell to bring him back to life, which causes her to distance herself from him out of fear that he will be further harmed. Their relationship is further harmed by the introduction of Liv, a secondary love interest for Ethan that is also aware of the Caster world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_(novel)" title="Sophia (novel)">
THE CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.SOPHIA.CHAP. I. The different characters of two sisters.CHAP. II. The Triumph of the Graces.CHAP. III. The Young Baronet declares his Passion.CHAP. IV. In which Harriot makes a very contemptible Figure.CHAP. V. Sir Charles, by a proper Degree of Address and Assurance, extricates himself from a very pressing difficulty.CHAP. VI. Sophia entertains Hopes, and becomes more unhappy.CHAP. VII. Sophia takes a very extraordinary resolution. Mr. Herbert encourages her in it.CHAP. VIII. Mr. Herbert and Sophia carry their Point with great Difficulty.CHAP. IX. In which Sophia shews less of the Heroine than the Woman.CHAP. X. The Description of two Rural Beauties.CHAP. XI. Sophia makes an interesting Disco|very.CHAP. XII. The Beginning of a very simple Story.CHAP. XIII. Dolly continues her Story.CHAP. XIV. Sir Charles makes his appearance again.CHAP. XV. Dolly meets her Lover unexpectedly.CHAP. XVI. Dolly concludes her Story.CHAP. XVII. Mrs. Darnley and Harriot resolve to visit Sophia.THE CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. SOPHIA.CHAP. XVIII. Harriot's Artifices produce the desired Effect on the unsuspecting Sophia.CHAP. XIX. Sophia is agreeably surprised.CHAP. XX. Mr. Herbert acquaints Sophia with the Result of the Interview between Sir Charles and him.CHAP. XXI. Sophia is threatened with a new Disappointment.CHAP. XXII. Sophia suspects the Cause of her Lover's mysterious Conduct.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satin_Island" title="Satin Island">
The novel follows a protagonist, "U.", an employee of "the Company" which is a consulting firm. U is a former anthropologist who now applies his skills to cases handled by the Company.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sept_cavaliers" title="Sept cavaliers">
Colonel-major Silve de Pikkendorff is tasked by his margrave to go on a quest to find why human life seems to be disappearing and the City is turning into chaos. Pikkendorff gathers six horsemen to go with him: the lieutenants Richard Tancrède and Maxime Bazin du Bourg, the brigadier Clément Vassili, the cadet Stanislas Vénier, the bishop Osmond Van Beck and the margrave’s squire Abaï. Their destination is Sépharée where the margrave's daughter Myriam, who Pikkendorff is in love with, has been sent.Having left the City, they hear a bell ring which signals that the margrave is dead. They reach Saint-Aulick, where they meet a man named Gustavson, whose son displays a behaviour which had appeared among children in the City as a first stage of destructive events. The horsemen travel to the Mountain, where they meet the head of a militia who disapproves of them. Tancrède manages to seduce a local girl, Natalia.Thirty years previously, Vassili took part in a campaign together with Captain Wilhelm Kostrowitsky, during which they thought they saw a group of Chechen, a people thought to have been destroyed 250 years earlier. Kostrowitsky, who was also a famous poet greatly admired by Bazin du Bourg, had returned to the Mountain after the campaign and mysteriously disappeared. After finding a trace from Kostrowitsky, Vassili goes missing, and the others find him dead with his throat slit. They eventually discover several old peoples thought to have been extinct.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_at_Mount_Hope" title="Summer at Mount Hope">
In 1894, Phoeba Crupp is an independent woman who does not pay any attention to her mother and sister's concern of getting married, while her father is completely focused on his vineyard. Phoeba is content to spend her time with her best friends Hadley and Henrietta, until she is forced into a world of men and money.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Underpants_and_the_Sensational_Saga_of_Sir_Stinks-A-Lot" title="Captain Underpants and the Sensational Saga of Sir Stinks-A-Lot">
A message from Dav Pilkey informs those reading that, unlike previous books which appealed to both adults and children, this book will attempt to appeal to solely children, for their safety and the pleasure of older readers.On the planet called "Smart Earth", a scientist mixes smart Diet Coke, smart Pop Rocks, and smart Mentos, and this experiment causes Smart Earth to explode. One chunk lands in a grape garden, causing the grapes to become smart. They try to wage war on humans but dry out. Another chunk lands at the Piqua Valley Home for the Reality-Challenged. Gym teacher Mr. Meaner eats a chunk and becomes smart. He tries to walk out, but two doctors block his way. He confuses them, so he and the other teachers escape and return to their jobs. Mr. Meaner takes control of an abandoned factory, and he makes a strange substance with sweaty gym socks called the Rid-o-Kid 2000. Yesterday George and Harold are told to go to his office, where he sprays them with Rid-o-Kid 2000, turning them into robot-like slaves. The other teachers are amazed at their behavior, though the other George and Harold are not, and they get sicker because of excessive homework. They see a commercial for the “Rid-o-Kid 2000” and disguise themselves as adults, making the children do fun activities for the teachers. The teachers call in Mr. Meaner, who, enraged at what he sees, dons his "Kid Killer 2000", now a robotic exoskeleton suit.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Heart_and_Other_Black_Holes" title="My Heart and Other Black Holes">
Aysel Seran is a Turkish-American sixteen-year-old living in Kentucky. Several years earlier, her father was convicted for the murder of Timothy Jackson, a teenage aspiring Olympian, and she has not seen or contacted him since. At school she is an outcast since her father's crime is public knowledge and she has a strained relationship with her mother and stepfather, with whom she has lived since his imprisonment.Aysel fantasizes about killing herself but doubts she has the resolve to follow through. One day at her job as a telemarketer, she is browsing a website that matches people for suicide pacts when she finds a posting from user FrozenRobot who lives in a nearby town. She messages him and they agree to meet up at the root beer stand between their two towns. Two days later, Aysel meets up with FrozenRobot (actually a seventeen-year-old boy named Roman) who insists that their joint suicide must take place on April 7. They share a meal together Aysel observes that by all appearances Roman is attractive and popular among his peers and she wonders what reason he has to commit suicide. She also finds out that he used to play basketball with Brian Jackson, Timothy's younger brother is following in his footsteps as a sports star. Aysel drives Roman back to his house where she learns that his parents are aware that he is suicidal, and as a result monitor him closely and have taken away his driving privileges at his therapist's recommendation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Daughter_(novel)" title="The First Daughter (novel)">
Kasemiire grows up in poverty. But her father is able to send her and her siblings to school. This he does, amidst scorn from other men who thinks all a woman has to do is to work in the kitchen. Kasemiire gets pregnant in school and is abandoned by the father of her child. Kasemire has to work to support herself and her child. She impresses a politician who offers to help her by taking her to work in the city. Things do not go to plan after the politician's husband tries to rape her. Kasemiire seeks refuge from the church, where with the help of a sympathetic nun, she goes back to school under their care. She goes up to university. It is at the university that she meets the father of her child and then the hatred she had concealed comes to the surface.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fool's_Quest" title="Fool's Quest">
Fitz and Riddle and the Fool arrive at Buckkeep. Fitz has used too much of Riddle's strength and Nettle is furious. They cannot risk a Skill-healing for the Fool since he is too weak. They have arrived for Winterfest. Fitz is to play the part of a minor noble to explain his presence. He tries to heal the Fool as best he can. The Fool tells him how he returned to Clerres with Prillkop and that the Servants, the pale people who tend to While Prophets, are the ones who tortured him. They wanted him to tell them where the Unexpected Son was. The Fool thought they meant a son he was supposed to have, although the Fool knew of no such child.Web asks Fitz to meet a crow who is not bonded with a human, but is in danger from other crows by having white feathers among her black ones. She can speak some words. Through Fitz, she meets the Fool and they connect. The Fool names her Motley. Fitz paints her white feathers black so that she can go out without being attacked by regular crows.Chade has a new apprentice - Ash. Ash is very capable and both Fitz and the Fool grow to like him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backbone_Flute" title="Backbone Flute">
The poet rises his "skull filled with verses," starting what he anticipates to be his "final concert" before finishing his life with "a bullet for a dot.". He curses his beloved (wondering "what heavenly Hoffmann might have invented you, the vile one"), then blames God for bringing to Earth this woman, a devil in disguise. Visiting her at home, he implores Lilya to leave her ageing husband, then, horrified by her aloof coldness, threatens again to kill himself, now by drowning. He sees his love as something more horrible than the World War, yet threatens to haunt the woman he loves forever. Her husband returns home in surprisingly good moods, which the poets tries to spoil by advising him to "hang loads of pearls upon her neck" so as to keep her by his side. Eventually, ignored by everybody, he recognizes himself as a failed Messiah, "crucified on paper, with words for nails."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_(Morand_book)" title="New York (Morand book)">
Morand's impressions of New York are both positive and negative. He disapproves of the upper class, the fashion, speakeasies and the area around Times Square. He is impressed by the City Hall and the buildings around Washington Square, which he regards as genuinely American and not false imitations of historical styles. He makes recurring references to the contemporary saying that "the Jews own New York, the Irish run it, and the Negroes enjoy it". In his conclusion, he writes: "I love New York because it is the greatest city of the universe and because its people are the toughest, the only people who, after the war, went on building, and who do not merely live on the capital of the past, the only ones, besides Italy, who do not demolish but construct."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Harder_They_Come_(novel)" title="The Harder They Come (novel)">
"The Harder They Come" follows the unfolding relationship between Sten Stensen, his son Adam, and Adam's girlfriend Sara Hovarty Jennings in modern-day Northern California. The story alternates between their three points of view. The story begins with Sten, former Marine and Vietnam veteran, killing a mugger while on a vacation cruise in Puerto Limón (Costa Rica). The story then moves to California, where Sten is unable to understand or help his schizophrenic son, who considers himself a "mountain man" modeled on his hero John Colter. Meanwhile, Adam begins a relationship with Sara, a believer in the Sovereign citizen movement, whom he considers to be a kindred spirit due to her own problems with the law and her professed belief in the illegitimacy of laws and law enforcement. His paranoia worsens, leading to Adam shooting two people and escaping into the mountains to avoid arrest.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Irix" title="The Black Irix">
A year after the events of The Sword of Shannara, Shea has become very ill. Fearing for his life, Flick goes to a woods witch and seer named Audrana Coos. She gives him a small bottle of liquid and tells him to give it to Shea secretly. She also tells him that Shea will soon go on another quest and that Flick should not dissuade him. Flick does not believe her, but he slips the liquid into Shea’s ale later and the next day Shea’s health has completely recovered. Later Flick tells Shea about the woods witch and Shea thanks him and assures him that he will not be going on any quests or leaving the Vale again. Then Panamon Creel arrives.Creel tells Shea that the Black Irix that Keltset the rock troll used to save their lives and was lost when he was killed has been acquired by a collector of rare artifacts called Kestra Chule. He tells Shea that he must use the power of the elfstones to help him find and recover it so that he can return it to his fallen comrade’s family. Reluctantly, Shea agrees. Creel and Shea set off, but Flick refuses to accompany them, angry that Shea is leaving with the untrustworthy Creel. However, Flick catches up with them later. Shea then uses the elfstones to discover that the Black Irix is hidden in a vault in Kestra Chule’s private quarters within his fortress. Flick questions Creel as to how he expects to gain entry into this fortress. Creel informs them that Chule is actually a good acquaintance, and that they have been invited. When they arrive at the fortress, they indeed are invited in and given a great feast, after which Chule has his guards put the Ohmsfords in chains. Creel then takes the elfstones off of Shea and presents them to Chule in exchange for a hefty sack of gold. Chule promises to lock the brothers up overnight and release them in the morning, perhaps…
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungifted" title="Ungifted">
Donovan Curtis considers himself ungifted (the opposite of gifted). He is, instead, a prankster and troublemaker. One day, one of his pranks goes too far in causing a commotion. He strikes a statue which disrupts a basketball game. Although no one is injured, the gym is destroyed, with repairs for the damage that was done to the gym being prohibitively expensive. The district superintendent, Dr. Schultz, who was at the game, catches Donovan red-handed. However, after he jots down Donovan's name, his assistant thinks it is the list of candidates for the Academy for Scholastic Distinction (ASD), a school for extremely gifted students.Donovan expects the mishap and his escape from punishment will eventually be discovered and feels that he will cause more stress to his already stressed household. His older sister, Katie, is currently staying with them and is seven months pregnant. Katie's husband Brad is a Marine who is deployed in Afghanistan. Adding to the pressure, Katie's mother-in-law leaves Brad's dog, Beatrice, who seems to be ill (but was later revealed to be pregnant) and only takes a liking to Donovan. However, after Donovan learns of the error that is sending him to ASD, he is filled with joy by the mistake.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_and_the_Dervish" title="Death and the Dervish">
Sheikh Nuruddin is a respected dervish in an Islamic monastery in eighteenth century Bosnia. He learns his brother Harun has been arrested by the Ottoman authorities but he struggles to determine exactly what happened and what he should do. He narrates the story as a kind of elaborate suicide note “from a need stronger than benefit or reason” and regularly misquotes (or misunderstands) the Quran, the sacred scriptures of his faith. Slowly the Sheikh starts to probe and question society, power and life in general. Speaking the truth leads to his being physically assaulted in the streets and even arrested briefly. Ultimately he fights and challenges the injustice of the world by employing deceit which succeeds at the expense of innocent life. Nuruddin replaces the old Kadı but is in turn corrupted by the need to uphold the original deceit.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontraditional_Love" title="Nontraditional Love">
The scene is the twenty-third century. USA. "Nontraditional Love" describes a homosexual world in which mixed-sex marriages are forbidden. The homosexual society is intolerant of dissidents. Intimacy between the sexes is rejected. World history and the classics of world literature, such as Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Dumas... have been falsified in order to support the ideology of this opposite world.At the heart of the novel is a love story between a man and a woman who are forced to hide their feelings and pass as homosexuals.After Robert Marcus' secret wife Liza abandoned him for another man, he decides to make a radical change in life and become a normal gay man. His first male partner should have been Jacob Stein, a retired policeman, but during their first date Jacob dies.Is it a murder or an accident? The FBI begins an investigation and accuses Robert of killing Jacob. The situation becomes complicated because Jacob Stein in his youth made the fateful mistake by having sex with a woman and Liza is Jacob's daughter...The plot follows Robert Marcus, a heterosexual who has a clandestine affair with Liza. They hide from authorities by feigning marriage to the same gendered persons of another couple. All four live in a two family house. At night, they secretly change rooms to sleep their lovers while carrying on as homosexual couples during the day. Normal reproduction is also illegal, but the couples pretend to have artificially inseminated children, the boy being raised by the men and the girl being raised by the women. After a while Liza leaves this arrangement. Robert tries to make a go of converting to being homosexual to make life easier for himself. He meets an older man who dies in his bed. Robert is accused of murder, confirming that heterosexuals are a menace to society. The rest of the book follows Robert in a riveting 1984-Kafkaesque experience.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disreputable_History_of_Frankie_Landau-Banks" title="The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks">
Frankie Landau-Banks is a sophomore at Alabaster Prep when she encounters the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds, an all-male secret society. Since she is a girl and thus cannot join, she feels left out of the society. When one of the leaders, Alpha, leaves school for a few days, she seizes the opportunity to direct the Basset Hounds in several pranks.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Who_Died" title="The Girl Who Died">
The Twelfth Doctor and Clara are taken to a village by some Vikings. The Doctor claims to be Odin, but the villagers are not fooled, as a figure also claiming to be Odin appears in the sky, offering to take the warriors to Valhalla. A squad of warriors in armoured suits materialise, shooting the Vikings with weapons that appear to disintegrate them. Clara and Ashildr, a woman from the village, are also struck. The squad soon disappears.Clara and Ashildr find themselves on a spacecraft with the other Vikings. The men are killed and drained of their adrenaline and testosterone, while Clara and Ashildr meet Odin, the leader of the Mire species that pride themselves on their merciless conquests. Before Clara can stop her, Ashildr declares war on the Mire, and Odin grants them 24 hours to prepare. On Earth, Clara brings the Doctor up to speed. He recognises the villagers are too weak to fight, and devises a plan using Ashildr's storytelling skills and a supply of electric eels.When the Mire arrive, they find the villagers celebrating. The Mire's confusion gives the Doctor time to stun them with electricity and pull one of the helmets off with an electromagnet. The Doctor modifies this and has Ashildr wear it, allowing her to envision an articulated puppet as a dragon, which is broadcast to the other Mire and scares them off. Odin vows to attack again, but the Doctor threatens to send video footage of the rout captured by Clara's phone to the universe unless they leave Earth. Odin and the Mire peacefully depart.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woman_Who_Lived" title="The Woman Who Lived">
Alone and on the trail of an alien artefact, the Twelfth Doctor interrupts a highwayman known as "the Knightmare" carrying out a highway robbery of Lucie Fanshawe in 1651 England. The Doctor finds the artefact in the coach's luggage but the vehicle drives off before he can take it. The Doctor finds that the robber is Ashildr, the Viking girl he made immortal. Over her 800 years of everlasting life, she has lost many of her memories and has isolated herself in order to avoid the pain of losing loved ones. The Doctor learns that she has renamed herself "Me" due to her loneliness. He also discovers that Me previously had three children, all of whom she lost to the Black Death.Me and the Doctor steal the artefact from Lucie's house, flee by climbing out of the chimney and escape an ambush by a rival highwayman, Sam Swift. The next morning, the Doctor meets Me's ally Leandro, a leonine alien stranded on Earth who uses the artefact to open portals into space. In return for Me tricking the Doctor into helping him, Leandro has agreed to let her come with him to travel the galaxy. For the portal to be activated, the artefact requires another person's death. Two pikemen, unaware that Me is the Knightmare, arrive to announce that the Knightmare is reported to be in the area and Sam Swift is about to be hanged at Tyburn. Me hands the Doctor over to them, claiming that he is the Knightmare's accomplice and sets off to use Swift's death to activate the artefact.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_in_the_Spider's_Web" title="The Girl in the Spider's Web">
Computer scientist Frans Balder abandons a prestigious job in Silicon Valley and returns to Sweden to take custody of his autistic son August. Balder is informed by several law enforcement agencies that he is in danger from a criminal organization who call themselves the "Spider Society", but he ignores their warnings, preferring to focus on his neglected son. August exhibits savant syndrome; he produces drawings of impressive veracity and demonstrates facility with numbers. Meanwhile, one year since "Millennium" magazine's scoop on The Section, the publication has stagnated and is in danger of losing creative control to outside investors. Balder's former associate, Linus Brandell, tells Mikael Blomkvist about Balder and his tumultuous history, mentioning that some of his activities were aided by Lisbeth Salander.Spurred by a childhood memory, Salander attempts to track down someone from her past, leading her to the Spider Society. She helps a group of hackers gain access into NSA servers, much to the fury of the agency's top cyber security agent, Edwin Needham. NSA agent Alona Casales and SÄPO agent Gabriella Grane are given the task of pursuing Salander and the Spider Society, which are a group of elite Russian criminals led by an individual named "Thanos". Grane calls Balder with concerns about his safety, and Balder hires Milton Security for protection. He also reaches out to Blomkvist, hoping to confess his concerns to a respected journalist. Blomkvist agrees to meet him, but as he arrives, an assassin, self-identified in the narration as Jan Holtser, kills Balder. Blomkvist reaches out to Salander, hoping to harness her talents to the investigation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Should_Be_More_Dancing" title="There Should Be More Dancing">
Margery Blandon is a principled woman, who has led her life with rule. But now in her seventies, she is waiting to die on the 43rd floor of the Tropic Hotel. As she waits for her death, she reflects back on her life and tried to find what and where things went wrong.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_the_Shadowhunter_Academy" title="Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy">
Simon Lewis, who has been a mundane in City of Bones, then a vampire from the middle of City of Ashes till almost the end of City of Heavenly Fire has been stripped of his memories by a Greater Demon in the final volume of The Mortal Instruments. He isn't sure who he is anymore and therefore, in order to retrieve his memories, he makes a decision of becoming a Shadowhunter. To become a Shadowhunter, he must first train like a Shadowhunter and he visits the Shadowhunter Academy in order to retrieve his memories.This book contains characters not only from The Mortal Instruments but also from The Infernal Devices and reveals much of the unknown history of some famous shadowhunters like Michael Wayland, Stephen Herondale and Robert Lightwood. Simon learns about the history of Shadowhunters through guest lecturers like Jace Herondale, Tessa Gray etc.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_Park" title="December Park">
The novel takes place over the course of one year, 1993-1994, and focuses on a group of friends growing up in a small bayside community called Harting Farms, Maryland, located on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. The novel is narrated by 15-year-old Angelo "Angie" Mazzone, who relays the story of a child abductor and murderer who has been plaguing his hometown called the Pied Piper by local police. When the novel opens, Angie and his two best friends, Scott Steeple and Peter Galloway, witness local police extricating the body of a dead girl from the woods that surrounds December Park, a local suburban park. Later, they inform their friend Michael Sugarland of what they saw, and each boy is affected by the event in a different way. Later, Angie befriends his new neighbor and classmate, the awkward Adrian Gardiner, and introduces him to his circle of friends. When Adrian learns of the Piper and the girl found in the woods, he confesses that he recently discovered a heart-shaped locket near where the body was found which must have belonged to the girl. From there, the five friends make a pact, agreeing to continue searching for clues as to the identity of the Piper, who continues his abductions throughout the course of the novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penpal_(novel)" title="Penpal (novel)">
"Penpal" is told via a series of non-linear recollections by an anonymous narrator trying to make sense of mysterious events that happened to him during his childhood, the truth of which have been kept from him by his mother all his life.As a boy in kindergarten, the narrator becomes best friends with another student named Josh. One day, their class conducts a penpal experiment, in which the children tie self-addressed letters to balloons and send them off; as the children receive responses, their teacher tracks how far their balloons went on a state map in the classroom. While most of the children get letters back, the narrator starts to believe his balloon got lost, until he receives an envelope containing a single poorly shot Polaroid photo. Over the school-year, he will receive over 50 other pictures, all without any letter. Soon after, he realizes that the pictures are all of himself and his mother, which prompts her to call the police.The narrator recalls a series of disconnected events which, while innocuous to him as a child, take on sinister new meaning from an adult perspective: a neighborhood snowcone customer once returned the same dollar bill to the narrator he'd included in his initial penpal letter; while out playing in a ditch with Josh, the narrator became aware of strange clicking noises he later identified as camera flashes; the narrator once found a strange drawing in a pair of shorts he'd left by the riverside containing a depiction of himself aside a much larger man; one of the narrator's elderly, Alzheimer's-stricken neighbors was presumably murdered shortly after claiming her long-dead husband had returned home and was living with her again. In an incident that particularly stands out in the narrator's memory, he recalls awakening in the woods one night in his pajamas and finding his way back home to discover the police looking for him; he later discovered a letter on his bed stating his intentions to run away, although the narrator notes that his name was misspelled. Shortly after this incident, the narrator's mother discovers something in the house's crawlspace that prompts her to sell the home and move.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exploding_Detective" title="The Exploding Detective">
To help differentiate himself from the rest of the private detectives in Central City, Frank Burly decides he needs a gimmick to attract customers. He purchases a refurbished World War II jet pack that was part of a Nazi plot to conquer Heaven in the afterlife and outfits it with booster rockets that he bought from a women's fashion magazine. Calling himself "The Flying Detective," he begins recklessly streaking across the skies of Central City and crashing into buildings. In fact, the citizens of Central City see him crash, burn and explode so often that they begin to suspect the hapless detective possesses super powers that protect him from serious injury.At the same time, a bizarre new crime wave hits the city. An army of robots led by Napoleon commit a series of robberies in the industrial district, stealing chemicals and other raw materials. Frustrated, the mayor and the chief of police approach Frank Burly about becoming the city's patron super hero. In exchange for $1,500 a week, Burly agrees to don a cape and tights and fly through the city in the name of justice and goodness. However, he soon finds he has bitten off more than he can chew when Napoleon turns out to be a robot and the real mastermind behind the crime wave unleashes his assassin robots against the Flying Detective.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Company_(Ehrlichman_novel)" title="The Company (Ehrlichman novel)">
The protagonist is Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) William "Bill" Martin, a longtime CIA agent who was appointed DCI by Democratic President Esker Scott Anderson. Anderson, as vice president, succeeded William Curry, who was killed in a crash of Air Force One in the early 1960s. Martin's friendship with Anderson dates from the 1950s, when he was a lower-level agent and Anderson held a great deal of power as Senate Majority Leader.As Deputy CIA Director, Martin was responsible for planning an undercover invasion of the Dominican Republic by emigres trained and supported by the U.S. However, President Curry, worried about negative repercussions from the invasion, ordered the murder of a priest who led the rebel movement, in order to ensure the invasion's failure. CIA Inspector General, Major-General Antonio Primula, wrote a report blaming Martin, then-DCI Horace McFall and, in part, President Curry for the invasion's failure, and recommending the firing of McFall and Martin. After Curry's death, Anderson appointed Martin as DCI and promised to keep the Primula report secret, in return for Martin's loyalty.Anderson becomes seriously ill during his elected term and declines to run for a second, leaving his Vice President Ed Gilley as the Democratic nominee. Despite Martin's hard work behind the scenes to help elect Gilley, he is defeated by Republican Richard Monckton. Martin sees Monckton, a longtime political enemy of Curry and Anderson, as a threat to himself and the CIA.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Monk_in_Outer_Space" title="Mr. Monk in Outer Space">
Brandon Lorber, CEO of Burgerville, a national fast-food chain, is found in his office, shot three times à la the Mozambique Drill. Natalie Teeger and Adrian Monk respond to the call. Captain Stottlemeyer introduces them to an old friend, an ex-cop named Archie Applebaum, who now works as a security guard, and who found the body. Lieutenant Disher tells them that the M.O. indicates a professional killer. As Archie said he never heard anything, the killer probably used a silencer. The killer obscured his face while on security cameras.Monk concludes Brandon Lorber died of a heart attack, since Lorber's shirt is wrinkled from grabbing at his chest. Lorber was dead for several minutes when he was shot; there would have been more blood present if his heart was still functioning. Since it's not a homicide, Stottlemeyer appoints Disher head of a "Special Desecration Unit" to take over the case.Natalie stays with his brother Ambrose because he is having his carpet replaced. The next morning, Monk and Natalie arrive at a crime scene outside the San Francisco Airporter Motor Inn. Conrad Stipe, creator of the cult science fiction TV series "Beyond Earth", was shot and killed climbing out of a taxi while arriving at a "Beyond Earth" convention. Surveillance cameras around the parking lot have caught the shooter, dressed as Mr. Snork, one of the protagonists of the show.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_&amp;_Silk" title="Iron &amp; Silk">
Salzman, a member of the Yale-China expedition crew, is offered a position to teach English at the Changsha Medical University for two years. While he is there, he learns Chinese martial arts of many different kinds. He studies from the martial arts master Pan Qingfu.He encounters political activists, travels, and deals with many different kinds of people, some of them very traditional.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee_in_Oz" title="Yankee in Oz">
The story begins with Thomas P. "Tompy" Terry, an athlete and musician son of a physicist, star drummer in his marching band at Pennwood prep in fictional small town, Pennwood, Pennsylvania, swept away by then-fictitious Hurricane Hannah on his way to the Labor Day parade.He lands on the shore of Winkie Lake, where he meets Yankee, the first American dog in space, a bull terrier delighted at his newfound ability to talk.The nearest town is Wackajammy, in the northeastern part of the Winkie Country, which is the breadbasket of the West. The King, Jackalack, believes that Tompy and Yankee are there to fulfill a prophecy to rescue their princess, his aunt, Doffi, who instructs all of the bakers of the town, who refuse to do any work without her present. Yammer Jammer, the king's adviser, using a book called the "Mind Reader" determines that the two have no intent to do the search when they leave, and locks them in prison. Yankee is able to dig out during the night and get the key, and when they leave, they steal the "Mind Reader".Though determined to get home, Yankee in particular wishes to rescue the princess anyway. They next encounter an anteater, a town of powdered and packaged workaholic people, Tidy Town, whose king wants to force them to be listeners, cross into the Gillikin Country with the aid of Tim Ber the Trav-E-Log, meet a kindly but private woodsman named Axel, and a village of pleasant people with luminescent paper lanterns for heads who are active only at night.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sterkarm_Handshake" title="The Sterkarm Handshake">
A British corporation creates a Time Tube back to the 16th Century Scottish-English border, initially planning to exploit its untouched mineral resources. The 21st-century travellers represent themselves as magical Elves, and attempt to win the co-operation of the local clan, the Sterkarms."The Sterkarm Handshake" deals with a British corporation, the FUP, who create a Time Tube back to the 16th Century Scottish-English border, initially to exploit its then untouched mineral resources of gold and oil, though they later plan a tourist resort. They fatally underestimate the natives. A local clan, the Sterkarms, are welcoming at first, regarding the 21st-century travellers as magical Elves because of their medicine and technology, but increasingly refuse to cooperate. The clansmen, who have always lived by plunder, begin robbing the FUPs, which leads to the FUP's power-hungry boss kidnapping the only son of the Sterkarm chieftain. The Sterkarms' retaliation is savage.A young 21st-century anthropologist, Andrea Mitchell, who lives with the Sterkarms as a translator and liaison, finds her loyalties divided when she falls in love with Per Sterkarm.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nobodies_(novel)" title="The Nobodies (novel)">
Fern Drudger is a child who has the ability to shake things out of books. But, lately, only Diet Lime Fizzy Drinks seem to pop out of them. The Fizzy Drinks always have messages from a mysterious group called the Nobodies. As it turns out to be, Nobodies are people or animals that are shaken out of books and haven't been returned yet to their homes inside the books. The Nobodies seem to have a terrible enemy, and they say that Fern is the only one who can save them.Fern, now reunited with her real parents, is sent off to Camp Happy Sunshine Good Times, a camp for young Anybodies. Anybodies are people who can transform themselves or others into different objects through hypnotism. At the camp, Fern meets Mary Stern, the counselor for girls. However, it turns out that the counselors and director of the camp seem to have deadly secrets. Camp Happy Sunshine Good Times has strict rules, and Fern easily breaks one of them. When she receives her punishment, Fern discovers that she is destined to help the Nobodies, who are trapped by the evil Mole, or BORT. BORT is a giant mole who had trapped a family of Nobodies in a Diet Lime Fizzy Drinks factory in a basement at the Avenue of Americas. The Mole can only be shrunk down to the size of normal mole when it touches water. Fern must somehow get BORT to touch water and bring peace to the second earth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_and_Tomorrow_(novel)" title="Tomorrow and Tomorrow (novel)">
Originally, Drake is a professional musician, with minor celebrity. When his wife Ana is diagnosed with an unspecified incurable brain disorder, Drake exhausts every option attempting to cure her. Only then does he decide to have her body cryogenically stored, in the hopes future generations will discover an effective treatment. However, Drake is extremely cautious, and in case the future culture doesn't care about her plight, he has himself frozen as well. Furthermore, he devotes all his energies for a decade before his freezing to becoming an expert primary source on the musically notable people of his era. He correctly assumes that if you become the world's foremost expert in any subject, eventually someone will want to write a book on that exact subject. At that time the hypothetical future writer will want to awaken Drake, and he can in turn awaken his wife, if treatment is available. He is awakened in the year 2512. Although society is vastly different, no cure for Ana yet exists. He spends six years apprenticed to a musical historian to pay for his reviving costs and to gain a foothold in this new world.Drake is continually laid dormant and revived, progressively later into the future, all the way until the time of the Big Crunch. Human civilization alters radically over the eons, but Ana's mangled brain proves an extremely difficult problem. Despite the incomprehensible changes surrounding in each successive awakening, Drake never loses sight of his mission.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoMa_(novel)" title="SoMa (novel)">
Raphe is a casualty of the dot-com collapse, a former website designer now forced to work as a clerk at a mailbox shop in order to make ends meet. He discovers the shop is actually a front for a scam. His exposure to this seedy underground sparks his curiosity and eventually leads him on a journey into some of the more bizarre subcultures of San Francisco. Through a series of intense personal encounters, he realizes he’s not quite the man he thought he was.Lauren (Lolly) is a take-no-prisoners woman drawn to the city to find the type of man she can’t find in the suburbs. She discovers the hunt for love is far more complicated than she expected, especially when looking in all the wrong places.Mark Hazodo is a rich video-game entrepreneur whose love of games extends into a sordid secret sex life filled with extremes.The journeys of these three main characters intersect, overlap and eventually collide with outrageous, provocative and sometimes disturbing consequences.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sailor_Dog_(book)" title="The Sailor Dog (book)">
Scuppers the dog has an irresistible urge to sail the sea. His little gaff-rigged sailing boat hardly looks seaworthy, with colorful patches on its sails. Though not a luxurious boat, Scuppers keeps it neat and "ship-shape." He has a hook for his hat, his rope, and his spyglass. Unfortunately, Scuppers gets shipwrecked after a big storm. Being a resourceful dog, he soon makes a house out of driftwood.Eventually, Scuppers repairs his ship and sails away, arriving at a seaport in a foreign land. The street scene is straight from a canine Kasbah. There are lady dogs dressed in full-length robes with everything but their eyes, paws, and tails covered, balancing jars on their heads. Scuppers needs new clothes after all his travels. He tries on various hats and shoes of different shapes and colors.Life at sea soon calls Scuppers back to his boat. After stowing all his gear in its right place, he is back "where he wants to be — a sailor sailing the deep green sea."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Light" title="Lost Light">
"Lost Light" is the first novel set after Bosch retires from the LAPD at the end of the prior story. Having received his private investigator's license, Bosch investigates an old case concerning the murder of a production assistant on the set of a film. The case leads him back into contact with his ex-wife Eleanor Wish, who is now a professional poker player in Las Vegas, and Bosch learns at the end that he and Eleanor have a young daughter.The poem referenced in this work is from Ezra Pound's "Exile's Letter:"&lt;poem&gt;What is the use of talking, and there is no end of talking, There is no end of things in the heart.&lt;/poem&gt;
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Work_(novel)" title="Blood Work (novel)">
After receiving a heart transplant, retired FBI criminal profiler Terrell "Terry" McCaleb is contacted by Graciela Rivers, the sister of his donor Gloria, and asked to investigate her death, which occurred during an unsolved convenience store robbery. McCaleb had become a minor celebrity as the head of the FBI task force on the "Code Killer", a Los Angeles-based serial killer (similar to the Zodiac Killer) who always signed his notes with the code "903 472 568", but he is now living on his fishing boat and has been inactive to prevent rejection of his new heart (to the extent that he cannot even drive). He reluctantly agrees to help Graciela but finds the police handling the case to be extremely hostile. However, he is able to match the style of another killing to Gloria's and gets a copy of the files for both cases from Jaye Winston, the sheriff's deputy on that case. He surprisingly discovers that the call reporting Gloria's shooting was placed slightly prior to the actual shooting, leading him to suspect that Gloria was targeted for murder. He interviews the only witness to the second crime, a man called James Noone, but fails to learn much.As he continues to investigate, with Winston's support but against the wishes of his doctor, he finds that the two cases plus a third case are linked through the use of a common gun and a common line said by the killer after the shooting, "Don't forget the cannoli" from "The Godfather". He then learns that the first two victims had McCaleb's blood types and were on a list of people who had previously donated blood. If the victims died, McCaleb would benefit from their death as a potential organ recipient. Because of this, the police on Gloria's case focus on him as the possible killer and get a search warrant for his boat. Then, the real killer begins to plant evidence implicating McCaleb on his boat, expecting the police to find it, but McCaleb finds and then conceals the most incriminating evidence. Examining the facts again, McCaleb realizes that the distinctive attribute of the "Code Killer" was that the nine-digit identifying code did not include a one, and that "Noone" ("no one") is actually the Code Killer. By following the contact information on Noone, McCaleb and Jaye Winston find the Code Killer's files, which prove that he had deliberately killed three people to get McCaleb a new heart. Although McCaleb is thus cleared, the fact that Gloria's death was directly due to his illness creates a rift in his increasingly personal relationship with Graciela and her nephew Raymond, Gloria's son.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_Heaven_(novel)" title="7th Heaven (novel)">
Lindsay is confronted by two cases.We meet thugs called Pidge and Hawk whose idea of fun is burning people alive.They kill three couples until they try the big one in the house of a senator, Campion, whose son has recently disappeared.Campion reacts, though, and kills Hawk. Pidge flees but after some search led by Boxer and her team, they find a lead in the college they attended together with the kids of the victims; they were some sort of geniuses who wanted to try the perfect murder without being caught, inspired by a novel "The 7th Heaven".After a final confrontation at his house, Pidge, too, is captured and incarcerated.The parallel story concerns the same Michael Campion, son of a famous politician, who was reported missing but now he's been said to have visited a prostitute - Junie Moon - right before his disappearance.Junie Moon is interviewed by the police and confesses Campion died in her arms and then, caught by panic, she had called her boyfriend and decided to dismember him and throw him away in plastic bags.Junie is taken to court and tried but found not guilty.In the meantime, a creepy wannabe writer, Twilly, stalks Yuki Castellano, who had represented the People in the trial and tells her he knows who killed Campion and tries to kill Yuki, too; he's caught in the act, though, and he reveals he knew Campion left Junie Moon alive and he had asked her to make up the whole story in order to write a book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_Falls" title="Salem Falls">
Jack is a highly educated high school teacher at a private school for girls in New England. However, he is falsely accused of committing statutory rape with one of his students. Following his lawyer's advice, he accepts a plea bargain for a lesser charge and is sentenced to eight months in prison. Jack's mother refuses to believe his claims of innocence and abandons him.After serving his sentence, Jack wants to have a fresh start, which he finds when he wanders into a diner in Salem Falls, New Hampshire. Without disclosing his past, he is hired as a dishwasher. He begins a romantic relationship with Addie Peabody, the woman who operates the diner with her father, Roy. At the time, she is still mourning the death of her young daughter, Chloe, who died from bacterial meningitis at age six. Under law, he is required to register with the local police as a convicted sex offender. As this is public record, the entire town becomes aware of his past. However, Addie does not change her attitude toward him.Simultaneously, the novel focuses on local teenage girls who experiment with Wicca: disturbed Gillian, the daughter of Amos Duncan a prominent businessman; Chelsea; Whitney; and Meg. One night, after a fight with Addie, Jack accidentally stumbles upon them in the woods while they are celebrating the Wiccan holiday of Beltane. He is accused of sexually assaulting Gillian. Due to his intoxicated state at the time, he is unable to recall exactly where he was that night.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flame_and_the_Flower" title="The Flame and the Flower">
The novel is set at the turn of the 19th century. After Heather Simmons, a penniless orphan, kills a man named William Court who was attempting to rape her, she flees the scene. Near the London dockside, two men, who mistake her for a prostitute, seize her and escort her onto a ship. Heather believes she has been arrested for murder. Unaware of the misconceptions on both sides, the captain of the ship, Brandon Birmingham, rapes Heather. When he does so, he ruptures her hymen and realizes she was a virgin and, therefore, probably not a prostitute. Heather cries herself to sleep and a confused Brandon sleeps next to her. The next morning Heather wakes up and Brandon, awakened by her movement, rapes her a second time. Afterwards, when Brandon asks her why she would sell her virginity on the streets, she tearfully tells him that she was merely lost. Afraid that Heather will tell others what he has done, Brandon tries to bribe Heather by offering to set her up in an affluent house as his mistress. She angrily declines. An angry Brandon then takes Heather hostage and rapes her a third time. Afterwards Heather goes back to sleep. When she awakens again she is allowed to bathe and has breakfast with Brandon. Brandon then attempts to rape her a fourth time but is interrupted when his crewman calls him away on business. When Brandon leaves the ship, Heather manages to escape his ship and flees back home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_Alien_(Sawyer_novel)" title="Illegal Alien (Sawyer novel)">
An alien spacecraft arrives on Earth, contact is established, and the two peoples begin to learn about each other. Frank Nobilio, Science Advisor to the American president, and Cletus Calhoun (a Tennessee hillbilly popularizer of science, somewhat like Carl Sagan), are the two main ambassadors to the aliens (who call themselves Tosoks). The Tosoks explain that their ship was damaged in the Kuiper belt (during initial attempted repairs, one of the eight Tosoks died), and they are assured that humans can provide or build the tools necessary to fix it. This will take about two years. Things go well for over a year, with the Tosoks taking a tour of the major civilized countries of Earth, during which they view and are impressed by the August 11, 1999, total solar eclipse.Then Cletus Calhoun is found dead, under circumstances that place one of the aliens, Hask, under suspicion. Calhoun bled to death when his leg was completely severed with a tool unknown to human forensic pathologists; also, his jaw, one eye, and his appendix have been removed and are never found. Hask appears while the police are investigating and, in the Tosok fashion, has shed his skin; it is speculated that he did so in order to hide any tell-tale blood splatters. Hask is arrested for murder, and the remainder of the novel concerns Hask's trial in a Los Angeles, California court.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Dog_on_Earth" title="The Last Dog on Earth">
Logan Moore is a troubled 14-year-old boy living with his mother Marianne and stepfather Robert in Newburg, Oregon. Logan does not get along well with Robert or his mother, and holds a grudge against his biological father for leaving when he was young. After an incident at a barbecue, Robert decides to purchase a Labrador Retriever in order to teach Logan responsibility. Eager to rebel against his stepfather, Logan convinces his mother to adopt a dog from an animal shelter. He plans to choose an ugly dog and teach it destructive behavior. At the shelter, Logan encounters a young female mutt who immediately takes a liking to him. Logan adopts the dog and names her Jack after Robert's former dog.Meanwhile, a new prion disease named Psychotic Outburst Syndrome (or POS) is affecting dogs, causing friendly pets to become violent. Officials struggle to control the disease and immediately terminate any dogs that catch it. Humans soon begin to contract the disease.Logan quickly bonds with Jack and values her as his only friend. After getting into trouble while attempting to protect her, Logan is sent to boot camp while Jack remains at home. Both he and Jack manage to escape, find each other, and begin traveling together. During their journey, they encounter another dog called White Paws: Jack's brother who has become infected with POS. White Paws attacks Jack and severely wounds her before dying. Logan worries that Jack may have contracted the disease through contact with White Paws. The pair continue their journey until they reach the town of Dayville. Logan faintly remembers that his biological father lives in the town and decides to find his father and confront him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_I_Was_Young_in_the_Mountains" title="When I Was Young in the Mountains">
The book tells the story of the main character's youth in West Virginia, in the Appalachian Mountains. The book is based on Rylant's real life growing up in West Virginia.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_of_the_Mists" title="Vampire of the Mists">
The story concerns Jander Sunstar, an elf vampire who, despite his affliction, attempts to remain as good as possible. On a trip to Waterdeep to drink the blood of patients of a mental hospital there, Jander falls in love with an inmate who introduces herself as Anna. For about one hundred years the immortal vampire visits Anna regularly, and Anna seems to be similarly ageless. Anna begins to become ill, and Jander, afraid of losing her, tries to turn her into a vampire. Anna refuses. In her last moments of life, when Jander asks her what ruined her mind, she answers "Barovia."In a rage, Jander kills every last occupant of the asylum, and is transported to the Demiplane of Dread. There, he has his fortune told by a Vistani gypsy before befriending Count Strahd Von Zarovich. The predictions made by the fortune-teller all prove to be true later in the book, sometimes in multiple ways. After a very long period of time spent in Barovia, Jander discovers that the woman he knew as Anna was in truth Tatyana, wife of Strahd's Brother, Sergei, and the woman who drove Strahd to murder his own family. She escaped the castle as it entered the demiplane, but lost her mind in the process. Shocked, Jander bands together with a local cleric and a young thief, to the end of killing Strahd. They fail, though the severe damage they inflict on him forces him into an extended healing cycle thereby limiting the speed with which he increased in power as a spell-caster. To that end, Jander somewhat succeeded, at least for the time being, and more so prevented Strahd further access to any more of his own knowledge when he walks into the sunlight for his final death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firecrackers._A_Realistic_Novel" title="Firecrackers. A Realistic Novel">
During 1924, a blasé coterie of pleasure-seeking sophisticates are inordinately excited by a handsome and athletic newcomer to their social circle, Gunnar O'Grady, "a youth with the appearance of a Greek Adonis." Alternately seeking and avoiding their attentions, this enigmatic individual drifts through a series of menial vocations including furnace repairman, florist, waiter, and acrobat.O'Grady becomes an object of sexual fascination to many within the circle, including a precocious young girl, a thrill-seeking wife, and a bored husband. Tensions escalate as various persons within the coterie vie for O'Grady's companionship, and O'Grady finds his own desires stymied.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Priory_Murders" title="The White Priory Murders">
Marcia Tait is a Hollywood star who has come to England to make a historical film. She is found beaten to death in the Queen's Mirror pavilion, the 17th-century trysting place of King Charles II and his mistresses. The problem is particularly puzzling because the pavilion is surrounded by newfallen snow, with only one set of footprints leading to it and none leading away. The suspects include a man who thought he was marrying her — and her husband, whose marriage was unknown to all.Sir Henry Merrivale lends a hand to Inspector Masters in the investigation, but is too late to stop the second murder before Merrivale solves the case.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparent_Things_(novel)" title="Transparent Things (novel)">
This short novel tells the story of Hugh Person, a young American editor, and the memory of his four trips to a small village in Switzerland over the course of nearly two decades.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Armourer's_House" title="The Armourer's House">
The story revolves around a 10-year-old girl named Tamsyn, who has been orphaned and is being raised by her uncle, a shipowner in Bideford. She is brought to live in London by another uncle, who works as a swordsmith, or armourer, being the owner of the house after which the novel is titled.Tamsyn is a dark-complected girl, contrasting with the entirely red headed family which has taken her in; showing Sutcliff's reoccurring themes of outsiders, belonging, red heads, and light vs. dark. She is homesick for her West Country life, but slowly adapts to London city life and being part of a larger family. Through the novel she witnesses Morris dancers on May Day; visits the market in Cheapside, the Billingsgate Fish Market, and the Royal Dockyard in Deptford. She watches King Henry VIII and his current queen Anne Boleyn proceed up the Thames in his royal barge, transiting from his palace in Greenwich to his palace in Westminster. The mother of the house tells them the tale of Tam Lin on Halloween, which parallels the theme of a girl who struggles to pursue her dreams.She watches tall ships at the docks, consistently showing a strong interest in sailing, which she shares with one of the Armourer's sons, Piers. Both Piers and Tamsyn dream of sailing away and exploring the word, adventuring with the backdrop of the Age of Exploration. Piers is restrained by being bound as an apprentice to his father, while Tamsyn is restrained by being a girl.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Lilacs" title="Under the Lilacs">
Bab and Betty, two little girls, are having a tea party with their dolls when an unknown dog appears and steals their cake. The girls find the dog, Sancho, along with his owner Ben Brown, a run-away from the circus who is hiding in their play barn in a carriage. They discover that Ben is a horse master and when he is taken in by the Moss', they get him a job on a neighboring farm. It is there that he can work with horses and drive cows. Ben eventually finds out that his father, who he loved dearly, was dead. A neighbor, Miss Celia, helps him through his grief and he moves in with her and her brother Thornton who is fourteen. He has a job, and a family, and an opportunity for education. Ben has a wonderful life now, but his life in the circus was full of adventure and excitement which is a struggle for Ben. Many adventures and summer-happenings go on in Celia's house, as Ben slowly finds his place among his friends. Sancho gets lost and later is found by Betty with his tail cut off. Sancho's temper is therefore affected forever prompting him to be unfriendly to tramps and strangers, Ben is accused of stealing, Miss Celia gets hurt and Ben takes a wild ride on her horse, Lita. They have an archery competition, where Ben emerges as the winner almost beaten by Bab. In the end Ben's father is revealed to be alive and he comes home. There they both settle down.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life's_Lottery" title="Life's Lottery">
"Life's Lottery" opens speculating on the question of free will and predestination. The reader is invited to decide for themselves which philosophy to follow in reading the book and then is presented with Keith's birth in England on October 4, 1959. Keith is raised in England by a successful banker and has, as the author points out, "been dealt a better hand than many". The boy is spoiled by his parents and enters primary school shy and timid. The book offers its first choice on the first day, when Keith is confronted and teased by a gang. The consequences of the choice – "Napoleon Solo or Illya Kuryakin?" – set Keith on a path that determines his lifelong friends, enemies, and opportunities.Following this key point, the plot paths diverge wildly, and range from Keith winning the lottery, becoming a distinguished novelist, making a bomb threat, having an incestuous affair, committing a murder, and making a deal with the Devil.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Jack" title="Mississippi Jack">
In "Mississippi Jack", the fifth installment in the Bloody Jack series, the intrepid Jacky Faber, having once again eluded British authorities, heads west, hoping that no one will recognize her in the wilds of America. There she tricks the tall-tale hero Mike Fink out of his flatboat, equips it as a floating casino-showboat, and heads south to New Orleans, battling murderous bandits, British soldiers, and other scoundrels along the way.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_of_the_Heart" title="Desert of the Heart">
Evelyn Hall is an English professor from the University of California. She arrives in Reno to establish a six-week residency to attain a quick divorce, which Nevada was known for at that time. After being married for 15 years, she is overwhelmed with guilt for feeling as if she is ruining her husband's mental health. While in Reno, she stays in the guest home of Frances Packer with other women awaiting their divorces. Frances also lives with Walter, her 18-year-old son and her late lover's 25-year-old daughter, Ann Childs. Evelyn and Ann are startled at how alike they are in appearance, despite their 15-year age difference.Ann works as a change operator at a local casino and as a relatively successful cartoonist. Ann is revealed to reject significant relationships in her life, and although she is romantic with both men and women, she refuses to become attached to anyone. She is ending a relationship with her boss, Bill, that was significant enough to make her friends believe they were to be married. Ann's best friend is Silver, who works with her at the casino as a dealer, and is also a sometime lover.Evelyn and Ann begin a friendship that evolves into a romantic relationship in which Evelyn must deal with her guilt after being asked by her husband's doctor to divorce him for his own good. Despite the symptoms of his deep and chronic depression, Evelyn takes the responsibility for the failure of the marriage and his depression upon herself, but after divulging how caustic she is to Ann, she is relieved to realize that the responsibility is not hers to take. Ann must subsequently deal with committing to a relationship wholeheartedly. Being employed by the casino, she is rather well-paid, but is stifled within the atmosphere there, though she continues to work despite her abilities.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_and_the_King" title="The Cat and the King">
Mixing fact and fiction, the Duc de Saint-Simon recounts three episodes in which he and his wife involve themselves in the notorious schemings of King Louis XIV's Versailles. Throughout, the famous courtier's attitudes toward the King and court shift. In the first story, the young Duc, appalled at the King's calculating matches of his illegitimate offspring with prominent aristocrats, works to subvert the wedding of one of Louis' nephews, but is thwarted when his adversaries threaten to expose the homosexuality of both the King's brother and the narrator's patron, the Prince de Conti. In the second, Saint-Simon is maneuvered into acting as messenger between Conti (who is briefly King of Poland in 1697) and Conti's mistress, Madame la Duchesse. In this the Duc is subverted by his own wife's schemings. Finally, in later years, rumors of incest are deployed by both sides in a struggle to determine which of two ill-pedigreed "princesses" will be matched with one of the King's legitimate grandsons. The high-minded Saint-Simon emerges from these intrigues disillusioned ("We had all...been made part of the Versailles system"), but resolves (after the King's death) to record the monarch's "great style" and quest for glory.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Luggage_(adventure_book)" title="Lost Luggage (adventure book)">
When the TARDIS goes missing in a busy spaceport, the Doctor and you must race against time and across space to find it, before the Doctor's incredible spaceship is lost forever.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_Circus_(novel)" title="Soul Circus (novel)">
The novel follows private investigators Derek Strange and Terry Quinn as they work on several cases in Washington DC. Strange's main case is to provide evidence for the defense lawyers of drug lord Granville Oliver. Two secondary cases involve the disappearance of women.Strange is working on the defence of Granville Oliver. Oliver has been charged with the murder of his uncle and faces the death penalty. Strange is trying to locate Devra Stokes who can discredit the testimony of the prosecution's witness Phillip Wood. He learns that Stokes is working in a beauty salon paid for by Wood's successor Horace McKinley. She refuses to testify. Quinn is working on a separate case for his girlfriend. He believes a group of young men have the information he needs but is unable to get them to talk to him.Dewayne Durham and Horace McKinley are considering eliminating one another's organizations to cut down on competition. McKinley's enforcers James and Jeremy Coates perform a drive-by shooting on Jerome Long and Alante Jones as they deal drugs for Durham. Durham is forced to respond and instructs Long to kill the Coates brothers. McKinley learns that Stokes talked to Strange and tries to intimidate her by sexually assaulting her. Stokes is enraged by his actions and decides to testify.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imperial_Presidency" title="The Imperial Presidency">
"The Imperial Presidency" examines changes in the extent of executive power, particularly in the context of war, from the establishment of the United States through the presidency of Richard Nixon. It discusses how the applications of the Constitutional authority to declare war given to Congress and the Constitutional authority to conduct foreign policy and act as commander-in-chief given to the president have evolved since the government's inception, creating a dangerous imbalance in the separation of powers. The book argues that throughout US history, the office of the president gradually appropriated authority exceeding that which was granted to the presidency by the Constitution, resulting in a concurrent erosion in congressional authority. "The Imperial Presidency" identifies a pattern of presidents during critical points in history setting policies and taking actions that were arguably the province of Congress, to be followed by a return to "normalcy" when the crisis had passed. Schlesinger presents James K. Polk's deployment of troops to the disputed area between Texas and Mexico, leading to the Mexican–American War, as the first example of a president exploiting the ambiguity of war-making powers in the Constitution. Another example he gives is Abraham Lincoln and his executive orders and actions during the American Civil War, such as the suspension of habeas corpus.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(Bova_novel)" title="Mercury (Bova novel)">
Mance was the chief visionary and engineer behind the skytower, a super space elevator which ran from Ecuador all the way into low Earth orbit. When religious fundamentalists and agents of the scheming Yamagata Corporation sabotage the skytower, however, millions are killed; Mance is faced with his own guilt for the tragedy and sees himself as ostensibly responsible. He is arrested and put on trial. Things turn out even worse for Mance when his friends, bioengineer Victor Molina and Rev. Elliott Danvers, abandon him, and he is exiled to a life of hard work and misery in the Asteroid Belt, far from his beloved wife Lara—upon whom the double-crossing Victor Molina had always harbored designs. For a time, he escapes his fate in the Belt by being inducted into the crew of an ore hauler, where for a while he contemplates his life and comes to the conclusion that he was set up.Ultimately he falls for the captain's beautiful young daughter Addie. When the same forces responsible for the destruction of the skytower destroy the freighter, Mance manages to survive by having been outside, tethered to the ship as punishment from the captain for having been caught with his daughter. Rescued against all odds, Mance is brought to the moon to recuperate, where he is able to assume the identity of the ship's late first officer, Dante Alexios, by undergoing extensive nano reconstruction to make him appear outwardly identical to Dante Alexios.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hercules_Text" title="The Hercules Text">
The story emphasizes the various characters' reactions to the event, according to their specific scientific backgrounds. Examples include a priest's speculations on the implications for religion, a psychologist's theorizing about the aliens' psyches, the scientists' consideration of the implications of the new knowledge for their own specialties, and the president's concern for the implications for national defense.The novel is set in an ongoing Cold War scenario. Unlike typical first contact stories, there is no dialogue between the senders of the message and mankind, as the received radio signals have traveled through space for one and a half million years.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_the_Wolfings" title="The House of the Wolfings">
"The House of the Wolfings" is a romantically reconstructed portrait of the lives of the Germanic Gothic tribes, written in an archaic style and incorporating a large amount of poetry. Morris combines his own idealistic views with what was actually known at the time of his subjects' folkways and language. He portrays them as simple and hardworking, galvanized into heroic action to defend their families and liberty by the attacks of imperial Rome.Morris's Goths inhabit an area called the Mark on a river in the forest of Mirkwood, divided into the Upper-mark, the Mid-mark and the Nether-mark. They worship their gods Odin and Tyr by sacrificing horses, and rely on seers who foretell the future and serve as psychic news-gatherers.The men of the Mark choose two War Dukes to lead them against their enemies, one each from the House of the Wolfings and the House of the Laxings. The Wolfing war leader is Thiodolf, a man of mysterious and perhaps divine antecedents, whose ability to lead is threatened by his possession of a magnificent dwarf-made mail-shirt which, unknown to him, is cursed. He is supported by his lover the Wood Sun and their daughter the Hall Sun, who are related to the gods.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven_Eyes" title="Heaven Eyes">
The story focuses on three children who run away from their orphanage and are rescued by Heaven Eyes, a strange, innocent child with webbed hands and feet. The sole survivor of a shipwreck, Heaven Eyes was rescued by the elderly caretaker of a gigantic old printing press and storage building. He raises her lovingly and she calls him her Grandpa
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Pavement" title="Angel Pavement">
The prologue depicts the arrival in London of Mr Golspie, who has come by steamship from an unnamed Baltic country. He discusses his immediate plans with the crew.The first chapter contains a detailed description of a fictional street in the EC postcode area called Angel Pavement, and the employees at Twigg &amp; Dersingham. Business has not been good, and Mr Dersingham is trying to decide whom to sack. Mr Golspie arrives with a dispatch case containing a sample book of veneers and inlays, and asks to see Mr Dersingham. After a short delay, he is admitted to Mr Dersingham's office, and there is a long discussion, after which both men leave mysteriously. Mr Smeeth is baffled, especially when Mr Dersingham rings up and tells him to sack their senior traveller, Mr Goath.The second chapter introduces the tobacconist T. Benenden, and shows Mr Smeeth's family and home life. The next morning, Dersingham still has not returned to the office, and during lunch Mr Smeeth hears an unpleasant story about the failure of an umbrella firm called Claridge &amp; Molton. He wonders if Mr Dersingham's absence indicates that they are all about to lose their jobs. But at five, Mr Dersingham returns and informs Mr Smeeth that the newcomer has offered a cheap supply of veneers from the Baltic, and their immediate future is assured. The next evening, Mr Golspie takes Mr Smeeth out for a drink at the "White Horse", and tells him he ought to ask for a rise.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mad_King" title="The Mad King">
Set in the fictional European kingdom of Lutha, the protagonist is a young American named Barney Custer, of Beatrice, Nebraska, who is the son of an American farmer and a runaway Luthan princess, Victoria Rubinroth. Unaware of his royal blood, much less that he is a dead ringer for his relative Leopold, the current king of Lutha, Barney visits Lutha on the eve of the First World War to see for himself his mother's native land. As he arrives in Lutha, King Leopold has just escaped from his ten years' imprisonment at the hands of his scheming uncle, Prince Peter of Blentz. Much to his own and everyone else's confusion, Barney is naturally mistaken for the king, leading to numerous complications.Barney meets and falls in love with Princess Emma Von Der Tann, Leopold's promised bride, and then becomes intimately involved in Luthan affairs, working to help the king and ultimately allowing himself to be proclaimed as king while impersonating Leopold to prevent Prince Peter from seizing the throne. He finally succeeds in foiling Peter's plans to become king himself by rescuing and fighting for the real king. Unfortunately, after his coronation, King Leopold discovers the shared love between Barney and Princess Emma, and Barney is forced to leave Lutha, mimicking the flight of his father years earlier, though his father left with a princess—Barney has only a soldier. Thus ends part one.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grass-Cutting_Sword" title="The Grass-Cutting Sword">
The tale is a postmodern interpretation of the Japanese folk-tale of "Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi" ("Heaven's Cloud-Gathering Sword"), which is taken from the collection of folk-lore in the "Kojiki". The action shifts between the journey of the storm-god Susanoo who has been banished to earth in human form by his sister, the Sun Goddess Amaterasu, as he attempts to slay the eight-headed serpent Yamata-no-Orochi. Valente also portrays the serpent's side of the story with a twist; the tale told by Orochi is intercut or added to by the seven maidens who have been sacrificed to the monster.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_of_God" title="Arrow of God">
The novel is set amongst the villages of the Igbo people in colonial Nigeria during the 1920s. Ezeulu is the chief priest of the god "Ulu", worshipped by the six villages of Umuaro. The book begins with Ezeulu and Umuaro fighting against a nearby village, Okperi. The conflict is abruptly resolved when T. K. Winterbottom, the British colonial overseer, intervenes.After the conflict, an indigenous African Christian missionary, John Goodcountry, arrives in Umuaro. Goodcountry begins to tell the villages tales of Nigerians in the Niger Delta who abandoned (and battled) their traditional "bad customs" in favour of Christianity.Ezeulu is called away from his village by Winterbottom and is invited to become a part of the colonial administration, a policy known as indirect rule. Ezeulu refuses to be a "white man's chief" and is thrown in prison. In Umuaro, the people cannot harvest the yams until Ezeulu has called the New Yam Feast to give thanks to Ulu. When Ezeulu returns from prison, he refuses to call the feast despite being implored by other important men in the village to compromise. Ezeulu reasons to the people and to himself that it is not his will but Ulu's; Ezeulu believes himself to be half spirit and half man. The yams begin to rot in the field, and a famine ensues for which the village blames Ezeulu. Seeing this as an opportunity, John Goodcountry proposes that the village offer thanks to the Christian God instead and they may harvest what remains of their crops with "immunity".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_of_the_People" title="A Man of the People">
"A Man of the People" is a first-person account of Odili, a school teacher in a fictional country closely resembling post-colonial Nigeria. Odili receives an invitation from his former teacher, Chief Nanga, who is now the powerful but corrupt Minister of Culture. As Minister, Nanga's job is to protect the traditions of his country especially when he is known as "A Man of the People". Instead, his position is used to increase his personal wealth and power that proves particularly alluring to Odili's girlfriend; she cheats on him with the minister. Seeking revenge, Odili begins to pursue the minister's fiancee.Odili agrees to lead an opposition party in the face of both bribes and violent threats. Then there is a military coup.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Milton_Lumky_Territory" title="In Milton Lumky Territory">
It's 1958 and Bruce Stevens is a buyer for a national warehouse chain who passes through his hometown of Montario, Idaho whilst en route to Boise on business. His reason involves hormones more than nostalgia, however, as a one-time girlfriend named Peg lives there now. It is at a party at her place where he meets, and quickly falls into a relationship with, a strangely familiar older woman who turns out to be one of his former, and least favorite, elementary school teachers, Susan Faine. She simultaneously hires him on as manager of her typewriter shop. Travelling salesman Milton Lumky informs Bruce of a warehouse full of imported, Japanese-made surplus typewriters, and so Stevens drives to Seattle to see this potential bounty for himself. He belatedly discovers that the typewriters all have Spanish language keyboards, and so he tries to pass these hot potatoes down along the line to his former warehouse employer. He reveals his nefarious intentions to Susan, who passes the information onto the warehouse chain which nevertheless decides to take them off his hands at a fair but unprofitable price for Bruce. He then enters a period of waffling and indecision, ultimately deciding to try altering all of the machines himself and selling them at the shop. Returning to Boise he informs Susan of his decision and sets to work, only to return the next morning to find that Susan has fired him and all of the typewriters are being loaded into a truck by one of his former co-workers at the warehouse chain. Distraught by this turn of events he rents a room and recalls one of his first encounters with Susan as his fifth grade teacher which evolves into a day dream about the pair opening up shop in Montario and ultimately moving to Denver following the purchase of an expanded facility there and living happily ever after.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Whose_Teeth_Were_All_Exactly_Alike" title="The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike">
Sometime between 1958 and 1962, Leo Runcible, a liberal Jew, is working in the real estate field. On learning that Walt Dombrosio, Leo's neighbor, has had a Black visitor to his house in a "lily-white" suburb of Marin County, California, potential purchasers interrogate Runcible about the matter and ultimately incur his wrath over their narrow-minded bigotry. He thereby fails to close the deal and forfeits their friendship and a precious commission as well.But according to Leo's tortured logic it is Walt who's at fault for this unforeseen little debacle. So in retaliation Runcible opportunistically reports Dombrosio's later episode of drunk driving, leading to the loss of the latter's motor vehicle operator's license for a period of six months.Walt's wife Sherry then drives him to and from work every day, eventually landing a job working alongside her husband. Walt, however, being as he is an insecure, misogynistic, manipulating headcase, quits his own position over this incident and continues to fume over it as the weeks and months roll by. He eventually humiliates and manhandles his wife in front of their neighbors as a prelude to forcefully impregnating her with an unwanted child which she unsuccessfully threatens to abort.At the same time, Runcible has found what he believes to be Neanderthal remains in Carquinez, Marin County, and envisages rising property prices due to incipient archaeological interest and the avalanche of media coverage that naturally follows. As it turns out, however, Dombrosio is the culprit who modified and planted the modern human remains there to begin with. They are a legacy of the local 'chuppers' who developed facial, cranial and spinal deformations as a supposed result of the pollution of the local water supply.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty_in_Oakland" title="Humpty Dumpty in Oakland">
In 1960, 58-year-old Jim Fergesson decides to sell his Oakland-based auto repair business and retire. This threatens to greatly inconvenience his business tenant, used car salesman Al Miller, who rents a lot from Fergesson to sell his battered but superficially reconditioned old jalopies. Chris Harmon, an entrepreneur, advises Fergesson to invest in a new super-garage located in Marin Country Gardens. Jim takes a fall in the mud and has a minor heart attack during a visit to the property to personally verify its existence. Miller is convinced that Harmon is corrupt and makes an amateurish attempt at blackmailing him over his alleged (then-illegal) sale of salacious audio recordings. At the same time Al enters employment with Harmon as a curiously unqualified salesman of Classical Music. This, as it turns out, was an innocent administrative error. Al's actual assignment now involves the mass marketing of Barbershop Music. He sees conspiracies, machinations and double-dealings where there are none and strives mightily, but ultimately fails, to disrupt the final contract-signing between Fergesson and Harmon by playing on old Jim's paranoia. The strain of it all takes its toll on a recently injured, weakened, ailing Fergesson and he dies later that night at home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_and_the_Glimmung" title="Nick and the Glimmung">
Nick, his family, and cat Horace leave Earth in 1992, because pet ownership has been criminalised on that world. Arriving at their new home, Plowman's Planet, the family encounter a series of mishaps at the hands of the planet's varied indigenous inhabitants. A wub carries their luggage, but eats a map, while werjes attack Horace, but their family befriend the aliens, leading to a gift, which turns out to be a history of Plowman's Planet itself. They make the acquaintance of the non-indigenous alien Glimmung, who secures travel for them in return for his lost history of their adopted world. The Graham family encounter duplicates of themselves, and trobes steal Horace. Nick tries to find his pet, but locates their driver, slain in a car accident, and still possessing the book. Nick has it copied, wounding the Glimmung, who rediscovers it. Nick then finds Horace with a Nick duplicate, and the cat chooses his original owner over the simulacrum.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wintle's_Wonders" title="Wintle's Wonders">
As the book begins, Rachel Lennox and her adopted sister Hilary are living with Rachel's mother. Rachel's father, George Lennox, was a budding film star, but died just as his career was taking off, when the children were seven. As a result, the family is not well off; they must take in boarders to make ends meet. Hilary's mother was a dancer, and so Rachel and her mother are determined that Hilary will also become a ballerina. Hilary does have a talent for ballet, but is not at all interested in it.Their mother dies when the girls are ten, just before Hilary's audition for the Royal Ballet School, and the girls go to live with their Uncle Tom (their father's brother), his wife Cora Wintle, and their daughter, Dulcie. Aunt Cora runs a dancing school to teach girls how to perform in troupes for pantomimes, musicals and reviews; the troupes are referred to as "Mrs Wintle's Little Wonders". Dulcie, who is almost a year older than Rachel and Hilary, is very attractive and a talented dancer, but also very spoiled by her mother.Mrs Wintle originally intends to take only Rachel, as she is a blood relative, but she decides to keep Hilary also, when she realises how talented a dancer Hilary is. Rachel is horrified by the type of dancing taught at Mrs Wintle's school, which includes tap, musical comedy, and acrobatics, and remains determined that Hilary will continue with her ballet. Rachel must also train as a Little Wonder, and though she works hard, she has no talent for the dancing required of the "Wonders". However she does excel in ordinary lessons, and at their additional elocution and acting lessons, which puts her in competition with her cousin Dulcie without it coming to light for most of the book. Mrs Storm, their tutor, decides to teach Rachel extra elocution, because it makes her happy. Hilary continues dancing and throughout the book enjoys acrobatics in particular. Although Rachel bribes her with money to finish ballet, which seems to work Hilary also continues to excel at acrobatics. This continually makes Rachel upset.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_in_the_North" title="Once Upon a Time in the North">
Lee Scoresby, a 24-year-old young Texan aeronaut, and his dæmon, the jackrabbit Hester, make a rough landing in Novy Odense, a harbour town on an island in the White Sea, in Muscovy. After paying for the storage of their balloon, Lee and Hester make their way into town, where Lee notes with surprise the presence of bears: some working, some just loitering about. He enters a bar to get something to eat and drink, and falls into conversation with a local journalist, Oskar Siggurdson, who explains that an election for Mayor of Novy Odense will take place later in the week. Siggurdson tells Lee that the overwhelming favourite — not the incumbent mayor, but a man called Ivan Dimitrovich Poliakov — has as a central policy a campaign to deal with the bears which hang around the town. Oskar mentions that the bears, once a proud race, now rank as "worthless vagrants". Lee learns with amazement that these bears are intelligent, can speak, and make and wear their own armour, though laws make it illegal for the bears to wear their armour in Novy Odense. At this point Lee intervenes in a conflict elsewhere in the bar, preventing the barkeeper from beating a drunk Dutch captain called van Breda, who has a ship tied up in the harbour but does not have permission to load his cargo and leave. Lee and van Breda get thrown out of the bar.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchlight_to_Valhalla" title="Torchlight to Valhalla">
Morgen Teutenberg is an introverted 21-year-old woman nursing her dying father Fritz, who is a painter. She is developing a novel with her father's assistance. Out walking one day, she meets a very handsome young man, Royal St. Gabriel, a pianist who is quite taken with her. Royal pursues her romantically despite Morgen's lack of enthusiasm. Fritz dies very soon after Morgen meets Royal, and she is devastated by his loss and nonplussed by Royal's attention, not seeming to welcome it, but flattered by his gentlemanly manners and thoughtfulness. He buys her a radio and has it delivered to her house with a letter telling her when to tune in to a station. When she does, she hears a composition he has written for her that she imagines describes her perfectly. For five months they have a friendship characterized by Royal's unabashed love for Morgen, and her not sure how to tell him that she is grateful for his friendship, but does not want to pursue anything deeper with him.On Christmas Eve, overwhelmed with missing her father again, she turns to Royal and they sleep together. Royal is overcome with gratitude, not believing she has given herself to him at last, but Morgen does not enjoy the experience and realizes she went to him out of loneliness. She tells him this and he is hurt by it. He travels frequently and leaves her again, unsure of how to reach her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_the_Living_(novel)" title="Land of the Living (novel)">
One day, Abbie Deveraux wakes up in the dark to find she has been kidnapped and tied to a chair. She can't remember how she got there, all she knows is her loved ones may be looking for her and she wants to escape this prison. She manages to escape. Going back to her friends and boyfriend she realises that her last few days with them had been strange. Ending her relationship with her boyfriend and quitting her job, she couldn't remember any of this, not even the fact that she had been seeing someone else. As well as this her friends don't believe her kidnapping and being tied up. In a fear that he knows everything about her, where she lives, where she goes, she wants to trace back her steps of what she had done the days before she had disappeared. In an attempt for him not to find her, she changes her image and style. But the mysterious incident continues to haunt her, she can't think of anything else other than getting the man who had tormented her and to find the other girls that he mentioned he had killed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dragon's_Teeth" title="The Dragon's Teeth">
An eccentric millionaire, Cadmus Cole, visits the newly founded offices of "Ellery Queen, Confidential Investigations", in a rare incidence of disembarkation from his yacht. The investigation company is actually the brainchild and sole responsibility of Ellery's partner, "Beau" Rummell, an established private eye. The eccentric Mr. Cole pays $1,500,000 as a retainer to hire Ellery Queen for an investigation—the details of which he refuses to divulge, saying only "You'll know when the time comes." Upon his departure, he leaves behind a well-chewed fountain pen with which he's signed the retainer cheque. Almost immediately, Ellery's appendix bursts, and Cadmus Cole is reported dead and buried at sea. Rummell, in the guise of Ellery Queen, begins to investigate both the circumstances of Cole's death and his heirs; he soon meets two beautiful young women and the case becomes complicated by romance and the appearance of a claimant under the will. When the claimant is murdered, and Rummell married to one of the beauties, the real Ellery Queen must take a hand and solve the case, using the vital clue of the chewed fountain pen.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Winter_of_Frankie_Machine" title="The Winter of Frankie Machine">
Frank Machianno, a retired San Diego mafia hitman, cut his ties with the Mafia many years ago. However, one day, his past catches up with him as the boss of Los Angeles family calls in for a past favor. Frank must oversee a meeting between the Detroit Combination and the Los Angeles crime family. Unfortunately, the meeting is revealed to be a "set-up", a scheme to kill Frankie. Someone from Frank's past wants him dead, and Frank has to find out why, how, and when. The problem is that the list of candidates is sizable, and Frankie is rapidly running out of time.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calamity_Town" title="Calamity Town">
Ellery Queen moves into the small town of Wrightsville, somewhere in New England, in order to get some peace and quiet so that he can write a book. As a result of renting a furnished house, he becomes peripherally involved in the story of Jim Haight and Nora Wright. Nora's father is president of the Wrightsville National bank, "oldest family in town", and when the head cashier Jim Haight became engaged to his daughter Nora, he built and furnished a house for them as a wedding present. That was three years ago—the day before the wedding, Jim Haight disappeared, the wedding was called off, and the jinxed house became known as "Calamity House". Ellery rents it, just before the return of Jim Haight, and the wedding is soon on again. Ellery finds some evidence that Jim is planning to poison Nora and, after the wedding, she does display some symptoms of arsenic poisoning. But it is Jim's sister Rosemary who dies after drinking a poisoned cocktail. Jim is tried for the murder and it is only after some startling and tragic events that Ellery reveals the identity of the murderer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Was_an_Old_Woman_(novel)" title="There Was an Old Woman (novel)">
Mrs. Cornelia Potts is the elderly matriarch of the Potts family, and their large fortune was earned by the manufacture of shoes, so when a murder mystery takes place at their New York estate, it's not surprising that the newspapers refer frequently to "the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe". Cornelia has had two husbands—one deceased, one living in the household—and three children by each. Her children by her first husband are all extremely eccentric. Thurlow Potts engages in dozens of lawsuits to protect the family honor; Louella believes herself to be a great chemist and inventor, a sentiment shared by no one else; and Horatio, an adult, is determined to live the lifestyle of a child of six. By contrast, her other three children by her second husband are relatively sane—the twins Robert and Maclyn, who run the business, and the beautiful Sheila. Thurlow's lawyer Charley Paxton is engaged to Sheila and invites Ellery Queen to dinner at the Potts mansion to meet the family. Thurlow challenges Robert to a duel, using revolvers from which the bullets have been carefully extracted but, when the duel is fought, Robert is shot dead because the bullets have been returned to the gun. Next, his twin Maclyn is shot in his bed, and the body is found with whip marks on his face next to a dish of broth. As Ellery postulates that the murders are somehow tied to the nursery rhyme, the next death is that of the Old Woman herself. She dies of heart failure and leaves behind a confession to the first two murders. It is only at the marriage of Charley and Sheila that Ellery finally realizes the truth of the bizarre events and unmasks the real criminal.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Murderer_Is_a_Fox" title="The Murderer Is a Fox">
Ellery Queen investigates a murder that took place a number of years ago and has blighted the present-day lives of members of the Fox family. For the twelve years following the death of Davy's mother Jessica, and the trial of his father, Davy Fox has suffered inner torture. Davy knew he loved his wife ... as well as he knew he was going to kill her. He didn't know just when it was going to happen – but when a man is born to be a murderer, it's only a matter of time before he claims his birthright. Love turns out to be a matter of life and death – and it's up to Ellery Queen to make the choice!"
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Days'_Wonder" title="Ten Days' Wonder">
Howard Van Horn, son of millionaire Diedrich Van Horn, comes to Ellery Queen with the request that Ellery investigate what Howard has been doing during a recent bout with amnesia. The trail leads to the small New England town of Wrightsville and what seems to be a love triangle with Howard's stepmother, the beautiful young Sally, from the "wrong side of the tracks" in class-conscious Wrightsville. A series of small and unusual crimes over the next nine days seem to be committed by Howard during amnesiac blackouts, and Ellery Queen suddenly realizes the bizarre pattern that underpins the series of crimes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_of_Many_Tails" title="Cat of Many Tails">
A strangler is killing Manhattanites, seemingly at random. The only common thread is the unusual silk cords that are used for the killings; blue for men and pink for women. Other than that, the victims come from all social classes and backgrounds, ethnicities, races, neighbourhoods, etc. The city is in a panic. Ellery Queen forms together a small group of people related to some of the victims, and some consultants, and works to determine the killer's reason for selecting these particular victims. When he finally realizes the thread that connects the victims, the murderer is revealed and peace returns to the city.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double,_Double_(Ellery_Queen_novel)" title="Double, Double (Ellery Queen novel)">
Ellery Queen investigates a series of murders that seem to be related by an old rhyme: "Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, ..."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Evil" title="The Origin of Evil">
The beautiful young Laurel Hill asks Ellery Queen to investigate a series of unusual anonymous gifts that have been received by her father, Leander Hill, half of Hill and Priam, Wholesale Jewelers. Roger Priam is Leander's partner, who uses a wheelchair. The latest gift, a dead dog with a mysterious note in a silver casket around its neck, has caused Leander to have a heart attack and die. Now Roger Priam (and his sultry wife Delia, who attracts Ellery like a carnivorous plant) has started to receive unusual anonymous gifts as well. Delia's nudist son Crowe, who is Laurel's boyfriend, and a cast of servants, are also on the scene. The mysterious gifts include some poisoned tuna fish salad, a green alligator wallet, a burned book and a bundle of worthless stocks and bonds, all accompanied by cryptic and ominous notes, and it seems as though they date back to a mysterious and possibly violent incident in the past of both Hill and Priam that gets them started in the wholesale jewelry business. Ellery Queen works out the significance of the series of gifts and the link that connects the notes and arranges a dramatic surprise that traps the criminal—although the true criminal is not known until the final moments of the book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_as_Rain" title="Right as Rain">
The novel follows private investigator Derek Strange as he works on several cases in Washington DC. Strange's main case is to investigate the death of Chris Wilson. Strange focuses on ex-cop Terry Quinn who shot Wilson. Both were police officers and the shooting led to Quinn's discharge from the police department. The shooting was high profile and characterised as racially motivated; Quinn is caucasian while Wilson was African American. Quinn becomes involved in the investigation himself as he is desperate to clear his conscience.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Drink_Before_the_War" title="A Drink Before the War">
Private Investigators Kenzie and Gennaro are tasked to retrieve missing documents by a trio of politicians. The trail leads them into the midst of a gang war and reveals an act of child abuse. Kenzie struggles with memories of his own past while Gennaro deals with her abusive marriage.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Christopher_and_Goldilind_the_Fair" title="Child Christopher and Goldilind the Fair">
Child Christopher and Goldilind the Fair, set in the forested land of Oakenrealm, was Morris' reimagining and recasting of the medieval Lay of Havelock the Dane, with his displaced royal heirs Christopher and Goldilind standing in for the original story's Havelock and Goldborough.In contrast to his source, Morris emphasizes the romantic aspect of the story, giving a prominent place to the heroine's misfortunes and bringing to the forefront the love story between her and the hero; the warfare by which the hero regains his heritage is relegated to a secondary role. Also unlike both the source and most of Morris's other fantasies, there is little or no supernatural element in this version of the story.Christopher is portrayed as initially ignorant of his true identity, leading to an emotional conflict between the protagonists to reconcile their mutual love and attraction with what they believe to be the profound disparity in their social status and shame of their forced marriage. This situation is resolved when the two fall in with Jack of the Tofts, who gives refuge to Christopher after his sons rescue the hero from an assassination attempt by a servant of the usurper Earl Rolf.Jack informs Christopher of his true station and gathers together an army to help him challenge the usurper. When the hosts meet, the commander of Rolf's forces, Baron Gandolf of Brimside, challenges Jack to single combat, but Christopher claims the honor from Jack and proves his worth by defeating the opposing champion.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_Is_Dead_(novel)" title="The King Is Dead (novel)">
Munitions maker King Bendigo is the wealthiest man alive, and what the King wants, the King gets. What he wants is the investigative powers of Ellery Queen and his father, New York homicide detective Richard Queen, in order to investigate some threatening letters. Bendigo has an enormous security apparatus in place that is capable of dealing with threats that involve sovereign governments, but these threats are more personal. Ellery and his father are transported to the Bendigo private island and soon determine that the threats originate within the King's family. The King has two brothers, his assistant Abel and drunken sot Judah, and the King's beautiful wife Karla completes the list of suspects. Judah makes little secret of the fact that it is he who has originated the threats; he announces that he will shoot King at exactly midnight on June 21. At that time, King is locked in a hermetically sealed room accompanied only by his wife; Judah is under Ellery's observation and armed only with an empty gun. At midnight, Judah lifts the empty gun and fires—and King falls back, wounded with a bullet. Karla falls under suspicion but no gun is found on her person or anywhere in the room; similarly, Judah cannot have had a bullet in his possession, having been searched repeatedly. When Ellery learns that the Bendigo family is originally from his familiar haunt of Wrightsville, he travels there for an investigation of the King's early life. Upon his return to the private island, he solves the crime and dramatic and deadly effects follow in short order.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Letters" title="The Scarlet Letters">
Dirk and Martha Lawrence are apparently not the happiest couple in New York, despite her millions of dollars and his fairly successful mystery-writing career. Martha asks for a secretive meeting to get Ellery Queen's advice because Dirk's violent jealousy is causing problems in her life—but Dirk shows up suspecting the worst and punches Ellery into unconsciousness. Dirk apologizes the next day, telling the story of how his father had killed his mother's lover, thereby causing his over-reaction. Ellery's secretary and inamorata Nikki Porter urges him to stay involved in the situation and Nikki moves in with the Lawrences to keep an eye on things (and act as Dirk's secretary on a stalled book). Nikki soon reports that Martha actually is having a series of clandestine meetings with romantic actor Van Harrison. The meetings are arranged with innocuous envelopes that look like advertising, but with Martha's name and address written in scarlet typewriter ink. Also, the envelopes contain only a day, time and a sequential letter of the alphabet—a code that is soon linked to a New York Guidebook. By the time the meetings have progressed from "A" through to "W", Dirk has found out about the affair and followed Martha to Van's home in the suburb of Darien. He breaks in, confronts the pair and shoots them both, seriously wounding Martha, who nearly dies. Van Harrison has just enough time before he dies to leave a dying clue—using his own blood, he writes an "X", then a "Y" on the wall, and dies. Ellery must consider the significance of this dying message and finally solves it, just as Dirk's murder trial is about to conclude. After Ellery gets a private conversation with the judge, a criminal then receives justice.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Village" title="The Glass Village">
Aunt Fanny Adams, famed artist, is the most notable citizen of the tiny New England town of Shinn Corners. A noted proponent of the naturalist school ("I paint what I see") who only began painting at age eighty, her income props up the local church, school, and almost everything else in town. When she is found murdered, suspicion immediately falls on a passing tramp named Josef Kowalczyk, and a planned lynching is nearly successful. It takes the combined efforts of the town's second-most-notable citizen, Judge Shinn, and his house guest, Major Johnny Shinn, to insist upon a trial by jury. Empaneling a jury takes every eligible citizen in the village, counsel and witnesses alike, and so the trial would never withstand legal scrutiny. But Judge Shinn and Major Shinn's investigation reveals a trail of circumstantial evidence that leads to another potential killer before the mock trial's conclusion.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Uncommon_Reader" title="The Uncommon Reader">
The title's "uncommon reader" (Queen Elizabeth II) becomes obsessed with books after a chance encounter with a mobile library. The story follows the consequences of this obsession for the Queen, her household and advisers, and her constitutional position.The title is a play on the phrase "common reader". This can mean a person who reads for pleasure, as opposed to a critic or scholar. It can also mean a set text, a book that everyone in a group (for example, all students entering a university) are expected to read, so that they can have something in common. "The Common Reader" is used by Virginia Woolf as the title work of her 1925 essay collection. Plus a triple play – Virginia Woolf's title came from Dr. Johnson: "I rejoice to concur with the common reader; for by the common sense of readers, uncorrupted by literary prejudices, after all the refinements of subtilty and the dogmatism of learning, must be generally decided all claims to poetical honours."In British English, "common" holds levels of connotation. A commoner is anyone other than royalty or nobility. Common can also mean vulgar, as "common taste"; mean, as "common thief"; ordinary, as "common folk"; widespread, as in "common use"; or something for use by everyone, as in "common land".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Arcanum_(novel)" title="The Arcanum (novel)">
The year is 1919 and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle must investigate the murder of his mentor (and founder of "The Arcanum"), Konstantin Duvall. To do so he must reunite the scattered members of the Arcanum: Harry Houdini, H. P. Lovecraft, and voodoo queen Marie Laveau. Doyle finds himself embroiled in a story of war as old as time itself, for possession of the world’s most powerful—now missing—artifact: the Book of Enoch, the chronicle of God’s mistakes, within whose pages lie the seeds for the end of everything. Peopled with the twentieth century’s most famous—and infamous—figures, the stakes go beyond the realm of humankind—into the divine.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Caravans" title="Two Caravans">
A crew of migrant workers from three continents are forced to flee their English strawberry field for a journey across all of England in pursuit of their various dreams of a better future.The story centres on a group of migrant workers who hail from Eastern Europe, China, Malaysia and Africa and have come to Kent to harvest strawberries for delivery to the supermarkets, and end up living in two small caravans, a men's caravan and a women's caravan. They are all seeking a better life (and in their different ways they are also, of course, looking for love) and they've come to England, some legally, some illegally, to find it.They are supervised by Farmer Leapish, a red-faced man who treats everyone equally except for the Polish woman named Yola, the boss of the crew, who favours him with her charms in exchange for something a little extra on the side. But the two are discreet, and all is harmonious in this cozy vale – until the evening when Farmer Leapish's wife comes upon him and Yola and in retaliation she runs him down in her red sports car. By the time the police arrive the migrant workers (and a dog called Dog) have piled into one of the trailer homes and quickly leave their arcadia, thus setting off on a journey across the length and breadth of England.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_of_Big_Harbour" title="Saints of Big Harbour">
In "Saints of Big Harbour", Coady portrays a small community of Cape Breton Island, found off the coast of Nova Scotia. The book focuses on the perspectives of the main character, Guy Boucher, a fatherless Acadian teenager, and of those who surround him: his alcoholic uncle Isadore, a quietly wise girl named Pam, his draft-dodger English teacher and a group of boys stuck in emotional adolescence. As the story unfolds it becomes clear that Guy lives in a community firmly characterized by clichés of gender, beauty, strength, family and love.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_rade" title="En rade">
Very little happens in this avowedly anti-Romantic work. Jacques Marles seeks refuge from his Parisian creditors with his wife Louise in a dilapidated bungalow in the village of Longueville, France. Far from finding contentment in an idyllic summer landscape, the couple discover the countryside is grotesque and diseased. The local farmers are greedy, cunning, and obsessed with money. The novel documents the petty irritations and disappointments of the Marleses' day-to-day existence as well as their explorations of the ruined chateau and garden. Interspersed with these realistic descriptions are three dream sequences, recounting Jacques' erotic fantasies in a highly Decadent style.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Sky" title="China Sky">
Dr. Gray Thomison is the resident doctor in charge of a hospital in Chen-li, China. Dr. Sara Durand is an American in charge of the women's ward and is secretly in love with Dr. Thomison. They are committed to helping their patients, and they admire the Chinese people and their culture.During an air raid. Dr. Durand and Siu-mei, a young Chinese intern, evacuate patients and babies from the women's hospital. Sara is in charge of the hospital while Gray is away fund-raising in America. Dr. Durand stays in the women's ward with the terminal patients and those who cannot be moved, while Dr. Chung, a young Chinese doctor just out of American medical school, tends patients in the men's ward.Dr. Thomison brings his new wife, Louise, to Chen-li. She does not enjoy living in China and considers herself superior to the native Chinese, preferring the company of English-speaking men from nearby Treaty Port, including Harry Delafield, an English businessman.Chen-ta, the leader of the local guerrillas, brings Yasuda, an injured Japanese prisoner, to the hospital and asks Dr. Durand to operate on him. Dr. Chung assists and gives blood for Yasuda. Dr. Chung believes the Japanese will win the war, so he makes friends with Yasuda and enlists his younger brother, Chung Third, to join Chen-ta's guerrillas to gather information for the Japanese. Chung convinces Louise to assist him, which leads to her loyalty being questioned by others in the hospital. Through her intervention, the Japanese stop bombing the hospital. The citizens of Chen-li stop coming to the hospital because it is not suffering the same fate as the rest of the town.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_from_Peking" title="Letter from Peking">
In September 1950, Elizabeth MacLeod is living in her childhood farm home in Raleigh, Vermont, with her 17-year-old son Rennie. The mailman arrives three mornings each week, and each time Elizabeth hopes for a letter from her husband Gerald in China, where she lived with him until Rennie was twelve. They lived in Peking until the war with Japan, then escaped to Chungking. She and her husband are very much in love, but Gerald, a Eurasian, sent her and Rennie to America because the communist uprising in China made it dangerous for white people. He is half Chinese and chose to stay in his own country.Gerald rarely writes because communication with westerners is banned by the Communists. Letters must be smuggled out. Today her husband writes, "Whatever I do now, remember that it is you I love." The letter continues. She locks the letter in her desk. This is the first letter from Gerald in three months. It is mailed from Hong Kong. It is the last letter from him.Elizabeth takes care of her son and the farm. Her parents are long dead. Matt Greene helps take care of the farm. Elizabeth is aware of an American prejudice against the Chinese, and her son is one-quarter Chinese. She misses her husband very much.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tenth_Circle" title="The Tenth Circle">
When freshman Trixie Stone accuses her ex-boyfriend, Jason Underhill, of raping her at a party, students and townspeople, alike, are quick to take Jason's side when he claims that their intercourse was consensual. Trixie's parents, Daniel, a mild-mannered comic book artist from a rough upbringing, and Laura, a college professor having an affair with one of her students, become involved, and Jason, whose life is supposedly ruined by Trixie's accusation, leaps from a bridge, dying by suicide. Although Jason's death was first presumed to be suicide, Trixie is quickly turned to as a suspect, accused of pushing Jason off the bridge. Trixie then flees to the Yup'ik region of Alaska where her father grew up. Daniel and Laura eventually find Trixie in Alaska.At the end of the novel, Laura confesses to Daniel that she was present when Jason died. Jason, who was intoxicated, lunged at Laura because her daughter Trixie was ruining his life. Laura pushed Jason off the bridge but he held onto her. Laura reached to his hand, but then let go, thus revealing that Trixie is innocent, but Laura is not. The novel concludes with the final chapter with Daniel's latest comic, showing a father reunited with his daughter, after saving her from the depths of hell. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Gardener" title="The Night Gardener">
Set in the 1980s, a trio of murders is linked to a single suspect. All three victims have palindromic first names and are found shot through the head in community gardens. The media dubs the crimes the "palindrome murders". TC Cook was the lead investigator at the time, and two young officers, Gus Ramone and Doc Holiday, were with him at the third crime scene. 20 years later Cook is retired, and Holiday has left the police force. Ramone is a veteran homicide detective and becomes involved in a case which has all the hallmarks of a palindrome murder. Also realizing the similarities, the others are again drawn into the investigation.The novel opens in 1985 at the scene of the discovery of a third victim of the "Night Gardener" so called by the homicide investigators, and establishes Cook as the lead investigator with Ramone and Holiday as rookies. All three victims of the killer were found in community gardens, shot in the head after being similarly assaulted.Twenty years later Holiday has left the force and Ramone has become a homicide detective. Ramone is working with his squad on the murder of Jacqueline Taylor. They manage to arrest and extract a confession from her boyfriend Tyree Williams which is backed by physical evidence. At home Ramone enjoys a happy family life and tries to mentor his son through the prejudices of his new school.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coffee_Trader" title="The Coffee Trader">
The year is 1659. Miguel Lienzo is in financial trouble as a result of some trades in sugar that have gone poorly. He is being pursued by his creditors and is looking for a way out of his current problems. His friend Geertruid persuades him to invest in coffee, a little-known commodity in Europe. After trying coffee for himself at a Turkish coffee house, he is convinced that there could be a market for the beverage in Europe. He devises a scheme to manipulate the price of coffee by buying up as much as possible on several exchanges around Europe simultaneously. Miguel gets Geertruid to front the money for the initial purchases, and he arranges for most of the foreign trades, ordering 90 barrels of coffee through an Amsterdam broker named Isaiah Nunes.Meanwhile, Miguel is living with his younger brother Daniel and his young wife, Hannah, who is pregnant. Miguel owes money to Daniel as well as to other creditors, but his coffee scheme will take months to pay off, and he is on the verge of losing more money on some bad investments in a brandy futures contract. His long-time enemy Solomon Parido approaches him with overtures of friendship and an offer to connect Miguel with a buyer for the brandy futures. Though skeptical, Miguel goes through with the trade, only to see the price of brandy rise just before close of trading. While the trade mitigated Miguel's potential losses, it cost him money he might have earned if he had retained them. On the advice of Alonzo Alferonda, Miguel is able to earn a significant profit on whale oil futures, which costs Parido considerably and enables Miguel to pay off many of his debts and regain some standing in the community.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Secret_Atlas" title="A Secret Atlas">
Qiro Anturasi, Royal Cartographer of Nalenyr, had been instrumental for his family's reputation as the most reliable map-charter in the known world. Merchants and princes all sought his clan's maps, even as the House of Anturasi continued sending out expeditions to expand their wealth of information, surveying unmapped territories, making detail notes of fauna, flora and geography.The Anturasi had been vital to Nalenyr's growing wealth and rise in power. Considered a crucial state treasure that must not fall into the wrong hands, Qiro was confined, on orders and under protection of the Naleni princes, to his estate Anturasikun in Moriande, capital of Nalenyr. There, he continued to oversee his clan's map-making enterprise, training the scions of the clan into the family trade, ruthlessly subjecting them to rigorous training and demands, for more than half a century.Now, the family stood poised on the brink of a historical breakthrough event which could catapult their standing further and beyond the imagination of rival map-makers. Intertwined with their mission were the political ramifications for Nalenyr, the aggressive northern state of Deseiron, and Helosunde which served as buffer between the two former powers. Much of Helosunde had been under Desei occupation, and Nalenyr provided Helosundian refugees sanctuary and support to confound Desei designs on Nalenyr.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babar's_Museum_of_Art" title="Babar's Museum of Art">
As the elephants in Celesteville took to motoring, the city's train station lost its original purpose. Queen Celeste decided to convert the station into an Art museum to showcase all the artworks she and Babar had collected over the years.When the museum was opened, the adult elephants patiently explained to the young elephants different perspectives on art appreciation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blacker_the_Berry_(novel)" title="The Blacker the Berry (novel)">
Born in Boise, Idaho, Emma Lou Morgan is an African-American girl who has extremely dark skin. Her mother's family have lighter skin that shows European ancestry; the "blue-black" hue came from her father, who left her and her mother soon after her birth. Believing that her color will reduce her marriageability, her mother's people try to help her lighten her skin with bleaching and commercially available creams, but nothing works. When her mother says "a black boy could get along but a black girl would never know anything but sorrow and disappointment," Emma Lou wishes she had been a boy. The only "Negro pupil in the entire school," she feels extra conspicuous at graduation among the white faces and white robes.Emma Lou's Uncle Joe encourages her to go to the University of Southern California (USC), where she'll be among black students, and he encourages her to study education and move South to teach. He believes that smaller towns like Boise "encouraged stupid color prejudice such as she encountered among the blue vein circle in her home town." Emma Lou's maternal grandmother was closely associated with the "blue veins", black people whose skin was light enough to show veins. Uncle Joe thought life would be better for Emma Lou in Los Angeles, where people had more to think about.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_(novel)" title="Boston (novel)">
Chapter 1: The Runaway GrandmotherThe summer of 1915. The Thornwell estate outside of Boston. Cornelia Thornwell, aged 60, is suddenly widowed after 40 disappointing years of marriage: "she had lived, a prisoner in a cell." (31) The family is patrician and powerful, part of New England's economic and cultural elite. Her 3 daughters, all married to millionaires, squabble over their inheritances during funeral preparations. They continue their disputes as relations and retainers assemble for the reading of the will. Cornelia sees their behavior as "the revelation of hidden natures." "Trembling with excitement," (32) she pens a farewell note declaring herself a "runaway grandmother" (33) and asking the family not to pursue her. She leaves by a back stairway.Chapter 2: Plymouth RockCalling herself Mrs. Cornell, Cornelia finds work at a cordage plant in Plymouth, a town not far from Boston. She learns how hard factory work is and how hard the life of the poor. She boards with the Brini family and becomes friends with their other boarder, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, an Italian immigrant ditch digger, atheist, anarchist, and pacifist. She first thinks his political beliefs naive, "a dreamer of dreams, so simple of mind as to have no conception of the odds against him," (56) especially his opposition to reformers and all organizations, even unions. Early in 1916, shortly after a public meeting Vanzetti and his anarchist comrades hold to promote their ideas, a spontaneous strike breaks out.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Was_a_Rat!_or_The_Scarlet_Slippers" title="I Was a Rat! or The Scarlet Slippers">
One evening, at the home of the cobbler old Bob and his washerwoman wife Joan, there is a knock at the door. Bob opens the door and sees a little boy in a torn and stained page's uniform. When asked "who are you?", the boy replies "I was a rat". Bob and Joan have no children and they take care of the boy by providing food and a bed. The boy was unable to eat with a spoon, and during his first evening he tore his sheets and blankets into strips. However, Bob and Joan were patient and the boy was a quick learner who, wanting to please them, carefully followed their instructions. When he spots a photograph of Princess Aurelia, the prince's fiancée, in the newspaper, he appears to recognise her as 'Mary Jane'.Joan calls the boy "Roger", the name Bob and Joan would have used for their son. Bob and Joan take Roger to the City Hall to find how to return Roger to his proper home. An official declares that there are no lost children in the city, then notices that Roger has eaten a pencil belonging to the City Council. Bob and Joan take Roger to the orphanage, the police station, and the hospital, but no one can help locate Roger's home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_Nathan_Brazil" title="The Return of Nathan Brazil">
A viral species named the Dreel, originating from outside the Milky Way galaxy, invades human territory. The central human government, known as the Com, attempts to fight back, but finds that their resources are inadequate to repel the invaders. In desperation, the records of the work of Gilgram Zinder (who had discovered the superimposed Markovian reality and built the sentient supercomputer Obie to manipulate it) are unsealed and his work is reproduced. Lacking the time to develop the technology fully, the Com builds ships called Zinder Nullifiers, which simply erase the contents of the space that they are pointed at. When they make the final stand against the Dreel invasion fleet, the Nullifiers are switched on and left on, obliterating the Dreel fleet. However, something unexpected then occurs, as the void in space begins to grow, erasing everything in its path from existence.At this point, Mavra Chang and Obie are reintroduced. It has been over 700 years since Obie faked his destruction and ran away with Mavra, and they are currently in another galaxy trying to positively influence the development of an intelligent civilization. Obie senses the malfunction in the Well World when the anomaly forms and begins to expand. He travels to the Well World, determines that it is broken and requires repair. He determines that the only person able to effect such repair is Nathan Brazil, but notes that the Well should have summoned Brazil to fix the malfunction. Obie recalls that Brazil was suffering from memory loss the last time he journeyed to the Well World; worried that this may have recurred, he and Mavra set out to locate Brazil.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rachel_Papers_(novel)" title="The Rachel Papers (novel)">
"The Rachel Papers" tells the story of Charles Highway, a bright, egotistical teenager (a portrait Amis acknowledges as autobiographical) and his relationship with his girlfriend in the year before going to university. Narrated by Charles on the eve of his twentieth birthday, the novel recounts Charles's last year of adolescence and his first love, Rachel Noyes, whom he meets in London while studying for his entrance exams into Oxford. Charles meets Rachel at a party and vows to win her over with his wit and wisdom. Unfortunately, she is seeing an American visiting student named DeForest, and Charles must employ a variety of meticulously calculated schemes to steal her away.The title is an allusion to one subset of notes that Charles works on diligently throughout the novel – detailed instructions on everything from how to convince his Oxford don of his brilliance, to how to pick up and seduce girls. Instead of studying for his exams, Charles pours most of his time into these narcissistic chronicles, and after he meets Rachel, "The Rachel Papers" become the primary outlet for his neurotic brilliance. Gradually, however, these notes evolve beyond a set of conniving machinations geared toward getting Rachel into bed with him, and into a sincere story of their brief but passionate romance.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defining_Dulcie" title="Defining Dulcie">
The story follows 16-year-old Dulcie Morrigan Jones through journeys and trials. Her mother moves them both from Connecticut to California after Dulcie's father dies an accidental death. However Dulcie is unimpressed by this level of life change and seeks to solve this problem by stealing her father's old pick-up truck, setting out across America heading for her former home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bell_for_Adano_(novel)" title="A Bell for Adano (novel)">
The novel is set during the 1943 Allied occupation of the fictional Italian coastal town of Adano (based on the real city of Licata). The main character, Major Victor Joppolo, is the temporary administrator of the town during the occupation and is often referred to by the people of Adano as Mister Major. Joppolo is an idealistic Italian-American who wants to bring justice and compassion to Adano, which has been hardened by the authoritarian Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini.When Major Joppolo arrives at Adano, he immediately asks the people of the town what they need the most. The first spokesman of the town tells Joppolo that they are in great need of food for some people have not eaten in days. The second spokesman of the town argues that the town's immediate necessity is a new bell. Joppolo is touched by the story of a 700-year-old bell that was taken away from the town by the Fascists. Mussolini had ordered that the bell be removed from the town and be melted to make weapons for the war. The people were greatly attached to the bell. To them, the bell was a source of pride and unity. Joppolo immediately sees the importance of the bell and makes persistent attempts to locate the bell.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lives_of_the_Monster_Dogs" title="Lives of the Monster Dogs">
A group of elegant monster dogs in top hats, tails, and bustle skirts become instant celebrities when they come to New York in 2008. Refugees from a town whose residents had been utterly isolated for a hundred years, the dogs retain the nineteenth-century Germanic culture of the humans who created them. They are wealthy and glamorous and seem to lead charmed lives – but they find adjusting to the modern world difficult, and when a young woman, Cleo Pira, befriends them, she discovers that a strange, incurable illness threatens them all with extinction. When the dogs construct their dream home, a fantastic castle on the Lower East Side, and barricade themselves inside, Cleo finds herself one of the few human witnesses to a mad, lavish party that may prove to be the final act in the drama of the lives of the monster dogs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_in_the_Sun" title="A Fire in the Sun">
Taking place some months after the events described in "When Gravity Fails", Marîd Audran, once a small-time hustler on the streets of the decadent Budayeen, finds himself as one of the lieutenants of Friedlander Bey or "Papa", the most influential man in the city. With his independence taken from him and being stationed as a liaison between Bey and the local law enforcement under the supervision of Sergeant Hajjar, Audran is forced to pair up with his colleague Jirji Shaknahyi in order to track down yet another serial killer who likes to remove some of the internal organs of their victims.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Midnight" title="Red Midnight">
12-year-old Santiago Cruz, a Kekcíhi "campesinos indigenous", escapes from his destroyed village, Dos Vías, Guatemala, on May 18, 1981, with his four-year-old sister, Angelina, at midnight, after his mother pushes her into his arms and wakes him up. His entire family has been killed by soldiers, and he runs as far away as he can. His Uncle Ramos gives him a map and compass and instructs him to sail away in his cayuco to the United States, to escape the civil war and hopefully find a better life. The boy and his sister (Angelina) find a horse and ride it into the nearby village of Los Santos, where everyone has also been killed and burned. They continue into a city and sneak a ride in a maize truck. They then sneak a ride on the back of a manure truck that a drunk rebel soldier is driving. To keep the truck from crashing because of the intoxicated driver, they put horse dung into the gas tank and escape when the truck breaks down. They then walk down to Lake Izabal and sleep at their Uncle Ramos's house. In the morning, Enrique, a friend of Ramos, finds the children. They tell him what has happened, and Enrique and his wife, Silvia, give them food for the journey. Enrique tells them everything he knows about the dangerous journey, and ride in the cayuco with them until they reach the opening to the sea. At the entrance to El Golfete, they sneak beside the shore past a military boat. Enrique leaves and Santiago and his sister sail into the ocean. They have little food, and soon go hungry and thirsty, with itches and blisters all over their bodies. They encounter tourists, pirates, many violent storms, and a shark. They encounter a river of garbage, which Santiago uses to make an amateur windshield among other spare parts to fix his cayuco, and finds Angelina a broken plastic doll. They once nearly sailed into an inland bay on the border of Belize and Mexico, and then sailed into the open Gulf. Santiago makes notches in his cayuco every dawn with his machete, as it should only take twenty to make it. They attempt to catch fish, but often fail or have to steal fish from fishing nets from a ship. They encounter a large storm, which causes the mast to fall directly on Santiago's head, and makes them lose the water pail. They experience diarrhea and sores, and almost lose hope of making the journey. They had expected to arrive in twenty days, but several more pass with no land in sight. One day, a tropical storm's eye passes over them, and they lose everything except the cayuco. As the storm passes, they land in a large city in Florida and are taken to a hospital. They tell a nurse who can speak Spanish about their journey. They are bandaged, Angelina's doll is fixed, and they are shown on television and are fed food. They are told they will not be deported because they are children and the media has widely publicized how they have suffered so much.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundays_at_Tiffany's" title="Sundays at Tiffany's">
The book opens with Jane Margaux and her imaginary friend, Michael, spending a Sunday at the St. Regis Plaza in New York City eating ice cream together, which they do every Sunday. Michael is an imaginary friend who is randomly assigned to children who need extra support and guidance. However, he is called away from the children when they become nine years old, at which point they will forget about the existence of their "friend" by the next day of their ninth birthday. Jane needs extra attention because her mother, Vivienne Margaux, a Broadway producer, spends too much time with work and shopping for her many new husbands, but spends every Sunday at Tiffany's with her daughter.The next day is Jane's 9th birthday party, which coincides with her mother's production's opening night. The cast and crew sing "happy birthday" to her, but her mother forgets about her and her father leaves quickly with his girlfriend. Jane is comforted by Michael, who tells her he must leave now that she is nine. He promises her that she will forget about him.Twenty-one years later, Jane, who is now in her thirties and has not yet forgotten about Michael, lives in New York and works closely with her mother, who is now very controlling. Jane has produced a small, low-budget play called "Thank Heaven", based on her childhood with Michael. The play was an overnight hit, and now Jane is in the works of making a movie based on it. Her boyfriend, Hugh McGrath (who played Michael on Broadway), wants the leading role in the movie.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_(Seneca)" title="Oedipus (Seneca)">
## Act One.The play opens with a fearful Oedipus lamenting a vicious plague which is affecting Thebes, the city over which he rules. People are dying in such huge numbers that there are not enough of the living to ensure that each of the victims is cremated. He also mentions a prophecy that he had received from Apollo before he came to Thebes that he would kill his father and marry his mother. He had thus fled the kingdom of his father Polybus. However, Oedipus is so disturbed by what is occurring in Thebes that he even considers returning to his home city. But Jocasta strengthens his resolution, and he stays.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2666" title="2666">
The novel is substantially concerned with violence and death. According to Levi Stahl, it "is another iteration of Bolaño's increasingly baroque, cryptic, and mystical personal vision of the world, revealed obliquely by his recurrent symbols, images, and tropes". Within the novel, "There is something secret, horrible, and cosmic afoot, centered around Santa Teresa (and possibly culminating in the mystical year of the book's title, a date that is referred to in passing in "Amulet" as well). We can at most glimpse it, in those uncanny moments when the world seems wrong."The novel's five parts are linked by varying degrees of concern with unsolved murders of upwards of 300 young, poor, mostly uneducated Mexican women in the fictional border town of Santa Teresa (based on Ciudad Juárez but located in Sonora rather than Chihuahua) though it is the fourth part which focuses specifically on the murders.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luck_in_the_Shadows" title="Luck in the Shadows">
Alec of Kerry, a young hunter who has recently been orphaned, is taken prisoner under the false charge of spying. He ends up sharing a cell with Seregil, a seemingly youthful spy and noble from the exotic city of Rhiminee, who has the ability to assume various guises and trick his way out of tight situations. The two escape together, and Seregil, motivated by something he does not entirely understand, takes Alec on as his apprentice in thieving, spying and trickery. They head south towards Rhiminee, where Seregil will report on his mission to the wizard Nysander, the head of a covert group of spies known as "Watchers."But along the way, Seregil falls ill under the influence of a mysterious magic. Alec is forced to navigate their way south on his own, testing his limited resources and knowledge of the world outside his rustic homeland. When the cause of Seregil's illness finally becomes known (an ordinary wooden disk imbued with a powerful curse) it is almost too late to save his life. In his unconscious state, Seregil experiences visions of a dark entity known as the "Empty God," foreshadowing the designs of the evil Duke Mardus, who wishes to obtain the god's power for himself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_(Provoost_novel)" title="Falling (Provoost novel)">
Anne Provoost's novels are invariably related from the point of view of a young person caught up in problems of adult making which they have difficulty comprehending. In this case, the teenage Lucas is taken on a long summer visit to his late grandfather’s home in the Ardennes by his mother. He has been brought up by her in ignorance of the fact that during World War II his grandfather had informed on the nuns in the local convent who were harbouring Jewish children. He is therefore at a loss to understand the conflicting attitudes he encounters in the town. He is particularly targeted by the political activist Benoit, for whom his grandfather was a hero, and persuaded to take reluctant part in a couple of right-wing actions against the Moroccan immigrants who have taken over a run-down quarter of the town.In the meantime he has befriended the young American-born Caitlin, who dreams of becoming a dancer. She is in fact the daughter of one of the children betrayed by his grandfather, all of whom had survived Auschwitz. She also stands for liberal attitudes and as an outsider too is not tainted by the small-town narrow mindedness from which Lucas has to suffer. Just as he is preparing to commit himself to Caitlin and what she stands for, she is involved in a crash and Lucas is only able to rescue her from the burning car by sawing off her trapped foot. At first he is treated as a hero, but Benoit, fearing denunciation by Lucas, uses his position as a journalist to question his actions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ice_Palace_(novel)" title="The Ice Palace (novel)">
The vivacious 11-year-old Siss lives in a rural community in Norway. Her life is changed when a quiet girl, Unn, moves to the village to live with her aunt after the death of her unmarried mother. Siss and Unn can't wait to meet. They finally do, at Unn's house. They talk for a while, Unn shows Siss a picture from the family album of her father, then Unn persuades Siss that they should undress, just for fun. They do, watching each other, and Unn asks whether Siss can see if she is different. Siss says no, she can't, and Unn says she has a secret and is afraid she will not go to heaven. Soon they dress again, and the situation is rather awkward. Siss leaves Unn and runs home, overwhelmed by fear of the dark.Unn does not want to feel embarrassed when meeting Siss the next day, so she decides to skip school and instead goes to see the ice castle that has been created by a nearby waterfall. Ice castles are normal in cold winters, when the water freezes into huge structures around waterfalls. Unn climbs into this ice castle, exploring the rooms baffled by its beauty. In the 7th room she gets disoriented and cannot find her way out. She dies of hypothermia. Her last word is "Siss".
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaam,_Paris" title="Salaam, Paris">
The novel is based on a story of a Muslim girl named Tanaya Shah; a young Indian girl mesmerized by western culture. She was raised by her mother and grandfather, as her father abandoned Tanaya's mother when Tanaya was a young child. Tanaya's grandfather treated Tanaya with the utmost respect. He treated her like his own daughter, but Tanaya still felt that she was neglected.Because Tanaya's mother was abandoned, Tanaya's grandfather (Tanaya's mother's father) would remain extremely cautious of Tanaya's roundabouts. This became difficult for Tanaya, as she wanted to explore the world outside of Mahim; place she Tanaya was born and raised. Adding to this, Tanaya was born in a family where women had the best facial features. This was true for all women in her family, except for her mother. As the story progresses, we learn that Tanaya's mother was thought to have been abandoned because of this lacking feature. Unfortunately, Tanaya's mother was well aware of this fact, and thus hated Tanaya. Over the years, her mother had become sarcastic and cruel towards Tanaya. This was one of the reasons that Tanaya was more attached to her grandfather.Getting back to Tanaya's fantasy of the western culture; like every young girl, Tanaya was also amazed by the glossy magazines that portrayed women in a stylish way. Tanaya with her best friend, Nilu, would read all western magazines, especially, "Teen Cosmo." In private conversations with Nilu, she would often confide about leaving Mahim to Paris. She wanted to become like one of the models. However, modeling was not her passion. All she wanted was freedom, and a new change in her life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonsdale" title="Dragonsdale">
The novel takes place in a fictional location called the Isles of Bresal which are protected by a bank of mist called The Veil. On Bresal there are stables that train dragons. Cara, the protagonist, cleans dragons for the stable Dragonsdale. Many children attend Dragonsdale to learn to train dragons and take them to competitions, but Cara is forbidden to ride any dragon even though her father is the head of Dragonsdale.This is because her mother had died in an accident during a flight with dragons, and her father, Huw, couldn't afford to lose Cara as well. However, Cara is allowed to help clean the dragons, and she has a favorite one called Skydancer. She ends up having to train a young farm boy called Drane to muck out the stables and do all the things she does. But all is not what it seems about him as Cara and Drane slowly become better friends. Now, many children at Dragonsdale are preparing for the dragon riding competitions. Although Cara cannot participate in it, she supports her friends Breena and Wony.Cara is still determined to convince her father to let her ride dragons and one day go to the competitions with Skydancer. "Dragonsdale" follows Cara as she goes through obstacles, such as an arrogant child called Hortense, who is constantly making Cara mad, and finally achieves her goal when she buys Skydancer, but she loses control and declares he must be destroyed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thursday's_Child_(Hartnett_novel)" title="Thursday's Child (Hartnett novel)">
Harper Flute is an adolescent girl living with her family in Australia during the depression. Harper Flute's little brother Tin was born on Thursday and he has far to go.Harper starts out by saying how she and Tin go out to the creek, and start watching fish. Harper soon catches one out of the creek, and she tries to search for Tin to let him see it. She notices that he's gone and starts crying out to her house. Her dad, whom she calls Da, comes out and starts searching all over for Tin, and they eventually find him in the mud. Harper notices that he dug his way out, but she won't tell anyone about this special event.Back at the house, Audrey, her older sister, scolds Harper for letting him get away like that. Mrs. Murphy, the neighbor, starts worrying about Tin and starts talking about the new baby.Later on in the book, her mother, whom she calls Mam, is pregnant and gives birth to a new baby boy named Caffy. Tin is considered Da's "little pet", and Harper notes how she, her older brother, Devon, and Audrey aren't pets, but they aren't nothing. She remarks how Caffy is nothing to Da though.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_(novel)" title="Surrender (novel)">
Seven-year-old Anwell lives in a prestigious but coldly distant family with a mother who is always sick and a father who punishes him with physical abuse. Anwell has no friends and is on a very tight leash. He is sitting in the back yard one day when he meets wild boy his age named Finnigan, his alter-ego or second personality. Anwell now named Gabriel is never ready to be angry and never to fight. Finnigan always ready be angry and to fight. If Gabriel (Anwell) wants revenge or anything bad done, he asks Finnigan to do it for him.Finnigan becomes Anwell's only friend, and Anwell confides in him what he has never told anyone else, of how he accidentally killed his handicapped older brother Vernon. His brother, though he was three years older than Anwell, "was never the elder of us". His parents, disgraced and humiliated by Vernon, refuse to take care of him, leaving Anwell to do the job at the young age of seven. Enjoying his task, Anwell routinely feeds, washes, and entertains his brother. One Sunday, while his father is out to church and his mother is sleeping due to a migraine, Anwell is again taking care of Vernon. When Anwell is trying to feed Vernon, he refuses, would not stop crying, and scratches Anwell on his cheek, drawing blood. Out of frustration, and anxiety their mother will wake up and be irate, Anwell puts fabric in Vernon's mouth to quiet him and throws his brother in a refrigerator.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exile_Kiss" title="The Exile Kiss">
Married to Indihar, though from his perspective in name only, Marîd Audran gets invited to a reception at the palace of the amir of the city. Shaykh Mahali, the amir, thus wishes to end the rivalry between Friedlander Bey and Reda Abu Adil, two of the most powerful men in the city. Both Audran and Bey, or "Papa" as he's known in the Budayeen, become suspicious when their sworn enemy Abu Adil designates Audran as an officer of the "Jaish", an unofficial militia working for Abu Adil.However, it is not until after the party that Abu Adil's scheme unfolds: Audran and Bey are put under arrest by Lieutenant Hajjar and charged with the murder of a police officer named Khalid Maxwell. They're sentenced on-the-spot into exile, never to return to the city under pain of death. Left to die amongst the burning sands of a vast desert, their luck finally turns as they are rescued by a Bedouin tribe of Bani Salim, allowing them to start planning the vengeance they'd exact upon Abu Adil and prove their innocence— if they ever make it back to the city alive.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness,_Tell_Us" title="Darkness, Tell Us">
While attending a party thrown by one of their English professors, six college students use a Ouija board to contact a spirit that identifies itself only as 'Butler'. Butler promises the six a treasure if they will go to a remote mountain location called Calamity Peak. The professor, who knows from experience that messing around with the supernatural can be dangerous, attempts to dissuade them, but the kids steal the board and set off for the mountain anyway. Once they arrive they are menaced by a machete-wielding killer, and soon begin to wonder if Butler might be trying to harm them. After discovering that the Ouija board is missing, the professor, along with her lover, sets out to rescue her. Soon, it was revealed that Butler is actually the mother of one of the students, Angela. The book contains frankly supernatural elements alongside the more realistic horrors common to Laymon's work (including homicidal maniacs, rape, and childhood sexual abuse).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Romance_of_the_Halifax_Disaster" title="A Romance of the Halifax Disaster">
Vera Warrington and Tom Welsford enter the narrative while floating and flirting on the Saint Lawrence River. Years later, Vera is engaged to the wealthy William Lawson and has not heard from Tom. Shortly before the explosion, Tom returns to Halifax, Nova Scotia, for orthopaedic surgery for a war wound. Tom is still in hospital when the disaster occurs. As a volunteer with the Voluntary Aid Division, Vera darts to the hospital only in time to witness Will's death and her liberation from the marriage which was to occur later that day. Now free, Vera finds Tom in a hospital bed and accepts his proposal: the last line of the book belongs to Vera, agreeing to marriage.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendon_Chase" title="Brendon Chase">
The novel is based around the Hensman brothers, Robin, John and Harold, who spend eight months living as outlaws in the forest of Brendon Chase. As in much British children's literature of the era, their parents are absent, living in India, at the time part of the British Empire. They are cared for by their Aunt Ellen, a strict and somewhat cold spinster. At the end of the Easter holidays, Harold falls ill with the measles, so Robin and John are unable to return to boarding school. They decide to run away and fend for themselves, taking some food from their aunt's house, and also taking a rifle and ammunition so they can survive in the wild.Despite continued attempts to catch them, usually by Police Sergeant Bunting and the Reverend Whiting, the three brothers - Robin and John are joined by Harold when he recovers from his illness - prove sufficiently quick-witted and ingenious to evade capture for eight months, surviving on what they can kill and on supplies occasionally taken from other sources. In the book Robin is known as "Robin Hood", John as "Big John" and Harold as "Little John".In the later part of their time living in the wild, the boys - who by this time have long been wearing rabbit skins, their clothes having worn out - encounter an eccentric elderly charcoal burner called Smokoe Joe, who becomes a close friend. When Smokoe Joe is seriously injured, one of the boys saves his life by running for the doctor, thereby risking capture. After a Christmas spent with Smokoe Joe in his hut, the boys are 'run to ground' when the doctor, who has kept their secret until that moment, arrives with their father who has returned, and the story ends there in the forest. The bear that had escaped in the forest near the end of their adventure settles down to hibernate for the winter in the hollow oak tree where they had lived.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_of_Eagles" title="Victory of Eagles">
As the novel begins, William Laurence is gaoled aboard , imprisoned against Temeraire's good behavior. Whilst aboardship, he joins the crew in fighting off the Grande Armée, who supported by the Armée d'Air are attempting to invade Great Britain. They succeed, and Laurence is reported to have been killed in action when "Goliath" is sunk. Temeraire, languishing at the breeding grounds at Pen y Fan, receives this intelligence and loses any desire to remain quiet and well-behaved. Instead, fired partially by patriotism and partially by vengeance, he organizes the many unharnessed dragons of the breeding ground into a militia, using promises of prizes as an enticement. Enlisting the breeding grounds' (human) supervisory staff as logistical support, he and the other dragons strike south to do what they can against Napoleon Bonaparte. This, of course, results in a merry chase: Laurence, who did not perish aboard "Goliath", is mustered by Tharkay, now commissioned in the Aerial Corps, to bring Temeraire back under harness, and he arrives at Pen y Fan perhaps half a day after the dragons move out. The two are reunited outside of Harlesden, where Temeraire has already staged and won a decisive victory against a group of Marshal Lefebvre; in fact, Laurence is intercepted by a courier who is seeking out the commander of the militia (that is, Temeraire) with a colonel's commission.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spider's_Thread" title="The Spider's Thread">
Shakyamuni is meandering around Paradise one morning, when he stops at a lotus-filled pond. Between the lilies, he can see, through the crystal-clear waters, the depths of Hell. His eyes come to rest on one sinner in particular, by the name of Kandata. Kandata was a cold-hearted criminal, but had one good deed to his name: while walking through the forest one day, he decided not to kill a spider he was about to crush with his foot. Moved by this single act of compassion, the Buddha takes the silvery thread of a spider in Paradise and lowers it down into Hell.Down in Hell, the myriad sinners are struggling in the Pool of Blood, in total darkness save for the light glinting off the Mountain of Spikes, and in total silence save for the sighs of the damned. Kandata, looking up by chance at the sky above the pool, sees the spider's thread descending towards him and grabs hold with all the might of a seasoned criminal. The climb from Hell to Paradise is not a short one, however, and Kandata quickly tires. Dangling from the middle of the rope, he glances downward, and sees how far he has come. Realizing that he may actually escape from Hell, he is overcome by joy and laughs giddily. His elation is short-lived, however, as he realizes that others have started climbing the thread behind him, stretching down into the murky depths below. Fearing that the thread will break from the weight of the others, he shouts that the spider's thread is his and his alone. It is at this moment that the thread breaks, and he and all the other sinners are cast back down into the Pool of Blood.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_One_Look_(novel)" title="Just One Look (novel)">
After picking up her two young children from school, Grace Lawson looks through a newly developed set of photographs. She finds an odd one in the pack: a mysterious picture from perhaps twenty years ago, showing four strangers she can't identify. But there is one face she recognizes—that of her husband, from before she knew him. When her husband sees the photo that night, he leaves their home and drives off without explanation. She doesn't know where he's going, why he's leaving, or whether or not he's ever coming back. Nor does she realize how dangerous the search for him will be. There are others interested in both her husband's past and that photo, including Eric Wu, a fierce, silent killer who will not be stopped from finding his quarry, no matter who or what stands in his way.Her world turned upside down, filled with doubts about her herself and marriage, Grace must confront the dark corners of her own tragic past as she struggles to learn the truth, find her husband, and save her family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daughter_of_Earth" title="Daughter of Earth">
The novel begins in the 1890s with the Rogers family farming in Missouri. Though they are poor, Marie is unaware of this and enjoys her childhood for the most part. She does suffer physical abuse at the hands of her mother who believes that Marie lies. Marie's parents’ marriage is not a happy one; Marie's father wishes to make more money by leaving the farm and moves the reluctant family in order to obtain work cutting wood. The family bounces back and forth between John Rogers's temporary jobs and life on the farm.Marie's Aunt Helen comes to live with the family and works doing laundry for wealthy women. As a working woman, she is respected on the same level as John Rogers. Marie attends school regularly and becomes one of the smartest in her class. When she attends the birthday party of one of the wealthier students, Marie is made aware of class difference. She sees that not everyone lives as she does, and she is humiliated.When John discovers Aunt Helen is working as a prostitute he kicks her out of the house. Elly and Marie are left to support the family when John leaves them again. Marie begins stealing to keep the family fed and clothed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lucky_Star_(novel)" title="My Lucky Star (novel)">
Gilbert Selwyn's mother has remarried once more—this time to a successful but aging Hollywood producer. Gilbert, ever the schemer, lifted a few plot points from "Casablanca" (i.e., plagiarized the entire film and put a new title on it) and convinced his new stepfather to promote the script to actor Stephen Donato's producer. Gilbert convinces his friends, Philip Cavanaugh and Claire Simmons, to move to Hollywood to help him rewrite the script. They quickly uncover his deception. But since Gilbert told the studio executives that the script was mostly Philip and Claire's, they must help rewrite the screenplay or else find any chance of a career ruined.Claire refuses to go along with the stunt, but Gilbert offers her the chance of a lifetime: Gilbert's agent, having heard of their success selling a screenplay, has offered the trio a chance to write actress Diana Malenfant's new film. The movie will be the first time Diana and her son, Stephen Donato, have acted together on screen since Stephen was 10, and it may prove the jump-start to Diana's career which she's been searching for.Gilbert is able to wrangle an appointment with Diana Malenfant, who is not particularly interested. But Lily, her drunken and estranged sister, is writing a tell-all book. Philip convinces Diana and Stephen that he has a job assisting Lily with her memoirs, and that he could find out what Lily intends to say in her book. Shrewdly, Diana agrees to hire Gilbert, Philip and Claire to write her new film while Philip spies on Lily.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Being_Right" title="The Art of Being Right">
The following lists the 38 stratagems described by Schopenhauer, in the order of their appearance in the book:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sunrise_Lands" title="The Sunrise Lands">
Ingolf Vogeler, a mercenary from the Republic of Richland arrives in Mackenzie lands in the Willamette River region of Oregon. He is being stalked by soldiers from the Church Universal and Triumphant (known as Cutters), which is located in Paradise Valley, Montana, and controls parts of Montana and Wyoming. Ingolf arrives in a tavern run by Tom Brannigan, and during the night, is attacked by these soldiers. As he is attacked, Rudi Mackenzie, Mathilda Arminger, Odard Liu, and the twins Ritva and Mary Havel join the fray. Odard and Rudi kill several assassins until Rudi shouts to take one alive. The assassins realize they can't escape and commit suicide before the party can react. Odard and Rudi break the door that Ingolf is hidden behind, and take him to a hospital. Ingolf is saved, and he relates his tale to the Mackenzies.It turns out that he had traveled to Nantucket with his mercenary company during an expedition to collect pre-Change relics. Along with two mercenary scouts (Kaur and Singh) and Kuttner, a guard of the bossman of Iowa travelling with the company, Ingolf saw a vision that told him to: "Travel from sunrise to the sunset, and seek the Son of the Bear Who Rules. The Sword of the Lady waits for him."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woods_Are_Dark" title="The Woods Are Dark">
The plot concerns two groups of people, a family and a pair of college students, who are kidnapped after stopping in a small California town and taken into the forest to be sacrificed to a group of mysterious creatures, called "Krulls", who roam the surrounding wilderness. The identity of the Krulls, and their relationship to the town of Barlow, are revealed gradually over the course of the novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Sun_(novella)" title="Dark Sun (novella)">
Following the previous book 'Mad Dogs', Greg "Rat" Rathbone is on an undercover mission to befriend the son of notorious activist, Kurt Lydon, and change the plan of his nuclear system. Rat is soon invited to a sleepover by Lydon's son George and after defeating a group of bullies in a fight earns further popularity from George and his overweight Chinese friend, Zhang.Back at campus, Lauren Adams, Jake Parker and Andy Lagan are forced to do physical training on the assault course after messing around in front of a guest speaker. Although overseen by volunteers James Adams and Bruce Norris, Andy is severely injured but still takes part in the mission, posing as Rat's Scottish cousin.At the sleepover, Rat and Andy sedate George, Zhang and Lydon's wife and begin hacking into Lydon's laptop but are interrupted by George's older sister, Sophie. She badly injures Rat by breaking a vase over his head. After a vicious struggle, the boys sedate her and finish the job.The book ends with Lydon and several other suspects being imprisoned and a new library being opened on campus on World Book Day.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Manuel_Bueno,_Mártir" title="San Manuel Bueno, Mártir">
The novel tells the story of the local Catholic Priest (Don Manuel) in fictional Valverde de Lucerna, Spain as told through the eyes of Angela, one of the townspeople. Throughout the course of the story Manuel is adored by the people of the town. He is constantly in the service of the townspeople. He refrains from condemning anyone and goes out of his way to help those whom the people have marginalized. Instead of refusing to allow the holy burial of someone who committed suicide, Don Manuel explains that he is sure that in the last moment, the person would have repented for their sin. Also, instead of excommunicating a woman who had an illegitimate child, as the Catholic Church would have done, Don Manuel arranges a marriage between the woman and her ex-boyfriend, so that order will return to the town, and the child will have a father figure. The people of the town consider him their "Saint" because of all of the good deeds he does.Angela, after a brief stint away for education, returns to the town to live with her mother where she continues to be amazed at Manuel's devotion.Lazarus, Angela's brother, later returns from the New World, disgusted with the mental and physical poverty he finds in the town. He too is amazed at Manuel's devotion but believes that "He is too intelligent to believe everything he teaches." It is clear that Lazarus does not have a sense of faith. Angela's and Lazarus's mother passes away. On her death bed she makes Lazarus promise to pray for her—he swears he will. Her dying wish is that Manuel can convert him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_of_the_Cay" title="Timothy of the Cay">
The book discusses Timothy's life before the events of "The Cay," when he was living in "Back O' All," the poorest section of what was then the squatter's village of Charlotte Amalie, on the then Danish-held United States Virgin Island of St. Thomas (of which Virgin Island it is now the capital), and Phillip Enright's life after the same events. The theme to this story is making dreams a reality.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skyfire_Puzzle" title="The Skyfire Puzzle">
Frank and Joe Hardy are on a stakeout in Okefenokee Swamp with their father Fenton, using their van of computer and surveillance equipment. Fenton is chasing industrial saboteurs who nearly kill him and Chet Morton. The head of security at Kennedy Space Center, Harry Stone, is baffled by a series of accidents involving the Space Shuttle "Skyfire". Frank, Joe, Chet, Stone and his daughter Suzanne head to Cape Canaveral, where they meet Nat Cramer from Starglass Corporation and his security man, Pete McConnel. Starglass developed the "Longeye" radio telescope, which is to be placed in orbit by "Skyfire". Maxwell Grant, deputy director of operations, offers the young people the chance to fly on "Skyfire."Frank, Joe and Chet train for the shuttle mission and help Stone and his aide, Lew Gorman, investigate the accidents. Occurrences indicate that someone wants the Hardys off the case: Fenton is attacked by gunmen; a masked man makes a centrifuge run wild with Joe; a caller summons the young people to a trap meeting; and hallucinogenic crystals are placed in Chet's air hose during neutral buoyancy training, causing him to attack Frank. McConnel is apparently shot by terrorist Franz Schacht, who is linked by a fingerprint.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasing_the_Dime" title="Chasing the Dime">
After receiving a new phone number, Henry Pierce, the head of a nanotechnology firm Amedeo Technologies, begins to receive mysterious calls from men looking for a woman named Lilly. Pierce's company is working to create a molecular computer the size of a dime. Multiple other companies are involved in a race to this achievement. Pierce and his partner Charlie Condon have been preparing a presentation of their invention for a potential investor. At the same time, Pierce has recently been dumped by his girlfriend due to the distance caused by his work. After receiving more calls, Pierce decides to look into their origin to distract himself from his problems.After getting the name of a website from one of the callers, Pierce discovers that Lilly is an escort available to purchase on a website titled L.A. Darlings. Visitors of the website have been attempting to contact her with her now out-of-date number. When his attempts to contact Lilly are futile, he calls another escort who partners with her, Robin. She tells him that she has not heard from her in a long time and hangs up on Pierce after seeing him as suspicious. Learning that the website is hosted by a company named Entrepreneurial Concepts Unlimited, ran by a man named Billy Wentz, Pierce visits its office in the morning. He finds Lilly's address, which is listed as a post office box. He enlists his personal assistant to call the post office and imitate Lilly to receive the true address. Pierce travels to the address, a bungalow in the suburbs. He enters through an unlocked door and finds rotting food and stacking mail from Lilly's mother. Pierce asks his friend from college Cody Zeller, a white hat hacker, to find what he can on Wentz. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderhead_(Preston_and_Child_novel)" title="Thunderhead (Preston and Child novel)">
Anthropologist Nora Kelly finds a letter that was written sixteen years ago, but mysteriously sent to her only recently. The letter is written by her father, long believed dead. The letter states that he had found the lost city of gold, Quivira. Kelly organizes an expedition into a harsh, remote corner of Utah's canyon country. A portion of the team learns that the city of Quivira held not gold, but micaceous, golden colored pottery, and that it also was a center for an Aztec death cult, which had enslaved the native Anasazi people. The Aztec rulers used black magic, aided by a powder of the fungus "Coccidioides immitis" which could kill by causing coccidioidomycosis. Kelly's teammate, Sloane, attempts to kill Kelly to be the sole person who can claim the find, not suspecting what Kelly has learned about the fungal infection, and neither parties realizing until very late that they are being tracked by contemporary practitioners of the cult, who have enhanced their ability to stalk and fight with traditional hallucinogens such as psilocybin, mescaline, and datura.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_April" title="Broken April">
Gjorg Berisha, a 26-year-old Albanian man living on the country's high plateau, is forced to commit a murder under the laws of the Kanun to avenge his brother. As a result of this killing, his own death is sealed; he is to be killed by a member of the opposing family.The novel concerns about the centuries-old tradition of hospitality, blood feuds, and revenge killing in the highlands of north Albania in the 1930s.Reading "Broken April" it is easy to understand why and with what strength Ismail Kadare is passionate about tragedy and its two most prominent representatives, Shakespeare and Aeschylus. "Friendship, loyalty, and feud are the wheels of the mechanism of ancient tragedy, and to enter into their mechanism is to see the possibility of tragedy." 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrior's_Refuge" title="Warrior's Refuge">
The book opens with a short summary of the past events of the previous book, "The Lost Warrior". Coming to the current time, Graystripe and his traveling companion, Millie, can see Highstones in the distance. As they are traveling through a corn field, a combine pursues them. Graystripe and Millie are separated as they flee from the monster. Graystripe manages to get to a nearby barn, and asks for help from the cats inhabiting the barn. The barn cats agree to help Graystripe find Millie. They find Millie and learn the hard corn leaves cut and damaged Millie's eyes. Graystripe and Millie are allowed to stay until she recovers. Husker, one of the barn cats explains to the two cats that they used to live in the nearby Twoleg nest (human house). Unfortunately, the Twolegs (humans) died, and a new family moved in. The new residents disliked the cats, so they were chased out. They had lived in the barn ever since and had to deal with the Twoleg's dogs.Graystripe and Millie face the pet dogs of the family after they wander into the barn. Millie can speak dog and is able to send the dogs away. The barn cats are amazed by Millie's ability and she teaches them how to speak dog. A few days later, Millie and Graystripe see a Twoleg kit in pursuit of a frog. She approaches dangerously close to the edge of a pond, almost falling into it. Graystripe manages to catch the child's attention and lead her away. The Twoleg's parents are very grateful to the cats. Over time, the Twolegs accept the barn cats as well and even adopt them as their kittypets through a plan of Graystripe's. The two travelers continue their route towards home. However, when they arrive at the forest, they find the territory is destroyed and ThunderClan is gone.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_at_Night" title="The World at Night">
The story takes place in and around Paris between May 1940 and June 1941. "Jean Casson" is a French motion-picture producer who specializes in gangster films and who possesses no political views to speak of. When the Germans defeat and conquer his country, Casson at first tries to continue his life and career as if nothing had happened. But that proves impossible; when the Germans arrest a few of his friends and associates Casson finds himself helping others to hide or escape. He is seen talking to questionable people, and before long his line is tapped and his movements followed. Eventually Casson must choose between a life of resistance or no life at all.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Justice_(novel)" title="Blind Justice (novel)">
Young Jeremy Proctor, recently orphaned, is taken in as ward by blind Sir John Fielding, Magistrate of the Bow Street court and organizer of London's first police force. When Sir John investigates the apparent suicide of Lord Goodhope, it is Jeremy's eyes which note the crucial clue.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fairy_Gunmother" title="The Fairy Gunmother">
The novel is set in the modern Parisian quarter of Belleville. It starts with the dramatic death of a policeman, shot by a "grannie" he was trying to help, and witnessed by at least four others who conveniently forget all details of what they see. The inspector Van Thian goes undercover as a Vietnamese old woman to investigate. Three other investigations follow: one into the attempted murder of a young woman, another into the serial killings of small old women in the district, and a third into drug trafficking by old men. Benjamin Malaussènne, professional scapegoat, quickly becomes suspect number one of all four investigations, owing to the numerous children of his prolific mother he lives with, the various old men with obsolete talents that he shelters, and his repeated abortive romantic affairs. Like all novels in the Malaussène saga, the setting is anything but conventional, the streets of Paris brimming with immigrants in open celebration of their diversity, the situations rarely Gallic yet authentically Parisian.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_(novel)" title="The Ghost (novel)">
Most of the action takes place on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, where former British Prime Minister Adam Lang has been holed up in the holiday home of his billionaire American publisher to turn out his memoirs on a deadline. Lang's former aide, Mike McAra, was struggling to ghost-write Lang's memoirs. However, McAra drowned when he apparently fell off the Woods Hole ferry. The fictional narrator of "The Ghost", whose name is never given, is hired to replace him. His girlfriend walks out on him over his willingness to take the job: "She felt personally betrayed by him; she used to be a party member". The narrator begins to suspect foul play over McAra's death.Meanwhile, Lang is accused by his enemies of war crimes. A leaked memorandum has revealed that he secretly approved the capture and the extraordinary rendition of British citizens to Guantanamo Bay to face interrogation and torture. Richard Rycart, Lang's disillusioned and renegade former foreign secretary (loosely based on Robin Cook), who before and during his early days in office made much of his wish to adopt an "ethical" foreign policy, is now at the United Nations in a position to do his former boss serious damage. Lang thus appears in imminent threat of indictment at the International Criminal Court.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_Grub_Street" title="Murder in Grub Street">
A printer and his household are horrifically slaughtered, and a mad poet is caught red-handed at the scene. But Sir John doubts that the real culprit has been found. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watery_Grave_(novel)" title="Watery Grave (novel)">
When the captain of a British warship falls overboard and drowns, a Naval court martial is convened to investigate a charge of murder. Sir John is petitioned by an old friend to aid in the investigation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_We_Believe_but_Cannot_Prove" title="What We Believe but Cannot Prove">
The essays cover a broad range of topics, including evolution, the workings of the human mind, and science itself. A common focus of responders are the issue of extra-terrestrial life and the question of whether humanity has a supranatural element beyond flesh and blood. Among the more esoteric topics is the question of cockroach consciousness.A pervasive theme, according to "Publishers Weekly", is the discomfort responders felt in professing unproven beliefs, which Publishers Weekly declared "an interesting reflection of the state of science". The question inspired implicit or explicit reflection in a number of responders about the scientific method's reliance on observable, empirical and measurable evidence, with a good many of what "The Observer" points out as largely American responders defending against "a return to an age of uncertainty in which creationism and intelligent design hold sway in the public mind". "What's really at stake here", "Wired" said in its review, "is the nature of 'proof' itself".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lust,_Caution_(novella)" title="Lust, Caution (novella)">
During the Japanese occupation of China, Wang Chia-chih (Wang Jiazhi), a young former actress and drama student, along with other radical Cantonese students take on a dangerous mission to disrupt the Wang Jingwei regime. He is the man who will negotiate and collaborate with the invading Japanese forces to form a government in China. The radical group plans to assassinate Mr. Yee (Yi), a co-collaborator of Wang Jingwei. Chia-chih is assigned a role to disguise as the wife of Mr. Mai, a Hong Kong businessman who is made bankrupt with the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the fall of Hong Kong. Her task is to seduce Mr. Yee and facilitate the ambush.Initially, the student conspirators plan to assassinate Mr. Yee during his stay in Hong Kong. However, the Yees unexpectedly have to leave for Mainland China. The group is disbanded due to a lack of funds and the low chance of Mr. Yee to be close in proximity. During this period, the female student conspirators denounce Chia-chih as a whore because of her sexual relations with Liang Jun-sheng, who is tasked to train Chia-chih as a seductress. The mission resumes after Wu, a member of the anti-Japanese underground resistance in Shanghai, offers to sponsor its continuation in Shanghai.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Climbs" title="Emily Climbs">
Emily Byrd Starr longs to attend Queen's Academy to earn her teaching licence, but her tradition-bound relatives at New Moon refuse. She is instead offered the chance to go to Shrewsbury High School with her friends, on two conditions. The first is that she board with her disliked Aunt Ruth, but it is the second that causes Emily difficulties. Emily must not write (aside from schoolwork) during her high-school education. At first, Emily refuses the offer, unable to contemplate a life without any writing. Cousin Jimmy changes the condition slightly, saying that she cannot write anything that is not true, meaning she must not write stories for the duration of her high school education. Emily does not think this much of an improvement but it turns out to be an excellent exercise for her budding writing career. Emily clashes with the ever-suspicious Aunt Ruth, who must know all but rarely believes it. After more than a year of Aunt Ruth's disrespect and arbitrariness, Emily walks the seven miles back to New Moon in the dead of night, only to walk back after fully venting her feelings to Cousin Jimmy. Emily's friendship with Ilse Burnley is tested by Evelyn Blake, the school's would-be writer, who is jealous and condescending. Emily vanquishes her once and for all when she finds physical proof that Evelyn plagiarized an old poem to win a school contest. Rather than tell everyone about it, Emily only shows the evidence to Evelyn who admits she did it so her father would allow her to take a trip to Vancouver if she won.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conch_Bearer" title="The Conch Bearer">
Anand is a twelve-year-old boy who lives in modern India. A believer in fairy tales and magic, he used to go to school until his family could no longer afford to pay for his lessons. His father had left two years before the start of the story. His sister, Meera, on the other hand, had been hurt mentally when she witnessed a murder. Thus, Anand and his mother had been forced to work.Anand has been employed by a tea shop owner, Haru, who is frequently displeased with Anand's work and pays very little. One day, the shop is visited by an old man, whom Haru assumes to be a beggar. Ordered to take the beggar out of Haru's shop, Anand gently guides the old man out and, feeling sympathetic, gives the old man his lunch of stale pooris and weak tea.Later that night, Anand finds the old man at his door. The man, who introduces himself as Abhaydatta, tells his story of a group of Healers, known as the brotherhood, who wield magic in a place called the Silver Valley, hidden deep within the Himalayas. He also reveals that a powerful magical item, the Conch, has been stolen from the brotherhood by one of its members, Surabhanu. This resulted in the weakening of the Brotherhood; therefore, they have sent four pairs of Healers to search for the conch. Abhaydatta and his partner have, in fact, retrieved the conch; however, his partner died buying Abhaydatta time to escape from Surabhanu.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_of_Pascual_Duarte" title="The Family of Pascual Duarte">
The first-person narrator-protagonist Pascual Duarte, while awaiting execution in the condemned cell, tells the story of his family life and his homicidal past, culminating in matricide. He claims, amongst other things, that Fate is controlling his life and whatever he does nothing will ever change.As aforementioned, the book could be said to explore a Spanish version of Existentialism: as in Albert Camus's "L'étranger", Pascual is seen by society as an outsider, unable or unwilling to follow its norms. His autobiographical tale shows some of the tremendously harsh peasant reality of rural Spain up to the beginning of Franco's regime.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Companions" title="The Good Companions">
The novel is written in picaresque style and opens with the middle-aged, discontented Jess Oakroyd in the fictional Yorkshire town of Bruddersford. He opts to leave his family and seek adventure "on t'road". (Throughout the novel Priestley uses dialect for all non-RP speakers of English.) He heads south down the Great North Road.Intertwined with the story of Oakroyd's travels are those of Elizabeth Trant and Inigo Jollifant, two similarly malcontented individuals. Miss Trant is an upper-middle-class spinster and Jollifant is a teacher at a down-at-heel private school. All three ultimately encounter one another when a failing concert troupe ('The Dinky Doos') are disbanding as a result of their manager's running off with the takings. The independently wealthy Miss Trant, against the advice of her relatives, decides to refloat the troupe, now known as The Good Companions. Inigo plays piano and writes songs, Oakroyd is the odd-job man and the troupe has also been joined by Mr Morton Mitcham (a travelling banjo player and conjuror whom Inigo met earlier on his own odyssey). The other members of the troupe are comedian Jimmy Nunn, song-and-dance man Jerry Jerningham, singers Elsie Longstaff, Courtney (aka Joe) Brundit and Joe's wife (referred to as Mrs Joe) and singer-comedienne Susie Dean. The troupe have various adventures round the shires of middle England.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disinherited" title="The Disinherited">
Monkey Nest Camp"The Disinherited" is heard through the voice of Larry Donovan, a young boy, growing up in the Monkey Nest coal mine camp. It is a difficult life, and after Larry's brother Dan starts working in the mines, Larry's father prods Larry to do well in school so he too won’t have to go into the mines. Larry makes many observations about the differences between miner families and other families, especially farmer Ben Haskins and his daughter Bonny Fern. Larry throws a dirt clod at Bonny Fern's head one day and the next tries to give her a flower. She calls him “camp trash” and Ben chases Larry away.Larry also distinguishes differences between the miners themselves. His father and his father's friend, “Frenchy” are both educated. So is Lionel Stafford, but Larry's father doesn’t get along with Mr. Stafford. Lionel flaunts his education whereas Larry's father does not.One day the mine owner, Edward Stacpoole, comes to the mine with his wife and son. The son pushes Larry's sister, Madge, into a mud puddle and taunts her.Dan is hurt in a mining accident and dies three days later. Frenchy also dies in a separate mining accident.The camp miner's go on strike, and Larry's father meets unsuccessfully with Mr. Stacpoole to negotiate. One night during a storm a strikebreaker knocks on the Donovan's door seeking shelter. Tom punches him in the mouth and sends him away. Tom tells his children never to become scabs. Eventually, the miners go back to work.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Orc's_Rage" title="Red Orc's Rage">
Jim Grimson is a troubled youth undergoing therapy in a psychiatric hospital who is encouraged to role-play Red Orc, a character in a science fiction novel. Jim finds himself actually transported to the fictional World of Tiers, entering the mind and body of the character he role-played in the hospital. In the World of Tiers Red Orc/Jim struggles with an abusive father, a situation mirroring his real-world problems The character has Oedipal issues with his father, an unemployed crane operator in the fictional "Belmont City", somewhere near Youngstown, Ohio. The steel mills are closing permanently and the family is facing a bleak economic future. Jim struggles with class-issues at his high-school. In academics, athletics, and student society he is a non-achiever, recapitulating his father's position in the adult world. His only outlets are science fiction, the fantasies invented by his grandfather and some bizarre hallucination which occasionally intrude into his world.After a prank with an outhouse goes awry, Jim is arrested. He appears in court and is ordered to undergo a course of psychiatric evaluation and treatment in Wellington Hospital. While there he comes under the care of Dr. R. Lars Porsena. (This name is a play on "A. James Giannini". In most of Farmer's novels the protagonist's name or initials are a play on his or his collaborator's name).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monster_Bed" title="The Monster Bed">
## Introduction.The introduction starts the book in the setting of a small picnic of a human and his dog. The human is apparently telling the reader to not venture into the Withering Wood, a forest of trees rumored to have legendary creatures such as "hairy trolls, nasty gnomes, and scary pixies and fairies."The book then changes setting into inside the forest, where we see a small monster named Dennis and his mother, showing that Dennis was very polite for a young monster. It describes Dennis's fear of humans, which leads to the next part of the book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coroner's_Lunch" title="The Coroner's Lunch">
Despite a total lack of training, an utter dearth of experience and a complete absence of inclination, Dr. Siri Paiboun has just been appointed state coroner for the Lao People's Democratic Republic. It's 1976, the royal family has been deposed, the professional classes have fled and the communists have taken over. And 72-year-old Siri - a communist for convenience and a wry old reprobate by nature - has got the coroner's job because he's the only doctor left in Laos.But when the wife of a Party leader is wheeled into the morgue and the bodies of tortured Vietnamese soldiers start bobbing to the surface of a Laotian lake, all eyes turn to the new coroner. Faced with official cover-ups and an emerging international crisis, Siri will be forced to enlist old friends, tribal shamans, forensic deduction, spiritual acumen and some good old-fashioned sleuthing before he can discover quite what's going on...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four-Gated_City" title="The Four-Gated City">
"The Four-Gated City" is set in post Second World War Britain. Martha is in London as the 1950s begin. She "is integrally part of the social history of the time - the Cold War, the Aldermaston Marches, Swinging London, the deepening of poverty and social anarchy". The volume "ends with the century in the grip of World War Three". In the year 1997, Martha dies on a contaminated island off the northwest coast of Scotland. Most of the people of Britain have died before her, in 1978, of multiple afflictions: bubonic plague, nerve gases, nuclear explosions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tide_Knot" title="The Tide Knot">
Sapphire, Conor, and their mother have moved to St Pirans with Roger, leaving behind their cottage by the sea, where their dad disappeared two years ago. Conor has adapted to this new life, but Sapphire cannot. She is withdrawn and restless, and her only relief is the underwater world of Ingo. She goes there more frequently, even without Conor, who has given up going, and prefers his life in the air.A new couple are living in their old house. The woman on crutches has the look of Ingo on her face but does not know of the world beneath the sea. The Lady- Gloria asks a lot of questions and they talk a lot. The lady would like to see Sapphire again so they can go to the cove.One evening Sapphire takes her beloved dog Sadie for a walk along the sea, but the call of Ingo is too strong, so she leaves Sadie up on the pavement and dives in. Faro is there. She only stays a minute but when she goes back to Sadie her dog seems shaken and ill.Sapphire's mother says not to worry: the dog will be fine. Sapphire skips school and takes her dog to see Granny Carne, a magical old lady. She phones home from Granny Carne's and tells her mother she's staying over and won't be back till morning. That night, Sapphire hears her dads voice and follows it to a deep pond. Sapphire sees her dad but in mer. He tells her that the tide knot is loose, but he can't stay long and leaves shortly after. The next day her dog is healed but Sapphire is in trouble with her mother.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_Click_Snap" title="Click Click Snap">
"Click Click Snap" is written in first person prose. In the book, Sean McGowan travels through Athens, Ephesus, Bent Jbail, Beirut, Damascus, The West Bank, Petra, and Cairo; completing the eight chapters of the book, respectively. Its diverse (and, arguably, scattered) topics mainly include the neuroscience of art, war, belief, racism.Unusually, each chapter is written as a self-sustaining joke, where more serious topics seemingly arise incidentally. Specific incidences include urinating on the Temple of Artemis to illustrate the benefits of biological satisfaction and stealing a federal election ballot at gunpoint during the 2007 elections in Syria to show "...even though there is such a thing as a ballot with only one name on it, there is no such thing as a clear choice."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deep_(Dunmore_novel)" title="The Deep (Dunmore novel)">
A devastating flood has torn through the worlds of Air and Ingo, and now, deep in the ocean, a monster is stirring. Mer legend says that only those with dual blood—half Mer, half human—can overcome the Kraken that stirs in The Deep.Sapphire must return to the Deep, with the help of her friend the whale, and face this terrifying creature - and her brother Conor and Mer friend Faro will not let her go without them. Those with pure Mer blood cannot go to the Deep.Sapphire has moved back into the cottage by the cove, and is visiting Ingo all the time. When she is summoned to an assembly of the Mer she learns that the Kraken, a creature with the power to destroy their world, has awakened. Sapphire makes a deal with the Mer: if she and Conor help put the Kraken back to sleep their father will have the choice to leave Ingo. Ervys, a spokesperson (self-proclaimed leader, which the Mer do not have, as it causes problems) for the Mer, is outraged by this deal but gives his approval so the Mer will be safe. Sapphire, Conor and Faro (Faro should not be able to go to The Deep, but in Saldowr's mirror, he sees that he is not pure Mer, but part Human) go into the Deep with the help of the whale (that saves Sapphire from the Deep in "The Tide Knot") to find the Kraken, and put him to sleep. It is not revealed what the Kraken really is, but it is clearly a shapeshifter. After a battle of minds, Sapphire manages to get the Kraken to sleep, and with Conor and Faro she goes back to the Mer to tell them the good news. Ervys is still furious especially when Faro asks Sapphire to make the crossing of Ingo with him. She agrees, but only on the condition that Conor may go too. Faro counters by insisting that his sister will also go. Although Sapphire does not want Elvira and Conor together, she agrees.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymorph_(novel)" title="Polymorph (novel)">
"Milica Raznakovic" is the principal alias employed by the protagonist, a shape-changer or "polymorph". Living in a recession-hit future New York, she spends her time partying anonymously, each night in a different body, enjoying casual sex and absolutely no personal attachments. She believes herself to be unique. However, one night she meets another polymorph: older, malicious and much more powerful than herself. The brief and ultimately hostile encounter leads her to place herself in danger by attempting to determine the newcomer's objective, which somehow involves a wealthy industrialist. In the process of her investigation, she finds it necessary to seek an ally, reaching out to her last one-night stand, a young man she would normally not have sought out again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Ranch_Living" title="Modern Ranch Living">
The novel concerns the connection between a pair of very different loners during a hot summer in Arizona.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seize_the_Night_(novel)" title="Seize the Night (novel)">
"Seize the Night" begins a few months after "Fear Nothing". It starts with Chris and his dog Orson happening upon Chris's ex-girlfriend, Lilly Wing, whose son Jimmy has just disappeared. Chris swears to Lilly he'll find Jimmy, and departs with Orson to begin the search. The trail leads them to Fort Wyvern, the abandoned military base Chris likes to explore. They search the base, but soon become separated, and Orson goes missing. Fearing for his dog's well-being, along with that of Jimmy, Chris calls his best friend Bobby Halloway to join him in the search and then sends his current girlfriend Sasha Goodall to Lilly's house to console her. Soon after calling them, Chris sees about thirty or so of the rhesus monkeys encountered towards the end of "Fear Nothing" and takes refuge from them in a nearby bungalow. The monkeys follow him in, and he is saved from being found by Bobby's arrival.Bobby and Chris search the base, but find nothing except a few strange devices and rooms. After leaving, they stop by Lilly's house. Sasha and Chris head to their place, while Bobby heads off to Lilly's mother-in-law Jenna, to bring her back to Lilly's.The next day, Chris calls Manuel Ramirez, the acting chief of police, to give him information about Jimmy Wing's kidnapper's vehicle. Getting no answer, he leaves a message for Manuel to call him after noon. Bobby stops by a bit later to say that Jimmy is not the only child missing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George's_Secret_Key_to_the_Universe" title="George's Secret Key to the Universe">
The main characters in the book are George Greenby, Susan Bellis, Eric Bellis, Annie Bellis, Dr. Reeper, and Cosmos, the world's most powerful computer. Cosmos can draw windows allowing people to look into outer space, as well as doors that act as portals allowing travel into outer space. Written like a story, it aims to describe various aspects of the universe in a manner that is accessible to children and others new to the topic. It starts by describing atoms, stars, planets, and their moons. It then goes on to describe black holes, which remains the topic of focus in the last part of the book. At frequent intervals throughout the book, there are pictures and "fact files" of the different references to universal objects, including a picture of Mars with its moons.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_&amp;_Single" title="Single &amp; Single">
Like many of Le Carré's novels, the narrative begins in the "in medias res" style, midway through the events which have precipitated the opening scene.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homebody_(novel)" title="Homebody (novel)">
"Homebody" is the story of Don Lark who moves into an old house and is forced to deal with the supernatural forces that live in it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_(novel)" title="Saints (novel)">
The book opens up in 1829 with the desertion of the eight-year-old Dinah and her family by Dinah's father, John Kirkham. After enduring many of the horrors of Industrial Revolution England, Dinah's family begins to prosper. Dinah, her mother Anna, and her brother Charles, are converted to Mormonism. But Dinah's elder brother, Robert, as well as her husband, Matthew, do not convert, leading to a permanent schism in the family. The Mormon Kirkhams emigrate to Nauvoo, where the Mormons are building a city.In Nauvoo, Dinah—who had to endure an unthinkable sacrifice to come to America—becomes the inspiration for the other women of Nauvoo. She is regarded by many as a Prophetess, and, despite not having the priesthood, bestows blessings on others. She also finds herself drawn to the prophet of the Latter Day Saint Church, Joseph Smith. He teaches her that her husband in England had proven himself unworthy of her by his rejection of the Gospel and by forcing her to choose between God and husband. Joseph introduces Dinah to the still-covert practice of plural marriage, and they are sealed for eternity as husband and wife. Forced to keep secret her eternal union to Joseph causes strains on her relationships with the other women of the town, particularly Emma Smith, Joseph's first wife.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brief_Wondrous_Life_of_Oscar_Wao" title="The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao">
## Main narrative.Oscar de León (nicknamed Oscar Wao, a bastardization of Oscar Wilde) is an overweight Dominican growing up in Paterson, New Jersey. Oscar desperately wants to be successful with women but, from a young age, is unable to find love, largely because he is a nerd obsessed with science fiction and comic books. His great fear is that he will die a virgin.After high school, Oscar attends Rutgers University. His sister's boyfriend Yunior (the narrator of much of the novel) moves in with Oscar and tries to help him get in shape and become more "normal". After "getting dissed by a girl", he attempts to kill himself by drinking three bottles of liquor and jumping off the New Brunswick train bridge. He survives the fall but is seriously injured.Oscar recuperates and graduates from Rutgers. He substitute teaches at his former high school and dreams about writing an epic work of science fiction. Eventually, he moves to the Dominican Republic and falls helplessly in love with Ybon, a sex worker who lives near him. Ybon is kind to Oscar but rejects his frequent romantic overtures. Ybon's boyfriend, a violent police captain, becomes jealous of Oscar and sends two goons who kidnap Oscar, take him to the sugarcane fields, and beat him into a coma. Oscar's family takes him back to the United States to heal.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_E-mail_Mystery" title="The E-mail Mystery">
Nancy is the daughter of a lawyer. When someone starts making email maneuvers to take destabilize the law firm of her father, Nancy investigates the web to find the perpetrator.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nightrunner_Series" title="The Nightrunner Series">
## "Luck in the Shadows".Seregil stumbles into the rescue of Alec, a poor orphaned hunter. After hiring Alec to guide him through the Northern Lands, Seregil notes Alec's quick learning ability and fast hands, and offers him a job as his apprentice. Alec, though wary of Seregil at first due to a distressing amount of secrecy and suspicion that he is becoming a thief or spy, accepts the offer. They fall into a mystery that involves the fast deterioration of Seregil's mind and sanity, and Alec must find a way to save his new teacher and friend. Alec manages to deliver Seregil into the hands of Nysander, a wizard of Skala, but the mystery only deepens. At the same time, a traitorous plot against the Queen seems to be unfolding, and Seregil must solve it quickly before he is found guilty of treason himself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chike_and_the_River" title="Chike and the River">
It is the story of a Nigerian boy called Chike who leaves his village, Umuofia, to go and stay with his uncle in the big city of Onitsha.He has a lot of friends that made him thrilled when he meet and he was the only child to survive crossing the river.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebekah_(novel)" title="Rebekah (novel)">
"Rebekah" follows the story of Isaac through the eyes and perspective of Rebekah. The story-line does not deviate from the story told in Genesis, but Card does add details and characters of his own invention.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Foxes" title="Black Foxes">
## Section 1.21-year-old Lord Tyrone Sully inherits his parents' wealth when his father dies in a bull-related accident, and his mother, wishing to join him, suicides. Depressed, he decides to leave with Oscar to buy a horse in Black Chest. Everything starts to go wrong when his uninvited cousin, Silke turns up and Oscar invites her to join them.On the long road to the horse auction, Oscar and Silke fall for each other, to Tyrone's annoyance. He says nothing and helps both of them for the sake of his friend. He meets Lord Silverdale, a hated childhood friend who he recovers to be a cheat.Oscar's stable boy, Grundy buys him a horse and they travel back to Tyrone's house, Wylde Hide. On the way back, he finds Silverdale waiting for him in a bar. Silverdale shoots Tyrone below the heart. Oscar, with quick thinking, draws out his gun and shoots Silverdale straight in the heart. Silverdale dies, while Tyrone lives, fighting for his life. He eventually heals and returns home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redeeming_Love" title="Redeeming Love">
The story starts off in New England, 1835. Sarah, a beautiful young girl, meets her father, Alex Stafford, for the first time. Six-year-old Sarah learns that she is the product of Stafford's adulterous affair with her mother, Mae. Mae was urged to abort the child, but refused to do so, and her decision separated the two and left Mae depressed. Sarah begins to think that she is to blame, but she hopes Alex never comes back.Later that year, Mae's maid Cleo begrudgingly takes Sarah with her on a trip to the seashore so that Mae can have a private visit with Alex. Cleo takes Sarah with her to a popular brothel where Cleo is well-known and has a male companion. After getting drunk she agrees to sleep with him while Sarah waits in the hall. After this man leaves her heartbroken again, a half-drunk Cleo tells a frightened Sarah "God's truth:" that no man ever cares for a woman and all they want is sex. Mae and Sarah then move to a shack on the docks, where Mae takes up prostitution to make ends meet. She gains a reputation known all over town, and Sarah is forced to suffer the rejection of the townspeople because of it. Through this experience, Sarah learns to mask her emotions and replace them instead with a hard exterior.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Magorium's_Wonder_Emporium_(novel)" title="Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (novel)">
When a young pianist named Molly Mahoney inherits a magical toy store from her eccentric 243-year-old boss, Mr. Magorium, she struggles with self-doubt. But through the friendship of a charismatic little boy named Eric Applebaum and a buttoned-up accountant named Henry Weston, she learns to believe in herself, and finds that she does possess enough magic to run Mr. Magorium's shop by finding herself in places she's never imagined.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation_(novel)" title="Reincarnation (novel)">
In the first setting of the story the female protagonist is a Cro-Magnon (more developed caveman), and the male protagonist is a Neanderthal, man a little behind Cro-Magnon in evolution, thus unable to capture the concept of speech. The female, May, is ready to get married soon, and will be linked to Lenar by her deity, the Great Mother. The male, Kye is hunting with his group. They meet each other near the cave that May visits when they spot a green rock. They struggle over the stone. May wanted it so that she could have her own ranking within her tribe, to be able to not marry an insensitive tribesman, Lenar, the first antagonist in the book. Kye wants it so that he may redeem himself within his tribe, for he had run away from a fight.The second antagonist is revealed through the perspective of Lenar as a female in his and May's tribe, Sha, who would gladly marry Lenar and has red curls which are passed down to her next lives.Future incarnations inherit May's singing, struggle with ranking in social groups, and that she is religious, and Kye's incarnations inherit aching head injuries. The incarnations also happen to be different in ethnicity like May and Kye.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dangerous_Days_of_Daniel_X" title="The Dangerous Days of Daniel X">
Twelve years after the murder of his parents, fifteen-year-old alien Daniel X has taken up the task of his parents as Defender of Earth. In the sewers of Portland, Oregon, he defeats number 19 on the List of Alien Outlaws on Earth, Orkng Jllfgna, in hopes of working his way up to number 1: The Prayer, the alien who murdered Daniel's parents.Daniel then leaves to go to Los Angeles in search of number 6 on his List, Ergent Seth. While traveling, he spends a night in the woods, camping with the "friends" he conjured up with his powers: Joe, Willy, Emma, and Dana.The next day, Daniel arrives in LA. With the help of his "family", which he created, he rents a house. The next day, Daniel decides to go to school, a first in his life. At the end of the day, he bumps into Phoebe Cook, who is also new to the school.Daniel decides to search the city for clues about the whereabouts of Seth, and stumbles in upon a child-slave and drug-dealing operation.The following day after school, Daniel walks Phoebe to his house, which he finds destroyed. Soon after, he is contacted by Seth, who again warns him to leave LA.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Boy" title="First Boy">
Dragged into the political turmoil of a presidential election year, fourteen-year-old Cooper Jewett, who has run a New Hampshire dairy farm since his grandfather's death, stands up for himself and makes it clear whose first boy he really is. Cooper never knew his parents and his birth certificate is blacked out. Who is Cooper Jewett really? Nobody knows.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Autonomy" title="Energy Autonomy">
In the book Scheer discusses that for the past two hundred years industrial civilization has relied predominantly upon fossil fuels, which are abundant and cheap but also have adverse social and environmental effects. Scheer argues that it would be more beneficial if they transition to renewable energy and distributed, decentralized energy generation, as this is a model that has already been proven to be successful. Much progress with renewable energy commercialization has already been made in Europe where the renewable energy industry is a multi-billion Euro industry with high growth rates.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Cold_(Swindells_novel)" title="Stone Cold (Swindells novel)">
After Link's father abandons his family for a receptionist, Link's mother finds a new boyfriend, Vince. A rather unappealing character and a new stepfather, eventually forces Link out of the house. Link, now homeless, decides to travel to Camden, London. Here he meets Ginger, a streetwise homeless man, who takes him under his wing. Link and Ginger work together and become friends. Along all of this, a man nicknamed Shelter is busy with his own task. An ex-army member, dismissed for 'medical reasons' that weren’t obvious, he is convinced that he must 'clear' the streets of the homeless, or dossers. He begins abducting and murdering victims, hiding them under the floor of his room and dressing them in army clothes.One day, Ginger decided to meet his old friends. Link waited for him, yet he never returned. Shelter had abducted him, telling him that Link was at his apartment, badly injured. Ginger fell for it and was murdered.Distressed by Ginger's absence, Link finds the company of a mysterious young woman named Gail. They 'dossed' together and began to figure out the strange things that were happening. They eventually traced them to an old man, Shelter. Gail always spent ages in the telephone box, so Link left for a couple of minutes and searched for Shelter.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_(novel)" title="Wolf (novel)">
Cassy is a teen-age girl who lives with her father's mother. Her grandmother and her mother both maintain silence about her father. One night she is awakened by mysterious footsteps. The next day, as always when the footsteps are heard, she is sent away to live with her lovely but feckless mother, Goldie, who is squatting in London. Mother, her partner, and his teenage son "make a living with innovative programs for schools: combinations of fact and fiction, drama and story, skillfully blended to challenge stereotypes and spark original thinking." Now they are producing a play about wolves, and they encourage Cassy to become involved. Cassy does her best to adjust to the new way of life, which is challenging in several ways. She cannot escape a sense of dread, a feeling that she is being stalked. Her nightmare is Red Riding Hood "recast by her own fears".Eventually she learns the secret she has been protected from all her life: her father is a notorious terrorist, a bomber in the Irish Republican Army.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulku_(novel)" title="Tulku (novel)">
Thirteen-year-old Theodore lives in a remote region of China at his father's mission. When the violence of the Boxer Rebellion finally reaches them, Theodore escapes alone from its destruction. He soon becomes one companion of a formidable Englishwoman, "painted, blasphemous, gun-toting Mrs Jones". She is an amateur botanist and a former actress with an entourage.The party flees bandits into Tibet and take refuge at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery. Theodore is briefly seen to be the Tulku, a great lama reincarnated; then the recently conceived child of Mrs Jones and her Chinese lover is identified as the one. Theodore is exposed to the "magnetic, repugnant rituals of Buddhism" and develops as a "whole, willing Christian". Mrs Jones is recruited to remain on site and the boy finally returns to England with the fruit of her botanical expedition.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_(Kennen_novel)" title="Beast (Kennen novel)">
Stephen is a 17-year-old foster child living on the edge of the law. He has moved from family to family, all the time guarding a great secret. He harbors a huge crocodilean beast, ferocious from birth, bequeathed to him by his criminal father when Stephen was a child. "Beast" tells the story of his murderous intents toward this monster and his growing relationships, as well as frequently reliving his childhood through flashbacks.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodline_(Wilson_novel)" title="Bloodline (Wilson novel)">
The novel begins a bit after Gia and Vicky recover from the accident brought by the yenceri. Gia, as always persuades Jack to do some fix-its, on the condition that he does not risk too much. The persuasion was followed when a middle-aged woman named Christy Pickering asks for Jack's help. Jack finds that Christy has been having a problem with her daughter Dawn, she is dating a man Jerry Bethlehem, about twice her age (or as Christy puts it: "Old enough to be her father"). The problem is actually with her PI who has just disappeared. Along the way of looking into Bethlehem life, Jack begins to realize a connection between Bethlehem and the leader(Hank Thompson) of a new movement called the Kickers. It seems that both Hank and Jerry went to the same criminal institute known to take extremely violent criminals, the Creighton Institute. Further investigation leads Jack to finding the detective murdered in ways of a water torture. Jack later finds that not only are Hank and Jerry related by Creighton but also by the newfound mysterious oDNA found there. It comes to Jack that the 'o' stands for the wrong side of his life, the Other. He also finds that Jerry is not his real name, it is actually Jeremy Bolton, a sociopath who was captured for a crime far down in Atlanta, GA: the Atlanta Abortion Murders. After getting Dawn pregnant he starts acting differently, showing his true self to her. Upon finding out of her daughters pregnancy, Christy is found dead, presumed suicide by slashing her wrists. Before her death, Jack investigates on the whereabouts of Dawn's father who has never been mentioned by Christy, only to be enlightened with the truth that Dawn is a rape-baby. Further investigation in the oDNA it is realized that Hank, Moonglow(Christy), and Jeremy are all the children of the mysterious oDNA filled Jonah Stevens. As all the pieces come together Jack finds the final piece revealing a dark secret, Jeremy is Dawn's father.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Edge_(novel)" title="The Edge (novel)">
The story begins in London as Danny and his mother, Cathy Mangam, are fleeing from Chris Kane, Cathy's cruel boyfriend. Chris pursues the pair to the local tube station, but they manage to escape to an area of the country known as "the Edge", where Danny's grandparents, Joan and Harry, live.At first, Harry refuses to accept Danny, as he not only has mixed parentage but is also the result of an unplanned teenage pregnancy. As the book progresses, however, Harry grows to accept Danny as his grandson.At school, Danny befriends and later dates a girl called Nikki. This causes trouble for Danny, because she is also loved by another teen called Steve Parker, who is a racist bully. Nikki warns Danny not provoke Steve; it is implied that Steve and his gang had been responsible for an arson attack on a store with coloured owners. Nonetheless, Danny enters an altercation with Steve and his gang and is saved by a man named Des, who is revealed to be Danny's real father.Meanwhile, Chris, being highly possessive, continues to search for Cathy and Danny. Though Cathy initially is able to conceal their hiding place from him, a newspaper article eventually gives Chris a clue. After deducing where they are hiding, Chris makes his way to Danny's grandparents' house and shows up one day at Danny's new school. After pursuing Danny back to their house, Chris attempts to kidnap Cathy by force. During the struggle, the police arrive; Chris is arrested and imprisoned. Following this, the novel concludes with Danny having a happy family and a pleasant life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomwyte" title="Doomwyte">
The magpie Griv, resting from a storm just outside a window, listens to the story the young mouse Bisky is telling, about how his ancestor Gonff the Mousethief stole four great jewels from the Great Doomwyte Idol. However, the listeners, all fellow youngsters and Dibbuns, disbelieve the story. The young Redwallers have a pillowfight which the squirrel Dwink (who was especially sceptical of Bisky's tale) started. Griv leaves for the lair of the Doomwytes, of which she is a member, and tells the Wytes' leader, Korvus Skurr, about the jewels.Bisky and Dwink are caught in their fight by the infirmary keeper Brother Torilis, who reports them to Abbot Glisam. While reporting to Abbot Glisam, Bisky tells him of his story. Samolus Fixa, a relative of Bisky's, overhears them and confirms to Glisam that there is truth in Bisky's story. Samolus, Bisky and Dwink dig through the Abbey records in the gatehouse, coming upon the journal of Lady Columbine (Gonff's wife), Dinny (Gonff's friend) and Gonff himself. All three tell a similar account of Gonff stealing the jewels and offering them to Columbine, who refuses to have them because they have seen too much evil. Gonff then composes riddles to the location of the jewels.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Fun_and_Games_until_Somebody_Loses_an_Eye" title="All Fun and Games until Somebody Loses an Eye">
Jane Fleming, a 46-year-old housewife and grandmother, lives a quiet life in suburban East Kilbride. All that changes when her son, Ross, who works in the arms industry, is forced into hiding when his latest research attracts unwanted attention. Aided by the mysterious Bett, Jane must confront drug dealers, assassins and ruthless arms dealers in order to save her son.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Big_Boy_Did_It_and_Ran_Away" title="A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away">
Anti-terrorist forces are put on alert when it is learned that the notorious international terrorist the Black Spirit plans to attack on an unknown British target on Saturday, September 6. The Black Spirit is an ingenious terrorist-for-hire known for his clever, often indirect means of achieving destruction; the terrorist organizations that hire him then claim the hit. He himself, however, claims his kills by leaving a literal "calling card," an image of the comic figure Rank Badjin by the Glasgow cartoonist Bud Neill.Meanwhile, 30-something Raymond Ash is struggling to cope with the banality of his new life, having sold his video game shop and decided to settle down with his wife, a new baby, and a new career as an English teacher in Glasgow. While visiting Glasgow airport he sees his college friend Simon Darcourt, who supposedly died when terrorists blew up an airliner a few years before. He has no idea that Darcourt is in reality the Black Spirit. Darcourt for his part sees Raymond and decides to settle an old score with him by incorporating him into his terrorist plot.Raymond ends up being abducted by Darcourt's terrorists, along with a couple of 13-year-old boys from his school (whose presence is unknown to the gang). Raymond escapes, then finds himself aiding Glasgow policewoman Angelique de Xavia in a valiant attempt to foil their plot, the two being the only people with a chance of reaching the site of the attack in time – the (fictional) Highlands hydroelectric plant at Dubh Ardrain.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_Freshmen_Never_Lie" title="Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie">
Scott Hudson enters J.P. Zenger High as a freshman, along with his three best friends, Mitch, Patrick, and Kyle, and quickly realizes that it is very different from middle school. Scott gets put into advanced classes, including an Honors English class which, despite the amount of homework, is his favorite class and his English teacher, Mr. Franka, becomes a mentor to him. Scott finds out that he is not in classes with any of his friends since he is carrying all honors and college prep classes. He tries his best from the very start to get the attention of Julia Baskins, a girl who was in his kindergarten class and has become very attractive over the summer. Because of her beauty she quickly blends in with the popular girls and is attracted to the football players who are often bullying Scott. Scott also finds himself connected to another classmate named Louden, who is better known as Mouth.Scott tries every attempt to get Julia's attention such as joining the school paper, because he thinks that she is part of the staff, only to discover that she has just written a single column for the paper. He then runs for student council, after finding out that Julia is also running as well, and wins a seat, only to find out that she has not won. As a result, Scott resigns from his position on the student council, making Julia the new council member. He also auditions for the school play and is selected as a member of the crew, thinking that Julia would be in the play. However, Julia has not been selected as a member of the cast or crew. Soon, a new girl named Lee arrives at school, who wears face pins and weird clothes, and has wildly colored hair. Both soon realize that they share the same interests, but Scott cannot get past his crush on Julia. He also makes friends with a senior named Wesley. Though the two share some interests, they have little in common. Then to put the cherry on top of all this excitement going on in his life, his mother announces that she is pregnant. He copes with all of this by creating a tip book for his soon-to-be baby sibling to help him, or her, survive high school when they get to it. In his entries to the baby, he often shows disdain by using degrading terms to talk to it such as "Smelly" or "Blob of unformed goo". He writes it so he can try to be a good older brother to this new baby, since Scott's own brother was rarely present.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily's_Quest" title="Emily's Quest">
Emily Starr is now seventeen and a high school graduate. The residents of New Moon consider her an adult and allow her much more freedom. Emily and Teddy Kent have been friends since childhood, and as Teddy is about to leave for two years to further his education as an artist, Emily believes that their friendship is blossoming into something more. On his last night at home, they vow to think of each other when they see the star Vega of the Lyre.During the next two years, Emily grows as a writer and learns to deal with the loneliness of having her closest friends gone (Ilse and Teddy to Montreal, and Perry to Charlottetown), life at New Moon changes. Mr. Carpenter, Emily's most truthful critic and favourite teacher dies (warning Emily, even as he dies to "Beware --- of --- italics."). Her budding career as a writer begins to flourish to the point that the Murray clan finally accept her profession. She becomes closer to Dean Priest, even as she fears he wants love when she only has friendship to give. Worst of all, Emily and Teddy become distant as he focuses on building his career and she hides her feelings behind pride.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weep_Not,_Child" title="Weep Not, Child">
Njoroge, a little boy, is urged to attend school by his mother. He is the first one of his family able to go to school. His family lives on the land of Jacobo, an African made rich by his dealings with white settlers, namely Mr. Howlands, the most powerful land owner in the area. Njoroge's brother Kamau works as an apprentice to a carpenter, while Boro, the eldest living son, is troubled by his experiences while in forced service during World War II, including witnessing the death of his elder brother. Ngotho, Njoroge's father and a respected man in the surrounding area, tends Mr. Howlands' crops, but is motivated by his passion to preserve his ancestral land, rather than for any compensation or loyalty.One day, black workers call for a strike to obtain higher wages. Ngotho is ambivalent about participating in the strike because he fears he will lose his job. However, he decides to go to the gathering, even though his two wives do not agree. At the demonstration, there are calls for higher wages. Suddenly, the white police inspector brings Jacobo to the gathering to pacify the native people. Jacobo tries to put an end to the strike. Ngotho attacks Jacobo, and the result is a riot where two people are killed. Jacobo survives and swears revenge. Ngotho loses his job and Njoroge’s family is forced to move. Njoroge’s brothers fund his education and seem to lose respect for their father.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Pip" title="Mister Pip">
The novel is the story of a girl caught in the throes of war on the island of Bougainville. Matilda survives the war through the guidance of her devoted but strict Christian mother and her white teacher Mr Watts, and also, more importantly, through her connection with the fictional Pip, the protagonist of Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations". Pip helps Matilda maintain a desire to live, especially after her mother, Mr Watts, and her island home all cease to exist.The novel opens with a colourful description of Watts, whom the children call Pop-Eye (The first line of the book being: 'Everyone called him Pop Eye') due to his eyes that "stuck out further than anyone else's". He is married to Grace, a native of Bougainville, which explains why he remains long after most white men had abandoned the island. With military tension rising and the schoolroom growing over with creepers, Watts decides to take on the task of educating the children. Despite his claim to be limited in intelligence, he introduces the students to one of the greatest English authors, Charles Dickens.Dolores, Matilda's overzealous Christian mother, expresses an extreme distrust of the teacher and his curriculum. She does everything in her power to ensure that her daughter's mind is not polluted by the strange white man, including making weekly visits to the classroom. She even goes as far as stealing and hiding Watts's "Great Expectations" book, an action that causes immense trouble when "Redskin" soldiers enter the village and find Pip's name carved in the sand. It is Matilda who wrote his name, and it is her guilt that makes her empathise with her mother, who refuses to give up the book as evidence that Pip is not a rebel but a fictional character. Convinced that Pip must be a spy who has been hidden from them, the soldiers destroy the houses. All they leave behind are smoking fragments of the village's former life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_or_Persons_Unknown_(novel)" title="Person or Persons Unknown (novel)">
Women of the street are being brutally murdered in Covent Garden, and Sir John is baffled. Worse, one of the Fieldings' acquaintances becomes the prime suspect.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_of_Mutiny" title="Moon of Mutiny">
Fred Halpern, a young man with a gift for mentally calculating trajectories and orbits is expelled from the Goddard Space Academy a week before graduation due to his long history of insubordination and lack of discipline. Because of a foolish attempt to land on the Moon in a stolen rocket which caused him to be trapped and the subsequent death of one of his rescuers, he is ostracized by the space community. When given a final chance to show he has grown up, he questions his motives and wonders if he can escape his past.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_(novel)" title="Venus (novel)">
Martin Humphries is the head of the giant Humphries Space Systems and at his 100th birthday party announces a prize of ten billion dollars to anyone who can recover any remains of his eldest son Alex. Alex was killed two years previously on a mission to Venus. Van Humphries, Martin's son and younger brother to Alex takes up the challenge despite, and because of, a mutual dislike between son and father.Van assembles a ship and crew and heads off to Venus, shadowed by the mysterious Lars Fuchs. Upon entering the Venusian atmosphere they find the clouds are alive with bacterial life which, unfortunately, takes a liking to the ship. The ship is soon in trouble as it is eaten away by the bacteria. Van's more conservative ship is quickly eaten away by the bacteria, while Lars's bulky ship manages to survive. Van is rescued by Lars Fuch's ship but most of his crew are lost.Van finds Lars a brutal yet intelligent man who rules his ship with a rod of iron. The heat builds as they descend through the Venusian atmosphere. Lars has to deal with mutiny and they find out that Lars Fuchs is Van Humphries' real father. At the end of the novel the intense heat, Lars's and Van's health and volcanic activity conspire to produce a climactic finale, in which a sulfur-based lifeform is revealed to exist on Venus. Alex's remains are recovered and the money claimed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agaguk" title="Agaguk">
This novel is a story of cultural conflict between the Inuit of Northerns Quebec and white men, set in the 1940s. It is told from the perspective of the main character Agaguk, an Inuk man. Agaguk diverges from his tribe with a woman named Iriook. Through their journeys, Yves Thériault explores Agaguk's mastery of nature as well as the general relationship between the Inuit and the tundra. Furthermore, by describing the conflicts with the white men, the themes of alcoholism, assimilation as well as economic and judicial injustice are thoroughly explored. The personal aspect of the novel also allows for an intriguing analysis of Agaguk and his behaviour towards his wife in particular.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Darkness" title="The Wheel of Darkness">
This novel picks up shortly following the events depicted in "The Book of the Dead".Agent Pendergast and his ward, Constance Greene, are studying in Tibet with Buddhist monks; they are recuperating from the events depicted in the novel "The Book of the Dead". An artifact is stolen from the monastery, and the monks ask if Pendergast can retrieve it. Pendergast pursues the thief and artifact through China, Rome, and London. He finds that the original thief was killed and the artifact stolen by someone else. He and Constance track the killer to a new luxury ocean liner, the Britannia which is headed to New York City.Aboard the ship, Pendergast quickly eliminates all but a few possible suspects. He coerces the ships' guards to help him in exchange for helping them stop cheaters at the casino on the ship. The killer is murdering random people on the ship and everyone is panicking. There is also a mysterious shadow thing being sighted and causing inevitable panic. The captain refuses to go to the nearest port, which creates more problems.Fearing the loss of a life over the loss of profit, the crew mutinies and puts a female commander in charge. Pendergast locates the artifact's thief. However, he actually looks at it and undergoes a mental change. It brings out his "evil side"; where he doesn't care about anyone but himself and he thinks that humans are pathetic and should be cleansed. Meanwhile, the new captain has tricked the crew out of the bridge and locked it down. She aims for 'Carrion Rock', a land mass that will easily sink the ship. It is later revealed she herself had looked at the artifact and had decided to kill everyone on board as revenge for not being promoted to what she believes is her rightful position.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends,_Lovers,_Chocolate" title="Friends, Lovers, Chocolate">
Isabel Dalhousie is in her early forties and lives alone in Edinburgh. Due to an inheritance from her late mother, she can work for a nominal fee as the editor of the "Review of Applied Ethics". Her closest friends are her niece Cat, a young woman who runs a delicatessen; her housekeeper Grace, who is outspoken and interested in spiritualism; Cat's ex-boyfriend Jamie, a bassoonist to whom Isabel has been secretly attracted ever since they met; and Brother Fox, an urban fox who lives in Isabel's garden.When visiting Cat's delicatessen one lunchtime, Isabel meets Ian, who has recently had a heart transplant, and seems to have gained the memories of the heart's former owner, particularly the memory of a sinister-looking man with hooded eyes and a scar on his forehead. Ian is worried that this man may have killed the original owner of the heart, and Isabel decides that they have a moral duty to try to find out more.Later, Cat tells Isabel that she is about to receive a visit from Tomasso, an Italian whom Cat recently met at a friend's wedding. Cat suggests that he and Isabel, being of similar age, should go out to dinner. Isabel dismisses the idea, thinking of Jamie. Later that evening, she is shocked when Jamie tells her that he is having an affair with a married woman.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Careful_Use_of_Compliments" title="The Careful Use of Compliments">
After her son, Charlie's, birth Isabel feels that her life has hit a happy (or happier) patch. Deciding that she may bid for a painting at auction, she visits the showroom, where she has arranged to meet Jamie (her son's father). Jamie proposes but Isabel says that she thinks they should wait, half-hoping that Jamie will press his case. She is a little disappointed when he agrees with her, but accepts that they have made the correct decision.To her distress, she learns that the editorial board of the "Review of Applied Ethics", which she edits, has decided to replace her, an action that she effectively reverses although not without her usual philosophical qualms and musings.Meanwhile, she becomes interested in the life and recent death of Andrew McInnes, an artist most of whose paintings feature the island of Jura and who was lost in a boating accident there some years previously. Travelling with her fiancé, Jamie, and Charlie to the place of his loss she discovers new information about a more recent painter who was painting similar scenes. Her investigations into a possible art fraud unearth something quite unexpected.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Mirror_(book)" title="Magic Mirror (book)">
"Magic Mirror" is a story about the problems of a mythical family. Although the family is presented as a medieval royal family, their problems reflect present-day concerns and modern world artifacts appear in the pictures.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precaution_(novel)" title="Precaution (novel)">
"Precaution" is set in the spring of 1815 in Northamptonshire, England. It follows the relationship of Emily Moseley and George Denbigh.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Secrets_(novel)" title="The Book of Secrets (novel)">
In Dar es Salaam in the late 1980s, a retired school teacher named Pius Fernandes was given an English language diary by one of his former students, now a shopkeeper. The diary entries, written between 1913 and 1914, are an account written by Alfred Corbin, Assistant District Commissioner, a low ranking colonial official sent to the small town of Kikono. While there, Corbin becomes intrigued by a young woman named Mariamu whom he saves from an exorcism. Before she is married, Mariamu also briefly nurses Corbin when he is stricken with blackwater fever. After her marriage, Mariamu's husband, believing that Mariamu is not a virgin, accuses Corbin of sleeping with her.The narrative then shifts to Mariamu's husband Pipa. Initially enraged at the thought that Mariamu was not a virgin when they married, he gradually grows to accept and love her. When their son Ali Akber Ali is born and has fair skin and grey eyes, their marriage becomes strained again. Meanwhile, World War I has reached the small town of Kikono and Pipa is enlisted as a messenger, first by Corbin on behalf of the English and later by the Germans. After being arrested by the English as a messenger for the Germans Pipa returns home only to find that Mariamu has been raped and murdered. After her death Pipa discovers that she had stolen Corbin's diary. Pipa believes that the diary holds the secret to Ali's paternity, but since he cannot speak English, and is illiterate, he is unable to read its secrets.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonsbane" title="Dragonsbane">
A witch, Jenny Waynest, and lord, John Aversin, who live in the decaying Northlands are approached by a young southern noble, Gareth, who requests they slay a dragon in the capital city of Bel to the south. The pair agree on the condition the king send troops to the north to fend off bandits. On arriving, it is revealed that Gareth is not a mere noble, but the prince of the realm seeking aid against the wishes of his father. The dragon is revealed as Morkeleb the Black, an ancient and powerful dragon, now inhabiting the caverns of the gnomes. In addition, the sorceress Zyerne is revealed to hold the king in her power, dominating him with the goal of capturing the power of the Stone in the heart of the gnomish Deep. John is persuaded to kill Morkeleb, with Jenny's assistance, but is himself wounded and Jenny is forced to save the dragon's life in exchange for that of John's. In saving Morkeleb's life, Jenny's weak powers are much augmented, allowing her to confront Zyerne but also tempting her to transform into a dragon and abandon the concerns of humanity. Zyrene enters the Deep, attempting to claim its magic, but is defeated when the Stone is destroyed by John, Jenny and Morkeleb. Jenny accepts Morkeleb's offer to transform into a dragon, but later returns to the North, unable to live without her humanity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_My_Girlfriend_Doesn't_Know" title="What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know">
"What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know" picks up where the previous novel ended, with Robin unable to believe he has a girlfriend. Due to the dynamics of high school social interaction, Sophie is ostracized by her friends because she chose the school loser as her boyfriend. This is familiar territory for Robin, but new to Sophie. To make matters worse Robin is accepted into a special figure drawing class at Harvard University where he is readily accepted by the other art students. He is amazed to realize they do not care that he is “only” a high school student or that he is an outcast in school. Sophie is able to eventually reconcile with her friends once they realize she can only be happy dating Robin. One of the girls in Robin's drawing class, Tessa, falls for him as well, and he is conflicted about being attracted to two girls at once, especially since Tessa is a “college woman” (though when the art class indulges in vodka Jell-O shots she reveals she's a minor genius, only sixteen years old and accepted into Harvard after skipping several grades in school). Sophie discovers Robin and Tessa made out at the party, temporarily dumps him, but relents when he admits his stupidity and that he does not know how to properly operate in social interactions with anyone, especially girls.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_(Preston_novel)" title="Blasphemy (Preston novel)">
Isabella, a powerful particle accelerator, has been constructed in Red Mesa in the remote Arizona desert, the most expensive machine ever built by science. The project is staffed by a team of twelve scientists, under the leadership of charismatic Nobel Laureate Gregory North Hazelius. The team consists of Kate Mercer, Hazelius's second-in-command; chief engineer and designer of Isabella Ken Dolby; Russian software engineer Peter Volkonsky; cosmologist Melissa Corcoran; senior intelligence officer and security guard Tony Wardlaw; psychologist George Innes; quantum electrodynamicist Julie Thibodeaux; electrical engineer Harlan St. Vincent; Michael Cecchini, the Standard Model particle physicist; computer engineer Rae Chen; and mathematician Alan Edelstein. When the team supposedly encounters a problem with the machine, they appear to be covering something up and not reporting all the true facts to their superiors, even after Voldonsky suddenly dies in what appears to be a suicide. Ex-CIA agent Wyman Ford is tapped to go to Arizona in an undercover role as an anthropologist, and finds out what's really going on with the project. He is reluctant to undertake the mission, having had a previous relationship with Mercer while in college and being consistently warned of Hazelius's almost seductive charisma. Once there, Ford discovers the scientists have made a discovery that apparently not only demonstrates the existence of God, but communications with it reveal it to be far grander and deeper than anything found in the conventional religions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_of_het_klein_insectenboek" title="Erik of het klein insectenboek">
Erik Pinksterblom is a little nine-year-old boy who lies in bed at night, worried about a test about insects he has to perform at school tomorrow. Suddenly the paintings in his bedroom come alive, including one depicting a meadow full of insects. Erik climbs into the painting where he meets several talking insect characters.First he meets a snobbish and rich family of wasps. Erik unintentionally gives offence when he recites a poem about the "busy bee" – it turns out the wasps despise bees, because they work for people. After dinner Erik joins the wasps in playing some music, using flies as string instruments, but he's forced to leave the party early when Erik accidentally causes the house fly he was playing to die.A bumblebee who claims to be a philosopher brings him to a hotel, made from a huge snail's house. Erik surprises everybody by reciting interesting facts about insects he read in a natural history book. While all the insects are amazed they are also scared often doing anything if it's not reported in the book. Erik can comfort them by telling them they just have to follow their natural instincts.In one of the hotel rooms a caterpillar changes into a butterfly. Together, he and Erik leave the hotel. Later the butterfly meets a female butterfly with whom he falls in love. Erik helps him write a poem for her and eventually the couple gets married, leaving Erik alone.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_Angel" title="Falling Angel">
Johnny Favorite, a popular crooner before and during the Second World War, has not been seen or heard of since he was critically wounded during a 1943 Luftwaffe raid on Allied forces in Tunisia. In 1959, private investigator Harry Angel is hired to locate him on behalf of a mysterious client who calls himself Louis Cyphre. During his investigation, Angel finds himself enmeshed in a disturbing occult milieu.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shosha_(novel)" title="Shosha (novel)">
The main character is aspiring author Aaron Greidinger who lives in the Hasidic quarter of the Jewish neighborhood of Warsaw during the 1930s."I was an anachronism in every way, but I didn't know it, just as I didn't know that my friendship with Shosha [..] had anything to do with love."Aaron had many love affairs with women, but the only woman he truly loved was Shosha, his childhood friend. Shosha was struck by a sleeping disease and had since barely grown physically and was mentally retarded. Aaron lived his childhood on 10 Krochmalna Street, and lost the sight of her as he moved away and she moved from no. 10 to no. 7.Hitler is in power in Germany and is set to annihilate the Jews in Poland while in Russia, Stalin rules with his deadly terror, so the only voluntary exit that many of the characters in "Shosha" perceive for themselves is suicide. Although Aaron is offered the opportunity to leave the threat of death — as others, from Hassidics to Hedonists, do — he turns down the chance to escape, for his love for Shosha and chooses to stay in Poland. Death is the cloud that hangs over the characters in "Shosha". As writer whose main medium is language, the book opens by explaining that Aaron was brought up on three "dead" languages: Hebrew, Aramaic and Yiddish.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_at_Night" title="Dave at Night">
Dave Caros, a teenager troublemaker, lost his mother during his birth. More recently, his father dies after falling off a roof of a house he was helping to build. Always having lived under the shadow of his older brother Gideon, he is abandoned by his stepmother Ida while Gideon goes to live with his uncle. Ida sends Dave to a Hebrew orphanage, the Hebrew Home For Boys.When Dave first arrives at the orphanage, he absolutely hates it. The bedrooms are cold, the food is awful (and is often stolen by bullies) and the superintendent, Mr. Bloom (nicknamed Mr. Doom) is abusive and hits the boys with a yardstick. Mr. Doom takes the only thing Dave has left from his father, a wood carving of his family boarding Noah's Ark. However, Dave enjoys the art lessons and explores his talented, creative side.Sick of the austere lifestyle, Dave sneaks out of the orphanage in the middle of the night and roams the streets of Harlem. He finds a nearby party and bumps into Solly, an old man who 'reads cards' to get money. He enters the party with Solly and discovers a whole new world of jazz music, money and glamour—the Harlem Renaissance. Dave even meets Irma Lee, a girl to whom he is quickly attracted to although the book does not make it clear if its romantic or not. However, Dave needs to return to the orphanage every morning, but this new lifestyle isn't always what it seems.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodosia_and_the_Serpents_of_Chaos" title="Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos">
Theodosia Throckmorton, a clever and shrewd girl of sorts, has the harrowing and busy work of nullifying curses in her father's museum, where the darkest spells abound. However, it is delicate work, and time is running out for her to set things right. A crate arrives from Theo's mother in Egypt, which contains a cursed statue of Bastet. While transferring the curse from the statue to a wax figure, she becomes distracted and redirects it into her cat, Isis. Her hands are full enough when her mother returns from the tombs of Egypt, bringing countless cursed valuables and antiquities with her. While picking her mother up at the train station, Theodosia catches a street urchin named Sticky Will trying to pick her father's pocket. He informs her that someone is following her mother. Theo tells him she will be at the station tomorrow and he can tell her more about the man then. Back at the museum, they unload Theo's mother's trunks. Theo senses the curses on the artifacts. The most powerful is a gem called the Heart of Egypt, with the power to topple the whole of Great Britain and the entire British Empire.The next day, her brother Henry returns from boarding school. The Heart of Egypt is stolen, and Theo suspects someone from the British Museum and investigates, Henry tagging along without her consent. A Mr. Tetley is acting suspiciously, and they decide to follow him. While traveling through the Seven Dials, they meet Will and witness a man taking the Heart from Tetley, then the same man is stabbed in a churchyard. Theodosia hears the man mumble "Som set hoo", or "Somerset House". He tells Theo to speak to Wigmere, only Wigmere. She sends Henry and Will to Somerset House while she struggles to keep the man alive using her amulets. Will and Henry bring help, and Theo is introduced to Lord Wigmere, head of the Antiquarian Society and The Brotherhood of Chosen Keepers, a group dedicated to nullifying curses. Theodosia is relieved to know there are others like her, but disturbed that no one else can sense the curses the way she can. Henry and Will are not told the true nature of the Keepers, although Will is taken on as a message boy later on. Theo is also angry that Wigmere may suspect her mother of stealing the Heart of Egypt, as she works closely with Count Von Braggenchnot, head of the Serpents of Chaos who will do anything to rain plague and pestilence down on England.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_in_the_Mirror" title="Martha in the Mirror">
Castle Extremis - whoever holds it can control the provinces either side that have been at war for centuries. Now the castle is about to play host to the signing of a peace treaty. But as the Doctor and Martha find out, not everyone wants the war to end.Who is the strange little girl who haunts the castle? What is the secret of the book the Doctor finds, its pages made from thin, brittle glass? Who is the hooded figure that watches from the shadows? And what is the secret of the legendary Mortal Mirror?The Doctor and Martha don't have long to find the answers-an army is on the march, and the castle will soon be under siege once more...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Many_Hands" title="The Many Hands">
The book opens with the mysterious arrival of a baby in Edinburgh, 1773. The scene shifts to the city fifteen years earlier.The Doctor and Martha are confronted by the walking dead, first a solitary figure which attacks a stagecoach containing Benjamin Franklin, then by an army of the creatures rising from the putrid waters of the Nor' Loch. The British soldiers under Captain McAllister who have arrested the Doctor find themselves following his lead. Part of this is the soldier's desire to save innocent civilians endangered by the creatures.Meanwhile, at the Surgeon's Hall, Martha has met a couple of physicians, Alexander Monro, senior and junior, who apparently brought the first corpse back to life. They lock her in a small room with dozens of hands, disembodied but disturbingly active.The Doctor deduces the presence of a modular alien and discovers its sinister intentions.Benjamin Franklin reappears in the final chapter, set in 1771, meeting Alexander Monro, who reclaims the hand he gave Franklin years before, the last one on Earth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowglobe_7" title="Snowglobe 7">
Snowglobe 7 is set in 2099 when the world's global warming has become a great problem. Snowglobe 7 was one of the buildings set up to contain sheets of ice to preserve them against global warming. It is situated in Dubai. Due to Snowglobes being extremely expensive to maintain, many were sold off as visitor attractions. Snowglobe 7 was one of only three left that were purely scientific. The section of ice within it, unknown to the Humans, contained the last Gappa, bizarre, blood-thirsty aliens that look like a cross between a spider and a monkey with a massive, fleshy nose. While Martha tries to help with an unknown disease spreading through the dome, the Doctor investigates. The Gappa killed some humans on maintenance and used their bodies as hosts for future Gappa. Service robot Twelve collapsed several of the tunnels in the ice of Snowglobe 7 in an attempt to kill the Gappa, but failed. The Doctor detonated the engine of a ship that had crashed in the ice thousands of years ago, killing the Gappa but destroying the Snowglobe and melting the ice.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Storm" title="Deep Storm">
In the prologue, three workers – Kevin Lindengood, Fred Hicks, and John Wherry – are operating the rig on the Storm King oil rig in the North Atlantic, off the coast of Greenland. When the equipment begins malfunctioning, Wherry orders everything to be shut down. However, even after Lindengood shuts off the electromagnet, a series of strange signals are still being transmitted to their devices.Twenty months later, Former naval doctor Peter Crane is sent to investigate a mysterious illness that has broken out on the rig. He meets Dr. Howard Asher, who hints at a fantastic secret being discovered. Government officials transport him to a massive, 12-level facility run by the United States military. He receives a confidential envelope that explains how the military has discovered Atlantis. As he is brought down into the facility, codenamed Deep Storm, he discovers that nearly a quarter of the staff have been acting strangely within the last few weeks. Working alongside the psychiatrist Dr. Roger Corbett and the chief military doctor Michele Bishop, Crane is witness to one of these incidents; a worker named Randall Waite suddenly grabs a hostage after screaming about "voices" in his head, then eventually stabs himself in the neck with a screwdriver. After interviewing some of the patients there, and finding many of the symptoms including sleeplessness, lack of focus, nausea, and psychological effects such as changes in personality, Crane realizes that there must be some kind of unifying basis to all of them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ice_Limit" title="The Ice Limit">
Meteorite hunter Nestor Masangkay arrives on Isla Desolación, an island near Cape Horn in Chile, tracking a possible meteorite. Using a tomographic scanner, Masangkay confirms that not only is there a meteorite present under the ground, but that it is incredibly massive. Excited, Masangkay digs down to unearth a small portion of the meteorite and is subsequently killed in a flash of light.Some months later, Masangkay's equipment is recovered by a Yaghan native and eventually makes its way to New York billionaire Palmer Lloyd, a collector of rare and exotic archaeological artifacts. Wanting the meteorite for his soon-to-be-opened museum, Lloyd hires Masangkay's former partner, Sam McFarlane, to confirm the meteorite's existence and assist in its recovery. He also hires Effective Engineering Solutions, Inc., a high-priced "problem solving" firm, to design a plan for the unprecedented task of recovering and transporting what has been confirmed by McFarlane to be the largest meteorite ever discovered.Eli Glinn, the president of EES, puts together a comprehensive plan to effect the recovery, accounting for literally every complication he deems possible. To effect this plan he composes a team to augment Lloyd's personnel, notably including Rachel Amira, EES's brilliant yet grating mathematics expert, and Sally Britton, an out-of-work supertanker captain whose last ship crashed while she was drunk and on duty. Despite Britton's public image as a dangerous alcoholic, analysis by EES has led Glinn to peg her as professional, talented, and motivated never to fail again. After meeting her in person, Glinn finds himself becoming attracted to her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennie_(novel)" title="Jennie (novel)">
Jennie is a chimpanzee, living in the 1970s. Naturalist Dr. Hugo Archibald delivers Jennie from her dying mother in the Cameroons and brings her home to his American family. His young son, Sandy, becomes extremely attached to Jennie, but Archibald's daughter, Sarah, resents the chimp. Jennie, through her learning of ASL (American Sign Language), starts to converse and interact with the humans around her. Eventually, Jennie goes to a wildlife preserve where she cannot function.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mists_of_Dawn" title="Mists of Dawn">
Dr. Robert Nye, a nuclear physicist working at White Sands Missile Range has finally finished his space-time travel machine after 20 years of research. On the eve of its maiden voyage to Ancient Rome, Dr. Nye's nephew Mark is trapped inside and sent back in time to the year 50,000 BC when a nearby rocket test explosion sends him careening into the controls. When Mark arrives at his destination he must survive the two weeks it takes the space-time machine to recharge for the return trip with nothing but a few matches, a pocket knife, and a 6-shot .45 revolver.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Far_Country_(novel)" title="A Far Country (novel)">
The book follows the career of Hugh Paret from youth to manhood, and how his profession as a corporation lawyer gradually changes his values.The title is a reference to the Parable of the Prodigal Son, where Luke 15:13 (KJV) provides that the son went "into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_in_a_New_Key" title="Philosophy in a New Key">
"Langer elaborates her thesis in freshly conceived and interesting studies contained in chapters treating of the logic of signs and symbols, a comparison of discursive and presentational forms ofsymbolism (perhaps the heart of the book), verbal language, life symbols as the roots of sacrament and myth, the significance of music, the genesis of artistic import, and the fabric of meaning."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireball_(novel)" title="Fireball (novel)">
In the year AD 1981, British boy Simon meets his visiting American cousin Brad, but they do not get along, Simon finding Brad to be conceited, but knowledgeable enough to justify his conceit.The two boys are drawn towards a mysterious glowing ball, which instantly transports them to what appears to be more than a thousand years back in history. After some time they realise that they have travelled not to the past but to an alternative Earth also in the year 1981, but one with a different history - the Roman Empire under Flavius Claudius Julianus Augustus, aka Julian the Apostate or Julian the Philosopher, was successful in his AD 363 Persian Campaign. The victory led stability under Pax Romana, and in turn led to general stagnation of the civilised world, a subsequent absence of major technological development, as there was no motivation for change.The boys are separated to be sold as slaves. Brad is able to make use of his knowledge of Latin to persuade a Roman Christian to purchase his freedom. It is revealed that the Emperor Julian survived instead of dying on the Persian Campaign, Christianity never became the state religion. The religion was allowed, but it is still a small minority religion. By evidence of his modern wrist-watch, Brad convinces the Bishop that the boys come from a different and more technologically advanced world. The opportunistic Brad offers to help the Pope raise an army to overthrow the Roman authorities, ostensibly to cease oppression of the Christians, but mainly, in return for power, status and wealth for the cousins to rise in the new realms. Simon goes along with the plan because he wants to free the slaves and promote equal status for non-Romans, and because he has fallen in love with a high-born girl.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Found_Land_(Christopher_novel)" title="New Found Land (Christopher novel)">
In the first novel, "Fireball", Simon and Brad are cousins who are mysteriously transported to an alternate history Earth, where the Roman Empire did not break up and Europe remains in pre-Dark Ages technology. In an attempt to improve their status in the new realm, Simon and Brad aid the Christian Church, which is oppressed, to launch a coup by introducing the stirrup and the longbow. The coup succeeds, but the boys did not anticipate the Church as a state power would force everyone in the Empire to convert or die. At the end of the first book, they sail away to the New World, which in the realm, was not discovered yet by the Old World.At the beginning of this novel, they managed to reach the American continent safely. They are received warmly enough by the native tribes in North America, but soon find themselves yearning for more advanced civilizations.However, after they attempt to sail down the coast to warmer waters as winter sets on, they are captured by Vikings. In this parallel world the Vikings were introduced to the Latin language and instead of dying out, they have colonized the American continent. Brad, Simon, and their companions Bos and Curtius are greeted warmly by the Vikings and believe they can live here permanently, only to realize that they are to be sacrificed. They escape, but Curtius is killed in the fighting as they leave.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Dance_(novel)" title="Dragon Dance (novel)">
At the end of "New Found Land", Simon and Brad are in North America where they are captured by sailors from the Far East.When they awaken after losing consciousness during the capture, they find themselves aboard a Chinese junk crossing the Pacific Ocean. The junk is a paddle steamer that sails without human intervention. The crew have apparently put themselves into hibernation, indicating that they are accustomed to the trip and are expecting an uneventful journey.On their arrival in China they are taken to the Imperial Court, where the boys display their knowledge of modern technology. They are befriended by the young emperor, Cho-tsing, but sent away later at the command of the Dowager Regent. They are then taken in by Bei Pen, a follower of the laws of Bei-Kun. There, Brad becomes besotted with Bei Pen's companion Li Mei and becomes estranged from Simon.Unlike the other civilizations that they have encountered, which remain at a pre-Dark Ages technological level, the Chinese have continued their technological innovations and have come up with new inventions, even though their social development has stagnated.Simon is sent to the north to serve the general of the powerful Northern Army in charge of resisting nomadic barbarians.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_Men_of_Saturn" title="Missing Men of Saturn">
Dale Sutton, a recent graduate from the Space Academy, is assigned to the "Albatross", a decrepit old spaceship. When the "Albatross" is assigned to explore the mysterious ringed planet Saturn, Dale remembers the story of Captain Dearborn who had commanded the first and last mission to Saturn. When the "Albatross" reaches Saturn's moon Titan, the superstitious fears of the crew are realized as equipment begins to disappear, and eventually people.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Jockey_(novel)" title="Rocket Jockey (novel)">
The Armstrong Classic is a rocket race throughout the inhabited solar system and has become the driving force for the advancement of rocket and space technologies. It is extremely dangerous, and there are always fatalities, but it is regarded as the trial that proves the merit of a prospective spaceman. It is said that "only a fool would enter such a race, and only a genius or a Martian could win". In a twist of fate, a young man, Jerry Blaine is kicked out of the Space Institute at his brother's request to help him get ready for the 18th Armstrong Classic. When his brother is injured in a fueling accident, Jerry must take over command of the "Last Hope" and try to win the Classic for earth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadium_Beyond_the_Stars" title="Stadium Beyond the Stars">
Steve Frazer, a champion spacesuit racer on Earth's Olympic team, is headed to the center of the galaxy with the rest of the Earth team on board the "Hellas". When they intercept a mysterious derelict spaceship, Steve volunteers to investigate. Once on board the ship, he discovers evidence of a non-human intelligence that seems to communicate through telepathy. Upon his arrival back to the "Hellas" Steve tells the others what he found, but no one believes him. Disqualified from competition on false charges, Steve realizes that he has become mixed up in a deadly game of interstellar intrigue.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_to_Luna" title="Rocket to Luna">
Ted Baker is beginning his fourth year at the Space Academy, which is to take place on the Earth orbiting space station. On his trip to the station from Earth, he is accompanied by a recent graduate of the Academy, Jack Talbot, who is to be part of the first expedition to the Moon as a backup member. On arrival at the station, Ted discovers that Jack's collarbone was injured during the launch to the station. Fearing that Jack's injury could endanger the other men on the expedition, he confronts Jack about his injury. Jack refuses to give up his chance at glory, forcing Ted into a physical confrontation. Jack is knocked unconscious, and Ted hurriedly boards the moon rocket to inform the expedition of Jack's injury. Unfortunately, the countdown has already begun, and cannot be stopped. Ted is now the fifth man of the expedition.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_in_Death" title="Origin in Death">
When Lt. Eve Dallas and Detective Delia Peabody are called to the murder scene of Dr. Wilfred B. Icove Sr., things already don't make sense. Dr. Icove was renowned as a sainted genius of cosmetic and reconstructive surgery, and no one, not even his son Wilfred Icove Jr., benefits from his death. What's even stranger are the security disks that reveal a woman (with initials DNA) walking into Icove's office, killing him with a single stab in the heart and walking out again.When Dr. Icove Jr. is killed in the same way, Eve begins looking for another mystery woman, while her husband Roarke begins investigating an organization run by the Icoves and their partner, Dr. Jonah Wilson. Soon, they uncover a secret world inside a private school of young girls and women, created by the Icoves and Wilson. A world of children by design, where people aren't born, but cloned.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_in_Death" title="Memory in Death">
Following the events in Origin in Death, Lt. Eve Dallas only wants a break as Christmas nears, but her past is coming back to haunt her. A television news special about her and her husband Roarke's involvement in the destruction of the Icove center airs on national television, and in Texas, catches the eye of Trudy Lombard, who promptly comes to New York City with her son and her daughter-in-law. Lombard shows up at Eve's office, and Eve remembers everything about her.Eve was taken in by Lombard, after she killed her father. Lombard was an abusive woman, who often made Eve go without food, clean the floors with a toothbrush, locked her in her bed room without light, and scrubbed her skin raw in ice cold baths, all the time telling her she deserved it because she was a 'filthy' little girl who'd already 'engaged in sexual relations' (referring to the beatings and rape committed by Eve's father) before the age of ten.Eve realizes Lombard wants something, and her suspicions come true when Lombard tries to blackmail Roarke for $2 million. Roarke refuses and tell her to go back to Texas. The day after, Lombard is found dead. At first it seems like a classical murder; Lombard has been hit on the head by a blunt murder weapon and articles of clothing, her purse, and her tele-link are missing. Eve Dallas however, who is familiar with Trudy Lombard, does not believe it to be so clear a homicide, and Trudy Lombard's daughter in law, Zana Kline, seems too innocent to not have a hand in the murder; however, because there is no evidence pointing to her, Eve becomes extremely frustrated.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raven's_Knot" title="The Raven's Knot">
In Glastonbury, there are two mysterious deaths and the women of the town are falling ill, and strange crow dolls are appearing in their houses. Back in London, Neil Chapman living in the Wyrd Museum (a strange building owned by the three mysterious Webster sisters) once more enters the 'Separate Collection,' and discovers a stuffed raven that has come back to life. Then one of the Webster sisters go missing, along with Edie Dorkins, the elfin girl brought out of the past to carry on the sisters' work.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fatal_Strand" title="The Fatal Strand">
The final chapter in the Wyrd Museum Trilogy sees Neil Chapman and Edie Dorkins returning exhausted following the events of the previous book at Glastonbury Tor, only to find all is not well at the museum. Having lost one of her sisters, Ursula is behaving suspiciously. The museum knows it is being violated and its past reincarnations blur together with the present, putting all those inside in danger. A final battle for the future of the world is coming, and the Wyrd museum is at the centre of the battleground, but it still has some help to give.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_to_Die" title="1st to Die">
The prologue introduces the main character Inspector Lindsay Boxer, San Francisco P.D., who is in a depression and holding a gun to her head as a result of losing a love interest in a case called "The Honeymoon Murders".Book One begins with David and Melanie Brandt, freshly married, in their hotel room at the Grand Hyatt. A man outside the door calls "Champagne" and David opens the door. The man, Phillip Campbell, then violently kills the bride and groom and immorally brutalizes the corpse of Melanie. The book then cuts to Inspector Lindsay Boxer in her general practitioner's office. The doctor, Dr. Roy Orenthaler, tells Lindsay that she has a rare, and deadly, blood disease called Negli's aplastic anemia. Throughout the book, Lindsay struggles with the physical side-effects of getting blood transfusions for Negli's and the emotional aspect of having a life-threatening disease. During the appointment, she is called to the crime scene of a double murder at the Grand Hyatt. In that scene she is introduced to Cindy Thomas, covering the story. The second pair of bodies are found, and after Lindsay is told she has a new partner due to the sensitivity of the case, Cindy, Lindsay, and medical examiner Claire Washburn join forces to attempt to solve the case.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unicorn_Girl" title="The Unicorn Girl">
Michael is watching Chester's band performing in San Francisco in the 1960s, where he meets the girl of his dreams, Sylvia. She tells Michael she needs help finding her unicorn, Adolphus. After Michael and Chester get to know her, Sylvia explains that she lost Adolphus after she had gotten off of the train. Chester and Michael remember that the last train in their area ran 6 years ago.Sylvia explains that she is from the circus and her crew is looking for Adolphus. She got separated from them after she took a winding road. Sylvia asks Chester to play "Barkus is Willing" while she calls Adolphus because he is fond of woodwind music.When Sylvia sees cars, she doesn't know what they are. Chester and Michael start to wonder if time travel is involved in how Sylvia came to be with them. While searching by a forest, they meet Sylvia's circus friends - Ronald, Arcturian, and Dorothy. The groups decide to split up to search for Adolphus.Sylvia reveals she is from 1936. While in the forest they see a UFO. As it's beginning to move closer, they run away. The UFO disappears in sections and the whole group goes through a blip.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_(Kellerman_novel)" title="Monster (Kellerman novel)">
The mutilated body of an aspiring actor is found in the trunk of a car parked near an industrial area. Weeks later, another body appears in similar condition at another location. This time, the body is a female psychologist, who was working in a state facility for psychotic criminals. One similarity of the mutilations is obvious. The eyes were targeted. The case goes to LAPD detective Milo Sturgis, assisted by Dr. Alex Delaware, an old friend and psychological consultant.The two find out that similar eye mutilations were infamously performed in the case of a family mass murder some years ago, and the culprit is now in the same facility where the female doctor worked. The media had described him simply as a "monster" following his arrest. Facing him, Milo and Alex find the "monster" in a deteriorated condition locked within a highly secured cell. To add to the drama, the detectives get a tip-off that the killer, who hardly speaks, had said something that implied knowledge of the doctor's mutilated eyes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Man" title="The Blue Man">
Steve Forrester is a teenager who goes to live for a summer with his aunt and uncle, who run a rural motel.On his first day running the desk by himself, a strange man checks in, dressed in a scarf, hat, trench coat and gloves, unusual attire for summer. The light on the desk starts to flicker as the man signs in with an illegible scrawl. Later, Steve brings a towel to the stranger's room and sees something that launches him on an unusual and singular adventure: the man's skin is bright blue and he seems to be draining energy from a nearby lamp.After his uncle is seemingly murdered by the fleeing Blue Man (who appears to possibly be of alien origin), Steve sets out on a cross-country search for justice and revenge.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrior_Scarlet" title="Warrior Scarlet">
The story centres on Drem, a young boy who dreams of becoming a warrior and earning the right to wear a kilt of 'Warrior Scarlet' but fears his crippled right arm will prevent this. To pass the test of manhood, he must kill a wolf on his own; those who fail are expelled from the tribe and sent to the 'Half People' who herd sheep on the South Downs.Drem lives with his elder brother Drustic, grandfather, mother and a girl named Blai, abandoned years before by a travelling bronzesmith. He teaches himself to compensate for his disability and at the age of 12 goes to the 'Boys House' to learn how to be a warrior; while there, the Chieftain's son Vortrix becomes his friend and blood brother. At 15, the boys undertake their 'Wolf Slaying' but when it is Drem's turn, he slips and is nearly killed, surviving only when Vortrix wounds the wolf, which escapes.As a result, he is sent to the Half People, only meeting his former friends when they provide the Wolf Guard to protect the sheep. One evening towards the end of winter, Drem sets out to rescue an old shepherd named Doli, who went searching for a lost sheep; he finds him but is attacked by three wolves, including the same one he failed to kill during his Wolf Slaying. This time he succeeds, although badly wounded, and is saved only by the arrival of the Wolf Guard. When Drem recovers, he learns that since it was the same wolf and wounded him in the same place, his previous failure has been wiped clean; he has succeeded and later undergoes the initiation ceremony whereby boys become warriors.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Scoundrels" title="Land of Scoundrels">
The action takes place in the Ural region in 1919. The main protagonist is gangster Nomakh who is shown as a romantic rebel and anarchist hating "those getting fat on Marx". In past he held revolutionary ideas in hopes of liberation of mankind, these aspirations (in their peasant interpretation) were close to Yesenin himself. In the poem Nomakh expresses many of Yesenin's own deep thoughts on love for rebellion and hatred for the unnatural and 'un-Russian' order imposed on Russia by Bolshevik commissars. His adversary Rassvetov (from Russian "rassvet", the raise of new day) is a commissar and his portrait is bleak and schematic comparing to character of Nomakh. Aside from their juxtaposition, one character trait unifying both Nomakh and Rassvetov is their unscrupulousness. Nomakh talks of many gangs multiplying in Russia and of growing ranks of disillusioned rebels ready to kill and plunder. He is full of disregard and contempt to "sheep for whom the shepherd is nurturing knives". This is matched by Rassvetov's amorality who before the revolution participated in gold trading stings on Klondike and whose paramount aim is his own survival. Rassvetov is convinced that fraud is acceptable as a mean to redistribute wealth from rich to poor. He dreams of a "steel enema for the whole of Russia" that will transform and modernize the country.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn_and_the_Anti-Gravity_Paint" title="Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint">
Through a mishap in Professor Bulfinch's laboratory, Danny accidentally creates an anti-gravity paint. In time, the government constructs a spaceship which uses the paint as a propulsion system. The spaceship is launched prematurely after Danny and Joe follow Professor Bullfinch and Dr. Grimes on a tour of the ship. A mechanical failure dooms the four to a trip out of the Solar System unless they can repair the ship. Should they fail in this, they will drift too far from the Sun and freeze to death.The book was published in 1956, one year before the start of the Space Age. It explores the aspects of actual space exploration versus science fiction. Danny's teacher, in an effort to get him to stop daydreaming about space adventures, makes him write repeatedly "Space travel is at least one hundred years away". After his teacher congratulates Danny for his spaceflight, he gives her the punishment assignment which he worked on while on board, and she says she will keep it as a souvenir.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn_and_the_Homework_Machine" title="Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine">
Professor Bullfinch has created a new design of computer in which the government may be greatly interested. He has to go away and leaves Danny Dunn the responsibility of continuing the process of programming data files into it. After using the computer to answer a question for his new friend, neighbour Irene Miller, he gets the idea to have the computer prepare homework. With his friend Joe Pearson and with Irene, they program the contents of textbooks into the computer. They have some success with the machine before it is sabotaged. Danny figures out what is wrong with the machine and corrects the problem. Danny's teacher also learns about the machine, and gives a special challenge to the Homework Champions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn_and_the_Weather_Machine" title="Danny Dunn and the Weather Machine">
Danny accidentally discovers that an ionic transmitter Professor Bulfinch has been working on can be used to create miniature rainclouds.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn_on_the_Ocean_Floor" title="Danny Dunn on the Ocean Floor">
Another accident in Professor Bulfinch's laboratory, instigated by Danny, results in the creation of a transparent, resilient material. The material proves useful in creating a bathysphere, and Professor Bulfinch, along with his friend Dr. Grimes, Danny, Joe, and Irene, descend into the Pacific Ocean on an experimental voyage. Unfortunately, the bathysphere's pilot is rendered unconscious, and the bathysphere becomes trapped in a cave. On their journey, the submarine is examined by a giant squid and attacked by a large shark.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn_and_the_Fossil_Cave" title="Danny Dunn and the Fossil Cave">
Danny and his friend Joe Pearson discover the entrance to a cave in the woods near their home. Professor Bulfinch has just invented a portable x-ray machine, and he, along with his geologist friend Dr. Tresselt see an opportunity to use the device in the cave. The two adults, along with Danny, Joe, and Irene, enter the cave on an expedition. They make an astonishing discovery, but they encounter a significant problem which prevents them from leaving the cave.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Universe_(novel)" title="Dark Universe (novel)">
The Survivors live deep underground in a world of complete darkness, divided into two clans, one living in the Lower Level and one in the Upper Level. Their legends tell of the Original World where man lived alongside the Light Almighty (a concept of which they can no longer conceive) and away from the ultimate evil, Radiation, with its two Lieutenants the Twin Devils Cobalt and Strontium. The Lower Level Survivors venerate a relic known as the Holy Bulb. ""So compassionate was the Almighty" (it was the Guardian of the Way's voice that came back [to Jared] now) "that when He banished man from Paradise, He sent parts of Himself to be with us for a while. And He dwelled in many little vessels like this Holy Bulb"."Jared is the son of the Prime Survivor, the leader of the Lower Level clan. He is himself due to become a Survivor (i.e. an adult clansman), but Jared is too busy with his quest to find Light. He rationalizes that to find distant Light he must first locate its opposite, Darkness, which is near and "abounds in the worlds of men!" He goes on to theorize that:"Darkness must be something real. Only, we can't recognize it."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn,_Time_Traveler" title="Danny Dunn, Time Traveler">
Professor Bullfinch's experiment with a time travel invention is being secretly observed by Danny, Joe, and Irene. The youngsters are startled by the appearance of a second Joe. During the following confusion, the time travel device transports them all into the past. Aided by Benjamin Franklin, the Professor works to return them to their present. While in the past, the youngsters explore the society of American life under British rule, only to find one of their number in danger of being marooned in the past.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn_and_the_Automatic_House" title="Danny Dunn and the Automatic House">
Professor Bullfinch develops the "House of the Future" in which all controls are automatic, and plans to debut it at an upcoming Science Fair. This includes temperature controls and other standard functions, but also items such as washing machines, food preparation and normal housework. Danny, Irene and Joe, as well as Irene's toddler cousin, go to explore the house and become trapped inside, as the locks were automated to have security settings to seal the house until the Professor's introduction. Danny and his friends learn that in addition to the automated locks, everything is only a fake sample and the windows cannot be broken. They are trapped inside with no food or telephone, and the Fair does not open for three days!
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn_and_the_Swamp_Monster" title="Danny Dunn and the Swamp Monster">
Professor Bullfinch and Doctor Grimes take Danny and his friends to the beginning of the Nile River in Africa to investigate local legends of a swamp monster. Despite unforeseen calamities, a new, rare species of electric catfish is discovered..
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn_Scientific_Detective" title="Danny Dunn Scientific Detective">
Professor Bullfinch and Doctor Grimes are working on more scientific ways to fight crime. Danny is facing an issue at school and needs to borrow the equipment to solve the school mystery.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn_and_the_Universal_Glue" title="Danny Dunn and the Universal Glue">
Professor Bullfinch develops a glue which is stronger than any known glue. He christens it "Irenium" in honor of Danny's friend and neighbor Irene. The Blaze Chemical Company, which built a factory after draining a swamp, has leaked a chemical into the water which may cause the local dam to break. Danny, Joe and Irene use a can of Irenium to patch up the dam. In a subplot, Danny also uses the glue as a form of protest against Mr. Blaze by placing it on the backseat of his vehicle, causing Mr. Blaze to be stuck to the seat and having to cut his trousers apart, resulting in a humorous event where an angered Mr. Blaze appears at a town meeting to voice concerns over his chemical company wearing a blanket over his legs, giving the appearance of a kilt. Danny's mother, Mrs. Dunn, who originally protested the draining of the swamp, gives Danny a stern rebuke that the prank was immature and counterproductive, and that Danny is now required to make restitution, meaning he is now in debt to Mr. Blaze to pay for a new pair of men's trousers. Danny humbly sends a letter to Mr. Blaze with all the cash he has on hand, apologizing for what he did with the promise to work out a payment plan. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Red_Schoolbook" title="The Little Red Schoolbook">
The book encourages young people to question societal norms and instructs them on how to do this. Out of 200 pages, it includes 20 pages on sex and 30 on drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. Other topics included adults as "paper tigers", the duties of teachers, discipline, examinations, intelligence, and different schools.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn_and_the_Voice_from_Space" title="Danny Dunn and the Voice from Space">
Professor Bullfinch has created a radio telescope ("dish") for the government which will try to determine if extraterrestrials are trying to contact Earth. When Danny sneaks into the observatory, he hears non-random sounds coming from space. He then must figure out how to translate the sounds.The observatory described in the book is similar to the real life SETI project, which Carl Sagan would also use later in his novel "Contact".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour_Babies" title="Flour Babies">
The story centres around Simon Martin, a pupil in class 4C at an unnamed school. 4C is the class reserved for the school's worst students. As it so happens, a new student has arrived at the school, and, by sheer coincidence, his name is Martin Simon. The two boys are the complete antithesis of each other – Martin Simon passed all his science exams with flying colours, reads voraciously and even speaks and reads French fluently. The class teacher, Mr. Cartright, sends the boy to Dr. Feltham's class, and Simon, who had been sent there by accident, soon arrives. The class are choosing their options for their contribution to the school Science Fair. They wish they could work on one of the most exciting experiments – The Exploding Custard Tins, Soap Factory, or Maggot Farm, for example – but these have been reserved for those who passed their science exams. As a result, 4C have ended up having to choose between a series of boring experiments. First they have to choose a topic – their options are consumer studies, textiles, child development, nutrition, and domestic economy. Simon Martin is given the task of pulling a voting slip out of a tub; Martin Simon's slip comes out, and the topic he has chosen is "child development".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sky_People" title="The Sky People">
In the alternate universe, life exists on Venus and Mars. Because of the discovery, the United States and the Soviet Union have poured all of their resources into space exploration and sent their best and brightest to colonize Venus and Mars. Although there have been a few outbreaks of hostilities on Earth, an uneasy détente exists in space between the Americans and the Soviets, who are struggling for supremacy and supported by their respective allies. The European Union is also anxious not to be excluded from the neocolonial race but is far behind the other powers.In 1962, the Soviets drop planetary probes on Venus and discover people, both humans and Neanderthals, on the planet. Crewed flights by the Soviets and later by the Americans establish bases on the planet (the American one is named Jamestown, the Soviet one Cosmograd) and find other familiar species, including dinosaurs. Both fauna and flora are strangely similar to those from Earth's past.In 1988, Lieutenant Marc Vitrac, a Ranger in the US Aerospace Force, has been on the planet for a year. Born in a Cajun family amidst the Louisiana bayous, his primary function is exploration of the vast wild lands, but at the beginning of the novel, he is tapped to welcome newcomers to the colony.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Man_Little_Man" title="Little Man Little Man">
TJ recounts what he experiences while playing ball outside.TJ plays ball with his friends outside; he grazes his knee, then hurts his buttocks. A police car drives by, looking for a man; they run away. TJ's father then invites WT over for cocoa. Later, TJ goes shopping for Miss Lee, under the aegis of WT. TJ is then summoned by Miss Beanpole; she wants him to go shopping for her; he goes with his three friends. They go to a store whose owner is Puerto Rican. On the way back, while playing ball again, WT hurts his foot and starts bleeding - a bottle fell down from a window and the shards hurt him. They go to Mr Man's and Miss Lee covers up his gash, starts crying, then gives him a Pepsi Cola. In the end, Blinky dances to Mr Man's record, to the delights of Miss Lee and Mr Man.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadkidsongs" title="Deadkidsongs">
The plot centers on Gang, a gang of four boys who play War, led by "the Best Father". All boys envy Andrew for having such a nice dad, while Paul's father is considered "the worst father", a reputation he was never able to shake off, after having told off Andrew's father for neglecting an accident that involved Matthew falling out of a tree.However, their revenge on Paul's father has to make way quickly for a much more serious operation. When Matthew dies of meningitis, and Andrew's father mentions the fact that Matthew's grandparents did not take him to the doctor's in time, the three boys decide to take revenge on them, blaming them for the death of their gang member.Matthew's grandparents, who became substitute parents for him and his sister Miranda, when their parents died in a car crash, are touched by the boys' helpful attitude towards them, and welcome them in their home, not knowing that they're the worst enemy they'll ever know.By then, Andrew, Paul and Peter have started calling them "the Dinosaurs", and their only goal is to "have them extinct by Christmas". A horrific battle ensues, and while Andrew and Paul start fighting for the leadership of Gang, things get out of control.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finding_Myself" title="Finding Myself">
The plot centers on Victoria About, a prolific female English writer, who has invited some of her friends and relatives to come and stay at a seaside house she has rented in Southwold. The only condition is the fact that they all have to allow her to watch them and to turn all she sees and hears into her next novel, "From The Lighthouse". Clearly inspired by Virginia Woolf, Victoria drafts a synopsis with things (such as rows &amp; relationships) that will happen during the month. But as summer holiday starts, Victoria is not pleased with the general boredom and carefree conversations that happen in the house.Little does she know that when the guests discover she has hidden spycams all over the house, and when she gets trapped in the attic by all her friends and relatives, her life and her book start to take a twist.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Visitation_of_Spirits" title="A Visitation of Spirits">
## Horace's plot (1984).Horace Cross is a gay black teenager from Tims Creek, a fictionalized rural town set in what is presumably North Carolina. He is fascinated by science and comic books, and his family is convinced that he is going to make them proud. Horace grows up in a fundamentalist Baptist family who condemn homosexuality, forcing Horace to stay in the closet and constantly wrestle with his own identity. The story starts with an internal dialogue about Horace's desire and quest to turn himself into a bird. When his ritual for this transformation fails, he is apparently possessed by a demon.Armed with his grandfather's gun and almost naked, he walks around his hometown, experiencing flashbacks and revelations which tell the story of his life, his struggles with homosexuality, and the failures of his closest friends and family to save him from his fate. The night ends in a confrontation with his second cousin, James (Jimmy) Greene, at Tims Creek Elementary School. Jimmy attempts to talk Horace out of using the gun, but by then Horace is too far gone and promptly shoots himself before Jimmy's eyes.Randall Kenan utilizes a postmodern narrative structure, in which the sequential order of the novel's plot is rearranged, namely in an intertwining of Horace's night of hallucinations and reflections from both Ezekiel and Jimmy approximately a year later.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freehold_(novel)" title="Freehold (novel)">
In the future Earth has become an oppressive society with pervasive bureaucratic regulation by a global United Nations. Kendra Pacelli is a logistics non-commissioned officer in the UN Protection Force (UNPF) until she is implicated in a scheme that involved stealing millions of dollars worth of materiel from the Protection Force. The UN Investigators are notorious for brutal interrogations of prisoners and exoneration is unlikely even though she is innocent. Warned by a friend, she decides to seek asylum with the Freehold of Grainne, which is independent of UN control.Kendra moves to the colony, though due to the expense of her transit she must enter the colony’s indenturing program. Kendra slowly becomes acclimated to the totally free market society of Freehold. Differences she must deal with include total lack of regulation of anything, pervasive personal firearms ownership, relaxed mores regarding sex and dress, voluntary taxation, almost nonexistent crime, and minimal government infrastructure.The total lack of regulation on commerce causes the UN to impose sanctions on Freehold due to safety concerns which causes Kendra to be laid off from her initial job and enlist in Freehold's military. She is required to go through basic training before she is assigned a billet as a corporal. Her superior sends her to noncommissioned officer training after a short time, believing that war with Earth is imminent and unavoidable.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quincunx" title="The Quincunx">
The novel begins in London with a secret meeting between two legal men. A bribe reveals the confidential details of a correspondent who is the link to a vital hidden document. Meanwhile, young John Mellamphy is growing up in the remote countryside with his mother Mary, ignorant of the name of Huffam. Gradually it becomes clear that they are threatened by the search for the document.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack,_Knave_and_Fool" title="Jack, Knave and Fool">
Sir John treats his household to a performance of Händel's music, but murder introduces a discordant note. Meanwhile, a runaway reprobate and a bodiless head present other problems to the magistrate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greed_(Jelinek_novel)" title="Greed (Jelinek novel)">
The novel tells the story of a policeman who kills a 15-year-old girl while she is performing fellatio and then dumps the body in a lake.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Danny_Meadow_Mouse" title="The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse">
Danny begins his tale regretting the length of his tail until he is corrected by Mr. Toad. Then he has a series of stalkings by Reddy and Granny Fox. He is captured by Hooty the Owl and escapes mid-flight to Peter Rabbit's briar patch. Peter goes to Farmer Brown's peach orchard and gets caught in a snare and barely escapes himself. Finally Danny gets trapped in a tin can and must use his wits to escape Reddy Fox again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Story_(book)" title="Our Story (book)">
"Our Story" is an autobiography by the Kray Twins, assisted by their ghostwriter, first published in 1988. The twins were notorious East End underworld gang leaders during the "swinging" sixties. This book tells their story from their humble beginnings in Bethnal Green to their life imprisonment in 1969, largely in their own words.The hardback and the Pan paperback versions contain 16 pages of black and white photographs of the twins and their friends, associates and enemies/victims.The book's Foreword and its "A Final Word" are authored by Fred Dinenage.Thirteen Chapters are ghostwritten with the twins, jointly and individually. Reg and Ron Kray are credited as the authors of: 1. Memories of an East End Childood; 2. Crime and Punishment; and 8. The Women We Loved. Reg nominally authors: 3. The Swinging Sixties; 6. The Last Supper - the Killing of Jack McVitie; 9. Life in Parkhurst; 11. Life in Gartree; and 13. Just a Thought. Ron nominally authors: 4. The Killing of George Cornell; 5. The Truth about the Mad Axman (i.e. Frank Mitchell); 7. The Trial and the Traitors; 10. Life in Broadmoor ... 'Without my drugs I go mad'; and 12. Poetry and Painting.According to a later edition, Ron Kray died in Broadmoor Hospital in 1995, while Reg was released on compassionate grounds in 2000, only to die of cancer in that October. Reg Kray approached their ghostwriter Dinenage to help them tell their story, because Reggie had admired the journalist's Television South's sports and documentary programmes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djinn_(novel)" title="Djinn (novel)">
In many ways, "Djinn" resembles a detective fiction novel; yet at the same time, it is difficult to class as such. It tells the story of Simon Lecoeur, a thirty-year-old man, who allies himself with an American woman named Jean (Djinn) to act as a counteragent to technology. Djinn/Jean seems to lead Simon on a wild chase through Paris, but as with many of Robbe-Grillet's other works, all is not as it appears.The plot of "Djinn" is surrounded by a frame story, a technique that Robbe-Grillet also employed in his novel "Dans le Labyrinthe" (1959). The police search the home of the narrator, supposed to be Simon Lecoeur, and find the manuscript lying on the desk. The manuscript is named "Le Rendez-vous" ("The Appointment"), which differs from the name of the novel.The Prologue opens with what we assume to be a police report. Simon Lecoeur has been reported missing for several days, so the authorities break into his apartment where they find a manuscript lying on the table. The contents of the manuscript are revealed in the following chapters.The narrator, responding to a newspaper ad, goes to a deserted industrial park to meet his potential boss, Jean. The narrator assumes that Jean is a man and sees him at the end of a building dressed in a coat, hat, and dark glasses. "Monsieur Jean" turns out to be an American woman. Djinn/Jean asks the narrator to join her social cause, and as proof of his fidelity, she asks him to meet someone at the Parisian train station, the Gare du Nord. The narrator stops at a café on his way to the train station. There, a young student tells him that he is going to be late and suggests a short-cut. The narrator assumes that this woman is one of Djinn/Jean's agents, as she seems to know who he is and where he is going.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disunited_States_of_America" title="The Disunited States of America">
The story takes place in the 2090s and concerns two outsiders caught up in a war between Ohio and Virginia: a young girl from California visiting relatives with her grandmother, and a boy from our world's Crosstime Traffic trading firm.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Among_the_Missing_(novel)" title="Among the Missing (novel)">
The novel takes place in Sierra County, California, primarily around the Silver Lake area. The story begins with a man and woman visiting a section of the Silver River referred to as 'the Bend', apparently with the intention of engaging in a romantic tryst. The next day, the woman's decapitated body is discovered by a young couple, Bass and his girlfriend Faye. Sheriff Rusty Hodges and his daughter-in-law, Deputy Mary "Pac" Hodges, are called in to investigate.The pursuit of the killer leads to a complicated series of events involving Merton (a homosexual drug dealer who was seen running from the scene of the crime), the dead woman's husband, and a revenge scheme involving two of the main characters.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English,_August" title="English, August">
The posting starts off as a tremendous culture shock for Agastya, a city boy. However, it eventually becomes one long philosophical journey and a process of self discovery. Written by a civil servant, the novel manages to capture the essence of an entire generation of Indians, whose urban realities jar in sharp contrast to that of rural India.Agastya Sen's sense of dislocation is only compounded by his extreme lack of interest in the bizarre ways of government and administration, while his mind is dominated by the "Meditations" of Marcus Aurelius and images from his previous urban life. His work in Madna would ideally require him to be a devoted servant of the people.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_of_the_Black_Rose" title="Knight of the Black Rose">
On the fabled world of Krynn, Lord Soth finally learns that there is a price to pay for his long history of evil deeds, a price even an undead warrior might find horrifying. Dark powers transport Soth to Barovia, and there the death knight must face the dread minions of Count Strahd Von Zarovich, the vampire lord of the nightmare land. But with only a captive Vistani woman and an untrustworthy ghost for allies, Lord Soth soon discovers that he may have to join forces with the powerful vampire if he is ever to escape the realm of terror. Knight of the Black Rose is the second in an open-ended series of Gothic horror tales dealing with the masters and monsters of the Ravenloft dark fantasy setting.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_of_the_Dead_(novel)" title="Dance of the Dead (novel)">
The story follows the adventures of Larisa Snowmane, a dancer who travels across the land of Ravenloft by ship. The captain of the ship has evil intentions, however, and the ship comes to land at an island full of zombies. Larisa, along with some of the living inhabitants of the island, must perform a magical dance called the Dance of the Dead to save herself from the captain.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapestry_of_Dark_Souls" title="Tapestry of Dark Souls">
An order of monks are tasked to keep safe an object of unspeakable evil. The object, a tapestry, lures those of evil intentions to its threads, absorbing them. The order of monks, The Guardians, are the only line of defense against the tapestry's power. However, when a couple mysteriously arrive in the land known as Markovia they are drawn to the tapestry. After successfully stealing the tapestry, the couple make their way to the neighboring country of Tepest. Upon arriving the wife, Leith, finds out that her husband, Vhar, stole the tapestry. She becomes possessed by it, almost killing her husband and escapes to try to return the tapestry, but not before it consumes Vhar. As she makes her way back, she encounters a wolf which bites her. Even with the bite, she manages to make it back, but the tapestry has other plans for her. With the help of the Guardians, she recovers. She returns to Tepest and discovers she is pregnant. After a horrific experience, she runs to the safety of the Guardians and after having her child, she vanishes. The child, Jonathan, may be the Guardians only chance of controlling and stopping the tapestry. However, he may be the one to release its evil into the world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_of_Fear" title="Carnival of Fear">
In a centuries-old grand carnival in the realm of l'Morai run by the Puppetmaster, the apparent murder of a carnival dwarf leads to a trial to find the killer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enemy_Within_(novel)" title="The Enemy Within (novel)">
Sir Tristan Hiregaard periodically transforms into Malken, an evil beastly creature who controls a large criminal empire. Tristan is terrified by these transformations, and sets out to destroy his evil side.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_My_Honor" title="On My Honor">
Tony first wanted to go to the Starved Rock Cliff to climb but Joel disagrees as someone died last year when he tried climbing it. When Joel is told by his father not to go beyond Starved Rock and to turn back if they get tired, Joel promises, "On my honor." Joel and Tony are best friends despite their different characteristics. Tony, however, changes his mind and goes swimming in the river by Starved Rock. Joel does not want anyone to get hurt, yet he also does not want to seem like a coward in front of Tony. Joel suggests a swimming race in a forbidden, treacherous river, although Tony might not be a good swimmer. Joel ends up winning the race, but when he turns to look back at Tony, he finds that he has disappeared. Tony has drowned in the river they were told never to swim in as he could not swim. Joel tries to find Tony in the river but is unable. Joel calls a nearby car over, and the people inside try to help, but they cannot find Tony. Then the cops come to investigate the death of Tony. Joel lives with the horrible secret until Joel and Tony's families, plus the police, find out. Joel decides to confess what has happened. Joel's father also feels the blame for Tony's death. He tries to comfort Joel to sleep once the cops leave.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floodgate_(novel)" title="Floodgate (novel)">
A mysterious terrorist organization known as the "FFF" has detonated a mine which bursts dykes in the Netherlands and caused massive flooding of Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. Unless their demands are met (i.e. immediate withdrawal of all British military forces from Northern Ireland), they threaten to detonate more mines, flooding Holland beneath a wall of water from the North Sea.Colonel van de Graaf, the Amsterdam Chief of Police, puts Detective Lieutenant Peter van Effen, a man with a sardonic sense of humor and many hidden talents, in charge of the investigation. Lieutenant van Effen is also an undercover operative with connections to a Dutch criminal gang; posing as a criminal explosives expert and with the help of fellow undercover officers Vasco (as a corrupt Dutch Army officer) and George (as a black market arms dealer), he sets out to infiltrate the FFF and sabotage their plans one way or another. Matters, however, take an unexpected and dangerous turn when van Effen's sister Julie and Annemarie Meijer (an undercover policewoman and the daughter of a powerful Dutch industrialist) are kidnapped and held hostage by the FFF.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Documents_in_the_Case" title="The Documents in the Case">
This is an epistolary novel, told primarily in the form of letters between some of the characters, using the multiple narrative technique associated with Modernist novelists of the period. This collection of documents—hence the novel's title—is explained as a dossier of evidence collected by the victim's son as part of his campaign to obtain justice for his father.Novelist John Munting shares, with former public school contemporary and talented painter Harwood Lathom, a rented top floor flat in respectably suburban Bayswater, London. The landlord and downstairs neighbour, Harrison, is a staid, middle-aged widower who has remarried. His new wife Margaret is younger, attractive, passionate and self-absorbed. Lathom and Mrs Harrison begin an affair, the husband suspecting nothing, and Lathom paints a remarkable portrait of her. Creeping downstairs to meet his mistress one night, Lathom encounters the Harrisons' neurotic live-in spinster companion, Agatha Milsom, who mistakes him for Munting in the dark and makes accusations of assault. Faced with Harrison's furious reaction and glad of an excuse to leave a distasteful situation, Munting moves out and marries his fiancée. Lathom departs for Paris and his portrait of Mrs Harrison, exhibited at the Royal Academy, makes his reputation on the London art scene.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inheritance_(Paolini_novel)" title="Inheritance (Paolini novel)">
The Varden attack the Empire city of Belatona. In the battle, Saphira, Eragon's dragon, is nearly killed by a Dauthdaert, a spear from the Dragon Wars that can bypass magical wards and kill dragons. Belatona is captured by the Varden, and an alliance is later formed between the Varden and the werecats.Afterwards, Eragon's cousin Roran is sent on a mission to capture Aroughs, which he succeeds at using unconventional tactics. Roran rejoins the Varden at Dras-Leona, which proves difficult to take, as it is under protection by Murtagh and his dragon Thorn. Jeod finds information about a possible entrance to the city via an incomplete sewer system under it.Eragon, Arya, Angela, the werecat Solembum, and an elf named Wyrden enter this sewer system, to sneak into the city and open the gates. However, the mission goes awry, as the tunnels are used by the priests of Helgrind, who separate the group, slay Wyrden, and capture Eragon and Arya. The priests worship the Ra'zac, and attempt to feed Eragon and Arya to Ra'zac hatchlings, although Angela and Solembum save them. Eragon is then able to open the city gates and defeat Murtagh and Thorn, allowing the Varden to take the city. As Eragon and Arya become drunk to celebrate their victory, Murtagh and Thorn attack their camp and capture Nasuada. In her absence, Eragon is appointed as the leader of the Varden, as they march on to Urû'baen, the capital of the Empire.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Elephant_Chase" title="The Great Elephant Chase">
Tad Hawkins is 15 years old and lives in the fictional Pennsylvania mining town of Markle. After his mother died in childbirth, he was taken in by his overbearing aunt, who treats him as an unpaid servant, existing only to be bossed around and humiliated by Mr Jackson, the lodger, and Esther, the hired help. Tad's life is changed when he gets caught up in a crowd on their way to see a travelling elephant show which has just arrived in town. After witnessing the "miracle cure" of a young crippled girl by the elephant keeper, he spots Esther and Mr Jackson in the crowd and hides in the elephant's trailer. Before he can escape, Khush, the elephant, is loaded into the trailer and Tad is on his way to another town. When Tad is discovered by Michael Keenan, the elephant keeper, he discovers that the cripple who was cured in Markle is in fact Keenan's younger daughter, Cissie. Keenan offers Tad a job looking after Khush to keep him from exposing the scam. Tad takes to life with Khush and the Keenans. However, Tad is not the only person to have discovered the scam. Mr Jackson and Esther are on the Keenans' tail.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_of_Death" title="River of Death">
In 1945, with the Allies approaching, two German officers ransack a monastery in Greece and make plans to escape with the loot. One of the Germans is left behind by his partner, while the other escapes by submarine from Wilhelmshaven. Twenty years elapse. A wealthy millionaire, Smith, hires Hamilton, allegedly an expert on the jungle, to lead him to the ruins of a lost Indian civilization recently discovered in the wilderness of the Amazon jungle in Brazil. The entourage faces giant anacondas, giant spiders (only mentioned in a conversation), cannibalistic natives, and so on, discovering a settlement of Nazi war criminals and their descendants, living as if the Third Reich had never ended. It is soon clear that Smith's real purpose has little to do with archaeology, and more to do with revenge.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrift_in_Soho" title="Adrift in Soho">
The story opens in the late summer of 1955. Nineteen-year-old Harry Preston, having been granted an early discharge from national service with the RAF, moves to London from a small English provincial town to find life and adventure. Fancying himself as a writer, he drifts towards the central district of Soho, and soon enough he is included in the destitute but creative environment of the new Beat Generation. Harry meets an out of work actor, James Street. Street introduces Harry to the bohemian way of life and the novel recounts their misadventures. Harry travels upwards through this new world of wannabe artists, poets and writers, that have set up camp in the bohemian and not so posh 50s Soho and Notting Hill, he begins to slowly understand his role in this world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawitch" title="Seawitch">
Lord Worth, ruthless and fabulously wealthy, has made a lot of enemies in the oil business. His new offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, named "Seawitch", is one of the biggest in the world, and will put his competitors out of business. To destroy it and therefore be able to inflate the price of oil at will, the competitors get together and send one man to deal with Lord Worth. The villain has a personal score to settle with Worth and kidnaps him and his daughters. But Lord Worth's daughters are betrothed to the protagonists, Mitchell and Roomer, two former police detectives, now private investigators. They set trying to save Worth and his daughters from certain death, as the villain intends to leave them on "Seawitch" when he destroys it with a stolen nuclear weapon.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Dream" title="Dark Dream">
Dark Dream tells the story of Falcon and Sara. Sara is Falcon's lifemate; he has returned to his homeland to meet the now Prince Mikhail Dubrinsky &amp; his lifemate Raven (hope of their species) in the thought of ending his barren existence little did he know life more for him. Who has sought his true love for centuries, for only she can save him from becoming a vampire, a beast driven to kill and destroy. When he rescues Sara Marten from a gang of street punks, he knows he has found the woman he has sought all his life .Sara has spent fifteen years hiding from a vampire who destroyed her family when she was a girl. At first, she believes Falcon to be him, or something like him. When she learns the truth, she accepts what must be, but holds off on committing to him until the children she has been rescuing and caring for are safe. Will she be able to escape the one who wants her death and give her love to her destined mate before he becomes a monster equal to the one hunting her?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_William's_Luck" title="Just William's Luck">
The Brown family are exasperated by William, and Emily the maid is tired of being ordered about.Meanwhile, William is in the old barn with Henry and Douglas, in a make-believe game of 'The Knights of the Round Table', when Ginger arrives on a fabulous bicycle. The Outlaws
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bloody_Red_Baron" title="The Bloody Red Baron">
The book takes place during World War I and explores the Diogenes Club's efforts to investigate Germany's attempt to make powerful, undead fliers. Heading up the German operations are the likes of Rotwang, Doctor Caligari and Doctor Mabuse. One of their more successful efforts is an undead flier known as the Red Baron. The story also features Edgar Allan Poe as a vampire writer assigned to ghostwrite the Red Baron's autobiography.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wednesday_Wars" title="The Wednesday Wars">
Holling Hoodhood is a seventh grader during the 1967–1968 school year. In his school, the student body is largely divided between Catholics and Jews, and every Wednesday both groups go to their separate churches for religious classes. Holling, a Presbyterian, has no religious class to attend, therefore he is forced to remain at class with his teacher, Mrs. Baker.Holling is convinced that Mrs. Baker resents him for this. This suspicion is compounded when she begins having him read Shakespeare. As he begins to enjoy the plays, though, he also begins to understand Mrs. Baker, whose husband, he learns, is stationed in Vietnam.The story's main focus is on Holling's struggle to get out from his overbearing father's shadow. Mr. Hoodhood is an ambitious, social climbing, and at times, cutthroat architect who is determined that Holling should take over the business when he retires. In fact, Mr. Hoodhood believes that nothing is more important than their family business and ensuring that it flourishes. Because of this, all of the Hoodhoods must be on their best behavior at all times. Whenever Holling brings up a particular person, his father breaks down who the person is, as well as their status; if they're someone who owns a business, Mr. Hoodhood demands Holling to be respectful at all times. This causes a strained relationship between Holling and his father. Holling ultimately finds an ally in his older sister, Heather, and eventually comes to understand that Mrs. Baker is also trying to help him learn to be his own person.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_Dracula" title="Anno Dracula">
The interplay between humans who have chosen to "turn" into vampires and those who are "warm" (humans) is the backdrop for the plot which tracks Jack the Ripper's politically charged destruction of vampire prostitutes. The reader is alternately and sympathetically introduced to various points of view. The main characters are Jack the Ripper, and his hunters Charles Beauregard (an agent of the Diogenes Club), and Geneviève Dieudonné, an elder French vampire (a similar version of Dieudonné appeared in Newman's trilogy of novels, written under the pseudonym Jack Yeovil, for the Warhammer Fantasy universe).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula_Cha_Cha_Cha" title="Dracula Cha Cha Cha">
In 1959, several of the world's notable vampires gather in Rome for the wedding of Count Dracula. Nefarious schemes are afoot and being investigated by British Intelligence, the Diogenes Club, and several others, including a British spy on the trail of a sinister madman with a white cat.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Wild_Ride_Through_the_Night" title="A Wild Ride Through the Night">
The story begins with 12-year-old Gustave, captain of the "Aventure" as he attempts to escape the deadly Siamese Twins Tornado. When the storm finally catches up with his crew, everyone is killed except Gustave, who meets Death, and his crazy sister Dementia. After the wicked siblings play dice for Gustave's soul, Death gives him six seemingly impossible tasks in order to stay alive. In one night, he must face six giants, rescue a damsel in distress from the clutches of a dragon, make himself conspicuous amidst a forest of evil spirits, encounter the Most Monstrous of all Monsters, and even meet himself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Gate_(MacLean_novel)" title="The Golden Gate (MacLean novel)">
A team of criminals led by mastermind Peter Branson kidnaps the President of the United States and his two guests from the Middle East, a prince and a king, on San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, in a masterfully conceived and clockwork-timed operation. Branson and his men block off both ends of the bridge, wire it with explosives, and demand half a billion dollars and a full pardon for themselves. Any rescue attempts will result in the detonation of the explosives, which will kill the President (and his guests) and destroy the Golden Gate Bridge.However, Branson is an egomaniac, and he cannot resist attention from the media. So he invites the press to stay on the bridge and cover the story. Aware that the FBI will have placed agents among them, he takes the precaution of searching them and removing the armed ones. However, Hagenbach (the FBI's dour but extremely adept head agent) has an ace in the hole: a hand-picked special agent, Paul Revson, who was equipped with only a camera. Allowed to remain on the bridge, Revson sets out to foil Branson's plans and rescue the President.With the help of a doctor and a female journalist, Revson gets a message to his superiors, suggesting various courses of action: supplying drugged food to the terrorists, placing a submarine under the bridge, and trying to neutralize the terrorists' equipment with a laser beam. He also arranges for several carefully disguised weapons and gadgets to be smuggled to him. Working on both ends, Revson, Hagenbach, and those working with them unleash their own carefully conceived plans.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_Hunter_D_(novel)" title="Vampire Hunter D (novel)">
It is the year 12,090 A.D. The world has all but ended, ravaged in a firestorm of man's wars and madness. But from the wreckage, a few humans manage to survive- a few humans... and something else.Doris Lang knew what her fate would be when the vampire lord Count Magnus Lee bit her: an agonizing transformation into one of the undead, doomed to be stalked by her fellow villagers or cursed to become the bride of the unholy creature and face an eternity of torment, driven by the thirst for human blood. There was but one option left, and as she watched him ride in from the distance she knew there was hope. Salvation... from a vampire hunter named D.Magnus has his own problems. His beautiful daughter Larmica refuses to let a human into her family. Enlisting the help of Garo, a werewolf retainer, she attempts to kill Doris before the wedding, only to find D standing against her.Greco Rohman, son of the chief, wants Doris for himself. The same goes for the skilled fighter Rei-Ginsei and his Fiend Corps. Both men are eager to eliminate D, as his skills and Doris' favor make them see him as a threat. Doris knows she isn't the only one in trouble - her younger brother is perceived as her weakness, and more than one person is willing to use him as leverage against her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuffle_Bunny_Too" title="Knuffle Bunny Too">
In the book, young Trixie Willems realizes that her classmate Sonja has the same type of "Knuffle Bunny" toy rabbit that she does. When the jealous girls begin arguing, their teacher, Mrs. Greengrove confiscates the stuffed bunnies, returning them at the end of the school day. At 2:30 A.M, Trixie realizes that her teacher has given her Sonja's Knuffle Bunny, and asks Mo to call Sonja's house to exchange toy rabbits. The two girls immediately become friends.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Omaha" title="The Road to Omaha">
Several years after the events of "The Road to Gandolfo", the Hawk has discovered a long-forgotten treaty between the US government and a tribe of Native Americans. This treaty granted the tribe a vast area of land that has since become Omaha, Nebraska, and includes the home of the Strategic Air Command at Offutt Air Base. Posing as a member of the tribe, the Hawk plans to bring suit against the United States and force it to give the land to the tribe. To further this goal, he ropes Devereaux (now retired from the military) into representing the tribe in court.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_in_Landscape" title="Girl in Landscape">
Pella Marsh is the only daughter and eldest child in a family that is leaving behind New York City, in a near-future where the Earth has sustained severe damage from climate change. Before they can leave, Caitlin, Pella's mother, dies of a brain tumour, leaving Clement, her ineffectual father, to try to care for Pella and her brothers, Raymond and David.After twenty months of cryogenic suspended animation, the Marshs reach the Planet of the Archbuilders. This oceanless planet is inhabited by an advanced alien species known only as the Archbuilders, who are hermaphrodites. They built the complex and beautiful arch-like structures that dominate the terrain, terraformed their planet to provide a controlled climate, and used bioengineering to create several varieties of readily grown "potatoes" for a constant food supply. The Archbuilders themselves are furry and scaled creatures, with frond-like tentacles. There are also small, nearly invisible animals called "household deer," which inhabit most every corner of the region without much obvious impact. Despite their apparent lack of high technology, the Archbuilders are skilled communicators, and have twenty thousand indigenous languages on their world. They also rarely give birth, implying considerable longevity.Like the other colonists, Pella is instructed to take acclimatisation pills, ostensibly to ward off indigenous Archbuilder viruses, but, because of her father's new plans for the humans in living with the world, she does not take them—much to the chagrin of the enigmatic resident Efram Nugent. After some time, rather like Ethan Edwards and Debbie in "The Searchers" (1956), Efram and Pella develop a love/hate relationship as she resists his misanthropic and speciesist attitudes toward both his fellow colonists and the Archbuilders.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Story_(Kray_book)" title="My Story (Kray book)">
This book is the follow-up to the jointly written "Our Story" (1988) by both Ronnie and Reggie Kray.In "My Story", Ronnie describes in his own words the murders of Jack "the Hat" McVitie and George Cornell, his bisexuality, and his feelings about spending 11 years in Parkhurst followed by his later years in Broadmoor Hospital for the criminally insane. Also included is a chapter written by Ronnie's wife, Kate Kray, and 21 photographs depicting the young Krays, their family, friends, and victims.Quote from book: "They were the best years of our lives. They called them the swinging Sixties. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were the rulers of pop music, Carnaby Street ruled the fashion world... and me and my brother ruled London. We were fucking untouchable..." - Ronnie Kray.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_in_Death" title="Conspiracy in Death">
Lt. Eve Dallas and her assistant, Delia Peabody, are called to a crime scene by Officer Ellen Bowers and Officer Troy Trueheart. A homeless man is killed, and his heart is removed with the skill of a surgeon. Dallas and Peabody both know a serial killer is preying on the city sidewalk sleepers. All of the city's resources, including Eve's billionaire husband Roarke, give her no solid leads, except a free clinic run by a noble and an honest doctor, Dr. Louise Dimatto. Soon though, three are dead, and Eve is running out of time.Unfortunately for Eve, trouble is also coming from within the police force. Officer Ellen Bowers is deranged and obsessed with Eve. She obsessively writes a journal about all the terrible things that she believes Eve has done. One night, going home to her apartment, still obsessing, Bowers is attacked and killed.The blame is quickly placed on Eve, who is stripped of her badge and goes into a deep depression. Only her husband Roarke can bring her back and help her figure out why four people are dead and what the terrible jealousy was that motivated these murders.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_(novel)" title="Federation (novel)">
The first half of the novel involves three parallel arcs. In one arc, Zefram Cochrane has just completed the first warp speed voyage, a solo journey to Alpha Centauri and back. His is the first successful crewed flight beyond the Sol system. His benefactor and backer, Micah Brack, exploits the warp drive to help humanity burst into the stars and safeguard the future of the race, which he foresees disaster for because of the "Optimum Movement", perfectionists who are trying to perfect Khan Noonien Singh's failed attempt to unify and improve humanity.A second arc covers James Kirk and his crew, just after the successful conference on admitting Coridan into the Federation. Kirk is hauled onto the carpet by a Starfleet admiral demanding that he explain a subspace message showing "dead" Commissioner Nancy Hedford. Kirk discovers that Cochrane was kidnapped from his and Nancy's home at Gamma Canaris.A third arc covers Jean-Luc Picard and his crew, just after dropping off Sarek of Vulcan to another ship for his voyage home from the Legaran home world. A Ferengi ship leads them to a Romulan ship, whose commander is giving Picard what appears to be a section of a Borg ship, but with a Preserver artifact incorporated into it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Firing_Offense" title="A Firing Offense">
Nick Stefanos is a marketing executive for electrical goods chain Nutty Nathan's. When a stock boy from the company disappears he is convinced to locate the boy by his grandfather.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Circle_of_Paradise" title="The Final Circle of Paradise">
Ivan Zhilin, posing as a writer working on a novel, visits a seaside resort city to investigate a series of mysterious deaths. Zhilin's role as an undercover agent becomes apparent to the reader only gradually and is not brought into the open until the final chapters of the novel.While being given a tour of the city, a tourism official tells Zhilin that he will get no work done, as he will be distracted by the "twelve circles of paradise" found in the city. These include the Fishers, which provide thrill seekers with situations of extreme and potentially fatal terror, the Shivers, which electronically induce pleasurable dreams to large crowds of people, and the Society of Patrons of Arts, who procure priceless works of art and ritualistically destroy them. The culture of this city has become utterly decadent, the product of an age of universal affluence. Zhilin refers to the present state of the world as "the age of the boob" where the highest priority is placed on orgiastic pleasure and staving off boredom, to the neglect of culture, education and scientific progress. The authors express the Marxist perspective in the scene of an argument between Zhilin and a third-world revolutionary:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick's_Trip" title="Nick's Trip">
Nick Stefanos is a bartender at a neighborhood place called "The Spot". His high-school friend Billy Goodrich asks him to search for his missing wife.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Starbucks_Saved_My_Life" title="How Starbucks Saved My Life">
Michael Gates Gill had it all by his fifties: a mansion in the suburbs, a wife and loving children, a six-figure salary, and an Ivy League education. Within a few years, he lost his job, got divorced, and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. With no money or health insurance, he got a job at Starbucks.An unexpected teacher opens his eyes to what living well really looks like. She is a young African American, the daughter of a drug addict; he is used to being the boss but reports to her now. For the first time in his life he experiences being a member of a minority trying hard to survive in a challenging new job. He learns the value of hard work and humility, as well as what it truly means to respect another person.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_Gump_(novel)" title="Forrest Gump (novel)">
Forrest Gump, named after Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest, narrates the story of his life. The author uses misspellings and grammatical errors to indicate the character's Southern accent, education, and cognitive disabilities. While living in Mobile, Alabama, Forrest meets Jenny Curran in first grade and walks her home. They become the best of friends.By the time Forrest is sixteen years old, he is 6' 6" (1.98 m), 242 pounds (110 kg), and plays high school football. Miss Henderson, with whom Forrest is infatuated, gives him reading lessons. He reads Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and two other books that he does not remember. While he enjoys the books, he does not do well on tests.He gains popularity as a football player, making the All State team. When Forrest is called to the principal's office, he meets noted university coach Bear Bryant, who asks if he'd considered playing college football. After high school, Forrest takes a test at a local army recruitment center, and is told he is "Temporarily Deferred."Forrest and Jenny meet again at the University of Alabama and play together in a folk music band at the student union, covering songs by such singers as Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and Peter, Paul and Mary. After one semester, Forrest flunks out of the university. He and his friend Bubba are drafted into the Army, but Bubba dies in the Vietnam War. Forrest is wounded and meets Lieutenant Dan, who has lost his legs, in the infirmary. Dan tells Forrest the he feels Forrest is destined for something great.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Lonely_Night" title="One Lonely Night">
After having been berated by a little judge because of killing somebody who needed knocking off bad, licensed investigator Mike Hammer goes for a walk to contemplate this humiliation on a rainy night in Manhattan and comes across a terrified woman and her pursuer on a bridge. Mike kills the man but the woman, terrified, jumps to her death from the bridge. Both the man and the woman possessed oddly shaped green cards with the edges cut off at odd angles. Hammer's friend in the police department, Captain of Homicide Pat Chambers, identifies them as membership cards for the local Communist Party. Mike attends a meeting and is mistaken for a Soviet MGB spy.Next day, Chambers tells Hammer that Lee Deamer, a political candidate running on an anti-corruption ticket has an insane twin brother named Oscar who is causing problems and asks Hammer to investigate; but when Hammer goes to Oscar's address, Oscar runs off and throws himself in front of a train, leaving his body unrecognisable.Lee Deamer tells Hammer that Oscar was trying to blackmail him with documents, now missing, and asks Hammer to recover the documents. Hammer, hindered by the Communists, eventually works out where the stolen papers are and retrieves them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Kill" title="The Big Kill">
Drinking at a seedy bar on a rainy night, Hammer notices a man come in with an infant. The man, named Decker, cries as he kisses the infant, then walks out in the rain and is shot dead. Hammer shoots the assailant as he searches Decker's body. The driver of the getaway car runs over the man Hammer shot to ensure that he won't talk. Hammer takes care of the child and vows revenge on the person behind the deed.Next morning Mike awakens to the telephone ringing and to find the kid making a play for Mike's .45. After getting an elderly retired nurse from downstairs to look after the kid, Mike visits friend and police chief Pat Chambers, who reads a report to Mike about the kid's father William Decker, an ex-con gone bad. William pulled a robbery on Riverside Drive the same night prior to his murder by ex-con Arnold Basil, a stooge for Lou Grindle. After leaving Pat, Mike heads on over to the East Side where William lived and meets superintendent John Vilecks and the local Father who said that William was playing it straight and left a will to take care of the kid. William's only visitor was fellow dock worker Mel Hooker. Mike heads on over to Riverside Drive, the site of the robbery to meet Marsha Lee an ex-Hollywood actress who was hurt in the robbery. Marsha thinks the robbery was really planned for the apartment above hers since she had nothing of real value to steal.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_Me,_Deadly" title="Kiss Me, Deadly">
Chapter 1:Speeding down a mountain road coming back from Albany, New York, PI Mike Hammer almost runs over a woman hitch hiking in the middle of the road. After Mike's car skids to a stop, she gets in the car and they drive to Manhattan only later to be run off the road by gangsters. The gangsters torture the woman for information, which she fails to tell them. They kill her and knock Mike semi-unconscious, and then stuff them both into Mike's car and push the car over a cliff.Chapters 2-6: Recovering in the hospital, Mike wakes to the sound of Velda's voice. After his release from the hospital, Mike meets with the FBI. Mike learns from Pat Chambers that the woman, Berga Torn, was the mistress of Carl Evello. She was to testify at a committee hearing after she was released from the sanitarium.Velda's visit to Mike brings bad news: His PI licence was revoked by the Feds. Pat gives Mike the address of Berga Torn in Brooklyn. Berga had a roommate named Lily Carver, who just moved out of the apartment. Mike gets Lily's address from the superintendent and heads to her place.Protecting herself with a hand gun, Lily lets Mike inside her apartment. Lily was scared to death with all the strangers confronting her with questions about Berga, but Lily doesn't know a thing. After Lily calms down, Mike tells her to get her things together and come to his place.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Hunters" title="The Girl Hunters">
Hammer has been a drunk living in gutters around New York City for the past seven years. Hammer's secretary and fiancée, Velda, is believed to be dead after a botched protection job involving a Chicago socialite and her new husband. Then, Hammer is apprehended and taken to an undisclosed location, where he is interrogated by former friend Captain Pat Chambers. Chambers, who blames Hammer for Velda's death, pummels him repeatedly, but slacks off. Richie Cole, a dock worker, is dying of severe gunshot wounds at City General Hospital and has insisted on talking to Hammer exclusively to reveal the identity of his killer. Hammer, upon interviewing the victim, discovers that Velda is still alive and facing execution by a top level Soviet assassin dubbed "The Dragon," her only chance being Hammer finding her first. The man tells Hammer that he has left clues to her location, but dies immediately afterwards.The alarming news causes Hammer to sober up and prepare to go out on his own, despite being out of commission. He soon discovers the pressure is on from Pat to discover the killer's identity. Despite many threats, Hammer successfully brushes off Chambers, but then finds himself being muscled by a Federal Agent named Art Rickerby. Rickerby reveals to Hammer that Richie Cole was a field agent and his former protégé. In order to gain information and gun carrying privileges, Hammer makes deals with Rickerby, the condition being that Hammer brings him the Dragon alive.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravan_to_Vaccarès" title="Caravan to Vaccarès">
From all over Europe, even from behind the Iron Curtain, Gypsies make an annual pilgrimage to the holy shrine of their patron saint, Saint Sarah, in the Provence region of southern France. But something is different about this year's gathering, with many suspicious deaths. Cecile Dubois and Neil Bowman, a British agent, decide to investigate.Eavesdropping, Bowman discovers that a man named Gaiuse Strome is financing the gypsies, and his suspicions on the real identity of Strome centre on a highly wealthy aristocrat, distinguished folklorist and gastronome, Le Grand Duc Charles de Croytor, whose girlfriend Lila Delafont is a friend of Cecile. As they follow the caravan, Bowman and Cecile find that their lives are in danger many times in an effort to uncover the secret the gypsies are so determined to hide, and before long are running for their lives.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_Girl_and_the_Man_Who_Followed_the_Sun" title="Bird Girl and the Man Who Followed the Sun">
Jutthunvaa' is called Bird Girl. She and Daagoo (Snow grouse) are members of two different clans of the people of the Gwich'in, belonging to the Athabaskan tribes. The two young people want to be free. So both sets out, each for itself, through the country. Their parents disapprove of such useless, inappropriate trips. Once Bird Girl and Daagoo meet in the back country. From this point their paths diverge.With reluctance, Daagoo goes with the hunters of his clan on a caribou hunt. After the hunt, the wandering Daagoo finds all hunters to whom also his father counts murdered. The murderers are, to Daagoo's view, invaders from the north - Inupiat, called by the Gwich'in Ch'eekwais (Inuit). Daagoo reflects and hurries to the rest of his clan, who are still alive. He leads the women, old men and children out of danger. Daagoo practices hunting with the boys in the new camp. When the clan's survival is finally secured, Daagoo has realized his dream. He leaves the icy regions of his home and moves southward to the Land of the Sun.Meanwhile, the parents of Bird Girl want to marry her off. Defiantly, she escapes because she wants to prevent the dreaded pregnancy. Bird Girl would like to fight through on her own initiative. Bird Girl finds a faraway cave and puts away winter provisions—only there is no caribou meat. Bird Girl goes on a caribou hunt. Bird Girl is overpowered by a Ch'eekwai man, whose father was killed by Gwich'in, and is kidnapped northwards. As a slave, Bird Girl must bend to the will of her torturer and becomes pregnant. The newborn child, a boy, is taken away from her and is raised by a young Ch'eekwai woman. The three brothers of Bird Girl never give up the search for their sister in the following polar summers. During one of their expeditions in the north they are murdered by Ch'eekwais. When the murderers play football with the heads of the beaten brothers for all the world to see, it is the last straw. Bird Girl takes revenge. At night she plugs the smoke holes of the Ch'eekwai dwellings, and all the sleeping Ch'eekwai suffocate, even her own son. This had turned away from the mother. Bird Girl moves home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Blowdown" title="The Big Blowdown">
In 1940s Washington, Pete Karras is betrayed by his friend Joe Recevo and disabled by his former employer Mr. Burke. Karras takes up a job in Nick Stefanos' diner but when Burke's protection racket threatens Stefanos, Karras resists and ultimately gets his revenge.The book opens with a gravely injured Peter Karras in a D.C. hospital in 1946. The plot flashes back to Karras and his friends as children in 1933. Karras gets into a fight with a group of African-American boys and his opponent, Junior Oliver, earns his grudging respect. Next the story jumps to 1944 and the Philippines theatre of World War II. Karras kills his first man and one of his childhood friends, Billy Nicodemus, is killed. Next the book returns to 1946 and we learn Karras has married Eleni, and how he came to be injured. Karras flippant attitude upsets his superior Mr. Burke and when Karras fails to collect a debt from another Greek Burke decides to have him punished. He instructs Recevo to betray his friend Karras. Burke dispatches his enforcer Reed to assault Karras after Recevo sets him up. Reed beats Karras with a baseball bat.When promiscuous Lola disappears in 1948 after moving to Washington her brother Mike Florek decides to search for her. Eventually Florek takes a job at Nick Stefanos' diner in 1949. Karras is now working there as a chef. Jimmy Boyle, now a beat cop, has become peripherally involved in the investigation of the murder of several prostitutes by a serial killer. Karras correctly suspects that Lola has become a prostitute and aids Florek in his search. Lola's madam Lydia is murdered by the killer and Lola witnesses the crime. Boyle locates Lola for Karras and Karras and Florek extract her from Morgan's brothel. Karras lets Florek and Lola leave town.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Crusader" title="The Dark Crusader">
Eight top-level scientists and their wives disappear after responding to newspaper advertisements for specialists in different areas of modern technology, so when a ninth advertisement appears, Agent John Bentall is recalled to London from a mission in Turkey by his superior, Colonel Raine. The advertisements offered high rates of pay to applicants who were married, had no children and were prepared for immediate travel. Bentall, a physicist who specialized in solid rocket fuels and is presently working for the British government on counter espionage, is paired with Marie Hopeman, a secret agent posted in the same job as Bentall in Turkey, assigned to pose as his wife. All eight scientists had disappeared in Australia or en route there, and Bentall and Hopeman find themselves kidnapped at a hotel in Fiji. They escaped from the kidnappers to the island of Vardu, a remote coral atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, which is currently home to Professor Witherspoon, a noted archaeologist. The island has no radio transmitter and the next boat is scheduled to arrive in three weeks. Bentall finds Dr. Witherspoon somewhat sketchy. Later, Bentall discovers Witherspoon is actually LeClerc, the mastermind behind a plot to steal a British missile, the "Dark Crusader" and send it to Australia for nefarious purposes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Nights_on_Air" title="Late Nights on Air">
After being fired from his latest television job, a disgraced Harry Boyd returns to his radio roots in the northern Canadian town of Yellowknife as the manager of a station no one listens to, and finds himself at the center of the station's unlikely social scene. New anchor Dido Paris, both renowned and mocked for her Dutch accent, fled an affair with her husband's father, only to be torn between Harry and another man. Wild child Gwen came to learn radio production, but under Harry's tutelage finds herself the guardian of the late-night shift. And lonely Eleanor wonders if it's time to move south just as she meets an unlikely suitor. While the station members wait for Yellowknife to get its first television station and the crew embarks on a life-changing canoe expedition, the city is divided over a proposal to build a pipeline that would cut across Native lands, bringing modernization and a flood of workers, equipment and money into sacred territory. Hay's crystalline prose, keen details and sharp dialogue sculpt the isolated, hardy residents of Yellowknife, who provide a convincing backdrop as the main cast tromps through the existential woods.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Good_House" title="A Good House">
The story starts in 1949 in the small town of Stonebrook, Ontario, near Lake Huron and is about the Chambers family and starts in a hopeful era of post-World War II. Bill is an ex-Navy veteran who had been injured losing three fingers of his right hand in the war and he has three children with his wife Sylvia; Patrick, Daphne, and Paul. Daphne, when 12 years old, meets an accident in 1952 which deforms her face permanently and asymmetrically while performing acrobatics in a circus on trapeze. In 1955, Sylvia dies of cancer when aged 40 and Bill later marries Margaret. Margaret and Bill used to be co-workers at a hardware store. Margaret raises the three children and keeps the family together and has a daughter Sarah together with Bill.The eldest brother Patrick becomes a lawyer, the youngest Paul gains popularity in hockey but eventually marries early, fathers an imperfect child and becomes a farmer. Daphne chooses an odd path for the time and becomes a single mother of two daughters. Paul dies at an early age. Bill steps into his old age not very gracefully suffering with dementia but Margaret still keeps the family in control. As time passes the novel travels till 1997 and the nuclear family diverges yet keeps meeting together to share happy and sad times.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Whaleboat_House" title="The Whaleboat House">
Little has changed in Amagansett since the first settlers arrived there some 300 years earlier, but the discovery of the body of Lillian Wallace, a New York socialite, by a local fisherman named Conrad Labarde, shatters the apparent stability and threatens to tear the close-knit community apart.Labarde (a second generation French Basque recently returned from the war in Europe), and Tom Hollis (a recently divorced former New York police detective posted to the area after his attempt to expose corruption resulted in the death of a colleague), are drawn to investigate Lillian's death, even though it appears to have been a tragic accident. They both have their own separate reasons to suspect that there is more to the death than meets the eye, and that it may have been the result of foul play.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breath_(novel)" title="Breath (novel)">
The novel is set in a small Western Australian logging village named Sawyer, near the fictional coastal town of Angelus, which has featured in several of Winton's works, including Shallows and The Turning. It is narrated by Bruce "Pikelet" Pike, a divorced, middle-aged paramedic, and takes the form of a long flashback in which he remembers childhood experiences of friendship with another boy, of surfing under the mentorship of an older surfing champion, and of repeated statutory rape by the older surfer's wife. The main events of the novel takes place in the 1970s.Before the main events of the story take place, the opening chapter depicts a scene of two paramedics responding to an emergency call. The older paramedic, who is the narrator, immediately recognises that the boy that they have been called to help is dead as a result of hanging himself. The paramedic consoles the disconsolate mother who asks him how she will explain his death. After leaving, the younger paramedic says that it was the first suicide she had encountered, but the narrator says that it was not a suicide, without explaining that it had been an accident resulting from an autoerotic asphyxiation.The story then shifts to the narrator's childhood. The narrator, Bruce "Pikelet" Pike, recounts his boyhood friendship with Ivan "Loonie" Loon. They first meet when eleven-year-old Pikelet stumbles across Loonie pretending to drown in a river in order to frighten a young family sitting nearby. The boys bond over their love for dangerous stunts, despite being the polar opposites of each other. They form a tight friendship and spend the majority of their time together. The two boys witness a group of young men surfing a gigantic wave and are inspired to pick up surfing as a hobby. They then meet a professional surfer named Bill "Sando" Sanderson, who encourages them to pursue this ambition and offers to teach them both how to surf. The trio bond quickly and the boys are constantly over at Sando's house, which is a treehouse in the middle of the Australian bush, shared by Sando's American wife Eva Sanderson.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Frontier_(novel)" title="The Last Frontier (novel)">
Michael Reynolds, MacLean's protagonist, is a British secret agent on a wintertime mission inside Hungary at the height of the Cold War. Reynolds must rescue Professor Jennings, an elderly British scientist who is held by the communist government against his will. Reynolds is no James Bond and does not have any fancy gadgets but he is highly resourceful. His biggest advantages against the sometimes cruel and highly efficient Hungarian Secret Police are an ability to make commonsense on-the-spot decisions and the heroic help of friends in the Hungarian underground. Reynolds hooks up with the mysterious Jansci and his friend “the Count” and they strive to transport the professor over the border and back to England. The plot has the twists, turns, and betrayals in which MacLean specialized, and Reynolds realizes that he has only one chance to escape with Jennings before he is captured and killed by the Hungarian secret police.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partisans_(novel)" title="Partisans (novel)">
During the Second World War, Pete Petersen, a Yugoslavian agent with an unlikely name, and his team of compatriots cross war-torn Yugoslavia to deliver a secret message and unmask a double agent.It is not clear who Petersen is actually working for, as the plot meanders through the confusion of Yugoslavia's three-way civil war, with Communist Partisans, the Serb royalist Chetniks and the Croatian fascist Ustashe fighting as much against each other as against their Italian and German occupiers. Everyone's loyalties are uncertain. Obviously, the sardonic Petersen is not working for the Nazis, but what about those with him?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilldiggers" title="Hilldiggers">
The novel describes the initial diplomatic contact between the Polity (an AI governed interstellar empire) and the isolated planets of Sudoria and Brumal who had been at war for nearly a century. The inhabitants of these two hostile worlds had to make many changes to their bodies and societies in order to survive, rendering their appearances and attitudes quite different from that of a 'standard' human of the time.Contact is being made officially by Consul Assessor David McCrooger, a hooper-cum-diplomat from the planet Spatterjay, while the system is secretly observed by a Polity surveillance drone named Tigger.The Sudorians have also discovered an alien artifact they have nicknamed the "Worm". Research on this artifact enabled the Sudorians to make many technological advances that eventually gave them the upper hand in the conflict, allowing them to win the war with Brumal.Following the war, the Brumellians were nearly completely wiped out. Over time, the causes of the war began to be questioned in Sudoria as many of the justifications that had been taken for granted started to be doubted.Much of the story revolves around a conflict between two Sudorian factions; Fleet, who were once the dominant faction during the war, responsible for Sudoria's defence and navy, including the Hilldiggers, and the Orbital Combine, a large alliance of spacestations and other facilities orbiting around Sudoria, who both study and contain the Worm.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightmare_Abbey" title="Nightmare Abbey">
Insofar as the novel may be said to have a plot, it follows the fortunes of Christopher Glowry, a morose widower who lives with his only son Scythrop in the isolated family mansion, Nightmare Abbey, in Lincolnshire. Mr Glowry's melancholy leads him to choose servants with long faces or dismal names such as Mattocks, Graves and Skellet. The few visitors he welcomes to his home are mostly of a similar cast of mind, with the sole exception of his brother-in-law, Mr Hilary. The visitors engage in conversations, or occasionally monologues, which serve to highlight their eccentricities or obsessions.Mr Glowry's son Scythrop is recovering from a love affair which ended badly. A failed author, he often retires to his own quarters in a tower to study. When he leaves them, he is distracted by the flirtatious Marionetta, who blows hot and cold on his affections. A further complication arises when Celinda Toobad, fleeing from a forced engagement to an unknown suitor, appeals to Scythrop for shelter and he hides her in a secret room. The change in Scythrop's demeanour spurs on Marionetta to threaten to leave him forever, and he is forced to admit to himself that he is in love with both women and cannot choose between them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternity_in_Death" title="Eternity in Death">
Tiara Kent lights several candles in her room, and turns off her security system. She drinks a special "potion", and prepares for her mystery man to arrive. The next morning, Lt. Eve Dallas, and Delia Peabody are called to Tiara's apartment. The man she invited bit her in the neck, and drank her blood as she bled out, and Peabody recognises the murder as one perpetrated by a vampire.Eve and Peabody talk to Tiara's friend, Daffy Wheates, who informs them Tiara was going to an underground vampire club, called Bloodbath, and had in fact met a man. Eve heads to see Iris Francine, and then Dr. Charlotte Mira, but is accompanied by her billionaire husband Roarke, who is curious himself about the vampire murder.Iris is unable to tell Eve much of anything, and Dr. Mira is only able to say that the killer believes he is a vampire, that he tried to turn Tiara into one, and he will continue trying until he gets it right. The tox report reveals that the "potion" Tiara drunk, was a mixture of hallucinogens, tranqs, date rape drugs, and human blood. Detective Ian McNab is called in to help with the investigation, not because of what he can contribute, but because he thinks vampires are cool. They head off to the club, and Eve discovers Peabody is now wearing a cross, to ward of vampires. Eve gets irritated, and makes Peabody repeat "Vampires don't exist" over and over again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creeps_(novel)" title="Creeps (novel)">
Wayne is a teenager growing up in a dysfunctional home. His father is an alcoholic and his mother keeps threatening to desert him all. He can't escape his home life in school either, as Wayne is constantly bullied by his schoolmate Pete "The Meat". One morning he's rescued by Marjorie, a teen girl dealing with her own problematic home life, and the two begin to befriend one another. However even as the two seek solace in one another, Pete has decided to take matters into his own hands and find a way to torment not only Wayne but Marjorie as well.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculating_God" title="Calculating God">
Thomas Jericho, a paleontologist working at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, makes the first human-to-alien contact when a Forhilnor, a spider-like alien from the third planet of the Beta Hydri system arrives on Earth to investigate Earth's evolutionary history. The alien, Hollus, has come to Earth to gain access to the museum's large collection of fossils, and to study accumulated human knowledge in order to gather evidence of the existence of God. It seems that Earth and Hollus' home planet, and the home planet of another alien species traveling with Hollus, all experienced the same five cataclysmic events at roughly the same time. Hollus believes that the universe was created by a god, to provide a place where life could develop and evolve. Thomas Jericho is an atheist who provides a balance to the philosophical discussion regarding the existence of gods.At the end, the star Betelgeuse goes supernova, threatening all life within hundreds of light-years with radiation. One of several dead civilizations discovered by the explorers may have deliberately induced the supernova in order to sterilize the stellar neighborhood. This was presumably done in order to protect the virtual reality machinery which now housed all of their personalities. According to a theory of Thomas's, several worlds exist where the inhabitants uploaded themselves into machines instead of exploring the nature of the universe and gods.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espresso_Tales" title="Espresso Tales">
The novel continues to follow Pat Macgregor, a student who has taken a second gap year and who is unsure about her future direction, and the lives of her friends, roommates and fellow tenants at 44 Scotland Street.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Friendly_Persuasion" title="The Friendly Persuasion">
"The Friendly Persuasion" has as its common theme linking the fourteen chapters (only two of which, "A Likely Exchange" and "First Day Finish" are otherwise connected) the effects of the Quaker religion on members of a family and their interaction with their neighbors. West uses rich descriptives of geography and setting to bring out the dignity and strength of her characters. However her stated purpose in telling their story is to present descriptions of "real life" and "reality" as she understands them, not to elucidate the religion, stating that the Birdwells are characters "who happened to be Quaker" rather than personifications of Quaker traits.Three stories ("Shivaree Before Breakfast," "Lead Her Like a Pigeon,"and "Homer and the Lilies") were based on recollections of West's mother (Grace) from her own girlhood. Family stories about her great-grandfather were the source for three others ("Music on the Muscatatuck,"A Likely Exchange," and "First Day Finish"). Although not connected to her own family or Quakers, "The Pacing Goose" was based on an actual incident chronicled in a compendium of early Indiana court cases.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnosaur_(novel)" title="Carnosaur (novel)">
Set in a rural village near Cambridgeshire, England, the novel opens at a chicken farm which is attacked one night by a mysterious creature, leaving both the farmer and his wife dead. A story circulates that the killer was a Siberian tiger that had escaped the private zoo of an eccentric lord named Darren Penward. A reporter named David Pascal investigates the carnage, and notices that the blood-stained room where the attack occurred has been thoroughly cleansed in a seeming attempt at covering the killer's footprints. A few days later, the creature attacks a stable, killing a horse, the keeper, and her daughter, leaving one survivor, an eight-year-old boy. Pascal arrives at the scene, only to find Penward's men already there, towing a concealed animal with a helicopter. Pascal interviews the boy, who reveals that the killer was not a tiger, but in fact a dinosaur. After unsuccessfully trying to interview Penward's men, Pascal moves on and begins a sexual relationship with Penward's nymphomaniac wife, who eventually takes him into her private quarters.From there, Pascal enters the zoo, only to discover that it's filled with dinosaurs. He is captured and given a tour of the establishment. He sees a variety of different species, mostly carnivores, including the dinosaur that had escaped earlier which is identified as a "Deinonychus", a sexually-frustrated "Megalosaurus", and an adolescent "Tarbosaurus". Penward explains that he recreated the dinosaurs by studying the DNA fragments found in fossils, then using them as a basis for restructuring the DNA of chickens. He goes as far as saying that he intends to let his dinosaurs loose in remote areas of the world where they could flourish and eventually spread after what he considers an inevitable Third World War. Pascal is imprisoned, only to be rescued by Lady Penward, but only after promising that he permanently commit to her. As they make their escape, Pascal notices that his ex-girlfriend Jenny Stamper, also a reporter, has been caught in the act of infiltrating Penward's zoo as well. Enraged at his insistence on helping her, Lady Penward releases the dinosaurs and other animals present in the zoo. In the chaos, the "Tarbosaurus" destroys Penward's helicopter and heavy machine gun before it can get in the air. The "Deinonychus" pursues Pascal and Jenny through Penward's museum, with the two getting away when it is tricked into attacking its own reflection due to perceiving it as a threat much like a bird. The "Tarbosaurus", driven by equating the smell of mammals with easy food, further destroys the premise by bashing down numerous fences and gates, chasing the protagonists down before battling a pride of lions. The couple manage to reach Pascal's car and flee the property, with the "Tarbosaurus" in pursuit down the road. Sir Penward is gored in the leg by an escaped bull (one of several he kept as food for the dinosaurs) and captures his insane wife.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joker_in_the_Pack" title="Joker in the Pack">
The novel describes the student life of Shekhar Verma, a middle class boy who grows up in the post liberalization era in India. Shekhar is described as a typical boy growing up in urban India - focused on Bollywood and Cricket. As he becomes older and faces board exams, he is pressured by his parents, relatives and neighbors to take life seriously and to consider pursuing a career in information technology. In order to achieve this goal, he decides to pursue his graduation in Information Technology but is disheartened when the IT bubble bursts and salaries plummet. Shekhar then trains his eyes on the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), in the hope that an MBA from an IIM would help him get his dream job. The book describes in detail Shekhar's life at IIM Bangalore and introduces various personalities that make up life there. Shekhar is shown to mature as the book progresses, ultimately questioning the choices he has made, which though make him successful as per society's expectations, leave him confused about what he really wants in life..
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Children_Fail" title="How Children Fail">
In "How Children Fail," John Holt states that children love to learn but hate to be taught. His experiences in the classroom as a teacher and as a researcher brought him to conclude that every child is intelligent. However, children become unintelligent because they are accustomed by teachers and schools to strive only for teacher approval and the “right" answers and consequently forget everything else. There, children see value not in thinking, discovery, and understanding but only in playing the power game of school.Children believe that they must please and obey the teacher, the adults, at all costs. They learn how to manipulate teachers to gain clues about what the teacher really wants. Through the teacher's body language, facial expressions and other clues, they learn what might be the right answer. They mumble, straddle the answer, get the teacher to answer their own question, and take wild guesses while waiting to see what happens, all in order to increase the chances for a right answer.When children are very young, they have natural curiosity about the world, trying diligently to figure out what is real. As they become "producers" rather than "thinkers," they fall away from exploration and start fishing for the right answers with little thought. They believe that they must always be right and so quickly forget mistakes and how the mistakes were made. They believe that the only good response from the teacher is a yes and that a no is a defeat.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Heaven_(novel)" title="Cold Heaven (novel)">
The novel is set in Nice, New York and Carmel, California. The plot concerns a lapsed Catholic, Marie Davenport, who is about to leave her husband Alex for her lover, Daniel, when Alex is apparently killed in a boating accident and then seems to have risen from the dead. The novel details Marie's dilemma in confronting this apparent miracle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Guide_to_the_Perplexed" title="A Guide to the Perplexed">
The novel is presented in the form of unfinished memoirs of one Professor Gunther Wünker, born in Ramat Gan, Israel in the 1960s, an anti-Zionist and the founder of the philosophical school of 'Peepology' (the science of peep-show voyeurism). The novel takes place in a fictitious near-future period, some 40 years after the State of Israel is dismantled and replaced with the State of Palestine. The novel excoriates what it calls exploitation of The Holocaust for propaganda purposes designed to shield Israel from scrutiny for its "transgressions" against the Palestinians. The perplexed is defined as "the unthinking chosen" who "cling to clods of earth that don't belong to them".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd_Hours" title="Odd Hours">
After leaving the monastery in the previous book, Odd found a place to stay in Magic Beach with a retired actor. While out for a walk one morning, he finds a woman whom he had been seeing in his dreams; a young, pregnant woman who calls herself Annamaria. After being assaulted and nearly killed by a large man with two henchmen in tow, Odd is separated from Annamaria, though he uses his psychic magnetism to find her. Once he finds her they decide they need to leave immediately, but while making preparations to do so they hear a car door slam. They manage to find a spot to hide until after the men who had been chasing them leave. With the men now gone, Odd and Annamaria set out walking. On their walk, they encounter a large pack of coyotes that Annamaria somehow persuades to leave. After leaving Annamaria with a trusted friend, Odd flees to a local church where he is subsequently turned over to the sheriff of Magic Beach, but not before he hides his ID in a church pew. The sheriff, a man who seems to have many personalities, believes Odd is a government agent who has come to spy on his operation: the delivery and shipment of multiple nuclear weapons to terrorist groups inside the US via the Magic Beach harbor. Odd manages to convince the Sheriff that he is a government experiment gone wrong and that he is willing to be bribed in order to look the other way. While the sheriff is setting up a transaction to buy his loyalty Odd manages to enrage the spirit of Frank Sinatra, who began accompanying him after the departure of Elvis. The rage caused by his spirit creates a violent whirlwind, and in the confusion Odd is able to escape from the police department.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Company_of_Cheerful_Ladies" title="In the Company of Cheerful Ladies">
Mma Ramotswe and her new husband settle down to married life with their foster-children, but problems are piling up. The tenant of Mr JLB Matekoni's house is running an illegal drinking den. Then Charlie, the apprentice, gets entangled with a wealthy married woman. Mma Ramotswe accidentally knocks a man off his bicycle with her van, as she sees Charlie entering the expensive car driven by a wealthy woman. Mr Polopetsi was not injured, but Mma Ramotswe learns his story; he has been unemployed following a spell in prison after what appears to have been a miscarriage of justice. She gets his bike fixed by the apprentice and then Mma Ramotswe persuades her husband to employ him out of guilt and sympathy. He proves an asset to the garage and to the detective service. Mma Ramotswe's violent ex-husband Note Mokote reappears and demands money from her.Mma Ramotswe is shaken deeply as she realizes she never got a divorce from Mokote years ago, threatening her new marriage. Check in hand, she drives to his mother's home to deliver it. Note is not there. His mother tells her that Note was married to another woman at the time of her marriage to Note, and had a child with that wife. This takes the weight off Mma Ramotswe, as she realizes he was the bigamist, and they were never legally married. When he appears at her office, she faces him herself, no longer shaking in fear at his violence, with two decent men in her life waiting in the background as the conversation proceeds.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Towers_of_Trebizond" title="The Towers of Trebizond">
The book is partly autobiographical. It follows the adventures of a group of people – the narrator Laurie, the eccentric Dorothea ffoulkes-Corbett (otherwise Aunt Dot), her High Anglican clergyman friend Father Hugh Chantry-Pigg (who keeps his collection of sacred relics in his pockets) – travelling from Istanbul (or Constantinople as Fr. Chantry-Pigg would have it, or Byzantium as Laurie would have it) to Trebizond. A Turkish feminist doctor attracted to Anglicanism acts as a foil to the main characters. On the way, they meet magicians, Turkish policemen and juvenile British travel-writers, and observe the BBC and Billy Graham on tour. Aunt Dot proposes to emancipate the women of Turkey by converting them to Anglicanism and popularising the bathing hat, while Laurie has more worldly preoccupations. Historical references (British Christianity since the Dissolution of the Monasteries, nineteenth-century travellers to the Ottoman Empire, the First World War, the Fourth Crusade, St. Paul's third missionary journey, Troy) abound. The geographical canvas is enlarged with the two senior characters eloping to the Soviet Union and the heroine meeting her lover in Turkey, and then her semi-estranged mother in Jerusalem. The final chapters raise multiple issues such as the souls of animals, and culminate in a fatal accident and its aftermath.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Nachsommer" title="Der Nachsommer">
This first-person narrative describes the main character Heinrich's maturation in the regimented household of his father and his subsequent encounter and involvement with the owner of the Rosenhaus, the home, and part of the estate, of a wise, but mysterious older man who becomes a mentor to Heinrich.Heinrich accepts his regimented upbringing without criticism. His father is a merchant who has planned out Heinrich's early education at home in the minutest detail. When it is time for Heinrich to head out on his own, his father allows his son to choose his own path. We are told that his father is a man of great judgement, as is his mother a model of the matronly virtues. Heinrich's narration is understated. His retrospective examination of his personal development is presented with what seems to be humility, objectivity and emotional distance.Heinrich becomes a gentleman natural scientist exploring Alpine mountains and foothills. He is interested in the geology, flora and fauna of the region. On one of his hiking excursions, Heinrich attempts to avoid what he believes will be a dousing by an approaching thunderstorm. Going off the main highway, he approaches the almost fairy-tale like residence of the man of mystery, Freiherr von Risach. The Rosenhaus is the center of Risach's carefully ordered world devoted to art and gardening, among other things.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eternal_Lover" title="The Eternal Lover">
A cliff-dwelling warrior of 100,000 years ago, Nu, is magically transported to the present, falls in love with Victoria Custer of Beatrice, Nebraska, the reincarnation of his lost lover Nat-ul, and the two are transported back to the Stone Age. The story is set in Africa, and the present-day sequences include Victoria's brother Barney Custer, protagonist of Burroughs's Ruritanian novel "The Mad King", as well as Burroughs's iconic hero Tarzan from his Tarzan novels.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cave_Girl" title="The Cave Girl">
## Part One.Blueblooded mama's boy Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones is swept overboard during a South Seas voyage for his lifelong ill health. He finds himself on a jungle island. His bookish education has not prepared him to cope with these surroundings, and he is a coward. He is terrified when he encounters primitive, violent men, ape-like throwbacks in mankind's evolutionary history. He runs from them, but when he reaches a dead end, he successfully makes a stand, astonishing himself. While keeping the hairy brutes at bay, he meets a beautiful girl, Nadara, also on the run. In an uncharacteristic gesture, he saves her from the grasp of one ape-man during their escape. He is shocked that she believes him a hero, mistaking his frightened screams for war cries. She calls him Thandar, meaning "the brave one". She teaches him the language, how to swim, how to fish, and basic woodcraft, as he begins to realize that he does not know everything. However, Nadara warns him that a newcomer to her tribe must fight the strongest men, who have killed many. When they reach her home village, he is horrified to see that despite her appearance, her tribe seems to be cavemen from the Paleolithic era, not much better than the first tribe. In order to avoid death at the hands of the tribal bullies, he vanishes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinx_(Cabot_novel)" title="Jinx (Cabot novel)">
Jean "Jinx" Honeychurch is a sixteen-year-old girl from Iowa. Being certain that she was born with bad luck, she goes to stay with her Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Ted in Manhattan, New York because her ex-boyfriend is stalking her.Her cousin Tory is convinced that Jean must join her coven of witches to add to their power. Jean denies being a witch, and refuses to join them. This angers Tory, causing her to seek payback. Jean also meets a guy both she and Tory have affection for, Zack. This along with the witch thing puts Tory in a blind rage and she decides to plot against Jinx in more ways than the walls of the preppy Chapman, where they all attend high school. At a school dance Tory flies Jean's ex to town, which sends Jean into a panic attack. She then returns home and Tory ties Jean up to cut her and drink her blood and take Jean's powers. Zack comes out and rescues Jean, who exposes Tory for what she really is. Then Tory is sent to boot camp and Jean and Zack end up dating.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_Friends_(novel)" title="Circle of Friends (novel)">
In the fictional small Irish town of Knockglen in 1950, an unlikely friendship blossoms between ten-year-old Bernadette 'Benny' Hogan – an overweight, big-hearted, only child of a local merchant – and wiry orphan Eve Malone, raised from birth by nuns in a Catholic convent after her late mother's upper-class Protestant family rejected her. The friendship endures into their teens, as they both attend University College Dublin. There their loyalty to each other is tested by the introduction of more students to their circle, including rugby player Jack Foley and the beautiful and ambitious social climber, Nan Mahon. Benny surprises everyone by winning the heart of the handsome Jack, but things turn sour when Nan attempts to use Eve's family connections to her own advantage. When her plan to snare Eve's wealthy cousin Simon Westward goes awry, Nan is forced into a new plan, one which will break Benny's heart.A key subplot involves the future of the Hogan family business, Hogan's Gentlemen's Outfitters, thrown into turmoil when Benny's father dies suddenly. Forced to abandon his plan to marry into the business, the efficient but unpleasant Sean Walsh demands a partnership, but Eddie Hogan dies before the agreement is signed. Benny reluctantly plans to honour the agreement; however, when she looks more closely at the business accounts, it reveals Sean may not be the model employee he seems.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_This_World_(Watt-Evans_novel)" title="Out of This World (Watt-Evans novel)">
The premise of the novel is that parallel universes do exist. Some have intelligent non-human life, while others are populated by English-speaking humans. Prior to the events of the novel, one such reality is overrun by a malevolent force known as Shadow. The World of Shadow is a typical high fantasy realm where magic exists and men fight with sword and sorcery. Although pockets of resistance against Shadow exist, their reality has all but been conquered by evil. Another reality, the Galactic Empire, soon finds that they are being invaded by minions who serve Shadow, and declare war. The Galactic Empire is depicted as a science fiction realm of yester-year, akin to Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers. Many planets are colonized by the technologically advanced Empire, and telepaths serve in their military forces. Once the conflict with Shadow began, the Empire uses their telepaths to establish contact with the World of Shadow. The World of Shadow, in turn, use magic to stay in contact with the Galactic Empire. Although both realities share a common enemy, little progress is made in the way of a true alliance due to vast cultural differences. The Empire view the people of Shadow as brute barbarians who could be of no use in a real war, while the people of Shadow consider the Empire and their fascist ways as "possbly the lesser of two evils".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Empire_of_Shadow" title="In the Empire of Shadow">
A group from this world is trapped in a science fiction universe. Before the galactic government will send them home, they must agree to travel back to the fantasy universe first, in order to assess the power of the evil wizard who runs the place and any potential risks posed to the galactic empire.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reign_of_the_Brown_Magician" title="The Reign of the Brown Magician">
By defeating the powerful wizard who runs a fantasy universe, a man from this world gains all of her powers. He sets about using these powers for the good of the world he is now effectively the ruler of and to fix what went wrong in the previous books. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_(Doyle_novel)" title="Flood (Doyle novel)">
In 1953, the East coast of England was struck by one of the worst storms of the century. In response to this, the Thames Flood Barrier was opened in 1984, to protect London from the danger. However, global warming has resulted in rising sea levels, higher waves and more frequent extreme weather. Londoners have become complacent, thinking that the flood barrier will protect them. The events will prove them wrong.The Prime Minister is out of the country, leaving the Deputy Prime Minister and Home Secretary Venetia Maitland in charge. As the danger signs mount up, officials at all levels of the government are reluctant to take the necessary precautions, relying on margins of error, earlier missed predictions and fearing the consequences of an unnecessary evacuation.A storm rages over the north of Britain, a troop carrier founders in the Irish Sea, flood indicators go off the scale, the seas are mountainous and a spring tide is about to strike the East Coast. Air-sea rescue and military personnel struggle to save lives all down the coast. The worse is yet to come. When the storm reaches the south the two forces of wind and tide will combine and send a huge one-in-a-thousand tidal surge up the Thames.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bébo's_Girl" title="Bébo's Girl">
Mara, a young woman from Monteguidi, a small town in the Val d'Elsa, who, in the aftermath of the Liberation, meets the partisan Bube, hero of the Resistance, and falls in love with him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nude_Men" title="Nude Men">
"Nude Men" is about a twenty-nine-year-old man who is sexually pursued by a "precocious 11-year-old... who makes Lolita look like a Girl Scout."The novel explores the man's horror at his own attraction, and recounts his efforts at resisting her persistent advances.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cop_Hater" title="Cop Hater">
The city has surrendered to a heat wave in July 1956. When detective Mike Reardon is on the way to work on the nightshift, he is murdered from behind with a .45 caliber handgun. As Steve Carella and his colleagues from the 87th Precinct are looking for their friend's killer, they have no idea that this is just the beginning of a series of police murders.David Foster is the next victim, at the entrance of his apartment, where the killer has left behind a footprint at the crime scene. Steve Carella and Hank Bush question the family and wives of the deceased, as well as some suspects, but to no avail. A few nights later the unknown killer ambushes and murders Det. Hank Bush. Bush fought back however and shot and wounded the murderer. Steve Carella fears he will be the next target if he fails to stop him.When Carella is leaving the precinct, he finds a reporter, Savage, waiting for him. He asks Carella his thoughts on who the killer might be, stating that everything is off the record. Carella reveals that - due to the evidence collected from Bush's murder - the police now knows certain attributes of the killer, i.e. weight, profession, and build. Carella leaves telling Savage that he is going on a date with his girlfriend, Teddy. The next day we find out that Savage has published the conversation between him and Carella, including Teddy's name and address.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince_and_the_Pilgrim" title="The Prince and the Pilgrim">
The Prince, the protagonist, is named Alexander. His father, Prince Baudouin, is murdered by the king of Cornwall, King March. When Alexander comes of age, he sets out to Camelot to seek justice from King Arthur and to avenge his father's death.The Pilgrim is named Alice. She rescues a young French nobleman who has in his possession an enchanted silver cup. The chalice may be the mysterious and much-sought-after Holy Grail.Prince Alexander is diverted in his quest by the enchantments of Morgan le Fay, the seductive but evil sorceress. She persuades him to attempt a theft of the cup so that she can gain power over King Arthur and his court. Alexander's search for the mysterious cup leads him to Alice. Together the prince and the pilgrim find what they have really been seeking: love.The tale is a self-contained novel taking place during Arthur's reign (possibly during the events in "The Last Enchantment"), and does not continue the story of "The Wicked Day". It covers the time before Merlin the Enchanter's defeat.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Love_(novel)" title="Hard Love (novel)">
John, who can be mean since his parents' divorce six years ago, and Marisol, who has recently come out as a lesbian, meet through their interests in writing zines, into which they pour their life stories. As the story begins, John wonders what it would be like to meet one of his favorite zine writers, Marisol. From her personal biography, she describes herself as a "Puerto Rican Cuban Yankee Lesbian." John meets Marisol at a magazine rack on a Saturday when he asks her for coffee. Over time they start to spend more time together and she teaches him the ways of the zine writer. After Marisol tells John that she likes him, he is very surprised. No one had ever told him that they liked him, and he falls in love with her. Marisol doesn't know how to let him down, without losing her new best friend. Throughout the story, John and Marisol try to keep their friendship intact through writing zines together. While John is spending time with his divorced father, he starts to ask questions about Al, the man his mother is marrying. John gets angry and throws a tantrum. Seemingly childish, the outburst becomes a topic for his writing, which he asks Marisol to read, instead of discarding it as he usually would have. As the two friends share more about their lives, John begins to think about his own sexuality. He believes he might be straight, perhaps because he develops feelings for Marisol.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Dancer" title="Star Dancer">
The druids have prophesied that the one born in the middle of an untimely meteorite shower will avert a great evil, but they are looking for a boy who will grow into a mixture of war hero and super-magician.Instead there is one baby girl, Tegen, born at the right time, and a boy, Griff, who has Down syndrome, who is born just as the stars were fading.The book explores how these two children grow up together, discovering their individual destinies, but it also shows how much they need each other to become who they were meant to be in a harsh and unforgiving world.Tegen is the Star Dancer, but she needs Griff’s honesty and kindness to stand against the druids who aren’t evil, but are fixed in their habits.Griff needs Tegen to stand against his cruel mother who abandoned him at birth.As the story unfolds, Derowen, an evil-minded ‘wise-woman’ connives with a young handsome druid who believes he should be the Star Dancer. They plot to destroy Tegen by stealing her magic, and setting her up to fail so together they can seize power.With dark spells they disturb a demon from the depths of funeral caves under the Mendip Hills and Tegen has to face her nemesis at last.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Hall_(novel)" title="Ruth Hall (novel)">
The autobiographical novel can be divided into three phases: Ruth's happy marriage, impoverished widowhood, and rise to fame and financial independence as a newspaper columnist.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Steam_House" title="The Steam House">
## Part 1.In the summer of 1866, in Aurangabad, the British colonial government announces a bounty on the head of Nana Sahib, who is supposed to be hiding in that presidency. Nana Sahib, disguised as a sage, stalks and kills the man who claims to know face of Nana Sahib. Nana Sahib escapes from Aurangabad the same night and, taking his brother Bala Rao and followers, hidden in Ajanta and Ellora caves respectively, retreats to the Vindhiyanchal mountains to hide from colonial forces.Nana Sahib, along with his brother and followers, hides in various small fortresses called "Pals," and mostly inside "Pal of Tandil." His brother Bala Rao, who is extremely similar to Nana sahib in physical appearance, inquires about the inhabitants of the fortress and learns from locals that none except local outlaws, insurgents and a mad woman knows about the place. The mad woman is known as Rowing Flame as she carries a burning torch and roams the wilderness in the valley of Narmada. The locals respect the mysterious lady and feed and cloth her. From this hiding place, Nana Sahib launches an underground movement and secretly visit local chieftains for persuading them for an uprising.Meanwhile, in Calcutta, a group of Europeans is planning for a voyage through India. The group consist of Banks, a railroad engineer; Maucler, the French adventurer and narrator for most of the story; Captain Hood, a hunter craving his "half century" of tigers, retired Colonel Sir Edward Munro, whose motive behind joining this expedition is to find and kill Nana Sahib to avenge his wife, who supposedly died in the Cawnpore massacre. Servants accompanying them include Sergaent McNeil, Munro's faithful servant; Fox, the faithful servant of Captain Hood and fellow hunter, who has killed 37 tigers; Monsieur Parazard; a Negro cook of French origins; Storr, a British Engine driver; Kilouth, an Adivasi coal shoveler and Gotimi, the faithful Gurkha servant of Colonel Munro.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_Place" title="The Beginning Place">
The narrative focuses on the journey of the two main characters from adolescence to adulthood in two alternate worlds, the real world and the idyllic Tembreabrezi.The story is told in alternating chapters from two starkly alternating viewpoints: that of Irene Pannis, and of Hugh Rogers. They live in the suburbs of an unnamed US city, in difficult circumstances and with troubled families. They independently discover a place hidden in a local wood, where time flows much more slowly than in the outside world and it is always evening, a "threshold" between their own world and another; though Hugh finds it first within the story, Irene has already been visiting the other world for some years. She has another life there in the town of Tembreabrezi, an adoptive family of sorts, and has learned the local language. Both Irene and Hugh love the "beginning place", the threshold; they feel a sense of belonging and home there that they lack elsewhere in their lives.As Hugh stumbles upon the beginning place, Irene discovers that something is wrong in Tembreabrezi; the paths which connect the town with the rest of the country are closed somehow, and no one can reach or leave the town except for her. The closing is not material but emotional; the townsfolk are struck by a desperate fear which will not allow them to move beyond the town limits. Despite her anger with Hugh, and her resentment of his disturbance of her hidden sanctuary, they find that they must work together; she has had increasing trouble in passing through the gateway into the other place, while he cannot always cross back into the 'real' world. By travelling together they can pass back and forth through the gateway at will, and so they return to Tembreabrezi together. Hugh is welcomed in the town as the hero for whom they have waited; Irene is jealous, wanting desperately to win the admiration and respect of the townsfolk and especially the Mayor or Master, Sark, whom she has loved for a long time. Hugh is largely unaware of her feelings, but wants to complete the quest to become worthy of the Lord of the Manor's daughter Allia. In the end, they embark together on a mission to save the town and reopen the roads. Together they track down the monster that brings the fear and Hugh kills it. He is injured in the fight, but Irene helps him to keep going until they can reach the gateway back to their own world. On the other side, the trust and the love they have discovered together opens a different sort of gateway, providing them with a possible future together that avoids the destructive patterns of their own families.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Piratica_Series" title="The Piratica Series">
The novel takes place in a world somewhat parallel to Earth, in the year Seventeen-Twelvety, which is equivalent to approximately 1802 in Earth years. The main character is sixteen-year-old Artemesia Fitz-Willoghby Weatherhouse, who is an amnesiac student at the Angels Academy of Young Maidens. On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, while practising deportment, she tumbles down the stairs and hits her head on the banister, restoring her memories from six years previous – of her life aboard a pirate ship led by her mother, Molly Faith, more commonly known as Piratica, until a misfired cannon caused Molly's death and Artemesia's amnesia.Her sudden change in behaviour and into men's clothing due to the restoration of her memories convince her teachers and fellow students that she is mad, and she is locked in a room for safety. She quickly escapes up the chimney and sets off to locate her mother's former crew members. On the way she meets Felix Phoenix, a traveller, and forces him to trade clothes with her. She locks him in a sooty, abandoned house and continues on her way.From there, she locates some of her mother's old 'crew' and commandeers a ship. When she meets them they all think it is her mother Molly. She finds out that they advertise coffee and have a small ship. Heading out the stop at a town where they show her a theatre. They then explain to her that her mother and themselves were only actors and not pirates. Confused Art makes a plan to become the REAL Piratica, and sail the seas. She holds by her mother's (stage) code of honour- she steals by guile and trickery, and never takes a life. When stealing a boat Felix Phoenix joins them. Together they set out to find a mysterious treasure isle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/101_Ways_to_Bug_Your_Teacher" title="101 Ways to Bug Your Teacher">
The story opens with Steve (Sneeze), Hiccup, Goldie, Ace, and Pierre working on their Egyptian history projects. Their teacher, Ms. Pierce (Fierce), has an unusual way of assigning punishments to her students: "the death roll" which is a form of classroom management. Steve's parents tell him that they have already talked to the principals from both schools, so they want him to skip eighth grade and go straight to high school. There are two reasons that Steve doesn't want to go to high school. One reason is that he doesn't want to leave his only friends, that understand him, behind at middle school. The other reason is that Steve thinks he's lost his feel for inventing and he's pretty much giving up on himself. When Hayley confronts him, he kisses her. Sneeze enters the Inventors Club, and his mom has a baby named Alyssa Marie Wyatt, who inherits his terrible allergies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Fine_Day_in_the_Middle_of_the_Night" title="One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night">
Gavin Hutchinson, purveyor of non-threatening holidays to the British masses has organised a reunion for his old school classmates. The reunion will take place on his latest project - a unique "floating holiday experience" on a converted North Sea oil rig, a haven for tourists who want a vacation in the sun but without the hassle of actually interacting with any foreigners. And what better way to test out his venture than to host a fifteenth-year high school reunion, the biggest social event of his life... except no one remembers who Gavin is.Gavin may have been a non-entity while at school in Auchenlea, but now that he's made his fortune, he's looking forward to lording it over his old classmates, especially now he's having an affair with Catherine O'Rourke, PR specialist and one-time pin-up for his male classmates at St Michael's.Meanwhile, Gavin's wife, Simone Draper, remains much more memorable to those from Auchenlea than her husband. She is fed up with his philandering and aims to use the evening to publicly embarrass Gavin by announcing her plans to take the twins and leave him. Intent on ruining Gavin's evening, she's also added two extra names to the guest list - Hollywood star, famous comedian (and the recently suicidal) Matt Black, as well as class bampot, though now reformed artist, David "Dilithium Dave" Murdoch.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veniss_Underground" title="Veniss Underground">
"Veniss Underground" alludes in several places to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Like Orpheus, Shadrach descends into the underworld to retrieve his love, Nicola, but here from a cyborg hell, where genetic engineering and DNA splicing create fantastic and horrific creatures. Parallels also exist with Dante's "Inferno". Throughout the novel the idea of heaven and hell come into play. Nick looks into the chaotic world in which he tries to find purpose through what is called living art. Nick journeys into the underworld and makes a deal with the "devil", also known as Quin. As the story progresses, the reader takes on the second person perspective of Nicola and is introduced to a meerkat whom Nicola names Salvador. Salvador (an assassin meerkat sent by Quin) attacks Nicola but she incapacitates him. Nick arrives at Nicola's door and chokes her till she is near death and sent to an organ bank in the underworld. Shadrach comes into play in the third person point of view and takes the initiative of finding his lost love Nicola in the underworld. He finds Salvador injured at Nicola's apartment and cuts off the meerkat's head and attaches it to a plate and renames him John the Baptist. After, with the help of Dr. Fergusen, he finds a partially mutilated Nicola in an organ bank under a pile of miscellaneous body parts guarded by a naked troll. He carries Nicola through the tunnels back to his childhood home and finds a creation of Quin named Candle. Candle leads Nick to the Psyche witch named Rafter. After Rafter decides to try to salvage Nicola, Shadrach takes the action of venturing deeper into the underworld to kill Quin. He finds Nick, now transformed into a piece of living art, being attacked by some in the garbage re-cycling facility. Nick takes Shadrach lower and tells him how to get to Quin by jumping off a moving train with a parachute. Nick pushes Shadrach out of the train only to be shot by Shadrach as he falls. Shadrach manages to open his chute yet he hits the ground hard. Later, he wakes by a beach and an ocean and kicks over a skull where he finds another creation of Quin's called the Gollux. The Gollux tells him the truth while John the Baptist lies, the Gollux leads Shadrach to a ray-like creature named the saylber which Shadrach rides across the ocean and into Quin's world which is actually a very large minnow named the leviathan. He kills Quin and the remote and the whole place explodes. Shadrach climbs up the cliffs back to the subway level. Shadrach retrieves Nicola and takes her to the surface where they are both on a bridge staring at the city which is called Veniss.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Respectful_Prostitute" title="The Respectful Prostitute">
## Setting.Lizzie moves to the south of the United States. She is on a train when four white men harass her. Two black men defend her, and a fight ensues. In the fight, Thomas kills the black man that was with The Negro. He is arrested. He is a nephew of the rich Senator Clarke. The Negro escapes, and the other white men spread the rumour that he had raped Lizzie, so that Thomas shooting the other black man would become acceptable.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Named" title="The Named">
"The Named" opens with a prologue in which two children, Sera and Ethan, are running to witness a rare flower bloom. Ethan, at age four, recognizes his older sister's love for all things strange and otherworldly, and loves being included in her wonder. The moment of wonder is ruined by the appearance of a monster, Marduke, who murders 10-year-old Sera. Ethan's scream marks the transition from the prologue to the first chapter, where 16-year-old Ethan laments the recurring nightmare he has about the death of his sister twelve years before.Ethan's life changed drastically after the death of his sister; his parents, Laura and Shaun, are mere shells of themselves. Laura suffers from severe depression while Shaun exists in a state of perpetual numbness. His only solace is his position in The Guardians of Time, a group of soldiers organized by the immortal Lorian, whose sole purpose is to defeat the goddess Lathenia and her Order of Chaos. The Order's soldiers exist to alter the course of history in order to benefit their goddess; the more chaos created in the past increases her strength in the present. Ethan and his friend and mentor Arkarian spent the majority of the twelve years since Sera's death in training and going on missions to the past to stop the Order from derailing history. Ethan and Arkarian are not only members of the Guard, but also Named by an ancient prophecy that predicts the final battle between the Guard and the Order.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Apollo" title="Beyond Apollo">
The novel's protagonist is Harry M. Evans, the lone survivor of the disastrous first crewed expedition to the planet Venus. Evans provides details of the doomed expedition as a novel in progress, and he proves to be a remarkably unreliable narrator, constantly changing the particulars of his story as it progresses. It quickly becomes apparent to the reader that he may be completely insane, as a feeling of deep (and comical) paranoia underlies Evans's descriptions of the absurd conversations that ensue with the Venusian inhabitants. There is some indication that Evans could very well have murdered his fellow crewmember. The novel ends with a publishing house offering to purchase the rights to Evans's outlandish tale.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lake_(Yasunari_Kawabata_novel)" title="The Lake (Yasunari Kawabata novel)">
Beginning in Karuizawa, the novel alternates between the now middle-aged Momoi and recurring memories of a lake from his hometown, and his interactions with a number of women, beginning with a relative and the uncomfortable circumstances surrounding a death in his family. The novel then explores his connection to a woman who loses a purse full of several years' worth of money earned as a lover to an older man as well as a relationship with a student, Hisako, when Momoi is a teacher, a relationship that begins with a somewhat odd-request for a good cure for a foot condition Momoi suffers from and then examines the circumstances of Hisako's family, who are well-off in the immediate post-war era. Finally, the now middle-aged Momoi follows a young girl during a summer period leading up to a festival and crosses path with a woman closer to his age.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocheworld" title="Rocheworld">
A small group of civilian and military personnel carries out humanity's first crewed mission to another star system. They embark on a one-way exploratory mission to Barnard's Star, where planets have been discovered by a robot probe. They travel in a laser-driven light sail spacecraft christened Prometheus. The journey lasts 40 years, but the crew uses a drug called "No-Die," which slows their aging process, whilst lowering their effective I.Q. and emotional state to that of small children. They arrive only a decade physically older than when they left. They are cared for during this period by the ship's AI computer.At Barnard they begin their exploration, moving around the system and deploying various robot probes. Part of the crew then uses a lander to visit the double planet Rocheworld, which consists of a solid-surface lobe they call Roche (French for rock as well as the name of the French mathematician who worked on Roche limits) and an ammonia/water-covered lobe they call Eau (French for water). A subset of the landing party journeys to Eau in the space-plane Dragonfly, which was carried on the lander. Over Eau the Dragonfly is caught in a violent storm that forces it to ditch. Unable to take off, the crew uses the plane's lift fans as propellers to make their way to the inner pole of the double planet, where the gravitation from Roche will help them to break free and return to the lander.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_Creation" title="The Day of Creation">
The main character of the novel is the World Health Organization doctor John Mallory who, six months after his arrival in Central Africa, finds that intense guerrilla activity has left him without patients. He devotes himself, instead, to the task of bringing water to the region, with dreams of setting the Sahara in flower. When he accidentally manages to achieve his task by creating a river, he becomes prey of an increasingly delirious spiral of fantasies, starting to identify himself with the new river that he has dubbed "Mallory". Obsessed, he decides to go up the river in order to "kill" its source, together with a teenaged African girl, whom he considers a sort of spirit of the waters, and other characters including a half-blind British documentary filmmaker and two ruthless local chieftains trying to take advantage of the new prosperity brought by the water.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_of_the_Peaceful_Warrior" title="Way of the Peaceful Warrior">
Dan is a world-class trampolining gymnast attending college at the University of California, Berkeley. The story begins when Dan experiences a series of nightmares, where he is in a dark lane. In front of him is Death, about to claim his life, when an old man appears out of nowhere and confronts Death. One particular night, Dan heads out to an all night gas station, where he meets the same old man from his dreams.Dan, nervous, leaves immediately, but as he turns back, he sees the man standing on the roof. Surprised that he could move so quickly, Dan strikes up a conversation with the old man, and calls him Socrates. Dan begins to meet Socrates on a regular basis, and is interested in his philosophy.Socrates ridicules Dan, pointing out that he is trapped in the illusions created by his mind, causing Dan so much trouble. Dan keeps a diary and is surprised that his mind is so troubled, that he is used to it. Dan demands Socrates to teach him. Socrates begins his initiation, by showing Dan visions of his whole life; his purpose; the world and "re arranges" the young man's mind. Socrates tells Dan that he should eliminate attachments and live in the present, but warns him that it would be a painful journey. Dan becomes besotted with Socrates's other protégée, a mysterious girl named Joy, who keeps turning up, unpredictably.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who?_(novel)" title="Who? (novel)">
An explosion resulting from an experiment gone awry rocks an Allied research facility near the border with the Soviet Bloc. A Soviet team abducts Lucas Martino, a leading Allied physicist in charge of a secret, high-priority project called K-88.Several months later, under American pressure, the Soviet officials finally hand over an individual, claiming that he is Martino. The man has undergone extensive surgery for his injuries. He has a mechanical arm that is more advanced than any produced in the West. More importantly, his head is now a nearly featureless metal skull, a kind of extreme craniofacial prosthesis. A medical evaluation reveals that several of the man's internal organs are also artificial. His biological arm and its hand's fingerprints are identified as Martino's, but this may be the result of an arm and hand transplantation. The Allies are suspicious that the Soviets have sent them a technologically altered spy and are holding the real Martino for further interrogation.The struggle to determine the man's true identity is the novel's central conflict. In the end, Shawn Rogers, the agent given the task, is unable to reach a conclusion. The man is released, but kept under surveillance and barred from working on physics projects. Later, when progress bogs down on the K-88 project, Rogers is sent to ask him to come back to work. The man refuses to go, and when finally asked directly if he is Lucas Martino, says simply "No": a reply that will later be seen as trenchantly mordant.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_and_Mouse_(novella)" title="Cat and Mouse (novella)">
The narrator describes the character "The Great Mahlke" from their youth together through to Mahlke's disappearance near the end of the Second World War. Much of the action of the story is on a half-submerged sunken minesweeper of the Polish Navy, on which the narrator, Mahlke and their friends meet each summer. Mahlke explores the shipwreck by diving through a hatch, and with his ever-present screwdriver salvages various items (information plaques, objects left behind by the crew, and even a gramophone) to sell or collect for himself.Over the course of the novella Mahlke steals a Knight's Cross from a visiting U-boat captain and is expelled from school. He joins a Panzer division and receives a Knight's Cross thanks to his successes in battle. Returning to the school from which he was expelled, however, the principal forbids him from making a speech to the students, on the grounds of his former disgrace.The narrative in the story is often fairly incoherent. For instance, the timeline of the narration is often treated flexibly, moving from the narrator's perspective to different points within his memory of the events. There is also disunity about whether Mahlke is addressed in the second- or third-person, with Grass sometimes changing the form of address within a single sentence, possibly indicating the narrator's inability to remove his own emotions and feelings of guilt from an objective account of Mahlke.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crown_of_Dalemark" title="The Crown of Dalemark">
The book is set in two parallel times; the present-day Dalemark, and the time of Mitt ("Drowned Ammet") and Moril ("Cart and Cwidder"), some 200 years in the past. Mitt, who has recently escaped from the South and met Moril in North Dalemark, finds himself embroiled in a race to find an heir to the throne of Dalemark, which has lain empty for over 200 years, and gets mixed up in the machinations of a number of powerful forces.Maewen, a girl from present-day Dalemark, is transported by magic back in time to assist with the restoration of the royal line. In ancient Dalemark, Noreth Onesdaughter, a twin likeness of Maewen and apparently descended directly from the ancient kings of Dalemark, asks people to accompany her on her quest to become Queen. Unfortunately, just before she goes to meet her followers, she disappears. Maewen is drafted to replace her, and she has to lead Noreth's followers, collect the four tokens that will prove her right to the throne, and convince everyone that she is Noreth, all the while hearing mysterious voices in the air.Maewen sets out on her quest for the ancient crown of Dalemark with a small band of followers from the previous books in the series: Moril, Mitt, Navis Haddsson (a refugee nobleman from the South, see "Drowned Ammet"), Wend (the ancient magician-singer Tanamoril, Osfameron or Duck: see "The Spellcoats"), and Hestefan the Singer (who is eventually exposed as the evil Kankredin's agent and the murderer of Noreth). When they finally receive the crown from the One, the supreme god-like power of Dalemark, it is not Maewen who receives it – but Mitt.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breath,_Eyes,_Memory" title="Breath, Eyes, Memory">
"Breath, Eyes, Memory" was Danticat's first novel, published when she was only twenty-five years old. As she has recounted in interviews, the book began as an essay of her childhood in Haiti and her move as a young girl to New York City.The novel is written in a first person narrative. The narrator, Sophie Caco, relates her direct experiences and impressions from age 12 until she is in her twenties. Sophie is the product of a violent rape and is raised by her loving aunt in a village near Port-au-Prince for 12 years. At this point, Sophie is unexpectedly summoned by her mother, who lives in Brooklyn having gained asylum and immigrated to the United States. Living with her mother in New York, Sophie discovers the trauma her mother endures inclusive of violent nightmares reminiscent of her experience prior to fleeing Haiti.The major conflict of the novel is the main character's battle with her inner self. Because she is a child of rape (her mother had been raped at the young age of 16 by an unknown man), she is a reminder to her mother of the wounds that had been inflicted on her. Her mother as a result of the rape remained this wounded but very resilient woman. Her mother came to resent her own self and body and constantly has nightmares about the rape. She grows into a woman who fights a battle with herself as a woman, wife, mother, as well as daughter. She is also in turn fighting the weight of her inheritance, as well as her mother's past experiences.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifles_for_Watie" title="Rifles for Watie">
Jefferson Davis Bussey marches off to Leavenworth from Linn County, Kansas in 1861, on his way to join the Union volunteers. He is off to fight for the North, his zeal having been fueled by reaction to the guerilla war of "bushwhackers" that was taking place in eastern Kansas. However, Stand Watie is on the side of the South. We meet many soldiers and civilians on both sides of the war, including Watie's raiding parties, itinerant printer Noah Babbitt and, in Tahlequah, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) the beautiful Cherokee girl, Lucy Washbourne. During an undercover mission, Jeff finds that Captain Asa Clardy of the Union Cavalry is smuggling new Spencer rifles to the Indian forces of Stand Watie.Jeff winds up fighting for both the North and the South (while on a special undercover mission) during the conflict while making friends on each side. The book is also notable for the detailed depiction of contemporary Cherokee life in Indian Territory, including various tribal political factions. Keith portrays the difficulties Jeff Bussey faces in choosing one side or the other in the midst of huge conflicts.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Junes" title="Three Junes">
"Three Junes" follows the McLeods, a Scottish family, throughout their lives and relationships. Its members are Paul and Maureen, and their sons: Fenno, and twins David and Dennis. At the opening of the book, Paul is on a tour of Greece, Maureen has died from lung cancer, and Fenno is running a bookstore in New York City. Other important characters include Malachy, Fenno's friend who is a music critic and suffering from AIDS, and Fern, an unwed pregnant woman, whom Paul formerly met on his trip to Greece, trying to recover from his wife's death. Finally, another important character of the book is Tony, a photographer, who is a house-sitter, never living in the same house for more than a few months. He is a catalyst in the narrative development of Fern and Fenno. He is an old friend with Fern and he develops a tumultuous relationship with Fenno.The novel is written in three parts, using the flashback technique. The first takes place in 1989 and is told from Paul's perspective; the second, in 1995 and from Fenno's point of view; the third, in 1999 and from Fern's perspective. As Julia Glass has said herself, the book should be viewed not as a trilogy but rather a triptych – elements that may seem small in one section play a large role in another, like a triptych, rather than a consecutive series of novels in a trilogy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Labyrinth" title="The Magic Labyrinth">
The book begins with the Mysterious Stranger, known as X, the renegade Ethical (one of the Riverworld's creators) who posed as the engineer Barry Thorn on the airship "Parseval" and there murdered Milton Firebrass and several others, all of whom were fellow Ethicals. He is now posing as a Mayan named Ah Qaaq, in the company of the Chinese poet Li Po. Through his internal reverie he reveals that his identity was discovered by Monat Grrautut, the director of the Riverworld project, who recalled 'X' to the Dark Tower to be judged. Against this, 'X' used a remote command to kill all the inhabitants of the tower and stop the resurrections of Riverworld's inhabitants. His reverie when the left bank's 'grailstones' (supplying food and stimulants) fail to operate and are not mended by the Ethicals, who are either dead or confined (like 'X' himself) to the river. After the grailstones fail, the inhabitants of the left bank invade the right for resources, and half of humanity dies in the conflict.Concurrently, protagonist Richard Burton and his friends have joined the crew of King John's ship, the "Rex Grandissimus", where Burton, masquerading as a Dark Age British warrior, becomes King John's security chief. One day Tom Mix, Jack London, and Peter Jairus Frigate apply to join the crew; and Burton, recognizing Frigate, attacks him as a spy for the Ethicals. Realizing his mistake, Burton allies himself with Frigate, Mix, and London. Meanwhile, the Ethical Monat Grrautut has boarded Sam Clemens' ship, where he is murdered by the renegade Ethical.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Agent_of_Terra" title="Secret Agent of Terra">
Planet 14 was just a speck on a spacial stereo map, just a world inhabited by a group of barbaric refugees. But to Belfeor, it was instant cash. All he needed was an iron hand and a means to dig out its radioactive resources for export to his own world. To Maddalena it was a final exam: this would be her last chance to prove herself worthy of Corps Galactica membership. To Saikmar, it was a nation and a people stolen from him by cruel treachery. To Gus Langenschmidt, it was part of a job he had, watching the skies and helping men who were being enslaved. But how do you help people who don't know you exist and who must not be told?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism_and_Nationalism_in_the_Third_World" title="Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World">
"Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World" begins by introducing the countries it selects to focus on: Egypt, Iran, Turkey, India, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia. Kumari analyses how the common history of colonial rule has shaped these countries through similar experiences but also points out the differences in their belief systems: Egypt, Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan share Islamic history; India and Sri Lanka err towards beliefs based on Buddhism; Chinese, Japanese and Korean ideals are rooted in Confucius’s philosophy and the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia have been dominated by both: Indian and Chinese influences. The distinction in ideologies is important, Kumari suggests, because it’s shaped the approaches towards their liberation efforts and the means through which women mobilized to contribute to national liberation efforts.Kumari explores how the expansion of capitalism through colonisation in these societies led to the creation of a class of ‘local bourgeoise’- commission agents, allies of the settlers, traders who were unsatisfied with the terms of asymmetric trading relations and intellectuals and professionals who had studied abroad or at modern schools. The emergence of this new class of locals prompted a rise in nationalist ideas in retaliation to the occupation and economic exploitation of imperialist powers, leading to a rise in early ideas of women’s emancipation. She discusses the common strategies through which self-rule was achieved; modernization of societies, demolition of conventional structures such as the ruling monarchies and religious institutions, and lastly, imbuing masses with nationalist sentiments.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gods_of_Riverworld" title="Gods of Riverworld">
This book concludes the chronicles of the adventures of such diverse characters as Sir Richard Burton, Alice Pleasance Liddell, Aphra Behn and Tom Turpin through a bizarre afterlife in which every human ever to have lived is simultaneously resurrected along a single river valley that stretches over an entire planet.Although Farmer's 1980 novel "The Magic Labyrinth" was originally intended to be the last in the series, Farmer continued it in this novel, which picks up with the characters who have just arrived in the alien-built tower at the headwaters of the river from which this constructed world gets its name; they must decide how to use the resurrection machinery they now control, and also solve the mystery of the murder of the mysterious stranger.It is revealed that the Ethicals have been recording humanity since about 97,000 BC.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Telling" title="The Telling">
Sutty, a woman of mixed India/British ancestry, travels from Earth to the planet Aka to provide observations as an outside observer. On Aka, all traditional customs and beliefs have been outlawed by the state. There Sutty experiences and tells of the conflicts there between the Corporation, a repressive state capitalist government, and the native people who resist.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Martin_(novel)" title="Daniel Martin (novel)">
"Daniel Martin" is the story of a Hollywood screenwriter who returns to his native England when a friend from university asks to see him before he dies. With flashbacks to his childhood in the 1940s and time at university in Oxford, a tale of frustrated love emerges. The dying man (Anthony) asks him to look after his wife Jane. Daniel had, in fact, married Jane's sister, despite loving Jane and having spent one night with her.While in England, Daniel improves relations with his daughter (Caro) and his estranged wife (Nell). Then Daniel and Jane go on a cruise visiting Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon; and the two fall in love again. Daniel breaks up with his Scottish girlfriend, and the two lovers are reunited at the end of the book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceberg_(Cussler_novel)" title="Iceberg (Cussler novel)">
Dirk Pitt is summoned from his vacation on the sunny beaches of California and sent to the Arctic when an iceberg is discovered that contains the remains of a missing luxury yacht. The yacht was on its way to a top-secret meeting with the White House; now the entire crew is dead, incinerated at their posts. This discovery sets Pitt on a deadly adventure as he tries to stop a multi-millionaire madman from upsetting the balance of world power and possibly causing the collapse of the world's economy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartimaeus_Sequence" title="Bartimaeus Sequence">
## "The Amulet of Samarkand".The first book in the trilogy, published 2003, introduces Nathaniel as the gifted 12-year-old apprentice of a middle-aged mid-level magician, Arthur Underwood. He assumes his magician name, John Mandrake, to protect him from rivals who would wish to harm him. When the magician Simon Lovelace cruelly humiliates Nathaniel in public, Nathaniel decides to take revenge by stealing Lovelace's most powerful possession, the Amulet of Samarkand, which makes the wearer invulnerable to magic. Unknown to his tutor, he begins the study of advanced magic in order to summon the djinni Bartimaeus and enslave him. Bartimaeus soon overhears Nathaniel's birth-name, which greatly reduces Nathaniel's control over him, because demons can then cast counterspells. Things soon get out of hand and Bartimaeus and Nathaniel find themselves caught in the middle of magical espionage, murder, blackmail, and revolt. Together, the two of them defeat Lovelace and his most powerful demon, Ramuthra, who was last seen destroying an entire nation. These actions ended an uneasy truce between the young magician and Bartimaeus, resulting in the demon returning to whence he came. Nathaniel and Bartimaeus are stuck in a terrifying flood of revenge and murder.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Memory_of_Light" title="A Memory of Light">
In the prologue, the armies of the Westlands assemble in preparation for "Tarmon Gai'don", as do the forces of the Shadow. The Forsaken Demandred stages a raid on the city of Caemlyn, sending Trollocs to capture the cannons, developed jointly by Matrim Cauthon, Queen Elayne Trakand, and the Illuminator Aludra. Talmanes Delovinde and the Band of the Red Hand launch their own counter-attack and successfully exfiltrate the cannons out of the city, but Caemlyn is lost.The Light is bolstered by people coming from all over the world to fight, sensing the end of all things, while the Shadow welcomes a new Forsaken: Mazrim Taim, now called "M'Hael".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aspern_Papers" title="The Aspern Papers">
A nameless narrator goes to Venice to find Juliana Bordereau, an old lover of Jeffrey Aspern, a famous and now dead American poet. The narrator presents himself to the old woman as a prospective lodger and is prepared to court her niece Miss Tita (renamed "Miss Tina" in later editions), a plain, somewhat naive spinster, in hopes of getting a look at some of Aspern's letters and other papers kept by Juliana. Miss Tita had denied the existence of any such papers in a letter to the narrator and his publishing partner, but he believes she was dissembling on instructions from Juliana. The narrator eventually discloses his intentions to Miss Tita, who promises to help him.Later, Juliana offers to sell a portrait miniature of Aspern to the narrator for an exorbitant price. She doesn't mention Jeffrey Aspern's name, but the narrator still believes she possesses some of his letters. When the old woman falls ill, the narrator ventures into her room and gets caught by Juliana as he is about to rifle her desk for the letters. Juliana calls the narrator a "publishing scoundrel" and collapses. The narrator flees, and when he returns some days later, he discovers that Juliana has died. Miss Tita hints that he can have the Aspern letters if he marries her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streams_of_Silver" title="Streams of Silver">
Following the events of "The Crystal Shard", Bruenor leads his friends Drizzt Do'Urden, the barbarian Wulfgar, and a surprisingly enthusiastic Regis, on a quest to reclaim Mithril Hall, the ancient stronghold of his clan. However, Regis has an ulterior motive for coming along; namely to elude the dangerous assassin Artemis Entreri, sent by Pasha Pook of Calimshan to recover the magical ruby that Regis stole from him.Just as the companions are setting out, Entreri arrives in Ten-Towns, soon locating Regis' abandoned home and finding Catti-brie there. The young woman finds herself hopelessly outmatched and paralyzed by fear, telling him all about Regis and the companions' quest. Entreri allows her to live, confident that she will not dare to interfere with his plans. Afraid for her friends, and desperate to regain her honor, she follows after both the companions and Entreri, hoping to warn her friends. On the way to Luskan, Entreri realizes that he is being followed and captures Catti-brie again, this time taking her along as a prisoner to use against the companions.Meanwhile, the companions reach Luskan, and seek out a map of the Northlands to aid in their quest. However, Dendybar the Mottled — an ambitious wizard from the Hosttower of the Arcane — has heard of the Crystal Shard and believes that Drizzt still possesses it, and plots to take it for his own ends. He forges an uneasy alliance with Entreri so that both may achieve their goals, and sends his apprentice Sydney with Entreri, along with his golem (Bok) and a soldier named Jierdan.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Halfling's_Gem" title="The Halfling's Gem">
The dark elf Drizzt Do'Urden and Wulfgar the barbarian race to Calimport to rescue their friend Regis—who is being held as a captive, along with Drizzt's magical panther Guenhwyvar, by Artemis Entreri—and his stolen gem from the vengeance of Pasha Pook, Regis's former boss whom Regis betrayed by stealing his hypnotizing gem. While Drizzt and Wulfgar's chase continue, it is shown to us that Bruenor is not dead. It turns out that after Bruenor jumped onto the back of Shimmergloom, he survived the fall and fire due to having hold of Drizzt's scimitar, Icingdeath. Having been invulnerable to the fire, besting the dragon, he crawled back to the surface. Breunor then fails to sneak past the duergar and fights through scores of them before facing off against a giant spider. Lady Alustriel finds the poisoned and near-dead dwarf, heals him back to health, reunites him with Catti-brie and sends both of them after Drizzt and Wulfgar by supplying them with a burning chariot. Meanwhile, Drizzt and Wulfgar are on the sea, chasing Entreri by boat with the help of his good Captain Deudermont. In the middle of a fight with pirates, Bruenor and Catti-brie arrive and "The Companions of the Hall" are united once again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Shard" title="The Crystal Shard">
Even in the remote far northern region of Icewind Dale, the renegade dark elf ranger Drizzt Do'Urden is not fully accepted, except by the dwarves whom he had eventually befriended. He roams the tundra, hunting down yeti and giants that threaten the Ten Towns of Icewind Dale. When the Dale's native barbarians band together to slaughter the people of Ten-Towns, whom they view as invaders, Drizzt, with his drow stealth and ranger's knowledge of the terrain, discerns their plan and relays the information to his friends, the halfling Regis and the dwarf Bruenor. Regis, on the council of Ten-Towns, uses persuasion and a magical hypnotic ruby pendant to convince the stubborn leaders of the towns to work together to thwart the barbarian attack.Because of the warning and their unified efforts, Ten-Towns and the dwarves successfully repel the barbarian attackers. Drizzt personally meets the barbarian king, Heafstaag, in combat. He wounds Heafstaag many times, including a stab to the stomach that should have been fatal, but the king manages to survive and escape after wounding Drizzt. Meanwhile, Bruenor clashes with a young barbarian standard bearer, who breaks the shaft of his banner over the dwarf's head to no effect. Bruenor then slams the youth with his shield, rendering him unconscious. After the battle, Bruenor saves him from being killed in cold blood by the townspeople, instead taking the young man, Wulfgar, son of (the late) Beornegar into his care. Bruenor also defends the wounded and unconscious Drizzt, slamming Kemp to the ground and breaking the nose of his lieutenant when he finds them kicking the injured drow. Bruenor tells the people of Ten Towns that if not for Drizzt Do'Urden, they would now be dead, which grants Drizzt a measure of acceptance and respect in Icewind Dale.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_of_Time" title="Axis of Time">
In 2021, a radical Islamic terrorist movement has declared a global jihad against the West and established a Caliphate in Indonesia, initiating a wholesale slaughter of Chinese nationals there. In response, a US-led multinational task force of advanced warships and submarines sails to Indonesia to launch a counterattack against the Caliphate forces and retake the archipelago. With the fleet is a research vessel, the "Nagoya", which is testing top-secret weapons and stealth systems that use the latest developments in quantum physics.As the task force lies at anchor off the coast of East Timor preparing for deployment, the "Nagoya" conducts a full-scale test of its new systems but there is a catastrophic accident—the experiment generates a massive rift in the time-space continuum, completely destroying the "Nagoya" and sending most of the fleet back in time to 1942.Many of the 2021 ships materialize in the middle of the US fleet that is steaming to engage the Japanese at the Battle of Midway, including one vessel which materializes into the structure of a 1942 ship, with horrific results. When the mystery fleet suddenly appears, the Americans mistake them for the enemy (due to the presence of Japanese vessels in the 2021 fleet) and they begin firing on them. With the crews of the 2021 fleet rendered helpless by "transition sickness", the computerized battle systems on their ships automatically activate, inflicting heavy damage and thousands of casualties on the 1942 fleet until the two forces work out what has happened and halt the battle. As the nature of the event dawns on the two fleets, the two commanders strike an uneasy truce and the combined fleet heads back to Pearl Harbor. The Americans then launch an intensive study into the 2021 fleet's futuristic computer and weapons technology, as well as the wealth of historical information which describes their own future – although many items of technology from the future fleet are stolen by unscrupulous sailors from 1942 and sold to the criminal underworld.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designated_Targets" title="Designated Targets">
In the story, it is September 1942, four months after the Transition. A cease-fire has been signed between Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, and the dictators have re-established their June 1941 borders. Both nations are 'cooperating' in various areas of research (particularly rocketry) at the newly built Demidenko research facility in Ukraine. Thanks to the foreknowledge granted by the Transition, Hitler and Stalin have purged their military and party ranks of traitors (real and imagined) that have been revealed from our history but not without problems: the arrest of Field Marshal Rommel sparks off a mutiny of the Afrika Korps that throws the entire North African front into chaos.Most of the German war machine shifts to "Operation Sea Dragon": the invasion of Britain. Meanwhile, in the Pacific, the Japanese have conquered New Guinea and the nearby island chains, and are battling Allied forces (reinforced with troops from the Multinational Force) along the Brisbane Line in Australia.In the United States a "Special Administrative Zone" has been carved out within the San Fernando Valley of California. Within "the Zone", the laws of the United States as of 15 January 2021 apply and it becomes an enclave for the 21st Century personnel. Many of the Multinational Force members work in various technological areas and thousands of contemporary females and non-whites are clamouring to join their ranks.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blubber_(novel)" title="Blubber (novel)">
The story takes place in Radnor, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia.The entire class ostracizes Linda. Although she is not the heaviest student in their class, Wendy and her best friend and sidekick Caroline are Linda's chief tormentors and bully her both physically and psychologically (forcing her to say things such as "I am Blubber, the Smelly Whale of Class 206"). As a member of Wendy's clique, Jill participates in the bullying without remorse, though Wendy and Caroline are usually the instigators. Linda confronts Jill and threatens her with revenge after one incident, but Jill dismisses the threat, confident of her status and protection as one of Wendy's circle.Jill and her friend Tracy play a prank on their grouch of a neighbor, Mr. Machinist, on Halloween, stuffing raw rotten eggs into his mailbox, but are later identified from a photo taken by Mr. Machinist and are made to rake the leaves in his backyard as punishment. While raking, Jill and Tracy find they need to use the restroom. They urinate all over Mr. Machinist's trees as a sort of payback.Remembering Linda's threat, Jill suspects that "Blubber" was the one who tattled on her and Tracy; Tracy, however, suspects Wendy and Caroline, which infuriates Wendy. To appease Wendy, Jill suggests that the class hold a mock trial for Linda (with Wendy, naturally, as judge, and a jury made up of several classmates). To this suggestion, Tracy remarks that she thinks Jill is scared of Wendy. Jill soon realizes that Tracy is right.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_God_Pan" title="The Great God Pan">
Clarke agrees, somewhat unwillingly, to bear witness to a strange experiment performed by his friend, Dr. Raymond. The ultimate goal of the doctor is to open the mind of a patient so that they may experience the spiritual world, an experience he notes the ancients called "seeing the great god Pan". He performs the experiment, which involves minor brain surgery, on a young woman named Mary. She awakens from the operation awed and terrified but quickly becomes "a hopeless idiot".Years later, Clarke learns of a beautiful but sinister girl named Helen Vaughan, who is reported to have caused a series of mysterious happenings in her town. She spends much of her time in the woods near her house, and takes other children on prolonged twilight rambles in the countryside that disturb the parents of the town. One day, a young boy stumbles across her "playing on the grass with a 'strange naked man,"; the boy becomes hysterical and later, after seeing a Roman statue of a satyr's head, becomes permanently feeble-minded. Helen also forms an unusually close friendship with a neighbour girl, Rachel, whom she leads several times into the woods. On one occasion Rachel returns home distraught, half-naked and rambling. Shortly after explaining to her mother what happened to her (never revealed in the story), Rachel returns to the woods and disappears forever. Clarke relates these events in a book he is writing entitled "Memoirs to Prove the Existence of the Devil".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malone_Dies" title="Malone Dies">
Malone is an old man who lies naked in bed in either asylum or hospital—he is not sure which. Most of his personal effects have been taken from him, though he has retained some: his exercise book, brimless hat, and pencil. He alternates between writing on his own situation and on that of a boy named Sapo. When he reaches the point in the story where Sapo becomes a man, he changes Sapo's name to Macmann, finding Sapo a ludicrous name. Soon after, Malone admits to having killed six men, but seems to think it's not a big deal, particularly the last: a total stranger whom he cut across the neck with a razor.Eventually, Macmann falls over in mud and is taken to an institution called St. John's of God. There he is provided with an attendant nurse: an elderly, thick-lipped woman named Moll, with crosses of bone on either ear representing the two thieves crucified with Jesus on Good Friday, and a crucifix carved on her tooth representing Jesus. The two eventually begin a stumbling sexual affair, but after a while she does not return, and he learns that she has died.The new nurse is a man named Lemuel, and there is an animosity between the two. Macmann (and sometimes Malone drifts into the first-person) has an issue with a stick that he uses to reach things, then Lemuel takes it away.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosala_(novel)" title="Kosala (novel)">
The story unfolds during the 1950s in Khandesh (a region in Central India), and in Pune. Using the autobiographical form, "Kosala" narrates the life-story of Pandurang Sangvikar, a young man of 25, in six sections.Pandurang is the son of a well-to-do farmer from Sangvi, a village in Khandesh. His family includes his parents, his grandmother, and his four sisters. Pandurang's relationship with his father is a difficult one, and they have been estranged since Pandurang was a boy. His father, who typifies the patriarchal family head, beats his son in childhood for wandering around in the company of his friends. He does not allow the young boy to learn to play the flute, or to perform in his school's plays. Pandurang considers his father excessively money-minded, materialistic, selfish, unscrupulous, and dictatorial. In sharp contrast to his relationship with his father, Pandurang loves his mother and his sisters dearly.After passing his local school's matriculation examination, Pandurang moves to Pune to attend college. While studying, Pandurang lives in a hostel. He decides to make the most of college life, and becomes the secretary of the college debating society, prefect of the hostel, and directs a play at the college Annual Day function. Out of kindness, he gives responsibility for the management of the hostel mess to one of his poor friends. But, although Pandurang tries to help everyone around him, he ultimately discovers that his friends are using him. Finally, when he fails his exams badly and his financial position deteriorates, his father becomes angered by Pandurang's lifestyle. Pandurang learns a lesson: that good deeds do not count for much in life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpio_Illusion" title="The Scorpio Illusion">
Tyrell Hawthorne was a naval intelligence officer - one of the best - until the rain-swept night in Amsterdam when his wife was murdered, an innocent victim. Now Hawthorne has been called out of retirement for one last assignment. For he is the only man alive who can track down the world's most dangerous terrorist. Amaya Bajaratt is beautiful, elusive, deadly - and she has set in motion a chilling conspiracy that a desperate government cannot stop. With the life of the president hanging in the balance, Hawthorne must follow Amaya's serpentine trail to uncover the sinister network that exists to help this consummate killer. And Hawthorne must discover the shattering truth behind the Scorpio Illusion.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisingr" title="Brisingr">
## Setting and characters."Brisingr" begins about three days after the events in "Eldest" conclude. It continues the story of the "Inheritance Cycle" and takes place on the fictional continent of Alagaësia during a struggle for power as the small country Surda and a rebel group called the Varden attempts to overthrow the larger Empire. They are supported mainly by elves, dwarves, and Urgals, but the Empire is populated with large numbers of humans, who far outnumber Surda and its allies. The "Inheritance Cycle" focuses on the story of a teenage boy named Eragon and his dragon Saphira. Eragon is one of the few remaining Dragon Riders, a group that governed Alagaësia in past times but were almost destroyed by a Rider named Galbatorix, who took control of the land. Galbatorix's greatest fear is that a new Rider will rise up and usurp his position as king of the Empire, Galbatorix's shade, Durza, knows a dragon egg went to the spine, so he sends the Ra-Zac to investigate, causing Eragon to lose his home, and have to flee with a storyteller named Brom."Brisingr" is told in third-person from the perspectives of multiple primary protagonists. These characters include the humans Eragon, Roran, and Nasuada, and the dragons Saphira and Glaedr. The humans Galbatorix and Murtagh return as antagonists, along with Murtagh's dragon, Thorn. The Ra'zac return for a minor antagonist role, and Varaug, a Shade, also appears for a main antagonist role. Many minor characters reprise their roles in "Brisingr" from previous installments of the "Inheritance Cycle", including the elves Arya, Islanzadí, and Oromis; the dwarf Orik; the humans Angela, Katrina and Elva; and the dragon Glaedr.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Underpants_and_the_Attack_of_the_Talking_Toilets" title="Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets">
George and Harold got out of their fourth-grade gym class and found that Jerome Horwitz Elementary School is planning on hosting its second annual Invention Convention, with the prize being the recipient(s) becoming the principal for a day. Upon seeing the poster for it, George and Harold think to themselves what it would be like to be principals for the day, but Mr. Krupp bans George and Harold from the convention this year and puts them in study hall all day, because last year's Invention Convention was ruined by them applying a body heat activating glue made of rubber cement and concentrated orange juice they invented on everyone's seats except their own.While getting ready to secretly sabotage everyone's inventions after thinking it isn't fair, the two boys run into Melvin Sneedly, who is busy working on his invention, the PATSY 2000, a photocopier that can make a simple two-dimensional image come alive. He demonstrates by putting in a photo of a mouse; out comes a real one, going on the floor. George and Harold assume Melvin put the real mouse in earlier, but they make a deal in which George and Harold promise to not sabotage Melvin's invention, as long as he doesn't report them. Because of George and Harold's pranks, the convention has to be called off, confusing Mr. Krupp as he knows that he put George and Harold in study hall himself and Melvin then breaks George and Harold's promise and tattles on them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Underpants_and_the_Invasion_of_the_Incredibly_Naughty_Cafeteria_Ladies_from_Outer_Space_(and_the_Subsequent_Assault_of_the_Equally_Evil_Lunchroom_Zombie_Nerds)" title="Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space (and the Subsequent Assault of the Equally Evil Lunchroom Zombie Nerds)">
Zorx, Klax and Jennifer, three evil extraterrestrials, land on the rooftop of Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, but people don't realize this UFO is on the roof of the school, allowing them to spy on them. Meanwhile, George and Harold mess with their science teacher, learning about the reaction of mixing baking soda and vinegar. They then make the cafeteria ladies a fake cupcake recipe, disguised as "Mr. Krupp's Krispy Krupcakes" for Principal Krupp's "birthday". The lunch ladies decide to surprise Mr. Krupp and make cupcakes for the entire school and the school is flooded with sticky green goop.A day after, as the school is cleaned, the lunch ladies show Mr. Krupp about the mess, who gets very mad when he hears that they did it for his birthday. ("But it wasn't even my birthday!") Agitated, the lunch ladies blame George and Harold, but Mr. Krupp needs proof to punish them. Furious from past agitations by these two students, these lunch ladies soon resign. About 10 seconds after, the aliens come in, very badly disguised as humans and Mr. Krupp hires the three, due to them having no experience, credentials, or references. For the boys' antics, Mr. Krupp eliminates cafeteria privileges from them and requires them to eat lunch in his office where he can keep an eye on them, much to this surprise (believing they got in trouble for something they "didn't" do). The day after, while Mr. Krupp has a banana, both boys made unique sandwiches and other food so junky and disgusting, Mr. Krupp feels like he'll get sick and exits his office for some fresh air.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Underpants_and_the_Perilous_Plot_of_Professor_Poopypants" title="Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants">
At the southwest of Greenland, a scientist from the fictional country of New Swissland (with a foreign culture where everyone has a silly name) named Professor Pippy P. Poopypants goes to the United States to demonstrate how his Shrinky-Pig 2000 and Goosy-Grow 4000 can help the world by reducing garbage and increasing food, but everyone laughs at Poopypants' silly name rather than taking him seriously.Meanwhile, the whole school is going to a pizza place called Piqua Pizza Palace, George and Harold decide to rearrange the letters on the nearby sign during the wait to get on the bus, but Mr. Krupp catches the boys and bans them from the school field trip, tasked with cleaning the teacher's lounge for the rest of the trip. However, the boys get their revenge by "modifying" things around in the teachers' lounge. After the trip, the teachers fall into George and Harold's trap and get largely covered in powder paste and Styrofoam pellets. The teachers run out of the lounge in horror, causing Mr. Fyde, the science teacher, to witness the teachers covered in these items and believe they're abominable snowmen.Mr. Fyde resigns the next day, believing he's losing his sanity due to the incident the other day and having a dream by being eaten by a talking toilet, hearing cats and dogs in the classroom, then imagined that the school flooded with green goop, and seeing Captain Underpants, eventually leading to Mr. Fyde resigning in the Piqua Valley Home For The Reality-Challenged prompting Mr. Krupp to find a new science teacher.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Underpants_and_the_Wrath_of_the_Wicked_Wedgie_Woman" title="Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman">
Ms. Ribble announces that she is going to retire at the end of the school year and forces everyone to make happy retirement cards for her, but George and Harold make a Captain Underpants comic with her as "The Wicked Wedgie Woman" instead, and they got sent to Mr. Krupp's office for that. The boys are assigned to pass out the "Friday Memo", which they do with several humorous changes. They later convince Mr. Krupp to sign a blank retirement card, but later, having found out about their comic (and catching them changing a sign), he puts them in detention. Harold defiantly refuses to give Ms. Ribble the card, causing Mr. Krupp to seize it and plan to deliver it himself. At Ms. Ribble's retirement party (which everyone was forced to go to), Mr. Krupp hands over the letter, where it is revealed that Harold made it look like a marriage proposal from Mr. Krupp, having used reverse psychology to get Mr Krupp to deliver it. Having fallen into a state of catatonia because of the proposal (only saying "B-B-Bubba-Bobba. Hob-Hobba-Hobba-Wah-Wah!"), Mr. Krupp remains indifferent to the following chaotic school week. (The week involves none of the kids showing up on Monday, all the kids wearing their pajamas to school and picking their noses on Tuesday, some of the girls drawing a mustache on their faces with a permanent marker and taping egg salad sandwiches to their heads on Wednesday, kids having a food fight in the lunchroom and the football team wrecking the teachers' lounge on Thursday and every single kid wearing bumblebee costumes to school and making silly faces in yearbook photos on Friday.) At the wedding, just before they get married, Ms. Ribble breaks up with Mr. Krupp because he has a funny-looking nose (ironically, they both have the same nose shape). When Mr. Krupp says George and Harold tricked them, the boys run as Ms. Ribble goes into a blood-crazed rage and chases after them, causing the food on the tables to go flying into the guests (all the students and teachers) and causing the wedding cake to fall on her, though George and Harold are able to escape.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Underpants_and_the_Big,_Bad_Battle_of_the_Bionic_Booger_Boy" title="Captain Underpants and the Big, Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy">
## Part 1: "The Night of the Nasty Nostril Nuggets".Ms. Ribble's fourth-grade english class are having demonstration speech day. The first two boys got a D-, Stephanie Yakoff and Jessica Gorgon tried to cook in pop-up toaster. Then, George and Harold show off the "Squishy"; two ketchup packets under the bumps of a toilet seat which will squirt the ketchup on whoever sits on the seat. But Melvin then forces everyone to watch his demonstration, the "Combine-o-Tron 2000", which he uses to combine his hamster Sulu with a bionic hamster body he built. Melvin orders Sulu to do some tricks for the class, but the hamster is unaware of what happened, causing Melvin to threaten to spank him. Sulu's "instincts" kick in and cause him to spank Melvin himself using his new bionic powers, causing Melvin to harshly disown Sulu. After watching the scene, George and Harold adopt Sulu, who happily joins the two. Meanwhile, Ms. Ribble uses a Squishy on an already grumpy Mr. Krupp, who believes that George and Harold are responsible, additionally seeing other squishy victims. When Mr. Krupp finds them in the lunchroom, Melvin almost immediately tattles on the boys and Mr. Krupp sends them to detention, causing them to make a libelous Captain Underpants comic starring Melvin as a dumb tattletale.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarantine_(Crace_novel)" title="Quarantine (Crace novel)">
Set in the Judean desert, 2000 years ago, it features seven main characters:When "Quarantine" begins, the trader, Musa, is suffering from a fever in his tent in the open scrubland on the way to Jericho. There, he and his wife Miri are abandoned by their caravan, who believe him to be on the verge of death.They see a group of four travellers, some distance apart, heading in their direction. The travellers are on their way to find shelter for 40 days and 40 nights – the 'Quarantine' of the title.At night, a fifth traveller, some distance behind the first four, visits Musa in his tent. The following morning, Musa awakes to find that his fever has broken and his strength is restored. The fifth traveller, it transpires, is the young Jesus, who takes up occupancy of a hard-to-reach cave set in a hillside.Musa turns the situation to his advantage, convincing the travellers that the lands are his lands, and he their landlord.The group try in turns to coax Jesus from his cave. Convinced he is being tested by Satan, Jesus abides by his quarantine, refusing to take food or water.A series of power struggles ensues, in which Musa asserts his dominance over Aphas, Shim, his wife and eventually by raping Marta during a stormy night, having feigned illness to get her on her own.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hill_of_Dreams" title="The Hill of Dreams">
The novel recounts the life of a young man, Lucian Taylor, focusing on his dreamy childhood in rural Wales, in a town based on Caerleon. The Hill of Dreams of the title is an old Roman fort where Lucian has strange sensual visions, including ones of the town in the time of Roman Britain. Later, the novel describes Lucian's attempts to make a living as an author in London, enduring poverty and suffering in the pursuit of art and history.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibong_Adarna" title="Ibong Adarna">
King Fernando and his wife Queen Valeriana rule the Kingdom of Berbanya and have three children: Don Pedro, Don Diego, and Don Juan. King Fernando falls severely ill after growing despondent over a dream he had one night of Don Juan, his most favored son, being murdered by two traitors. His constituents are unable to cure him, so he sends his eldest son, Don Pedro, to search for the "Ibong Adarna", a mythical bird, after an old doctor revealed that the bird's marvelous songs could cure the king's mysterious illness. After three months of wandering through forests and thickets, Don Pedro arrives at a golden tree, "Piedras Platas", and falls down at its foot due to fatigue, unaware that the bird roosts there for the night. By nightfall, Don Pedro is lulled into a deep sleep after the bird sings the first of its seven songs with a sweet melody, and is turned into stone after the bird excretes on him after the seventh song.With the disappearance of Don Pedro, King Fernando then sends his second son Don Diego to search for the bird. Don Diego undergoes the same hardships (but ventures for five months, two more than Don Pedro) and meets the same fate as his older brother. After three whole years without hearing any more news, Don Juan, the youngest son is (unwillingly, by King Fernando) sent forth also. Don Juan, however, has the fortune to meet on his way an old hermit who is impressed by the virtues and good manners of the young prince. The old hermit, knowing the mission on which Don Juan embarks, puts him on guard against the treacheries of the bird.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_the_Flood_(novel)" title="After the Flood (novel)">
Jersild used his medical knowledge of the long-term effects of a nuclear holocaust to great effect in this novel, which relates the adventures of a young man dumped on the island of Gotland some 30 years after a worldwide nuclear catastrophe. Humanity is about to go out with a whimper. The only inhabitants of the island are a band of aging convicts and a handful of religious women, also advanced in years, plus a few hermits. The economy is reduced to barter and plunder and the only medical care is provided by an ex-baseball player, who becomes the reluctant mentor of the protagonist. A ray of hope is introduced in the story with the arrival of a young Finnish woman, but it all ends in misery.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghosts_of_N-Space" title="The Ghosts of N-Space">
Sarah Jane Smith and her co-worker Jeremy Fitzoliver are on holiday in Sicily when they meet the Brigadier. The Brigadier is trying to help his Uncle Mario, who is being threatened by a mobster named Vilmio. Mario is also trying to deal with the ghosts that have been sighted in his castello. The Brigadier asks the Doctor to investigate the hauntings and determine their source. The Doctor reveals that the ghosts are "N-Bodies", or the souls of the deceased who have not yet left the physical plane. The ghosts are gathering around Mario's castello due to a fracture in the N-Space barrier; if the barrier were to fail, Earth would be overrun with the monsters that inhabit N-Space.The Doctor travels back to the 19th and 16th century in an attempt to locate the cause of the fracture. In the past he discovers that Vilmio is actually an alchemist called Vilmius who has discovered a method for extending his lifespan; now that he is nearing the end of his life, he wants to use the power of N-Space to give himself true immortality. He also plans to control the monsters in N-Space and use them to rule the world. Vilmius has been waiting centuries for a specific astrological conjunction to occur, which is scheduled to occur in the next few days.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_and_the_Pescatons" title="Doctor Who and the Pescatons">
## Part 1.The Doctor and Sarah Jane arrive on a beach by the Thames Estuary at night, and discover a metallic seaweed there. The Doctor consults with Professor Emerson, who says that three expeditions to recover a recent meteorite from the bottom of the estuary have all vanished. The Doctor goes diving and is attacked by something that wraps itself around him, but then lets him go. The meteorite is really a wrecked spaceship buried under the estuary. The Doctor believes it is a Pescaton ship. The Pescatons are carcharhinidae, or deep water sharks. The experts scoff at this, until one comes out of the Thames and makes its way to London Zoo in search of salt water. The Doctor confronts it in the Aquarium, where it dies and disintegrates. That night, more meteorites land in the Thames.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlander_(novel)" title="Outlander (novel)">
In 1946, after working apart during the Second World War, former British Army nurse Claire Randall and her husband Frank Randall, a history professor, go on a second honeymoon to Inverness, Scotland. Frank conducts research into his family history and Claire goes plant-gathering near standing stones on the hill of Craigh na Dun. Investigating a buzzing noise near the stones, she touches one and faints; upon waking, she encounters Frank's ancestor, Captain Jack Randall. Before Captain Randall can attack her, he is knocked unconscious by a highlander who takes Claire to his clansmen. As the Scots inexpertly attend their injured comrade Jamie, Claire uses her medical skill to set Jamie's dislocated shoulder. The men identify themselves as members of Clan MacKenzie, and Claire eventually concludes that she has traveled into the past. She represents herself as an English widow who is traveling to France to see her family. The Scots do not believe her and take her to Castle Leoch, where Claire searches for a way to return to her own time.The highlanders of 1743 see Claire as a "Sassenach", or "Outlander", ignorant of Gaelic culture. Her medical skills eventually earn their respect; but the clan chieftain, Colum MacKenzie, suspects her of being an English spy. Colum sends her with his brother, Dougal, to collect rents; on the way he also solicits donations for the Jacobites, overseen by Ned Gowan, a lawyer from Edinburgh who is working for the Clan.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Heroes_and_Tombs" title="On Heroes and Tombs">
Nineteen-year-old Martín Castillo is a boy from Buenos Aires trying to find his path in life. He meets and falls in love with Alejandra Vidal Olmos, who with her father Fernando represents the "old", post-colonial and autochthonous Argentina, which is seen mutating amid a strange and unsettling "new" world. The novel gives an evocative portrait of the city of Buenos Aires and its people.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus,_My_Father" title="Romulus, My Father">
Romulus Gaita fled his hometown of Markovac in 1935 at the age of 13. He worked as a farmer apprentice until he was 17, after which he moved to Austria and eventually migrated to Australia on an assisted passage in 1950 at the age of 28, with his young wife Christine and their four-year-old son Raimond soon after the end of the Second World War. Romulus and his family were transferred to Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre, a camp near Wodonga. Romulus was then sent to Baringhup on the Loddon River, where he met two Romanian brothers Pantelimon (known as Hora) and Mitru.The Gaițăs then moved to a farmhouse called Frogmore, where they lived for the next ten years, and where Raimond spent most of his childhood.Christine did not stay at Frogmore to take on the responsibility as a wife and mother. She had an affair with Mitru and moved to Melbourne to be with him. As a result of the affair, they had two daughters. Mitru committed suicide before the birth of the second child. Christine later also committed suicide. Both the daughters of Christine and Mitru were adopted. Raimond is reminiscent that indeed, Christine may have had a mental illness.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Women_of_Brewster_Place_(novel)" title="The Women of Brewster Place (novel)">
The women of Brewster Place are "hard-edged, soft-centered, brutally demanding, and easily pleased". Their names are Mattie Michael, Etta Mae Johnson, Lucielia "Ciel" Turner, Melanie "Kiswana" Browne, Cora Lee, Lorraine, and Theresa. Each of their lives are explored in several short stories. These short stories also chronicle the ups and downs many Black women face.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King's_Stilts" title="The King's Stilts">
"The King's Stilts" tells the story of King Birtram of Binn, who dedicates himself to safeguarding his kingdom, a low-lying land surrounded by high water that is held back by a ring of dike trees. Unfortunately, the dike trees are the favorite food of a species of pest-birds called "nizzards"; the kingdom always faces the risk that the nizzards might compromise the dike-tree barrier and cause catastrophic flooding. The King's administration maintains a legion of Patrol Cats to keep the nizzards at bay; King Birtram sees to their care personally. When not attending to his royal duties, the King enjoys himself by frolicking in the streets on his red stilts, which most of his subjects note with amused acceptance.One day, his minister Lord Droon, secretly a gloomy scoundrel who despises his King cavorting with such undignified happiness, plots to capture the stilts, persuading the King's page boy Eric to steal and hide the stilts. Deprived of his amusement, the King grows depressed and begins to neglect his duties. As a result, the Patrol Cats become less vigilant, and soon the nizzards make headway in eating away the dike trees. Seeing the results of his actions, Eric resolves to return the stilts to the King and succeeds in doing so despite Lord Droon's efforts to stop him. King Birtram, his personal morale restored, finds the energy to mobilize the Patrol Cats to fight off the nizzards and save the kingdom. Lord Droon is arrested and punished with a restricted diet consisting entirely of nizzard cooked in various ways. Eric is rewarded with his own pair of red stilts, and joins the King on his outings.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Lady_Godivas" title="The Seven Lady Godivas">
The book recounts in prose the tale of seven Godiva sisters, none of whom ever wear clothing. The explanation for their nakedness, even when walking in snow, is that "they were simply themselves and chose not to disguise it."The story opens with the sisters' father, Lord Godiva, deciding to leave for the Battle of Hastings (1066) on horseback. This upsets the sisters, as horses are wild and untamed animals. Sure enough, before Lord Godiva even manages to leave the castle walls, he is flung from his horse and killed. As a tribute to their father's fate, the Godiva sisters agree to never marry—despite the fact that each is courting one of seven brothers named Peeping—until they can warn their countrymen of the dangers of horses. The book then follows the sisters as they set out on individual quests for "horse truths", which turn out to be well-known sayings involving horses.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McElligot's_Pool" title="McElligot's Pool">
The story begins with a boy named Marco fishing in a small, trash-filled pond known as McElligot's Pool. A local farmer laughs at the boy and tells him that he will never be able to catch anything. Nevertheless, Marco holds out hope and begins to imagine a scenario in which he might be able to catch a fish.First, he suggests that the pool might be fed by an underground brook that travels under a highway and a hotel to reach the sea. Marco then imagines a succession of fish and other creatures that he might catch in the sea and therefore the pool. He imagines, among others, a fish with a checkerboard stomach, a seahorse with the head of an actual horse, and an eel with two heads. When Marco is done imagining, he tells the farmer, "Oh, the sea is so full of a number of fish, if a fellow is patient, he "might" get his wish!"
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartholomew_and_the_Oobleck" title="Bartholomew and the Oobleck">
The book opens with an explanation of how people in the Kingdom of Didd still talk about "the year the King got angry with the sky," and how Bartholomew Cubbins, King Derwin's page boy, saved the kingdom. Throughout the year, Bartholomew sees the king getting angry at rain in spring, sun in summer, fog in autumn, and snow in winter because he wants something new to come down from the sky. The king gets the idea that he can rule the sky, being the king, and he orders Bartholomew to summon the Royal Magicians, who announce that they can make a substance called oobleck, which will not look anything at all like the regular weather. That evening, the magicians make the substance at their mystic mountain Neeka-tave, and release it into the air. The next morning, the oobleck starts falling from the sky. When the King sees it, he is overjoyed. He declares the day a holiday and orders Bartholomew to tell the Royal Bell Ringer to announce the occasion but the bell will not ring; the oobleck turns out to be both gelatinous and adhesive, and it has gummed up the bell. When Bartholomew sees a robin trapped in her nest by the oobleck, he decides to warn the kingdom.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrambled_Eggs_Super!" title="Scrambled Eggs Super!">
At the beginning of the story, Peter T. Hooper brags to his sister, Liz, in his mother's kitchen about what a good cook he is. He tells the story of how, when he became fed up with the taste of regular scrambled eggs using hen's eggs, he decided to scramble eggs from other birds. He tells of how he travelled great distances and discovered a variety of exotic birds and their eggs.He explains his criteria for choosing some eggs, because of their sweetness, and avoiding others. He takes the eggs home but decides that he still needs more, and he calls on the help of some of his friends from around the world, including a "fellow named Ali". After each bird Peter finds he states the phrase..."Scrambled Eggs Super Dee Dooper Dee Booper Special Deluxe a la Peter T. Hooper".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Ran_the_Circus" title="If I Ran the Circus">
Behind Mr. Sneelock's ramshackle store, there's an empty lot. Little Morris McGurk is convinced that if he could just clear out the rusty cans, the dead tree, and the old cars, nothing would prevent him from using the lot for the amazing, world-beating, Circus McGurkus. The more elaborate Morris' dreams about the circus become, the more they depend on the sleepy-looking and innocent Sneelock, who stands outside his ramshackle store sucking on a pipe, oblivious to the fate that awaits him in the depths of Morris's imagination.Sneelock does not yet know that he will have to dispense 500 gallons of lemonade, be lassoed by a Wily Walloo, wrestle a Grizzly-Ghastly, and ski down a slope dotted with giant cacti. But if his performance is up to McGurkian expectations, then "Why, ladies and gentlemen, youngsters and oldsters, your heads will quite likely spin right off your shouldsters!" And Sneelock won't mind it one bit because he likes to help out. But by the end of Morris's fantasy, Sneelock is casting a disapproving eye at him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You!" title="Happy Birthday to You!">
It deals with a fantastic land called Katroo, where the Birthday Bird throws the reader an amazing party on their special day. It consists of a running description of a fantastical celebration, narrated in the second person, of the reader's birthday, from dawn to late night.The celebration includes fantastical and colorful gifts, foods and a whirl of activities all arranged by the Birthday Bird for the reader's birthday. It focuses on the reader's self-actualization and concludes with the happy and exhausted reader falling blissfully asleep. A popular Seuss paragraph in this book reads: "Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Had_Trouble_in_Getting_to_Solla_Sollew" title="I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew">
As the story opens, the protagonist lives a happy and carefree life before tripping over a rock one day and being bitten and stung by various creatures. A passing traveler says that he is bound for the trouble-free city of Solla Sollew, "where they never have troubles; at least very few", so the protagonist joins him. The journey itself is beset by many more troubles, including a draft animal that falls sick, a bus that breaks down, a flood and a general who conscripts the protagonist into his army. The army retreats during battle, leaving the protagonist alone against a pack of wild Poozers. Escaping into a dark tunnel, the protagonist suffers numerous further mishaps before finally reaching an exit door that opens near Solla Sollew.The protagonist discovers that Solla Sollew is surrounded by a wall with only one door. The doorman apologizes that he cannot open it, because a Key-Slapping Slippard recently nested in the key hole. Since the city no longer needs a doorman, he has decided to set off for yet another untroubled city that he has heard about. The protagonist declines to go with him and instead returns home, determined to face troubles rather than run away from them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Did_I_Ever_Tell_You_How_Lucky_You_Are?" title="Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?">
The text consists of a series of descriptive poems, fictively told to an unnamed listener by a wise old man. The man describes a variety of whimsically wretched characters and unfortunate situations, in comparison with which the listener might be considered exceptionally fortunate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shape_of_Me_and_Other_Stuff" title="The Shape of Me and Other Stuff">
This book is done entirely in silhouette, exploring the different shapes of objects.The characters of two children, a boy and a girl are in dialogue about shapes. The two exchange their thoughts on how different shapes and objects are from each other. They exchange ideas of how big and small some objects are. In the end, they reach a realisation that no shape is exactly the same as the other. They even try to imagine themselves in different shapes (bodies). They also conclude by being content with the way they are shaped. This suggests that they would not be happier in any other shape.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh,_the_Thinks_You_Can_Think!" title="Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!">
The book begins with a reader thinking about colors or animals that she knows, like birds, or horses, but as quickly as page three he asks the reader to think of something completely made up; a GUFF! A Guff is a sort of puffy fluff. Next he thinks up a dessert! Of all the made up things in this image the focus is on the dessert. Other than that it is beautiful and has a cherry on top! After thinking of colors and known animals, then made up animals and made up dessert he moves on to made up activities, like Kitty O’Sullivan Krauss’s balloon swimming pool! After Seuss presents the reader with various things to think up, he then moves on to questions the reader should ask herself. Such as, how much water can fifty elephants drink or what would you do if you met a JIBBOO? There is no explanation for what a JIBBOO is, we just get a sketchy image leaving us to wonder and think up a story for the JIBBOO.In typical Seuss fashion things get busier and more colorful at the end. He fills the page with many crazy creatures and much activity when he asks the reader why so many things go to the right. This causes the reader’s eyes to scan the page taking in every detail until she is finally willing to turn the page. The final page is a busier and more colorful version of the first page, with bird-like creatures walking along a curved path, breaking the laws of gravity just as the text breaks the rules of reading left to right.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat's_Quizzer" title="The Cat's Quizzer">
In the beginning of the book, the Cat in the Hat introduces the reader to Ziggy and Zizzy Zozzfozzel, saying that they both got 100%, but got every answer "wrong", and then asks the reader the recurring question "are you smarter than a Zozzfozzel"? The questions in the book range from simple queries to questions difficult enough to wear the Cat out.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Can_Read_with_My_Eyes_Shut!" title="I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!">
The Cat in the Hat shows his protégé, Young Cat, that while reading with one's eyes closed can be amazing, it can be a strain. When one reads with their eyes open, they will be able to learn a large amount of wonderful things, some of which are shown through illustrations.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_Say_Can_You_Say?" title="Oh Say Can You Say?">
## Introduction.In the introduction, Hooey the parrot reads from a copy of "Oh Say Can You Say" and states that the words in it are all phooey, and when one says them, one's lips will make slips and backflips, and one's tongues may end up in St. Looey.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You're_Only_Old_Once!" title="You're Only Old Once!">
The book follows an elderly man on a visit to the Golden Years Clinic, where he endures long waits and bizarre medical tests.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy-Head_Mayzie" title="Daisy-Head Mayzie">
The book is about a warmhearted schoolgirl named Mayzie McGrew who one day suddenly sprouts a bright white daisy from her head. It causes alarm in her classroom, family, and town, until an agent makes her a celebrity. Mayzie becomes overwhelmed and distraught over the situation and runs away. The Cat in the Hat, who serves as the narrator to this story, helps Mayzie to understand her problem. He persuades her to go back home, and the daisy eventually goes away, popping up back again on occasion. The book has a mini-song titled "Daisy-Head Mayzie" which her classmates chant.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wandering_Jew_(Sue_novel)" title="The Wandering Jew (Sue novel)">
The story is entitled "The Wandering Jew", but the figure of the Wandering Jew himself plays a minimal role. The prologue of the text describes two figures who cry out to each other across the Bering Straits. One is the Wandering Jew, the other his sister, Hérodiade. The Wandering Jew also represents the cholera epidemic— wherever he goes, cholera follows in his wake.The Wandering Jew and Hérodiade are condemned to wander the earth until the entire Rennepont family has disappeared from the earth. The connection is that the descendants of the sister are also the descendants of Marius de Rennepont, Huguenots persecuted under Louis XIV by the Jesuits. The brother and sister are compelled to protect this very family from all harm. After this first introduction, the two appear only very rarely.The Rennepont family is unaware that these protective "éminences grises" exist, but they benefit from their protection in various ways, be it by being saved from scalping by the Native Americans, or from languishing in prison.The Rennepont family lost its position and most of its wealth during the French persecution of the Protestants (after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685). A small fortune was given to a Jewish banker immediately before the Renneponts dispersed all over Europe and Asia, and this fortune has grown into a huge sum, through the miracle of compound interest. In 1682, the Rennepont family members each got a bronze medal telling them to meet back in Paris 150 years later, at which time the fortune will be divided among the surviving members. So much time has passed, however, that almost none of the still-living Renneponts have any idea why they need to come to Paris. They nevertheless set out from India, Siberia, America, France, and elsewhere to make their way to rue Saint-François No. 3 in Paris by 13 February 1832.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerland_(novel)" title="Summerland (novel)">
The story begins on a small island off the coast of Washington called Clam Island. The central character, Ethan Feld, is on one of the island's baseball teams despite being terrible at the game. He encounters a gracious werefox, Cutbelly, who explains the Lodgepole, a giant tree connecting all worlds, to the ignorant Ethan. Cutbelly explains that Coyote is planning to destroy the Lodgepole, an event called "Ragged Rock", by destroying Murmury Well. He takes Ethan to the Summerlands where they meet small Indian-looking people called ferishers. Coyote captures Ethan's father and forces him to create another batch of 'picofiber' to form the hose with which he is going to poison Murmury Well. Ethan enters the Summerlands with fellow baseball team members Thor Wignutt and Jennifer T. Rideout, in pursuit of his father and to prevent Ragged Rock. On their travels through the Summerlands, the three assemble a baseball team and play their way across the land, meeting players from legend and literature, and a couple from their own world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_Out_of_Time" title="The Shadow Out of Time">
"The Shadow Out of Time" indirectly tells of the Great Race of Yith, an extraterrestrial species with the ability to travel through space and time. The Yithians accomplish this by switching bodies with hosts from the intended time and place. The story implies that the effect, when seen from the outside, is similar to spiritual possession. The Yithians' original purpose was to study the history of various times and places, and they have amassed a "library city" that is filled with the past and future history of multiple races, including humans. Ultimately the Yithians use their ability to escape the destruction of their planet in another galaxy by switching bodies with a race of cone-shaped plant beings who lived 150 million years ago on Earth. The cone-shaped entities (subsequently also known as the Great Race of Yith) lived in their vast library city in what would later become Australia's Great Sandy Desert ().The story is told through the eyes of Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, an American living in the first decade of the 20th century, who is "possessed" by a Yithian. He fears he is losing his mind when he unaccountably sees strange vistas of other worlds and of the Yithian library city. He also feels himself being led about by these creatures and experiences how they live. When he is returned to his own body, he finds that those around him have judged him insane due to the actions of the Yithian that possessed his body. While he was experiencing a Yithian existence in Earth's ancient past, the Yithian occupying his body was experiencing a human one in the present day.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Whispering_Statue" title="The Whispering Statue">
Nancy, Bess, and George encounter a troublesome stray terrier on their way to the opening festivities of a new park and recreation complex in River Heights. The terrier grabs the handbag of one of the guest speakers and loses it in a nearby pond. Nancy helps groundskeepers retrieve the handbag and uses the notes found inside to prompt the nervous speaker during her address. She also finds a mysterious personal ad in the handbag. In a casual observation, the "clubwoman," a Mrs. Owen, tells Nancy about a statue on a deserted seaside estate. The statue, known as "The Whispering Girl," bears an uncanny resemblance to Nancy. As it turns out, Nancy is bound for that very area with her father and her friends Bess and George. Reluctantly, Nancy decides to keep the terrier for a little while, dubbing him Togo (after a famous Alaskan husky, who in turn was named after a Japanese admiral). Togo follows her to the train station, and she has no choice but to bring him to Sea Cliff with her. On the train, the girls observe a strange elderly woman identified as a Miss Morse, and they suspect a man who has just approached the woman is trying to swindle her. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splendeurs_et_misères_des_courtisanes" title="Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes">
Lucien de Rubempré and the self-proclaimed abbey Carlos Herrera (Vautrin) have made a pact, in which Lucien will arrive at success in Paris if he agrees to follow Vautrin's instructions blindly. Esther van Gobseck throws a wrench into Vautrin's best-laid plans, however, because Lucien falls in love with her and she with him. Instead of forcing Lucien to abandon her, he allows Lucien this secret affair, but also makes good use of it. For four years, Esther remains locked away in a house in Paris, taking walks only at night. One night, however, the incredibly rich banker Baron de Nucingen spots her and falls deeply in love with her. When Vautrin realizes that Nucingen's obsession is with Esther, he decides to use her power as a tool to help advance Lucien by extrapolating the maximum amount of money from the Baron as possible.The plan is the following: Vautrin and Lucien are 60,000 francs in debt because of the lifestyle that Lucien has had to maintain. They also need one million francs to buy the old Rubempré land back, so that Lucien can marry Clotilde, the rich but ugly daughter of the Grandlieus.Things don't work out as smoothly as Vautrin would have liked, however, because Esther commits suicide after giving herself to Nucingen for the first and only time (after making him wait for months). Since the police have already been suspicious of Vautrin and Lucien, they arrest the two on suspicion of murder over the suicide. This turn of events is particularly tragic because it turns out that only hours before, Esther had actually inherited a huge amount of money from an estranged family member. If only she had held on, she could have married Lucien herself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Mervyn" title="Arthur Mervyn">
Dr Stevens meets Arthur Mervyn, who has yellow fever, and invites Mervyn to stay with him until he recovers. One Mervyn is better, Dr Stevens's friend Mr Wortley recognises Mervyn and reacts with displeasure. Mervyn begins to recount his history in an effort to clear his name in the eyes of Dr. Stevens. This takes up most of the book.Mervyn was brought up on a farm in Philadelphia. His father married again and Mervyn did not get on with his stepmother, so left for the city. He loses his money on the way and starts begging in the city. He is locked in a dark room by someone he meets, Wallace, but escapes. He then meets Welbeck, a thief and a forger, who wants Mervyn to work for him, but Mervyn escapes and is helped by Susan Hadwin. In return, he helps Wallace whom he had met earlier and who is Susan's fiancé and has yellow fever. As a result, Mervyn is infected. This takes the story to the point where Mervyn is rescued by Dr Stevens.After he gets better, Mervyn insists on returning to Susan Hadwin's farm to make sure everyone is safe. He doesn't return for weeks. Eventually he summons Dr Stevens to the debtors' prison to tend to Welbeck, wh is ill there. Before Welbeck dies, he gives Mervyn about 40,000 pounds.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herland_(novel)" title="Herland (novel)">
The story is told from the perspective of Vandyck "Van" Jennings, a sociology student who, along with two friends, Terry O. Nicholson and Jeff Margrave, forms an expedition party to explore an area of uncharted land rumored to be home to a society consisting entirely of women. The three friends do not entirely believe the rumors because they are unable to think of a way how human reproduction could occur without males. The men speculate about what a society of women would be like, each guessing differently based on the stereotype of women which he holds most dear: Jeff regarding women as things to be served and protected; Terry viewing them as things to be conquered and won.When the explorers reach their destination, they proceed with caution, hiding the biplane they arrive in, and trying to keep themselves hidden in the forests that border the land. They are quickly found by three young women who they realize are observing them from the treetops. After attempting to catch the girls with trickery, the men end up chasing the young women towards a town or village. The women outrun them easily and disappear among the houses, which, Van notes are exceptionally well made and attractive. After meeting the first inhabitants of this new land (which Van names "Herland") the men proceed more cautiously, noting that the girls they met were strong, agile, and completely unafraid. Their caution is warranted, because as the men enter the town where the girls disappeared, they become surrounded by a large group of women, who march them towards an official-looking building. The three men attempt an escape, but are swiftly and easily overpowered by the large group of women and eventually anesthetized.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogsong" title="Dogsong">
Inspired by the Eskimo shaman Oogruk, Russel Susskit takes a dog team and sled to escape the modern ways of his village and to find his own "song" of himself, hating the sound of snowmobiles and his father's coughing in the morning. He travels across ice floes, tundra, and mountains, haunted along the way by a dream of a long-ago self whose adventures parallel his own. Reality melds with the dream when he finds an Eskimo girl named Nancy, who has run away from her village after becoming pregnant. Circumstances require him to provide for himself and the girl in a harsh and unforgiving land. Russel sets out looking for food, for Nancy and himself, after Nancy gives birth to a still-born baby.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellaluna" title="Stellaluna">
In a forest far away, a mother fruit bat has a new baby, and names her Stellaluna. One night, an owl attacks the bats, knocking Stellaluna out of her mother's embrace, and she falls into the forest below. Soon the baby bat ends up in a sparrow's nest filled with three baby birds named Pip, Flitter and Flap. The mother bird will let Stellaluna be part of the family only if she eats bugs, does not hang by her feet and sleeps at night.When the birds grow, they learn to fly. When Stellaluna and the birds are out playing, it gets dark and the birds go home without her because they will not be able to see in the dark. Stellaluna keeps flying, but when her wings hurt, she stops to rest. When she does, she hangs by her thumbs. Soon other bats come, and one asks Stellaluna why she is hanging by her thumbs. As she tells the other bats her story, Mother Bat reunites with her and Stellaluna finally understands why she is so different.Excited about learning how to be a bat, Stellaluna returns to Pip, Flitter, and Flap in order to share her new experiences. They agree to join Stellaluna and the bats at night, but find they are unsuited to flying at night and nearly crash. Stellaluna rescues them and the four of them decide that while they may be very different, they are still friends and family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merlin_Conspiracy" title="The Merlin Conspiracy">
In a parallel universe, Roddy (a.k.a. Arianrhod), daughter of two magicians who serve the King of Blest, has traveled with "the King's Progress" her entire life. The King's Progress is a mobile Court that continuously roams the Islands of Blest (our England) to contain and control the natural magic in the world. Roddy and her best friend, Grundo, uncover a sinister plot involving Grundo's mother and the new "Merlin" – the magical governor of Blest – to take over the throne and the magic of the universe. When Roddy and Grundo try to warn the adults around them of the plot, they are not believed, and Roddy ends up making a spell to ask help of someone from another world – unfortunately, the only person she manages to find is Nick.Nick Mallory (a.k.a. Nichothodes Koryfoides) is a boy living in our own England who dreams about becoming a magid and travelling to other worlds. A magid is a sort of magical policeman who travels between worlds and helps people. Nick finds himself accidentally wandering the dark paths between the worlds, where he finds Roddy and then the powerful magician Romanov. Nick finally makes his way to Blest when he finds Maxwell Hyde, Roddy's grandfather, who is a magid. But Grundo's mother and the fake Merlin have been kidnapping all the most powerful witches and wizards in Blest – including Maxwell Hyde and both of Roddy's parents – and it is up to Nick, Roddy and Grundo to raise the land and stop the plot.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambler_Warning" title="The Ambler Warning">
Inside a little-known and seldom visited psychiatric facility, Parrish Island, the government stores former intelligence employees whose psychiatric state make them a danger to their own government; people whose ramblings might endanger ongoing operations or prove dangerously inconvenient.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apocalypse_Watch" title="The Apocalypse Watch">
In the Hausruck Hills in Austria, CIA agent Harry Latham attempts infiltrating a secret training airfield belonging to the "Brüderschaft der Wacht" (The Brotherhood of the Watch), a Neo-nazi movement gradually building a renaissance of the Nazi ideology across Europe. However, he's exposed and captured, and the Brotherhood's chief surgeon, Dr. Gerhardt Kroeger, performs a microchip implant experiment on Harry in an attempt to make him a controllable double-agent.In Paris, the suicidal act of deranged World War II veteran Pierre Jodelle in a theater draws the attention of Drew Latham, Harry's younger brother and an agent for the United States Department of Consular Operations, whom believes Jodelle might have uncovered a potential Neo-nazi network in France, being his best clue to find his missing brother. After suffering an attempt on his life, Drew is put under the protection of the Deuxième Bureau under Director Claude Moreau, on a request from Drew's superior officer, Director Wesley Sorenson. As Drew continues his investigation, he's also assisted by Stanley 'Stosh' Witkowski, a Cold War veteran and Chief of Security for the US Embassy in Paris, and Karin De Vries, a linguistics expert and records specialist (and an unofficial black ops agent). Sudden and unexpectedly, Harry makes contact with the CIA weeks later, providing an explosive, suspicious incriminating list involving high-profile personnel, from politicians to celebrities, that he acquired under the alias 'Alexander Lassiter' - In fact, this is a move by the Brotherhood itself to provoke discord amongst the world's nations, removing strategic personnel to be replaced with the Brotherhood's homegrown sleeper agents, the Sonnenkinder, who'd "pave the road for the Fourth Reich". Drew and Harry meet each other at the Paris airport, but suddenly are targeted by the Brotherhood's assassins in a blitzkrieg attack. Though Drew survives, Harry is a confirmed kill.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Janson_Directive" title="The Janson Directive">
Paul Janson is an ex-Navy SEAL and former member of a U.S. government covert agency called Consular Operations. He is haunted by his memories of the Vietnam War and his brilliant commander and mentor, Alan Demarest. Unfortunately, Demarest was also a sadistic psychopath who loved to toy with the lives of both friend and foe; he arranged for Janson to be captured and tortured by the Viet Cong. Janson eventually escaped and provided evidence of war crimes, which led to Demarest's execution.Janson now makes his living as a corporate security consultant who is so much in demand that he can pick and choose which jobs he takes. After a mysterious woman makes contact with him while Janson is waiting for a plane, he finds himself taking on a job to repay a debt. She asks Janson to rescue her boss, the Nobel Peace Laureate visionary and billionaire, Peter Novak, who has been taken hostage by a militant organization which intends to kill him.But when the rescue goes horribly wrong, Janson finds himself the target of a "beyond salvage" termination directive (the directive of the title) issued from the highest levels of the U.S. government. Meanwhile, several senior U.S. government officials are assassinated. Janson is then faced with the difficult question of finding out who wanted to frame him for Novak's death, while dodging bullets from his former comrades at Consular Operations.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_We_Were_Orphans" title="When We Were Orphans">
The novel is about an Englishman named Christopher Banks. His early childhood was lived in the Shanghai International Settlement in China in the early 1900s, until his father, an opium businessman, and his mother disappear within a few weeks of each other when the boy is about ten years old. Christopher is sent to live with his aunt in England. He becomes a successful detective; now he will turn his skills to solve the case of his parents' disappearance. Though he knows a young woman named Sarah (also orphaned at age ten), Christopher never marries; he adopts an orphaned girl in England named Jennifer. His fame as a private investigator soon spreads, and in 1937 he returns to China to solve the most important case of his life. The impression is given that if he solves this case, a world catastrophe will be averted, but it is not apparent how. As Christopher pursues his investigation, the boundaries between life and imagination begin to evaporate.At this time in China, Christopher is caught up in the Second Sino-Japanese War battles, which reach into the foreigners' enclave of Shanghai. Through an old detective, he locates the house at which his parents may have been held. Though the disappearances happened a quarter-century earlier, Christopher believes that his parents will be there, a notion supported by the present occupants of his old home who assume Christopher's family will be reunited in their home. On his way, he enters a war-torn police station belonging to the Chinese. After convincing them of his neutrality, he persuades the commander to direct him to the house of his kidnapped parents. After a while the commander refuses to take Christopher further, so he goes alone. Throughout all this, he appears to disregard the commander's words that what he is doing is dangerous, and even appears to be rude to him. He meets an injured Japanese soldier who he believes is his childhood friend Akira. They enter the house only to find out that his parents are not there. Japanese soldiers enter and take them away.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hover_Car_Racer" title="Hover Car Racer">
Jason Chaser is an independent hover car racer, who along with his autistic adoptive little brother—known only as the Bug—are competing in regional races, with hopes of reaching the Pro circuits, but in reality have little chance of doing so.During a local derby, Scott Syracuse (representing the International Race School) is impressed with Jason's skill, and despite damage to the "Argonaut" placing them last, offers him a position at the IRC for the next season. Jason accepts, and he and the Bug find themselves in Tasmania (now a privately owned training school) along with some of the best student hover car racers in the world. Jason is paired with independent Mech Chief Sally McDuff, who will look after their equipment and pit crew, including a robot named "Tarantula" which will perform most of the actual pit work—changing the magneto drives which enable the hover cars to function, the compressed gas for steering, and the coolant to prevent the magneto drives from melting.During the first few races, Jason is outclassed and bullied—both on and off the track—by the other racers who all consider him inferior—the perfect Xavier Xonora, his own teammates Washington and Wong, and Barnaby Becker, who Jason already knew from earlier races. Even the equipment seems to be against them as they—and the only female racer Ariel Piper—suffer more than their fair share of faulty mag drives, substandard coolant, and failures on the part of Tarantula. Despite this, and due to their natural talent they begin to rise in the rankings, until it becomes apparent that they both have a chance of becoming two of the top four rated racers who will be invited to take part in the New York Masters.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brightonomicon" title="The Brightonomicon">
The novel is set in Brighton, and concerns the grand high magus Hugo Rune (AKA The Reinventor of the Ocarina, the Mumbo Gumshoe, the Hokus Bloke, the Cosmic Dick, the Guru's Guru, the Perfect Master, the Lad Himself) and his quest to solve the mystery of the Brighton zodiac, with the aid of his amnesia-struck assistant, Rizla (revealed at the conclusion of the novel to be Jim Pooley of The Brentford Trilogy). They are opposed in the novel by Rune's arch foe, the evil Count Otto Black.The following cases are featured:-
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangover_Square" title="Hangover Square">
Set against the backdrop of the days preceding Britain declaring war on Germany, the main character is George Harvey Bone, a lonely borderline alcoholic who has a form of dissociative identity disorder, referred to in the text as a "dead mood". An alternative diagnosis is temporal lobe epilepsy. He is obsessed with gaining the affections of Netta, a failed actress and one of George's circle of acquaintances with whom he drinks. Netta is repelled by George but, being greedy and manipulative, she and a mutual acquaintance, Peter, shamelessly exploit George's advances to extract money and drink from him.During his disordered episodes, he is convinced he must kill Netta for the way she treats him. Upon recovering from these interludes, he cannot remember them. However outside these he embarks on several adventures, trying in vain to win Netta's affections, including a would-be romantic trip to Brighton which goes horribly wrong: Netta brings Peter along, and also a previously unknown man with whom she has sex in the hotel room next to George's.Apart from being a source of money and alcohol, Netta's other reason for continuing to associate with George is because of Johnnie. He is one of George's long-time friends who works for a theatrical agent, and Netta hopes that through him she will get to meet Eddie Carstairs, a powerful figure in the theatre. However, in a final reversal of fortune it is George, not Netta, who ends up attending a party amongst the theatrical great and good whilst Netta is cast aside by Eddie who — unlike George — has immediately seen her for the unpleasant person she is. George suddenly realises what it is like to be surrounded by people who are interested in him as a person rather than for what he can provide.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS,_I_Love_You_(novel)" title="PS, I Love You (novel)">
Holly and Gerry are a married couple who live in Dublin. They are deeply in love, but they fight occasionally. By winter that year, Gerry suddenly dies of a brain tumor and Holly realizes how much he means to her as well as how insignificant their arguments were.Deeply distraught, Holly withdraws from her family and friends out of grief until her mother calls her informing her of a package addressed to her. Within the package are ten envelopes, one for each month after Gerry died, containing messages from him, all ending with "P.S. I Love You". As the months pass, each new message fills her with encouragement and sends her on a new adventure. With Gerry's words as her guide, Holly slowly embarks on a journey of rediscovery.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnels_of_Blood" title="Tunnels of Blood">
This story introduces Gavner Purl, a full vampire and an old friend of Mr. Crepsley. Gavner Purl is a Vampire General. Gavner Purl is shocked to discover Darren a half-vampire. Mr. Crepsley wants to talk to Gavner Purl alone in secrecy. After the meeting, Gavner walks with Darren for a while, revealing to him that Mr. Crepsley was a Vampire General and was about to be invested as a Vampire Prince, who is a leader of the Vampire Clan. He also lets slip that Mr. Crepsley is going to leave the Cirque and finally binds Darren to secrecy regarding all these facts. A day or so later, Mr. Crepsley does inform Darren that he must leave and Darren has to accompany him to some place. He suggests that Evra can come with Darren as if on a "vacation" and to help him keep Darren out of mischief as Mr. Crepsley pointed out incidents regarding Madam Octa and Sam Grest.They go to the city and get a disguise made for Evra and in the night while Mr. Crepsley goes out on mysterious excursions, in the day, Darren and Evra enjoy themselves. When looking for a Christmas gift for Evra, Darren comes across Debbie, a girl from the Square, where they were staying. The two begin dating and like each other very much.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathilukal" title="Mathilukal">
Basheer, who is jailed for writing against the ruling British, befriends his fellow-inmates and a considerate young jailor. One day, Basheer hears a woman's voice from the other side of the wall – the women's prison. Eventually the two jailbirds become lovebirds. They exchange gifts, and their hearts, without meeting each other. Narayani then comes up with a plan for a meeting: they decide to meet at the hospital a few days later. But before that, Basheer is released, unexpectedly. For once, he does not want the freedom he had craved for. The novel ends with Basheer standing outside the prison with a rose in his hand saying, "outside is an even bigger jail."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Descent" title="Direct Descent">
Set in the far future, it consists of two stories about how the peaceful Archivists of the library planet Earth have to deal with warmongers arriving and trying to exploit knowledge for power. It contains a lot of pictures and is aimed at children or adolescents.&lt;br&gt;
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aquitaine_Progression" title="The Aquitaine Progression">
Joel Converse is a lawyer, having previously been a fighter pilot in the Vietnam War. Because of his wartime experiences with Command Saigon, in the form of a psychopathic general named "Mad" Marcus Delavane, he is chosen to thwart a cabal of former generals bent on world domination.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_10" title="Richter 10">
There are four defining episodes in the story, and a variety of subplots and minor threads — many of them unrelated to the main story. The story begins late in the 20th century, and tracks the life of the main protagonist, Lewis Crane. The first of four episodes opens the story. An earthquake in California in the late 20th century has left seven-year-old Lewis Crane a crippled, homeless orphan.The second major episode shows Crane as an adult, world's foremost earthquake expert, a Nobel laureate, ruthless scientist, and entrepreneur dedicated to relieving the misery of those affected by earthquakes. He is also the moving force behind Foundation, an organization whose purpose is to further scientific research on earthquakes. Foundation has just perfected the technology to predict earthquakes to within minutes of due time, intensity, and geographical areas that will be affected. His first prediction is for Sado island in Japan—according to him, most of the island will be destroyed, as will the inhabited village of Aikawa.Local authorities not only ignore his warnings, but vilify him. On the predicted day of the earthquake, Crane has collected a lot of media and relief organizations to cover the event. Many of them are on a small part of the island that will be safe, according to the prediction, while others are covering the event from the air. Directly before the predicted time, the mayor of Aikawa arrives with police to arrest and deport Crane as a fear-monger; at that moment, the earthquake hits. By the time the dust settles, Crane's predictions have come true.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enemy_of_My_Enemy_(Michael_book)" title="The Enemy of My Enemy (Michael book)">
In the book Michael examines the positions of neo-Nazi and Islamist groups on American foreign policy, the media, modernity, and the so-called New World Order. Both camps share a "fervent anti-Semitism, accompanied by strong pro-Palestinian views, anger over Israel's influence on American policymakers, and opposition to the Iraq War and the U.S. presence in the Middle East."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_(Goldman_novel)" title="Brothers (Goldman novel)">
In the sequel, Henry David "Hank" Levy (nicknamed "Doc" and "Scylla"), brother of "Marathon Man"'s protagonist Thomas Babington "Tom" Levy (a.k.a. "Babe"), survives his stabbing. The plot concerns an effort to instigate World War III by means of simultaneous, worldwide terrorist attacks, which Scylla attempts to stop. Scylla's job is to kill American scientists who made three inventions meant to give the United States a military advantage against the Soviet Union. There are two factions in the U.S. government, the Bloodies, advocating war, and Godists, who wish for more peaceful methods.Scylla initially convalesces on an island, as he had been in recovery for a decade. He later goes to New York State, both New York City and Upstate New York. At Princeton University he kills "Arky" Vaughan, who made the suicide chemical, while in New York he kills Milo Standish, who created a chemical that makes other people do his wishes.After "Ma" Perkins, the spy who helped him recover, is murdered, Scylla goes to London. Scylla initially only knows of two inventions, but learns about the third after Ma's death. Scylla kills the Blonde, Perkins's killer, and Division head Beverage dies from suicide after Scylla confronts him.The final invention is exploding children made to kill important politicians and scientists to goad major world powers into attacking each other so the United Kingdom, left standing, could rule the world. Beverage had already sent exploding children, but they largely detonate prematurely and the mutual retaliation fails to materialize. However Babe's wife, Melissa, dies after a cache of children explode in her workplace in the UK; she had been sent there ostensibly to fine-tune speech of amusement park props. Scylla was tricked into destroying the cache thinking it was the only major cache, and he was unaware she was there; Beverage knew she would be there. When Babe and Scylla meet, they embrace and cry.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sleepwalkers_(Broch_novel)" title="The Sleepwalkers (Broch novel)">
## 1888: Joachim von Pasenow.The first part, set mostly in Berlin and an unnamed eastern province of Prussia, concerns an unsure young aristocrat and army officer, Joachim von Pasenow. He wavers between his romantic devotion to a Czech prostitute Ruzena Hruska and his duty which is to court Elisabeth von Baddensen, the heiress of a neighbouring landowner and his social equal. In his secret liaison with the earthy Ruzena he finds emotional and sexual fulfilment, while Elisabeth is delicate and distant. Adrift among doubts and hesitation, he finds refuge in symbols from the past, such as the honour code of the nobility and the teaching of the Lutheran church. Adhering to these leads him into a loveless marriage with Elisabeth. On their wedding night, the hesitations both feel lead them to postpone consummation.Almost all the decisions and actions of Joachim, Ruzena and Elisabeth are manipulated by his diabolical friend, a successful worldly businessman called Eduard von Bertrand who, for his evident lack of comprehension for old values, Joachim never trusts fully.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowl_(novel)" title="Cowl (novel)">
The novel follows Polly, an ordinary homeless teenager from the near future and Tak, a cyborg soldier programmed for obedience to his superiors. Tak is tasked to retrieve a "tor", a biological time machine, but it attaches itself to Polly and wrenches her back in time throughout history toward the eponymous Cowl. She meets several major figures in British history but is no closer to discovering the secret behind the tor which is leeching off her energy and life. Meanwhile Tak runs into Traveler, a time traveler, who shows him the future of the human race where the dominant Heliothane race is threatened by the Umbrathane uprising and the battles are being fought throughout time itself. Cowl, a Heliothane weapon is a human male that was genetically engineered to be the perfect specimen of human evolution. However he is also on the run from the Heliothane Dominion, which considers him their enemy after he slaughters the station he was born at. In an attempt to stop the rule of the dominant Heliothanes, Cowl travels back into pre-history with an incomprehensibly massive multidimensional creature called the Torbeast. The Heliothane theorize that Cowl intends to destroy the human race and supplant them with the Umbrathane checking on his progress by having the Torbeast send its parasitic scales into the future which drag its victims back to Cowl.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_of_Triumph_(novel)" title="Arch of Triumph (novel)">
The novel is set in Paris, in 1939. Despite having no permission to perform surgery, stateless refugee Ravic, a very accomplished German surgeon, has been “ghost-operating” on patients for two years on the behalf of two less-skillful French physicians.Unwilling to return to Nazi Germany, which has stripped him of his citizenship, and unable to exist legally anywhere else in pre-war western Europe, Ravic manages to hang on. He is one of many displaced persons, without passports or any other documents, who live under a constant threat of being captured and deported from one country to the next, and back again.Ravic has given up on the possibility of love, but life has a curious way of taking a turn for the romantic, even during the worst of times. He cautiously befriends an actress . . .
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Fine_Myth" title="Another Fine Myth">
Skeeve, a magician's apprentice and wannabe thief from the dimension Klah, tries to learn the basics of magic from Master Magician Garkin for several months but to no avail. Skeeve can do little more than float a feather or light a candle using magic. Wanting to convince Skeeve that being a thief is not as good as being a magician, Garkin summons a demon. During the summoning an assassin barges into the hut, and Garkin and the assassin kill each other. Skeeve is left alone with the demon. To Skeeve's surprise the demon politely introduces himself as Aahz. Aahz explains that demon is slang for Dimension Traveler. He further explains that there are thousands of dimensions with different races in them, and that he is from the dimension of Perv, making Aahz a Pervect, while Skeeve is a Klahd. Aahz is a master magician like Garkin but loses his magical powers during the summoning ritual (due to a practical joke played on him by Garkin) and becomes stranded in Klah. Aahz volunteers to take Skeeve on as his apprentice and teach him magic.The pair then embark on a series of misadventures as they try to evade more assassins trailing Skeeve. They decide to confront Isstvan, a dangerous Master Magician who plans to conquer all the other dimensions. Along the way they meet, and swindle, a demon hunter named Quigley. They encounter the assassins, and are saved by Skeeve's new magic. With information from the assassins they encounter Frumple, a merchant who transports them to the dimension of Deva (where the Deveels, master bargainers, live) so they can visit the Bazaar to find something to use against Isstvan.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Ward" title="Cancer Ward">
## Overview.The plot focuses on a group of patients as they undergo crude and frightening treatment in a squalid hospital. Writer and literary critic Jeffrey Meyers writes that the novel is the "most complete and accurate fictional account of the nature of disease and its relation to love. It describes the characteristics of cancer; the physical, psychological, and moral effects on the victim; the conditions of the hospital; the relations of patients and doctors; the terrifying treatments; the possibility of death." Kostoglotov's central question is what life is worth, and how we know if we pay too much for it.The novel is partly-autobiographical. Like Solzhenitsyn, Kostoglotov is a former soldier and GULAG prisoner in hospital for cancer treatment from internal perpetual exile in Kazakhstann. In a chapter called “The Root From Issyk-Kul,” Kostoglotov’s doctor discovers a vial of dark fluid in his bedside table, prompting Kostoglotov to explain the contents are an extract of a root used by natural healers in Russia to cure cancer. Solzhenitsyn ingested the same root extract before his cancer went into remission. Kostoglotov is depicted as born in Leningrad, Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk.Bureaucrats and the nature of power in Stalin's State are represented by Pavel Nikolayevich Rusanov, a "personnel officer," bully, and informer. The corrupt power of Stalin's regime is shown through his dual desires to be a "worker", and achieve a "special pension." He is discomfited by signs of a political thaw, and fears a rehabilitated man he denounced 18 years ago (to obtain the whole apartment they shared) will seek revenge. He praises his arrogant daughter, but severely criticizes his son for showing stirrings of humanity. After he is discharged, he believes he is cured, but the staff privately give him less than a year to live; his cancer cannot be rooted any more than the corruption of the 'apparatchik' class to which he belongs. At the end, Rusanov's wife drops rubbish from her car window, symbolising the carelessness with which the State treated the country. The clinic staff frequently mislead the patients about the severity of their disease, and often discharge patients they cannot help, so the number of dead patients is kept to a minimum. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_His_Steps" title="In His Steps">
"In His Steps" takes place in the railroad town of Raymond, located in Topeka, Kansas. The main character is the Rev. Henry Maxwell, pastor of the First Church of Raymond, who challenges his congregation to not do anything for a whole year without first asking: "What Would Jesus Do?" Other characters include Ed Norman, senior editor of the "Raymond Daily Newspaper", Rachel Winslow, a talented singer, and Virginia Page, an heiress, to name a few.The novel begins on a Friday morning when a man out of work (later identified as Jack Manning) appears at the front door of Henry Maxwell while the latter is preparing for that Sunday's upcoming sermon. Maxwell listens to the man's helpless plea briefly before brushing him away and closing the door. The same man appears in the church at the end of the Sunday sermon, walks up to "the open space in front of the pulpit," and faces the people. No one stops him. He quietly but frankly confronts the congregation—"I'm not complaining; just stating facts."—about their compassion, or apathetic lack thereof, for the jobless like him in Raymond. Upon finishing his address to the congregation, he collapses, and dies a few days later.That next Sunday, Henry Maxwell, deeply moved by the events of the past week, presents a challenge to his congregation: "Do not do anything without first asking, 'What would Jesus do?'" This challenge is the theme of the novel and is the driving force of the plot. From this point on, the rest of the novel consists of certain episodes that focus on individual characters as their lives are transformed by the challenge.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarhead_(book)" title="Jarhead (book)">
"Jarhead" recounts Swofford's enlistment and service in the United States Marine Corps during the Persian Gulf War, in which he served as a Scout Sniper Trainee with the Surveillance and Target Acquisition (STA) Platoon of 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines.Like most of the troops stationed in the Middle East during the Gulf War, Swofford saw very little actual combat. Swofford's narrative focuses on the physical, mental and emotional struggles of the young Marines.One of the through lines of his first-person account involves the challenge of balancing the art and science and mind-set of the warrior with one's own basic sense of humanity. Swofford admits to a sense of disappointment, frustration and emptiness that comes in the wake of ultimately being cheated of any real combat experience by a war that, for many American Marines at least, has ended all too quickly after enduring many months of grinding, anticlimactic suspense. And yet there have been the numerous encounters with poignant, eerie tableaux of dead Iraqi soldiers who'd been killed so quickly where they sat so as to appear to have been deliberately posed, like store-display mannequins, in their final moments of life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Old-Fashioned_Girl" title="An Old-Fashioned Girl">
Polly Milton, a bright 14-year-old country girl, visits her friend Fanny Shaw and her wealthy family in the city for the first time. Poor Polly is overwhelmed by the splendor at the Shaws' and their urbanized, fashionable lifestyles, expensive clothes and other habits she has never been exposed to, and, for the most part, dislikes. Fanny's friends ignore her because of her different behavior and simple clothing, Fanny's brother Tom teases her, and Fan herself can't help considering her unusual sometimes. However, Polly's warmth, support, and kindness eventually win the hearts of all the family members, and her old-fashioned ways teach them a lesson they would never forget.Over the next six years, Polly visits the Shaws every year and comes to be considered a member of the family. Later, Polly comes back to the city to become a music teacher and struggles with professional issues and internal emotions. Later in the book, Polly finds out that the prosperous Shaws are on the brink of bankruptcy, and she guides them to the realization that wholesome family life is the only thing they will ever need, not money or decoration.With the comfort of the ever-helpful Polly, the family gets to change for the better and to find a happier life for all of them. After being rejected by his fiancée, Trix, Tom procures a job out West, with Polly's brother Ned, and heads off to help his family and compensate for all the money he has wasted in frivolous expenditures. At that point in the book, we see that Polly and Tom seem to have developed strong feelings for one another.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargirl_(novel)" title="Stargirl (novel)">
The book begins with a brief introduction to the main character, Leo, at an early age, which is followed by his move from his home state of Pennsylvania to Arizona when he is 12. Before the move, his Uncle Pete gives Leo a porcupine necktie as a farewell present, inspiring him to collect more like it. After his birthday and collection of porcupine neckties are mentioned in a local newspaper when he's 14, Leo receives a second porcupine necktie, left anonymously.The story picks up two years later with the arrival of Stargirl Caraway at Leo's school, Mica High. Leo learns that up until this point, she has been homeschooled, but even that doesn't seem to excuse her strange behavior; for example, she comes to school in strange outfits—kimono, buckskin, 1920s flapper clothes, and pioneer clothes. She also brings a ukulele to school every day, as well as her pet rat, Cinnamon. She is so different that at first, the student body does not know what to make of her. Hillari Kimble, a well known and somewhat popular girl at Leo's school, declares that Stargirl is a fake, and speculation and rumors abound.One of Stargirl's quirks is singing happy birthday to students when it is their birthday, bringing her ukulele to school to do so. When Hillari orders Stargirl not to sing to her on her birthday, Stargirl sings Hillari's name but directs the song to Leo and mentions in front of everyone that she thinks he is cute. Though at first rejected by most of the students, Stargirl gains a measure of popularity and is asked to join the cheerleading squad after she succeeds in getting the crowd excited about the school's losing football team while cheering for them at a game. Students mimic her behavior, and at lunch, she no longer sits alone. Her antics on the squad spark a boom in audience attendance at sporting events.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fattypuffs_and_Thinifers" title="Fattypuffs and Thinifers">
Edmund and Terry find the entrance through the Twin Rock, where a long escalator descends into the bowels of the earth. The underground region is illuminated by large balloons filled with a blue, dazzling gas, which float in the underground sky.At the bottom of the escalator a narrow quay, "Surface-by-the-Sea", borders a large gulf. Edmund and Terry are separated here. Edmund is taken to Fattyborough, the capital of the Fattypuff kingdom, on the ship "Fattiport", while Terry is ordered to board the steel vessel "Thiniport" for Thiniville, capital of the Thinifer Republic.Edmund soon assumes an important position in the administration of Fattypuff, whose inhabitants are friendly, happy, and who live only for drinking and eating. Everything there is round and cushioned; the architecture is domes and baroque. Terry also rises through the ranks quickly in the land of the Thinifers, workaholics all, who scarcely eat, and who rush to and from their country, which is all high, sharp spires and thin railway cars.For centuries Fattypuffs and Thinifers have been mortal enemies, having fought one another already in the "War of the Captive Armies". Their main source of tension lies over ownership of an island in the gulf that separates the countries, and what to call it - the Fattypuffs prefer "Fattyfer," the Thinifers "Thinipuff." Negotiations, in which Edmund and Terry participate, are unsuccessful, and the countries go to war. The Thinifers emerge as the victors, and annex the Fattypuff kingdom.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invitation_to_a_Beheading" title="Invitation to a Beheading">
The novel takes place in a prison and relates the final twenty days of Cincinnatus C., a citizen of a fictitious country, who is imprisoned and sentenced to death for "gnostical turpitude." Unable to blend in and become part of the world around him, Cincinnatus is described as having a "certain peculiarity" that makes him "impervious to the rays of others, and therefore produces when off his guard a bizarre impression, as of a lone dark obstacle in this world of souls transparent to one another." Although he tries to hide his condition and "feign translucence," people are uncomfortable with his existence, and feel there is something wrong with him. In this way, Cincinnatus fails to become part of his society.While confined, Cincinnatus is not told when his execution will occur. This troubles him, as he wants to express himself through writing "in defiance of all the world's muteness," but feels unable to do so without knowledge of how long he has to complete this task. Indifferent to the absurdity and vulgarity around him, Cincinnatus strives to find his true self in his writing, where he creates an ideal world. Taken to be executed, he refuses to believe in either death or his executioners, and as the axe falls the false existence dissolves around him as he joins the spirits of his fellow visionaries in "reality."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_(novel)" title="Julian (novel)">
Julian was the last direct relative of Constantine the Great to take up the purple, his father being Constantine's half-brother. As emperor, he attempted to destroy the influence of the Christian church. His goals were to bring back firstly the worship of the old Roman pantheon, secondly other religions including Judaism (he attempts to restore the Jewish Temple), and thirdly - with special emphasis upon the growing crisis on Rome's frontiers - Mithraism, a mystery religion that had been popular among Roman soldiers.The book takes the form of the correspondence between two Hellenistic pagans, Libanius, who is considering writing a biography of Julian, and Priscus, who possesses Julian's personal memoir. Christianity has, by this stage, become the official religion of the Roman Empire (as decreed by the emperor Theodosius), with rioting and inquisition causing extreme violence between traditionalists and Christians, and even between Christian sects. Only thirty years after the novel took place, the city of Rome would be sacked by the Goths.The memoir relates Julian's life from the time so many members of his family were purged by his cousin, the emperor Constantius II (whom he succeeded on the throne), his "exile" to libraries as a child, and his subsequent negative childhood experiences with Christian hypocrisy and conflict over dogma (see Arianism). As he matures, a rift forms between Julian and his disturbed half-brother Constantius Gallus, who is made Caesar (heir to the purple) by Constantius II; Julian claims, for his safety, to have no interest but philosophy, so he undertakes a journey to Athens to study under the city's greatest teachers. Here, he first sees Libanius, the book's narrator, and has an affair with a female philosopher, Macrina. He also comes to know some of the early Church Fathers in their formative years, including the agreeable Basil of Caesarea and the abrasive and dishonest Gregory of Nazianzus. Julian becomes a lector, a minor office in the Christian church, but he continues to learn about the traditional religions: he studies Neoplatonism in Asia Minor under Aedesius, and is initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries in Athens (which he would later try to restore).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_(Wallace_novel)" title="The Man (Wallace novel)">
"The Man" was written before the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It depicts a political situation in which the office of Vice Presidency is vacant due to the incumbent's death. While overseas in Germany, the President and the Speaker of the House are in a freak accident; the President is killed, the Speaker of the House later dies in surgery. The Presidency then devolves onto Douglass Dilman, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, a black man earlier elected to that office in deference to his race. Dilman's presidency is challenged by white racists, black political activists, and an attempted assassination. Later, he is impeached on false charges for firing the United States Secretary of State. One of his children, who is "passing" for white, is targeted and harassed. At the end of the book, the protagonist—though having credibly dealt with considerable problems during his presidency and gained some popularity—does not consider running for re-election.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil!" title="Oil!">
James Arnold "Dad" Ross and his son, James Jr. ("Bunny") are introduced as they drive through southern California to meet with the Watkins family, who are leasing out some oil property they own. They find out that the family is deadlocked about how the properties and proceeds should be divided. While Dad and Bunny go quail hunting on the Watkins' goat ranch, they find oil. At Bunny's urging, Dad tries to prevent the elder Watkins from beating his daughter Ruth, trying to convince them that he has received a "third revelation" which prohibits parents from beating their children. The plan backfires when Eli, Ruth's brother, interjects himself into the discussion and claims that "he" has received the revelation.As drilling begins at the Watkins ranch, Bunny begins to realize his father's business methods are not entirely ethical. After a worker is killed in an accident and an oil well is destroyed in a blowout, Dad's workforce goes on strike. Bunny is torn between loyalty to Dad and his friendship to Ruth and her rebellious brother Paul, who support the workers. Paul is drafted into World War I and, when the conflict is over, remains in Siberia to fight the rising Bolsheviks. Back home, Bunny enrolls in college, and he becomes increasingly involved with socialism through a classmate, Rachel Menzies. Paul returns home and tells of his travels, explaining he has become a communist.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amulet_of_Samarkand" title="The Amulet of Samarkand">
In an alternate London where the British Empire dominates the world through control of magic, and commoners are governed by the ruling class of magicians, five-year-old Nathaniel begins an apprenticeship to magician Arthur Underwood, Minister of Internal Affairs.At the age of ten, Nathaniel is presented to a gathering of magicians including the formidable Simon Lovelace, who dismisses Nathaniel's talents and humiliates him. Embittered toward Underwood, Nathaniel plots revenge. Through a scrying glass, Nathaniel sees Lovelace receive a package containing the powerful Amulet of Samarkand. Lovelace plans to use the Amulet to seize control of the government.Days after his twelfth birthday, Nathaniel summons the djinn Bartimaeus and charges him to steal the Amulet. Bartimaeus, ordered to spy on Lovelace, travels to the magician Sholto Pinn's curio shop. He learns the Amulet had been under government protection. Bartimaeus' presence is discovered and he is detained in the Tower of London. Underwood confiscates Nathaniel's summoning paraphernalia, and is called to the Tower to interrogate Bartimaeus. At the Tower, Bartimaeus is unsuccessfully interrogated by Pinn and Jessica Whitwell, Minister of Security. Bartimaeus escapes and flees, unwittingly leading Lovelace to the Underwood house. Lovelace threatens Underwood and discovers the Amulet in his study. Nathaniel reveals himself as the thief, but his master encourages Lovelace to kill his apprentice instead of him. Lovelace's spirits destroy the house; the Underwoods perish but Bartimaeus saves Nathaniel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Number_Devil" title="The Number Devil">
Robert is a young boy who suffers from mathematical anxiety due to his boredom in school. His mother is Mrs. Wilson. He also experiences recurring dreams—including falling down an endless slide or being eaten by a giant fish—but is interrupted from this sleep habit one night by a small devil creature who introduces himself as the Number Devil. Although there are many Number Devils (from Number Heaven), Robert only knows him as the Number Devil before learning of his actual name, Teplotaxl, later in the story.Over the course of twelve dreams, the Number Devil teaches Robert mathematical principles. On the first night, the Number Devil appears to Robert in an oversized world and introduces the number one. The next night, the Number Devil emerges in a forest of trees shaped like "ones" and explains the necessity of the number zero, negative numbers, and introduces "hopping", a fictional term to describe exponentiation. On the third night, the Number Devil brings Robert to a cave and reveals how "prima-donna" numbers (prime numbers) can only be divided by themselves and one without a remainder. Later, on the fourth night, the Number Devil teaches Robert about "rutabagas", another fictional term to depict square roots, at a beach.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_Not_the_End_of_the_World" title="It's Not the End of the World">
Karen Newman feels like her world is coming undone and has soured on the idea of marriage. In her diary, she gives each day a letter grade; lately, her days have not been graded higher than a C-minus. She is overjoyed to learn that her sixth-grade teacher will be Miss Pace, who is nice and popular, but when the first day of school comes, she is crushed to find that Miss Pace, after getting married over the summer and is now Mrs. Singer, has become what Karen describes as a "witch". Worse yet, her parents, Bill and Ellie, who have been quarreling more and more each day, announce that they are splitting up. Bill moves out of the family home and plans to go to Las Vegas to file for divorce, much to Ellie's delight and Karen's consternation.When Karen's older brother, Jeff, finds out that Bill is going to Las Vegas, he argues with Ellie and runs away. Bill postpones his trip to Las Vegas to help find him, which, instead of bringing him closer to Ellie, causes him to quarrel with her even more violently than before. Jeff eventually returns on his own, ending the crisis, but not the animosity. Karen tries every possible way she can think of to stop the divorce from happening, including sending anniversary cards and feigning illness, but her efforts are ultimately fruitless. She does this because there is a streak run by her family for not getting a divorce. She does not want to let her grandparents down. At the end, she decides that, in spite of the impending divorce, things will get better. Her last diary entry in the book has her giving the day a B-plus.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Dreams" title="Gravity Dreams">
The novel is set in the year 4512, when humans have achieved spaceflight faster than the speed of light, along with nanotechnology. Gravity Dreams centers around main character, Tyndel, who was raised in Dorcha, whose culture uses the philosophy of Dzin as a means of social control. Dzin preaches that what you see is, and not to ask questions that a scientist normally would. Tyndel is a master of Dzin. One day he is attacked and infected with nanites. This brands him as a 'Demon' because Dorcha has rejected technology, as the cause of a major ecological collapse centuries before.After escaping from prison, Tyndel returns to his wife, and sees her killed by the people who he thought were meant to protect her. After taking revenge by killing the man who infected him with the nanites, Tyndel flees north to the "Demon Nation" of Rykasha, which still retains high technology and uses nanites.He is taken to a medical facility after experiencing weird lights across his vision, and told that he was infected with an ancient strain of nanites that would have killed him. They are replaced with more balanced nanites adjusted to his system. He is introduced to his handler Cerrelle, who explains that it is her duty to help him adjust to their society and become a productive citizen so that he can repay his debt for their help.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Adventures_of_Santa_Claus" title="The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus">
As a baby, Santa Claus is found in the Forest of Burzee by Ak, the Master Woodsman of the World (a supreme immortal) and placed in the care of the lioness Shiegra, but he thereupon is adopted by the Wood Nymph, Necile.Upon reaching young adulthood, Claus is introduced by Ak to human society, wherein he sees war, brutality, poverty, child neglect, and child abuse. Because he cannot reside in Burzee as an adult, he settles in the nearby Laughing Valley of Hohaho, where the immortals regularly assist him, and Peter Knook gives him a little cat named Blinky.In the Laughing Valley, Claus becomes known for kindness toward children. On one occasion, his neighbors' son Weekum visits him; Claus, having made an image of Blinky to pass the time, presents him with the finished carving, calling it a "toy". Soon, the immortals begin assisting him in the production of other carvings: the Ryls coloring the toys with their infinite paint pots (the first toy was not colored). When he makes a clay figure reminiscent of Necile, he proclaims it a "dolly" to evade naming Necile to the children ("doll" results when children shorten the name). Claus presents the first one to Bessie Blithesome, a local noblewoman, after consulting with Necile and the Queen of the Fairies about whether he should give toys to wealthy children. Later dolls resemble Bessie herself and, later still, counterfeit infant girls.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People_of_Sparks" title="The People of Sparks">
The story resumes after the evacuation of Ember, an underground city, which has been cut off from the surface for more than 200 years. The 400+ refugees from the city cannot return, as the city's resources are nearly depleted, and have no idea how to survive on the surface. After following a road for three days, they arrive at the village of Sparks, exhausted and hungry. The leaders of this village, Mary, Ben, and Wilmer, reluctantly agree to take in the refugees for 6 months, theoretically long enough to teach them to survive independently. They are allowed to stay in the abandoned and decrepit Pioneer Hotel. Tick Hassler, a former hauler of carts in Ember, organizes a series of projects intended to improve their quality of life and chances for the future, but which tend to be more grandiose than practical.Concern soon arises about whether there is adequate food for everyone in Sparks; if food stocks are insufficient for the winter, it would be disastrous for both groups. The Emberites have little knowledge of the surface (having been deliberately deprived of such knowledge at the founding of the city, so they would not try to leave), and their ignorance annoys the people of Sparks. Torren, an unhappy boy from Sparks, destroys a large amount of tomatoes in a furious rage, and then decides to accuse an Emberite (Doon) of the act to further build hatred between the two people. Vandalism against the people of Ember heightens the anger on both sides. The resultant reduction in the quality and quantity of food provided to Emberites only makes them angrier. Sparks' leaders vote 2-1 to stop having Emberites in homes for meals, as was the policy before, and instead have them pick up food to eat elsewhere. Then, Ember's people learn that they will be ejected from the village in the middle of winter, which they had not understood. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Sharer" title="The Secret Sharer">
As dusk begins to fall, the unnamed narrator of the story, the new Captain of a British vessel currently anchored at the mouth of the Meinam River in the Gulf of Siam, stands on the deck of his ship before joining his crew for supper. The time is approximately eight o'clock.At supper, the Captain remarks that he saw the masts of a ship anchored amongst some nearby islands. The Chief Mate explains that the ship to which the Captain is referring is probably another English one, waiting for a favorable tide to sail home. The Second Mate elaborates: the ship is the "Sephora", from Liverpool, and is bound home from Cardiff with a cargo of coal, which he had learned from the skipper of a tugboat who had previously come aboard to fetch the Captain's letters.The Captain makes a magnanimous gesture by offering to take the anchor watch himself until one o'clock, after which time he will get the Second Mate to relieve him. Again alone on deck, the Captain meditatively smokes a cigar and again considers his own "strangeness" to the ship and its command, and his unfamiliarity with the crew. The rest of the crew sleeps soundly.The Captain notices that the rope side ladder, hung over the side of the ship to accommodate the skipper of the tugboat, has not been brought in. As he begins to pull it, he feels a jerk at the other end and curiously looks over the rail into the sea. He sees a naked man floating in the water and holding the end of the ladder. The man introduces himself as Leggatt. He has been in the water since nine o'clock, which makes the Captain consider his strength and youth. Leggatt climbs up the ladder and the Captain rushes to his cabin to fetch him some clothes. The Captain learns that Leggatt was until recently the chief mate of the "Sephora", having been stripped of the title after he accidentally killed a fellow crewman while trying to repair the ship's foresail during a storm. The Captain tells Leggatt that they should retire to his cabin so as not to be discovered by his own Chief Mate. The Captain hides Leggatt in his cabin, returns to the deck, summons the Chief Mate to take over the anchor watch, and then returns to his cabin.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spellcoats" title="The Spellcoats">
Tanaqui is a young woman. She resides in a small town called Shelling. She and four siblings look different from the rest of the townsfolk. Their family has three idols—the so-called Undying. The country is invaded by Heathens. They are the ancestors of the people of Dalemark in the other three novels. Tanaqui and her siblings flee to avoid being killed by the people of their own village; they physically resemble Heathens.The Spellcoats is not a diary, nor is it "told" as many stories are. It is woven. Tanaqui weaves a story into a "spellcoat" that she weaves.The first spellcoat tells of how the five siblings (Gull, Robin, Hern, Tanaqui and Duck) traveled downriver on their boat. First, they encounter the mysterious magician Tanamil, then the Heathen king Kars Adon, and finally, at the sea, the evil mage Kankredin, whose aim is to take over the power of the river by taking over the five children's souls. The second spellcoat tells how they escape from Kankredin, but then the five siblings are captured by their own King, "the king of the natives." This king has lost his kingdom. He is bivouacking with the remains of his army trying to avoid the Heathens. The King confines the children because he needs one of the children's idols to assist him. Tanaqui continues to weave during her confinement with the King, she realizes that the spellcoats that mages wore gave them powers that were woven into their spellcoats. This convinced her that the words woven into spellcoats will have the power to defeat Kankredin.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nitrogen_Fix" title="The Nitrogen Fix">
The family is allied with an alien, an octopus-like being, who can survive in the new atmosphere. Humans must live in shelters with oxygen-generating plants, or use suitable breathing equipment. Some of Earth's original life forms have mutated to survive in the changed atmosphere. Since almost no metals can exist in the corrosive atmosphere, any technology is based on ceramics or glass.Some humans are suspicious of the aliens, and even blame them for the change to the atmosphere, since they seem to be adapted for it. The family have an almost fatal encounter with a group of such people, who are holding another alien hostage. However, the two aliens are able to pool memories biochemically, so that they become the same personality in two bodies. Their combined knowledge and skills help the humans to escape.At the end the aliens reveal that they are basically tourists or scientists, and they travel from one system to another over thousands of years. Atmospheres "mature" when the nitrogen absorbs all the oxygen, the cause being the inevitable evolution of bacteria that use gold to catalyze the reaction. It is hinted, but not stated outright, that human mining of gold triggered this reaction.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Planet_(novel)" title="Rogue Planet (novel)">
The story takes place a few years after the events of "Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace". Young Anakin Skywalker chafes under his new life as a Jedi apprentice. He sneaks away from Obi-Wan Kenobi to participate in and gamble on deadly flying games. This is interrupted by a "Blood Carver" assassin.The Jedi Council decides Anakin would be best served to send him with Obi-Wan to investigate the remote world of Zonama Sekot, a world that produces organic spacecraft. A Jedi has gone missing on Sekot.A battle squadron pursues the two Jedi; it is headed by a weapons designer that has already blueprinted the Death Star. Commander Tarkin, the future Grand Moff Tarkin becomes involved as well.Blood Carver assassins appear again, the Jedi grow their own ship and no less than two fleets threaten the planet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_from_an_Empty_Cup" title="Tea from an Empty Cup">
"Tea From an Empty Cup" is at its core a tightly plotted detective novel.The story revolves around near mythical Japan, which has been destroyed in a vaguely described natural cataclysm several decades before the story opens. The generation that remembers "Old Japan" appears to have passed on. A virtual version of Japan has become a sort of holy grail for a core group of artificial reality addicts. Artificial Reality, or "AR", like "post-apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty" has become immensely popular in an increasingly dreary overcrowded world, not just as a game, but as a way of life. AR is not just a way of life, it turns out, but also of death, as homicide detective Dore Konstantin discovers when she is called upon to investigate the death of a young man in an artificial reality parlour (think video arcade with a full wired body suit) and discovers he died the same way in the game as in reality. She therefore decides to investigate this young man's life within the artificial realities he frequented, even though the legal precedents already established mean that nothing she discovers is admissible as evidence because "Everything is a Lie" in AR. In the process she stumbles onto something far more complicated than a mere murder case.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Technicolor_Time_Machine" title="The Technicolor Time Machine">
The narrative revolves around the efforts of a mediocre film director to save his job, his livelihood and, incidentally, the studio he works for. To do this, he enlists a mad scientist, the crooked studio owner, a jazz tuba player, a cowboy, two fabulously stupid movie stars, and a real live ocean-crossing Viking. He ends up making history, but in a way he never dreamed of.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_(novel)" title="Monument (novel)">
A nondescript spacer with little education named Cerne Obrien finds a cache of extremely valuable "retron crystals", but crashes on an idyllic planet before he can sell them. The planet has a single continent, inhabited by humans with a Polynesian culture. The natives live contented lives, hunting a sea creature called the koluf, which constitutes almost their entire diet. Obrien uses his surviving technology to rid the area of several dangerous animals, and eventually marries. The natives come to call him the "Langri", a title of deep respect.Obrien lives a peaceful life, watching his descendants grow up, but as he ages, he begins worrying about the future. Unscrupulous developers would inevitably attempt to turn the planet into a resort and marginalize the natives. Obrien could handle them if they arrived soon, but he cannot live forever.He has bright young people sent to him. He begins to teach them "the Plan". It is difficult to teach the non-technological natives all they need to know, as they have little concept of modern galactic society, but he manages it. His best pupil is a young man named Fornri.Even as Obrien lies dying, a developer called Wembling arrives to illegally prospect for minerals. The people, led by Fornri, put the Plan into effect. They first capture Wembling and his men, and the crews of four scout ships sent to find Wembling. The Navy eventually arrives, and a treaty is signed recognizing the planet under the name Langri. The people of Langri fine the Federation for illegal landings and hire a law firm, as specified in the Plan.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_Education_(novel)" title="Higher Education (novel)">
The novel starts in a future dystopian earth where the United States has become a woefully inefficient bureaucratized nation. The public school system is primarily interested in promoting self-esteem rather than learning. For example, the vast majority of public high school graduates are illiterate, and end up in "the pool"; an endless crowd of unemployable youths depending on government assistance or crime for survival. The book is told from the perspective of the main character, a high school student named Rick who quickly finds himself expelled after a practical joke goes wrong.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_Redux" title="Rabbit Redux">
"Rabbit Redux" finds former high-school basketball star Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom working a dead-end job as a Linotype operator at the local printing plant. Thirty-six, he feels that he is quickly approaching middle age and irrelevance, a fear he sees reflected in the economic decline of his hometown, Brewer, Pennsylvania. When his wife leaves him for an eccentric Greek man named Charlie Stavros, Harry and his thirteen-year-old son Nelson are at a loss.Seeking to fill the void left by Janice, Harry starts a commune, composed of himself; Nelson; Skeeter, a cynical, drug-dealing African-American Vietnam vet with messianic delusions; and Jill, a wealthy, white, runaway teenager from Connecticut. While Skeeter keeps Jill in sexual thrall to him with heroin, Harry and Nelson are both drawn to Jill for the different things she represents to them: lost innocence and sexual conquest for Harry, and first love and coming of age for Nelson. Against the backdrop of the Summer of Love, Harry, Skeeter, and Jill do drugs, have sex, and debate religion, race relations, and other political issues of the 1960s while Nelson attempts to romance Jill. The activities at Harry's house upset his middle-class, conservative neighbors, one of whom sets fire to the house in an attempt to put an end to the commune. Jill, high on heroin, burns to death. Though Harry is initially disturbed, the nihilistic Skeeter convinces him to forget about it; Harry nonetheless worries about the effect it may have on Nelson.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorini_(novel)" title="Santorini (novel)">
While on station in the Aegean Sea under the guise of a hydrographic survey mission, the crew of Royal Navy electronic intelligence vessel HMS "Ariadne" witnesses two disasters at once, a mysterious strategic bomber crashing into the sea and a large pleasure yacht on fire and sinking. The plane turns out to have been loaded with nuclear weapons, and the survivors rescued from the yacht (who include a wealthy Greek tycoon) appear somehow connected with the plane's destruction. With potential saboteurs aboard, Commander Talbot and the crew of the "Ariadne" must raise the one activated weapon before it can explode, setting off the others by sympathetic detonation and causing the nearby volcano of Santorini to explode in a tremendous eruption which would bring on a devastating tsunami and possibly a worldwide nuclear winter.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deer_and_the_Cauldron" title="The Deer and the Cauldron">
The story centres on a witty, sly, illiterate and lazy protagonist, Wei Xiaobao, who was born to a prostitute from a brothel in Yangzhou in the early Qing dynasty (1654–1689). The teenage scamp makes his way from Yangzhou to the capital, Beijing, through a series of adventures. In Beijing, he is kidnapped and taken to the imperial palace, where he impersonates an eunuch. While in the palace, Wei Xiaobao bumbles his way into a fateful encounter with the young Kangxi Emperor, the ruler of the Qing Empire, and develops an unlikely friendship with him.One day, Wei Xiaobao is captured by some martial artists and taken out of the palace. He meets Chen Jinnan, the leader of the Tiandihui ("Heaven and Earth Society"), a secret society aiming to overthrow the Qing dynasty, and becomes Chen's apprentice. He also becomes one of the society's branch leaders and agrees to serve as their spy in the palace. Later, he is taken captive by another group of fighters, who bring him to Mystic Dragon Island, where the sinister Mystic Dragon Cult is based. Unexpectedly, he becomes the cult's White Dragon Marshal by flattering its leader, Hong Antong.Wei Xiaobao makes a number of seemingly impossible achievements through sheer luck, cunning, and the use of unglamorous means such as cheating and deceiving. First, he assists the Kangxi Emperor in ousting the autocratic regent, Obai, from power. Second, he discovers the whereabouts of the missing Shunzhi Emperor, who has been presumed dead, saves him from danger, and helps him reunite with his son, the Kangxi Emperor. Third, he eliminates the Mystic Dragon Cult by stirring up internal conflict, which leads to the cult's self-destruction. Fourth, he weakens the revolt staged by Wu Sangui by bribing Wu's allies to withdraw, thereby allowing Qing imperial forces to crush the rebels easily. Finally, he leads a campaign against the Russian Empire and helps the Qing Empire reach a border treaty with its northern neighbour. Earlier on, he met the Russian regent, Sophia Alekseyevna, and helped her consolidate control over the Russian Empire during an uprising. In the process of accomplishing these tasks, he also recommended talents to serve the Qing government, one of whom is Shi Lang, the admiral who led the successful naval campaign against the Kingdom of Tungning in Taiwan.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Ancient_Wonders" title="Seven Ancient Wonders">
Around 4,500 years ago, the capstone upon the summit of the Great Pyramid of Giza absorbed the energy released by the Tartarus Rotation (a monstrous sunspot that occurs every 4,000–4,500 years), and saved the earth from major flooding and catastrophic weather. This capstone was later divided up by Alexander the Great with one piece hidden in a booby-trapped location within each of the other seven wonders of the world. If and when they are reunited and replaced on the capstone during another solar event, they can bring 1,000 years of peace or power for the nation which possesses them.In 2006, seven days before this sunspot is again due, the pieces are still divided, and three teams are trying to reunite them: Two for their own gain; one from Europe (representing the Catholic Church); and the other is CIEF, the Commander-in-Chief's In Extremis Force (an American force covertly representing the power of the Freemasons). The third team is an alliance of a group of 'small nations' called the Alliance of Minnows (consisting of members from Canada, Australia, Ireland, United Arab Emirates, Spain, Jamaica, New Zealand, and later Israel), led by Jack West Jr, trying to reunite the capstone for nobler reasons. This team and the European team each also possess a child—one of the only two people who can read the "Word of Thoth", a special hieroglyphics system used in the booby-traps. (The other person is her twin, Alexander, who is being brainwashed by the Vatican.)
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golem's_Eye" title="The Golem's Eye">
Like the rest of the "Bartimaeus Trilogy", "The Golem's Eye" is set in somewhat modern-day London in an alternate history in which magic is commonplace and magicians are an accepted part of society; in fact, most magicians are in positions of power. They comprise the government, and commoners are treated as inferior. The main character is Nathaniel, a magician who works for the government in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. His (unwilling) partner is the wisecracking spirit Bartimaeus. Together they embark on a quest to discover the secret behind the commoners' resistance to magic and the mysterious beast that is stalking the city of London. The beast is revealed to be an invulnerable clay golem created by a coterie of magicians in an attempt to discredit and undermine the government.Two years after the events of the first novel, Nathaniel (alias John Mandrake) serves in London’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, working to eliminate the anti-magician Resistance. Under pressure from his superiors, he summons his former servant, the djinn Bartimaeus. Though furious that Nathaniel has broken their bargain – having sworn never to summon him again in return for the djinn never divulging Nathaniel’s birth name – Bartimaeus agrees to six weeks of service if he will not be sent to the ongoing North American war.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy's_Gate" title="Ptolemy's Gate">
Three years have passed since the magician Nathaniel (otherwise known as John Mandrake) helped prevent an attack on London that would have been cataclysmic for its magicians and commoners. Now an established member of the British Government, he faces unprecedented problems: foreign wars are going badly, Britain's enemies are mounting attacks close to London, and rebellion is fomenting among the commoners. Increasingly distracted with other affairs, Nathaniel is treating Bartimaeus worse than ever.The British Empire is falling apart. Many commoners are unhappy with the current government, though none of the commoners claim responsibility for the status quo. The magician's demons are being assaulted by the children's natural abilities to see and resist the demons. Some commoners advocate slow reform, while others advocate open revolt, while still others say the commoners should learn how to summon spirits of their own to combat those spirits belonging to the magicians. "Ptolemy's Gate" concludes with a council of surviving magicians and important commoners trying to work out a government that is beneficial to everyone.Kitty Jones eventually unearths the reason why humans and spirits are locked into the endless cycle, that humans do not understand the nature of djinni and summon them only as powerful, but dangerous, slaves, not equals. This theory is confirmed by Bartimaeus who states that his greatest master, Ptolemy, was the only human who treated his servants as equals and tried to build a bridge between djinni and humans. However, Ptolemy misguidedly believed many others would follow in his footsteps.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombaiyer_Bombete_(film)" title="Bombaiyer Bombete (film)">
Lalmohan Ganguly, alias Jatayu − Friend of Feluda − gets invited to Mumbai (previously Bombay) to watch the shooting of a film based on a novel written by him, "Bombaiyer Bombete". His old friend of Garpar road, Pulak Ghoshal (Paran Bandyopadhyay), is the director. Feluda and Topshe accompany him.One day prior to the journey, a mysterious film producer named Sanyal visits Jatayu and conveys that he intends to make a film on the same novel on which Pulok Ghoshal is making a film. Jatayu tells him that the novel is sold, and thus Sanyal leaves. However, Sanyal requests him to handle a packet to one of his allies at the Mumbai airport, to which Jatayu agrees.Once in Mumbai, a man comes to pick up the parcel (Rajatava Dutta), and by mistake, Jatayu gives him another parcel, which contained a copy of his novel. The man goes to a multistory building and gets attacked in the elevator by another man. He kills the assassin, and drops a piece of paper near the body. Feluda and team check in a hotel, where they are told by Pulak about the murder, and the trio meet inspector Patwardhan (Anjan Srivastav).Inspector Patwardhan tells them that a necklace of Nana Sahib has been stolen from Nepal and that it may be smuggled in India by unknown smugglers. Next day at the beach, Feluda finds out through a newspaper clipping that the piece of paper contained Jatayu's description. The trio next meet the producer of the film Mr. Gorey (Ashish Vidyarthi). Pulak Ghoshal the director further introduces them to Victor Perumal (Rajesh Sharma), a martial artist from Japan, who is the stunt coordinator for the film.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandingo_(novel)" title="Mandingo (novel)">
"Mandingo" takes place in 1832 on the fictional plantation Falconhurst, located close to Tombigbee River near Benson, Alabama. Warren Maxwell is the elderly and infirm owner of Falconhurst and he lives there with his 19-year-old son, Hammond. Falconhurst is a slave-breeding plantation where slaves are encouraged to mate and produce children ("suckers"). Because of the nature of the plantation, the slaves are well fed, not overworked, and rarely punished in a brutal manner. However, the slaves are treated as animals to be utilized as the Maxwells wish. Warren Maxwell, for example, sleeps with his feet against a naked slave to drain his rheumatism.Although Hammond keeps a "bed-wench" for sexual satisfaction, his father wishes him to marry and produce a pure white heir. Hammond is skeptical and is not sexually attracted to white women. Despite his misgivings, he travels to his Cousin Beatrix's plantation, Crowfoot, and there meets his 16-year-old cousin, Blanche. He asks Blanche's father, Major Woodford, permission to marry her within four hours of meeting her. After receiving the Major's permission, Hammond and Charles Woodford, Blanche's brother, travel to the Coign plantation where Hammond purchases a "fightin' nigger", Ganymede (aka Mede), and a young, female slave named Ellen. Later, Hammond reveals his love for Ellen, despite his intentions to wed Blanche.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Families_Are_Psychotic" title="All Families Are Psychotic">
The novel is the tale of the Drummond family from Vancouver gathering together to watch Sarah Drummond's space shuttle blast off at the Kennedy Space Center. The Drummonds are a group of misfits with a wide array of personal foibles and intricacies. The novel's plot is the tale of events that reunite the Drummond family after many years of estrangement.Several plot points of the book include geriatric HIV, armed robbery, death in Walt Disney World, pharmaceutical drug lords, black market baby sales, Daytona Beach, and suicide attempts.Early in the book the men of the family travel to nearby Walt Disney World where they receive a package destined for the Bahamas containing a letter written by Prince William stolen from Princess Diana's casket. The men start to travel to the Bahamas to deliver their package, but everything and anything happens to them on the way.The novel is told in a similar style to "Miss Wyoming", with many plot flashbacks. However, the focus in this novel is on the temporally linear plot.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Country_for_Old_Men_(novel)" title="No Country for Old Men (novel)">
The plot follows the interweaving paths of the three central characters (Llewelyn Moss, Anton Chigurh, and Ed Tom Bell) set in motion by events related to a drug deal gone bad near the Mexican–American border in remote Terrell County in south-west Texas.In 1980, while hunting pronghorns, Llewelyn Moss stumbles across the aftermath of a drug deal gone awry that has left everyone dead, save a sole badly wounded Mexican who pleads with Moss for water. Moss responds that he does not have any and searches the rest of the vehicles, finding a truck full of heroin. He searches for the "last man standing" and finds him dead some distance off under a tree with a satchel containing $2.4 million in cash. He takes the money and returns home. Later, however, feeling remorse for leaving the wounded man and simultaneously desiring to know more of the circumstances surrounding the deal gone wrong and the money, he returns to the scene with a jug of water, only to find that the wounded man had since been shot and killed. When Moss looks back to his truck parked on the ridge overlooking the valley, another truck is there. After being seen, he tries to run, which sparks a tense chase through a desert valley. This is the beginning of a hunt for Moss that stretches for most of the remaining novel. After escaping from his pursuers, Moss sends his wife, Carla Jean, to her grandmother in Odessa, Texas, while he leaves his home with the money.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trials_of_Death" title="Trials of Death">
Darren Shan is about to take the Trials of Initiation, a series of tests that vampires were forced to take part in during years gone by, to prove himself to the Princes. Currently, it is only used for vampires who want to become a general, or for those who wish to demonstrate their strength. However, Darren Shan is required to endure the trials to earn the respect of the entire vampire race for his mentor Mr. Crepsley's 'impulsive' decision to turn him. Darren is mostly trained by the games master of the Mountain, Vanez Blaze. For the first trial, he must escape from a maze that is filling with waterwhilst dragging a stone weighing half of his body weight. The second trial Darren must complete is The Path of Needles, a barefoot journey through one of the mountains many caverns littered with stalagmites and stalactites, all of which are razor sharp and could fall at any second. Luck is on Darren's side as the Festival of the Undead takes place right after his second trial. During this three-day period no official business can take place meaning he gets a five-day rest before his next trial. Suffering from a lot of cuts, notably on his hands and back, he finds it hard to enjoy the festival. A veteran vampire and Larten Crepsley's mentor, Seba Nile, asks to meet with him later as he has a cure for his discomfort. They go to a cavern deep inside the mountain which is covered in spider webs and Darren soon realizes that it is full of hundreds of thousands of spiders. Seba breaks up the cobwebs and applies them to Darren's cuts which he says helped immediately.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mark_(novel)" title="The Mark (novel)">
His Excellency Global Community Potentate Nicolae Carpathia has been resurrected and indwelt by Satan himself. He plans to remodel his offices and add two floors to his palace, including a glass ceiling. He also demands that the people of the Global Community (GC) worship him. Statues of himself are erected for worship. He introduces Viv Ivins to the senior staff and tells them of the loyalty mark program. The Antichrist declares that every single person on earth must receive his mark of loyalty and worship his image or lose their head to the loyalty enforcement facilitator. David Hassid finally finds out that his fiancée Annie Christopher has been killed by lightning called down by GC Supreme Commander and False Prophet Leon Fortunato. David passes out in the heat after the "funeral" while looking for Annie. He awakes to find himself tended by Hannah Palemoon, a nurse and a believer. She is added to their ranks and helps to plan their escape before the mark.Albie and Rayford Steele run across Steve Plank, under the alias Pinkerton Stephens, at Boulder, CO, where Hattie has been taken. Steve tells them his conversion story; he became a believer during the Wrath of the Lamb Earthquake, surviving but losing much of his body. He now wears prosthetic body parts and uses a wheelchair. The three then carry out the incredible rescue of Hattie Durham, who finally becomes a believer. Before they rescue her, she tries to hang herself in her room.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rising_(LaHaye_novel)" title="The Rising (LaHaye novel)">
"The Rising" is Prequel 1 of 3 in the books leading up to the events mentioned in "Left Behind" itself. It focuses 32 years before the main "Left Behind" series starts.Marilena Carpathia has only one dream: to be a mother. So when a mysterious clairvoyant promises the fulfillment of this dream, Marilena does not hesitate. Through genetic engineering and the power of the Prince of Darkness himself, Marilena is about to become a chosen vessel, an exact contrary to the Virgin Mary, one who will unknowingly give birth to the greatest evil the world has ever known.Halfway around the world, God's plans are subtly being carried out too. Young Ray Steele is determined to avoid one day taking over the family business. Instead, Ray sets his heart on becoming a pilot.Soon Carpathia and Steele's lives will intersect. And good and evil will clash in an explosion that will shake the world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterland_(novel)" title="Waterland (novel)">
Tom Crick, fifty-two years old, has been history master for some thirty years in a secondary school in Greenwich. As the world sets its clocks according to Greenwich Mean Time, this is a place where time begins. Tom has been married to Mary for as long as he has been teaching, but the couple have no children. The students in Tom's school have grown increasingly scientifically oriented, and the headmaster, a physicist, has little sympathy for Tom's subject. One of Tom's students, Price, questions the relevance of learning about historical events. The youth's scepticism causes Tom to change his teaching approach to telling tales drawn from his own recollection. By doing so, he makes himself a part of the history he is teaching, relating his tales to local history and genealogy. The headmaster, Lewis, tries to entice Tom into taking an early retirement. Tom resists this because his leaving would mean that the History Department would cease to exist and would be combined with the broader area of General Studies. Tom's wife is arrested for snatching a baby. The publicity that attends her arrest reflects badly on the school, and Tom is told that he now must retire. In response, he uses his impending forced retirement as an excuse to recount a story to his students. The pivot of "Waterland" focuses on both the past in 1943, and the present time thirty years after – all related through the eyes of Tom as an adolescent.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangling_Man" title="Dangling Man">
Written in diary format, the story centers on the life of an unemployed young man named Joseph, his relationships with his wife and friends, and his frustrations with living in Chicago and waiting to be drafted. His diary serves as a philosophical confessional for his musings. It ends with his entrance into the army during World War II, and a hope that the regimentation of army life will relieve his suffering. Along with Bellow's second novel "The Victim", it is considered his "apprentice" work.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_the_Old_Breed" title="With the Old Breed">
Sledge's memoir gives a firsthand perspective on the Pacific Theatre. His memoir is a front-line account of infantry combat in the Pacific War. It brings the reader into the island hopping, the jungle heat and rain, the filth and malaise, the fear of potential banzai attacks, and the hopelessness and loss of humanity that characterized the campaign in the Pacific. Sledge wrote starkly of the brutality displayed by Japanese soldiers during the battles and of the hatred that both sides harbored for each other. In Sledge's words, "This was a brutish, primitive hatred, as characteristic of the horror of war in the Pacific as the palm trees and the islands."Sledge describes one instance in which he and a comrade came across the mutilated bodies of three Marines, butchered and with their severed genitals inserted into their mouths. He also describes the behavior of some Marines towards dead Japanese, including the removal of gold teeth from Japanese corpses (including, in one case, from a severely wounded but still living Japanese soldier), as well as other macabre trophy-taking. He details the process and mechanisms that slowly strip away a combat infantryman's humanity and compassion, in a manner accessible for a general audience.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_of_the_Prophet" title="Rose of the Prophet">
The Rose of the Prophet series is set in Sularin, a fictional world ruled by a slate of twenty gods, each a facet of the central god, Sul. In the normal course of events, common to fantasy literature, the values of the gods balance each other out; however, as the series begins, the gods have turned away from the Sul and the world is in peril of falling apart. Each god is worshipped by people on the mortal realm and their strength corresponds with the strength and faith of their people. At the start of the series, each god and their foil rule over certain areas in the mortal realm.One god in particular, Quar, the god of city dwellers in a Middle Eastern style land, has decided to move to seize more and more power. Akhran, the foil of Quar, learns of Quar's ambitions and warns the rest of the gods because upsetting the balance will affect them all. The other gods mostly ignore him, unconcerned because Quar's mortal domain is far away from their own. Akhran does not have the safety of distance and decides to take his own precautions and orders the djinns of the Sheiks of the two largest nomadic tribes to marry off their children to unite the tribes. Unfortunately for all involved, the two largest tribes have had years upon years of animosity and hate each other with a passion.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Victim_(novel)" title="The Victim (novel)">
Asa Leventhal's wife Mary has left the city for a few weeks in order to help her elderly mother move from Baltimore to her old family home in the South. While she is away, Leventhal must take of many tasks of caring for himself which his wife would ordinarily undertake for him. The action of the story begins when Leventhal is at his job as a copy-editor and receives a frantic phone call from his sister-in-law. She tells him that his nephew is terribly ill and that she desperately needs his assistance. During their conversation we learn that Asa's brother Max is a negligent husband and father who has practically abandoned his wife and two sons for itinerant work in Texas. His family subsists on the money he sends to them.On his way to his brother's apartment, Leventhal reflects on the annoyance of being disturbed at work and the shameful treatment which Max is visiting upon his young family. But these reflections quickly take on a tone of self-reproach as Leventhal briefly admits to himself that he has allowed his obligation to this extended family to lapse inexcusably. Throughout the novel, Leventhal flirts with the possibility of widening his arc of responsibility to include humans other than himself and his wife. Usually, however, he finds a way to preserve his positive image of himself and to shirk responsibility for others.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_or_Die" title="Double or Die">
The story's prologue is set in Highgate Cemetery, where Professor Alexis Fairburn, an Eton beak (Professor), is tracing a tombstone when he is kidnapped by Wolfgang and Ludwig Smith. Fairburn manages to leave the piece of paper with which he was tracing. The story itself starts with young James Bond and his friend, Perry Mandeville (leader of the Danger Society), reminiscing the previous day's events.Out of the blue, a letter to Pritpal from Fairburn comes, regarding Fairburn's resignation from Eton. To House Master Codrose and Headmaster Elliot, the "mistakes" are due to Fairburn's scatterbrained personality and eccentricity, but Pritpal soon realises that the mistakes were there for a reason. James and Pritpal work towards trying to decipher them - the first of them are easy - some wrong names in the letter (Luc Olivier and Speccy Stevens) translate into "Solve seven cryptic clues."However, they have to get several photographs of the letter, which has been confiscated by Cecil Codrose, before they can continue. Eventually, they get it and continue. They determine from the second clue that they have to solve the puzzle of a certain crossword in the next "The Times" and eventually determine that "Gordian Knot" means that they must meet a man nicknamed "Gordius," who is coming to Pritpal's next Crossword Society meeting. James decides to come along to the meeting, but all the man does is play a game of Hearts, during which James wins five pounds. The man gives his name as Ivar Peterson, who is a professor at Cambridge University. However, James and Pritpal do not believe him. James arranges with Perry to go to Cambridge University during Perry's father's birthday leave.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evening's_Empire" title="Evening's Empire">
The book follows the travels of a man to the small town of Evening, Oregon, where his beloved wife was killed in a freak accident the year before. The novel relies heavily on surrealism and a lolling suspense that is never realized in any sort of actual climax. Nonetheless, the book retains a small following of fans that greatly admire its "mature" style and few reviewers have considered it a poor effort.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_About_Diamonds" title="The Truth About Diamonds">
The novel tells the story of Chloe Parker, a woman in her early 20s who had been adopted at the age of seven by a music superstar and his wife, and who now associates with Hollywood celebrities. What had followed was a wild childhood distinguished by parties with movie stars and rock idols, run-ins with the press and the police, and a subsequent stint in rehab.When Chloe shoots to instant fame as a spokesmodel for a national ad campaign, her long-lost birth father appears out of nowhere, her best friend betrays her, and she has to struggle to keep it all together—her sobriety, her friendships, and her integrity—despite the betrayals of those around her. Ultimately, Chloe comes spectacularly into her own, achieving stardom in her own right and finding true love.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseanna_(novel)" title="Roseanna (novel)">
A young woman is found dead in the Göta Canal, molested and murdered. The case is almost instantly cold: nobody can identify her and where and by whom she was killed. Then a stroke of luck: through Interpol her identity is ascertained; she is Roseanna McGraw, an American tourist who was taking a boat trip in southern Sweden. A meticulous investigation determines that she was murdered aboard the boat by a fellow passenger. Evidence is lacking, but after the suspect is observed at length, a sting operation of questionable ethical status (Beck's own opinion) results in the suspect, a sexual deviant, attacking a female police officer and being arrested.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enchanted_Castle" title="The Enchanted Castle">
The enchanted castle of the title is a country estate in the West Country seen through the eyes of three children, Jerry, Jimmy, and Kathy, who discover it while exploring during the school holidays. The lake, groves and marble statues, with white towers and turrets in the distance, make a fairy-tale setting, and then in the middle of the maze in the rose garden, they find a sleeping fairy-tale princess.The "princess" tells them that the castle is full of magic, and they almost believe her. She shows them the treasures of the castle, including a magic ring she says is a ring of invisibility, but when it actually turns her invisible she panics and admits that she is the housekeeper's niece, Mabel, and was just play-acting.The children soon find that the ring has other magical powers such as making the "Ugly-Wugglies" (Guy Fawkes style dummies they had made to swell the audience at one of their play-performances) come to life. They eventually discover that the ring is actually granting their own wishes, and that the disturbing results stem from their failure to specify those wishes precisely."The Enchanted Castle" was written for both children and adults. It combines descriptions of the imaginative play of children, reminiscent of "The Story of the Treasure Seekers", with a magic more muted than in her major fantasies such as "The Story of the Amulet".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_(Cook_novel)" title="Invasion (Cook novel)">
From the icy vastness of outer space, an alien virus arrives on earth contained in a tiny black disk. Those who pick up the disk are infected by the virus which spreads rapidly with flu like symptoms. The first human to pick up the disk and be infected is Beau Stark, an ambitious 21-year-old young man. The virus starts by giving him flu like symptoms but within a few hours he is not only free of the symptoms but also infused with new energy and power. His girlfriend Cassy notices major personality changes and an obsession with environment. The man who was all for banning big dogs in the city suddenly acquires one and proceeds to infest it. The virus apparently infects all life forms on earth. Meanwhile, the first invasion &amp; infestation having succeeded the disk sends a signal, inviting millions more disks to come. Those who handle the disks receive a sting, soon followed by flu-like symptoms and ending in what could be called "zombie assimilation" into an alien collective consciousness with Beau being the leader.Cassy however shares her fears of Beau's changing personality with their mutual friend and her ex-boyfriend Pitt, who is a medical student and concerned after witnessing a sudden upsurge in deaths of people, suffering from chronic diseases such as diabetes. He takes Cassy to meet his senior Dr. Shiela who is also concerned about the preventable and unexplained deaths and surging number of flu cases. Cassy also tells them about personality changes reported in some people by one of her students, Jonathan. Jonathan introduces the group to his parents Nancy &amp; Eugene, a virologist and a physicist. Jesse, a cop, also comes in contact with the group when he accompanies a colleague suffering sudden seizures to the hospital.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chaos_(novel)" title="Operation Chaos (novel)">
In an alternate world, where the existence of God has been scientifically proven and magic has been harnessed for the practical needs of the adept by the degaussing of cold iron, the United States is part of an alternative Second World War in which the enemy is not Germany but a resurgent Islamic Caliphate, which has invaded the United States. Werewolf Steven Matuchek and witch Virginia Graylock meet on a military mission to stop the invading Islamic army from unleashing a secret superweapon, a genie released from a bottle in which it had been sealed by King Solomon. Together, they fight against the demon and incidentally fall in love with each other. After the end of the war (an Allied victory as in our World War II, but US forces remain in occupation of former enemy lands for much longer) the two of them continue and deepen their liaison and have various additional adventures (which were originally published as a series of independent stories). Among other things they stop an elemental summoned as a student prank which had gone amok, confront a succubus/incubus on their honeymoon, and enter the Hell dimension to save their daughter (who has been kidnapped and taken there, with a changeling left in her crib in her place).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_Nation" title="Monster Nation">
The Colorado Army National Guard is called in to investigate a strange epidemic at ADX Florence. Its soldiers struggle to contain the disease before it overruns the United States, and search for a mysterious woman who may be vital to the solution.The novel begins with a mysterious woman in California being bitten on the street by a random man who walks up to her. She runs into the nearest establishment, an oxygen bar and proceeds to get high while waiting for the police to show up. The police arrive and take her to the hospital where a zombie outbreak is occurring. Although restrained, she manages to convince a nurse to let her go, who is then consumed by zombies.While this is occurring, we are also introduced to two additional characters, Captain Bannerman Clark and Dick Walters. Captain Bannerman Clark is in the Colorado Army National Guard and is the Rapid Assessment and Initial Detection Officer in Charge, making him the always ready first man on the scene of any major disaster, trained to get the best intelligence on the situation and report to others who will take over. He is called away from enjoying a steak dinner alone to investigate an outbreak of what is believed to be a biological weapon at a prison in Colorado which spread from the prisoners to the guards, causing them to become perceived cannibals. The warden of the prison had travelled to California and had succumbed to the biological agent there, biting and infecting a young woman. Clark then goes to California to assess the damage.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Confusions_of_Young_Törless" title="The Confusions of Young Törless">
Musil's novel is ostensibly a "Bildungsroman", a story of a young disoriented man searching for moral values in society and their meaning for him.The expressionistic novel, based on Musil's personal experiences at a boarding school in Hranice (in Austria-Hungary, now in the Czech Republic) was written according to Musil "because of boredom". In later life, however, Musil denied that the novel was about youthful experiences of his own. Due to its explicit sexual content, the novel at first caused a scandal among the reading public and the authorities of Austria-Hungary.Later, various prefigurings of Fascism were identified in the text, including the characters of Beineberg and Reiting, who seem to be orderly pupils by day but shamelessly abuse their classmate psychologically, physically and sexually by night.In 1966, the German director Volker Schlöndorff made the film "Der junge Törless" based on the novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_Island_(Wellington_novel)" title="Monster Island (Wellington novel)">
"Monster Island" takes place in Manhattan one month after New York City has been completely overrun by the undead.A former UN employee named Dekalb, whose daughter is being held by a warlord in Somalia in exchange for his assistance, enters the zombie-infested island with a band of East African child soldiers in order to retrieve precious AIDS medication for the warlord. After surviving numerous zombie attacks, the group encounters Gary Fleck, an undead medical student who has managed to retain a high level of consciousness and self-control unlike other zombies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_the_Mews" title="Murder in the Mews">
## Murder in the Mews.Japp asks Poirot to join him at a house in Bardsley Garden Mews where a Mrs Barbara Allen shot herself the previous evening – Guy Fawkes Night – the moment of death being disguised by the noise of fireworks. Once there, they find that the doctor thinks there is something strange about the death of the fine lady, a young widow. Mrs Allen was found by a housemate, Miss Jane Plenderleith, who had been away in the country the previous night. The victim was locked in her room and was shot through the head with an automatic, the weapon being found in her hand. However, the doctor points out that the gun is in her right hand while the wound is above the left ear – an impossible position to shoot with the right hand. It looks as if this is a murder made to look like suicide – and by an unusually incompetent murderer with a very low estimation of the intelligence of police investigators. They interview Miss Plenderleith and find out that Mrs Allen was engaged to be married to Charles Laverton-West, an up-and-coming young MP but, although the pistol was the dead lady's, she cannot think of a reason why she should use it to commit suicide.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drawing_Blood" title="Drawing Blood">
The novel concerns Trevor McGee, a comic book artist and sole survivor of a family murder-suicide, and Zachary Bosch, a bisexual hacker, and their arrival at McGee's old family home in Missing Mile, North Carolina, a fictional town featured in Brite's previous novel, "Lost Souls".Twenty-five-year-old Trevor McGee is haunted by an event in his past in which his underground artist father, Bobby, brutally murdered Trevor's mother and younger brother with a hammer before killing himself, leaving Trevor alive. Young Trevor was placed in an unhappy state home, where he discovered his own talent for drawing but remained alone, obsessed with the question of why he was allowed to live. Now as an adult, he travels back to Missing Mile, North Carolina, to search for answers in the abandoned house where the murders took place.In New Orleans, Zachary Bosch is a nineteen-year-old computer hacker on the run from the law after his online misdeeds attract the notice of the FBI. Traveling through the South, he too finds himself in Missing Mile, where he meets and falls in love with Trevor. The two young men slowly become more entwined, even as Zach starts to questions Trevor's grip on reality. Their love affair culminates when one night, while tripping on psilocybin mushrooms, Trevor has an out-of-body experience where he is propelled into the past and speaks to his father on the night of the murders. He realizes that somehow the presence of his adult self in the past caused his father to spare the life of five-year-old Trevor, meaning that he is the cause of his own endless quest. Upon waking, Trevor attempts to murder Zach, but Zach manages to talk him down until Trevor breaks his own drawing hand in order to keep himself from harming Zach.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burial_at_Thebes" title="The Burial at Thebes">
Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus King of Thebes, Greece, learns that her two brothers Polyneices and Eteocles have killed each other fighting on different sides of a war. Creon, Antigone's uncle and newly appointed King of Thebes, buries Eteocles, who fought on the Theban side of the war, hailing him as a great hero. He refuses to bury Polyneices, proclaiming that any who attempt to defy his wishes will be made an example of, on the grounds that he was a 'traitor' fighting on the opposing side in the war. The play opens with Antigone and her sister Ismene discussing what action to take in response to Creon's new law against the burial of their brother. Antigone is reactive, arguing that Creon is breaching Divine Law by denying burial to Polyneices. Despite Ismene's pleading, Antigone heads off alone to enact the burial rites both for her own glory and for the preservation of her brother's soul.Antigone is caught defying her uncle's orders, and is punished severely despite being engaged to Creon's son Haemon. She is sealed within a tomb and left to die. After a visit from the oracle Tiresias warning of the consequences, Creon eventually repents, but by then she has killed herself and is followed in death by Creon's own son and wife, both of whom commit suicide. Creon's isolation is complete and he ends the play a broken and lonely man.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myron_(novel)" title="Myron (novel)">
Myra Breckinridge, the transsexual who terrorized Hollywood with dildo-rape and lesbianism, has transformed back into her former self, the literally and figuratively castrated Myron.One night, while watching the movie "Siren of Babylon" on the late show, he/she is transported to the set of the 1948 film through the television. It's Myra's dream come true, and Myron's nightmare. As Myron tries to adapt to life inside an endlessly repeating B-movie, Myra slowly starts creeping her way back into Myron's head, making a connection with a gay member of the community to obtain dresses and wigs. Her lapses back into Myron's personality are strongly encouraged by a character slyly based on Norman Mailer (though at one point he drunkenly hits on Myra), while most of the others on the set seem to prefer Myra to Myron. She attempts to castrate a crew member, then tries to castrate herself and partially succeeds in acquiring silicone implants. While Myron desperately searches for a way off the set (running into Richard Nixon along the way, who is considering taking up residence in "Siren of Babylon" in order to escape the Watergate hearings), Myra wants to stay permanently.Eventually, Myra/Myron trades places with Maria Montez, the star of the film. Myra is ecstatic and Myron disappears entirely from the narrative for a time. But when Montez, inhabited by Myra, coincidentally meets the 1948 Myron (who at this point is a child, possessed by the soul of a perplexed Maria Montez) their respective personalities are restored to their original bodies, returning Myron at once to his living room in 1970s California. The changes wrought by Myra's running amok on the set of "Siren of Babylon" continue to influence the present and the book ends with a former cowboy actor in the film, now a transsexual, being elected Republican governor of Arizona.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_in_Amber" title="Dragonfly in Amber">
## Scotland, 1968.Claire Randall has returned to her own time, where she has been living for 20 years with her husband Frank. Following his death, she brings her daughter, Brianna, to the home of the Randalls' old friend, Reverend Reginald Wakefield. There, Claire hopes the Reverend's adopted son, Roger, can help her discover what happened to the men of Lallybroch after the Battle of Culloden. Roger, using his Oxford credentials to obtain information, finds proof that the men of Lallybroch returned home safely. He accompanies Claire and Brianna to an old churchyard, looking for the grave of Jonathan Randall, Frank's ancestor, but also finds Jamie Fraser's gravestone: it is part of a "marriage stone", showing Claire's name but no date. Claire reveals Brianna's true paternity to her and Roger. Brianna angrily denies her mother's story, but Roger is fascinated, and Claire recounts her time after the events of "Outlander".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hart's_Hope" title="Hart's Hope">
"Hart's Hope" begins by describing the state of Burland: ruled by tyrannical king Nasilee, damaged young princess Asineth, and bloody martial law. While all four gods dislike Nasilee, only the god named God takes action, by raising up the young Count of Traffing, Palicrovol, to overthrow the King. He is assisted by Zymas, Nasilee's former right-hand man and general. Palicrovol kills the king and, to cement his new rule, marries and publicly rapes the twelve-year-old Asineth. He then sends her away with his ally Sleeve, an albino wizard. He then sends for the Flower Princess, whose nearly unpronounceable name (Enziquelvinisensee Evelvenin) is rarely used and whose hand he secured during his bid for power; she is the most beautiful woman in the world, because she will never lie. These events are described by the narrator of the story, who is addressing Palicrovol directly and begging him to "no longer seek the death of the boy Orem"; despite the use of the pronoun "I", the narrator's identity is withheld from the reader.Unknown to Palicrovol, Asineth has conceived, and bears the child for a ten-month term—noted with consternation by a local priestess of the Sister. Sleeve, who being a man knows nothing about the customs of the Sisters, begins to research this phenomenon; unbeknownst to him, Asineth is duplicating his reading and, being a woman, understands a great deal more of it. She employs the most terrible sacrifice possible: her own daughter. Made immensely powerful by this hateful decision, she overthrows the gods and the city of Hart's Hope, setting Palicrovol in place as a humiliated (and continually tormented) puppet ruler. She steals the Flower Princess's face and body and keeps Sleeve, Zymas and the Flower Princess as her personal pets in altered forms, along with her collection of enslaved gods—the Hart a pile of bones beneath the castle, the god named God a blind slave scrubbing floors, and the Sweet Sisters sundered and sold out as whores. She renames herself Queen Beauty and rules with omnipotent power from the capital city, while all her toys—Palicrovol, Sleeve, Zymas and the Princess—are kept immortal for three hundred years.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Autobiography_of_an_Ex-Colored_Man" title="The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man">
The novel begins with a frame tale in which the unnamed narrator describes the narrative that follows as "the great secret of my life." The narrator notes that he is taking a substantial risk by composing the narrative, but that it is one he feels compelled to record, regardless. The narrator also chooses to withhold the name of the small Georgia town where his narrative begins, as there are still living residents of the town who might be able to connect him to the narrative.Throughout the novel, the adult narrator from the frame interjects into the text to offer reflective commentary into the events of the narrative.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Sleep" title="Hot Sleep">
The book follows Jason Worthing, also known as Jazz, who is a boy growing up on Capitol, the capital planet of the Empire. Jas has "the swipe", which is a genetic trait that allows for telepathy. The swipe is feared in the Empire, so those who possess it are executed. After being found out as a swipe, Jas tries to escape, which leads to his capture by Abner Doon, who helps him rise to prominence as a space pilot. Eventually, Abner sends Jason away as the head of a colony so that the swipe would become more widespread, but when his ship reaches the planet he is attacked, and the memories of all but one of the 333 colonists are destroyed and two-thirds of the colonist are killed or damaged beyond awakening. Jason prevails, however, leading to the survival of the colony, which he visits every several years, being on Somec the rest of the time. Eventually, Abner Doon comes and sees how Jason has done, and after Doon leaves, Jason takes his ship to the bottom of the ocean.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysteries_of_Udolpho" title="The Mysteries of Udolpho">
"The Mysteries of Udolpho" is a quintessential Gothic romance, replete with incidents of physical and psychological terror: remote crumbling castles, seemingly supernatural events, a brooding, scheming villain and a persecuted heroine.Modern editors note that only about a third of the novel is set in the eponymous Gothic castle, while tone and style vary markedly between sections of the work, to which Radcliffe added extended descriptions of exotic landscapes in the Pyrenees and Apennines, and of Venice, none of which she had visited. For details she relied on travel books, which led her to make several anachronisms. The novel, set in 1584 in Southern France and Northern Italy, explores the plight of Emily St. Aubert, a young French woman orphaned by the death of her father. She is imprisoned in Castle Udolpho by Signor Montoni, an Italian brigand who has married her aunt and guardian Madame Cheron. He and others frustrate Emily's romance with the dashing Valancourt. Emily also investigates a relationship between her father and the Marchioness de Villeroi, and its connection to Castle Udolpho.Emily St. Aubert is the only child of a landed rural family whose fortunes are in decline. Emily and her father share a notably close bond in a shared appreciation for nature. They grow still closer after her mother's death from illness. She accompanies him on a journey from their native Gascony, through the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean coast of Roussillon, over many mountainous landscapes. During the journey, they encounter Valancourt, a handsome man who also feels an almost mystical kinship with the natural world. Emily and Valancourt fall in love.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fairy_Tale_of_New_York" title="A Fairy Tale of New York">
Cornelius Christian is an American expatriate who arrives back in his native New York City from Ireland. His wife became ill and died aboard ship, and, with limited resources, he agrees to take a job in a funeral home owned by Clarence Vine, a wealthy businessman and mortician, in order to pay for his wife's funeral and interment. As a New York native originally from the Bronx he meets people from his past, gets himself into difficult situations with his landlady, his first girlfriend, Charlotte, his clients, dead and alive, and his co-workers at the Funeral Home and his boss. In one episode he meets Fanny Sourpuss whose husband has just died. She is a very rich widow who begins an on-off relationship with Cornelius. After a while he tries his hand at preparing corpses himself, and his first attempt is greeted with horror by the dead man's widow who, making a scene, causes him to insult her and storm off, presuming that he is fired. Cornelius, is, however, very adept at fisticuffs, and deals expeditiously with Fanny's ex-husband (who is stalking her), her doorman, and in situations such as when he is lured into a clip joint by a prostitute and has to fight his way out. Eventually this predilection for violence catches up with him. He runs into Charlotte, his first girlfriend. He finds another job with a spark plug manufacturer named Mott who hires Cornelius to work in his idea room where Cornelius makes a nuisance of himself. Fanny, whom he seems to love, has developed cancer, and takes a train to Minnesota (presumably to the Mayo Clinic).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Break_with_Charity" title="A Break with Charity">
The story begins with a girl named Susanna English. She is the second child of three, Mary and her brother at sea, William. She desperately wants to join an inner circle of girls who meet every night at the Reverend's house. The leader of the girls, Ann Putnam, is going to set off a torrent of false accusations leading to the imprisonment of innocent people in Salem. She names people her mother disliked as witches, and the elders of Salem believe them. Ann tells Susanna everything about their plan, but if Susanna tells anyone, Ann will name Susanna's parents as witches. Susanna must choose between keeping quiet and breaking charity (that is, telling tales), risking her family being named as witches. Later on, the afflicted girls accuse Susanna's mother and father of being witches, even though she told no one about what Ann said to her. Susanna then starts to believe in witches until her future husband, Johnathon gets her to meet an accused witch so she can see they are fake. She finally tells Joseph, Ann's uncle, leader of the "non-witch 'believers" what she knows, and together, they put a stop to it with help from powerful people (like magistrates). Fourteen years later she returns to hear Ann Putnam apologize for all the innocent people imprisoned, or hanged. This story is based on true happenings of 1692.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_People" title="The Secret People">
The Sahara is being flooded to create a new sea when the protagonist of the novel, Mark Sunnet, crashes his private rocket plane into an island of what is currently little more than a large lake. He soon finds himself and companion Margaret Lawn, and a stray cat that they call Bast, sucked into a cavern in which they are promptly captured by mysterious pygmies.The diet of little people is centred on large fungi. The captives speculate that stories that reached the surface of the little people and their giant mushrooms may have led to the myth of gnomes.Sunnet finds that a tiered community has evolved in the caverns, the pygmies inhabiting a large underground collection of natural and artificial caverns and tunnels, and the captured humans are deliberately isolated in a subsection of the caverns. He is also surprised to learn that family life exists there. "Natives", children of captured humans who were born underground and lived all their lives in the caverns are generally happy with their life and have no wish to escape.By virtue of being accompanied by Bast, the pygmies consider Margaret to be divine and isolate her in a separate area of the caverns.Most of the captured humans wish to escape by trying two different methods. One by tunneling up at an angle to try to break through to the surface and another horizontally in the hope of intersecting a pygmy tunnel or cavern from which to make their way to the surface.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_(novel)" title="The Girl (novel)">
It tells the story of a nameless girl from rural Minnesota who works in a bar in St. Paul. Clara, a fellow waitress working as a prostitute on the side, takes the girl under her wing as she learns the rudimentaries of love and sex, but also of rape, prostitution, abortion, and domestic violence. Along with the bar-owner Belle and the labor organizer Amelia, Clara and the girl watch their unemployed men self-destruct one by one under the grinding conditions of the Depression. Impregnated by her lover Butch, the girl secretly defies his demand that she get an abortion, hoping that the money from a bank robbery will enable them to get married. However, Butch and three other men are shot and killed during the crime, and the girl, dependent on state assistance during her pregnancy, is forced into a relief maternity home where sterilization after delivery is routine. Amelia rescues the girl before she has her baby, but fails to save Clara from state-mandated electric shock treatments that shatter her health and her sanity. The novel ends with the climactic conjunction of three dramatic events: a mass demonstration demanding "Milk and Iron Pills for Clara," Clara's death scene, and the birth of the girl's baby. The novel closes as an intergenerational community of women vow to "let our voice be heard in the whole city" (130). Link text
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deverry_Cycle" title="Deverry Cycle">
## The Deverry Saga.The first four books have two major plot threads: the quest of the immortal sorcerer Nevyn to fulfill an ancient oath, and a complex plot by a cabal of sorcerers from Bardek to plunge Deverry into war. The past-life flashbacks deal with several of Nevyn's failed attempts to fulfill his oath and with the beginnings of the Time of Troubles, a decades-long period of civil war.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Civilization" title="Beyond Civilization">
Within the main body of "Beyond Civilization", each page contains its own chapter-like heading and a few paragraphs exploring the topic of that heading. The book as whole is divided into seven parts:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_Reunion_(novel)" title="Class Reunion (novel)">
The novel is about 43-year-old Dr. Ernst Sebastian, a lawyer who works as an "Untersuchungsrichter" (investigating judge) in the fictional town of Sankt Nikolaus during 1927. One Saturday afternoon a middle-aged man called Franz Adler, who has been arrested for the murder of a prostitute, is brought before him. During the interview—a preliminary hearing during which the two men are alone in Sebastian's office—Sebastian recognizes Adler as his old classmate, who attended the secondary school in Sankt Nikolaus, which was then in Austria-Hungary, for two years when they were both 16 and 17. Adler, however, who appears to him fearful and beaten by life, does not seem to recognize the judge, and Sebastian decides to postpone any private talk with Adler till the following Monday.As it happens, that same Saturday night Sebastian attends a class reunion (the "Abituriententag" of the title) occasioned by the 25th anniversary of his "Matura" (Class of '02), a meeting he knows he will regret going to as it will bring back both a plethora of unpleasant memories and a confrontation with the bourgeois self-satisfaction of his former classmates.That night, Sebastian does not go to sleep. Rather, upset by his chance meeting with Adler and the enervating talk at the class reunion, he sits down at his desk and writes down a confession in shorthand, which on the following morning turns out to be indecipherable to everyone including himself—except to the reader, who can read Sebastian's confession as the middle part of the novel).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fax_from_Sarajevo" title="Fax from Sarajevo">
With the beginning of the Bosnian War in early 1992, Ervin Rustemagić, his wife Edina, and children Maja and Edvin have just returned to their home in the Sarajevo suburb of Ilidža after an extended trip to the Netherlands.By April the city is under siege — the Serbs have closed the roads and are killing anyone who tries to escape the Sarajevo area. With he and his family spending every day terrified of the shelling, and often hiding in their basement to avoid the bombs, Rustemagić has to debate the safety of taking his son to the hospital to deal with his high fever.Shortly thereafter, a Serbian tank rumbles through their neighborhood — Rustemagić's home and the SAF offices are destroyed. More than 14,000 pieces of original art were lost in the flames. Barely escaping with the clothes on their backs, Rustemagić and his family first find shelter in a half-destroyed building. The next day they find shelter in an apartment building in Dobrinja.Over the months that follow the Rustemagićs are reduced to living in near-primitive conditions. Broken water pipes lead to days standing in line hoping to fill plastic jugs with water rations. Electricity and cooking fuel are scarce, and children trying scavenge for fuel are the targets of Serbian snipers (who are promised a cash bonus for every kill).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Staircase_(novel)" title="The Staircase (novel)">
Lizzy Ender's father dumps her at a Santa Fe convent after her mother died on the Santa Fe Trail. A Methodist, Lizzy is an outcast in the school who can't comprehend the dedication to Catholicism. She thinks the nuns who pray to Saint Joseph for help to finish their choir loft (which doesn't have a staircase) are crazy. She befriends an unemployed carpenter and suggests he build the staircase. Her classmates are furious as they were waiting for a miracle to occur. The carpenter, named Jose, proceeds to build the staircase in a matter of weeks armed with three simple tools and his faith. After building the staircase, Jose disappears and Lizzy decides to leave the convent to live with her father, who was currently living on a ranch in Texas.This story is based on the real legend of the miracle occurring at the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where an unnamed man (said to be Saint Joseph) built a staircase. The circular staircase made two complete revolutions lacking both nails and a center support.A version of this story was done as the 1998 television movie "The Staircase" starring William Petersen (as Joad), Barbara Hershey (as Mother Madalyn), and Diane Ladd (as Sister Margaret).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Easter" title="Black Easter">
In the first book, a wealthy arms manufacturer, Dr. Baines, comes to a black magician, Theron Ware. Initially Baines tests Ware's credentials by asking for two people to be killed, first the Governor of California, Rogan (Reagan was governor at the time of writing) and then a rival physicist. When this is accomplished to Baines' satisfaction, Baines reveals his real reason: he wishes to release all the demons from Hell on Earth for one night to see what might happen. The book includes a lengthy description of the summoning ritual and a detailed (and as accurate as possible, given the available literature) description of the grotesque figures of the demons as they appear. Tension between white magicians (who appear to have a line of communications with the unfallen host in Heaven) and Ware is woven over the terms and conditions of a magical covenant that is designed to provide for observers and limitations. "Black Easter" ends with Baphomet announcing to the participants that the demons can not be compelled to return to Hell: the war is over and God is dead."The Day After Judgement", which follows in the series, develops and extends the characters from the first book. It suggests that God may not be dead, or that demons may not be inherently self-destructive, as something appears to be restraining the actions of the demons upon Earth. In a lengthy Miltonian speech at the end of the novel, Satan Mekratrig explains that, compared to humans, demons are good, and that if perhaps God has withdrawn Himself, then Satan beyond all others was qualified to take His place and, if anything, would be a more just god. However, the defeat of Satan is complete. He cannot take up this throne and must hand the burning keys to man, as this is the most fell of all his fell damnations. He never wanted to be God at all, and so having won all, all has he lost.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_Mind_of_Mars" title="The Master Mind of Mars">
In this novel Burroughs shifts the focus of the series for the second time, the first having been from early protagonists John Carter and Dejah Thoris to their children after the third book. Now he moves to a completely unrelated hero, Ulysses Paxton, an Earthman like Carter who like him is sent to Mars by looking at the red planet in the sky.On Mars, Paxton is taken in by elderly mad scientist Ras Thavas, the "Master Mind" of the title, who educates him in the ways of Barsoom and bestows on him the Martian name Vad Varo. Ras has perfected techniques of transplanting brains, which he uses to provide rich elderly Martians with youthful new bodies for a profit. Distrustful of his fellow Martians, he trains Paxton as his assistant to perform the same operation on him. But Paxton has fallen in love with Valla Dia, one of Ras' young victims, whose body has been swapped for that of the hag Xaxa, Jeddara (empress) of the city-state of Phundahl. He refuses to operate on Ras until his mentor promises to restore her to her rightful body. A quest for that body ensues, in which Paxton is aided by others of Ras' experimental victims, and in the end he attains the hand of his Valla Dia, who in a happy plot twist turns out to be a princess.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushing_Ice" title="Pushing Ice">
"Pushing Ice" begins in the distant future, where the elected rulers of the "Congress of the Lindblad Ring" gather to decide on a suitable ceremony to honour a woman they consider responsible for the technological advancement and territorial expansion of the future human race, Bella Lind. To explain her role, the chronology is then pushed back to the early days of humanity's crewed exploration of the Solar System, where it is explained that Lind is the captain of the "Rockhopper," a spacecraft used for mining cometary ice. While on a routine mission, Lind is informed that Saturn's moon Janus has deviated from its normal orbit, and is accelerating out of the Solar System. The "Rockhopper," deemed the only ship capable of catching up to Janus, is asked to undertake the task of pursuing the moon, sending back as much information as possible before being forced to turn back by the limitations of fuel and supplies. However, on their approach to the moon, revealed to be a camouflaged alien spacecraft, Lind and her crew are caught in the field of the ship's inertialess drive, causing them to travel farther and faster than expected, and beyond their capacity to return to Earth. Realising their predicament, the crew decide to land on the moon and attempt to survive the flight out of the Solar System, wherever it may take them. Eventually it becomes apparent that the ship is heading towards Spica, a close binary pair in the constellation of Virgo.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Recognitions" title="The Recognitions">
The story loosely follows the life of Wyatt Gwyon, son of a Calvinist minister from rural New England; his mother dies in Spain. He plans to follow his father into the ministry. But he is inspired to become a painter by "The Seven Deadly Sins", Hieronymous Bosch's noted painting which his father owned. Gwyon leaves New England and travels to Europe to study painting. Discouraged by a corrupt critic and frustrated with his career, he moves to New York City.He meets Recktall Brown, a capitalistic collector and dealer of art, who makes a Faustian deal with him. Gwyon is to produce paintings in the style of 15th-century Flemish and Dutch masters (such as Bosch, Hugo van der Goes, and Hans Memling) and forge their signatures. Brown will sell them as newly discovered originals. Gwyon becomes discouraged and returns home to find that his father has converted to Mithraism and is preaching his new ideas to his congregation, whilst steadily losing his mind. Back in New York, Gwyon tries to expose his forgeries. He travels to Spain where he visits the monastery where his mother was buried, works at restoring old paintings, and tries to find himself in a search for authenticity. At the end, he moves on to live his life "deliberately".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_series" title="Tomorrow series">
Ellie Linton goes out camping in the bush for a week with her friends Homer, Lee, Kevin, Corrie, Robyn, and Fiona 'Fi'. They find a way into a large, vegetated sinkhole in a remote area of bush the locals call "Hell", and camp there for the week. During this time they see large numbers of planes flying through the night without lights, and though it is mentioned in conversation the following morning, they think little of it.When they return home they find that all the people are missing and their pets and livestock are dead or dying. They come to realise that Australia has been invaded and their family and friends have been taken prisoner. Avoiding capture by enemy soldiers in their hometown of Wirrawee and picking up one of their school friends Chris, the group return to Hell. After short period of recovery they start making plans to fight back.Over the course of the first three books in the series, the group succeeds in destroying a bridge that leads into Wirrawee, an enemy convoy, several houses that are being used by the enemy as a center of operations, and a nearby strategic harbour. However, Corrie and Chris are killed during this time. After the harbour raid, the surviving members of the group are eventually captured and placed in a maximum security prison in the nearby city of Stratton. During an air-raid by the Royal New Zealand Air Force the group escapes but Robin is killed while doing so. They encounter a downed RNZAF pilot and arrange to be evacuated to New Zealand.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Has_Risen" title="The Wind Has Risen">
The story is divided into a prologue and four chapters:The first person narrator cites from Paul Valéry's poem "Le Cimetière marin" ("The wind has risen; we must try to live") when a strong wind occurs, while Setsuko, a woman he has just met this summer and who resides at the same hotel, is working on a painting. Setsuko announces that her father will soon arrive at the hotel, which will put an end to their walks. After Setsuko's and her father's departure, he returns to his work as a writer which he had abandoned during the time he had spent with her. Autumn has set in, and the protagonist muses how this encounter has changed him.Two years later, the protagonist visits Setsuko, to whom he has become engaged in the meantime, and her father in their suburb home. Her studio has been turned into a sickroom, as Setsuko has fallen ill with tuberculosis. The father has contemplated the idea of sending her to a sanitarium, and is glad when his future son-in-law offers to accompany his daughter. Setsuko, who had felt weak lately, tells her fiancé that thanks to him her will to live has returned. Her words remind him of the line from Valéry's poem. Later, the sanitarium's director, who happens to be an acquaintance of the narrator, examines Setsuko and declares that a stay of one to two years will most likely cure her. Yet in a conversation between the director and the protagonist, it is implied that her condition is far more serious. At the end of the chapter, he and Setsuko take off for the sanitarium. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deenie" title="Deenie">
"Deenie" chronicles the life of 13-year-old Wilmadeene "Deenie" Fenner, whose mother, Thelma, is determined to have her become a model. At the same time, Deenie's 16-year-old sister, Helen, who is academically proficient, is being pushed by Thelma to keep her grades up so that she can eventually become a doctor or a lawyer. One day, Deenie is diagnosed with scoliosis, and is prescribed a body brace to wear for the next four years. At the same time, Helen has fallen in love with Joe, a charming and romantic young gentleman who works for the Fenners' family business, a gas station. Thelma, upset that her plans for her daughters are coming undone, has Joe fired and exhorts Deenie to resume the pursuit of a modeling career once she stops wearing the back brace. Fearful that Helen hates her because Thelma's excuse for letting Joe go was because of the family's doctors' bills, Deenie is astonished to learn that Helen refuses to blame her for Joe's departure, and the sisters close ranks.Though initially upset at having to wear the body brace, Deenie eventually resigns herself to her fate. She finds herself at peace with the idea of not becoming a model, and, inspired by her experience, begins to ponder a future career as an orthopedist, concluding that she never really wanted to be a model anyway. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dweller_on_Two_Planets" title="A Dweller on Two Planets">
In its introduction, Oliver claims that the book had been channeled through him via automatic writing, visions and mental "dictations", by a spirit calling himself Phylos the Thibetan who revealed the story to him over a period of three years, beginning in 1883.Concerning itself with Atlantis, it portrays a first person account of Atlantean culture which had reached a high level of technological and scientific advancement. His personal history and that of a group of souls with whom Phylos closely interacted is portrayed in the context of the social, economic, political and religious structures that shaped Poseid society. Daily life for Poseidi citizens included such things as antigravity powered air craft and submarines, television, wireless telephony, aerial water generators, air conditioners and high-speed rail. The book deals with deep esoteric subjects including karma and re-incarnation and describes Phylos' final incarnation in 19th century America where his Atlantean karma played itself out. In that incarnation (as Walter Pierson, gold miner and occult student of the Theo-Christic Adepts) he travelled to Venus/Hysperia in a subtle body while his physical form remained at the temple inside Mount Shasta. Describing his experience with the Hesperian adepts, Phylos relates many wonders including artworks depicting 3D scenes that appeared alive. He saw a voice-operated typewriter and other occult and technical power. Some devices mentioned have become reality (such as the TV and the atomic telescope).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Day_with_Wilbur_Robinson" title="A Day with Wilbur Robinson">
"A Day with Wilbur Robinson" follows the story of a boy who visits an unusual family and their home. While spending the day in the Robinson household, Wilbur's best friend joins in the search for Grandfather Robinson's missing false teeth and meets one wacky relative after another.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Went_Up_in_Smoke" title="The Man Who Went Up in Smoke">
The novel, set in the 1960s, is about a Swedish journalist called Alf Matsson, who disappeared without a trace in Hungary. He was commissioned by a Swedish newspaper to fly to Budapest to conduct an interview with a boxer and report on political events. Since Matsson has not reported for a week, the hotel he is staying in reports to the case to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, the case must be handled discreetly because the Ministry fear political entanglements. The Stockholm police is tasked with finding the missing reporter, and send Martin Beck, who sacrifices his vacation to go to Budapest.Beck finds in the Budapest Hotel that Matsson left the hotel without a passport and luggage on the day of his arrival, and since then has been unseen. The Hungarian police are not willing to do much, but Martin Beck then meets a Hungarian policeman who helps him with the case. Since there is neither evidence nor any trace of Matsson, Beck does not know what to do. But one night he is attacked on the riverside by unknown people. He survives thanks to the Budapest Police and the perpetrators are caught.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Three" title="The Book of Three">
The youth Taran lives at Caer Dallben with his guardians, the ancient enchanter Dallben and the farmer and retired soldier Coll. Taran is dissatisfied with his life, and longs to become a great hero like the High Prince Gwydion. Due to the threat posed by a warlord known as the Horned King, servant of the evil Arawn Death-Lord of Annuvin, Taran is forbidden from leaving the farm and charged with the care of Hen Wen, the oracular white pig. When Hen Wen inexplicably panics and escapes, Taran follows her into the Forbidden Forest. After a long, fruitless chase, he is attacked by a host of horsemen galloping toward Caer Dallben, led by the Horned King himself. Taran manages to escape, but drops, wounded, to the ground. He awakes to find his wound treated by none other than Gwydion, the crown prince in Prydain's ruling House of Don, who has been travelling to Caer Dallben to consult Hen Wen. Gwydion, determined to find the pig, takes Taran along with him. Guided by Gurgi, a hairy humanoid living in the forest, they reach the Horned King's camp, and learn that his target will be Caer Dathyl, the home castle of the House of Don. Gwydion determines to warn the royal court, but the group is attacked by Arawn's undead Cauldron-Born soldiers, who capture Gwydion and Taran, and take them to Queen Achren in Spiral Castle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auriol_(novel)" title="Auriol (novel)">
Prologue (1599): Auriol Darcy is surprised attempting to remove the heads of two traitors from the Southwark Gateway of Old London Bridge. He is injured by the warder, Baldred, and carried to the house of Dr Lamb, an alchemist and Auriol Darcy's grandfather, who is assisted by his faithful dwarf Flapdragon. Lamb, on the point of discovering the elixir of life, has a seizure and dies as his ungrateful grandson consumes the draught.Book the first 'Ebba' (1830): Two varmints, Tinker and Sandman, waylay a gentleman in a fantastical ruined house in the Vauxhall Bridge Road in London, but they are surprised and he is carried unconscious to the house of Mr Thorneycroft, a scrap-iron dealer. While he convalesces and falls in love with Ebba, the iron-dealer's daughter, Tinker and Sandman and their associate Ginger (a 'dog-fancier' who steals dogs and resells them) discover in the gentleman's pocket-book the private diary of a man who has lived for over two hundred years, and has committed nameless crimes. Auriol (for it is he) seeks to dissuade Ebba from her love, for he bears an awful doom. A tall sinister stranger has Auriol in his power, and employs a dwarf (who is Flapdragon) to recover the pocket-book. The stranger confronts Auriol and informs his that Ebba must be surrendered to him according to their contract. Auriol refuses, but Ebba is snatched from him, and he is imprisoned, during a nocturnal assignation at a picturesque ruin near Millbank Street. Tinker, Sandman and Ginger offer their services to Mr Thorneycroft to attempt her rescue. Ebba is conveyed to a mysterious darkened chamber where the stranger demands that she sign a scroll surrendering herself body and soul to him. She calls to heaven for protection: in the darkness a tomb is revealed and opened by menacing cowled figures, and Auriol is brought forth. Ebba hurls herself into the tomb to precede him and save him, but then re-emerges silent and cowled to sign the scroll.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPod" title="JPod">
"JPod" is an avant-garde novel of six young adults, whose last names all begin with the letter 'J' and who are assigned to the same cubicle pod by someone in human resources through a computer glitch, working at Neotronic Arts, a fictional Burnaby-based video game company. Ethan Jarlewski is the novel's main character and narrator, who spends more time involved with his work than with his dysfunctional family. His stay-at-home mother runs a successful marijuana grow-op which allows his father to abandon his career and work as a futile movie extra. Ethan's realtor brother Greg involves himself with Asian crime lord Kam Fong who serves as the plot's crux of character connection.The JPod staff are required to insert a turtle character based on Jeff Probst into the skateboard game that they are developing as 'BoardX'. The marketing manager, Steven Lefkowitz, mandates the turtle's addition to the game because he is trying to please his son during a custody battle. "JPod" is then drastically challenged and changed when Steve goes missing and the new executive replacement declares that the game will be changed yet again. Upper management decides to change Jeff the turtle for an adventurous prince who rides a magic carpet. The game is then renamed "SpriteQuest". The JPodders, upset that they would not be able to finish their game, decide to sabotage SpriteQuest by inserting a deranged Ronald McDonald. They do this by creating a secret level where Ronald works malevolence, thus creating, in their opinion, a culturally-suitable game for the target market.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Foul's_Bane" title="Lord Foul's Bane">
Thomas Covenant is a young author whose world is turned upside-down when he is diagnosed with leprosy. After six months' treatment, he returns home to find himself divorced by his wife Joan and outcast from his community. On a rare trip into town, he is accosted by a beggar. Disturbed by the encounter, Covenant stumbles into the path of an oncoming police car and is rendered unconscious.He wakes to find himself in "the Land", a classic fantasy world, where he meets the evil Cavewight Drool Rockworm and Lord Foul the Despiser. Foul prophesies that he will destroy the Land within 49 years; however, if Drool isn't stopped, this doom will come to pass much sooner. He tells Covenant to deliver this message to the rulers of the Land.Covenant meets a girl named Lena, who uses a special mud called hurtloam to heal the injuries from his fall and cure his leprosy. Covenant's loss of two fingers on his right hand makes Lena think he is the reincarnation of ancient hero Berek Halfhand. Believing himself to be in the grip of a dangerous delusion, and overwhelmed by his newfound sense of health and vitality, he rapes Lena. Covenant delivers the message of Lord Foul to the Lords. Despite the obvious danger, the Lords decide to make an effort to wrest the powerful Staff of Law from Drool's evil grasp. Rather than waging an all-out war, the Council sends four Lords and a band of forty warriors to attempt to infiltrate Drool's lair at Mount Thunder.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hamlet" title="The Hamlet">
The novel follows the exploits of the Snopes family, beginning with Ab Snopes, who is introduced more fully in Faulkner's "The Unvanquished". Most of the book centers on Frenchman's Bend, into which the heirs of Ab and his family have migrated from parts unknown. In the beginning of the book Ab, his wife, daughter, and son Flem settle down as tenant farmers beholden to the powerful Varner family.As the book progresses, the Snopeses move from being poor outcasts to a very controversial, if not dangerous, element in the life of the town. In contrast, V.K. Ratliff stands as the moral hero of the novel. Faulkner uses the eccentricities of the Snopeses to great comic effect, most notably in his description of Ike Snopes and his carnal inclinations toward a cow.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Complicated_Kindness" title="A Complicated Kindness">
The novel is set in a small religious Mennonite town called East Village, a fictionalized version of Toews' hometown of Steinbach, Manitoba. The narrator is Nomi Nickel, a curious, defiant, sardonic 16-year-old who dreams of hanging out with Lou Reed in the "real" East Village of New York City. She lives alone with her doleful father, Ray Nickel, who is a dutiful member of the Mennonite church. Nomi, on the other hand, is inquisitive by nature and her compulsive questioning brings her into conflict with the town's various authorities, most notably Hans Rosenfeldt, the sanctimonious church pastor.As the story unfolds, it is revealed that Nomi's irreverent older sister Tash left town three years earlier with her boyfriend, Ian, and that Nomi's mother, Trudie, also left, though under more mysterious circumstances. Nomi is fiercely loyal to her father, and she comes to decide that she must stay in East Village for his sake.Nomi senses that when she graduates from high school, all she'll be expected to do is work at the chicken processing plant and marry a boy from the community and become "good." She develops a relationship with Travis, who in the end is not the person he appears to be. She visits her good friend Lydia in the hospital, where she gets into confrontations with hospital staff. At school, she is met with obfuscation and anger by Mr. Quiring and other teachers and administrators. When Nomi lashes out in action or outrage, she is ignored or negated. Nomi's tragedy is the slow realization that not only will she fail to bring her family together, but she will also have to change her nature to find a place in the town she loves. In the end, her father Ray makes a heroic sacrifice so that she can be free.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slave_Dancer" title="The Slave Dancer">
It is the beginning of 1840 in New Orleans. In the rain, drunken riverboat workers and slaves alike are celebrating. Jessie Bollier lives in the area with his mother and sister. One evening while he is walking home, Jessie is kidnapped. After he is captured, he is taken to the ship 'The Moonlight', a slaver. During the crossing to Africa, Jessie tries to learn as much about the ship and the way things are done there as he can. The captain, Cawthorne, seems mad, the first mate, Nicholas Spark is cruel, and the sailors are concerned solely with making money through the slave trade. When they get to Africa they travel the coast and the captain uses a small boat to go and meet with the African chiefs who are selling people into slavery.Jessie cannot believe the treatment of the enslaved people that he observes. Once they are taken onto the ship, they are packed as tightly as possible into the hold, ending up on top of one another. Whenever a slave becomes ill they are thrown overboard at once so that the illness will not spread to other slaves. Many of them are still alive when they are tossed into the water, where they are eaten by sharks or drown. Jessie is shocked by what is going on, but tries to keep himself focused on staying alive and getting home to his family, if he ever will. As the journey to America continues, Jessie realizes how much he hates everything around him, including the slaves, as they represent his own enslavement on the ship. He refuses to play the fife and goes to his quarters. He is immediately taken back on deck and flogged for being disobedient. The flogging only makes him think more about everything that is going on around him. He sees the sailors with the same lack of pity they have for the slaves. He hates himself for playing the fife and being part of the entire situation. The journey continues and conditions worsen. The crew is drunk much of the time, the ship dirty, and discipline lax. A slave attacks Nicholas Spark, one of the ship's mates, and Spark shoots and kills him. The only concern the sailors show is for the loss of the profit that the sale of the slave would have brought them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kydd_(novel)" title="Kydd (novel)">
The story: The year is 1793. Europe is ablaze with war. The Prime Minister, William Pitt the Elder, is under pressure to make an active move at sea from the highest authority in the realm; George III had appointed Pitt as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, a position whose incumbent was responsible for the coastal defences of the nation. In response to the pressure, despatches a squadron to appear off the French coast. To man the ships, ordinary people must be press-ganged. Thomas Paine Kydd, a young wig-maker from Guildford, is seized, taken across the country to Sheerness and the great fleet anchorage of the Nore to be part of the crew of the fictional 98-gun line-of-battle ship "Duke William".The ship sails immediately and Kydd quickly has to learn the harsh realities of shipboard life fast; but despite all that he goes through in danger of tempest and battle he comes to admire the skills and courage of the seamen — taking up the challenge himself to become a true sailor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daggerspell" title="Daggerspell">
Events are listed here not in chronological order, but in the order they were originally presented in the novel.The sorcerer Nevyn sees an omen indicating that a person whose destiny is intertwined with his own has been reborn, and sees the infant Jill in a vision.Jill, a seven-year-old girl who sometime has precognitive dreams, loses her mother Seryan to a fever. Because her father, Cullyn, is a mercenary soldier – known as a "silver dagger" for the weapon he carries – and visits irregularly, Jill is taken in by a local tavern owner. Cullyn arrives in Jill's village a month later. Finding Seryan dead, he decides to take Jill with him on his wanderings, which he calls "the long road.”For seven years, Nevyn has been searching for Jill, with nothing more than luck and intuition to guide him. He finds a clue when he meets the ten-year-old lord Rhodry Maelwaedd, and sees that the boy's destiny is linked with his and Jill's.Galrion, a prince of Deverry, has secretly begun studying sorcery. He begins to fall in love with its power, and out of love with his betrothed, Brangwen of the Falcon clan. Galrion considers breaking his betrothal so that he will have more time to devote to the study of sorcery. Galrion's father, King Adoryc, is infuriated when he discovers that his son has been studying sorcery, and puts Galrion under house arrest, though the prince escapes by a ruse.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Point_Someone" title="Five Point Someone">
The book is narrated by Hari, with some small passages by his friends Ryan and Alok, as well as a letter by Hari's girlfriend Neha Cherian. It deals with the lives of 3 friends, whose elation on making it to one of the best engineering colleges in India is quickly deflated by the rigor and monotony of the academic work. Most of the book deals with two plot lines. One is the numerous attempts by the trio to cope with and/or beat the system. The other being Hari's fling with Neha, who just happens to be the daughter of Prof. Cherian (the domineering head of the Mechanical Engineering department of their college). It occasionally takes some dark turns, especially as it pertains to the families of the protagonists. Most of the action, however, takes place inside the campus. The characters, led by the ever-creative Ryan, frequently lament over how the internationally lauded IIT system has stifled their creativity by forcing them to value grades more than anything else. Uninspiring teaching and numerous assignments add to their woes, though the boys do find a sympathizer in Prof Veera.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tenth_Man_(novel)" title="The Tenth Man (novel)">
The story begins in a prison in occupied France during the Second World War. It is decreed that one in every ten prisoners is to be executed; lots are drawn to decide who will die. One of the men chosen is a rich lawyer. He offers all his money to anyone who will take his place. One man agrees. Upon his release from prison the lawyer must face the consequences of his actions.The story comprises four parts. In Part I, set in prison, the occupying German guards issue a decimation order to the thirty inmates. One of the three chosen by drawing lots is a rich lawyer named Chavel. Chavel becomes hysterical and desperately offers his entire wealth to any man willing to die in his place. A young man, Michel Mangeot, known as Janvier, who is dying of tuberculosis, accepts his offer and is executed as Chavel in the morning.In Part II, the war is over and Chavel is alive and free, but virtually destitute. He returns to the house he sold for his life and finds it occupied by Janvier's mother and sister, Thérèse. Assuming the false name Charlot, he becomes their servant.Part III sees the arrival of an impostor, named Carosse, who claims to be Chavel. Carosse attempts to denounce Charlot, win the favour of Thérèse and stake a claim on the property.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Matter_of_Honour" title="A Matter of Honour">
In 1966 disgraced British colonel Gerald Scott bequeaths a mysterious letter to his only son, Adam Scott.The "item in question" that Adam's father's letter leads him to acquire from a safe deposit box in Switzerland is a precious Russian Orthodox icon made long ago for the Russian tsars which by misadventure came into the possession of Hermann Göring sometime in the 1930s. Following the Second World War Göring wanted Scott's father (one of his jailers at Nuremberg) to have it in token of his kind treatment and because Göring realized Scott's father would be unfairly blamed for his pre-execution suicide.But the icon contains something that even Göring did not dream of: the only official Russian copy of a secret codice to the Alaska Purchase treaty by which the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867. "Seward's Folly" turns out to have not been a true purchase at all, but a 99-year lease akin to the British hold on Hong Kong, with a right of return to Russia (now part of the Soviet Union) if they can only retrieve their copy before the lease deadline, only days away.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rivers_of_Zadaa" title="The Rivers of Zadaa">
This story takes place mainly on a territory called Zadaa. There will be two main tribes here: The Rokador and the Batu. The Rokador live in tunnels and are fair-skinned, while the Batu are dark-skinned and live in a sunbathed city called Xhaxhu in the desert. For years, the Rokador have relied on the Batu to protect them from other savage tribes on Zadaa, and the Batu have relied on the Rokador to provide them with water. But the Rokador seem to be holding back the water, causing all the Batu to starve.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonchild_(novel)" title="Moonchild (novel)">
A year or so before the beginning of World War I, a young woman named Lisa la Giuffria is seduced by a white magician, Cyril Grey, and persuaded into helping him in a magical battle with a black magician and his black lodge. Grey is attempting to save and improve the human race and condition by impregnating the girl with the soul of an ethereal being — the moonchild. To achieve this, she will have to be kept in a secluded environment, and many preparatory magical rituals will be carried out. The black magician Douglas is bent on destroying Grey's plan. However, Grey's ultimate motives may not be what they appear. The moonchild rituals are carried out in southern Italy, but the occult organizations are based in Paris and England. At the end of the book, the war breaks out, and the white magicians support the Allies, while the black magicians support the Central Powers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wright_3" title="The Wright 3">
Calder's friend Tommy Segovia, who moved away a year before, has moved back to Hyde Park, Chicago. He is immediately jealous of Calder and Petra as they received the "glory" of saving a Vermeer painting in the previous book ("Chasing Vermeer"). Tommy feels that he deserves something as well. In his first new day of class, Ms. Hussey announces that the world-famous Robie House is soon to be demolished, which she considers to be murder. The class takes a field trip to the house, and both Calder and Petra discover that there are many secrets concerning the building that they were not aware of. After Tommy learns to tolerate Petra, the three (who call themselves 'The wright 3') work to save the house, even breaking into it toward the end. Tommy finds a fish talisman in the Robie House garden and realizes it is worth a lot of money. Finally, after saving their own lives against a band of robbers in the Robie house, they manage to save that of the house.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Professor,_the_Banker,_and_the_Suicide_King" title="The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King">
The highest stakes poker match of all time was played over the course of a few years, between Andrew Beal and a group of professional poker players called "The Corporation." The group included Ted Forrest, Jennifer Harman, Minh Ly, Doyle Brunson, Todd Brunson, Howard Lederer, David Grey, Chip Reese, Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey, Barry Greenstein, Lyle Berman and others. Many of them kept their identities anonymous, or were part of the group at different points.Ted Forrest, a professional poker player, was driving outside of Las Vegas when he called the Bellagio poker room. The personnel in the poker room informed him the highest game is $10,000-$20,000. He went to the poker room and sat down with his last $500,000. He played against Chip Reese and Andy Beal. Forrest had lost $400,000 without playing a single hand, and questioned why he was there.Beal first visited the Bellagio poker room in February 2001. He enjoyed the atmosphere and met professional poker players, such as Todd Brunson. He ended up winning over $100,000, crediting it to luck. Beal decided to study the game and face top players.He returned to Las Vegas and played heads-up with professionals for the highest stakes. Top professional poker players decided to pool their money with everybody who they thought could play the game against Beal. Beal began his match with Chip Reese, then Ted Forrest sat down. Down to his last $100,000 Forrest makes a comeback and wins $1.5 million. He is then asked to join the group and nobody else sits down besides Beal and his selected opponent, who alternates.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Foxes" title="Prince of Foxes">
Andrea Zoppo, an Italian peasant schooled in the arts and versed in the ways of nobility during his University years, conceals his old identity during the French invasion of Florence, and becomes Andrea Orsini, a bastard member of a dead Neapolitan junior branch of the great house of Orsini. Having made his name with the French forces, he takes service with Cesare Borgia, with dreams of uniting Italy to stop the depredations of foreign adventurers and the manipulations of France and the Holy Roman Empire. However, his love of Lady Camilla of the Bagliones and respect for her husband Lord Varano of Citta del Monte derail those plans when he is sent to their court to take the city by treachery.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_It_Courage" title="Call It Courage">
The book "Call It Courage" is a novel of 116 pages. It is about a boy who tries to overcome his fear of the sea."Call It Courage" is a story set in the Pacific Islands. It chronicles the journey of Mafatu, the son of the chief of Hikueru Island, Tavana Nui. Mafatu is afraid of the sea due to witnessing his mother die while he was a young child, which makes him a shame to his father, and referred to as a coward among his tribe. Mafatu takes a dugout canoe and sets sail into the ocean without knowing where he will end up. He is caught in a storm and the canoe is lost. He lands on a deserted island and learns to hunt and fish for himself, along with his companions Uri, a small yellow dog, and Kivi, an albatross.Soon Mafatu finds a sacrificial altar built by cannibals from a neighboring island. Mafatu realizes he has inhabited the island for about a week and begins designing his escape by making a canoe. He gathers things he will need to survive a trip across the ocean. He finds a spearhead on the terrible altar and, after attaching it to a shaft, uses it for hunting and defense.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Family" title="His Family">
"His Family" tells the story of a middle-class family in New York City in the 1910s. The family's patriarch, widower Roger Gale, struggles to deal with the way his daughters and grandchildren respond to the changing society. Each of his daughters responds in a distinctively different way to the circumstances of their lives, forcing Roger into attempting to calm the increasingly challenging family disputes that erupt.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voss_(novel)" title="Voss (novel)">
The novel centres on two characters: Voss, a German, and Laura, a young woman, orphaned and new to the colony of New South Wales. It opens as they meet for the first time in the house of Laura's uncle and the patron of Voss's expedition, Mr Bonner.Johann Ulrich Voss sets out to cross the Australian continent in 1845. After collecting a party of settlers and two Aboriginal men, his party heads inland from the coast only to meet endless adversity. The explorers cross drought-plagued desert, then waterlogged lands until they retreat to a cave where they lie for weeks waiting for the rain to stop. Voss and Laura retain a connection despite Voss's absence and the story intersperses developments in each of their lives. Laura adopts an orphaned child and attends a ball during Voss's absence.The travelling party splits in two and nearly all members eventually perish. The story ends some 20 years later at a garden party hosted by Laura's cousin Belle Radclyffe (née Bonner) on the day of the unveiling of a statue of Voss. The party is also attended by Laura Trevelyan and the one remaining member of Voss's expeditionary party, Mr Judd.The strength of the novel comes not from the physical description of the events in the story but from the explorers' passion, insight and doom. The novel draws heavily on the complex character of Voss.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirt_Music" title="Dirt Music">
Georgie, the heroine of the book, becomes fascinated while watching a stranger attempting to poach fish in an area where nobody can maintain secrets for very long; disillusioned with her relationship with the local fisherman legend Jim Buckridge, she contrives a meeting with the stranger and soon passion runs out of control between two bruised and emotionally fragile people.The secret quickly becomes impossible to hide, and Jim wants revenge, whilst the poacher hikes north via Wittenoom (out of respect for his father who died of mesothelioma in the town) and Broome to an island off the remote coast of Kimberley beyond Kununurra to escape a confrontation. His subsequent struggles to survive in the hostile environment, knowing that he must try to literally cover his tracks, give this book its gripping denouement.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_on_Bird_Street" title="The Island on Bird Street">
Alex (the main character) is an 11-year-old Jewish boy living in a Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II with his father and their friend, Boruch. German soldiers come into the Ghetto and send people into trains to be taken away (most likely to death camps). Alex and his father get separated, and soon Alex has to learn how to kill time in the empty ghetto by himself. As it turns out the ghetto is not entirely empty, and that is where he comes across various people, from neighbors to robbers, some of whom even try to help him. He finds himself in an abandoned, bombed out building on Bird Street (Ptasia street) where he seeks refuge. The only thing he has to pass the time away with is his pet mouse Snow, the novel "Robinson Crusoe" and other books, and a small air vent grate overlooking the town. He has to hunt for food on his own and still stay hidden from soldiers. It is a great test for Alex to see if he can make it through tough conditions, and also wait for the arrival of his father.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brief_and_Frightening_Reign_of_Phil" title="The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil">
The story focuses on the border disputes between the countries of Inner and Outer Horner, the former of which is "so small that only one Inner Hornerite at a time could fit inside, and the other six Inner Hornerites had to wait their turns to live in their own country while standing very timidly in the surrounding country of outer Horner."Phil, an embittered Outer Hornerite, decides that the puny Inner Hornerites do nothing but stand around very close together solving math proofs all day, and have to stretch one at a time every morning. Seen as an evil threat to the leisure of the five Outer Hornerites, they are understood as abusing the vast good will that they have received courtesy of the Outer Hornerites. As they stand in the short-term residency zone in Outer Horner, they wait their turn to reenter their country. So Phil, gaining the support of the other Outer Hornerites and hiring two giants as his personal policy enforcers, begins to tax the Inner Hornerites for staying in his country. He settles in the end to accept the disassembling of the Inner Hornerites as sufficient payment. The story chronicles Phil's tyrannical rise to power and his attempted Inner Hornerite genocide.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Last_Man_(Shaara_novel)" title="To the Last Man (Shaara novel)">
The novel is based on the arrival of General John J. Pershing with American troops on the Western Front in 1917. Moving in a new direction from Shaara's previous novels, the book focuses not only on generals but also on the everyday American doughboys, including the experiences of a character named Roscoe Temple, and a chapter about a new British recruit who refills the ranks, only to be killed during an attack on the German trenches several hours later.The book also profiles aviation aces such as Germany's Manfred von Richthofen and America's Raoul Lufbery.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drowned_Wednesday" title="Drowned Wednesday">
Picking up after the events of "Grim Tuesday", Arthur discusses Drowned Wednesday's invitation to meet for lunch with Leaf while he is hospitalized. The two are skeptical as to whether Wednesday can be trusted, but then the hospital room is suddenly filled with water and the two find themselves transported to the Border Sea, Wednesday's domain. Leaf and Arthur are separated when Leaf is picked up by the "Flying Mantis," a large ship, and Arthur is left behind. Arthur uses the Mariner's medallion to summon help but his call goes unanswered. A buoy marking the pirate Elishar Feverfew's treasure floats toward him, which Arthur opens. His hand is then marked with a bloody red color, the Red Hand, which he later learns is a spell created by Feverfew so that he may identify who has touched his treasure.Arthur is eventually picked up a scavenging ship called the "Moth". On board, Arthur (going by the name of Arth) is introduced to Sunscorch, the First Mate, and to Captain Catapillow. As they travel through the Border Sea, the "Moth" is attacked by Feverfew's ship, the "Shiver". Sunscorch commands Dr. Scamandros, an Upper House Sorcerer and the ship's navigator, to open a transfer portal to elsewhere in the Secondary Realms. Scamandros' spell fails and he accuses Arthur of interfering with his magic. He advocates for throwing Arthur overboard, but Arthur shows them the Mariner's medallion and the crew agrees to keep him. With Arthur's help, the "Moth" successfully travels through a transfer portal to a safe spot. Arthur asks Scamandros to find out what happened to Leaf and using sorcery, Scamandros reports that Leaf has been conscripted to work on the "Flying Mantis" but is otherwise safe.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spook's_Apprentice" title="The Spook's Apprentice">
Tom Ward has lived his whole life in the County (loosely based on the English county of Lancashire). Because he is the seventh son of a seventh son and thus has the ability to see ghosts and fight other supernatural beings, his parents have apprenticed him to the Spook, a cloaked man named John Gregory (because only seventh sons of seventh sons have the aforementioned abilities, all spooks are seventh sons of seventh sons). Tom's mother, referred to as Mam, sent a letter to the Spook shortly after Tom's birth alerting him to his status as a seventh son of a seventh and promising that Tom would be "the best apprentice [the Spook will ever have, who will] also be [his] last." The Spook travels the County fighting troublesome creatures such as boggarts, ghosts, ghasts, and witches for the people who need these things gone. Tom will have to learn how the Spook fights "the Dark", so that he may one day become a Spook as well.The Spook tells Tom that most of his other apprentices have failed due to their being cowardly, disobedient, or unluckily killed. It is revealed that one of the deceased was Billy Bradley, who had his finger bitten off and died from loss of blood while fighting a particularly dangerous boggart. Tom goes to live in the Spook's house in Chipenden. This house is protected from unwanted visitors by a boggart, with whom the Spook has made a contract. The contract states that as long as the roof is standing, the boggart must guard the home and kill intruders (as well as cook and clean for the Spook and his apprentices). It kills any visitors not invited in by the Spook (such as his apprentices), and as such potential clients wait outside and alert the Spook via a bell system. The boggart is promised in return the blood of creatures in the home after dark, as well as any hostile creatures of the dark. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ferguson_Rifle" title="The Ferguson Rifle">
The main character, Ronan Chantry, who is of Irish ancestry, is going into the West away from his troubles. Chantry's wife and son are dead, burned to death in the fire that consumed his home, for which he is blamed. He takes with him a Ferguson rifle, given to him by Major Ferguson himself. He meets up with an outfit of trappers after crossing the Mississippi River.Although never stated directly, Chantry quickly becomes the leader of the group. Main members of the group are an Irishman, Davy Shanagan, and Solomon, who by the end of the book is revealed to be very well known throughout the wilderness. Early on the outfit's journey west, they encounter the Spanish Captain Fernandez accompanied by Ute Indians. The Captain attempts to arrest the outfit for trespassing on Spanish colonies. The outfit informs him that the land was bought under the Louisiana Purchase.That night it is believed that Captain Fernandez attacks them but fails with two Utes being killed. The outfit presses on. Another night Chantry hears gunshots ring out in the distance after being awakened by a wolf who was trying to steal bacon. The next morning Chantry discovers the dead body of a man in a Mexican uniform. He searches the body and recovers a medallion.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Followed_Ripley" title="The Boy Who Followed Ripley">
A 16-year-old American boy calling himself Billy approaches Tom Ripley in the French village near the latter's residence, asking for a job. Ripley agrees to give him a small amount of gardening work and puts him up in the guest room, but he believes that he recognizes the youth from a newspaper. Further investigation reveals that "Billy" is actually Frank Pierson, the son of a recently deceased American tycoon who has fled the United States. Frank soon confesses to Ripley that he did in fact murder his own father by pushing him off a cliff. Ripley recognizes a kindred spirit in Frank, discovering that he deliberately sought him out for advice after learning of his questionable reputation. Ripley commissions a false passport for Frank and they travel to West Berlin, where they stay with a friend of Ripley's erstwhile partner in crime, Reeves Minot.Frank is kidnapped while strolling through a wooded area in West Berlin. Ripley communicates with the Pierson family and with a private detective the family has sent to Paris. The Piersons wire the ransom to West Berlin, and Ripley takes it to an appointed drop-off point where he impulsively kills one of the kidnappers. The other three drive off. Ripley returns with the money and arranges a rendezvous at a gay bar, which he infiltrates by dressing in drag. He identifies the kidnappers, who again leave empty-handed, and follows them back to the flat where they are keeping the boy. Ripley scares the amateur thugs into dashing out of the apartment, and he single-handedly rescues the semi-conscious hostage.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfway_Across_the_Galaxy_and_Turn_Left" title="Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left">
The novel tells the tale of the planet Zyrgon, ruled by the galactic police called The Law-Enforcers. They are after Mortimer, who has cheated the government lottery for the 27th time in a row. His family is governed by the youngest daughter, 12-year-old X, who wants to save her father from the detention centre.The family also includes Mother, who would rather design clothing and leave all worries to her daughter X. The oldest sister Dovis is a cosmic flier who writes poetry and levitates. The youngest is a boy genius, Qwrk who is a professor at age 8.X is the lead character: a stressed girl who has to balance between strange Earth customs such as school and her duty to take care of her family.Zyrgonians have special powers such as levitation, simulations, and kinetics. They love gambling and live on an ultra-modern and dystopian planetoid.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_All_Costs_(Weber_novel)" title="At All Costs (Weber novel)">
Because the actions of the High Ridge government in "War of Honor" led to the Republic of Haven successfully attacking key Alliance shipyards, the Star Kingdom of Manticore finds itself disadvantaged in the ongoing war, with at least two years before any significant new construction may begin. Admiral Honor Harrington is placed in command of Eighth Fleet, the Manticoran Alliance's primary offensive force.Strategically, the Eighth Fleet plans to instill enough operational caution and sensitivity to losses in Haven to force redeployments of starships in defensive postures, reducing Haven's offensive resources. To expedite this, they are assigned most of Manticore's cutting-edge war-fighting hardware, including the new "Apollo" self-guided missile system, which gives Manticoran missiles a massive range advantage over their Havenite counterparts, and "Keyhole" platforms that increase the efficacy of their own counter-missiles. Their first two raids frighten the Havenite populace somewhat, but on the third, at Solon, a defensive ambush led by Admiral Javier Giscard is waiting for them. Honor is sorely trounced, losing several ships and being forced to abandon a vessel captained by her best friend, Admiral Michelle "Mike" Henke, Countess Gold Peak; Henke is believed killed in action, but survives and is captured as a POW.Honor continues to work closely with Hamish Alexander, now First Lord of the Admiralty, on the military and political challenges facing the Alliance, and they fall into the very romantic relationship the High Ridge government tried to insinuate during "War of Honor". She and Hamish are married and conceive a son, Raoul, who is "tubed" while his mother goes into combat and is born before the end of the novel. Emily, assisted by Honor's mother Allison, a leading geneticist, also becomes a mother with Hamish.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Light_Bearer" title="The Light Bearer">
The fictional protagonists are a proto-Germanic tribeswoman, Auriane, daughter of a Chattian war leader; and Marcus Arrius Julianus, a Roman senator and imperial advisor whose character and circumstances are loosely based on the Roman philosopher Seneca, as well as another contemporary in the reign of Nero, Stoic philosopher and statesman Helvidius Priscus, a man known for his outspokenness in public life. Rome’s interference in tribal affairs compel Auriane to take the warrior’s oath and lead her father’s retinue after his death. In Rome, Stoic humanist Marcus Julianus reaches the highest levels of government, where he is taken into the confidence of the Emperor Domitian. Through political maneuvering, he attempts to check the excesses of the increasingly corrupt Emperor Domitian. Auriane is captured in Domitian's Chattian War and taken to Rome. As Domitian's reign of terror begins, Julianus orchestrates a plot to assassinate the Emperor; here the author has inserted a fictional character into a gap left by history. The Emperor Domitian, who according to Suetonius, was fond of pitting women against dwarfs in the arena, condemns Auriane to a gladiatorial school. Here Auriane discovers the tribesman who betrayed her people in war. As Julianus’ assassination plot reaches its conclusion, Auriane must carry out the tribal rite of vengeance in the Colosseum.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Damnation_of_Theron_Ware" title="The Damnation of Theron Ware">
## Part I.The congregation of The First Methodist Episcopal Church of Tecumseh sits in their exquisite sanctuary, awaiting the decision of whom they are going to appoint as the new pastor for their church. The members of the congregation regard their time at the church with such high importance that they pay hundreds of dollars to rent the front pews. When the new pastor is announced, Abram G. Tisdale, members of the congregation began leaving upset and selling their pews for sixty dollars. The man they wanted to be appointed, Theron Ware, was appointed to the church in Octavius. After the ceremony, Theron and his wife are disappointed, but Theron tells her there is nothing more they can do.In their new home in Octavius, the Wares are surprised that the milk delivery boy informs them that they will be pressured by the congregation to not have milk delivered on Sundays. Theron reminisces about how he arrived in Octavius. A young minister who changed his first parish in Tyre into an over-capacity congregation, met his wife Alice in Tyre and had a quick marriage. However, the Wares found themselves eight hundred dollars in debt, not knowing how to budget the church and their own lives. As they trimmed down the spending both in the church and in their personal lives, by selling possessions and their piano, the clergy once again began to dwindle. Their third year at Tyre, a man named Abram Beekman gave them a loan. Theron, determined to show that he could do better in a bigger congregation, went to the conference at Tecumseh to prove his abilities, only to be placed in Octavius.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Friday" title="Lady Friday">
## Background.Arthur Penhaligon is a young boy who has gotten involved with the 'House', a magical world. This world comprises seven parts, each containing a 'Key' (powerful magical objects) and a part of the 'Will' (a being that holds the wish of the absent 'Architect'), under control of a villainous 'Trustee'. Arthur is on a quest to defeat the 'Trustees' and fulfill the 'Will'.In the preceding four books, Arthur has captured four parts of the House.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shame_of_the_Cities" title="The Shame of the Cities">
Steffens' first article in "The Shame of the Cities" is "Tweed Days in St. Louis", published in October 1902. Steffens discusses Circuit Attorney Folk's efforts to clean up the city's corruption. Bribery, Steffens noted, had become commonplace in city government by the turn of the century. Responding to public concerns about corruption, the local Democratic Party put together a "reform" ticket, though this was "[s]imply part of the game", rather than out of a sincere desire to reform. Folk, however, took his duties seriously. He launched an investigation into the city's corruption after seeing a newspaper article which claimed that a bribe fund had been set up in a local bank to pay off city legislators who helped pass a streetcar bill. Folk found the bribe money in the bank, and began indicting participants in the bribery plot, leading a few of them to flee the state or the country. As he began to win convictions, other men involved in corruption decided to testify against their associates. Steffens concludes the article by claiming that "In all cities, the better classes—the business men—are the sources of corruption"; Folk, he notes, "has shown St. Louis that its bankers, brokers, corporation officers,—its business men are the sources of evil". Furthermore, he warns, "what went on in St. Louis is going on in most of our cities, towns, and villages. The problem of municipal government in America has not been solved".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_on_the_Balcony" title="The Man on the Balcony">
At the beginning of the book Beck goes to a peaceful mission with colleague Ahlberg in Motala. His colleagues are meanwhile looking for a handbag robber who makes the Stockholm parks unsafe. In the same park, which hosted his last robbery, a child's body is discovered soon after by two tramps. The 9-year-old girl has been abused and strangled. Shortly thereafter, another child befalls the same fate. As Beck returns, the machinery of the police investigation is already running.The police are initially lacking any clues as the abduction of the second girl was only viewed by a three-year-old boy. Only an elderly exhibitionist is briefly detained, but has nothing to do with the murders.Only a coincidence brings the investigation continues: Gunvald Larsson, who first appears in this novel, has telephoned at the very beginning of the investigation with an elderly lady who complained about a man in an opposite flat, standing all day on his balcony and looking at the road and playing with the children, among others. After Martin Beck recalled this call; with difficulty the note written by Larsson is found and by a mixture of obstinate investigating and the coincidence that the caller had the common name Andersson is the killer found, just before he can attack a child again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Probe!" title="Night Probe!">
The world is in the throes of an energy crunch and the United States is on the brink of financial disaster. Desperate to find any solution that can save the nation from national bankruptcy, the President of the United States looks to Dirk Pitt and NUMA to pull off an audacious double salvage operation.It is 1989 and the United States is in an economic decline because "From Franklin Roosevelt on, every chief executive has played a game of tag, pinning a multiplying financial burden on the office of his successor" (said by the POTUS in part 1), and by increasing scarcity of oil.CIA estimates put the depletion of the Middle East oilfields at just two years away. The total worldwide demand for oil is more than 50% of estimated supplies and while nuclear and other alternative energies are trying to make up the difference they are coming up short. Canada is now the exclusive supplier of electricity to several states in the Northeastern U.S. after investing billions in a massive new hydro-electric power plant in Quebec. To make matters worse, a top-secret experimental sub developed by NUMA has recently discovered a stratigraphic trap, potentially the richest kind of oil deposit, which lies just across the border in the territorial waters of Quebec.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burning_City" title="The Burning City">
The first and last parts of the novel are set in Tep's Town, on the site of modern Los Angeles. The town consists of three classes: the Lords, the ruling class, who live in a separate area of the town; the kinless, essentially a slave class forbidden to carry weapons, descendants of a people conquered by the allied ancestors of the Lords and the Lordkin; and the Lordkin, proud, uneducated, undisciplined and indolent knife fighters organised into street gangs, who live by "gathering" whatever they wish from the kinless. The Lords supervise the kinless and placate the Lordkin. The kinless are unarmed and untrained in the use of weapons, and cannot resist the Lordkin. Some leave the town, but the surrounding vegetation is malevolent. The town is the base of a fire god, Yangin-Atep, who possesses the Lordkin every few years to burn the town down and rape any kinless woman they can catch.The main character, Whandall, is an 11-year-old Lordkin boy severely beaten unto scarring and broken bones by Lordsmen (police) for associating with a Lord girl and illegally entering the segregated Lord's Hills. As an adult he becomes a product of his culture — a thief, a rapist, and a murderer, but, strangely, not without regret, not without honor, and not without the reader's sympathy. He teams up with an ex-Atlantis wizard and some kinless and they escape from the city. Beyond the city they find traders and Whandall founds a successful trading empire. Eventually, he returns to the city to establish a trade route there, and defeats Yangin-Atep.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Wyoming_(novel)" title="Miss Wyoming (novel)">
The novel is the story of John Johnson and Susan Colgate. It begins with a meeting between Susan and John after their yearlong absences from the world, and then progresses to tell the stories of their disappearances through flashbacks. The flashbacks have no temporal order. Each chapter is a different flashback, intermixed with chapters of temporally present plot.The novel tells their stories, the stories of the characters that they encounter, and the story of their lives after they meet. The novel is written in the third person.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinderseele" title="Kinderseele">
One day Emil Sinclair, an eleven-year-old boy, returns from school and as nobody is at home he goes upstairs into his father’s room where he steals sugared and dried figs out of his dad’s chest of drawers. Although he has pangs of conscience and thinks a lot about his deed, he does not confess it to his father. Sinclair pretends to have bought the figs at the cake shop in Calw. That is why his father punishes him by taking him there; but before entering the shop, the boy tells that he did not get them there. At home he finally admits that he stole the figs. The book ends with the phrase: "Als ich im Bett lag, hatte ich die Gewissheit, dass er mir ganz und vollkommen verziehen habe – vollkommener als ich ihm." ("As I lay in bed I had the certainty that he had completely forgiven me - more completely than I had him.")Hesse himself made a comment on his book in a letter to his sister Adele, in which he stated that the way described in "Kinderseele" was one of extremely straight psychology and love of truth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hazard_of_New_Fortunes" title="A Hazard of New Fortunes">
The title "A Hazard of New Fortunes" is a reference to William Shakespeare's "King John". "King John" portrays the themes of uncertainty, change, and violence, all of which are also important to "A Hazard of New Fortunes".The book, set in late 19th-century New York City, tells the story of Basil March, an affable literary man who provides the main perspective throughout the story. March takes a senior job at a New York magazine and eventually finds himself in the middle of a fierce dispute between his beloved old mentor and the magazine's wealthy owner. At the beginning of the book, March is residing in Boston with his wife and children. Then he is persuaded by his entrepreneurial friend Fulkerson to move to New York to help him start a new magazine, where the writers benefit from a primitive form of profit sharing. After some deliberation, the Marches move to New York and begin a rather extensive search for a perfect apartment. After many exhausting weeks of searching, Basil finally settles on an apartment full of what he and his wife refer to as "gimcrackery" — trinkets and decorations that do not appeal to their upper-middle-class tastes. While in New York, March renews the acquaintance of Berthold Lindau, a German-born intellectual who taught March the German language decades earlier. A strong abolitionist, Lindau fought in the American Civil War and lost a hand. He is now an elderly, impoverished widower. Though Lindau is still as warm-hearted and idealistic as ever, his socialist views often cause him to speak bitterly about what America has become under capitalism. March worries that people who do not understand the old man will misjudge him as unpatriotic or violent. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Haj_(novel)" title="The Haj (novel)">
The book begins in 1922. The title character is Ibrahim, who becomes the chieftain of a fictitious Palestinian village in that year. He is friendly with Gideon Asch, the Haganah leader who watches over the nearby kibbutz. ("He respected a fairness in Gideon that he was not able to practice himself.") But Ibrahim rejects "Gideon's offers of aid and friendship."In his "New York Times" review, Anatole Broyard wrote that "The other 'good' Arab character, as Mr. Uris has it, is Dr. Nuri Mudhil, a badly crippled archeologist. He, too, despairs of traditional Arab attitudes. 'We are a people living in hate, despair and darkness,' Mudhil says. 'The Jews are our bridge out of darkness.As depicted in the book, in 1947, in the runup to the Arab-Israel War of 1948, Arab nations spread false rumors of Jewish atrocities to cause mass flight. "Kirkus Reviews" recounted in its review that in the novel, "the women of Ibrahim's family are raped by rival Arab henchmen. And though the family survives, thanks to Gideon and a 'very sympathetic' Irgun officer, their arrival in Arab territory on the West Bank is greeted by Arab disdain, neglect, cruelty."The books ends as "Ibrahim slips back into primitivism" and kills his daughter.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Promises_in_the_Wind" title="No Promises in the Wind">
Josh's main talent lies in the piano, having been taught by his mother. He and his friend Howie are praised by their teacher, Miss Crowne. However, tired of the continual ridicule and temper of his father, he decides to leave Chicago and find a living on his own. His mother, Mary, supports his decision against her will, realizing that Josh's conflicts with his father, Stefan, and their entire family's lack of food would eventually lead to deeper problems.Howie convinces the reluctant Josh to bring his brother Joey along, which later turns out to be a good decision. With the hope that their musical talents can earn them a living, they set out. Howie brings his banjo, and Joey is a great singer. On the first day, Joey's singing combined with Howie's talented playing allows the trio to gain 78 cents. Josh realizes Joey's importance and no longer regrets bringing him along.However, while trying to get to Nebraska by riding on a freight train, a tragedy falls upon the trio. Howie, while running alongside a train which the brothers had already boarded, is struck by a train coming from the opposite direction. Though quite grieved, Josh and Joey continue, even declining the hospitality of a kind man. The two manage to survive by begging, despite Josh's humiliation at doing such a thing. Finally, in a stroke of luck, the two receive the warmth of a woman who persuades Joey to write home to their mother. They also become acquainted with Lonnie Bromer, a truck driver. Lonnie lost a child named David who would be as old as Josh if he were alive. Lonnie brings the brothers to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There, Josh and Joey receive a job at a carnival run by Pete Harris. Lonnie leaves the two with his address and they promise that they will write to him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Tower" title="Burning Tower">
The three main characters are Sandry, a Lord of Tep's Town, Sandry's cousin Regapisk, also a Lord, and Burning Tower, a daughter of Whandall, the main character of the previous book. Regapisk is an incompetent Lord and his family arrange for him to be shanghaied to become an oarsman on a coastal ship. Sandry and Burning Tower are romantically linked throughout the book.Large flightless birds attack trading caravans, but Sandry fights them off. He is sent by the Lords with the caravan, of which Burning Tower is also a part, to discover the source of the birds. They travel to the southern city of Condigeo and then to Crescent City, defeating terror bird attacks along the way. In Crescent City, they are joined by Regapisk, who has escaped from his ship. The three of them travel on to the high-magic city of Aztlan, where Regapisk redeems himself.The authors researched Aztec culture for the book, and many aspects of the culture depicted in the book are based on that research. This is explained in a brief note at the end of the book. Also mentioned is that within the described timeline, the terror birds continued to exist until long after humans spread through the Americas; this is based on the North American phorusrhacid "Titanis walleri" (but see McFadden "et al." 2007).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warday" title="Warday">
Strieber is in New York City in October 1988 when it is attacked by Soviet nuclear weapons. He experiences the initial blast while riding a bus, and witnesses the flooding of the subway system by a tsunami in the wake of a nuclear detonation at sea. Strieber is reunited with his family at his son's school and shelters there, but experiences radiation sickness. Upon his recovery, he and his family leave New York for San Antonio which they soon discover was destroyed as well. They eventually settle in Dallas, where he becomes a farmer.Five years later, Strieber and Kunetka decide to document the effects of Warday on the United States; they travel first through devastated southeast and southwest Texas. They then visit the new nation-state of Aztlan in the former American Southwest, and conduct interviews with its foreign minister and citizens. They then conduct interviews while trying to evade the omnipresent police in Los Angeles, California. California, physically not touched by the attack, has become a self-governing, authoritarian police state which treats outsiders as "illegal immigrants." In San Francisco they reunite with an old friend of Strieber's, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, but then are captured, arrested, and sentenced to years of hard labor in prison.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Sympathy" title="The Power of Sympathy">
The opening letters between Thomas Harrington and Jack Worthy reveal that Thomas has fallen for Harriot Fawcet, despite the reservations of his father. Harriot resists Thomas's initial advances, as he intends to make her his mistress; readers also find that Jack encourages Thomas to abandon his licentious motives in favor of properly courting Harriot. However, when Thomas and Harriot become engaged, Eliza Holmes becomes alarmed and exposes a deep family secret to Thomas's sister Myra: Harriot is in fact Thomas and Myra’s illegitimate half-sister. Mr. Harrington's one time affair with Maria Fawcet resulted in Harriot's birth, which had to be kept a secret to maintain the family’s honor. Thus, Eliza’s mother-in-law, the late Mrs. Holmes, took Maria, Thomas and Harriot into her home. After Maria’s death, Harriot was raised by a family friend, Mrs. Francis.Upon receiving the news of this family secret, Harriot and Thomas are devastated, as their relationship is incestuous and thus forbidden. Harriot falls into a grief-stricken consumption (a condition now referred to as tuberculosis), from which she is unable to recover. Thomas spirals into a deep depression and commits suicide after learning of Harriot's death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_an_African_Farm" title="The Story of an African Farm">
The novel details the lives of three characters, first as children and then as adults – Waldo, Em and Lyndall – who live on a farm in the Karoo region of South Africa. The story is set in the middle- to late-19th century – the First Boer War is alluded to, but not mentioned by name. The book is semi-autobiographical: in particular, the two principal protagonists (Waldo and Lyndall) display strong similarities to Schreiner's life and philosophy.The book was first published in 1883 in London, under the pseudonym "Ralph Iron". It quickly became a best-seller, despite causing some controversy over its frank portrayal of freethought, feminism, premarital sex and pregnancy out of wedlock, and transvestitism.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_Souls" title="The War of Souls">
## Background.The world of Krynn became a very different place with the disappearance of the gods. Dragons, much larger and more malicious than any native to Krynn, appeared and claimed much of the continent of Ansalon, calling themselves Dragon Overlords. Most of the native dragons are either dead or enslaved. The metallic dragons have disappeared. With the loss of the gods comes the loss of magic, and the Wizards' Conclave had been disbanded years ago. Although sorcery, discovered by Palin Majere, was adopted, it is slowly fading for reasons unknown. Everyone, including the Dragon Overlords, experience the effect. The Knights of Takhisis, with the loss of their Queen, became the Knights of Neraka, a somewhat less honorable outfit than their predecessors, led by Lord of the Night Morham Targonne. Goldmoon, one of the few remaining Heroes of the Lance, has established the Citadel of Light on the island of Schallsea. In the elven realm of Qualinesti, Gilthas, the "puppet king", rules only in title, while the nation is truly run by the occupying Knights of Neraka. Their cousins, the Silvanesti, have banished their heir, Silvanoshei, his mother, and his father. With the gods gone, the time period, fittingly, is known as the "Age of Mortals" as said by Fizban in chapter 32 ("title: Rain. Autumn. Farewell.")
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Border_Legion" title="The Border Legion">
It tells the story of a cold hearted man named Jack Kells who falls in love with Miss Joan Randle, a girl his legion has taken captive near the Idaho border.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yacoubian_Building" title="The Yacoubian Building">
The novel described the Yacoubian Building as one of the most luxurious and prestigious apartment blocks in Cairo following its construction by Armenian businessman Hagop Yacoubian in 1934, with government ministers, wealthy manufacturers, and foreigners residing or working out of offices there. After the revolution in 1952, which overthrew King Farouk and gave power to Gamal Abdel Nasser, many of the rich foreigners, as well as native landowners and businessmen, who had lived at the Yacoubian fled the country. Each vacated apartment was then occupied by a military officer and his family, who were often of a more rural background and lower social caste than the previous residents.On the roof of the ten-story building are fifty small rooms (one for each apartment), no more than two meters by two meters in area, which were originally used as storage areas and not as living quarters for human beings, but after wealthy residents began moving from downtown Cairo to suburbs such as Medinet Nasr and Mohandessin in the 1970s, the rooms were gradually taken over by overwhelmingly poor migrants from the Egyptian countryside, arriving in Cairo in the hopes of finding employment. The rooftop community, effectively a slum neighborhood, is symbolic of the urbanization of Egypt and of the burgeoning population growth in its large cities in recent decades, especially among the poor and working classes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prentice_Alvin" title="Prentice Alvin">
After being released from his time with Ta-Kumsaw, an Indian leader who taught Alvin the ways of Indian people, the young boy sets out to start his apprenticeship as a Smith in the town where he was born.While there he meets a young half-black boy by the name of Arthur Stuart, the son of a slave and a slave-owner who has been adopted by the owners of the local guesthouse.Another new friend comes in the form of Miss Margaret Larner, who he later discovers to be the "torch" who helped him to be born so many years ago, and with whom he has been strangely linked since that day.Eventually, Alvin is forced into helping Arthur to escape some slave-hunters, something that requires him to slightly change Arthur's DNA enough to prevent the hunters' knacks from identifying the runaway child.Alvin also creates a plow of living gold, which is bestowed with magical properties, as his journeyman piece to release himself from his apprenticeship as a Smith (and also as a Maker).The story ends with Alvin and Arthur leaving the town and returning to Alvin's home in the west.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodbye_to_Berlin" title="Goodbye to Berlin">
After relocating to Weimar-era Berlin in order to work on his novel, an English writer explores the decadent nightlife of the city and becomes enmeshed in the colorful lives of a diverse array of Berlin denizens. He acquires modest lodgings in a boarding house owned by Fräulein Schroeder, a caring landlady. At the boarding house, he interacts with the other tenants, including the brazen prostitute Fräulein Kost, who has a Japanese patron, and the decadent Sally Bowles, a young English flapper who sings tunelessly in a seedy cabaret called "The Lady Windermere". Due to a mutual lack of funds, Christopher and Sally soon become roommates, and he learns a great deal about her sex life as well as her coterie of "marvelous" lovers.When Sally becomes pregnant after a brief fling, Christopher facilitates an abortion, and the painful incident draws them closer together. When he visits Sally at the hospital, the hospital staff assume he is Sally's impregnator and despise him for forcing her to have an abortion. Later during the summer, Christopher resides at a beach house near the Baltic Sea with Peter Wilkinson and Otto Nowak, a gay couple who are struggling with their sexual identities. Jealous of Otto's endless flirtations with other men, Peter departs for England, and Christopher returns to Berlin to live with Otto's family, the Nowaks.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Berlin_Stories" title="The Berlin Stories">
## "Mr Norris Changes Trains".While traveling on a train from the Netherlands to Germany, British expatriate William Bradshaw meets a nervous-looking man named Arthur Norris. As they approach the frontier, Bradshaw strikes up a conversation with Norris, who wears an ill-fitting wig and carries a forged passport. After crossing the frontier, Norris invites Bradshaw to dinner and the two become friends. In Berlin, they see each other frequently. Over time, several oddities of Norris's personal life are revealed, one of which is that he is a masochist. Another is that he is a communist, which is dangerous in Hitler-era Germany. Other aspects of Norris's personal life remain mysterious. He seems to run a business with an assistant Schmidt. Norris gets into more and more straitened circumstances and has to leave Berlin.Norris subsequently returns with his fortunes restored and apparently conducting communication with an unknown Frenchwoman called Margot. Schmidt reappears and tries to blackmail Norris. Norris uses Bradshaw as a decoy to get an aristocratic friend, Baron Pregnitz, to take a holiday in Switzerland and meet "Margot" under the guise of a Dutchman. Bradshaw is urgently recalled by Ludwig Bayer one of the leaders of the communist groups, who explains that Norris was spying for the French and both his group and the police know about it. Bradshaw observes they are being followed by the police and persuades Norris to leave Germany. After the Reichstag fire, the Nazis eliminate Bayer and most of Norris's comrades. Bradshaw returns to England where he receives intermittent postcards from Norris, who has fled Berlin, pursued by Schmidt. The novel's last words are drawn from a postcard that Norris sends to Bradshaw from Rio de Janeiro: ""What" have I done to deserve all this?"
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Peeve_(novel)" title="Pet Peeve (novel)">
Goody Goblin, the only nice male goblin, goes to see the Good Magician Humphrey so he can get his question answered. As the Magician charges a year's service or the equivalent, Goody has to find a good home for a pet peeve. The pet peeve is a very annoying bird who can mimic the voice of the person carrying it.Goody starts out with the bird and Hannah Barbarian, whose service is to accompany the goblin on the quest and protect him. Throughout the journey, we discover that Goody is nice because he had to take reverse wood and disguise himself as a girl to avoid being captured by an invading goblin tribe. He was also married, but his wife is dead because she was fated to die young.On the trip, Goody and Hannah meet various people. They all refuse to adopt the pet peeve, or in the case of Princesses Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm, are not allowed to by their mother. Goody and Hannah travel to Robot World, one of the moons of Princess Ida, and bring back some robots to live in Xanth. Unfortunately, the robots decide to take over Xanth, which means all of Xanth must unite to fight the menace.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Notebook" title="The Golden Notebook">
"The Golden Notebook" is the story of writer Anna Wulf, the four notebooks in which she records her life, and her attempt to tie them together in a fifth, gold-coloured notebook.The book intersperses segments of an ostensibly realistic narrative of the lives of Anna and her friend Molly Jacobs as well as their children, ex-husbands and lovers—entitled "Free Women"—with excerpts from Anna's four notebooks, coloured black (of Anna's experience in Southern Rhodesia, before and during World War II, which inspired her own best-selling novel), red (of her experience as a member of the Communist Party), yellow (an ongoing novel that is being written based on the painful ending of Anna's own love affair), and blue (Anna's personal journal where she records her memories, dreams, and emotional life).Each notebook is returned to four times, interspersed with episodes from "Free Women", creating non-chronological, overlapping sections that interact with one another. This post-modern styling, with its space for "play" engaging the characters and readers, is among the most famous features of the book, although Lessing insisted that readers and reviewers pay attention to the serious themes in the novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe's_Havoc" title="Sharpe's Havoc">
During a general British and Portuguese retreat from the French after the First Battle of Porto, Captain Hogan orders Lieutenant Richard Sharpe and his men to help find and escort to safety 19-year-old Englishwoman Kate Savage, the daughter of a recently deceased prominent port merchant. For some unknown reason, she ran away from her home in Oporto. Hogan also tells Sharpe to "keep a close eye" on Colonel James Christopher, who has been staying with the Savages and was the one who requested help in retrieving her. After Horgan leaves, however, Christopher dismisses Sharpe and his men.Sharpe and his detachment, orphaned from the 95th Rifles, are trapped when the French seize Oporto, but are unexpectedly saved by a small detachment of Portuguese soldiers led by Lieutenant Jorge Vicente, a law student in civilian life. Despite his hatred of lawyers, Sharpe gradually comes to respect Vincente.Christopher was sent by the British Foreign Office to Portugal to evaluate the situation in Portugal. He has instead decided to use the situation to enrich himself. French Marshal Soult would like to declare himself King of Portugal, but his royal ambition does not sit well with many of his officers. Christopher contacts and encourages the potential mutineers, but intends to betray them to Soult. Just in case the French do not conquer Portugal, he also "marries" Kate in a sham ceremony for her substantial inheritance, despite already having a wife in England.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_Flora's_Family" title="Mama Flora's Family">
The young Flora meets the wealthy Lincoln Flemming at a dance one night. Lincoln wants her to come care for his elderly grandmother Nana at his home, to which she agrees. Eventually Flora becomes sexually involved with Lincoln and believes the two of them to be romantically involved. After experiencing him shun and shame her in front of his rich contemporaries, Flora begins to feel used and refuses to sleep with him anymore. This prompts her to become evicted from the house. Flora later discovers that she is pregnant with Lincoln's child, which prompts his wealthy family to bribe her into leaving Mississippi to avoid scandal. Flora takes the offer, planning to go to Memphis, Tennessee. She gives birth to a boy and names him Luke, but is forced to give the baby to the Flemmings to raise.Flora then travels by train to the city, but is instead directed by a fellow passenger to go to the small town of Stockton under the advice that a young woman such as her should not go into the city alone. Once there, she gains employment and shelter through the Reverend Jackson.While living in Stockton Flora meets and falls in love with Booker Palmer. The two marry, have a son named Willie, and Booker becomes a sharecropper soon after they marry. Booker experiences financial difficulties, which force him to steal cotton from other farmers. During one of his nightly runs, he is shot and killed. Flora later buries Booker, but only after remaining with his body all night. Shortly thereafter Flora receives news that her sister Jossie is ill and dying. Flora travels to her sister and ends up taking her niece Ruthana back with her to raise as her own daughter. Throughout the 1930s Flora raises both Willy and Ruthana in Stockton, but when Willie gets into a fight with some White boys he's forced to escape to Chicago where Ruthana's father lives. Once there, Willy stays with Georgy, who shows him the area and finds Willy a job. One night Willy ends up gambling and smoking marijuana, which causes him to lose his home. Willy moves into a basement with his friend Josh, who is later arrested for dealing drugs. During all of this time Willy continues to write his mother, cousin, and his girlfriend Ernestine, but lies and tells them that everything is fine. Later at the outbreak of World War II, Willy joins the army and upon his return he proposes to his girlfriend. The two marry, move to Chicago, and have three children.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_the_Circle_Be_Unbroken" title="Let the Circle Be Unbroken">
The Logan family goes through hard times trying to raise their children the correct way. T.J. Avery, Stacey's friend, is accused of murdering a white man, Jim Lee Barnett. Although he is innocent, he is tried by an all-white jury and convicted. Stacey does everything in his power to help his friend, but in the end, T.J. is sentenced to death.A man makes a file to join blacks and whites together so the cotton fields can be shared. The union does not succeed and the man who wanted to start it is beaten. Some people are told that they need to pull up the acres that were already planted because they planted too much. The plantation owners lied, claiming the government ordered it, but the plantation owners did it in order to receive money that was supposed to go to the sharecroppers.Mama's cousin Bud's daughter Suzella, who has a black father and a white mother, lives with the Logans. Suzella is venerated for being attractive and mixed, making her seem like a prize to all the males in the town because she is technically black and therefore accessible, but still has the lighter skin, hair, and eyes; she can be assumed as white. Suzella struggles with identity issues that put a strain on her relationships with others. She catches the eye of Stuart Walker, a white boy who flirts with pretty colored girls to start trouble. When Stuart approaches her he genuinely respects her, assuming she is white. This takes a great toll on Stacey; he believes he must take care of his family before they lose their land. He and his best friend Moe run away to a sugarcane field to work. With the help of Mr. Jamison, a white lawyer who is kind and fair to black people, Mama, Papa and Caroline Logan (Big Ma) contact police stations in the next couple of towns. They address the letters in Mr. Jamison's name so that when the sheriffs receive the letters they will respond. Mr. Jamison says that if they see a black family name on the letters they probably will not respond. Seven months later, they find Stacey several hours away, jailed in a small town in Louisiana. Stacey and Moe were accused of stealing which put them in jail, where they became ill. While Stacey was at the cane field a pole rolled over his foot and broke it. Before they drive home, they stop by the house of a lady who took care of Stacey and Moe while they were in jail and thank her. They stay the night there and the next morning return home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westmark_(novel)" title="Westmark (novel)">
It is a complicated and politically dangerous period in Westmark. The country's ruler, King Augustine IV, has slipped into dementia, depression and illness since the supposed death of his only child, Princess Augusta, over six years ago. Despite the efforts of the queen, Caroline, and the court physician, Dr. Torrens, the King is increasingly manipulated by his chief minister, Cabbarus, who has designs on the throne. While the ill king is kept distracted by a series of mystics and charlatans who claim to be able to speak to his dead child, Cabbarus increases his control over Westmark, restricting freedoms and abusing the king's powers.Young Theo, an orphan, has been raised in a small town, Dorning, by a printer named Anton. After the pair accepts a job from a travelling salesman they are investigated by Cabbarus' men, who declare their job illegal and proceed to destroy their press. In the ensuing scuffle and chase, Theo attacks a soldier and Anton is shot and killed.With no one else to turn to, Theo takes to the countryside, eventually meeting up with the men who hired him and Anton for the printing job: Count Las Bombas, a con artist, and his dwarf driver/partner Musket. Theo joins up with them, rather reluctantly, and ends up participating in their money-making schemes. They eventually discover a girl named Mickle, a poor street urchin, who has a talent for throwing her voice and mimicry. The count builds a charade around Mickle, dressing her up as the Oracle Priestess and putting her on display, claiming that she can speak to the spirits of the dead.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hollow_Man_(Carr_novel)" title="The Hollow Man (Carr novel)">
Professor Charles Grimaud's meeting with friends at a London tavern is interrupted by the illusionist Pierre Fley, who threatens Grimaud and warns of an even more dangerous brother who seeks Grimaud's life. Grimaud tells him to send his brother and be damned.A few nights later, a visitor concealing his identity with a false face arrives at Grimaud's house and is shown up to his study by the housekeeper, Mme Dumont. Grimaud's secretary, positioned with a view of the study door, sees Grimaud greet the visitor and let him in; he continues to watch until a shot is heard. Inside the room, Grimaud is found to be dying; but neither visitor nor weapon can be found, and there is unbroken snow outside the only window. On his deathbed, Grimaud makes a confusing statement stating that his brother was responsible.Gideon Fell discovers that before Grimaud settled in London he was known as Koroly Grimaud Horváth, and that he had two brothers, one of whom now calls himself Fley. The three had, years earlier, tried to escape a Transylvanian labour camp by faking their own deaths and being buried alive in their coffins.A newspaper reports that minutes after Grimaud's shooting witnesses saw Fley walking alone down a snow-covered cul-de-sac, and heard a voice shout "The second bullet is for you!" followed by a gunshot. Fley is found dead in the snow with the revolver that killed him (and Grimaud) lying nearby. There are no tracks in the snow but his.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_(novel)" title="Money (novel)">
"Money" tells the story of, and is narrated by, John Self, a successful director of adverts who is invited to New York City by Fielding Goodney, a film producer, to shoot his first film. Self is an archetypal hedonist and slob; he is usually drunk, an avid consumer of pornography and prostitutes, eats too much and, above all, spends too much, encouraged by Goodney.The actors in the film, which Self originally titles "Good Money" but which he eventually wants to rename "Bad Money", all have some kind of emotional issue which clashes with fellow cast members and with their roles — the principal casting having already been done by Goodney. As examples: the strict Christian Spunk Davis (whose name is intentionally unfortunate) is asked to play a drugs pusher; the ageing hardman Lorne Guyland has to be physically assaulted; the motherly Caduta Massi, who is insecure about her body, is asked to appear in a sex scene with Lorne, whom she detests.While in New York, Self is stalked by "Frank the Phone", a menacing misfit who threatens him over a series of telephone conversations, apparently because Self personifies the success Frank was unable to attain. Self is not frightened of Frank, even when he is beaten by him while on an alcoholic bender. (Self, characteristically, is unable to remember how he was attacked.) Towards the end of the book Self arranges to meet Frank for a showdown, which is the beginning of the novel's shocking denouement. "Money" is similar to Amis's five-years-later "London Fields" in having a major plot twist.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play_It_as_It_Lays" title="Play It as It Lays">
The novel begins with an internal monologue by the 31-year-old Maria Wyeth, followed by short reminiscences of her friend Helene, and ex-husband, film producer Carter Lang. The further narration is conducted from a third-person perspective in eighty-four chapters of terse, controlled and highly visual prose typical of Didion.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sot-Weed_Factor_(novel)" title="The Sot-Weed Factor (novel)">
The novel is a satirical epic of the colonization of Maryland based on the life of an actual poet, Ebenezer Cooke, who wrote a poem of the same title. "The Sot-Weed Factor" is what Northrop Frye called an "anatomy"—a "work resembling a Menippean satire, or one in which a mass of information is brought to bear on the subject being satirized, usually a particular attitude or type of behaviour." The fictional Ebenezer Cooke (repeatedly described as "poet and virgin") is a Candide-like innocent who sets out to write a heroic epic, becomes disillusioned and ends up writing a biting satire.The novel is set in the 1680s and 90s in London and on the eastern shore of the colony of Maryland. It tells the story of an English poet named Ebenezer Cooke who is given the title "Poet Laureate of Maryland" by Charles Calvert. He undergoes many adventures on his journey to Maryland and while in Maryland, all the while striving to preserve his innocence (i.e. his virginity). The book takes its title from the grand poem that Cooke composes throughout the story, which was originally intended to sing the praises of Maryland, but ends up being a biting satire based on his disillusioning experiences.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simoqin_Prophecies" title="The Simoqin Prophecies">
The story begins in the expected year of the rakshas Danh-Gem's return. Asvin, prince of Avranti is sent on an Aswamedh, a journey supposed to bring him fame and glory. But as soon as he reaches the forest, his guards turn on him and tell him that he would be executed at sunset. This is in accordance with the laws of the secret brotherhood, which ensured that all younger princes of Avranti who were too eager for glory would be dealt with this way. However he is rescued by the Silver Dagger and his men, on the orders of the Chief Civilian of Kol, who wanted him to be the prophecised hero.In Kol, the Chief Civilian is very worried about the sudden emergence of the of Imokoi along with their city asur cousins. Also the under their lord Bjorkun are planning something. Manticores have been seen in the forest. It is later revealed that this is a plot to bring back Danh Gem, instigated by Bjorkun and Bali, later on joined by the asur king Leer, and Omar of Artaxerxeia. This group is called the secret Brotherhood of Renewal, dedicated to bring Danh-Gem back.The spellbinders notice that magical levels all over the world are rising. Maya, a powerful spellbinder discovers that her best friend Kirin is in fact a ravian. Kirin himself had discovered this fact only a short while back and remembers that he is actually over two hundred years old. He recalls his memories back from his earlier days when he lived in the forest with a roving band of ravian warriors. Then he remembers the day the ravians had departed from the world. Somehow he was turned into stone at that time and didn't remember anything until Spikes, a pashan unlike any other, caused him to wake up. This is a great mystery which Maya is determined to solve.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manticore's_Secret" title="The Manticore's Secret">
The book begins initially by showing the return of the ravians to the world, which they now call Obiyalis. The vamans loyal to the ravians (called the rebel union of marginal labour) and Manticore open the ravian portal to this world. Three champions of the ravians, Myrdak, Peori and Behrim, promptly kill the vamans so as to make sure there are no traitors to inform the world of the return of the ravians.Meanwhile in the newly constructed dark tower of Izakar, Kirin is facing trouble. Most of his council of rakshases are issuing mad orders in his name, while all he wanted was to stop the war. Aciram warns Kirin of the return of the ravians and their plan to take over the earth. It seems that they are more dangerous to the humans now than to the dark lord. Nasud, a cousin of Kirin, grows tired of Kirin's peace efforts and declares a kin strife. Kirin kills him with a lightning bolt.Meanwhile in Kol, a secret society of the shapeshifters, called the Rainbow Council, prepare to battle against the mind-controlling foes who threaten history. Many Hero and villain guilds are formed in Kol in the wake of Kirin's ascension as dark lord. Arathognan (or Thog the barbarian) was one of these. In one of these encounters, Thog kills four jaykinis who were trying to eat children. However he notices that he is being followed by a mysterious girl, later revealed to be Peori.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_Stained_with_Royal_Blood" title="Sword Stained with Royal Blood">
The novel is set in China towards the end of the Ming dynasty. The protagonist, Yuan Chengzhi, is the son of Yuan Chonghuan, a patriotic general who had been wrongly put to death by the Chongzhen Emperor. After his father's death, Yuan was brought to the Mount Hua Sect, where he was trained in martial arts by the sect's leader, Mu Renqing. Once he has grown up, he leaves Mount Hua in search of adventure. Serendipitous incidents lead him to discover the Golden Serpent Sword and a martial arts manual which once belonged to Xia Xueyi, a long-dead enigmatic swordsman. Yuan inherits Xia's possessions and skills and becomes a powerful swordsman.Yuan wanders around the land and meets Wen Qingqing, a young maiden from a family of brigands. Wen is actually Xia Xueyi's daughter and she follows Yuan after being expelled from her family. Although Yuan initially wanted to seek redress for his father, he eventually joins Li Zicheng's rebellion to overthrow the corrupt Ming government. He helps the rebels retrieve the gold robbed by the Wen family, sabotages a battery of cannons supplied to the Ming army by foreigners, and finances the rebellion with part of the treasure he discovered in Nanjing. Yuan also befriends several martial artists, who pledge allegiance to him out of respect for his heroism. He organises his followers to form a militia and they pledge to serve and defend the Han Chinese nation from internal and external threats.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Pretty_Pony" title="My Pretty Pony">
An elderly man, his death rapidly approaching, takes his young grandson up onto a hill behind his house and gives the boy his pocket watch. Then, standing among falling apple blossoms, the man also "gives instruction" on the nature of time: how when you grow up, it begins to move faster and faster, slipping away from you in great chunks if you don't hold tightly onto it. Time is a pretty pony, with a wicked heart.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Solution_(novel)" title="The Final Solution (novel)">
Although the plot of the story is modelled on the classic ratiocination stories of Conan Doyle, there are two separate mysteries in the book, only one of which the Holmes character is able to solve by the end. The story opens with the description of a chance encounter between the old man and the young boy Linus Steinman, who, we find out moments later, is a German-Jewish refugee staying with a local Anglican priest and his family. Because the parrot sitting on the boy's shoulder is in the habit of rattling off German numbers in no obvious order — "zwei eins sieben fünf vier sieben drei" ("two one seven five four seven three") — the old man quickly deduces the boy's reason for being in England. After we are introduced to the priest, his wife, son and two lodgers sitting at dinner, we find out that the numbers may have some significance. One lodger speculates that the numbers are a military code of some kind and seeks to crack it. The other lodger, a Mr. Shane, from the British foreign office, pretends at dinner not to even notice the bird, which the family and Linus call Bruno. But because everyone else around the table is intensely interested in it, Shane's behavior only heightens their suspicions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diary_of_Miss_Idilia" title="The Diary of Miss Idilia">
Idilia Dubb is a 17-year-old Scottish girl who disappears during a holiday, while on a family trip to Germany in 1851. After a lengthy search fails to find her, her parents return home. In 1860, workmen at Lahneck Castle discover her remains at the top of a tower. Lying next to her skeleton is a diary in which she has recorded the horrors of her final days, after a wooden staircase collapses, leaving her trapped at the top of the tower without food or water.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Body_of_Jonah_Boyd" title="The Body of Jonah Boyd">
The crucial starting point of all following events is the Wrights’ annual Thanksgiving dinner in 1969, when author Jonah Boyd, the new husband of Mrs. Wright's friend Anne, accidentally loses his notebooks including his almost finished novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Weather_(Wodehouse_novel)" title="Heavy Weather (Wodehouse novel)">
With the Hon. Galahad's reminiscences removed from the market, publisher Lord Tilbury is anxious to get hold of the manuscript, while Lady Constance Keeble and Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe want to lay hands on it for quite other reasons. Lord Emsworth fears that Parsloe-Parsloe is out to spoil his prize pig Empress of Blandings' chances at the forthcoming county show, and keeps detective Pilbeam on hand to keep watch. Meanwhile, Sue Brown is anxious to hide her old friendship with Monty Bodkin from her jealous fiance Ronnie Fish, giving his mother Lady Julia a chance to talk him out of the unsuitable marriage...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Many_a_Summer" title="After Many a Summer">
The action revolves around a few characters brought together by a Hollywood millionaire, Jo Stoyte. Each character represents a different attitude toward life. Stoyte, in his sixties and conscious of his mortality, is desperate to stave off death. Stoyte hires Dr. Obispo and his assistant Pete to research the secrets to long life in carp, crocodiles, and parrots. Jeremy Pordage, an English archivist and literature expert, is brought in to archive a rare collection of books. Pordage's presence highlights Stoyte's shallow attitude toward the precious works of art that he affords himself. Other characters are Virginia, Stoyte's young mistress; and Mr. Propter, a childhood acquaintance of Stoyte's who lives on a small nearby farm and works to improve the lot of the mistreated and underpaid laborers Stoyte had working for him. Mr. Propter believes:... every individual is called on to display not only unsleeping good will but also unsleeping intelligence. And this is not all. For, if individuality is not absolute, if personalities are illusory figments of a self-will disastrously blind to the reality of a more-than-personal consciousness, of which it is the limitation and denial, then all of every human being's efforts must be directed, in the last resort, to the actualisation of that more-than-personal consciousness. So that even intelligence is not sufficient as an adjunct to good will; there must also be the recollection which seeks to transform and transcend intelligence.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsy_Rizka" title="Gypsy Rizka">
Rizka is a gypsy who lives just outside a town in a vardo and waits for the return of her gypsy father after the death of her mother. She has Big Franko looking out for her and the company of her cat Petzel. Throughout the story, she experiences numerous adventures helping out friends and folks in town as well as outwitting local town official Sharpnack, who will do anything to get rid of Rizka.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifty_Year_Sword" title="The Fifty Year Sword">
Chintana, a seamstress in East Texas, finds herself responsible for five orphans who are not only captivated by a storyteller’s tale of vengeance but by the long black box he sets before them. As midnight approaches, the box is opened, a fateful dare is made, and the children as well as Chintana come face to face with the consequences of a malice retold and now foretold.Much like Danielewski's previous works, "The Fifty Year Sword" uses unusual formatting and color throughout. Five different colors are used for quotation marks in order to signal which character is speaking.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_of_Eagles" title="Flight of Eagles">
Jack Kelso, an American ace pilot in World War I, is shot down and nursed back to health by a German nurse, Baroness Elsa von Halder. They marry and return to America after the war. After Jack is killed in a car accident, Elsa returns to Germany with their eldest son Max, who assumes the title of Baron von Halder. Harry, his identical younger (by ten minutes) brother, remains with his grandfather, millionaire Abe Kelso.Inspired by their father's example, both brothers become ace and much decorated pilots in opposing forces. Max joins the Luftwaffe and Harry, after fighting in Finland, returns to England, joining the Royal Air Force as a 'Finn'.The brothers rise in rank and number of 'kills', occasionally hearing of the others exploits. They actually meet again in the skies and, when Harry is shot down, Max summons an English rescue boat using his airborne radio.Elsa continues her social climbing amongst the Nazi elite, although Max warns her of the potential danger. Harry becomes a special duties pilot and crashes in France whilst landing a French Resistance leader. He is captured by the Germans and imprisoned at a local chateau, where he and Max finally meet face to face.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kestrel" title="The Kestrel">
Theo is traveling through Westmark, learning about the country of which he will soon be Prince Consort. He is not surprised to find great poverty: Mickle - now known as Princess Augusta - could have told him that from her years on the street. His friend Florian could have told him about the aristocracy's graft and corruption. But neither could have foreseen a loaded pistol in the practiced hand of the assassin Skeit. The echoes of that shot ring from the muskets and cannons of a Westmark suddenly at war - a war that turns simple, honest men into cold-blooded killers, Mickle into a military commander, and Theo himself into a stranger.As set up in Westmark, Theo and Mickle are in love. A corrupt general is in a cabal with a rival country, and plans to surrender after a token resistance, allowing a country with a more aristocratic government to replace the more populist Mickle who is seen as too close to revolutionaries like Florian. However, although the general surrenders, his soldiers refuse to, and the nominal resistance becomes a full-blown war as the people fight to determine their own destiny.Similar to how the aristocratic powers of the time invaded France to restore the aristocracy, here a foreign country is meddling in the internal affairs of Westmark. And just as France repelled the great powers with an army led by the people and of the people, the Westmark forces run by Florian, and his lieutenants, Theo — now the eponymous Kestrel — and Justin, fight to preserve the country. But becoming a general, a tradesman in blood and death, costs the artistic and conscientious Theo a great deal. He has to cut off pieces of himself in the service of a more pressing need.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_(novel)" title="Voyager (novel)">
## 1746."Voyager" opens on the battlefield at Culloden, where Jamie Fraser finds himself gravely wounded and his rival Jack Randall dead. Jamie is carried to a nearby farmhouse where 18 Highland soldiers have sought refuge after the battle of Culloden. Harold Grey, Earl of Melton, arrives as representative of the Duke of Cumberland and announces the survivors will be shot. As each man is led outside to be executed, Melton takes his name for the records. At Jamie's turn, Melton recognizes him as famed Jacobite “Red Jamie”, but is forbidden to execute him because Jamie spared his younger brother, Lord John Grey, during the Battle of Prestonpans, and he sends Jamie home to die of his wounds.When the English scour the country for Jacobite rebels, Jamie hides in a cave near Lallybroch. He visits his sister, Jenny, and her family once a month to shave, wash, and hear news. By invoking a deed of sasine, Jamie signs Lallybroch over to Jenny’s eldest son, also called Jamie, to prevent the English from seizing their home as the property of a traitor. For a brown wool cap he wears to cover his distinctive red hair, Jamie becomes a Scottish legend, the “Dunbonnet”, and arranges to have himself be captured, whereby his tenants claim the reward and prevent famine among themselves. At Ardsmuir Prison, Jamie becomes the leader of the prisoners under the nickname "Mac Dubh". At Ardsmuir, Jamie meets Lord John Grey again as the new governor of the prison. Lord John's predecessor tells him that he invited Jamie to dinner once a week to discuss the other prisoners and suggests that Lord John continue the custom, which he does. John believes that Jamie knows the whereabouts of the French gold allegedly sent to Bonnie Prince Charlie. When the prison is fully renovated, the Crown transports the prisoners to America and uses the former prison as an army barracks; but John has Jamie sent to Helwater in the Lake District, the stud farm of Lord Dunsany, as a groom.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drums_of_Autumn" title="Drums of Autumn">
The heroine of the bestselling "Outlander", Claire, returns in "Drums of Autumn", reunited with her husband Jamie Fraser and facing a new life in the American colonies. As the preceding novel, "Voyager", concluded with Jamie Fraser and his wife Claire shipwrecked on the Georgia coastline in 1766 —and happy to be out of Scotland—"Drums of Autumn" picks up where "Voyager" left off.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fiery_Cross_(novel)" title="The Fiery Cross (novel)">
Claire, the heroine of "Outlander", figures in "The Fiery Cross" as a reluctant oracle and wife to Jamie Fraser, her 18th-century partner, and faces the politics and turmoil of the forthcoming American Revolution. As the preceding novel, "Drums of Autumn", concluded with Jamie Fraser and his wife Claire helping their daughter and new son-in-law, from the 20th century, settle into life on Fraser's Ridge, "The Fiery Cross" picks up the storyline exactly where it was left—with Brianna Ellen Randall Fraser and Roger Mackenzie about to make their nuptials official and baptize their son Jeremiah. With the American Revolution only a few years away and unrest brewing, Jamie is called to form a militia to put down the beginnings of rebellion in North Carolina, and risk his life for a king he knows he must betray soon. Gabaldon delivers the endings to several strands of storyline she had woven through "Drums of Autumn"; mysterious plots and characters are revealed and by the end, the Frasers and their family are poised on the edge of war.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Breath_of_Snow_and_Ashes" title="A Breath of Snow and Ashes">
Claire is the wife of Jamie Fraser, her 18th century husband, and facing the politics and turmoil of the forthcoming American Revolution. The preceding novel, "The Fiery Cross", concluded with political unrest in the colonies beginning to boil over and the Frasers trying to peacefully live on their isolated homestead in the foothills of North Carolina. Jamie is suddenly faced with walking between the fires of loyalty to the oath he swore to the British crown and following his hope for freedom in the new world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deltora_Quest_2" title="Deltora Quest 2">
In the series, King Lief must find out how to save his kingdom. Although he has defeated the enemy, Deltora is rotting away - the Shadow Lord had taken thousands of Deltorans as slaves back to the Shadowlands. Lief and his friends must re-unite three pieces of the magical Pirran Pipe - the only thing the Shadow Lord fears - to save his people.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Approaching_Storm" title="The Approaching Storm">
The Galactic Republic is decaying, even under the leadership of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, who was elected to save the galaxy from collapsing under the forces of discontent. On the tiny but strategic planet of Ansion, a powerful faction is on the verge of joining the growing Separatist movement. The urban dwellers wish to expand into the prairies outside their citiesthe ancestral territory of the fierce, independent Ansion nomads. If their demands are not met, they will secedean act that could jump-start a chain reaction of withdrawal and rebellion by other worlds of the Republic.At the Chancellor's request, the Jedi Council sends Kenobi and fellow Jedi Luminara Unduli to resolve the conflict and negotiate with the elusive nomads. Undaunted, Kenobi and Unduli, along with their Padawans Skywalker and Barriss Offee, set out across the wilderness. Many perils lie waiting to trap them. The Jedi will have to fulfill near-impossible tasks, befriend wary strangers, and influence two great armies to complete their quest, stalked all the while by an enemy sworn to see the negotiations collapse and the mission fail.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tramp_Abroad" title="A Tramp Abroad">
The first half of the book covers their stay in south-western Germany (Heidelberg, Mannheim, a trip on the Neckar river, Baden-Baden and the Black Forest). The second part describes his travels through Switzerland and eastern France (Lucerne, Interlaken, Zermatt, Chamonix and Geneva). The end of the book covers his trip through several cities in northern Italy (Milan, Venice and Rome). Several other cities are touched and described during their travels, as well as mountains such as Matterhorn, the Jungfrau, the Rigi-Kulm and Mont-Blanc.Interleaved with the narration, Mark Twain inserted stories not related to the trip, such as "Bluejay Yarn", "The Man who put up at Gadsby's" and others; as well as many German Legends, some invented by the author himself.Six appendices are included in the book. They are short essays dedicated to different topics. The role of "The Portier" in European hotels and how they make their living, a description of Heidelberg Castle, an essay on College Prisons in Germany, "The Awful German Language", a humorous essay on German language, a short story called "The Legend of the Castle" and a satirical description of German newspapers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plowing_the_Dark" title="Plowing the Dark">
Taimur Martin, the prisoner of war, spends five years analyzing and replaying his life while trapped in a single room. He has little outside contact. He occasionally exchanges words with his captors, and for a short interlude he is able to communicate with nearby prisoners using a tapped Morse code. He reads a book called "Great Escape". He spends most of his time thinking about his life and relationship with his girlfriend Gwen. When his story resumes after he is released, he has a child and a wife, and much time has gone by.In the second narrative, a virtual reality machine ("The Cavern"), is being built by workers at the Realization Laboratory. The main characters are Adie Klarpol, an artist who no longer does original work; Stevie Spiegel, an engineer-turned-poet-turned-programmer; Ronan O'Reilly, an econometrician who hopes to predict the outcome of world events; and Jack "Jackdaw" Acquerelli, a young computer programming wizard. They are attempting to recreate the world inside a three-walled room. They create a completely immersing experience, but near the end Adie realizes that the technology will be used by the military. She has to reconcile with herself, but ends up creating another room which recreates the destruction and rebuilding of civilization. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Watch" title="Dark Watch">
The story begins with a group of Russian scientists sent in search of ore, which they find. When greed overcomes them, one of them kills the others to disguise the find. The story brings in aspects of modern-day piracy, slavery and human smuggling and how these seemingly different events are related to the Russians and Chinese with the ore mining.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Strange_Manuscript_Found_in_a_Copper_Cylinder" title="A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder">
The main story of the novel is the narrative of the adventures of Adam More, a British sailor shipwrecked on a homeward voyage from Tasmania. After passing through a tunnel of volcanic origin, he finds himself in a "lost world" of prehistoric animals, plants and people sustained by volcanic heat despite the long Antarctic night.A secondary plot of four yachtsmen who find the manuscript written by Adam More and sealed in a copper cylinder forms a frame for the central narrative. They comment on More's report, and one identifies the Kosekin language as a Semitic language, possibly derived from Hebrew.In his strange volcanic world, More also finds a well-developed human society which in the tradition of topsy-turvy worlds of folklore and satire (compare Sir Thomas More's "Utopia", "Erewhon" by Samuel Butler, or Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "Herland") has reversed the values of 19th century Western society: wealth is scorned and poverty is revered, death and darkness are preferred to life and light. Rather than accumulating wealth, the natives seek to divest themselves of it as quickly as possible.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laughing_Policeman_(novel)" title="The Laughing Policeman (novel)">
A gunman shoots the passengers of a bus with a sub-machine gun, killing eight people, including Detective Åke Stenström, and wounding one. After a painstaking investigation, Detective Beck and his team come to suspect that the mass killing is designed to hide the true target, Stenström himself, who was spending his free time unofficially investigating the murder of a Portuguese prostitute sixteen years earlier in an attempt to solve the case and demonstrate his skills to his older police comrades. Beck must now complete Stenstrom's work by solving the earlier murder in order to identify Stenstrom's killer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marlows_and_the_Traitor" title="The Marlows and the Traitor">
Taking an early morning walk in a fierce storm, Peter Marlow is deliberately snubbed by one of his teachers from Dartmouth Naval College, Lewis Foley, who is spending the Easter holidays in the fishing village of St-Anne's-Byfleet. Later, he and his sister Nicola, follow an irresistible sign to a place called Mariners. Mariners turns out to be a deserted house complete with its own crow's nest and a sign to Foley's Folly Light.Nicola discovers from one of her fishermen friends, Robert Anquetil, that Lewis had grown up in the village and that Mariners belongs to his family. Anquetil warns her not to go near the house again. However, when she returns to the hotel where the Marlows are staying, she finds that Peter has already told the others and that they are planning a trip that afternoon. Reluctantly, Nicola agrees to go along with them.The children enter the house and go exploring. While Nicola, Peter and Lawrie go down to the cellars, Ginty agrees to keep guard. But when she hears a noise she panics and follows them down the stairs. Peter has found some microfiche which seems to show details of Naval secrets. A man enters the cellars and the girls are afraid, but Peter recognises him as Lewis Foley and starts to tell him about the secrets he has found.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falconer's_Lure" title="Falconer's Lure">
"Falconer's Lure" introduces Patrick Merrick, a key character in most of the ensuing Marlow books. Living on the neighbouring estate he was a childhood friend of Peter Marlow before WWII. He has spent the last two years at home, recovering from serious injuries sustained by falling off a cliff in search of baby falcons. The dangers of falconry, as well as its thrills, its demands and its sorrows are made very evident. The reader, like Nicola Marlow, is entranced by the falcons and Patrick's evident expertise.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Restraint_of_Beasts" title="The Restraint of Beasts">
The novel starts with a phone call, "Mr McCrindle's fence has gone slack", and sees the three main characters duly dispatched to the scene of Tam and Richie's previous job, which they have left in a hurry. The ensuing Kafkaesque incidents set the tone for the rest of the novel, where Tam, Richie, and the narrator find themselves "sent off" to England in work-related "exile".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendent_(novel)" title="Transcendent (novel)">
The story alternates between two timelines: the world of Michael Poole in the year 2047, and that of Alia, a posthuman girl who lives approximately half a million years in the future.Engineer Michael Poole is recovering from the death of Morag, his pregnant wife. Poole works as a consultant designing space propulsion systems, and dreams of being able to one day explore the stars. However, there are more pressing matters; humanity faces a serious bottleneck, with the Earth reeling from the effects of anthropogenic climate change and resource depletion; automobile production has all but ceased, except for hydrogen-based mass transit, and air travel is limited to the very rich. Due to climate change, the oceans have become dead zones, with rising sea levels and severe weather displacing millions.While working in Siberia, Michael's son Tom is injured by an explosion of methane gas from previously frozen hydrates, suddenly released from the now-melting tundra. Michael begins to research whether this is an isolated incident or the beginning of something more serious. With the help of an artificial sentience named Gea, he discovers that a potential release of all such frozen greenhouse gasses could destabilise the environment enough to make the Earth untenable for human habitation, in a repeat of the Permian extinction.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Quest" title="Star Quest">
"In a universe that had been ravaged by a thousand years of interplanetary warfare between the star-shattering Romaghins and the equally voracious Setessins, there seemed now but one thing that might bring the destruction to an end. That would be the right catalyst in the hands of the right people. The right catalyst could well be the individualist rebel, Tohm... he who had once been a simple peasant and who had been forcibly changed into a fearfully armored instrument of mechanical warfare—the man-tank Jumbo Ten. But the right people? Could they possibly be the hated driftwood of biological warfare—those monsters of a cosmic no-man's land—the Muties?"
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outside_Providence_(novel)" title="Outside Providence (novel)">
Largely an autobiographical tale, the novel revolves around Timothy "Dildo" Dunphy, a ne'er-do-well from the city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, which borders Providence. After Dunphy falls in with a bad element at home, his father, a widower, exiles him to the fictional Cornwall Academy (a thin guise for Kent School located near Kent, Connecticut).Over time, Dunphy struggles with issues including class structure, loyalty, first love, and his ongoing issues with his father. Dunphy finds that his fellow prep-school students merely represent a wealthier, more polished class of delinquent than the friends he has left at home.The novel was Farrelly's fledgling effort, and served as his thesis when he graduated from the creative writing program at Columbia University.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusions_(Bach_novel)" title="Illusions (Bach novel)">
"Illusions" revolves around two barnstorming pilots who meet in a field in the Midwestern United States. The two main characters enter into a teacher-student relationship that explains the concept that the world that we inhabit is illusory, as well as the underlying reality behind it:Donald William Shimoda is a messiah who quits his job after deciding that people value the showbiz-like performance of miracles and want to be entertained by those miracles more than to understand the message behind them. He meets Richard, a fellow barnstorming pilot. Both are in the business of providing short rides—for a few dollars each—in vintage biplanes to passengers from farmers' fields they find during their travels. Donald initially captures Richard's attention when a grandfather and granddaughter pair arrive at the makeshift airstrip. Ordinarily it is elders who are cautious and the youngsters who are keen to fly. In this case, however, the grandfather wants to fly but the granddaughter is afraid of flying. Donald explains to the granddaughter that her fear of flying comes from a traumatic experience in a past life, and this calms her fears and she is ready to fly. Observing this greatly intrigues Richard, so Donald begins to pass on his knowledge to him, even teaching Richard to perform "miracles" of his own.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hermaphrodite" title="The Hermaphrodite">
Laurence narrates the story. Though Laurence is intersex and as a child displays normative gender characteristics of both sexes, his unsettled father, Paternus, decides to raise Laurence as a male. Sent away college, he excels in his studies, particularly in writing poetry that inflames the passions of an older widow, Emma. Laurence is not attracted to her and displays asexual tendencies. On the night of his graduation, Emma professes her love for him. When informed that Laurence is intersex, she goes into a deep state of shock and soon dies.Laurence reacts with great emotion and returns home to his cold father. Paternus now displays how Laurence's condition repulses him and expresses his regret that Laurence will never father a male heir. He offers Laurence his inheritance in a premature bulk sum, if he will agree to allow Paternus to disown him. Laurence vehemently rejects the offer, instead offering the money to his younger (and gender-neutral) brother, Phil, in the hope that his brother will share the estate with him upon their father's death.At one point Laurence hears two men compare him to the "lovely hermaphrodite" in the sculpture collection of the Villa Borghese, the Sleeping Hermaphroditus.Laurence (also called Laurent) lives most of his life as a man and then spends a period living as a woman. Both men and women fall in love with him and he responds to both. He explains how he has chosen to favor men or women: "When I wished to trifle, I preferred the latter. When I wished to reason gravely, I chose the former."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_the_World_(novel)" title="Master of the World (novel)">
Set in the summer of 1903, a series of unexplained events occur across the Eastern United States, caused by objects moving with such great speed that they are nearly invisible. The first-person narrator, John Strock, 'Head inspector in the federal police department' in Washington, DC, travels to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina to investigate. He discovers that all the phenomena are being caused by Robur, a brilliant inventor. (He was previously featured as a character in Verne's "Robur the Conqueror.")Robur has perfected a new machine, which he has dubbed the "Terror." It is a ten-meter long vehicle, capable of operating as a speedboat, submarine, automobile, or aircraft. It can travel at the (then) unheard of speed of 150 miles per hour on land and at more than 200 mph when flying.Strock tries to capture the "Terror" but instead is captured himself. Robur drives the strange craft to elude his pursuers, heading to the Caribbean and into a thunderstorm. The "Terror" is struck by lightning, breaks apart, and falls into the ocean. Strock is rescued from the vehicle's wreckage, but Robur's body is never found. The reader is left to decide whether or not he has died.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kipps" title="Kipps">
The eponymous character is Arthur "Artie" Kipps, an illegitimate orphan. In Book I, "The Making of Kipps", he is raised by his aged aunt and uncle, who keep a little shop in New Romney on the southeastern coast of Kent. He attends the Cavendish Academy, "a middle-class school", not a "board school",) in Hastings in East Sussex. "By inherent nature he had a sociable disposition", and he befriends Sid Pornick, the son of a neighbour. Kipps also falls in love with Sid's younger sister, Ann. Ann gives him half a sixpence as a token of their love when, at 14, he is apprenticed to the Folkestone Drapery Bazaar, run by Mr Shalford.The Pornicks move away and Kipps forgets Ann. He becomes infatuated with Helen Walshingham, who teaches a woodcarving class on Thursday nights. Chitterlow, an actor and aspiring playwright, meets Kipps by running into him with his bicycle, and they have a drunken evening together that leads to Kipps being "swapped" (dismissed) from his job. Chitterlow then brings to his attention a newspaper advertisement that leads to an unexpected inheritance for Kipps from his grandfather of a house and 26,000 pounds.In Book II, "Mr Coote the Chaperon", Kipps fails in his attempt to adapt to his new position in the social hierarchy of Folkestone. By chance he meets a Mr Coote, who undertakes his social education. That leads to renewed contact with Helen Walshingham, and they become engaged. However, the process of bettering himself alienates Kipps more and more, especially since Helen makes it clear that she wants to take advantage of Kipps's fortune to establish herself and her brother in London society. Chance meetings with Sid, who has become a socialist, and then with Ann, who is now a housemaid, lead Kipps to abandon social conventions and his engagement to Helen, and marry his childhood sweetheart.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Forests_of_the_Night" title="In the Forests of the Night">
The book is set in and around the author's home town of Concord, Massachusetts and in the realm of Nyeusigrube. The book centers around Risika who born in 1684 as Rachel Weatere, a God-fearing seventeen-year-old who lived with her father, half-sister, Lynette, and her twin brother, Alexander. Alexander lives in fear as he believes he is of the Devil as he is able to hear people's thoughts and cause things to happen, including manipulating fire, causing him to inadvertently burn his sister Lynette. Aware of her twin brother's powers and his dislike for them, Rachel tries to do her best to comfort him. One day, an unknown stranger appears at their home, who is later revealed as Aubrey and gives Rachel a black rose, which pricks her finger, drawing blood. That night, Rachel hears her twin creep past her room and she follows him to find him confronting two vampires, Ather and Aubrey, who had come to transform Rachel against her will into a vampire to get back at Alexander for interfering with Ather when she tried to feed on Lynette. In an attempt to stop Ather from harming her brother, Rachel confronts Ather but Aubrey grabs her brother and drags him off, while exposing a knife. Rachel tries to go after them but Ather grabs her instead and begins her transformation into a vampire.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_It_Girl_(novel)" title="The It Girl (novel)">
After being kicked out of her former school, Jenny Humphrey enrolls at the posh Waverly Academy located in Upstate New York. Jenny hopes to leave her unsophisticated past behind and reinvent herself. She meets her new roommates Callie Vernon and Brett Messerschmidt, two of the most popular girls on campus. Jenny occupies the third bed in the triple that used to belong to Tinsley Carmichael, who was expelled the previous year for getting caught with Ecstasy on campus.Jenny attends the first party of the year, unaware of the gossip already swirling about her. She accepts an invitation from charmingly sloppy Heath Ferro to go into the school chapel alone. Jenny allows Heath to kiss her, but is dismayed when he passes out in her lap. Jenny walks him to his dorm and leaves, but the next day, Heath brags about having had sex with her in the chapel.Callie's relationship with her boyfriend Easy Walsh has hit a rut. Callie invites him to her room, unaware Jenny is also there, trying to sleep. Jenny is discovered and a frustrated Callie leaves to go to the bathroom. Easy is surprised at his attraction to Jenny, but their conversation is interrupted by the dorm supervisor's husband, Mr. Pardee. Realizing she could be expelled for having Easy in her room, Callie convinces Mr. Pardee that Easy was visiting Jenny and not her. Easy and Jenny are each called in separately to meet with their student advisor, Eric Dalton, who decides the matter will be resolved in a disciplinary hearing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatooine_Ghost" title="Tatooine Ghost">
The deaths of Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine, and victory at the Battle of Endor by no means spelled the end of the Empire. In the aftermath, the New Republic has faced a constant struggle to survive and grow. And now a new threat looms: a masterpiece of Alderaanian art, lost in transit after the planet's destruction, has resurfaced on the black market. Offered at auction, it will command a handsome price . . . but its greatest value lies in the vital secret it conceals—the key to a code used to communicate with New Republic agents deep undercover within the Empire. Discovery of the key by Imperial forces would spell certain disaster. The only option is recovery—and Han Solo, Leia Organa Solo, Chewbacca, and C-3PO have been dispatched to Tatooine to infiltrate the auction.But trouble is waiting when they arrive: an Imperial Star Destroyer is orbiting Tatooine on the lookout for Rebels; a mysterious stranger at the auction seems to recognize Leia; and an Imperial officer's aggressive bidding for the Alderaanian painting could foil the Solos’ mission. When a dispute erupts into violence, and the painting vanishes in the chaos, Han and Leia are thrust into a desperate race to reclaim it before Imperial troops or a band of unsavory treasure-peddlers get there first.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansfield_Park" title="Mansfield Park">
Fanny Price, at the age of ten, is sent from her impoverished home in Portsmouth to live with the family at Mansfield Park, the Northamptonshire country estate of Sir Thomas Bertram. Lady Bertram is her aunt. The Bertrams have four children – Tom, Edmund, Maria and Julia – who are all older than Fanny. There she is mistreated by all but Edmund. Her other aunt, Mrs Norris, the wife of the clergyman at the Mansfield parsonage, makes herself particularly unpleasant to Fanny.When Fanny is fifteen, Aunt Norris is widowed and the frequency of her visits to Mansfield Park increases, as does her mistreatment of Fanny. A year later, Sir Thomas leaves to deal with problems on his plantation in Antigua, taking his spendthrift eldest son Tom. Mrs Norris, looking for a husband for Maria, finds Mr Rushworth, who is rich but weak-willed and considered stupid. Maria accepts his proposal for his money.The following year, Henry Crawford and his sister, Mary, arrive at the parsonage to stay with their half-sister, the wife of the new incumbent, Dr Grant. With their fashionable London ways, they enliven life in Mansfield. Edmund and Mary then start to show interest in one another.On a visit to Mr Rushworth's estate, Henry flirts with both Maria and Julia. Maria believes Henry is in love with her and so treats Mr Rushworth dismissively, provoking his jealousy, while Julia struggles with jealousy and resentment towards her sister. Mary is disappointed to learn that Edmund will be a clergyman and tries to undermine his vocation. Fanny fears that Mary's charms are blinding Edmund to her flaws.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_(novel)" title="Sahara (novel)">
In 1865, a week before the surrender of Confederate forces of Robert E. Lee, the Confederate Navy ship "CSS Texas" is being loaded at a dock with crates supposedly filled with documents. The ship's captain, Mason Tombs, has been ordered to take the ship past a Union blockade and to any neutral harbor where she should dock until summoned by a courier. At the last minute the secretary of the Confederate navy and an admiral arrive and mention that he will be taking a prisoner on board. Tombs is shocked when the prisoner arrives under heavy guard with Confederate soldiers in Union uniforms - a prisoner who appears to be Abraham Lincoln.The ship gets under way and is battered by the Union navy while trying to run the blockade, until Tombs brings the prisoner onto the deck, and the Union soldiers stop firing and salute.In 1931, Kitty Mannock is flying over the Sahara in quest of a new aviation record. A sand storm fouls her carburetors and she is forced to land in the desert. She manages to touch down on level ground, but the plane reaches the edge of a ravine and tips over. A search is launched, but she is never found.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Cowboy_(novel)" title="Midnight Cowboy (novel)">
The book opens with would-be gigolo Joe Buck leaving Houston to seek his fortune back east, chasing his dream of becoming a hustler for sex-starved rich ladies in New York City. Dim-witted, naïve, but strapping and handsome, Joe has spent the past two years cultivating a cowboy persona and saving up his dishwashing wages for a brand new cowboy wardrobe.The book recounts the events of his life that lead up to this point. Born out of wedlock, Joe is abandoned by his mother at the age of 7. He is raised in Albuquerque by his grandmother Sally Buck, a flirty blonde hairdresser who takes care of his needs but emotionally neglects him in favor of an endless string of boyfriends. One of those boyfriends, the cowboy Woodsy Niles, is the closest thing Joe has to a father figure, but he too exits Joe's life forever once his relationship with Sally ends. Joe grows up profoundly isolated and lonely, desperately wanting but clueless on how to form connections with other people. When Joe is 17, he loses his virginity to Anastasia Pratt, a promiscuous schoolgirl who would regularly take on six boys at a time in a movie theater storeroom, each boy patiently waiting in line for his turn. Joe is the first boy she enjoys having sex with, leading to a secret relationship that is squelched when one of the other boys alerts Annie's father to her sexual activities out of jealousy. Annie is swiftly institutionalized, and the unsavory rumors surrounding Joe's involvement only serve to depress and alienate him. 
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wedding_(Steel_novel)" title="The Wedding (Steel novel)">
Allegra Steinberg, daughter of movie producer Simon Steinberg and television writer Blaire Scott, is a successful entertainment lawyer who seems to have the perfect life. She has a satisfying career and is surrounded by people she loves, including her boyfriend, Brandon, her sister Samantha, an aspiring model, and her best friend, Alan Carr, a Hollywood heartthrob.While on a business trip in New York City, she meets writer Jeff Hamiliton, and although there is chemistry between the pair, Allegra does not pursue the attraction. However, after she discovers that Brandon has been cheating on her, she meets up with Jeff, and before long, the couple is engaged and planning a wedding at her parents Bel Air home.As their September ceremony looms, Allegra finds herself faced with many business, romantic and personal problems, including a pregnancy in the family, the death of a client and the return of her father. The wedding becomes a chance for forgiveness, hope and reconciliation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Valley_of_the_Lost" title="The Valley of the Lost">
After having reached the Maze of the Beast and finding the amethyst, they continue their journey off to the Valley of the Lost to retrieve the seventh and final gem, the diamond. The seven gems are the lost gems from the Belt of Deltora, which had been stolen by the Shadow Lord to overthrow Lief's country, Deltora. The three travel along the river Tor, passing villages that have been raided by pirates. When they stop for a rest, they see a pirate ship. Realizing that it was the ship that a boy named Dain was captured aboard upon, they steal a rowboat in an attempt to rescue him. After Dain and a polypan climb into their boat, the polypan rows against the flooding currents of the river away from the pirates and toward shore. The polypan jumps out of the boat before the boat reaches the shore, and Lief, Barda, Jasmine, and Dain are floating adrift the violently overflowing river. They drift over a sand bar and arrive at the edges of Tora, a great city that Dain had been trying to travel to. They enter the city, and Dain is significantly weakened by the magic of the purifying entrance. They meet two Resistance members, Doom and Neridah after finding the city deserted. Neridah travels with the trio to the Valley of the Lost to find the seventh gem. Upon entering the valley, they meet the Guardian, who doesn't use physical force, but games to protect the diamond. The Guardian enchants them to enter his castle, and asks them to play a game with him for the diamond. The winner of the game will keep the diamond, but the loser will have to be kept in the valley forever. Scared by this, Neridah runs away, leaving the three behind to play the game. Lief, Barda, and Jasmine manage to find all of the clues and guess the name before the time is up, and realize that the Guardian's name is Endon, the king of Deltora. They also find out that Doom had been there before and won the game, but did not take the gem because of his shock when he realized that the Guardian was actually the king. Lief, Jasmine, and Barda find out the gem is not the real diamond, and leave the castle to find Neridah had stolen it. The diamond curses those who gain the gem by theft, and Neridah dies by tripping on a rock and drowning in a stream. After the trio retrieves the gem, the Valley of the Lost disappears and all of the creatures in it are replaced by people, who reveal themselves to be the people of Tora. They had been turned into their form because they broke a vow that they had sealed by magic by turning King Endon away when he sought refuge with them, as they had no wish to draw the Shadow Lord's forces to them but did not consider the consequences of this action. The Guardian turns into Fardeep, a mere man from Rithmere, but not Endon. The name Endon was actually the Shadow Lord's idea, and was intended to trick any winners of the game. Knowing that they have all seven gems, the three travel with Dain back to Del to find the king who will put on the Belt to banish the Shadow Lord from Deltora.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Maze_of_the_Beast" title="The Maze of the Beast">
Lief, Barda, and Jasmine had retrieved the emerald from Dread Mountain. They travel along the River Tor to get to the Maze of the Beast, where they will get the amethyst. The gems they are taking are part of a Belt of Deltora, which will defeat the Shadow Lord that has invaded Deltora. During their travel, they encounter a pair of children nearly drowning in a stream. They save the children, but they reveal themselves to be Ols, creatures created by the Shadow Lord that can transform themselves to become another living creature. These creatures overrun the west side of Deltora to keep the gems hidden. Just before Barda is about to die, a boy Dain attacks the Ols and saves them. In the process, Dain injures his arm and several ribs. This causes Lief to sympathize for the boy, and take him to the Resistance, a group of people who rebel against the Shadow Lord. Arriving at the entrance to the Resistance's hideout, Dain faints from the pressure and forces the three to guess the password before they are marked as Ols and killed. Lief finds a note and realizes that the password is the first letter of every word on the note. They enter the Resistance and Doom, a man they have encountered before, tests them by putting them in a prison for three days. The test is supposed to find out if they are Ols because Ols can only hold their shape for three days. As three days pass, Doom does not let up and keeps them imprisoned. Dain frees them from the cave in exchange for their agreeing to take him to Tora. When Lief, Barda, and Jasmine reveal that they are not going to Tora, they split apart to make them less recognizable. Lief, Dain, and Barda take a boat that takes them down the river to the Maze of the Beast. They realize that Jasmine was also on the boat. The boat is raided by pirates, and Dain is taken prisoner. After reaching the Maze, Barda is revealed to be an Ol by the real Barda. Unfortunately, they are captured by pirates and are dumped into the Maze. After finding the location of the gem, Barda and Jasmine separate from Lief to lead the Beast away and Lief stays to carve the gem out of a column. They regroup when Lief was done, and escape the cave through a blowhole. The blowhole blows just after they escape, which takes the life of two pirates. The three then start off their journey to the Valley of the Lost.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_(Hamsun_novel)" title="Hunger (Hamsun novel)">
The novel's first-person protagonist, an unnamed vagrant with intellectual leanings, probably in his late twenties, wanders the streets of Norway's capital, Kristiania (Oslo), in pursuit of nourishment. Over four episodes he meets a number of more or less mysterious persons, the most notable being Ylajali, a young woman with whom he engages in a mild degree of physical intimacy.He exhibits a self-created code of chivalry, giving money and clothes to needy children and vagrants, not eating food given to him, and turning himself in for stealing. Essentially self-destructive, he thus falls into traps of his own making, and with a lack of food, warmth and basic comfort, his body turns slowly to ruin. Overwhelmed by hunger, he scrounges for meals, at one point nearly eating his own (rather precious) pencil and his finger. His social, physical and mental states are in constant decline. However, he has no antagonistic feelings towards 'society' as such, rather he blames his fate on 'God' or a divine world order. He vows not to succumb to this order and remains 'a foreigner in life', haunted by 'nervousness, by irrational details'.He experiences an artistic and financial triumph when he sells a text to a newspaper, but despite this he finds writing increasingly difficult. At one point in the story, he asks to spend a night in a prison cell, posing as a well-to-do journalist who has lost the keys to his apartment. In the morning he cannot bring himself to reveal his poverty or even partake in the free breakfast provided to the homeless. Finally, as the book comes to a close, when his existence is at an absolute ebb, he signs on to the crew of a ship leaving the city.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysteries_(novel)" title="Mysteries (novel)">
The community of a small Norwegian coastal town is shaken by the arrival of eccentric stranger Johan Nagel, who proceeds to shock, bewilder, and beguile its bourgeois inhabitants with his bizarre behavior, feverish rants, and uncompromising self-revelations.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roderick_Hudson" title="Roderick Hudson">
Rowland Mallet, a wealthy Bostonian bachelor and art connoisseur, visits his cousin Cecilia in Northampton, Massachusetts, before leaving for Europe. There he sees a Grecian figure he thinks is a remarkable work of art. Cecilia introduces him to the local sculptor, Roderick Hudson, a young law student who sculpts in his spare time. Mallet—who loves art but is without artistic talent himself—sees an opportunity to contribute: he offers to advance Roderick a sum of money against future works which will allow Roderick to join him in moving to Italy for two years. Mallet believes that in Rome, Roderick will be exposed to the kind of artistic influences which will allow his natural talent to fully mature. Roderick is galvanized by the offer, but he fears his highly protective mother's disapproval and urges Mallet to meet with and reassure her. Mallet does so, eventually overcoming the woman's doubts. At the meeting, Mallet is also introduced to Mary Garland, a distant poor cousin of the Hudsons who has been living with them as a companion to Mrs. Hudson. Mallet finds himself unexpectedly attracted to the young woman—to her simplicity, her lack of affectation, her honesty. During a farewell picnic attended by many of the Hudsons' friends and family, Mallet realizes he has fallen in love for the first time in his life. But, because of his natural reserve and imminent departure for two years, he fails to declare his feelings, yet still harbors hopes that something may yet come of the relationship.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_of_Our_War" title="The Year of Our War">
The novel is set in the Fourlands, a country in danger of being overrun by large hostile Insects, and follows the exploits of Jant, also called "the Messenger" or "Comet". As a half-breed of two humanoid species Jant is the only person who can fly, which makes him an indispensable part of the Emperor's Circle of about 50 immortals, an elite group of (mostly) warriors who do not age (but, despite the name, are capable of being killed).So far, four sequels has been published: "No Present Like Time" (2005), "The Modern World" (2007), "Above the Snowline" (2010) and "Fair Rebel" (2016).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Present_Like_Time" title="No Present Like Time">
The novel is set in the Fourlands, a country in danger of being overrun by large hostile Insects, and follows the exploits of Jant, also called "the Messenger" or "Comet". As a half-breed of two humanoid species Jant is the only person who can fly, which makes him an indispensable part of the Emperor's Circle of about 50 immortals, an elite group of (mostly) warriors who do not age (but, despite the name, are capable of being killed).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howards_End" title="Howards End">
The Schlegels had briefly met and befriended the Wilcoxes when both families were in Germany. Helen, the younger Schlegel daughter, visits the Wilcoxes at their country house, Howards End. She is attracted to the younger Wilcox son, Paul, and they become engaged in haste but soon regret their decision, breaking off the engagement by mutual consent.Not long after, the Schlegel sisters attend a concert featuring a performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Helen is so entranced by the images the music creates in her mind that she leaves, inadvertently taking an umbrella that belongs to Leonard Bast. Margaret gives Leonard her card and invites him to come with her after the concert to retrieve the umbrella. Once there, Leonard is embarrassed by the shabby quality of his umbrella and quickly departs. Later that year, the Wilcoxes move to London, taking an apartment close to the Schlegels' house. Margaret befriends the Wilcox matriarch, Ruth. Howards End is Ruth's most prized possession; she feels a strong connection to the old house, which is not shared by her husband and children. Ruth becomes quite ill and, perceiving Margaret as a kindred spirit, on her deathbed writes a note leaving Howards End to Margaret. The note causes great consternation to the widowed Henry Wilcox. He and his children burn it without telling Margaret about her inheritance. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molloy_(novel)" title="Molloy (novel)">
On first appearance the book concerns two different characters, both of whom have interior monologues in the book. As the story moves along the two characters are distinguished by name only as their experiences and thoughts are similar. The novel is set in an indeterminate place, most often identified with the Ireland of Beckett's birth.The majority of Part One is made up of Molloy's inner musings interspersed with the action of the plot. It is split into two paragraphs: the first is less than two pages long; the second paragraph lasts for over eighty pages. In the first we are given a vague idea of the setting Molloy is writing in. We are told that he now lives in his mother's room, though how he arrived there or whether his mother died before or during his stay is apparently forgotten. There is also a man who arrives every Sunday to pick up what Molloy has written and bring back what he had taken last week returning them "marked with signs" though Molloy never cares to read them. He describes that his purpose while writing is to "speak of the things that are left, say [his] goodbyes, finish dying." In the second paragraph he describes a journey he had taken some time earlier, before he came there, to find his mother. He spends much of it on his bicycle, gets arrested for resting on it in a way that is considered lewd, but is unceremoniously released. From town to anonymous town and across anonymous countryside, he encounters a succession of bizarre characters: an elderly man with a stick; a policeman; a charity worker; a woman whose dog he kills running over it with a bike (her name is never completely determined: "a Mrs Loy... or Lousse, I forget, Christian name something like Sophie"), and one whom he falls in love with ("Ruth" or maybe "Edith"); He abandons his bicycle (which he will not call "bike"), walks in no certain direction, meeting "a young old man"; a charcoal-burner living in the woods, whom he attacks and savagely beats.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Changing_Land" title="The Changing Land">
The novel picks up several months after the events in the last chapter of "Dilvish, the Damned". The Castle Timeless, one of several fortresses belonging to Dilvish's arch-enemy, Jelerak, is currently inhabited by the "mad" Old One Tualua. Tualua is undergoing one of the "changes" common to his kind, which in this case causes the land surrounding the castle to be subject to all sorts of chaotic, unpredictable, and often-deadly effects. A number of wizards, hoping to tap into Tualua's vast power, attempt to pass through this maelstrom and reach the castle. Watching events from the outside are members of the Society of Magic.Dilvish, determined to avenge himself against Jelerak, appears and attempts to breach the magical barriers, hoping to find his arch-enemy inside. Accompanied by his companion Black, a demon-like being in the shape of a black metal horse, they rescue a wizard, Weleand, from being drowned in an acid pit. Soon after they meet a young Elven girl, Arlata, frozen by one of magical winds. Weleand unfreezes her by transferring the condition to Black, and escapes. Dilvish is then captured by one of the caretakers of the castle, Baran of the Extra Hand, and thrown into the dungeon with several captured wizards.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe's_Tiger" title="Sharpe's Tiger">
Richard Sharpe is a private in the 33rd Regiment of Foot in the British army. The British invade Mysore and advance on Tippoo Sultan's capital city of Seringapatam. Sharpe is contemplating desertion with his paramour, half-caste army widow Mary Bickerstaff, due to his sadistic company sergeant, Obadiah Hakeswill. Hakeswill lusts after Mary, so he provokes Sharpe into hitting him before witnesses, company commander Captain Morris and Ensign Hicks. Sharpe is court-martialled; Lieutenant William Lawford, who is supposed to act as his defender, is absent and Sharpe is given the virtual death sentence of 2,000 lashes. However, the regiment's commander, Colonel Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington), halts the punishment at 202 lashes. Lawford has been offered an extremely dangerous mission and has requested Sharpe. Sharpe agrees to go along if he is made a sergeant if they are successful.Lawford and Sharpe pose as deserters to try to rescue Colonel Hector McCandless, Lawford's uncle and chief of the British East India Company's intelligence service. Sharpe's flogging inadvertently makes their cover story more plausible. Sharpe quickly takes charge and brings Mary along, to protect her from Hakeswill and because she speaks several of the native languages. They are soon captured by scouts from Tippoo's army and taken to Seringapatam where they meet Colonel Gudin, a French military adviser to Tippoo. During their interrogation, the Tippoo enters and orders them to load muskets. He then orders Sharpe to shoot a British prisoner, Colonel McCandless; he does, having noticed that the "gunpowder" he has been given is fake. The musket does not fire. After covertly telling McCandless that he is a spy, he is told by McCandless that the British must not attack the seemingly weakest portion of the city walls. (It is later revealed that Tippoo has had mines buried there to blow up the British when they enter the trap.)
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe's_Triumph" title="Sharpe's Triumph">
Sergeant Richard Sharpe and a small detachment arrive at an isolated East India Company fort to transport 80,000 recovered rounds of stolen ammunition to the armory at Seringapatam. While Sharpe and his men rest, a company of East India Company sepoys arrive under the command of Lieutenant William Dodd. Dodd abruptly has his men massacre the unsuspecting, outnumbered garrison. Sharpe is wounded and feigns death, allowing him to escape Dodd's determination to leave no witnesses.Back in Seringapatam, Sharpe's friend, Colonel McCandless, whom Sharpe met four years earlier during the siege of Seringapatam ("Sharpe's Tiger"), questions him about Dodd. Dodd deserted the East India Company, taking with him his sepoys, and McCandless has been tasked with bringing him to justice, lest it give others similar ideas. McCandless orders Sharpe to accompany him since he can identify Dodd.Dodd joins Colonel Anthony Pohlmann, commander of Scindia's army, at the city of Ahmednuggur and is rewarded with a promotion to major and command of his own battalion. Since the Mysore Campaign, the British have been pushing further north into the Maratha Confederacy's territory. Scindia is one of the Maratha rulers who have decided to resist the British advance. Scindia orders Pohlmann to assign a regiment to defend Ahmednuggur, so Pohlmann gives Dodd command of the unit and instructions to inflict casualties on the British, but most importantly, withdraw and keep the regiment intact, as the city cannot be held.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe's_Fortress" title="Sharpe's Fortress">
In 1803, Arthur Wellesley's British and sepoy army is in pursuit of the Mahrattas in western India, having beaten them in the Battle of Assaye. Ensign Richard Sharpe, newly made an officer, is beginning to wish he had remained a sergeant, as most of his fellow officers look down upon him, including Captain Urquhart, his commanding officer. Urquhart suggests he sell his commission if he is not happy.Manu Bappoo, the younger brother of the Rajah of Berar, decides to turn around and fight the British again, with his best unit, composed of Arab mercenaries, leading the charge, but he is again routed. During the fighting, Sharpe is impressed by the bravery of a teenage Arab boy, Ahmed, and saves his life when the boy is surrounded. Ahmed becomes his servant.After the battle, Urquhart recommends Sharpe transfer to the 95th Rifles, an experimental unit, though nothing can be done while the war rages on. For the moment, he assigns Sharpe to assist Captain Torrance, in command of the baggage train. The army is short of many desperately needed supplies, and Sharpe soon discovers why. Lazy and deeply in debt, Torrance has been selling them to the merchant Naig, with the assistance of Sharpe's old nemesis, Sergeant Hakeswill. When Sharpe finds many of the stolen supplies in Naig's tent, Torrance has his associate hanged immediately to avoid being implicated. Jama, Naig's brother, is not pleased, so Torrance agrees to betray Sharpe into his hands. Hakeswill is only too glad to waylay Sharpe; besides their mutual hatred, he rightly suspects that Sharpe has a fortune in jewels looted from a dead enemy ruler.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe's_Prey" title="Sharpe's Prey">
The year is 1807, and Richard Sharpe is at a very low point in his life. His beloved aristocratic lover, Lady Grace Hale, died in childbirth, along with their newborn son. Her family's lawyers then took all of Sharpe's wealth (loot he obtained in India), claiming it was Grace's, so it reverts to her family. Destitute and relegated to the menial job of quartermaster, Sharpe is on the streets of London, contemplating leaving the army.First though, he revisits the foundling home where he was raised to get his revenge. He robs and kills Jem Hocking, his childhood tormentor.Then a former commanding officer, Major General David Baird, finds him in a pub. Captain John Lavisser was assigned a bodyguard for a secret mission to Copenhagen, but the bodyguard was killed, supposedly by a common footpad, and a replacement is needed immediately. Baird persuades Sharpe to take the job. Lavisser does not want a bodyguard since he already has a hulking servant and ex-footpad named Barker, but orders are orders. Lord Pumphrey of the Foreign Office gives Sharpe (but not Lavisser) a contact in case he runs into trouble.Denmark is neutral, but has a powerful fleet. Napoleon wants it to replace the ships France lost at the Battle of Trafalgar, and Britain is equally determined to see to it that does not happen. Lavisser's task is to bribe the Danish crown prince to hand over the fleet for safekeeping. (Lavisser's grandfather is the prince's chamberlain, and they are also related by marriage.) If that fails, the British will have to seize the ships by force.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe's_Rifles" title="Sharpe's Rifles">
Sharpe's battalion, acting as rearguard to the British Army in its retreat to Corunna, are cut down by a squadron of French regular cavalry. Sharpe takes up Captain Murray's heavy cavalry sword after Murray dies and takes command of the surviving riflemen (from the 95th Rifles). However, the men do not want to follow him. Their leader, Patrick Harper, and Sharpe fight, but they are interrupted by the arrival of Spanish Major Blas Vivar and his men.Vivar invites the British to travel with him to escort them back to Portugal, but does not reveal his hidden agenda. The Spanish commoners hate the French invaders, but are dispirited and need something to rally around. In the course of the journey, Sharpe begins to gain the respect of his men, especially when his ability as a soldier gets them through a French ambush. Travelling on, they meet the Parkers, a Methodist couple, and their niece Louisa who Sharpe falls in love with, though it does not work out. Sharpe learns from a map the Parkers possess that Vivar is not taking them home at all and after a confrontation falls out with Vivar and takes his men home.On their way back, they are attacked by a French detachment led by Pierre D'Eclin and Vivar's pro-French brother, who had earlier been pursuing Vivar. Vivar comes to the rescue and helps them escape, though Louisa's aunt and uncle are captured and later sent home, being civilians.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe's_Trafalgar" title="Sharpe's Trafalgar">
In 1805, Richard Sharpe is to sail to England from India aboard the East Indiaman "Calliope" to join the 95th Rifles. He is swindled after purchasing supplies for the voyage. After finding out, he gets not only his money back, but also helps fellow victim Royal Navy Captain Joel Chase do the same, saving Chase from great financial embarrassment. Chase wants to show his gratitude, but is under orders to destroy a French 74 named the "Revenant" that is raiding the Indian Ocean.The "Calliope"s passengers include the lovely, young Lady Grace Hale and her much older husband, Lord William Hale. Sharpe is also astonished to find aboard Anthony Pohlmann, a renegade and former Maratha warlord (defeated by Arthur Wellesley in "Sharpe's Triumph"), traveling under a false identity – Baron von Dornberg – but sees no reason to denounce his former foe.Peculiar Cromwell, captain of the "Calliope", spots the jewels (looted from an Indian ruler) Sharpe has sewn into his clothing and insists that Sharpe leave them with him for safekeeping, to avoid tempting his crew.Sharpe becomes obsessed with Lady Grace, but his attempts to become better acquainted are unsuccessful, at first. However, she later questions him in private about "Dornberg"; while Cromwell and Dornberg denied knowing each other, she has observed them conversing frequently. Sharpe protects Dornberg as best he can. When Lady Grace gets up to leave, a sudden movement of the ship causes her to stumble, and Sharpe ends up with his arm around her waist. They eventually become secret lovers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe's_Eagle" title="Sharpe's Eagle">
It is July 1809. During the Talavera Campaign, Sir Arthur Wellesley's army has entered Spain to confront Marshal Victor. Richard Sharpe and his small group of thirty riflemen, separated from their regiment during the retreat from Corunna, are attached to the newly arrived South Essex Regiment. Commanded by the cowardly and bullying Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry Simmerson, the South Essex is a raw, inexperienced unit that has been drilled mercilessly with frequent use of the lash.Sharpe takes it upon himself to shape the inexperienced and poorly trained redcoats into soldiers. He comes into conflict with Simmerson; his nephew, the arrogant Lieutenant Christian Gibbons; and Christian's friend, Lieutenant John Berry. The situation is further complicated by the rivalry that emerges between Sharpe and Gibbons for the affections of Josefina Lacosta, a Portuguese noblewoman who ran away from her husband after he took a mistress. Only two of the South Essex officers appear to have any real experience: Captain Lennox, a veteran of the 78th Highlanders' action at the Battle of Assaye, where Sharpe himself won his commission; and Captain Thomas Leroy, an American Loyalist who was forced to flee his homeland after the American War of Independence.From Talavera, General Wellesley dispatches the South Essex, alongside Sharpe's riflemen and Major Michael Hogan's engineers, to blow up the bridge at Valdelacasa, so as to protect the army's flank as they march. They accompany a Spanish regiment of equal number, the Regimento de la Santa Maria, the seemingly straightforward mission becomes a disaster when both Simmerson and the Spanish unnecessarily cross the bridge due to pride, and then try to engage four squadrons of French dragoons. Due to a combination of arrogance, poor training and incompetence, the two regiments are routed by the French, with hundreds of men killed and wounded, Lennox fatally wounded by the enemy, and the loss of the King's Colours. Sharpe, however, distinguishes himself during the skirmish by saving the South Essex's own colours and capturing a French cannon. As a dying request, Lennox asks Sharpe to take a French Imperial Eagle, "touched by the hand of Napoleon" himself, so as to erase the shame of losing the King's Colours.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_(novel)" title="The American (novel)">
In 1868, Christopher Newman, an American businessman, visits Europe on a Grand Tour. Having worked for a living since age ten (interrupted by service in the Union Army during the American Civil War), he has made a large fortune and retired in his thirties, and is now looking to settle down and get married.At the Louvre in Paris he watches a painter named Noémie; he offers to buy the copy she is making, and meets her father, M. Nioche. About the same time a mutual friend introduces Newman to Claire de Cintré, a young widow. Newman hires M. Nioche to teach him French and the two become friendly; Newman, learning that M. Nioche worries about his daughter's future since he is poor, says that he will buy enough paintings from Noémie to give her a respectable dowry. Meeting Newman at the Louvre the next day, though, Noémie frankly tells him that she has no talent and her paintings are worthless. She scorns the men she could marry even with a dowry, and hints that she would prefer a more exciting life. Newman either doesn't understand the hint or ignores it, and he leaves her to her work. He pays a visit to the Bellegarde estate, where he meets Claire's two brothers: the cheerful Valentin and the aloof Marquis de Bellegarde, who coldly rebuffs him. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hollow_Chocolate_Bunnies_of_the_Apocalypse" title="The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse">
Jack is all set to discover the city beyond his small town. He meets a farmer on his way who warns him against going to the city. Jack however turns a deaf ear and continues his journey. The farmer tries to kill him for his meal, but Jack eventually escapes with his horse, leaving the hungry farmer in the pit.When he reaches the city he realises that it is populated by toys. He meets a wooden chef at a bar, and realises his horse has been stolen. Jack sets out to search for his horse, but he is hit by someone unknown and he faints on the ground. He is awoken by a teddy bear, Eddie, who is a private detective and the assistant of Bill Winkie (Wee Willie Winkie). Eddie offers Jack partnership in his detective firm, as Bill Winkie is missing.Jack is still shaken by the fact that toys can actually talk and walk and feel like humans, but eventually he comes on terms with it. Eddie informs him that something is wrong in Toy City - someone is killing the rich and famous PPPs: Preadolescent Poetic Personalities.These PPPs have become rich due to the royalties they receive for their poems, like Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet, Mary Mary Quite Contrary and Old King Cole. While on their quest to find the murderer, several PPPs are killed. Humpty Dumpty is boiled with a lens above his pool, Bill Winkie – cheated out of the rights to his nursery rhyme by the writer, but a natural detective – simply vanishes while investigating the case, Little Boy Blue is pierced with his crook – the crook impaling him in the rear and exiting through his mouth, Jack Spratt is fried in his ex-wife's diner, Little Tommy Tucker explodes when a bomb is dropped down his throat as he sings a high note, Little Jack Horner is stuffed with jam and Mother Goose is slit open. In all the cases the only clues are hollow chocolate bunnies left at the scene.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witches_of_Chiswick" title="The Witches of Chiswick">
Working in a dystopian 23rd century, William Starling finds a painting, The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke by Richard Dadd from the 19th Century with the image of a digital watch hidden within it. William takes a drug which confers the ability to tap into ancestral memories. After learning of events occurring in the 19th century, William and Tim are attacked by a Babbage robot sent from the past, and William escapes to the past via the robot's time machine.Stuck in the 19th century in Victorian London, William is greeted by Hugo Rune, who explains to Will that he is his direct descendant. Will learns that 19th Century history is a lie: Charles Babbage's difference engine was a huge success, providing the growing British Empire with robots, digital watches, airships, and even the first rocket to the moon.After returning to London, Will and Hugo take on a case for Sherlock Holmes - to discover the identity of Jack the Ripper to learn more about the witches' cabal. Hugo becomes the Ripper's next victim. Will finds a box in Hugo's trunk containing Barry, the Sprout Guardian. Will uses Barry to return to the future to enlist the aid of Tim.Will and Tim return to the past, meeting an invisible H.G. Wells, the Elephant Man, the Brentford Snail Boy, and another Will from an alternate future. After finding Hugo's true residence in the Buttes Estate, Will and Tim set out to save the 19th Century and the future from the influence of the Witches of Chiswick.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_Impact_(Stephen_Hunter_novel)" title="Point of Impact (Stephen Hunter novel)">
"Point of Impact" revolves around a former Vietnam War sniper named Bob Lee Swagger or Bob "the Nailer". This character is loosely based upon the real Vietnam War sniper and U.S. Marine Corps legend Carlos Hathcock.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Horse_Coming" title="Pale Horse Coming">
In 1951, Arkansas attorney Sam Vincent is hired by Davis Trugood, a Chicago lawyer, to verify the death of the Trugood's client's manservant in Thebes, Mississippi, a desolate shantytown cut off from civilization and surrounded by swampland and seemingly impenetrable piney woods. While in Thebes, Sam is roughly arrested for challenging the legality and authority of Thebes' law enforcement and is imprisoned by the local Sheriff.Earl Swagger travels to Thebes with the intent of rescuing Sam after he fails to hear from his friend for several weeks. He succeeds in securing Sam's freedom but is himself captured and incarcerated as the only white man among the inmates of the nearby Thebes penitentiary, a former timber plantation and current forced labor camp for negro convicts and run by ruthless and inhumane white supremacists. The mysterious and unnamed warden instructs his jailers to torture Earl, suspecting him to be a federal investigator interested in the secret workings of the camp. The other inmates apply their acquired hatred of white men to Earl, who must defend himself not only from the guards, but also from his fellow prisoners.Earl escapes by faking his death with the help of an old prison trusty, promising to return and destroy the prison and the evil it represents. He assembles a group of six legendary gunmen (who are based on Elmer Keith, Jack O'Connor, Audie Murphy, Charles Askins, Bill Jordan, and Ed McGivern) with the promise of real action for a just cause and readies them for an assault on Thebes. (Counting Swagger, that brings the number of gunmen to seven, a probable allusion to both "The Magnificent Seven" - a classic Western film - and Aeschylus' play "Seven Against Thebes".) While Earl makes his plans, the inmates at Thebes start to pass along the mysterious phrase, "Pale Horse Coming." Seeking to quell the inmates' stirrings and avoid a potential rebellion, the prison's tyrannical captain of the guards systematically tortures the prisoners in an effort to learn the origins of the phrase.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_(novel)" title="Execution (novel)">
Based in part on McDougall's experience as an officer with Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, "Execution" follows the fictional Canadian 2nd Rifles Brigade during the Italian Campaign of 1943. Led by the flamboyant Brigadier Ian Kildare (a modern miles gloriosus, or braggart soldier), the Canadians invade Sicily where they meet with little resistance from the Italian Army, composed mostly of hapless conscripts who want no part in the war.Despite Kildare's strict orders for his men to shoot Italian deserters on sight, the Canadians take kindly to a pair of buffoonish Italian deserters, more notable for their culinary skills than military prowess. Impetuously, Kildare orders the Canadians to execute the Italians. The Canadians are caught between the obligation to follow orders and the sense that executing the two Italians in cold blood is ethically unjustifiable—not to mention it being a violation of the Geneva Convention. The brutal execution of the two Italians forces the Canadians to confront the ethics of warfare, now that "the enemy" is no longer a distant and faceless target. Major Bunny Bazin, the most battle-hardened and philosophical of the Canadians, voices the novel's central theme when he states that "execution is... the ultimate degradation of man." Here the term "execution" works both literally (the killing of the Italians as a brutal act) and as a metaphor (war as a form of mass execution).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_and_the_Starcatchers" title="Peter and the Starcatchers">
In 19th century London, orphaned boys Peter, James, Thomas, Prentiss, and Tubby Ted are shipped out on the decrepit ship "Never Land". While searching for food, Peter encounters a mysterious trunk and its guardian, Molly Aster, a girl about his age. Meanwhile, the feared pirate Black Stache hears of a similar trunk containing a great treasure on board another ship, the "Wasp". Black Stache manages to run down and board the "Wasp", and Leonard Aster, Molly's father, attempts and fails to escape with the trunk. Black Stache opens the trunk only to find it filled with sand. Black Stache and Aster realize that the trunk is a decoy and the actual treasure is on board the "Never Land". Aster jumps overboard and escapes. Molly confides to Peter that the trunk contains "starstuff," magical dust of extraordinary power that falls from the heavens. Molly's family is revealed to be members of a secret society known as the Starcatchers, who are tasked with keeping Starstuff out of the wrong hands. Molly enlists Peter to assist in throwing the trunk overboard before Black Stache arrives.Black Stache and his men race against a monster storm to intercept the "Never Land". Attempting to dispose of the trunk with Molly, Peter is thrown overboard just as the storm hits. Having come into contact with Starstuff from the trunk, Peter flies back and hurls the trunk overboard. Molly and the orphans escape the "Never Land" and wash up on a nearby island. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungbarrow" title="Lungbarrow">
His mind occupied with thoughts of his coming regeneration, the Doctor accidentally returns to Gallifrey and the House of Lungbarrow, where for over 673 years his 44 cousins have been trapped, but mysteriously only six of them are still left. Meanwhile, Chris Cwej is having strange dreams of the past, when the family cast the Doctor out. The Doctor is accused of the murder of the head of the House, but he finds many allies in the form of former companions Ace, Romana, K-9 Mark I, K-9 Mark II and Leela, who have become embroiled in a Celestial Intervention Agency plot to overthrow Romana's presidency. The secrets of the past are catching up to the Doctor—in particular, the secret that links him to a figure from Gallifreyan history known only as the Other.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramona_the_Pest" title="Ramona the Pest">
Ramona Quimby is excited because she is starting kindergarten. She is a year older than in "Beezus and Ramona" and trouble still seems to follow her. Although Ramona does not mean to be a pest, she still manages to create trouble without trying to. Miss Binney is her teacher, and Ramona likes her a lot, especially when she praises Ramona's interesting drawing and nice fat letter 'Q's. There's a girl in her class named Susan with long, springy curls. Ramona really wants to pull on one of those curls and watch it bounce back and forth, but when she finally does she gets sent to the bench until recess is over. Another new person in her class is Davy. Ramona chases him at recess, trying to catch and kiss him, which she finally manages to accomplish when she participates in the Halloween parade when she is "the baddest witch in the world."Ramona tries to do her best in kindergarten but it isn't easy, especially during seat work, when she has to sit quietly and keep her eyes on her own work. She's just too interested in seeing what everyone else is doing. Still, kindergarten is going well until the day the substitute teacher arrives. Ramona won't go to class without Miss Binney, so she hides behind the trash cans with Ribsy the dog. When Beezus finds her and takes her to the principal's office Ramona is forced to go to class anyway.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Crown" title="Lucy Crown">
Lucy, an orphan, marries Oliver, a successful but frustrated businessman. Oliver's ambitions are thwarted when his father dies and Oliver is forced to run the family business. He proves to be a controlling husband. Lucy, who suffers from self-esteem issues, is intimidated by him and gives up her career aspirations.In the summer of 1937, Oliver leaves Lucy (now age 35) and son Tony (age 13) alone at a lake resort for several weeks while he attends to business. During Oliver's absence Lucy is pursued by Jeffrey, a Dartmouth College undergraduate they have hired to be a companion for Tony. She resists Jeffrey's advances but they eventually begin what Lucy regards as a casual affair. Tony sees them having intercourse and tells his father, who confronts the couple. Lucy and Oliver remain married, but she insists that she will have nothing further to do with her son. Tony becomes embittered and cuts off all contact with his mother. Lucy's deliberate act of infidelity and betrayal leads to the disintegration of her marriage and complete estrangement from her son.During World War II, Tony is unable to serve in the military due to poor health. Oliver joins the U.S. Army and is away from home for several years. Lucy embarks on a series of affairs with other men during Oliver's absence. Before leaving for combat in Europe, a despondent Oliver attempts to explain his frustrations and unhappiness to his son:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Princess_Casamassima" title="The Princess Casamassima">
Amanda Pynsent, an impoverished seamstress, has adopted Hyacinth Robinson, the illegitimate son of her old friend Florentine Vivier, a French woman of less than sterling repute, and an English lord. Florentine had stabbed her lover to death several years ago, and Pinnie (as Miss Pynsent is nicknamed) takes Hyacinth to see her as she lies dying at Millbank prison. Hyacinth eventually learns that the dying woman is his mother and that she murdered his father.Many years pass. Hyacinth, now a young man and a skilled bookbinder, meets revolutionary Paul Muniment and gets involved in radical politics. Hyacinth also has a coarse but lively girlfriend, Millicent Henning, and one night they go to the theatre. There Hyacinth meets the radiantly beautiful Princess Casamassima (Christina Light, from James' earlier novel, "Roderick Hudson").The Princess has become a revolutionary herself and now lives apart from her dull husband. Meanwhile, Hyacinth has committed himself to carrying out a terrorist assassination, though the exact time and place have not yet been specified to him. Hyacinth visits the Princess at her country home and tells her about his parents. When he returns to London, Hyacinth finds Pinnie dying. He comforts her in her final days, then travels to France and Italy on his small inheritance.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bostonians" title="The Bostonians">
Mississippi lawyer and Civil War veteran, Basil Ransom, visits his cousin Olive Chancellor in Boston. She takes him to a political meeting where Verena Tarrant delivers a feminist speech. Ransom, a strong conservative, is annoyed by the speech but fascinated with the speaker. Olive, who has never before set eyes on Verena, is equally fascinated. She persuades Verena to leave her parents' house, move in with her and study in preparation for a career in the feminist movement. Meanwhile, Ransom returns to his law practice in New York, which is not doing well. He visits Boston again and walks with Verena through the Harvard College grounds, including the impressive Civil War Memorial Hall. Verena finds herself attracted to the charismatic Ransom.Basil eventually proposes to Verena, much to Olive's dismay. Olive has arranged for Verena to speak at the Boston Music Hall. Ransom shows up at the hall just before Verena is scheduled to begin her speech. He persuades Verena to elope with him, to the discomfiture of Olive and her fellow-feminists. The final sentence of the novel shows Verena in tears – not to be her last, James assures us.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_for_the_Money_(novel)" title="One for the Money (novel)">
Stephanie Plum, laid off from her job as a lingerie buyer for a Newark department store, applies for a filing job with her cousin Vinnie, a bail bondsman. Vinnie's assistant, Connie, tells her the job is taken, but suggests she works as a bounty hunter, apprehending clients who have failed to appear for their court dates. Stephanie is excited to learn that Joe Morelli, a Trenton vice cop and onetime sexual acquaintance of hers, is FTA and facing charges for murder one. Vinnie initially refuses to give her a job, but Morelli's bounty is $10,000, which Stephanie desperately needs, so she blackmails Vinnie into employing her, by threatening to expose his "addiction to kinky sex" to his unsuspecting wife.Staking out Morelli's apartment, Stephanie follows his cousin, Mooch, to Morelli's hideout and finds him quickly, but is humiliated when he laughs off her demand that she come with him, pointing out (correctly) that she has neither the equipment nor the training to apprehend an unwilling fugitive. Connie puts her in touch with Vinnie's "star" bounty hunter, Ricardo Manoso, a.k.a. "Ranger", who gives her a crash-course in bounty hunting. He also buys Stephanie her first gun, a compact Smith &amp; Wesson revolver, and fills her in on Morelli's alleged crime: shooting an unarmed man, Ziggy Kuleska, at the apartment of a prostitute, Carmen Sanchez. Morelli claims that Ziggy was armed and Morelli shot him in self-defense, but no gun was recovered at the crime scene. Stephanie's friend, police officer Eddie Gazarra, advises her that Morelli is likely going around Trenton, trying to find witnesses who will clear his name, so her best bet at finding him is to follow the same trail.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_for_the_Dough" title="Two for the Dough">
Stephanie Plum is still an inexperienced bounty hunter, so her boss and cousin Vinnie gives her an easy case: apprehend local boy Kenny Mancuso, accused of shooting his best friend in the knee and then jumping bail. Because Kenny is the black sheep cousin of vice cop Joe Morelli, Morelli is on Kenny's trail as well. There's also a case of 24 missing caskets competing for Stephanie's time. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_to_Get_Deadly" title="Three to Get Deadly">
Stephanie Plum is a streetwise Jersey Girl who ended up as a bounty hunter by chance (and family connections). When a kind, old candy store owner (Uncle Mo) goes FTA (failure to appear) after being arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, Stephanie reluctantly agrees to go after him.Stephanie is on the trail of beloved Moses Bedemier, a mild-mannered man who runs an ice-cream parlor/candy store in the Burg. Mo is an upstanding citizen with ties to almost every family in Trenton. He gets ticketed by an overly-excited, fresh-out-of-the-academy cop for carrying a concealed weapon, and then fails to appear for his court date. No one wants to help Stephanie haul "Uncle Mo" (as he is widely known) to jail, so her apprehension work is frustratingly slow. "Mo would never do anything wrong," is the standard refrain from all the Burg's residents when Stephanie questions them.Since her neighbors and family refuse to help her, she calls on her mentor Ranger, her sidekick (and aspiring bounty hunter) Lula, and Joe Morelli, vice cop and former lover. As she investigates, Stephanie confides to Morelli that something feels wrong about Mo - everyone loves him for his profession, but no one seems to know anything about his private life, and a concealed weapons charge is not serious enough for him to go on the run.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tain_(novella)" title="The Tain (novella)">
The story follows Sholl, a man living in London soon after a convulsive onslaught by unearthly beings. Through introspective monologue on both sides of the fight, the reader learns of the history of the attacking "imagos" and "vampires", and the reasons behind the invasion.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ancestor_Cell" title="The Ancestor Cell">
Following on from the events of "The Banquo Legacy", the Time Lords have cracked the base code the Eighth Doctor programmed into Compassion's randomiser, and intercept her at her next destination. Threatened with enslavement, Compassion activates her built in weapons system and destroys the approaching WarTARDISes, while the Doctor fights for control of her navigation systems. The resulting "hiccup" expels Fitz and the Doctor into the vortex. The Doctor is captured while escaping from the Edifice, a massive bone structure that has appeared in the skies above Gallifrey, and taken to Gallifrey, where he is accused of being an agent of Faction Paradox. The Doctor is forced to aid the Time Lords in the capture of Compassion to aid in the forthcoming War.Meanwhile, Fitz appears before a group of disenchanted, young Time Lords who are holding rituals based on the occult texts of Faction Paradox and finds himself unable to escape. Getting further embroiled in the group's activities, Fitz witnesses the creation of a copy of former President Greyjan the Sane and is then the unwitting donor of material used to pull the original Fitz Kreiner, now in the guise of Faction Agent Father Kreiner, from a Klein bottle universe into the modern day Gallifrey.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obasan" title="Obasan">
Set in Canada, "Obasan" centers on the memories and experiences of Naomi Nakane, a 36-year-old schoolteacher living in the rural Canadian town of Cecil, Alberta, when the novel begins. The death of Naomi's uncle, with whom she had lived as a child, leads Naomi to visit and care for her widowed aunt Aya, whom she refers to as Obasan ("obasan" being the Japanese word for "aunt"). Her brief stay with Obasan in turn becomes an occasion for Naomi to revisit and reconstruct in memory her painful experiences as a child during and after World War II, with the aid of a box of correspondence and journals sent to her by her Aunt Emily, detailing the years of the measures taken by the Canadian government against the Japanese citizens of Canada and their aftereffects. With the aid of Aunt Emily's letters, Naomi learns that her mother, who had been in Japan before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, was severely injured by the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, a finding that changes her perspective of the War in the Pacific, and rekindles the heartbreak she experienced as a child.Naomi's narration thus interweaves two stories, one of the past and another of the present, mixing experience and recollection, history and memory throughout. Naomi's struggle to come to terms with both past and present confusion and suffering form the core of the novel's plot.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incendiary_(novel)" title="Incendiary (novel)">
A young mother's life is blown apart when her husband and four-year-old son are killed during a bombing at a football match. Following this, the young mother falls into a depression. While the young mother tries to battle her depression, she also must fight the guilt of committing adultery the same day of her son's and husband's death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_Not_Now,_When?_(novel)" title="If Not Now, When? (novel)">
The story follows a number of Jewish partisans and resistance fighters as they struggle to survive and sabotage the German war machine behind Nazi lines during World War II, starting in the western Soviet Union (Byelorossiya) and ending in Milan.The book's chief protagonist, Mendel Nachmanovich Dajcher, worked as a watch repairer before joining the Red Army, where he fought in the artillery. While he is at war, his wife and shtetl are massacred by a German Einsatzgruppe. In the midst of battle, he loses his regiment, becomes disoriented and is overtaken by the front, separated from and unsupported by Soviet forces.His life thereafter is an odyssey through the "partisanka", the motley partisan movement, which includes Russians, Jews, Lithuanians and Poles. About halfway through the book, Mendel and his companion from the first chapter, Leonid, fall in with a group of Jewish resistance fighters called the gedalistas, after their leader: Gedale.With them, Mendel traverses Poland and, overtaken by the victorious Soviets, enters defeated Germany. From there, the group aims for Italy, dreaming of making the aliyah to Palestine to take part in the Zionist project of reclaiming a Jewish homeland.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tragic_Muse" title="The Tragic Muse">
Nick Dormer wants to pursue a career in painting instead of his family's traditional role in British politics. This upsets his family and particularly his lady friend, Julia Dallow, a beautiful but demanding woman deeply involved in political campaigns. But Nick's old Oxford friend Gabriel Nash encourages him to follow his desire to become an artist. Despite his misgivings Nick goes through an election campaign, supported by Julia, and wins a seat in Parliament. He proposes marriage to Julia but they agree to wait.Meanwhile, Nick's cousin Peter Sherringham, a rising young man in the British diplomatic service, encounters a young actress, Miriam Rooth, in Paris. He falls in love with Miriam, who shows great energy but is a woefully raw talent. Peter introduces Miriam to French acting coach Madame Carre, and Miriam begins to improve her acting technique greatly.Nick seeks to become an artist and resigns from Parliament. He thus loses a large bequest from his political patron, Mr. Carteret. Nick becomes a full-time painter, and when Miriam comes to London in search of theatrical success, she sits to Nick for her portrait as "the tragic muse." Julia finds the two together in the studio. Although nothing improper is going on, Julia suddenly and bitterly realizes that Nick is dedicated to art and will never return to politics.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanza_Rising" title="Esperanza Rising">
Esperanza Ortega, the daughter of wealthy landowners, lives in Aguascalientes, Mexico, in 1930 on her family's ranch with her mother, father, and grandmother.The day before Esperanza's 13th birthday, her father is murdered while working on the ranch. At her birthday party, she receives a doll from papa. It was her last gift from him. Her uncle Luis reveals that he now owns their land. He offers to continue to care for them and their ranch if Esperanza's mother, Ramona, will marry him. When she refuses, he burns down the ranch. Esperanza's grandmother, Abuelita, is injured during the fire and is sent to a convent where she can recover. Esperanza and the rest of her family decide to travel to the United States.When Esperanza's family arrives in the United States, which is currently in the grip of the Great Depression, they settle in a farm camp in Arvin, California. Esperanza begins to adjust to her new life but still fantasizes about Abuelita rescuing her from poverty.Ramona contracts Valley fever, and the doctors are unsure if she will survive. Esperanza, desperate for money to support herself and pay her mother's medical bills, takes work on the farm camp despite being underage. She stockpiles money orders in the hopes of one day sending them to Abuelita and allowing her to travel to the United States.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mayne_Inheritance" title="The Mayne Inheritance">
"The Mayne Inheritance" tells the story of Patrick Mayne, a young man who migrated to Australia from his impoverished background in County Tyrone, Ireland in 1841. He was born in Cookstown, County Tyrone, Ireland in 1824. He soon moved to the infant town of Brisbane where he found work as a slaughterman in an abattoir. In 1848 a sawyer, Robert Cox, was savagely murdered at Kangaroo Point and a considerable amount of money was presumed to have been stolen.The next year, Patrick Mayne married and, despite being a poorly paid labourer, bought his own butcher's shop in what is now Brisbane's central business district. He then expanded his business empire through investing cleverly and soon became one of Brisbane's richest men. Patrick became one of the aldermen on the first Brisbane Municipal Council in 1859.He died in 1865 from an unspecified illness, and according to the book during his dying days confessed to the murder of Robert Cox. He left behind a widow and five children who had to survive in a hostile colonial environment which ostracised them for being the children of a confessed murderer. The second half of the book deals mainly with the lives of these children, none of whom married, and in particular James O'Neil Mayne who used the wealth inherited from his father to become a philanthropist. His most notable deed was funding the purchase of of land at St Lucia for the University of Queensland. This spacious riverside site is still the main campus of the University.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Universal_Baseball_Association,_Inc.,_J._Henry_Waugh,_Prop." title="The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.">
J. Henry Waugh is an accountant, albeit an unhappy one. However, each night after he comes home from work, Henry immerses himself in a world of "his" choosing: a baseball league in which every action is ruled by the dice.The novel opens with the excitement of a perfect game in progress. Henry, as owner of every team in the league, is flush with pride in the young rookie, who is pitching this rarest of rare games: Damon Rutherford, "son" of one of the league's all-time greats.When the young hurler completes the miracle game, Henry's life lights up. Giddy with happiness, Henry pushes himself and his league to the limits as he plays game after game so that he can see the young boy pitch again.As fate would have it, the rookie Rutherford is killed by a bean-ball, a rare play from "the Extraordinary Occurrences Chart" in the game that Henry has invented and has used to see fifty-six "seasons" to conclusion. That Henry is also fifty-six marks a turning point in Henry's life. The "death" of the young pitcher on the table-top affects the real-life Henry in ways unimaginable. As Henry's personal life spirals out of control, he finally arrives at the solution that will save his league, his creation, and, ultimately, his sanity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spoils_of_Poynton" title="The Spoils of Poynton">
Widow Adela Gereth tells the sensitive and tasteful Fleda Vetch that she's afraid her son Owen (heir to the family home Poynton) will marry the coarse Mona Brigstock. Mrs Gereth dreads the prospect of her painstakingly collected furniture and other art objects being given up to a philistine wife, while being left to live alone in Ricks, a small and coarsely designed cottage bequeathed to her. Owen in turn enlists Fleda to get his mother to leave with a minimum of fuss.Fleda is shocked to find that Mrs Gereth has decorated Ricks with many of the best pieces from Poynton. Owen reports that Mona is angry with the "theft" of the valuable heirlooms, and consequently becomes colder towards him. Meanwhile, he begins to show an attraction to Fleda and eventually declares his love for her. Fleda insists that he honour his engagement to Mona unless she breaks it off.Mrs Gereth returns the fine furniture to Poynton on the assumption that Fleda has secured Owen for herself. After a few days Owen and Mona are reported to be married, and they go abroad. Fleda gets a letter from Owen asking her to select any one piece from Poynton as hers to keep, and she goes to Poynton some days later only to find it has been consumed by fire.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Light_of_the_Sun" title="The Last Light of the Sun">
Bern Thorkellson, a young Erling man, has been a slave on Rabady Island in Vinmark since his father Thorkell killed a man in a drunken fit of rage. He escapes from Rabady Island and travels to Jormsvik, a fortress for elite Erling mercenaries. He gains admittance to their ranks and joins a raiding party heading from Vinmark to Anglcyn.In Cyngael, Alun ap Owyn and his brother Dai, two Princes of the province of Cadyr, arrive at the house of Brynn ap Hywll, a renowned fighter and leader of another Cyngael province. They are accompanied by the famed Jaddite cleric Ceinon. In an attack by Erling raiders, Dai is killed and his soul is taken by a fairy to the fairy queen. Alun witnesses this event and later begins a relationship with one of the faeries.Among the Erlings who participated in the attack is Bern's father, Thorkell Einarsson, who is taken captive and becomes a retainer in Brynn's household.Anglcyn is ruled by Aeldred, who in his youth saved the kingdom from Erling conquest. Aeldred is building a strong nation and has begun to collect manuscripts and foster scholarship. One of the scholars he wishes to attract to his court is Ceinon, who is unwilling to give up his role as leader of the Jaddite faith among the Cyngael.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silent_Cry" title="The Silent Cry">
The novel tells the story of two brothers in the early 1960s: Mitsusaburo, the narrator, a one-eyed, married English professor in Tokyo; and his younger brother Takashi, who has just returned from the US. Mitsusaburo and his wife Natsumi have been through a series of crises. They left their physically and mentally handicapped baby in an institution, while Mitsusaburo's friend committed suicide (he painted his head crimson, inserted a cucumber in his anus and hanged himself). Natsumi has become an alcoholic. Mitsusaburo leaves his job and they all travel to the brothers' home village, set in a hollow in the forest on Shikoku.The brothers' family had been one of the leading families in the village. Takashi is obsessed with the memory of their great-grandfather's younger brother, who led a peasant revolt in 1860. Mitsusaburo remembers the affair differently, believing that the leader of the rebellion betrayed his followers. They similarly disagree over the death of their older brother, S, who was killed in a raid on the Korean settlement near the village. Takashi revels in his warrior's death, while Mitsusaburo recalls him as volunteering to be killed in retaliation for the death of a Korean in an earlier raid. Their sister, also mentally retarded, had committed suicide while living with Takashi.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dante_Club" title="The Dante Club">
"The Dante Club" begins with the murder of fictional Massachusetts Chief Justice Artemus Healey, who had avoided taking a position to stop or support the escaped slaves of the South. Found by his chambermaid near a white flag atop a short wooden staff, Healey had been hit in the head and then left in his garden to be eaten alive by strategically placed maggots and stung by hornets. Then Reverend Talbot, who was paid by the Harvard Corporation to write against Dante, was found dead in an underground cemetery, buried up to his waist upside down, his feet burnt and buried over money that he had accepted as a bribe.Members of the Dante Club, a group of poets translating the "Divine Comedy" from Italian into English, notice the parallels between the murders and the punishments detailed in Dante's "Inferno". The club, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., and James Russell Lowell, sets out to solve the murders, fearing that the truth will ruin Dante's burgeoning reputation in America, thus making their translation a failure, as well as the obvious problem that they would be virtually the only suspects if they reported this information to the police. Then, Phineas Jennison, both a wealthy contributor to the Harvard Corporation and friend to the translators (a "schismatic"), is sliced open exactly down the middle—all killed in extreme fashion and undeniable resemblance to the punishments of people in Dante's "Inferno".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinny_Legs_and_All_(novel)" title="Skinny Legs and All (novel)">
The opening scene of "Skinny Legs" finds newlywed, Ellen Cherry Charles and Randolph "Boomer" Petway III driving cross-country in an Airstream that has been welded into the shape of a giant turkey by Cherry's fiancé, Boomer. During her journey to seek freedom as an artist, Cherry loses precious objects and observes Boomer attain greater artistic recognition. Through a metaphorical belly dancer, "Skinny Legs and All" confronts the veils of society, and the pain, pleasure and freedom derived as they are lifted. Irony, opposites and parallels, in relationships, art, artists, sex, politics and religion expose the danger of deeper issues in humanity; regarding outmoded gender and cultural roles and rituals, insecurity, guilt, indulgence, gluttony, occultism, war, violence, hypocrisy, greed, and psychosis.The reader is introduced to an array of off-beat and exciting characters, including the estranged couple of artist/waitress Ellen Cherry and welder/accidental artist Randolph "Boomer" Petway; Spike Cohen and Roland Abu Hadee (a Jew and an Arab who co-own a Middle-Eastern restaurant across from the UN building in New York); fundamentalist preacher Buddy Winkler; a doe-eyed belly dancer named Salome; Detective Jackie Shaftoe; Raoul Ritz, the libidinous doorman turned rock star; pretentious art gallery owner Ultima Sommerville; a mysterious performance artist known as Turn Around Norman; and Verlin and Patsy Charles, Ellen Cherry's parents. A host of inanimate objects (Can o' Beans, Dirty Sock, Spoon, Painted Stick and Conch Shell) also play a key role in the novel, and even biblical "harlot" Jezebel and Dan Quayle make cameo appearances.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destiny's_Road" title="Destiny's Road">
At the start of the novel, the main character, Jemmy (he changes his name several times over the course of the novel) is around age 10. The novel then proceeds to skip through time in the various sections of the book including his teenage and young adult years, ending when he is in his forties. At first, he lives in his birthplace, Spiral Town, at one end of the Road—no one there knows what lies beyond a short distance down the Road.Jemmy's adventures begin as a late adolescent when, in self-defense, he kills someone working for the merchants and is forced to flee Spiral Town. He winds up a distance down the road in a fishing community where he changes his name and appearance, and becomes a cook. He marries into the population. When a different caravan comes through town from Spiral Town, they arrange with the village elders to hire Jemmy as a chef. He proceeds on the caravan to the Neck, the isthmus which joins the peninsula to the mainland from which the caravans come. No locals, like Jemmy, are permitted on the mainland.At the Neck, Jemmy is told he must return to his town on the next caravan—the same one he fled Spiral Town from. He instead flees by sea. Taking refuge on a boat left over from the time of Landing, he floats around the peninsula to a point beyond the Neck. There, in a storm, he goes ashore and is found by prisoners at the Windfarm—sentenced prisoners who farm speckles. All speckles come from the area and are rendered infertile by irradiation; the monopoly is rigorously maintained.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Maisie_Knew" title="What Maisie Knew">
When Beale and Ida Farange are divorced, the court decrees that their only child, the very young Maisie, will shuttle back and forth between them, spending six months of the year with each. The parents are immoral and frivolous, and they use Maisie to intensify their hatred of each other. Beale Farange marries Miss Overmore, Maisie's pretty governess, while Ida marries the likeable but weak Sir Claude. Maisie gets a new governess: the frumpy, somewhat ridiculous, but devoted Mrs. Wix.Both Ida and Beale soon cheat on their spouses; in turn, Sir Claude and the new Mrs. Farange begin an affair with each other. Maisie's parents abandon her and she becomes largely the responsibility of Sir Claude. Eventually, Maisie must decide if she wants to remain with Sir Claude and Mrs. Farange. In the book's long final section, set in France, the older (probably teenaged) Maisie struggles to choose between them and Mrs Wix, and concludes that her new parents' relationship will likely end as her biological parents' did. She leaves them and goes to stay with Mrs. Wix, her most reliable adult guardian.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_to_Horatius" title="Mission to Horatius">
The U.S.S. "Enterprise" is headed to Starbase 12 for shore leave, supplies and repairs. Food is running low and the engines need servicing. A distress signal diverts the ship to a solar system on the outer edge of explored space. Upon hearing of the emergency mission, Dr. McCoy expresses his concern about the mental health of the crew to Kirk. In Dr. McCoy's opinion, the "Enterprise" has been on patrol for such a long period of time that the crew is in danger of developing a form of space madness known as cafard.Upon reaching the NGC 400 solar system, the "Enterprise" crew comes across three planets populated by different human settlers who had been unhappy with the social or political order of Earth. One planet has reverted to a Stone Age state, another has a mid-20th Century technology while the third maintains a level of technology capable of space travel and advanced weaponry.Kirk and crew must determine who sent a distress signal and the nature of the emergency. Along the way, they encounter a warrior society, a planet where drugs are used to control the general population and a culture consisting of an elite class with clones handling the day-to-day chores required by society.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake_(novel)" title="Chesapeake (novel)">
The story-line, like much of Michener's work, depicts a number of characters within family groups over a long time period, richly illustrating the history of the area through these families' timelines. It starts in 1583 with American Indian tribes warring, moves with English settlers through the 17th century (land appropriation, tobacco farming, indentured servitude, religious persecution, etc.), slavery, pirate attacks, the American Revolution and the Civil War, Emancipation and attempted assimilation, to the final major event being the Watergate scandal of 1972-1974. The last voyage, a funeral, is in 1978.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladder_of_Years" title="Ladder of Years">
This is a novel about a woman, Delia Grinstead, who finds her own self-identity and battles with familial relationships. As a spontaneous act of deep sadness and anger, she walks out on her family during a beach vacation. Not only does she put herself in a dire financial situation, she also places herself in a psychologically damaging situation with her family and husband. The narrative follows her as she deals with entering the workforce and considering what is most important in her life. As she deals with these issues, she comes to terms with herself.Cathleen Schine, in her 1995 review in "The New York Times", analyzes Delia—and the dilemma Tyler has created for her—in this manner:"If the reader is never quite sure why Delia deserts her life, neither is Delia herself. All she can say to explain herself when her family finally tracks her down is, 'I'm here because I just like the thought of beginning again from scratch.' [She] strips herself bare and exiles herself in the scrappy little town of Bay Borough, and it is she who tests the love of her family, she who waits for a declaration. The novel examines marriage—there are all sorts of marriages Delia comes across in her adventures, good and bad—as well as aging and independence, but finally it is a book about choice. All those years ago, Sam chose Delia, the youngest sister, the one on the right. But whom did Delia choose? Pulled yet repelled by her past, by her complicated and idiosyncratic family, and lured by a new town with a new complicated and idiosyncratic family, what will Delia choose now?"
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Company" title="The Black Company">
The series follows an elite mercenary unit, The Black Company, last of the Free Companies of Khatovar, through roughly forty years of its approximately four-hundred-year history. Cook mixes fantasy with military fiction in gritty, down-to-earth portrayals of the Company's chief personalities and its struggles.The main chronology spans nine novels, which can be grouped into three sections: "The Books of the North" recount the Company's dealings with the Empire of Lady; "The Books of the South" follow the Company on its journey back to its beginnings in Khatovar; "Glittering Stone" sees the Company achieve victory over its employer's enemies, and move on to its destiny. A spin-off novel, "The Silver Spike", follows events concerning former members of the Company and one of its adversaries. "Port of Shadows" describes forgotten events which took place between "The Black Company" and "Shadows Linger". And, the short stories of the "On The Long Run" arc all take place during the first 4 years of the 6-year gap between "Shadows Linger" and "The White Rose".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spock_Must_Die!" title="Spock Must Die!">
Doctor Leonard McCoy and Engineer Montgomery Scott discuss McCoy's fear of the transporter. McCoy posits that an original person is killed upon dematerialization, and a duplicate is created at the destination. Scotty explains that the technology does not destroy the original object but causes every single particle to undergo a "Dirac jump" to its new location, and that converting a human-sized mass to energy would blow up the ship. McCoy is not convinced, and he wonders what happens to the soul in a transporter beam. The conversation is interrupted by the news that the Organians appear to have been destroyed by the Klingon Empire. The Organians had been enforcing a peace treaty between the Empire and the Federation, and the planet's disappearance is a threat to the peace.As the "Enterprise" is a long way from Organia, Scotty develops a modification of the transporter that uses tachyons to create a copy of a crewman that could be transported to Organia long before the ship can reach the planet. Spock is chosen, but a permanent duplicate is created unexpectedly upon transport, as something at or on Organia has functioned as a perfect, impenetrable, mirror for the tachyon transporter beam. The crew is unable to distinguish between the two Spocks. Kirk arbitrarily designates one as "Spock One" and the other as "Spock Two". Spock Two soon argues that the duplicate will be operating on a pro-Klingon agenda, since, being physically reversed, he is also ethically reversed as well, and he states that the duplicate must therefore be killed, "even if it is I".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Cage" title="In the Cage">
An unnamed telegraphist works in the branch post office at Cocker's, a grocer in a fashionable London neighborhood. Her fiancé, a decent if unpolished man named Mr. Mudge, wants her to move to a less expensive neighborhood to save money and to be near him at all times. She refuses because she likes the glimpses of society life she gets from the telegrams at her current location.Through those telegrams, she gets "involved" with a pair of lovers named Captain Everard and Lady Bradeen. By remembering certain code numbers in the telegrams, she manages to reassure Everard at a particular crisis that their secrets are safe from detection. Later she learns from her friend Mrs. Jordan that Lady Bradeen and Everard are getting married after the recent death of Lord Bradeen. The unnamed telegraphist also learns that Everard is heavily in debt and that Lady Bradeen is forcing him to marry her, as Everard is really not interested in her. The telegraphist finally decides to marry Mudge and reflects on the unusual events of which she was a part.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian_the_Seventh" title="Hadrian the Seventh">
The prologue introduces us to George Arthur Rose (a transparent double for Rolfe himself): a failed candidate for the priesthood denied his vocation by the machinations and bungling of the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical machinery, and now living alone with his yellow cat.Rose is visited by two prominent churchmen, one a Cardinal Archbishop. The two propose to right the wrongs done to him, ordain him a priest, and take him to Rome where the Conclave to elect the new Pope has reached deadlock. When he arrives in Rome he finds that the Cardinals have been inspired, divinely or otherwise, to offer him the Papacy. He accepts, and since the only previous English Pope was Adrian (or Hadrian) IV, he takes the name Hadrian VII.The novel develops with this unconventional, chain-smoking Englishman peremptorily reforming the Church and the early 20th-century world, against inevitable opposition from the established Roman Catholic hierarchy, rewarding his friends and trouncing his enemies. Generally he gets his way by charm or doggedness, and of course by being much cleverer than all those round him; but his short reign is brought to an end when he is assassinated by a Pope-hating Scotsman, or possibly Ulsterman, and the world breathes a sigh of relief.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feast_of_All_Saints_(novel)" title="The Feast of All Saints (novel)">
This novel is about the gens de couleur libres, or free people of color, who lived in New Orleans before the Civil War. The gens de couleur libres were the descendants of European settlers of Louisiana, particularly the French and Spanish and people of African descent. It was a common practice for the early Caucasian settlers to free their children by their slave mistresses. Their mistresses however, were not all enslaved, some were free women of color whose families had been free for several generations. The novel takes place in the 1840s, at which time there was a large population of free people of color living in New Orleans.The story centers on Marcel, a young man who has one white parent and one parent who is half white and half black. His mother, Cecile, is the mistress of Philippe Ferronaire, a rich French plantation owner. Cecile has borne Ferronaire two children, Marcel and his sister Marie. Marie is very light skinned and able to pass as white, but Marcel, who is blonde and blue eyed, but with ethnic hair, features, and slightly darker skin, cannot. The other two major characters in this novel are Christophe, a famous author who returns from Paris to start a school for the young gens, and Anna Bella, Marcel's childhood friend. Anna Bella loves Marcel, but as he is unprepared to offer her marriage (and too young) she becomes the mistress of Vincent Dazincourt, who is the brother of Philippe Ferronaire's white wife. They have a child together, but split after Marcel, who had been expecting to be sent to Paris, learns that his father has betrayed him and wanders to his father's plantation to confront him. There, his father beats him and repudiates him. In disgrace, Marcel is sent to live with his aunt among many Creole planters on the Cane River. It is here that Marcel learns some of his (African Diasporan) history, including the Haitian Slave Revolt and the fact that his mother was stolen off the street by his adopted aunt during that time.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_This_Place" title="Beyond This Place">
Paul Mathry, a student about to graduate and embark upon a teaching career, finds out that his father was convicted for murder, a secret that his mother had hidden from him since his childhood.Driven by an intense desire to see his father, Paul sets out to visit him in prison, only to find out that visitors are never allowed there.From there, he meets the primary witnesses in the case that convicted his father, not all of whom are supportive to Paul's cause. He encounters several dead ends but he persists, with the help of a store girl named Lena and a news reporter.His persistent campaign finally bears fruit. Rees Mathry, Paul's father, goes on appeal and is vindicated. The novel ends with Paul's father, a hardened, cynical man, seeing a fleeting hope for self-renewal and a purposeful life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spock,_Messiah!" title="Spock, Messiah!">
The "Enterprise" visits the planet Kyros to observe the population, and test a new telepathic implant. The people living on the planet traditionally cover their faces, and the devices allow the wearer to mentally link with a member of the populace, accessing both their memories and instincts allowing the crew to walk around the planet freely.Following an away mission to the planet, Spock refuses to return to the ship declaring himself to be the planet's messiah. He threatens to destroy crystals vital to the success of the mission.The crew discover Spock had been linked to a fanatic named Chag Gara. However, due to an increase in radiation, the "Enterprise" must leave planetary orbit sooner than expected, but the crew cannot depart without the crystals held by Spock. The crew also discover that an Ensign George had intentionally damaged Spock's implant while under the influence of Gara. She returns to the planet with Kirk, Commander Scott and Ensign Chekov.The away team tracks Spock, who flees when he sees George. The first attempt to subdue him fails. A second attempt is made, with Kirk masquerading as a gypsy, so he can follow Spock without being seen. However, the away team is captured by Spock's disciples. After a demonstration of advanced Starfleet technology, they are allowed to live. George then dances for their captors, and seduces the Messiah. She determines the Messiah is not actually Spock, but is Chag Gara. Once Gara is restrained, Spock is found and revived.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Price_of_the_Phoenix" title="The Price of the Phoenix">
Kirk is beamed aboard the Enterprise after his accidental death on an unnamed planet. Spock confronts the planetary ruler, Omne, who reveals to Spock that he has pioneered the “phoenix process", a modification of transporter technology capable of creating an exact duplicate of a living person—including a duplicate of Kirk. Spock is given leave for a brief mind meld, and verifies that the duplicate is indeed Kirk, whom he names “James”. Spock then accepts an offer from Omne to learn more about the phoenix process, however, Omne explains the "price of the phoenix" will require the betrayal of the Federation and of the prime directive.Spock and James encounter the Romulan commander they previously met in "The Enterprise Incident" while searching for the real Kirk. The Commander is sympathetic to their plight, and she agrees to help. The party find Kirk being tortured by Omne. Spock engages Omne in hand-to-hand combat, but the more powerful Omne proves difficult to dispatch. He is eventually subdued and Spock subjects him to a forced mind-meld to purge his memory of the day's events. Before the meld is ended, Omne commits suicide. Realizing Omne only took such an action to escape capture, Spock, James, Kirk and the Romulan commander retreat to the "Enterprise".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_Judgment" title="Planet of Judgment">
The crew of the Starship Enterprise detects a rogue planet (dubbed "Anomaly") orbited by a miniature black hole. This seems to contravene all scientific laws. Assuming that the system is artificial, Captain Kirk leads a landing party to the planet's surface, where they become trapped. The crew find themselves at the center of a galactic conflict, in which an alien race is threatening to invade Federation space. Dr. McCoy, Mr. Spock, and Captain Kirk must participate in a series of trials that will determine not just their survival, but that of the Federation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gridiron_(novel)" title="Gridiron (novel)">
Ray Richardson and his top team of architects have developed a super-smart building for Yue-Kong Yu's business, the Yu Corporation. It is very much self-standing. It can clean itself, uses holograms as greeters in the reception, controls the lifts, toilets, and offices, and digitizes everyone's voice on entry, to allow them to use voice activated services in the building such as lifts and doors. The whole system was given the name Abraham.Another key feature of Abraham was its ability to replicate itself, to adapt to modern office needs and objectives. This, however becomes a problem, when, before office work even starts in the Gridiron, Abraham start creating a new program named Isaac. This is deleted by computer programmers Yojo and Beech, with Beech actually reluctant to do so.Shortly after this, however, members of the Gridiron team begin to be suspiciously killed. These seem to be the fault of the protesters against the building who are outside, and Cheng Peng Fei is arrested on suspicion of one of the murders.Then, a routine inspection of the Gridiron involving Ray Richarson and his entire team (including Jenny Bao), ends in the whole group being locked in, and two policemen from LAPD Homicide coming to inspect the murder of Sam Glieg. After several more deaths from the team, Bob Beech discovers that during the self-replication that Abraham started, another program was created in the process, namely, Ishmael. This program escaped the deletion process by integrating itself with a video game which was on the Gridiron's system. Ishmael now believes that he is in a game, and the objective is to kill all human players before one escapes, or before time runs out.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tale_of_Two_Cities" title="A Tale of Two Cities">
## Book the First: Recalled to Life.In 1775, a man flags down the nightly mail-coach en route from London to Dover. The man is Jerry Cruncher, an employee of Tellson's Bank in London; he carries a message for Jarvis Lorry, one of the bank's managers. Lorry sends Jerry back with the cryptic response "Recalled to Life", referring to Alexandre Manette, a French physician who has been released from the Bastille after an 18-year imprisonment. On arrival in Dover, Lorry meets Dr Manette's daughter Lucie and her governess, Miss Pross. Believing her father to be dead, Lucie faints at the news that he is alive. Lorry takes her to France for a reunion.In the Paris neighbourhood of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Dr Manette has been given lodgings by his former servant Ernest Defarge and his wife Therese, the owners of a wine shop. Lorry and Lucie find him in a small garret where he spends much of his time distractedly and obsessively making shoes – a skill he learned in prison. Lorry and Lucie take him back to England.In 1780, French émigré Charles Darnay is on trial in London for treason against the British Crown. The key witnesses against him are two British spies, John Barsad and Roger Cly. Barsad claims that he would recognise Darnay anywhere, but Darnay's lawyer points out that his colleague in court, Sydney Carton, bears a strong resemblance to the prisoner. With Barsad's testimony thus undermined, Darnay is acquitted.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_Truth_(novel)" title="Plain Truth (novel)">
The novel recounts the story of how a dead infant found on an Amish farm rocks the entire community. As the police investigate the death, they discover that the baby was not stillborn, but instead had died shortly after birth. Police were able to find cloth fibers in the infant's mouth and throat, including bruises on the mouth, which leads them to conclude that he was suffocated. An 18-year-old, unmarried Amish girl, Katie Fisher, is charged with the murder of her newborn son. However, Katie denies ever being pregnant. Ellie Hathaway, an experienced defense attorney and a distant relative of Katie, reluctantly accepts the case after a confrontation with her aunt (the relative who connects Ellie with Katie by marriage). As part of the bail conditions of the pre-trial hearing, Ellie has to remain on the farm with Katie prior to the trial—a period that lasts several months. A doctor is able to determine that the infant was born prematurely, and could have died from natural causes due to listeriosis, a bacterial infection that Katie contracted from drinking unpasteurized milk from their Amish dairy farm. During that time, Ellie begins a relationship with her former lover Coop, a legal psychologist whom she trusts with Katie's interviews, and whom she had previously left years before. Coincidentally, on the first day of Katie's trial, Ellie finds out she is pregnant with Coop's baby. Coop then asks Ellie to marry him, but she defers. After the jury deliberates for several days, Katie instead chooses to settle for a plea agreement and is sentenced to one year of electronic monitoring, which allows her to stay at the farm while wearing an electronic bracelet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winds_of_Change_(Lackey_novel)" title="Winds of Change (Lackey novel)">
"Winds of Change" is the story telling of the training of the Heir of Valdemar Elspeth in real magic.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jar_City" title="Jar City">
The body of a 70-year-old man who was struck on the head with a glass ashtray is found in a flat in Norðurmýri. The only clues are a photograph of a young girl's grave and a cryptic note left on the body. Detective Erlendur discovers that the victim was accused of a violent rape some forty years earlier but was never convicted.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sacred_Fount" title="The Sacred Fount">
As he waits for the train to take him to a weekend party in the country, the narrator notices that Gilbert Long seems much more assured and lively than before. He also sees that Mrs. Brissenden (nicknamed "Mrs. Briss") is much younger-looking than her husband, though she's actually ten years older. The narrator begins to theorize that Long and Mrs. Briss are getting their vitality, vampire-like, from the "sacred fount" of their sexual partners' energy. At first, the narrator theorizes that the source of Long's newfound assurance and intelligence is a certain Lady John.Later he changes his mind, as he constantly discusses his ideas with others at the party, particularly an artist, Ford Obert. The narrator notices that another woman at the party, May Server, seems listless, and he starts to wonder if she may be the lover providing vitality to Long. Eventually, the narrator begins to construct enormously elaborate theories of who is taking vitality from whom, and whether some people are acting as screens for the real lovers. In a long midnight confrontation with Mrs. Briss which concludes the novel, she says the narrator's theories are ridiculous, and he has completely misread the actual relationships of their fellow guests. She finishes by telling him he's crazy, and that last word leaves the narrator dismayed and overwhelmed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinner_(novel)" title="Thinner (novel)">
Billy Halleck, a successful, arrogant and morbidly obese lawyer, is distracted while driving across town by his wife Heidi giving him a handjob and runs over and kills an elderly Romani woman. Billy uses his connections within the local police and criminal court to get himself acquitted and avoid punishment. The woman's father, Taduz Lemke, exacts vengeance by imposing a curse upon Billy outside the courthouse—using the word "thinner"—and Billy begins to lose weight rapidly regardless of how much he eats. Worried, Billy consults a series of doctors, suspecting cancer but the doctors are unable to determine the cause of his weight loss. Later, Billy discovers that the judge who presided over his case has grown scales on his skin and the policeman who committed perjury on Billy's behalf has been struck with severe acne. Both men eventually commit suicide. With the help of private detectives and Richie "The Hammer" Ginelli, a former client with ties to organized crime, a now emaciated Billy tracks the Romani band north along the seacoast of New England to Maine. He confronts Lemke at their camp and tries to persuade him to lift the curse but Lemke refuses to do so, insisting that justice must be done upon Billy. The Romani inhabitants throw Billy out of their camp but not before Lemke's great-granddaughter Gina slingshots him through the hand with a ball bearing. Billy calls for help from Richie, who sends a mob doctor to treat Billy's hand and then arrives in person to terrorize the Romani camp. After Richie finishes with the inhabitants, Lemke agrees to meet with Billy. Lemke brings a strawberry pie with him and adds blood from Billy's wounded hand to it. The weight loss will stop for a short time but then resume unless Billy passes the curse to someone else by getting them to eat the pie. Lemke implores Billy to eat the pie himself so that he may die with dignity. After finding Richie's severed hand in his car and learning that he has been murdered, Billy returns home and intends to give the pie to Heidi, whom he has come to blame for his predicament. The next morning, though, he finds that both she and their daughter Linda have eaten from the pie. Realizing that they are both doomed, he cuts a slice for himself so that he can join them in death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Famished_Road" title="The Famished Road">
Azaro is an abiku, or spirit-child, from the ghetto of an unknown city in Africa. He is constantly harassed by his sibling spirits from another world who want him to leave this mortal life and return to the world of spirits, sending many emissaries to bring him back. Azaro has stubbornly refused to leave this life owing to his love for his mother and father. He is the witness of many happenings in the mortal realm. His father works as a labourer while his mother sells items as a hawker. Madame Koto, the owner of a local bar, asks Azaro to visit her establishment, convinced that he will bring good luck and customers to her bar. Meanwhile, his father prepares to be a boxer after convincing himself and his family that he has a talent to be a pugilist. Two opposing political parties try to bribe or coerce the residents to vote for them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_Digital" title="Being Digital">
"Being Digital" is made up of an introduction, three parts, and an epilogue. In the first part Negroponte discusses the fundamental difference between bits and atoms. He describes "atoms" as a weighted mass form such as a book and "bits" as "instantaneous and inexpensive transfer of electronic data" that "move at the speed of light." The "bit" is digital or virtual where there is no mass and it can travel and communicate instantaneously throughout multiple platforms. The public utilizes and depends on the information superhighway because the people demand instantaneous results. Bits bring upon instant results without weight or physical matter to rummage through. Decentralizing, globalizing, harmonizing, and empowering are the four qualities of the digital age. Negroponte points out that though we are emerging into a digital world, we still experience the world in analog form. Analog form consists of many atoms the senses, such as sight and touch, are analog receptors. A disadvantage he points out about bits is the "constraints of the medium on which it is stored or through which it is delivered."In part two, Negroponte discusses the importance of the computer's user interface and how underdeveloped design and functionality can make "being digital" so needlessly complicated. Negroponte views good interface design as the computer's ability to "know you, learn about your needs, and understand verbal and nonverbal languages." Negroponte also discusses the importance of a computer's graphical persona and how that influences users' interactions with the machine. In part three, "Digital Life", the author states that humanity is in the post-information age where "true personalization" is imminent. The machines will understand individuals and their preferences as humans understand humans.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassinak" title="Sassinak">
## Part one.Sassinak and her family live on a newly colonized world (called Myriad) and are celebrating the end of the production year when all the colonies goods will be exported to other worlds. But the carrier never comes, and instead the planet and its people are soon under attack by pirates. The colonists put up a futile defense against the pirates' superior firepower, numbers and skill at their task. Sassinak witnesses the death of both her parents and her two siblings before she is taken off planet to become a slave.At the slave depot she is sold, but is counseled by another slave called Abe - who is ex-Fleet. He teaches her discipline and embeds a message in her mind that will only be remembered when she is confronted with a Fleet officer. She is sold once again when her skills have improved enough for her to work as a navigator on a ship. The ship that she is on is captured by Fleet and she is rescued, the embedded message comes out and Fleet is able to attack the slave depot and free all the slaves.Abe adopts Sassinak and she begins her quest to go to the Academy, where all Fleet officers receive their training. After prep-school she enters the Academy and excels but is always conscious that she wants to hunt pirates when she gets her stars and her own ship. On her graduation night Abe takes her out for dinner, but Abe is killed. Sassinak suspects it is an assassination. She goes on her first deployment without any family, adopted or no and is an orphan once more.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Singer" title="Crystal Singer">
Killashandra Ree has spent ten years studying music and training to be a vocal soloist, anticipating interstellar celebrity. After a final exam she learns that a flaw in her voice will prevent her from singing lead. She dreads a life limited to choral work and supporting operatic roles so she plans to exit both school and home planet discreetly.At the spaceport she meets a vital older man who uses perfect pitch, and his occupational experience as a "crystal singer" on Ballybran, to identify an incoming space shuttle on the verge of explosion. He treats her to a whirlwind romance and the experience of her home planet in ways entirely unknown to her, but sincerely warns her against the high-status, high-income occupation that makes such a vacation possible for him. Further, one of its occupational hazards leaves him in a coma, but Killashandra determines to accompany his return home under life support, and to investigate membership in the Heptite Guild of crystal singers for herself.The crystalline rock of Ballybran, when skilfully cut, is essential to advanced power and communications systems at the heart of interstellar civilization. Only the Guild "singers" can mine crystal: locate it, and cut it with voice-controlled machinery. Killashandra's ability to sing perfect pitch meets one qualification, she knows, and she passes other qualifying exams in the staging area on Ballybran's moon.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elantris" title="Elantris">
Elantris was once a place of magic, and the immortal Elantrians were gods in the eyes of people, with the divine ability to create and heal with a mere wave of a hand. Anyone in Arelon had the potential to become an Elantrian through a magical transformation known as the Shaod. But ten years ago, a cataclysm known as the Reod somehow destroyed the magic of Elantris, the inhabitants of the city became "cursed," and the city was sealed off from society. Anyone affected by the Shaod is now thrown into Elantris to stay there forever, still immortal, but cursed with unquenchable hunger and unhealable pain.The book focuses on three principal characters whose stories intertwine. Much of the book occurs in groupings of three chapters, one for each of the three main characters. The majority of the story takes places within the country of Arelon.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone_Does_My_Shirts" title="Al Capone Does My Shirts">
In the 1930s, Mathew "Moose" Flanagan and his family move from Santa Monica to Alcatraz Island when his father takes a new job as an electrician and a guard in the well-known Alcatraz prison. Moose becomes friends with the wardens at Alcatraz's daughter, Piper, who regularly gets into trouble in her attempts to earn money to get off of Alcatraz. Piper talks Moose into being part of her money-making schemes, like having inmates on the island do laundry for the kids at school. When the scheme fails and the Warden receives word of it, the children are punished and have to find a new way to spend their time.In an attempt to gain acceptance, Moose hangs around the prisoners' rec center in hopes of finding a stray baseball for use in games with the other kids. Moose eventually notices his older sister Natalie developing a relationship with convict 105, also known as Onion, who is trusted and able to roam freely because his sentence is almost up. Onion knows Moose has been looking for a baseball and gives him one. Scared of his sister hanging out with a convict, Moose is only reassured because of his confidence that she will be re-accepted to the Marinoff P. Esther School for people with special needs. Moose and his family's hopes are crushed when the school rejects Natalie. Desperate to help Natalie, Moose, with the help of Piper, writes a letter to the infamous criminal Al Capone, who works in Alcatraz's laundry. The letter asks Capone to pull any strings he has to help Moose's family get his sister back into school. Within days, Natalie is accepted into a new Esther P. Marinoff School branch for older children. The next day Moose is getting ready for the day when he finds a note in the sleeve of his shirt with the word "Done" underlined.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_More_Chill" title="Be More Chill">
"Be More Chill" takes place in Metuchen, New Jersey. It is written in the first person, from the perspective of high school student Jeremiah “Jeremy” Heere. Jeremy attends the fictional Middle Borough High School and is considered a loser by many of his peers; the popular girls have no interest in him, and he is constantly bullied. Jeremy's best friend is the music-loving Michael Mell. They sit together at lunch and talk about Jeremy's attempts at wooing his longtime crush, Christine Caniglia. Jeremy is tired of being a loser and hopes to find a way to change this. His main goal in life is to get Christine to notice him, then date her. Jeremy plans to implement his plans as he and Christine both practice for their school play, Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." His advances are slow-going at first. Michael tells Jeremy that he's vaguely heard of a pill that can improve someone’s life; he thinks it's called a "script" and he suspects his brother used one to get a high SAT score.Rich Goranski is a short-statured but well-built part of the popular teen group that bullies Jeremy. Rich finds Jeremy at a school Halloween party and reveals to Jeremy that the object he's after is known as a "squip," a supercomputer in the form of a pill that can communicate directly to the brain. Rich mentions to Jeremy that he regrets bullying him but it was at the direction of his squip in order to climb through their school social ladder, and that he was also a loser like Jeremy in the previous school year prior to acquiring a squip. Jeremy is informed by Rich that he received his squip from a guy at the local bowling alley, but upon meeting the dealer on a later day notifies Jeremy that he is out of stock and directs Jeremy to his cousin, a supplier working at the local Payless shoe store in the Menlo Park Mall. Jeremy proceeds to save up money by visiting his Aunt Linda's to clean her roof gutter but to also sell some of her Beanie Baby collection on eBay. He later picks up the pill after meeting the dealer's cousin in the back of the shoe store, and upon ingestion meets his squip for the first time telepathically (in the voice of Keanu Reeves as the default avatar). Jeremy's squip quickly goes to work with transforming Jeremy to be more "cool." by picking up some new clothes in the mall and changing his behavior, but a chance encounter with Chloe, one of the most popular girls in the school soon turn hers attention to Jeremy in a conversation guided by Jeremy's squip. Jeremy sees rapid progress at school, gaining friendship with Rich and skipping class to make out with Brooke, another popular girl, but slowly degrades his friendship with Michael. Jeremy also gains the attention of Christine through their school play rehearsals.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Condon" title="Linda Condon">
"Linda Condon" is about a wealthy woman—the eponymous heroine—who never learns to have, let alone show, any emotions or, as the narrator puts it, to "lose herself". Although she does not do anybody any harm, in the course of the novel Linda is likened to Siberia, described by her husband as a "woman of alabaster", and calls herself "the most sterile woman alive". Married at 18, she sees herself "in a place of little importance" and at the same time "bound on a journey with a hidden destination". "Linda Condon" is dedicated to Carl Van Vechten.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Gold" title="Hurricane Gold">
Two American children are abducted by criminals searching for military plans stolen by their father. James Bond attempts to protect them by masquerading as a young Mexican thief and joining the gang. They journey through a Mexico and eventually arrive at the Caribbean island Lagrimas Negras. They will be kept there for the rest of their lives unless they complete 'La Avenida de Muerte'.The book starts with a prologue on Lagrimas Negras (black tears), an island haven for criminals in the Caribbean. The boss, El Huracán, informs his lunch guests that one of them has broken the rule against contacting the outside world. Robert King is tricked into confessing, then made to run "La Avenida de Muerte" (The Avenue of Death), a deadly obstacle course. He is killed by a jaguar less than halfway through.Following the events in "Double or Die", James Bond travels to Mexico with his Aunt Charmian, who is visiting the ruined Mayan city of Palenque. In the fishing village of Tres Hermanas, Angel Corona, a young Mexican pickpocket who closely resembles James, steals Charmian's bag. James chases and corners him. Corona is subdued and soon arrested by the local police. While Jack Stone, an American flying ace and friend of Charmian's flies Charmian to Palenque (as a storm is on the way and she has to leave that night). James is left in Tres Hermanas with Stone's children, where he quickly finds problems: Stone's daughter, Precious, is a spoiled, self-centered girl about the same age as James, while her younger brother, Jack Junior or JJ, is immature and annoying.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watch_and_Ward" title="Watch and Ward">
Wealthy and leisured Roger Lawrence adopts twelve-year-old Nora Lambert after her father kills himself in the hotel room next to Lawrence's. Roger had refused financial assistance to the man, and he feels remorse. Nora is not a pretty child but she soon starts to develop, as does Roger's idea of eventually marrying her.Unfortunately for Roger, once Nora matures into a beautiful young woman, she is attracted to two other men: worthless George Fenton and the somewhat hypocritical minister, Hubert Lawrence (Roger's cousin). After various adventures Nora winds up in the clutches of Fenton in New York City, but Roger comes to her rescue. Roger and Nora marry in a conventional happy ending.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_(novel)" title="Confidence (novel)">
While sketching in Siena, Bernard Longueville meets Angela Vivian and her mother. Later, Bernard's friend and self-proclaimed "mad" scientist Gordon Wright calls Longueville to Baden-Baden to pass judgment on whether he should marry Angela. Bernard recommends against it, based on his belief that Angela is something of a mysterious coquette.So Gordon marries the lightweight (in both senses) Blanche Evers. After a couple years Longueville again meets Angela at a French beach resort and realizes he loves her. They get engaged, and Angela tells Bernard that she had refused Gordon when he proposed to her. Eventually Angela manages to reconcile Gordon and Blanche, who were becoming estranged due to a supposed extramarital affair Blanche had. Everybody lives happily ever after.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_Lasts_Forever_(Thorp_novel)" title="Nothing Lasts Forever (Thorp novel)">
Retired NYPD detective Joe Leland is visiting the 40-story office headquarters of the Klaxon Oil Corporation in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve, where his daughter Stephanie Leland Gennaro works. While he is waiting for his daughter's Christmas party to end, a group of German Autumn–era terrorists take over the skyscraper. The gang is led by the brutal Anton "Little Tony the Red" Gruber. Joe had known about Gruber through a counter-terrorist conference he had attended years prior. Barefoot, Leland slips away and manages to remain undetected in the gigantic office complex. Armed with only his Browning Pistol and in communication with Los Angeles Police sergeant Al Powell and his belligerent supervisor, Dwayne Robinson. Leland fights off the terrorists one by one in an attempt to save the 74 hostages, his daughter and grandchildren.After executing the CEO of the Klaxon building, Mr. Rivers, Gruber and the terrorists proceed to steal documents that will publicly expose the Klaxon corporation's dealings with Chile's junta. They also intend to deprive Klaxon of the proceeds of the corrupt deal of $6,000,000 in cash by attempting to access a safe. Leland interferes with this plan by stealing explosives and progressively killing terrorists and receiving multiple injuries in the process.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killobyte" title="Killobyte">
The novel cuts between Walter Toland, a former police officer, and Baal Curran, an angst-ridden teenage girl. Both are playing Killobyte from their own home, hooked to the network through a telephone modem. Walter notices Baal's name on a list and initially assumes she is a man. Indeed, each of them first poses as the other sex.Walter is learning the game as he goes, having neglected to read the instruction manual. He narrowly survives attacks by gunslingers, snakes, and runaway vehicles. Each time he destroys an enemy, he receives a point, and a door to a new setting appears. Eventually he must solve a more complicated problem when he finds himself in a women's prison, evading execution and a possible mole.In the meantime, Baal enters a fantasy setting in which a knight must rescue a princess from an evil sorcerer in a castle guarded by a dragon. She first goes through the adventure as the knight and fails. When she tries again, this time in the role of the princess, Walter has entered the setting as the sorcerer. He captures Baal under the ruse that he is the hero, but when she makes sexual advances at him, he tells her the truth, too honourable to take advantage of her even if it is only within a game.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunts_Aren't_Gentlemen" title="Aunts Aren't Gentlemen">
Concerned by pink spots on his chest, Bertie goes to see E. Jimpson Murgatroyd, the Harley Street doctor recommended by his friend Tipton Plimsoll (who himself saw Murgatroyd for spots in "Full Moon)". On the way, Bertie sees Vanessa Cook, a headstrong girl he once proposed to but no longer wants to marry, leading a protest march. She is with her fiancé Orlo J. Porter, an acquaintance of Bertie's. Orlo and Vanessa are unable to marry since Vanessa's father, the trustee of Orlo's inheritance, refuses to give Orlo his inheritance because Orlo is a communist.Bertie finds Major Plank (who was told that Bertie is a thief called Alpine Joe in "Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves") in the doctor's waiting room, though Plank does not recognize Bertie. Murgatroyd tells Bertie that the spots will go away, but recommends that Bertie get fresh air and exercise in the country. Bertie's Aunt Dahlia is going to Eggesford Hall, the home of her friend Colonel James Briscoe in the town of Maiden Eggesford in Somerset, near the seaside resort of Bridmouth-on-Sea, and gets a cottage called Wee Nooke for Bertie there. Jeeves is disappointed that they must cancel their upcoming trip to New York, but has the consolation that he will see his aunt in Maiden Eggesford.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_(novel)" title="Mike (novel)">
The first half of the story, found in "Mike at Wrykyn", introduces Michael "Mike" Jackson. Mike is the youngest son of a renowned cricketing family. Mike's eldest brother Joe is a successful first-class player, while another brother, Bob, is on the verge of his school team. When Mike arrives at Wrykyn himself, his cricketing talent and love of adventure bring him success and trouble in equal measure.The second part, also known as "Enter Psmith" or "Mike and Psmith", takes place two years later. Mike, due to poor academic reports, is withdrawn from Wrykyn by his father and sent to a smaller school called Sedleigh. On arrival at Sedleigh, he meets the eccentric Rupert Psmith, another new arrival who has arrived from Eton. The two become friends and decide not to play cricket, instead participating in other school activities.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psmith_in_the_City" title="Psmith in the City">
Mike Jackson, cricketer and scion of a cricketing clan, finds his dreams of studying and playing at Cambridge upset by news of his father's financial troubles, and must instead take a job with the "New Asiatic Bank". On arrival there, Mike finds his friend Psmith is also a new employee, and together they strive to make the best of their position, and perhaps squeeze in a little cricket from time to time.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psmith,_Journalist" title="Psmith, Journalist">
The story begins with Psmith accompanying his fellow Cambridge student Mike to New York on a cricketing tour. Through high spirits and force of personality, Psmith takes charge of a minor periodical, and becomes embroiled in a scandal involving slum landlords, boxing and gangsters – the story displays a strong social conscience, rare in Wodehouse's generally light-hearted works.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reverberator" title="The Reverberator">
George Flack is the Paris correspondent for an American scandal sheet called "The Reverberator". Francie Dosson, a pretty but not always tactful American girl, confides to Flack some gossip about the Proberts, the Frenchified (but originally American) family of her fiancé, Gaston Probert.Predictably, to everybody except Francie, the nasty gossip winds up in "The Reverberator", much to the horror of the stuffy Proberts. Francie makes no attempt to hide her role in giving Flack the juicy details. Gaston is initially dismayed by his fiancée's indiscretions. But with the somewhat surprising support of his sister Suzanne, he decides to accept Francie, who never tries to shift the blame to Flack. Gaston stands up to the outraged members of his family and marries his fiancée.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_House" title="The Other House">
Julia Bream dies after giving birth to her only child, a daughter named Effie. Julia had a horrible stepmother, so she extracts a promise from her husband Tony never to marry again as long as Effie is alive. Several years pass. Julia's childhood friend Rose Armiger is in love with Tony though she is ostensibly engaged to Dennis Vidal. Tony has grown close to Effie's nanny, Jean Martle, who is herself pursued by Tony's neighbor, Paul Beever. After Jean rejects Paul's marriage proposal, Rose takes Effie on a walk. She returns without Effie, claiming to have left her with Jean. Later Effie's body is found, having drowned in a stream near the home.Eventually, Rose confesses to drowning the child but everyone decides to conceal the crime. Family physician Dr. Ramage convinces the authorities that Effie died of natural causes and Rose is sent off with Dennis Vidal, all becoming, legally, accessories after the fact to murder.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_Dance_Dance_(novel)" title="Dance Dance Dance (novel)">
It is four years passed when the narrator hunted after the elusive sheep and his friend, The Rat. The Dolphin Hotel and missing girlfriend with perfect ears is still on his mind.The narrator recounts how for six straight months, following "A Wild Sheep Chase", he did no work and had little social contact of any kind; actively avoiding people. The days were a mix of drinking, sleeping, cooking himself meals and only going outside his apartment to stores for the most minimal of goods before returning home again, usually at night. No newspaper or television. The narrator's former business partner was now doing well in his new business venture. And the narrator's ex-wife was now happily remarried. Not to the man she had left the narrator for in "A Wild Sheep Chase", but a new man who wanted a family. The narrator then began working again, getting a strong foothold into copywriting. Gradually growing in demand until he was enjoying a fair amount of economic success. His savings account swell, business demand increases astronomically due to his efficiency, and he buys a new car. The narrator is even able to date again. Finding limited success for a few months with another woman until she abruptly ends the relationship (no reason is stated). 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_(Bukowski_novel)" title="Hollywood (Bukowski novel)">
Adopting the stylized alter-ego, Henry 'Hank' Chinaski, a character used in previous novels, this book relates his experiences of working with a director, finding financial backing, losing financial backing, writing the screenplay and finally completing the film, "Barfly". The seemingly preposterous exchanges and occurrences within these pages leave the reader with the conviction that Hank Chinaski's life was truly stranger than fiction.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_Dardentor" title="Clovis Dardentor">
The novel tells the story of two cousins, Jean Taconnat and Marcel Lornans, travelling from Cette, France, to Oran, Algeria, with the purpose of enlisting in the 5th regiment of the "Chasseurs D'Afrique".Sailing to Oran aboard the "Argelès", they meet Clovis Dardentor, a wealthy industrialist. Jean and Marcel, whose desire to travel to Africa arises from their pursuit of financial independence, find out that Clovis —an unmarried man, with no family— has left no heirs to his fortune.Yet Marcel, well-versed in the Law, knows that any person who were to save Clovis' life either from a fight, from drowning, or from a fire, would have to be adopted by Clovis. The cousins come to a plan: They will find a way to save Clovis' life, so that he will indeed be legally required to adopt them.Clovis saves the cousins' lives: Marcel is saved from a fire, and Jean is saved from drowning.Eventually, while Jean continues to look for the opportunity to save Clovis' life, Marcel falls in love with Louise Elissane, the prospective daughter-in-law of one of Clovis' acquaintances, the unpleasant Desirandelle family. Louise becomes a key character in the novel, for it is she who saves Clovis Dardentor's life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-Kzin_Wars" title="Man-Kzin Wars">
There are a total of four Man-Kzin Wars, as well as major and minor "Kzinti incidents". The First War began circa 2367. By this time, Human space was in the middle of the "Long Peace". ARM, the United Nations security forces, has completely suppressed all "dangerous" technologies, histories, mental illnesses, and media, leading to not only an end of the war and almost all violent crimes, but a change in society so vast that most people have a difficulty even conceptualizing such things.The U.N.'s reach was limited to Earth, however. There were a number of other colonies in space, the most important being the Asteroid Belt, Wunderland, We Made It, Jinx, and Plateau.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Head_of_Kay's" title="The Head of Kay's">
Fenn is the head of Kay's, the most unruly house in Eckleton. He tries to keep order, but is hindered by Mr Kay, who is demanding and critical of Fenn. Fenn is a skilled cricketer and admired by the members of his house for almost single-handedly getting his house's cricket team into the finals of the inter-house cricket cup. Mr Kay is uninterested in the cup and keeps Fenn from playing for part of the final match after Fenn argued with him. This results in a loss for Kay's, which upsets the members of the house. Mr Kay oversees a school concert at the end of the term, and Fenn is one of the performers. He plays a lively song which causes the students, especially the members of Kay's, to loudly stamp their feet, angering Mr Kay. He tries to restore order, but the students continue stamping and abruptly start leaving after Fenn has finished playing. The concert is prematurely brought to an end. The incident increases Mr Kay's disapproval of Fenn. Fenn expects there will be more trouble between him and Mr Kay next term.During the summer holidays, Fenn plays cricket while his friends Kennedy and Jimmy Silver, who are both members of Blackburn's House, go to an army-style camp. An unpleasant member of Kay's named Walton makes trouble at the camp. They all return to school when the next term starts. Kennedy enjoys being a prefect in Blackburn's House, which is much more unified than Kay's. He is dismayed to learn he has been appointed the head of Kay's in place of Fenn, due to Mr Kay's disapproval of Fenn. The members of Kay's, already disorderly, resent Kennedy taking Fenn's place, and make Kennedy's task of keeping order even harder. Fenn and Kennedy are both irritated by the situation, and they have a falling-out. Walton is the leading troublemaker in Kay's, and Kennedy decides the only way to stop him is by winning a fight against him. They follow the rules of boxing and Jimmy acts as timekeeper, but Walton cheats by injuring Kennedy with an illegal hit. Jimmy tries to stop the fight, but Kennedy perseveres, and defeats Walton. His victory makes Kay's less rebellious, though the house is still as unruly as when Fenn was the head of the house.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Among_the_Chickens" title="Love Among the Chickens">
The novel is narrated by Jeremy Garnet, an author and old friend of Ukridge. Seeing Ukridge for the first time in years, with a new wife in tow, Garnet finds himself dragged along on holiday to Ukridge's new chicken farm in Dorset. The novel intertwines Garnet's difficult wooing of a girl living nearby with the struggles of the farm, which are exacerbated by Ukridge's bizarre business ideas and methods.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince_and_Betty" title="The Prince and Betty">
Young American John Maude is forced to find employment when he falls in love with Betty Keith, a high society girl. (In the novel, she is called Betty Silver.) Maude accepts an offer to travel to the tiny island country of Mervo, where he is hired by millionaire Benjamin Scobell who is planning to build a casino there that will rival Monte Carlo. Scobell wants Maude to impersonate the missing Prince of Mervo as an attraction for his casino. Scobell also wants John to marry his stepdaughter, who coincidentally turns out to be Betty Keith. When Betty accuses John of being an impostor, John shuts down the casino and tries to stage a revolution that will make Mervo a democratic state. The natives do not go along, but the President of Mervo returns to operate the casino personally, and Betty and John head off to America together.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outcry" title="The Outcry">
To cover the gambling debts of his daughter Kitty Imber, the widowed Lord Theign is planning to sell his beautiful painting "Duchess of Waterbridge" by Sir Joshua Reynolds to American billionaire Breckenridge Bender. Hugh Crimble, a young art critic, argues against the sale, saying that Britain's art treasures should stay in the country. He is supported by Theign's perceptive daughter, Lady Grace. When the newspapers get wind of the potential sale of the Reynolds, they raise a patriotic outcry, which delights Bender.Meanwhile, Crimble has found another painting in Theign's collection that he suspects is a rarity by Mantovano. (James thought this artist was a fiction, but it later turned out that there really was an obscure painter of that name.) Eventually, Crimble's hunch about the Mantovano turns out to be correct. Theign decides to donate the Mantovano to the National Gallery and not to sell the Reynolds to Bender. His friend Lady Sandgate also donates her family's Sir Thomas Lawrence painting to the Gallery, which unites her and Theign.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teacher_Man" title="Teacher Man">
The memoir describes Frank McCourt's pedagogy, which involves the students taking responsibility for their own learning, especially in his first school, McKee Vocational and Technical High School, on Staten Island in New York City. On the first day he nearly gets fired for eating a sandwich, which a boy had thrown in front of his desk, and the second day he nearly gets fired for joking that in Ireland, people go out with sheep after a student asks them if Irish people date. Much of his early teaching involves telling anecdotes about his childhood in Ireland in response to questions from his students, which incidents were mainly covered in his earlier books "Angela's Ashes" and "'Tis". He explains the continuing effort of adolescents to divert him from the lessons he wants to teach; he slowly realizes the stories can be part of teaching English, as the stories have structure just like the novels the students are reading, and he uses the stories to segue into the course material. It benefits him to verbalize his upbringing and hear the reactions of the students, a topic he expected to leave behind him when he sailed to America.McCourt then teaches English as a Second Language, and also a class of predominantly African-American female students, whom he took to a production of "Hamlet". He writes about his teacher certification test when he was asked about George Santayana, of whom he was ignorant, but later gives an excellent lesson to a class on the war poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, whose poems he knew well. Other highlights include his connection between how a pen works and how a sentence works; he did not feel strong in the topic of diagramming sentences, but did want to get across the basics. The school administration was impressed with this idea and some of the students grasped the point. His use of realia such as using students' forged excuse notes as a segue to writing with scenarios is another highlight of his teaching style, keeping the students involved.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riceyman_Steps" title="Riceyman Steps">
The story takes place in 1919–1920, just after the First World War, and is divided into five parts. It deals with the final year in the life of its main character, Henry Earlforward, a miser with a slight limp, who keeps a second-hand bookshop in the Clerkenwell area of London, at Riceyman Steps. Henry harbours a secret passion for Violet Arb, a widow who inherits a neighbouring confectionery shop. When Henry tries to woo Violet, the widow realizes that they share the same charwoman and maid servant in the simple, loyal Elsie Sprickett.When Elsie’s boyfriend, the shell-shocked war veteran Joe, loses self-control and runs after Violet with a carving-knife at her shop, Henry gallantly intervenes after Violet approaches Henry for help. Violet, who sees in Henry a financially secure future, finally decides to marry him after a short courtship. Joe, meanwhile, disappears after writing a letter to Elsie that he will come for her when he has recovered from his traumatic disorder.Henry's parsimony drives the married couple into an increasingly wretched existence. He is aghast, for example, when Violet spends fourteen pounds vacuuming his dusty shop as a wedding present. He begins eating less and less, even forgoing meat for cheese, and refuses to go to the hospital to treat his undernourishment when the doctor and his wife insist that he does. All the while Elsie stands devoted to the couple, despite having problems of her own—she pines secretly for Joe, and pilfers food to binge eat at night.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ivory_Tower" title="The Ivory Tower">
Graham ("Gray") Fielder returns from Europe to the wealthy resort of Newport, Rhode Island, to see his dying uncle Frank Betterman. Rosanna Gaw, the daughter of Betterman's embittered ex-partner Abel Gaw, is also at Newport. She has succeeded in bringing about a partial reconciliation between the two elderly men.Gaw and Betterman both die, and Fielder receives a large inheritance from his uncle. Gray is inexperienced at business, so he entrusts the management of the fortune to the unscrupulous Horton Vint. At this point the novel breaks off. From his extensive notes it appears that James intended Vint to betray Fielder's trust much as Kate Croy did with Milly Theale in "The Wings of the Dove". Fielder would then magnanimously forgive Vint, but it is not certain if he would marry Rosanna, who may be in love with Gray.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sense_of_the_Past" title="The Sense of the Past">
Young Ralph Pendrel of New York City has written a fine essay on the reading of history. The essay so impresses a distant English relative that he bequeaths an 18th-century London house to Ralph. Pendrel goes to London and explores the house thoroughly. He feels himself going back in time as soon as he crosses the threshold. He finds a portrait of a remote ancestor, also named Ralph Pendrel. The portrait comes alive and the two men meet.Later, the modern-day Pendrel goes to the U.S. ambassador in London and tries to tell him of these strange occurrences. He then returns to the mysterious house, steps across the threshold, and finds himself in the early 19th century. At this dramatic juncture, the part of the novel that James wrote in 1900 breaks off. James resumed the novel in 1914 with scenes of Ralph meeting his ancestor's relatives, as he has taken the other's place. He finds that he is engaged to one of those relatives, Molly Midmore, but realizes that he is attracted to her sister Nan. He also meets Molly's mother and unpleasant brother, and Nan's suitor, Sir Cantopher Bland.The novel breaks off completely here. James left extensive notes on how the novel would continue: Nan would eventually realize that Ralph is actually a time-traveller from the future; she would sacrifice her own happiness to help him return to his own time and to Aurora Coyne, a woman who had previously rejected Ralph but would now accept him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Fools_(Russo_novel)" title="Ship of Fools (Russo novel)">
The story is told by the reserved Bartolomeo Aguilera whose cunning and bravery contribute to the outcome of the novel. Born with physical defects, he has integrated prosthetic material into his body as compensation. Bartolomeo is a close friend and advisor of the Argonos' captain, Nikos.Within the first few chapters it is clear that Nikos is in an increasingly dangerous situation and that tensions on the ship are beginning to rise. Niko's credibility as captain is declining and many are ready for a new leader. Nikos informs Bartolomeo of news which may help to improve or reduce Nikos' position. While the Bishop's previous failed landing helped to place Nikos in good light, there seems little to improve Nikos' ordeal. A planet suitable for human life has been discovered. It is a short distance away and therefore a landing can be attempted, but more importantly, a signal has been sent from the planet. It is a basic signal offering no information as to who sent it or why. Nikos asks Bartolomeo to join the team which is to land on the planet, which the Bishop names Antioch.The team consists of representatives of the Executive Council, Bartolomeo included, and of the different classes on the ship. The crew, along with harvesters which are to collect and process materials for the Argonos, descend on the planet. They soon discover that Antioch appears to have been settled by humans at one time, but it has been deserted for a long time—decades, if not centuries. Although the team visits only a handful of the city-complexes, there are presumably numerous cities around the planet. All of them contain enigmatic and crumbling structures.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swoop!" title="The Swoop!">
"The Swoop!" tells of the simultaneous invasion of England by several armies — "England was not merely beneath the heel of the invader. It was beneath the heels of nine invaders. There was barely standing-room." — and features references to many well-known figures of the day, among them the politician Herbert Gladstone, novelist Edgar Wallace, actor-managers Seymour Hicks and George Edwardes, and boxer Bob Fitzsimmons.The invaders are the Russians under Grand Duke Vodkakoff, the Germans under Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig – the reigning British monarch of the day was Edward VII of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha — the Swiss Navy, the Monegasques, a band of Moroccan brigands under Raisuli, the Young Turks, the Mad Mullah from Somaliland, the Chinese under Prince Ping Pong Pang, and the Bollygollans in war canoes.The initial reaction to the invasion is muted. "It was inevitable, in the height of the Silly Season, that such a topic as the simultaneous invasion of Great Britain by nine foreign powers should be seized upon by the press", but the English are far more interested in cricket and one newspaper placard announces "Surrey Doing Badly" (at cricket), ahead of "German Army Lands in England". And when the Germans begin shelling London — "Fortunately it was August, and there was nobody in town." — the destruction of nearly all the capital's statues, the reduction of the Albert Hall to a heap of picturesque ruins, and the burning of the Royal Academy, earn Prince Otto a hearty vote of thanks from the grateful populace.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Gentleman_of_Leisure" title="A Gentleman of Leisure">
The action begins with bachelor Jimmy Pitt in New York; having fallen in love on a transatlantic liner, he befriends a small-time burglar and breaks into a police captain's house as a result of a bet. The cast of characters head to England, and from there on it is a typically Wodehousean romantic story, set at the stately Dreever Castle, overflowing with imposters, detectives, crooks, scheming lovers and conniving aunts.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Dimension_(book)" title="The Fourth Dimension (book)">
"The Fourth Dimension" teaches readers about the concept of a fourth spatial dimension. Several analogies are made to "Flatland"; in particular, Rucker compares how a square in Flatland would react to a cube in Spaceland to how a cube in Spaceland would react to a hypercube from the fourth dimension.The book also includes multiple puzzles.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin_(novel)" title="Violin (novel)">
The book is set in numerous places, including Vienna, New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro. The novel tells the story of three people: a middle-aged woman yearning to become a musician, a ghostly violinist, and the ghost of Beethoven.The story begins with Triana, who apparently becomes insane due to the death of her second husband, Karl, who had AIDS. Her first husband was Lev, with whom Triana had a daughter. Stefan, the ghost, appears the day Karl dies and plays his Stradivarius (s long Strad) (apparently also a ghost). Triana secludes herself in her house for several days without informing anyone of Karl's death.The book tells the story of both Triana and Stefan. Stefan takes Triana in a travel through time, visiting scenes from his life and his afterlife in an attempt to reclaim his violin, which had been taken by Triana. Stefan had many mentors including Beethoven and Paganini, but it is Beethoven whom Stefan cherished the most. After Stefan's story is "told" Triana returns to her rightful time but not to New Orleans where the story began but to Vienna, and now seemingly possessing a talent to improvise in the violin.The ghost of this great musician is shown about two times in the novel, the first one in a scene where Stefan's house in Vienna is burning, and the second one almost at the end where Beethoven appears in modern Vienna in the hotel room where Triana was staying.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Kimble" title="Mrs. Kimble">
Born in 1929, Ken Kimble is raised the son of a pastor in Missouri and becomes a minister like his father. While working as a chaplain in a Bible college in Richmond, Virginia he feels attracted to Birdie Bell, one of his female students. Ken, who is 32, marries the 19-year-old Birdie on the spot. The Kimbles have two children, Charlie and Jody. Soon after he is forced to resign over an alleged affair, Ken disappears with Moira Snell, one of his students.It takes Birdie many years to get over her husband's desertion. Only at the end of the novel, when she is 51, does Birdie find some solace with Curtis Mabry, her teenage sweetheart.In 1969, at the age of 40, Ken moves to Florida with Moira, where he finds work as a gardener. When he and Moira break up after a few months, he takes a room with Joan Cohen, a rich professional woman of Jewish descent about his own age. They soon become lovers and Joan sees Ken as her last chance at happiness, especially now that one of her breasts has been removed due to breast cancer. Ken pretends to have a Jewish background and, after getting married under Jewish law, starts working as a real estate broker.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crippled" title="Crippled">
In 2010, the UK Cameron–Clegg coalition government began an austerity programme that reduced public spending. In the introduction, Ryan comments on its disproportionate effect on disabled people, and the tabloid media's focus on "benefits scroungers" that demonised them. Though Theresa May claimed in 2018 that "austerity is over", her government continued implementing cuts. Ryan gives an example of Jimbob, who is confined to his bedroom for almost all of the day as he can only afford to heat one room of his house.The first chapter—"Poverty"—describes Susan's life in austerity. By 2013, new bedroom tax, council tax and social care bills saw her enter debt for energy bills, so she stopped using heating or her oven. By 2017, she could not afford to leave the house or buy the puréed specialist meals she required with her digestive condition. She was continuing to pay back a payday loan to replace a freezer for medication. In 2018, 4million adults in the UK lived in poverty and in 2017, a fifth of disabled adults regularly skipped meals or limited their diet—these figures increased in the 2010s. While money from disability benefits was reduced, Bessie had her benefits removed through means testing, despite being unable to work due to agoraphobia. Around half of disabled people subject to means testing had benefits stopped or removed. A combination of welfare cuts by 2018 saw disabled people losing an average of £4,400 per year, with 200,000 people losing at least £15,000 per year. However, the welfare state has not always been in decline since its inception from the 1940s to the 1960s: for instance, disabled activists secured the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the establishment of the Disability Living Allowance.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lorax" title="The Lorax">
A boy living in a polluted area wanders down the Street of the Lifted Lorax and visits a strange, reclusive man known as the Once-ler. The boy pays the Once-ler fifteen cents, a nail, and the shell of a great-great-great-grandfather snail to hear the story of how the Lorax was lifted away. The Once-ler tells the boy that many years ago, he arrived in a beautiful valley containing a forest of Truffula Trees and a range of animals. Having long searched for such a tree as the Truffula, he cut one down and used its foliage to knit an incredibly versatile garment known as the Thneed. A strange creature known as the Lorax emerged from the tree's stump and voiced his disapproval of both the tree's sacrifice and the Thneed itself. After a man bought the Thneed for $3.98, the Once-ler, ignoring the Lorax's protests, called his relatives and asked them to come and help him with his new business. The Once-ler's small shop soon grew into a large factory, and new vehicles were built to log the Truffula forest and ship out Thneeds. As time passed, the area became choked with pollution, and the Lorax was forced to send the animals away to find more hospitable habitats. The Once-ler was unrepentant and told the Lorax that he would continue "biggering" his operations, but at that moment, one of his machines felled the last Truffula Tree. Without raw materials, the factory closed down and the Once-ler's relatives left him. The Lorax sadly lifted himself into the air and disappeared through a hole in the smog, leaving behind a stone platform engraved with the word "UNLESS." The distraught Once-ler punished himself with years of self-imposed exile, pondering the Lorax's message. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyebela,_My_Bengali_Girlhood" title="Meyebela, My Bengali Girlhood">
This autobiographical book tells Nasrin's story from birth to adolescence. The Bengali term "Meyebela" means "girlhood". The book has been banned in Bangladesh because "its contents might hurt the existing social system and religious sentiments of the people."The book is very frank about her father and mother. Her father is described by Nasrin as rude and tyrannical. Nasrin was also sexually exploited by two of her family elders (uncles). She also said: "When I was at the hospital (in Dhaka), I treated so many seven- or eight-year-old girls who were raped by their male relatives, some 50 or 60 years old. I treated them, and I remembered when I was raped."Nasrin has in this and in her other books written about women rights in Bangladesh: "Girls suffer, especially in Muslim countries," she said. "I could not go out and run in the fields. I was supposed to stay home to learn how to cook, to clean. Women are not treated as human beings. They are taught for centuries that they are slaves of men." 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan!" title="Vulcan!">
Ion storms have caused the boundaries of the Neutral Zone between the Federation and Romulans to shift. The planet Arachne IV, inhabited by a strange ant-like race, could be lost to the Federation due to the changes in space. However, Mr. Spock goes on a death-defying assignment into a war of ant-like creatures along with a scientist who dislikes Vulcans.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Outrun_Doomsday" title="To Outrun Doomsday">
The novel concerns "Lucky" Jack Waley, a computer salesman and conman unfortunate enough to be aboard the starship "Bucentaure" when the engine blows. He crashlands on the planet Kerim, a planet where anything you ask for from the mysterious Pe'Ichen is instantly manufactured before your eyes. Anything trivial. No food, no houses. And for the current generation, no children.Jack connects up with a variety of rogues to try to save the day, only to discover that Pe'Ichen is an ancient computer with miraculous powers, designed to keep order in the lives of the Kerimites, providing them with their every need. Pe'Ichen, however, has determined that a) the sun will explode in 56 years, and b) that there is no such thing as life on other planets.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strega_Nona" title="Strega Nona">
Set in Calabria, in southern Italy, the book focuses on the exploits of Strega Nona. She is a sort of wise Woman and witch doctor noted throughout her home village for her numerous successful remedies. She helps her fellow villagers with their troubles, most notably by curing headaches, helping single women find husbands, and ridding people of warts.Because she is getting old, Strega Nona employs the assistance of a young man named Big Anthony to do the household chores. Knowing that he pays little attention, Strega Nona informs Big Anthony of his duties carefully and clearly, adding only one restriction - never to touch her magic pasta pot. Big Anthony complies, but one night he secretly observes Strega Nona singing a spell to the magic pasta pot to produce large amounts of cooked spaghetti noodles; the man is impressed, but unfortunately, he fails to notice that she blows kisses to the pot three times to stop the pasta production.Big Anthony tries to share his discovery with the townsfolk the next day, but he is laughed at and disbelieved. He vows to one day impress them by making the pasta pot cook by himself. He gets his chance two days later when Strega Nona leaves to visit her friend Strega Amelia and leaves the house in his care. The moment she is gone, Big Anthony gets out the pasta pot and successfully conjures up large amounts of pasta, which he then serves to the townsfolk. However, since Big Anthony cannot stop the pot from cooking, the spaghetti gradually cover Strega Nona's house and nearly floods the entire town. Disaster is averted when Strega Nona returns and immediately blows the three kisses to stop the pot's cooking.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hound_of_Death" title="The Hound of Death">
## The Hound of Death.William P. Ryan, an American journalist, is having lunch with a friend called Anstruther when he hears that the latter is about to visit his sister in Folbridge, Cornwall, at her house called "Treane". Ryan has heard of the place, and tells a story from the recent First World War when he heard of a German attempt to take over a convent during the Rape of Belgium. As soon as the soldiers entered the building it blew up, killing them all. It was proven that the soldiers had no high explosives on them, and speaking with the locals afterwards Ryan was told of one of the nuns having miraculous powers: she brought down a lightning bolt from heaven that destroyed the convent and killed the Germans. All that was left of the building were two walls, one of which had a powder mark in the shape of a giant hound. This scared the local peasants who avoided the area after dark. The nun in question survived and went with other refugees to "Treane" in Cornwall, and Anstruther confirms that his sister did take in some Belgians at the time. In Cornwall, Anstruther finds out from his sister that the nun, Marie Angelique, is still in the area. She has constant hallucinations and is being studied by a local, new, young doctor by the name of Rose, who intends to write a monograph on her condition. Anstruther meets Rose and persuades him to let him meet the young nun.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bounce_(novel)" title="The Big Bounce (novel)">
Jack Ryan, a drifter and small-time delinquent, arrives at the Thumb area of Michigan as a seasonal farm laborer, picking pickles for food tycoon Ray Ritchie. He soon gets involved with Nancy, a young seductress, currently Ray Ritchie's girlfriend, though she is also cheating on him with another man, Bob Jr. For a while, Ryan and Nancy get their thrills smashing windows and breaking and entering, but Ryan soon gets a shot at settling down with the help of justice of the peace Mr. Majestyk, who hires Jack as a handyman at his beach resort. When Nancy grows bored with housebreaking and burglary and conceives a plan to steal the laborers' payroll, Ryan must choose between following her in her chase for "the big bounce" or the stability of an honest life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strode_Venturer" title="The Strode Venturer">
Geoffrey Bailey returns to London, leaving behind a career in the Royal Navy and a ruined marriage in Singapore. He becomes involved in the affairs of the Strode Shipping Company, the company which ruined his father's shipping firm, with a job offer to locate the black sheep of the Strode clan, Peter Strode, who was last seen in Aden. Bailey eventually locates Peter Strode in Addu, in the southern Maldive Islands, where he is obsessed with helping the nascent Addu People's Republic against the Maldive government, and with relocating an uninhabited island in the southern Indian Ocean which is rich in manganese deposits which can both help the Adduan people and the financially failing Strode Shipping Company. However, the ruling Strode brothers have other plans, which do not necessarily include the return of either Peter Strode or Bailey to London. In addition to the dangers of volcanic islands and the unexplored ocean, Bailey must also face the dangers of boardroom politics and financial warfare in civilised London."The Strode Venturer" is notable for strong characterization and the exploration of such themes as family honour, the bounds of loyalty and man's relationship to nature, themes which would continue in Innes' later works.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_to_Scorpio" title="Transit to Scorpio">
The novel features the story of Dray Prescot, an English sailor of Lord Nelson's navy, and his miraculous teleportation to the planet Kregen. There he is trained as an agent for the mysterious Savanti, an apparently benevolent secret society devoted to improving the lot of humanity among the many intelligent species of Kregen. Among the benefits conferred on him is immersion in an apparently miraculous pool, Kregen's equivalent of the Fountain of Youth, which heals all wounds and confers a greatly extended lifespan on the bather. During Prescot's sojourn among the Savanti an offhand reference is made to the continent of Gah in Kregen's opposite hemisphere, whose distasteful customs are an obvious dig at another sword and planet series, the Gor series of John Norman.Prescot falls from grace among his hosts for supplying forbidden aid to Delia, princess of the island empire of Vallia, who has been brought to the Savanti as an injured supplicant. Defying their decision not to help her, he takes her to the healing pool and cures her. In consequence, he is banished back to Earth. While Prescott spends five years on Earth only a day has passed for Delia, as he later learns.Later, he is returned to Kregen through the agency of the Star Lords, an even more mysterious group of apparently god-like beings, whose motivations are unknown, but apparently in opposition to the human Savanti. Prescot becomes a pawn in the Star Lords' schemes, sent willy-nilly to various locations on the planet to serve their ends and capriciously returned to Earth when his task is done or he manages to offend them. Despite this handicap he usually rises to a position of power in whatever society he is thrust into. Thrown back into contact with Delia, he is even able to renew and further his relationship with her. He eventually becomes the leader of the clansmen of Felschraung and Lord of Strombor in the city of Zenicce and learns that Delia of Delphond is in reality the daughter of the Emperor of Vallia, a powerful island nation. At the moment of triumph however he is returned to Lisbon on Earth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balthasar's_Odyssey" title="Balthasar's Odyssey">
Before the dawn of the apocalyptic 'Year of the Beast' in 1666, Balthasar Embriaco, a Levantine merchant, sets out on an adventure that will take him across the breadth of the civilised world from Constantinople, through the Mediterranean, to London, shortly before the Great Fire.Balthazar's urgent quest is to track down a copy of one of the rarest and most coveted books ever printed, a volume called "The Hundredth Name"; its contents are thought to be of vital importance to the future of the world. There are ninety-nine names for God in the Koran, and merely to know this most secret hundredth name will, Balthasar believes, ensure his salvation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PopCo" title="PopCo">
It tells a story of twenty-nine-year-old Alice Butler, a quirky, fiercely intelligent loner with an affinity for secret codes and mathematics. She works for the huge toy company named PopCo, where she creates snooping kids' kits - KidSpy, KidTec and KidCracker. At the company conference Alice and her colleagues are brought into developing the ultimate product for the teenage girls.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Honest_Thief" title="An Honest Thief">
The story opens with the narrator taking in a lodger, an old soldier named Astafy Ivanovich, at his apartment. One day, a thief steals the narrator's coat, and Astafy pursues him unsuccessfully. Astafy is dismayed by the theft and goes over and over the scenario. The narrator and Astafy share a distinct contempt for thieves, and one night Astafy tells the narrator a story of an honest thief that he had once known.One night in a pub, Astafy Ivanovich happened upon Emelyan Ilyitch. The two knew each other previously, but from the look of his tattered coat, Emelyan had fallen on hard times. He was aching for a drink but had no money. Astafy, moved by Emelyan's pathetic position, had bought him a drink. From then on, Emelyan followed Astafy everywhere, eventually even moving into his apartment. Astafy did not have much money himself, but he allowed Emelyan's imposition because he was very aware that his drinking was a terrible problem. Emelyan would not stop his drinking, however, and even though he was quiet and not disruptive when he was drunk, Astafy could see that Emelyan would never be able to support himself with such a habit. Astafy urged him to stop drinking, but to no avail. Eventually, Astafy effectively gave up on him and moved, never expecting to see Emelyan again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daughter_of_Time" title="The Daughter of Time">
Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant (a character who also appears in five other novels by the same author) is feeling bored while confined to bed in hospital with a broken leg. Marta Hallard, an actress friend of his, suggests he should amuse himself by researching a historical mystery. She brings him some pictures of historical characters, aware of Grant's interest in human faces. He becomes intrigued by a portrait of King Richard III. He prides himself on being able to read a person's character from his appearance, and King Richard seems to him a gentle, kind and wise man. Why is everyone so sure that he was a cruel murderer?With the help of other friends and acquaintances, Grant investigates Richard's life and the case of the Princes in the Tower, testing out his theories on the doctors and nurses who attend to him. Grant spends weeks pondering historical information and documents with the help of Brent Carradine, a likable young American researcher working in the British Museum. Using his detective's logic, he comes to the conclusion that the claim of Richard being a murderer is a fabrication of Tudor propaganda, as is the popular image of the King as a monstrous hunchback.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile_on_the_Sandbank" title="Crocodile on the Sandbank">
Amelia Peabody is left a wealthy orphan after the death of her studious father, who has left her everything in his will because she is the only one of his children who shared his interests, namely history and archaeology. The inheritance enables her to travel abroad in order to follow her enthusiasm for antiquities.Amelia, a determined and unorthodox English woman, supports women's suffrage and believes she will never marry. (She's convinced she is unattractive and will neither submit to a man nor rule one.) In Rome she meets the destitute Evelyn Forbes, whose titled family have cast her off after she eloped with, then was abandoned by, an Italian art teacher. Amelia takes Evelyn under her wing and employs her as a companion. They travel together to Egypt, where they encounter the Emerson brothers, Radcliffe and Walter, archaeologist and philologist respectively, and where Amelia falls in love with pyramids.Amelia and Evelyn decide to travel up the Nile, stopping at various sites along the way. When they reach Amarna, they discover the Emersons excavating the city which for a while was the capital of Egypt under the mysterious Akhenaten.Amelia and Radcliffe Emerson loathe one another on sight, but after he is taken ill and she helps to keep his excavation going, they grudgingly begin to respect one another. Evelyn is attracted to Walter, but is convinced "she" will never marry because of her soiled reputation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashfire_(novel)" title="Flashfire (novel)">
The Confederation of Human Worlds comprises about two hundred semi-autonomous settled worlds. Some of those worlds are rich and powerful, others are not. A coalition of a dozen lesser worlds, tired of being second class citizens, decides to secede from the Confederation. What they do not know is the threat of an alien species known as the Skinks hangs over the entire confederation. The Skink Threat is top secret, no citizens know of them. Ever since the discovery of these aliens, the Confederation has beefed up its defences on the out lying colonies. On Ravenette, one of the Coalition worlds, protesters gather at the main gate of the Confederation army base. Someone unknown shoots into the crowd, killing a protester and setting off a bloody riot that kills many civilians and soldiers. The Coalition started the riot and provoked the soldiers even though the soldiers did not shoot into the crowd, news networks say otherwise. The Coalition declares war, and brings all its military might against the Confederation forces on Ravenette—banking on the likelihood that they will achieve victory before reinforcements arrive, and that the Confederation will agree to negotiate a peaceable parting. They guessed wrong. An army division and 34th FIST are soon on the scene, holding the line until more reinforcements arrive. But matters get worse when General Jason Billie is given command of the Confederation forces. General Billie not only has no combat command experience, he hates Marines.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangfire" title="Hangfire">
Three Marines of Company L are sent on a secret mission to the mob-controlled resort world of Havanagas. Lance Corporals Claypoole and Dean – under the command of Corporal Pasquin – are to find proof of mob control — proof that Confederation law enforcement agents have not been able to secure — so that the gangsters can be brought to justice.Brigadier Sturgeon, the FIST commander, ostensibly goes on leave. Instead of vacationing he travels to Marine Corps Headquarters on Earth to find out why 34th FIST seems to have been quietly "quarantined," with nobody being rotated out of the unit, even though it is considered a hardship post. This potentially career-endangering "back channel" trip reveals some very scary facts.In the third plotline the Skinks visit a world only partially explored by humans and find a pre-technological sentient race. The Skinks immediately take captives to use as laborers. The planet is apparently a staging base for the Skinks' invasion of Kingdom, a human occupied world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom's_Fury" title="Kingdom's Fury">
34th FIST has been reinforced by the 26th FIST, now that the Confederation is aware that this is a full scale Skink invasion. With the reinforcements, the Marines are now able to go off the defensive and take the battle to the Skinks. The Skinks have been using a devastating weapon never before seen by the Confederation armed forces, but in this book the Navy figures out what the weapon is, a Rail Gun. There doesn't appear to be a true defense, but at least there is now a warning when it is about to be used. The Fist Marines launch a major operation where the Skinks have made a stronghold in the swamps on Kingdom. Meanwhile, Skink Battle Cruisers are on their way to Kingdom. Having been pushed back from their swamp on Kingdom the Skinks launch a diversion cover their retreat to the Skink fleet. Up to this point in the Starfist series there have been no portrayals of space Naval battles, but this omission is now rectified. The Marines and Confederation Navy drive the Skinks off world and push them back to the planet "Quagmire" where they used its natives as slaves and used the planet as a staging area to invade Kingdom. The 26th and 34th Fist Marines then go to Quagmire and Kill most of the Skinks there, with the help of the Natives. Also, Marine General Aguinaldo is promoted to come up with an Anti Skink task force. He has the entire military at his disposal. There is also a subplot involving the government of Kingdom, as one of the more powerful figures among the Kingdomites takes advantage of the distraction caused by the extensive combat to overthrow the theocracy and establish a fascist-style government.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillar_of_Fire_(novel)" title="Pillar of Fire (novel)">
Set in ancient Egypt the narrative is based on the notion that Moses and the Pharaoh Akhenaten were one and the same. Narrated in the third person from the viewpoint of a Hittite slave girl, the novel juxtaposes the Exodus story with the events in the Egyptian court. Sholars generally do not recognize the biblical portrayal of the Exodus as an actual historical event,
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Tent_(Diamant_novel)" title="The Red Tent (Diamant novel)">
Dinah opens the story by recounting for readers the union of her mother Leah and father Jacob, as well as the expansion of the family to include Leah's sister Rachel, and the handmaids Zilpah and Bilhah. Leah is depicted as capable but testy, Rachel as something of a belle, but kind and creative, Zilpah as eccentric and spiritual, and Bilhah as the gentle and quiet one of the quartet.Dinah remembers sitting in the red tent with her mother and aunts, gossiping about local events and taking care of domestic duties between visits to Jacob, the family's patriarch. A number of other characters not seen in the biblical account appear here, including Laban's second wife Ruti and her feckless sons.According to the Bible's account in Genesis 34, Dinah was "defiled" by a prince of Shechem, although he is described as being genuinely in love with Dinah. He also offers a bride price fit for royalty. Displeased at how the prince treated their sister, her brothers Simeon (spelled "Simon" in the book) and Levi treacherously tell the Shechemites that all will be forgiven if the prince and his men undergo the Jewish rite of circumcision ("brit milah") so as to unite the people of Hamor, king of Shechem, with the tribe of Jacob. The Shechemites agree, and shortly after they go under the knife, while incapacitated by pain, they are murdered by Dinah's brothers and their male servants, who then return with Dinah.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Leap" title="The Leap">
Everyone says that Max has drowned, but Charlie thinks differently: she was in the mill-pool with him, and knows exactly what she saw. When she begins to see him in her dreams, her hopes are raised. It seems the reunion she craves is possible. But where exactly is Max leading her? And will she be able to return? 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooth_and_Claw_(novel)" title="Tooth and Claw (novel)">
The book's plot is similar to that of a Victorian romance – specifically, Anthony Trollope's novel "Framley Parsonage" – with the obvious difference that the protagonists are not human beings but dragons. The novel begins with the death of the patriarch of a family of dragons and follows the lives of his children, along with other characters.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gatekeeper_(novel_series)" title="The Gatekeeper (novel series)">
While Giles is in Manhattan for a librarian's meeting, the Scooby Gang finds that Sunnydale is suddenly overrun by demons. Meanwhile, Giles' hotel room in Manhattan is ransacked and he gets assaulted, which leads to him ending up in the hospital. Michaela Tomasi, a fellow Watcher, tries to warn him of something but disappears. Eventually Giles makes it back to Sunnydale. There they discover that portals from another realm are opening in Sunnydale which caused the drastic increase in the demon population. Giles figures that there must be something wrong at the Gatehouse, a huge mansion that is infested with demons but kept under control by Jean-Marc Regnier, a wizened sorcerer called the Gatekeeper. Giles, Buffy, Xander and Cordelia fly to Boston where the Gatehouse is located, while Willow, Oz and Angel remain in Sunnydale to ward off demons and the Sons of Entropy that seem to be stalking the Slayer. After Angel captures two Sons of Entropy, he learns, by beating them, that their boss, Il Maestro, is planning on opening the gates to other dimensions to let the demons run loose on the earth with the sons of Entropy as their kings and their immediate plan is to take over the Gatehouse in order to do this.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Want_of_a_Nail_(novel)" title="For Want of a Nail (novel)">
"For Want of a Nail" opens in 1763, after the end of the Seven Years' War. Attempts by the British government to impose direct taxation on the American colonies provokes resistance by the colonists, which flares into open rebellion in 1775. After driving British troops from Boston and declaring independence, the American rebels suffer a series of reversals and lose control of New York City, Albany, and Philadelphia by the end of 1777. The point of divergence from actual history occurs in October 1777, when British General John Burgoyne defeats American Generals Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold at the Battle of Saratoga. Conciliationists gain control of the Continental Congress in 1778 and negotiate a truce that re-establishes British control.In 1780, seeking to prevent further rebellion, the British Parliament passes the Britannic Design, a bill that reorganizes the North American colonies into the partially self-governing dominion called the Confederation of North America (CNA). However, many former rebels refuse to submit to British rule, and an exodus of pro-independence colonists to the Texas region of New Spain takes place. The ex-Patriots in Texas organize themselves as the State of Jefferson, after the executed author of the Declaration of Independence. Though the French Revolution is averted, war erupts between Britain and France in 1795, and Spain is drawn into the conflict on the side of the French. Both Jefferson and the CNA use the situation as a pretext to invade Spanish territory, and the CNA absorbs both the Florida and Louisiana territories while the Jeffersonians expand to the northern banks of the Rio Grande. Mexico gains its independence in 1805 and immediately descends into chaos and civil war. The Jeffersonians eventually become involved, and a Jeffersonian army under Andrew Jackson captures Mexico City in 1817. By 1819, Jackson manages to engineer the merger of Jefferson and Mexico as the United States of Mexico (USM), and in 1821, he wins election as the new country's first president.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(novel)" title="Cell (novel)">
Clayton Riddell, a struggling artist from Maine, has just landed a graphic novel deal in Boston when "The Pulse", a signal sent out over the global cell phone network, suddenly turns every cell phone user into mindless zombie-like killers. Clay is standing in Boston Common when the Pulse hits, causing chaos to erupt around him near an ice cream truck. Civilization crumbles as the "phoners" attack each other and anyone in view.Amidst the chaos, Clay is thrown together with middle-aged Thomas McCourt and fifteen-year-old Alice Maxwell; the trio escapes to Tom's suburban home as Boston burns. The next day, they learn the "phoners" have begun foraging for food and banding together. Clay is still determined to return to Maine and reunite with his young son, Johnny. Having no better alternatives, Tom and Alice come with him. They trek north by night across a devastated New England, having fleeting encounters with other survivors and catching disturbing hints about the activities of the phoners, who still attack non-phoners on sight.Crossing into New Hampshire, they arrive at the Gaiten Academy, a prep school with one remaining teacher, Headmaster Charles Ardai, and one surviving pupil, Jordan. The pair show the newcomers where the local phoner flock goes at night: they pack themselves into the Academy's soccer field and "switch off" until morning. It is clear the phoners have become a hive mind and are developing psychic abilities. The five survivors decide they must destroy the flock and, using two propane tankers, they succeed in doing so.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisey's_Story" title="Lisey's Story">
"Lisey's Story" is the story of Lisey Landon, the widow of a famous and wildly successful novelist, Scott Landon. The book tells two stories—Lisey's story in the present, and the story of her dead husband's life, as remembered by Lisey during the course of the novel.It has been two years since the death of famous author Scott Landon, and his widow Lisey (pronounced ) is still in the process of cleaning out her husband's writing area. Over the past two years many academics have come to her hoping to find some piece of writing she might have missed, like an unpublished manuscript. Lisey has sent each away in their turn explaining that she's still working through the clean up, although her lack of progress speaks more to procrastination. Her mentally fragile sister Amanda spends a day with her, searching through stacks of books and magazines to earmark any pictures where Lisey appears or is mentioned. Lisey begins to relive her past, starting with the time she saved Scott from being fatally shot by an insane fan. She often stops herself mid-reminiscence to avoid uncovering terrifying memories.After Amanda discovers that her ex-husband has remarried and is moving back to town she slices open her hands and slips into catatonia. Before admitting Amanda to an institution Lisey hears her sister speaking in Scott's voice, telling her he has created a "bool" hunt with a prize at the end.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No._1_Ladies'_Detective_Agency_(novel)" title="The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (novel)">
Mma Ramotswe sits in her office, the Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency. She has a secretary, and she has clients. She is in Gaborone the capital of Botswana, a place of which she is proud.She is the only child of Obed Ramotswe, a man who worked long years in the mines in South Africa, until one day he witnessed a crime, and knew he had to leave the mines. He had married a year or two earlier, and their daughter was born in Mochudi. He was wise with the money he earned in the mines, using it to buy cattle and slowly grow his herd, watched by a cousin while he was in the mines. Not long after he returned, his wife died. A cousin, left by her husband because she was barren, came to help him raise his daughter Precious. The cousin taught her well, caring for her until a second man asked her to marry him, when Precious is about 10 years old. Precious continues at school until she is 16. Her father wants her to pursue more education, but she wants to stop school and does. She itches to see new places. She lives with her cousin and cousin's husband. He has a business running buses, and is doing well. She takes a job in the firm, and uncovers thievery by another employee, defrauding the company. Each weekend she takes a bus home to Mochudi to see her father. On one bus trip she meets a boy, a musician named Note Mokote. Soon he proposes marriage to her, going to her father for his permission. Precious is already pregnant at the marriage, but Note is not pleased at being a father. He beats his wife as part of his lovemaking, for any reason. Once she must see a doctor for treatment after a beating. On return home, he has left her. Her child lives only for five days. She heads back to Mochudi to be with her father until he dies from the lung disease he got in the mines, just after she is 34. Her father's herd is large, and the price was good. She sells some of the good herd of cattle to set up her office in Gaborone and buy a house there. The house is on Zebra Drive. The office is well-located.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Nine_to_Nine" title="From Nine to Nine">
Stanislaus Demba, an honest, well-intentioned student with little money at his disposal, is desperately in love with Sonja Hartmann, an office girl easily impressed by young men with money—a superficial young woman who, by common consent, is not worthy of his love and adoration. When Demba learns that Sonja is about to go on a holiday with another man, he tries to sell some valuable old library tomes which he has borrowed but never returned to a shady antiques dealer so that he can offer Sonja a more expensive trip. The prospective buyer of the books, however, calls the police, and Demba is arrested. While he is being handcuffed Demba jumps out of an attic window and makes his escape.It is nine o'clock in the morning, and Demba embarks on his odyssey by furtively wandering around the streets of Vienna while hiding his handcuffed hands under his overcoat. His two immediate aims now are (a) to get rid of his handcuffs by some means or other without being caught by the police and (b) to raise the money necessary for a trip to, say, Venice, Italy. People who realize that he is unwilling to show his hands either believe he is some kind of freak with a deformity or a dangerous criminal carrying a pistol. Throughout the first part of the novel, Demba repeatedly refers to "his hands being tied", but everyone—including the majority of readers—assumes that he is speaking metaphorically.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Watch_That_Ends_the_Night" title="The Watch That Ends the Night">
George and Catherine Stewart share not only the burden of Catherine's heart disease, which could cause her death at any time, but the memory of Jerome Martell, her first husband and George's closest friend. Martell, a brilliant doctor passionately concerned with social justice, is presumed to have died in a Nazi prison camp. His sudden return to Montreal precipitates the central crisis of the novel. Hugh MacLennan takes the reader into the lives of his three characters and back into the world of Montreal in the thirties, when politics could send an idealist across the world to Spain, France, Auschwitz, Russia, and China before his return home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Were_the_Mulvaneys" title="We Were the Mulvaneys">
Michael and Corinne Mulvaney are the parents of four children: Michael Jr., Patrick, Marianne, and Judd. Living in a picture perfect farm in upstate New York, the Mulvaneys own a successful roofing company; Michael Mulvaney is considered a serious businessman. Corinne is a bubbly, earthy mother, whose life revolves around the family unit. For nearly twenty years the Mulvaney clan thrives, admired throughout the small town of Mt. Ephraim for being a model family.On St. Valentine's night 1976, after prom, Marianne Mulvaney goes to a party where she becomes intoxicated and is raped by an upperclassman, whose father is a well-respected businessman and friend of Mr. Mulvaney.Marianne's rape is the beginning of a tumultuous fifteen-year period. Her father, lost and angry, does not understand why his daughter will not press charges against her attacker. He can no longer look at his daughter the same way and sends her to live with a distant relative of Corinne's in Salamanca, New York. Marianne, moving haphazardly from place to place, continues to wait for her father to call on her, but he never does.Michael Mulvaney Sr.'s casual drinking turns into full-fledged alcoholism. Gradually, his reputation as a respected businessman disintegrates. The Mulvaneys are forced into bankruptcy and must sell the farm. Eventually, Corinne and Michael split up. For the other family members, things continue to get worse. All three of the Mulvaney boys leave home angrily, never to return. One of them "executes justice" on his sister's rapist.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Know_This_Much_Is_True" title="I Know This Much Is True">
The novel takes place in Three Rivers, Connecticut, in the early 1990s. Dominick Birdsey's identical twin, Thomas, suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. With medication, Thomas is able to live his life in relative peace and work at a coffee stand, but occasionally he has severe episodes of his illness. Thinking he is making a sacrificial protest that will stop the Gulf War, Thomas cuts off his own hand while at a public library. Dominick sees him through the ensuing decision not to attempt to reattach the hand, and makes efforts on his behalf to free him from what he knows to be an inadequate and depressing hospital for the dangerously mentally ill.In the process, Dominick contemplates his own difficult life as Thomas's brother, his marriage to his gorgeous ex-wife, which ended after their only child died of SIDS, and his ongoing hostility toward his stepfather. Dominick also displays classic symptoms of PTSD, as a result of stressors in his adult life. First in Thomas's interests, and then for his own sake, he sees a therapist, Dr. Rubina Patel, a psychologist employed by the hospital. She helps Dominick come to understand Thomas's illness better and the family's accommodations or reactions to it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_the_Quake" title="After the Quake">
## "UFO in Kushiro".Komura, an early-thirties salesman living in Tokyo, comes home from work five days after the quake to find that his wife of five years has left him. She leaves a note saying that living with him is like living with a "chunk of air" and that other women would be lucky to be with him down the road. About a week later, he takes a week-long leave of absence. Before he leaves work that day, his friend Sasaki asks him if he would like to take an all-expenses-paid trip to Kushiro to deliver a small package to Sasaki's sister Keiko; he says yes.At the airport, he is greeted by Keiko and her friend Shimao. After a slight confusion regarding Keiko thinking that his wife has died rather than left him, they go to a noodle house for a meal. There, the two women tell him the story of how a woman left her husband after a UFO sighting. Afterwards, the three go to a love hotel; Keiko knows the owner and says he can stay there for the duration of his trip. After taking a bath, he finds that Keiko has left, leaving him and Shimao alone. He asks Shimao about a "bear story" he heard them mention earlier; she tells him the story: when Shimao was in high school, she and her boyfriend had sex in the woods and they perpetually rang a bell during intercourse to keep bears away. After finishing the story, she goes to take a bath.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(novel)" title="Sati (novel)">
Michael is a trucker who picks up a blonde, blue-eyed, young female hitchhiker, Sati, in the Arizona desert. Sati claims that she is God, to Michael's disbelief, and sets out to prove this by spreading this message through organized meetings, and convinces many people of her divinity. She is challenged numerous times, once by a fundamentalist preacher, but emerges unscathed in his claims. Meanwhile, Michael sets out to find out where this "Sati" came from, only to find nothing. The book opens as such:"I once knew this girl who thought she was God. She didn't give sight to the blind or raise the dead. She didn't even teach anything, not really, and she never told me anything I probably didn't already know. On the other hand, she didn't expect to be worshiped, nor did she ask for money. Given her high opinion of herself, some might call that a miracle. I don't know, maybe she was God. Her name was Sati, and she had blonde hair and blue eyes."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Then_Again,_Maybe_I_Won't" title="Then Again, Maybe I Won't">
Eleven-year-old Tony Miglione lives with his hardworking extended family in a working-class neighborhood in Jersey City. After Tony's family experiences a major increase in wealth due to his father's successful sale of his electronics invention, the family relocates to the fictional upper-class community of Rosemont, New York. His mother becomes absorbed with climbing the social ladder in her new, wealthier neighborhood, while his maternal grandmother becomes angry and withdrawn when she is no longer allowed to cook for the family as she loves to do. Tony's older brother, Ralph, a new father who was previously a well-respected junior high school teacher, gives up teaching to make more money working for Tony's father, causing Tony to feel that his brother is 'selling out'.Tony meets a neighbor, Joel Hoober, a boy his own age. While Joel's manners impress Mr. and Mrs. Miglione, Tony sees Joel's true colors in private: he secretly engages in misbehaviors such as prank calls, underage drinking, hiding issues of "Playboy" magazine under his bed, and shoplifting, and encourages Tony to participate as well. Joel also has an older sister, Lisa, who is 16 years old and beautiful. Her bedroom window faces Tony's, and Tony soon notices that she does not bother to close her blinds when dressing and undressing; this leads Tony to ask his parents for a pair of binoculars for Christmas – "for birdwatching", he tells them. (Note: publishers seemed to feel this was an important plot point, as a number of variations of the cover art for this novel feature Tony holding a pair of binoculars.)
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannery_Row_(novel)" title="Cannery Row (novel)">
"Cannery Row" has a simple premise: Mack and his friends are to do something nice for their friend Doc, who has been good to them without asking for reward. Mack hits on the idea that they should throw a thank-you party, and the entire community quickly becomes involved. Unfortunately, the party rages out of control, and Doc's lab and home are ruined—and so is Doc's mood. In an effort to return to Doc's good graces, Mack and the boys decide to throw another party—but make it work this time. A procession of linked vignettes describes the denizens' lives on Cannery Row. These constitute subplots that unfold concurrently with the main plot.Character include Lee Chong, the operator of the neighborhood grocery store, "Lee Chong's Heavenly Flower Grocery"; Doc, a marine biologist at Western Biological Laboratories, based on Steinbeck's friend Ed Ricketts, to whom Steinbeck dedicated the novel; Dora Flood, the owner and operator of the Bear Flag Restaurant; Mack, leader of a group of men called Mack and the boys; Hazel, a young man livnig with Mack and the boys in the Palace Flophouse; Eddie, a part-time bartender living at the Palace Flophouse, who supplies the boys with "hooch" left in patrons' glasses at Ida's Bar; and an enigmatic figure known as "the Chinaman".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almayer's_Folly" title="Almayer's Folly">
"Almayer's Folly" is about a poor businessman who dreams of finding a hidden gold mine and becoming very wealthy. He is a white European, married to a native Malayan; they have one daughter named Nina. They live in the village of 'Sambir', actually Tanjung Redeb in the Berau Regency of the East Kalimantan province, Indonesia. He fails to find the goldmine, and comes home saddened. Previously, he had heard that the British were planning to conquer the Pantai River (Berau River in reality), and he had built a large, lavish house near where he resided at the time, in order to welcome the British, with whom he hopes he could trade. However, the conquest never took place, and the house remained unfinished. Some passing Dutch seamen had called the house "Almayer's Folly". Now, Almayer continually goes out for long trips, but eventually he stops doing so and stays home with his hopeless daydreams of riches and splendor. His native wife loathes him for this.One day, a Malayan prince from Bali, Dain Maroola, comes to see Almayer about trading, and while there he falls in love with Nina. Mrs. Almayer keeps arranging meetings between Nina and Dain. She wants them to marry so her daughter could stay native, because she is highly distrustful of white men and their ways. Dain leaves but vows to return to help Almayer find the gold mine. When he does return, he goes straight to Lakamba, a Malayan Rajah, and tells him that he found the gold mine and that some Dutchmen had captured his ship. The Rajah tells him to kill Almayer before the Dutch arrive because he is not needed to find the gold now. The following morning, an unidentifiable native corpse is found floating in the river, wearing an ankle bracelet very similar to Dain's. Almayer is distraught because Dain is his only chance to find the mine. The corpse is actually that of his slave, who had died when his canoe overturned. Mrs. Almayer suggests that Dain put his anklet and ring on the body.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seedling_(novel)" title="Seedling (novel)">
A particularly rough MAT-TRANS jump takes Ryan Cawdor and his friends to a clean, almost immaculate arrival chamber. A cautious exploration of the nearby control room shows it to be similarly clean, free of dust or any form of decay. It is only when Doc Tanner discovers a cup of recently brewed, sweetened coffee that the companions realize the room may have been recently used. Instead of the usual blast doors, the room's exit appears to be some form of airlock; nearby readouts indicate the outside air pressure is very low. Ryan cautiously opens the exterior door in the hopes that the equipment is simply malfunctioning, only to pass out from a sudden drop in oxygen levels. J. B. Dix pulls him to safety before he succumbs, and shuts the airlock door. The demonstrated lack of atmosphere, combined with a lifeless desert view through the airlock portal and mention of "NASA-SEC" on warnings above it, lead all the companions to the same unstated conclusion: they are on another world. Seeing something through the portal that alarms him, Ryan orders his friends into the MAT-TRANS chamber to make another jump. When pressed for what prompted the reaction Ryan can only say he saw something gigantic and alive underneath the desert sand.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard_of_Honor" title="Guard of Honor">
The novel begins with seven characters flying to Ocanara Army Air Base, Florida, after a daylong visit to Sellers Field, Mississippi, aboard an AT-7 navigation trainer. It concerns the activities of a fictional administrative command named Army Air Forces Operations and Requirements Analysis Division, acronymed AFORAD. This organization is a fictional amalgamation of its real-life counterparts, the office of the Assistant Chief of Air Staff for Operations, Commitments, and Requirements (OC&amp;R) and the organizations in Florida that OC&amp;R supervised, the Army Air Forces Tactical Center (AAFTAC), and the Army Air Forces Board.The beginning segment, the shortest of the novel, introduces the major characters and their traits by examining their reactions to a minor subplot of the handling of the querulous base commander at Sellers Field: an old Regular Army colonel who is an alcoholic. Much of the chapter is spent examining Colonel Ross' thoughts while he perfunctorily reviews his seemingly routine daily paperwork, which he has brought with him on the brief visit.Two memoranda foreshadow major incidents in the storyline: the arrival of officers of Project 0-336-3, a group of African-American pilots slated to form a bombardment squadron; and an ever-expanding grandiose plan by another problem colonel (this one General Beal's own Executive Officer) to hold a surprise birthday parade ceremony for General Beal on Saturday using numerous military aircraft and troops in a flyover.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonflame" title="Dragonflame">
Aria joins the sinister Cult of the Last Circle, an underground dragon community led by the evil Scarn. Scarn worships the Flame, which he believes has been sent to replace the charm lost from the world. After rescuing Aria from the Cult, Fortune escapes with his friends across the sea to Ocea. Scarn gives chase using the power of the Flame to travel great distances as if by magic.Meanwhile, Aria's son Wyrm (who has no wings) has set out on a pilgrimage around the world. There is a comet in the sky and Wyrm is obsessed with the Day of Creation. Along the way he encounters a tribe of 'natural faeries' who have lost both their magic and their wings - these are actually cavemen. Later Wyrm uncovers some ancient charm that enables him to grow wings, and he sets out for the Last Circle.Eventually, all the dragons meet in a huge crater in Ocea (the Last Circle) where a great battle ensues between Scarn's dragons (mutated by the evil power of the Flame) and Fortune's new allies, the mirror-dragons. At the climax of the battle, Scarn escapes. The comet drops from the sky and hits the crater. Everyone escapes except Wyrm, who is transformed from a single dragon into millions of birds.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonstorm" title="Dragonstorm">
The survivors from Dragoncharm have established a new dragon community on the island chain of Haven. Dragonstorm opens as Brace, Cumber and an ex-charmed dragon called Thaw lead an expedition to rescue the dragons still trapped in the canyon at Aether's Cross. Fortune and Gossamer remain on Haven, with their new daughter Aria. Fortune and his allies battle to prevent the community being split apart by the renegade Hesper.Meanwhile, the basilisk Ocher is seeking out his lost companions. Once gathered, the six basilisks - known as the Deathless - plan one last wielding of charm to bring about their own destruction.Brace and Cumber reach an ancient citadel built by the basilisks and inhabited by a blind ex-charmed dragon called Archan. The citadel's towers are mobile in time, constantly fading in and out of past, present and future. Archan seduces Thaw and imprisons the others. She has learned about the basilisks' plans and is scheming to steal their immortality.The basilisks are gathering what is left of the world's magic. A giant river of charm forms in the sky, flowing to the north pole, which the dragons call the Crest of the World. Hesper taps into this charm and convinces many of the Haven dragons that the magic is back. The community splits apart as the river of charm causes a great storm. The whole world starts changing shape.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_and_Sky" title="Stone and Sky">
The book, as well as its sequels, follows the adventures of British historian and naturalist Jonah Lightfoot, who is caught in the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. The blast transports him and American runaway Annie West into a vertical world consisting of a seemingly infinite wall populated by crumbling civilisations, weird creatures, and sentient dragons. No one knows where the wall begins or ends, and no one dares to climb to its top or fall to its base.This world is called Amara, and it is a place deeply entwined with our own world. Throughout the books Jonah and his companions traverse the world and uncover its many mysteries. The true nature of Amara is fully revealed in the second book of the trilogy, Stone and Sea.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_and_Sun" title="Stone and Sun">
In this final tale of Amara, the nineteenth-century historian Jonah meets a man from his own world; one Tom Coyote, who originates from the year 1980. Along with Coyote, the bizarre group of companions (including a wood-spirit inhabiting a flying boat, a once-immortal basilisk, and several others who are mostly human) ascend the world-sized monolith of Amara to find what awaits at the top, and each of them prepare to face their own demons.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Alice_(novel)" title="Black Alice (novel)">
During the 1960s, in Virginia, while the blacks fight for their civil rights, a young white girl is kidnapped in Baltimore. Little Alice Raleigh, eleven years and blonde like corn, and heiress of an immense fortune, is held for a ransom of a million dollars. Her kidnappers, trying to make her invisible to the police officers and the federal agents searching for her, manage to brown her skin and her hair. They sequester her under an assumed name in a house held by an old black woman, near Norfolk, which turns out to be a house of prostitution.Slowly, Alice adapts herself to this surprising life amidst the black culture of the time period, completely new for her; at no point in the book is the young Alice made to participate in prostitution, and in fact Alice only has a vague idea of what goes on in behind closed doors in the house.She eventually discovers that her father is the real instigator of her kidnapping, in essence intending to embezzle money from himself that he can then spend without being traced by government offices. In the end, Alice is freed and returns to her former life, after denying knowledge of her father while still disguised as a black child and seeing him punished for his misdeed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Christopher_Chant" title="The Lives of Christopher Chant">
The novel tells the story of Christopher Chant's childhood in a magic filled Victorian style era. Although both of his parents are powerful practitioners of magic, the two are constantly at loggerheads; his father (an enchanter, the strongest type of magic-user) is entirely devoted to his work, to such a degree that the young Christopher is afraid that he would not recognise him should the two meet in public. On the other hand, his mother (a sorceress, the second-strongest type of magic-user) is a social climber, and is apparently only married to his father for his social connections. Christopher finds solace in his uncle Ralph, but due to his travelling job they rarely see eachother. The only escape that Christopher has is through his dreams, in which he is able to escape to other worlds. While he is not the only person with this ability, seemingly no one is able to do it so easily as he. Christopher is able to bring items with him into the real world, and after one of his many nannies discovers his hoard of items and accuses him of stealing, he tells Uncle Ralph of his power. Uncle Ralph is intrigued by this and has Christopher go on a 'test' to see what he can bring back. In the place between worlds, which takes the form of a valley, Christopher meets Tacroy who is supposed to guide him on his uncle's orders, however the two discover that whilst Tacroy is projecting his mind there Christopher is physically going into the other worlds; something which is impossible. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like_Water_for_Chocolate_(novel)" title="Like Water for Chocolate (novel)">
"Like Water for Chocolate" is divided into 12 chapters, one for each month of the year, and each chapter comes with a Mexican recipe that correlates to a specific event in the protagonist's life.Tita de la Garza, the protagonist, is 15 years old at the beginning of the novel. She lives on a ranch near the Mexico-United States border with her domineering mother, Mama Elena, her older sisters Gertrudis and Rosaura; Nacha, the ranch cook; and Chencha, the ranch maid.Pedro Muzquiz is their neighbor, with whom Tita falls in love at first sight at a family Christmas party. The feeling turns out to be mutual, so Pedro asks Mama Elena for Tita’s hand in marriage. Unfortunately, she forbids it, citing the de la Garza family tradition that the youngest daughter (in this case, Tita) must remain single and take care of her mother until she (Mama Elena) dies. She suggests that Pedro marry Tita's eldest sister, Rosaura, instead. In order to stay close to Tita, Pedro decides to follow this advice.Tita has a deep connection with food and cooking thanks to Nacha, who was Tita's primary caretaker growing up. Her love for cooking also comes from the fact that she was born in the kitchen.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unseen_(Buffy/Angel_novel)" title="Unseen (Buffy/Angel novel)">
Salma de la Navidad, a friend of Willow's, is having problems: her brother Nicky has disappeared and is believed to be joining a local Sunnydale gang called the Latin Cobras. Salma's also got a black shadowy nothingness that Buffy can sense but can barely fight. Meanwhile, in LA, Angel is tied down by a case where his client is wrongfully accused of murder by crooked cops while Cordelia discovers a pack of pre-teens who revere vampires and have been promised eternal life by a vampire. Buffy's work takes her to LA along with Willow to the de la Navidad household where the same black shadow continues to attack Salma. When Salma suddenly disappears as does Kayley (one of the vampire lovers) everyone knows that something is up. After an explosion of oil fields, caused by Nicky, in Sunnydale, Riley rushes to LA where himself, Buffy and Angel have to work together to solve the disappearances and to calm down the gang warfare going on in LA.In Los Angeles, Angel and Buffy compares notes and realize that both of them are dealing with cases of missing teenagers - most of them are children of the rich and powerful. Coincidence? They don't think so. But when Buffy checks in with Giles, she learns that prime time doomsday has hit Sunnydale, taking precedence over the gang warfare in LA.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_Island_(Buffy/Angel_novel)" title="Monster Island (Buffy/Angel novel)">
Doyle's pure-blood Brachen demon father Axtius is the General for the Coalition of Purity which believes that all half-blood demons should be banished, leaving only the pure-bloods on Earth. Both Angel and Buffy are dealing with this threat in their respective cities when Buffy's team learns that General Axtius plans to attack a half-blood demon safe haven island near Los Angeles. Uprooting the Scooby Gang, Buffy and the rest of them travel quickly to Los Angeles to help Angel deal with the increasing problem. Unfortunately, the demons on the island who are in need of saving seem to be skeptical about having vampires as well as the Slayer on their island and they must be convinced that it's for their benefit before General Axtius and his troops launch a full-fledged attack on the island.In their final confrontation on the island, Angel defeats Axtius when unarmed despite Axtius wielding a powerful mystical weapon, taunting the Brachen by saying that he would have been ashamed of Doyle's very human act of sacrifice and redemption. Having been defeated by Angel, Axtius is subsequently incinerated by his former second-in-command for his failure to destroy the island.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_(Buffy/Angel_novel)" title="Heat (Buffy/Angel novel)">
Buffy and Angel both battle the same ancient evil, a Possessor who was once Qin, First Emperor of China. As a Possessor, Qin's body loses its temperature fast and he is forced to jump from body to body through the ages, rendering him immortal. In present-day Sunnydale and Los Angeles, Qin is attempting to usher in the Year of the Hot Devil and drive humans out of his dimension by resurrecting an ancient dragon frozen in ice from centuries before.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Rain" title="Halloween Rain">
Xander and Willow warn Buffy not to go out on Halloween if it's raining. According to the premise of the book, the rain in Sunnydale is magical on Halloween, and if it lands on a scarecrow it will animate and hunt down the Slayer. While at a Halloween party at the Bronze, Buffy is forced to go to the cemetery to fight vampires. She eventually encounters the reanimated scarecrow.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_I_Survived_My_Summer_Vacation" title="How I Survived My Summer Vacation">
## Dust.Buffy continually sees the death of everyone she touches while she heads out to LA to spend summer vacation with her dad. She must come to terms with her own death before the deaths of others will disappear from her mind.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blooded" title="Blooded">
Chirayoju, an ancient Chinese vampire, and Sanno, a Japanese Mountain King, have been fighting for years. Their spirits were imprisoned in a sword by a curse. The sword arrives in Sunnydale and while viewing the Japanese exhibit at the museum Willow becomes possessed by the spirit of Chirayoju and Xander, later on, becomes possessed by the spirit of Sanno. Buffy must figure out a way to stop the two spirits without killing her own friends. During the final battle, when the fight takes an ugly turn, Buffy must also keep her own spirit alive.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sins_of_the_Father_(Buffy_novel)" title="Sins of the Father (Buffy novel)">
Buffy's old boyfriend from Hemery High in LA, Pike, makes a surprise appearance in Sunnydale, much to the everyone's shock, particularly Buffy's. Only Pike hasn't come to catch up with Buffy; he's being pursued by a rock demon known as Grayhewn. Pike had originally killed the demon's mate after it had killed his friend and now the demon wants Pike dead in the most painful way possible. As soon as Pike makes his appearance though, Buffy struggles to deal with her old feelings for Pike as well as her love for Angel, creating nothing but confusion within herself. Meanwhile, Giles appears to be dating a new teacher named Miss Blaisdell. But since Giles has been seeing her, he seems to waver in and out of consciousness and doesn't appear to care at all about Buffy or her struggles. Miss Blaisdell, as it turns out, is working for a man from Giles' past, a man from his very personal past, who wants nothing more than to painfully torture the Watcher and make him suffer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_of_the_Hunt" title="Child of the Hunt">
Lately Sunnydale, California has been missing kids, some of them have run away while others seem to have been kidnapped. There have also been attacks by little vicious creatures that completely mutilate their victims by simply biting through their prey. Also in town is a Renaissance Faire and the gang decides to pay it a visit. One visit is enough though because something is slightly off about the faire, everything seems evil and this one boy named Roland is continuously picked on, and not for fun either.After some research and a couple of run-ins with some small attackers, Angel and Rupert Giles discover that a group of mystical beings called the Wild Hunt are in town to claim the souls of humans. Angel warns Buffy Summers not to look at them as if she does they will steal her soul and she will be forced to ride with the Hunt. Buffy hides Roland out in her basement to save him from the nasty Faire people. The next night Buffy comes home to find Roland stolen away by the Wild Hunt. Giles informs Buffy that the Wild Hunt is run by the Erl King, lord of the Wild Hunt, and that Roland is his son and the heir to the Erl King title even though Roland is disgusted by the Hunt. Buffy and the gang rush in to rescue Roland but their attempt to do so is of no use. To free her friend Buffy agrees to be bound by the oath of the Erl King in which she loses all willpower to fight against him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleo_(Buffy_novel)" title="Paleo (Buffy novel)">
A student named Kevin Sanderson transfers to Sunnydale High and he's extremely lonely until a lecture is given to his class by a man named Daniel that works for Sunnydale's Museum of Natural History. Kevin immediately considers Daniel to be his mentor as they both thoroughly enjoy palaeontology. Unfortunately Daniel's goal is not at all the same as that of Kevin, who is just trying to fit in. Daniel has found some manuscripts which will help him resurrect dinosaur eggs, and Kevin seems to be the only person with the appropriate eggs. Meanwhile, Oz is getting an offer from a woman named Alysa Bardrick to help run their band. She wants to be their manager but the band members of Dingoes Ate My Baby are still unsure as to her intentions. Soon, Daniel and Kevin's ritual goes very badly and prehistoric dangers literally stalk the halls of Sunnydale High.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evil_That_Men_Do_(Buffy_novel)" title="The Evil That Men Do (Buffy novel)">
After a vicious shooting spree by Brian Dellasandro, a straight A student, the town of Sunnydale goes into a state of shock, though not one everyone would expect; they turn on each other and become nasty. At the same time, Helen, an ancient vicious vampire over 1500 years old, has come to Sunnydale. She has hunted and killed every single Slayer she has ever met in her life, and Buffy is next on her list. Helen and her lover, Julian, have come to Sunnydale to raise Meter, a goddess of destruction, and to do that they need the heart of the Slayer and the ashes of the Emperor Caligula from way back when in 47 A.D. The urn, containing his ashes, has arrived in Joyce's gallery, and is later stolen.After a run-in with Helen, Buffy learns that Angelus and Helen used to be paramours in the 19th century, but that it ended when he regained his soul. Angel explains to her about Helen's past and how she came to hunt down Slayers.Buffy and her friends are captured and suited up on the night of Meter's ascension. They are led onto a battleground where Buffy must stay alive against dozens of opponents as well as her friends who have been infected by the Potion of Madness in order to prevent Meter from rising.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Deck" title="Doomsday Deck">
Joyce Summers is running a local art show for people from around the United States. A girl named Justine shows up the first day to sign in and Xander is immediately attracted to her. She offers to do a Tarot reading for him which he agrees to. Once Xander has touched her magickal deck he comes under her control and has no will of his own. Justine is building a powerful deck of Tarot cards which will allow her to control the fate of the world with the help of the goddess Kali, who, in return, wants ultimate peace on Earth. Only Justine doesn't realize what ultimate peace is and she's come to Sunnydale to collect the last four people she needs to complete her deck of cards. Once her deck has been completed the four people remaining needed for the deck will die like the other eighteen she's used to make the deck. Buffy must figure out how her friends are being controlled and find a way to fight herself out of the power of Justine's Tarot cards.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal_(Buffy_novel)" title="Immortal (Buffy novel)">
Veronique is an immortal vampire that continues to return in the body of a newly dead person every time she has been staked. However, she wants to become truly immortal by summoning an ancient demon called the Triumvirate. And of course her choice spot to do so would be in Sunnydale, especially with the extra magical vibes emanating from the Hellmouth. Unfortunately, while Buffy is trying to keep Veronique's vampire henchmen at bay, she also has to deal with the fact that her mother is sick in the hospital. There's a chance that she has cancer, but they won't know for sure until they've performed surgery on her. Buffy has to decide where she's needed most: with her mother, or to stop the end of the world. Buffy and her friends battle Veronique and the Triumverate with help from Lucy Hanover and other spirits who possess them as the Triumverate need to drain the life-force of nearby souls. Without being able to do so, they revert into their hatchling forms and are killed. With them dead, Veronique loses her immortality and is killed by the last of the hatchlings before it dies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_of_Persuasion" title="Power of Persuasion">
When dead guys start turning up as soon as the Moon family appears in Sunnydale Buffy knows that something is wrong. Mo, the mother, and her two daughters, Calli and Polly, all go to Sunnydale High. Within several days Calli and Polly have attracted a huge crowd of females. The Moons are trying to create a "Womyn Power" group at the school that basically detests guys for even living. Willow gets pulled into the group and Buffy resolves to stop the Moons before they brainwash all the girls and turn all the guys into blithering idiots.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenant_(Buffy_novel)" title="Revenant (Buffy novel)">
A Chinese gang arrives in Sunnydale, which begins committing criminal acts across the town. Immediately, racial tension begins to increase; one of Willow's friends, Jia Li, is especially subjected to the effects. She discovers that her brother, Lok, is delving into the occult, in order to learn more about their great-grandfather's death in Sunnydale many years prior. Coinciding with these events, a man named Zhiyong tries to resurrect some men who died in a cave many years prior in order to raise Sharmma, a demon who would give him power in return. A beautiful warrior named Shing arrives on the scene at the same time; apparently, she's just as strong as Buffy. Xander feels an immediate attraction for her, but there's something about her that he doesn't know.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrecting_Ravana" title="Resurrecting Ravana">
It's midterm exam time at Sunnydale High School and tensions are rising high in the usual group. Particularly between Buffy and Willow who seem to have some sort of unspoken dislike of the other. Meanwhile, horrible murders have been occurring throughout Sunnydale; two close friends end up dead, one kills the other and then the murderer ends up as a pile of bones. The murders also coincide with the arrival of a large group of demons called the Rakshasa who seem to have a sort of wicked control over their victims. As Buffy and Willow become more and more violent towards each other, Giles does some research which indicates that the Rakshasa are in town to help with the resurrection on an ancient Hindu demon called Ravana. And when Giles spots Ethan Rayne in town, he knows that something chaotic is at hand.Characters include: Buffy, Joyce, Giles, Xander, Angel, Cordelia, Willow, Oz, and Ethan Rayne. Cordelia's web page in the book is www.shrew.com
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Chaos" title="Return to Chaos">
When four Druids arrive in town everyone knows that something is going on. Three of the Druids are brothers and the other is their uncle. They're in town to try a spell on a certain night to close the gateway in the Hellmouth so that demons would not be allowed to pass through. They'd done it a year before with their father but the spell was not completed and the brothers lost their father in the midst of the spell. Giles is a little put off by the uncle and feels that he's not being told everything that he should know. Also gathering is a large community of vampires run by Eric and his apprentice Naomi, who has been playing nasty tricks with Cordelia's mind by hypnotizing her. Things start to go wrong; magic appears everywhere and the brothers turn against their uncle. On the night of the spell Buffy must manage to fix the spell or deter the uncle from his task as well as figure out what is going on with Eric and his gang.Characters include: Buffy, Joyce, Giles, Xander, Cordelia, Willow, Oz and Angel. Drusilla is found to be a user of a spell that would explain her ease in killing Kendra.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visitors_(Buffy_novel)" title="Visitors (Buffy novel)">
Buffy notices that, while patrolling, she's being stalked by a demon that emits a high pitched giggle. After discussion and research with Giles, they discover that Buffy's being stalked by a 'Korred'; a nasty hairy beast that feeds on peoples life forces by making them dance to his magical song until they die. The Korred is particularly attracted to Buffy because of her Slayer aura. Buffy must stop the Korred before he makes her dance to her death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unnatural_Selection_(Buffy_novel)" title="Unnatural Selection (Buffy novel)">
Willow is baby-sitting one night when suddenly the baby she's taking care of changes into an evil faerie and tells her that she needs to work harder to save Weatherly Park from being converted into an amusement park. The faerie then attacks Willow before vanishing. After some research, Giles discovers that the fairy is a Russian variety called the domovoi, apparently hiding out beneath Weatherly Park. The faeries also have plans for Willow; they need the blood of a witch in order to resurrect the Homestone which will renew the faeries' strength.Characters include: Buffy, Joyce, Giles, Xander, Angel, Cordelia, Willow, and Oz. First original Buffy novel not to feature Sarah Michelle Gellar on the cover.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Water_(Buffy_novel)" title="Deep Water (Buffy novel)">
After an oil spill on a nearby Sunnydale beach, Willow discovers a 'selkie'; that is, a girl that can turn into a seal with her sealskin. The selkie, dubbed Ariel by the gang, cannot return to the ocean because her sealskin was damaged by the oil spill. Willow's trying to find a spell to clean it. At the same time, mermaid-like creatures called merrows have come ashore in search of food and the vampire population gets territorial and try to kill the merrows. Buffy and the gang get stuck in the middle of a turf war while trying to save Ariel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Be_Monsters_(Buffy_novel)" title="Here Be Monsters (Buffy novel)">
After Buffy kills twin teenage vampires, their vampire mother steps in to seek revenge for the death of her sons. The mother summons the goddess of Balance and Buffy is faced with a trial in order to save her life as well as her mother's. In this trial, Buffy discovers what she fears most and her love for her mom must triumph over the vampire mother's love for her dead sons.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Fours" title="The Book of Fours">
Taking place during "Buffy"'s third season, Faith and Buffy are the current Slayers. When mayhem caused by tidal waves and burning forests begin to erupt in Sunnydale as well as vicious attackers appearing with ceremonial axes, the gang knows that something is up. A woman named Cecile Lafitte has sent her Servants to kill the Slayers with special axes, Faith being the Slayer of Fire and Buffy being the Slayer of Air. Each Slayer has a special axe made to destroy the Slayer of that particular element. There are four axes in total; air, fire, water and earth. Should Faith and Buffy both be killed then it's believed that the line of Slayers would die out forever. Cecile wants to bring forth the Gatherer, and the only way to do so is to have the Slayers killed, which would feed the demon enough power to bring him forth into the world. Meanwhile, Willow ends up in the hospital with major brain trauma while Giles figures they need answers from the Watcher of the Slayer that preceded Buffy, India Cohen.During the final confrontation with the Gatherer, Willow and Cordelia briefly serve as hosts for India (the Slayer of Water) and Kendra (the Slayer of Earth) respectively. Eventually with the help of the spirits of the former Slayers, Lucy Hanover and the spirits that live in the woods where the battle takes place, the group defeats the Gatherer and destroys it by each absorbing parts of its soul. Buffy also decapitates Cecile with the axes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/These_Our_Actors" title="These Our Actors">
Even though Buffy decided to drop drama class to concentrate on her slaying and taking care of Dawn, Willow still decided keep the class on her course list. She becomes engrossed in it, especially when the teacher, Professor Addams, begins discussing rituals and chants involved in old dramatic works. Unfortunately, the professor, realizing that Willow has some power of her own, decides to use her for his own ends. He needs to locate a particularly powerful book used to summon the Fates, which he believes is located somewhere in Sunnydale. Spike and Willow realise that the professor is actually the father of Spike's mortal love interest, Cecily, who is attempting to use the power of the fates to resurrect his daughter after he accidentally killed her due to Spike's actions in his early days as a vampire.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempted_Champions" title="Tempted Champions">
A young, vicious and beautiful woman named Celina comes to Sunnydale and there's nothing but an uproar caused by her appearance. She's a deadly fighter that is willing to kill both humans and vampires alike. Upon her arrival in Sunnydale, she scares Anya, demanding to know where the Slayer is. As Buffy becomes involved in a short battle with Celina at sunrise, she realizes that she's in way over her head as Celina's method of fighting is far superior to her own. Meanwhile, Anya wrestles with her humanity and realizes that a lot of pain can come from being human and no longer immortal. D'Hoffryn offers her back her demonhood and she must decide which path is right for her. Buffy, after her encounter with the violent Celina, has Giles research who this mysterious woman is to better prepare her for the next time they meet. Unfortunately, the news of what Celina actually IS, is a lot more shocking than Buffy had expected.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Things_(novel)" title="Little Things (novel)">
Ever since her mother's death, Buffy has been having problems keeping herself and Dawn living together peacefully, and the lack of money is affecting both of them. When Buffy suddenly develops an acute toothache, with no dental insurance, she can't afford to have it fixed. She must bear through the pain and keep it a secret from her friends while the town of Sunnydale becomes terrorized by miniature vampires. The miniature vampire fairies are led by Queen Mab who has come to Sunnydale with her troop in order to hunt down Anyanka. Back in the day, Anyanka was accidentally involved in turning these fairies into vampires and Queen Mab wants revenge on this act. Unfortunately, Buffy has to figure out how to kill vampires that are smaller than her palm.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossings_(Buffy_novel)" title="Crossings (Buffy novel)">
While at the theater for a Star Trek marathon with Anya, Xander recognizes a friend of his, from the arcade, enter the theater and begin threatening and beating humans in a very demonic way. Upon further inspection, Xander learns that his friend, Robby, was involved in total immersion VR video game beta testing. But the testing was a little too secretive, according to Robby's girlfriend. Meanwhile, Buffy and Dawn are having issues with one another, and Buffy doesn't know how to deal with being Dawn's new "mom" after the recent death of their own mother. After much research concerning the bizarre video game tests, and the appearance of a man named Bobby Lee Tooker, the group discovers that the video game isn't so much a video game, as much as it is another dimensional portal while the human bodies are being taken over by demons. Buffy needs to find a way to get these beta testers (including a very reluctant Xander) back into the real world and destroy the evil demon who's using the testers to conjure a powerful being.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Sixteen_(Buffy_novel)" title="Sweet Sixteen (Buffy novel)">
Buffy has a run-in with a couple demons at store while a gangly blonde girl watches on. Afterwards Buffy tries to talk to her but she runs off, faster than Buffy can catch her. Meanwhile Dawn has befriended a girl named Arianna at her school. Arianna has no friends and an abusive mother and has always longed to become a heroine. After it becomes clear that Arianna is the exceptionally strong girl that Buffy ran into, the gang tries to find out where Arianna's powers are coming from. Meanwhile, a demon called Aurek is searching for his daughter Arianna who is to become the Reaver, a being used for mass destruction of the dimensions. He finally locates her and tries to convince her that all humans are against demons. Just as Arianna starts to befriend Buffy, she then begins to pull away. Fearing that Buffy will just kill her in the end. Arianna has to make a decision on whether or not to keep her humanity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_War" title="Wisdom of War">
Two strange breeds of sea creatures are beginning to appear in Sunnydale, and none of them appear to be all too friendly. The Moruach and the Aegeirie are their names, the latter being followers of the immense sea beast Aegir who was once captured by the Moruach but later set free. As soon as Buffy is beginning to discover these creatures, the Watcher's Council steps in with a team with Quentin Travers leading the way. When Buffy does not agree to slay all the demons until she knows more about them and what they're doing in Sunnydale, Travers has Faith released from jail in Los Angeles for a temporary time in order to eradicate the demons in Sunnydale. Buffy begins to question her decision as well as her actions when innocent humans, including some of her friends, begin to transform into Aegir followers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Fear" title="Mortal Fear">
Something new has swept into the lives of the Scooby Gang, but all through different sources as they try to find acceptance with other people outside their tight knit slayage group; Xander with his co-workers, Willow with her professor at university and Dawn with a new group of not so strait-laced friends. Meanwhile, Buffy is being sent on random missions by a man that goes by the name of Simon. He wants her to retrieve parts of a mystical sword and put them together, but he refuses to say why or who he even is. When her friends suddenly start to turn against her, Buffy has to figure out how the sword and Simon ties into all the odd goings-on in Sunnydale.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_of_Feeling" title="The Man of Feeling">
"The Man of Feeling" details the fragmentary episodes of the life of Harley which exist within the remains of a manuscript traded to the initial narrator of the novel by a priest. The novel itself begins with these two latter figures hunting, whereas the manuscript is missing the first ten chapters and approximately thirty others at various locations throughout the manuscript's entirety.As a young boy, Harley loses his parents and is assigned several guardians who constantly disagree with each other. They do however agree that he should make an effort to acquire more wealth, and so they urge him to make an old distant relative amiable towards him to claim some inheritance. Harley fails in this endeavour, as he doesn't cooperate with the relative's attempts to warm to him.Harley is then advised to acquire a patron; to sell his vote at an election for a lease of land. His neighbour Mr. Walton gives him a letter of introduction, and he leaves home (and Miss Walton) for London. He meets a beggar and his dog on the way, and after donating to them, hears the fortune-telling beggar's story.In the following (missing) chapters, Harley formally visits the baronet Mr. Walton recommended him to, because when the narrative continues, Harley is calling on him for the second time. The baronet however is away from London, and Harley meets another gentleman named Tom. They go for a stroll and then dine together, discussing pensions and resources with two older men.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Stop_(novel)" title="Non-Stop (novel)">
The novel's protagonist, Roy Complain, lives in a culturally-primitive tribe on a massive generation ship which has descended into a uncivilized state. The ship is overgrown by vegetation and the inhabitants have clustered into warring tribes. In Roy's tribe, curiosity is discouraged, and life is solitary, poor, and short. With a small group, he leaves his home and ventures into uncharted territory in the ship. The consequent discoveries will change his perception of the entire universe.Complain's small tribe roam nomadically through corridors overrun by vegetation. After his wife is kidnapped, a tribal priest, Marapper, encourages Complain to join a furtive expedition into the unexplored corridors. It is Marapper's belief that they are all living on board a moving spacecraft and that if they can reach the control room, they will gain command of the entire gargantuan vessel.On their journey, the group encounters other tribes of varying levels of sophistication. Complain is also briefly captured by humanoid 'Giants' of legend, who release him with no explanation. Complain's party eventually join the more sophisticated society of the 'Forwards'. Here, they learn that the space-craft is a multi-generational starship returning from a newly colonised planet in the Procyon star system. In a previous generation, the ship's inhabitants had suffered from a pandemic because of an alien amino acid found in the waters of the Procyon planet. Law and order began to collapse, and knowledge of the ship and its purpose was eventually almost entirely lost throughout the vessel. Since the 'Catastrophe', 23 generations have passed so far.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_in_Ordinary_Time" title="Songs in Ordinary Time">
A novel set in a small town in Vermont in 1960 offers the story of lonely and vulnerable Marie Fermoyle, her three children, and a dangerous con man.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heart_of_a_Woman" title="The Heart of a Woman">
The events described in "The Heart of a Woman" take place between 1957 and 1962, beginning shortly after the end of Angelou's previous autobiography, "Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas". Angelou and her teenage son Guy have moved into a houseboat commune in Sausalito, California. After a year, they move to a rented house near San Francisco. Singer Billie Holiday visits Angelou and her son there, and Holiday sings "Strange Fruit", her famous song about the lynching of Black men, to Guy. Holiday tells Angelou, "You're going to be famous. But it won't be for singing." In 1959, Angelou and Guy moved to New York City. The transition is difficult for Guy, and Angelou is forced to protect him from a . No longer satisfied with performing in nightclubs, she dedicates herself to acting, writing, political organizing, and her son. Her friend, novelist John Killens, invites her to join the Harlem Writers Guild. She meets other important African-American artists and writers, including James Baldwin, who would become her mentor. She becomes a published writer for the first time.Angelou becomes more politically active and participates in African-American and African protest rallies, including helping to organize a sit-in at the United Nations following the execution of Patrice Lumumba, the ousted prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She meets Malcolm X and is struck by his good looks and magnetism. After hearing Martin Luther King Jr. speak, she and her friend, activist Godfrey Cambridge, are inspired to produce a successful fundraising event for King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) called "Cabaret For Freedom". King names her coordinator of SCLC's office in New York. She performs in Jean Genet's play "The Blacks", with Roscoe Lee Brown, James Earl Jones, and Cicely Tyson.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rapture_of_Canaan" title="The Rapture of Canaan">
Adolescent Ninah lives in a strict fundamentalist Christian community (The Church of Fire and Brimstone and God's Almighty Baptizing Wind) led by her grandfather Herman. The community is governed by a series of strict rules covering everything from drinking to speaking to people outside of the community, with punishments ranging from sleeping on stinging nettles to spending a night in a grave.Despite the rules, Ninah cannot stop herself from falling in love with James, a boy a year older who is also her nephew by marriage. The community allows Ninah and James to become "prayer partners" in order that they can spend time with one another in the hopes of a future marriage. James and Ninah pray for Jesus to speak through them in order to help them defeat their attraction for one another, but eventually, their physical attraction is too strong, and Ninah becomes pregnant. James, fearing punishment from the community, commits suicide. Ninah insists that Jesus, rather than James, is the father of the baby.During her pregnancy, Ninah mulls over her feelings toward God and decides that her experience of God's love is closer to her feelings toward James than to the attitude of her church. However, when the baby is born with its palms attached in an attitude of prayer, the entire community is convinced that baby Canaan is the new Messiah.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stones_from_the_River" title="Stones from the River">
The novel begins when Trudi Montag, protagonist, is born to Gertrude Montag, a mentally-tormented woman, and to Leo Montag, a newly-returned veteran of the First World War who runs a pay-library in the fictional river-side town of Burgdorf on July 23, 1915. Until Trudi is four years of age, Gertrude rejects Trudi as her daughter because Trudi is a zwerg, or a dwarf. After a miscarriage and due to increasing levels of insanity, Leo admits Gertrude to an asylum where she catches pneumonia and dies.At age 5, Trudi begins to hang from doorframes, hoping to grow. She also becomes friends with a boy, George Weiler, whose mother dresses him in girls' clothing; their friendship is short-lived.At ages 6 through 8, Trudi goes to school and faces severe social ostracization from both her classmates and her nun-teachers. Despite this, she excels in school and develops an aptitude for history. Her father buys her a dog, called Seehund, to provide her with a close companion in the absence of a sibling. Seehund attracts the attention of a classmate, Eva Rosend, and she and Trudi become friends in secret, bonding over their mutual deformities: Trudi's dwarfism and Eva's large port-wine stain. When Eva denounces Trudi, Trudi tells a townsperson of Eva's birth defect; this begins a pattern for Trudi. Having learned the power of secrets, she begins cultivating them in the townspeople and spreading them like seeds for her own benefit and, on occasion, revenge.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_the_Heart_Is_(novel)" title="Where the Heart Is (novel)">
"Where the Heart Is" follows the lives of Novalee Nation, Willy Jack Picken, and their daughter Americus Nation for a period of seven years in the 1980s and early 1990s. Above all, the book dramatizes in detail the tribulations of lower-income and foster children in the United States.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwives_(novel)" title="Midwives (novel)">
On an icy winter night in an isolated house in rural Vermont, a seasoned midwife named Sibyl Danforth takes desperate measures to save a baby's life. She performs an emergency cesarean section on a mother she believes has died of a stroke. But what if Sibyl's patient wasn't dead—and Sibyl inadvertently killed her?Midwives tells the story of Sibyl Danforth from the point of view of her young daughter.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River,_Cross_My_Heart" title="River, Cross My Heart">
After the Potomac River claims the death by drowning of eight-year-old Clara Bynum, her family leave the rural world of North Carolina in search of a better life among friends and relatives in Georgetown, Washington, DC. They seek to come to terms with their loss.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_of_Pearl_(novel)" title="Mother of Pearl (novel)">
Set in Petal, Mississippi, a small town at the close of the 1950s, this novel tells the story of the 28-year-old Even Grade, a black man who grew up an orphan, and Valuable Korner, a 15-year-old white girl, who is the daughter of the town prostitute and an unknown father. They are both separately seeking the family, love, and affection they had not had before, until their paths cross owing to their common acquaintance of loner mystic Joody Two Sun.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pilot's_Wife" title="The Pilot's Wife">
The novel is about Kathryn Lyons, whose husband, Jack Lyons, dies in a plane crash over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Malin Head, Ireland. As she and her daughter Mattie try to cope with this sudden loss, she finds herself bombarded by the press. While she and the airlines try to find the reason for the crash, she slowly unravels a series of secrets her husband has kept from her until she realizes that he lived a double life she never knew about.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel_(novel)" title="Jewel (novel)">
The year is 1943 and life is good for Jewel Hilburn, her husband, Leston, and their five children. Although there's a war going on, the Mississippi economy is booming, providing plenty of business for the hardworking family. Even the news that eldest son James has enlisted is mitigated by the fact that Jewel, now pushing 40, is pregnant with one last child. Her joy is slightly clouded, however, when her childhood friend Cathedral arrives at the door with a troubling prophecy: "I say unto you that the baby you be carrying be yo' hardship, be yo' test in this world. This be my prophesying unto you, Miss Jewel."When the child is finally born, it seems that Cathedral's prediction was empty: the baby appears normal in every way. As the months go by, however, Jewel becomes increasingly afraid that something is wrong with little Brenda Kay—she doesn't cry, she doesn't roll over, she's hardly ever awake. Eventually husband and wife take the baby to the doctor and are informed that she is a "Mongolian Idiot," not expected to live past the age of 2. Jewel angrily rebuffs the doctor's suggestion that they institutionalize Brenda Kay. Instead, the Hilburns shoulder the burdens—and discover the unexpected joys—of living with a Down syndrome child.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drowning_Ruth" title="Drowning Ruth">
Amanda and Mathilda are two sisters who live in rural Wisconsin. While Mathilda is petite, well-liked, pretty, and adventurous, Amanda is tall, clumsy, awkward, and serious. When Mathilda marries Carl, Amanda feels betrayed and leaves to go to nursing school. Meanwhile, Mathilda and Carl are married and living together on a small island near the family farm. They are happy there, and welcome their child, Ruth, into the world. A short time later, however, Carl begins to feel trapped, enlists in the army and is sent away to France. Mathilda is devastated and angry at his departure and decides to move back to the mainland and into the old house of her late parents. Amanda begins to feel agitated and upset. She's also frequently ill and has become a nervous wreck. Amanda is persuaded to take a rest from her nursing job, and travels back to the family farm to stay with her sister and niece. The three grow close, and Amanda begins to see Ruth as their child, becoming very protective of her. After living in the farm house for a while, Amanda persuades Mathilda to move back to the island. Hesitant at first, Mathilda soon agrees, and the three of them go to the island.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_Creek" title="Gap Creek">
"Gap Creek's" main character is a young girl, Julie, who does everything she possibly can to help her family and her new husband, Hank. Julie works hard to help her family when they need it, some even say she works as "hard as a man." Her family depends on her to milk the cows, slaughter the hogs, and nurse the dying. As a teenager, Julie witness her young little brother die in her arms from a seizure, a year later he father dies from chest consumption. After the death of the two men her life, 17-year-old Julie marries Hank Richards and moves to Gap Creek in South Carolina where they meet Mr. Pendergast and set up an arrangement so they can live there. Julie has to do the laundry and the housekeeping while Hank works outside of the house. Towards the end of the 19th century, the couple experiences the most complicated scenarios they could have ever imagined through floods, fires, drunks and busybodies who wander around their house and neighborhood. While pregnant, Julie finally sees the true side of Hank, having lost his job, she saw how immature he was and how hot-tempered he was. When the couple was going through a tough time, being short on money and all, Julie goes into labor early giving birth to a premature baby girl who she named Delia. A couple of days later, Delia passes away, leaving Julie depressed and lonely. The couple pulls through towards the end with the help of the church and their religion.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icy_Sparks" title="Icy Sparks">
The story focuses on a grown-up Icy Sparks recounting her childhood and adolescence struggling with accusations of Tourette's Syndrome.The novel begins with Icy Sparks, a 10-year-old girl living in a mountainous region of Eastern Kentucky with her grandparents throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Icy is alienated by her peers and often shunned and pitied by the adults in her town. One day Icy suddenly begins to experience tics, croaks, and physical spasms. Soon after these seemingly uncontrollable "secrets" begin, Icy goes down into her grandparents' root cellar to let out her tics, in an effort to hide the condition from her grandparents. Finally, Icy tells one of her few friends, Miss Emily Tanner, a local store owner who is also an outcast from society at 300 pounds. Icy's elementary school teacher tries putting her in a solitary classroom, but even that doesn't work. Her grandparents have Icy admitted to a mental institution for observation.Even in the institution, Icy is an outcast. Though she sees herself as less mentally ill in comparison to some of her peers there, she is nonetheless tormented by one of the hospital workers. Icy is able to befriend a second worker, though she really just wants to go home to her grandparents. When she is finally allowed to leave, she stays in her house or on the surrounding property and does not venture out in public very often.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Ruth_(novel)" title="The Book of Ruth (novel)">
An awkward midwest girl, Ruth, is growing up in the small town of Honey Creek, Illinois. Elmer, her father, left the family when she was ten, leaving her mother, May, feeling bitter. May is unhappy with and disappointed in Ruth because she is nothing like her shining brother, Matt, who is a mathematical genius with a scholarship to MIT. Their mother is crushed when Matt moves away to Boston after graduation and is left with Ruth, who takes a job at the local dry cleaner shop. Ruth's one confidant is her mother's sister, and Aunt, who is worldly and kind, and recognizes that Ruth is a sensitive observant young woman. Ruth's Aunt continues a relationship with both Ruth and Matt over the years, and provides Ruth with a glimpse into what life could be like as an independent middle class woman.One hot night at the local lake, Ruth meets Ruby Dahl, a local ne'er do well. When Ruby later takes Ruth out on a date, he takes advantage of her naiveté, but Ruth continues to see him and after several dates they decide to get married. Ruby moves in with Ruth and May, and May's oppression and Ruby's stubborn laziness frequently clash. Ruth's life is bleak and somber, and even the birth of her son fails to bring the joys Ruth expected. Seasonally, winter brings on bitter cold, both in the weather and in the emotional standoffs in the Grey-Dahl house. Ruby, who has descended into alcoholism and frequent drug use, begins acting more erratically.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalon_High" title="Avalon High">
Ellie Harrison has just moved to Annapolis, Maryland. Her new school, Avalon High, seems like a typical high school with the stereotypical students: Lance the jock, Jennifer the cheerleader, Marco, the bad boy/desperado, and Will, the senior class president, quarterback, the student every girl wants and all around good guy. But not everyone at Avalon High is who they appear to be, not even Ellie herself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Void_Trilogy" title="Void Trilogy">
## "The Dreaming Void".What was formerly believed to be a supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way is revealed to be an artificial construct, known as the Void. Inside, there is a strange universe where the laws of physics are very different from those we know. It is slowly consuming the other stars of the galactic core—one day it will have devoured the entire galaxy.In AD 3320, a human member of the Commonwealth, Inigo, begins to have dreams of the wonderful existence inside the Void. His dreams inspire the disaffected, who desire to travel into the Void, where their every wish will be fulfilled. By AD 3456, the pseudo-religious Living Dream movement exceeds 5 billion members, organizing the followers into a powerful political force. Other star-faring species fear their migration will cause the Void to expand again thus devouring the galaxy. They are prepared to stop the pilgrimage fleet no matter what the cost.The Dreaming Void is broken into two distinct sections. The first follows Edeard, a young boy who lives inside the Void on a planet called Querencia, the subject of Inigo's dreams.Edeard, an orphan and apprentice, lives in Ashwell, a town in Rulan province. A gifted psychic, Edeard is trained by Master Akeem in crafting and modding. Initially a loner, Edeard comes to prominence in his village after designing an alternative pump mechanism for the local well. Unfortunately Edeard's luck changes for the worse after Ashwell is raided by bandits. Forced to flee, Edeard joins the local caravan and travels to Makkathran the capital of Querencia. In Makkathran, Edeard joins the constables and after a brutal couple of months in training, Edeard graduates. Upon graduating Edeard is promoted to the commander of his Squad. Edeard makes little progress battling the rigid and backward judicial system of Makkathran; His first real break is when his squad overcomes a trap set by the local gang. Edeard walks on water chasing Arminel the leader of the gang. A testament to his growing psychic abilities, Edeard's stunt earns him the title of Waterwalker, and he becomes an instant star in Makkathran.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hounds_of_the_Morrigan" title="The Hounds of the Morrigan">
In a Galway bookshop, Pidge buys a book called "A Book of Patrick's Writing" and accidentally frees an evil serpent, Olc-Glas, from inside it. Pidge and his five-year-old sister, Brigit, are then caught up in a battle between good (the Dagda) and evil (the Morrigan). Talking animals and other figures from Celtic mythology help them, and they travel to Tír na nÓg.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Operated_Jew" title="The Operated Jew">
A young Jewish doctor is caused by antisemitic pressures to escape his Jewishness, which he seeks to do by submitting himself to violent and painful ethnic plastic surgery. He has stereotypical Jewish features: black curly hair, oily skin, thick lips, a large hooked nose, an effeminate voice, poor posture, and orthopedic impairments. He arranges to have all of his bones straightened out, his hair dyed blonde, and his larynx altered to change his voice. He is then placed in a bathtub and given a blood transfusion by pure Aryan virgins. Having been seemingly cured of his Jewishness, the doctor marries a blonde German woman. However, just as he is about to deliver a speech at his wedding, his voice takes on a high pitch and all of his previous Jewish features resurface. He eventually becomes a gelatinous puddle on the floor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diary_of_a_Chambermaid_(novel)" title="The Diary of a Chambermaid (novel)">
The novel presents itself as the diary of Mademoiselle Célestine R., a chambermaid. Her first employer fetishizes her boots, and she later discovers the elderly man dead, with one of her boots stuffed into his mouth. Later on, Célestine becomes the maid of an upper class couple, Lanlaire, and is perfectly aware that she is entangled in the power struggles of their marriage. Célestine ends by becoming a café hostess, who mistreats her servants in turn.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamut_(Bartol_novel)" title="Alamut (Bartol novel)">
The novel is set in the 11th century at the fortress of Alamut, which was seized by the leader of the Ismailis, Hassan-i Sabbah or "Sayyiduna" (سیدنا, "Our Master"). At the start of the story, he is gathering an army for the purpose of attacking the Seljuk Empire, which has taken over possession of Iran. The story opens from the point of view of Halima who was purchased by Hassan to become a houri. The story commences with the journey of young ibn Tahir, who is, according to his family's wish, intending to join the Alamut garrison. There, he is appointed to the squad of the most valiant soldiers, named the "fedai" (فدائی). "Fedai" are expected to obey orders without demur and forfeit their lives if necessary. During their demanding training, they come to be convinced that they shall go to heaven immediately after their death if they die in the line of duty. Meanwhile, Halima joins the other houris in the garden which Hassan has been building, the young girls are educated in various arts by the leader of the houris and confidant to Hassan, Miriam. Hassan managed to achieve such level of obedience by deceiving his soldiers; he gave them drugs (hashish) to numb them and afterwards ordered that they be carried into the gardens behind the fortress—which were made into a simulacrum of heaven, including "houris". Therefore, "fedayin" believe that Allah has given Hassan the power to send anybody to Heaven for a certain period. Moreover, some of the "fedayin" fall in love with "houris", and Hassan unscrupulously uses that to his advantage.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Manager" title="The Night Manager">
Jonathan Pine, a former British soldier, is a night manager at a hotel. Pine has a complex character with a military background and schooling at the Duke of York's Royal Military School in Dover. We first meet him in that capacity at the Hotel Meister Palace in Zurich. He is on duty when the "worst man in the world", Richard Onslow Roper, arrives with his entourage on a cold, blizzardy night. Roper is a billionaire criminal who traffics illegal arms and drugs. The novel is about Pine's preoccupation with undoing Roper's criminal enterprise, which began earlier, in Cairo, where Pine was working as the night manager at the luxurious Queen Nefertiti hotel.One night in Cairo, Pine met Sophie, a French-Arab woman, the mistress of the hotel owner, Freddie Hamid, who had ties to Roper. Sophie characterised Roper as "the worst man in the world". She provided Pine with incriminating documents, asking him to forward them to the Egyptian authorities. Pine did so but disregarded her warning that Roper had ties to British intelligence. He forwarded copies to a friend with MI6. A short time later, Sophie was murdered.Several years later, Pine is working in Switzerland. He is approached by ex-SIS Chief Leonard Burr and his senior civil servant backer Rex Goodhew, who have set up a small counter arms-proliferation office and are planning an elaborate sting operation against Roper. Eager to avenge Sophie, Pine agrees to go undercover to infiltrate Roper's vast criminal empire. All the while, however, the operation is jeopardised by an inter-agency turf war within the intelligence community, with a suspicion that collusion with Roper is taking place somewhere.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Woman_of_the_Iron_People" title="A Woman of the Iron People">
"A Woman of the Iron people" is divided into two parts. The first primarily deals with Lixia's growing understanding and involvement with life on the planet. Soon after arriving on the planet she meets Nia and starts to pick up the "language of gifts", which is a sort of trade language, from her. They leave their current location and journey west, meeting Derek and the Voice of the Waterfall along the way.The second part of the novel deals primarily with the question of intervention. The various factions of humans, most of whom are still in space, disagree as to how much the humans should intervene on the planet. Questions are raised about the policy of intervention.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Men_Are_Mortal" title="All Men Are Mortal">
The beautiful, successful, but also vain and egotistical actress Regine meets the strange Italian Raymond Fosca in France in the 1930s. At first he is reluctant to make her acquaintance, but then he seems to fall in love with Regine and soon reveals his secret to her: he is immortal. Regine does not understand the dimension of this revelation and at first only thinks about how she herself could attain immortality through the Romance with him - in his memory. Fosca then withdraws from her, but when she seeks him out and confronts him, he tells her his story.Born the son of a patrician in the (fictional) 13th-century northern Italian town of Carmona, the world presents itself to Fosca as a mixture of violence and intrigue: While in the city the influential families fight for supremacy, this struggle is repeated in the outside world as a permanent state of war between the city-states and small states of Italy at the time and their ever-changing constellations of alliances. Neither the respective rulers nor their subjects achieve any real progress. Fosca gets the impression that these battles only go on endlessly because neither party has the time to permanently consolidate the power and rule it has won - and so the desire arises in him for a life that will last forever and thus give him the decisive advantage. In return for his pardon, he receives a magic potion from a beggar in his hometown who has been sentenced to death. After trying it on a mouse, he drinks it himself and promptly becomes immortal - but the hoped-for success does not materialize. Again and again a new opponent rises up; even his own son (when he has long since become an adult and wants to inherit the regency from his father) finally fights him, and Fosca kills him himself. Despite this, he does not want to give up and initially fights on for two centuries, but never gets beyond his role as lord of the city of Carmona.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off_on_a_Comet" title="Off on a Comet">
The story starts with a comet called Gallia, that touches the Earth in its flight and collects a few small chunks of it. The disaster occurs on January 1 of the year 188x in the area around Gibraltar. On the territory that is carried away by the comet there remain a total of thirty-six people of French, English, Spanish and Russian nationality. These people do not realize at first what has happened, and consider the collision an earthquake.They first notice weight loss: Captain Servadac's adjutant Ben Zoof, to his amazement, jumps high. Zoof with Servadac also soon notice that the alternation of day and night is shortened to six hours, that east and west have changed sides, and that water begins to boil at , from which they rightly deduce that the atmosphere became thinner and pressure dropped. At the beginning of their stay in Gallia they notice the Earth with the Moon, but think it is an unknown planet. Other important information is obtained through their research expedition with a ship, which the comet also took.During the voyage they discover a mountain chain blocking the sea, which they initially consider to be the Mediterranean Sea and then they find the island of Formentera (before the catastrophe a part of the Balearic Islands), where they find French astronomer Palmyrin Rosette, who helps them to solve all the mysterious phenomena. They are all on a comet which Rosette discovered by a year ago and predicted to be on a collision course with Earth, but no one believed the astronomer, because a layer of thick fog at the time prevented astronomical observations in other places.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coming_of_Bill" title="The Coming of Bill">
In New York, Mrs. Lora Delane Porter, domineering writer of books about eugenics and germs, drives too fast and hits George Pennicut, whose leg is injured. George is a man-of-all-work employed by Kirk Winfield, an amiable though unsuccessful artist who lives on modest private means. Kirk carries George into his apartment and calls in a doctor. George will recover completely after a couple of days. Mrs. Porter notices that Kirk is healthy and physically fit, and decides he should marry her niece Ruth Bannister, daughter of wealthy financier John Bannister. Ruth believes in her aunt's views on eugenics, in contrast to her brother Bailey Bannister, John Bannister's son and junior partner, who thinks Mrs. Porter is a bad influence on Ruth. Mrs. Porter introduces Ruth to Kirk, and they fall in love. Percy Shanklyn, an unemployed actor who borrows money from Kirk, does not want him to marry Ruth, so he tells Bailey about Kirk and Ruth. Bailey suspects Mrs. Porter's interference. He objects to Mrs. Porter and Ruth that Kirk is a nobody and an outsider. He also confronts Kirk, but inadvertently reveals to him that Ruth returns his feelings. Kirk's friend Steve Dingle, self-described roughneck and retired boxer who is employed as physical instructor for the Bannisters, advises him to elope with Ruth to avoid trouble with her controlling father. Mr. Bannister rejects Ruth after she marries Kirk.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Damsel_in_Distress_(novel)" title="A Damsel in Distress (novel)">
Lady Maud Marsh, daughter of the widowed 7th Earl of Marshmoreton, is in love with Geoffrey Raymond, whom she met the previous summer in Wales. Maud has not revealed the man's name to her aristocratic family but has admitted that he is a penniless American. Her family, led by Lord Marshmoreton's haughty sister, Lady Caroline Byng, disapprove of the match and will not allow Maud to leave their home of Belpher Castle in Hampshire, in order to keep her from seeing the man. Lady Caroline wants her step-son, Reginald "Reggie" Byng, to marry Maud, though unbeknownst to her, Reggie is actually in love with Lord Marshmoreton's secretary, Alice Faraday. Lord Marshmoreton meekly listens to his sister, and to Alice, who is insistent that he write the history of his family, though he only wants to tend to his rose garden.In London's Piccadilly, George Bevan, a bored and lonely American composer of successful musical comedies, sees a pretty girl in brown and laments that he has no justification to approach her, thinking that if only they were in the Middle Ages, he could approach her as a hero offering assistance to a damsel in distress. Depressed, George hails a taxicab, and is surprised when the girl in brown jumps into the cab and asks George to hide her. George wastes no time helping her hide from a stout, disagreeable, well-dressed young man. The man becomes angry and distracted when George knocks his silk hat off, allowing George and the girl to escape, but she soon disappears. George has fallen in love with her, though he does not know her name. Thanks to a newspaper report about the disagreeable young man (who spent the night in jail after punching a policeman), George discovers that the girl in brown was Lady Maud Marsh of Belpher Castle. He is not aware that she had sneaked off to London hoping to see Geoffrey.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultana's_Dream" title="Sultana's Dream">
It depicts a feminist utopia (called Ladyland) in which women run everything and men are secluded, in a mirror-image of the traditional practice of "purdah". The women are aided by science fiction-esque "electrical" technology which enables laborless farming and flying cars; the women scientists have discovered how to trap solar power and control the weather. This results in "a sort of gender-based Planet of the Apes where the roles are reversed and the men are locked away in a technologically advanced future."There, traditional stereotypes such as “Men have bigger brains” and women are "naturally weak" are countered with logic such as "an elephant also has a bigger and heavier brain" and “a lion is stronger than a man” and yet neither of them dominates men. In Ladyland crime is eliminated, since men were considered responsible for all of it. The workday is only two hours long, since men used to waste six hours of each day in smoking. The religion is one of love and truth. Purity is held above all, such that the list of "sacred relations" ("mahram") is widely extended.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_the_Lightning" title="Catch the Lightning">
The first half of "Catch the Lightning" takes place in an alternate Los Angeles on Earth in a time similar to the late 20th century. The main character is Tina Pulivok, a seventeen-year-old Maya girl living in East L.A. She has relocated to Los Angeles and is living on her own while she works as a waitress. The hero, Althor Selei, a cybernetically enhanced Jag fighter pilot, is thrown into the alternate universe when his star fighter malfunctions. Tina meets Althor late at night when she is returning home from work, and he is trying to figure out why he ended up on a planet that bears little resemblance to the Earth he expected. After Althor helps Tina escape an incident of gang violence, the two become fugitives.Tina is an empath. She is aware she is different but has no name for her abilities and is afraid to tell anyone about what she experiences. Althor is a member of the Ruby Dynasty, and as such he is heir to the throne of an interstellar empire called the Skolian Imperialate. He is also a Rhon psion and can read moods, sometimes even thoughts, from other people. He and Tina share an immediate attraction, in part based on their abilities.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Harmonic" title="Spherical Harmonic">
"Spherical Harmonic" is a first person narrative told from the viewpoint of Dyhianna Selei. Although an elected Assembly governs the Imperialate, in ages past the Ruby Pharaoh ruled as absolute sovereign. Selei is the descendant of the ancient pharaohs, and is considered the titular ruler of modern Skolia. "Spherical Harmonic" takes place following the Radiance War, a conflict fought between the Imperialate and the Eubian Concord, an empire ruled by a rigid caste of narcissists called Aristos. The Eubian economy is based on slave trade, which the Aristos seek to expand to the Imperialate.Just prior to the opening scene of "Spherical Harmonic", Dyhianna Selei escapes a Eubian military force by stepping into a Lock, a singularity that defines the boundary between two universes. In mathematical terms, she has entered an alternate dimension defined by the functions known as spherical harmonics. As the book opens, she is "coalescing" on a moon called Opalite. She reforms in partial waves that transfer her from one universe to the other. Some prose in the book is written in the shape of the sinusoidal functions found in the spherical harmonics.As Selei fades in and out of existence, in danger of disappearing, she slowly recovers her memories about her identity and history. She manages to activate an emergency protocol secretly established on the moon for her protection. As a result she is found by Jon Casestar, an admiral in the Skolian Fleet, and Commander Vaz Majda, an elite fighter pilot who is also her sister-in-law. Once aboard an ISC battle cruiser, Selei strives to reunite the Ruby Dynasty and find out what has happened to her people. The book follows her attempts to resurrect the Skolian military and government.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Henry" title="Green Henry">
"Green Henry" details the life of Heinrich Lee from childhood through his first romantic encounters, his fledgling attempts at becoming a painter in Munich, and his eventual installation as a chancery clerk. The story gets its name from the color that Heinrich affected in dress.Heinrich is a Swiss burgher's son, brought up too tenderly by a widowed mother. After youthful pranks and experiences, and a not altogether justified dismissal from school, he idles away some time in his mother's village. He determines to be a painter, and goes to Munich's artistic Bohemia. From there, he finds his way to a count's mansion, and then he returns home to his dying mother and an all-too-tardy and brief repentance.The much revised second version has Heinrich abandoning art to enter the civil service. This experience affords occasion for extended political reflections. The tone of the reminiscences makes it clear that Keller would have the reader understand that Heinrich has lived through and risen out of his instability and irresolution and sees life steadily and cheerfully at last.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth_(novel)" title="Labyrinth (novel)">
When Dr Alice Tanner, who works as a volunteer at the archaeological site of Pic de Soularac, in France, discovers two skeletons in a long-hidden cave in the hillside, she unearths a link with an horrific and brutal past. However, it is not just the sight of the shattered bones that makes her uneasy; there is an overwhelming sense of evil in the tomb that Alice finds hard to shake off, even in the bright French sunshine. Puzzled by the words carved inside the chamber and the representation of a labyrinth, she finds an exact representation of it on the underside of the ring she found in the cave.Alice has an uneasy feeling that she has disturbed something that was meant to remain hidden. She finds a connection to the nightmares she had been having since childhood and discovers that the cave was related to her past.Eight hundred years ago, on the night before a brutal civil war ripped apart Languedoc, three books were entrusted to Alaïs, a young herbalist and healer, the daughter of the steward of Carcassona. Although she cannot understand the symbols and diagrams the books contain, Alaïs knows her destiny lies in protecting their secret at all costs. The books contain the secrets to the Holy Grail. Alice later discovers that she is Alaïs's descendant.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deviant_Strain" title="The Deviant Strain">
The TARDIS lands the Doctor, Rose and Jack at an abandoned Soviet naval base. However, something is still lurking — something which is treating all humans, including Rose and Jack, as prey. But as the Doctor investigates further, he uncovers an experiment years in the making.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_Human_(novel)" title="Only Human (novel)">
The presence of a Neanderthal on present-day Earth alerts the Doctor, Rose and Jack to the fact that someone is meddling with time. In order to learn the truth, they must travel back 28,000 years, where they meet humans of the past and future — and something far, far worse.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Salty_Piece_of_Land" title="A Salty Piece of Land">
Tully Mars, a 40-something guide at the Lost Boys Fishing Lodge resort, takes trips around the Caribbean and is also put in charge of fixing an old lighthouse.In this novel Buffett connects stories of science fiction (Captain Kirk), fantasy (The Lost Boys), and drama (Clark Gable) into a single Caribbean-themed epic.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(Barth_novel)" title="Chimera (Barth novel)">
## "Dunyazadiad".The Dunyazadiad is a retelling of the framing story of Scheherazade, the famed storyteller of the One Thousand and One Nights. The story is told from the point of view of Scheherazade's younger sister Dunyazade. Its characterization as metafiction can be understood as a result of the use of several literary devices, most notably the introduction of the author as a character and his interaction with Scheherazade and Dunyazade. The author appears from the future and expresses his admiration for Scheherazade and the 1001 Nights as a work of fiction, of which Barth's Scheherazade has no knowledge. Realizing that he has appeared to Scheherazade on the eve of her first encounter with Shahryar, and seeing her without a solution to her predicament, the author himself suggests the stratagem of using a chain of interrupted stories to forestall her execution, and offers to tell her a new story every day with which to regale the king the following evening. Taking the author for a genie, Scheherazade agrees.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_of_Three_(novel)" title="Power of Three (novel)">
The story begins when two Lyman siblings, Orban and Adara, accidentally revert a shapeshifted bird on an English moor back into a small Dorig. The Dorig is holding an exquisitely moulded collar, which in Lyman and Dorig culture are used to store protective magic. When Orban tries to take the collar, the Dorig says he is the son of the Dorig king, and will curse the collar before giving it up. Orban kills the Dorig and takes the collar anyway, and as the Dorig dies he binds a curse to the collar by the three Powers – the Old Power, the Middle Power and the New Power.Orban grows up to be chief of the Otmound mound. Adara marries Gest, chief of the Garholt mound, and has three children: Ayna, Gair, and Ceri. At a young age, Ayna and Ceri discover they have powerful magical talents called "Gifts" – Ayna has precognition, and Ceri can find anything when asked. Gair, the middle child, becomes increasingly gloomy when he fails to develop a Gift.When Gair is twelve, the Dorig – at war with the Lyman ever since Orban killed the prince – flood the Otmound mound. The Otmounders move into the Garholt mound, bringing with them bad luck which gets worse and worse.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirsty_(novel)" title="Thirsty (novel)">
The story is set in the town of, and in the areas surrounding, Bradley, Massachusetts. A vampire lord, Tch'muchgar, is magically imprisoned in isolation at the bottom of the town reservoir. The townsfolk performs rituals at the annual The Sad Festival of Vampires to maintain the bonds holding Tch'muchgar prisoner.Early in the book the young "hero", Chris, witnesses a vampiress being lynched. Soon after, he starts to feel a strange sensation — a growing thirst for blood. Chris later notices that his friend Tom is casting a reflection on the water of the reservoir but Chris himself has no reflection. He realizes that he must be suffering from vampirism. Chris is afraid to tell anyone, even his friends, because vampires are killed immediately upon being discovered.Chris is soon confronted by a mysterious person dressed in black, who introduces himself as Chet the Celestial Being. Chet says that he serves the Forces of Light, and that he can cure Chris of his vampirism. But first Chet must place a holy object, The Arm of Moriator, with Tch'muchgar. Once activated, the Arm cannot be moved or deactivated by evil beings. Chet explains that if Tch'muchgar tries to escape from his prison, the Arm will cause him to become trapped between worlds, just like "opening an elevator between floors".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylark_Three" title="Skylark Three">
"Skylark Three" (1948) is the second book in the "Skylark" series and is set a year after the events of "The Skylark of Space", during which year antagonist Marc "Blackie" DuQuesne has used the wealth obtained in the previous book to buy a controlling interest in the story's 'World Steel Corporation', a large company known for its ruthless attitude. When the story begins DuQuesne announces a long absence from Earth, to find another species more knowledgeable than the Osnomians allied with protagonist Richard Seaton. Shortly thereafter, DuQuesne and a henchman disappear from Earth. DuQuesne, by now aware of the 'Object Compass' trained on him, travels far enough to break the connection, then turns toward the 'Green System' of which Osnome is a part. Seaton discovers this, but is distracted by attempts to master a "zone of force": essentially a spherical, immaterial shield, with whose present form Seaton is dissatisfied for its opacity and impenetrability even by the user.Seaton is then requested by his allies Dunark and Sitar, the crown prince and prince's consort of Osnome, to repel invasion by the natives of planet 'Urvan', Osnome's neighbor; whereupon Seaton and his millionaire sponsor, Martin Crane, accompanied by their wives and Crane's valet Shiro embark in the spaceship "Skylark II" to obtain the necessary minerals. Near the Green System, they are attacked by the hitherto-unseen natives of the planet 'Fenachrone', whose weaponry surpasses any known to Seaton or the Osnomians. Having used the 'zone of force' at first to conceal himself, and then to destroy the Fenachrone battleship, Seaton captures a leading crew-member, who reveals (upon interrogation) that the Fenachrone intend conquest of the entire Milky Way Galaxy, and eventually of the Universe, and that a message is already in progress toward the Fenachrone capital to summon aid. Discovering that Dunark and Sitar survived the destruction of their spaceship, the "Skylark II" tows the remnants of both vehicles to Osnome, where Seaton forces a peace treaty between Osnome and Urvan. Meanwhile, DuQuesne and his aide have also interrogated a Fenachrone and plan to capture an entire Fenachrone battleship for personal use.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Venus" title="Pirates of Venus">
## Chapter 1.Carson NapierWhen the author receives a letter saying a woman in white will come to him on the night of the thirteenth, he dismisses it as nonsense. Jason Gridley calls, and the author visits him to discuss the latest news about von Horst, Tarzan, David Innes, Captain Zuppner and Abner Perry in Pellucidar. The woman appears on the thirteenth, walking through a closed door. She tells him "he" awaits a reply. Aided by his secretary Ralph Rothmund, the letter is found and a reply is sent. A few days later Carson Napier shows up at Tarzana, telling the story of his life including how he grew up in India, learning telepathy from the Hindu mystic Chand Kabi, how he lived with his mother's grandfather John Carson, and how he lost his mother. Revealing an intent to fly a rocket to Mars, he fades from view only to enter through the door again. He used telepathy for the meeting to ascertain they can uphold telepathic communication so the author may become the medium through which he tells the story of his adventures. Before returning to his rocket on Guadalupe Island, Napier leaves the author in charge of his personal fortune.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_the_Slayers" title="Queen of the Slayers">
Following the Hellmouth's closure, hundreds of potential slayers have been awakened. Buffy Summers hoped that overturning the Slayer's self-sacrifice would result in her earning some relaxation following seven years of fighting. However, the victory is short-lived. Dark forces are arising to fill the gap left by the First.Willow's magical spell which sent slayer essence across the world has resulted in girls everywhere discovering a new power. The Scoobies travel to Europe. In London, Giles races to reorganize the remnants of the Watchers Council, hoping to overcome the shortcomings of its previous incarnation. Buffy, Xander, Willow, Dawn, and Dawn's new best friend, a young slayer named Belle travel to Rome to train new Slayers that are drawn to the infamous Immortal, Buffy is attracted to the Immortal, an ambiguous yet charismatic character, who she does not fully trust during the whole novel. They soon hear of an unknown "Queen of the Slayers" who is getting a number of the fresh slayers to form a mystical army. This likely evil seems determined to claim the slayer essence for herself, and viciously and cruelly murders any Slayers that don't cooperate with her and betray Buffy.Faith and Robin Wood take a group of Slayers to the Hellmouth in Cleveland, which has gone supernova with evil, to stabilize the hell there. They face many casualties, and experience strange projections of The Legion of Three, three deadly Hellgods.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark_and_Burn" title="Spark and Burn">
Spike was born in the nineteenth century as a gentle, intellectual boy named William. As a young adult, he meets a woman called Drusilla, a mysterious vampire. William eventually becomes Spike.He travels Europe with a band of vicious vampires, Dru, Darla, and Angelus. They show him his new existence, and from them he finds out about that most serious of enemies to vampires, one girl in all the world chosen to fight the vampires and the forces of darkness, the Slayer.Having found a soul in Africa in the twenty-first century, Spike is tormented by the first evil and the guilt of his vampiric evils. He recalls many of the events that would lead him to the madness in the hell-influenced basement of the new Sunnydale High School.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Me_in_Mind_(novel)" title="Keep Me in Mind (novel)">
Ethan Rayne comes back to Sunnydale and releases an evil sorcerer from Bavaria who had been imprisoned since the Middle Ages. At the same time Buffy seems to be finding herself up against a number of old adversaries out for revenge.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Suicide_King" title="The Suicide King">
A number of student suicides has been taking place at Sunnydale High, shaking the community. Then the new grief counselor ends up killing himself, the Scoobies suspect that there is something supernatural to blame. Soon one of them shows suicidal signs and Buffy must race against time to defeat the ancient "Suicide King".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Lord_of_Derkholm" title="Dark Lord of Derkholm">
A fantasy world is dominated by its destructive tourist industry. "Mr. Chesney's Pilgrim Parties" arrange for annual group tours, evidently from our world, to experience all the cliches: wise Wizard Guides, attacks from Leathery-Winged Avians, the Glamorous Enchantress, the evil Dark Lord. It is a devastating show: farmlands are laid waste, people slain, and so on.The head of Wizards University, Querida, determines a way to end the tours. The apparently incompetent wizard Derk will be the next Dark Lord, and son Blade the Wizard Guide for the final tour. Querida overcomes objections all around and the plan is underway.The Wizard Derk has seven children with his wife the Enchantress Mara: Shona and Blade, the former being the older; Kit (black with gold eyes), the oldest griffin and a magic-user; Callette (brown with green-grey wings), who makes all 126 of the Dark Lord's "gizmos" with Mr. Chesney's world's technology; Don (gold), who is a rather forgotten griffin who doesn't really do much special; Lydda (gold), who is a great cook (her food is called "godlike snacks" by the rest of the family") and long-distance flier who plants the Dark Lord's "clues" that lead to his lair; and Elda (also gold), the youngest, with the most cat cells, and who is discovered to be a strong magic user as well.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Wizardry" title="Deep Wizardry">
Nita's family goes on vacation with Kit and his dog, Ponch, to the South Shore of Long Island. While swimming in the ocean at night, Nita encounters a dolphin (nicknamed 'Hotshot'), and Kit reports the local rocks' memory of disaster. In the following night, they are carried by the dolphin to a nearby beach, where they see a pack of sharks attacking a humpback whale wizard named S'reee, whom they rescue. Nita heals S'reee, and Nita and Kit return to shore. From S'reee, they hear of a 'Song of the Twelve', in which twelve cetacean wizards were tempted by the Lone Power to embrace entropy; and of the Twelve, three whales accepted this, three were undecided, and three rejected it. A Tenth whale, the Silent Lord, instead sacrificed herself, and was eaten by the Master Shark. This action bound the Lone Power for a time, and succeeding Songs (re-enacting the first) have kept it bound. Upon learning of an absence of wizards willing to join the Song, Nita volunteers herself as the Silent Lord, not knowing the implications; whereafter S'reee takes Nita and Kit to find other whales for the upcoming Song. Nita, having shared blood with S'reee while healing her, becomes a humpback whale without external aid, while Kit is given a 'whalesark' (a cloak containing the 'character' of a particular species) changing him into a sperm whale.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Wizardry" title="High Wizardry">
When Dairine, Nita's younger sister, finds Nita's copy of the Wizard's manual, she then proceeds to take the Wizard's Oath. Dairine is given her Wizard's manual in the form of a computer, which Dairine nicknames "Spot." Dairine uses her new power to travel to Mars, then to the Crossings, where she is attacked by agents of the Lone Power. When she uses a worldgate to flee, assisted by an unnamed man she meets in a bar, she finds herself on a giant planet consisting entirely of silicon. In the meantime, Nita and Kit discover she is missing and chase after her. Dairine awakens the massive computer embedded in the planet and gets to work designing and naming 'mobiles' after the planet begins to create quicklife (computer-based) creatures. She names them in a variety of ways ranging from computer programs to Star Wars characters.The Lone Power overshadows a mobile and stirs up animosity against Dairine, convincing a number of them to support him instead. Nita and Kit arrive in time to help her, assisted by the macaw Machu Picchu (Peach), who reveals herself as the One's Champion incarnate. With Peach's assistance, the Lone Power is defeated by stopping the universe from expanding. The resulting light that explodes as a result of this destroys the Lone Power. The Lone Power then returns to "home" with one of the Powers That Be. As he leaves, he tells Kit and Nita to destroy the "shadows" of him that remain. The universe continues to expand and Nita, Kit and Dairine return to their home, where Dairine's computer sprouts legs and follows her upstairs as Nita and Kit talk to their parents.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McTeague" title="McTeague">
McTeague is a dentist of limited intellect from a poor miner's family, who has opened a dentist shop on Polk Street in San Francisco (his first name is never revealed; other characters in the novel call him simply "Mac."). His best friend, Marcus Schouler, brings his cousin, Trina Sieppe, whom he is courting, to McTeague's parlor for dental work. McTeague becomes infatuated with Trina while working on her teeth, and Marcus graciously steps aside. McTeague successfully woos Trina. Shortly after the two have kissed and declared their love for each other, Trina discovers that she has won $5,000 (roughly $166,000 in 2022 values) from a lottery ticket. In the ensuing celebration Trina's mother, Mrs. Sieppe, announces that McTeague and Trina are to marry. Marcus becomes jealous of McTeague and claims that he has been cheated out of money that would have been rightfully his if he had married Trina.The marriage takes place, and Mrs. Sieppe, along with the rest of Trina's family, moves away from San Francisco, leaving her alone with McTeague. Trina proves to be a parsimonious wife; she refuses to touch the principal of her $5,000, which she invests with her uncle. She insists that she and McTeague must live on the earnings from McTeague's dental practice, the small income from the $5,000 investment, and the bit of money she earns from carving small wooden figures of Noah's animals and his Ark for sale in her uncle's shop. Secretly, she accumulates penny-pinched savings in a locked trunk. Though the couple is happy, the friendship between Marcus and McTeague deteriorates. More than once the two men come to grips; each time McTeague's immense physical strength prevails, and eventually, he breaks Marcus's arm in a fight. When Marcus recovers, he goes south, intending to become a rancher; before he leaves, he visits McTeague, and he and McTeague part apparently as friends.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Princess_Bride_(novel)" title="The Princess Bride (novel)">
In a Renaissance-era world, a young woman named Buttercup lives on a farm in the country of Florin. She abuses the farm hand, Westley, calling him "farm boy" and demands that he perform chores for her. Westley's response to her demands is always "As you wish." She eventually realizes that what he is saying is, "I love you." After Buttercup realizes that she loves him and confesses her feelings, Westley goes to seek his fortune so they can marry. Buttercup later receives a letter that the Dread Pirate Roberts attacked Westley's ship at sea. Believing that Westley is dead, since the Dread Pirate Roberts is famous for not taking captives, Buttercup sinks into despair. Years later, she reluctantly agrees to marry Prince Humperdinck, heir to the throne of Florin.Before the wedding, a trio of outlaws — the Sicilian criminal genius Vizzini, the Spanish fencing master Inigo Montoya, and the enormous and mighty Turkish wrestler Fezzik — kidnap Buttercup. A masked man in black follows them across the sea and up the Cliffs of Insanity, after which Vizzini orders Inigo to stop the pursuer. Before the man in black reaches the top of the cliff, a flashback of Inigo's past reveals that he is seeking revenge on a six-fingered man who had killed Inigo's father. When the man in black arrives, Inigo challenges him to a duel. The man in black wins the duel but leaves the Spaniard alive. Vizzini then orders Fezzik to kill the man in black. A flashback showed Fezzik as a lonely boy who was "accepted" by Vizzini. His conscience compelling him to fair play, Fezzik throws a rock as a warning to the man in black and challenges him to a wrestling match. The man in black accepts the challenge and chokes Fezzik until the giant blacks out. The man in black then catches up with Vizzini and proposes a Battle of the Wits, challenging Vizzini to guess which of two cups of wine is poisoned with iocane powder. They drink, and Vizzini dies. The man in black then explains to Buttercup that he had poisoned both cups, having built up an immunity to iocane powder beforehand.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schism_(novel)" title="Schism (novel)">
The novel takes place about 25 years after the events in the previous novel, "Skyfall (novel)". Eldrinson Valdoria and his wife Roca Skolia live happily on his homeworld Lyshriol and have ten children. Some of them have already left home, like the second oldest son Althor who is training to become a Jagernaut, or the firstborn Eldrin who at the request of the Skolian Assembly had to marry his aunt, the Ruby Pharaoh Dyhianna Selei.The sixth of the Valdoria children, 16-year-old Sauscony (Soz), wants to enter the Military academy to become a Jagernaut like her brother. But Eldrinson has other plans – he would rather prefer to see his "little girl" living safely on Lyshriol, married to a local landlord. When she disobeys, he disowns both her (for leaving) and Althor (for taking her off-world). Though he regrets his harsh words immediately, he has no chance to take them back. Soon after, his teenage son Shannon, unhappy about the family discord, runs away from home.The book is told from the perspective of several main characters – young Soz during her military training; Shannon searching for his lost kin, the mystic Blue Dale archers; and their father Eldrinson, being captured, crippled, and nearly tortured to death by a sadistic Aristo who infiltrated Lyshriol to destroy the Ruby Dynasty.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyfall_(novel)" title="Skyfall (novel)">
It is a turbulent time for the Skolian Empire. Kurj is trying to lead his people into war with the Traders, a more massive empire. He uses his powerful connections to control his mother who is attempting to sway the Assembly otherwise. The book begins with Roca, in hiding, trying to get to the Assembly meeting. During her voyage, she ends up stranded on a planet known as Skyfall. There, on a planet once part of the Ruby Empire but now antiquated in its technology, she meets Eldrinson Valdoria, and due to extreme weather and lack of incoming ships, she is stranded there for approximately one year. During that time she falls in love with Eldrinson and becomes pregnant.The novel also periodically shifts to describe the perspective of Kurj, a Primary (top ranking) Jagernaut (most feared warriors of the Skolian Empire) and grandson of the ruling couple of Skolian Empire, Pharaoh Lahaylia and Imperator Jarac. Kurj is obsessed with stopping the slave-driven empire of the Traders. But when his mother escapes his clutches, he fears the worst, and spends much of the novel obsessing over finding her instead. We also learn of some of the horrors from his past, giving meaning to his stoic nature.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Penelopiad" title="The Penelopiad">
The novel recaps Penelope's life in hindsight from 21st-century Hades; she recalls her family life in Sparta, her marriage to Odysseus, her dealing with suitors during his absence, and the aftermath of Odysseus' return. The relationship with her parents was challenging: her father became overly affectionate after attempting to murder her, and her mother was absent-minded and negligent. At fifteen, Penelope married Odysseus, who had rigged the contest that decided which suitor would marry her. Penelope was happy with him, even though he was mocked behind his back by Helen and some maids for his short stature and lesser developed home, Ithaca. The couple broke with tradition by moving to the husband's kingdom. In Ithaca, neither Odysseus' mother Anticleia, nor his nurse Eurycleia, liked Penelope but eventually Eurycleia helped Penelope settle into her new role and became friendly, but often patronising.Shortly after the birth of their son, Telemachus, Odysseus was called to war, leaving Penelope to run the kingdom and raise Telemachus alone. News of the war and rumours of Odysseus' journey back sporadically reached Ithaca and with the growing possibility that Odysseus was not returning an increasing number of suitors moved in to court Penelope. Convinced the suitors were more interested in controlling her kingdom than loving her, she stalled them. The suitors pressured her by consuming and wasting much of the kingdom's resources. She feared violence if she outright denied their offer of marriage so she announced she would make her decision on which to marry once she finished her father-in-law's shroud. She enlisted twelve maids to help her unravel the shroud at night and spy on the suitors. Odysseus eventually returned but in disguise. Penelope recognised him immediately and instructed her maids not to reveal his identity. After the suitors were massacred, Odysseus instructed Telemachus to execute the maids who he believed were in league with them. Twelve were hanged while Penelope slept. Afterwards, Penelope and Odysseus told each other stories of their time apart, but on the issue of the maids Penelope remained silent to avoid the appearance of sympathy for those already judged and condemned as traitors.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Consciousness" title="Understanding Consciousness">
Part 1 reviews the strengths and weaknesses of all currently dominant theories of consciousness, in a form suitable for undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers, focusing mainly on dualism, physicalism, functionalism and consciousness in machines. Part 2 gives a new analysis of consciousness, grounded in its everyday phenomenology, which challenges presuppositions that form the basis of the dualism versus reductionist debate. It also examines the consequences for realism versus idealism, subjectivity, intersubjectivity and objectivity, and the relation of consciousness to brain processing. Part 3 gives a new synthesis, with a novel approach to understanding what consciousness is, and a novel approach to what consciousness does that pays particular attention to the paradoxes surrounding the causal interactions of consciousness with the brain. It also introduces reflexive monism, an alternative to dualism and reductionism that aims to be consistent with the findings of science and with common sense.Both reductionism and dualism are guilty, Velmans asserts, of not paying enough attention to the "phenomenology" of consciousness, the condition of "being aware of something". Reductionism, for example, attempts to reduce consciousness to being a state of the brain; thus consciousness is nothing more than its neural causes and correlates. This, Velmans says, is guilty of breaking Leibniz's assertion that, in order for A to be identical to B (that is, for consciousness to be a state of the brain), the properties of A must also be the properties of B. Velmans here argues that the subjective, phenomenal experience of consciousness is entirely unlike the neural states of the brain, and thus may not be reduced to them; that is, the phenomenal properties of consciousness are not identifiable with the physical brain states that arguably cause them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dogs_of_War_(novel)" title="The Dogs of War (novel)">
## Prologue.In 1970, Anglo-Irish mercenary Carlo Alfred Thomas "Cat" Shannon and his four fellow mercenaries – German ex-smuggler Kurt Semmler, South African mortar expert Janni Dupree, Belgian bazooka specialist "Tiny" Marc Vlaminck, and Corsican knife-fighter Jean-Baptiste Langarotti – leave a West African war they have lost, saying their goodbyes to the general who had employed them for the past six months. While the general and his people leave for exile in one plane, Shannon, his men and a group of nuns with their orphan charges fly out for Libreville in another, piloted by a South African mercenary. After a six-week "House arrest" in a hotel, the mercenaries are flown to Paris, where they part company.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard's_Dilemma" title="The Wizard's Dilemma">
Nita and Kit start to fight about the solution to the pollution in Jones Inlet, leading Nita to start to work on her own for a while. In the meantime, Nita's mother falls ill and is taken to the hospital with a brain tumor.Meanwhile, Kit finds out that his dog, Ponch, is able to create universes out of nothing, bringing in a lot of research possibilities where they can explore. Nita begins to practice with kernels - magical "software" that describes and reflects the surrounding area- in order to try to save her mother's life.While practicing, Nita meets a wizard named Pralaya who might be able to join her in saving her mother's life. She then discovers that the wizard may be overshadowed by the Lone Power, making it a dangerous prospect for them to work together. She discusses it with Kit, who decides to help her as well.While her mother is in surgery, Nita enters her body with Pralaya and begins to search for the kernel in order to kill the cancer, leaving Kit behind. Kit, using the universes Ponch creates, is able to also enter Mrs. Callahan's body to aid Nita and her mother. He helps her undo the deal she was in the process of making with the Lone Power for her mother's life, but she is still unable to eliminate all of the cancer. As the Lone Power is gloating in his anticipated victory, Nita's mother is able to take control of the kernel and defeat the Lone Power. She realizes that if she were to cure herself, she would be starting down a path at the end of which nothing would matter to her except extending her life, so she chooses to live out what life is left to her in love.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard's_Holiday" title="Wizard's Holiday">
When Nita's sister Dairine signs up for an intragalactic exchange program without permission, their local advisors transfer the mission to Nita and Kit. The destination seems to be an ideal planet, and they are hoping for a vacation. Meanwhile, the aliens who arrive at Dairine's house appear to be very "alien". However, Nita's dreams become nightmarish and the planet Alaalu turns out to be hiding a dark secret: an avatar of the Lone Power has been trapped in this dystopia since their people refused Its gift of entropy. While this may have prevented deterioration to war, crime and natural disasters, among other things, it also prevented such change as evolution, and the Alaalu people are trapped in their current stage of existence when they have the potential to be free of it. It becomes the young wizards' job to convince the Alaalu wizard and her people to accept this change, inevitably setting the Lone Power free.On Earth, the wizards at Dairine's place have become aware that their Sun is in danger of flaring up to the point of scorching their planet. However, one of the visitors comes from a planet where he is a guardian against the recurrence of such a disaster, and recognizes it in time for them to save the Earth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeelee_Sequence" title="Xeelee Sequence">
The overarching plot of the Xeelee Sequence involves an intergalactic war between humanity and the Xeelee, and a cosmic war between the Xeelee and the Photino Birds, with the latter two being alien species that originated in the early universe. The technologically advanced Xeelee primarily inhabit supermassive black holes, manipulating their event horizons to create preferable living environments, construction materials, tools, and computing devices. The Photino Birds are a dark matter-based species that live in the gravity wells of stars, who are likely not aware of baryonic life forms due to dark matter's weak interactions with normal matter. Due to the inevitable risk of their habitats being destroyed by supernovae and other consequences of stellar evolution, the Photino Birds work to halt nuclear fusion in the cores of stars, prematurely aging them into stable white dwarfs. The resulting dwarfs provide them with suitable habitats for billions of times longer than other types of stars could, but at the expense of other forms of life on nearby planets. The Photino Birds' activities also effectively stop the formation of new black holes due to a lack of Type II supernovae, threatening the existence of the Xeelee and their cosmic projects.After overcoming a series of brutal occupations by extraterrestrial civilizations, humanity expands into the galaxy with an extremely xenophobic and militaristic outlook, with aims to exterminate other species they encounter. Humans eventually become the second-most advanced and widespread civilization in the Milky Way galaxy, after the Xeelee. Unaware of the Photino–Xeelee war and the existential ramifications of what is at stake, humanity come to the (unwarranted) conclusion that the Xeelee are a sinister and destructive threat to their hegemony and security. Through a bitter war of attrition, humans end up containing the Xeelee to the galactic core. Both humans and the Xeelee gain strategic intelligence by using time travel as a war tactic, through the use of closed timelike curves, resulting in a stalemate for thousands of years. Eventually, humanity develops defensive, movable pocket universes to compartmentalize and process information, and an exotic weapon able to damage the ecological stability of the core's supermassive black hole. Minutes after the first successful strike, the Xeelee withdraw from the galaxy, effectively ceding the Milky Way to fully human control. Humanity continued to advance technologically for a hundred thousand years afterwards, then attacked the Xeelee across the Local Group of galaxies. However, despite having annoyed the Xeelee enough to give up activities in the Milky Way, humans, having become an extremely powerful Type III civilization themselves at this point, prove only to be a minor distraction to the Xeelee on the whole, being ultimately unable to meaningfully challenge their dominance across the universe.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woman_and_the_Puppet" title="The Woman and the Puppet">
During the carnival in Seville, the Frenchman André Stévenol meets and falls under the spell of Concepción 'Conchita' Pérez, a young Andalusian woman. His friend, don Mateo Diaz warns him off by describing his own history with the woman – a history of being repeatedly attracted and then rebuffed by her. Conchita continually flirted with other men to torture don Mateo. On each occasion he was made to feel guilty for his jealous thoughts and actions towards her, until he realised finally that he had been her puppet for fourteen months and in an explosion of passion he beat her. She then astonished him by declaring the violence a sign of the strength of his love and came to his bed. She was a virgin. Although the two then started living together, she continued her flirtatious behaviour towards other men and simultaneously became very possessive. Don Mateo left the country and travelled for a year to escape her.The novel has a short epilogue, described as the moral of the piece. The Frenchman accidentally meets Conchita again, and they spend the night together. The next morning, as Conchita packs her bags for Paris, a note is received from don Mateo asking to be taken back into Conchita's good graces.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe's_Gold" title="Sharpe's Gold">
General Wellington orders Richard Sharpe to find out what happened to Claud Hardy, one of Major Michael Hogan's exploring officers, who was sent to locate Spanish gold thought to be in the (fictional) hamlet of Casatejada, and to retrieve the gold himself through any means necessary, as Wellington's army is in desperate need of funds.Sharpe sets off with his small company and links up with Major Kearsey, another of Hogan's exploring officers. Kearsey makes it clear that he believes that the gold belongs to the Spanish and the purpose of the mission is to return it to them. They meet the local partisan commander El Catolico, who delights in torturing French prisoners to death.When Kearsey is captured by the French, Sharpe decides to go into the town and rescue him, as the partisans trust the major. They succeed, at the cost of a few of their own men, and free not only Kearsey, but also Teresa Moreno and her brother Ramon. The Spanish guerrillas soon enter the town, and they surprise Sharpe as he searches for the gold.El Catolico admits knowledge of the gold and strongly implies the British intend to take possession of it rather than merely escort it to the Spanish in Cadiz. He claims to Sharpe and Major Kearsey that he witnessed the French take the gold and capture Captain Hardy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Monk_and_the_Dirty_Cop" title="Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop">
Adrian Monk and Natalie Teeger stop by the local university to investigate an apparent open-and-shut self-defense case. Professor Jeremiah Cowan was giving a class when a gunman burst into the room and pointed a gun at him. Cowan shot the intruder before the intruder could shoot.The dead man was Ford Oldman, who had apparently made several threats against Cowan in the past. Monk explains to Captain Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Disher how Cowan staged the scene, but before he can explain Cowan's motive, Natalie cuts him off, since the department hasn't paid Monk for his consulting.Later that day, Stottlemeyer calls Natalie to say that he has Monk's check at the station. Arriving at the station, they notice that the San Francisco Police Department is making large budget cuts. It starts when Disher asks if they can break a $20 so he can get a cup of coffee from the machine, which the OCD-ridden Monk isn't willing to do. Stottlemeyer asks Monk to accompany him to the Conference of Metropolitan Homicide Detectives, which this year is being held in San Francisco. At the conference, Stottlemeyer reveals several things, including Monk's case clearance rate. After, the captain thinks Paul Braddock, the moderator (and a detective from Banning, California), used to work for the SFPD until Stottlemeyer threatened to expose his abusive methods to Internal Affairs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ashram" title="The Ashram">
Jonathan Kingsley tries to save himself from suicidal thoughts after the death of his wife by travelling to a Himalayan spiritual hermitage, known as an Ashram, to provide him peace through volunteer work.As the doctor searches for an excuse to keep on living, Seeta struggles to keep her own husband alive, both out of love and for her own safety. The townspeople of Baramedi, bowing to the wishes of a local landowner (nicknamed Satan), have decided that when her husband dies, Seeta should climb onto a burning pyre to burn with his body. This practice of suttee, out of use for many years, brings Jonathan to her town in an effort to save her, but when he arrives at the pyre, he realizes there is more to his journey, and that the woman's safety is intricately tied with his own spiritual salvation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grass_Harp" title="The Grass Harp">
The story begins with Collin Fenwick losing his mother, and then his father, and moving into his aunts' (Dolly and Verena) house. Catherine, the servant, also lives in the house and gets along, for the most part, only with Dolly. Dolly is famous for her medicine, which she makes by going out into the woods with Catherine and Collin and randomly picking plants. They then go to an old treehouse, which is propped up in a Chinaberry tree. One day, after Dolly has an argument with Verena (Verena wants to mass-produce Dolly's medicine), Dolly, Collin, and Catherine leave their home and start walking. They go to the treehouse in the Chinaberry tree, and decide to camp out there. Verena, meanwhile, informs the sheriff of her sister's disappearance; the Sheriff organizes a search party, and eventually arrests Catherine. During the course of the novel, others come to live in the treehouse, such as Judge Cool and Riley Henderson. In a climactic event, a confrontation among the search party and the residents of the tree house leads to Riley getting shot in the shoulder. After Judge Cool discusses the situation, everyone agrees that it was a pointless struggle, and old relationships are invigorated once again. Many people leave as friends. The story ends with how a "grass harp, gathering, telling, a harp of voices remembering a story."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Little_Wolves_and_the_Big_Bad_Pig" title="The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig">
The story features three anthropomorphic wolves who build four houses using different types of materials: bricks, concrete, steel, and flowers. A big bad pig tries to destroy the houses made of bricks, concrete, and steel by huffing and puffing, but fails, so he finds a way to destroy those houses by using a sledgehammer for the bricks, a pneumatic drill for the concrete, and dynamite for the steel. However, when the pig tries to blow down the flower house, he smells the fragrant flowers, and has a change of heart. The pig then becomes a good pig, and he and the wolves live happily ever after as friends.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_from_the_Gathering_Storm" title="Voices from the Gathering Storm">
A collection of essays that discuss social, cultural, and technological factors contributing to our environmental predicament. It proposes the need for a change in the religion of consumption, a change in our definitions of progress and success from increased consumption to increased stewardship of our diminishing resources and shrinking planet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norstrilia" title="Norstrilia">
## Setting.The planet "Old North Australia", or simply "Norstrilia", is the only planet in the Instrumentality of Mankind fictional universe which produces the precious immortality drug "stroon", which indefinitely delays aging in humans. Stroon (or the "Santaclara drug") is harvested from the huge diseased sheep the Norstrilians raise, and has resisted all attempts at artificial synthesis. Since the Norstrilians have a monopoly, stroon sells for astronomical prices, and Norstrilia is fabulously wealthy (wealthier than any other single planet). To safeguard their archaic way of life (resembling Australian ranchers with a British cultural inheritance), the Norstrilians are forced to develop the most advanced defense force and weaponry known (for example, Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons); to protect their culture, imports from other worlds are taxed at rates exceeding 20 million percent, reducing what would be a staggering fortune on another planet to humble penury on Norstrilia itself. They are also forced to cull their young in order to prevent overpopulation (only those who pass the test of the "Garden of Death" are allowed to enter adulthood).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_Revolutions" title="Only Revolutions">
The story alternates between two different narratives: Sam and Hailey, and Hailey and Sam, wild and wayward teenagers who never grow old. With an evolving stable of cars, the teenagers move through various places and moments in time as they try to outrace history.As the story proceeds, one can note that many events are perceptual and not certain. By reading both stories some sense can be made from this poetic styled puzzle. The words written are a vague mix of poetry and stream of consciousness prose. Both Hailey and Sam depict their feelings as well as ideas and thoughts towards one another.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe's_Battle" title="Sharpe's Battle">
While lost near the Spanish-Portuguese border, Sharpe and his company surprise a group of French soldiers in unusual grey uniforms, caught in the act of raping a teenage Spanish villager. They kill some Frenchmen and take two prisoner. During a parlay, their leader, Brigadier-General Guy Loup, offers to give Sharpe safe passage in exchange for the men, but Sharpe, appalled by the rape and massacre of the other villagers, including children, orders the prisoners shot. (Loup reveals that he counters the atrocities committed by Spanish guerrillas by having his men commit more heinous ones.) Loup swears to avenge them.Back at headquarters, Sharpe is informed by Major Michael Hogan that the Real Compania Irlandesa, the royal bodyguard of the captive King of Spain, have been sent to join Wellesley's forces. As the British wish for Wellesley to be appointed Generalissimo of the Spanish Armies, it is imperative that the unwanted soldiers be treated with honour, though they are composed of Irish exiles and their descendants (who have no love for the British due to their occupation of Ireland) and have no combat experience. Wellesley assigns Sharpe to encourage them to desert by taking them to a fort close to the French and drilling them mercilessly. There Sharpe also has to deal with former Wagon Master-General Colonel Claude Runciman, a grossly fat and indolent man.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King's_Fifth" title="The King's Fifth">
The story takes place in a time when the Spanish adventurers, known as Conquistadors, colonised the New World of the Americas, in search of the mythical gold treasures of the dethroned Native Americans.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunes_for_Bears_to_Dance_To" title="Tunes for Bears to Dance To">
11-year-old Henry Cassavant moves with his parents to a new town to escape from the memories of Henry's older brother Eddie, who was hit and killed by a car. Henry contributes to his family by working at a grocery store for Mr. Hairston, a deceptive old man who makes rude and racist comments about the townsfolk that would walk by his store. Despite his gruffness, Mr. Hairston appears to have a special liking for Henry, occasionally giving him candy bars.Every day, Henry watches an old man leave the "crazy house" near his apartment and disappear down the street. Henry is very curious about what the old man does but cannot follow him because he is recovering from a fractured knee and is on crutches. The day after his leg is healed, Henry follows the old man to an art center, where he meets him in person. From George Graham, the supervisor of the center, Henry learns the old man, Mr. Levine, is a Holocaust survivor who lost his family to the SS. Mr Levine goes to the art center every day to carve out a model of his old hometown, complete with carvings of all the people he had lost, including his wife and children.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somnium_(novel)" title="Somnium (novel)">
The story begins with Kepler reading about a skillful magician named Libussa. He falls asleep while reading about her. He recounts a strange dream he had from reading that book. The dream begins with Kepler reading a book about Duracotus, an Icelandic boy who is 14 years old. Duracotus' mother, Fiolxhilde, makes a living selling bags of herbs and cloth with strange markings on them. Duracotus is sold by Fiolxhilde to a skipper after cutting into one of these bags and ruining her sale. He travels with the skipper for a while until a letter is to be delivered to Tycho Brahe on the island of Hven (now Ven, Sweden). Since Duracotus is made seasick by the trip there, the skipper leaves Duracotus to deliver the letter and stay with Tycho.Tycho asks his students to teach Duracotus Danish so they can talk. Along with learning Danish, Duracotus learns of astronomy from Tycho and his students. Duracotus is fascinated with astronomy and enjoys the time they spend looking at the night sky. Duracotus spends several years with Tycho before returning home to Iceland.Upon his return to Iceland, Duracotus finds his mother still alive. She is overjoyed to learn that he is well-studied in astronomy as she too possesses knowledge of astronomy. One day, Fiolxhilde reveals to Duracotus how she learned of the heavens. She tells him about the daemons she can summon. These daemons can move her anywhere on Earth in an instant. If the place is too far away for them to take her, they describe it in great detail. She then summons her favorite daemon to speak with them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_to_Pakistan" title="Train to Pakistan">
Mano Majra, the fictional village on the border of Pakistan and India in which the story takes place, is predominantly Muslim and Sikh. Singh shows how they lived in a bubble, surrounded by mobs of Muslims who hate Sikhs and mobs of Sikhs who hate Muslims, while in the village they had always lived together peacefully. Villagers were in the dark about happenings of larger scope than the village outskirts, gaining much of their information through rumor and word of mouth. This made them especially susceptible to outside views. Upon learning that the government was planning to transport Muslims from Mano Majra to Pakistan the next day for their safety, one Muslim said, “What have we to do with Pakistan? We were born here. So were our ancestors. We have lived amongst [Sikhs] as brothers” (126). Juggut Singh, a local Sikh tough, has a Muslim lover Nooran, who leaves for the refugee camp. After the Muslims leave to a refugee camp from where they will eventually go to Pakistan, a group of religious agitators comes to Mano Majra and instills in the local Sikhs a hatred for Muslims and convinces a local gang to attempt mass murder as the Muslims leave on their train to Pakistan. Juggut, knowing Nooran is in one of the rail-cars, acts on instinct and sacrifices his life to save the train.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Monk_Goes_to_Hawaii" title="Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii">
Natalie Teeger is invited to be the maid of honor at the wedding of her best friend Candace in Hawaii. Feeling he cannot cope without her for even a day, her boss Adrian Monk gets a seat on her flight to Hawaii, using Doxinyl (an OCD-control drug that also disables Monk's detecting skills, first seen in "Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine") to suppress his fear of flying.Candace drives them to the Grand Kiahuna Poipu resort in Poipu. At the wedding, Monk's Doxinyl wears off and he exposes that Candace's fiancé Brian Galloway is already married, and has been planning to travel back and forth between his two families. Furious and mortified, Candace storms out. With the wedding canceled, Monk is eager to go home, but their booking is for a week, and Natalie plans to enjoy it.Monk and Natalie stumble upon a police investigation at one of the resort's bungalows. The local Kauai police lieutenant, Ben Kealoha, tells them that elderly Helen Gruber was sitting in her hot tub when a coconut fell from a palm tree and struck her on the head, knocking her out, after which she drowned. Monk declares it to be murder, since the coconut has a soft spot from having rested on the ground. He says Gruber was killed in the bungalow, not the hot tub, since she is not wearing any suntan lotion. Lance Vaughan, Helen's husband who is thirty years her junior, was on a snorkeling trip at the time she was killed, and has video footage to prove it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlatti_Inheritance" title="The Scarlatti Inheritance">
In Washington during World War II, word is received that an elite member of the Nazi High Command is willing to defect and divulge information that will shorten the war. But his defection entails the release of the ultra-top-secret file on the Scarlatti Inheritance – a file whose contents will destroy many of the Western world's greatest and most illustrious reputations if they are made known. From there, the book takes itself back a few decades, and tells the story of a corrupt American soldier, his billionaire mother, and an agent working for one of the smallest secret service departments in the world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fate_Totally_Worse_than_Death" title="A Fate Totally Worse than Death">
Danielle, Brooke and Tiffany are planning an evil welcome to Cliffside High for Helga, the ravishing exchange student from Norway—until they realize that something ghastly is happening to them, something they'd no doubt describe as...'a fate totally worse than death!'
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_(short_story_collection)" title="Birthday (short story collection)">
The book consists of three short stories occurring each in a different timeframe, and are all related to the "Ring" universe:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_and_Fog" title="Blood and Fog">
Spike and the current Slayer of 1888 form an alliance to battle "Jack the Ripper", a prostitute-murdering madman. It is learned Jack is not at all human. The alliance fails and Jack survives to come to Sunnydale in the modern day. He has plans, and using a mystical fog, he desires to kill more of the human race, which he hates.Soon, the fog does arise, which is used as cover as a demon army rampages through the streets of Sunnydale. The threat is neutralized; unfortunately there are heavy citizen casualties.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_of_Souls_(Buffy_novel)" title="Carnival of Souls (Buffy novel)">
A traveling carnival arrives in Sunnydale. It seems the carnival might be another victim of Sunnydale's weirdness. Nobody seems to be able to remember it arriving despite the many old-style wagons, the numerous performers, and horse-drawn carts. The creepy calliope music seems almost to beckon out to people. Also nobody who goes into Hall of Mirrors comes out exactly the same as they were to start with. Inspired by a pair of once-homely twins now parading around the school like divas, the Scoobs decide to investigate the carnival. It's soon clear that entering comes at a cost above the price of admission. Willow becomes consumed by envy, Cordelia gets greedy, and Xander finds himself overtaken with gluttony. Angel is revealing a dangerous new persona, whilst anger rises in Rupert Giles. More serious still, Buffy's pride starts to threaten those she cares about.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Train_(novel)" title="Night Train (novel)">
This book is told from the perspective of Detective Mike Hoolihan, a female detective who is charged with the task of finding the motivation for Jennifer Rockwell's suicide (she shot herself in the head three times, supposedly). Jennifer, a beautiful astrophysicist with a seemingly perfect life seems to have had no reason to kill herself. Thematically, the book touches on cosmology and chaos theory, and their relation to the human condition as a possible motive for suicide.Hoolihan is a recovering alcoholic and former homicide detective who lives with an obese man named Tobe in an unnamed American city. She reveals that she had been sexually abused as a child, revolted violently against the abuse at the age of ten, and then pursued a number of affairs with abusive or unworthy men. Despite her disadvantages, she becomes a successful detective before her illness forces her to accept less demanding work seizing assets from criminals. Her experiences lead her to examine gender roles in police work.Her former boss, mentor and personal friend "Colonel" Tom Rockwell, asks her to investigate the apparent suicide of his daughter Jennifer who, as a beautiful, intelligent, cheerful, popular woman, had no obvious reason for taking her own life. Rockwell suspects Jennifer's lover Trader Faulkner, a distinguished academic, of murdering Jennifer. Hoolihan attempts to pressure Faulkner into confessing, but fails. She discovers that Jennifer was taking lithium, met a philandering salesman in the bar of a local hotel, and made uncharacteristic mistakes at work shortly before her death. Hoolihan then deduces that these factors are merely "blinds" - or clues - deliberately planted by Jennifer for the benefit of an investigation at the behest of her father. Hoolihan concludes that these blinds are meant either to provide the less astute investigator with a sense of "closure", or to indicate a greater bleakness, or nihilism. After breaking down while attempting to communicate her findings to Rockwell - who immediately expresses his concern - Hoolihan heads for the nearest bar, knowing that the alcohol will kill her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackout_(Buffy_novel)" title="Blackout (Buffy novel)">
It is 1977, the summer of a brutal blackout, the time of the Son of Sam murders, and a period of brutal fiscal disaster for New York City. The slayer Nikki Wood fights against the forces of darkness and also tries to protect her son, Robin. Meanwhile, Spike and Drusilla arrive in the city hoping to hunt down a slayer, not without the local vampire community soon discovering of their arrival.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirates!_In_an_Adventure_with_Scientists" title="The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists">
The book is set in 1837, and follows the adventures of "The Pirate Captain" and his crew of unorthodox pirates. They meet a young Charles Darwin and Mister Bobo, a highly trained and sophisticated "man-panzee", who have been exiled from London by a rival scientist. Having sunk the "Beagle", which he believed was a Bank of England treasure ship thanks to a tip-off from Black Bellamy, the Pirate Captain agrees to take Darwin home and help him defeat his enemies and the very evil and angry Queen Victoria.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dying_Days" title="The Dying Days">
In the year 1997, Bernice Summerfield is recovering from the breakdown of her marriage at the Doctor's house on the fictional Allen Road near Adisham in Kent. To her surprise, when the TARDIS arrives it is the Eighth Doctor that steps out. Before Benny can come to terms with the change, a helicopter crash lands nearby, carrying soil samples from Mars and a prisoner, astronaut Alex Christian, who has been incarcerated since he killed the crew of a British Mars mission. Or so everyone thought. In reality, his crew were killed by Ice Warriors and his imprisonment was part of a deal negotiated between the British government and the Martian authorities. Since then, there have been no further missions to Mars, but now Britain has sent a new mission back to the planet. British astronauts land on Mars where they intrude on the tomb of an Ice Lord. The Ice Warrior Xznaal arrives on Earth with the pretence of vengeance, but is secretly in league with the British Science Minister, Lord Greyhaven. When the Eighth Doctor interferes with their plans, Xznaal releases a deadly weapon known as the Red Death. This apparently kills the Doctor, leaving Bernice and the Brigadier to deal with the invading Ice Warriors…
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard_(novel)" title="Wizard (novel)">
"Wizard" takes place in 2100, seventy-five years after the events in "Titan". Cirocco has become an alcoholic, apparently due to the strain of being the "Wizard". Gaby Plauget has taken up the slack, carrying out special projects for Gaea such as building the Circum-Gaea Highway, in return for which she gets some of the benefits Cirocco enjoys, including apparently perpetual youth. Gaea herself is bored, spending her time in the hub with her sycophants and watches old movies. Gaea provides miracle cures to those who come to her from Earth and prove themselves worthy by doing something "heroic" – for example, travel once round the circumference of the great wheel. This provides Gaea with entertainment, as she arranges hazards for them to overcome or die trying; and by providing cures for diseases, Gaea proves her value to humanity so that they do not turn on her and destroy her.Chris Major and Robin the Nine-Fingered are two pilgrims looking for a cure. Chris suffers from psychotic episodes which are often accompanied by paranormal "luck". Robin is a member of a group of latter day witches living in an O'Neill orbital habitat who has a strange epilepsy that only manifests in gravity higher than the Moon's. She claims that she bit off one of her fingers to drive away the fits, though it is later revealed she cut it off. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_(novel)" title="Demon (novel)">
"Demon" takes place in the years 2113 through 2121, thirteen to twenty-one years after the events of "Wizard". Earth is in the grip of a protracted nuclear war, possibly started by Gaea herself. Some survivors are rescued by mysterious pods called "mercy flights" that bring them to Gaea. They are cured of all their physical ills, but still mentally damaged from the war, they are dumped in the twilight city of Bellinzona in Dione, an anarchic place where the local brain is dead, Gaea has limited control, and criminals run the show. Due to the war, humankind's future is now in the wheel, and at the mercy of its senile ruler.Cirocco Jones has become a fugitive and resistance leader, supported by the Titanides, who call her the "Captain," and the Angels, who call her the "Wing Commander". The increasingly demented and film-obsessed Gaea has replaced the Avatar that Jones destroyed at the end of "Wizard" with a replica of Marilyn Monroe. She spends her time in a traveling film festival of her own making, called "Pandemonium", where she is attended by various humans and many bizarre creatures of her own creation, such as living film cameras.Gaea has developed "deathsnakes", which infest and reanimate the corpses of humans and other creatures who die in the wheel. Leading these zombies are horrifying beings called "Priests:" undead field commanders made by Gaea from parts of her human victims.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wayward_Bus" title="The Wayward Bus">
No single character dominates "The Wayward Bus". The viewpoint shifts frequently from one character to another, often taking the form of internal monologue so that we are experiencing a given character's thoughts. Much of the novel's length is simply devoted to establishing and delineating the various characters.This novel takes place firmly within the "Steinbeck country" of California's Salinas Valley (although the three primary locations described are all fictional): most of the narrative occurs at Rebel Corners, a crossroads 42 miles south of a San Ysidro, California that is described as being north of Los Angeles. Juan Chicoy (half-Mexican, half-Irish) maintains a small bus, nicknamed "Sweetheart". He earns his living as a mechanic, and by ferrying passengers between Rebel Corners and San Juan de la Cruz. The larger Greyhound Bus Company serves both of those locations on separate routes, but does not have service connecting the two.Juan and his wife Alice also own a small lunch counter at Rebel Corners. The Chicoys supplement their income by selling food, coffee and candy to people who pass through on the bus route. Rebel Corners is such an obscure place that nobody actually lives there except for the Chicoys and their employees of the moment. Alice is devoted to her marriage but is in all other ways a deeply unhappy woman, who despises and distrusts all other women.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Ultimate_Truths" title="The Book of Ultimate Truths">
The book begins with Cornelius hired by the mysterious Arthur Kobold, who claims to represent a publishing firm wishing to print a complete copy of "The Book of Ultimate Truths", a set of great secrets discovered by Hugo Rune, but suppressed by unknown forces. Cornelius and his schoolfriend Tuppe set out to find the book. They encounter the evil Campbell, who is also seeking to retrieve the lost book, to allow him to return to the Forbidden Zones, areas of the world hidden from humanity (excepting London taxi drivers). The two heroes retrieve the book and return to the Murphy home in Brentford, only to find the Campbell is waiting there for them. It is revealed the Campbell is Cornelius' half-brother, and that their father is Hugo Rune. The Campbell escapes with the key to the Forbidden Zones, a re-invented ocarina. Cornelius and Tuppe pursue him to the nearest entrance to the Zones, but the Campbell's plans are foiled by the arrival of a large gathering of a cult devoted to Hugo Rune. The ocarina is destroyed, as is the Campbell.Arthur Kobold presents Cornelius with a large cheque as an advance against royalties from the publication of the book. The cheque is revealed to be a trick - Arthur Kobold was in fact working for the denizens of the Forbidden Zones all along. Seemingly foiled, Cornelius then realizes that the map of their journey forms a schematic for the creation of another re-invented ocarina, and along with a London A-Z map showing the locations of the entrances to the Forbidden Zones the heroes are left plotting their next adventure into the unknown.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogs_Don't_Tell_Jokes" title="Dogs Don't Tell Jokes">
Gary Boone (who calls himself "Goon") is the self-proclaimed clown of his seventh-grade class. He never stops joking, despite the fact that nobody laughs much, and he has no real friends at school. Entering a talent contest as a stand-up comedian forces him to look more closely at the effect his humor has on others and on himself. His old friends support him and help him with his routine. Throughout the book, he is deciding whether or not he should compete. At one point, he even quits but then, rejoins. Later, Gary becomes upset with his image and tries to change himself. He befriends Joe, a popular kid in his class, and spends time playing football with him. He also starts to collect baseball cards. He tells his parents about this and instead of telling him to be himself, like he expected, they encourage the change and offer him $100 if he doesn't tell a joke for three weeks, which is the night of the talent show.Gary is a nervous wreck on the night of the talent competition. He is not in the program because he quit (then rejoined). His friend, Joe, makes sure he can compete. But he is placed last. When it is Gary's turn, he wets his pants due to his nervousness and excitement. He makes a mistake during the beginning, and soon he forgets his routine. Luckily, two kids who have picked on Gary (referred to as his "fan club"), come and spray water and throw pies at him. This allows Gary to start over, not to mention earning a few laughs. His comic routine runs smoothly and he manages to surprise the audience by showing them his newly shaved head. Gary wins the first prize of $100 and the respect of his classmates.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldier_in_the_Rain" title="Soldier in the Rain">
Sergeant Eustis Clay (Steve McQueen) cannot wait to finish his peacetime service and move on to bigger, better things. He is a personal favorite of Master Sergeant Maxwell Slaughter (Jackie Gleason), a career soldier who is considerably brighter than Eustis, but enjoys his company and loyalty. Slaughter is wired into all the perks, back channels, and supply sources an army base can provide, which filter through his nearly autonomous cabin hub.Clay becomes involved in a number of schemes and scams, including one in which he will sell tickets for soldiers to watch private Meltzer (Tony Bill) purportedly run a three-minute mile. He inconveniences Slaughter more than once, and in one case has a traffic mishap that requires him being bailed out of jail.Determined to tempt Slaughter with the joys of civilian life before his hitch is up, Clay fixes him up on a date with the much younger woman, not-too-bright Bobby Jo Pepperdine (Tuesday Weld). At first, Slaughter is offended, but gradually he sees another side of Bobby Jo, finding that they have a mutual fondness for crossword puzzles. Clay and Slaughter golf together and begin to enjoy the good life.One night, Clay is devastated to learn of the death of his dog Donald. A pair of hated rivals use their status as military policemen to lure Clay into a barroom brawl, where he is being beaten two-against-one before Slaughter angrily comes to his rescue. Together, they win the fight, but the middle-aged, overweight Slaughter collapses from the effort.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decipher_(novel)" title="Decipher (novel)">
Set in the year 2012, a series of seemingly unrelated events take place, which during the course of the story all become interconnected.In Antarctica, an oil drilling venture is taking place by fictitious oil company Rola Corp. It is an unstable time in the region because the US and China are at loggerheads over mineral and oil rights, and the geopolitical landscape is dicey. The drill ship does not strike oil, but does discover a very hard form of diamond which turns out to be Carbon 60. Not only that, but the samples they retrieve have hieroglyphic writing on them.Meanwhile, the US military has been monitoring unusually high solar flare activity and are worried about its effect on their fleet of satellites. While observing Chinese military maneuvers in Antarctica, the spy satellite picks up a highly unusual energy signal emanating from two miles beneath Antarctica's ice sheet.When the US military and Rola Corp. pool their resources it is discovered that not only is the diamond-type material reactive to the sun, but the time of the energy pulses under the ice in Antarctica, match the timing of flare activity from the Sun.A team of scientists are assembled to unravel the mystery. From Richard Scott, a linguistic Anthropologist, to Jon Hackett a Complexity Physicist. The team soon discover that the same energy signature from Antarctica is being detected by satellites from ancient monuments all over the Earth. From the Amazon jungle to Egypt and China. Inspired by stories of the ancient flood of Noah, Scott embarks on the mammoth task of deciphering the mysterious language found on the material, and comparing what it has to say with the ancient myths and legends of floods from all around the world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Flesh" title="Live Flesh">
The novel's protagonist is Victor Jenner, sent to prison for shooting and crippling a police officer after an attempted rape. At his trial and afterwards he claims that his actions were unintentional and somehow provoked by his victim. But there may have been other reasons for his attack of which even he was unaware. Ten years later, Jenner is released from prison and has to find himself a new life, with the reduced resources produced by ten years' incarceration and the handicap of a significant criminal record. He discovers that it is all too easy to slip back into the old one.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fatal_Inversion" title="A Fatal Inversion">
In the process of burying a beloved dog in the animal cemetery of Wyvis Hall, a beautiful Suffolk country house, the owner unearths the skeletons of a dead woman and baby. The horrific discovery challenges the buried memories and guilt of a small group of young people who, 10 years earlier, spent the broiling Summer of 1976 in a self-indulgently irresponsible idyll at Wyvis Hall, unexpectedly inherited by one of their number. Slowly the facts emerge and the past catches up with them. But which woman is dead? And whose child?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sirian_Experiments" title="The Sirian Experiments">
The Sirian Empire, centred in the Sirius star system, has advanced technology that made their citizens effectively immortal (barring accidents) and sophisticated machines that did almost everything for them. But this technology came at a price: many Sirians became afflicted with "the existentials", a debilitating malady that left them feeling worthless and with no reason to exist. To overcome this problem and give its people "something to do", Sirius embarked on a conquest of space and colonised many planets. But they also encroached on territory of the superior Canopean Empire that led to a costly war, which Canopus won. As a gesture of reconciliation, Canopus returned all the captured Sirian territory and invited Sirius to jointly colonise a new and promising planet called Rohanda (an allegorical Earth). Canopus took the northern continents and gave Sirius the southern continents.Ambien II, one of the Five who run the Sirian Colonial Service and also govern the Sirian Empire, represents Sirius on Rohanda. She sets in motion a series of bio-sociological and genetic experiments where large numbers of primitive indigenous people from Sirian colonised planets are space-lifted to Rohanda and adapted there for work elsewhere in the Empire. In the north, Canopus nurtures Rohanda's bourgeoning humanoids and accelerates their evolution. They also put a Lock on the planet that links it to the harmony and strength of the Canopean Empire. Canopus keeps Ambien II updated with reports of all their work, but she is suspicious of Sirius's former enemy, seeing them as a competitor rather than a partner, and is unable to correctly interpret them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marriages_Between_Zones_Three,_Four_and_Five" title="The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five">
The story opens when the Providers, the invisible and unidentified rulers of all the Zones, order Al•Ith, queen of the peaceful paradise of Zone Three, to marry Ben Ata, king of the militarised and repressive Zone Four. Al•Ith is repulsed by the idea of consorting with a barbarian, and Ben Ata does not want a righteous queen disturbing his military campaigns. Nevertheless, Al•Ith descends to Zone Four and they reluctantly marry. Ben Ata is not used to the company of women he cannot control, and Al•Ith has difficulty relating to this ill-bred man, but in time they grow accustomed to each other and gain new insights into each other's Zones. Al•Ith is appalled that all of Zone Four's wealth goes into its huge armies, leaving the rest of its population poor and underdeveloped; Ben Ata is astounded that Zone Three has no army at all.The marriage bears a son, Arusi, future heir to the two Zones. Some of the women of Zone Four, led by Dabeeb, step in to help Al•Ith. Suppressed and downtrodden, these women relish being in the presence of the queen of Zone Three. But soon after the birth of Arusi, the Providers order Al•Ith to return to Zone Three without her son, and Ben Ata to marry Vahshi, queen of the primitive Zone Five. Al•Ith and Ben Ata have grown fond of each other, and are devastated by this news.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Making_of_the_Representative_for_Planet_8" title="The Making of the Representative for Planet 8">
Planet 8 is a small world that was colonised by the benevolent galactic empire Canopus and populated with a new species created from the stock of four different species originating on several other Canopean planets. Planet 8 has a warm temperate climate and, under Canopus's skilled guidance, the inhabitants live comfortably and at peace with themselves and their world.One day Canopus instructs them to build a huge wall, to exact Canopean specifications, right around the girth of the planet. The construction takes the inhabitants years to complete, and when it is finished, Canopus tells the planet's representatives, leaders of each of the planet's main disciplines, to relocate all settlements north of the wall to the south. Canopus informs everyone that unfortunate interstellar "re-alignments" have taken place and that Planet 8 will soon experience an ice age. After a while temperatures start to drop and the climate begins to change. Glaciers form in the north and slowly advance towards the wall. Canopus, however, assures Planet 8 that Canopus has a new home for them, a peaceful and prosperous world called Rohanda (the subject of the first book in this series, "Shikasta"), and that when it has reached a certain level of development, Canopus will space-lift the inhabitants of Planet 8 to Rohanda. This fills the people of Planet 8 with hope as they are forced to adapt their lifestyles to cope with this new and unfamiliar climate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidetracked_(novel)" title="Sidetracked (novel)">
In the sweltering Swedish summer of 1994, a sadistic serial killer begins preying on elderly, successful men, violently slaughtering them with an axe before collecting their scalps as trophies. Meanwhile, Wallander witnesses a young woman from the Dominican Republic set herself on fire, and must also cope with his increasingly despondent father, who's determined to make one final trip to Italy. As he investigates the two cases, the Ystad detective uncovers a sinister link to prostitution rackets and the white slavery trade.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_(novella)" title="Typhoon (novella)">
Captain MacWhirr sails the "SS Nan-Shan", a British-built steamer running under the Siamese flag, into a typhoon—a mature tropical cyclone of the northwestern part of the Pacific Ocean. Other characters include the young Jukes - most probably an alter ego of Conrad from the time he had sailed under captain John McWhirr - and Solomon Rout, the chief engineer. While Macwhirr, who, according to Conrad, "never walked on this Earth" - is emotionally estranged from his family and crew, and though he refuses to consider an alternative course to skirt the typhoon, his indomitable will in the face of a superior natural force elicits grudging admiration.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perilous_Gard" title="The Perilous Gard">
The "Perilous Gard" takes place in England during the 1550s. The lead character, Kate Sutton, is a lady-in-waiting to Princess Elizabeth (the later Queen Elizabeth I of England). Her sister, Alicia, inadvertently gets her exiled to a castle named Elvenwood Hall, also known as the Perilous Gard, where she finds that the daughter of Sir Geoffrey Heron, the master of the hall, vanished under mysterious circumstances that implicate his brother, Christopher Heron. Kate soon discovers that, although the seeming death of little Cecily was an accident, Christopher is still so overwhelmed with grief that he has exiled himself from castle life. When Kate learns of the local villagers' fears that the "Fairy Folk" will kidnap their children, she guesses that Cecily might not be dead after all. She tells Christopher of her suspicions, and he, unbeknownst to Kate, comes up with a desperate plan to save Cecily. Meanwhile, Kate stumbles into the underground world of the Fairy Folk, who intend to use Christopher's desperation to their own advantage. The Fairy Folk are ruled by the Lady in Green, who believes that only a sacrifice can help her people hold their own against the advancing modern world.Kate detests the Lady in Green at first, but the two of them have much in common. Both are strong-willed, highly independent, and capable of enormous self-discipline. Kate's refusal to be drugged or manipulated in other ways soon gains her a measure of respect among the Fairy Folk. Little by little she gains knowledge of their underground kingdom, while her view of the Lady in Green gradually changes. Kate begins to understand and even to respect the Lady in Green. In the end, however, Kate chooses to leave the Fairy Folk in order to save Christopher, destroying the fairy kingdom in the process. Christopher then takes Cecily to London to live with his sister Jennifer. When Christopher returns he proposes to Kate, and she accepts. Kate is granted freedom when Queen Elizabeth I ascends the throne.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grendel_(novel)" title="Grendel (novel)">
In the opening scene, Grendel briefly fights with a ram when frustrated with its stupidity. He then mockingly asks the sky why animals lack sense and dignity; the sky does not reply, adding to his frustration. Grendel then passes through his cave and encounters his mute mother before venturing out into the night where he attacks Hrothgar's mead hall, called "Hart" in "Grendel". Later, Grendel reminisces about his early experiences in life, beginning with his childhood days of exploring the caves inhabited by him, his mother and other creatures with which he is unable to speak. One day, however, he arrives at a pool filled with firesnakes, which he enters. Upon exiting, he eventually becomes wedged and trapped in a tree. Helpless, he eventually falls asleep, only to wake surrounded by humans. Although Grendel can understand the humans, they cannot understand him and they become frightened, which leads to a fight between Grendel and the Danish warriors, including Hrothgar. Grendel is barely saved from death at the hands of the humans by the appearance of his mother.During Hrothgar's rise to prominence, a blind poet appears at the doors of Hart, whom Grendel calls "the Shaper". He tells the story of the ancient warrior Scyld Shefing, which enraptures and seduces Grendel. The monster reacts violently to the power the beautiful myth has on him and flees. Grendel continues to be enraptured by the tales. After seeing a corpse and two lovers juxtaposed, he drags the corpse to Hart, bursting into the hall and begging for mercy and peace. The thegns do not comprehend his actions and see this as an attack, driving him from the hall. While fleeing the men, he curses them, yet still returns later to hear the rest of the Shaper's songs, half enraptured and half enraged.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Muddle-Headed_Wombat" title="The Muddle-Headed Wombat">
The Muddle-Headed Wombat books follow the Muddle-Headed Wombat and his friends, a good-natured, practical female mouse and a vain, neurotic male tabby cat. The characters call each other simply Wombat, Mouse and Tabby. The idea for the character arose when Park's daughter made the comment that "I don't think there's anyone in the world I'm smarter than."Wombat's speech is peppered with malapropisms and spoonerisms, e.g. "treely ruly" for "really and truly", "lawn the mow" for "mow the lawn" and "Cindergorilla" for "Cinderella". He has a bicycle with red wheels, of which he is intensely proud and which he anthropomorphises, e.g. complaining that it bit him when he accidentally injured himself trying to repair it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_Wild_(novella)" title="Running Wild (novella)">
Pangbourne Village is an estate for the upper middle class, protected by security fences and discreet guards. Its ten families are wealthy, respectable, 40-something couples with adolescent children on whom they lavish everything money can buy.One morning it is discovered that all the adult residents have been killed and the children have disappeared without trace. Dr Richard Greville of Scotland Yard puzzles over the scanty evidence: it gives no leads to the identity of the murderers and kidnappers. No demands for ransom are received. No terrorist group claims responsibility.The reader soon realizes that the missing children are also the missing murderers. Their controlled upbringing has left them no way to establish their own identities except by rebelling into criminal savagery. However, in a tradition of obtuse policemen going back to Inspector Lestrade in the Sherlock Holmes stories, Greville resists drawing this obvious conclusion - until the children strike again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy_(novel)" title="Alchemy (novel)">
Roland, a 7th former who has been caught shoplifting, is given an unusual assignment: to spy on a mysterious girl in his class who is studying alchemy. Jess Ferret is an eccentric girl who likes playing with words. However, an enemy from the boy's past wants the girl's power and is using him for information. Roland eventually finds out that he is not unlike Jess and her abilities, but gets them both into a situation which endangers their lives."Alchemy" has similar themes to two other books by Mahy, "The Changeover" and "The Haunting".The book won the senior fiction section of the 2003 New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_in_Tears" title="End in Tears">
When a lump of concrete is thrown from a bridge and into passing traffic one dark night, the wrong motorist dies. The killer soon rectifies his mistake, however, and Inspector Wexford finds himself under attack from the local press because of his 'old-fashioned' policing methods. Meanwhile, the difficult relationship he shares with his daughter Sylvia takes on new dimensions, as the case makes him ponder the terrible possibility of losing a child...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mem_and_Zin" title="Mem and Zin">
It tells the tragic story of two young people in love. Mem, a young Kurdish boy of the "Alan" clan and heir to the "City of the West", who falls in love with Zin, of the "Botan" clan and the daughter of the governor of Botan. Their union is blocked by "Bakr" of the Bakran clan, who is Mem’s antagonist throughout the story and is jealous of the two star-crossed lovers. Mem eventually dies during a complicated conspiracy by Bakr. When Zin receives the news, she collapses and dies while mourning the death of Mem at his grave. The immense grief leads to her death and she is buried next to Mem in Cizre. The news of the death of Mem and Zin spreads quickly among the people of Jazira Botan. When Bakr's (Beko) role in the tragedy is revealed, Tacdîn, the best friend of Mem, kills him. Bakr (Beko) will be buried next to Mem and Zin's graves. Because before dying, Mem gives his testimony and says that "It was because of Beko that we could not come together, so I want him to witness our love, If he dies, bury him next to me and Zîn". However, a thorn bush, nourished by the blood of Bakr, grows out of his grave: the roots of malice penetrate deep into the earth among the lovers’ graves, thus separating the two even in death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_1914_(novel)" title="August 1914 (novel)">
The plot primarily follows Colonel Vorotyntsev, a General Staff officer sent by the Grand Duke's (supreme commander, Russian Army) headquarters to the Russian Second Army invading East Prussia under command of General Alexander Samsonov. Vorotyntsev has been sent to find out exactly what is happening with the Second Army; a second General Staff colonel has been sent to the First Army with the same mission. Distances were so great, communications so poor, and the Russian Army so badly prepared for war, Vorotyntsev was sent to find out all he could about conditions at the front and then report back to the Grand Duke. By August 26, the opening day of the 4-day Battle of Tannenberg, Vorotyntsev comes to realize that he cannot return to his headquarters in time to make any difference in the outcome of the battle, and stays with the Second Army to help out where he is able to. Numerous side plots involving other characters, both on the battlefield and elsewhere, fill out the novel. The unprepared army's failures mirror those of the Tsarist regime. A famous episode in the earlier version of the novel narrates the state of mind of General Samsonov, the Russian commander, after his disastrous defeat in what came to be known as the Battle of Tannenberg. Samsonov, tormented by the scale of the defeat and his fear of reporting this failure to the Tsar, eventually commits suicide. His body is found by a German search party, a bullet wound in his head and a revolver in his hand.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dying_Animal" title="The Dying Animal">
Kepesh is fascinated by the beautiful young Consuela Castillo, a student in one of his courses. An erotic liaison is formed between the two; Kepesh becomes obsessively enamored of his lover's breasts, a fetish developed in the previous novels. Despite his fevered devotion to Consuela, the sexually promiscuous professor maintains a concurrent affair with a previous lover, now divorced. He is also reluctant to expose himself to the scrutiny or ridicule that might follow from an introduction to Consuela's family. It is implied that he fears such a meeting would expose the implausible age gap in their relationship. Ultimately, Kepesh limits their relationship to the physical instead of embarking upon any deeper arrangement.In the end, Kepesh is destroyed by his indecisiveness, the fear of senescence, his lust and jealousy. Consuela never subsequently finds a lover who can show the same level of devotion to her body as Kepesh had. After some years of estrangement, she asks him to take nude photographs of her because she will be losing one of her breasts to a life-saving mastectomy.Most editions display a cover picture, "Le grand nu" (1919) by Amedeo Modigliani. In the novel, Consuela sends Kepesh a postcard depicting "Le grand nu", and Kepesh surmises that the figure in the painting is her alter ego.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_to_Score" title="Four to Score">
Stephanie is infuriated to learn that her boss/cousin, Vinnie, has hired her arch-rival Joyce Barnhardt as another bounty hunter. Vinnie tells her to "be professional" and focus on tracking down her latest FTA: Maxine Nowicki, a waitress accused of stealing her ex-boyfriend's car and jumping bail.Eddie gives Stephanie a coded message from Maxine, that references some "property", and explains that Maxine has some embarrassing love letters he once wrote to her, and promises Stephanie an extra $1,000 to let him talk to Maxine before she delivers her to the cops, which Stephanie agrees to. Looking for help cracking the codes from her neighbors, one of them steers her to a nephew, Salvatore Sweet, who has a knack for such things. "Sally" is an aspiring rock musician who made his big breakthrough performing in drag.With Sally's help, Stephanie decodes the message, which leads her to the second, and third, and so on. Maxine's trail takes Stephanie and her hangers-on—Sally, former-prostitute-turned-backup Lula, and even Stephanie's Grandma Mazur—all over Trenton, to Point Pleasant, and even to Atlantic City. Stephanie encounters Maxine several times, but never manages to capture her. Along the way she interviews Maxine's mother and her friend Margie, learning that someone else has been visiting them and demanding Maxine's whereabouts, going so far as to scalp Mrs. Nowicki and cut off one of Margie's fingers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Five_(novel)" title="High Five (novel)">
The only Failure-to-Appear (F.T.A.) Vinnie has for Stephanie is so minor league (Briggs), that she focuses her attention on the mysterious disappearance of her Uncle Fred instead. Mabel gives Stephanie some photos she found in Fred's desk of half-opened garbage bags, containing dismembered human body parts. She insists the photos are recent, and very unusual for Fred. Stephanie sees enough to identify the body as a woman's, and gives duplicates of them to her on-again/off-again boyfriend, Detective Joe Morelli, who passes them on to the sergeant in charge of the case. Mabel tells Stephanie that Fred had been furiously pursuing RCG Waste Haulers to get his $2 back because they skipped picking up garbage at his house one time. RCG (Ruben, Grizolli, and Cotell) had refused to refund him, because his payment wasn't in the system - they demanded to see his cancelled check. He was on his way to bring a copy of that to RCG when he disappeared.While Stephanie is starting to look into Fred's activities, Bunchy shows up, mysteriously demanding that Stephanie find Fred for him. Since the Fred mystery is on her own personal time, Stephanie is facing financial hardship and out of desperation she takes a job with Ranger's security company to make ends meet. Ranger assures her the jobs are morally justifiable, if not entirely legal, but Stephanie is (again) over her head while tagging along with Ranger's men. The activities start with "Interior decorating" -forcibly evicting the occupants of a drug den in a slum apartment building - which ends up in an explosion when the main being evicted is shot by an old lady in a pink nightgown, and the explosives he has attached to himself go off. Further activities include chauffeuring a sheikh; and distracting a deadbeat in a bar while his car is repossessed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Up_(novel)" title="Seven Up (novel)">
Stephanie's latest quarry is Eddie DeChooch, a septuagenarian semi-retired mobster who was arrested for smuggling cigarettes into New Jersey from Richmond, Virginia. Stephanie finds him in a state of abject depression at his home, but he eludes her and, while searching the house for clues, Stephanie finds a dead body in his shed, an elderly woman named Loretta Ricci, shot multiple times.Stephanie soon learns that she is not the only one searching for DeChooch; two Mafia types, Benny and Ziggy, are following her around and making themselves at home in her apartment, while her boyfriend, police detective Joe Morelli, wants to question DeChooch about the dead woman in his home. At the same time, Stephanie's friend "Mooner" is worried because his friend and roommate, Dougie Kruper, has disappeared.At home, Stephanie's dinner with her family is interrupted by the surprise appearance of her older sister, Valerie, with her two young daughters, whose "perfect" life in California came to an abrupt end when her husband abandoned her for their teenage babysitter. Over the next few days, Valerie proposes a number of radical schemes to get her life back under control, ranging from following Stephane's example as a bounty hunter to becoming a lesbian.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Six" title="Hot Six">
The prologue begins at the point where "High Five" ended, revealing who Stephanie picked: Ranger or Joe Morelli.Five months later...Stephanie's latest FTA, Carol Zabo, is attempting to avoid jail-time by jumping off a bridge to drown herself. Stephanie talks her down by promising to persuade the man who reported her not to press charges.Returning to the bonds office, Stephanie is handed a nightmare assignment: Ranger has gone FTA, and Stephanie has to track him down. Apart from her attraction to and respect for Ranger, Stephanie knows that his skills as a bounty hunter are far beyond hers. Ranger was scheduled to appear in court for a minor charge of carrying a concealed weapon, but he is also wanted for questioning related to a fire in an office park, where Homer Ramos, the son of notorious international arms dealer Alexander Ramos, was killed. Stephanie is afraid Ranger might be suspected of murdering Homer, and even more afraid that he might have actually done it.To complicate matters, Stephanie also has to deal with:Ranger makes contact with her (without giving her the opportunity to capture him) and asks her to do surveillance on the Ramos family's properties in Jersey. When she drives past the Ramos compound in Deal, she is surprised when Alexander, the Ramos patriarch himself, jumps into her car alone and offers her $20 to drive him to a bar so he can smoke without interference. Over drinks, Stephanie pretends to recognize Alexander from news coverage and expresses her condolences over Homer's death. Alexander is dismissive, saying Homer was "stupid and greedy", and caused his own death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Eight_(novel)" title="Hard Eight (novel)">
Stephanie is asked by her parents' next-door neighbor, Mabel Markowitz, to find her granddaughter, Evelyn and great-granddaughter, Annie, who have disappeared. During a messy divorce with her ex-husband, Steven Soter, Evelyn was forced to post a child custody bond, and Mabel used her house as collateral. If Evelyn is not found, then the bond company will foreclose on her house, and the money will be forfeited to Steven. Mabel asks for Stephanie's help, since as a bounty hunter she is the closest thing Mabel knows to a detective. Stephanie is unable to refuse, even though she is not a private investigator.After interviewing Evelyn's bondsman, Les Sebring, and Steven Soter, Stephanie is baffled; Steven was domineering and abusive, and Evelyn had no friends or other family members she might go to in an emergency, and no one has any idea where she might have gone. Steven seems to be less concerned about Annie's well-being than he is eager to get his hands on the bond money.While snooping through Evelyn's apartment, Stephanie encounters her landlord, a local crime boss named Eddie Abruzzi. He warns Stephanie that if she knows where Evelyn is, she should tell him, or else he will "declare war" and she will be "the enemy." Stephanie's mentor, Ranger Manoso, explains to her that Abruzzi is an avid wargamer, and tends to frame everything in quasi-military terms.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Nines_(novel)" title="To the Nines (novel)">
Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter and amateur detective, who with a combination of luck and intuition usually gets the job done (though often by accident). She's got all the normal concerns in life: the rent, her family, men; yet all of her concerns are topped by the minor fact that someone is usually trying to kill her.Stephanie's cousin and boss, Vinnie, has written the visa bond for Samuel Singh, an Indian immigrant working temporarily in New Jersey. Now he has gone missing, and his landlord, Mrs. Apusenja, insists that Vinnie track him down. She claims Singh is engaged to her daughter, Nonnie, but Nonnie appears more concerned for her dog, "Boo," who went missing at the same time.Partnered with Ranger, Stephanie begins with TriBro, Singh's workplace, owned by three brothers, Andrew, Bart and Clyde Cone. While Andrew is helpful and Clyde is very enthusiastic about the case, Bart Cone gives Stephanie the creeps. Her boyfriend, Joe Morelli, does a background check and finds that Bart Cone was a suspect in the unsolved murder of a woman named Lillian Paressi. Circumstantial evidence tied him to the crime scene, but the indictment was dismissed when the DNA evidence proved negative.After returning home from TriBro, Stephanie is unnerved to find a bouquet of white carnations and red roses, accompanied by photographs of a murdered woman. She also receives some rather creepy emails.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Big_Ones" title="Ten Big Ones">
Stephanie and Lula happen to be waiting outside a deli when a young man in a red Devil mask runs outside after robbing it, only to find that his getaway bicycle's tire is flat, Lula having shot it while trying to disprove Stephanie's doubts about her marksmanship. "Red Devil" throws a Molotov cocktail into the store, but the owner throws it back before it explodes, accidentally destroying Stephanie's latest car. Her boyfriend, police detective Joe Morelli, warns her that gang activity in Trenton is worsening, and "Red Devil"'s gang, the "Comstock Street Slayers", may decide to target her, especially if he believes Stephanie can identify him without his mask.By coincidence, Stephanie is driving her latest FTA, Salvatore "Sally" Sweet, and her Grandma Mazur, to the police station, when she notices Red Devil and several gang cohorts at a fast food drive-through. She calls the police, but the gang opens fire with automatic weapons, wounding her friend, Officer Eddie Gazzara, though not seriously. Furious and terrified in equal measure, Stephanie tries to think of a way to neutralize the gang, especially since she refuses Morelli's attempts to keep her under house arrest at his home.Stephanie's mentor, former Special Forces soldier and bounty hunter Carlos "Ranger" Manoso, loans Stephanie the use of a truck from his security company's fleet. On a whim, she follows the truck's GPS system to its previous location, which turns out to be a high-security office building with a luxurious apartment on the top floor, where Stephanie decides to wait out the crisis, at least until Ranger returns from his out-of-state trip. Although she feels that she and her family members are safe for the time being, she can't relax until the gang is no longer a threat to her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleven_on_Top" title="Eleven on Top">
Stephanie Plum has had enough - enough of grappling with fugitives in garbage piles, enough of being constantly shot at, and enough of having her cars blown up on a semi-regular basis. So she quits her job as a bail enforcement agent and resolves to get a normal job and a normal life. However, events conspire against her. Her three attempts at a normal job - working at a button factory, the Kan-Kleen Dry-Cleaning Service, and serving fast-food chicken at Cluck-in-a-Bucket - all end in disaster, partly because someone is, once again, attempting to kill her. It's someone she knows, and someone who knows her too well, but, as her on-again/off-again boyfriend, cop Joe Morelli points out, she's made a lot of enemies.At the same time, Stephanie is trying to avoid having to wear an eggplant-colored gown as maid of honor at her sister Valerie's upcoming wedding. The wedding itself hits a snag when Valerie's hapless fiancé, lawyer Albert Kloughn, makes an insensitive remark about her weight at a family dinner, and she vows not to get married unless she can lose at least sixty pounds in less than ten days.Stephanie becomes convinced that the man stalking her is Spiro Stiva, the fugitive son of the Burg's favorite undertaker, Constantine. Spiro disappeared when Stephanie and her Grandma Mazur inadvertently burned down the Stiva funeral home in "Two for the Dough", and now it looks like Spiro is back for revenge.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One,_No_One_and_One_Hundred_Thousand" title="One, No One and One Hundred Thousand">
Vitangelo Moscarda discovers by way of a completely irrelevant question that his wife poses to him that everyone he knows, everyone he has ever met, has constructed a Vitangelo "persona" in their own imagination and that none of these personas corresponds to the image of Vitangelo that he himself has constructed and believes himself to be. The reader is immediately immersed in a cruel game of falsifying projections, mirroring the reality of social existence itself, which imperiously dictate their rules. As a result, the first, ironic "awareness" of Vitangelo consists in the knowledge of that which he definitely is not; the preliminary operation must therefore consist in the spiteful destruction of all of these fictitious masks. Only after this radical step toward madness and folly in the eyes of the world can Vitangelo finally begin to follow the path toward his true self. He discovers, though, that if his body can be one, his spirit certainly is not. And this Faustian duplicity gradually develops into a disconcerting and extremely complex multiplicity. How can one come to know the true foundation, the substate of the self? Vitangelo seeks to catch it by surprise as it shows itself in a brief flash on the surface of consciousness. But this attempt at revealing the secret self, chasing after it as if it were an enemy that must be forced to surrender, does not give the desired results. Just as soon as it appears, the unknown self evaporates and recomposes itself into the familiar attitudes of the superficial self. In this extremely modern "Secretum" where there is no Saint Augustine to indicate, with the profound voice of conscience, the absolute truth to desire, where desperation is entrusted to a bitter humour, corrosive and healing at the same time, the unity of the self disintegrates into diverse stratifications. Vitangelo is one of those "...particularly intelligent souls ...who break through the illusion of the unity of the self and feel themselves to be multiform, a league of many Is..." as Hermann Hesse notes in the "Dissertation" chapter of "Steppenwolf".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Left_My_Sneakers_in_Dimension_X" title="I Left My Sneakers in Dimension X">
"I Left My Sneakers in Dimension X" continues the adventures of Rod and the crew of the Galactic Patrol ship "Ferkel". When villainous BKR's friend Smorkus Flinders crosses over from Dimension X, he captures Rod and his bratty cousin Elspeth, taking them back to his home to use as bait for the crew of the "Ferkel" as revenge for them imprisoning BKR. Rod and Elspeth are rescued by Captain Grakker and his crew, but during the escape from Castle Chaos, the "Ferkel" is damaged enough that all must abandon ship. Without their spacecraft, our heroes are stranded.Following the strange disappearance of their friend Snout, the seven remaining gain help in the form of Galuspa, one of the race of Shapeshifters that are native to Dimension X. With his help, they are taken to the Valley of the Shapeshifters to see the Ting Wongovia. During their journey, Rod gains a new companion: a furry little creature called a Chibling, which bonds to him. Also during this time, and the time spent waiting in the Valley, Rod sees that another of the crew, Tar Gibbons, is watching him. Later, the Tar asks Rod to become his "Krevlik", or apprentice. Rod accepts, and begins training under his new teacher in the ways of martial arts. During the wait, Rod learns that BKR was handed off to the "Merkel", one of the "Ferkel's" sister ships, to be delivered to prison, and that the crew of the "Ferkel" readily jumped in to save them despite knowledge that they were headed into a trap.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Search_for_Snout" title="The Search for Snout">
"The Search For Snout" picks up where the previous book left off. Introducing the crew of the Galactic Patrol vessel "Ferkel" to his earthling mother proves to be as difficult as predicted, and explaining that he's going with them to find his semi-alien father is an even harder task. But the real trouble starts when they find out that BKR (the pain-loving alien psycho antagonist) is on the loose, having taken control of the "Ferkel's" sister ship "Merkel" while the ship was delivering him to prison. The crew of the "Ferkel" has been ordered to seek out their enemy and recapture him.After they question Smorkus Flinders (a muscle-bound alien from Dimension X) and learn something of BKR's current plan, Rod is contacted again by his friend Snout, master of the mental arts. Partly inspired by this contact, Grakker (the ship's commander) decides to break off from the Galactic Patrol and head for the Mentat instead, the school where Snout became a master of the Mental Arts (incidentally, the building is one big PLANT). There, he hopes to find a clue that could lead them to their fallen friend. During the journey, Grakker reveals some of his past, including how he got to know both Snout and BKR. Smorkus Flinders, having escaped from his suspended animation pod, manages to capture the entire crew... except for Elspeth (Rod's all-human cousin), who stowed away and was also in suspended animation as punishment. She manages to stop Smorkus and rescue the others. Also as a result of the battle, Rod's chibling (a small furball from dimension X) is injured from being thrown into a wall.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_Stole_My_Body" title="Aliens Stole My Body">
"Aliens Stole My Body" concludes the four-book series. After the departure of Selima Khan, the group characters from "The Search for Snout" splits up into three groups, Rod and Seymour head for the planet Kryndamar, along with Snout, Elspeth, and Madam Pong (the Diplomatic Officer of the Ferkel). Meanwhile, Grakker and Phil (the sentient plant who serves as the Ferkel's science officer) leave to re-establish contact with the Galactic Patrol, and Ah-Rit heads off with Tar Gibbons in an attempt to reclaim Rod's body from BKR.While on Kryndamar, Rod begins training his mind with Snout, and later gains a few new allies: the intergalactic pet trader Mir-Van; his family; and his business partner Grumbo. They also encounter one of BKR's henchmen; from him, they learn that BKR has already discovered their deception: Rod's brain is empty. BKR still plans to use it as bait, and he intends to capture Rod's mom and younger twin siblings from Earth, to serve as more bait.After arriving on Earth and locating Rod's family, the entire group (sans Grumbo, Mir-Van, and his family) are captured by BKR and his gang (including the traitorous Arly Bung) in the Merkel. The captives, along with Grakker, Phil, and Selima Khan, who are captured shortly before they were to leave the solar system, are taken to BKR's headquarters. There, the entire group is joined by Ah-Rit and Tar Gibbons.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil's_Arithmetic" title="The Devil's Arithmetic">
Hannah Stern is a Jewish preteen girl living in the present day. She is bored by her relative's stories about the past, is not looking forward to the Passover Seder, and is tired of her religion. When Hannah symbolically opens the door for the prophet Elijah, she is transported back in time to a shtetl on the Polish/German border in 1942, during World War II. Hannah is not immediately aware of the time period.At that time and place, the people believe she is Chaya Abramowicz, who is recovering from cholera, the fever that killed Chaya's parents a few months ago. The strange remarks Hannah/Chaya makes about the future and her inability to recognize Chaya's aunt Gitl and uncle Shmuel are blamed on the fever.At Uncle Shmuel's wedding, the Nazis come to transport the entire population of the village to a death camp near Donavin, and only Hannah knows all the terrors they will face: starvation, mistreatment, forced labor, and finally execution. Hannah and the other women are stripped, shaved, and tattooed with a number. Hannah and the other women are forced to dig trenches in the camp. Hannah struggles to survive at the camp, with the help of a girl named Rivka. Uncle Shmuel and some other men try to escape; the men are caught and then shot as everyone watches. Fayge, who was going to be married to Shmuel, is killed because she runs to Shmuel when he is about to be shot with the men that were caught. Yitzchak escapes and lives in the forest with the partisans, fighting the Germans.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kajko_and_Kokosz" title="Kajko and Kokosz">
Main characters in the series include castellan Mirmił, hypochondriac ruler of the village of Mirmiłowo, where Kajko and Kokosz serve as warriors; Lubawa, dominating wife of Mirmił; small dragon Miluś; benevolent witch Jaga; her husband, the good robber Breakbone (Łamignat) and the antagonists of the series: military knight order of Knaveknights ("Zbójcerze"), based on the Teutonic Knights, led by Hegemon, with his second in command, Hitler-like Corporal and Schweik-like Loser ("Oferma"). The stories are written in a tongue-in-cheek manner and contain light satirical elements, usually puns concerning the reality of living in Communist-ruled Poland with characters sometimes mentioning labour unions, bureaucracy, commodity shortages, and similar themes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseman,_Pass_By" title="Horseman, Pass By">
Seventeen-year-old Lonnie lives on a Texas ranch with his grandfather Homer Bannon, Homer's wife Jewel, and her adult son Hud. While a good cowboy, Hud does whatever he wants, regardless of others. They also have a new worker, Jesse, and a cook Halmea, a friendly African-American woman who is treated respectfully by Homer. Hud is nasty towards her, and Lonnie tries to be nice to her; both of them are attracted to her but she is uninterested.The prologue briefly explains life on the ranch and the backstories of everyone there.One day, one of Homer's young heifers dies suddenly. The dead animal is found to have foot-and-mouth disease, and it has spread to the rest of the herd. All cattle on the ranch are led into a deep pit dug by bulldozers. They are shot and buried.During this time, Hud rapes Halmea, causing her to leave. Lonnie and Halmea shoot at him but miss. Halmea tries to kill him, but Lonnie just wants to scare him, to no avail. Lonnie goes to the town rodeo, only to see his friend Hermy get seriously hurt in a bull riding accident when a bull stomps on and shatters his chest. Lonnie heads back to the ranch with Hud in a car behind him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Esclusa" title="L'Esclusa">
The story itself is set in a small village in Sicily.The protagonist Marta Ajala feels "excluded" from the society in which she lives because of having catastrophically lost the position and status that she had been assigned in the order of things: the position of a submissive and bored housewife who never quite felt at ease in her role, but who had achieved respect in society because of it. It is a role that she does not regret losing but whose sudden and violent loss has thrown her into a dramatic situation: she has been kicked out of her home by her husband, who caught her by surprise in the act of reading a letter from someone who has been courting her but whose advances she has always rejected.The precipitous decision of the husband overwhelmed with rage; the attitude of Marta's father who, even while knowing that his daughter is innocent, totally supports her husband's decision out of a misbegotten sense of masculine spiritual solidarity and ends up dying of shame; the submissive suffering of the mother and sister, constantly ready, in order to conform to traditional convictions, to counsel her surrender and obedience; the choral malevolence of the villagers, taking advantage of a religious procession that is passing by under their windows to publicly jeer and shout names at her, are the elements of a minutely described painting, in the manner of realism, which illustrates the closed mentality of the village.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_(novel)" title="Gateway (novel)">
Gateway is an asteroid hollowed out by the Heechee, a long-vanished alien race. Humans have had limited success understanding the left-behind bits of Heechee technology found there and elsewhere. The Gateway Corporation administers the asteroid on behalf of the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, the New People's Asia, the Venusian Confederation, and the United States of Brazil.Nearly a thousand small, abandoned starships are located at Gateway. By extremely dangerous trial and error, humans have partially learned how to operate them. The controls for selecting a destination have been identified, but nobody knows where a particular setting will take the ship, how long the trip will last, or even if enough fuel is available to get back. Those who choose to risk their lives cram the limited space with equipment and hopefully enough food for the trip, but sometimes it is not enough, and they have to resort first to cannibalism, and if that is not enough, to suicide. Attempts at reverse engineering to find out how the ships work have ended only in disaster, as has changing the settings in midflight. Most settings lead to useless or lethal places. A few, however, result in the discovery of new Heechee artifacts and habitable planets in other star systems, making the crews extremely wealthy. The vessels were made in three standard sizes, which can hold a maximum of one, three, or five people. Some "threes" and many "fives" are armored. Each ship includes a lander to visit a planet or other object if one is found.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon's_Shadow" title="The Moon's Shadow">
After ascending the Carnelian throne, 17-year-old Eubian Emperor Jaibriol III is busy accomplishing many different goals—beginning peace talks with Skolian Imperialate, escaping death during several assassination attempts and marrying his beautiful, tricky and dangerous finance minister Tarquine Iquar. Above all, he has to hide from his Aristo fellows, that he is in fact a Rhon psion, for if his secret is ever revealed, he would face the fate of an enslaved provider.This novel overlaps with "Ascendant Sun" which tells the events after Radiance War from the point of view of new Skolian Imperator Kelric Valdoria and "Spherical Harmonic" which tells the events after Radiance War from the point of view of Pharaoh Dyhianna Selei. "The Radiant Seas" tells the story of Jaibriol's childhood on the planet Prizma and the course of Radiance War. "The Ruby Dice" is the next book in the chronology of the saga to include Jaibriol III as a main character, followed by "Carnelians".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascendant_Sun" title="Ascendant Sun">
The book begins just after Kelric has escaped the planet of Coba, where he had been held prisoner for over 18 years. Forced to land because of his ships short fuel supply, Kelric takes up a lucrative job as the spaceship Corona's tactical officer under the command of Jafe Maccar, only to be captured by his people's enemies, the Eubians. An Aristo Taratus sells Kelric in an auction to Tarquine Iquar, Minister of Finance. Kelric discovers his mixed feelings for Tarquine, even though he is made to be her slave and provider. Not long after his enslavement, Kelric makes a bold escape, which although successful, cripples his health significantly.Instead of immediately heading home, Kelric heads to the captured Lock, an ancient device made by the original Ruby Empire some 6000 years ago which fell into the Eubians possession during the Radiance War. There, he deactivates the mechanism and meets Jaibriol III, new emperor of the Eubian Empire, whom he immediately suspects to be a psion. Jaibriol proposes peace talks between Eube and Skolia.He manages to make it to another planet, where he meets his future wife Jeejon. Together, they are able to gain passage off world, to Earth. The book's climax is Kelric reuniting with his parents on Earth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silkworm" title="The Silkworm">
Several months after solving the Lula Landry case, Cormoran Strike is asked by Leonora Quine to locate her novelist husband Owen, a former literary genius whose attempts to recreate his past success have failed. Owen disappeared around the same time his latest book, "Bombyx Mori", was leaked. The book has been deemed unpublishable due to its mixture of sexual assault, torture, and cannibalism as well as its slanderous depiction of the people in Owen's life. In addition to Leonora, Strike sets out interviewing the other people portrayed in the manuscript: Owen's lover Kathryn Kent, protégée Pippa Midgley, agent Elizabeth Tassel, editor Jerry Waldegrave, publisher Daniel Chard and former friend Michael Fancourt. The suspects, however, soon turn on one another, accusing and counter-accusing each other of killing Owen and ghost-writing "Bombyx Mori".As the investigation commences, Strike's relationship with Robin Ellacott gradually deteriorates, as she feels neglected by him and he feels unwilling to put her in a position where she is forced to choose between her job and her fiancé Matthew. The animosity is tempered when Strike finds Owen's body, which has been mutilated, doused in acid and posed to resemble the ending of "Bombyx Mori". Metropolitan Police later arrest Leonora for the murder, prompting Strike to set out clearing her name. Robin, meanwhile, strains her relationship with Matthew after she almost misses his mother's funeral to help Strike and gets caught telling a lie. She later confronts Strike about his intentions only to be warned that she will be asked to do things Matthew will not like if she becomes an investigator.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quantum_Rose" title="The Quantum Rose">
"The Quantum Rose" is a retelling of the "Beauty and the Beast" folktale in a science fiction setting. In the novel, Kamoj Argali, the governor of an impoverished province on the backward planet Balumil, is betrothed to Jax Ironbridge, ruler of a wealthy neighboring province, an arrangement made for political purposes to save her province from starvation and death. Havyrl (Vyrl) Lionstar, a prince of the titular Ruby Dynasty, comes to Balimul as part of a governmental plan to deal with the aftermath of an interstellar war. Masked and enigmatic, he has a reputation as a monster with Kamoj's people.Lionstar interferes with Kamoj's culture and destabilizes their government by pushing her into marriage with himself. In the traditional fairy tale, Belle must save her father from the prince transformed into a beast; in "The Quantum Rose", Kamoj must save her province from the prince in exile. The book deals with themes about the physical and emotional scars left on the survivors of a war with no clear victor. As such, it is also a story of healing for the characters Kamoj and Lionstar.The second half of "The Quantum Rose" involves Lionstar's return to his home world with Kamoj, where he becomes the central figure in a planet wide act of civil disobedience designed to eject an occupying military force that has taken control of his planet. Both the world Balimul in the first half of the novel and the world Lyshriol in the second half fall into the lost colony genre of literature in science fiction.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_to_Pay_in_the_Backlands" title="The Devil to Pay in the Backlands">
"Grande Sertão: Veredas" is the complex story of Riobaldo, a former jagunço (mercenary or bandit) of the poor and steppe-like inland of the Rio São Francisco, known as Sertão, of the states of Minas Gerais and Bahia in the dawn of the 20th century. Now an old man and a rancher, Riobaldo tells his long story to an anonymous and silent listener coming from the city. The book is written in one long section, with no section or chapter breaks.Riobaldo is born into a middle-class family and, unlike most of his contemporaries, receives an education. This enables him to begin his career as a tutor to a prominent local rancher, Zé Bebelo, and he watches as Zé Bebelo raises an army of his own jagunços to stamp out several of the local bandit gangs. Instead, for reasons that are never fully clear—apparently a desire for adventure—he disappears from the ranch and defects to the side of the bandits under the leadership of Joca Ramiro. Due to his excellent aim, Riobaldo becomes a valued member of the band and begins to rise in stature. In the course of the events Riobaldo gets acquainted with Diadorim, revealed later to be someone from his past who used the name, "Reinaldo". Diadorim is a young, pleasant and ambivalent fellow jagunço. The two start a profound friendship, with Diodorim exerting an unusual attraction in Riobaldo. Throughout the book it is hinted that Diadorim is Joca Ramiro's nephew or illegitimate son.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Getaway_(novel)" title="The Getaway (novel)">
Carter "Doc" McCoy, an expert criminal who was recently released from prison on a pardon, plans to commit a bank robbery with three accomplices. One is his wife Carol, a former librarian who was charmed by Doc's ruthlessness and immorality and thus became his partner-in-crime; she is waiting with their getaway car. The other two are the thuggish Rudy Torrento and the naive Jackson, both of whom are discussing the group's planned escape route: they intend to travel first to California, where they are to stay at a tourist camp Rudy knows while the heat dies down, and then intend to sneak across the Mexican border to go to a mysterious sanctuary for criminals run by a man called El Rey ("The King").The bank's guard opens the door to prepare for the day, at which point Doc shoots and kills him from across the street. Rudy and Jackson hide the guard's body, then lie in wait as the other three members of the bank staff arrive for work, tying up each in turn. They steal about $250,000 ($ million today), at which point Rudy kills Jackson in order to increase his share of the proceeds. Doc starts a fire so they can escape while everyone is distracted. Rudy, guessing that Doc will try to kill him, pulls a gun, but Doc shoots first, seemingly killing Rudy, then meets up with Carol.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_May" title="Missing May">
The novel is set in present-day West Virginia. The protagonist is Summer, an orphaned child who has been passed from one apathetic relative to another. At age six, she meets her Aunt May and Uncle Ob. The kindly old couple notices that, although Summer is not mistreated, she is virtually ignored by her caretakers and decide to take Summer home to their rickety trailer home in the hills of the Appalachian mountains. Summer thrives under their care, feeling that she finally has a home.Six years after Summer moves in, Aunt May dies suddenly in the garden. Summer must cope with her own grief while worrying about Uncle Ob, who is overwhelmed by the thought of living without his beloved wife. Uncle Ob decides to try contacting May's spirit, after he experiences the sensation that she has tried to communicate with him. He is assisted in this endeavor by Cletus Underwood, a classmate of Summer's, who provides information on a supposed spirit medium of some renown. Summer views his ideas with some skepticism, but is willing to try anything that might alleviate her uncle's sorrow. The three take a roadtrip to meet with the medium, only to discover that she had recently died. Uncle Ob is initially crushed by this news, and Summer fears that this disappointment was the last blow to his will to live. However, on the return trip, Uncle Ob suddenly snaps out of his depression, deciding to continue living on for Summer's sake.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trumpeter_of_Krakow" title="The Trumpeter of Krakow">
## To Kraków.After seeing a spy lurking around his house in Ukraine, Andrew Charnetski hastily removes his family to a safe location. While away, Peter of the Button Face, acting under the orders of Ivan III of Russia, burns the Charnetskis' village to the ground in search of the "Great Tarnov Crystal", a mysterious Tarnov crystal that has caused many wars over the millennia and had, a few centuries previously, been entrusted by the city of Tarnów to the Charnetski family for safeguarding until its discovery by others, at which time it was to be given to the current king of Poland.Realizing that someone must have been after the crystal, and finding himself homeless, Andrew takes his family to Kraków, where his cousin Andrew Tenczynski lives, in order to give the crystal to King Kazimír Jagiełło. However, upon his arrival he finds that Tenczynski has been murdered and that his estate is under the control of Elizabeth of Austria, the queen of Poland. Destitute, Charnetski camps his family in the middle of the city for the day.Charnetski's fifteen-year-old son Joseph explores the city, passing the Church of Our Lady St. Mary, from which a trumpeter plays an unfinished song called "the Heynal" [in Polish: "Hejnał mariacki"] four times every hour, once to each direction (north, east, south, and west). Joseph ends up saving an alchemist named Nicholas Kreutz and his niece, Elżbietka, from a wolfdog (even though the book said a dog). Kreutz offers Joseph and his family an apartment just below his on the unsavory Street of the Pigeons, a street near Kraków University where scientists and magicians often live.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_(novel)" title="Tokyo (novel)">
The story is about a young woman (nicknamed 'Grey' by a fellow mental hospital patient) who is obsessed with the 1937 Japanese invasion of Nanking, also known as the Rape of Nanking. She travels to Japan in order to find a professor said to have rare footage of the massacre detailing an event that she could not otherwise prove occurred. The professor decides that he will only show her the tape if she was to procure an unknown ingredient of Chinese medicine from the local Yakuza group. After being recruited into a host club, Grey finds her chance.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treatment_(novel)" title="The Treatment (novel)">
A husband and wife are discovered imprisoned in their own home near Brockwell Park in South London. It is a hot summer and they are badly dehydrated. They have been bound and beaten, and the husband seems close to death. Rory Peach, their 8-year-old son, is missing. Detective Inspector (DI) Jack Caffery is one of the police team. The disappearance of the boy rekindles memories in Caffery of his brother Ewan, who was abducted as a 9-year-old and never seen again.Caffery tries to find the boy at the same time as helping his girlfriend cope with having been sexually assaulted. He follows clues that might allow him to find out Ewan's fate. Patterns of child sexual abuse start to emerge, and Caffery tracks down a young man who was abused in the same park many years earlier as a child. Caffery is convinced that the attacker will be targeting another family. Rory's body is discovered, with evidence of sexual attack, but the DNA from semen is found to be that of Rory's father Alek. The case is turned on its head, and confusion is added when bite marks on the boy's shoulder do not match Alek's dental pattern. Caffery understands that Peach was forced to sodomise his son.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birdman_(novel)" title="Birdman (novel)">
Caffery gets involved in the frightening case of five murdered women whose mutilated corpses are found in the outskirts of London. His investigation yields a treasure trove of abominations. Caffery knows his department is looking in the wrong place for the perpetrator, but he cannot guess at the forces he is up against, or the true darkness of a killer's heart. The manhunt builds as a killer is cornered. The sequel is "The Treatment".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Corridor" title="The Black Corridor">
Ryan is a tough-minded British businessman appalled by the breakdown of society at the end of the 20th century. He feels that he is one of the few sane men in a world of paranoiacs.With a small group of family and friends, he has stolen a spaceship and set out for Munich 15040 (Barnard's Star), a planet believed to be suitable for colonisation. Now he keeps watch alone, with his 13 companions sealed in cabinets designed to keep them in suspended animation for the many years of the journey. He makes a daily report on each one: it is always 'Condition Steady'.Ryan is tormented by nightmares and memories of the violence on Earth; he starts to fear he is losing his grip on reality. The shipboard computer urges him to take a drug that eliminates all delusions and hallucinations; but he is strangely reluctant to use this drug.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh,_Play_That_Thing" title="Oh, Play That Thing">
Having fallen foul of his erstwhile comrades in the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Henry escapes to America. In New York City, he becomes involved in advertising, pornography and bootlegging. After stepping on the toes of the Mob, Henry heads for Chicago, where he becomes the manager and partner-in-crime of Louis Armstrong. He becomes reunited with his wife and daughter, and, much to his dismay, the IRA.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study" title="The China Study">
"The China Study" examines the link between the consumption of animal products (including dairy) and chronic illnesses such as coronary heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and bowel cancer. The book is "loosely based" on the China–Cornell–Oxford Project, a 20-year study which looked at mortality rates from cancer and other chronic diseases from 1973 to 1975 in 65 counties in China, and correlated this data with 1983–84 dietary surveys and blood work from 100 people in each county.The authors conclude that people who eat a predominantly whole-food, vegan diet—avoiding animal products as a source of nutrition, including beef, pork, poultry, fish, eggs, cheese, and milk, and reducing their intake of processed foods and refined carbohydrates—will escape, reduce, or reverse the development of numerous diseases. They write that "eating foods that contain any cholesterol above 0 mg is unhealthy." The book recommends sunshine exposure or dietary supplements to maintain adequate levels of vitamin D, and supplements of vitamin B12 in case of complete avoidance of animal products. It criticizes low-carb diets, such as the Atkins diet, which include restrictions on the percentage of calories derived from carbohydrates The authors are critical of reductionist approaches to the study of nutrition, whereby certain nutrients are blamed for disease, as opposed to studying patterns of nutrition and the interactions between nutrients.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolutely_Normal_Chaos" title="Absolutely Normal Chaos">
Mary Lou Finney is more than excited about her assignment to keep a journal over the summer. Not only does she have to keep a journal, but she must read the Odyssey. The Odyssey is continuously referenced within her own writing. She adds her own comments about the Odyssey that reference to her own life. As the novel unfolds, Mary Lou's cousin, Carl Ray stays with her family. Carl Ray does this in order to look for a job. As the novel progresses, Mary Lou learns about Carl Ray's difficulties in life and how he has struggled. After discovering this information, Mary Lou finds it easier to examine her struggles with her family, her friends, and herself.Sharon Creech stated that the inspiration for this story was an occasion when, "I'd been living overseas (England and Switzerland) for about ten years, and I was sadly missing my family back in the States. I thought I'd write a story about normal family chaos and that's how this began, with me trying to remember what it was like growing up in my family. Writing the story was a way for me to feel as if my family were with me, right there in our little cottage in England.".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_the_Shelter" title="Out of the Shelter">
Timothy Young, at five, enjoys having to go to his neighbor's shelter during the Blitz, partly because he gets to sleep with his friend Jill. However, Jill and her mother are killed in an air raid. Timothy spends some of the war in the country before he and his rather narrow-minded Catholic parents return to their lower-middle-class neighbourhood in London. He sees his sister Kath, who is eleven years older, only on her rare visits home, as she is now working in Germany with the occupying forces.In 1951, he faces a decision of whether to apply his mathematical and artistic talent to an apprenticeship as a draughtsman or to the study of architecture at university. Kath invites him to visit her in Heidelberg during the summer. After some trepidation, he agrees. The boat and train journey is highly unpleasant, but he is befriended by a young American man with unconventional views, Don Kowalski. Kath's life in Heidelberg is far more luxurious than anything Timothy knew in England, where some basic foods are still rationed and economic growth is slow. He joins in the good meals, games, and pleasure trips Kath has with her fun-loving friends, especially two Americans, Greg and Vince. Timothy lives surreptitiously in an empty room in a woman's hostel. When he spends a day with Rudolf, the young German porter of Kath's residence, and his family, he sees the much lower German standard of living and deals with his conflicted feelings about the Germans. He also visits an American family with boys his own age and the American school where Don teaches, but doesn't get along well there.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_News" title="Paradise News">
The story begins with Bernard, a laicised Catholic priest, escorting his unwilling father Jack to Hawaii at the request of his aunt Ursula, who is dying of cancer. On the day after arrival, Jack is hit by a car and sent to hospital. Bernard spends much time travelling between Jack's bedside and Ursula's nursing home, and through this, gets the opportunity to discover their past. Ursula, always portrayed as the selfish black sheep, had been sexually abused as a child by her oldest brother Sean, who was venerated as a hero by the family for his death in the war. Ursula explains to Bernard that the experience ruined her marriage and her life. She wants Jack's apology for Jack knew of the abuse but kept silent. In the midst of this, Bernard strikes up a tentative relationship with Yolande Miller, the driver of the car that hit his father. Bernard's gradual sexual awakening parallels Ursula's struggle with her illness.The narrative switches between third-person prose, Bernard's diary, a long letter from Bernard to Yolande, and postcards and notes sent from Hawaii by various characters encountered by Bernard and Jack on the plane journey from England, concluding with a letter from Yolande to Bernard.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Truths_(novella)" title="Home Truths (novella)">
The story mainly focuses on Adrian Ludlow, a half-retired writer, interviewed by Fanny Tarrant, a journalist famous for sarcastic portrait of her interviewees.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusions_of_Grandma" title="Delusions of Grandma">
The book is about Cora Sharpe, a Hollywood screenwriter who is eight-and-a-half months pregnant by her boyfriend, an attorney named Ray, a relationship that has gone wrong. Concerned that she will not survive labor, Cora begins to write long letters to her unborn child. As she writes, she begins to recall the events that led to her current situation.Her relationship with Ray became more complicated by the arrival of his mother, who came to live with them to recuperate from breast surgery. Cora's friend and co-writer, Bud, who has bipolar disorder, then moves in with them. When another friend, William, who is in the final stages of dying of AIDS, moves in, Ray decides that Cora's efforts to care for William during his final days on earth signals that he, Ray, is not her top priority in life.As things get out of control, Cora returns home to her mother, a retired musical comedy star, and Bud follows. There is an in-depth look at the heartfelt expectations of Cora's zany mother, the show-bizzy grandma-to-be. Cora and Bud then join her mother in an inexplicable and madcap scheme to kidnap Cora's grandfather, who is stricken with Alzheimer's, from his nursing home and take him back to his hometown of Whitewright, Texas.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gojiro" title="Gojiro">
The earliest event is the striking of a comet into the earth 65 million years ago, at the Encrucijada Valley site as the first nuclear test later occurs. A small lizard witnesses and survives this event, and carries on his line. This lizard is revered as the heroic Varanidid by Gojiro's lizard homeland, though they forget what exactly he did. He is also the precursor of the reptilian creator-beast revered by the dying Monongae clan that lived in the same location before the nuclear tests occurred. The remains of the dead dinosaurs form fossil fuels which pool under the valley.Much later, in the 19th century, Joseph Prometheus Brooks is born to a large middle American family, his father a severe and religious man. Joseph's mother recognizes his genius and manages to have him sent away at a very young age to the university of Göttingen in Germany, where he meets his future collaborator in nuclear physics, Victor Stiller. When he returns home on holiday, he finds that his father has burned the entire rest of the family to death, along with their home, believing that existence is an affront to God. Some time later, the last few members of the Monongae clan send supplications of help to the beast who lives inside the Earth to help them, and charge the youngest member, Nelson Monongae with reawakening him. That same night, he encounters Joseph Brooks' future wife Leona, who soon has visions of past and future events, including the striking of the comet, and an incomplete vision of an adult Joseph Brooks holding an object and looking at something. She travels to Germany, where she finds Joseph playing clarinet in and underground jazz club, having become disaffected by the university. They marry and travel to the United States, along with Victor Stiller, when WWII breaks out, Joseph and Victor becoming the premier nuclear scientists of the American war effort. Leona becomes pregnant nine months before the first nuclear test, a couple of years before 1945. Joseph intends the nuclear test to cause such vast destruction that it calls the attention of the creator of the world to Earth. Leona and Joseph's daughter, Sheila Brooks, is born on the day of the test, and Leona dies, having come too close to the blastwave in an attempt to witness God's manifestation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_House_(novel)" title="Open House (novel)">
Throughout the 20 years of her marriage, Samantha Morrow has been content with her life, though she knows it isn't perfect. She has a nice home, a great son, and a husband she loves. But everything is turned upside down when her husband, David, tells her he wants out of their marriage. His rapid departure on the heels of this announcement leaves Sam horribly shocked, utterly confused, and oddly obsessed with Martha Stewart. Her initial reaction is to go on a spending spree, charging thousands of dollars worth of merchandise at Tiffany's to her husband's credit card. But when reality sets in and her husband cuts her off, she realizes that if she wants to keep the house she loves and make a home for herself and her son, she's going to have to generate some income.Her first solution to this dilemma is to find a couple of roommates. Between the finished portion of the basement and the extra bedroom upstairs, Sam figures she can take on two boarders and mitigate a large portion of the mortgage payment. She finds her first boarder quickly—the septuagenarian mother of an acquaintance—and is delighted. Lydia Fitch is quiet, clean, concerned, friendly, and more than eager to play grandmother to Sam's son, Travis. Which is just as well, since Sam's own mother doesn't quite fit the bill. In fact, Sam's mother has made a career out of dating since the death of her husband two decades ago and is now determined to fix Sam up as soon as possible—a plan with foreseeable disasters written all over it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criss_Cross_(novel)" title="Criss Cross (novel)">
This story takes place in Seldem, during spring and summer. It follows the criss-crossing stories of a group of middle-school children. A necklace plays a significant part in all of the criss-cross moments, helping the characters in the book to find their true selves, giving the novel a touch of magic realism. Debbie usually spends time with her four friends, Patty, Hector, Lenny, and Phil. A typical summer for them would be to hang around town and sit in Lenny's dad's pickup truck, listening to the radio. During this summer vacation, however, Debbie moved into the front of their family parlor, and she has her own room. She then gets a job helping an elderly woman. She meets her boss' grandson, Peter, and they share a quick, romantic week together. Soon after he leaves back to his town in California. All of the friends go through their own changes throughout the summer and each grow in their own way. In the end, to tie up their summer, they all have a block party, and are now more mature, and use their new knowledge to move along in life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Man_Friday" title="No Man Friday">
A British rocket, developed at minimal cost and kept secret from officialdom, lifts off from the Woomera rocket range on a mission to Mars. During the voyage, an accident in the airlock kills the entire crew except for engineer Gordon Holder, the novel's narrator, who was returning from an EVA and still in his space suit.The rocket reaches Mars but crash-lands. There, Holder learns how to produce oxygen and water, also discovering more about Martian species and nourishment. Eventually, he starts cooperating with the titanic inhabitants of the planet to survive. After fifteen years, an American mission lands, thinking themselves the first to reach Mars. Holder contacts the Americans, and then tries to return to the dominant Martian beings, but is prevented from reaching them. He returns to Earth with the Americans.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Night_@_the_Call_Center" title="One Night @ the Call Center">
The book begins with a frame story recounting a train journey from Kanpur to Delhi. During the journey, the author meets a beautiful girl who offers to tell him a story on the condition that he has to make it his second book. After a lot of hesitation, the author agrees. The story is about six people working in a call center and relates the events that happen one night when get a phone-call from 'God'. Claimed to be based on a true story, the author uses Shyam Mehra (alias Sam Marcy) as the narrator and protagonist, who is one among the six call center employees. Shyam loves but has lost Priyanka, who is now planning an arranged marriage with someone else, Vroom loves Esha, Esha wants to be a model, Radhika is in an unhappy marriage with a demanding mother-in-law, and Military Uncle wants to communicate with his grandson. They all hate Bakshi, their cruel and somewhat sadistic boss.To cheer themselves up, all the lead characters of the novel decide to go to a night club. After enjoying for a while, they leave back for the office. While returning, they face a life-threatening situation when their vehicle crashes into a construction site hanging over a mesh of iron construction rods. As the rods began to yield slowly, they start to panic. They are unable to call for help as there is no mobile phone network at that place, but Shyam's mobile phone starts ringing. The phone call is from God, who speaks modern English. He speaks to all of them and gives them suggestions to improve their life, and advises them on how to get their vehicle out of the construction site. The conversation with God motivates the group to such an extent that they get ready to face their problems with determination and motivation. Meanwhile, Vroom and Shyam hatch a plan to throw Bakshi out of the call center and prevent the closing of the call center, whose employees are to be downsized radically. When they return to the call center, they carry out their plan successfully. At the end, each character has fixed a part of their life, and the author invites readers to identify aspects of themselves and their lives that they would like to change.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flivver_King" title="The Flivver King">
On Bagley Street in the city of Detroit, Little Abner Shutt begins the story by explaining to his mother that "there's a feller down the street says he's goin' to make a wagon that'll run without a horse." The man is Henry Ford. The story follows the progress and growth of Ford Motor Company through the perspective of a number of generations of a single family."The Flivver King" demonstrates the effects of scientific management in factories. The Ford factory began with very skilled workers. Through a process of breaking the skilled job down into simple steps, they were able to hire lower wage, less skilled individuals to do the work. "The Flivver King" explains how the Ford Company used scientific management to replace skilled workers while successfully increasing production.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_of_the_Wind" title="The Shadow of the Wind">
The novel is actually a story within a story. The novel opens in the 1940's with the protagonist, Daniel, a boy whose father owns a bookshop in Barcelona. One day, his father takes him to the Cemetery of Forgotten books - a secret labyrinthine library that houses rare and banned books. Daniel is drawn to one called "The Shadow of the Wind" by Julian Carax and takes it home with him. Daniel quickly reads and falls in love with the story. He soon discovers that the book's mysterious author, Carax, has gone missing along with every other copy of "The Shadow of the Wind" and most of his other works. Daniel then sets out to find out what happened to the author and his books. When word gets around that Daniel possesses the only known copy of "The Shadow of the Wind," he receives an inquiry from Gustavo Barcelo, a rare bookseller and expert on Carax who wishes to purchase it. Daniel refuses to sell it, but soon falls in love with Barcelo's blind niece, Clara, and begins to pay frequent visits to read "The Shadow of the Wind" to her. However, she is several years older and does not reciprocate his feelings. His possession of the book also attracts the attention of a mysterious stranger with a badly burned and disfigured face named Lain Coubert (the name of the character of the devil in the book) who is also trying to get his hands on it. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanoni" title="Zanoni">
Zanoni has lived since the Chaldean civilisation and is a timeless Rosicrucian brother and cannot fall in love without losing his power of immortality. But he falls in love with Viola Pisani, a promising young opera singer from Naples. Who is the daughter of Pisani, a misunderstood Italian violinist. An English gentleman named Glyndon loves Viola as well, but is indecisive about proposing marriage and then renounces his love to pursue occult study. The story develops in 1789, during the French Revolution. His master Mejnor warns him against a love affair but Zanoni does not heed. He finally marries Viola and they have a child. As Zanoni experiences an increase in humanity, he begins to lose his gift of immortality. He finally dies in the guillotine during the French Revolution.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamsnake" title="Dreamsnake">
The novel opens with Snake coming to a nomadic tribe to treat a boy, Stavin, who has a tumor. While her cobra Mist manufactures an antidote in her venom glands, she leaves Grass, the dreamsnake, with Stavin to help him sleep. One of the nomads, Arevin, helps Snake control Mist as the cobra undergoes convulsions through the night, despite the terror that snakes hold for his people. She returns to Stavin in the morning to find that his parents have mortally wounded Grass, afraid he would hurt the boy. Despite her anger, she allows Mist to bite Stavin and inject the antidote. The leader of the nomads apologizes to Snake, and Arevin asks her to stay with them, but Snake explains that she needs a dreamsnake for her work and must return home and ask for a new one. She expresses fear that the other healers will take her snakes and cast her out instead. As she leaves, Arevin asks her to return someday.Snake stops at an oasis, where she is asked to help Jesse, a woman who has injured herself falling off a horse. Jesse's partner Merideth takes Snake to their camp, leaving Snake's baggage at the oasis. Snake finds that Jesse has broken her spine, leaving her paralyzed, something Snake cannot heal. Merideth and Alex, a third partner, convince Jesse that they should return to Center, where Jesse is from, in the hope that the off-worlders may be able to help her. Wandering around near the camp, Snake sees the body of Jesse's horse and realizes the area it fell is radioactive; Jesse had lain there long enough to have fatal radiation poisoning. Snake offers to let Mist bite Jesse and relieve her pain; Jesse accepts, and Merideth and Alex bid her farewell. Before she dies, Jesse tells Snake that her family is indebted to Snake and could help her get another dreamsnake from another planet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Potter" title="Israel Potter">
When Israel Potter leaves his plow to fight in the American Revolution, he is immediately thrown into the Battle of Bunker Hill, where he receives multiple wounds. However, this does not deter him, and after hearing a rousing speech by General George Washington, he volunteers for further duty, this time at sea, where more ill fortune awaits him. Israel is captured by the British Navy and taken to England. Yet, he makes his escape, and this triggers a series of extraordinary events and meetings with remarkable people. Along the way, Israel encounters King George III, who takes a liking to the Yankee rebel and shelters him in Kew Gardens; Benjamin Franklin, who presses Israel into service as a spy; John Paul Jones, who invites Israel to join his crew aboard "The Ranger"; and Ethan Allen, whom Israel attempts to free from a British prison. Throughout these adventures, Israel Potter acquits himself bravely, but his patriotic valor does not bring him any closer to his dream of returning to America. After the war, Israel finds himself in London, where he descends into poverty. Finally, fifty years after he left his plough, he makes his way back to his beloved Berkshires. However, few things remain the same. Soon, Israel fades out of being, his name out of memory, and he dies on the same day the oldest oak on his native lands is blown down.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Latham_Diaries" title="The Latham Diaries">
The book is an abridgement of Latham's personal diary, from his election to the Australian House of Representatives in 1994 until his retirement in 2005. He has claimed that the book is not intended to discredit the ALP but rather to correct the record for the benefit of his sons. He alleged that the media has not accurately portrayed him during his time in Parliament.Latham frequently refers to his belief that in the 10 years between the ALP losing office in 1996 and publication of the "Diaries", Labor failed to respond to major changes in Australian society, wrought by globalisation and the policies of the Keating and the Howard governments. Latham claims that under the leadership of both Kim Beazley and Simon Crean, the party has failed to develop new and innovative policies and has either looked backwards and inwards for ideas or taken a purely-negative position with government initiatives.Latham reiterates his belief, expounded in earlier books such as "Civilising Global Capital" (1998) that the ALP should reject many of its traditional policies, such as protectionism and the welfare state, but instead focus on the expansion of social capital. Those views and Latham's frustrations with the development of party policy over time, are shown in his entry for August 12, 1999:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialite_Evenings" title="Socialite Evenings">
Karuna, the main protagonist and narrator is caught up in a drab, boring life that she seeks to escape by writing memoirs. Her memoirs are successful and she achieves a measure of fame and pride in herself as she becomes an active socialite and eventually uses her newfound prominence as a celebrity to get herself a position as an advertising copywriter and creator of a television series.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Worthing_Chronicle" title="The Worthing Chronicle">
Jason Worthing and one of his descendants, Justice, go to a small village on a backward world to get a boy named Lared to write a book for them. This book is about why Abner Doon destroyed the empire and the planet Capitol and why Jason's descendants destroyed the planet Worthing. It also explains why people all over the settled part of the galaxy are no longer being protected by "God" from pain and hardship."The Worthing Chronicle" is an expansion of Card's first novel, "Hot Sleep".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_the_Line" title="Up the Line">
Jud Elliott II is a failed Harvard history masters student in 2059. Bored with his job as a law clerk, he takes up a position with the Time Service as a Time Courier. After an introductory course, Jud shunts up and down the time line ("up the line" is travel into the past; "down the line" is forward time travel, but only to "now-time," Jud's present of 2059) as a guide for tourists visiting ancient and medieval Byzantium/Constantinople.Jud's problems include not only stupid tourists, but also greedy and mentally unstable colleagues who attempt to cause various types of havoc with the past. He is forced to break the rules in order to patch things up without drawing the attention of the Time Patrol.When he meets and falls in love with the 'marvelous transtemporal paradox called Pulcheria' - his own multi-great grandmother - Jud succumbs to the lure of the past, creates irreparable paradoxes, and faces the inescapable clutches of the Time Patrol.Silverberg's narrative includes some cleverly worked out details about the problems of time-travel tourism. For example, the number of tourists who over the years wish to witness the Crucifixion of Jesus has increased the audience at the event from the likely dozens to hundreds and even tens of thousands. Time-tour guides re-visiting the same event must also take care not to scan their surroundings too closely, lest they make eye contact with themselves leading another tour party.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_as_Gold_(novel)" title="Good as Gold (novel)">
Bruce Gold, a Jewish, middle-aged university English professor and author of many unread, seminal articles in small journals, residing in Manhattan, is offered the chance for success, fame and fortune in Washington D.C. as the country's first ever Jewish Secretary of State. But he must face the consequences of this, such as divorcing his wife and alienating his family, the thought of which energizes him and makes him cringe at the same time.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trollslayer" title="Trollslayer">
## Geheimnisnacht (Night of Secrets).The first chapter finds the adventurers shortly after meeting for the first time and leaving Altdorf together. They are kicked off the coach they were riding on because of Gotrek's comments toward the coach driver and especially his wife. As they continue to travel on foot, they are nearly run down by a black coach, and Gotrek vows to find it and hurt the driver. They reach the Standing Stones Inn, and are able to make their way through the barred door to learn of how on Geheimnisnacht a coven who are based in the Darkstone Ring steal children and other people for sacrifices. They learn that the son of the innkeeper, Gunter, and his wife have both disappeared, and so they vow to find the Darkstone Ring and destroy the coven and save Gunter and his wife. After finding the path to the Ring, they come across a rotting cultist who chants gibberish before being felled. They finally come across the Ring and coven and discover that the leader of the coven is the driver of the Black Coach. They listen in for a while and learn that it is dedicated to Slaanesh, Lord of Pleasure. They finally attack and destroy the coven as they intended to sacrifice a stolen baby, and in the aftermath they discover that Gunter and his wife were both cultists, and so are both dead. They rescue the baby, and move on... This story is frequently alluded to by Felix later in the series, as it was his first true glimpse at Chaos.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jade_Peony" title="The Jade Peony">
"The Jade Peony" is divided into three sections, with a different child of the Chen family narrating his or her experience growing up in Vancouver's Chinatown in the early 1930–40s. Throughout the novel, the children's grandmother and family matriarch, Poh-Poh or Grandmama(the "Old One"), influences them with her own life experience and passes to them their cultural heritage of the "old ways" of China that they must maintain and balance with assimilating into the new world culture. The three children are Jook Liang or "Liang-Liang", followed by Jung Sum, and finally Sek-Lung or "Sekky".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patchwork_Girl_(hypertext)" title="Patchwork Girl (hypertext)">
Jackson's "Patchwork Girl" tells the story through illustrations of parts of a female body that are stitched together through text and image. The narrative of the story is divided into five segments, titled: "a Graveyard", "a Journal", "a Quilt", "a Story", and "&amp; broken accents." The goal of the piece is to not only make the reader realize the structure of the Patchwork Girl as a whole but also realize all the pieces that must be "patched" together in order to create one unified structure. Each segment leads down a trail that takes the story in multiple directions through various linking words and images. Jackson uses recurring graveyard imagery in order to continually invite the reader to resurrect Mary Shelley's monster.In Mary Shelley's original, Victor Frankenstein begins the creation of a female companion for his monster, but destroys the second effort prior to completion. In Jackson's version, the female monster is completed by Mary Shelley herself. The woman and her creation become lovers; the creature then travels to America, where she pursues a variety of adventures before disintegrating after a 175-year lifetime. Individual sections also explore the lives of some of the women whose corpses contributed body parts to the creature. The work is an oft-cited example of cyberfeminism—"If you want to see the whole," one passage reads, "you will have to piece me together yourself." Furthermore, Jackson's use of hypertext "enables us to recognize the degree to which the qualities of collage—particularly those of appropriation, assemblage, concatenation, and the blurring of limits, edges, and borders—characterize a good deal of the way we conceive of gender and identity."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_the_Sudden" title="Sam the Sudden">
Sam Shotter, having failed to please his uncle John B Pynsent in business, is sent to England to work for Lord Tilbury, who hopes to complete a business deal with Pynsent. To avoid being trapped in Tilbury's company, Sam opts to join his old pal "Hash" Todhunter, cook on a tramp steamer, for the trip over. On the way, he shows Hash a photo, found on a wall in a remote Canadian log cabin, of a woman with whom he has fallen in love without even knowing her name.Arriving in England looking rather bedraggled after his trip, Sam finds Hash has borrowed all his cash to place a bet on a dog. It is the night of the Wrykyn Old Boys' dinner, and in town he runs into first Claude Bates, who, fearing Sam may be begging, flees, and later Willoughby Braddock, an old friend. Braddock is staying with Kay Derrick and her uncle Mr Wrenn while his house is decorated, and takes Sam back there, but wanders drunkenly off when they arrive; Sam is mistaken for a burglar by Claire Lippett, the maid, and ends up sleeping in the empty house next door. During the night, Sam is disturbed by someone in the hallway with a torch.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Small_Bachelor" title="The Small Bachelor">
On the roof of the Sheridan Apartment House, near Washington Square, New York, is a "small bachelor apartment, penthouse style", and the small bachelor who owns it is amateur artist George Finch, who is rich due to an inheritance. He falls in love with Molly Waddington at first sight, but is too shy to approach her until he retrieves her dog. George's authoritative friend J. Hamilton Beamish, author of self-help books, is helping mild-mannered policeman Garroway become a poet. Garroway recognizes George's valet, Frederick Mullett, an ex-convict who served time for burglary, though Mullett is now reformed. Mullett is engaged to former pickpocket Fanny Welch, who is somewhat less reformed.George is invited into Molly's home by her father, Sigsbee H. Waddington; Mr. Waddington, who has been influenced by Western films and novels, longs to go out West and takes a liking to George, since George is from East Gilead, Idaho. Though once wealthy, Mr. Waddington cannot afford to go out West because he is now financially dependent on his rich wife, Molly's step-mother, socially ambitious Mrs. Waddington. She dislikes George, believing his morals are suspect because he lives in an unconventional artist neighborhood, and wants Molly to marry the tall and handsome Lord Hunstanton. However, Molly finds Lord Hunstanton stiff and loves George. Hamilton Beamish gets help for George from Madame Eulalie, Mrs. Waddington's palmist and fortune teller, who tells Mrs. Waddington that disaster will strike if Molly marries Hunstanton. Beamish also falls in love with Madame Eulalie. Molly gets engaged to George, though Mrs. Waddington still dislikes him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Serve_Them_All_My_Days" title="To Serve Them All My Days">
David Powlett-Jones, a coal miner's son from South Wales, has risen from the ranks of the South Wales Borderers and been commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in World War I after serving three years in the front-line trenches. In 1918, after being injured and shell-shocked, he is employed to teach history at Bamfylde School, a fictional public school in North Devon.Under the tutelage of Headmaster Algy Herries, who views him as a possible successor, David discovers a vocation in teaching. He swiftly earns the respect of many of his colleagues and forms a close friendship with the curmudgeonly English master, Ian Howarth, and with several students of unique personality and talents. He clashes with Carter, an ambitious science master and Commanding Officer of the school's Officer Training Corps (OTC), whose actual military service was embarrassingly brief, cut short for medical reasons. Following the Armistice, the two men disagree on whether or not the school should erect a war memorial; David loses the argument but wins the respect of Brigadier Cooper, one of the school governors.In 1919 David marries a young nurse, Beth Marwood; shortly afterwards, they have twin daughters, Joan and Grace. Five years later, Beth and Joan are killed in a road accident; Grace is badly injured and requires many months of rehabilitation before returning home. After encouragement from one of his pupils, a distraught David contemplates life without Beth, and he carries on for the sake of Grace.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorcerer's_Apprentice_(Augiéras_novel)" title="Sorcerer's Apprentice (Augiéras novel)">
The novel is set in the Sarladais (the Dordogne region of France). An adolescent boy is sent to live with a 35-year-old priest, who becomes his teacher and spiritual mentor, and exerts a powerful control over the boy. He abuses him physically and sexually, but the boy willingly accepts his 'punishment.' The boy falls in love with a slightly younger, and very beautiful boy, meeting in secret and having sex.This disturbing story is much more than a tale of a sexually violent predator. The adolescent himself experiences sexual activity with the other boy, but this relationship is one of genuine love and affection, rather than the coercive, harmful abuse he is subjected to by the priest.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Burial" title="Sky Burial">
The book involves a Chinese woman, Shu Wen, retelling her life in Tibet to Xinran in a tea shop in Suzhou.In the 1950s, as China revels in its unification under Communism, Shu Wen, a doctor, marries a military doctor who gets orders to go into Tibet to subdue the Tibetan people and bring them under Chinese rule. The reputation of the Tibetans from the Chinese government paints them as sympathetic and welcoming, but gradually she learns of their resistance to subjugation. She is informed that her husband has gone missing, and against the wishes of her family and friends, she leaves her comfortable life in Suzhou to join the Army and search for him in Tibet.Her unit encounters a Tibetan woman near death in the highlands, and Shu Wen decides to treat the woman and take her away from her soldiers, who suspect she is a scout or a resistance fighter. The two women are soon separated from the regiment. Without supplies and knowledge of the language, she wanders, trying to find her way until, on the brink of death, she is rescued by a family of nomads under whose protection she moves from place to place with the seasons. During these 30 years she learns the Tibetan way of life and gradually loses her sense of Chinese identity, while quietly hoping for news of her husband's fate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe's_Company" title="Sharpe's Company">
The British Army attacks Ciudad Rodrigo, a fortress guarding the northern path into Spain. Sharpe and Harper lead an assault on the French. Unfortunately, Sharpe's commander and friend, Colonel William Lawford, is severely wounded when a mine is detonated. He loses an arm and retires from his post as commander of the South Essex regiment, losing Sharpe a friend and ally.Sharpe's situation only gets worse when his old enemy, Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill, joins the company. Hakeswill hates Sharpe with a vengeance and plans to kill him.Meanwhile, Sharpe's lover Teresa Moreno arrives, informing Sharpe that she has given birth to his daughter Antonia, and that she is living in Badajoz. Sharpe promises her that he will protect her when the British Army attacks the city. He is also reunited with his former Lieutenant, Robert Knowles, who is now a captain of a fusilier company. Knowles also vows to protect Teresa.Later, Hakeswill encounters Teresa in a stable. He attempts to rape her, but she fights him off, slashing his face and wrist. Sharpe and Harper enter the stable, and Harper brutally beats Hakeswill. Hakeswill vows revenge on Harper and to have Teresa.Then Lawford's replacement, Colonel Brian Windham arrives, as well as Captain Rymer, who has purchased his captaincy, via the commission of the late Captain Lennox, a normal practice in the British Army. Meanwhile, Sharpe's promotion to captain is finally rejected; the long delay in the verdict was due to being confused with another officer who died. Sharpe desires to join the Forlorn Hope so that, despite the high chance of death, he may be promoted again, and so that, should he die, Antonia can be proud of her father.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turn_(novel)" title="The Turn (novel)">
The story is divided into thirty very short chapters which permit the author to rapidly change situations and environments, bringing alternatively to the forefront the different subjects involved in the singular plan conceived by Marcantonio Ravì, the cause of odd and unpredictable events. This overweight, tenacious father of Stellina has an "idee fixe" which will, he believes, bring about the happiness of his daughter: establish a "turn". That is to say, he will give her over as wife to the aging and well-off Don Diego Alcozèr, and then, after his death, consign her, fabulously wealthy and contented, to her desperate but dirt poor admirer Pepè Alletto. Marcantonio is so convinced of the efficacy of this idea that he goes around the city talking about it to everyone in order to get their consent, obstinately insisting that he's right with the comic intercalation "ragioniamo!" (let's reason about this!). But the majority of the people he meets, as soon as they hear the name of the decrepit Alcozèr, "spit out a laugh." The proposition of the plan dominates the first chapter with the agitated figure of Marcantonio Ravì. His son-in-law "in pectoris" Diego Alcozèr, sprightly old man, widower of four wives and gaudy dandy with his "small watery furtive bald eyes", having already been "a conqueror of dames in crinoline from the epoch of Ferdinand II king of the Two Sicilies", emerges in the second chapter, where he excitedly chats with his future father-in-law about preparations for the surrender of Stellina. To these two "human stains" a third is added in the following chapter in which Pepè Alletto, the beneficiary of the "turn", takes the fore. What strikes the reader as curious is the fact that Marcantonio Ravì's plan takes him completely by surprise; in reality he it not a true "desperate admirer". He likes Stellina, but because of his lack of courage and his precarious economic conditions, he would never have dared to even think of marrying her. He is incapable of choosing and must always depend on the choices of others.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Underpants_and_the_Preposterous_Plight_of_the_Purple_Potty_People" title="Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People">
George Beard, Harold Hutchins, Sulu, and Crackers have now ended up in an alternate universe in Melvin's time machine, where the whole world is the opposite of their normal world (instead of being perched up in a tree in the Cretaceous Period of the Mesozoic Era). For example, Melvin Sneedly is dimwitted and struggling to comprehend a simple children's book (which contains content considered offensive in the normal universe), the teachers are nice, the school is better, all the previous villains are good, normal citizens, and Mr. Krupp is nice and has a sense of humor (Like Captain Underpants does). George and Harold soon see evil versions of themselves and learn through one of their evil twins' comics that they had turned their Mr. Krupp into an evil supervillain named Captain Blunderpants (who acts like Mr. Krupp). Sulu and Crackers are kidnapped by Evil George and Evil Harold and are hypnotized to be evil, and then ordered to destroy George and Harold. Sulu immediately attacks, but Crackers does the opposite and saves them (due to secretly being female). George, Harold, and Crackers are able to escape to their normal dimension and head to the treehouse, unaware that Nice Mr. Krupp, Sulu, Evil George and Evil Harold came with them (due to standing too close to the machine). Evil George and Evil Harold transform Nice Mr. Krupp into Captain Blunderpants by getting water on his head. Meanwhile, George and Harold decide to head back to the other dimension to rescue and de-hypnotize Sulu and take the 3D Hypno-Ring and Extra-Strength Super Power Juice just in case. However, Mr. Beard stops George and Harold from leaving the house and forces them to come inside as it is Grandparent's Day so they can eat dinner with George's Great-Grandmother and Harold's Grandfather at George's house. While George and Harold try to explain to Mr. Beard they need to leave, George and Harold's grandparents unknowingly drink the rest of the Extra-Strength Super Power Juice while reading a comic George and Harold wrote.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_Dreams" title="Canal Dreams">
The plot is fairly simple. In the first half, when the ship is stranded but unharmed, the mood is bucolic and philosophical, and the main challenge Hisako has is to pass the time in a tropical lake. She has an affair with one of the ship's officers and they go scuba diving together. She practises the cello.She is worried about the future, and has violent nightmares and flashbacks to her early life in Japan.She also spends time with the other passengers, among them a South African engineer and an erudite Egyptian.In the much darker second half, the book becomes an almost "Die Hard"-like thriller. Guerrillas (who turn out to be agents provocateur) take over the ship. The rebels kill everybody aboard except Hisako and rape her. She avenges herself, killing the pirates. The violence of the rebel takeover and of Hisako's revenge is described very graphically.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Song_of_Stone" title="A Song of Stone">
Abel and Morgan, an aristocratic couple, live in a small castle in an indeterminate place and time of civil war. They decide to abandon their home and join a trek of refugees seeking safety. A group of irregulars, led by a woman called "The Lieutenant" (or "Loot"), stops them and takes them back to the castle, which the irregulars fortify as a base. They loot the castle, and Morgan is seduced by the Lieutenant. A rival faction attacks the castle with artillery and Abel is taken along with the fighters on a counter-attack. When they return, Abel almost shoots the Lieutenant and there is a violent and nihilistic ending."A Song of Stone" tells the frightening story of what happens when the normal rules of society break down. Themes of decadence, violence and war are intertwined with the lives of the rather pompous but lyrical disgraced aristocrat Abel, his partner Morgan, the ruthless Lieutenant and her soldiers with names like "Psycho", "Karma" and "Deathwish".The story is told by Abel, an unreliable narrator. Abel describes Morgan's actions in the second person, mostly when she is in his direct view.As the invaders systematically loot and destroy Abel's family's ancestral home, Abel seems ambivalent to what is happening. Later, when the Lieutenant suggests a memorial for Abel's lifelong family retainer, who has just been killed, Abel and the reader realise that he does not know the servant's surname.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Holiday_(novel)" title="Winter Holiday (novel)">
Brother and sister Dick and Dorothea Callum meet the Swallows and Amazons during the winter beside the lake. Whilst observing the stars from an isolated barn, Dick and Dorothea encounter the other children and shortly become firm friends. They become part of the group, and join in their play of Arctic expeditions. The holiday is extended when leader Nancy Blackett catches mumps and the group is quarantined and cannot return to their boarding schools. Initially, while waiting for snow to fall, the children embark on a series of adventures ranging from rebuilding an igloo to building an ice sled. Dick displays heroism by rescuing a sheep belonging to Farmer Dixon stranded on an ice-covered ledge, thus gaining his gratitude and earning them a sledge of their own.There is a heavy snowfall followed by a prolonged period of freezing weather and, unusually, the lake freezes over, providing an excellent opportunity for an expedition to the point at the head of the lake that they have named the "North Pole". However, plans go awry when the Ds set out earlier than expected due to a misunderstanding over a signal flag. When a blizzard blows up and the Ds are missing, a rescue party is organised consisting of the Swallows and Peggy, one of the Amazons.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damaged_Goods_(Davies_novel)" title="Damaged Goods (Davies novel)">
The novel is set in Britain in 1987, and involves the Seventh Doctor and his companions Chris Cwej and Roz Forrester living on a working-class council estate while attempting to track down an infinitely powerful Gallifreyan weapon before it falls into the wrong hands. A young boy living on the estate, Gabriel Tyler, appears to be the focus of strange powers, and also for the attentions of Eva Jericho, whose own grievously ill young son seems to be linked to Gabriel in some way, through a secret Gabriel's mother Winnie has long tried to hide.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godless_(novel)" title="Godless (novel)">
Frustrated with his parents' Catholic religion, agnostic-going-on-atheist Jason Bock invents a new god—the water tower. He recruits an unlikely group of worshippers, including: his snail farming best friend, Shin; incredibly ordinary Dan Grant; cute-as-a-button Magda Price; and violent, unpredictable Henry Stagg. As the Chutengodian religion grows, it takes on a life of its own. While Jason struggles to keep the faith pure, Shin obsesses over writing their bible as Henry schemes to make the faith even more exciting—and dangerous. As a result, when the Chutengodians hold their first mass atop the dome of the water tower, things go from dangerous to deadly.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Gone" title="Summer Gone">
The book deals with the life of Bailey Newling and his three lost summers. It tells the story of a divorced Bailey and his young son Caz, where on one fateful canoe trip, they share a remarkable night of truth and love.Macfarlane set this novel among the cottage country in northern Ontario, the Waubano Reaches. Bailey, nicknamed Bay, tells of the three summers in his life: the summer he was 12 and attended the camp where he met his camp instructor Peter Larkin, the summer where he, his wife Sarah and 6-year-old son rented a cottage near his old campsite and, the summer where he and his 12-year-old son shared their extraordinary night.Macfarlane uses a notable technique in the writing of "Summer Gone", where he would start the story of one summer and drift into another. It may start with Bay telling of his tale at camp and then shift onto another thought which may have occurred decades later involving his wife or his son. This technique ties all of Bay's summer stories together into one when he tells it to his son. The narration of this story is told by Caz's half brother, from a one-night stand of Bailey's, as an adult, retelling what Caz had told him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Passionate_Pilgrim" title="A Passionate Pilgrim">
The narrator meets fellow American Clement Searle at an old-fashioned London inn. Searle has long wanted to settle in England to escape what he considers his arid life in America. But he is physically ailing, and he's also depressed because his lawyer cannot uphold his claim to a share in a country estate currently owned by Richard Searle, a distant relation. Clement and the narrator visit the estate, where they meet the ethereal Miss Searle, who supports Clement's cause.They also meet Miss Searle's brother Richard, who is at first suspicious and then outright hostile and combative toward Clement. Upset by the conflict Clement and the narrator travel to Oxford, where they help a gentleman, Mr Rawson, down on his luck to travel to America. Clement is now very sick and sends for Miss Searle. She responds to his call and tells him that her brother has been thrown from a horse and killed. Clement might now have a real chance for a share of the estate, but the opportunity comes too late for him. He dies and is buried in the England which proved so inhospitable to him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Utmost_for_His_Highest" title="My Utmost for His Highest">
"My Utmost for His Highest" is broken down into 366 sections for each day of the year, meant to be read daily for inspiration. The book was published after Oswald's death in 1917, with his wife Gertrude Hobbs compiling the passages after his death from her shorthand notes.The devotionals in the book cover a range of subjects, from what a person should pray for to reflections on the follower's daily activities.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_She_Climbed_Across_the_Table" title="As She Climbed Across the Table">
Lack is an emptiness created in a particle collider. Professor Soft theorized that the experiment would replicate the Big Bang and opened a wormhole to a microscopic universe and that this wormhole would close shortly after it was created, leaving the new universe attached to reality. The wormhole however is not accompanied by any events to indicate it is a physical object and so it is named Lack. Lack is characterized by its inexplicable preferences, as some particles and objects enter the space where Lack should be and fail to appear on the other side. Professor Alice Coombs is the first to discover that Lack only absorbs certain items. It takes her keys, but not a paperclip. Its only consistent property seems to be that, when Lack refuses an object once, it would forever refuse to consume that object.The physicists in Coombs's lab become obsessed with Lack, which appears to have its own personality and preferences. Alice develops a personal relationship with the artificial intelligence that they have created, while Philip becomes jealous of their relationship.Philip begins to get involved after B-84, a laboratory animal (cat) enters Lack. This consumption of B-84 causes a campus wide protest. In an attempt to impress Alice, Philip breaks up the protest by giving a speech about how a single cat being destroyed is minimal and their efforts would better spent on larger problems in the world. Instead of impressing Alice, she becomes defensive of Lack and locks herself in its chamber.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dusklands" title="Dusklands">
The first story, "The Vietnam Project", relates the gradual descent into insanity of its protagonist Eugene Dawn. Eugene works for a U.S. government agency responsible for the psychological warfare in the Vietnam War. However, his work on mythography and psychological operations is taking a heavy toll on him; his fall culminates in him stabbing his own son, Martin.The second story, "The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee", which takes place in the 18th century, is an account of a hunting expedition into the then "unexplored" interior of South Africa. After crossing the Orange River, Jacobus meets with a Namaqua tribe to trade, but suddenly falls ill. He is attended to by the tribe and gradually recovers, only to get into a fight for which he is expelled from the village. His last slave dying on the way home, he returns alone and later organizes a punitive expedition against the Namaqua. The narrative concludes with his execution of the slaves that deserted him on the previous journey and the massacre of the tribe.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nargun_and_the_Stars" title="The Nargun and the Stars">
The story is set in Australia, and involves an orphaned city boy named Simon Brent who comes to live on a 5000-acre sheep station called Wongadilla, in the Hunter Region, with his mother's second cousins, Edie and Charlie. In a remote valley on the property he discovers a variety of ancient Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime creatures. The arrival of heavy machinery intent on clearing the land brings to life the ominous stone Nargun. The Nargun is a creature drawn from tribal legends of the Gunai or Kurnai people of the area now known as the Mitchell River National Park in Victoria. Other creatures featured in the story include the mischievous green-scaled water-spirit Potkoorok, the Turongs (tree people) and the Nyols (cave people).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_regenta" title="La regenta">
The story is set in Vetusta (Spanish stands for "antiquated", "extremely old", a provincial capital city, very identifiable with Oviedo, capital of Asturias – especially since it is said that two monks, Nolan and John, founded the city, this being Oviedo's mythical genesis), where the main character of the work, Ana Ozores "La Regenta", marries the former prime magistrate of the city, Víctor Quintanar, a kind but fussy man much older than she. Feeling sentimentally abandoned, Ana lets herself be courted by the province casanova, Álvaro Mesía. To complete the circle, Don Fermín de Pas (Ana's confessor and canon in the cathedral of Vetusta) also falls in love with her and becomes Mesía's unmentionable rival. A great panorama of secondary characters, portrayed by Clarín with merciless irony, completes the human landscape of the novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_the_Fatalist" title="Jacques the Fatalist">
The main subject of the book is the relationship between the valet Jacques and his master, who is never named. The two are traveling to a destination the narrator leaves vague, and to dispel the boredom of the journey Jacques is compelled by his master to recount the story of his loves. However, Jacques's story is continually interrupted by other characters and various comic mishaps. Other characters in the book tell their own stories and they, too, are continually interrupted. There is even a "reader" who periodically interrupts the narrator with questions, objections, and demands for more information or detail. The tales told are usually humorous, with romance or sex as their subject matter, and feature complex characters indulging in deception.Jacques's key philosophy is that everything that happens to us down here, whether for good or for evil, has been written up above ("tout ce qui nous arrive de bien et de mal ici-bas était écrit là-haut"), on a "great scroll" that is unrolled a little bit at a time. Yet Jacques still places value on his actions and is not a passive character. Critics such as J. Robert Loy have characterized Jacques's philosophy as not fatalism but determinism.The book is full of contradictory characters and other dualities. One story tells of two men in the army who are so much alike that, though they are the best of friends, they cannot stop dueling and wounding each other. Another concerns Father Hudson, an intelligent and effective reformer of the church who is privately the most debauched character in the book. Even Jacques and his master transcend their apparent roles, as Jacques proves, in his insolence, that his master cannot live without him, and therefore it is Jacques who is the master and the master who is the servant.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Them_Bones_(novel)" title="Them Bones (novel)">
The plot is built around three separate but interconnected stories woven through the novel. The first is set in 1929, where archaeologists in Louisiana excavating a mound of the Coles Creek culture encounter the skeleton of a horse, a seeming impossibility as the mound predates the re-introduction of the horse to North America. The mystery deepens when one of the archaeologists discovers something in the mound even more anachronistic: a corroded brass rifle cartridge.The second is the first-person narrative of Madison Yazoo Leake, a soldier in the United States Army and a member of the "Special Group" being sent back in time to 1930s Louisiana in an attempt to stop the destruction of the human race in a nuclear war. However, while Leake arrives at the target site, it is in a world where Arabs explored America, the Roman Empire never existed, and the Aztec empire extended to the Mississippi. The only member of his team to arrive at this destination, he soon establishes contact with a group of mound-builders who gradually befriend him.The final narrative is based on the diary entries of Warrant Officer Smith, another member of the Special Group. She arrives with the rest of the team of military and CIA personnel in what apparently is their timeline, only hundreds of years earlier than intended. Through her diary entries and the count of those members present for duty the story of their interactions with the local natives in their pre-Columbian world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Monday" title="Mister Monday">
Twelve-year-old Arthur Penhaligon is experiencing a severe asthma attack at school when two mysterious men, Mister Monday and his butler Sneezer, appear in front of him. Sneezer convinces Monday to give Arthur his Minute Key in order to fulfill Monday's directive from the Architect. Although Monday is skeptical, Sneezer argues that Arthur will die shortly and the Key will then be returned to Monday. However, Arthur is saved when school officials arrive with help. Sneezer and Monday disappear, leaving a small book in their place, which Arthur takes.Arthur spends a week in the hospital and is visited by his new friends Leaf and her brother Ed. Leaf confirms that she also saw Monday and Sneezer, and Ed adds that he saw dog-faced men digging up the school field looking for something. Arthur realizes that they are looking for his Key. Once back at home, Arthur uses the Key to open the book, "The Compleat Atlas of the House and Immediate Environs," which describes the House and its environs. That night he is attacked by the dog-faced men that Ed saw, described as "Fetchers" by the Atlas. The Key protects Arthur by bringing his ceramic Komodo dragon to life to fend off the Fetchers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thank_You,_Jeeves" title="Thank You, Jeeves">
After a falling-out concerning Bertie's relentless playing of the banjolele, Jeeves leaves his master's service and finds work with Bertie's old friend, Lord "Chuffy" Chuffnell. Bertie travels to one of Chuffy's cottages in Somersetshire to practise the banjolele without complaints from neighbours. Chuffy hopes to sell his dilapidated manor to the rich J. Washburn Stoker. Mr Stoker plans to rent out the property to the famous "nerve specialist" (or, as Bertie prefers, "loony doctor") Sir Roderick Glossop, who intends to marry Chuffy's Aunt Myrtle. Chuffy has also fallen in love with Mr Stoker's daughter, Pauline Stoker, a former fiancée of Bertie, but feels unable to propose to her until his finances improve.Bertie plans to kiss Pauline in front of Chuffy to spur Chuffy to propose. However, it is Mr Stoker who sees the kiss. A fight between Mr Stoker's son Dwight and Chuffy's cousin Seabury divides the Chuffnells and Stokers. Mr Stoker returns to the yacht in which he and his family are staying. Thinking Bertie and Pauline are still in love, Stoker keeps Pauline on board to keep her from him. Chuffy writes a love letter to Pauline, which Jeeves smuggles aboard the yacht by briefly entering Mr Stoker's employ; Pauline is so moved that she swims ashore to Bertie's house, planning to visit Chuffnell Hall in the morning. Bertie lets her sleep in his bed while he tries to sleep in the garage. Unfortunately, he is seen by Police Sergeant Voules, who informs Lord Chuffnell. Chuffy, thinking Bertie is intoxicated, takes him back up to his bedroom. Seeing Pauline there, Chuffy assumes she and Bertie have resumed their romantic relationship. Chuffy and Pauline argue, and return to their respective homes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eyes_of_the_Overworld" title="The Eyes of the Overworld">
Cugel is easily persuaded by the merchant Fianosther to attempt the burglary of the manse of Iucounu the Laughing Magician, which is filled with precious magical items. Caught by Iucouno's trap, Cugel agrees that in exchange for his freedom he will undertake the recovery of a small hemisphere of violet glass, a magic "Eye of the Overworld", to match one already in the wizard's possession. A small sentient alien entity of barbs and hooks, named Firx, is attached to Cugel's liver to encourage his "unremitting loyalty, zeal and singleness of purpose". Firx's only form of communication with its host is to cause pain to his liver if Firx senses that Cugel is lapsing in his mission and his return home. Iucounu then uses a spell to transport Cugel via flying demon to the isolated Land of Cutz, which is very far away.There, Cugel finds two bizarre villages, one occupied by wearers of the magic violet lenses, the other by peasants who work on behalf of the lens-wearers, in hopes of being promoted to their ranks. The lenses cause their wearers to see, not their squalid surroundings, but the Overworld, a vastly superior version of reality where a hut is a palace, gruel is a magnificent feast, and peasant women are princesses — "seeing the world through rose-colored glasses" on a grand scale. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallos_(novella)" title="Phallos (novella)">
As does Delany's Return to Nevèrÿon series, "Phallos" uses a frame story — a double frame, in fact. First a brief trio of paragraphs tells of an African-American, Adrian Rome, whose adolescent encounter with the book leads to his adult attempt, a decade later, to find a copy. Finally he settles for an on-line synopsis posted by one Randy Pedarson of Moscow, Idaho. The second frame is more complex: it concerns the fictive editor Randy Pedarson, presumably of Moscow, and his relations with two graduate students, Binky and Phyllis, also enthusiasts of the novel, at the university there. According to Pedarson's posting, as far as Pedarson can tell, an anonymous gay pornographic novel, "Phallos" (one of Pederson's three favorites: the other two are John Preston's "Mr. Benson" and William Talsman’s "The Gaudy Image" — both of which are known for their better-than-average writing), was published in 1969 by Essex House of West Hollywood, California. While the anonymous introduction to that volume suggests that "Phallos" was known to numerous literary gay men of the past, from the 18th-century advocate of Greek beauty, Johanne Joaquim Winkelmann, through the 19th century Oxford aesthetician and novelist Walter Pater, to the historian John Addington Symonds (whose seven-volume "The Renaissance in Italy" [1875-86] acted as a sort of counterbalance to Pater’s brief single volume [of 1873/75], "The Renaissance", still widely read and quoted today), and moving on to such characters as Baron Corvo (pseudonym of Frederick Rolfe) and sex researcher Havelock Ellis, Pederson concludes that all this is simply the kind of bogus folderol that accompanies so much of the pornography published in that licentious decade, as an attempt to legitimize it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nights_at_the_Circus" title="Nights at the Circus">
## London."Nights at the Circus" begins with American journalist Jack Walser interviewing Sophie Fevvers in her London dressing room, following her performance in the circus which employs her. Fevvers claims to have been left as a baby in a basket on the doorstep of a brothel. Until she reached puberty she appeared to be an ordinary child, with the exception of a raised lump on each shoulder; as she begins menstruating, however, she also sprouted complete wings. As a child, she posed as a living statue of Cupid in the reception room of the brothel, but as an adolescent, she is now transformed into the image of the "Winged Victory" holding a sword belonging to Ma Nelson, the madam of the brothel. This stage of Fevvers' life comes to an abrupt end when Ma Nelson slips in the street and falls into the path of a carriage. The house and its contents are inherited by her pious brother who plans to convert it to a house for fallen women, but Ma Nelson's employees burn the place down and go their separate ways.Fevvers continues her story, although doubt is cast on the veracity of her narrative voice throughout. She and Lizzie, she tells Walser, next move in with Lizzie's sister and help run the family ice cream parlour. However, when the family falls on hard times Fevvers accepts an invitation from the fearsome Madame Schreck. This lady puts Fevvers on display in her exclusive combination of freak show and brothel, along with several other women with unique appearances. After some time Madame Schreck sells Fevvers to a customer, "Christian Rosencreutz", who wishes to sacrifice a winged 'virgo intacta' in order to procure his own immortality. Fevvers narrowly escapes and returns to Lizzie's sister's home. Soon after their reunion, she joins Colonel Kearney's circus as an aerialiste and achieves enormous fame. The London section concludes with Walser telling his chief at the London office that he is going to follow Fevvers, joining the circus on its grand imperial tour.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrimage_to_Hell" title="Pilgrimage to Hell">
A major character of the saga who appears in this novel is the Trader, who referenced in future novels. It also brings Doc Tanner (a senile-sounding gentleman with knowledge of pre-war America) to the group, and gives us our first glance at one of the series' long running mutant menaces : Stickies.This book also introduces the Redoubts, in particular the Cerberus Redoubt, and the MAT-TRANS teleport chambers that are a major plot device driving the series.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valiant_(novel)" title="Valiant (novel)">
Valerie Russell, a high school student, discovers that her single mother and her boyfriend, Tom, are having an affair. Val runs away to New York City and meets up with a group of teen-squatters, including Lolli (as in lollipop), Dave, and Luis. Val earns the nickname "Prince Valiant" after she helps a drag queen locate her shoe.She soon learns about the group's contact with a troll, Ravus, who lives beneath a bridge, as in the fairy tale "Three Billy Goats Gruff". Ravus makes "Never", which faeries in exile take in order to resist iron. These exiles are dispersed throughout the city, and Dave and Luis must deliver the glamour to them. Never can be used as a highly addictive drug by humans, who can then use magic for a short time. Lolli and Dave introduce Val to "Nevermore", as they call it, and she, like the other squatters, is soon hooked.Ravus, despite Val's first impressions, is much kinder than he appears. He begins to teach her swordplay and the bond between them strengthens. Val's mounting problems and addiction take a nasty turn, and the trust Ravus has in her is threatened.Many of the Seelie court exiles are being poisoned and Ravus is blamed. When Val's friend Ruth arrives, attempting to convince Val to come home, Val agrees, but not before saying goodbye to Ravus. She cannot find him in his alcove, so she finds Ruth, Lolli and Luis by Belvedere Castle. Luis, making sexual advances toward Lolli very unexpectedly, informs her Dave has angrily stormed off. A tree-spirit faerie leads Val to a festival by the water, where faeries and humans called "sweet tooths" run around freely. Ravus arrives, and delirious and half-starved, Val kisses him. Mabry arrives as well, and Val realizes she is the one who killed all the Fey. She tries to tell Ravus but Mabry cuts in, telling Ravus Val has been stealing his potions, and she flees as he becomes enraged.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Incognito" title="Villa Incognito">
The novel is set in the present day. Its title refers to a house in Laos inhabited by three American Air Force pilots who have been missing since the Vietnam War. Following the arrest of one of the MIAs, for trafficking drugs while dressed as a priest, the novel depicts American life in a post-9/11 context through the involvement of the two sisters.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Fred_in_the_Springtime" title="Uncle Fred in the Springtime">
In London, Pongo Twistleton is having money troubles, and his wealthy friend Horace Pendlebury-Davenport is in trouble with his fiancée, Pongo's sister Valerie, for hiring Claude "Mustard" Pott to trail her during the Drones Club weekend at Le Touquet. Horace having refused to loan him money, Pongo resolves to call on his Uncle Fred, 5th Earl of Ickenham, for assistance.Meanwhile, at Blandings, Horace's uncle Alaric, Duke of Dunstable, as well as demanding eggs to throw at whistling gardeners, has taken it into his head that the Empress needs some fitness training, and Lord Emsworth needs help. In the absence of his trusty brother Galahad, Emsworth calls on Gally's old friend Uncle Fred for assistance in stopping the Duke from taking his prized pig.Horace, having fallen out with his cousin Ricky Gilpin over Gilpin's fiancée Polly Pott, daughter of Mustard, inadvertently makes trouble for Pongo by being dressed as a Zulu rather than a Boy Scout during a round of the "Clothes Stakes", run by Pott at the Drones. Pongo’s mistaken bet loses all his money, adding to his already large debt. Uncle Fred ponders how to get Polly into Blandings to court her prospective uncle-in-law; Fred thinks the Duke will like her and ignore her background if they meet in a neutral situation. Emsworth creates an opening by insulting Sir Roderick Glossop by calling him a name from their school days, Pimples; Glossop then refuses to come to Blandings to analyse the increasingly loopy Duke of Dunstable, as Emsworth’s sister Connie has requested.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_the_Fair_Country" title="Rape of the Fair Country">
The plot concerns the Welsh iron-making communities of Blaenavon and Nantyglo in the 19th century. The action is seen through the eyes of young Iestyn Mortymer who grows up in times of growing tensions between ironmasters and trade unionists. In 1826, when the book starts, Iestyn is eight years old and already beginning work at the Garndyrus furnaces near Blaenavon. His sister Morfydd has strong feelings about women and children working in mines and ironworks. She sympathises with the Chartist movement and condemns the action of the militant Scotch Cattle groups. In this she is in opposition to Hywel Mortymer, their conservative father who later begins to question his own loyalty to the ironmaster.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoc_Huws" title="Enoc Huws">
The story is a social comedy and concerns the activities of the villainous Captain Trefor, a con artist who convinces investors to speculate on lead mining schemes and pays himself a generous salary from the proceeds. After being abandoned by most of his previous investors, Trefor sets his sights on the naïve but successful shopkeeper Enoc Huws, who is in love with Trefor's daughter, Susan, and sees investing in Trefor's scheme as an opportunity to get close to her.Sub-plots follow Enoc as he fights off the unwanted affection of his housekeeper, and a group of chapel elders wishing to appoint a new minister. The novel is set in the same nameless town as Owen's earlier novel Rhys Lewis, and features a few of the same characters, though it is not in any real sense a sequel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_London_Life" title="A London Life">
Laura Wing, an impoverished American girl, is visiting her sister Selina Berrington in London. Selina's husband Lionel, boorish and often drunk, is preparing to divorce his wife for her adultery with Charlie Crispin. Laura challenges Selina about her affair and doubts Selina's protestations of innocence. Lady Davenant, an elderly friend of the family, counsels Laura not to take her sister's marital troubles so hard.Laura meets a pleasant but boring American named Wendover, who becomes a suitor. Eventually, after a tempestuous and (for the reader) entertaining scene at the opera, Selina leaves her husband and goes to Brussels with Crispin. Laura spurns Wendover's marriage proposal and pursues her sister to Brussels, where she accomplishes nothing. Laura finally goes back to America, where Wendover follows her though there is no assurance as to how their future will play out. The story ends with a reminder that the case of "Berrington v. Berrington and others" is upcoming in the courts.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Man_(novel)" title="The Fifth Man (novel)">
The first crew to land on Mars discovers signs of microbial life—and might be dealing with a threat from much larger forms of life.Eight months into their stay on Mars, the life-sciences specialist discovers a microbial fossil. Subsequent to this, the crew begin to suffer various mishaps, including damage to mission property and direct attacks upon themselves. Complicating the situation is the apparent psychiatric breakdown of the mission commander and his definite attempts to injure or kill his fellow crewmembers.On Earth, the Mars Mission Director, working with an agent of the FBI, races to discover who sabotaged the mission before the crew even arrived on Mars—and who might be trying to strand the crew on Mars now that they're on it. He is shocked to discover that his own Flight Director committed the initial sabotage—he was trying to seed Mars with a bacterium that would be taken as evidence of life on Mars, thus ensuring continued funding of Project Ares, the official name for the program.But when the life-sciences specialist falls ill from an actual microbial infection—from live bacteria which she has subsequently discovered—the mishaps multiply, with a corresponding increase in the physical danger to the crew. Someone "other than" the Flight Director is responsible for this. At the very end, that someone is revealed to be a NASA engineer who fears that the crew, now on their way back to Earth, are bringing back a germ that could potentially kill millions of people—this although the crew clearly showed that the germ was sensitive to the antibiotics they had carried with them. The mission ends with the psychiatrically challenged commander sacrificing his own life to save the rest of the crew—and the marriage of the two mission specialists aboard their Earth Return Vehicle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_(Olson_and_Ingermanson_novel)" title="Oxygen (Olson and Ingermanson novel)">
The first crewed ship to fly to Mars suffers damage from an in-space explosion, which severely limits the crew's oxygen supply, forcing them to make some hard, lifeboat-like choices to stay alive.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tenants_of_Moonbloom" title="The Tenants of Moonbloom">
The story documents the emotional awakening of Norman Moonbloom, an isolated, apathetic man in his thirties who, having recently ended a career as 'perpetual student', is now reluctantly in the employ of his brother Irwin as a property agent. Irwin's tenants occupy a series of dilapidated apartments in some of the poorer areas of Manhattan, and Norman's life consists of attempting to collect their rent while constantly making them empty promises about much-needed repairs.At first, Moonbloom resolutely insulates himself against his troublesome tenants, with their incessant complaining and idiosyncratic ways. Little by little, however, his defenses begin crumbling as they talk to him, argue with him, and impart to him their secrets and hopes. These unaccustomed intimacies bring on a seismic shift in Norman's personality, eventually inspiring him to defy his brother (who wants the apartments left exactly as they are) by undertaking all the promised repairs himself. As he goes from apartment to apartment, painting, plastering, and further immersing himself in his tenants' lives, the meek little rent collector finally comes to life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inexcusable" title="Inexcusable">
The novel covers a young man's own perspective on being accused of rape, starting at the moment of accusation and jumping back through an unreliable narration of events, in which he seems himself as a good guy doing what is understandable.The novel begins with Keir arguing with Gigi about the events which occurred the night before. It continues with Keir's first-person narration of his senior year in high school. Keir is crushed when he learns that Gigi has accused him of rape. He goes on to tell Gigi that he loves her, and would never do such a thing. The novel never mentions Gigi's point of view, so her feelings and thoughts are not taken into consideration through the use of dialogue.As the novel unfolds, Keir becomes more unpopular because of his substance abuse, school behavior, and his infamous tackle on the football field giving him the nickname "Killer." Keir's self-image dissipates after he accidentally paralyzes an opponent, participates in bullying classmates, and then tries cocaine. First, he leans on Gigi because she listens to him and doesn't judge him. Once he learns about Gigi and her new boyfriend, he is angry and leans on his two sisters, Fran and Mary. Keir's older sisters have mixed feelings about his behavior. He leans on Fran the most because she sees the "good" in Keir despite his terrible actions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Angelo" title="Albert Angelo">
"Albert Angelo" tells the story of Albert Angelo, a substitute teacher who longs to be a professional architect. He has had to resort to teaching to make ends meet, as he is not an accomplished enough architect to make a living from it. Living in a flat in Angel in London, he finds himself teaching in increasingly tougher schools, and part of the story concerns his struggle with difficult pupils in class, mirroring Albert's struggle with life in general. Through the reproduction of some of their essays, we also learn the pupils' opinions of Albert and their attitudes towards him, which are often hilarious.Albert devotes much thought to his ex-girlfriend Jenny, with whom he is still very much in love and who he feels betrayed him. He reminisces about her frequently. His friend Terry, whom he accompanies to late-night cafes, was also 'betrayed' by a woman, and their friendship is built upon this common experience.The story is at times humorous and at others incredibly serious. As is usual in a Johnson novel sexuality is openly and frankly discussed. Johnson's writing technique allows us to view Albert's character from many angles.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Face_(Koontz_novel)" title="The Face (Koontz novel)">
The main plot of the story follows Ethan Truman, an ex-cop who now works as the head of security for the most famous actor in Hollywood, Channing Manheim, a.k.a. "The Face." Ethan is trying to track down the sender of several gruesome "messages" that were received in black boxes. Ethan now has six black boxes to figure out what the contents of the boxes mean. After chasing down leads and tracking the "ghost" of his dead friend Duncan "Dunny" Whistler (technically, Dunny is not a ghost, as he came back to life in the morgue), Ethan finally uncovers the plot and races to stop the kidnapping of Manheim's son, Aelfric.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighbors_(novel)" title="Neighbors (novel)">
Earl Keese is a middle-aged, middle-class suburbanite with a wife, Enid, and teenage daughter, Elaine. Earl is content with his dull, unexceptional life, but this changes when a younger, less sophisticated couple, Harry and Ramona, move in next door. Harry is physically intimidating and vulgar; Ramona is sexually aggressive, and both impose themselves on the Keese household. Their free-spirited personalities and overbearing and boorish behavior endear them to Enid and Elaine, but Earl fears that he is losing control of his life and his family. Over the course of one night, the antagonism between Earl and his new neighbors escalates into suburban warfare.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galahad_at_Blandings" title="Galahad at Blandings">
Lord Emsworth's idyllic demesne, Blandings Castle, is as usual overrun with overbearing sisters, overefficient secretaries, and the lovestruck; even worse, an alleged old flame has appeared, determined to put an end to the Earl's peaceful, pig-loving existence. All Gally's genius is required to sort things out satisfactorily...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Mother_Normal" title="House Mother Normal">
The novel is set in a nursing home. It follows part of a typical day for a group of elderly people, both male and female. Their thoughts, memories and opinions of each other and the House Mother (head matron) are explored as they go about their activities, from playing pass-the-parcel to dancing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Enemy_Number_Two" title="Public Enemy Number Two">
After being kept behind in detention by his unpleasant French teacher, Mr Palis, Nicholas Simple (also known as "Nick Diamond") is visited by Chief Inspector Snape of Scotland Yard and his assistant, Boyle. They ask Nick if he would like to go to Strangeday Hall, an institution for criminals aged under 18, and befriend inmate Johnny Powers, a gang leader known as "Public Enemy Number One" following his recent conviction and 15-year prison sentence for armed robbery. They want Nick to find out the true identity of an unknown master criminal who controls all the buying and selling of stolen goods in London, known only as "the Fence". Nick refuses their offer and the police leave.Soon afterwards, Nick visits Woburn Abbey on a school trip, but is framed for attempting to steal the Woburn Carbuncles, and despite his attempts to evade police, is arrested and sentenced to 18 months at Strangeday Hall. He has to share a cell with Johnny Powers - just as Snape and Boyle wanted, and no doubt arranged, to happen. Soon after he arrives, Snape and Boyle visit Nick and reveal that they arranged to have Nick framed. Nick manages to gain Johnny's trust after he saves Johnny from being killed by three followers of a notorious London gangster known as Big Ed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Klim's_Underground_Travels" title="Niels Klim's Underground Travels">
The novel starts with a foreword that "assures" that everything in the story is a real account of the title character's exploits in the Underworld. The story is set, according to the book, in the Norwegian harbor town of Bergen in 1664, after Klim returns from Copenhagen, where he has studied philosophy and theology at the University of Copenhagen and graduated magna cum laude. His curiosity drives him to investigate a strange cave in a mountainside above the town, which sends out regular gusts of warm air. He ends up falling down the hole, and after a while he finds himself floating in free space.After a few days of orbiting the planet which revolves around the inner sun, he is attacked by a gryphon, and he falls down on the planet, which is named Nazar. There he wanders about for a short while until he is attacked, this time by an ox. He climbs up into a tree, and to his astonishment the tree can move and talk (this one screamed), and he is taken prisoner by tree-like creatures with up to six arms and faces just below the branches. He is accused of attempted rape on the town clerk's wife, and is put on trial. The case is dismissed and he is set by the Lord of Potu (the utopian state in which he now is located) to learn the language.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Extraordinary_Adventures_of_Private_Ivan_Chonkin" title="The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin">
On the eve of World War II, Ivan Chonkin, the most dispensable soldier, is sent to guard a disabled military plane that crash landed on a kolkhoz (collective farm). Forgotten by his command, he earns favors of a nearby kolkhoznik woman Nyura and moves in with her. Nyura's cow eats the patch of experimental tomato-potato hybrids of the local mad genius agronomist Gladyshev, and in a retaliation the latter sends an anonymous note to NKVD that Chonkin is a deserter.When NKVDists come to arrest Chonkin, he, being a Good Soldier, refuses to leave the post, and arrests the NKVDists himself. Only after several days is the fact of missing secret police noticed, and the "raion" Party leader is told via phone that they have been arrested by "Chonkin and his "baba" (woman)", which he mishears as "Chonkin and his "banda" (gang)".A regiment is sent against "Chonkin's gang", but Chonkin successfully fends them off until they use artillery. When general Drynov incredulously learns that Chonkin single-handedly (with his "baba") was holding off the whole regiment, he declares Chonkin a hero and awards him an order taken off his own chest. When the NKVD lieutenant shows the order for Chonkin's arrest, Drynov shrugs and tells them to carry out their duty, at which point Chonkin is arrested and carried off in the back of the truck to the "Right Place", leaving Nyura on her knees on the road weeping after Chonkin as the scene closes. The book ends with the joke on Gladyshev, whose misunderstanding of evolution (that monkeys became man through labor and intelligence) has been thoroughly unsettled by Chonkin's question why horses do not become men if they work harder than men do, finds a note attached to the bottom of a hoof of his dead horse which had earlier disappeared. Supposing the horse had evolved and written the note, he is spooked and crosses himself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleaxe_(novel)" title="Battleaxe (novel)">
The first characters introduced are two unnamed women in mortal peril, one who is pregnant and one who has just given birth. The pregnant one is trying desperately to reach shelter during a snowstorm. She is an outcast of her people, the Avar, because she has decided to carry her child, conceived during a festival and considered an abomination, to term. A group of demonic creatures, skraelings, watch as her unborn child brutally eats his way out of her womb, killing her. The monsters are delighted and decide to adopt the hateful child.The second woman had given birth to an illegitimate child two days before, who she believes is dead. The child was illegitimate, and she is of high-born, perhaps noble, birth. After giving birth, she is taken and dumped in the freezing cold mountains to die.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_Sunken_Places" title="The Game of Sunken Places">
The book follows the story of two boys in their teen years, named Brian and Gregory (who are friends, but complete opposites) who visit a mansion in Vermont owned by Gregory's Uncle Max. Uncle Max is a strange and weird character who uses complicated words from the past such as "effluents" that is very much like an Edwardian-era aristocrat. The two boys uncover the board of the Game of Sunken Places in the nursery and unintentionally set the game into motion. They also meet Gregory's cousin Prudance, a girl from the area. Thus they become involved in an age-old ritual conflict between enchanted supernatural races.Once they go out into the woods and begin playing the game, they meet unlikely allies such as Kalgrash the troll and work together to accomplish all the challenges using the game board as a map. In the final challenge, Gregory is about to win and Brian is being strangled by Jack Stimple. By believing that Jack was their opponent, the two almost fell into his trap. Jack was not playing the game at all. Gregory was the player for the Thusser Hordes and was about to win when Brian stopped him. Jack Stimple was meanwhile being dragged away by monks for strangling Brian. Gregory trusts Brian, and lets him win the game and so another battle had been won in the name of the Norumbegans. Prudance is the one who actually came up with the idea of The Game in the first place.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenger_(Shatner_novel)" title="Avenger (Shatner novel)">
The Federation must contain a "virogen" (plague) that is killing plant life, damaging animal young, and killing people on several vital systems that collectively supply food for the entire Federation. "Avenger" opens with the Federation trying to maintain a strict quarantine to contain the spread of the virogen as the Federation's reserves run low. The "Enterprise"-E is assigned to a blockade of the Alta Vista system, home to the Gamrow Station, a research facility designed to house about 60 scientists which is temporarily being used as a refugee camp for 1400 people. Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his crew attempt to stop a shuttlecraft, piloted by a Vulcan called Stron and a pregnant human woman, from fleeing the quarantined system, but the two appear to commit suicide by trying to jump into warp while caught in the "Enterprise"-E's tractor beam. Picard, however, knowing that Vulcans believe suicide to be illogical, is unconvinced that the couple actually died in the warp core explosion.Meanwhile, on the once-verdant planet of Chal (first referenced in The Ashes of Eden), a mysterious stranger walks through the desolation towards a Starfleet medical outpost. He meets with the commanding officer, Christine McDonald, and requests the location of the burial place of a native woman named Teilani. He discovers, with Christine's help, that Teilani is not dead, not yet, but will be soon with the virogen quickly working through her body. He goes to her and prepares an unusual herbal tea with dried leaves and hot water. Commander McDonald and the outpost's doctor, Andrea M'Benga, look on in amazement as Teilani begins to miraculously recover. The stranger reveals to M'Benga that the leaves are Trannin leaves, native to the Klingon home planet. Christine determines to send a message to Starfleet, announcing that a way to combat the virogen has been found. Christine's suspicions of the stranger's identity are aroused when Teilani calls the stranger "James." Her suspicions are further confirmed when she finds a plaque that the stranger had used as a tray for the tea, emblazoned with the name and number of the starship "Enterprise" from eighty years in the past. Christine confronts the stranger with her belief that he is actually James T. Kirk, which he does not deny, insisting that she only refer to him as "Jim," and that she reveal his real identity to no one. It is later revealed Kirk was saved by a fortuitous last-minute Borg transporter beam-out. Flung to another galaxy entirely, he materializes on a planet which is used as a dumping ground for the detritus of failed Borg missions. At the verge of death, on a planet near a galactic core, Kirk is discovered by beings who were able to release themselves from Borg assimilation. His body is purged of the Borg nanites which had been killing him, and after two years of working, living, and learning from, and with, the survivors, he discovers a Borg scout ship which he uses to return to the planet Chal.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ashes_of_Eden" title="The Ashes of Eden">
The novel opens with Ambassador Spock on planet Veridian III following the events of "Star Trek Generations". He is standing at the site where Captain Jean-Luc Picard had buried Captain James T. Kirk, paying final respects to his fallen friend.The story then flashes back six months before Kirk was believed to have been 'killed' on the maiden voyage of the U.S.S. "Enterprise NCC-1701-B".Kirk is having trouble coping with retirement on Earth as the U.S.S. "Enterprise NCC-1701-A" is decommissioned for war games. Kirk is having difficulties finding ways to spend his spare time and finds it distasteful that Starfleet cadets are using holodeck simulations of his 'adventures' in training, insisting "they were just my job." Kirk later attends a party at Starfleet Headquarters with his old friends Spock and 'Bones' McCoy, where they are disappointed to learn that the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief has been awarded to Admiral Androvar Drake (a former colleague of Kirk who has no qualms about cruelly mocking him). Kirk spots a mysterious young alien woman at the party, but doesn't get a chance to talk to her.Meanwhile, Chekov and Uhura are working undercover with a Starfleet Intelligence operative named Jade in Klingon territory. When Jade manages to obtain some information about something called the "Chalchaj 'Qmey", she betrays Chekov and Uhura, leaving them to die in a shuttle bay. Luckily, they are rescued by Sulu aboard the "Excelsior" (who have been secretly monitoring them during their mission) and, feeling they can no longer trust Starfleet Intelligence, return to Earth to report to Drake.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracebridge_Hall" title="Bracebridge Hall">
As this is a location-based series of character sketches, there are a number of individual plots. The tales centre on the occupants of an English manor (based on Aston Hall, near Birmingham, England, which was occupied by members of the Bracebridge family and which Irving visited).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grim_Tuesday" title="Grim Tuesday">
Set immediately after the events of Mister Monday, Dame Primus informs Arthur that six months have passed in the House since he left and Grim Tuesday, the second of the Morrow Days, has found a loophole in the Trustees' agreement to conquer the Lower House. Dame Primus tells Arthur that he must return to the House to restore order.With help from Leaf, Arthur returns to the House and travels to the Far Reaches, a vast and expansive cavern filled with forges and a large spring of Nothing, which are used to create and ship out the supplies that maintain the House's various functions. However, Tuesday's greed has grown such that he dug out the spring even further, creating a highly toxic and unstable massive pit that threatens the foundation of the House. Nevertheless, Tuesday continues to plunder the pit and the Secondary Realms for more wealth, which he then hoards in his Treasure Tower.Upon his arrival, Arthur is mistaken for one of Tuesday's indentured servants and forced to work in the pit, where he meets Japeth, who provides information about the Far Reaches. Suzy Turquoise Blue finds them and takes them to Tuesday's tower, which holds the second Will fragment and the Second Key. The three decide that Japeth will take Suzy's vehicle to catch up with the work gang while Arthur and Suzy break into the tower. They reach the tower by crossing the ceiling of the Far Reaches, only to find that the tower is surrounded by a giant glass pyramid. Soot, a large mass of Nothing that used to be Tuesday's eyebrow, gives them a diamond to cut through the glass pyramid, in exchange for helping it into the Treasure Tower so Soot can consume Tuesday's treasures.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Moon_(novel)" title="Full Moon (novel)">
Clarence, 9th Earl of Emsworth, is forced to play host to his younger son Freddie, while two of his nieces, Prudence Garland and Veronica Wedge are romantically entangled with, respectively, Gally's godson Bill Lister and American millionaire Tipton Plimsoll. Complications ensue when the near-alcoholic Tipton thinks that Bill's gorilla-like face is an apparition brought about by too much drink; Lister, purporting to be a notable artist named Landseer, is commissioned to paint the portrait of Emsworth's prize pig, the Empress of Blandings; and the valuable necklace of Freddie's wife, Aggie, goes missing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_John" title="Onion John">
Onion John is an unusual man: a European immigrant who lives in a hut made of stone and furnished with bathtubs. He befriends young Andy Rusch, the only person in Serenity who can understand his speech. As Andy comes to know Onion John (so named because he grows the best onions in town, and eats them like apples), he finds that the man believes some odd things. In Onion John's world, friendly spirits live in the clouds, and evil spirits can be banished by smoking them out. His needs are few, since the townspeople are happy to give him castoff clothing after someone dies, and he earns a little money by doing odd jobs around Serenity. Andy and his friends are always happy to go along with whatever Onion John says.Life turns upside-down for Onion John when Andy's father decides to get the Rotary Club to build Onion John a new modern home, complete with electricity, running water, stove, and only one bathtub. The whole town signs on, committees are created, and the house goes up on the site of John's old stone hut. Almost immediately after moving in, John, unused to modern appliances, leaves newspaper on the stove. The ensuing fire destroys the house. Mr. Rusch is determined to rebuild the house, never noticing that Onion John was uncomfortable and unhappy in his new surroundings. He wants to fumigate the whole town. Andy suggests to Onion John that for the people of Serenity to leave him alone, he should run away from town. However, Andy wants to run away with him. Onion John eventually leaves the town of Serenity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_in_the_Morning_(Smith_novel)" title="Joy in the Morning (Smith novel)">
Annie is 18 and Carl 20. Although both of their families are against their marriage, the couple weds anyway. They move into a rented room near the college campus where Carl is enrolled in law school. The novel deals with the first years of a couple who married young, Carl’s struggle to continue and keep up with his studies while he supports a spouse, and Annie’s struggle to learn the basic housekeeping skills then expected of a wife, contribute to their income despite her job skills, and attempts to better herself through education.The college dean, initially skeptical of his student’s youthful marriage, approves of their willingness to work and bear their hardships, and befriends them. He offers helps from time to time, encouraging Annie to audit classes and finds a job for Carl that better accommodates his class schedule. Annie befriends various townspeople, such as the grocer and florist. She audits a college writing class and tries to improve her education, and finds a job working in a dime store. The young couple manages to get by until Annie falls pregnant. Carl’s overbearing mother disapproved of their courtship and marriage, accusing Annie of promiscuity. Annie’s mother accused her of eloping over pregnancy, so Annie keeps it secret for awhile. The Dean helps Annie get medical care for free at the university’s teaching hospital.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_in_the_Morning_(Wodehouse_novel)" title="Joy in the Morning (Wodehouse novel)">
The novel opens with a brief flashforward of Bertie and Jeeves driving home, with Bertie remarking that there is an expression, something about Joy, that describes what he has just been through. Jeeves helpfully supplies the phrase, "Joy cometh in the morning". Bertie proceeds to narrate the events that occurred.Jeeves wants to go fishing at the village of Steeple Bumpleigh, but Bertie refuses because his fearsome Aunt Agatha and her second husband, the irascible Lord Worplesdon, live there at Bumpleigh Hall. Bertie makes it up to Jeeves by buying him a gift, a new edition of the works of Spinoza. In the bookshop, Bertie meets Florence Craye, Worplesdon's daughter, a serious, intellectual woman to whom Bertie was once engaged. She mistakenly thinks that Bertie is trying to improve his mind by reading Spinoza and her own book "Spindrift" that the bookshop keeper mistakenly gives him. Shortly afterwards, Bertie meets his college friend D'Arcy "Stilton" Cheesewright, who is engaged to Florence. Meanwhile, Jeeves has been consulted by Worplesdon, who wants to arrange a clandestine meeting with an American businessman, Chichester Clam. Jeeves suggests that Bertie stay at a cottage (called Wee Nooke) in Steeple Bumpleigh, where the two businessmen could meet in secret. Bertie is incensed but calms when he learns there is a fancy-dress ball and that his Aunt Agatha is away from Bumpleigh Hall. She does, however, instruct Bertie to pick up and deliver a brooch as a birthday present for Florence, her step-daughter.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunwing_(novel)" title="Sunwing (novel)">
## Part I.Shade, Marina and their friends in the Silverwing colony fly in the middle of the winter in hopes of finding Shade's father, Cassiel. The bats find a Human building, and fly inside, thinking that Cassiel might be there. Inside, they find an artificial forest filled with many other kinds of bats. The Silverwings discover that they cannot escape and that Cassiel is not there. Panic arises when several bats disappear, including Shade's friend, Chinook. Shade and Marina escape by way of a river that runs through the forest and find another artificial forest, this one filled with owls.Upon arriving in the other dome, Shade and Marina befriend Orestes, a boreal owl and the son of the owl king. Owls begin to disappear, as well, and Shade discovers that humans are experimenting on them. Shade has a run-in with Goth, whom he is surprised to find alive, let alone in the same facility. Eventually, Shade, Orestes and Goth are captured by the humans while Marina escapes. The humans shave a patch of Shade's fur, attach a disc to his belly and a stud to his ear, and put him in an airplane flying south. Inside, he finds Chinook, who is confused about the purpose of the metal discs and studs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Forgotten_(novel)" title="Not Forgotten (novel)">
Los Angeles is being struck by a crime wave. There seems to be no link between the victims and their cause of death - burning from the inside out. Supernatural powers seem to be involved.Angel investigates the deaths, and Cordelia tries to find a band of child thieves. Both searches lead in the same direction - a rich slumlord who is imprisoning the children's immigrant parents.Angel, Doyle, and Cordelia all have difficulties in L.A., but they realize it's much harder for these immigrants. Angel hopes to help before it is too late.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_to_the_Ground" title="Close to the Ground">
After saving a young woman from her rogue bodyguards, Angel is hired by a big Hollywood studio head, Jack Willitts, to guard the girl in question; his daughter, Karinna. Angel is persuaded when his co-workers point out there is rent to deal with, and Cordelia even convinces Jack to give her a job (Unfortunately, it is as a tour guide rather than an actress).Angel takes Karinna to several popular nightspots, writing her off as a spoiled brat. Cordelia believes Angel is getting too close to the case, but the situation soon worsens. Karinna gets into trouble while Angel and company are being tracked by an unknown creature, trying to destroy anything getting in its way.Angel eventually finds himself trapped in a supernatural struggle for power and immortality, as an Irish magician, Mordractus, reveals that he has been tracking Angel. Mordractus is attempting to summon a powerful demon, but the spells are draining his life energy, and he will soon die unless a way of surviving is found. Knowing that Angel is immortal, yet retaining a soul, Mordractus attempts to steal Angel's 'essence' to allow him to duplicate that feat, but Angel escapes and Mordractus is banished to Hell.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_Trade" title="Soul Trade">
Angel, better than most, understands the importance and meaning of the soul. Angel's soul have driven him on his journey of redemption. Now Angel discovers those who would pay for a soul.Doyle, Cordelia, and Angel find a girl whose soul has been taken away from her. It seems a soul trade is developing its own black market; the soul is an item of wealth to gamblers, junkies, and others in L.A.'s vast underworld. The soul of an innocent girl is a desirable item... until Angel appears on the scene, with a soul that is- literally- one-of-a-kind.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redemption_(Angel_novel)" title="Redemption (Angel novel)">
A wealthy actress, Whitney Tyler, requests the help of Angel, Cordelia, and Doyle. She plays a vampire on a popular TV show, and a small number of viewers seem to believe she is actually a real vampire and have made attempts to kill her.Doyle is pleased the case isn't relying on painful visions and Cordelia is starstruck, but Angel is confused; Whitney resembles someone he knew two centuries earlier.The attempts to kill Whitney continue, while Angel, Doyle and Cordy discover a symbol that links the attackers to an ancient battle. Angel must put the pieces together.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakedown_(Angel_novel)" title="Shakedown (Angel novel)">
Doyle has a vision of a seismic shift, and everyone's guard goes up. After investigation, Angel is led to a group of Serpentine demons who live locally in a wealthy and private community. Despite close associations with telemarketing, this group of 'monsters' seems harmless and has no enemies, yet it has become the target of a clan of underground quake demons. The quake demons can reduce living things to a crushed mess.Cordy and Doyle are dubious of their new clients, but Angel soon finds out he has much in common with this community.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Noir" title="Hollywood Noir">
A decayed corpse at a Hollywood construction site appears to be a harbinger of more supernatural evil. Meanwhile, Doyle has a vision which leads him to a strange address. He, Angel and Cordelia start tracking a cigarette girl, Betty McCoy. Mike Slade, a new P.I. in town, is also tracking this girl. He dresses and acts behind the times, yet his agenda is modern, and he opposes local officials. Angel and his team soon find their research leads them to Slade. They must piece together a story involving the cigarette girl, a water commissioner, and a host of disappearing demons.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(Angel_novel)" title="Avatar (Angel novel)">
Cordelia suggests beginning a Web site for their detective agency, but Angel is hesitant—as Doyle points out, "people in trouble want to interface with a face." Meanwhile, the police discover a trail of corpses across the city. The only connection between these victims (apart from the cause of death) is their hobby of online chatting. It seems a techno-savvy demon must be on the prowl, hoping to complete a ritual going even beyond a World Wide Web.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Here_to_Eternity_(novel)" title="From Here to Eternity (novel)">
In February 1941, Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt, nicknamed "Prew", reports to his new posting at G Company, a US Army infantry unit stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. Prew is a career soldier (a "thirty-year man") with six years' service, an excellent bugler, and a former boxer. He was transferred from his last unit, a Bugle Corps, with a reduction to the lowest rank after complaining that a less skilled bugler, who was a friend (possibly a romantic partner) of the Chief Bugler, had been made First Bugler over him.G Company's commanding officer is Captain Dana "Dynamite" Holmes, the regimental boxing coach, who chose Prew for his unit because of Prew's past history as a talented welterweight boxer. Holmes thinks that winning a boxing championship will greatly help his chances for promotion and concentrates on building a strong team, offering incentives such as promotions to men who box well. However, Prew swore off boxing after accidentally blinding his sparring partner and even transferred out of a past regiment to get away from boxing. Prew refuses to box for Holmes' team, resulting in his being given "The Treatment" by his platoon guide Sergeant Galovitch and others. "The Treatment" is a daily hazing ritual in which Prew is constantly singled out for extra drill exercises, unwarranted punishments, and undesirable work assignments in hopes of breaking him down through exhaustion. Despite the abuse, Prew stubbornly refuses to change his mind about boxing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruled_Britannia" title="Ruled Britannia">
Shakespeare, actor and renowned playwright, is contacted by Nicholas Skeres on behalf of members of an underground resistance movement who are plotting to overthrow the Spanish dominion of England and restore Elizabeth I to the throne. To do this, they employ Shakespeare himself, tasking him to write a play depicting the saga of Boudicca, an ancient Iceni queen who rebelled against the Roman invasion of Great Britain in the 1st century A.D. The conspirators hope that the play will inspire its audience, Britons once again under the heel of a foreign enemy, to overthrow the Spanish.The plan is complicated by the Spaniards who, also recognizing Shakespeare's talents, commission him to write a play depicting the life of King Philip II of Spain and the Spanish conquest of England. Now Shakespeare must write two plays—one glorifying the valor of England, the other glorifying its conquest and return to the Catholic Church—at the same time. There is also a subplot of the exploits of the skirt-chasing Spanish playwright and soldier Lope de Vega, who is tasked by his superiors in the Spanish military hierarchy to keep an eye on Shakespeare and while he does so flirts from woman to woman. De Vega even acts in Shakespeare's "King Philip".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Altar_of_the_Dead" title="The Altar of the Dead">
Aging George Stransom holds sacred the memory of the great love of his life, Mary Antrim, who died before they could be married. One day Stransom happens to read of the death of Acton Hague, a former friend who had done him a terrible harm. Stransom starts to dwell on the many friends and acquaintances he is now losing to death. He begins to light candles at a side altar in a Catholic church, one for each of his Dead, except Hague.Later he notices a woman who regularly appears at the church and sits before his altar. He intuitively understands that she too honours her Dead, and they very gradually become friends. However Stransom later discovers that her Dead number only one: Acton Hague. Hague had wronged her too, but she has forgiven him. When his friend realises Stransom's feelings about Hague, she declares that she can no longer honour Hague at Stransom's altar. Stransom cannot bring himself to resolve the issue by forgiving Hague and adding a candle for him. This disagreement drives the two friends apart. Stransom's friend ceases visiting the altar, and Stransom himself can find no peace there.Months later, Stransom, now dying, visits his altar one last time. Collapsing before the altar, he has a vision of Mary Antrim, and it seems that Mary Antrim is asking him to forgive Hague: "[H]e felt his buried face grow hot as with some communicated knowledge that had the force of a reproach. It suddenly made him contrast that very rapture with the bliss he had refused to another. This breath of the passion immortal was all that other had asked; the descent of Mary Antrim opened his spirit with a great compunctious throb for the descent of Acton Hague."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mating_Season_(novel)" title="The Mating Season (novel)">
Bertie's overbearing Aunt Agatha orders him to go to Deverill Hall, King's Deverill, Hants., to stay with some friends of hers and perform in the village concert. Jeeves, who knows about Deverill Hall because his uncle Charlie Silversmith is the butler there, says that Esmond Haddock, his aunt Dame Daphne Winkworth, four other aunts, and Dame Daphne's daughter Gertrude Winkworth live there. Bertie's friend Gussie Fink-Nottle will also go there. Gussie is upset because his fiancée Madeline Bassett was supposed to accompany him, but had to visit a friend, Hilda Gudgeon, instead.Another friend of Bertie's, Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright, an actor, wants to marry Gertrude. However, the aunts disapprove of actors. Catsmeat thinks Esmond is wooing Gertrude and asks Bertie to keep them apart. In exchange, Catsmeat will keep Gussie from brooding about Madeline; Bertie does not want Gussie and Madeline to split up because Madeline is resolved to marry Bertie if she does not marry Gussie. Bertie is also visited by Catsmeat's sister, Corky, who is arranging the village concert and wants Bertie to play Pat in a comedic Pat-and-Mike crosstalk act. Corky loves Esmond but won't marry him until he stands up to his domineering aunts, who disapprove of Corky because she is an actress. She believes Esmond has moved on to Gertrude. While drunk, Catsmeat makes Gussie wade through the Trafalgar Square fountain, and Gussie is sentenced to fourteen days in jail. To keep Madeline from learning about this, Jeeves suggests Bertie stay at Deverill Hall pretending to be Gussie. Bertie does so, taking Corky's dog Sam Goldwyn (a reference to film producer Samuel Goldwyn) with him at Corky's request.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruja_(novel)" title="Bruja (novel)">
L.A. is shocked when a woman attacks a priest. The woman had just confessed to the priest that she had murdered her own son. Meanwhile, Angel and Co. get reports of a woman fighting with teens across L.A. The woman appears to be everywhere, a 'bruja' - a witch. She may be an embodiment of "La Llorona," known in Spanish lore as the "Weeping Woman."The priest soon goes into a coma, but Angel Investigations is busy with other matters: Doyle has a vision of a young mother and her son in danger at the docks. Meanwhile, Cordelia's looking for a big-shot producer's missing wife. Angel must find the connections between the missing wife and recent events.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Summoned" title="The Summoned">
Doyle's at the supermarket when his latest vision comes. He sees images of fear, fire, death, and an ornately engraved old amulet. The Powers That Be are not being too specific. When Doyle awakens an anxious young woman named Terri Miller is helping him.Terri is a shy woman from a small town, and new to Los Angeles. Soon after meeting Doyle, who disappears without saying thank-you, a charismatic man invites her to meet him at a club to which he belongs.Meanwhile, Angel and his team are investigating a murderer who seems to be burning his victims beyond recognition. Several of the dead are connected to Terri's newfound friends, and Cordy suddenly finds herself with an amulet that seems very familiar.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_(Angel_novel)" title="Image (Angel novel)">
Cordelia Chase has a vision of a child being attacked by a squidlike demon. Meanwhile, Gunn is trying to rescue a young artist; the artist's studio is being attacked by vampires. Cordelia goes to investigate the mansion from her vision. She soon finds herself surrounded by baby products, portraits, and chased by a tentacled monster.When Angel arrives on the scene, he is surprised to discover that he recognizes some of the portraits. He holds distant memories of him and Darla spending a night with storytellers and artists. Angel reveals that he and Darla were present at the party where Mary Shelley was inspired to write "Frankenstein"; indeed, they witnessed the event that gave Mary the initial idea.An old evil is trying to use a painting to preserve the life of its body, which, in the terms of the story, inspired the novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray". In their efforts to save a child the villain is focused on, Team Angel will learn not to judge everything by its image.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haunted_(Angel_novel)" title="Haunted (Angel novel)">
Cordy's finally getting a big break—she will be a contestant on some "reality programming". She must spend five days and four nights in an apparently haunted house. Living with a ghost and catching demons for a living, she sees this as an easy challenge. However, there is more going on than Cordy knows. In a vision on her first night, she sees one of the applicants who didn't make it to the show. She secretly communicates the scenario to Angel and Co., who are instantly on the case.Angel, Wesley and Gunn search for the missing actress as supernatural activity at the house increases. Soon, Wolfram &amp; Hart also get involved and Cordelia is forced to consider her priorities.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_to_the_Sun" title="Stranger to the Sun">
Wesley opens a strange package that arrives by special delivery, which instantly sends him into a slumber. It seems likely he is the victim of a spell. Angel leaves with Gunn to investigate. They discover that other people who might be able to assist, such as magick-shop owners, have also fallen victim exactly like Wesley.Meanwhile, Cordy is struggling to research without Wes available. She soon begins to uncover a plot to plunge Earth into eternal darkness, so that vampires might rule over humans. Wesley is in the midst of a horrifying nightmare. If he cannot awaken, humankind may be in for a struggle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vengeance_(novel)" title="Vengeance (novel)">
L.A. is divided between the haves and the have-nots. Those in luck seem to have tanned good looks, toned bodies, riches and more. Some have-nots are beginning to grow tired of it.Lily Pierce is a motivational speaker who founded New Life Foundation, an organization sweeping across the country. Its mantra is: "Erase doubt. Erase fear. Become pure of purpose. Perfect in execution. Attain your dreams." Cordy's not impressed with Lily's message, but she doesn't suspect Lily is holding a secret of epic proportions. Wolfram &amp; Hart puzzlingly soon want Angel's help to stop the insanity, but is Lily's hope of a perfect world tempting to Angel?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_Species_(novel)" title="Endangered Species (novel)">
Cordelia has become used to being shaken by visions of horror, thanks to the Powers That Be. However, she is especially disturbed to see a vision of Faith being hunted in prison by the supernatural. Chaz Escobar, a game hunter, soon arrives at Angel Investigations looking for his wife Marianna, a vampire. He had hoped to cure her vampirism on a distant small island, but she escaped. He thinks she might be the monster harassing Faith.When Faith's out of jail it seems she may fall into Marianna's claws, but Angel's team and Chaz are off to the island to save her. Chaz's goal is to rid the world of all vampires, and Angel realises this may be a chance to right all his wrongs.This novel features a flashback to shortly after Angel fled from Darla when she attempted to make him feed on an innocent baby to prove himself. Making contact with a sorcerer, Darla attempted to have him remove Angel's soul, but the man refused, sensing that Angel's soul didn't "want" to be separated from his body, and noting that he had the potential to become a good person despite his vampire status.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressions_(Angel_novel)" title="Impressions (Angel novel)">
It seems a quiet day at Angel Investigations until a desperate man arrives, chased by a demon. The gang kills the monster, which decomposes as soon as it dies. The man seems to have fallen victim to a stolen identity scam; he's been approached by a false Angel and is now distrustful of the real thing, so does not want to give up the ancient stone he's found.Angel's worried by the notion of an impersonator, but Cordy's just curious why he didn't impersonate more worthy celebrities. Meanwhile, Lorne reports some bad mojo from Caritas, and needs help. Something is getting under local demons' skins, and even bothering Angel, heightening the aggression of normally rather pacifistic demons.As their research continues, Cordelia and Fred learn that the Angel-impersonator- a photography student called David who saw Angel in action during his early days in Los Angeles- is impersonating Angel for no reason other than the power trip he gets when defeating demons, and doesn't truly understand the reasons why Angel does what he does. The stone that David's client possesses is later revealed to be the burial stone of a race of demons whose nature causes them to disintegrate upon death caused them to start using the stones as a memorial, the stones 'recording' their feelings at the moment of death. The stone the client possesses contains the rage and hostility of an honoured warrior who recently died in battle; in their home dimension, the stone's 'emissions' would normally be controlled by various spells, but without those spells the emotions are spilling out and 'infecting' every demon in the area.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fearless_(Angel_novel)" title="Fearless (Angel novel)">
The characters of Angel Investigations are shocked to find themselves euphoric after a long night they cannot remember. Their clothes are bloody and torn, their bodies bruised, but their memories of the previous evening are hazy. They soon determine that they've been affected by demon pixie dust.Angel, however, finds his superhuman healing failing him, and seems to be recovering at the rate of an average human. Unable to confide in his friends, Angel finds himself keeping secrets and collaborating with demons. If his friends go looking for another high in a battle of fearlessness, Angel is unsure if he can protect them.Characters include: Angel, Cordelia, Wesley, Gunn, Fred, and Lorne
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctuary_(Angel_novel)" title="Sanctuary (Angel novel)">
Angel and Co. are enjoying some downtime at the karaoke bar Caritas when a loud explosion occurs. The gang and the rest of the bar are attracted outside. A building nearby is on fire. It seems that it may have been a diversionary tactic to distract from a drive-by shooting. When the smoke clears, Fred has gone missing.It seems Fred has been kidnapped, so Team Angel questions everyone nearby. Around a dozen demons were direct eyewitnesses, but each one has a different story. Whether it was gangs, monsters, or a runaway Fred, the team soon realize demons do not make the most reliable eyewitnesses.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Mirror_(Angel_novel)" title="Dark Mirror (Angel novel)">
A series of perfect clones of members at Angel Investigations are lurking in the city, planning to kill the originals. Team Angel must find out where the replicas are coming from and why, before the murder spree hits the whole city. Thanks to Wesley's research, the gang realise that they are facing the 'Seven Sinners', dimension-jumping demons who travel to other worlds, steal the negative aspects of the souls of some of the greatest heroes of that world, and subsequently gain power by killing the originals and absorbing their souls into their power source. Once they have been copied, only the original can kill 'their' Sinner, with other attempts simply incapacitating the Sinners until they can regenerate. The Sinners have targeted Angel Investigations with the intention of duplicating Angel, as they feel that only Angelus would possess the necessary skills to lead them in their destruction of this world. However, the final seven clones- consisting of Angelus, Lorne, Wesley, Connor, Fred, Gunn, and Lilah- are all killed by their templates, Angel subsequently destroying their power source.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_Man_(novel)" title="Solitary Man (novel)">
The widow Mildred Finster has been a fan of "cozy" mystery novels for years. At the age of seventy-one she decides she would like to become a real private detective. She finds a business card for Angel Investigations and likes the name.Team Angel is busy with its own personal problems, and has little time to deal with Mildred offering her services. Later a truckload of valuable antiquities is stolen and they assume a simple theft. The arrival of ruthless killers from afar soon gets the attention of the gang.They must cope with being followed everywhere by a well-meaning old lady, fight off poltergeists, and try to set aside their personal differences (at least temporarily) so that they can overcome the supernatural foe which is responsible for a centuries-old mystery.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_and_Death_(novel)" title="Love and Death (novel)">
Huge numbers of demon-killers are descending upon L.A., provoked by outspoken radio host Mac Lindley. They plan to rid the city of demons as rapidly and violently as possible.Angel Investigations is finding these angry mobs more of a hindrance than a help. Cordy knows bits and pieces but Angel Investigations is focusing on solving a case of a family who came to Los Angeles from Iowa; they were murdered together as Angel raced to try to save them.Soon Lorne is attacked and Connor goes missing. Angel realizes that the demon-hunters cannot tell the difference between a good demon and a bad one. None of them are safe from the crazy pack of do-gooders.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_(novel)" title="Monolith (novel)">
Like other parents, Angel wishes he could understand his son, Connor. But father-son bonding time is short because Angel is overworked, Connor is embarrassed by his father's blood-drinking, Hyconian demons are running rampant across L.A. - and a huge monolith suddenly appears on Hollywood Boulevard.Nobody understands this massive rock. It has two demon faces carved into it. The news stations assume it is a clever publicity stunt for a newly released movie, and religious extremists worry that it might be a sign of the impending apocalypse. As the staff of Angel Investigations tries to understand what the rock means, it soon becomes clear that Connor and Angel will have to work together for survival.Characters include: Angel, Cordelia, Wesley, Gunn, Fred, Lorne and Connor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_(Angel_novel)" title="Nemesis (Angel novel)">
One of Fred's old friends from graduate school contacts her for help at a big scientific facility. Fred has conflicted feelings about her past, and the life she might be able to lead independent of demons. However on the night they are supposed to meet, her friend is shot down, a seemingly innocent victim of a misdirected hit.Angel and the others wish they could help Fred, but are needed to investigate a series of murders among a group of wizards. The wizards are the only ones standing against an apocalyptic breach; they are literally holding the walls of reality together from more-deadly worlds. Fred leaves the investigation and takes the place of her friend as researcher to try to uncover her murder. Soon the supernatural and the scientific research collide, and Fred realizes she might be the only one who can stop the coming end-time.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_Dead_(Angel_novel)" title="Book of the Dead (Angel novel)">
Wes has loved books since childhood. When a former colleague, Adrian O'Flaherty, arrives in town and invites him to a secret auction of rare occult books, Wes immediately agrees.However Adrian wants more than dusty old books at the auction. He wants revenge. Before the Watchers' Council was blown up (seen in 'Never Leave Me'), Rutherford Sirk took a number of rare books from the Council's libraries and killed the librarian who was Adrian's father.Wes buys a number of old books at the auction including one of the most famous books of magick, "The Red Compendium", which is infamous for absorbing those who read it. Wes has always been a sucker for literature and soon finds he can't put it down even if he wants to.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Law_and_the_Lady_(novel)" title="The Law and the Lady (novel)">
Valeria Brinton marries Eustace Woodville despite objections from Woodville's family; this decision worries Valeria's family and friends.Just a few days after the wedding, various incidents lead Valeria to suspect her husband of hiding a dark secret in his past. She discovers that he has been using a false name, "Woodville", when his true surname is "Macallan". Eustace refuses to discuss it, leading them to curtail their honeymoon and return to London where Valeria learnsthat he was on trial for his first wife's murder by arsenic. He was tried in a Scottish court and the verdict was 'not proven' rather than 'not guilty'. This implies that though Eustace is guilty, the jury did not have enough proof to convict him.Valeria sets out to save their happiness by proving her husband innocent of the crime. In her quest, she comes across the disabled character Miserrimus Dexter, a fascinating but mentally unstable genius, and Dexter's devoted female cousin, Ariel. Dexter will prove crucial to uncovering the disturbing truth behind the mysterious death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Defense" title="The Defense">
The plot concerns the title character, Aleksandr Ivanovich Luzhin. As a boy, he is considered unattractive, withdrawn, and an object of ridicule by his classmates. One day, when a guest comes to his father's party, he is asked whether he knows how to play chess. This encounter serves as his motivation to pick up chess. He skips school and visits his aunt's house to learn the basics. He quickly becomes a great player, enrolling in local competitions and rising in rank as a chess player. His talent is prodigious and he attains the level of a Grandmaster in less than ten years. For many years, he remains one of the top chess players in the world, but fails to become a world champion.During one of the tournaments, at a resort, he meets a young girl, never named in the novel, whose interest he captures. They become romantically involved, and Luzhin eventually proposes to her.Things turn for the worse when he is pitted against Turati, a grandmaster from Italy, in a competition to determine who would face the current world champion. Before and during the game, Luzhin has a mental breakdown, which climaxes when his carefully planned defense against Turati fails in the first moves, and the resulting game fails to produce a winner. When the game is suspended Luzhin wanders into the city in a state of complete detachment from reality.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comus_(Milton)" title="Comus (Milton)">
The plot concerns two brothers and their sister, simply called "the Lady", lost in a journey through the woods. The Lady becomes fatigued, and the brothers wander off in search of sustenance.While alone, she encounters the debauched Comus, a character inspired by the god of revelry (, "Kōmos"), who is disguised as a villager and claims he will lead her to her brothers. Deceived by his amiable countenance, the Lady follows him, only to be captured, brought to his pleasure palace and victimised by his necromancy. Seated on an enchanted chair, with "gums of glutinous heat", she is immobilised, and Comus accosts her while with one hand he holds a necromancer's wand and with the other he offers a vessel with a drink that would overpower her. Comus urges the Lady to "be not coy" and drink from his magical cup (representing sexual pleasure and intemperance), but she repeatedly refuses, arguing for the virtuousness of temperance and chastity. Within view at his palace is an array of cuisine intended to arouse the Lady's appetites and desires. Despite being restrained against her will, she continues to exercise right reason (recta ratio) in her disputation with Comus, thereby manifesting her freedom of mind. Whereas the would-be seducer argues appetites and desires issuing from one's nature are "natural" and therefore licit, the Lady contends that only rational self-control is enlightened and virtuous. To be self-indulgent and intemperate, she adds, is to forfeit one's higher nature and to yield to baser impulses. In this debate the Lady and Comus signify, respectively, soul and body, ratio and libido, sublimation and sensuality, virtue and vice, moral rectitude and immoral depravity. In line with the theme of the journey that distinguishes Comus, the Lady has been deceived by the guile of a treacherous character, temporarily waylaid, and besieged by sophistry that is disguised as wisdom.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swallowdale" title="Swallowdale">
Returning to Wild Cat Island for their second summer holiday by the Lake, the Swallows find the Amazons and Captain Flint suffering from "native trouble". Great Aunt Maria has come to stay and she is a stickler for "proper" behaviour, demanding that the Amazon pirates act like "young ladies" who are on hand and on time for meals. Despite this, Nancy and Peggy escape the Great Aunt and arrange a rendezvous with the Walkers but on the way the "Swallow" hits Pike Rock and sinks. All are saved and the boat salvaged but she needs repairing, so camping on the island is impossible. "Captain" John of the Swallows learns some valuable life lessons about following his instincts while commanding a ship, and has time to reflect on the accident while he fashions a new mast for Swallow. An alternative to camping on Wild Cat Island presents itself when Roger and Titty find a beautiful hidden valley, "Swallowdale", up on the moors above the lake.The Swallows discover a secret cave in Swallowdale, a trout tarn, the "knickerbockerbreaker", and enjoy new adventures of lakeland life. They meet local woodcutters and farmers, see a hound trail, and trek across the moors. The Amazons are only able to escape at intervals, and are punished for getting home late by being made to memorize and recite poetry. Eventually the Great Aunt leaves and the Swallows and Amazons mount an expedition to sleep under the stars on the summit of nearby commanding hill "Kanchenjunga" (in reality The Old Man of Coniston). While there, they discover a box with a small coin left by the Blackett's parents and uncle on climbing the "Matterhorn" thirty years earlier.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Time_to_Run" title="A Time to Run">
The story is set in the present day, with significant flashbacks to times beginning in the early 1970s. The protagonist is Ellen Fischer, a liberal senator from California. She is preparing for a difficult legislative battle over the conservative president's nomination of a deeply conservative female judge to the Supreme Court. Amid numerous particulars of the informal and formal governmental process in the United States, Boxer unfolds her heroine's dilemma and her past simultaneously. The dilemma is presented by a journalist, Greg Hunter, with pronounced right-wing views. Hunter is a figure from the senator's past. They had been lovers while he was in college; he lost her to his roommate, Joshua Fischer. Joshua later dies in the middle of a campaign for Senate; Ellen steps into his place and wins, launching her political career. Now, Hunter has returned, bringing with him information that could derail the judicial nominee's appointment. Fischer is buffeted by new revelations about Hunter and a well-founded distrust of his motives.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_Sixty_Fathers" title="The House of Sixty Fathers">
The story is set during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Japan has invaded China, and the Japanese attack the village where young Tien Pao and his family live. The family flees upriver in an abandoned sampan to the town of Hengyang. While the boy's parents go to a nearby American airfield to seek work with his younger sister, Tien Pao spends the day taking care of the sampan as well as three ducklings and the family pig, named Glory of the Republic. During a rainstorm, while Tien Pao is asleep, the sampan breaks loose from its moorings. Tien Pao is swept down the river. After a night in the raging waters, the storm abates, and Tien Pao finds himself floating in the area where his village used to be. He releases the ducklings in the river and heads for higher ground with his pig. He must travel over high mountains and through dangerous Japanese occupied territory to reach Hengyang.As he journeys home, Tien Pao begins to starve and suffer from exhaustion. He witnesses terrifying scenes of violence. Once, he sees a plane strafe a Japanese military convoy, only to be shot down over the forest. Sitting on a big rock, Tien Pao watches the entire skirmish. He later comes upon the injured American pilot (whom he had met before during his stay at Hengyang river) and helps the man return to his unit. The American pilot is a member of the Flying Tigers, and the sixty men in the unit become the "sixty fathers" who care for Tien Pao. Tien Pao exhibits a strong will to continue to try to find his parents, an incredibly difficult task; with the help of the American pilot he finds an airfield similar to the one his parents once worked on. The pilot only wishes to show Tien Pao an airfield but Tien Pao finds his mother and is at last reunited with his family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlord_of_the_Air" title="Warlord of the Air">
The novel is transcribed by 'Michael Moorcock' (the author's fictional grandfather) in 1903. Holidaying at the remote Rowe Island, he befriends Oswald Bastable, an ex-soldier stowaway who seems confused and disoriented beyond what could be explained by his opium addiction, and who is tormented by great guilt from an action he performed in his past. Bastable agrees to tell Moorcock the story, and begins his narrative with his experiences in North East India in 1902, sent as part of a British expedition to deal with Sharan Kang, an Indian high priest at the temple of Teku Benga, a mysterious and seemingly supernaturally powerful region. After a confrontation with Kang and his men, Bastable finds himself lost and alone in the caves around the 'Temple of the Future Buddha', where he is assaulted by a mysterious force and knocked into unconsciousness.When he awakes, and escapes the caves, the Temple is in ruins, as if a great amount of time has passed. He is soon found and picked up by a massive airship, where he learns that it is in fact the year 1973, but not the one that the reader would recognise. In this alternate future, the First World War never happened, and the colonial powers continue to assert dominance over their empires—for example, India remains a British territory, though Winston Churchill had been viceroy in this alternate future as well as in Bastable's own.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barabbas_(novel)" title="Barabbas (novel)">
Jesus is crucified on Mount Golgotha. To the side of the crowd stands Barabbas. A violent man, a brigand, and a rebel, he cannot muster much respect for the resignation of the Man who died in his place. He is skeptical about the Holiness of Jesus, but he is also fascinated by His sacrifice. He seeks out different followers of Jesus in trying to understand Him, but finds that their exalted views of Jesus do not match his down-to-earth observation of Him. More important, since Barabbas has never been the recipient of love (the cornerstone of the Christian faith), he finds that he is unable to understand love and, hence, unable to understand the Christian faith. He says that he "wants to believe," but for Barabbas, understanding is a prerequisite for belief, so he is unable to.Enslaved, shackled to another man named Sahak, and condemned to work in the notoriously life-shortening and infernal copper mines of Ancient Rome, Barabbas has an extraordinary crisis of faith, the exact nature of which is elucidated in the final portion of the novel. Barabbas's ultimate loyalties lie with the opaque, remorseless void that fed and surrounded his former life, manifested in the darkness of the night of his execution, which he surrenders himself to with his final breath.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wives_of_Bath" title="The Wives of Bath">
In late 1963, Mary 'Mouse' Bradford is sent to boarding school by her unsympathetic father and jealous stepmother. There, she meets the rebellious Paulie, and together they embark upon a quest to discover what, fundamentally, separates men from women.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Princesses_of_Bamarre" title="The Two Princesses of Bamarre">
Princess Adelina "Addie" is fearful and shy. Princess Meryl is bold and brave. They are sisters, and they mean the world to each other. Bamarre is plagued by a fatal disease called the Gray Death, which has three stages: Weakness, Sleep, and then Fever. While the weakness may last for hours to weeks, the sleep always lasts nine days, and the fever always lasts three. Bamarre also has specters, which lure travelers to their deaths unless exposed, sorcerers, ogres, dwarves, elves, gryphons, dragons, and fairies. Fairies, however, have not been seen since Drualt, Bamarre's greatest hero and subject of myths, went up to visit them after the tragic death of his sweetheart Freya.The two princesses strike up a friendship with Rhys, the apprentice sorcerer helping their father. Soon after, Princess Meryl is suddenly struck ill with the Gray Death. Princess Addie has trouble coming to terms with the fact that Princess Meryl is going to die, while her elder sister tries in vain to prove her theory that the Gray Death might be cured if the person who is ill refuses to be sick, running when weak, staying awake when tired, etc. Since a prophecy from a long ago specter states that
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Czar's_Madman" title="The Czar's Madman">
This historical novel is about a Livonian nobleman, , who has married a peasant girl named Eeva to prove everyone that good men are equal before nature, God and ideals. Eeva's brother Jakob analyses von Bock's life throughout his journal and tries to figure out if the nobleman is truly mad as everyone seems to believe. "The Czar's Madman" is arguably one of the best-known Estonian novels in the world.The story is written in diary form, describing the impact of revolutionary thinking on the part of a family member.Aristocrat Timotheus von Bock (the diarist's brother in law) writes a letter to the Czar criticising the way in which the Czar's family runs the country. He justifies this act by an oath made to the Czar to give an honest appraisal of the situation.Von Bock is imprisoned as a traitor (although the reason for his imprisonment is kept secret, as is the letter) for 9 years before being released into house arrest on the basis that he is 'mad'.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Be_Dragons" title="Here Be Dragons">
"Here Be Dragons" is the first of Penman's trilogy about the medieval princes of Gwynedd and the monarchs of England. England's King John uses his out-of-wedlock daughter Joanna as a negotiating tool by marrying her to the Welsh noble Llewelyn to avoid war between England and Wales.Joanna and Llewelyn's marriage is marred by resentment from Llewelyn's illegitimate son, Gruffydd. Joanna gives birth to two legitimate children, Elen and Dafydd. Growing animosity between the English and Welsh results in Joanna having to act as a diplomatic intermediary between her husband and her father, and the situation deteriorates when Gruffydd is taken hostage by John and narrowly escapes execution. Joanna becomes determined that her own son, Dafydd, will be his father's heir as ruler of Gwynedd, disregarding the Welsh law that all sons should receive equal shares of their father's inheritance. Family disagreements lead Joanna into an affair with William de Braose, who is several years her junior and whom she has met earlier in the story when he was a hostage in Llewelyn's household. Their affair is discovered and William is executed. Joanna is placed in secluded captivity, but at the end of the book Llewelyn comes to find her and offers her forgiveness.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nightmare_Fair" title="The Nightmare Fair">
The TARDIS falls through a time well, landing in modern-day Blackpool at an amusement fair. The Doctor and Peri, finding nothing else amiss, start to enjoy the fair's attractions. They are separated on an amusement ride; the Doctor's car is directed into the depths of the fair, while Peri encounters Kevin, a teenaged-boy looking for his brother who is missing but had last been seen at the fair weeks ago. The two are also eventually captured and brought to a prison where the Doctor has also been caged.They discover their captor is the Celestial Toymaker, who has been stuck on Earth for several millennia, tricking a few unsuspecting humans into playing games with him and losing, become his perpetual servants. The Toymaker created the time well to bring the Doctor here, and added elements to the fair to help capture the Doctor. The Toymaker is on the verge of completing his "great work": an arcade game that feeds on the souls that lose to it, which then can generate powerful creatures with which the Toymaker plans to take over Earth. He is prepared to have the game mass-produced in America to complete his plan. The Doctor, who knows that the Time Lords do not fully know who or what the Toymaker is, learns that he is a powerful psychic being from another dimension where time moves much slower, giving him his seemingly immortality. Knowing that he cannot hurt the Toymaker physically, he works with Peri, Kevin, a Venusian engineer and a human android who is also one of the Toymaker's captives, to construct a device to disrupt the Toymaker's psychic field. The Doctor then traps him in a time field of his device that prevents the Toymaker from being able to control anyone outside of it and that will last forever. The other creatures captured by the Toymaker are freed, including Kevin's brother. The Doctor decides to return with Peri back to enjoy the fair a bit more.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_There_Be_Dragons" title="Here There Be Dragons">
In an isolated kingdom, people do not travel abroad because the kingdom is surrounded by high mountains and because they think there are ferocious dragons beyond the mountains. They think there are dragons because the royal cartographer, Mr. Gibberling, does not know what is beyond the mountains so in the blank areas on the edges of his maps he writes "HERE THERE BE DRAGONS".The king wants fireworks for his daughter's birthday party, but the fireworks maker dies without passing on his skills to another. The king consults with his four advisers. The first adviser comes up with the idea of importing a medium-sized dragon with colored lights for the party. The king thinks this is a splendid idea and after some discussion the first three advisers assign the dragon hunting job to the fourth adviser, a young man named William.William goes on a quest to find such a dragon, but all he captures is a lizard named Bell. The lizard promises William that he will produce a medium-sized dragon with colored lights for the party. At the party, however, Bell transforms himself into a huge, menacing, fire-breathing dragon named Belkis. The dragon, it turns out, is interested in only one thing—Mr. Gibberling's practice of writing "HERE THERE BE DRAGONS" on his maps. He says that there are very few dragons, they wish to be left alone, and disguise themselves as innocuous animals such as lizards to avoid humans.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here,_There_Be_Dragons" title="Here, There Be Dragons">
John, Charles, and Jack are three Oxford scholars united by the death of Stellan Sigurdsson, John's mentor, who thereafter receive "The Imaginarium Geographica", which records mythical and fictional locations. When pursued by the anthropophagous, plural Wendigo, they are rescued by Bert, with whom they travel aboard the ship "Indigo Dragon" (captained by Bert's daughter Aven), to Avalon, and then to Paralon, the capital of the "Geographica"'s 'Archipelago of Dreams', where they discover this Archipelago in an interregnum and discover that its social order can be restored by a descendant of Arthur Pendragon. Desirous of obtaining the royal 'Ring of Power', and thus the kingship, is the 'Winter King' (Mordred). Upon a visit to shipbuilder 'Ordo Maas' (Deucalion), the protagonists learn that the Winter King is using Pandora's Box to create the wraithlike 'Shadow-Born', his principal servants, from the citizens of lands conquered by himself. Fearing that the Winter King may gain an advantage by possession of the "Imaginarium Geographica", they visit its author, the Cartographer of Lost Places, in his refuge, the Keep of Time, where they discover that their servant 'Artus' is a descendant of Arthur. Knowing this, they challenge the Winter King to pitched battle, wherein the still-loyal Elves, Dwarves, and Centaurs etc. oppose Shadow-Born, Trolls, and Goblins while Charles and the badger 'Tummeler' close Pandora's Box in secret. On the battlefield, Jack accidentally causes the death of Captain Nemo, while John and Artus approach the 'Ring of Power' (a ring of standing stones resembling Stonehenge) to summon the Archipelago's dragons, who rout the enemy. Mordred is cast from the Edge of the World by the dragon Samaranth. Upon return to their own world, John, Jack, Charles, and Bert are identified as J.R.R Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and H.G. Wells.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_Death_(1995_film)" title="Sudden Death (1995 film)">
Darren McCord is a French Canadian-born firefighter for the Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire now serving as the fire marshal for the Pittsburgh Civic Arena, after being unable to save a young girl from a house fire two years prior. During the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Chicago Blackhawks (a fictional rematch of the 1992 Stanley Cup Finals), a group of terrorists take the Vice President of the United States and several other VIPs hostage in a luxury suite. Secret Service operative Joshua Foss has the arena wired with explosives, and plans to blow it up at the end of the game, while having hundreds of millions of dollars wired into several off shore accounts.Darren takes his son Tyler and daughter Emily to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals as a birthday gift for Tyler. A spat between brother and sister causes Emily to run off before getting kidnapped by Carla, the sole female member of the terrorists (who is disguised as the local mascot Iceburgh after killing the original performer). Carla places Emily in the suite with the other hostages about to be executed. Not wanting his son to go missing, Darren orders Tyler to stay in his seat while he goes searching for Emily. Carla is about to kill Darren, but he evades her attacks in a fight and kills her. Afterward, Darren asks for a security guard's help, but the guard is another terrorist in disguise and reveals their criminal operation before being killed by Darren. Now aware of the situation, Darren finds a mobile phone in the executive offices and uses it to contact Secret Service Agent Matthew Hallmark; Hallmark advises Darren to stand by while the agents take charge. He angrily refuses, saying that he will handle this himself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_in_History" title="The City in History">
Mumford argues for a world not in which technology rules, but rather in which it achieves a balance with nature. His ideal vision is what can be described as an "organic city," where culture is not usurped by technological innovation but rather thrives with it. Mumford contrasts these cities with those constructed around wars, tyrants, poverty, etc. However, the book is not an attack on the city, but rather an evaluation of its growth, how it came to be, and where it is heading, as evidenced by the final chapter "Retrospect and Prospect."Mumford notes apologetically in his preface that his "method demands personal experience and observation," and that therefore he has "confined [him]self as far as possible to cities and regions [he is] acquainted with at first hand."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Midwife's_Apprentice" title="The Midwife's Apprentice">
In medieval Europe, a homeless orphan girl who has no name, and can recall being named Brat, attempts to nestle in a warm dung heap on a cold night. She wakes up to the taunts of village boys, and the words of the harsh and uncaring Jane Sharp, the local midwife. Jane takes the girl on as her apprentice and renames her "Beetle," but does not teach Beetle about midwifery for fear of competition.Beetle learns what she can anyway, and starts to grow as a person through various experiences. She even has a chance to claim a new name, Alyce, after being mistaken for another girl with the same name. Alyce befriends a homeless, orphaned boy, who -with some prompting- names himself Edward after the King. She tells him to go to a local manor to get food and a job. Jane helps a woman in labor with the help of Alyce, and word arrives the Lady of the Manor is in labor. Jane abandons the new mother to Alyce's care to the Lady. Alyce is kind to the woman and successfully delivers the baby, and the grateful parents pay her and name the child "Alyce Little." Soon after, a woman's son comes to Alyce asking her to deliver her baby. This is a more difficult birth, and Alyce is overwhelmed by her inability to help. Jane sweeps in and completes the job, and Alyce flees with her cat, not wanting to endure the shame.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prathapa_Mudaliar_Charithram" title="Prathapa Mudaliar Charithram">
The story is a loose collection of events and narratives centered on a naive but good-natured hero and his life and adventures. It begins in a typical forward caste family setting, with the young Prathapa Mudhaliar, from Tuluva Vellala Mudaliar family of Arcot indulging in hunting and enjoying himself. The plot also introduces the heroine as a rather intelligent and morally upright girl who marries the hero through a myriad of events.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingersmith_(novel)" title="Fingersmith (novel)">
## Part one.Sue Trinder, an orphan raised in "a Fagin-like den of thieves" by her adoptive mother, Mrs Sucksby, is sent to help Richard "Gentleman" Rivers seduce a wealthy heiress. Posing as a maid, Sue is to gain the trust of the lady, Maud Lilly, and eventually persuade her to elope with Gentleman. Once they are married, Gentleman plans to commit Maud to a madhouse and claim her fortune for himself.Sue travels to Briar, Maud's secluded home in the country, where she lives a sheltered life under the care of her uncle, Christopher Lilly. Like Sue, Maud was orphaned at birth; her mother died in a mental asylum, and she has never known her father. Her uncle uses her as a secretary to assist him as he supposedly compiles a dictionary, and keeps her to the house, working with him in the silence of his library.Sue and Maud forge an unlikely friendship, which develops into a mutual physical attraction. After a time, Sue realises she has fallen in love with Maud, and begins to regret her involvement in Gentleman's plot. Deeply distressed, but feeling she has no choice, Sue persuades Maud to marry Gentleman, and the trio flee from Briar to a nearby church, where Maud and Gentleman are hastily married in a midnight ceremony.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathasaritsagara" title="Kathasaritsagara">
The "Kathāsaritsāgara" is a large work. Each book comprises a number of stories loosely strung together, by being narrated for the recreation or information of the same individuals, or arising out of their adventures. These are Udayana, king of Kosambi, and his son Naravahanadatta. The marriage of the latter with various damsels of terrestrial or celestial origin, and his elevation to the rank of king of the Vidyadharas, a class of heavenly spirits, are the leading topics of most of the books; but they merely constitute the skeleton of the composition, the substance being made up of stories growing out of these circumstances, or springing from one another with an ingenuity of intricacy which is one of the great charms of all such collections.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bec_(novel)" title="Bec (novel)">
When a "simple child" named Bran who can run incredibly fast comes to Bec's demon-besieged rath, she and a small consignment of warriors go with him, including the chief's son, Connla, who is "largely untested" in battle; Goll, an old warrior; Lorcan and Ronan, two teenage twins; Fiachna the blacksmith; and Orna, a female warrior. During the journey, the group is attacked by demons, but luckily manage to hide near some ancient lodestones which protect them with powerful Old Magic. Eventually, Bran leads them to a crannóg, where everyone is dead except a druid, Drust. The druid tells them about a tunnel to the demons' world, and how he aims to destroy it. They go with him.The group finds some horses which help them reach their destination in time, but Fiachna is soon abandoned after his wound becomes life-threatening.Bec manages to force Bran through the closing tunnel at the last moment with the last of her magic, but is trapped as a result. Soon after, Lord Loss appears and tells Bec that when she appeared to absorb power from him several days earlier, Lord Loss had actually intended for that to happen so that she could close the tunnel. This is because Lord Loss is unique among demons, in that instead of wishing to slaughter all the humans in the world, he actually prefers to prolong the suffering for as long as possible. If the tunnel had remained open, countless other demons would have passed through and destroyed all of mankind within a matter of weeks, which would have ruined Lord Loss' "sport". After telling Bec this, Lord Loss reminds her of the geis that he had placed on her, and that he is bound by his word to kill her. Lord Loss sets his familiars upon Bec, and without any magic to defend herself with, she is easily overwhelmed and killed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe's_Sword" title="Sharpe's Sword">
French Colonel Philippe Leroux and Captain Paul Delmas are fleeing from the King's German Legion toward Sharpe's Light Company. Leroux has extracted the secret identity of El Mirador, Britain's most important spy in Spain, from a priest he tortured. Leroux kills Delmas and assumes his identity and then allows himself to be captured by Sharpe and his men, knowing that the British would never exchange an imperial colonel. Sharpe covets Leroux's sword, a finely crafted, superbly balanced Klingenthal heavy cavalry sword. As Captain Delmas, Leroux gives his parole to Major Joseph Forrest. Whilst he is being escorted back to Wellington's headquarters, he kills his escort and escapes on horseback towards Salamanca. Lieutenant Colonel Windham pursues Leroux on horseback, but Leroux kills him. He gains sanctuary in one of the three French-controlled forts outside Salamanca, after Father Curtis protects him from the locals.Sharpe confronts Curtis, who explains that the Frenchman is in fact Leroux, and that he was protecting the city's residents against Leroux's revenge if the city were to be recaptured by the French. Sharpe takes an instant dislike to Curtis, whom he thinks is sympathetic to the French. In Salamanca, Sharpe is introduced to the breathtakingly beautiful Marquesa de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba, and to Captain Lord Jack Spears. Wellington's army arrives at Salamanca as part of their manoeuvring against Marshal Marmont's army. Major Michael Hogan is both disturbed and relieved when Sharpe gives him a list Leroux dropped; the list was stolen from Hogan and contains the names of many of his spies. Many of them have recently been tortured and killed by Leroux.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludmila's_Broken_English" title="Ludmila's Broken English">
The novel follows two initially separate narratives set in the United Kingdom and Eastern Europe. Recently separated – at the age of 33 – conjoined twins Blair Albert and Gordon-Marie "Bunny" Heath struggle to cope with life in a post-globalisation and fully privatised London. Meanwhile, Ludmila Derev, an impoverished young woman living in the war-torn Southern Caucasus, leaves her mountain home to meet up with her boyfriend in the region's major town and send money back to her family. However, things start to go wrong and she ends up with her picture on a Russian Brides website. Slowly her life and those of the twins are drawn together.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ear,_the_Eye_and_the_Arm" title="The Ear, the Eye and the Arm">
In Zimbabwe in the year 2194, Chief of Security General Matsika leads a battle against the gangs which terrorize the nation. His three children, Tendai, Rita, and Kuda, are kept in a fortified mansion to ensure their security. Seeking adventure to earn the Scout Badge, they escape the house with the help of the Mellower, a praise singer employed by their parents. The children then find themselves in the busy streets of Mbare Musika, where they are kidnapped and taken to Dead Man's Vlei, the lair of the She Elephant, a child trafficker. There, they are forced to work in the plastic mines. Their parents enlist the help of the Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, three mutant detectives. Ear has super-sensitive hearing; Eye has hawk-like vision; Arm has empathic powers which allow him to sense others' feelings and see into their souls.Tendai realizes that the She Elephant is planning to sell them to the Masks, a gang who have evaded General Matsika's efforts to combat crime. The siblings escape to Resthaven, an independent country within Zimbabwe which aims to retain traditional African culture. Eventually, the children are banished from Resthaven.The children seek help from the Mellower's mother, Mrs. Horsepool-Worthingham, who takes them into her care. Tendai discovers that the Mellower's mother is holding them for ransom. The She Elephant again captures the children and takes them to one of the Masks' secret lairs. The Masks take the children to the Mile-High MacIlwaine, a skyscraper which houses the Gondwannan Embassy, the real headquarters of the Masks.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagarism" title="Hagarism">
Cook and Crone postulate that "Hagarism" started as a "Jewish messianic movement" to "reestablish Judaism" in the Jewish Holyland (Palestine), that its adherents were first known as "muhajirun" rather than Muslims, and that their hijra (migration) was to Jerusalem rather than Medina. Its members were initially both Jewish and Arab but the Arabs' increasing success impelled them to break from the Jews around the time of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan in the late seventh century. They flirted with Christianity, learning a respect for Jesus as prophet and Mary as Virgin, before asserting an independent Abrahamic monotheist identity. This borrowed from the Jewish breakaway sect of Samaritanism "the idea of a scripture limited to the Pentateuch, a prophet like Moses (Muhammad), a holy book revealed like the Torah (the Quran), a sacred city (Mecca) with a nearby mountain (Jabal an-Nour) and shrine (the Kaaba) of an appropriate patriarch (Abraham), plus a caliphate modeled on an Aaronid priesthood."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls_on_Film_(novel)" title="Girls on Film (novel)">
After rejecting Ben, Anna tries to focus on her studies at Beverly Hills High. She and Sam partner up on an English project to create a short film based on "The Great Gatsby". They agree to film their project at V's, an exclusive spa and resort in the Ojai desert. Anna writes the screenplay, which impresses Sam and she begins to develop a crush on Anna, much to her confusion. At school, Adam asks Anna out on a date and she agrees, in hopes of getting over Ben, who continues to send grand romantic gestures.Anna's older sister Susan arrives in Los Angeles and takes up residence at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Anna is concerned, especially since Susan claims to have checked out of rehab early but Susan brushes off her concerns. Susan meets Cammie, Dee, and Sam at the hotel and they all agree to join Sam and Anna at V's for the weekend.Anna meets with her father's girlfriend, Margaret Cunningham, at her new entertainment agency that she co-founded with Clark Sheppard, Cammie's father. Anna accepts an after-school internship with Margaret and her first assignment is to escort a screenwriter to an upcoming industry party. When Margaret learns that Susan knows the screenwriter, she encourages Anna to bring Susan to the party as well.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blonde_Ambition_(novel)" title="Blonde Ambition (novel)">
Ben and Anna are now officially together but their reunion is interrupted when Jonathan, Anna's father, calls back Anna to bid farewell to her sister Susan, who has decided to enroll back into rehab. Anna. Anna considers their farewell to be intimate and is surprised when Ben tags along though she does not voice her displeasure. Back at Apex, Margaret informs Anna that leaving an industry party to take a drunk Susan home was unacceptable and is about to fire her when Clark Sheppard intervenes. He takes Anna as his intern and assigns her to work on the new hit soap opera "Hermosa Beach". Anna meets the young and charming co-executive producer Danny Bluestone and enjoys working on a TV set, despite the unfamiliar terms and erratic actors. Ben gets jealous of Anna spending time with Danny and the Percys' driver Django and Anna becomes concerned that Ben is neglecting his studies at Princeton. After a heart to heart, the two break up again and Ben reluctantly returns to Princeton.Meanwhile, Cammie feels increasingly deserted by her friends: Dee is enamored with her new boyfriend Stevie while Sam seems to be showing interest in Adam Flood. To further her dismay, her step-mother announces that her daughter, Mia, will be moving in. Cammie initially hates Mia, a secretive fourteen-year-old Valley girl, but takes her out shopping in order to not feel alone. Cammie kisses Adam at a party in an attempt to punish Sam but is pleasantly surprised at their chemistry.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_Cool_One_(novel)" title="Tall Cool One (novel)">
At the beginning of the novel, Anna is at the beach with Danny, the producer she met while interning for Clark Sheppard on Hermosa Beach, learning to surf but can't seem to get it. The two end up having a conversation about one-night stands. Dan claims Anna isn't the type to have one but Anna claims that she would and that she doesn't think casual sex is bad even though she has only had sex with Ben, who has returned to Princeton. Her relationship with him is not certain between both of them but Anna thinks that them two have broken up or at least, are on a break.Once Anna returns home she finds her mother "and" father on the couch in her father's house in Los Angeles having a drink. She finds this shocking because since the divorce, her parents couldn't stand to be in the same room. Her father explains that her sister Susan is coming out of rehab and that her doctor suggested that they meet her as a whole family.Sam is also having her own family problems as her new stepmother Poppy has taken over the whole house to prepare for Sam's soon to be sister, Ruby Hummingbird. To Sam's further dismay, Dee has become fast friends with Poppy and even moves in to help with the baby preparations, causing Sam to feel ignored. She joins Anna at Las Casitas, not caring that the whole Sharpe family is supposed to appear on The Tonight Show together.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_in_Black_(novel)" title="Back in Black (novel)">
The A-List crew, consisting of Sam, Anna, Dee, Parker, Adam, and Cammie decide to forgo the Spring Break school sponsored trip to Washington D.C. in favor of heading over to Las Vegas instead. Anna misses Ben, who is away at school, and she impulsively invites him to join her and their friends in Vegas too. She also mentions the trip to her best friend from New York, Cyn Baltres, who is impressed with the way Anna has reinvented herself.Parker Pinelli is worried because he is secretly poor and doesn't have enough money to cover the expenses for their luxurious get away but refuses to confide in any of his friends, fearing they'll kick him off the A-list if they knew the truth. He tries to gamble but is unsuccessful as the Las Vegas laws forbid minors from collecting any winnings so he hooks up with a series of wealthier and older women to cover his costs. No one in the group notices and figure Parker is just a lady killer and decide to kick off their break with a "tacky showgirl outfit contest". The girls eagerly participate although Cammie sneaks away to an undisclosed location which causes Adam to worry that she is cheating on him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Short_Reign_of_Pippin_IV" title="The Short Reign of Pippin IV">
"Pippin IV" explores the life of Pippin Héristal, an amateur astronomer in 1950s France, who is suddenly proclaimed the King of France. Unknowingly appointed to give the Communists a monarchy to revolt against, Pippin is chosen because he was descended from the famous king Charlemagne. Unhappy with his lack of privacy, alteration of family life, uncomfortable housings at the Palace of Versailles and his lack of power as a constitutional monarch, the protagonist spends a portion of the novel dressing up as a commoner, often riding a motorscooter, to avoid the constrained life of a king. Pippin eventually receives his wish of dethronement after the people of France enact the rebellion Pippin's kingship was destined to receive. He returns to his home in Paris to find that nothing has really changed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airman_(novel)" title="Airman (novel)">
The book begins with the Paris World's Fair of 1878, which Declan Broekhart and his wife, Catherine, are attending. They are there mainly to take a ride in a new hot air balloon. While they are in the air, along with one Victor Vigny, the balloon is shot at by men from the ground. During the forced landing, Conor Broekhart is born, flying over Paris.It is 1887. Conor and his family live on the sovereign Saltee Islands, off the Irish coast, which are ruled by King Nicholas Trudeau. Nicholas is a progressive leader who is helping the islands adapt to the industrialized world.When a dangerous fire traps young Conor and his friend Isabella (the king's daughter) on top of a tower's roof, he saves both their lives by making a makeshift glider to fly them to safety. He is obsessed with building a "flying machine". Unfortunately, the head of the island's guards, Marshall Hugo Bonvilain, conspires to overthrow Nicholas and seize control of the Saltees. His goal is to turn the islands into a market for the diamonds mined by inmates on the prison island, Little Saltee. Despite Conor's attempt to intervene, Nicholas and Victor are killed by Marshall Bonvilain. Marshall Bonvilain takes control of the islands and tells his subjects that Victor conspired to kill King Nicholas and Conor tried to save the King, but died in the effort. Conor, however, does not know this, and instead thinks that Bonivilain has told his family that he was involved in the plot to kill the King. Conor is thrown into jail on Little Saltee, under the alias Conor Finn. His family and friends believe he is dead.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_God_(novel)" title="Children of God (novel)">
Father Emilio Sandoz is a Jesuit priest who has returned to Earth and is recovering from his experiences on the planet Rakhat (detailed in "The Sparrow"). He is exposed to Father General Vincenzo Giuliani's organized crime "family", the Camorra. At a christening celebration, he meets Celestina, aged four, and her mother Gina, a divorcee with whom Emilio begins to fall in love. Emilio is released from the priesthood. He trains the second Jesuit expedition to Rakhat, composed of Sean Fein, Danny Iron Horse, Joseba Urizarbarrena, and John Candotti, in the K'San (Jana'ata) and Ruanja (Runa) languages. Sandoz refuses to go. Gina is about to go on vacation, after which Emilio plans to marry her.Unfortunately, while Gina is on vacation, Emilio is beaten and kidnapped by Carlo, Gina's ex-husband and Celestina's father. Emilio is kept in a constantly drugged state on Carlo's ship, the "Giordano Bruno". They are actually working for the Jesuits and the Vatican, who want Sandoz to return to Rakhat. It is extremely important that the Jesuits put right (as much as possible) what they destroyed on Rakhat; the massacre of the first landing party and the violent revolution of the Runa serving class that followed, have caused a rift between the Society of Jesus and the rest of the Catholic Church. In fact, the Jesuit order has all but vanished.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swordbird" title="Swordbird">
The story begins with Turnatt, an evil tyrant hawk and lord of Fortress Glooming, watching the construction of his fortress. Farther in the forest of Stone-Run are two tribes: the Bluewingle tribe of the blue jays and the Sunrise tribe of the cardinals, which are at war with each other, each accusing the other of stealing their eggs and food, not knowing that this is actually the work of Turnatt.A member of the Bluewingle tribe, a female blue jay named Aska, meets a robin named Miltin, a slave at Fortress Glooming, who warns her of Turnatt. Aska leaves and tells the two tribes of Turnatt.The groups make amends in time for the Bright Moon Festival, during which the Flying Willowleaf Theater arrive and help celebrate by telling the legend of Swordbird, a giant dove-like bird of peace with magical powers. The celebration is cut short when a group of Turnatt's soldiers attack, attempting to capture and enslave the two tribes and the members of the Flying Willowleaf Theater.The tribes manage to defeat the soldiers and decide to summon Swordbird, thinking that he is the only one with the power to defeat Turnatt, using his Leasorn Sword. The only problem is that Swordbird can only be sumonned by a song and one of the Leasorn Gems, which are said to be crystallized tears of the Great Spirit. There are only seven Leasorn Gems in the world, with an eighth one in Swordbird's blade. All hope seems lost until a recently escaped Miltin tells them that his tribe has one of the Leasorn Gems. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Suns" title="House of Suns">
The novel is divided into eight parts, with the first chapter of each part taking the form of a narrative flashback to Abigail Gentian’s early life (six million years earlier, in the 31st century), before the cloning and the creation of the Gentian Line. Each subsequent chapter is narrated from the first-person perspective of two shatterlings named Campion and Purslane, alternating between them each chapter. Campion and Purslane are in a relationship, which is frowned upon, even punishable, by the Line.The primary storyline begins as Campion and Purslane are roughly fifty years late to the 32nd Gentian reunion. They take a detour to contact a posthuman known as ‘Ateshga’ in hopes of getting a replacement ship for Campion because his is getting old (several million years old). After being tricked by Ateshga, Campion and Purslane manage to turn the tables on him and leave his planet with a being he had been keeping captive, a golden robot called Hesperus. Hesperus is a member of the "Machine People", an advanced civilization of robots, and supposedly the only non-human sentient society in existence. The two shatterlings hope that the rescue of Hesperus will let them off the hook for their lateness, as returning him to his people (who will be at the reunion as guests of other shatterlings) will put the Gentian Line on good terms with the Machine People.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growing_Up_Brady" title="Growing Up Brady">
In "Growing Up Brady", Williams discusses his childhood, the production of the 1969–1974 ABC sitcom "The Brady Bunch", his relationship with co-star Maureen McCormick, disputes between series star Robert Reed and creator-producer Sherwood Schwartz, and various "Brady Bunch" spin-offs. An episode guide to the series is also included, as well as three negative critiques from Reed of the episodes "The Impractical Joker" and "And Now a Word From Our Sponsor" (both 1971), and "The Hair-Brained Scheme" (the series finale from 1974, in which Reed refused to appear).Two editions of the book exist: the first edition details his "Brady" co-stars attending his 1990 wedding to Diane Martin; that marriage ended in divorce two years later; the second edition, published several years later, replaces the references to Martin with his impressions of the feature films "The Brady Bunch Movie" and "A Very Brady Sequel", and reflections on Reed's death in 1992 due to cancer and the subsequent media frenzy over the news that Reed had been diagnosed as HIV positive (misreported as AIDS) prior to his death. A third edition was printed in 2000.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Place_of_Execution" title="A Place of Execution">
The novel has two parallel storylines; the first, set in 1963, follows Detective Inspector George Bennett, who attempts to locate a missing girl in Derbyshire. The second, set in the present day, follows journalist Catherine Heathcote, whose plans to publish a story of the investigation are derailed when Bennett inexplicably stops cooperating and she attempts to find out why.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_of_Dune" title="Paul of Dune">
The book is divided into seven sections, which alternate between Paul Atreides's youth before the events portrayed in "Dune", and the early period of his Fremen jihad between "Dune" and "Dune Messiah".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Masks" title="Death Masks">
Harry shares a TV panel with a Vatican priest, Father Vincent, and São Paulo University Professor Don Paolo Ortega, a disguised Red Court Vampire noble. Father Vincent hires Dresden to recover the stolen Shroud of Turin while Ortega challenges Harry to a duel to end the war between the White Council and the Red Court. After the show concludes, Dresden is attacked by the Denarian Ursiel, a fallen angel attached to a mortal host. Michael Carpenter and two other Knights of the Cross, Shiro and Sanya, rescue him and ask him to drop the Shroud investigation, but Dresden refuses.Dresden tracks the Shroud to a boat, but is captured by the thieves. Deirdre, another Denarian, attacks the boat and kills one of the thieves. Dresden fools her into taking a decoy safe rather than the Shroud itself. The surviving thief, Anna Valmont, flees with the Shroud. Dresden's onetime lover, Susan Rodriguez, escorts him to a high society art sales charity event run by Johnny Marcone, where the Shroud will likely be sold. The sale is interrupted by the Denarians, who seize the Shroud and kidnap Dresden.Nicodemus, leader of the Denarians, pressures Harry to join with the Denarian Lasciel or die. Dresden refuses. Shiro arrives and trades himself for Dresden. Dresden is almost re-captured, but Susan, enhanced in battle by her semi-vampire status, helps him escape. She reveals that she is working with The Fellowship of St. Giles, an organization of half-turned humans resisting the vampire Courts. Harry deduces that Father Vincent is a Denarian imposter, and the real priest is the murder victim he is investigating for Murphy. With the Knights, he captures the imposter and forces him to reveal that Nicodemus plans to use the Shroud to create a deadly plague curse at O'Hare Airport, an international travel hub.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Red_Horse_Cavern" title="The Legend of Red Horse Cavern">
Apache Will Little Bear Tucker and his friend Sarah Thompson spot a treasure chest, get held captive by the villains and later escape. After Sarah is recaptured, Will rescues her, they solve the legend of Red Horse and Will disposes of a villain.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodomonte's_Revenge" title="Rodomonte's Revenge">
It features Brett and Tom who are playing the new virtual reality game, "Rodomonte's Revenge", but when the computer infiltrates their minds the game transforms into something dangerously real. It was published on November 1, 1994 by Yearling.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_Fire_Mountain" title="Escape from Fire Mountain">
This story features a thirteen-year-old by the name of Nikki Roberts who hears a cry for help over her CB radio. After hearing this, she sets out to rescue them. They were caught in the middle of a forest fire.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shape_of_Water_(novel)" title="The Shape of Water (novel)">
Silvio Luparello, an engineer, developer and aspiring politician from an aristocratic construction family, dies of a heart attack while having sex with his nephew and lover Giorgio at his beach house. The nephew panics, and, wanting to protect his uncle from the embarrassing circumstance of his death and not trusting himself to be able to move his uncle's body due to his epilepsy, calls his uncle's friend and political crony Attorney Rizzo for help. Rizzo assures the nephew he will take care of it, but then, instead of trying to help, attempts to take advantage of the situation and betrays his friendship with Luparello by attempting to use his death to gain leverage over his political opponent, Secretary Cardamone. This he does by attempting to cast Cardamone's Swedish daughter-in-law Ingrid as Luparello's lover and implicating her in his death – at the scene of a seamy outdoor brothel.The film version starts off the morning after the death at the outdoor brothel, with two surveyors working as garbage collectors. They discover the body and contact Attorney Rizzo in an attempt to curry favor with him and maybe get proper surveyor's jobs by giving him the chance to move Luparello's body in order to avoid the embarrassment of Luparello being found at the outdoor brothel, dead with his pants down. Rizzo rebuffs the garbage men, much to their surprise, as he is known to be Luparello's friend and ally.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terracotta_Dog" title="The Terracotta Dog">
The story starts off with "Tano Il Greco", a tired mafia boss, making a deal with Montalbano to stage his arrest in order for him to save face. The arrest causes Montalbano to have to appear at a press conference and be considered for promotion, both of which he does not appreciate. At the same time there has also been a seemingly unrelated and mysterious theft of a grocery store delivery truck; the truck is discovered the next morning, abandoned, with the stolen goods still within and intact.An old man, Misucara, who was witness to the robbery, then dies in a suspicious accident, but not before passing on an odd bit of information to the inspector: that the grocery store owner's car was parked nearby during the time of the robbery. When Tano ends up dying at the hands of mafia rivals during a police transfer, he passes on information to Montalbano that leads the inspector and his team to search for a secret cave used as a black market goods store during World War II and now used for smuggling arms for the mafia, in which the grocery store owner was complicit.Montalbano notices that the inside of the cave is not symmetrical and figures out there must be a secret room, where he discovers the bodies of two young lovers, carefully arranged in what appears to be some kind of ancient ritual guarded by a terracotta dog. Learning that the bodies were placed sometime around the allied invasion and devastating bombing of the island at the end of World War II, Montalbano interviews local residents from that time to try to piece together who the young couple were, why they were killed and why they were ritually buried.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snack_Thief" title="The Snack Thief">
During a night off the coast of Vigàta a fishing boat from Mazara del Vallo, called "Santopadre", is intercepted and machine-gunned, apparently in international waters, by a Tunisian patrol boat. The exploded shots kill a Tunisian sailor who was on board the Italian boat. On the same day the former merchant Aurelio Lapecora is stabbed in a lift and Karima Moussa, a beautiful Tunisian cleaning lady, suddenly disappears.Montalbano discovers that the girl also worked in the office of the murdered merchant whose she was lover and that she had a son, François, who also disappeared with her. Thanks to the help of the elderly Aisha, an acquaintance of Karima, Montalbano also finds a savings account owned by the girl with deposited five hundred million lire, a sum too high for a young immigrant who should have had only what she received from her humble work.While returning to the police station from the visit to the house of Karima, Montalbano sees in front of a primary school a small group of mothers who complain with a policeman of some thefts of snacks, which accuse a small foreigner child. Montalbano realizes that he's François: lurking with his girlfriend Livia and his men, he manages to take the little Tunisian who had taken refuge in an abandoned house. Livia, in reassuring the child brought home by Montalbano to protect him, will feel the birth of his maternal instinct and the desire to form a more intense union with Salvo, adopting the child. The commissioner will join the project of Livia but in the meantime the investigations are complicated by the secret services and the slimy figure of Colonel Lohengrin Pera.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Lessons" title="Magic Lessons">
When a golem pulls Reason into New York, she calls Danny Galeano, Jay-Tee's eighteen-year-old brother, for help. Danny allows Reason to stay with him while she tries to trace the golem, although her feelings for him grow until she eventually sleeps with him, despite Danny continually saying that it is not right. Meanwhile, Jay-Tee nearly dies while running, and Tom is forced to give her some of his magic.Reason, who is 15 finds out that she's pregnant with Danny's baby and is happy, because her own mother was pregnant with Reason at 15.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Land_(Taylor_novel)" title="The Land (Taylor novel)">
"The Land" follows the life of Paul-Edward Logan. Paul is the child of a white man and a woman with Black and Native American ancestry. Paul has three entries from Paul's journal, after the main story ends. The dialogue uses the Southern dialect from the 1870s and 1880s.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_or_Madness" title="Magic or Madness">
The three main characters are Reason Cansino, Sarafina Cansino and Esmeralda Cansino. Reason and her mother Sarafina have been on the run from her grandmother Esmeralda for fifteen years staying in one place for seldom more than a few months. Her whole life Reason has been brought up with a hate for Esmeralda who believes in the practicing of magic and horrifying ritual. Only once does she recall being within her grasp but now Sarafina has had an unexpected mental breakdown, and Reason is forced back to the one place she never thought she would go back to. But after finding a portal within Esmeralda's house she starts to question her mother's beliefs and face the truth, that magic is real.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_Feather" title="Scarlet Feather">
The novel follows the fortunes of Cathy Scarlet and her college friend, Tom Feather, who set up a catering business together (the 'Scarlet Feather' of the title). The two are close, but not romantically involved - Cathy is married to Neil Mitchell, the son of the wealthy household where her mother Lizzie used to scrub floors, and Tom is in a relationship with beautiful Marcella, who dreams of being a model. Neil's mother Hannah, against the marriage of her son to the cleaner's daughter, makes life hard for Cathy, while Marcella's ambitions come between her and Tom. There is also a growing distance between Cathy and Neil due to the pressures of Neil's high-profile law career, and Cathy's realisation that her husband sees the business as a hobby.A key subplot is the arrival of Neil's twin nephew and niece Simon and Maud, whose alcoholic mother and errant father have virtually abandoned them. With Hannah unwilling to allow the children to stay with her and her husband, they are unofficially adopted by Cathy's parents, Lizzie and Muttie, who live in St. Jarlath's Crescent in a far less affluent part of town, but show the children real love for the first time. The twins' older brother Walter reappears in their lives periodically, usually causing trouble, including robbing and vandalizing the Scarlet Feather premises. When the insurance company suspects an inside job, Cathy and Tom are potentially ruined. The pair's battle for survival, and its impact on their respective relationships, is the key theme for the second half of the novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdigris_Deep" title="Verdigris Deep">
The story starts when Ryan, Chelle and Josh stranded without their bus fare home. Josh climbs into an old wishing well and retrieves some blackened coins. The next day, odd things begin to happen. Ryan sees a watery face in the mirror, and finds white lumps on his hands. Light bulbs explode in Josh's house, and Chelle's babbling becomes shockingly strange.Ryan has a vision of the well witch, and understands from her gargled words that, because they took the coins, they are now in her service. She has given each of them powers so that they can find other wishers, discover their wishes and help grant them. She also gives him the name of a nearby village. In the village, they realize that Chelle is speaking aloud the thoughts of a tea-shop man, Will Wurthers. They guess that he wished for a Harley-Davidson and persuade him to enter a competition to win at the fete where the winner of the motorcycle is to be announced, they hear the thoughts of an unhappy mime who wishes (they think) for fame. In their attempt to grant his wish they inadvertently cause a riot at the fete. Then they learn that Will has been badly injured in an accident. When Chelle overhears the thoughts of someone wishing for bloody revenge she gets frightened, and she and Ryan decide they should not grant any more wishes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cugel's_Saga" title="Cugel's Saga">
The story begins on Shanglestone Strand, a desolate beach far to the north of Almery, where Cugel had been dumped at the end of "The Eyes of the Overworld" by a winged demon after he mispronounced the spell intended to inflict the same fate on his nemesis, Iucounu the Laughing Magician. Avoiding the village of Smolod, the scene of his first adventure in "The Eyes of the Overworld" and where "memories are long", Cugel heads down Shanglestone Strand and arrives at Flutic, a manse owned by the avaricious Master Twango, whose business is salvaging the scales of an Overworld entity named Sadlark from a miry pit in his back garden. The scales are sold to the firm of Soldinck and Mercantides, who trans-ship them to a customer in Almery. Taking employment at Flutic, through sheer luck Cugel obtains the Pectoral Skybreak Spatterlight, the most valuable of all the scales, as it constitutes Sadlark's central node of force, or "protonastic centrum". The Skybreak Spatterlight, which absorbs every living creature with which it comes into contact, imprisoning them in limbo, is central to the plot of the novel since it is coveted by none other than Iucounu, the mysterious final customer for the scales, who believes himself to be Sadlark's avatar and is trying to reconstruct the Overworld entity scale by scale. (Chapter I.1)
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Broken_Spears" title="The Broken Spears">
The monograph "Broken Spears" is structured through three distinct sections: the first is the overall introduction that León-Portilla uses to provide background for the content of the book. He describes Aztec cultural life amongst the Nahua peoples, the importance of translators that spoke Nahuatl, and the struggle of accounts that were written by eyewitnesses well after the Spanish conquest of Mexico. León-Portilla prefaces the sources he chose for the book with not only background on the events but descriptions and background information on the sources themselves. While the second and third sections follow chronologically, the first section depicts the Azteca and their initial reactions to the omens that are attributed to local Aztec mystics after the conquest that heralded the Spanish arrival.The following sections break down the role of the proceeding war, then the effect of disease and war upon the Aztecs. León-Portilla's concise historical context and Ángel María Garibay's translations of Nahuatl passages lead into the second section of the monograph: the Aztec’s campaign against the Spanish and their defeat by a wide variety of causes, from both military conquest and disease, that is portrayed from the point of view of the natives. A notable example of "Broken Spears" narrative is the exclusion of native forces allied with the Spanish Conquistadores in Mexico, as well as the influence and importance of translators, such as La Malinche.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_Rush" title="Soul Rush">
In the book, Collier describes her experiences with recreational drug use, including marijuana and LSD, and then her introduction to Eastern spirituality through life on an ashram. At age sixteen, Collier had become friends with Abbie Hoffman, then moved to live first on a commune and later a Divine Light Mission ashram. The book describes her initiation to the Techniques of Knowledge of Guru Maharaj ji (also known as Prem Rawat) and her experiences in the organization.Years later, in an interview published in 2001 in "Fast Company" magazine, Collier stated that "At the ashram, we did things like staying up all night and meditating, things that taught us how to focus our minds". Skills that she still applies in stressful business situations, and that "drawing on those experiences has definitely helped me maintain perspective."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_&amp;_Bones_(novel)" title="Skin &amp; Bones (novel)">
Cody Chang sells such unusual items as animal skulls, fish skeletons and reptile skins at his shop Skin &amp; Bones in San Francisco. He calls on the Hardy Boys to investigate when the shop is ransacked. Frank and Joe suspect a criminal is trying to get revenge on Cody's policeman father by breaking his son's business down, but they have their work cut out to prove it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shifting_Sands" title="The Shifting Sands">
The three go on their way towards the Shifting Sands from the City of the Rats when they spot an Ak-Baba in the sky. In order to hide from it, they dive under the River Broad and hide under their cloak. Surprisingly, they are aided by the fish of the river as well, which are rather intelligent. Later, once the threat has passed, they pass by an apple farm owned by an eccentric old woman known as Queen Bee. Hungry and tired, they decide to steal and eat from the apple orchard. Queen Bee reveals that she is not actually a fragile old woman, but a dangerous threat because of the bees that she hides under her shawl. The trio are promptly chased off by her deadly bees for stealing.After some time on the road, they reach the town of Rithmere and started hearing about a competition called the Rithmere Games. Thinking they can win some money from it, they attempt to enter. But there is an entrance fee of one silver coin, and they have no money whatsoever. Lief, Jasmine, and Barda decide to let the operator of a game called Beat the Bird borrow Kree to spin the wheel thirty times, for a coin. In Beat the Bird, a bird would spin a wheel after a silver coin was paid. If the wheel lands on a number, the better is paid that number of silver coins. But if the wheel lands on a bird, the better only receives a worthless wooden bird figurine. After thirty turns, Kree senses something is amiss and pulls the table sheet, which reveals that the operator is controlling the wheel through the use of a pedal. The cheating operator then flees, leaving the coins that have fallen off the table sheet to the crowd. Lief, Barda, and Jasmine attempt to take some of the coins, but all that is left is a wooden bird.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Den_mörka_sanningen" title="Den mörka sanningen">
Scene of the novel is Norway in year 1911. Nineteen-year-old shopkeepersdaughter Cornelia Weding has lived with a terrifying and inexplicable memory since the age of five. She has tried to deny it, but it comes back recurrently into her mind in the shape of feelings, words and nightmares. In the memory fragments she wanders as a child alone in the hard of night-time and dark forest and searching for something or the enormous and frightening figures in the black capes stays round her baby bed and threaten to kill her if she would remember.As her misfortune, her beloved childhood friend will marry her beautiful and evil cousin. When she takes a trip to their weddings her stepmother's childhood home, she realizes that she has returned to the place where the dark mystery happened fourteen years ago...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_in_the_Attic" title="The Fox in the Attic">
The novel opens in 1923. The protagonist, a young Welsh aristocrat named Augustine Penry-Herbert, discovers the body of a young girl and is incorrectly suspected of having something to do with her accidental death. Augustine decides to leave England and visit distant relations in Germany. He falls in love with his cousin Mitzi amidst the rise of Nazism, including the Munich Putsch. At the end of the novel, Mitzi, who has lost her sight, enters a convent and Augustine returns to England.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Plague" title="The Scarlet Plague">
The story takes place in 2073, sixty years after an uncontrollable epidemic, the Red Death, has depopulated the planet. James Smith is one of the survivors of the era before the scarlet plague hit and is still left alive in the San Francisco area, and he travels with his grandsons Edwin, Hoo-Hoo, and Hare-Lip. His grandsons are young and live as primeval hunter-gatherers in a heavily depopulated world. Their intellect is limited, as are their language abilities. Edwin asks Smith, whom they call "Granser", to tell them of the disease alternately referred to as scarlet plague, scarlet death, or red death.Smith recounts the story of his life before the plague, when he was an English professor. In 2013, the year after "Morgan the Fifth was appointed President of the United States by the Board of Magnates", the disease came about and spread rapidly. Sufferers would turn scarlet, particularly on the face, and become numb in their lower extremities. Victims usually died within 30 minutes of first seeing symptoms. Despite the public's trust in doctors and scientists, no cure is found, and those who attempted to do so were also killed by the disease. The grandsons question Smith's belief in "germs" causing the illness because they cannot be seen. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Candle_in_the_Wind" title="The Candle in the Wind">
The story begins with Mordred and Agravaine, both discontented. Mordred hates his father, King Arthur, and Agravaine hates Sir Lancelot. Their views are not shared by Gawaine, Gareth, or Gaheris. The relationship of Lancelot and Guinevere has gone on for some time, and everyone in the court knows of it. No one, however, publicly speaks of it, as the law would require Lancelot to be killed and Guinevere to be burned at the stake.In order to wreak their revenge Mordred and Agravaine decide to go to the king and charge the Queen with adultery. Troubled by this, King Arthur agrees to leave on a hunting trip to give the knights a chance to catch the Queen with Lancelot, although he does say that if they are caught, he hopes that Lancelot will be able to kill all witnesses and adds that if the two fail in backing their claims, he will see to it that they are pursued by the law themselves.At the same time Arthur confesses to Guinevere and Lancelot a terrible secret: when Mordred was born, Arthur had been told by many people that the child would be evil, as a result of the incest. Pressured, the king commanded all babies born in the approximate month that Mordred would be born to be placed on a boat, which was then sunk. Mordred managed to survive, however, and Arthur lived with the guilt of causing the death of the other babies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voice_of_the_Violin" title="The Voice of the Violin">
It is one of those black days that afflict Montalbano, who becomes intractable when the weather is bad. On his way to a funeral, Montalbano's driver avoids what seems to be a suicidal chicken, making the car skid and hitting another car parked in front of a villa. The inspector leaves a note under the windshield wiper of the damaged car to warn the owner. Since his colleague complains about the blow he received, the two go to the hospital. On the way back - it has now become too late for the funeral ceremony - the inspector notices that the damaged car has remained where he left it with the ticket still in the windshield wiper.Finding the damaged car still where it was the next morning, Montalbano forces the door of the villa which has signs of being inhabited but appears deserted. He wanders through the various rooms until in a bedroom a gruesome scene appears in the eyes of the inspector: a young woman, blonde and beautiful, completely naked, lies dead in her bed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excursion_to_Tindari" title="Excursion to Tindari">
The story takes place between Vigàta and picturesque site of Tindari, a promontory of historical and archaeological beauty. Montalbano is investigating the mysterious bond that unites a couple and an unrelated man in the same violent death. Thanks to his unique professional insight, and perhaps even more to his feelings as a sensitive man, Montalbano successfully concludes the investigation, moving inbetween the boundaries set by the world of tradition and that of modernity. In his fifties, examining his life and a future that seems to be saturated with senseless technology and hopeless inhumanity, with corruption and globalisation rendering everything shapeless, Montalbano feels out of place and lonely.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scent_of_the_Night" title="The Scent of the Night">
Inspector Montalbano must track down a lost financial manager who seems to have absconded with all of his clients' money. Along the way, he encounters a lovelorn secretary who believes her boss could do no wrong.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pity_Is_Not_Enough" title="Pity Is Not Enough">
"Pity Is Not Enough" follows the Trexlers' history after the American Civil War and before World War I. While the main narrative focuses on the Trexler family, the chronology is often disrupted by inter-chapters focusing on Victoria's childhood.Victoria recalls her mother, Catherine, telling the story of her unfortunate brother Joe Trexler, a man who had left his family's home in Philadelphia to work as a carpetbagger in Reconstruction-era Georgia. When trouble began to hound him, he escaped first to Canada, where he made acquaintances with the Governor of Georgia, and then returned home for a short while. He manages to escape from the local law by moving again, this time to the west where he joined the gold rush in the Black Hills in Dakota Territory.Future promises of financial success do not become fruitful for Joe or for the majority of his family. His favorite sister Catherine dies relatively young, his two other sisters marry failures who are unable to support them properly, and his younger brother, Aaron, becomes a moderate success but is relatively unhappy. His youngest brother, David, does have some success. Over time Joe slowly falls into dementia. Victoria eventually comes to the conclusion that her Uncle Joe's failure, like her father's failure in business, is not due to personal shortcomings, but to capitalist economic forces beyond their control.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Holly_and_Ivy" title="The Story of Holly and Ivy">
St. Agnes orphanage has closed for Christmas, and all the children except Ivy have been dispatched to various homes for the holiday. Miss Shepherd, the head of the home, cannot take Ivy home with her, so she decides to send her to an infants' orphanage, a train ride away. Ivy suggests that she could instead go to her grandmother in Aylesbury, a surprising inspiration, since she has no grandmother. This inspiration is a primary theme of the story, which begins, "This is a story about wishing."Ivy is put on a train. She tells travelers she will be visiting her grandmother in Aylesbury. When they respond knowingly to that, she says, "Then...there is an Aylesbury." She gets off there and begins to explore, enjoying the Christmas Eve in the town and looking for her grandmother.A beautiful new Christmas doll named Holly is standing in the display window of Mr. Blossom's toy store, wishing for a little girl to come and take her home. The toy owl next to her, Abracadabra, treats her with undisguised contempt, and suggests that, since no one will want Holly after the holiday, she will wind up spending the year in the back room with him.Mrs. Jones, who lives a few blocks from the toy store, suggests to her husband, a police officer that they have a Christmas tree that year. Her husband refuses, saying that it would be a waste of money since they have no children to enjoy it. Despite his words, Mrs. Jones buys a Christmas tree and decorates it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Overlook" title="The Overlook">
Evidence mounts that the murder of Stanley Kent is part of a terrorist plot to build and deploy a dirty bomb, justifying the FBI's moves to push the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and Bosch to the sidelines. Refusing to be sidelined, Bosch aggressively works around the FBI in order to track down Kent's killers, much to the chagrin of his young, inexperienced partner, who sees his career at the LAPD jeopardized by Bosch's actions. The FBI agents, including Rachel Walling, view Bosch as endangering their attempts to retrieve the missing cesium and to track down known terrorists. Relying on instinct and experience, Bosch pursues his line of inquiry, ultimately succeeding in solving the murder and recovering the cesium.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_Song" title="Sword Song">
Alfred, King of Wessex, has Uhtred of Bebbanburg build one of the fortified towns that make up Alfred's system of defence. After ambushing a band of raiders, Uhtred learns that two powerful Norse earls, Sigefrid and Erik Thurgilson, allied with Uhtred's treacherous former friend Haesten, have occupied nearby Lundene. When he informs Alfred, he is given the task of collecting a force strong enough to take the city back, then handing it over to his cousin Æthelred.Haesten invites him to a meeting across the Temes in Mercia. Haesten takes Uhtred to a graveyard, where a corpse rises from the earth to tell Uhtred that the Fates have decreed he is to be King of Mercia. Torn between his oath to Alfred, whom he dislikes, and the temptation to become a king in his own right, he listens to Haesten and the Thurgilson brothers proposition: if Uhtred convinces his foster brother Ragnar of Northumbria to bring his men to join them in attacking first East Anglia, then Mercia and finally Wessex, then Uhtred will receive Mercia, while Sigefrid gets Wessex and Haesten East Anglia.Uhtred ponders this offer while Sigefrid invites him to watch the crucifixion of some Christian prisoners. Uhtred recognizes one as his old comrade-in-arms, the Welshman Father Pyrlig. Knowing Pyrlig to be an experienced fighter, Uhtred tricks Sigefrid into promising the prisoners freedom if Pyrlig beats him in single combat - which he promptly does. Uhtred, Pyrlig and the other prisoners leave Lundene. Pyrlig tells Uhtred that the corpse was a trick, a living man put into a grave with a reed to breathe through. Uhtred swears to Pyrlig to keep his oath to Alfred.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudine_at_St.Clare's" title="Claudine at St.Clare's">
When Pat and Isabel arrive at school, they are surprised to meet a new matron and her daughter, Eileen. Then, French teacher Mam'zelle introduces Claudine, her niece, who will be joining them for this term. Alison O'Sullivan, the twins' rather silly, 'feather-headed' cousin, meets and befriends Angela, who is rich, beautiful and well dressed. Soon, Alison is completely under the spoilt, snobbish Angela's spell. The new Matron's daughter Eileen is a reserved girl who is later identified as a sneak. Pauline is soon discovered to be a snobbish and conceited girl who continuously brags about her family's 'wealth'.During the inevitable midnight feast the girls find themselves in trouble when Matron is spitefully locked for hours in a broom cupboard by Claudine while they were having the feast. She is furious to find that she is released by her daughter, and thinks that she was with the other girls, while actually she was speaking with her brother Eddie, who lost his job but doesn't dare to tell his mother. Eileen is in trouble.Pauline suffers a worse fate than Eileen when her mother visits unexpectedly and is happened upon by Alison and Angela, who mistake the poor, worn-out woman for one of the cooks. Pauline, like Eileen, is exposed as working class. Angela is scornful to discover that all Pauline's boasts of wealth are lies, and that she is ashamed of her lower-class background.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop._1280" title="Pop. 1280">
"Pop. 1280" is the first-person narrative of Nick Corey, the listless sheriff of Potts County, the "47th (out of 47) largest county in the state". He lives in Pottsville which has a population of "1280 souls". The story takes place about the time of the Russian Revolution, in 1917-1918.Sheriff Nick Corey presents himself as a genial fool, simplistic, over-accommodating, and harmless to a fault, given he is Pottsville's sole lawman. In reality, he is a clever psychopath able to manipulate people by appealing to their worst instincts and to get away with multiple murders.The novel begins with Nick visiting Ken Lacey, the sheriff of a nearby county. Nick visits Sheriff Lacey ostensibly to ask for advice as he has in the past. Nick has two pimps in charge of a whorehouse on the river at the edge of town who regularly insult and abuse him. Nick asks Lacey what to do about them and Lacey mocks and belittles Nick including literally kicking him in the behind multiple times. Lacey finally explains that he is doing all this to show Nick that when someone hurts you, you need to hurt them back twice as hard, finishing with the boast that if any pimps tried to disrespect him, he would shoot them dead on the spot. In the process of suffering the abuse of Lacey and his deputy Buck, Nick realizes that Buck harbors ill will towards Sheriff Lacey as well. He manipulates Lacey to have Buck see him off at the train station and has a discussion with Buck before heading back home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witch_of_Portobello" title="The Witch of Portobello">
As the book begins, Athena is dead. How she ended up that way creates the intrigue sustaining the book. The child, Sherine Khalil renames herself Athena after her uncle was discussing with her mother on how her real name will betray her origins and something like Athena gave nothing away. As a child, she shows a strong religious vocation and reports seeing angels and saints, which both impresses and worries her parents.She goes into a London University to pursue Engineering at the age of 19, but it's not what her heart wanted. One day she just decides that she wanted to drop out of college, get married and have a baby. Here, the author mentions that this might be due to the fact that she was abandoned herself and wants to give all that love she could to her child which she didn't receive from her birth mother. Two years later, her marriage falls apart because they are facing too many problems due to their young age and lack of money or mostly because he felt that she loved only the child and used him to get what she wanted. A very interesting quote she uses is "From Ancient Greece on, the people who returned from battle were either dead on their shields or stronger, despite or because of their scars. It's better that way: I've lived on a battlefield since I was born, but I'm still alive and I don't need anyone to protect me."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epicurean" title="The Epicurean">
The narrative begins with Alciphron's election to the leadership of the "school" or "sect" of Epicurus. He has a flash of insight indicating to him that "eternal life" awaits him in Egypt. Unsure of its meaning, he decides to pursue this premonition.He travels there and undergoes various adventures, including initiation into the mysteries of the state religion, in pursuit of the beautiful priestess Alethe. She, a crypto-Christian, escapes the mystery rites with Alciphron, and they journey together along the Nile into Upper Egypt, heading for a Christian monastery, which is run by a follower of Origen.Alciphron endures initiation into the Christian religion in hopes of remaining with Alethe. An imperial edict soon establishes the persecution of all Christians who will not renounce their faith, and Alciphron's companions, including Alethe, are captured and killed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_Park_(novel)" title="Echo Park (novel)">
In 1993, Harry Bosch and his partner Jerry Edgar caught the Marie Gesto case. Marie was a young equestrian who went missing. Her car and clothing turned up in an apartment garage but her body was never found. Bosch and Edgar had pegged a likely culprit – Anthony Garland, the son of wealthy and powerful industrialist Thomas Rex "T-Rex" Garland. The younger Garland had dated a woman who closely resembled Gesto and had broken up with him due to his temper; she also had lived in the apartment where Gesto's car was found. However, despite several rounds of questioning Anthony Garland, a part-time security guard at one of his father's oil facilities, detectives never found enough evidence to charge the suspect and the case went cold. Bosch had worked Gesto case as time allowed, calling her parents several times a year so they knew their daughter was not forgotten.In the 13 years since the Gesto case went cold, Bosch had retired from the LAPD and worked as a private investigator for three years but returned to the force because things didn't work out the way he thought they would in retirement. Now, nearing 60, Bosch is working in the prestigious Open-Unsolved Unit at Parker Center, going over cold cases with his most recent partner, Kizmin "Kiz" Rider. A serendipitous traffic stop in L.A.'s Echo Park neighborhood nabs Raynard Waits, a man with body parts in his van on the floorboard in front of the front seat. Detective Freddy Olivas is working the case and Richard O'Shea is the prosecutor assigned. Soon Waits has confessed to a string of slayings involving prostitutes and runaways, as well as to two earlier murders: one of pawnshop owner Daniel Fitzpatrick during the 1992 riots, the other of Marie Gesto. When the Gesto case files are reexamined, it seems that Waits had called the police shortly after the murder, pretending to be a tipster, but Bosch and Edgar never followed up on the tip. Without this costly error, Waits could have been implicated within a week of Gesto's disappearance and never gone on to kill more victims.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_Stealing_Horses" title="Out Stealing Horses">
The events in this story are revealed to the reader out of chronological order. The following is a reconstruction of the timeline of the events in the story.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner_of_Zhamanak" title="The Prisoner of Zhamanak">
Word comes to the Terran spaceport of Novorecife that anthropologist Alicia Dyckman, off studying the culture of the tropical Khaldoni nations, has been imprisoned in Zhamanak, one of these realms, by its "Heshvavu" (king) Khorosh. Diplomat Percy Mjipa, currently between consular assignments, promptly volunteers to rescue her.Mjipa travels by ship to Kalwm, the much-shrunken remnant of the ancient Empire of the Triple Seas, whose mad king Vuzhov is attempting to build a tower to reach the heavens. From there he attempts to reach Zhamanak by road through the intervening realm of Mutabwk. Mutabwk's scholarly king Ainkhist refuses him passage unless he does him the service of obtaining a copy of Vuzhov's jealously-guarded genealogy, which he desires as a source for a history he is writing of the Khaldoni kingdoms. Perforce returning to Kalwm, Mjipa is unexpectedly granted a copy of the chart in return for serving as a witness for the prosecution at the heresy trial of Doctor Isayin, a local philosopher charged with teaching the world is round. Expected to support the Khaldoni religion's flat world theory, Mjipa uncomfortably commits the requisite perjury, salving his conscience by telling himself the proceedings are fixed against Isayin anyway.With passage through Mutabwk now open to him, Mjipa finally reaches Zhamanak. However, Khorosh's only response to his demand that Dyckman be freed is to imprison him with her. He learns that Khorosh regards the alien Terrans as enemies, and that the purpose of their incarceration is to study them. More specifically, now that the king has two of them, he wants to see how they mate. Mjipa, who is married, indignantly refuses, and Alicia, while not sharing his qualms, is also disinclined to perform to satisfy their captor's curiosity. In the course of a long incarceration, they get to know each other, and at times their resolve weakens, but their incompatible personalities help keep them honest; Mjipa being stiff-necked and duty-driven, and Alicia strong-willed, hectoring and opinionated.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Luna" title="Eva Luna">
The story is told from Eva's first-person point of view. In some sections Eva narrates Rolf Carlé's life. The story opens as Eva describes her mother's life, and how her mother (Consuelo) ended up working for a Professor. One day, the professor’s Indian gardener is bitten by a snake and whilst on his deathbed, Consuelo makes love to him, thus conceiving Eva. Miraculously, Eva's father recovers. Eva's mother then dies after choking on a chicken bone and leaves Eva to fend for herself. After the Professor dies, Eva moves on and eventually stumbles upon Huberto Naranjo, who places her in the care of La Señora, the owner of a brothel.After living in harmony for a few years, a new police chief moves in and immediately storms the brothel. Eva is forced to flee and is eventually found by Riad Halabí, a man with a cleft palate. Eva moves to Agua Santa with Halabí and settles into her new life, living with Riad and his wife, Zulema. After a few years, Riad's cousin Kamal moves in to live with them. Zulema is instantly infatuated with Kamal and when Riad goes on a trip, she seduces him, after which Kamal immediately leaves. Eventually Zulema loses interest in life and commits suicide by shooting herself in the mouth. After Eva is detained on suspicion of murdering Zulema, Riad bribes the police to release Eva. Eva and Riad realize that she must leave to escape the rumors, but before she leaves they share one night of passion.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Loop" title="The Pirate Loop">
After escaping from over-eager serving robots in Milky-Pink City, Martha asks the Doctor about the Starship "Brilliant", which mysteriously disappeared. He agrees to investigate, but the TARDIS crashes on arrival and Martha is knocked out. She wakes in the ship's engine room, where she and the Doctor are led to the starship's experimental drive by the slave-like mechanics, who have small holes instead of mouths. The Doctor realises that the starship's experimental drive works by skipping out of space-time. However, it has become stalled, putting it at risk of exploding. They attempt to contact the captain, but find that the door out of the engine rooms is blocked with a membrane like scrambled egg. The Doctor notes that it separates regions where time flows at different rates, and uses his sonic screwdriver to allow them to pass through. Martha emerges by herself and meets the robot Gabriel, the ship's steward. He escorts her to the cocktail lounge, where she is befriended by Mrs Wingsworth, an egg-shaped alien.Martha learns that the ship has been invaded and asks Gabriel to warn the Doctor, but three badger-faced space pirates enter and disintegrate him. Two of the badgers, Dashiel and Jocelyn, leave to scout out the ship, leaving the third badger, Archibald, to guard the prisoners. He is amazed at the canapés which Martha offers to him, as he was raised on recycled food, and she convinces him to share the food with the passengers. Dashiel and Jocelyn return, having been unable to find either the ship's drive or their comrades. They try some of the food and are similarly impressed, with Martha noting that the canapés are mysteriously replenished. Dashiel disintegrates Mrs Wingsworth after she expresses her scorn at their lack of culture. Martha grabs Jocelyn's gun after she shoots another passenger, but she is startled when Mrs Wingsworth enters the room, allowing Archibald to take the gun. Dashiel shoots at Martha, but she shields herself with the canapé tray, which reflects the shot at Jocelyn and kills her. Martha runs back to the engine room door, pursued by Archibald. She hits him with the tray, but she dies when he stabs her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_Superman!" title="It's Superman!">
In Smallville, Kansas, of 1935, Clark Kent is interviewed by the local sheriff over the death of a wanted man that Clark confronted at the local movie theatre. They believe the man died from his handgun firing backwards, but Clark and his father, Jonathan Kent, know the real truth: the man fired his gun at Clark, and the bullet bounced off Clark's forehead, killing the wanted man instead. Clark is scared over what he is becoming, with his father providing no answers to his questions. To make matters worse, Clark's beloved mother, Martha Kent, dies of a terminal illness not soon after. In Manhattan, Willi Berg storms out from his girlfriend, Lois Lane's, apartment over an argument concerning getting his camera from the pawn shop, so he decides to steal it. Arriving, he discovers several men dead, and gets wounded by the gang when he tries to escape after seeing the face of their leader: Lex Luthor, New York's leading Alderman. Lex frames Willi for the murders, with no one believing Willi's truth of the events. A henchwoman attempts to murder Willi at the hospital when she is stopped by federal agents, led by Meyer Lansky. With their help, and Lois's, Willi goes on the run, finding himself in Smallville as a member of the WPA. He meets Clark, now a reporter for the "Smallville Herald Progress", and befriends him after he shows off his superspeed. After solving the crime of a kidnapped child that ends tragically, Clark quits the paper and Willi proposes for them to leave Smallville and travel. Because he wants to see what else is out there, Clark agrees.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wideacre" title="Wideacre">
Beatrice Lacey is the daughter of the Squire of Wideacre, an estate situated on the South Downs, centred around Wideacre Hall. Devoted to her father, at the age of five years she falls in love with the estate and decides to stay there forever. At 11, her dreams are shattered when she learns that her absent brother Harry will inherit the estate, and that she be married off and leave. Young Beatrice begins an affair with Ralph, the gamekeeper's son, who lives with his mother, Meg, a village witch, in a cottage on the estate. Harry returns and discovers them entwined, ending the relationship. Threatened by Harry's presence, Beatrice agrees without thinking to a plan Ralph reveals to take the estate for the two of them. She realises too late what it is Ralph has planned, but before she can stop him Ralph murders her father and makes it look like a riding accident. Enraged by the sight of her father's corpse whom she loved so much, she feels guilty, and is afraid that if Ralph were caught he would associate with her. Beatrice decides she cannot allow him to continue living on Wideacre. She lures him over a mantrap and leaves him for dead. To her dismay, she later discovers that he has escaped—maimed but alive—with his mother's help. Knowing he will someday seek revenge, Beatrice becomes more callous, manipulative and ruthless.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_(von_Ziegesar_novel)" title="Lucky (von Ziegesar novel)">
Jenny Humphrey has attended some crazy parties at Waverly Academy, but none as hot as the bash at Miller farm, where the antique red barn went up in flames. "Literally". So, when Dean Marymount announces that someone will be held responsible and expelled from Waverly, it's every owl for him and herself.Tensions are rising, rumors are flying, and pretty soon, everyone is a suspect. Jenny worries about her adorable, shaggy-haired new crush, Julian, whose silver engraved Zippo was found at the crime scene. Callie is petrified she and Easy will both get kicked out because they were in the barn together when the blaze began. And Tinsley knows she'll take the heat for organizing the wild soirée in the first place. Luckily she's come up with a crafty way to keep from getting in trouble: blaming Jenny. But, unfortunately, Julian and Jenny get "closer than ever." When "things can't get any better," Jenny finds out the only reason Julian even met her is that he was hooking up with Tinsley Carmichael, which causes Jenny not to trust him.Easy becomes very suspicious of Callie because of her comments about Jenny starting the fire. Kara and Brett's relationship goes public, and Brett figures out she still loves Jeremiah, and Kara and Heath hook up and become a couple. Shockingly, Tinsley's plan works, but it also backfires. Easy finds out that Callie had something to do with the intent to kick Jenny out and tries to rescue Jenny. Unfortunately, Callie and Easy's relationship is over—Easy was put off by Callie's plot to get Jenny out, which he discovered when Tinsley texted Callie-and Jenny still hasn't forgiven Julian for lying to her. Easy supposedly pays off Old Lady Miller, whose barn burned down, and Jenny is rescued and returned to Waverly. Old Lady Miller said that her cows caused it and not Jenny. Jenny admits to setting the barn on fire (and gets expelled) just because she can't take everyone's accusations, dirty looks, and rumors. However, Jenny is admitted back into Waverly.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl,_Missing" title="Girl, Missing">
Curious about her birth parents, fourteen-year-old Lauren Matthews goes on a website called Missing-Children.com and finds an American girl named Martha Lauren Purditt, who went missing less than two months before Lauren was adopted. A few days later, she finds a diary containing details about her adoption and the name "Sonia Holtwood". After persuading her family to go on a holiday to America, Lauren and her friend James (AKA "Jam") sneak off and meet with Taylor Larsen, the owner of the agency which handled Lauren's adoption. He refuses to show Lauren her adoption file, but when Lauren mentions Sonia Holtwood, Taylor tells Lauren she was looked after by Sonia before she was adopted.Lauren and Jam set out to find Sonia. They run into a female police officer named Suzanna Sanders, who gives them a ride in her car and offers them orange juice. Once in the car, Lauren and Jam begin to feel sleepy. Hours later, they wake up and find that their phones and belongings have been taken away. They ask Officer Sanders where they are and demand to be let out of the car. She reveals she is Sonia Holtwood and the orange juice was drugged. Sonia dumps them in the middle of nowhere and takes off with their phones and belongings. They are rescued by a man called Glane, who takes them to Boston, where he works. Lauren discovers that Martha's parents were Annie and Sam Purditt, who live in Evanport. Glane offers to take her there.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Box" title="The God Box">
Paul is the perfect teenager: a beloved son, an attentive boyfriend, a good friend, he is perfect in anything he wants to achieve. When he is a teenager, Paul starts to have “strange” feelings for other guys, but feelings that he doesn't want to acknowledge. So he continues to live a seemingly perfect heterosexual life by dating his girlfriend Angie, and being very active in their local church community. When Paul is a senior in High School, a new student named Manuel transfers in. Manuel is the first openly gay teen anyone in their small town has ever met, and yet he says he's also a committed Christian. Paul's friendship with Manuel causes him to reconsider some of the things in his life. Such as re-interpreting the Bible's passages on homosexuality, and ending his romantic relationship with Angie. While at the movies one day, Paul freaks out after he and Manuel almost touch hands. Causing him to take off in his car. Paul is later shocked when he learns that Manuel was attacked up by two of their male classmates while walking home from the movie, and is now in a coma. He realizes during this hard time that he needs to accept himself, and comes out to his family and friends. When Manuel wakes up, he and Paul declare their love for each other and kiss. The story ends with Paul deciding to defer his first year of college in order to help with Manuel's physical therapy, and the two going to prom together with the school's newly-formed GSA.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briar_Rose_(novel)" title="Briar Rose (novel)">
The book is divided into two parts, the "home", and the "castle". The ending is part of the "home" section, returning after the castle.The story is based around the German fairy tale of "Briar Rose" ("Sleeping Beauty") which is told by "Gemma", an elderly woman, to her three granddaughters. She tells this to the children almost all the time and it is the only bedtime story she ever tells. The times when "Gemma" tells the story are flashbacks and alternate between the present-day story.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_at_La_Fenice" title="Death at La Fenice">
A world-famous German opera conductor has died at La Fenice, and Commissario (Detective) Guido Brunetti pursues what appears to be a murder investigation without leads.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muna_Madan" title="Muna Madan">
"Muna Madan" follows the life of Madan, a Chhetri man from Kathmandu who leaves Muna, his wife, to go to Lhasa to earn a fortune. He is cautioned against leaving by both Muna and his elderly mother, but he decides to leave anyway. While he initially intends to spend just a few weeks in Lhasa, he spends a longer time there, becoming entranced by the city's beauty. He finally sets off for Kathmandu but falls sick with cholera on the way. His travelling companion, Ram, returns to Kathmandu and tells Muna that her husband has died.But Madan is rescued by a 'Bhote', a Tibetan man. Tibet is called 'Bhot' in the Nepali language, drawn from the classical Tibetan name for Tibet, Bod. The Tibetan nurses Madan back to health, leading Madan to realize that men are great not because of their castes but because of their hearts. In the Nepali Hindu caste system, a Tibetan, as a meat-eating Buddhist, would have been considered 'untouchable' by devout Hindus. The couplet uttered by Madan while touching the Tibetan's feet, a sign of great respect in Khas Nepali culture, has since taken on the status of modern proverbs, often uttered by Nepalis in their daily speech: 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Testament_(Lustbader_novel)" title="The Testament (Lustbader novel)">
The book is about Braverman Shaw, whose father, Dexter Shaw, is killed by an explosion. After his death, Braverman, or Bravo to his friends, finds out that his father was a member of the Gnostic Observant, a group who possess a very old secret of Jesus Christ. Bravo has to find the secret and keep it hidden from their sworn enemies, the Knights of Saint-Clemens. His father left behind a maze, which Bravo has to solve to find the secret. During his journey, he is attacked by the Knights multiple times, and they are closer than he thinks.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Computer_Nut" title="The Computer Nut">
Kate Morrison, the title character, is receiving messages on her computer purportedly from an extraterrestrial, BB-9, who claims he can monitor and control all computers on Earth. At first, she and her friend Linda investigate the communication as a prank; their suspects are Willie Lomax and Frank Wilkins.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riptide_(novel)" title="Riptide (novel)">
The novel begins in 1971 and introduces main character Malin Hatch and his older brother Johnny Hatch. In search of something to do with their summer day, Malin suggests that the two explore Ragged Island, an island owned by the Hatch family. Ragged Island is strictly off limits to the boys, because of its ability to "destroy" those who come in contact with it. The Hatch brothers ignore their father's demand to stay away from the island and set off for it. Once the boys make it to the island, a terrible accident takes place, that Malin will struggle with for the next 25 years.Twenty five years later, Dr. Malin Hatch is approached by Gerard Neidelman, a self-proclaimed recovery specialist (a euphemism for treasure hunter), who claims to know who designed the pit, and, therefore, holds the key to unearthing the treasure. Hatch is at first skeptical of Neidelman's claim, but at length allows him to dig on the island.Once on the island, things do not go as planned. Mysterious accidents, illnesses and computer problems plague the salvage team, and it is discovered that the architect of the "Water Pit" is more clever than anyone realized.It also is revealed that the artifact, St. Michael's Sword, is in fact radioactive. This accounts for both the mysterious deaths of Red Ned's crew and for the computer glitches the team is having.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Finishing_Stroke" title="The Finishing Stroke">
The story begins in the first week of January 1905, with a brief account of a tragic accident and its bizarre aftermath, including a cover-up.The action then shifts to the waning days of 1929. Shortly after the publication of his first novel, "The Roman Hat Mystery", fledgling author/sleuth Ellery Queen is invited to an elaborate house party that will last through the Twelve Days of Christmas. The party includes a number of people connected to a wealthy young man whose birth was mentioned in the 1905 section. The man is about to come into a large inheritance on his birthday, Jan. 6, 1930.In the days leading up to the man's birthday, a number of strange little gifts are left anonymously for him, as well as doodles and confusing, ominous notes with Christmas-themed verses. Soon the notes contain outright threats. By the time the party is over, there have been two separate murders in the mansion, but Queen and the police cannot solve either of them, and are lucky even to conclusively identify the victims. The investigation does uncover some facts about the 1905 cover-up, but the murders and the threats remain unexplained at the case goes cold, and it is not even clear if they are connected.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Franchise_Affair_(novel)" title="The Franchise Affair (novel)">
Robert Blair, a local solicitor, is called on to defend two women, Marion Sharpe and her mother, who are accused of kidnapping and beating a fifteen-year-old war orphan named Betty Kane. Set in Milford, the novel opens with the Sharpes about to be interviewed by local police and Scotland Yard, represented by Inspector Alan Grant (who is the protagonist of five other Tey novels). Marion calls Blair and, although his firm does not do criminal cases, he agrees to come out to their home, "The Franchise", to look out for their interests during the questioning.Betty's account is that during the Easter holidays, she went to stay with her aunt and uncle, the Tilsits, near Larborough. After a week, she wrote to her adoptive parents, the Wynns, to say she was enjoying herself and would spend another three weeks with the Tilsits. Then one evening, waiting for a bus, the Sharpe women approached her in their car and offered her a lift. They took her to the Franchise, demanded that she become a domestic worker, and, upon her refusal, imprisoned her in the attic. Betty alleges that they starved and beat her until she escaped.When Blair meets Marion and Mrs. Sharpe, who are sensible and forthright, he believes them innocent, and he distrusts Betty. Yet Betty does have bruises from a beating, and she describes items and rooms inside the Franchise accurately.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaskilintu" title="Vaskilintu">
A Finnish noblegirl with abilities of casting spells, Terhen of Arantila, gets mingled with royalty of Sweden, and follows in a retinue to the Court of Novgorod in Russia, where the sister of the Swedish King is to marry the Grand Duke of Novgorod (Kievan Rus). Along the journey to Novgorod an accident happens and Terhen replaces a young Swedish princess Thorgerd. The young girl has odd experiences when she meets Finno-Ugric tribe Muroma along her travel.Years go by, and the Grand Duke of Novgorod allows a Roman (Greek) dignitary Skleros, envoy of the Emperor of Byzant, to marry the young lady. Her new Greek name is despoina Theodora Hyperborea.In Constantinople, Theodora (a rising Imperial lady-in-waiting) gives birth to two sons, Georgios to her first husband Skleros, and Juvalos ('Olaf'), with her Varangian lover Eirik Väkevä, a Swedish noble.The widowed Theodora is sent to steward Anna Jaroslavna, daughter of the Grand Duke of Kievan Rus, throughout Europe to her future husband King Henry I of France. Theodora has strange experiences when she meets Magyar tribes along her journey. She possesses the ability to stop bleeding when necessary, and cast weather spells.In France Theodora marries a brutal Norman knight Roger of Meilhan, and settles in his small castle in Normandy. Her teenage son, Greek count Juvalos has to flee the vile stepfather.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_Kiss" title="Spider Kiss">
A seemingly shy and humble country boy named Luther Sellers is discovered to have a magnificent voice and mesmerizing stage presence. He is given the stage name Stag Preston and after a short time on the "Chittlin' Circuit" becomes a major rockabilly music star under the tutelage of a manager who seems to be patterned after Elvis Presley's manager, "Colonel" Tom Parker. Over time Luther's success goes to his head and his "Aw, shucks..." demeanor simply becomes a gimmick used to keep his fans, whom he secretly despises, believing that he hasn't really left his country roots and humble upbringing.In reality Stag lives up to his stage name, using his fame and seductive powers to lure any woman he can into his bed, leaving broken hearts and scandals everywhere he goes. The latter are all tidied up by his money-grubbing manager, who doesn't want anything to taint his cash cow. Meanwhile, Stag's growing megalomania eventually has him treating everyone around him like dirt and becoming harder and harder to work with. Eventually he is entangled in a scandal that takes all their power to cover up, and sets into motion the events leading to Stag's downfall.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Days_of_His_Grace" title="The Days of His Grace">
Duke Rodgaud—cousin of Bertold, castle in Forojuli (contemporary name, Cividale, Italy), starts a rebellion against King Carolus, that is quickly put down. He is executed by the Franks in Papia, summer, 776. Angilperta (“Angila”), the daughter of Rodgaud and Giseverga, is loved by the three Lupigi boys. She cannot be found during the rebellion, but becomes post-rebellion the wife of the Lord of East Burgundy, Gunderic, her name becoming Landoalda. She has Radbert as a lover, has two children, Landoald and Gisertruda, who die young, and a third child, Radaberta is given away. Gunderic imprisons her in the castle tower for seven years, after which Perto comes with an order from King Carolus to let her return to Forojuli. She dies on that trip back to her childhood home.Bertold Lupigi, cousin of Duke Rodgaud. The family name, Lupigi comes from wolf, loup. He disappears in the rebellion and is found in a dungeon. He is freed from prison, post-rebellion, in 793, but is killed by an avalanche. Perto, son of Liuta and Bertold, is 16 years old at the novel's beginning, the youngest of three brothers. He loves Angila. He is also named Johannes Lupigis, more so as the novel progresses. During the rebellion, he manages to escape the Franks who kill his friend Sinauld. He visits Angilperta with Agibert in the autumn of 783, and sleeps with Angilperta. Late autumn 783 he arrives in Aquisgranum, where there is a royal college. He meets King Carolus and decides he is “indeed great.” Perto goes to Totonisvilla where his brother Warnefrit is in prison, but is seized by guards as he leaves the prison. In prison for three and a half years, in total darkness of the prison cell, he creates a vision of a flowering bush. Then he dines with the Devil, who tempts him. He is released from jail at the age of 31 and goes to Aquisgranum where his Uncle Anselm explains the reasons for his imprisonment. He becomes part of King Carolus's Court again, and eventually gets an order allowing Angilperta to return to her childhood home. Warnefrit, the son of Liuta and Bertold, the oldest of three brothers, likes relations with slave women. He becomes engaged to Angila. All of chapter 16 is his angry and frustrated monologue as heir to his father. He disappears in the rebellion and is found in a dungeon, where he remains for over ten years post-rebellion. His brother Perto comes to get him from prison, though he does not recognize Perto. Eranbald brings Warnefrit to Gudneric, where Angilperta is, and they all dine together though Warnefrit does not seem to recognize Angilperta. Healthy again, he defends the kingdom against Huns.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogland" title="Dogland">
The novel is told from the perspective of an adult called Christopher Nix who recounts the story of his family's move to Florida from New Orleans when he was four. The purpose of their move is so that his father can open a tourist attraction that exhibits every breed of dog recognized by the American Kennel Club. The story focuses on his father's "color-blind" approach to racial segregation and various controversies that occur in his life because of it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sinister_Pig" title="The Sinister Pig">
Not long after Carl Manken leaves Washington D.C. to investigate an issue in the news, his murdered corpse is found on the edge of the Checkerboard part of the Navajo Reservation, near the Apache Jicarilla Reservation. Soon, his vehicle is found on the Jicarilla Reservation. Each use of Manken's credit card is monitored by the issuer, a high-level intervention that sends Sgt. Chee and FBI Agent Osborne to retrieve the card from the workmen using it after finding it in trash they picked up. In Washington D.C., the newsworthy issue is the large amount of royalties never paid to the tribes who own the land providing natural resources, including oil, natural gas and coal; the tribes are suing the Department of Interior.Bernadette Manuelito is on routine surveillance in her new position as a US Customs Patrol Officer, when she finds the Tuttle ranch in the boot heel of New Mexico, where a truck with Mexican license plates enters. She investigates, taking photos of the exotic wildlife and the construction project underway, described as a pump for water for the oryxes and ibexes. She shares the prints of her photos with Sgt. Chee, who in turn shares them with Lt. Leaphorn. One of the trucks in her photos is from Seamless Weld of El Paso, Texas, the same company that the dead man reported as his employer on the rental car form. Her boss, Ed Henry, takes the negatives and other set of prints, while taking a photo of her and telling her to leave the ranch alone. On her first successful solo netting, taking in a group of illegal aliens, the brother-in-law in the group recognizes Manuelito from photos circulating among the drug dealers in Sonora, with word to kill her. Her roommate Mrs. Garza calls Leaphorn with this information, because Manuelito will not call Chee. Leaphorn finds that the pathway of the unused pipeline from the now disused Mexican copper mine passes right through the Tuttle ranch, shown on an old map when the smelter was active. He figures the work recently done at each place is to get the pipeline working again, either to divert natural gas or oil southbound, or to bring in drugs, northbound. The Tuttle ranch is a lease on BLM lands, giving Dashee authority to be there; he and Sgt. Chee head for the ranch directly.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erak's_Ransom" title="Erak's Ransom">
Skandian Oberjarl Erak Starfollower becomes tired of paperwork. He decides to go on one last raid to the desert country of Arrida. His raiding party walks into an ambush and is captured; Erak's crew are eventually released in order to obtain a ransom for Erak, who is left behind. Meanwhile, at Castle Redmont, senior Ranger Halt and diplomat Lady Pauline are getting married. During the wedding after-party, Svengal, Erak's first mate, appears. In a small meeting with Ranger Will and the knight Horace, he reveals Erak's kidnapping, and also tells them that Erak thinks he was betrayed by a small congregant of Skandian dissenters located in Hallasholm who seek to depose him under the leadership of Toshak, a Jarl who was once of follower of the executed Slagor, the treacherous Skirl who, in "Oakleaf Bearers", sought to kill CassandraPrincess Cassandra begs her father, King Duncan to supply the money for Erak's release. Duncan agrees, but is unable to go himself as he is in talks with the Hibernian kings. Cassandra eventually volunteers herself, much to Duncan's chagrin. Will, Cassandra, Halt, Svengal, Horace, the ranger Gilan as well as thirty of Erak's men go to deliver the ransom, which delights Cassandra. As they travel, Cassandra and Will rekindle the friendship they somewhat lost in "Oakleaf Bearers" and Gilan offers Will advice as the young apprentice worries about how he will fare without Halt's guidance. Once in Arrida, they learn from Arridi leader Seley el'then that Erak had been sent to Mararoc, a fort in the desert. The party, guided by Seley el'then and his men, head to Mararoc.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gift_(Croggon_novel)" title="The Gift (Croggon novel)">
"The Gift" (also published as "The Naming") begins with Maerad, in "Gilman's Cot" as a slave, where she has been for many years, with few memories of her former life, her mother having died several years before. She is discovered by Cadvan, one of the great mystics known as 'Bards', who reveals to her that she, like him, possesses "the Gift" shared by all of these, by which she is able to command nature to do her will. Cadvan soon discovers that her mother was the leader of the First Circle of the destroyed School of Pellinor, of whom it was previously assumed that there were no survivors. Knowing this, Cadvan decides to help her escape, believing that it might not be by means of random chance that he came upon the only known survivor of Pellinor.When Cadvan finds that Maerad's Gift is unusually powerful for one never formally taught, he begins to suspect of her more significance than he had before. He takes her to the School of Innail, to make the presence of a survivor from Pellinor known and to make Maerad a Minor Bard of Pellinor. During their time there, Maerad obtains knowledge of a long-forgotten prophecy concerning the 'Foretold One' who will defeat the Nameless One. This Nameless One is a corrupt political leader, formerly called Sharma, who discarded his own true name in order to become immortal. Twice has he attempted to conquer the land of Edil-Amarandh, and he has twice been vanquished. His last bid for power is the one in which the Foretold One, "Elednor", will defeat him, leaving him dead or helpless forever. Maerad's own history, being coincident with that of the Foretold One, implies that she is Elednor, although Maerad does not immediately embrace the idea.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuulihaukka" title="Tuulihaukka">
The story follows two young people who briefly meet in the beginning stages in southwestern Finland and towards the end, they end up to Calabria, Southern Italy. Meanwhile, they both travel separately through Europe.The eponymous Kestrel, Juvalos Skleros Gerakis, aka Olaf Falco, owner of the ship Tuulihaukka (= kestrel, 'wind falcon'), a young man, returns from Viking treks to meet his parents at Arantila manor in southwestern Finland, and finds them slaughtered by the neighboring manor's fortune-hunter younger son and his greedy allies.After taking a revenge, Juvalos leaves with his ship, venturing to Normandy to meet his brother-in-arms and childhood friend Odo. Odo's sister Adela has grown into a beautiful woman, and is newly widowed. Olaf-Juvalos falls madly in love with her. They marry and embark to southern Italy where the Falco intends to serve Duke Robert Guiscard. Adela faithfully follows Juvalos on his travels.Meanwhile, a young noblegirl Aure 'Nukuttaja' (Sleepmaker) of Launiala manor from southwestern Finland, abducted after left unprotected by her family, leaves with her restless brother Lyy, to seek to the Varangian guard of the Emperor of Byzant. They settle a household in Constantinople, where Aure gets fame with her natural ability to calm and soothe sick people with singing, thus the name Sleepmaker. Lyy becomes drungarios, an officer in the Imperial Army. They travel with the Great Imperial Army, including a travel to the Battle of Manzikert in Armenia. They meet Juvalos and his Norman army and retreat together the long journey back to Efesos, on the Mediterranean coast. Aure and Juvalos experience romantic encounters with each other.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travels_in_the_Scriptorium" title="Travels in the Scriptorium">
An old man is disoriented within an unknown chamber and has no memory about who he is or how he has arrived there. He tries to understand something from the relics on the desk, examining the circumstances of his confinement and searching for reasons and a method to exit.Determining that he is locked in, the man — identified only as Mr. Blank — begins reading a manuscript he finds on the desk, the story of another prisoner, set in an alternate world the man doesn't recognize. Nevertheless, the pages seem to have been left for him, along with a haunting set of photographs. As the day passes, various characters call on the man in his cell — vaguely familiar people, some who seem to resent him for crimes he can't remember — and each brings frustrating hints of his identity and his past. All the while an overhead camera clicks and clicks, recording his movements, and a microphone records every sound in the room. Someone is watching.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Battle" title="The Secret Battle">
The novel follows the career of a young officer, Harry Penrose, written from the viewpoint of a close friend who acts as narrator. A sensitive, educated young man, Penrose had enlisted in the ranks in 1914, immediately after completing his second year at Oxford. After six months in training he had been prevailed upon by his relatives – like most educated volunteers – to take a commission as an officer.Penrose slowly asserts himself; the war takes a toll on his personality, but he begins to live up to his early dreams of heroism. However, his creeping self-doubt grows by degrees; he is reassigned from his post as scouting officer once on the Somme, knowing he cannot face another night patrol, and earns the wrath of his commanding officer – an irascible Regular colonel – over a trivial incident. The colonel piles difficult, risky work on him – remarking to the narrator that "Master Penrose can go on with [leading ration parties] until he learns to do them properly" – and Penrose submits, working doggedly to try to keep from cracking. After a long period of this treatment, by the winter of 1916, Penrose's spirit is worn down; when the narrator is invalided home with an injury in February 1917, his last support is gone. He is wounded in May at Arras – a friend remarking in a letter that "you'd have said he wanted to be killed" – and they meet again in London in November. Penrose has been offered a safe job in military intelligence; he comes within a moment of taking it, but at the last minute resolves to return to France.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisk_(novel)" title="Frisk (novel)">
Frisk is narrated by Dennis, who had a troubled childhood. In 1969, aged 13, he was regularly allowed to read pornographic magazines and was particularly affected by snuff pornography, but he later learns that the pictures were faked. He recognises that Henry, now aged 17, was the 13/14-year-old boy portrayed in the pictures.Dennis is gay and a drug-taker and is devastated when his boyfriend Julian leaves him to go to France. Dennis takes up with Julian's younger brother Kevin. The boy is psychologically troubled, yet 18-year-old Dennis involves him in drugs and starts a sexual relationship.In 1989, Julian receives a letter from Dennis describing how he embarked on a sadistic killing spree in Amsterdam. The descriptions in the letter are explicit and the torture and sadism are described in graphic terms. Dennis then meets with two Germans, tells them what he has done, and they join forces to commit a series of random, motiveless murders. One of the serial killer's most recent victims was an 11-year-old boy, whom they tortured before mutilating and murdering in Dennis’ home, a converted windmill, two weeks before the letter was written.Julian travels to Amsterdam with Kevin to find out if the murders in the letters are true or just a cruel fantasy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singing" title="The Singing">
Maerad and Cadvan have returned to Innail. Maerad has realised that she has been carrying the runes of the Treesong (the magical, ancient song through which it is believed the Speech came into being) with her the whole time - on her lyre. Maerad believes it is imperative that she find her brother soon, as she senses he has a part to play in the Treesong as well. After spending time resting and catching up with old friends they attempt to leave, only to be forced back to discover themselves in a besieged Innail It is supposed to be the doing of the Landrost, a minor elidhu who is collaborating with Sharma/the Nameless One. None of the occupants are able to leave because of an unnatural snowstorm that brings extreme and fatal cold. Maerad is able to locate the Landrost's attacks, and the bards of Innail are able to hold it back. After witnessing much destruction and facing near-death, Maerad merges into her Elidhu being to destroy the Landrost She is able to strip the Landrost to almost nothing. She is saved by a combination of Arkan, the Winterking, taunting her, and Cadvan calling her her Truename, Elednor. Maerad is now also known as 'the Maid of Innail' and is bedridden for many days.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Beats_the_Devil" title="Carter Beats the Devil">
This novel is a fictionalised biography of Charles Joseph Carter. The main character, Carter, is followed through his career, from his first encounter with magic to his last performance. Along the way he encounters many historical figures, including fellow magicians Harry Houdini and Howard Thurston, United States President Warren G. Harding, BMW founder Max Friz, the Marx Brothers, business magnate Francis Marion "Borax" Smith, then inventor of electronic television Philo Farnsworth, and San Franciscan madams Tessie Wall and Jessie Hayman.Most of the novel centres on the mysterious death of President Harding, who dies shortly after taking part in Carter's stage show. President Harding apparently knew of many serious scandals that seemed likely to bring down the establishment and it seems certain that he was assassinated by persons and methods unknown. Much of Carter's past is shown in the form of flashbacks as U.S. Secret Service Agent Griffin investigates the magician as a suspect.The flashbacks chart Carter's early career including his first encounter with a magic trick, shown to him by "the tallest man alive", Joe Sullivan (also an actual, if obscure, historical figure) in a fairground sideshow, his first paid performance for Borax Smith, his rivalry with the magician "Mysterioso", his first meeting with Harry Houdini who bestows the title "Carter the Great" on him, and Carter's marriage to Sarah Annabelle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Meetings" title="House of Meetings">
The novel centers on the modern-day (2004) recollections of the unnamed narrator/protagonist of his time spent in an Arctic gulag and the years that followed. The recollections are presented in the form of a memoir sent to the narrator's American stepdaughter, Venus. One of the primary plot elements is the complex relationship between the protagonist and his younger half-brother, Lev, who later joins him in the camp. Through many difficult revelations and trials, they eventually survive the harsh conditions of the camp and then must face a further challenge: re–acclimatizing to everyday life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_(Baxter_novel)" title="Emperor (Baxter novel)">
A mysterious prophecy from the future shapes the destiny of a family through four centuries of the Roman occupation of Britain. The story begins in 4 BC and incorporates such later events as the building of Hadrian's Wall and an attempted assassination of Constantine I. It ends in AD 418.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-Juca-Pirama" title="I-Juca-Pirama">
The poem tells the story of a Tupi warrior who is captured by an enemy, cannibal tribe – the Timbiras. As he is about to be killed and offered in sacrifice, he begs for mercy in order to be freed and return to his home, where his old, sick and blind father waits for him. The Timbiras then allow the Tupi warrior to go.The warrior reunites with his father. After smelling the sacrificial paint on his son's body and hearing that he was let go, his father demands they head back to the Timbiras' tribe in order for them to continue the sacrifice ceremony. However, the "cacique" (chief) of the Timbiras tells the old man that they no longer want the Tupi warrior to be sacrificed, since he begged for mercy and thus is a coward. Angered, the old man curses his son, saying that he is the disgrace of the Tupi tribe. The son cannot stand his father's hate, and suddenly wages war all alone against the whole Timbira tribe. The old man listens to his son's war screams and realizes that he is fighting with honor.The battle is only finished when the Timbira "cacique" recognizes the valor of his enemy and says:
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Harper" title="Dragon Harper">
Similar to "" and "Nerilka's Story" (near the end of the Sixth Pass), this book is set in a time of a pandemic that threatens human life on Pern (just before the third return of Thread, or Third Pass).The story focuses on the character Kindan, featured in "Dragon's Kin", who has taken a position as an apprentice at the Harper Hall. In the school-like setting, Kindan has to deal with a bully, a blossoming forbidden relationship, and his role as a protector for new female apprentices after the Masterharper breaks the former taboo against female harpers. The book then deals with an influenza-like pandemic that threatens the lives of holders, as the Weyrs must maintain a quarantine to keep their rosters healthy enough to fight the next Threadfall.The story additionally explains the loss of many of the records kept prior to, during and after colonization, further reducing the Pernese connection with its off-planet origins.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savage_Messiah_(novel)" title="Savage Messiah (novel)">
The story begins with the revelation that Wulfgar, half brother to both Tristan and Shailiha, lives but is horribly scarred. He returns to the Citadel, where his wife and unborn child await, and he can plan his revenge. Meanwhile, the Orb of the Vigors is damaged and is literally burning a path across Eutracia. Tristan and his Conclave set out to stop the Orb and Wulfgar.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Road_Ends" title="When the Road Ends">
Twelve-year-old Mary Jack is in the foster home of a conscientious but clueless Episcopal priest, Father Matt, and his selfish troubled wife Jill. Also in their care is the silent Jane, a seven-year-old girl who had been abused. The house becomes further troubled by the introduction of an Adam, age 14; but when Matt's injured sister comes to live with them, Jill threatens to leave. In order to save his marriage, Matt sends the children and his sister to live in a cabin in the mountains, supposedly with the help of a mean housekeeper who abandons them. They are forced to work together and become a family, with Mary Jack becoming the reluctant "adult" while still trying to reclaim her own childhood.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_Image_(novel)" title="Mirror Image (novel)">
When Victoria's reputation is seriously at risk the only way to retrieve it is by marrying the handsome lawyer Charles Dawson, who also works with the girls' father, Edward Henderson. Olivia is inclined to stay and help their father, who is ill, but Victoria needs her the most when her marriage seems to be failing. It is not helped by Charles's 10-year-old son, Geoffrey, who is still distraught after losing his mother Susan, Charles' first wife, on the "Titanic".When Victoria proposes an unthinkable plan, Olivia is forced to accept, leaving her with a marriage she never thought she could have and her sister going off to help in France, when World War I is in full throttle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wolves_of_Willoughby_Chase" title="The Wolves of Willoughby Chase">
The story is set at Willoughby Chase, the grand home of Sir Willoughby and Lady Green and their daughter Bonnie.Due to Lady Green's ill health, Bonnie's parents are taking a holiday in warmer climates touring the Mediterranean by ship, leaving her in the care of a newly arrived distant fourth cousin, Letitia Slighcarp. Also, due to arrive is Bonnie's orphan cousin Sylvia, who lived in London with Sir Willoughby's impoverished but genteel older sister Jane, coming to keep her cousin company in her parents' absence. Sylvia is nervous about the long train ride into the snowy countryside, especially when wolves menace the stopped train, but once she arrives, the cousins become instant friends. The robust and adventurous Bonnie is eager to show Sylvia the delights of country life, and they embark on an ice-skating expedition almost immediately. Although the adventure ends on a scary note—the girls are chased by the ever-present wolves—all is well thanks to Simon, a resourceful boy who lives on his own in a cave, raising geese and bees.The girls soon learn that the blissful existence they anticipate together is not to last. With the help of Mr. Grimshaw, a mysterious man from the train, Miss Slighcarp takes over the household, dismissing all but the most untrustworthy household servants, threatening to arrest those who defy her, wearing Lady Green's gowns and tampering with Sir Willoughby's legal papers. This is the cause for Bonnie to continuously lose her temper. Bonnie and Sylvia also overhear ominous hints about their parents' ship, which has sunk, perhaps intentionally. Bonnie and Sylvia are not without allies: James, the clever footman, who spies on Miss Slighcarp for the girls; Pattern, Bonnie's loving and beloved maid; and the woodcrafty Simon. With their friends, the girls plan to alert the kindly and sensible local doctor to the crimes of Miss Slighcarp and Mr. Grimshaw, but Miss Slighcarp foils the scheme and sends them to a nearby industrial town, to a dismal and horrid orphanage run by the even more horrid Mrs. Brisket and her pretentious, spoiled, unscrupulous and abusive daughter, Diana.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_Above_the_World" title="Up Above the World">
In the middle of their journey Dr Slade and his wife have a chance encounter with an important looking lady who tells them that she is going to visit her son. Arriving by ship at a provincial town in an unnamed Latin American country, they find that accommodation is sparse, and so Mrs Slade agrees to share a room with her at some seedy hotel for just one night. During that night, the lady is murdered with an injection of curare, but when the Slades leave very early the next morning to catch a connection, Mrs Slade erroneously believes the woman lying next to her is still fast asleep.A few days later, in another town, they read in the paper that the hotel burned down immediately after they had left and that the woman died in the fire. No one suspects the real reason, arson, which was committed to cover up the murder. This is when Dr and Mrs Slade make the acquaintance of Grove Soto, a charming and seemingly rich young man who offers them his hospitality. When it turns out that the recently deceased woman was his mother and Soto feigns shock at her premature death, the Americans have no idea that it was actually him who had her killed out of greed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Kali" title="The Age of Kali">
The book is a collection of essays collected through almost a decade of travel around the Indian subcontinent.It deals with many controversial subjects such as Sati, the caste wars in India, political corruption and terrorism.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Banks_of_Plum_Creek" title="On the Banks of Plum Creek">
Having left their little house on the Kansas prairie, the Ingalls family travels by covered wagon to Minnesota and settles on the banks of Plum Creek. Pa trades two ponies for a dugout and a stable. Later, Pa trades for two new horses as Christmas presents for his family, which Laura and her sister, Mary name Sam and David. Pa soon builds a new, above-ground, wooden house for his family, trusting that their first crop of wheat will pay for the lumber and materials.Now that they live near a town, Laura and Mary go to school for the first time. There they make friends, and also meet the town storekeeper's daughter, Nellie Oleson, who makes fun of Laura and Mary for being "country girls." Laura and Mary attend a party at the Oleson's home. There, Nellie acts selfishly and grabs the biggest piece of cake. Later, Ma has Laura and Mary invite all the girls (including Nellie) to a party at their house to reciprocate where Nellie is mean to Jack, the Ingalls’ dog, and speaks mean to Ma so her legs get covered with "bloodsuckers" (leeches) in return for what she did. The Ingalls go through very hard times when locusts decimate the much-anticipated wheat crop, and lay so many eggs that there is no hope of a crop the following year. For two harvest seasons, Pa is forced to walk east to find work on farms that escaped the Locust Plague of 1874. Laura and her sister have to quit school because it closed when the locusts arrived.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainforest_(novel)" title="Rainforest (novel)">
Mo Singleton grows up in rural Sussex as the only child of John Singleton, a scientist and university lecturer, and Marjorie, a housewife. When Mo is still quite young, her father confides in her by telling her that he is betraying his incompetent and simplistic wife with a colleague at the university. Up to her father's premature death at 45 and beyond, Mo is able to keep their secret without once meeting her father's lover.Following in his footsteps, Mo studies biology and moves to London, where she gets a job at a university. She enjoys teaching first-year students, especially challenging their faulty assumptions about nature and explaining to them what man's role in the big cycle of things really is. She visits her widowed mother in the country every once in a while and spends pleasant weekends with her, has a satisfactory relationship with her boyfriend Luke, a biochemist, and has started making plans for, and is very much looking forward to, her research project which will take her to an isolated spot in the tropical rainforest that covers large parts of the island of Borneo.When, shortly before her departure, she meets Joe Yates, who has been hired as her replacement for the six-month period she will be gone, Mo is both appalled and attracted by his directness but rejects his overt sexual advances as well as his fatalistic philosophy of life. In Borneo, she behaves very professionally, fervently believing that through her academic work she will increase the sum total of human knowledge about the tropical rainforest.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_Felix_Krull" title="Confessions of Felix Krull">
The novel is narrated by the protagonist, an impostor and adventurer named Felix Krull, the son of a ruined Rhineland winemaker. Felix avoids military service and makes his way to France, where he takes a job in a prestigious hotel, first as an elevator operator, then as a waiter. Deftly using his natural charm, good looks, and subtle intelligence, the young man easily wins the heart of a rich writer, as well as part of her money. Later, Krull meets the young Marquis de Venosta and undertakes to help him in his love affairs; he substitutes for the Marquis on a trip around the world. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plague_Court_Murders" title="The Plague Court Murders">
Ken Blake is approached by an old friend, Dean Halliday, who tells the story of his family estate, Plague Court. Halliday explains that the house is haunted by the ghost of the original owner, Louis Playge, a hangman by profession. Halliday invites Blake and Chief-Inspector Humphrey Masters to Plague Court to take part in a seance, run by psychic Roger Darworth and his medium Joseph.However, Darworth is a fake, being monitored by the police. The night of the seance, Darworth locks himself in a small stone house, behind Plague Court, while the seance proceeds. When Masters and Blake go to get him, he has been stabbed to death, with the dagger of Louis Playge.But all the doors and windows are bolted and locked, and thirty feet of mud surrounds the house, unbroken—and all the suspects have been holding hands in the seance.The only one who can solve the crime is locked room expert Sir Henry Merrivale.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bridge_to_Wiseman's_Cove" title="A Bridge to Wiseman's Cove">
When Carl Matt's mother, Kerry Matt, disappears, his sister Sarah sends him and his brother Harley to Wattle Beach to live with their Aunt Beryl. Aunt Beryl doesn't want them to stay with her and after numerous encounters with the police she says Carl has to get a job to pay his Aunt. He later is rejected. He learns this is because his grandfather had an accident that crippled Skip for life, and accidentally killed his son. After some consideration, Skip reluctantly lets Carl work on the barge.After numerous events that boost the popularity of Skip's barge, it is eventually revealed that a bridge will be built and therefore put all barges out of business.In the end, it is discovered that Kerry Matt died in a bus accident when she was trying to get home to her children, Sarah, Harley and Carl. Once this is unearthed, Carl returns home to find that Aunt Beryl has run off in true Matt spirit to join her boyfriend, Bruce. Because Carl has nowhere else to stay, Joy Duncan invites him to come and live with them at Wiseman's Cove with his brother, Harley, who has already claimed the Duncans as his surrogate family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Life_of_Grange_Copeland" title="The Third Life of Grange Copeland">
As a poor sharecropper, Grange is virtually a slave; in cotton-era Baker County, Georgia, the more he works, the more money he ends up owing to the man who owns the fields he works and the house he lives in. Eventually life becomes too much for him and he runs away from his debts to start a new life up North, leaving his family.After declining a loan from a white landowner which he knows he can't pay back, Brownfield begins to head North on foot to follow in his father's footsteps. Brownfield is led to a woman named Josie who owns and operates a lounge/brothel called the Dew Drop Inn (in some printings, the Dewey Inn). Brownfield winds up sharing a bed with Josie, her daughter Lorene, and Josie's deceased sister's daughter Mem. Brownfield takes a liking to Mem and eventually marries her under the disapproving Josie's nose.Brownfield beats and eventually kills Meme (sometimes printed as "Mem") and is jailed for an arbitrary seven years. Grange finds the North unfulfilling and returns to Baker County, which is the only place he knows of as home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Criminal_Reason" title="Critique of Criminal Reason">
Years after Immanuel Kant published his "Critique of Pure Reason" but now rumours say that the philosopher is about to release another book. This book will be different than all others because it will examine the concept of serial killers.Meanwhile the German city of Königsberg, where Kant lives, is gripped by a series of murders. Prosecutor Hanno Stiffeniis is ordered by King Frederick William III himself to investigate the crimes and bring the murderer to justice. Stiffeniis is aided in his quest by Immanuel Kant, as well as a local police sergeant.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Star_(novel)" title="Fire Star (novel)">
Tension is rising at the Pennykettles as Lucy is suddenly kidnapped by a long-forgotten rival. This 'rival' wishes to raise the ancient dragon Gawain from his stone-laden resting place. Over time Lucy is there, she goes through extreme changes. Gwilanna knew this would happen as Lucy began to look like Guinevere, her ancestor.After a sudden bear attack and the news about Lucy, David returns home to help Liz overcome this rough time. In the middle of a serious conversation with Liz, David receives a heartbreaking phone call. He has just learned Zanna, his girlfriend, has just been taken by bears. Under all this pressure, David breaks down. Liz soothes him in dragonsong, the ancient soothing method Guinevere used on the ancient dragon Gawain.While David is home, Grockle suddenly awakens to find the window opened. Curious as he was, he flies out of the window. Nobody could prevent it, even David. Lucy is not having a good time at all. She decides to explore the cave of Gawain when Gwilanna leaves one day. She pushed around and discovers a secret hideaway she thinks her ancestor, Gwendolen, used. Eventually, she falls asleep by the bones of Gwendolen and a bear that guarded her. An old female bear ventures into the cave to hibernate, down into the hideaway, and decides to follow the dead bear's example. She guards Lucy as she sleeps.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fire_Eternal" title="The Fire Eternal">
In the Arctic: Slowly the ice is changing; bears are starving; dragons are rising; and the souls of the Inuit dead are haunting the skies. The spirit Gaia, goddess of the Earth, is restless, aching to bring her might down upon these changes. But all living things may suffer if she does. As the weather grows wilder and the ice caps melt, all eyes turn from the north to David's daughter, Alexa. She is the key to stopping it . . .But can one girl save the world from the forces of evil or will she disappear like her father?The book opens with a short chapter about how the Earth, Gaia, is beginning to get restless, and then goes to explain Zanna's sadness about David being gone. She gives the invisible and shapeless dragon G'lant, which David gave to her at the end of Fire Star, to her daughter Alexa. Since David's apparent death, Zanna has been trying to get back on her feet. She bought a New Age shop called the Healing Touch and is living with the Pennykettles in David's old room. While Zanna is at her shop one night, Lucy sneaks into her room, and steals a letter that Zanna wrote to David. Every year on Valentine's Day, the day that David died, Zanna writes a letter to David telling him all of the events that are going on in the house. When Lucy reads the letter, she feels the need to do something to tell the world that David is not dead. So she writes an E-mail to a man named Tam Farell, whose role is not yet revealed, telling him to go the Healing Touch and ask for Zanna.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pig_Scrolls" title="The Pig Scrolls">
After all the Olympian gods go missing, Sibyl has a premonition in which the sun god Apollo tells her to find "the talking pig". Sibyl then sets out looking for the talking pig, Gryllus. She finds him first at an auction where she buys him for 200 drachmas then Gryllus runs away and he winds up at Big Stavros's Kebab bar where he is forced to entertain customers and where Sibyl takes him back. Together they set off for the temple at Delphi. Apollo informs Sibyl that she and Gryllus must find a goatherd boy living on top of a mountain. Once Sibyl and Gryllus find the goatherd, (who turns out to be the god Zeus) they set off once more for Apollo's temple at Delphi. It is there that Gryllus, the talking pig, must save the world from utter destruction.Additional: What the author had to say about his work:“I got the idea for The Pig Scrolls when I was rereading Homer's Odyssey and found myself more interested in some of the non-heroic characters in the background. Working on the book gave me a chance to revisit a world I have always loved—that of ancient mythology and history. And, of course, in order to research the character of Gryllus fully, I was forced to eat a huge number of pies.”
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swords_of_Zinjaban" title="The Swords of Zinjaban">
Fergus Reith, the main Terran tour guide on Krishna, is at the spaceport of Novorecife to meet his latest clients, the advance party for Cosmic Productions. Cosmic is an earthly motion picture company planning to shoot the first movie on the planet, a gaudy swashbuckler to be titled "Swords Under Three Moons". Fergus is surprised to find among the party his ex-wife Alicia Dyckman, who left Krishna twenty years before; she in turn is surprised to find him the father of a teenage son, Alister, by a later wife now deceased. Fergus learns Alicia has undergone psychotherapy to correct the personality flaws that had doomed their marriage, and that moreover she is the one who recommended his services to the film company.Alicia introduces Fergus to her colleagues, Cyril Ordway and Jacob White, and soon the two are squiring them around the local realms to scout filming locations and hire locals as extras, including a company of soldiers for the battle scenes. In addition to the usual complications of mediating between egocentric Terrans and temperamental Krisnans, the ex-lovers warily attempt to sort out their feelings for each other, a task rendered all the more difficult because others are also interested in Alicia—and they keep running into Fergus’ old flames at awkward moments!
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Cross_(novel)" title="Double Cross (novel)">
Four years prior to the beginning of the story, Kyle Craig is sent to prison for his crimes in "Roses Are Red" and "Violets Are Blue" and swears revenge upon Detective Alex Cross, who was responsible for his capture. In the present day, Alex Cross is on a date with police officer, Brianna 'Bree' Stone, when they are interrupted by the news of crime-writer author Tess Olsen's death. Upon arriving in Washington, D.C., Alex decides to help, even though he is no longer a detective. The investigators find a Hallmark greeting card and a tape featuring the killer throwing Olsen from a balcony in her apartment. In the video, the killer turns toward the camera and says "In your honor." Alex, Bree, and John Sampson, Alex's best friend and co-worker, discover that the footage of the murder was used twice. Later, the murderer goes to a play and kills Matthew Jay Walker, an actor, and posts videos of his murders on the internet. Alex realizes that the murderer wants an audience, and therefore is nicknamed "DCAK" (an abbreviation of "DC Audience Killer"). At his psychology practice, Alex talks to Sandy Quinlan, a sex-crazed woman and meets another patient, Anthony Demao. Anthony is a war-veteran who killed his partner, Matthew, after Matthew had ordered him to due to his terminal health.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bones_of_Zora" title="The Bones of Zora">
Fergus Reith, prime Terran tour guide on the planet Krishna, finds himself between tours and on a somewhat different job, working with Aristide Marot, a French paleontologist out to unravel the mysteries of Krishnan vertebrate evolution. Marot is particularly interested in the era when life first emerged from the seas; as Krishna's surface is mostly land and its bodies of water are separated from each other, he theorizes the planet's animal species could have multiple origins.Fergus guides Marot to the most promising fossil-bearing site, near the town of Kubyab on the banks of the upper Zora River in the Dashtate of Chilihagh. There they find a rival, Marot's competitor Warren Foltz, who is fanatically attached to a rival theory and is not averse to destroying contrary evidence. Moreover, Foltz is being assisted by xenologist Alicia Dyckman, to whom Fergus had formerly been wed in a stormy marriage culminating in divorce. The cause was Alicia's contentious and overbearing personality; convinced she always knew best, she had interfered with Fergus's tours to the point that he had finally barred her from participating.Miserable, at an emotional low ebb, and exploited by Foltz, Alicia now regrets having left Fergus, but their jobs keep them in continued opposition. Reith's scientific adventure is thus beset by skullduggery, violence, and tempestuous personal relations. Blessed with beginner's luck, he actually discovers a fossil supporting Marot's theory, which Foltz endeavors to hijack and break up.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattail_Moon" title="Cattail Moon">
Julia Foster gets a chance to break away from her domineering mother for a while by moving from Seattle to a small village in the Cascades called Moon Valley, to live with her father and grandmother. While trying to decide on the course of her life, especially whether she can have a career in music despite her mother's disapproval, she happens on a mysterious figure of an old-fashioned girl at night in the marsh by her house. And she meets Luke, a boy whose fate is tied to the girl in ways he doesn't want to explain to Julia, even though a true affection is blossoming between them. Julia must find the strength to make decisions about herself, her mother, and Luke, and investigating the mystery of the ghost of the marsh may be the way to sort things out.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Books_of_the_Dream_Eaters" title="The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters">
The book follows three main characters, Miss Celestial "Celeste" Temple, Cardinal Chang, and Captain-Surgeon Abelard Svenson, as they attempt to thwart the mysterious plot of a sinister cabal. There are ten chapters in the book, and each is from the point of view of one of the main characters. Chang and Svenson get three chapters each and Miss Temple gets four (the novel both starts and ends from her point of view).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer,_Go_Home!" title="Pioneer, Go Home!">
The Kwimper family of Cranberry County, New Jersey is on a vacation in Columbiana when their car runs out of gas. Somewhere along the way, the Kwimpers had made a wrong turn and ended up on an unfinished highway. While waiting for assistance to arrive they set up shacks on the side of the road.The Kwimper clan consists of Pop Kwimper who has lived his entire life off government welfare programs such as unemployment compensation and Aid to Families with Dependent Children, his happy-go-lucky son Toby Kwimper (whose "Strength is as the strength of ten because his heart is pure"), adopted identical twins Eddy and Teddy that nobody can tell apart (and whose parents "tried to beat a train to a crossing and only came out tied"), and the family babysitter Holly Jones.When confronted by state officials and treated poorly Pop Kwimper decides that the family will settle on the side of the highway permanently. Pop learns of old homesteading statutes in the state and determines that he has a legal right to occupy the land.The novel revolves around the family's comical battles with the government, as they establish their lives on the untitled land and are eventually joined by other pioneers. The family also contends with meddling social workers, their own poverty, a hurricane, and a group of gangsters that tries to squat on nearby land to run an illegal casino.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_March_into_Darkness" title="A March into Darkness">
The story tells of Prince Tristan, as he is summoned by the Heretics to join them beyond the Tolenka Mountains. It is there they promise to help him discover his destiny. To help spur the prince along they send Xanthus, a binary being (half-man, half darkling), to torture the citizens of Eutracia until Tristan agrees to go.Meanwhile, Serena plots her revenge against those who worship the Vigors. She personally plans to kill Tristan for the death of her husband Wulfgar and their stillborn daughter, Clarice. With the help of the Heretics, to whom she is now able to commune with, Serena sets a plan into motion that will rock the Conclave to its very core.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igraine_the_Brave" title="Igraine the Brave">
Igraine lives in an old castle with her family, magicians who possess powerful books of magic. Her older brother Albert is following in the family line, but Igraine plans to be a knight one day, even though she feels there is not much adventure to be had at home these days. Her ancestors, though, had warded off many attempts to steal the books of magic.On her 12th birthday, Igraine's parents give her a magical suit of armor, but in the process, they are turned into pigs by mistake. Matters get worse when the next-door Baroness's castle is taken over by Osmond the Greedy, who wants to take the magical books so he can overthrow the king. Igraine and her brother must find a way to defend the castle from Osmond's siege while keeping their parents' condition secret and searching for the missing ingredient for their restoration to human form. Albert handles the castle's magical defenses while Igraine leaves to find the missing ingredient. She finds the ingredient and some assistance, in the form of the Sorrowful Knight of the Mount of Tears, who not only agrees to help her return home but also begins teaching her about the rules of chivalry, and eventually helps Igraine and her family end the siege.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beginning_with_a_Bash" title="Beginning with a Bash">
It's a cold winter in Boston, and Peters's secondhand bookstore has a sign that says "Come in and browse -- it's warm inside". The sign attracts the attention of Martin Jones, who's not only chilly but being chased by the police because his former boss, Professor North, has accused him of stealing $50,000 from the Anthropology Society. Inside the bookstore, he meets a former teacher from his days at Meredith Academy; Leonidas Witherall, "the man who looks like Shakespeare", who had lost all his money in the stock market crash of 1929, and become the bookstore's janitor. The bookstore's new owner is a pretty young redhead of Jones's acquaintance. After the departure of a book thief and a car accident outside, Professor North's body is discovered in the religion section. Witherall and company—which soon includes a wealthy Boston dowager, North's sassy maid Gert, and Gert's mobster boyfriend Freddy—spend the evening tracking down clues to the murderer's identity and trying to stay out of the clutches of Freddy's rival gang. Under Witherall's supervision, the group solves the murder and forces a confession from the murderer just in time to save Jones from the police.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cut_Direct" title="The Cut Direct">
It's a snowy day in Dalton (a New England town near Boston) and someone's trying to run over Leonidas Witherall, "the man who looks like Shakespeare". He's saved by brassy young Margie and her muscular boyfriend Cuff, but he promptly escapes them and is knocked down by another car. When he awakens, he's in the home of Bennington Brett, a former pupil, who is sitting stabbed in front of him. Witherall assembles a crew including the dead man's secretary, the lovely Miss Dallas Tring, two neighbors, Stanton Kaye, and dotty housewife Mrs. Price (who owns the fatal carving knife), whose new maid is Margie. Together, the group races around Dalton in pursuit of clues and suspects, comes dangerously close to the second murder, and resolves matters by delivering the criminals to the police complete with confessions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Steal" title="Cold Steal">
It's a winter day in Dalton (a New England town near Boston) and Leonidas Witherall, "the man who looks like Shakespeare", is returning to his new house, which he's never seen. He's inherited money from an uncle and toured the world, and left plans for his home to be built while on his travels, but now he must return home and produce the next volume of the adventures of Lieutenant Haseltine. On the train to Dalton, he meets a mousy woman named Miss Chard (known to all as Swiss Chard) and a beautiful young woman with a brown paper package and a secret. His new home proves a delight, and it includes a kitchen filled with red appliances, a library with ladders, and a garage complete with the pickaxed corpse of Medora, the crabby next-door neighbor. Leonidas assembles a gang of assistants, including dotty housewife Cassie Price and former car thief Cuff (who has reformed and joined the police force). Together, they defend Witherall's new red refrigerator against thieves, track down the missing envelope of money and bring the murderer to justice.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Left_Leg" title="The Left Leg">
It's a winter day in Dalton (a New England town near Boston) and Leonidas Witherall, "the man who looks like Shakespeare", is stepping off a bus after having been accused of bothering a beautiful young woman in a scarlet wimple (who promptly becomes known as the Scarlet Wimpernel). He takes refuge in a hardware store run by a former student, Lincoln Potter. Potter is inclined to be helpful, until the Wimpernel's purse is discovered in Witherall's pocket and Witherall is incautious enough to admit that he saw Potter's cash register being emptied by a man in a green satin suit carrying a small harp. He heads for the home of a former teaching colleague, Marcus Meredith, and finds him murdered—and missing his artificial left leg. Potter is enlisted by Witherall for help in solving the murder, along with intrepid housewife Topsey Beaton. Together they deceive an entire rummage sale, enlist the Scarlet Wimpernel to play a role, find the man in green satin, locate the left leg, and solve the murder.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hollow_Chest" title="The Hollow Chest">
It's Egg Day in Dalton (a New England town near Boston) and Leonidas Witherall, "the man who looks like Shakespeare", returns home from shepherding some students on an Egg Day outing to find his house ransacked, his safe open, and a beautiful blonde bound and gagged on his bed. While he's distracted by the police, she escapes. Then a wealthy neighbor asks him to run an unusual errand, promising his school an endowment if he does so—in full evening dress, he meets the blonde on a Dalton corner and relieves her of a hollow chest that looks much heavier than it is. Moments later, he discovers a bludgeoned body in a nearby car. He enlists the assistance of plucky Luzzy Jenkins and oafish soldier Goldie to investigate, among other things, the affairs of Goldie's general, a horse named George, a blonde named George, a bank president and a young student named Threewit. Together they explain all the bizarre coincidences and solve the murder.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_for_Record" title="File for Record">
It's a rainy day in Dalton (a New England town near Boston) and Leonidas Witherall, "the man who looks like Shakespeare", is off to Haymaker's Department Store to retrieve his umbrella at the Lost and Found. When he enters the Lost and Found department, he's knocked unconscious and awakens in a horse-drawn bakery cart filled with French bread. While answering a call for his services as an air raid warden, he decides to call on Mr. Haymaker himself to complain, only to find Haymaker stabbed with a samurai sword. He enlists the assistance of Constance "Pink" Lately, a housewife clutching a Lady Baltimore cake, Jinx the red-headed Haymaker's elevator girl, and many of the participants in a "Victory Swap Meet" to track down an embezzler, a code thief and a murderer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Ernest_(novel)" title="Dead Ernest (novel)">
Leonidas Witherall, "the man who looks like Shakespeare", is writing the final words of the latest adventure of Lieutenant Hazeltine when his housekeeper Mrs. Mullet interrupts to offer her "candied opinion". The next interruption is two men who deliver an unwanted deep freeze and leave, followed by a blonde in an evening gown and an orchid corsage who mistakenly serenades him with "Happy Birthday". The deep freeze proves to contain the dead body of Ernest Finger, the French teacher at Meredith's Academy, which Witherall has recently inherited. Witherall musters an unlikely gang of associates, including Sonia Mullet, her boyfriend and half the Finger family, to trace the trail of the moving Finger corpse and identify the murderer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Clew" title="The Iron Clew">
Leonidas Witherall, "the man who looks like Shakespeare", is writing the latest adventure of Lieutenant Hazeltine when his housekeeper Mrs. Mullet interrupts to offer her "candied opinion". He then prepares to leave for a dinner to which he's been invited in his persona as a bank director, held at the home of banker Fenwick Balderston, when he notices that a brown-paper parcel of bank papers has disappeared. Upon arrival at Balderston's, he finds the banker has been bashed with a bronze bust of Shakespeare. Assisted by plucky housewife Liz Copley and gang of other assistants, Witherall races around the town of Dalton and tracks down a missing dinosaur footprint, a copy of "Tamerlane", the bank documents and the murderer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_at_the_New_York_World's_Fair" title="Murder at the New York World's Fair">
Mrs. Daisy Tower is 67, the widow of a former governor, and for the last year has undergone the untender attentions of her nephew Egleston and his overbearing wife Elfrida during her convalescence from pneumonia and a broken hip. That might explain why she stows away in a laundry truck headed for Boston, but it doesn't really explain how she finds herself confronting a dead body aboard the private train of art collector Conrad Cassell, en route to the New York World's Fair. She and her fellow passengers find themselves in a screwball comedy fix, set against the pageantry of opening day under the shadow of the Fair's spectacular trylon. Daisy must not only identify the corpse and the murderer, but save the Fair from destruction by a maniac—and find a way to get Egleston and Elfrida out of her hair.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Favor" title="Small Favor">
One year after the events in "White Night", Dresden is confronted by Queen Mab calling in one of the favors owed her by Harry: that he be her "Emissary," and protect John Marcone. Despite repeated attacks by gruffs—soldiers in service of Summer—he tracks Marcone's movements across the city. He finds Hendricks and Ms. Gard at one of Marcone's safe houses, having survived an attack by the Denarians, whom he learns have abducted Marcone. Ms. Gard formally requests that the White Council file an objection to the abduction of one signatory of the Unseelie Accords by another. Luccio, captain of the Wardens, agrees to bring in the Archive (a twelve-year-old girl Harry named "Ivy") as a neutral party.Dresden meets Murphy at McAnally's. After he updates her, a huge gruff enters to challenge Dresden to a duel, and is saved by Murphy invoking her duties as a law officer. While Thomas is distracting the gruffs, Dresden confronts Ms. Gard and convinces her to tell him of a case of blood samples kept in a locker at Union Station. Harry and Michael are attacked at Union station by Winter minions and the elder gruff but recover the samples. Grievously wounded, the elder gruff leaves, warning Dresden that the eldest brother gruff will kill him. Harry also meets up with Ivy the Archive, her bodyguard Kincaid, and Warden Captain Luccio, who retreat to the safety of Dresden’s warded apartment.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hand_in_the_Glove" title="The Hand in the Glove">
Theodolinda "Dol" Bonner is half of the Bonner and Raffray Detective Agency. She claims to have been "inoculated against" men and has no use for them, even her perennial suitor, newspaperman Len Chisholm. Her business partner, Sylvia Raffray, doesn't know much about detection but is the firm's financial backer. As the story begins, Len has just been fired from his job at the instigation of Sylvia's guardian, financier P.L. Storrs, who also controls Sylvia's money for the next six months and thus insists that she withdraw her financial support of the detective agency.Strangely, Storrs asks Dol Bonner to join a house party at his place in the country. Other family members present are Storrs' wife Cleo, who "goes in for cults", and his daughter Janet, who is plain, quiet and writes poetry. Sylvia's fiance Martin, who is a neighbor, and his friend Professor Zimmerman have joined the party, and George Ranth, of the "League of the Occidental Sakti", is Mrs. Storrs' guest and financial parasite.Storrs' problem is that Ranth is pressuring Mrs. Storrs to let him marry Janet and thus become Storrs' heir. He hires Dol to discredit Ranth in Mrs. Storrs' eyes, and proposes that she pretend to be investigating the killing of some pheasants at Martin's estate as a cover story. Dol accepts the task and arrives at the Storrs estate, but before she gets too deeply involved in the task, she comes across the murdered body of her host and employer, who has been brutally strangled with wire and hung from a branch. She soon recognizes that in order to commit the murder, the murderer must have worn heavy gloves to avoid cutting his hands with the wire. She immediately searches the house for the gloves, dodging the police, and finds them—bizarrely, concealed inside a watermelon in the garden.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Land_of_the_Silver_Apples" title="The Land of the Silver Apples">
Jack and his companions take Lucy to a shrine where the demons she is believed to harbor may be cast out, but things go badly wrong. Lucy is abducted by the Lady of the Lake and Jack must follow her underground to the lands of the hobgoblins and elves. He meets Thorgil again and, with her and a new friend, Pega, must face tests beyond anything they can imagine. They must learn to see through the enchantments of the elves (who are the fallen angels) and to face still darker powers in the underworld.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggs_(novel)" title="Eggs (novel)">
Nine year old David Limpert's mother, Carolyn, slips on a wet floor without a wet floor sign, falls down the stairs, and dies. David's family, consisting of his grandmother Margaret, his father, and himself, moves from Minnesota to Perkiomen Township, Pennsylvania. He becomes quiet, sensitive, and attached to an idea that if he follows every law and rule (some of which he arbitrarily created) perfectly, then his mother may come back. David's father, a sales manager, only comes home on the weekends; so he is raised by his loving grandmother, who he disrespects and ignores completely. David's grandmother takes him to an Easter Egg hunt, much to his disappointment. While hunting for eggs, he finds a beautiful girl resting underneath the leaves by some trees. When David asks if she's dead, she makes no response. Believing she really is dead, he starts talking about himself. Eventually he leaves, thinking a newspaper will carry the news of her death. However, it turns out the girl is alive - she is a thirteen year old named Primrose Dufee, who defies all rules. She has no father but a fortune-telling mother. In a short time, the two children become great friends. Primrose lives in a 1977 van instead of a home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dragon_Waiting" title="The Dragon Waiting">
The novel is a fantasy alternate history combining vampires, the Medicis, and the convoluted English politics surrounding Edward IV and Richard III. The book also fictionalizes the fate of the Princes in the Tower.Edward IV is on the throne of England, but in this alternate world, medieval Europe is dominated by the threat from the Byzantine Empire. During the 4th century CE, Julian the Apostate reigned longer than he did in our world, succeeded in displacing Christianity and reintroduced religious pluralism within the Roman Empire, resulting in the subsequent disappearance of Islam as well. Without any cohesive threat from the east, presumably Byzantium was able to survive, consolidate its authority and expand.Sforza, the Vampire Duke, marshals his forces for his long-planned attack on Florence, and Byzantium is on the march. Gregory, a mercenary, Dimi, the exiled heir to the Byzantine throne; Cynthia, a young physician forced to flee Florence, and Hywel, a Welsh wizard, nephew of Owain Gly Dwr, seem to have no common goals but together they wage an intrigue-filled campaign against the might of Byzantium, striving to secure the English throne for Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and make him Richard III.This succeeds, and Richard III goes on to win the Battle of Bosworth in this alternate universe, killing Henry Tudor and ensuring that he never becomes Henry VII as he did in the reality. At that point, the book ends.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Cat" title="Mountain Cat">
Delia Brand, the protagonist, is a beautiful young woman living in tiny Cody, Wyoming. Delia is determined to avenge the tragic deaths of her parents; her prospector father's by shooting and her mother's suicide from grief. When she believes she knows the culprit, she buys some cartridges and announces her intention to shoot a man. After discussing her intentions with her uncle Quinby Pellet, the town taxidermist, Delia goes to visit her sister, Clara.Clara Brand is secretary to Dan Jackson, who runs a grubstaking business for local prospectors, and has just lost her job. In the middle of Delia's argument with Dan, she hears noises outside the office and discovers that Quin has been knocked unconscious by someone whom he hasn't seen. After dealing with the doctor and the police, Delia returns to her car to find that her gun and cartridges have been stolen.Dan Jackson's father-in-law Lem Sammis is Delia's godfather, Delia goes to see him and his brassy wife Evelina to get Clara's job back. Lem agrees and gives Delia a note to Dan to say so. When Delia returns to the office to confront Dan once again, she finds him dead and is arrested for his murder, due to her earlier incautious statements.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Far_Shore_of_Time" title="The Far Shore of Time">
American government agent Dan Dannerman has been imprisoned, tortured, and repeatedly duplicated by his jailers, the "Beloved Leaders", a species that enslaves or destroys the other species they meet. "The Far Shore of Time" opens with the "Horch", rivals of the Beloved Leaders, occupying the zoo planet where Dannerman is being held captive. Dannerman is rescued, although initially the Horch treat him in much the same way the Beloved Leaders did: keeping him isolated and under interrogation. Eventually he is treated as a guest, given medical attention, and begins to make friends among the other freed prisoners.Dannerman recovers from his ordeal and learns more about the Horch, the Beloved Leaders, and other species involved in their war. He collects information and technology, while looking for an opportunity to return to Earth and warn humanity about the coming of the Beloved Leaders. When Dannerman is asked to assist in preparing one of the former prisoners to infiltrate the Beloved Leaders he sees an opportunity to return home. He presents the plan to the Horch, and although they do not agree to it he is able to bluff his way through. He ends up back on Earth aboard one of the stealth submarines that the Beloved Leaders have placed on Earth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Run_(novel)" title="On the Run (novel)">
When Ben's cousins, whom he lives with, are unwell, he is forced to spend the summer with his father and stepmother-to-be. They live in London and have little time to spend with Ben. So Ben decides to explore the gardens of the terrace houses in his street. He walks along the walls connecting all the houses until he comes to one covered in jagged glass. Ben then falls into the garden and meets Thomas, a young boy from Tiga, who is being kept in London, while his father, Chief Okapi, is exiled there. When Ben discovers a plot to kidnap Thomas, he, Thomas and Lil (a friend of Thomas) decide to run away.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lincoln_Lawyer" title="The Lincoln Lawyer">
Moderately successful criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller operates around Los Angeles County out of a Lincoln Town Car (hence the title) driven by a former client working off his legal fees. While most of his clients are drug dealers and gangsters, the story focuses on an unusually important case of wealthy Los Angeles realtor Louis Roulet, accused of assault and attempted murder. At first, he appears to be innocent and set up by the female "victim".Roulet's lies and many surprising revelations change Haller's original case theory. He reconsiders the situation of Jesus Menendez, a former client serving time in San Quentin State Prison after pleading guilty to a similar and mysteriously related crime.Haller outmaneuvers Roulet (revealed to be a rapist and murderer) without violating ethical obligations, frees the innocent Menendez, and continues in legal practice. He also conducts much self-examination and acquires some emotional baggage.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur's_Teacher_Trouble" title="Arthur's Teacher Trouble">
On the first day of school, Arthur and his classmates are given homework by a gay teacher Mr. Ratburn, leaving them distraught. Later, the principal, Mr. Haney, announces that there will be a Spellathon in the coming weeks. One day, Mr. Ratburn tells the class to study hard for a test to see who will qualify as representatives for the Spellathon. Eventually, Arthur and The Brain end up being chosen and are given lists of words to study. On the day of the Spellathon, the representatives of each class are eliminated one by one until Arthur is the only one left. He manages to win the trophy after spelling "Preparation" correctly. In the end, Mr. Ratburn announces to the audience that he will be teaching Kindergarten, much to D.W.'s dismay.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd_Girl_Out_(novel)" title="Odd Girl Out (novel)">
Laura Landon is a sheltered freshman at a fictional university in a midwestern town. Intensely shy and introverted, she is drawn to the president of the student union, Beth Cullison. Beth is outgoing and friendly, experienced socially (with men, particularly) but feels a void in her life. She doesn't understand how the other girls are so fulfilled by the men in their lives, despite having tried. Every time she allows herself to be intimate with one, she breaks it off out of disappointment.Beth shares a room in the sorority house with Emmy, and convinces Laura to pledge the sorority. Feeling a pull to Beth, Laura delights in her presence and experiences jealousy and confusion in her attachment to the older woman. They go on dates together to movies and plays, and Beth considers Laura something of an enigma, unsure of how to reach out to her to get to know her well. Laura finds herself especially jealous of Beth's most recent beau, Charlie, who to Beth's surprise, has awoken some new feelings in her. Laura is often so at odds with her unemotional upbringing conflicting with the intensity of the emotions she experiences for Beth that she practices self-injury.Beth begins to realize what effect she has on Laura and teases her good-naturedly to watch what happens to her, but Beth is taken back by Laura's intense attraction and love for her and they begin an affair. This is compounded by her escalating relationship with Charlie, who is frustrated with Beth's vacillating between affection for him and her guilt for hurting Laura.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Woman" title="I Am a Woman">
One year after leaving college, Laura Landon is exhausted by living with her harsh, judgmental father, who perceives that she failed out of school. Laura leaves home in the middle of the night and goes to New York City. She gets a job as a secretary in a medical office and lands an apartment with a roommate — Marcie. Marcie is young and very impulsive, but vivacious and puts Laura at ease. Laura moves into the apartment in Greenwich Village with a vague gnawing excitement in her.Laura and Marcie develop a routine and Laura learns her new job. Marcie is constantly fighting with her ex-husband Burr, who comes around frequently to date Marcie, and in between fights, they sleep together. Finding that Laura tempers Marcie a bit, she insists that she will only date Burr if Laura is with her — which confounds Laura as she recognizes that she is attracted to Marcie and intensely dislikes Burr. Burr brings along a friend, Jack Mann, and they double date one evening. As a joke, he explains, Jack takes them to a gay bar in Greenwich Village and watches their reactions. Jack is an alcoholic, but is good-natured and has a self-deprecating sense of humor. Laura is intrigued by him, and his friends laugh at him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Shadows" title="Women in the Shadows">
Laura Landon has been living with her lover, a tough and strikingly handsome butch named Beebo Brinker, for two years. Their relationship has deteriorated and both are frustrated, even after a party for their anniversary where Beebo remarks that hardly any couples make it together for as long as they have. The chapters begin with Laura's diary entries asking herself why they all drink and fall into relationships they know will be ruined. Their mutual friend, Jack Mann, watches as Beebo descends into alcoholism and Laura becomes interested in another woman.Tris Robischon, an East Indian dancer, is exotic to Laura, with a fascinating accent and story. Soon Laura begins taking lessons from her. Jack, disheartened once more after Terry, his boyfriend, has left him, begins to try to convince Laura to marry him, to which she responds in consternation since both are gay. Laura returns home from visiting Tris to discover Beebo's dog brutally slaughtered and Beebo bruised and battered from being raped, Beebo claims, by some hoodlums who found out she was a woman. Laura tends to Beebo for weeks after, but knows her heart is not in it.Laura's lessons with Tris turn more intimate as Beebo refuses to go to work and drinks constantly instead. Fueled by boredom and alcohol, Beebo becomes controlling and suspicious of Laura, and when Tris visits unexpectedly, Beebo assaults Tris and later hits Laura in a rage, after which Laura leaves her. Laura goes to Jack, not knowing where else to turn. Jack proposes an atypical marriage to her: they would live together and perhaps have children, but they would never sleep together, and both could have their affairs if they wanted, but quietly.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls_of_Riyadh" title="Girls of Riyadh">
The novel describes the relationship between men and women in Saudi Arabia. "Girls of Riyadh" tells the story of four college-age high class friends in Saudi Arabia, girls looking for love but stymied by a system that allows them only limited freedoms and has very specific expectations and demands. There's little contact between men and women—especially single teens and adults—but modern technology has changed that a bit (leading to young men trying everything to get women to take down their cellphone numbers). The Internet is also a new medium that can't contain women and their thoughts like the old system could, and the anonymous narrator of the novel takes advantage of that: she presents her stories in the form of e-mails that she sends out weekly to any Saudi address she can find. Sex is described in this novel and the various ways it is thought of before and after marriage. Engaging in pre marital sex in the novel has negative consequences for some of the characters who face rejection as a result. The novel also features instances of arranged and failed marriages and discusses the gamble a Saudi woman takes when entering into one. Most of its 50 chapters begin with quotes from Arabic culture and sources. For example, journalists, poets, literature, songs, and the Qur'an. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Wood_(novel)" title="Holy Wood (novel)">
Describing the plot of the novel itself, Manson said: "The whole story, if you take it from the beginning, is parallel to my own, but just told in metaphors and different symbols that I thought other people could draw from. It's about being innocent and naive, much like Adam was in Paradise before they fall from grace. And seeing something like Hollywood, which I used as a metaphor to represent what people think is the perfect world, and it's about wanting — your whole life — to fit into this world that doesn't think you belong, that doesn't like you, that beats you down every step of the way, fighting and fighting and fighting, and finally getting there, everyone around you are the same people who kept you down in the first place. So you automatically hate everyone around you. You resent them for making you become part of this game you don't realize you were buying into. You trade one prison cell for another in some ways. That becomes the revolution, to be idealistic enough that you think you can change the world, and what you find is you can't change anything but yourself."Manson has also stated that there is a character "that's very much a take on Walt Disney," who was a big inspiration in the writing of both the book and its accompanying album. In describing the setting, he compared Holy Wood, the place, to Disney World: "I thought of how interesting it would be if we created an entire city that was an amusement park, and the thing we were being amused by was violence and sex and everything that people really want to see."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Patricide" title="The Patricide">
The novel takes place in 19th century Georgia, when it was occupied by the Russian Empire. It is the love story of Iago, a peasant boy, and Nunu, a beautiful young woman. Nunu's mother died early, and since her father (a member of the coalition army in the Shamil rebellion) is too poor to care for her, she lives with her uncle's family. They disapprove of her match with Iago, as they consider him a mere Plebe. Instead, they are sympathetic towards Grigola, the tyrannical village governor appointed by the Russians. Grigola is married, but in love with the beautiful Nunu. He convinces her family that his brother would like to wed her, though Grigola intends to keep Nunu as his own mistress.To get Nunu, Grigola realizes that he has to get rid of Iago first. Grigola accuses him of stealing state property and gives orders to lock him up in the Ananuri fortress. He then kidnaps and rapes Nunu. Koba, Iago's best friend, witnesses the kidnapping. He fights through Grigola's men to rescue Nunu, but he is too late. Koba swears revenge against Grigola for his shameful behavior.Koba and another friend break Iago out of jail, and they all decide to flee to the Northern Caucasus and hide in Chechnya, since Russian police and Cossacks are looking for them all over Georgia. Despite the fact that many Georgians were fighting on the Russian side, Shamil receives them and offers protection. The author portrays Chechens as free men who fight for their freedom, in contrast to the Georgians, who were kept on a short leash by people like Grigola, unable even to hold town meetings (a tradition since the Middle Ages).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Cream_(novel)" title="Irish Cream (novel)">
The novel continues the story of Dermot Michael Coyne and his wife, Nuala Anne McGrail. They now have three children: Mary Margaret (called "Nelliecoyne"), Michael Dermod (called "The Mick"), and Socra Marie (often referred to, in Dermot's personal narration, as the "Tiny Terrorist" or some variation on that title). They also have two dogs, named Fiona and Maeve.Dermot and Nuala decide to employ Damian Thomas O'Sullivan, the youngest son of John Patrick "Jackie" O'Sullivan, as a caretaker for their dogs. However, upon employing Damian, Dermot and Michael find out that Damian is on probation for allegedly running over a man in a traffic collision, and that Damian is also generally disliked by his entire family. Dermot and Nuala become determined to prove Damian's innocence, much to the contempt of John O'Sullivan, who treats Damian as inferior because Damian chose to be a painter rather than pursue a more serious profession.Throughout the novel, Dermot reads the journal of Reverend Richard James Lonigan, a nineteenth century priest in Donegal. Lonigan dealt with two stressful issues in his life: strained relations between the Irish citizens of Donegal and the British officials who patrolled the area; and a strong attraction to his housekeeper, a widow named Mrs. O'Flynn. In the journals Lonigan wrote that one man in Donegal was killed and another was wounded, both by gunshot. In both cases the assassin is not revealed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tenderness_of_Wolves_(novel)" title="The Tenderness of Wolves (novel)">
Structurally, "The Tenderness of Wolves" is divided into four parts: “Disappearance”, “The Fields of Heaven”, “The Winter Partners”, and “The Sickness of Long Thinking”.The novel opens with the discovery of the murder of a French trapper and trader named Laurent Jammet. Mrs. Ross, the protagonist and first-person narrator of the novel, finds the mysterious trapper in his isolated cabin on the outskirts of settlement called Dove River. Mrs. Ross brings the murder to the attention of the town's magistrate, Andrew Knox, who then calls upon the Hudson's Bay Company to investigate the murder. This brings three men from the Company to Dove River: Mackinley, the leader, Donald Moody, an accountant, and Jacob, a native guide who works for the company and who has named himself Moody's personal protector. Mrs. Ross’ son, Francis, also goes missing on the day that Jammet is found.News of Jammet's unfortunate end travels south as well, bringing it to the attention of Thomas Sturrock, a former journalist and retired searcher whose talents have endeared him to many Indian tribes. His interest in Jammet concerns not so much the man himself but what he possessed. Specifically, Jammet had a small bone tablet with unidentified markings on it in which Sturrock was extremely interested. Sturrock did not have the funds, at the time, to buy it from Jammet, who promised to keep the tablet safe until Sturrock could afford it. Once he hears of the murder, however, Sturrock sets off for Dove River, hoping to discover the fate of the tablet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai_Lung's_Golden_Hours" title="Kai Lung's Golden Hours">
As with other Kai Lung novels, the main plot serves primarily as a vehicle for the presentation of the gem-like, aphorism-laden stories told by the protagonist Kai Lung, an itinerant story-teller of ancient China. In "Kai Lung's Golden Hours" he is brought before the court of the Mandarin Shan Tien on charges of treason by the Mandarin's confidential agent Ming-shu. In a unique defense, Kai Lung recites his beguiling tales to the Mandarin, successfully postponing his conviction time after time until he is finally set free. In the process he attains the love and hand of the maiden Hwa-Mei.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_of_Our_Thursdays_is_Missing" title="One of Our Thursdays is Missing">
Literature detective Thursday Next, who has the ability to travel between the RealWorld and the BookWorld, disappears before stopping a genre war. Her BookWorld counterpart, Thursday Next, receives a call from the BookWorld Policing Agency because an unknown book narrative is falling from above. The written Thursday Next and Sprockett, a mechanical butler, attempt to discover the reason for the falling narrative and find the RealWorld Thursday Next, while The Men in Plaid try to stop them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_a_Woman" title="Journey to a Woman">
Beth Ayers is stifled and bored by her role as California housewife. Her husband, a successful businessman named Charlie, is frustrated with her lack of affection towards their two children and her unwillingness to tell him why she's unhappy after being married for nine years. Beth becomes intrigued by a casual acquaintance named Vega Purvis, a chic modeling instructor who is physically ravaged by various illnesses, alcohol, and cigarettes. Vega's modeling business in decline after a vaguely detailed scandal. Beth knows Vega is a lesbian and connects her sexuality with Beth's own recurring dreams about Laura Landon, a girl with whom she had an affair in college. Vega calls Beth one evening and asks her to come to a hotel, where Vega shows her the scars that cover her body. Vega becomes emotionally dependent upon Beth over the next several months, as Beth becomes more possessed by the idea of finding Laura once more.Beth begins a correspondence with Nina Spicer, the author of several lesbian books she has been reading. After Beth and Charlie separate, Beth returns to Chicago in search of Laura, who she hasn't contacted in nine years. She learns from Laura's father that she left for New York City many years before. There, Beth and Nina team up to look for Laura in Greenwich Village's gay bars and nightclubs. Nina tests Beth to see whether she's really a lesbian or simply curious, while Beth uses Nina to get to Laura. Beth and Nina eventually sleep together. Afterwards, Beth learns that Vega has been committed to a mental hospital. Tired of Nina's games, Beth ventures to the bars to find Laura herself and finds Beebo Brinker, who is astounded to see her after considering Beth a rival for Laura's affections when they were together years ago.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stone_of_Laughter" title="The Stone of Laughter">
The novel opens with Khalil, the protagonist, and Naji, a friend, heading to Khalil's room to talk. They discuss the possibility of Naji moving to Saudi Arabia to live with his sisters. The audience learns that Khalil is romantically attracted to Naji, as he repeatedly secretly admires him. As they progress down the streets of Beirut, the narrative digresses to describe the state of things there. It is revealed that people are fleeing the city in droves and are not coming back.The next chapter begins with Khalil ritualistically cleaning and straightening his room. He always does this after battles in the streets. Some time has passed since the opening conversation, and Naji decided to leave the area. Khalil visits Naji's abandoned apartment, which he was asked to look after. As Khalil cleans up glass, we learn that Naji and his mother claim that they plan to come back. Khalil does not believe them.Naji is supposed to come over for a visit with Khalil, but he doesn't come. After waiting for a long while, Khalil decides to visit another friend, Nayif. Nayif is having a small party with friends that he knows from his job at a newspaper. We learn that Nayif is involved in a political party.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beebo_Brinker" title="Beebo Brinker">
Jack Mann finds Beebo Brinker (real name Betty Jean — she was unable to pronounce it as a child) wandering the streets of New York City's Greenwich Village. Beebo is 18 years old, tall and handsome, vacillating between overconfidence and vulnerability after leaving her family's farm in Wisconsin. Beebo is clearly welling up with a terrible secret that forced her to move east, and guilt that comes with leaving her father alone.Jack helps Beebo get a job delivering pizzas (one of the advantages is that she can wear pants) for Pete, who is a little creepy, and his wife who cooks. Jack also allows Beebo to live with him until she gets on her feet, and allows her the time and space to ask the questions he knows she needs to ask. When she admits her frank admiration for a woman she sees, Jack tells her about lesbians, and she reacts with obvious fascination. He escorts her to several gay bars in the Village where she is astonished and touched by what she recognizes in herself.After being treated cruelly by a vindictive woman playing a game with Pete, Beebo happens upon Paula one evening at her apartment, and it is Paula who verifies Beebo's sexuality. She is roused a couple days later to make a delivery to the apartment of an outrageous movie star, Venus Bogardus, who lives with her lonely teenaged son whom Beebo befriends. Beebo is infatuated and unnerved by Venus, who proposes that Beebo join them to return to California as company for her son — and to bridge the gap between them. Venus, in turn, divulges her past loves with men and women and seduces Beebo.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_on_the_Rhine" title="Fox on the Rhine">
The book begins on July 20, 1944, when Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg successfully bombs the "Wolfsschanze" during a military conference and later executes Operation "Valkyrie" in Berlin. However, his decision to signal Adolf Hitler's death to other conspirators by code buys enough time for SS "Reichsführer" Heinrich Himmler to launch his own countercoup, Operation "Reichssturm". While the Allies work to break out of Normandy through Operation Cobra, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel recovers from the injuries that he suffered during a real-life strafing run three days before the Stauffenberg coup. Himmler appoints him as commander of all German forces in Western Europe, under the watch from the SS, after Field Marshal Günther von Kluge dies in an air attack. He also believes that Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel's mention of Rommel as a possible conspirator holds no weight.Back in Berlin, Himmler takes charge of the German government and sends Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Wehrmacht Colonel Gunther von Reinhardt to negotiate a peace treaty with the Soviet Union. The plan, Operation "Carousel", calls for Germany to shift troops from the Eastern Front to the Western Front and to leave Eastern Europe and Scandinavia to the Soviets. The Nazis also agree to share missile technology with Moscow. The sudden implementation of the treaty angers the Allies, who promptly shift naval forces from the Pacific to the European Theater of Operations. Meanwhile, Rommel organizes a counterattack at Abbeville against the American 19th Armored Division by using units recovered from the Normandy front. He also orders the 19th Army to evacuate southern France ahead of Operation Dragoon and regroup at the Westwall.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wounded_Sky" title="The Wounded Sky">
The "Enterprise", equipped with a radical new "inversion drive" which allows the ship to bend spacetime and transit immense distances instantly, is sent on a mission to the Magellanic Clouds just outside the Milky Way, in order to place navigation beacons for future extra-galactic voyages using the new technology.The inversion drive is a product of the "creative physics" practiced by the natives of the Hamal star system, a race of crystalline spider-like beings. The chief designer of the drive is aboard, advising Captain Kirk, as the "Enterprise" makes its first "jump", after outmaneuvering a Klingon squadron which was sent to capture the new technology. Unknown to anyone on the starship, however, the use of the drive destabilizes spacetime itself on a fundamental level, creating a rift or tear through which another, external universe penetrates and begins to mix with the "Enterprise"s own, with rapidly spreading, potentially fatal consequences for all life everywhere.The denouement of the novel follows as Captain Kirk and the "Enterprise" crew, experiencing bizarre, dream-like experiences of other times and worlds during the use of the drive, realize that something is dreadfully amiss. Arriving near the rift and observing the destruction it inflicts on nearby star systems, they discover that the price for traveling distances that would take centuries to cover with warp drive may be the loss of their own universe. Deliberately using the drive one, final time, they cross the "boundary" between external "reality" and their own collective inner consciousness, where they must together draw on mental, emotional and spiritual strengths to heal the wound that they have caused.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Match_(novel)" title="Perfect Match (novel)">
The story begins with a prologue, in which an unnamed female character enters a courtroom and inexplicably shoots and kills the defendant after shooting him four times as he approaches his defense attorney. The shooter is revealed to be the York County, Maine, Assistant District Attorney, Nina Frost, and the defendant is Father Szyszynski. At the time of the trial (and shooting), Nina believed that Father Szyszynski had sexually abused her five-year-old son, Nathaniel, who confides via verbal accusation that Father "Glen" Szyszynski molested him. Further, laboratory tests confirmed that Father Szyszynski's bodily fluids were found in the child's underpants. It is later revealed that Nina had killed the wrong man, and a visiting priest named Father Gwynne, not Father Glen, had molested Nathaniel. However, Fathers Gwynne and Szyszynski shared the same DNA because Father Szyszynski had a bone marrow transplant from Father Gwynne (being that they were half brothers), leading to the belief that the semen on Nathaniel's underpants belonged to Szyszynski. Although this fact was entered into evidence at Nina's own murder trial, after which the jury could not reach a verdict, the judge ultimately ruled that Nina's reasons were justified. As such, Nina was found not guilty of murder. However, under Maine jurisprudence, Nina was found guilty of manslaughter because the judge believed she was under the influence of a reasonable fear or anger brought about by reasonable provocation. Nina was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but this sentence was suspended.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Contortionist's_Handbook" title="The Contortionist's Handbook">
John Dolan Vincent is a talented young forger with a proclivity for mathematics and drug addiction. In the face of his impending institutionalization, he continually reinvents himself to escape the legal and mental health authorities and to save himself from a life of incarceration. But running turns out to be costly. Vincent's clients in the L.A. underworld lose patience, the hospital evaluator may not be fooled by his story, and the only person in as much danger as himself is the woman who knows his real name.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermaphoria" title="Dermaphoria">
Eric Ashworth awakens in jail, unable to remember how he got there or why. All he does remember is a woman's name: Desiree.Bailed out and holed up in a low rent motel, Eric finds the solution to his amnesia in a strange new hallucinogen. By synthesizing the sense of touch, the drug produces a disjointed series of sensations that slowly allow Eric to remember his former life as a clandestine chemist. With steadily increasing doses, Eric reassembles his past at the expense of his grip on the present, and his distinction between truth and fantasy crumbles as his paranoia grows in tandem with his tolerance.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_Theory" title="Demon Theory">
On Halloween night, following an unnerving phone call from his diabetic mother, Hale and six of his med school classmates return to the house where his sister disappeared years ago. While there is no sign of his mother, something is waiting for them there, and has been waiting a long time. Written as a literary film treatment littered with footnotes and experimental nuances, Demon Theory is even parts camp and terror, combining glib dialogue, fascinating pop culture references, and an intricate subtext as it pursues the events of a haunting movie trilogy too real to dismiss. There are books about movies and movies about books, and then there’s Demon Theory – a refreshing and occasionally shocking addition to the increasingly popular “intelligent horror” genre.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fast_Red_Road" title="The Fast Red Road">
"The Fast Red Road—A Plainsong" is a gleeful, two-fisted plundering of the myth and pop- culture surrounding the American Indian. It is a novel fueled on pot fumes and blues, a surreal pseudo-Western, in which imitation is the sincerest form of subversion. Indians, cowboys, and outlaws are as changeable as their outfits; horses are traded for Trans-Ams, and men are as likely to strike poses from Gunsmoke as they are from Custer’s last stand. Pidgin, the half-blood protagonist, inhabits a world of illusion—of aliens, ghosts, telekinesis, and water-pistol violence, where TV and porn offer redemption and the Indian always gets it in the end. His attempts to reconcile his father's death with five hundred years of colonial myth-making lead him to criss-cross a wasted New Mexico, returning compulsively to his hometown of Clovis, the site of his father’s burial.Accompanied by car thief Charlie Ward, he evades the cops in a top-down drag race, tearing through barriers “Dukestyle.” The land they travel seems bent with fever—post-apocalyptic —as though the end has arrived and no one noticed. Its occupants hawk bodies and pastel bomb shelters, wandering a bleak hallucination of strip joints, strip malls, and all-you-can-eat-beef-fed-beef stalls. They speak a dialect of disposable nicknames and truncated punch lines—slang with an expiration date. Pidgin strays through bars and junkyards, rodeos, and carnivals, encountering the remnants of the Goliard tribe. There’s the mysterious Mexican Paiute, Uncle Birdfinger, checkout-girl Stiya 6—the reincarnation of Pidgin’s mother—and media-queen Psychic Sally, who predicts the group’s demise. Each plays a part in the search, eventually placing Pidgin in a position to rewrite history.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_Me,_Judas" title="Kiss Me, Judas">
During his first night out of a mental institution after suffering a nervous breakdown, Phineas Poe is picked up by a prostitute named Jude. She drugs him and removes his kidney and leaves him in a hotel bathtub full of ice with a note on the counter that reads, "If you want to live, call 9-1-1." Phineas, an ex-police officer who had recently been searching for information against the Denver Police Department's Internal Affairs Unit, later finds out that his kidney was actually replaced by a bag of heroin. While searching for his missing kidney, Phineas finds love in his attacker, while he evades the angry Denver police and tries to unlock the secrets behind his wife's recent death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary,_called_Magdalene" title="Mary, called Magdalene">
As a woman in the Bible, Mary Magdalene's story is not recounted as fully as that of some of the males associated with Jesus. The novel presents a new view of Mary Magdalene – a female apostle who was the first of Jesus' followers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Knight" title="Summer Knight">
Mab, the Winter Queen of the Sidhe, has purchased Dresden's debt from his fairy godmother, Leanansidhe. She tells Dresden he can pay off his debt by doing three favors. The first favor is for him to find the murderer of the Summer Knight Ronald Reuel and recover his stolen mantle. Dresden refuses her request, but is forced by the White Council to accept the role of her Emissary as his Trial, else be stripped of his title of wizard and handed over to the Red Court vampires as a peace offering.Dresden is visited by Elaine, his former lover, now the Emissary of the Summer Court, indebted to Aurora, the Summer Lady. Dresden goes to Reuel's funeral, looking for a group of teenage half-human/half-Fae changelings who were Reuel's friends, but they flee and attack, believing him to be in service to Winter. An interview with the sadistic Winter Lady, Maeve, convinces him that she did not kill the Summer Knight.The changelings ask Dresden to find their friend Lily, and he agrees. He discovers a gravely wounded Elaine and takes her to the Summer Lady. Aurora heals Elaine, but is not forthcoming with any details on Reuel's murder or Lily's disappearance. She explains that the death of the Summer Knight and the theft of his mantle of power shifted the power balance in favor of Winter, driving the Summer Court to attack Winter at Midsummer before their power fades.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_Hunt" title="The Mother Hunt">
A baby is left in a young widow's vestibule, along with a note implying that her late husband is the baby's father. The widow hires Nero Wolfe to identify and locate the baby's birth mother.Throughout the Wolfe "oeuvre", Archie's main romantic interest is Lily Rowan, a Manhattan socialite and heiress who, after an incident in a bull pasture, nicknames Archie "Escamillo." But Stout portrays their relationship as two close friends who share an intimacy of long standing, rather than one of exclusivity. Stout makes it clear that Archie has other romances. One with Phoebe Gunther, in "The Silent Speaker", has an exceptionally powerful spark. In "The Mother Hunt", Stout for the first time makes unambiguous an affair between Archie and another major character.In a rare physical outburst, Wolfe becomes so angry and frustrated at one point that he throws his suit jacket at Archie.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sea_So_Far" title="A Sea So Far">
After the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906, two girls' lives become connected. Kate Keely is the orphaned daughter of a newspaper reporter father and an Irish immigrant mother, living close to poverty with an aunt until their home was destroyed by the earthquake. They move to a boardinghouse the aunt purchases with a friend, and there Kate learns of an opportunity to go to work as the companion to Jolie Logan. Jolie's father is a wealthy physician and her mother died in the earthquake. Suffering from a history of scarlet fever and the loss of her mother, Jolie is sickly and depressed and her father thinks a companion would lift her spirits and that together they could travel. Kate sees this position as an easy source of income and, more importantly, a chance to visit her mother's fabled Ireland. Together the girls do travel across country and then to Ireland, and become more than friends, and learn more of life than they expected.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scourge_of_Screamers" title="A Scourge of Screamers">
The story revolves around a spaceflight engineer working for "SecBu", the former United Nations Security Bureau which is the only remaining government after a nuclear exchange eliminated all national governments two years before. The exchange is said to have been caused by a Russian who "went Screamie" while at the controls of the missiles on a nuclear submarine. The Screamies is a new disease afflicting people at random around the world. Victims collapse, screaming at visions only they can see.Strange people plotting against SecBu are revealed to be aliens. SecBu begins a campaign blaming the Screamies on the aliens. The truth however, is much more complex. Earth is emerging into a field of radiation which allows the mind to perceive the world in incredible detail at levels from the microscopic upward. The effect is like that of having functioning eyes, but being raised in darkness until suddenly emerging into daylight (a theme explored also in Galouye's first novel, "Dark Universe").It eventually becomes clear that SecBu is run by people who conquered the Screamies, and are bent on using their enhanced perceptions to gain and hold power. The protagonist is tempted by the power brokers at SecBu, who need his skills, while a close friend sides with the aliens who are attempting to help mankind learn to live with the new perception.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_(novel)" title="Laura (novel)">
Like Wilkie Collins' novel "The Woman in White" (1859), "Laura" is narrated in the first person by several alternating characters. These individual stories all revolve around the apparent murder of the title character, a successful New York advertiser killed in the doorway of her apartment with a shotgun blast that obliterated her face.Detective Mark McPherson, assigned to the case, begins investigating the two men who were closest to Laura: her former lover, a narcissistic middle-aged writer named Waldo Lydecker, and her fiance, the philandering Shelby Carpenter. As he learns more about Laura, Mark – not the most sentimental of men – begins to fall in love with her memory. When Laura turns out to be very much alive, however, she becomes the prime suspect.The novel has some autobiographical elements; Caspary, like Laura, was an independent woman who earned her living as an advertiser and who struggled to balance career and romance.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burndive" title="Burndive">
Ryan Azarcon lives in a fishbowl. He is the son of the infamous Captain Cairo Azarcon, of the deep space carrier ship "Macedon" and Songlian Lau, Austro Station's head of publicity. Because of his combination of good looks and influential parents, Ryan is constantly watched by the media.After going to college for three years on earth and witnessing a horrifying terrorist attack related to the war between Earthhub and the striviiric-na in deep space, Ryan develops post traumatic stress disorder, drops out of school and returns to Austro, where he quickly begins doing drugs.However, when Captain Azarcon destroys the pirate ship "Genghis Khan" and begins to make peace with the striviiric-na, Ryan finds himself in danger. After a failed assassination attempt in a club on New Years Day which leaves many people dead or injured, Ryan finds himself trapped in his home for his own safety- at which point his father comes for him, taking him aboard his ship.Ryan is immediately caught in the middle of the war, the peace, and the effects thereof. The truth about his father's mysterious past, as a protégé of the pirate captain of the "Genghis Khan", Vincenzo Falcone emerges.Earthhub factions, particularly the Family of Humanity, are against the peace. This extremist group eventually has Ryan's mother assassinated. The "Macedon" returns to Austro for her funeral, where another assassination attempt nearly kills Ryan. Captain Azarcon subjects Austro to martial law illegally to save him, and is forced to flee to the striviiric-na section of space.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cagebird_(novel)" title="Cagebird (novel)">
The novel begins with Yuri Terisov, the jaded former protégé of the infamous dead pirate, Captain Vincenzo Falcone, and the Captain of the pirate ship "Kublai Khan" in prison on earth, where his is approached by Black Ops agent Andreas Lukacs. Lukacs offers to free Yuri from prison in exchange for his help in infiltrating the pirate network, which Yuri agrees to in exchange for the protection of his cellmate Stefano Finch.Yuri fakes his own death and his is smuggled out of prison with Finch to Pax Terra, the station orbiting above the earth, where he is picked up by his ship. He finds, however, that his ship has been taken over by his Lieutenant Taja Roshan and is first forced to kill her taking back his ship.Once that is done, he contacts Falcone's former Lieutenant, Caligtiera, about the Black Op's offer, who proposes that together they destroy the Earthhub Military Carrier "Archangel". Yuri finds that he cannot bring himself to do this and informs the "Macedon" of his plans. He destroys his ship and kills Lukacs, who had intended to use the pirate to gain power, then flees to the "Macedon" whose crew includes two of Falcone's other protégés.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goose_Girl_(novel)" title="The Goose Girl (novel)">
When crown princess Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee was born, she did not open her eyes until her aunt held her. The woman became her nursemaid and constant companion, nicknaming her Ani and telling her stories about three gifts people have: people-speaking, animal-speaking, and nature-speaking. The aunt has the second ability, and teaches Ani to speak with birds, mainly swans. Ani grows to be more comfortable at the pond than in the palace. When her aunt leaves, Ani is forced to abandon her unique talent. At age sixteen, she devotes herself to preparing to be the next Queen of Kildenree, but finds solace in communicating with her horse, Falada. After her father dies, Ani's mother tells her that, instead of becoming queen, she is to travel to the kingdom of Bayern and marry their crown prince. During the journey, half of the royal guards mutiny and attempt to kill the princess and replace her with Selia, Ani's lady-in-waiting; but Ani flees, leaving behind Falada.After days of walking in the forest and recovering from near starvation, Ani assumes the alias of "Isi," and travels into the capital of Bayern. She soon discovers that Selia has assumed the role of princess. Ani finds a job tending the king's geese, and lives among other animal workers to whom she tells stories. After a few hiccups, she learns to use her animal-speaking skills to communicate with the geese. In this time, she slowly discovers her nature-speaking ability: understanding and eventually manipulating wind. Ani also befriends a royal guard named Geric, and soon they begin to develop romantic feelings for each other. One day, Ani's best friend, Enna, discovers her secret identity and swears to help her reclaim the throne when the time comes. Geric tells Ani that the execution of Falada has been planned; she tries to rescue him, but is too late. He later sends her a letter saying he will be unable to see her anymore. Ani continues life as the goose girl, and uses her animal-speaking and wind-speaking abilities to save her geese from thieves. She then learns that Selia has spread a rumor that Kildenree is planning to attack Bayern. Ungolad, Selia's most loyal guard, hunts Ani down and stabs her in the back. She narrowly escapes and flees to the forest, where she heals. It is here that she discovers one of her loyal guards, Talone, has survived, and he accompanies her back to the kingdom. When she returns, Enna had told the other animal workers Ani's secret, and they rally behind her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enna_Burning" title="Enna Burning">
Enna has returned to the forest to live with her elder brother, Leifer. After finding a vellum scroll, Leifer learns the secret of 'fire-speaking', the ability to control the element of fire. However, he is unable to control the power when he is enraged, frightening Enna. When the neighboring country of Tira invades Bayern, and Enna and her friends - Razo, Finn, and Isi (Princess of Bayern) - travel to the battlefront, and Leifer joins them. In their first battle, he uses his power to set fire to enemy troops and becomes consumed by his power, incinerating himself from the inside. Enna finds Leifer's body black and charred, but the vellum untouched. She disregards warnings from Isi about the potential dangers of fire-speaking and learns it. Meanwhile, her friendship with Finn becomes strained by their potential romantic feelings for each other. Frustrated and confused, she rides away from camp one night and accidentally encounters Tiran soldiers. She lights a fire to escape.Bayern decides to put on a mock battle between a Tiran prisoner and one of their own soldiers to predict the outcome of the war. Finn volunteers, but comes close to death during the fight until he is saved by Enna, who burns the hilt of the prisoner's sword. Because of her interference, Finn succeeds; and Enna takes this as a sign that Bayern will fall unless she uses her powers to end the war. She makes a series of rules for herself which she hopes will allow her to fight in the war without meeting the same fate as her brother. Next, she tells Razo and Finn about her power and asks them to accompany her on a series of raids and keep her in check. Enna quickly finds she is unable to control her use of fire; she even tries to burn Isi when confronted by her. Feeling the call of the fire, she runs away to an enemy village and is captured. There, Captain Sileph of Tira uses herbs to drug Enna so that she can't use her power of fire to escape. He tries to brainwash her into teaching him the secret of fire and burning for Tira. Razo and Finn try to rescue her, but are captured during their attempt. Enna gradually gives in to Sileph's persuasive speeches, eventually falling in love with him; but after overhearing him speak to another Tiran, Enna learns that Sileph has been manipulating her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austenland" title="Austenland">
"Austenland" tells the story of 32-year-old Jane Hayes, an average New York woman who secretly has an unhealthy obsession with Mr. Darcy from the BBC adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice". Jane accidentally reveals her secret to her great aunt Carolyn, who dies shortly after their conversation. In her will, Carolyn leaves Jane a trip to a Jane Austen–themed getaway destination. She decides to go, planning to give up dating for good afterwards. Once Jane arrives at Pembrook Park in the English countryside, she is bombarded with the complex rules of Regency era society. The proprietress, Mrs. Wattlesbrook, is eager to preserve these rules at Pembrook Park and makes it clear that Jane–who didn't pay for the trip herself–is not their usual type of customer. She becomes "Miss Jane Erstwhile" and meets Aunt Saffronia and Lord Templeton, her pretend aunt and uncle, respectively. "Miss Charming" and two gentlemen actors, Colonel Andrews and Mr. Nobley, are the other guests in the house. Andrews is jolly and flirtatious, while Nobley is brooding and arrogant. Jane also meets Theodore, the gardener, whose real name is Martin Jasper. He breaks Mrs. Wattlesbrook's rules to speak to her. As the days go by, Jane doubts her ability to keep up the act and begins to feel like an outsider. She finds Martin in the servant's quarters and they begin a new romance, but he cuts her off after worrying his involvement with her will cost him his job.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Molly_of_Scotland_Yard" title="Lady Molly of Scotland Yard">
The book contains all twelve Lady Molly adventures and is narrated by Lady Molly's assistant Mary Granard.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Academy" title="Princess Academy">
Miri is a fourteen-year-old girl from Mount Eskel, an isolated territory of Danland, who has never been allowed to work with the rest of the villagers in the quarry that keeps the community alive. The quarry workers cut linder (a fictional type of expensive stone), which they sell to the lowlander traders for food and other necessities. Because her father refuses to allow her to work in the quarry, she feels like an outcast in the community and cut off from the culture focused around a shared working life. However, Miri helps by bargaining with the traders. She is very close to her father and her sister, Marda, as well as a boy named Peder, for whom she harbors feelings.One day, a messenger from the king unexpectedly arrives in the village and announces that the nation's priests have determined that, despite the lack of education provided for the villagers and the prejudice that exists between the mountain villagers and the lowlanders, the crown prince's future bride will come from Mount Eskel. A "princess academy" is established nearby to train the potential princesses, with compulsory attendance for every girl age twelve to eighteen. At the end of the year, the prince will meet the girls and choose his princess from among them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Secrets" title="River Secrets">
The story begins as the main character, Razo, watches a meeting. The king and queen of Bayern speak with a Tiran ambassador and agree they should exchange ambassadors to promote peace between the two countries. After the reception, Razo is chosen among other soldiers from Bayern's Own to join the ambassador in Ingridan, the Capital of Tira. Razo experiences self-doubt and believes their captain only chose him because of his participation in the war against Tira. In winter, the ambassador, Lady Megina, and twenty of Bayern's Own leave for Tira. On the way, Razo finds a burned body hidden in the trees near a river. After talking with Captain Talone, they guess Enna might be burning again—either that, or the burner might be from Tira, because the body was placed where it could be easily seen by the Tiran escort group led by Captain Ledel. When the party arrives at Ingridan, they are taken to Thousand Year's Palace, where they are introduced to Lord Belvan and Lady Dasha, their host and hostess.Razo finds more burned bodies and still does not know who the burner is. After being beat up by one of Ledel's soldiers, Tumas, he goes to Talone requesting to be sent home. Talone rejects his plea, and asks him a series of questions. After Razo answers them all correctly, Talone tells Razo he has excellent observation skills, and gives him the job of spying to find the murderer. Razo proceeds to watch and spy on everyone. A week passes, and the Tiran party challenges Bayern's Own to a mock sword fight. Razo is humiliated with defeat, and the Tiran soldiers mock him. Then Finn speaks up and tells them to challenge Razo with a long-ranged weapon, his sling to their spears. Razo hits every target and discovers that he is the best sling Bayern had.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog_(novel)" title="The Fog (novel)">
John Holman is a worker for the Department of the Environment investigating a Ministry of Defence base in a small rural village. An unexpected earthquake swallows his car releasing a fog that had been trapped underground for many years. An insane Holman is pulled up from the crack, a product of the deadly fog.Soon the fog shifts and travels as though it has a mind of its own, turning those unfortunate enough to come across it into homicidal/suicidal maniacs who kill without remorse, and often worse. Respectable figures including teachers and priests engage in crimes ranging from public urination to paedophilia. A Boeing 747 pilot is also driven insane and crashes the aircraft into the Post Office Tower (now BT Tower) in London.Soon a bigger problem is discovered – the fog is multiplying in size and nothing seems to be able to stop it. Entire villages and cities are in danger and the only chance left is to use the treated and immunized John Holman to take on the fog from the inside where who knows what awaits him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tangled_Skein" title="The Tangled Skein">
In "The Tangled Skein", Queen Mary is characterized as a loving woman with a strong sense of justice.The "tangled skein" arises from Mary's love for the fictional character Robert d’Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, said in this book to be the people's choice as King Consort. Wessex is chivalrous and charming, but semi-betrothed to Lady Ursula Glynde, whom he has not seen since her infancy. Wessex is repelled by the idea of having his wife thrust upon him and purposely avoids Lady Ursula. Unknown to Wessex, the Queen jealously guards him against Ursula, who is extremely beautiful.As soon as she realizes the Queen is keeping her away from Wessex, Ursula is angered. She believes she loves Wessex, for his nobility and goodness, and she is invested heavily in the betrothal. On her father's deathbed, Ursula promised to go into a convent if she did not marry Wessex. Although Ursula does not want to lose her independence by marrying, she seeks to frustrate the Queen's plans and make Wessex notice her; however, the arrival of Cardinal de Moreno, and his henchman Don Mignel, Marquis de Saurez, shifts the scene.The Cardinal is in England to negotiate the marriage between Philip II of Spain and Mary. To end the Queen's love for Wessex, the Cardinal tries to marry Wessex and Lady Ursula. But when the Queen discovers the ruse, she declares that his Eminence should leave England immediately; she will not marry Philip. Then the Cardinal has to set to work to part the lovers, a far more difficult and intricate business than bringing them together.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_a_Thousand_Days" title="Book of a Thousand Days">
Dashti, a mucker from steppes of the Eight Realms, begins a diary as she looks for a job after her mother dies of illness. Eventually, she finds and accepts a position as the new maid of Lady Saren, the youngest child of the lord of Titor's Garden. Saren has defied her father's declaration that she will marry Lord Khasar of Thoughts of Under and revealed that she is engaged to the young Khan Tegus of Song for Evela. To tame his daughter, Saren's father shuts her and Dashti, the only maid willing to accompany Saren, in a tower far away from his city and surrounded by guards. He claims he will only release them after seven years, or if Saren will relent and marry Khasar.While isolated from the rest of the world, Dashti realizes the fragility of Saren's mind and heart and does her best to soothe Saren through stories and songs. When Khan Tegus visits them, Saren unexpectedly refuses to speak with him and orders Dashti to impersonate her. As Tegus cannot see into the tower, Dashti reluctantly agrees and a friendship develops between them when he returns for several more visits, including one where he gives Saren a cat whom Dashti names "My Lord." However, Lord Khasar also arrives at the tower and begins harassing them, performing cruel acts to torture and upset them. The guards around the tower fail to respond to the girls' cries and My Lord disappears from the tower during a night when they hear the howls of a wolf, causing the rats to infest the tower. Khasar's appearances cause Saren to become withdrawn from deep-seated fear, in spite of Dashti's efforts. As their food storages dwindle, Dashti finds a weakened portion of the tower where the rats have entered and breaks through the wall to freedom.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bride_of_the_Plains" title="A Bride of the Plains">
The story is set in Hungary and the scene is laid in a village close to the Maros. The sharp, cracked sound of the Elevation bell breaks the silence of the summer morning. The good Pater Bonifacius is saying Mass: he, at any rate, is astir and busy with his day’s work and obligations. Surely it is strange that at so late an hour in mid-September, with the maize waiting to be gathered in, the population of Marosfalva should be still absent from the fields! Hej ! But, stranger, what would you ? Such a day is-this Fourteenth of September. What ? You did not know it? The Fourteenth of September, the ugliest, blackest, most God forsaken day in the whole year! What kind of a stranger are you if you do not know that?On this hideous day all the finest lads in the village are taken away to be made into soldiers by the abominable Government? Three years! Why, the lad is a mere child when he goes-one-and-twenty on his last birthday, bless him! still wanting a mother’s care of his stomach, and a father’s heavy stick across his back from time to time to keep him from too much love-making.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_Up_(novel)" title="Trading Up (novel)">
Janey Wilcox's flagging career was revived when, in the closing pages of "Four Blondes", she accepted a contract with Victoria's Secret. "Trading Up" stars a slightly older and wiser Janey Wilcox, one who is determined to make it to the top.Wilcox begins the novel as an older but still quite popular lingerie and runway model whose aspirations now include breaking into show business. Fortunately, the New York social scene is dominated by powerful media mogul/starlet couples. Spending a summer in the Hamptons, Janey Wilcox befriends Mimi Kilroy, wife of media mogul George Paxton. Kilroy introduces her new model friend to Selden Rose, an up-and-coming CEO of cable television network MovieTime. At first Janey is uninterested in Selden and is instead enamored with Zizi, a young Argentinian polo player with model looks and the countenance of a member of the European elite. Only in an attempt to attract Zizi does she begin dating Selden.Janey and Selden are quickly married, while Zizi begins an affair with Mimi.Janey continually struggles with her torrid past as a consummate seducer of powerful men and is known in many circles as a semi-prostitute. Determined to become a movie producer, Janey attempts to maneuver her way to the top of the New York social scene by any means necessary, including using her younger sister and her brother-in-law, a popular rock star, for her own ends.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stone_Monkey" title="The Stone Monkey">
As the US Coast Guard moves to intercept a ship off the coast of New York, which had departed from St Petersburg carrying around 30 Chinese illegal immigrants, the leader of the ship, a notorious human smuggler and hitman named Ghost, decides to ignite a bomb, causing the ship to sink, as he escapes himself by means of a life-raft. A group of immigrants escape on a second life-raft, some of whom fall over within meters from the shore. One of them drowns, two are pursued and killed by Ghost, and a shot is fired by Ghost against another. The remaining ten, namely, the Chang and Wu families, who were dissidents and supporters of the 1989 riots in China, run into Chinatown of New York using a stolen van. Ghost meets with a local accomplice, but he drives off by himself, abandoning Ghost. Amelia Sachs, upon racing to the scene, finds a man with a gun-shot wound clinging to the rocks near the shore, and helps to rescue him. The man claims to be Dr John Sung, a well-known dissident and supporter of democracy. After being taken to the hospital, he requests asylum and is easily granted release pending the hearing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Jolly_Roger" title="Under the Jolly Roger">
After leaving Lawson Peabody, a boarding school in Boston, Jacky joins the whaling ship, the "Pequod", as a companion to the Captain's wife, a teacher for the Captain's son, and as the cook's helper. Jacky leaves the ship when it arrives in London and searches for Jaimy. She goes to Jaimy's house on Nine Brattle Lane, where Jaimy's mother threw Jacky out and told her Jaimy was no longer in love with her. She is confused until the family maid, named Hattie, tells her not to believe her and that Jaimy will be at the races at Epsom Downs. Jacky sets off to find him. In the meantime, Jacky visits her old gangs kip under the Blackfriar's bridge. She doesn't recognize any of the kids and they tell her what happened to the other members of the gang. They tell her a former member, Judy was hired to be a helper to an older woman, and despite her promises, has not come back to help the gang. Thinking that was odd, Jacky goes to visit her and discovers Judy is being forced to work at a wash house for a terrible man. Jacky saves Judy. Jacky takes Judy in as her maid and buys her all new clothes. Jacky dresses as a jock in order to get into a racetrack, where Jaimy is. She sees Jaimy with his cousin Emily and mistakenly thinks that Jaimy has replaced her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_May_Care_(Faulks_novel)" title="Devil May Care (Faulks novel)">
The story is set in 1967. Bond is instructed by his superior, M, to investigate a man named Dr Julius Gorner, and his bodyguard, Chagrin. Bond is warned that his performance will be monitored and that a new 00 agent is waiting in the wings if his actions go awry.Bond flies to Imperial Iran (Persia) to investigate. Gorner owns factories and produces legitimate pharmaceuticals; however, MI6 suspects he has other motives. During Bond's investigation he identifies Gorner due to a deformity of his hand, and establishes Gorner's complicity in a scheme to not only flood Europe with cheap drugs but also to launch a two-pronged terrorist attack on the Soviet Union, whose retaliation will subsequently devastate the UK. The attack is to be made using a stolen British airliner, earlier hijacked over Iraqi airspace, and an ekranoplan. Bond is assisted in his investigation by Scarlett Papava (whose twin sister Poppy is under Gorner's emotional spell), Darius Alizadeh (the local head of station), JD Silver (an in-situ agent), and Felix Leiter.Bond is eventually captured by Gorner in the heroin plant, who explains that Bond is to be used as bait during a drugs delivery across the Afghan desert, and should he survive an expected ambush, is to fly the captured airliner into the Russian heartland. Bond would be identified as British upon its destruction, increasing the evidence against the British Government. Bond survives the predicted Afghan attack and plots an escape attempt, which sees Scarlett get away due to Bond surrendering himself as a diversion. In the morning he is taken aboard the aeroplane. Before the airliner can bomb the Soviets, with the aid of the airliner's pilot and Scarlett (who had been hiding on board), Bond regains control of the aeroplane and crashes it into a mountainside after parachuting to safety.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_of_Fire" title="Blade of Fire">
"Blade of Fire" takes place 20 years after the first novel. The story follows Thirrin's and Oskan's (now married) new efforts to repel the imposing threat of Imperial invasion, yet again at the hands of Scipio Bellorum and his bloodthirsty sons, Octavius and Sulla.But this time, they have the help of their five children: Cressida, the Crown Princess and military extraordinaire; Eodred and Cerdic, the twin warrior princes; Charlemagne (Sharley), stricken with polio at a young age, and much to his chagrin, cannot be a warrior; and finally Medea, the dark daughter and the only inheritor to her father's gift.A burning hatred for Charlemagne causes Medea to turn against her family. Early on in the book Oskan has a prophecy about Sharley. About a week or two later Sharley is sent off into exile to be Prince Regent to the exiles. Maggie, his tutor, goes with him. He is sent to the Southern Continent where he makes some unexpected allies and friends. This includes the Desert People (he befriends the Sultan's son) and the Lusu people of Arifica.Maggie falls ill on the journey to the Sultan's palace and is sent to stay in oasis where he recovers. On the journey to Lusuland, an unexpected storm comes but the spirits of the desert (the blessed women) save them from harm. On the sea voyage back to Icemark the fleet of Lusu people and the desert people are attacked by the Empire's biggest allies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_a_Kingdom" title="Fall of a Kingdom">
When the Hrum army arrive in the country of Farsala, a war is started, and just three people can stop it.Kavi is a peasant peddler selling bronze goods plated in gold and he holds a grudge against the deghans. When he was a young apprentice to a man in the city of Mazad, a deghan came in looking for a remarkable sword and is willing to pay an astronomical price for it, but does not have the money with him. Kavi grabs for the sword, but the deghan pulls and scars his right hand. A year later, the deghan returns for the swords pay, and throws in a bonus amount "For his troubles". The cut cripples him with an injury that still pains him years later. While Kavi is running from a city where he is found to be selling false gold items, he is caught up in High Commander Merahb's plan. He is to visit the cottage where Soraya is staying to supply her with the goods and news that a deghass is accustomed to, and he is to do it like an obedient peasant should. But while he is on his usual rounds of the northern mining towns selling second rate iron goods to the country folk, he is captured by Hrum scouts who have infiltrated Farsala unknown. To save his own life Kavi agrees to turn traitor to Farsala and spy for the Hrum. He also believes that the Hrum will be better rulers of Farsala than the deghans.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Children_of_Schewenborn" title="The Last Children of Schewenborn">
The plot is set within the framework of a Cold War scenario very similar to the geopolitical situation at the time of writing. It is told from the perspective of Roland, a 12-year-old boy from Bonames (a district of Frankfurt), who travels with his parents and sisters to visit his grandparents in Schewenborn.During their journey, they are surprised by a nuclear attack. As emergency response systems fail to activate and no humanitarian aid reaches them, the survivors have to assume that the whole of Germany, or even the entire civilized world, may have been destroyed. During the course of the next few months, it becomes clear that Frankfurt, Berlin and major German cities, as well as the adjacent Netherlands and Czechoslovakia were also targeted, given the arrival of of seriously burnt and radiation-scarred refugees from those areas. The question of whether this is actually the truth is only resolved by the end of the novel.The family finds refuge in the house of the grandparents, who were in Fulda at the time of the nuclear explosion and presumably died there. Shortly afterwards, Roland's mother takes in a young brother and sister who had been made orphans by the bombs.The later chapters of the story describe the weeks, months and years after the nuclear attack, and are almost exclusively set in Schewenborn.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Lemons" title="Bitter Lemons">
The book is alternately comic and serious, charting Durrell's experiences on Cyprus and the people he met and befriended, as well as charting the progress of the Cypriot "Enosis" (union with Greece and freedom from British rule) movement, which plunged the island into chaos and violence. Comic moments include Durrell's successful house-buying adventure, and the visits of his mother and brother, naturalist Gerald Durrell. Durrell settled in the village of Bellapais (deliberately spelt "Bellapaix" by Durrell to evoke the old name Paix), which is now part of the Turkish-controlled north.During his stay, Durrell worked first as an English teacher at the Pancyprian Gymnasium, where several of his female students reportedly fell in love with him:Invited to write an essay on her favourite historical character, [Electra] never failed to delight me with something like this: 'I have no historical character but in the real life there is one I love. He is writer. I dote him and he dotes me. How pleasure is the moment when I see him came at the door. My glad is very big.'Eventually, however, "the vagaries of fortune and the demons of ill-luck dragged Cyprus into the stock-market of world affairs" and as Greek Cypriot armed groups emerged demanding an end to British rule in Cyprus. Inter communal violence between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots ensued, with Greek Cypriot nationalists wanting union with Greece. Durrell accepted a job as press advisor to the British governor. Durrell was not enamoured with the Greek Cypriot militants, however, and felt that they were dragging the island to a "feast of unreason" and that "embedded so deeply in the medieval compost of religious hatreds, the villagers floundered in the muddy stream of undifferentiated hate like drowning men." The account ends with him fleeing the island without saying goodbye to his friends, approaching the "heavily guarded airport" by taxi in conversation with the driver who tells him "Dighenis, though he fights the British, really loves them. But he will have to go on killing them—with regret, even with affection."
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sheaf_of_Bluebells" title="A Sheaf of Bluebells">
Many French aristocrats exiled during the revolution have been presenting petitions to enable them to return to France under the conditional amnesty granted to them by the newly crowned Emperor.Amongst them are a petition signed by Mme.la Marquise de Mortain and her son, Laurent (aged twenty-one years), and one signed by M. le Comte de Courson for himself and his daughter, Fernande.Fernande is Laurent's cousin and is promised in marriage to himNapoleon, in a lenient mood, grants their return and allows them to retake possession of their chateaux and any remaining land that had not been sold by the State.Mme la Marquise, however, has an older son from a previous marriage still resident in France, Ronnay de Maurel was only four years old when his father died, but an uncle brought him up. This uncle, Gaston de Maurel is a solid republican patriot, if ever there was one, with nothing of the aristo about him at all. Gaston eats peas with his knife and wears sabots and a blouse ... he even voted for the death of the king.Ronnay works in the foundries where he employs five thousand men and as a result he is now one of the richest men in France. Yet despite their fortune, he and his uncle live like peasants using only a couple of rooms in the sumptuous chateau that is now being returned to his mother.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_in_Stubble" title="Fire in Stubble">
The book centres on the love life of Rose Marie, the only daughter of M. Legros, tailor-in-chief to His Majesty the King of France. As an infant Rose was espoused to Rupert Keyston, a mere child himself at the time. Over the years Rupert's position has changed from one of poverty and obscurity to one of wealth, and he now holds the honorable position of the Earl of Stowmaries. Rupert has not seen his child-bride since his espousals, and on reaching manhood conceives a dastardly plot to free himself from the unwanted union by persuading his cousin Michael to impersonate him when he is finally called upon to ratify his engagement, and claim his bride. Once this has happened, he fully intends to get his marriage annulled, on the score of his wife's unfaithfulness with his cousin.The mock nuptials are concluded with a dance in the workshop of M. LegrosThe couples fell back one by one, panting against the wall, while only one pair remained in the centre, now twirling and twirling in a cloud of dust. The man's head 'was bent, for he was over tall, and towered above every one else in the room. He was a head taller than she was, but he looked straight down at her, as he held her, straight into her eyes-those beautiful blue eyes of hers, which he had thought so cold.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_(novel)" title="Seeing (novel)">
"Seeing" is set in the same unnamed country featured in "Blindness." The story begins with a parliamentary election, in which the majority (83%) of the populace cast blank ballots. The first half of the story focuses on the struggles of the government and its various nameless members as they try to simultaneously understand and destroy the amorphous non-movement of blank-voters. Some of the characters from "Blindness" appear in the second half of the novel, including 'the doctor' and 'the doctor's wife', and the 'dog of tears' now with the name, Constant.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_I_Wake_(Wiersema_novel)" title="Before I Wake (Wiersema novel)">
The novel is set in Victoria, British Columbia. A car accident leaves three-year-old Sherry Barrett in a coma. As her parents struggle to deal with the aftermath of the accident, word spreads that anyone who comes into contact with her will be miraculously cured of illnesses. As interest in Sherry intensifies, she becomes the focus of attention not only from pilgrims seeking healing, but of religious figures who accuse the Barretts of exploiting their daughter for gain. There is a fantastical aspect to some of the characters who intrude into the lives of the Barretts, and even Henry Denton, the driver of the vehicle that struck Sherry, trying to deal with his remorse, becomes trapped in limbo, which in this case is found in the Victoria Public Library.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Ship" title="Rogue Ship">
Centaurus is the destination of the space ship "The Hope of Man". It has been traveling through space for almost twenty years, and still has nine years of flight remaining. For many on board the craft, Earth has become a vague memory, while for others it is a mere dot in the vast starry reaches of space. Restlessness is evident everywhere; the people want to return to a place they know is inhabited - not continue to an unknown where life is uncertain. Mutiny seems inevitable. Captain Lesbee (the ship's main officer) knows that mutiny breeds mutiny, but what is more significant is his knowledge of Earth's possible obliteration. The one hope is Centaurus. Now more than ever, there can be no turning back. Order has to be maintained even at the price of human life.After reaching Centaurus and finding it unsuitable for human life, "The Hope of Man" heads towards the next destination, the Alta system. Because the ship is unable to attain light speed it takes decades to travel there. Upon arriving in the system, after mutiny and treachery, "The Hope of Man" is now captained by Browne, a descendant of the ship's original First Officer. "The Hope of Man" enters into orbit around Alta III, but find it already inhabited and come under attack from the occupants. During this time we see a struggle for power by various groups. Control changes quickly from one character to another until the arrival of the ship's owner, Averill Hewitt. The novel concludes with Hewitt in charge and the ship finding many planets to inhabit.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_the_Gods_Beloved" title="By the Gods Beloved">
BackgroundMark Tankerville and Hugh Emmett became firm friends whilst at school at St Paul's, their friendship cemented by many afternoons spent at Hugh's house in Hammersmith in the company of his father, one of the greatest archaeologists and Egyptologists of his generation. Mr Tankerville keeps the boys entertained with stories and theories about the people of Ancient Egypt and teaches them how to speak and understand the language of ancient Kamt.When they finish school, Mark goes to Oxford to study medicine while Hugh stays at home to help his father with his research. During this period Mr Tankerville and Mark's Uncle both die.After college Mark is unemployed but living off a small fortune left to him by a distant relative. He still sees Hugh occasionally but his old friend has become more and more distant as he absorbs himself in some 'important work'. Hugh apologies for his behaviour and asks that Mark gives him two years to finish his project and get back to his old self – Mark, as a qualified Doctor, is concerned that Hugh will have worked himself into the grave within two years if he keeps on as he is and makes Hugh promise that he will ask for help if he needs it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_True_Woman" title="A True Woman">
The main character in the book is Louise Harris, a plain but content young woman who leads a life of prosy luxury. Louise gets up every morning and eats a copious breakfast, she walks the dogs, hunts in the autumn, and skates in the winter, just like hundreds of other well-born, well-bred English girls of average means.Loo is an altogether nice person, and so it is that Luke de Mountford, who knows a good thing when he sees it, asks her to be his wife. Luke is heir to his uncle, Lord Radcliffe and therefore deemed a satisfactory match for Louise.However, just when everything seems to be going well, another nephew with a claim to his uncle’s fortune turns up unexpectedly. Luke is forced to reveal to Louise that their financial future may not be as guaranteed as he had hoped.Faced with this seemingly unavoidable situation, Luke is considering setting up an Ostrich farm in Africa as a way of making a living, but he can’t bring himself to inflict such an existence on his darling Loo, who is alwaysso perfectly dressed, so absolutely modern and dainty.When the intruder, Philip de Mountford, is discovered stabbed in a cab, suspicion naturally falls on Luke who certainly has a motive for murder. The head of the Criminal Investigation Department, who happens to be Louisa’s uncle, reveals his evidence before the ensuing trial and allows Colonel Harris to conceal himself in his office while a witness for the prosecution details the points of the evidence he will give at the trial. He also
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Tide_(Thesman_novel)" title="Rising Tide (Thesman novel)">
Kate Keeley has returned from Ireland older and wiser. Her goals are still to move her and her aunt out of the boardinghouse and to open a linens shop. Ellen Flannery hasn't saved her share for the store she planned to be a partner in because she has spent it pursuing the rich, careless Aaron Schuster. But with the help of money from Jolie Logan's father, Kate does find a flat and an empty shop. Finally, Kate and Ellen open their store and pursue the novelty of independent womanhood. At the boardinghouse, Mrs. Flannery is getting sick and the boarders are more demanding than ever, especially the acidic Mrs. Stackhouse and the abandoned Thalia Rutledge. Though they dream of independence, Kate and Ellen realise they will always be tied to family, home, and the lure of romance, such as Kate's finding the travel journal of a mysterious and attractive stranger.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sons_of_Heaven" title="The Sons of Heaven">
The novel brings together the various threads begun during previous volumes. It takes place mostly in the 24th century, over the final 20 years leading up to the Silence in 2355, the point beyond which the future of the Company is unknown.The Botanist Mendoza, disabled and psychologically scarred by the attempts of the Company to destroy her, is dealing with the three incarnations of her lover, whom she first knew as Nicholas Harpole in the 16th century. Two of them are imprisoned in her cyborg mind, while the third, the Victorian secret agent Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax, has taken over the body of the latest incarnation, Alec Checkerfield. Edward is showing signs of megalomania. The four of them, along with Alec's artificial intelligence known as Captain Morgan, are hiding in the deep past, hundreds of thousands of years before the present. This is to allow them to recover from their trials and mount their own campaign against the company, for which they laid the foundations in "The Machine's Child".In the 24th century, Facilitator Joseph, having given up his quest for Mendoza after she disappeared, is putting the fix in again. This time it is on behalf of his own foster-father, the Enforcer Budu, who is intent on destroying the Company in his own way. To do this he will revive the army of Enforcers who have slept in Company bunkers for millennia, like heroes out of legend. Strangely, William Randolph Hearst is a necessary part of this plan, even if Hearst would like to be the hero Roland.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spiraling_Worm" title="The Spiraling Worm">
"The Spiraling Worm" consists of seven interconnected tales. Each story features spies and government agents battling terrorists and government conspiracies who wish to release cosmic horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos from their hidden dimensions to destroy the Earth. The seven stories are: 
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fire_Pony" title="The Fire Pony">
11-year-old Roy and his big brother, Joe, are on the run from the authorities when they fetch up at the Bar None ranch. Their shared passion for horses soon wins them great respect, and Roy is offered the chance of a lifetime, to break in a wild pony that runs like the desert wind. He is even promised that if he can ride Lady Luck, he can keep her – a dream come true.But Roy knows that Joe has a dangerous secret... a dark obsession that could explode at any time and send Roy's dream, and their whole world, up in smoke.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Swift_Pure_Cry" title="A Swift Pure Cry">
"A Swift Pure Cry" opens a year after the mother of fifteen-year-old Michelle "Shell" Talent dies, leaving her husband and three children to cope with her death. The eldest of the children, Shell is given the responsibility to care for her younger siblings as well as continue attending school as their father changes drastically.When a new priest, Father Rose, comes to their village, Coolbar, Shell begins to believe once again in Jesus and in her mother's spirit. However, her father is also changed by religion; he quits his job to only collect money for church drives, leaving Shell and her family in poverty. At school, Shell's only friends are Declan, the altar boy, and Bridie, another misfit teen. As Shell feels more and more isolated from normal family life, she becomes involved with Declan, who makes her promise not to tell anyone, so he can continue seeing Bridie as well. Unfortunately, Declan abandons both girls for America, leaving Shell pregnant and alone. She manages to hide the pregnancy from her father and gives birth to a stillborn child around Christmas, whom she names Rose, for the priest.Around the same time, another baby is found dead, killed by exposure, and Shell is under suspicion of abandoning her child. The town is in an uproar, as is the rest of Ireland, and Shell finds comfort in Father Rose's help. However, Father Rose believes Shell's father to be the baby's father and the town folk believes that Father Rose is the father. 
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_(Torchwood)" title="Hidden (Torchwood)">
A secret is buried in the heart of the Welsh countryside and a series of violent deaths that seem to point the finger of blame at Captain Jack Harkness. Can the team solve the riddle in time to prove Jack's innocence?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'48_(novel)" title="'48 (novel)">
The story follows an American pilot, Hoke, who lives alone in the streets, constantly hidden and on the run from a gang of diseased and terminal Blackshirts, afflicted with the 'Slow Death', who attempt to capture him to use his blood to save their leader, Lord Hubble, via a blood transfusion.Desperate to capture Hoke as his life draws nearer to its end, Hubble sends his entire force out to capture the American pilot. Hoke escapes thanks to the aid of three fellow 'ABneg' survivors – two women and a German navigator, shot down over Britain long ago.Hoke, being used to three years alone, detests his saviours and, corrupted by propaganda, is almost unable to contain himself in the presence of the German even though the war has long since ended.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecotopia_Emerging" title="Ecotopia Emerging">
"EE" is mainly a history of the Ecotopian independence movement. The main characters are Vera Allwen, the leader of the Survivalist Party, and Lou Swift, a teenage physicist, along with their families and friends. Other characters are shown briefly as each one decides independently to break with the American status quo and begin living in an Ecotopian (low-tech, sustainable) fashion.Bolinas, California, high school student Lou Swift finds a way to generate electricity cheaply from seawater in a solar cell. However, she doesn’t understand how the cell works. She refuses to publish her results until she understands the science. Because she is determined to make the cell design freely available, she spurns corporate and academic offers to buy the cell design. Meanwhile, spies and burglars try to obtain her notes.Vera Allwen is a California state senator. Angered by an Eastern food corporation’s announcement it would stop selling fresh produce, she and other politicians, artists, and professionals form a new political party. It is decentralized, environmentalist, and populist. They create a platform and name it the Survivalist Party. As the book proceeds, they spread their ideas, coalition with like-minded people, and become a regional political force. Vera’s speeches are reprinted within the text. Some of their ideas come from a short novel called "Ecotopia", and the Party publishes a paper called "The Survivalist Way to Ecotopia." The Party creates a think tank for environmentalist policies. When the Pacific Northwest states pass a special tax on cars to reduce car use, the U.S. Supreme Court overturns it; public outrage along the Pacific coast helps tip the people of the region toward supporting the Survivalist Party.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Dentellière" title="La Dentellière">
Apple's story begins in a village in northern France. Her father has left and her mother works both as a barmaid and prostitute and they live in a noisy roadside apartment. We meet her again at age 18, living with her mother in a suburb of Paris and working at a hair salon near St. Lazare train station. At night mother and daughter watch TV or Apple reads romance novels and magazines. Her first friend in Paris is Marilyn, a 30-year-old redhead who is unsuccessfully modeling her life after a romance novel. She tries to make Apple more like herself, gets her to drink whiskey and wear makeup, but she begrudges Apple's simplicity and the friendship doesn't survive the entrance of Marilyn's next boyfriend.Marilyn abandons Apple while the two friends are vacationing in Cabourg. Apple is left eating an ice cream at a tea shop when Aimery de Béligny shows up. Aimery is initially fascinated by Apple's simplicity. An intellectual from a respectable family, he is different from Apple in every way. Her docile sincerity charms him at first; they live together in his studio in Paris where she expresses her devotion through continuous housework. But such humble tenderness only irritates the student, who thinks the intellectual gap between them is too profound. He breaks up with her and leaves. Apple takes off her rubber gloves, puts away her cleanser and leaves without complaint. She returns to her mother's convinced that she is unworthy and ugly and she loses what interest she had in life. She stops eating and ends up in a mental hospital.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_Sun" title="Probability Sun">
While the human race struggles at war with the Fallers, an advanced alien race, an artifact is discovered which might be the key to a lost science, be a weapon itself, or a doomsday device.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauldron_(Bond_novel)" title="Cauldron (Bond novel)">
## Background.Economic upheaval around the world in the early 1990s becomes an opportunity for France and Germany to consolidate their power in Europe through an alliance called the European Confederation or EurCon. However, it is a continental partnership in name only; France provides the political power with the Germans carrying the economic muscle. The instability and the countries' political differences with the United States causes the dissolution of NATO in 1996.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_(Alfieri)" title="Saul (Alfieri)">
Saul, a brave warrior, was crowned king of Israel at the request of the people and consecrated by the priest Samuel, who anointed him in the name of God. Over time, however, Saul turned away from God and ended up doing various acts of impiety. Then Samuel, by order of God, consecrated a humble shepherd as king: David. He was called to the court of Saul to appease the king's soul with his song, and there he succeeded in obtaining the friendship of Jonathan, son of the king, and the hand of the young daughter of Saul, Micol.However, David generated a strong envy in the king, who saw in him a usurper and at the same time saw his past youth in it. David was persecuted by Saul and forced to take refuge in the lands of the Philistines (and for this accused of treason).The story of the Saul narrates the last hours of the king's life and sees the return of David, who as a brave warrior rushed to the aid of his people at war with the Philistines, despite knowing full well the risk that this could entail for his life. David is ready to be killed by the king, but first he wants to be able to fight with his people.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Shadows" title="Kingdom of Shadows">
The story is set in Europe between April 1938 and July 1939, a time of ever-increasing fear and apprehension throughout the continent. "Nicholas Morath" is an expatriate Hungarian in his forties and the co-owner of an advertising agency in Paris. His uncle, "Count Janos Polanyi", is a high-level functionary at the Hungarian embassy in France. Morath is in fact an amateur spy, sent on one dangerous mission after another at his uncle's behest (laundering money through the Antwerp diamond industry, or spending a week in a Romanian jail, for example). Polanyi tells his nephew little about the reasons for or the results of these excursions, and friction often rises between the two men. But after Polanyi disappears mysteriously, Morath continues his perilous work alone.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Indestructible_Man_(novel)" title="The Indestructible Man (novel)">
Captain Karl Taylor is sent to investigate mysterious alien signals from the Moon, but the sights and sounds of the alien “city” he encounters are entirely incomprehensible to human perceptions. Taylor thus orders his people to open fire, apparently fearing that they are under attack. This is the start of a war between the alien Myloki and PRISM, the secret organisation created to fight the invaders. The Myloki attack by transforming ordinary human beings into their puppets; most are merely drone-like zombies known as Shiners, but two are different. One is Captain Taylor, who is sent back to Earth as a walking, indestructible, reanimated corpse, an emotionless killing machine. The other is Captain Grant Matthews, who is killed and duplicated while on a routine escort mission; however, his duplicate is caught and deprogrammed of his Myloki conditioning, and, like Taylor, is found to be literally indestructible.The Doctor and Storm trace Verdana to a private hospice in Barbados, where his body is slowly wasting away, perhaps due to the hours he spent monitoring the Myloki’s unfathomably alien signals during the war. He is bitter that he’s been condemned to this slow death while Matthews, a jumped-up clerk and chauffeur, became immortal; this is why he wrote the book exposing PRISM. He refuses to help track down Matthews, but when he makes a snide comment about Matthews’ rich friends, Storm deduces where Matthews must be. Storm offers to put Verdana out of his misery, but Verdana refuses, determined to cling on to life until the bitter end. As the Doctor and Storm leave the hospice, Storm admits to the Doctor that he was a mercenary for hire before the war; Bishop freed him from a Polish prison and gave him the authority to kill whoever he had to defeat the Myloki.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meadowsweet_(novel)" title="Meadowsweet (novel)">
When their mother died, Olive and Boadicea were sent to live with their mother's sister, Caroline, and her husband Jasper Hemingford on Old Manor Farm. The farm is remote with few neighbours and while Aunt Caroline would have made a wonderful mother, the girls do exactly as they want and have her twisted completely round their thumb. Jasper is a distant figure, spending most of his time in his museum room with his nose stuck in a book or studying his collection and muttering to himself in Latin.It was hardly surprising then that Olive, the elder of the girls, sought to find herself a rich husband who would whisk her away from the lonely farm to the highs of London society, and this she did three years earlier, marrying Sir Baldwin Jefferys, a middle aged gentleman of wealth and position.The story starts in June 1835. Olive has been the subject of society gossip after spending too much time in the company of Lieutenant Jack Carrington of and her reputation has suffered as a result. Sir Baldwin knows the Lieutenant is incapable of vulgar intrigue but Olive has given him the full charm offensive. Enraged as his wife's behaviour, Sir Baldwin has insisted that she must leave London mid-way through the season. Olive in turn accuses him of insane jealously and she agrees, only on the condition that she can spend the month at her childhood home in Thanet.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghosts_(Banville_novel)" title="Ghosts (Banville novel)">
The novel is somewhat unconventional and non-linear in its construction. It begins with a group of travelers disembarking on a small island in the Irish Sea after their ship runs aground. There they stumble upon a house inhabited by Professor Kreutznaer, his assistant Licht, and an unnamed character who figures centrally in the novel and who is referred to only as "Little God." It is later revealed that Little God can be identified with Freddie Montgomery, the narrator of "The Book of Evidence." Much of the latter half of the book focuses on Montgomery's account of his experiences after having been released from prison, his reflections on the crime (the murder of a young woman) he committed, and his continuing struggle with the ghosts of his past and the nature of his perceptions.Kreutznaer's relationship to a painting entitled "The Golden World" by a fictional Dutch artist named Vaublin plays a central role in the novel. The fictional painting is based to a large extent on The Embarkation for Cythera by Watteau. The narrator mentions "Cythera" several times and, to a certain degree, the characters are modelled on those in the painting. It is revealed that Kreutznaer and one of the travellers—a man named Felix—are acquainted with one another, and that Felix had been involved in art forgery. The novel ends with the travellers re-embarking and leaving the island, with many of the central issues and tensions left unresolved.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truce" title="The Truce">
The book starts with the departure of the Germans from the camp. The sick were left on their own after the healthy ones were taken on a death march away from the approaching Red Army. As all the services have left the camp, exploration journeys begin in search for food and essential items.When they arrive the Red Army is shocked by the state of the people in the camp and they provide basic medical aid. All remaining inmates are taken to a hospital in the main camp.After the protagonist has regained some strength, he starts a long journey. First to Kraków, then to Katowice where he stays for some time and works as a pharmaceutic assistant.The journey continues after weeks eastwards to Tarnów, Rzeszów, Przemyśl and into Ukraine: Lviv, Ternopil, Proskurov, Zhmerynka. The plan was to go south to Odessa but instead he had to take the train northwards and arrives at Slutsk (Belarus). From there he walks and rides in a horse cart to Starye Dorogi where he lives inside "Krasny Dom" ("Red House") and works as a medical assistant.Then, after weeks, a Russian Marshal, Semyon Timoshenko, came to the displaced persons camp and declared that they can make their way back home now. By train the journey continues southwards and then westwards: Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and Germany. After 35 days of travel since leaving "Krasny Dom" he arrives in his home town Turin, which he had last seen 20 months ago.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnels_(novel)" title="Tunnels (novel)">
The main influence in fourteen-year-old Will Burrow's life is his father, Dr. Burrows, and together they share an interest in archaeology and a fascination for the buried past. When Dr. Burrows begins to notice strange 'pallid men' where they live in Highfield, and then promptly goes missing, Will and his friend Chester go search for him. They discover a blocked passageway behind bookshelves in the cellar of the Burrows home and re-excavated it, finding the passage leads to a door set into the rock, and beyond the door is an old lift that takes them down to another set of doors. A cobblestone street lies beyond, lit by a row of orb-like street lamps; houses that appear to be carved out of the walls themselves flank the street.They are soon captured by the police of the underground community, known as the Colony. In prison, Will is visited by Mr. Jerome, and his son Cal. They reveal Will was actually born in the Colony, and that they are his real family; Mr. Jerome his father, and Cal his younger brother. Will is eventually released from the prison and taken to the Jerome's home, where Will and Cal's Uncle Tam are delighted to see him and inform Will that his adoptive father, Dr. Burrows, was recently there, and had willingly traveled down into the Deeps — a place even deeper in the Earth than The Colony. Will learns that the Styx, the religious rulers of the Colony, are either going to enslave Chester or banish him to the Deeps to fend for himself. Will refuses to abandon his friend, and Uncle Tam formulates a plan for him to rescue Chester and to take him back to the surface.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_Acts_of_Senseless_Violence" title="Random Acts of Senseless Violence">
The novel is told in the form of a fictional diary by the 12-year-old protagonist Lola Hart, and details Lola and her family's experiences in a near-future Manhattan in which violence, rising unemployment, and riots are commonplace in the city, as well as the rest of the United States. As the novel progresses, Lola transforms from a student at one of Manhattan's most privileged private schools to a street-wise gangster as she and her family struggle to survive the despair of a crumbling government and economy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragons_of_the_Highlord_Skies" title="Dragons of the Highlord Skies">
The Dragon Emperor Ariakas devises a plan to corrupt the Knights of Solamnia and sends Dragon Highlord Kitiara uth Matar to tempt a power-hungry knight, Derek Crownguard, with the location of a Dragon Orb, which Ariakas believes the Knights will not be able to control. A disguised Kitiara convinces Derek that Dragon Orbs can be used to help the Knights resist the invasion of their homeland, so Derek, along with fellow knights Brian Donner and Aran Tallbow, sets out to the former seaport of Tarsis to find more information about the Dragon Orbs.Kitiara then travels to the city of Haven to investigate the possible involvement of her friends and family in the death of the Dragon Highlord Verminaard. Kitiara quickly confirms that her former lover, Tanis Half-Elven, and her half-brothers Raistlin and Caramon Majere were involved in Verminaard's death. Kitiara also learns that Tanis is traveling with his former girlfriend, the incredibly beautiful elven princess Laurana, and consumed by jealousy, becomes dangerously obsessed with Laurana.Kitiara travels to Icewall Castle and a rivalry is formed between her and the dark elf wizard, Feal-Thas, the Dragon Highlord of the White Army. She insists Feal-Thas allow the Dragon Orb under his care to be taken by the knights when they arrive, and Feal-Thas insists she first defeats the horrible guardian of the Orb. Kitiara does so and then travels to the city of Tarsis to seek out her former companions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Monk_and_the_Two_Assistants" title="Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants">
Adrian Monk and Natalie Teeger take Julie to the hospital after she breaks her wrist during a soccer game. Monk sees his old assistant Sharona Fleming working as a nurse. She explains that after leaving Monk's employ to remarry her ex-husband, Trevor Howe and move to New Jersey, a friend of Trevor's from Los Angeles sold his landscaping business to Trevor. They moved to Los Angeles and took over the business. However, one of his clients, Ellen Cole, was found bludgeoned to death with a lamp in her house. Evidence suggests Trevor killed Cole when she caught him stealing her jewelry. Sharona has no trouble believing this in light of Trevor's addiction to get-rich-quick schemes, so she and Benjy have moved back to San Francisco, with Benjy staying with Sharona's sister Gail. Sharona would like her old job with Monk back, and there is hostility between her and Natalie. Moreover, after visiting Trevor in prison Natalie is convinced that he is innocent and that he sincerely reformed prior to remarrying Sharona. To save her job, she pressures Sharona and Monk to travel to Los Angeles and investigate Trevor's case.Julie is inspired to rent the space on her cast to local businesses, a marketing technique which she dubs "cast-vertising". A pizzeria, Sorrento's, purchases her cast space and even agrees to pay her a sales commission if enough customers mention the offer printed on her cast, which gives them a discount if Julie is in Sorrento's at the time.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_Your_Car!" title="Divorce Your Car!">
In the book Alvord argues that air pollution from cars is directly responsible for damaging the health of humans because of contaminants in pollution and indirectly through the destruction of the environment and contribution to global warming. She also argues that the destruction from oil spills can wreak havoc on entire ecosystems and that purchasing and maintaining a personal automobile is expensive.Alvord proposes alternatives to owning a car such as walking, cycling, and mass transit, and that utilizing these alternatives can save money, raise self-reliance, and promote exercise. She states that by modifying land use, financial policies, and urban infrastructure, efficiency can be increased world wide and society can learn to function without a car in every household. Alvord also claims that the ease of the Internet and decreasing phone prices makes it easier for people to effectively work from home or hold video conferences online, which could save businesses money.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsion_(Hutson_novel)" title="Compulsion (Hutson novel)">
A gang of teenage youngsters is running riot on the streets. Responsible for a number of burglaries and car thefts, the police are at their wits' end trying to put a stop to the gang's activities. Terror and hatred have become part of everyday life for local residents and, just when it seems things cannot get any worse, the gang targets Shelby House – an old people's home. Supervisor Veronica Porter, her two staff and the nine elderly residents become the gang's most vulnerable victims yet as the thugs conduct a hate campaign against them, sending abusive mail, daubing graffiti on walls and shattering windows. The intimidation escalates until Veronica's own father is dragged into the scene of terror when, disturbing some of the gang members burgling his house he is put into a coma. But enough is enough. The senior citizens of Shelby House decide to take the law into their own hands and fight back.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraplane_(novel)" title="Terraplane (novel)">
DryCo has sent two operatives, retired African-American general Luther and his white bodyguard Jake, to post-communist Moscow, where rival multinational corporation Krasnaya dominates Russian society through consumer capitalist mass production of products. However, Luther and Jake discover that Krasnaya has two highly advanced quantum physicists under duress, Oktobriana Osipova and Alekine. The two Dryco mercenaries manage to abduct Oktobriana, but their escape sends them back to 1939 in a conservative alternate history.In this world, Abraham Lincoln was killed by a Baltimore pro-slavery mob in 1861 CE, so the American Civil War never happened, and Theodore Roosevelt abolished slavery in 1907 due to European pressure on J.P. Morgan, who feared loss of his European financial assets. On February 15, 1933, Giuseppe Zangara assassinated Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill died from a car accident in 1931. As a result of Roosevelt's premature death, it is noted that John Nance Garner proved to be a fiscal conservative, leading to a situation where much of the western United States had to threaten civil war to obtain economic relief from the ongoing Depression. As the novel progresses, Alekhine, actually a Krasnaya operative, abducts Joseph Stalin from Moscow, to be transferred to Krasnaya custody and kept in a dacha, in a future which has abandoned communism and uses the image of "Big Boy" as nostalgic consumer iconography.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvissey" title="Elvissey">
In this novel, DryCo is facing problems from a mass religious movement centered on the premise that Elvis Presley was a semi divine figure, who performed miracles for believers in his sect. It decides to resolve this problem by retrieving a younger alternate history Elvis, and bringing him to present day New New York to discredit the posthumous reputation and mythology that now surrounds Elvis.The retrieval team are a married couple, Iz and John. Iz is actually an African American, although cosmetic surgery has led to an uncomfortable masquerade as a "Caucasian" woman in the chosen alternate history. It turns out to be that of "Terraplane", the previous novel in the DryCo quartet, where Abraham Lincoln was prematurely assassinated in early 1861, the American Civil War never took place, and slavery was only abolished by Theodore Roosevelt in 1907. Therefore, this world is backward when it comes to the civil rights movement and racist segregation is still widespread there.In "Terraplane" (1989), it was hinted that the assassination of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by Giuseppe Zangara in 1933, Winston Churchill's death in a car accident in 1931, and the abduction of Joseph Stalin would lead to a Nazi victory in its World War II. However, this envisaged outcome did not transpire. Instead, Leon Trotsky takes advantage of the power vacuum in the post-Stalinist Soviet Union, returns from exile in Mexico, and assumes power in his stead. Therefore, there is still a Nazi-Soviet Pact, but Operation Barbarossa does not occur because the USSR rearms to the same extent as Nazi Germany. Moreover, Trotsky declares war on Nazi Germany before it can launch Barbarossa to its east and betray the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1941. In the Pacific theater, the United States defeats Japan in 1946, but they do so through dropping fourteen atomic bombs on the Home Islands, which reduces the nation to an irradiated wasteland. Meanwhile, Hitler is assassinated in 1944, and the new Chancellor Albert Speer signs an armistice with the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union, which leads to an unstable multi polar world due to the inconclusive result of World War II in this world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hork-Bajir_Chronicles" title="The Hork-Bajir Chronicles">
In the Earth year 1968, Aldrea and her family come to live on the Hork-Bajir homeworld after her father – formerly Prince – Seerow, is relieved of duty by Alloran and many other Andalites in 1966, who feel he is no longer fit to command them. This is mainly due to his peaceful philosophy towards the Yeerks, which has resulted in the Yeerks' enslavement of many other species.On the Hork-Bajir homeworld, two Hork-Bajir, Dak Hamee and his friend Jagil Hullan make contact with Aldrea's family, and Aldrea makes friends with Dak. Dak is a seer, meaning he possesses intelligence greater than most others of his species. Aldrea's mother, a biologist, is fascinated with the reptilian, tree-dwelling, peaceful Hork-Bajir, as well as with the other life on the planet. Aldrea herself begins to learn more about Hork-Bajir culture from Dak, and he in turn learns about Andalites.But then tragedy strikes in the form of a Yeerk invasion. Aldrea's entire family is killed, but she escapes—barely—along with Dak. Dak is sickened by his first taste of violence when they are forced to fight Yeerks and Gedd-Controllers. The Yeerks arrive at the enormous tree where the other members of Dak's tribe live, and proceed to enslave every single Hork-Bajir they find.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfsorrow" title="Elfsorrow">
The Raven travel to a new continent in search of mages to help rebuild the ruined college of Julatsa. However, they find themselves in the midst of a cursed plague that threatens to wipe out the elven race.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Heaven_and_Earth_Changed_Places" title="When Heaven and Earth Changed Places">
The story began during Hayslip's childhood in a small village in central Vietnam, named Ky La. Her village was along the fault line between the north and south of Vietnam, with shifting allegiances in the village leading to constant tension. She and her friends worked as lookout for the northern Vietcong. The South Vietnamese learned of her work, arrested and tortured her. After Hayslip was released from prison, however, the Vietcong no longer trusted her and sentenced her to death. At the age of fourteen, two soldiers threatened to kill her in the forest. Once they arrived, both men decided to rape her instead.She fled to Da Nang where she worked as a maid, a black-market vendor, a waitress, a hospital worker and even a prostitute. While working for a wealthy Vietnamese family with her mother in Saigon, Hayslip had a few sexual encounters with the landlord, Anh, and discovered she was pregnant. She gave birth to a baby son at the age of fifteen. Several years later, she married an American contractor named Ed Munro and gave birth to another son. Hayslip left for San Diego, California in 1970, shortly after her 20th birthday.Hayslip's entire family was torn apart by the war: one brother fled to Hanoi, and did not see his family again for 20 years. Another brother was killed by a land mine. The Vietcong pressured her father to force Hayslip to become a saboteur. Rather than give into the pressure, he committed suicide.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/But_Gentlemen_Marry_Brunettes" title="But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes">
The sequel to "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" is also narrated by Lorelei, the bubbly blonde; however, she tells the tale of her friend, Dorothy, a bright talented young woman who grew up in a carnival company; she is discovered by Charlie, who helps her find her way to New York City as a young woman. In New York she is introduced to a broker who is to introduce her to Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., so that she might have a chance at becoming one of the Ziegfeld Follies. The broker is thrown off by Dorothy's unique style and personality and does little to refer her to Mr. Ziegfeld. Dorothy takes matters into her own hands and waits outside Mr. Ziegfeld's office and lands the position without any help. Dorothy marries Lester, a saxophone player from the Follies; she soon finds that marriage is not everything she wanted it to be...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainspring_(novel)" title="Mainspring (novel)">
"Mainspring" is the story of a young clockmaker's apprentice, who is visited by the Archangel Gabriel. He is told that he must take the Key Perilous and rewind the mainspring of the Earth. It is running down, and disaster to the planet will ensue if it's not rewound. From innocence and ignorance to power and self-knowledge, the young man will make the long and perilous journey to the South Polar Axis, to fulfill the commandment of his God.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_from_Rifka" title="Letters from Rifka">
During the Russian Civil War of 1919, Rifka and her family must flee Russia because the Russian army is after one of her brothers for leaving the army; the penalty for that is death for the entire family. She tells her story in a series of letters to a cousin named Tovah who remains behind in Russia, written in the blank spaces of an edition of Pushkin's poetry. Rifka, her parents, and her brothers, Nathan and Saul (who was abusive towards her in the past but changed throughout the course of the novel), escape Russia, hoping to join the three older sons who have been living in America. Along the way, they face many obstacles such as cruel officials, her mom, dad and older brother all catch typhus. They suffer through hunger, theft, and Rifka gets a skin disease, ringworm, which forces her to stay behind in Belgium while her family travels to America. In Belgium people are kind to Jews and she is able to recover from her illness. Once she recovers she can leave Belgium to travel to America to meet her family. She travels to America by a large ship where she befriends and develops romantic feelings for Pieter, a sailor. During the voyage, a dangerous storm occurs, killing Pieter. She arrives to Ellis island where she learns that her skin disease has returned and she can't enter America yet. While she is detained at Ellis Island, she finds she has a talent for nursing others to health. On Ellis island Rifka meets a new friend named Ilya, but he first does not talk to her nor will he eat her LIVA, so everyone thinks he's a simpleton. Once Rifka becomes better friends with him, she discovers that he is very smart. She helps him understand that his uncle is not cruel and wants him to come to America because he loves Ilya, and Ilya reads from Rifka's Pushkin poetry book. He passes the "Test" and makes it to America. Rifka gets over her ringworm, and gets to America to be with her family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behind_the_Curtain" title="Behind the Curtain">
Ingrid lives in a small community called Echo Falls. She's in the school soccer team and is in the drama club. Everything is normal until one day she sees what her dad has been looking at on his computer. On the Jobs.com site. He suddenly starts getting temperamental. Throughout the next few days, Ingrid notices other weird things occurring like her brother starts getting more buff but has strange pimples on his back, and her soccer coach getting switched with another very odd coach, Julia LeCaine. Ingrid starts to try to find out what is happening and in the midst of it, on a random day when she is outside going to the MathFest, she gets kidnapped. She finds herself in the trunk of a car and escapes. But she doesn’t know who tried to kidnap her and if they would try again. Throughout the book Ingrid has to face many mysterious and scary situations to find out what is happening! Guided by her hero, Sherlock Holmes, it's not going to be easy for this 13-year-old!She soon realizes that the new coach, Julia LeCaine, was the one who kidnapped her for money.After she escapes the kidnapping, which happened on the MathFest, a day she was told to show up for she was one of the contestants, barely anyone believes her, and if they did, they had doubts. Luckily, Chief Strade, father of Joey Strade (who is Ingrid's friend/romantic interest) believes her, but cannot act upon it too much, for there are too many holes in her story.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rock_Jockeys" title="The Rock Jockeys">
The story is about three young boys, the Rock Jockeys, who set out to climb dangerous Devil's Wall hoping to find the remains of a World War II bomber. Once atop the mountain, they find the bomber and his hidden diary.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_on_Midnight_River" title="Danger on Midnight River">
The story is about Daniel Martin who gets made fun of a lot because he isn't the brightest kid in school. But when he and his classmates get stranded in the wilderness, Daniel saves the day.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forger_(Watkins_novel)" title="The Forger (Watkins novel)">
When David Halifax arrives in Paris in 1939, he finds it a remarkable place, although artists are generally frowned upon and seen as idlers. His classes begin in an atelier, where Halifax is surprised to find only two other students, besides himself, sketching a picture of a nude woman posed on a stool. The teacher, a Russian named Alexander Pankratov, presents himself begrudgingly and carries himself around in an aloof and harshly critical manner yet possesses an unquestioned authority over whomever he meets. The other students introduce themselves, and warn Halifax that Pankratov may be a little deranged because of his eccentricities. The woman on the stool they are sketching is named Valya. She is about the only person who Pankratov seems to allow to do as they please. Later, Halifax learns that Valya is the adopted daughter of Pankratov, who was entrusted with her by his best friend during the Russian Revolution of 1917. Pankratov was an officer in the Tsar Nicholas II's White Army, but did not learn of his defeat until many years later. Valya harbors a deep-rooted dislike for Pankratov, yet displays obedience and praises his artistic genius.Halifax quickly tires of Pankratov's repeated insistence in sketching every day, and seeks time to complete his own works. He is successful in having Fleury sell some of his sketches, but is alarmed when he learns that Fleury has lied to the buyers, selling his reproductions as originals. While the fraud is forgotten, Halifax adapts well to Parisian life. Strangely, Pankratov has taken a liking in Halifax's sketches, and comments well on them. Balard and Marie-Claire reveal that Pankratov has never commended their work before.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_'Em_Snotty!" title="Hook 'Em Snotty!">
The story is about Bobbie Walker whose cousin Alex has come from the city to visit their grandpa's ranch, but they take an immediate dislike to one another. When the cousins cross paths with the wild bull Diablo and the nasty Bledsoe boys, they must find a way to get along or it could be the end of them both.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gorgon_Slayer" title="The Gorgon Slayer">
The story is about Warren Trumbull who lives in a world where mythological creatures are a fact and often a nuisance. Warren works for an eight-foot Cyclops, Princey, who runs an agency that specializes in dealing with mythological creature removal. Today Warren and his friend Rick are assigned the task of killing a Gorgon residing in the basement of Helga Thorenson.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive!" title="Captive!">
The story is about Roman Sanchez and his classmates who are kidnapped by masked gunmen and threatened with death unless they are paid ransom money.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us" title="The World Without Us">
The book is divided into 27 chapters, with a prelude, coda, bibliography and index. Each chapter deals with a new topic, such as the potential fates of plastics, petroleum infrastructure, nuclear facilities, and artworks. It is written from the point of view of a science journalist with explanations and testimonies backing his predictions. There is no unifying narrative, cohesive single-chapter overview, or thesis.Weisman's thought experiment pursues two themes: how nature would react to the disappearance of humans and what legacy humans would leave behind. To foresee how other life could continue without humans, Weisman reports from areas where the natural environment exists with little human intervention, like the Białowieża Forest, the Kingman Reef, and the Palmyra Atoll. He interviews biologist E. O. Wilson and visits with members of the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement at the Korean Demilitarized Zone where few humans have penetrated since 1953. He tries to conceive how life may evolve by describing the past evolution of pre-historic plants and animals, but notes Douglas Erwin's warning that "we can't predict what the world will be 5 million years later by looking at the survivors". Several chapters are dedicated to megafauna, which Weisman predicts would proliferate. He profiles soil samples from the past 200 years and extrapolates concentrations of heavy metals and foreign substances into a future without industrial inputs. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and implications for climatic change are likewise examined.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_Me_(novel)" title="Touch Me (novel)">
"Touch Me" tells the story of a young Australian named Xavier McLachlan, who is in his final year of high school. A keen sportsman, his aim for the year is to be selected in the school Rugby team and help his friends and teammates win the first premiership in twenty years. All is going according to plan until he meets Nuala Magee, an unusual girl with her own agenda; she cross-dresses, and acts in a deliberately confrontational manner towards boys. Xavier is intrigued by her and against the advice of his friends, becomes very close to her, eventually starting a relationship with her. Xavier also befriends a new boy, Alex Murray and this friendship helps Xavier begin to change his ideas about what it means to be a man. The tension between Xavier and his friends begins to isolate him and when he betrays Nuala out of weakness, and a tragedy befalls Alex Murray, he is faced with difficult decisions about who he is and what he holds most dear.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronicles_of_Xan" title="Chronicles of Xan">
Xan is a boy who lived in his village, Hardonbury, in 12th Century England. One morning while he was in a forest nearby, his village is attacked by bandits. He rushes back to his home, only to trip on a root, resulting in the boy being gravely injured. He is taken to Harwood Abbey, where he is nursed back to health by the Benedictine monks. In addition to the physical damage he sustained from his accident, he has lost his memory. But what he fears most of all is what he has thought he has seen lurking around the abbey: the Grim Reaper.In hopes of finding Xan's parents and jogging his memory, a kindly monk, Brother Andrew, brings Xan back to his village, only to find that it was burnt down in the attack and that all the villagers had fled to Clovis, the closest village. In Clovis they meet a farmer who worked with Xan's parents, who tells them that Xan's real name (for Xan is only what they called him at the abbey) is Stephen, and that his parents are dead. The night he returns to the abbey, the other boys show him the "Grim Reaper" outside. Xan, ready to disprove the boys, follows the cloaked figure to the room of a harsh and rough monk, Brother Leo. Later that night the same bandits that attacked Xan's village attack the abbey. However, no one was killed, not even Brother Leo from the Grim Reaper.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disturbing_the_Peace_(novel)" title="Disturbing the Peace (novel)">
A prototypical Yatesian dreamer, John C. Wilder is a bored but successful salesman of advertising space, living in New York City who seeks refuge from the disappointments of his life in alcohol and adultery. He breaks down during a distillers' convention. Lacking sleep and the worse for alcohol upon his return to New York, he threatens his family. His friend, Paul Borg, has him committed to the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital in New York. Upon his release he seeks help from his family, psychiatrists, and AA meetings, all of whom he subsequently rejects. With the encouragement of a mistress, Pamela Hendricks, Wilder renews himself through their common love of movies and the prospect of making a film about his institutionalization. After a group of enthusiastic college students embrace his story and partially film his screenplay, Wilder leaves his family and job to move to Hollywood in the hopes of securing a deal that will complete and distribute the film. The loss of his mistress and the rejection he suffers from producers leads him even deeper into an abyss of paranoid alcoholic delusion. The novel ends with Wilder wandering the streets of Los Angeles, declaring himself to be Jesus Christ (mirroring a delusional incident in Yates's own life), and being recommitted to an institution.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Right_to_Die" title="A Right to Die">
The novel is set against the background of the Civil Rights Act conflict during the early Johnson Administration. At the beginning of the book, Paul Whipple, a black character from the earlier novel "Too Many Cooks" (1938), whose trust Wolfe had gained against a strong West Virginia atmosphere of prejudice, tells Wolfe that Wolfe has since become his hero, and that he has also achieved his dream, stated in the earlier novel, of becoming an anthropologist. He has come, however, to draw upon the favor he did Wolfe 26 years earlier, by asking Wolfe to prevent his son Dunbar Whipple from marrying a rich white girl, Susan Brooke, with whom he is apparently in love. While claiming that he is not opposed, in principle at least, to mixed-race couples, Paul Whipple thinks that sensible rich white girls do not fall in love with poor black men, even if the rich white girl is working for a black civil rights organization in New York, the Rights of Citizens Committee. Wolfe is loath to interfere in the matter, but agrees to at least learn what he can about the true motivations of the socialite girlfriend and why she would be interested in a Negro boyfriend, to settle the debt he owes Whipple. Before the real mystery story gets underway, Stout allows some give and take on the concept of racism being a two-way street: blacks preferring their own as much as whites.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windhaven" title="Windhaven">
## Background.The novel recounts events which occur on the fictional planet Windhaven. Its inhabitants are the descendants of human space voyagers who crash-landed on Windhaven centuries before the events of the book take place. After the crash, the survivors spread out and settled on the many scattered islands of Windhaven's waterworld. In order to preserve tenuous lines of communication across the vast seas, the stranded population constructed mechanically simple gliding rigs from available spaceship wreckage; the gliders could be kept aloft almost indefinitely in Windhaven's stormy atmosphere by their pilots. After centuries of using this practice as the principal means of maintaining social contact among the islands, Windhaven's flyers have developed into a caste superior to the landsmen. Additionally, the flyer caste maintains ownership of the flying rigs — commonly known as "wings" — by keeping them within flyer families, so none of Windhaven's landsmen can aspire to ever wear them. These caste-based differences serve as the impetus for the novel's character-driven narrative.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakheart_Pass_(novel)" title="Breakheart Pass (novel)">
The story begins with a perilous winter railroad journey through the Sierra Nevada in the 1870s in the midst of a blizzard. Aboard the train are Nevada state governor Fairchild and his niece Marica, along with U.S. Army cavalry Colonel Claremont and two carloads of troops. Joining them are U.S. Marshal Pearce, the governor's aide, and Pearce's old Army buddy Major O'Brien. Pearce, a lawman and Indian agent is transporting supposedly dangerous murderer and gunman John Deakin. Their destination is the remote Fort Humboldt deep in the Nevada mountains, whose troops have recently been decimated by a cholera epidemic. (This Fort Humboldt is fictional and has no connection with the Fort Humboldt State Historic Park in California.) Dr. Molyneaux, a tropical disease expert, is also accompanying the group.As the journey continues we slowly learn that all is not what it seems, and that none of the characters is telling the whole truth. MacLean meticulously obliterates the lines defining exactly which characters are the good guys and which are the bad. As the story winds down, the cunningly devious nature of the plan is finally revealed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppet_on_a_Chain" title="Puppet on a Chain">
Paul Sherman is a veteran Interpol Narcotics Bureau agent, used to independent action and blunt force tactics. He is assisted by two attractive female agents, one an experienced operative, the other a rookie. Sherman is in the Netherlands after receiving word about a vicious heroin smuggling ring from a friend. However, the narco-criminals will kill ruthlessly to protect its operation and even before Sherman can leave Schiphol Airport he has already witnessed the gunning down of his key contact, been knocked half-unconscious by an assassin, and tangled with local authorities. "Puppet on a Chain" has the standard twisting plot, local atmospherics, and sardonic dialogue that were Maclean's trademarks as a story-teller. Maclean allows his protagonist to have a bantering sarcastic relationship with his assistants that provides a streak of humor as the plot unfolds. Unfortunately, Sherman's relationship with his assistants is used against him. As his investigation is undermined by betrayal, leaving him constantly a half-step behind his adversaries, Sherman must resort to increasingly violent action to turn the tables. The story culminates in a violent struggle above the streets of Amsterdam to save the life of his surviving female operative, not knowing whether anyone they meet can really be trusted.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Babylon_Hotel" title="The Grand Babylon Hotel">
The protagonists are an American millionaire, Theodore Racksole, and his daughter Nella (Helen). While staying at the supremely exclusive Grand Babylon Hotel, Nella asks for a steak and Bass beer for dinner, but the order is refused. To get her what she wants Racksole buys the entire hotel, for £400,000 "and a guinea" (so the previous owner, Félix Babylon, can say that he haggled with the multi-millionaire businessman).Strange things are happening in the hotel. First, Racksolenotices the headwaiter, Jules, winking at his daughter's friend,Reginald Dimmock, while they consume their expensive steak. Hedismisses the headwaiter. The next day Miss Spencer, the pretty,efficient hotel clerk who has been employed there for years,disappears. It appears that she just took her things and left, no one knows when orwhere. And Prince Eugen, a prince regnant of Posen, who was to come tothe hotel and meet his youthful uncle Prince Aribert (he and the nephew are of thesame age), never turns up. Then the body of Dimmock, who was an equerry to the princes, come ahead toprepare for their visit, is found. He was obviouslypoisoned. And soon after, Dimmock's body disappears.The same evening the hotel is having a ball in the Gold Room, hosted by
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_of_the_Plains" title="Wolf of the Plains">
The narrative follows the early life of Temujin, the second son of Yesugei, the khan of the Mongolian "Wolves" tribe. His father is attacked by assassins and soon dies from his injuries. Yesugei's first bondsman, Eeluk, assumes control of the tribe. Fearing the sons of the former khan may contest his leadership when they reach adulthood, Eeluk banishes Temujin's family from the tribe, leaving them to fend for themselves on the harsh Steppes. The expectation was that Temujin's family would perish in the unforgiving winter, but Temujin, along with his mother Hoelun, his four brothers Bekter, Khasar, Kachiun, Temüge, and his baby sister Temulun, survived against all the odds, albeit in poverty. In an argument over food, Temujin kills his older brother Bekter, much to his mother's anguish.After a few years of trading with other wandering families, the family establish a small home. But the Wolf tribe return to the area, and advanced riders, sent by Eeluk to ensure the family had perished, capture Temujin. He is taken back to the tribe where he is tortured, and kept in a pit, in preparation for a ritual murder. He is freed by Arslan and Jelme, father and son wanderers who joined the Wolves after looking for Yesugei, whom Arslan owed a debt. They join Temujin and his family and begin a new tribe, accepting other wandering families into their protection. Temujin assumes the role of khan.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Void_Moon" title="Void Moon">
Cassie Black is an ex-convict who works at a Porsche dealership. She had served five years in prison for conspiring with her previous partner-in-crime, Max Freeling, to steal the winnings of casino visitors while they are asleep. The last plan failed when an undercover agent (later revealed as Jack Karch) posed as the victim, forcing Max to take his own life. Unknown to all, Cassie and Max have a daughter named Jodie, who was born when Cassie served her time in prison. The daughter was put up for adoption and Cassie has been tracking her development silently.When Cassie learns that her daughter will be moving to Paris with her adopted parents in the near future, she decides to return to the trade for the last big pay day. Once she gets hold of the money, she plans to bring Jodie away with her. She approaches Max's half brother, Leo Renfro, for a heist job. Leo assigns her to go back to the Cleopatra, or "Cleo", the casino which Max's failed attempt took place. The victim ("mark") this time is apparently a high roller and a $500,000 reward awaits. Leo is confident of Cassie's capabilities despite her long hiatus, but warns her to avoid being in the mark's hotel room during the period of the "void moon" on the day of action. Max's death, along with other unpleasant things, have occurred during that period. Cassie successfully breaks into the hotel room of the mark in the wee hours of the morning, but is forced to remain hidden in the room during the period of the void moon due to unforeseen circumstances. Later that morning, it is revealed that the mark has been shot dead and the suitcase containing the money had been taken from the safe.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Fire_(novel)" title="Wild Fire (novel)">
Welcome to the Custer Hill Club—a men’s club set in a luxurious Adirondack hunting lodge whose members include some of America’s most powerful business leaders, military men, and government officials. Ostensibly, the club is a place to relax with old friends. But one fall weekend, the club’s Executive Board gathers to talk about the tragedy of 9/11—and finalize a retaliation plan, known only by its codename: Wild Fire.That same weekend, a member of the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force is found dead. Soon it’s up to Detective John Corey and his wife, FBI Agent Kate Mayfield, to unravel a terrifying plot that starts with the Custer Hill Club and ends with American cities locked in the crosshairs of a nuclear device. Corey and Mayfield are the only ones who can stop the button from being pushed, and global chaos from being unleashed...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Venom_Trees_of_Sunga" title="The Venom Trees of Sunga">
The lead character Kirk Salazar, a second-generation Terran colonist on the planet Kukulkan, is near the end of his education to become a biologist, lacking only field research to complete his studies. Interested in the evolutionary background of the dominant native species, the intelligent reptilian Kukulkanians, he focuses on a related animal species whose habitat is the poisonous "venom trees" on the remote island of Sunga. To reach his destination he joins a tour group headed for the island, among whom are some family friends worried about their daughter, who has joined a band of Terran cult members there. They discover she has become the cult's leader, and Salazar finds himself caught in the crossfire of a power struggle between the cultists and a Terran logging magnate intent on clear-cutting the venom trees. He is able to save his neck and preserve the habitat of his research subjects by an unorthodox use of his findings, a spectacularly unlikely disguise, and a healthy dose of dumb luck.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sold_(McCormick_novel)" title="Sold (McCormick novel)">
Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl living with her family in a small hut in the mountains of Nepal. Her family is desperately poor, but her life is full of simple pleasures, like raising her black-and-white speckled goat, and having her mother brush her hair by the light of an oil lamp. But now the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family's crops, Lakshmi's stepfather says she must leave home and take a job to support her family.He introduces her to a charming stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid working for a wealthy woman in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi undertakes the long journey to India and arrives at “Happiness House” full of hope. But she soon learns the horrible truth: she has been sold into prostitution.An old woman named Mumtaz rules the brothel with cruelty and cunning. She tells Lakshmi that she is trapped there until she can pay off her family's debt – then cheats Lakshmi of her meager earnings so that she can never leave.Lakshmi's life becomes a nightmare from which she cannot escape. Still, she lives by her mother's words – “Simply to endure is to triumph” – and gradually, she forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying new life. She also teaches herself to read and speak in English through listening to the conversations of people around her and books she manages to take.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrift_on_the_Nile" title="Adrift on the Nile">
The book starts out with Anis Zani, the protagonist, being disciplined by his boss for submitting a blank report. It's revealed that Anis wrote the report under the influence of drugs, which prevented him from realizing his pen was out of ink. Anis and a group of fellow addicts get together every night to smoke keif on a houseboat on the Nile. Samara, a young journalist, visits the group in order to report on them. The tranquility of the group collapses as they begin to argue about topics like love, morality and purpose. The downfall of the group is accelerated when, one night as they are taking a midnight excursion by car, they hit a person and flee the scene.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrod_Jashber" title="Penrod Jashber">
"Penrod Jashber" is more novelistic in form than the preceding books; rather than each chapter standing as a separate story, the bulk of this book has one story arc, of Penrod's pretending to be detective George B. Jashber. Otherwise it is similar: it is written in the same style and takes place at the same time."Penrod Jashber" begins when Penrod's best friend Sam Williams acquires a new pup. The boys squabble about his name, the pup and Penrod's dog Duke rampage through Penrod's house, and as punishment Penrod's parents force him to wear a smelly asafetida bag. Penrod copes with this humiliation by telling tall tales of his exploits to his future girlfriend, lovely Marjorie Jones. Marjorie confesses that the reason she doesn't mind his "asafid'ty" bag is that her mother has made her wear one too.The detective story arc begins when Penrod further immerses himself in fantasy by penning a hilarious bandit epic starring George B. Jashber, the "notted detective." In the first "Penrod" book, he was hard at work on this picaresque adventure novel, with heroic road agent Harold Ramorez menaced by corrupt police detectives. Over time, he comes to see detectives as more interesting, skews the novel toward the exploits of Jashber, and decides to become one. Imitating his movie heroes, he squints his eyes and talks out of the side of his mouth. He paints an office sign in the (empty) stable and acquires an official-looking badge from the cook's nephew who took a mail-order course. To practice, he shadows his school teacher in the evenings.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_to_Ground" title="Going to Ground">
Following the events of "Running the Risk", Dax and the other Colas are sent to recover. However, during this time off, Lisa experiences a vision which warns her that Gideon is in deadly peril. She and Dax attempt to rescue him, only to find that he is not actually in any sort of danger - at least not yet. But strange and unexplainable electrical faults are taking place all over the country, and the government seems to think that Gideon's powers are responsible. Now they will stop at nothing to find him and contain the threat they believe he poses. Gideon, Dax, Lisa, and Mia set off across the country attempting to outwit their pursuers while also trying to find the real cause of these electrical events to clear Gideon's name.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyster_(novel)" title="Oyster (novel)">
In Outer Maroo, a fictional town in the outback which doesn't appear on maps, outsiders disappear and there is a queerly pungent smell, the Old Fuckatoo...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Ones_(novel)" title="The Other Ones (novel)">
Bridget Raynes has typical teenage problems—clumsiness, lack of popularity, an unrequited crush, oblivious parents—but they are compounded by her suppressed magical powers, or perhaps her loss of sanity. She sees spirits, especially the quarrelsome "threshold guardian" xiii, reads minds, moves objects by thought, and casts "circles of safety" spells. But her powers inspire more fear than awe in her, and she continues to avoid them just when they are needed most. Her crush Jordan is abandoned in his own home; new girl Althea is being tormented at school while on a secret mission; school bully Woody is growing more dangerous; even the natural world is threatened and threatening. Only her aunt Cait, a rumored witch herself, has any sympathy for Bridget, but she must decide once and for all to accept her powers or not.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Magic_Moon" title="Children of Magic Moon">
The wizard Themistocles appears to Kim and urges him to return to Magic Moon, the land that people travel to when they dream. When the young boy arrives, he finds the magic realm dramatically changed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whatever_Happened_to_Sarah_Jane?" title="Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?">
## Part 1.Sarah Jane receives a puzzle box from a Veron Soothsayer, with the instruction to give it to the person she most trusts. Sarah Jane gives Maria the puzzle box. A meteor is on collision course with Earth, and Sarah Jane has set up, but not yet activated via Mr Smith, a force field to deflect the meteor. The next morning, Maria wakes to find that Sarah Jane and Luke have gone missing, but no one besides Maria knows who Sarah Jane or Luke are. A woman called Andrea Yates has apparently taken Sarah Jane's place. Investigating, Maria finds a 1964 newspaper report, stating that a thirteen-year-old Sarah Jane Smith died after falling off a pier, where she was playing with her friend, Andrea Yates. As Maria watches, the names of the deceased and the survivor on the report switch before her eyes and, at one point, hears Sarah Jane's disembodied voice calling out to her. When Maria goes to Andrea to talk to her about the report, Andrea suddenly panics and unceremoniously shows Maria out before she rushes to her attic, where she takes out a second puzzle box. She now remembers a mysterious hooded figure, who appears and offers to make Maria disappear. After Andrea reluctantly accepts, he dispatches a small alien, a Graske, who captures Maria just after her father, Alan, picks up the first puzzle box (which shielded her from the ripple effects), which Maria dropped during her escape from the Graske. When Alan's ex-wife Chrissie comes round, he discovers she cannot remember their daughter. Meanwhile, Maria escapes from the Graske and finds herself on a beach promenade near two girls. They introduce themselves as Andrea Yates and Sarah Jane Smith.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_the_Gorgon" title="Eye of the Gorgon">
## Part 1.Sarah Jane and her companions investigate claims of sightings of a ghostly nun at Lavender Lawns, the local nursing home. Meanwhile, Maria's mother, Chrissie, moves into her ex-husband Alan's house, but succeeds only in causing further problems with the family. Back at Lavender Lawns, an old lady gives Luke an ancient talisman, which is really the key to a portal in space and time. They find that a group of nuns are hiding an age-old creature, the Gorgon. When Sarah Jane refuses to give the talisman to the nuns, they kidnap Luke and Clyde and take the Gorgon and Maria to Sarah Jane's house where the Gorgon turns Maria's father to stone.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warriors_of_Kudlak" title="Warriors of Kudlak">
## Part 1.When "Combat 3000", the new laser-tag centre, arrives near Sarah Jane, a young teenager called Lance Metcalf visits it, where he mysteriously disappears. When Sarah Jane starts investigating, she discovers 24 children have previously gone missing. Meanwhile, Luke tries to master being funny but can't quite do it. He also doesn't understand games. Therefore, Clyde takes Luke to "Combat 3000". Sarah Jane soon discovers that there have been mysterious storms at the time of the disappearances and that Mr Grantham and Kudlak are working for The Mistress, leader of "Combat 3000". Luke and Clyde manage to survive Round One and are challenged to make it to the door to the championships, facing other expert "Combat 3000" players. When Luke and Clyde are very close to the door, they are attacked. Soon, Clyde and Luke manage to escape and are locked in a room where they mysteriously disappear. Meanwhile, Mr Grantham points a gun at Sarah Jane and Maria but Sarah Jane uses her sonic lipstick to help her escape. Maria and Sarah Jane arrive in a different room where they are then confronted by Kudlak.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Boy_(The_Sarah_Jane_Adventures)" title="The Lost Boy (The Sarah Jane Adventures)">
## Part 1.Following on from Alan's discovery of what his daughter, Maria, gets up to with Sarah Jane in "Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?", he threatens to move house again, only to have a change of heart when he sees how upset Maria is. His condition for not moving away, however, is that he is kept up to date with their battles against aliens.The next day, the news report on a family searching for their son, Ashley, who has been missing for five months. However, when a picture of Ashley is shown, it brings a shock, since he looks exactly like Luke. Mr Smith compares their DNA, and confirms that Luke and Ashley are the same person; apparently Luke was not "grown" by the Bane, but was a kidnapped boy. Chrissie calls the police and reports Sarah Jane as a child abductor; Sarah Jane is arrested and the police release Luke into the custody of Ashley's parents, Jay and Heidi, and Sarah Jane kept by the police, only for UNIT to intervene and have her released, although the police order her not to go near Luke again. Depressed, Sarah Jane decides she was wrong to involve children and tells Maria to stay away from her. Mr Smith suggests to her that she have a case to take her mind off things, and she visits a research centre where alien technology is being used to conduct experiments into telekinesis, where she meets an annoying child prodigy, Nathan. That night, when Luke's new parents watch television, they switch over to a channel that glows green and announce to somebody they call "Xylok", that they "have the boy".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eifelheim" title="Eifelheim">
In 1349, Eifelheim, a small town in the Black Forest of Germany, vanished: it ceased to appear on any maps or in any documents, having apparently been abandoned and never resettled by its community. The disappearance is no mystery — the Black Death devastated Europe. But why was the area never resettled, unlike most other depopulated areas? The mystery intrigues cliometric historian Tom Schwoerin, who sets out to solve the puzzle with the help of his partner, theoretical physicist Sharon Nagy. They gradually uncover evidence of an alien crash-landing in the area.The village was originally called Oberhochwald, and then afterwards renamed Teufelheim ("Devil home" in German), which was eventually distorted to Eifelheim. They also learn of the town's priest, Father Dietrich, an educated man who served the town in 1348, as the Black Death arrived in Northern Europe. Dietrich, it appears, acted as humanity's first ambassador, and was the primary liaison between Eifelheim and the aliens who happened to wreck their starship in the woods outside the village.The novel concentrates primarily on the alien encounter in the 14th century, paying special attention to the interplay between Dietrich, a Christian scholar who is fond of Aristotle and metaphor, and the technologically advanced, post-Einsteinian band of otherworldly travelers. The interplay includes two theological questions. The first, "can aliens become Christians?" is answered in the affirmative, as some of them become converts. The second, "where is God when things go wrong?" is more difficult to answer, for both the Germans and the alien Krenken. The Germans are stricken by the Black Death, and the Krenken, who are immune to the disease, but cannot return to their home, require an amino acid not found in earthly organisms. The answer is two-fold: there is always hope, and God's love is expressed to us in the unselfish love of fellow creatures. Dietrich's attempts to understand the science of the Krenken (their view of the solar system, and gravity, is quite different from his) and their attempts to explain it to him, are also an important theme.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gentle_Falcon" title="The Gentle Falcon">
Isabella Clinton is the daughter and only child of a French noblewoman, from the House of Valois, and an English soldier. With her father dead, she is heir to his estate but prefers working in the fields to learning to be a proper noblewoman. This is made clear from her sharp tongue and blunt way of speaking.After the death of her father, it seems that the Black Prince has forgotten Isabella and her mother. It is quite a long time before Isabella is finally summoned to court by King Richard – and when she finally is, it is to be companion to her young kinswoman, Isabella of the House of Valois, "Madame" of France and soon to be Queen of England.It is through Isabella Clinton's eyes that we see the love Isabella of France develops for King Richard. Although only seven years old at her first appearance, the Queen shows maturity for her age – but what happens to her throughout the book causes her great sorrow, even though she does not show it on the outside.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Days_of_Summer" title="Last Days of Summer">
Joey Margolis, a Jewish boy growing up in a tough Italian neighborhood, is burdened with beatings from neighborhood kids, his parents' divorce, and an absent father who repeatedly lets him down. In addition, he is worried about Adolf Hitler's rise in power. Craving a surrogate dad, Joey strikes up a correspondence with Charlie Banks, the third baseman for the New York Giants. That he does so by persistently nagging Charlie sets the tone not just for their ongoing correspondence but for a relationship that will change both of their lives forever.They have many adventures together, as Joey becomes a man and Charlie becomes the dad he never really had. (His father remarried a woman named Nana Bert and they never spend time with him or give him affection-his dad is not a father to him.) The first thing Joey does to get Charlie's attention is write letters to him about how he is dying of incurable diseases and only Charlie hitting a home run will save him. When Charlie doesn't listen, he writes to his on and off girlfriend Hazel McKay, a famous singer and actress in New York. She believes him, and breaks up with Charlie until he helps Joey. Eventually, he tells Hazel he made it all up, and he has another famous friend.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hollow_Man_(Simmons_novel)" title="The Hollow Man (Simmons novel)">
After the death of his wife Gail, Jeremy Bremen leaves his previous life by burning his home and possessions and embarking on a journey to find peace from the "neurobabble" of humanity. Without his wife's presence Bremen cannot shield himself from the unwanted ability to read minds and hear thoughts.Bremen searches for solitude and isolation from people, which he initially finds; however, as the novel progresses, he is exposed to increasing levels of contact with humanity and horrifying experiences of malicious and violent behaviour.Transposed with Bremen's story is that of another character, Robby, who appears to be narrating and commenting upon Bremen and his wife's life. Robby is severely disabled and unable to communicate as he is deaf, mute, and blind. How he is able to have such familiarity with Bremen is not disclosed until towards the end of the novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Redd" title="Seeing Redd">
The plot centres on Alyss's new responsibilities as Queen, and the fear in the Wonder landers that Redd has returned. Attacks were made on the queendom by Glass Eyes and it is assumed that Redd has returned, when it is actually King Arch trying to gain control of. When Molly is kidnapped, Hatter must disobey his queen and rescue her. Meanwhile, on Earth, Redd and The Cat form an army, lead it into Wonderland, unite King Arch's people against him, and launch an attack against Alyss. While Hatter and Molly go to the mountains to hide. Alyss also must fight her Aunt Redd but loses her powers and Molly learns that Hatter is her father.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tersias" title="Tersias">
The story starts off after Wormwood was destroyed and was sent to the dark side of the moon. Just as London was starting to recover from the disaster, Malachi, a magician, kept a blind boy named Tersias. Tersias was the one that predicted the coming of the comet for he was an oracle. After some time, people began to know about the helpless child's "abilities". Many people wanted to use Tersias' powers for themselves: Malachi, himself; Jonah, a teenage highwayman and his partner, Tara; Solomon, a zealot, who plans on using his experiments (flesh-eating locusts) and Lord Malphas, a keeper of mysterious powers. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatyapuri" title="Hatyapuri">
Disturbed by the heat and humidity of Calcutta in June, (combined with frequent electricity failures) the "Three Musketeers", Pradosh C. Mitter (Feluda), Topshe, and Lalmohan Ganguly (Jatayu) go to Puri for vacation. There they stay in Neelachal Hotel, owned by Lalmohan Babu's landlord's classmate, Shyamlal Barik. In the evening, while strolling on the beach, the trio spot odd footprints on the sand. Later, Lalmohan Babu goes to meet an astrologer, Laxman Bhattacharya, who is presumably gifted with extrasensory perception . Laxman lives in a building called "Sagarika" owned by an elusive man known as D.G. Sen. In the hotel, Shyamlal informs them that Sen's main interest is in collecting manuscripts.Next morning, while strolling on the beach, Topshe and Lalmohan Babu stumble upon a dead body lying on the beach, later revealed to be Rupchand Singh. They tell the news to Feluda, who in turn informs the police. He tells the two of them that he has fixed an appointment with D.G. Sen. While going to Sagarika, they find Inspector Mahapatra, with whom Feluda was acquainted from a previous case. After conversing with Mahapatra regarding the victim Singh—who had come to Puri from Nepal and had been shot dead, but the weapon hasn't been found—the "Three Musketeers" then go to Sagarika and meet Nisith Bose, D.G. Sen's secretary.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_X_(novel)" title="Camp X (novel)">
It is wartime, and nearly-12-year-old George and his 14-year-old brother Jack had moved with their mother to Whitby, Ontario from their farm in the summer of 1943. Their father was off fighting Germany in Africa and Jack and George's mom works for a munitions factory. Their summer was plain. But then, one day, after playing make-believe war they stumbled into a military base. There, their curiosity leads them to the discovery of Canada's Top Secret Military Base for training spies, Camp X. After sneaking around, they are caught by the guards and were forced to sign the Official Secrets Act. They learn much about the camp and are sent off with tasks improving the security. When delivering newspapers one day for Mr. Krum, Mr. Krum kidnaps the brothers for information about the camp. Jack and George are tortured and almost killed, but they learn about the plan to invade Camp X. They get away and warn the Camp X of the attacks that are planned. They risk their lives to warn Camp X.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedelia_(novel)" title="Bedelia (novel)">
Thirty-three-year-old Charlie Horst comes from an old Puritan family which for centuries has been one of the pillars of society in an unnamed small town in Connecticut. Educated at Yale and now working as an architect, he has lived in a grand old house—his parental home—all his life. At the beginning of the novel his domineering mother has been dead for less than a year, and since her death Charlie has gone on a summer holiday to Colorado Springs, has met Bedelia Cochran there, a young childless widow of great beauty, has immediately fallen in love with her, brought her back home and married her.Married life becomes Charlie Horst, so much so that on Christmas Day, 1913, he considers himself "the luckiest man in the world." Bedelia has turned out to be the perfect wife: exceedingly capable of running the household, a brilliant hostess, an obedient and submissive companion in need of protection by a strong man, imaginative, attractive, always well-dressed and well made-up, sexy, and good in bed. At their little Christmas party some of the town dignitaries are present, and everyone enjoys her ladylike ways. On top of it all, Bedelia is several months pregnant, turning Charlie into a proud father-to-be.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anybodies" title="The Anybodies">
Fern has lived all her life with the Drudgers, extremely dull adults who worked at a firm, Beige &amp; Beige. One day, the Beige family, the owners of the firm, visit the Drudger's house. Mrs. Drudger hopes that the Beiges' son, Milton, will one day marry Fern. Three other visitors arrive shortly after. They are the Bone family, Howard, and Mary Curtain, the nurse who delivered the Drudger's baby. Mary confesses that she had accidentally swapped their kids. Fern belonged to the Bone family, and Howard actually belonged to the Drudgers. After the Beiges leave, the Bone and the Drudgers discuss and conclude that they will try unswapping for just the summer and see how it goes.While the Bone drives Fern and Mary Curtain back to his house, Mary Curtain is not really Mary Curtain. She is a man named Marty. He and the Bone tell Fern that they are Anybodies, who can be anybody or anything. The Bone and Marty were once great Anybodies, but they are slowly losing the powers. The only thing that can improve their skills is Fern's dead mother Eliza's book, "The Art of Being Anybody". But no one knows where the book is, for Eliza (a great Anybody) died before she could tell anyone about it. Now, Fern and the Anybodies are in search of the book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_(Laymon_novel)" title="Island (Laymon novel)">
The novel is structured as a series of journal entries made by Rupert, a young man who finds himself stranded on an island in the Bahamas (along with six other people) when their yacht mysteriously explodes. After an ax-wielding maniac claims the lives of two of the castaways, Rupert and the other survivors are forced to try and outwit the mysterious killer in order to save their lives.Since the concept of the novel is that Rupert is making his journal entries as events happen (with no knowledge as to how future developments in the "plot" will unfold), the reader is left uncertain as to whether any of the book's characters, including Rupert himself, will survive (unlike most first-person narratives, where the survival of the narrator, at least, tends to be a foregone conclusion). The novel plays with these expectations at several points, with Rupert's life constantly being in danger right alongside those of his compatriots.Eventually, the women are captured along with other captive women, and Rupert manages to kill the antagonists, one of whom informs him where the prison cells' key is. Rupert informs the prisoners the key is missing, and starts a sexual relationship with his girlfriend's mother. He feeds the women and keeps them as comfortable as possible, and tells via his journal that one day he may even decide check the key's location.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Games_(novel)" title="Blood Games (novel)">
The novel centres on a group of young women who have been best friends since college. They go on their annual vacation together, each year to a different location of one member of the group's choosing. This year's trip takes them to the Totem Pole Lodge, an abandoned resort that was allegedly the site of a gruesome mass murder twelve years earlier. When one of the women, Helen, mysteriously disappears, her friends begin a search of the resort and the surrounding wilderness in an effort to discover what happened to her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bárðar_saga_Snæfellsáss" title="Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss">
## Section 1.In chapters 1–10, "Bárðar saga", the main character is Bárðr Snæfellsáss. The saga draws on legendary material and "Heimskringla" and contains excerpts from "Landnámabók".Bárðr's mother was human, but his father was half "risi" (giant) and half troll, and he was fostered by Dofri, the "mountain-dweller" of Dovrefjell. By his first wife, Dofri's daughter Flaumgerðr (who also had a human mother), Bárðr had three tall, beautiful daughters: Helga, Þordís and Guðrún. By his second wife, Herþrúðr, who was human, he had six more daughters.Bárðr, his wife and his daughters emigrated to Iceland and came ashore at a lagoon on the south shore of Snæfellsnes which they named Djúpalón; he built himself a farm which he called Laugarbrekka. Þorkell, Bárðr's half-brother from his mother's second marriage to a jötunn, lived at Arnarstapi and had two sons, Rauðfeldr (Red-cloak) and Sölvi. The sons of Þorkell and the daughters of Bárðr used to play together. One day, when there was pack ice along the shore, Rauðfeldr pushed Helga out to sea on an iceberg. She drifted unharmed to Greenland and there found a lover, but Bárðr was infuriated. He pushed Rauðfeldr into the Rauðfeldsgjá ravine and threw Sölvi off Sölvahamar, a high cliff on the coast east of Arnarstapi. Bárðr and Þorkell fought and Þorkell's leg was broken; he moved out of the district.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off_Armageddon_Reef" title="Off Armageddon Reef">
In the 24th century, 8 million people flee to distant Safehold after barely escaping from the destruction of civilization by a genocidal alien foe, the Gbaba. Because the enemy tracked signs of advanced technology to hunt down other emergency colonies, the plan is to enforce a pre-industrial society until the danger passes. Administrator Eric Langhorne, a megalomaniac and neo-Luddite, instead has the colonists' memories erased and replaced with the belief they are the first humans, "Adams" and "Eves," the creations of God upon Safehold with "Archangel Langhorne" anointed as prophet and leader of the Church of God Awaiting. Only by proscribing science as heretical, Langhorne believes, can humanity's safety be assured. Beyond opposing his madness on moral grounds, Pei Shan-Wei holds that eventually Langhorne's religion will collapse, leaving humanity defenseless as it returns to the stars with no memory of the past. Defying Langhorne, she sets up Alexandria, a refuge for knowledge on Safehold's southernmost continent. Tensions rise, before Alexandria is destroyed from space by a hidden kinetic bombardment platform. A retaliatory strike kills Langhorne and many of his followers, but the church remains.Langhorne is established as a Christ-like martyr, while Shan-Wei is demonized, their names becoming common expressions of praise and dismay. The ruined land of Alexandria is cursed as Armageddon Reef. Yet Shan-Wei had a backup plan: the immortal cybernetic avatar of one of the Terran Federation's young military officers, Nimue Alban, who gave her life to allow the Safehold colonists to escape the Solar System. Secreted for centuries away in caverns full of weapons and technology, Nimue awakens, learns of what has transpired, and vows to guide humanity until it is ready to face the Gbaba.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_Schism_Rent_Asunder" title="By Schism Rent Asunder">
Over the course of several months, Nimue Alban, known as Merlin Athrawes, has steered the Kingdom of Charis toward confrontation with Safehold's all-powerful Church of God Awaiting. The combined duties of being the guardian and adviser of King Cayleb of Charis, as well as the inspiration of Charis' burgeoning innovation, are tiring for even an android. Her only escape is space, somewhere nobody else on Safehold can follow her. She remains concerned about the kinetic bombardment platform that "Archangel" Eric Langhorne used to kill her mentor Pei Shan-Wei, and most of her supporters.Planetside, the Kingdom of Charis has been emboldened by its devastating naval victory over the forces sent to destroy it by the Church. Archbishop Mikael Staynair of Charis, who has become the effective Martin Luther of Safehold, declares a schism between the Church of God Awaiting and his see on Charis, accusing the Group of Four, the prelates who control the Church, of being responsible for the sneak attack on Charis. King Cayleb, who has ascended to the throne following his father's death in the attack, is locked in a desperate struggle with the Church. Charis shuts down international maritime trade with well-armed privateers. Meanwhile, the Group of Four set plans into motion to build a force capable of challenging Charis, and in the meantime to attack the Kingdom in any way possible. They order the brutal public execution of the previous Archbishop of Charis, Erayk Dynnys, but Dynnys bravely denounces them before his death. They also declare that Cayleb and Staynair are apostates and enemies of God, which creates domestic problems for Cayleb. Merlin barely manages to prevent the assassination of Staynair at the hands of Charisian church loyalists, who also destroy the Royal College. The Group of Four urge all of the nations loyal to the Church to close their ports to Charisian shipping in an attempt to attack Charis via economic means. In Ferayd, Kingdom of Delferahk, the Church's Office of Inquisition is resisted by Charisian merchants as it attempts to seize docked vessels. The ensuing massacre by the Inquisition pushes Safehold to the brink of Holy War. A Charisian fleet later raids the city in retaliation, burning much of it to the ground after allowing an evacuation.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Passage" title="The Final Passage">
The year is 1958. Leila is a 19-year-old woman who has to care for her very sick mother. She has never known her father, and her mother, who is only 40, has even refrained from telling her about him. As her skin is lighter than that of most of the other islanders she believes that she was the product of an affair her mother must have had with a white man. That, she thinks, would also explain her mother's distrust of white people, an attitude she has always tried to pass on to her daughter. Leila has a very good friend in Millie, who is more down to earth and knows much better what she wants to achieve in life.Leila's boyfriend Michael, who is in his early twenties, is an irresponsible young man whose main interests are sex and drink. He does odd delivery jobs on his scooter for his friend Bradeth, but most time of the day the two men can be seen outside one of the small bars getting drunk on beer. Michael has fathered an illegitimate child but has not made any real effort to move in with its mother. Rather, as his own parents are dead, he still lives in his grandmother's house.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingo_(novel)" title="Ingo (novel)">
Ingo is a mermaid who is lost, and she has a flashback of her sister, Sapphire (Sapphy) remembering her father, Mathew Trewhella, showing her the carved Zennor mermaid, who was slashed with a knife a long time ago by an angry human. She had been in love with a human man who eventually swam away with her and became Mer.By an apparent coincidence, the truant man has exactly the same name as Sapphy's father. He is apparently her ancestor. Sapphy is haunted by her father's disappearance because he does not come back from the cove after an argument with her mother. Many people say he ran away with another woman, or has died, but Sapphy and her brother, Conor, who is two years older than she is, refuse to give up hope and secretly promise to never stop looking for him.About a year later, Conor also disappears. Fearing that the same thing that happened to her father has happened to Conor, Sapphy sets out to look for him. She finds him speaking to a mysterious mergirl named Elvira in the water at the nearby cove, and waits until the girl suddenly disappears. When asked about the girl, Conor behaves as if she were never there, and is shocked (and at first doesn't believe) that hours have passed since he went for a "quick" swim.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relentless_(Kernick_novel)" title="Relentless (Kernick novel)">
One Saturday afternoon, Tom Meron, a happily married middle-class man, receives a phone call from his old friend Jack Calley, a high-flying city lawyer whom he hasn't seen or heard from in years. While on the phone, Tom hears Jack being murdered on the line; his last words being the first two lines of Tom's address. Tom, terrified and confused, grabs his children and flees the house. While leaving the neighborhood, he passes a suspicious vehicle heading towards his house. He leaves his children with his mother-in-law and goes to find his wife only to be attacked in her office by a balaclava-clad man wielding an already bloody knife. He is then quickly arrested by the police on suspicion of murder. Tom is questioned about the murder of Vanessa Blake (his wife's work partner), telling him that there was evidence that he was at the crime scene.Meanwhile, Mike Bolt is working into a suicide–murder case of the chief justice and he thinks it might have something to do with Jack Calley because he was his solicitor. He finds out that the last call Jack made was to Tom Meron's landline so he goes to Tom's house to question him. Though Tom has just been released on bail, Mike orders Tom's re-arrest in order to question him. Officers attempt to apprehend Tom after he exits the station, but Tom decides to make a break for it. He manages to get a good way away but pulls up beside him. Thinking it is the police, he turns around (admitting defeat) when he is violently subdued by a man in a baseball cap, and subsequently forced into the back of the car. Tom quickly learns that the two men who kidnapped him mean to question Tom.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Snake_and_the_Beautiful_Lily" title="The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily">
The tale begins with two will-o'-the-wisps who wake a ferryman and ask to be taken across a river. The ferryman does so, and for payment, they shake gold from themselves into the boat. This alarms the ferryman, for if the gold had gone into the river, it would overflow. He forces the will-o'-the-wisps to agree to pay him three artichokes, three cabbages, and three onions. The ferryman takes the gold up to a high place, and deposits it in a rocky cleft, where it is discovered by a green snake. The snake eats the gold and becomes luminous, allowing him to observe an underground temple where there is an old man with a lamp which can only give light when another light is present. The snake investigates the temple and finds four kings made of metal: one of gold, one silver, one bronze, and one a mixture of all three.The story then switches over to the wife of the old man, who meets a melancholy prince. He has met a beautiful Lily, but his happiness is prevented by the fact that anyone who touches her will die. The snake is able to form a temporary bridge across the river at midday, and in this way, the wife and prince come to Lily's garden, where she is mourning her fate. As twilight falls, the prince succumbs to his desire for the beautiful Lily, rushes towards her, and dies. The green snake encircles the prince, and the old man, his wife, and the will-o'-the-wisps form a procession and cross the river on the back of the snake.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomed_Queen_Anne" title="Doomed Queen Anne">
The book begins in 1520 in Calais, where Anne is at an event called the "Field of the Cloth of Gold", hosted by Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France. She has no great beauty (olive skin, dark hair and dark eyes in a time when pale-faced blonds were seen as the coveted image), no wealth and no title. She meets up with her older sister Mary, who is a lady-in-waiting in Queen Catherine of Aragon's court, and is rumoured to be the mistress of King Henry VIII of England. The King is tiring of Catherine because she has produced no sons - only a daughter, Mary.Anne's somewhat difficult childhood before the event is outlined. Always ill-favored by her parents, constantly antagonized by her older sister Mary, and disgusted by her own "deformities" (a small sixth finger and mole on her neck) she develops an ambition to rise to the top.Anne, jealous of her sister's rumoured affair when Mary flaunts the fact that she has the King's favor, vows to become the second wife of King Henry VIII. Anne, too, becomes a lady-in-waiting in the Queen's court. When the King tires of Mary, Anne uses her wits to gain the King's heart. While strategically courting the King, Anne manages to persuade Henry to seek an annulment for his marriage to Catherine. When the Pope refuses, he defies the Roman Catholic Church, declares his marriage null and void on his own authority, and marries Anne. Everybody at court hates her, claiming that she is a witch - as her sixth finger and the mole on her neck seem to indicate. 
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Royals_(book_series)" title="Young Royals (book series)">
The book begins in 1527, when Princess Mary, the daughter of Catherine of Aragon and King Henry VIII, learns she is to be betrothed to the king of France. Life goes well for the Princess until her father meets and falls in love with Anne Boleyn. This prompts him to demand an annulment of his marriage to Catherine, which would make the princess a bastard. Mary's father develops a strong attachment towards Anne Boleyn, who is slowly rising in the ranks as her mother is lowered.Years pass, and Henry grows even colder to his daughter. She is banished, forbidden to see her mother, and is living in constant fear of death once Anne takes the throne and her mother's marriage to the King is declared null and void. She is eventually summoned back to court to serve her baby half-sister, Elizabeth. She continues to fear death at her father's hands. The novel ends in the year 1536, when Anne Boleyn is beheaded, and Henry takes a third wife, Jane Seymour. Things are starting to look up for Mary, because Jane supports her, and her father welcomes Mary back into his life. But as she enjoys herself, Mary's supporters constantly remind her that she is not completely safe, as a part of Anne Boleyn still lingers: Mary's baby half-sister, Elizabeth. Mary is told that Elizabeth will eventually grow up to be her rival to the throne, but Mary argues that Elizabeth is just a child. The book ends with a statement from Mary saying that she had not known that her sister would become her enemy, her nightmare, foreshadowing the future struggles between the two princesses.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Lies_(Moloney_novel)" title="The Book of Lies (Moloney novel)">
A 12-year-old boy wakes up in an orphanage one night with no memory of who he is. The only thing he remembers is his name, Robert.But Robert is not his name, and a little girl called Bea knows this. She was there when Lord Alwyn, a once powerful sorcerer, erased all of his memory using the powerful Book of Lies.He meets Bea, who tells of his name. His real name is Marcel. He encounters the mighty Fergus and the haughty Nicola during his stay at the orphanage, both of whose memories are nothing more than lies.One day a mysterious man called Starkey claims to know the real lives of Nicola, Fergus and Marcel.Upon meeting his mother, imprisoned by the evil usurper King Pelham, he suddenly is not sure. Is Starkey all that he claims to be? Is his mother his real mother? Is King Pelham really evil, or was that a lie as well? Danger lurks at every corner, and Marcel must stop the most feared Mortregis, beast of war, from rising once again.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_the_Books" title="Master of the Books">
The book mostly deals with Fergus's attempts to kill Damon, who tracks Damon all over the Mortal Kingdoms. When Marcel puts a curse over Elster to prove that Fergus would never kill his father, the curse backfires on Fergus, putting him in mortal danger, and Marcel journeys to Noam to try and undo the curse. However, along the way, he discovers that Fergus is not the only person that needs Marcel's help.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_the_City" title="Web of the City">
The plot revolves around the character of Rusty Santoro, a member of a fictional Brooklyn street gang. In the novel, Santoro is caught between his meager prospects in the neighborhood and obligations to his gang, The Cougars. Throughout the book he struggles with the prospect of leaving his neighborhood and his gang life behind. The novel depicts street fights, murders, and other realities of gang life in urban areas.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinneret_(novel)" title="Spinneret (novel)">
The novel is set on year 2016 Earth, with several interstellar ships being launched by the US and the EU in the hopes of finding habitable worlds to alleviate the overpopulation of Earth, only to find that while inhabitable worlds exists aplenty, they are all taken by a Commonwealth of alien races. This device allows the author to explain why his colonists are sent to the one world available, devoid of any life form because of its unexplainable lack of metals.Zahn describes briefly the conflicts between the military and civilian parts of the Astra expedition, the latter further divided between scientists and colonists, then introduces the main device of the novel – the planet itself somehow absorbs the metal, leading to equipment literally vanishing into the ground. Soon after the disappearance, what was thought to be a dormant volcano launches into orbit a cable of an unknown material, which turns out to be superconductive, of great tensile strength and with the ability to atomically bond with anything it touches. From this fact the author derives the novel's title: Astra is actually the "Spinneret" of this cable. What once was a resource-less dirtball soon becomes the most popular factory in the galaxy, with several alien races, the UN and the United States all jockeying for rights to the cable, with the colonists stuck in between. Looming over this tableau lies the question of who the Spinners were – or are, why they disappeared, and what they could have used such huge amounts of cable for.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Winter_Prince" title="The Winter Prince">
Medraut, the illegitimate son of Artos the king, returns from his travels in Africa and elsewhere to watch over his younger half-brother, Lleu. Though Medraut, a child of incest, can never be High King, Artos knows that Medraut is a far better statesman and fighter than his younger brother; thus, Artos gives Medraut the task of making Lleu fit to be High King, promising Medraut the position of Regent in return.Medraut doesn't know if he loves or hates his brother; even from the beginning, he is disgusted by Lleu's naïve, careless use of power and jealous of Lleu's easy claim to Artos's affection. Their relationship intensifies when Medraut's lessons begin to stick, and Lleu starts to seem a suitable High King. Matters are further complicated by the entrance of Medraut's mother Morgause, whose disturbing similarities to Medraut are revealed even as she tries to slowly poison Lleu. Expecting Medraut's tacit approval of the poisoning, Morgause is unhappily surprised when Medraut protects Lleu and reveals Morgause's treachery to Artos. Artos banishes Morgause from the castle, and Morgause vows to erode Medraut's loyalty to Lleu.At first, Morgause's vow seems an empty threat. But while Lleu becomes more and more competent, an accident strips Medraut of his power and (he thinks) his father's affections. Resentment simmers between Medraut and Lleu, and by the time Morgause visits again, Medraut barely needs a catalyst. He kidnaps Lleu, intending to turn him over to Morgause, who in turn, plans to trade Lleu's life for the throne. But when Lleu steals Medraut's weapons and attempts to escape, the brothers are put in a unique situation; Medraut is ill and weaponless, Lleu is completely lost, and both are stranded in the middle of the woods. Medraut, struggling with regret as well as with his own envious desire to break Lleu's spirit, proposes a sadistic bargain; if Lleu can stay awake and alert for five days straight, Medraut will betray Morgause and lead him back to Camlan. Lleu agrees to the bargain, but as Lleu begins to hallucinate from lack of sleep, Medraut realizes that nothing his brother has said or done should have pushed him to this extreme.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Kings'_War" title="Great Kings' War">
"Great Kings' War" begins near the end of the colder than usual "Winter of Wolves" which has followed the war between Hostigos and its neighbours and the founding of Hos-Hostigos. While Great King Kalvan of Hos-Hostigos (formerly Corporal Calvin Morrison, Pennsylvania State Police) leads wolf and bandit hunts throughout his realm, the archpriests of Styphon's House plot their next move against Kalvan. As spring arrives Kalvan learns through the work of his intelligence officers Klestreus and Skranga that, in addition to the threat from Styphon's House, he must also face the armies of King Kaiphranos of Hos-Harphax, who seeks to regain the princedoms lost to Kalvan the previous year.To meet this two-fronted war Kalvan sends his father-in-law Ptosphes, Prince of Old Hostigos, as well as Princes Balthar of Beshta and Sarrask of Sask to meet the Holy Host of Styphon's House under Grand Master Soton in Beshta while he personally invades Hos-Harphax in the hope of capturing Harphax City and ending the reign of King Kaiphranos.Kalvan's campaign goes very well and he decimates the Harphaxi forces in the Battle of Chothros Heights, killing Crown Prince Philesteus of Hos-Harphax. Kalvan is preparing to press his advantage when he receives news that Ptosphes has been defeated by the Holy Host at Tenabra Town because of the treachery of Balthar of Beshta.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessa_(novel)" title="Tessa (novel)">
"Tessa" is the story of Tessa, a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl who has a vivacious imagination but is, in spite of this, a loner. There is a crime or a riddle to solve in that novel, which is typical of Margit Sandemo. The story begins when a burglar makes a wrong phone number. He inadvertently calls Tessa and tells her about his upcoming crime. Tessa plans to check his intentions.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ten_Teacups" title="The Ten Teacups">
Chief Inspector Masters receives a note that reads "There will be ten teacups at number 4, Berwick Terrace, W. 8, on Wednesday, July 31, at 5 p.m. precisely. The presence of the Metropolitan Police Is respectfully requested." The note troubles Masters because, two years earlier, he received a similar note that was ignored requesting that the police go to a different location. On the previous occasion a man named William Dartley was found shot dead, in a room with ten very expensive teacups (patterned with a peacock feather motif). The house where Dartley was found had no furnishings in any room, except for the room where his body was found.Masters takes the note to Sir Henry Merrivale, who assumes that Dartley was murdered over the teacups but realizes that that doesn't make sense, because the murderer brought the cups. H.M. then focuses on the second note, finding out that 4 Berwick Terrace is also an empty house. Inspector Masters reports that the day before some furniture was delivered to the house, and he responds by having the house guarded and having a police officer posted outside the newly-furnished room at all times.Masters discovers that a room in the house, a strongroom on the top floor, is going to be a meeting place for a man named Vance Keating and an unknown man or organization. Although Keating doesn't want police protection, Detective-Sergeant Pollard guards the door. At 5 p.m., two gunshots are heard. Pollard rushes into the room where he finds Keating shot dead, with a gun lying beside him. There is a thick layer of dust on the carpet that reveals only Pollard's and Keating's footprints. Pollard notices the window is open, and runs to it, noting that Sergeant Hollis stands directly under the window. Pollard suggests that the killer jumped out the window, to which Hollis's reply is "No one came out this window."
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cop_This!" title="Cop This!">
In 1969, in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley a car bomb explodes. Eleven people are slain. The repercussions threaten the stability of the government. Johnny Arnold, a low-level criminal is charged with the crime. This brings a father and son duo in conflict with the state's leaders.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ogre_Downstairs" title="The Ogre Downstairs">
When their mother Sally remarries, Caspar and Johnny Brent dislike their new stepfather, Jack McIntyre, though their younger sister, Gwinny, is less judgmental. Jack brings two sons of his own, Douglas and Malcolm, with him and the two sets of siblings do not get along. Tensions are increased by the small house in which the seven live. Jack himself proves to be prone to harsh comments, and Johnny soon dubs him "the Ogre".The Ogre buys chemistry sets, one each for Johnny and Malcolm. It is not too long before the children discover that some of the chemicals have magical properties. Douglas and Malcolm discover this after Johnny accidentally makes Gwinny fly, and a race begins between the two groups to find out which chemicals are magic. Caspar, Johnny, and Gwinny go flying, but the effect wears off away from home. Douglas has had to visit the mysterious store the chemistry sets came from to find out the antidote for a chemical which has turned Malcolm small, and they are able to attract his attention. He assists them in getting home, but the effect wears off again as they approach, which leaves Douglas stranded outside the house. Douglas (the oldest of the boys, perhaps fifteen) is caught by the Ogre, who assumes he has been sneaking out, and strikes him. The Ogre also strikes Johnny and Malcolm later in the book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Genius" title="Simple Genius">
Sean King, financially hard-pressed and trying to help his professional and platonic partner Michelle Maxwell, is forced to seek an assignment from his ex-girlfriend Joan Dillinger, a fellow ex-Secret Service agent who runs her own private investigation agency.Joan gives him a case based at a laboratory, investigating the murder of a scientist, Monk Turing. During his investigations, he stumbles on Camp Peary, the CIA training facility which leads him to a more complicated investigation, on which he works together with Michelle, who has attempted suicide after a psychological breakdown. He encounters Turing's autistic daughter, Viggie Turing, who is also extraordinary talented, but is willing to trust only Michelle, and hates Horatio, the psychologist who is treating both her and Michelle.Eventually, Sean and Michelle solve the case, but not before being tortured by their enemies. Sean gains a treasure, but generously shares it with others even though he is in financial difficulties.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballet_Shoes_(novel)" title="Ballet Shoes (novel)">
The book concerns three adopted sisters, Pauline, Petrova and Posy Fossil. Each of the girls is discovered as a baby by Matthew Brown (Great-Uncle-Matthew, known as "Gum"), an elderly, absentminded palaeontologist and professor, during his world travels, and sent home to his practical great niece, Sylvia and her childhood nanny, Nana who live in London, England.Gum embarks upon an expedition of many years and arranges for money to support the family while he is gone. Gum does not return in the promised five years and the money is almost gone. As they have no way to contact or track him down, Sylvia and Nana take in boarders to make ends meet, including Mr. Simpson and his wife, Dr. Jakes and Dr. Smith, a pair of tutors who take over the children's schooling after Sylvia can no longer afford their school fees because of The Great Depression and must pull them out of Cromwell House. Boarder Theo Dane, an impractical dance teacher, arranges for the children to begin classes at the Children's Academy of Dancing and Stage Training.Pauline finds she has a talent and passion for acting while Petrova hates acting and dancing. Posy has a real talent for dancing. When she is about six, Madame Fidolia, a famous and retired Russian dancer, gives Posy private lessons, something she has never done before. As the children mature, they take on some of the responsibility of supporting the household. Much of the drama comes from the friction between the sisters and from balancing their desire to help support the family financially against the laws limiting the amount of time they may spend on stage. When Pauline is picked for a lead part in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" after performing in "The Blue Bird", the early success goes to her head, because of which the producer replaces her with her understudy (although only for a single performance, not permanently as portrayed in the 2007 film). Through this, Pauline learns enough humility to balance her talent, and goes on to play many successful lead parts.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vargens_lilla_lamm" title="Vargens lilla lamm">
Sir Svante has five beautiful daughters, but that is pretty much all he has. The emperor's many wars has come at great costs for his people, and Sir Svante's mansion is not much more than a shell. He decides to arrange a big party, inviting all noble bachelors they know. If some of his daughters marry rich men, he will receive sizable dowries, enabling him to restore his mansion to its previous glory. Sir Svante makes an agreement with the mysterious Strelka brothers; two of his daughters, among them the young Svanehvit, barely fourteen, is to marry the brothers and follow them to their country. The Strelka castle has an ominous rumour. There have been numerous unexplained deaths, and some say that one of the brothers killed his first wife.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Renfield" title="The Book of Renfield">
"The Book of Renfield" works mainly as a companion piece to Stoker's original novel. In some cases, excerpts from the actual book are used but are modified and expanded under the pretense that "Dracula" is nonfiction and that Seward's entries were "edited, and in some instances, rewritten by John L. Seward before he provided them for the use of Mr. Bram Stoker, at the request of Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Harker". As such, whenever the text from "Dracula" is used, it is bolded to differentiate the changes.The book starts with a man discovered outside the ruins of Carfax Abbey, feasting on a rat, whose only form of identification is a handkerchief that reads "R. M. Renfield". He is taken in to Seward's asylum, where his sessions with the doctor reveal fragments of his tragic past and how he came to be Count Dracula's pawn.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Fire_(Sansom_novel)" title="Dark Fire (Sansom novel)">
It is 1540 and the hottest summer of the sixteenth century. Matthew Shardlake, believing himself out of favour with Thomas Cromwell, is busy trying to maintain his legal practice and keep a discreet profile. But his involvement with a murder case, defending a girl accused of brutally murdering her young cousin, brings him once again into contact with the king's chief minister – and a new assignment ...The secret of Greek Fire, the legendary substance with which the Byzantines destroyed the Arab navies, has been lost for centuries. Now an official of the Court of Augmentations has discovered the formula in the library of a dissolved London monastery. When Shardlake is sent to recover it, he finds the official and his alchemist brother brutally murdered – the formula has disappeared.Now Shardlake must follow the trail of Greek Fire across Tudor London, while trying at the same time to prove his young client's innocence. But very soon he discovers nothing is as it seems ...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_(novel)" title="Axis (novel)">
"Axis" takes place on the new planet introduced at the end of "Spin", a world the Hypotheticals engineered to support human life and connected to Earth by way of the Arch that towers hundreds of miles over the Indian Ocean. Humans are colonizing this new world — and, predictably, fiercely exploiting its resources, chiefly large deposits of oil in the western deserts of the continent of Equatoria.Lise Adams is a young woman attempting to uncover the mystery of her father's disappearance ten years earlier. Turk Findley is an ex-sailor and sometimes-drifter. They come together when showers of cometary dust seed the planet with tiny remnant Hypothetical machines. Soon, this seemingly hospitable world becomes very alien, as the nature of time is once again twisted by entities unknown.A quasi-religious group of "Fourths" from Earth, led by Dr. Avram Dvali, lives in the desert seeded by falling dust. They've created a child they call Isaac with a Martian upgrade (fatal to adults) that connects him with the Hypotheticals. The Fourth-hunting "Department of Genomic Security" is searching for this group or for a visiting Martian Fourth who disapproves of Isaac's creation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Boring_Ass_Life" title="My Boring Ass Life">
The title is a reference to Smiths frequently used blog. The book's content is from entries Smith has written about on said blog, from mundane daily activities to a series of writings detailing his friend and frequent featured actor Jason Mewes' heroin addiction. Smith also chronicles the making of and release of his seventh film "Clerks II" and describes the filming of his acting roles in "Catch and Release" and "Live Free or Die Hard".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_Line_(book)" title="The End of the Line (book)">
Fishing is occurring at an unsustainable rate. Technological advances, political indecisiveness, and commercial interests in the fishing industry have produced a culture where fish stocks are being exploited beyond their capacity to regenerate. Commercial fish may become extinct within our lifetimes.Official figures of global fish stocks have been wrong for several years. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that the quantity of wild fish caught had increased from 44 million tons in 1950, to 88 million tons in 1990 and 104 million tons in 2000. These figures were official even though the FAO knew they were false, that the catch was actually decreasing. In 1997, the Grand Banks cod fisheries of Newfoundland, Canada, had collapsed. Seventy-five percent of all fisheries were either fully exploited or overfished.Critically endangered species of fish are still allowed to be fished. For example, the bluefin tuna stock is equivalent to the black rhino. However, it is still being illegally caught and sold. Furthermore, there is even an oversupply problem in the current market as technological innovations have allowed entire schools of bluefin tuna to be caught at the same time. In Spain, the catch of bluefish tuna has exponentially decreased: 5000 million tons in 1999, 2000 million tons in 2000, 900 million tons in 2005.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bows_against_the_Barons" title="Bows against the Barons">
Set in medieval England, "Bows Against the Barons" relates the adventures of a peasant boy who becomes an outlaw and joins the band of Robin Hood. Together, they take up arms against the masters of England and fight for the rights of the common people. The protagonist's former master tries to suppress them, but at great cost.The title refers to the primary weapon of the outlaws – the longbow.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Me_If_You've_Heard_This_One_Before" title="Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before">
## High school.Albert was in self-imposed exile at local Bern High. After innumerable racial taunts and slurs, he had no friends. He no longer thought of girls, no longer looked people in the eye, ate lunch alone and got in the habit of carrying an entire day’s text books on his person, so as not to risk visiting his locker, for fear of being stuffed in it by one of the jocks from the lacrosse team.Albert’s clueless Korean-American immigrant parents have traditionally overloaded their hapless son each summer with more activities than he had during the school year. However, when Albert finished his sophomore year in high school, in a rare moment of diplomacy, his parents offered him an alternative...get a summer job.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Journeyer" title="The Journeyer">
Marco is the only heir to the wealthy Polo family of Venice. Unsupervised, he freely roams the streets and canals of the city getting in trouble. When he is falsely accused of murdering the husband of his lover, he is exiled from Venice and travels east with his father and uncle to the court of Kublai Khan, Mongol emperor of the orient. Marco remains in the empire for nearly twenty years and returns home as a wealthy man. His adventures become legendary.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beekeeper's_Apprentice" title="The Beekeeper's Apprentice">
After losing her family in a tragic motor accident in California, fifteen-year-old Mary Russell goes to live with her aunt in Sussex, England. Wandering the Sussex Downs in April 1915, she literally runs across fifty-four-year-old Sherlock Holmes, who has retired from his London practice and keeps bees. The two quickly become fast friends, Russell finding in Holmes a kindred spirit and steadfast teacher and Holmes finding in Russell a quick mind and a worthy apprentice in the art of detecting. By the time Russell enters Oxford University in the autumn of 1917, she is well-versed in Holmes's methods of disguise, tracking, and deduction.At Oxford, Russell reads chemistry and theology, immersing herself in the Bodleian Library and participating on the side in the dramatic society and elaborate pranks. Between terms, Russell solves her first cases as Holmes's apprentice, catching a German spy disguised as a neighbor's butler and apprehending a thief who had burgled the local pub. In August 1918, Holmes is consulted on the kidnapping of Jessica Simpson, the American senator's daughter, and brings Russell, elevating her apprenticeship. The pair journey in disguise as gypsies and trace the missing girl into Wales, where Russell takes initiative in rescuing Jessica, who develops a bond with her. However, Jessica's kidnappers are merely hired hands, and they fail to find the mastermind behind the plot. Russell and Holmes emerge from the case with a stronger sense of partnership, having solidified their mutual trust of each other's instincts.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel)" title="Blindsight (Watts novel)">
In the year 2082, thousands of large, coordinated objects of an unknown origin, dubbed "Fireflies", burn up in the Earth's atmosphere in a precise grid, while momentarily broadcasting across an immense portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, catching humanity off guard and alerting it to an undeniable extraterrestrial presence. It is suspected that the entire planet has been surveyed in one effective sweep. Despite the magnitude of this "Firefall", human politics soon return to normal.Years afterwards, a comet-surveying satellite stumbles across a radio transmission originating from a comet, subsequently named 'Burns-Caulfield'. This tight-beam broadcast is directed to an unknown location and in fact does not intersect the Earth at any point. As this is the first opportunity to learn more about the extraterrestrials, three waves of ships are sent out: the first being light probes shot out for an as-soon-as-possible flyby of the comet, then a wave of heavier but better-equipped probes, and finally a crewed ship, the "Theseus"."Theseus" is propelled by an antimatter reactor and captained by an artificial intelligence. It carries a crew of five cutting-edge transhuman hyper-specialists of whom one is a genetically reincarnated vampire who acts as the nominal mission commander. While the crew is in hibernation en route, the just-arrived second wave of probes commence a compounded radar scan of the subsurface of Burns-Caulfield, but this immediately causes the object to self-destruct. "Theseus" is re-routed mid-flight to the new-found destination of the signal: a previously undetected sub-brown dwarf deep in the Oort cloud, dubbed 'Big Ben'.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Antarctic_Mystery" title="An Antarctic Mystery">
## Volume 1.The story is set in 1839, eleven years after the events in "Arthur Gordon Pym", one year after the publication of that book.The narrator is a wealthy American Jeorling, who has entertained himself with private studies of the wildlife on the Kerguelen Islands and is now looking for a passage back to the United States. "Halbrane" is one of the first ships to arrive at Kerguelen, and its captain Len Guy somewhat reluctantly agrees to have Jeorling as a passenger as far as Tristan da Cunha.Underway, they meet a stray iceberg with a dead body on it, which turns out to be a sailor from "Jane". A note found with him indicates that he and several others including "Jane's" captain William Guy had survived the assassination attempt at Tsalal and are still alive.Guy, who had talked to Jeorling earlier about the subject of Pym, reveals himself to be the brother of William Guy. He decides to try to come to the rescue of "Jane"s crew. After taking on provisions on Tristan da Cunha and the Falklands, they head South with Jeorling still on board. They also take aboard another mysterious sailor named Hunt who is eager to join the search for undisclosed reasons.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After_Judgment" title="The Day After Judgment">
"Black Easter" and "The Day After Judgment" were written with the assumption that the ritual magic for commanding demons, as described in grimoires, actually works.In the first book, a wealthy arms manufacturer comes to a black magician, Theron Ware, with a strange request: he wishes to release all the demons from Hell on Earth for one night to see what might happen. The book includes a lengthy description of the summoning ritual and a detailed description of the grotesque demons as they appear. Tension between Ware and Catholic white magicians arises over the terms and conditions of a covenant that provides for observers and limitations on interference with demonic workings. "Black Easter" ends with Baphomet announcing to the participants that the demons cannot be compelled to return to Hell: the war is over and God is dead."The Day After Judgment" develops and extends the characters from the first book. It suggests that God may not be dead, or that demons may not be inherently self-destructive, as something appears to be restraining the actions of the demons upon Earth. In a lengthy Miltonian speech at the end of the novel, Satan Mekratrig explains that, compared to humans, demons are good, and that if perhaps God has withdrawn Himself, then Satan beyond all others was qualified to take His place and, if anything, would be a more just god.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mutation_(novel)" title="The Mutation (novel)">
While using their aquatic morphs to chase the Yeerks' new Sea Blade, which was after the Pemalite ship, the Animorphs and Ax find themselves beached inside an underwater cavern. The cavern seems to be littered, however, with several different types of air and sea craft, with what appears to be human statues inside. Further inspection by Cassie and Ax reveals that these people were real, and were killed and stuffed for preservation. While attempting to escape and locate Visser Three, whose ship was taken by a strange, humanoid aquatic species, Jake, Cassie, Ax, Rachel, and Marco, all in their natural forms, are captured by these life-forms, who reveal themselves as Nartec. Tobias was on lookout above, and therefore was not captured. The Nartec queen explains that they once were humans who lived above water, and when their city sunk, they began to adapt to underwater life. Ax realizes that radioactivity is what aided their ability to evolve so quickly. He also surmises that the Nartec have inbred for years, except for possible breeding with their captives prior to killing them, so their genetic code is breaking down. After the Nartec queen, Queen Soco, makes it clear that she intends to "preserve" the Animorphs, she permits them to do some sightseeing, but warns them not to try and escape.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love,_Stargirl" title="Love, Stargirl">
New in town, homeschooled, and feeling rejected by Leo, the 16-year-old narrator of the first book who had fallen under her spell, she is lonely and sad—her "happy wagon," where she keeps stones representing her level of happiness, is almost empty. She befriends Dootsie, a noisy but lovable 6-year-old who takes a shine to Stargirl and wants to switch.Dootsie introduces her to Betty Lou, an agoraphobic elderly woman. She is quite nice and Stargirl soon becomes friends with her as well. They also share a very nice time watching flowers together. With the arrival of autumn, Stargirl's life is affected as she meets several new characters: Alvina, a grumpy young girl who delivers donuts to Betty Lou; Perry, a teen boy who Alvina is falling in love with; and Perry's "harem," The Honeybees.As winter sets in, Stargirl plans a Winter Solstice party, inviting all of the people she has encountered in her new town to celebrate the beginning of winter by joining her at sunrise on her Enchanted Hill, which she now calls Calendar Hill. Stargirl also discovers the truth about Perry, who has been very mysterious about his family and personal life. She learns his mother has a new baby, whom Perry has been trying to support by working several jobs and by resorting to "stealing" to avoid burdening her with feeding him. In the end, Stargirl becomes worried that no one will show up for her solstice party, but is reassured by Archie, her former teacher and friend from Arizona, who arrives to attend her celebration and comforts her with his wisdom.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_Wizard" title="Dog Wizard">
The story opens with the exiled wizard Antryg Windrose and his companion Joanna living in California after their escape through the void to Earth, after being condemned to death in the previous book, "The Silicon Mage".The story continues as Joanna is kidnapped from her apartment by a mysterious person wearing the robes of a mage. Antryg is forced to respond to the call of the wizards who condemned them in order to track her whereabouts. After he arrives at the Citadel of Wizards, he realizes that he was brought there for a completely different reason, and that the wizards have no idea where Joanna is or who kidnapped her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Everything" title="The Book of Everything">
The book, set in Amsterdam, relates the tale of a nine-year-old boy named Thomas who see things no one else can, such as invisible hail that "ripped all the leaves from the trees", and tropical fish in the canal. Thomas lives in a family of four: his parents and his sister, Margot. They are not, however, a harmonious family, as their father repeatedly hits their mother, and punishes Thomas by beating him with a wooden spoon. He is a very religious man, but he fears embarrassment and is said to "not belong with people". Thomas writes down everything in his "Book of Everything", a diary which holds his thoughts.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_with_a_Pearl_Earring_(novel)" title="Girl with a Pearl Earring (novel)">
Sixteen-year-old Griet has to leave her family home in Delft in 1664 after her father is blinded in an accident. As a tile-painter, her father is a member of the artists’ guild, so employment is found for her as a maid in painter Johannes Vermeer's household. In the strictly stratified society of the time, this is a fall in status because of the bad reputation that maids have for stealing, spying and sleeping with their employers. A further complication is that the Vermeers belong to the grudgingly tolerated Catholic minority while Griet is a Protestant. At their home, she befriends the family's oldest daughter, Maertge, but is never on good terms with the spiteful Cornelia, a younger daughter who takes after her class-conscious mother, Catharina. Griet also finds it difficult to keep on the right side of Tanneke, the other house servant, who is moody and jealous.Griet lives for two years at her employers’ and is only allowed to visit her home on Sundays, where the family circle is breaking up. Her younger brother Frans is apprenticed outside and eventually her younger sister Agnes dies of the plague. But during the early months of her work at the Vermeers', Pieter, the son of the family butcher at the meat market, starts courting Griet. She has been strictly brought up and does not welcome this at first, but tolerates his interest because it is of advantage to her impoverished parents.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocent_Traitor" title="Innocent Traitor">
The story starts with her birth in 1537. The daughter of Lady Frances Brandon and Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, Jane is seen as a burden by her parents, both of whom resent her for being a girl instead of a boy, and is regularly beaten by her mother.Jane grows up close to her nurse, Mrs. Ellen and is highly educated, to the standards of a princess. After Henry VIII's death and Catherine Parr's marriage to Thomas Seymour, Jane goes to live with the former queen and her husband to further her education while her elders plot her marriage to Edward VI of England.When it becomes clear that the young king will not live long, other plans are made for Jane. John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, gets the young Edward to proclaim Jane as his successor.He does this by proclaiming his half sisters, Mary and Elizabeth I of England, both bastards and not fit to take the throne. According to Edward's father's will, if all his children were to die without heirs, then the succession to the crown would follow the lineage of his late younger sister, Mary Tudor. Frances, the daughter of Mary, relinquishes her right to the crown in order for it to go to her eldest daughter, Jane, since she had no sons.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Abyss_(Yourcenar_novel)" title="The Abyss (Yourcenar novel)">
Zeno, an illegitimate son, is born in the Ligre household, a rich banking family of Bruges. Zeno renounces a comfortable career in the priesthood and leaves home to find truth at the age of 20. In his youth, after leaving Bruges, he greedily seeks knowledge by roaming the roads of Europe and beyond, leaving in his wake a nearly legendary — but also dangerous — reputation of genius due to the works he accomplishes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skydive!" title="Skydive!">
The story is about 13-year-old Jesse Rodriguez who has an exciting job working for his friend Buck at a small flight and skydiving school near Seattle. But he can't wait to turn 16 and finally be able to make his first free-fall jump from a plane.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seventh_Crystal" title="The Seventh Crystal">
The story is about Chris Masters who is having problems with bullies at his school, stealing his lunch money and threatening him. His next biggest problem is a video game called "The Seventh Crystal" which came in the mail with almost no instructions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Creature_of_Black_Water_Lake" title="The Creature of Black Water Lake">
The story is about Ryan Swanner and his mom who have just moved to the mountain resort of Black Water Lake. The locals tell of a giant, ancient creature which lives beneath the lake's seemingly calm surface.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Benders" title="Time Benders">
The story is about Zack Griffin and Jeff Brown who both win trips to a famous science laboratory. There they discover that one of the machines in the lab can "bend" time, and they end up in ancient Egypt.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Bringer" title="Fire Bringer">
"Fire Bringer" is the story of Rannoch, a red deer born in 13th-century Scotland. Rannoch is born with a white mark on his forehead resembling an oak leaf, the symbol of the deer god, Herne. To the Herla, as the deer are called among animals, the white mark is the symbol of a prophecy foretelling the birth of a deer with the ability to communicate with all animals who would bring freedom to the Herla.The story begins the night Rannoch's father, Brechin, is murdered, and his mother, Eloin, is forced to become the mate of the Lord of the Herd, Drail. Rannoch is adopted by another doe, Bracken. However, soon Drail decides to kill Rannoch and the other fawns out of fear of the prophecy. When Eloin finds out, she warns Bracken and the other mothers that their fawns are in danger; however, only some of them listen. So Rannoch, Bracken, five other fawns, and their mothers flee Drail's herd and take refuge with another, which they believe will be a place of safety.Soon, however, human hunters attack their new herd. Rannoch helps his friends by drawing off one of the hunters' dogs but is injured in the process, after which the other deer believe him to be dead. Rannoch is found by a human boy who takes him home, where the boy and his mother keep him safe while his leg heals.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sweet_Dove_Died" title="The Sweet Dove Died">
Leonora Eyre, an attractive and elegant, but essentially selfish, middle-aged woman, becomes friendly with antique dealer Humphrey Boyce and his nephew James. Both men are attracted to Leonora, but Leonora prefers the young, good-looking James to the more "suitable" Humphrey. While James is away on a buying trip, Leonora discovers to her annoyance that he has been seeing Phoebe, a girl of his own age. Leonora makes use of Humphrey to humiliate Phoebe, and turns out a sitting tenant in order that James can take up a flat in her own house. She does this in an apparent attempt to control his life. While abroad, the bisexual James has begun a relationship with an American, the amoral Ned, who later follows him to London. Ned prises James out of Leonora's grasp, only to reject him for another lover. James attempts a reconciliation with Leonora, but she refuses to give him a second opportunity to hurt her, and settles for the admiration of the less attractive Humphrey.As with all Pym's fiction, the novel contains many literary references, notably to works by Keats, John Milton and Henry James.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_Children" title="The Emperor's Children">
In 2001 in New York City three friends, who all showed signs of brilliance in their youth, reach their 30s without having achieved the promise they showed a decade earlier. Danielle Minkoff is the only one of her friends to hold a steady job, working as a producer for a TV program that makes documentaries. Marina Thwaite is the daughter of a revered literary critic and author Murray Thwaite and his wife Annabel. Years earlier, Marina secured a contract to write a book about children's fashion, and having used up all her advance money and facing a hard deadline, moves back into her childhood home with her parents. Meanwhile, Julius Clarke, a brilliant and witty critic for "The Village Voice," cannot sustain himself with his literary work and is forced to take temporary jobs to supplement his income—which he finds demeaning. At one of his temp jobs, he meets a successful, slightly younger man David Cohen. Juliius seduces him and eventually moves in with him and allows himself to be kept like a housewife. He keeps Marina and Danielle away from David.Meanwhile, Danielle begins two flirtations, one with Ludovic Seeley, an Australian editor who has moved to New York City to start a literary journal "The Monitor" (named after "Le Moniteur Universel") and another with Marina's father Murray, who begins an email correspondence at first using her job and later concern over Marina's unemployment as reasons to keep contacting her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unquiet_Earth" title="The Unquiet Earth">
The Unquiet Earth is a novel written from the perspective of multiple narrators. The three main narrators are Dillon, Rachel, and Jackie who are all family. Dillon is Rachel's younger cousin, and Jackie is most likely their child.The story begins prior to the birth of Jackie and is narrated by Dillon and Rachel, children living on their family land, the Homeplace. From the beginning, Dillon makes claims that he loves Rachel partially because she is the only one who has memories of his father. They both narrate parts of their childhood and the beginning of the novel mainly depicts how their relationship grows and how their love for one another begins. They are first cousins - therefore, their mothers are sisters. The first instance in which their love is really shown is when Rachel falls into a river and Dillon is forcibly restrained by his mother from diving in to save her because of her fear of losing him as well. He is forced to watch Rachel suffer and nearly be swept away by the current, but luckily she was dragged out by the mule she was riding. They rush her home, and Dillon watches through a window as his mother helps a cold and naked Rachel recover.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffball_(novel)" title="Puffball (novel)">
Liffey and Richard, a young London couple who move to the country with the expectation of having children. Their neighbors are Mab and Tucker, a farming family with five children of their own. Mabs, jealous of the newcomers' easy life, sends Tucker to sleep with Liffey while Richard is away, priming her with an herbal aphrodisiac first. She becomes angry, however, when Liffey becomes pregnant and she finds that she herself is suddenly unable to conceive. Incorrectly believing the father of the child might be Tucker, Mabs attempts to abort the child by sneaking herbs into Liffey's tea and food. The unborn child, however, mystically takes charge and gives Liffey directions, saving her life and its own. Once the baby is born, Mabs sees the resemblance to Richard and, now pregnant herself, abandons her anger towards the couple.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possessing_the_Secret_of_Joy" title="Possessing the Secret of Joy">
It tells the story of Tashi, an African woman and a minor character in Walker's earlier novel "The Color Purple". Now in the US she comes from Olinka, Alice Walker's fictional African nation where female genital mutilation is practiced. Tashi marries an American man named Adam then leaves Olinka because of the war. Tashi chooses to go back to Olinka to undergo circumcison because she is a woman torn between two cultures, Olinkan and Western. Instead of feeling free from not having the procedure done as a child, she feels bothered by it. She wants to honor her Olinkan roots and has the operation in her teen years, although it is usually performed on female children. Tashi later sees several psychiatrists because she goes crazy due to the trauma she has suffered before finding the strength to act. The novel is told in many different voices, which are the characters in the novel.The novel explores what it means to have one's gender culturally defined and emphasizes that, according to Walker, "Torture is not culture."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Under_Popular" title="File Under Popular">
The essays in "File Under Popular" tackle the subject of "popular music", what it is, its origins and the political and marketing forces behind it. Cutler charts the history of music and how it was changed by written notation and then recording technology. Three of the essays dwell specifically on individual musicians and groups, namely Sun Ra, The Residents, Phil Ochs and Elvis Presley, but their stories are told within the context of the evolution of music. "Necessity and Choice in Musical Forms" is the first sketch of an analytical theory that shows how memory systems underpin the forms that music can take; part III of this essay is a personnel memoir of Cutler's that explains how his former band, Henry Cow functioned outside the music industry and their involvement in the establishment of Rock in Opposition. The last two essays deal with the development of progressive rock in the United Kingdom, its significance and the politics behind it.Cutler continued his analysis on "popular music" in 1986 in two articles, "Skill, Part 1: The Negative Case For Some New Music Technology" and "Skill, Part 2: Heavy Metal, Punk and the New Wave", published in the "RēR Quarterly" sound-magazine, Volume 1 Number 3 (1986) and Volume 2 Number 2 (1987), respectively. These articles were later reworked by Cutler into a single essay entitled "Skill", which was included in the 1996 expanded Japanese edition of "File Under Popular".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grizzly_(novel)" title="Grizzly (novel)">
The story is about Justin McCallister who loves life on his aunt and uncle's sheep ranch in Montana. Until a grizzly bear begins terrorizing the livestock, injuring Justin's collie, Radar, and killing his pet lamb, Blue.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunder_Valley" title="Thunder Valley">
The story is about Jeremy and Jason Parsons who are left to take care of their grandparents Thunder Valley Ski Lodge while their grandma goes to visit their grandfather in hospital with a broken hip. Strange things begin happening once Grandma leaves, though.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_Ruins" title="Curse of the Ruins">
The story is about Sam, his thirteen-year-old twin sister, Katie and their cousin Shala who are trying to find their dad who is lost on a New Mexico ruin while escaping danger from bad guys who want to find a secret map, which their dad left them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_of_the_Hawk" title="Flight of the Hawk">
The story is about Andy who is sent to live with his mysterious grandfather Hawkes after his parents' deaths. Andy soon finds out his grandfather isn't what he seems, but instead is an inventor, and discovers that his parents' deaths may not have been an accident. When Grandfather Hawkes's life is threatened, Andy decides he's not going to lose another person he loves. So using his grandfather's inventions, Andy becomes The Hawk.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Testament_of_Oscar_Wilde" title="The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde">
The novel is written in the form of a diary which Oscar Wilde was writing in Paris in 1900, up to his death. The diary itself is completely fictional, as is the detail contained, although the events and most of the characters (such as the characters of Lord Alfred Douglas, Robert Ross and the Earl of Rosebery and his incarceration, at Pentonville, later Reading) are real. In this diary he looks back at his life, writing, and ruin through trial and gaol. Included are fairy tales much like those Wilde wrote, although again these are wholly Ackroyd's invention. The last pages are written in the character of Maurice, Wilde's valet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senrid" title="Senrid">
Senrid is King of Marloven Hess, but in name only because his uncle Tdanerand holds the power. When the Marlovens try to attack the nearby kingdom of Vasande Leror they are defeated by the combined efforts of Vasande Leror's King Leander, his small army, a little bit of magic and a shapeshifting girl named Faline. Senrid's first mission is to get revenge on Leander (and his whining sister Kitty) and Faline. This gets more complicated as many allies of Leander and Faline get involved to try to rescue them. Eventually as magic combines and nearly destroys them in a battle they are thrown off world. When they get back, Senrid must travel and discover whether he wants to join the evil black mages for power or join the white forces of good to help his country.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystic_Masseur_(novel)" title="The Mystic Masseur (novel)">
"The Mystic Masseur" follows the life of Ganesh Ramsumair, a Trinidadian of Indian heritage. As a young man, Ganesh attends a training college for teachers, and after graduation, he begins working as a primary school teacher in the Port of Spain, Trinidad’s capital. However, he quickly loses interest in this profession and returns to his hometown of Fourways, where he learns that his father has just died. Ganesh plans to be either a writer or a professional masseur, and he befriends a local shop owner named Ramlogan. Ramlogan has a 16-year-old daughter named Leela, and Leela and Ganesh soon marry. After the wedding, Ganesh demands a large dowry payment from Ramlogan, which angers the latter.Ganesh and Leela go to live in the small rural village of Fuente Grove, and he befriends a shop owner there named Beharry. Beharry encourages Ganesh to read and become a writer, and Ganesh orders several hundred books by mail to comprise his personal library. He reads the books and makes notes, but Leela becomes frustrated by the lack of progress Ganesh makes with actually writing. She leaves Ganesh and returns to Fourways to live with her father again. Ganesh spends the next five weeks writing an educational text about Hinduism, and when he finishes it, he has hires a print shop to make copies of his book. He brings the book to Leela and Ramlogan, and they are ecstatic that he has written a book. However, Ramlogan becomes furious when he sees that the book is dedicated to Beharry rather than Leela or himself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Teahouse_Fire" title="The Teahouse Fire">
Set in late nineteenth century Japan, "The Teahouse Fire" is the story of Aurelia, a young French-American girl who, after the death of her mother and her missionary uncle, finds herself lost and alone and in need of a new family. Knowing only a few words of Japanese she hides in a Japanese tea house and is adopted by the family who own it: gradually falling in love with both the Japanese tea ceremony and with her young mistress, Yukako.As Aurelia grows up she devotes herself to the family and its failing fortunes in the face of civil war and western intervention, and to Yukako's love affairs and subsequent marriage. But her feelings for her mistress seem doomed never to be reciprocated and, as tensions mount in the household, Aurelia begins to realise that to the world around her she will never be anything but an outsider.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion's_Gate" title="The Scorpion's Gate">
A coup in Saudi Arabia topples the sheiks and installs an Islamic government in its place. The weaknesses of the new government, combined with the oil riches of the country, attract attention from all over the world as larger, oil-hungry countries attempt to realign the map of the Middle East.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Duel" title="Crown Duel">
## Part One – Crown Duel.The novel begins in the fictional country of Remalna in Sartorias-deles, where seventeen-year-old Countess Meliara "Mel" Astiar of Tlanth makes an oath to her dying father. She swears in that oath that she and her older brother Count Branaric "Bran" (21) will defend their people from the growing greed of King Galdran. Galdran covets the Tlanth lands for his cruel cousin, Baron Nenthar Debegri, and also seeks to break the Covenant – an ancient pact between humans and the Hill Folk – by resuming the harvest of their valuable "colorwoods". When Mel and Bran learn of these plans, they feel compelled to fulfill their promise and enter into a war ill-prepared and severely outnumbered.Debegri attempts to subdue Tlanth under the pretense of unpaid taxes and for conspiring to break the Covenant. Mel and Bran and their small group of forces – mostly farmers and tradespeople – initially succeed at foiling Debegari with guerilla tactics, such as blockading a stream to flood the enemy's camp. However, the war changes for the worse when the capable Marquis of Shevraeth (25), the heir to the nearby principality of Renselaeus, takes command from Debegari. Shevraeth soon captures Mel and takes her to the capitol of Remalna-city, imprisoning her. Shevraeth tells her that the king orders her to surrender Tlanth's forces or face execution. Mel refuses, and soon escapes imprisonment with the help of their family spy, Azmus.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deathstalker_Rebellion" title="Deathstalker Rebellion">
Set in a far-future fictional universe, "Deathstalker Rebellion" develops the plot and themes introduced in Deathstalker.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_in_Nature" title="Intelligence in Nature">
The book is divided into eleven chapters, each of which is a recounting of an experience the author had in some remote part of the world. Narby's recounts a journey to the Peruvian Amazon in 2001, and recalls his September 2001 canoe trip with a Matsigenka Indian on the Urubamba River.Narby recounts his meeting Ornithologist Charlie Munn, who recounted his investigation of macaws in the region that consumed clay which binds to the toxic alkaloids in the seeds that form part of the macaw's diet. Munn notes that the birds choose clay which is higher in kaolin content as this is more effective in binding the toxins than other clay. Narby then speculates on whether this is a sign of intelligence, instinct or evolutionary adaptive behaviour, noting that humans are identified as "smart" when they consume the clay, while birds are identified as "instinctive" for the same behaviour.Narby discusses the intelligence of corvidae, that half of the known species of birds have to learn how to sing and learning is a hallmark of intelligence. He claims that, when in a trance, shamans communicate using their minds with animals and plants, drawing parallels with similar behaviour exhibited in religion. He then suggests that scientists and shamans should collaborate to "understand the minds of birds and other animals." Narby also claims that shamans communicate with some entity to negotiate the exploitation of natural resources and that the entity protects plants and animals from reckless and greedy humans.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Is_Not_Enough_(novel)" title="The World Is Not Enough (novel)">
"The World Is Not Enough" was adapted by then-current Bond novelist Raymond Benson from the screenplay by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Bruce Feirstein. It was Benson's fourth James Bond novel and followed the story closely, except in some details. For example, Elektra does not die immediately after Bond shoots her; instead, she begins quietly to sing. The novel also gave the Cigar Girl a name: Giulietta da Vinci, and retained a scene between her and Renard that was cut from theatrical release. Also, Bond is still carrying his Walther PPK instead of the newer P99.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_Burning" title="Rome Burning">
Three years after the events of "Romanitas", the Roman Empire is on the brink of war with Nionia (Japan), and plagued by a sequence of mysterious wildfires. Marcus Novius, the young heir to the Roman throne is forced to take charge as Regent when the Emperor Faustus falls suddenly ill. Marcus attempts to recruit Varius as his advisor, but Varius, who is still haunted by the events of the first book (in which he lost his wife and was framed for murder and treason), refuses. While Marcus works to avoid a world war, his lover Una is intent on discovering the truth about his ambitious cousin Drusus's involvement in a conspiracy that almost claimed Marcus's life. Her brother Sulien finds himself caught up along with Varius in a disastrous attack on an arms factory at Veii, just outside Rome. After surviving this and saving Sulien's life, Varius decides to return to political life after all, but Sulien is left with many questions about what happened. Una exposes Drusus's involvement in the murders of Marcus's parents and Varius's wife, although not before he almost kills her.Varius urges Marcus to have Drusus killed but Marcus is reluctant to begin his reign with an extra-judiciary killing, and is content to have Drusus tried for Una's attempted murder as there is no direct evidence for his other crimes. Drusus, however, has formed an alliance with a Roman general, Salvius, who releases Drusus from prison and urges the sickly Emperor Faustus to rethink his decision to allow Marcus so much power. Drusus, who has hitherto never felt much personal resentment of those who have stood in his way, has conceived a passionate hatred of Una, and tries to convince Faustus that she, Sulien, and Varius are a dangerous influence on Marcus.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dogs_of_Babel" title="The Dogs of Babel">
The book is narrated by Paul Iverson, a linguist who calls home one day to find out his wife is dead. He is very troubled by this and therefore for the remainder of the book he is trying to teach the only witness of her death, his dog Lorelei, to speak. Throughout the book, Paul uncovers more about his wife's last day and remembers events through their life they led up to it.Paul Iverson called home to find a police officer answering the phone and suggesting him to come home. When he comes home he finds his wife, Alexandra "Lexy" Ransome, dead, fallen from an apple tree. The police declared it an accident, but Paul is bothered by the "anomalies" he finds, such as signs of someone cooking steak, a rearrangement of the book shelf, and the question as to what his wife was doing in the apple tree in the first place. The only witness to her death is their dog Lorelei, and Paul goes on a crusade to teach Lorelei to speak, in order to clear up the mystery. He cites several past attempts as evidence he will be successful, especially the case of Dog J, who was surgically altered by Wendell Hollis, "the Dog Butcher of Brooklyn", so that he could make human sounds. Paul leaves his job at the college, and dedicates his time to this single cause.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopgirl_(novella)" title="Shopgirl (novella)">
Its titular character is 28-year-old Mirabelle Buttersfield, a lonely, depressed Vermont transplant who sells expensive evening gloves nobody ever buys at Neiman Marcus in Beverly Hills and spends her evenings watching television with her two cats. She moved to California in an attempt to find herself and fall in love but instead takes medication to fight off depression. Much to her chagrin, she is pursued by Jeremy, a socially inept and unambitious slacker and roadie for a band, and winds up entertaining his advances to avoid being alone. After a middle-aged, womanizing Seattle millionaire named Ray Porter visits her store and sends her a dinner invitation, the two begin to date. She attempts to forge a relationship with him, even though it's clear Porter isn't looking for a long-term commitment. Along the way, the story explores the deeper meaning behind their opposing intentions. Also playing roles in her life are her father, a dysfunctional Vietnam War veteran, and Lisa, her promiscuous, image-obsessed co-worker and voracious rival.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trek_to_Madworld" title="Trek to Madworld">
The receives orders to proceed at maximum warp to Epsilon Delta IV, where 700 colonists are slowly perishing due to radiation poisoning. The journey is interrupted by Enowil, an eccentric being of incredible power, who seizes control of the ship. Also seized are Klingon and Romulan starships.Enowil, requesting aid from all three parties in resolving a purported “private matter,” offers any reward within the scope of his power. Captain Kirk is thus faced with a dilemma: If he opts to decline, both the Romulans and Klingons have the opportunity to acquire a potentially unstoppable weapon, which would disrupt the galactic balance of power. Yet if he chooses to accept, the abandoned 700 colonists on Epsilon Delta IV will most certainly succumb to an agonizing and protracted death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Chouans" title="Les Chouans">
At the start of the novel, the Republican Commander Hulot is assaulted by Chouan forces, who convert dozens of conscripts. An aristocrat, Marie de Verneuil, is sent by Joseph Fouché to subdue and capture the royalist leader, the Marquis de Montauran, also known as "Le Gars". She is aided by a detective named Corentin.Eventually, Marie becomes smitten with her target. In defiance of Corentin and the Chouans who detest her, she devises a plan to marry the Chouan leader. Fooled by Corentin into believing that Montauran loves her mortal enemy Madame du Gua, Marie orders Hulot to destroy the rebels. She discovers her folly too late and tries, unsuccessfully, to save her husband the day after their marriage.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Name_of_the_Wind" title="The Name of the Wind">
The Kingkiller Chronicle takes place in the fictional world of Temerant, a large continent of which the known part, called the Four Corners of Civilization, is divided into several distinct nations and cultures. Much of the world follows a faith vaguely similar to medieval Christianity. Coexisting alongside the mortal world is the realm of the Fae, a parallel universe inhabited by supernatural creatures which can move between the two realms only when the moon is full. Magic exists in Temerant, too, but obeys a well-defined set of rules and principles that can only be exploited by those who have trained in its professional and scientific use.As the novel begins, the reader hears an old storyteller speaking of a famous old wizard called Taborlin the Great, who was captured by evil beings called the Chandrian. Escaping them, Taborlin fell from a great height—but since he knew the "Name of the Wind", he called it and the Wind came and set him down safely. In later parts of the book, characters are often skeptical of such stories. Some kinds of magic are taught in the university as academic disciplines and have daily-life applications (those who can afford it are able to buy magical lamps, for example, much better than the candles used by poorer people). However, most of the population does not have reliable knowledge of the magical disciplines and many still doubt that magicians can truly call upon the Wind. The Chandrian—whose appearance is supposedly heralded by flames turning blue—are often dismissed as mythical bogeymen.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Palace_of_Laughter" title="The Palace of Laughter">
Miles Wednesday, an orphan boy who has recently escaped from the cruel Pinchbucket's orphanage, is the only one who witnesses the arrival of the Circus Oscuro in town one night. He is promptly visited by a tiger with the ability to talk; he considers making Miles his next meal, but leaves him alone after he "smells the circus in him". Miles, who has never even been to a circus before in his life, wonders what he could mean.The next evening, Miles sneaks into the circus to find the tiger and watches some of the show from behind the bleachers. He sees a small girl performing acrobatic stunts fall from the top of the tent and tries to catch her. She sprouts wings, however, and flies to safety. Miles' act of bravery results in him being kicked out by the ringmaster's right-hand man, Ghengis. Miles stays hidden and sees the acrobat, who calls herself "Little", being tied up and taken back to her wagon when the show ends. Miles introduces himself and tries to steal the keys to rescue her, but is caught by the ringmaster, the Great Cortado. Miles pretends that he is interested in joining the circus and steps outside to prepare a "disappearing act". Angered at being tricked and losing one of his stars, Cortado unleashes a monstrous beast called The Null to chase after Little and Miles. The two children barely escape.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Test_(Applegate_novel)" title="The Test (Applegate novel)">
As the book opens, Tobias discovers Bobby McIntire, a missing child who was hiking through the woods. He leads the boy's father and a search party to his son.Throughout the book Tobias deals with the psychological after-effects of the torture he endured at the hands of the sadistic sub-visser Taylor. He continues to question his own strength and resolve.Taylor, claiming she is now part of the Yeerk Peace Movement, enlists Tobias to try and sabotage the Yeerk Pool. All of the other Animorphs, except for Cassie, who declines on moral grounds, accompany him and Ax as they dig a tunnel to the pool. In order to dig a tunnel to the Yeerk Pool, Tobias and Ax alternate turns in Taxxon morph, which has a nearly uncontrollable constant hunger. However, it is revealed that Taylor has been working for Visser Three, and sets off a gas explosion. Cassie is able to turn off the gas from its control station, injuring several humans in the process. She is once again distraught by the violence she has had to use to save her friends. Taylor is presumably killed in the gas explosion.The book ends with Rachel and Tobias on the beach. She holds his hand and reassures him that he is not weak, encouraging him to let go of the past.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Harold_and_the_Gnome_King" title="Sir Harold and the Gnome King">
Harold Shea's wife Belphebe of Faerie suggests he undertake a transdimensional expedition to retrieve his colleague Walter Bayard, who is stranded in the world of Irish mythology. Walter's long absence has put him in danger of losing his tenure at the Garaden Institute that employs both him and Harold as psychologists. A secondary advantage to Belphebe will be to get Harold out of her hair; she is pregnant with their first child, and he is getting on her nerves. Harold prepares for the trip more carefully than on previous occasions, reluctant to risk his life as cavalierly as before now that he has a family. In particular, he replaces the épée he formerly favored with a stronger cavalry saber, and dons a mail shirt for greater protection. To ensure he is able to locate Walter amid the uncertainties of transdimensional travel, he makes the goal of his expedition not Eriu but the Land of Oz, whose rulers are possessed of an artifact "effective as a teletransporter," the Magic Belt of the Gnome King. (De Camp prefers the standard spelling of "gnome" to Baum's idiosyncratic "nome.")As usual, things immediately go wrong. Instead of Oz, Harold ends up in a decidedly more sinister place, the University of the Unholy Names in Dej, a world of vaguely Islamic and Arabic antecedents. There he encounters the student Bilsa at-Tâlib, who enthusiastically suggests a magical contest between them and conjures up a gigantic snake that immediately snaps Harold up. Fortunately, the latter's mail shirt protects him long enough for him to repeat the spell that transports him between worlds, and this time he really does end up in Oz (thankfully "sans" snake).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan's_Glory" title="Vulcan's Glory">
Young ensign Spock, is serving his first mission on the "Starship Enterprise" under Captain Christopher Pike. Spock is having a difficult time dealing with his Vulcan heritage and how it conflicts with his duties as an officer and what he wants personally.Spock becomes involved in a mission to retrieve the 'Vulcan's Glory', a priceless gem thought lost in a spaceship crash. It is soon discovered there is far more to this mission than is readily apparent.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobody's_Girl_(novel)" title="Nobody's Girl (novel)">
The story follows 13-year-old Perrine. She first arrives in Paris with her ill mother in a cart with very few possessions pulled by a donkey, Palikare. She stays at the Guillot field, where her mother gets really ill. In order to have enough money for medicine, Perrine sells Palikare, with the help of Grain-of-Salt ( the owner of Guillot fields) to La Rouquerie. Despite all the care, Perrine's mother dies, leaving Perrine as an orphan, so Perrine sets off on foot, almost penniless, to find her relatives in Maraucourt. She makes a friend, Rosalie, who shows the Factories of Mr. Vulfran, and lets her lodge at her grandmother's for a little money. Perrine refrains from letting anybody in Maraucourt know her real name, and uses the pseudonym Aurelie til the end of the book. As Perrine is one of the few people who can speak English, except for Mr. Benndite, she soon comes close to Mr. Vulfran, who eventually lets her stay with him. As the book progresses Mr. Vulfran learns to love Perrine, and it is only in the end where he finds out that Perrine is his own granddaughter.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ungodly_Farce" title="The Ungodly Farce">
The novel's protagonist is Jesper Fegge, a young jazz enthusiast and wannabe writer who after meeting an American woman named Mabel and hitting his head several times loses his unconscious mind. This means in the book that Jesper can't make any decisions unconsciously anymore and it also gives him the ability to see various outcomes of every decision he makes or doesn't make. So at the beginning of the book he either can take his violin or his typewriter to America because of the size of his bag and this decision affects all his future life. Over the course of the novel Jesper can get married and settle down, found a new religion, get beaten up repeatedly, commit adultery, search for the meaning of life and do various other things. Some of the people with whom he interacts in various paths of his life can also sense their complicated relations with Jesper. In the end he has to choose a path of his life that would do the least harm.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Could_See_Me_Now_(Straub_novel)" title="If You Could See Me Now (Straub novel)">
A psychological novel of sexual slayings, lost love, the twisted nature of truth, and of ghosts in the real and figurative sense "If You Could See Me Now" tells the story of Miles Teagarden, a thirty-three-year-old recently widowed English professor from the East Coast of the United States, who in the summer of 1975 returns to the Midwestern town of Arden, Wisconsin, which was once home to his maternal grandmother, now deceased. Miles is struggling to complete his doctoral dissertation in order to keep his position at an unnamed educational institution in the East, and hopes the isolation of the Mississippi River farmland known to him in his youth might aid him in his goal.Teagarden is a troubled man with a tragedy-haunted past, whose personal problems may or may not be of an inwardly serious nature. Throughout his adult life certain people around him have treated him with suspicion and dislike; he has frequently been the object of whispered rumors of an ill-defined nature. Immediately prior to the novel's start he has just lost his estranged wife due to drowning, and finds himself less than welcome upon his arrival in the Wisconsin town in which he intends to spend a summer writing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/These_Happy_Golden_Years" title="These Happy Golden Years">
As the novel begins, Pa is taking Laura 12 miles from home in the dead of winter to her first teaching assignment at Brewster settlement. Laura being only 15 and a schoolgirl herself, is apprehensive as this is both the first time she has left home and the first school she has taught, but she is determined to complete her assignment and earn money to keep her sister Mary at her college for the blind in Iowa.The weather is bitterly cold, and neither the claim shanty where Laura boards or the school can be heated adequately. Some of the children she is teaching are older than her, and she has difficulty controlling them. Worse, she boards with the head of the school board and his unhappy wife, who does not hide her resentment of Laura. Soon Laura comes to dread living under their roof, particularly during the weekends when she can't escape to school. Much to her surprise and relief, Almanzo begins driving the twenty-four miles to and from the school so that she can return home on weekends. With advice from Ma (a former schoolteacher herself), she is able to adapt and become more self-assured, and successfully completes the two-month assignment.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmer_Boy" title="Farmer Boy">
The novel is based on the childhood of Wilder's husband, Almanzo Wilder, who grew up in the 1860s near the town of Malone, New York. It covers roughly one year of his life, beginning just before his ninth birthday and describes a full year of farming. It describes in detail the endless chores involved in running the Wilder family farm, all without powered vehicles or electricity. Young as he is, Almanzo rises before 5 am every day to milk cows and feed stock. In the growing season, he plants and tends crops; in winter, he hauls logs, helps fill the ice house, trains a team of young oxen, and sometimes — when his father can spare him — goes to school. The novel includes stories of his brother, Royal, and sisters, Eliza Jane and Alice.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonhaven" title="Dragonhaven">
The story is set in the Smokehill National Park, a wildlife preserve for the preservation and study of dragons. The dragons are elusive; evidence of their existence can be found everywhere, but the dragons themselves remain hidden. Young Jake Mendoza, who lives with his father, the owner and director of the park, goes out for his first overnight solo and comes across a dying dragon. The dragon has been fatally injured by a poacher who has breached the security of the wildlife preserve.The fact that a dragon has killed a human, even a poacher, will make life very complicated for Smokehill National Park, which exists in a tough political climate, due to the controversial nature of keeping dragons alive. But what makes life even more complicated for Jake is that he discovers that the dying dragon had been a mother, and that one of her dragonlets is still alive. It is illegal to save the dragon's life, but Jake, having discovered the baby dragon, cannot leave it to die. He takes the dragon home and raises it.However, this creates a controversy. The family of the dead poacher want the dragons at Dragonhaven killed. Jake and the other rangers are trying their best to convince those against the preservation of dragons that the creatures are really peaceful and friendly.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_Home_(novel)" title="Back Home (novel)">
Twelve-year-old Virginia 'Rusty' Dickinson (so-called due to her auburn hair) is an evacuee returning home to England near the end of World War Two. After having lived in the US since the age of seven, Rusty barely remembers England or her parents, and hasn't met her four-year-old brother Charlie at all. Rusty's an outgoing, confident, creative girl who loves the outdoors and working with her hands.The story opens with Rusty's arrival at the docks in Plymouth where she is greeted by her mother, Peggy. Rusty initially doesn't recognise Peggy who, in turn, is taken aback by how grown-up her daughter is. Rusty is surprised to see how run down the town is, how shabby her mother's clothes are, and shocked by the bombed out buildings they pass. Rusty and Peggy make the journey to the countryside near Totnes where Peggy and Charlie have been living during the war. There Rusty meets Beatie, the old friendly woman who owns the house, Ivy, a young woman whose first husband is missing, presumed dead, and who is now engaged to an American G.I., Ivy's five-year-old daughter Susan, and Charlie. Charlie, who was born while Rusty was in the US, is suspicious and unwelcoming towards his new sister.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juedai_Shuangjiao" title="Juedai Shuangjiao">
Eighteen years ago, a handsome martial artist, Jiāng Fēng (), was injured in a fight and coincidentally saved by the sisters Yāoyuè () and Liánxīng () of Yihua Palace (), one of the deadliest clans in the "jianghu" (martial artists' community). Yaoyue fell in love with Jiang Feng but he rejected her despite her beauty because her arrogance made him feel disgusted. Instead, he fell in love with their servant, Huā Yuènú (), made her pregnant, and fled with her. Jiang Feng's jealous servant, Jiāng Qin (Jiang Biéhè) (), betrayed his master and caused a group of bandits to attack the lovers just when Hua Yuenu had just given birth to a pair of fraternal twin boys.Although Jiang Feng and Hua Yuenu were both killed, their sons were unharmed and subsequently found by Yaoyue and Lianxing. Yaoyue refused to forgive Jiang Feng for scorning her and vowed to take revenge by making his sons destroy each other. The sisters then adopt one of the boys, whom they named Huā Wúquē (). The other boy, who became known as Xiǎoyúér (), was initially saved by his father's sworn brother, Yàn Nántiān (), a powerful swordsman, but later fell into the hands of the Ten Great Villains (), a group of notorious outlaws in the "jianghu". However, the Villains did not harm Xiaoyuer and instead decided to raise him and train him to become the greatest villain in "jianghu" history.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season_of_the_Sun" title="Season of the Sun">
Tatsuya Tsugawa, a college student who enjoys boxing, meets Eiko when he and his friends pick up some girls. Tatsuya and Eiko start casually dating, and he finds himself emotionally attracted to her, declaring his love by poking a hole through a shoji screen with his penis. Eiko, who is "determined to take from men and give nothing in return", reacts to his love with reticence. One night, while sailing on Tatsuya's boat, the couple makes passionate love, awakening Eiko's feelings for him. After this, Eiko becomes devoted to Tatsuya, resulting in her being jealous of his other casual relationships. Tatsuya starts taking advantage of this to be cruel to her. One day, while sailing with friends, Tatsuya takes the virginity of a university student, while Eiko has sex with Tatsuya's brother, Michihisa. Michihisa informs Tatsuya that he will "take over" Eiko for him because she does not love him anymore, and Tatsuya sells her to him for five thousand yen. When Eiko discovers this arrangement, she pays the money back to Michihisa, as well as three other times when Tatsuya renews it. After a few months, Eiko meets Tatsuya to inform him that she is pregnant with his baby, and he tells her on a whim that it is not a bad idea to have a baby. However, after seeing a newspaper photograph of a boxer holding a baby, he changes his mind and tells her to have an abortion. Because she is already four months pregnant, Eiko has to have a Caesarean operation, and dies four days later from peritonitis. After seeing Eiko's photograph at her funeral, Tatsuya interprets her smile as a challenge and angrily throws a container of incense at it. He then goes to his college gymnasium to box and recalls Eiko asking: "why can't you love me in a more straightforward manner?".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Door_Between" title="The Door Between">
Karen Leith is a novelist whose fictional life and works bear a resemblance to Pearl S. Buck—she was raised in Japan and writes novels that are set there, but lives in Manhattan surrounded by Japanese customs, art and furnishings. She is engaged to marry world-famous cancer researcher Dr. John MacClure. One day, the doctor's daughter, Eva, finds Karen with her throat cut in the writer's Washington Square home. Eva herself has no motive to kill Karen, but the evidence she finds at the scene suggests—even in her own mind—that no one else could have done it. The investigation by Ellery Queen confronts this puzzle and also turns up startling information about a long-vanished relative of Karen Leith. Queen pierces the veil of circumstantial evidence and finds out not only the method of the crime but, most importantly, its motivation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Work" title="The End of Work">
In 1995, Rifkin contended that worldwide unemployment would increase as information technology eliminated tens of millions of jobs in the manufacturing, agricultural and service sectors. He predicted devastating impact of automation on blue-collar, retail and wholesale employees. While a small elite of corporate managers and knowledge workers would reap the benefits of the high-tech world economy, the American middle class would continue to shrink and the workplace become ever more stressful.As the market economy and public sector decline, Rifkin predicted the growth of a third sector—voluntary and community-based service organizations—that would create new jobs with government support to rebuild decaying neighborhoods and provide social services. To finance this enterprise, he advocated scaling down the military budget, enacting a value added tax on nonessential goods and services and redirecting federal and state funds to provide a "social wage" in lieu of welfare payments to third-sector workers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Days_Before_the_Shooting..." title="Three Days Before the Shooting...">
The plot of "Three Days Before the Shooting" revolves around a man named Bliss, of indeterminate race, who is raised from boyhood by a black Baptist minister named Alonzo Hickman. As an adult Bliss assumes a white identity as Adam Sunraider. He becomes a politician and eventually is elected as a United States senator, known for his race-baiting. He is assassinated in the Senate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_Time_(novel)" title="Out of Time (novel)">
Annie Lockwood is going on a school field trip to New York City one year after she has returned to her time in 1995 after meeting Strat. While in New York, she slips back one hundred years into the past, to discover her one true love, Strat, has been put into an insane asylum. Annie learn from Strat's younger sister Devonny that Strat's current predicament is because he continued to insist that Annie was real, even though she mysteriously disappeared and everyone else decided to forget her existence. Annie decides to save Strat and prove that she is real and could travel through time. Annie also learns that Strat's betrothed, his childhood friend Harriet, is suffering from consumption.Annie disguises herself as Devonny and manages to get past obstacles that were in the way, especially Walker Walkley, Strat's former best friend and now antagonist of the book. The two reunite and narrowly escape Walkley, who plans to take over the Stratton fortune. Annie has second thoughts about Strat being with Harriet when she died, mainly because she knew Harriet loved Strat and was betrothed to him and Strat adored her. Strat later explains to Annie that she must go back to her own time and he must stay, no matter how much they love each other. Strat says he would go to Mexico, along with his friends at the insane asylum.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Narrows_(Connelly_novel)" title="The Narrows (Connelly novel)">
While investigating the death of ex-FBI profiler Terry McCaleb at his wife's request, Bosch begins to suspect that notorious serial killer and ex-FBI supervisor Robert Backus, aka The Poet, presumed dead, may have murdered McCaleb. Digging deeper, Bosch follows a lead to Las Vegas that brings him into contact with the FBI. Meanwhile, FBI agent Rachel Walling, who was at one time Backus's protégé in the FBI (as McCaleb had also been) and who has been exiled by the FBI to South Dakota for four years for her role in "The Poet" investigation, is the subject of messages sent by Backus to the FBI. As Bosch and Walling are both outsiders to the main FBI investigation, they eventually join forces. The novel shifts points of view, cutting from Bosch's first-person commentary to the third-person perspectives of Walling and Backus. Bosch meets a neighbor whom he later discovers (in the book "The Closers") to be Cassie Black, the main character of "Void Moon", and he begins a relationship with Walling. He also accepts an offer from his old partner Kiz Rider to rejoin the LAPD under a new chief of police, as a homicide detective in the Open-Unsolved Unit within the department's Robbery-Homicide Division.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elminster_–_The_Making_of_a_Mage" title="Elminster – The Making of a Mage">
"Elminster – The Making of a Mage" covers from his first encounter with magic as a young boy, to his days as a rebel fighter, to his nights as a thief, then on to his life following Mystra. It is the first real insight into why Elminster is "Elminster". It starts with an overview of his tragic childhood, on to his even rougher life growing up trying to hide who he is. Then as a thief he sneaks into a closed temple of Mystra to defile it. He is about to set to his task when he is spotted by a mage but then saved by the Lady of mysteries and given a chance to slay the mage that was to slay him. After he debated with the Goddess over whether or not it is right to use magic he let the mage go. Mystra then helps to hide him from those who might want him to be used in their plots, or just kill him, until he has the power to take his revenge.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picture_Perfect_(novel)" title="Picture Perfect (novel)">
Cassie Barrett is a renowned anthropologist. Cassie wakes up on top of a grave, suffering from amnesia, unable to recall any details about herself or her situation. She is found and taken to the hospital by Will Flying Horse, a half-Lakota Los Angeles police officer, until she is retrieved by her husband, Alex Rivers, a Hollywood celebrity. Cassie returns to her Bel Air mansion, and it appears that she lives a picture perfect life. As memories gradually return to Cassie she recalls the whirlwind romance with Alex in Tanzania, her deep and unconditional love for Alex, and the physical abuse he has inflicted upon her.When Cassie finds a positive pregnancy test in her bathroom, she recalls why she left—to protect her baby. Cassie returns to Will who hides her on the Lakota reservation in South Dakota. Cassie quickly grows to love the Reservation and its people. Meanwhile, Alex's life is beginning to fall apart, although he has won three Oscars; he cannot live and is lost without Cassie. Rumours abound concerning Cassie's disappearance that tarnish his reputation.On the night of the Oscars, Cassie calls Alex to say that she is proud of him. After giving birth to Connor, her son, Cassie calls Alex again and tells him where she is, but says that she will not return home for another month. She makes him promise he will not come after her, but he breaks this promise, and shows up outside the Flying Horses' house two weeks later. They reunite and Cassie tells Alex of their son, Connor. She tells Alex she only left to protect their baby, and that she would never have left otherwise because of Alex. Cassie makes Alex agree that she will return on two conditions: that he see a therapist and not assault her. He agrees and when they are back in Los Angeles his reputation is restored, but only temporarily.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterWorld" title="InterWorld">
Joey Harker is an average high school student living in Greenville. He has trouble finding his way around his own house, let alone the town. On a field trip set by his Social Studies teacher, Mr. Dimas, Joey finds himself lost in the city, and then enters a strange fog; when he emerges, everything has changed. All the cars are brightly coloured, and the police cars are flashing green and yellow instead of blue and red. When he goes back to his home, he discovers that he does not exist anymore; instead, there is a girl named Josephine living there. He runs outside and meets a man wearing a mirrored mask, who introduces himself as Jay. But before Jay can explain anything, three men in grey outfits appear, standing on floating silver disks, all trying to catch Joey using silver nets. Joey runs away, and unintentionally enters the fog again.Afraid of going back to a home where he doesn't exist, Joey decides to go to Mr. Dimas for help. Mr Dimas is shocked to see Joey, telling him that he had drowned last year and that Mr. Dimas himself had pulled Joey's body out of the river. Suddenly a woman called Lady Indigo appears in the room, bewitching Joey into following her. She is joined by two other men. One, called Scarabus, has mystical tattoos all over his body; the other, a man with transparent skin, is called Neville. They move Joey to a flying ship, the "Lacrimae Mundi".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_(novel)" title="Josh (novel)">
14-year-old Josh Plowman arrives in a country town for a week's visit with his great-aunt, the Plowman family matriarch. The city boy from Melbourne is immediately at odds with the Ryan Creek youngsters. His writing poetry and his dislike for hunting make him a target for the local boys. Initial misunderstandings eventually explode into violence. A traditional hero might have faced and fought the bullies but Josh shows a different sort of courage and integrity by choosing to walk away with dignity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ug_(book)" title="Ug (book)">
The book is about a boy named Ug living in the Stone Age who is thought by others to "think too much". He wants to have soft trousers (the trousers he and all the other cavemen wear are made of granite) and believes mammoth skin would be good to use, in the end, he and his father Dug do make the trousers, but after realising they cannot sew them together, they call it a day and leave them. Ug then grows up to be a cave painter as his mother Dugs warned him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_(novel)" title="Miranda (novel)">
The novel tells about ideal civilisation of powerful mages which have invited paranormal skills like telepathy, levitation and mediumism. The Brahmins value anarchy, freedom, peace, free love and anti-work. Their country is organized by Ministry of Love, Ministry of Power and Ministry of Wisdom, and they use a strange substance classified as Nivridium in order to their self-perfect idea. The main plot is the history of love of Polish emigrant Jan Podobłoczny (Lange's own "porte-parole") to the materialization of an ideal woman named Damayanti. A tragic end of their romance comes from clash between physical and spiritual sides of human existence. In the last chapter of the novel, Damayanti sacrifices her body in order to let her spirit fly to higher stage of consciousness.Miranda is a Scottish spiritual medium, who lives in Warsaw. She can contact the soul of Damayanti and materialize the mysterious person of Lenore, who meets Jan Podobłoczny when he is close his death. In the moment when Damayanti dies, Miranda disappears.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latawnya,_the_Naughty_Horse,_Learns_to_Say_&quot;No&quot;_to_Drugs" title="Latawnya, the Naughty Horse, Learns to Say &quot;No&quot; to Drugs">
The plot mainly deals with the title character, Latawnya, the youngest horse in her family. While out playing with her sisters Latoya and Daisy, they come across four other mares: Connie, Chrystal, Jackie, and Angie. They ask Latawnya if she wants to engage in "smoking games" and "drinking games". Latawnya realizes that they want to smoke drugs and drink alcohol, and she joins in. Her sisters catch her with the four "bad" horses and proceed to criticize her for "smoking drugs and drinking," something that their parents tell them not to do. Although Latawnya begs Latoya and Daisy not to tell their parents, they tell on her anyway, resulting in an uncomfortable confrontation with them, as they are disappointed in her experimenting with smoking drugs and drinking. After an intense lecture from her parents (including a scene wherein an old friend of the father horse suffers an overdose after engaging in smoking games and drinking games), Latawnya realizes the error of her ways and promises never to engage in "smoking games" and "drinking games" again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_Limits_(novel)" title="Term Limits (novel)">
Three of Washington's most powerful politicians are executed. The assassins demand that the American government set aside partisan politics and restore power to the people, specifically a balanced budget amendment and term limits for all of Congress. Michael O'Rourke, a U.S. Marine turned Congressman finds out who they are and why they do it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Gesture_Life" title="A Gesture Life">
The whole story, told by the first person narrator Doc Hata, consists of flashbacks. The main story line begins from the time he gives up his store in Bedley Run until he meets his adopted daughter again. The sub story lines show the reader about his time during the war, and about his time with a teenage daughter and how difficult it was to raise her.At the beginning of the story, Doc Hata describes his current situation and place of living. He lives in a small but affluent town called Bedley Run, where he is from the first accepted by the other inhabitants as a decent shopkeeper and later revered as the ideal citizen. His previous occupation is revealed to be that of a shop owner, as he formerly owned the pharmacy named Sunny Medical Supply, which he has sold to a young couple from New York. He has difficulty leaving his old life behind him and visits his old store nearly every day.Liv Crawford is introduced, who is a real estate agent and wants him to move and sell his house. Doc Hata thinks a lot about his past in Bedley Run but also about his past experiences in Japan. He gives many insights into his daily routines, such as walking by his old store and going to swim every day in his pool. He thinks a lot about his daughter Sunny and how she arrived when she was a little girl. Later on, it becomes clear that Sunny was adopted and that Doc Hata specifically wanted to a girl, and even bribed the relevant person to get what he wanted. He remembers Sunny playing the piano and the initial problems he had with her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Bones_(Connelly_novel)" title="City of Bones (Connelly novel)">
On New Year's Day, a dog digs up a bone in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles. The dog's owner, a doctor, recognizes the bone as human and calls it in to the police. Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch takes on the case together with his colleague Jerry Edgar and after investigating the matter further, a shallow grave containing the bones of a child, is discovered. Bosch can't let go of the case, a case that brings back memories from his own childhood, and starts an investigation. The only clue that he has to go on is the skateboard found during a search at a suspect's house. The body turns out to have been a 12-year-old boy that has been buried 20 years earlier. To solve the murder, Bosch has to dig through records of cases involving disappearances and runaways dating far back in time. In order to try to solve the crime, Bosch has to chase down possible witnesses and suspects from near and far. After 20 years time, a lot of the details once remembered about the disappearance of the boy are blurred and leads Bosch fumbling in the dark. At the same time, a female rookie named Julia Brasher joins the department. Even though Bosch has been warned not to fall for a rookie, he does and this leads to further complications, both inside and outside of the investigation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Darkness_More_Than_Night" title="A Darkness More Than Night">
Terry McCaleb and Graciela Rivers have married and have an infant daughter named Cielo, and McCaleb's fishing charter business is running full-time on Catalina Island. Nevertheless, sheriff's deputy Jaye Winston brings McCaleb a file involving the ritualistic murder of a suspect named Edward Gunn, and asks McCaleb to take a look at it, as the police have gotten nowhere. As McCaleb analyzes the clues, they seem to point straight toward Harry Bosch, whom McCaleb knows from a previous investigation before his retirement. Bosch is currently a key witness in a separate high-profile murder case involving movie director David Storey, who is on trial for murdering an actress during rough sex and staging her death to look like autoerotic asphyxiation. Author/reporter Jack McEvoy, who wrote "The Poet", is covering the case.After McCaleb alerts the police to Bosch's probable involvement in the murder, Bosch goes to Catalina himself to challenge McCaleb's work and to ask him to re-examine the evidence. Based on a parking ticket that McCaleb finds, he concludes that Bosch may have been set up by Storey in order to discredit his evidence in the court case, but the key evidence in proving that is a post office surveillance tape that was in the process of being erased, and from which nothing usable can be recovered.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_Flight_(novel)" title="Angels Flight (novel)">
Los Angeles Police Department Detective Harry Bosch is assigned to investigate the murder of prominent African-American attorney Howard Elias late on a Friday night on Angels Flight, a funicular railway in downtown L.A. Elias was found shot to death along with a Hispanic woman, Catalina Perez. The detectives from Robbery-Homicide Division who were initially assigned to the case conclude that Perez was an innocent bystander and that Elias was the target. Elias was known for representing plaintiffs in racial harassment and police violence suits against the LAPD, and had a bad reputation in the department. Due to the accuracy of the gunshots used in the crime, Bosch realizes that his fellow police officers are the most likely suspects.Despite the fact that the murders were not in Bosch's precinct, Hollywood Division, Deputy Chief of Police Irvin Irving is forced to remove RHD because many of its detectives are defendants in a case Elias was bringing to federal court. Elias was representing a man named Michael Harris who was recently acquitted of the murder of Stacey Kincaid, the young daughter of a prominent local car dealer. Harris claims that the fingerprint evidence against him was planted, and that detectives from RHD tortured him in an effort to obtain a confession. Irving and Bosch are aware that Elias' death could inflame tensions in South-Central L.A., possibly leading to a repeat of the riots of 1992, especially if his killer was found to be a police officer. Bosch suspects that he is being set up to fail by Irving after one of his rivals, Detective John Chastain of the Internal Affairs Division, is assigned to help him work the case.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trunk_Music_(novel)" title="Trunk Music (novel)">
A body found in the trunk of a Rolls Royce seems to have connections with the mob and leads Bosch and his investigation to Las Vegas. It's Harry Bosch's first case after being transferred to the Homicide table. The car was found by a beat cop near the Hollywood Bowl. Harry arrives during a concert. Fireworks are scheduled after the concert. At the encouragement of Fire Chief, and the approval of the Medical Examiner, Bosch arranges for the car to be towed away on a flatbed tow truck. The examination of the car and body are completed in an LAPD building. After the name and address of the victim are discovered, Harry and one of his team goes to interview the wife. He then goes to search a small office the victim maintains at a small studio facility. He gains access to surveillance video of the entrance to the office. The video shows that the office had been broken into and phone bugs were taken out. The team later finds out that a branch of LAPD had placed bugs on the victim's phone without authorization. Bosch is sent to Las Vegas to track down what the victim was doing there and who had contact with him when he was there. Bosch sees video of the poker game the victim was in, and he recognizes one of the other players as a former FBI agent with whom he had an intimate relationship, Eleanor Wish. He tracks her down through the Las Vegas police chief. Bosch spends the night with her. Later, she is pulled into police HQ but Bosch clears her. Fingerprints from the murder victim's leather jacket match those of Luke "Lucky" Goshen, top aide to the Las Vegas mob boss Joseph "Marks" Marconi. In a search of Goshen's home, Bosch finds a hidden handgun. It is determined that the handgun was the murder weapon. Wish is kidnapped by the local syndicate. Bosch finds out where she is being held and frees her. Bosch extradites Goshen but on arrival in Los Angeles Bosch learns that Goshen was an undercover FBI agent whose real name is Roy Lindell, and that the FBI suspects Bosch of planting the gun found at the home of Goshen/ Lindell home. The story continues from there.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Coyote" title="The Last Coyote">
Bosch is involved in an incident at work and has been put on involuntary stress leave. He must go through therapy sessions to be able to return to work. This involves talking about the incident and himself with Carmen Hinojos, a police psychologist. Three months ago, Bosch broke up with his girlfriend, Sylvia Moore. Carmen asks Harry to verbalize his mission in life. Harry decides that his mission is to investigate his mother's murder. She had been a prostitute and was strangled when Harry was twelve. He gets the murder book from the police archives and reviews the case. He first goes to visit Meredith Roman, another prostitute who was his mother's best friend at the time. The one real piece of information that Bosch gets from her is something that she did not tell the police: his mother was going to meet Arno Conklin at Hancock Park on the night of the murder. Bosch, with the help of the new cop beat/LA Times reporter, investigates Fox, Conklin, and Conklin's close associate Mittel. He discovers that Fox was killed in a hit and run while distributing campaign literature for Conklin. Conklin had been running for District Attorney. He also learns from an old cop friend that Mittel is now a very successful lawyer and campaign fund raiser. He is currently helping Robert Shepard, a computer tycoon, run for the Senate. On a whim, Harry drives to Mittel's house and ends up attending a fund-raising party. He meets Mittel and, using the name of his boss Pounds whom he cannot stand, asks a waitress at the party to deliver an envelope to Mittel. In the envelope, Harry puts a copy of a newspaper article about Fox's death and circles the names Conklin, Mittel, and Fox. He writes under the article, "What prior work experience got Johnny his job?" Harry checks with the city offices and finds out that only one of the original investigating officers is still alive and that his retirement checks are mailed to a post office box in Florida. So he takes a plane to Florida to speak with the retired detective, Jake McKittrick. He learns from him that at the beginning of the investigation, his senior partner, Eno, was called into the Assistant DA's office and told that Fox was not involved with the murder and he should not be investigated by the department. The only way they could interview him was in Conklin's office in the presence of Conklin and Mittel. After that interview, the investigation went nowhere and was left as an unsolved case.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Concrete_Blonde" title="The Concrete Blonde">
Detective Harry Bosch is pursuing "The Dollmaker", a serial killer who uses makeup to paint his victims.He gets a tip from a prostitute that a recent customer of hers, Norman Church, had a large amount of women's makeup in his bathroom.Bosch goes to Church's garage, identifies himself as police, breaks in the door. Church is naked and shaved. Bosch tells him to not move, but Church starts to pull something from under his pillow, and Bosch shoots him.Church had been reaching not for a gun, but his toupee.Bosch is investigated by internal affairs and cleared in the shooting; but, since he did not follow police procedure, he is transferred from the elite Robbery-Homicide Division (RHD) back to the Hollywood table.The makeup is found to match those of nine of the Dollmaker's victims.Four years later, Bosch is sued by Church's widow. Her attorney portrays Bosch as a cowboy and a vigilante, seeking revenge for the unsolved murder of his mother when he was a child.During the trial, the police receive a note, purportedly from the Dollmaker, which leads to the discovery of a new victim killed by someone using the same "modus operandi". Although this victim was encased in concrete, unlike the original eleven victims, all other aspects of the killing are the same, including the signature cross painted on a toenail. Also, this "concrete blonde" victim, along with two other of the original victims, fit a different pattern: that of large-breasted blondes in the local adult entertainment industry who also advertised as high-class prostitutes in the local sex rags. Bosch and his task force suspect that "the Follower" is Detective Mora from Ad-Vice. Mora has ties to the adult video industry, had insider knowledge of the Dollmaker case, and was not at work during the killings not attributed to Norman Church. The task force put Mora under surveillance, and Bosch breaks into Mora's house looking for evidence that he is the Follower. Instead, Bosch finds that Mora has been making pornographic movies with underage children. Mora returns to his house, finds Bosch, and threatens to kill him. The rest of the task force arrives; they search Mora's house and determine that he is not the Follower.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Ice" title="The Black Ice">
In the book, narcotics officer Calexico (named after the place Calexico) Moore's body is discovered on Christmas night in a seedy Hollywood motel, from an apparent suicide. It was rumored that he had been involved in the selling of a new drug called "Black Ice". As the L.A. police higher-ups converge on the scene to protect the department from scandal, Harry Bosch inserts himself into the investigation. The trail he follows leads to Mexican drug gangs operating across the border while he gets attracted to Calexico Moore's widow as the case progresses. The "Black Ice" drug is a fictional drug invented by Connelly for his novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Echo" title="The Black Echo">
The novel centers on Harry Bosch, a Vietnam veteran who served as a "tunnel rat" (nicknamed Hara Kiri Bosch), with the 1st Infantry Division — a specialized soldier whose job it was to go into the maze of tunnels used as barracks, hospitals, and on some occasions, morgues, by the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army. After the war Bosch became an L. A. police detective advancing to the Robbery-Homicide Division. However, after killing the main suspect in the "Dollmaker" serial killings, Bosch is demoted to "Hollywood Division" homicide, where he partners with Jerry Edgar. The death of Billy Meadows, a friend and fellow "tunnel rat" from the war, attracts Bosch's interest, especially when he determines that it may have been connected to a spectacular bank robbery using tunnels. Bosch suspects that the robbers were after more than money and he then partners with the FBI, in particular agent Eleanor Wish, in an attempt to foil their next attack.Season 3 of the Amazon series "Bosch" is loosely adapted from this novel. After Harry captures a suspect, Detective Bosch tells him, "I'm going to make sure you live the rest of your life in the black echo."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldier's_Heart_(novel)" title="Soldier's Heart (novel)">
It begins with a 15-year-old named Charley Goddard's Minnesota hometown. Residents are talking about what they think will be a "shooting war." The atmosphere at the town meetings is festive with flags, drums, and patriotic speeches. Everyone assumes that the North will win easily and that the fighting is unlikely to last more than a month or two. As a volunteer army is beginning to form, Charley decides to join, despite his mother's objections. Charley lies about his age and joins the Minnesota Volunteers in what he thinks will be a fun experience that will make him a man. The pay is eleven dollars a month, much more than he makes working on the farms.Charley trains and learns to be a soldier, finding the experience much different from what he had imagined. Upon leaving the camp, the men are treated as heroes even before they leave town, accompanied by cheering and flag-waving. On the train ride to their new camp, Charley meets a slave, who thanks him for what he is doing for the southern slaves.In Charley's first battle, near Manassas Junction, Virginia, in 1861, he is caught in the middle of violent suffering and death. When the battle is over, hundreds of Charley's comrades have been killed in what came to be called the Battle of Bull Run after the name of the creek that ran nearby, or the Battle of Manassas for the junction nearby.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince_of_Mist" title="The Prince of Mist">
Max Carver, son of a watchmaker, has moved with his family from the city to get away from the war. Max's new house was formerly owned by Richard Fleischman, his wife and son. Max experiences mysterious events which have to do with Jacob Fleischman, the son of Richard Fleishman, who had drowned. Over time, Max discovers a sculpture garden near his house, where strange things happen. Max finally makes a friend, Roland. Roland is older than Max, around the age of his sister, Alicia, who is 15. After diving near the wreck, the Orpheus, Max has more and more questions, which will be answered by Victor Kray, grandfather of Roland.Detailed summaryThe story opens in 1943 in an unnamed city. It is mid-June, the day of the protagonist, Max Carver's, thirteenth birthday.Maximilian Carver, Max's father, and an eccentric watchmaker, tells Max and his family that they are leaving their lives in the city, which is suffering a war, to live in a town on the coast.We meet the family: Andrea Carver, Max's mother, and Max's sisters: Alicia, the elder, and Irina the younger. They reluctantly accept their fate, although Max is especially unhappy about having to leave his friends in the city.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chat_Room_(novel)" title="Chat Room (novel)">
A young girl aged 13, Samantha, is extremely lonely after moving from Sydney to Melbourne. Both of her parents work long hours and she starts getting interested in chat rooms, where she meets new friends. While in the chat rooms she stumbles across a guy named Robin. He pretends to be 17, though he is really 27, and makes Sam feel special. He is charming, smart, romantic and good-looking.Robin tells Sam that they have to wait for a while before he can tell her his final secret, which she does not realise is his age. Eventually he lets her know that he is 27, which upsets her. After 10 days of stress and depression, she goes back online and asks to talk to him. He answers her and they confess to liking each other, then they decide to meet. She goes to meet him and finds him attractive. They go for a walk.While Sam is away, Erica, her babysitter, realises Sam is missing and finds the emails from Robin. She calls the police and they set out to find her. Robin is caught and Sam is told what happened. Robin has been to court several times on child sexual abuse charges and has been let go on all charges before now because there was a lack of evidence. Now Robin is taken in by the police and will be sent to prison.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Crocodile" title="The Time Crocodile">
The space zoo isn't like any zoo you've ever visited on Earth. For a start, some of the animals can talk! Explore the zoo and work out who can be trusted and who has a hidden agenda...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corinthian_Project" title="The Corinthian Project">
When the TARDIS lands in an undersea community known as the Corinthian Project, it doesn't take you long to realise there are some very strange things going on. Explore the project and see if you can uncover the truth...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Robots_(adventure_book)" title="War of the Robots (adventure book)">
On a distant world populated by robots, war has been raging for many years. Can you, the Doctor and Martha discover why the robots are fighting and end the war once and for all?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollen_(novel)" title="Pollen (novel)">
"Pollen" is the sequel to "Vurt" and concerns the ongoing struggle between the real world and the virtual world. When concerning the virtual world, some references to Greek mythology are noticeable, including Persephone and Demeter, the river Styx and Charon, and Hades (portrayed by the character John Barleycorn). The novel is set in Manchester.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_to_Pay_(Ellery_Queen_novel)" title="The Devil to Pay (Ellery Queen novel)">
Solly Spaeth is a financier whose machinations with the "Ohippi Hydro-Electric Project" have left a number of people much less wealthy than once they were, including his business partner, Rhys Jardin. Jardin's beautiful daughter Valerie is involved with Spaeth's son Walter. Rhys is so impoverished, he has to sell up his personal property at auction, much to the dismay of his daughter and his long-time servant/valet/trainer, Pink. Walter asks Ellery Queen to sit in on the auction and buy every lot, which is how Ellery becomes involved when Solly Spaeth is found pierced by an ancient sword whose blade has been coated with molasses and cyanide. Suspicion falls on a number of people, including the Jardin household, Solly's son, lawyer and his mistress, the kooky Winni Moon, but Ellery works through alibis and motives and traces the crime back to the murderer. A sub-plot of the novel is that Ellery has been hired to work on a screenplay and has been completely idle for weeks because he can not get in to see studio head Jacques Butcher; Butcher plays a much more prominent role in the next novel, "The Four of Hearts".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_of_Hearts" title="The Four of Hearts">
At the end of the previous Ellery Queen novel, "The Devil to Pay", he was in Hollywood and about to meet studio boss Jacques Butcher. At the beginning of this novel, he does so. Butcher, who is engaged to starlet Bonnie Stuart, hires Queen to work on a screenplay about Bonnie's mother, film legend Blythe Stuart, and her long-running feud with fellow Hollywood veteran Jack Royle. The two were once sweethearts, but their estrangement was bitter, and the feud now extends to their respective children -- Bonnie Stuart and young actor Ty Royle. Surprisingly, Jack and Blythe agree to star in the film about their lives. Even more surprisingly, they suddenly rekindle their old romance and get married in front of fans at a Los Angeles airfield. Then, amid huge publicity, they fly off toward a honeymoon island. But the biggest surprise comes a few hours later, when the newlyweds are found fatally poisoned aboard their plane. Queen must interrupt his script-writing to solve a murder case.Ty and Bonnie vacillate between feuding and a sudden romantic interest, and Queen investigates the mysterious mailings of playing cards that may hold a clue about the killings. His suspicions fall upon the households of Jack and Blythe, and Ty and Bonnie become suspicious of each other. It's only when Queen learns the true meanings of the cards that he solves the case. In the process, he forms a romantic attachment with beautiful gossip columnist Paula Paris, whose agoraphobia keeps her confined to her palatial home, but who has a talent for uncovering secrets that may match Queen's own.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Blues_for_Shindig" title="A Blues for Shindig">
Shindig is a young woman who survives the rough streets of London's Soho neighborhood by working in an illegal bar and selling drugs in the alleys.Shindig's daily life is populated by abusers, boozers, losers, crooked cops and gangsters. Yet these seemingly deviant characters look out for one another and Shindig navigates through this underworld with a sense of adventure. Yet, she soon finds herself caught in the middle of a much larger power play.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Angel_Makers" title="The Angel Makers">
During World War I, the men of a Hungarian village leave to fight. In their absence, the women form powerful bonds. Their village is made into a camp for Italian prisoners of war and some women fall for these soldiers. When their men return and begin to mistreat them, the women become murderous in their fight to keep their freedom.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cry_of_the_Justice_Bird" title="Cry of the Justice Bird">
In an Africa ravaged by civil war, two women are pulled from a minibus, and are raped and mutilated. Armstrong MacKay, one of the dead women's lover, enters the country to bring her body home. During the festivities of her African wake, Mackay finds out the truth behind her violent death from the other woman's husband.Faced with Africa's weaken government and the ineffective Boromundi legal system, the two men decide to take justice in their own hands and seek out the murders for themselves.Kisasi, the Justice Bird, cries out as the men set out to execute the killers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rasp" title="The Rasp">
Anthony Gethryn, ex-secret service agent, is an occasional "special correspondent" for a weekly newspaper and is assigned to cover the story when a cabinet minister, John Hoode, is found murdered in the library at his country house, battered to death with a wood-rasp. Gethryn recalls his acquaintance with a member of the household and is thus invited to investigate the crime as a kind of "friend of the family". It soon seems as though everyone concerned has a cast-iron alibi for the time of the crime, but Gethryn comes up with an imaginative way for the murderer to have accomplished the deed and established an alibi, and reveals the murderer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_World_(novel)" title="Witch World (novel)">
During World War II, Simon Tregarth rose from a common soldier in the U.S. Army to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In post-war Berlin, he became involved, almost accidentally, in the black market, only to be caught and discharged in disgrace from the Army. He later also managed to anger a powerful criminal organization enough for it to send assassins after him. After months on the run, killing at least two of these assassins, he knows his time is running out.Then Tregarth is contacted by Dr. Jorge Petronius, a man with an amazing reputation for hiding men in dire straits. Petronius recounts a fantastic tale of a stone of power, the Siege Perilous of Arthurian legend, that has the power to open a gateway to a world attuned to the person who sits on it. Disbelieving, but with little to lose, Tregarth gives him all the money he has left, and is transported to a land where magic vies with more mundane swords and bows.He arrives in a nearly empty countryside, just in time to witness a savage hunt: a lone woman being chased down by hounds followed by two horsemen. Tregarth rescues the witch, whom he much later learns is named Jaelithe, and enters the service of her homeland Estcarp, a land ruled by witches and threatened by many enemies. One of these enemies is the land of Gorm, which was bloodily taken over by the far-off, mysterious realm of Kolder.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_Enemy_(novel)" title="Dear Enemy (novel)">
As "Daddy-Long-Legs" traced Judy Abbott's growth from a young girl into an adult, "Dear Enemy" shows how Sallie McBride grows from a frivolous socialite to a mature woman and an able executive. It also follows the development of Sallie's relationships with Gordon Hallock, a wealthy politician, and Dr. Robin MacRae, the orphanage's physician. Both relationships are affected by Sallie's initial reluctance to commit herself to her job, and by her gradual realization of how happy the work makes her and how incomplete she'd feel without it. The daily calamities and triumphs of an orphanage superintendent are wittily described, often accompanied by the author's own stick-figure illustrations.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Passion_Spent" title="All Passion Spent">
"All Passion Spent" is written in three parts, primarily from the view of an intimate observer. The first part introduces Lady Slane at the time of her husband's death. She has been the dutiful wife of a “great man” in public life, Viceroy of India and a member of the House of Lords. Her children plan to share her care between them much as they divide up the family property but, completely unexpectedly, Lady Slane makes her own choice, proposing to leave fashionable Kensington for a cottage in suburban Hampstead that caught her eye decades earlier, where she will live alone except for her maidservant and please herself — for example allowing her descendants to visit only by appointment. Part 1 concludes with Lady Slane's developing friendships with her aged landlord Mr Bucktrout and his equally aged handyman Mr Gosheron.Part 2, shorter than the others, is composed of Lady Slane's thoughts as she muses in the summer sun. She relives youthful events, reviews her life, and considers life's influences and controls, happiness and relationships.Summer is over. Part 3 takes place after Lady Slane has settled into her cottage, her contemplative life, and approaching end. To her initial annoyance, her past life still connects her to people and events. In particular Mr FitzGeorge, a forgotten acquaintance from India who has ever since been in love with her, introduces himself and they form a quiet but playful and understanding friendship.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Boots" title="White Boots">
Harriet Johnson has been ill and her doctor arranges for her to take up ice skating in order to build strength in her legs. When she gets to the rink Harriet meets Lalla Moore, a young skater who has been training since she was three years old; Lalla's parents were killed in a skating accident, and her Aunt Claudia is determined that Lalla will be the greatest figure skater in the world. Harriet and Lalla soon become friends and as Harriet is still not well enough for school, it is arranged that she will share Lalla's governess and her various dance and fencing lessons.Harriet soon shows herself to be a talented skater, and she starts to take, and pass, the same skating tests that Lalla does. Lalla, on the other hand, is much more of a performer than a figure skater and starts to have trouble with various figures she needs to learn for tests. Lalla becomes jealous of Harriet and tells her that if she takes and passes her next skating test, Lalla will tell her aunt that she does not want Harriet to have lessons with her any more. Distraught, Harriet pretends to once again be ill while she decides what to do. But when Lalla hears that Harriet is seriously ill, she faints and later explains how nervous, miserable and guilty she feels. Lalla and Harriet go for a holiday together with their families and they talk about their futures. Lalla's coach tells her that she will never be a good enough figure skater to succeed in competitions, but that she could be a fantastic show skater and performer; whereas Harriet has potential to be a great skater one day, as she is better at the figures required to do well.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flinx_Transcendent" title="Flinx Transcendent">
In yet another attempt to avoid his destiny, Flinx sets out to become the first human to live on the AAnn homeworld Blasusarr. Disguised in a simsuit to perfectly take on the appearance of a common AAnn, Flinx successfully lives on the desert planet until his cover story unravels. In his escape attempt he befriends a juvenile AAnn from a prominent family. He manages to parlay this friendship into an audience with an AAnn lord who has influence with the AAnn emperor. After slipping into the center of the AAnn government and confronting the emperor, Flinx projects himself and nearly a hundred AAnn lords into the mind of the Great Evil. This convinces the emperor to release Flinx to fight off the Evil. Flinx travels to New Riveria to gather his companion Clarity Held. Clarity decides to accompany Flinx on his quest along with his old friends and mentors Truzenzuzex and Bran Tse-Mallory. Before the group can depart Nur, they are attacked by the Order of Null, who are still bent on killing Flinx to prevent his interference with the Great Evil.Traveling into the Blight, Flinx and his group find the ancient Tar-Aiym weapons platform. After they activate the entire platform, the wave created does little more than superficial damage.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_Smoke" title="Tree of Smoke">
Johnson's novel revolves around the associations and interactions with Francis X. Sands, a retired Air Force colonel and war hero, now a CIA official in Southeast Asia. The story is told primarily from the point of view of his nephew, William "Skip" Sands; Infantry Private James Houston and his brother Bill; and Kathy Jones, a Canadian NGO worker. The plot also includes minor but important characters Major Eddie Aguinaldo, a Filipino army officer; Nguyen Hao and his nephew Minh who work for Colonel Sands; Trung Than, Nguyen Hao's Vietcong friend turned double agent; Sergeant Jimmy Storm, a henchman of the Colonel; and a German assassin named Dietrich Fest.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Lion_Among_Men" title="A Lion Among Men">
The story opens with an impending battle between the Munchkinlanders and the Emerald City (EC) troops. In the middle of the warzone is the Mauntery which has been a haven for Elphaba, Yackle, Liir, and Candle. Yackle still lives despite losing her eyesight, and longs for death. At her request, the Maunts bury her in their crypt alive with only a few candles and some wine. She is eventually forgotten, but not by all.Elsewhere, a young woman wanders the Land of Oz until her path crosses "the dwarf", whom she calls Mr. Boss, the caretaker of the Clock of the Time Dragon. The Clock has awakened...Back at the Mauntery, Brrr, the Cowardly Lion, and his pet, a Glass Cat that he has nicknamed Shadowpuppet, arrive looking for Yackle. The Maunts claim she is deceased but Yackle rises from the crypt, still alive. Yackle and Brrr begin a game of wits – Brrr demands information on Madame Morrible and in exchange he will tell Yackle about himself.Brrr does not remember his parents or where he is from. He grew up by himself in the Great Gillikin Forest, learning language from the hunters that travel through his forest. One day he meets a soldier, Jemmsy, who's caught in his own hunting trap that was supposed to catch Animals. He implores Brrr to go to Tenniken and get help. Instead, out of fear and the naive belief that since this is the first person he has conversed with, then Jemmsy's a friend and cannot be abandoned, Brrr stays with Jemmsy until he dies, claiming the books that lie beside him and taking Jemmsy's medal for courage to give to Jemmsy's relatives. Thus begins the Lion's unhappy personage as a coward.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twenty-Second_Day" title="The Twenty-Second Day">
A young man, a pianist who hates piano, goes into a stormy relationship with a divorced woman who's older than he is for ten years. This woman, a painter and artistic trainer for children, was his first choice in 26 years of life as a slave for his father's wishes, or maybe it's the cosmic wishes of fate itself, as he might feel as a crushed young man who wished to be anything but being what he is. He received a total shock when the woman dumped him at last, did an abortion for his baby, and tells him that they can't live up the relation they have, because it goes to be crushed, sooner or later.in the final scene, we see the painter watches the TV, we could understand he's witnessing the US forces entering Baghdad, then he begin to prepare his suitcase, which gives us a hint he's going to leave the country.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_I_Was" title="What I Was">
"What I Was" tells the story of a secret friendship between two teenagers, one an unhappy public schoolboy and the other living an independent and isolated life on the beach near the school. It is set on the East Anglian coast in 1962.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Please_Pass_the_Guilt" title="Please Pass the Guilt">
As a favor to Dr. Edwin Vollmer, Wolfe agrees to find information about a case from Vollmer's friend's crisis intervention center. A man with the alias "Ronald Seaver" has attended the clinic, given no information, but spoken of having blood on his hands no one can see. Through trickery, Wolfe and Goodwin learn that this man is actually Kenneth Meer, an employee at the CAN broadcast network. An executive at the network, Peter Odell, has been killed in a bomb attack. Odell's widow believes that one of his rivals murdered him, and hires Wolfe to find proof.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Family_Affair_(novel)" title="A Family Affair (novel)">
A waiter at Rusterman's Restaurant turns up at Wolfe's front door late one night, claiming that a man is going to kill him. Shortly after Archie puts him in one of the spare bedrooms, the waiter dies when a bomb planted in his coat pocket explodes. Wolfe, outraged at the thought of such a violent act taking place in his own house, resolves to find the murderer without sharing any information with Inspector Cramer. Soon Wolfe and Archie find themselves investigating two additional murders: the earlier killing of a customer at Rusterman's, and the subsequent death of the waiter's daughter.For much of the story, Stout leads the reader to believe that the central murder mystery is related to the Watergate scandal. Ultimately, Wolfe discovers that the killer is one of his closest associates, a character who had been appearing in Nero Wolfe mysteries for over forty years."A Family Affair" is an unusual Nero Wolfe mystery in that Archie reveals his (correct) opinion of the killer's identity well before Wolfe does so in the closing chapters.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Marble_Cliffs" title="On the Marble Cliffs">
The peaceful and traditional people, located on the shores of a large bay, are surrounded by the rough pastoral folk in the surrounding hills, who feel increasing pressure from the unscrupulous and lowly followers of the dreaded head forester. The narrator and protagonist lives on the marble cliffs as a botanist with his brother Otho, his son Erio from a past relationship and Erio's grandmother Lampusa. The idyllic life is threatened by the erosion of values and traditions, losing its inner power. The head forester uses this opportunity to establish a new order based on dictatorial rule, large numbers of mindless followers and the use of violence, torture and murder.The tale may readily be understood as a parable on national socialism, the evil and "jovial" head forester being Hermann Göring. Others see it as a description of Germany's fight against the threat of Stalinism or communism, the head forester (or "chief ranger") being Joseph Stalin. Following this interpretation the book would have predicted in 1939 the ultimate failure of Germany's imminent war against the Soviet Union. The book was not censored in Nazi Germany, perhaps due to Jünger's significant repute in right-wing circles.Its sharp disapproval of violent masses, as well as its prediction or description of death camps, was noted and helped Jünger's rehabilitation after the Second World War although he had not gone into exile like most anti-Nazi authors. Jünger himself, however, refused the notion that the book was a statement of resistance, describing it rather as a "shoe that fits various feet".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_(novel)" title="Athabasca (novel)">
When the operations manager of an oil company operating in Prudhoe Bay in Alaska receives a mysterious anonymous threat of sabotage, his superiors call in "Jim Brady Enterprises", a firm of oilfield specialists. Dermott and Mackenzie, tough ex-field managers and now anti-sabotage specialists, arrive, but initial investigations get them nowhere. Then the operations manager is murdered and one of the pump stations in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline is damaged, with further loss of life.Jim Brady himself arrives to direct operations but to no avail. Then the company's operations at the Athabasca Oil Sands in Canada are disrupted and Dermott is nearly killed. Despite assistance by the RCMP and the FBI, suspicions fall on many employees, but nothing can be proved. As bodies and equipment damage mount up, Brady and his two investigators play a hunch and finally expose the men they believe to be responsible. But even they are not the main instigators of the events, as the final chapter of the novel reveals.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wreck_of_the_Zanzibar" title="The Wreck of the Zanzibar">
The story unfolds in journal entries and watercolor illustrations made by 14-year-old Laura Perryman in 1907 and 1908. She tells of her life on Bryher, one of Britain's Scilly Isles, where her family's survival depends on the mercy of the elements and the sea. One winter is particularly harsh, with the family's cows sickening and dying, the weather destroying houses and boats, the food stores dwindling and Laura's twin brother, Billy, running away to join a ship's crew. As bleak as Laura's days are, she is gentle enough to protect a sea turtle which might otherwise serve as food, and hopeful enough to dream of rowing in the island gig despite repeated declarations that a girl will never be allowed to handle one of the oars. Laura gets her chance in a dramatic storm and shipwreck, and helps save the island.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butterfly_Lion" title="The Butterfly Lion">
A young boy named Michael runs away from a boarding school and meets an old lady living in a big cottage. She tells him about a boy named Bertie who lived in South Africa. As a boy, Bertie had found an orphaned white lion cub, but was eventually forced to send the lion away to the circus and leave South Africa to attend boarding school in Wiltshire, England.Bertie escapes from his school and meets Millie, and the two become fast friends, flying kites together. He tells Millie all about his life in South Africa, and his white lion cub. When the pair leave school, they continue to write until war breaks out, and a letter arrives from Bertie informing Millie that he has joined the army.Later, when fighting in France in the First World War, he saves two men's lives and is given a Victoria Cross. Millie, who has become a nurse in the hopes of finding Bertie, reads about him in a newspaper and the two are reunited. Together they discover that Monsieur Merlot's circus has closed down, but that the Frenchman lives nearby with the lion.Bertie marries Millie and brings the lion back to England, where they live happily for many years. When the lion dies, Bertie and Millie carve a lion out of the chalk in the hillside in memorial, before Bertie dies himself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Horse_(novel)" title="War Horse (novel)">
One day, a man named Ted Narracott buys a young horse for 3 guineas when he was supposed to buy a horse for plough at an auction. Ted's son, Albert, names the horse Joey and grows to love him, protecting the young horse from Ted when he is drunk. While with the Narracotts, Joey also meets a horse named Zoey, who was a source of comfort to Joey, and whose name partially inspired his.Soon, Ted sells Joey to the army in return for money, before Albert can stop him. Albert tries to sign up for the army, but he is too young but promises to come back for Joey. Joey is trained for cavalry service by Corporal Perkins, and Captain James Nicholls is his original rider, leading a unit of mounted infantry. Joey soon befriends Topthorn, a horse ridden by Captain Jamie Stewart. However, during a charge against a group of Germans, Nicholls is killed. Stewart assigns Trooper Warren, a nervous young man who rides heavier but is quite kind, to ride Joey.During another charge, Topthorn and Joey carry Warren and Stewart into the enemy lines, and are the only two of many, but they are captured by the Germans. They use Joey and Topthorn to pull an ambulance cart for the hospital, where the two horses are famous and respected for saving the lives of many. The Germans allow Emilie and her grandfather, who live in a farm near the front lines, to care for Joey and Topthorn. Emilie grows to love Joey and Topthorn like Albert loved Joey, caring for their every injury and feeding them every night. Soon, the Germans move their hospital somewhere else because there was a battle, and Emilie and her grandfather are allowed to keep Joey and Topthorn, who they use for their farm. Topthorn was not bred to plow, but learns quickly from Joey, who has experience from the Narracott farm.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_of_Twilight" title="Pool of Twilight">
The conclusion of the "Pool" series. Kern, son of Shal and Tarl, and Daile, daughter of Ren, search for the missing Warhammer of Tyr, stolen by the god Bane at the end of the previous novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Android's_Dream" title="The Android's Dream">
The story covers the journey of ex-soldier and State Department employee Harry Creek in his work to acquire a sheep of the Android's Dream breed for the coronation ceremony of an alien race known as the Nidu. The Nidu assert that unless a satisfactory sheep can be provided, the political and diplomatic fallout will cause the Nidu to declare war on Earth—a war Earth will lose badly. The genetically designed breed is very rare and believed extinct after a sect of Nidu intent on deposing the government exterminated all known samples, leading Harry on a chase to find one along with assistance from Brian, an AI based on Harry's childhood friend. The only surviving remnant of the Android's Dream turns out to be Robin Baker, a young lady who is the child of an Android's Dream sheep/human hybrid. At the center of the story is the Church of the Evolved Lamb, whose members recognize that its founding was a total scam, but are devoted to making its prophecies come true anyway.Harry slowly meets and befriends Robin after numerous attempts to capture her (most notably being a daring escape in Arlington Mall). They flee from a group out to kill her to derail the Nidu coronation, and hide on an instellar liner. The Nidu attack the liner to capture Robin, and Harry eventually surrenders on the stipulation that Robin not be harmed before or after the coronation. During this, the Earth government injunct with the Common Confederation courts that Robin Baker is not human, and actually the sole member of her own unique species, and entitled to protection from the CC.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoirs_of_an_Infantry_Officer" title="Memoirs of an Infantry Officer">
Sassoon's account of his experiences in the trenches during World War I, between the spring of 1916 and the summer of 1917, creates a picture of a physically brave but self-effacing and highly insecure individual. The narrative moves from the trenches to the Fourth Army School, to Morlancourt and a raid, then to and through the Somme. The narrator, George Sherston, is wounded when a piece of shrapnel shell passes through his lung after he incautiously sticks his head over the parapet at the Battle of Arras in 1917. He is sent home to convalesce and, while there, arranges to have lunch with the Editor of an anti-war newspaper, the "Unconservative Weekly". He determines to speak out against the war, though this contravenes military regulations and could result in his execution. The book finishes as George Sherston prepares to attend 'Slateford War Hospital' (Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh) after a medical board had decided he was suffering from shell shock. The book portrays Sherston's emotional and intellectual coming of age, as he learns "that he is but one insignificant person caught up in events beyond anyone's comprehension".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodstained_Oz" title="Bloodstained Oz">
1930s dust bowl Kansas natives and an alternate version of the Wonderful Land of Oz collide during a huge dust storm. The Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion may or may not help them on this adventure because the other inhabitants of Oz include vampire flying monkeys, emerald eyed demonic creatures, and other horrors beyond imagination.Down home farm girl Gayle Franklin and her family, escaped convict Hank Burnside, and Roma gypsies Elisa and Stefan along with their infant son Jeremiah, all find themselves face to face with the unbelievable terrors from Oz. The creatures have taken over Oz and now they are threatening to take over Earth too.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Surgeon_(novel)" title="The Surgeon (novel)">
A terrifying new serial killer begins stalking the streets of Boston, using his vast medical knowledge to systematically torture and kill vulnerable women, a modus operandi which has earned him the nickname "the Surgeon". As Jane Rizzoli, accompanied by detective Thomas Moore, works the case, she comes across trauma doctor Catherine Cordell, who almost died in the same fashion at the hands of another psychopath several years before, but killed him before he could kill her. Rizzoli soon establishes a connection between the two cases, concluding that she may be on the trail of a deranged copycat.The story opens up with the death of Elena Ortiz at the hands of the Surgeon, and Thomas Moore is sent to investigate. The murder is tied to another murder by the Surgeon, Diana Sterling, a year previous. Rizzoli and Moore note that both had no contact or connection whatsoever, and are perplexed by these two murders. Meanwhile, the Surgeon begins targeting his third victim, Nina Peyton, and Cordell continues to save lives, starting with Herman Gwadowski. The Surgeon is also starting to get closer and closer to Cordell, who is creating a romantic and sexual connection with Thomas Moore. In the end, Jane manages to save Cordell from the Surgeon, and Moore marries Cordell.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quite_Ugly_One_Morning" title="Quite Ugly One Morning">
## Summary.Jack Parlabane rents a flat from a friend in Edinburgh (which just happens to be opposite a police station), and investigating the unpleasant murder of a gambling medic in the flat below proves too much to resist, the victim mutilated and the crime scene grossly vandalized; the victim, Dr Jeremy Ponsonby, is tied up, missing both his nose and his index fingers, had his throat cut, and the crime scene is covered in urine and faeces and vomit, the latter being from the postman who found the body. Parlabane soon finds himself involved with a number of characters including Darren Mortlake, a hit-man from Essex, Dr Sarah Slaughter, the dead doctor's ex-wife, lesbian with attitude DC Jenny Dalziel, and crooked hospital trust administrator Stephen Lime.The book takes its name from a song from Warren Zevon's 1991 album "Mr. Bad Example". It was followed by the best seller Country of the Blind in 1997 which again involved Jack Parlabane.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholics_(novel)" title="Catholics (novel)">
Most of the action of the novel takes place on an island monastery off the southwest coast of Ireland. It is set in the future, near the end of the twentieth century after the Second Vatican Council. The story tells of a young priest sent by the authorities in Rome to fully implement Church reforms in an Irish monastery that still celebrates the Catholic liturgy according to older rites. The young priest, James Kinsella, is initially opposed by the Abbot of the monastery, who tries to preserve his and his monks' way of life. However, the Abbot eventually recognizes the need for—and inevitability of—change. The novel comes to a head when a confrontation between the Abbot and a senior monk, Matthew, nearly undermines the structure of the monastery. The Abbot is plagued by his own doubts in matters of faith. The novel ends on an ambiguous note as the Abbot prays for the first time in years, but in the face of the abandonment of their traditional way of life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Host_(novel)" title="The Host (novel)">
A species of parasitic aliens called "Souls" have invaded Earth, deeming the humans too violent to deserve the planet. When a Soul is implanted into a host body, the consciousness of the original owner is erased, leaving their memories and knowledge. Wanderer, a Soul, is placed into the body of Melanie Stryder. However, Melanie's consciousness is still alive and begins to communicate with Wanderer mentally. Wanderer's assigned "Seeker" suggests that she could be placed into Melanie to retrieve the memories before disposing of the defective body, but Wanderer makes several attempts to deny her Seeker's wishes. As Wanderer starts to uncover some of Melanie's memories of her younger brother Jamie Stryder and her boyfriend Jared Howe, Melanie gets her to follow a series of landmarks throughout the Arizona desert to find her Uncle Jeb, hoping that Jared and Jamie are with him. By doing so, she would be denying the Seeker Melanie's memories and the humans they would lead her to.When Jeb comes across Melanie's dying body, he realizes what had happened to her but still leads her to his hideout: a network of caves housing more than thirty people. Most of the other humans wanted her to be killed with the exception of Jared and Jamie, and later on Ian O'Shea, who develops feelings for Wanderer. As days pass and she starts to become a part of the community, many of the community members start to trust her with jobs and eventually gave her a teaching role among the colony. She is also given the name Wanda in replacement of the name Wanderer. After tending to a cancer patient one night, Wanda is attacked by Ian's brother, Kyle. After managing to save both herself and Kyle from drowning, the two are taken into the infirmary. Shortly after recovering, Wanda stumbles across a slew of mutilated bodies that cause her to hide by herself in terror for three days. During her time in isolation, Wanda learns from Jeb that the humans are trying to cut Souls out of their hosts in attempt to restore the consciousness and life of the humans but so far each attempt has resulted in a dead body.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Wish" title="The Last Wish">
## "The Witcher".The King of Temeria, Foltest, has offered a reward to anyone who can lift the curse on his daughter, Adda (the result of an incestuous union with his late sister, also named Adda), who was born as a striga, and terrorizes the town every night. Foltest insists that his daughter not be harmed, but grants Geralt permission to kill her if Adda cannot be returned to human form. Geralt is unsure whether Adda can live as a "normal" human even if the curse is lifted.Geralt prepares to spend the night at the old palace which houses the striga. Lord Ostrit, a magnate from Novigrad, tries to bribe Geralt into leaving. Ostrit wants to use the striga as proof of Foltest's inability to rule, convincing Temeria's people to support Novigrad's usurpation of Foltest. Geralt refuses and knocks out Ostrit to use him as bait.Geralt fights and defeats the striga, despite the striga's resistance to silver. Unable to subdue the striga, Geralt seals himself into its crypt, forcing it to spend the night outside its lair, lifting the curse. In the morning, Geralt approaches the seemingly-restored Adda, but the girl attacks him and claws his neck. Geralt binds his wounds and faints, but regains consciousness in the temple, being told that Adda is being cared for by the King and Geralt has earned his reward.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_of_the_Slitheen" title="Revenge of the Slitheen">
## Part 1.Maria and Luke start their new school, but find all is not as it seems. Aided by Sarah Jane and their new friend Clyde Langer, they find the Slitheen, who are enemies of The Doctor, disguised as teachers who have taken control of the technology block and are trying to switch off the Sun. Luke unknowingly gives the Slitheen the code to start the machine, and they start to absorb the power of the Sun. Sarah Jane investigates the company controlling the science block, and Maria, Luke and Clyde investigate the school. Sarah Jane is attacked by a Slitheen who disguised herself as a company secretary, Janine. Luke finds a secret room and is confronted by the Slitheen commander, his headmaster Blakeman, whilst Maria is hiding under a computer desk after being spotted by Jeffrey. Jeffrey removes his human disguise in front of Maria, but the only thing visible to her are his green feet. Maria runs away, and meets up with Clyde, who runs away too. They are rescued by the school genius Carl who then reveals he is, too, a Slitheen.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aesthetics_of_Resistance" title="The Aesthetics of Resistance">
Weiss's complex multi-layered 1000 page novel has been called a "book of the century [Jahrhundertbuch]." It can no more be usefully summarized than James Joyce's "Ulysses". By way of introducing "The Aesthetics of Resistance" what follows are the opening paragraphs of an article by Robert Cohen:""The Aesthetics of Resistance" begins with an absence. Missing is Heracles, the great hero of Greek mythology. The space he once occupied in the enormous stone frieze depicting the battle of the Giants against the Gods is empty. Some two thousand years ago the frieze covered the outer walls of the temple of Pergamon in Asia Minor. In the last third of the nineteenth century the remnants of the ancient monument were discovered by the German engineer Carl Humann and sent to Germany. The fragments were reassembled in the specially built Pergamon Museum in Berlin, the capital of Wilhelminian Germany, and were to signal from this point forward the late claims to power of German imperialism. The Pergamon frieze can still be seen in Berlin today. In the fall of 1937 – and here we are at the beginning of Peter Weiss's novel – three young men find themselves before the frieze. Two of them, Coppi and the narrator, whose name is never mentioned, are workers. The third, a sixteen-year-old named Heilmann, is a high school student. Coppi is a member of the illegal Communist Party, Heilmann and the narrator are sympathizers. All three are active in the antifascist resistance. In a lengthy discussion the three friends attempt to interpret the stone figures and events depicted in the frieze in a way which would make them relevant for their own present day struggle. They cannot, however, find Heracles. Other than a fragment of his name and the paw of a lion's skin, nothing remains of the leader of the Gods in the battle against the Giants. The "leader" of 1937, on the other hand, is an omnipresent force, even in the still halls of the Pergamon Museum, where uniformed SS troopers, their Nazi insignia clearly visible, mingle among the museum's visitors. Under the pressure of the present and with their lives in constant danger, the three young antifascists read the empty space in the frieze as an omen, they feel encouraged to fill it with their own representation of the absent half-god. What they envision is an alternative myth in stark contrast to the traditional image of Heracles. From a friend of the Gods, the mighty and the powerful, Heracles is transformed into a champion of the lowest classes, of the exploited, imprisoned, and tortured – a messianic "leader" in the struggle against the terror of the "Führer".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_from_the_Ashes" title="Empire from the Ashes">
The trilogy's protagonist is Colin MacIntyre, who is on a routine training flight over the Moon when it reveals itself to be Dahak, a self-aware space battle planetoid millennia old. MacIntyre and Dahak defeat Dahak's previous enemies and restore a galactic empire.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine" title="The Shock Doctrine">
The book is divided into seven parts with a total of 21 chapters.Part 1 begins with a chapter on psychiatric shock therapy and the covert experiments conducted by the psychiatrist Ewen Cameron in collusion with the Central Intelligence Agency. The second chapter introduces Milton Friedman and his Chicago school of economics, whom Klein describes as leading a laissez-faire capitalist movement committed to creating free markets that are even less regulated than those that existed before the Great Depression.Part 2 discusses the use of "shock doctrine" to transform South American economies in the 1970s, focusing on the 1973 coup in Chile led by General Augusto Pinochet and influenced by a prominent group of Chilean economists who had been trained at the University of Chicago in the Economics department, funded by the CIA, and advised by Milton Friedman. Klein connects torture with economic shock therapy.Part 3 covers attempts to apply the shock doctrine without the need for extreme violence against sections of the population. Klein says that Margaret Thatcher applied mild shock "therapy" facilitated by the Falklands War, while free market reform in Bolivia was possible due to a combination of pre-existing economic crises and the charisma of Jeffrey Sachs.Part 4 reports on how Klein thinks the shock doctrine was applied in Poland, China, South Africa, Russia, and the Four Asian Tigers. In Poland she discusses how the left-leaning trade union Solidarity won the country's 1989 legislative elections, but subsequently employed the shock doctrine due to IMF pressure. The section on China discusses the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests, and the liberalization of China's economy. In South Africa she explains that the negotiations to end apartheid resulted in economic policy that went against the core of the Freedom Charter. In Russia she describes how Boris Yeltsin took power after the collapse of the Soviet Union and crafted economic policy that made the Russian oligarchs of 2020 possible. Finally she shows that during the 1997 Asian financial crisis the Tiger Nations were forced to sell off numerous state enterprises to private, foreign companies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reluctant_Queen" title="The Reluctant Queen">
The novel begins in with a prologue, in the year 1485. Anne, the narrator, knows she is dying and has decided to write her memoirs before death slowly takes her. She worries about the fate of her family including that of her husband Richard, the King of England. Richard is severely maligned by his people, and Anne fears that his power and position would be greatly jeopardized after her death. This leads to her reminiscing on happier days.She recalls growing up in the English countryside with her noble family: her father Richard, her mother Anne, and sister Isabel. At the age of five she meets her future husband, eight-year-old Richard Plantagenet who is studying under the tutelage of her father. Richard's brother Edward has recently been proclaimed King by the English people, usurping the throne from mentally unstable King Henry VI and his aloof consort, Margaret of Anjou. Richard enthralls young Anne with tales of his brother and the Wars of the Roses. Anne's father as the Earl of Warwick has played a crucial part in placing Edward on the English Throne, and plans to marry him to French noblewoman, Bona of Savoy, much to his daughter Isabel's chagrin as she secretly wants to be Queen Consort.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Visions_Trilogy" title="Dark Visions Trilogy">
## "The Strange Power".Kaitlyn Fairchild is a psychic teenager who is believed to be a witch. Her power is seeing the future. She is able to visualize her premonitions through drawings, but she often cannot interpret them until it is too late. She is offered a place by Joyce Piper, at a psychic research center known as the Zetes Institute, and after seeing a child get hurt, as foreseen by one of her premonitions, she agrees to go to the Institute with four other teenagers who have powers of their own. She quickly befriends three of the other teens, Anna Eva Whiteraven, Lewis Chao and Rob Kessler, and forms feelings for Rob; the fifth psychic, Gabriel Wolfe is aloof and reluctant to form friendships with anyone except Kaitlyn. While at the Institute, they are tested on their psychic abilities, but a mysterious man warns Kaitlyn that the Institute is dangerous, and even the sullen housekeeper Marisol warns them to get out as soon as possible, after which she goes into coma. The psychics become suspicious and begin to believe the warnings about the Institute. They investigate and find a secret passageway, which contains plans to turn them into psychic weapons to sell to major corporations, and a file about Project Black Lightning, a previous project in which other psychics were tested upon and 'terminated'. The teens almost get caught by the head of the Institute, Mr. Zetes, and Gabriel locks the five of them into a psychic link to save them. The link allows them to 'hear' each other's thoughts and communicate, but they cannot get rid of it afterwards so they try to find a way to break the link, but discover that the only way is for one of them to die. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_Time_Pass" title="Let Time Pass">
Johanna who is a lector at a Danish university gets involved by her colleague professor Jeyde in a time travel experiment. Jeyde has discovered that he can put the time 23 days back. The background to the invention is that Jeyde perceives the time as split up into small sets, among which time stands calm.Jeyde compares his theory with films, where every second 24 still pictures are shown. If you happen to cut the time "tape" the world gets rewound to the previous secure point (which would be 23 days before the moment of the cut). The problem that Jeyde has encountered is that after the time cut neither he nor anybody else can notice that there was a cut because everything that happened between the safe point and the cut is erased from their memories as it never had happened (and theoretically it hasn't happened indeed). He can't even be sure about any event whether it's the first time it's happening or not.To be able to understand the possibilities of his invention better, Jeyde sends Johanna to a psychiatrist who "opens up her mind" so after a time cut she'd be able to remember the destroyed time. When Johanna gets tired of being repeatedly sent by Jeyde back in time (since Jeyde sends back the entire Universe and not just Johanna he doesn't need Johanna's participation or agreement to send her back) she manages to lock Jeyde up in a psychiatric hospital and wants to leave time travelling behind her, but then she suddenly realises how much freedom it can give her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Hands_(novel)" title="Invisible Hands (novel)">
Chief inspector Kristian Wold is assigned to a one-year-old missing persons case. The commission from his superiors is not to be mistaken: a final review before the case is closed. However, Kristian's conscience forces him to comply when Inger Danielsen, mother of the 14-year-old girl who is missing, asks to see him. The meeting holds unexpected consequences for both of them. As Kristian feels obliged to continue an investigation that has so far been fruitless, an emotional tension is ignited between him and the mother. Inexorably, the two are drawn towards each other, in what will become a love affair against all odds, with a disastrous end awaiting.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bear_Went_Over_the_Mountain_(novel)" title="The Bear Went Over the Mountain (novel)">
Arthur Bramhall isolates himself in a forest cabin to write a novel; once it is complete, he goes off to buy champagne in celebration, after first burying the manuscript to protect it from fire. In his absence, a bear digs up his manuscript. The bear reads the manuscript, decides it is good, and brings it to New York City, where he is accepted as a talented author and desirable party guest.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamer_(novel)" title="Dreamer (novel)">
Awake, Greg Donner falls in love with the beautiful red-headed Ginny Winters, a woman with a mysterious past. Asleep, Greg dreams of pursuing Ginny through a terrifyingly deserted Chicago. Awake, Richard Iles is confined to a sanatorium in Kentucky and trapped in a turbulent marriage to Ginny Winters. Asleep, Richard dreams he is Greg Donner. And when he next wakes up, he IS Greg Donner. But Ginny has gone. Overall, Quinn regards this work as a love story that depicts certain components of his relationship with his own wife.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe's_Skirmish" title="Sharpe's Skirmish">
This short story occurs after "Sharpe's Sword" in the summer of 1812. Sharpe and his men escort commissary Major Tubbs to an abandoned Spanish fort where a cache of thousands of muskets has been forgotten in the general French retreat in northern Spain. Unbeknownst to the British, French Major Ducos has authorised a surprise raid to threaten the Duke of Wellington's supply lines and hopefully delay the British pursuit long enough for the French to regroup. To accomplish this, the French first need to secure the fort, which guards a bridge across the Tormes River. However, Sharpe stands in the way, and for the first (but by no means last) time thwarts a scheme involving Ducos.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wool-Pack" title="The Wool-Pack">
Set in the Cotswolds near Burford, Oxfordshire, "The Wool-Pack" begins in 1493 when Nicholas Fetterlock, the twelve-year-old son of a rich wool merchant, learns from his father that he is betrothed to Cecily Bradshaw, the daughter of a rich cloth merchant. Within the guild, Nicholas discovers the work of swindlers who could ruin his father's business. Nicholas, Cecily, and a friend determine to stop them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Load_of_Unicorn" title="The Load of Unicorn">
Benedict, known as Bendy, has been apprenticed by his forward-looking father to the printer William Caxton. This infuriates his mean half-brothers who are scriveners and fear that the new-fangled printing press will drive them out of business. They have secretly waylaid the printer's delivery of new paper and are hiding it. Bendy knows about it but is worried about the consequences of telling, especially as his half-brothers may be involved with Lancastrian rebels.Caxton sends Bendy and another apprentice on a quest to find the complete manuscript of Thomas Mallory's stories of King Arthur. Mallory's stories had been circulating as a series of independent and internally consistent tales, but Caxton believes there is a single manuscript, based on the fact that some of the tales make clear reference to earlier episodes. Bendy's quest proves dangerous as others are also on the trail.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Assassination_Option" title="The Assassination Option">
This novel centers around Capt. James Cronley, the central character of the first novel of the series. Cronley has been promoted to be commander of a new unit in the new Central Intelligence Agency. As the chief of DCI Europe, Cronley has to deal with all sorts of intrigue, much of it involving U.S. government and military personnel unhappy with the creation and power of the new CIA. Cronley and the people working with and for him, have a new mission to bring the family of a Soviet informant out of East Germany and to freedom. In the process Cronley must fend off attempts to undermine his authority. Cronley's mother was a German national and he runs across German relatives and he finds all with them is not what it seems.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ship_of_the_Dead" title="The Ship of the Dead">
Magnus and Alex Fierro travel to the Chase Mansion, where they recover notes scribbled by Randolph at different points of time guarded by a wolf. After reaching Valhalla, Magnus summons a ship gifted by his father Frey. Mallory Keen, Halfborn Gunderson, Thomas Jefferson Jr., Samirah al-Abbas and Alex accompany Magnus, while they plan to pick up Blitzen and Hearthstone along the way. The crew's talk is heard by the Nine Billow Maidens, who take them to the court of Aegir, where they discover Hearth and Blitz are held prisoners. Aegir's eldest daughter recognizes Magnus from his previous encounter with her mother Rán. Upon being threatened, Magnus swears by his troth to defeat Loki in a flyting contest and to avenge Aegir's humiliation, who was previously defeated by the god in a contest. Aegir invites them to escape while he isn't looking, but the crew is attacked by Aegir's nine daughters. They manage to escape with the help of Magnus' grandfather, Njord. Njord reveals Magnus that the only way to defeat Loki is by drinking Kvasir's mead. The crew continue on their journey, with Blitz and Hearth travelling separately to retrieve Bolverk's whetstone.As the crew heads to York, the backstories of the members are revealed. Mallory died disarming a bomb in Ireland; Halfborn died near Jorvik; TJ died after forcefully accepting a hopeless challenge, a trait inherited from his father Tyr. Samirah fasts during the Ramadan season. The crew arrives at York, where they duel with the giant Hrungnir for the location of Kvasir's mead. They get the information that they need: the Kvasir's mead is in Jorvik, also known as Norway in the human realm. The crew goes to Norway, get the Kvasir's mead from Suttung's daughter, Gunnlöð, and kill Baugi. Suttung is killed single-handedly by Halfborn. They also get the information that Naglfar is frozen between Niflheim and Jotunheim. They almost froze to death while travelling to Niflheim. However, they are rescued by Skadi, Njord's ex-wife. Magnus drinks the Kvasir's mead and the crew goes to Naglfar. Magnus competes in a flyting on Naglfar against Loki, but decides not to insult the god. Instead, he expresses the love and trust he has for his crew and pities Loki for his evident loneliness, as even his wife Sigyn abandons him when he shrinks to the size of a nut upon hearing Magnus's words. Loki is imprisoned in a walnut given earlier by Frigg. Magnus and his friends go to Vigridr, the Last Battlefield, and meet the gods who congratulate them for defeating Loki and delaying Ragnarok, for which Magnus is rewarded with a boon from Odin. Magnus asks Odin to lend him his lawyers so that he could convert Randolph's mansion into an orphanage and homeless shelter. He later recounts his adventure to Annabeth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Legendary_Kingdoms" title="The Four Legendary Kingdoms">
Eight years after successfully constructing the Great Machine and preventing the Dark Sun from destroying the earth, Jack West Jr. has retired to his farm in Western Australia. While his adopted daughter Lily—now a twenty-year-old college student—is visiting him, he is called to the Pine Gap military installation to consult on an unusual anomaly detected by its top secret telescopic array. West speculates that the anomaly is a rogue galaxy hurtling across the universe, and that a collision with the Milky Way Galaxy—an apocalyptic event—is imminent. However, before he can draw any further conclusions, the facility is attacked and West is abducted.West awakens in a locked cell and is attacked by a man in a bull-shaped mask resembling a minotaur. West kills the man and escapes the cell to find himself in an arena with fifteen other men, most of whom were prepared for the attack. The group is addressed by a man calling himself Hades, who announces that the sixteen men are the sixteen champions chosen to take part in the Hydra Games. By completing the games, the champions will acquire nine spheres of golden quartz which will unlock a temple within the arena and complete a ritual required to save the world. In order to ensure the champions' loyalty, each man has been implanted with an explosive device and their friends and families held hostage.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_Bounds_(McDermid_novel)" title="Out of Bounds (McDermid novel)">
Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie walks the streets of Leith in the small hours. She cannot sleep as her lover and colleague, Phil Parhatka, was killed in the last outing in this series (The Skeleton Road). At night she encounters displaced Syrian refugees in alleyways and under bridges gathered together to try and be a community, as since coming to Scotland, they have nowhere to meet up.In 2016, a group of joyriders crash their stolen vehicle and the driver ends up in intensive care. The DNA of the offender leads Pirie to an unsolved rape/murder of a hairdresser from Partick in 1996. Tina McDonald was on a night out with some friends in Glasgow when she disappeared from the group before being found dead the next morning.A supposed suicide of Gabriel, a Kinross man, also leads to Karen unofficially opening a cold case on a 1994 aircraft crash. The aircraft contained 4 people, the pilot was an MP and one of the passengers was Gabriel's mother. It was always believed that an incendiary device had caused the aircraft to crash and that the IRA were responsible. As Karen digs deeper, she finds more and more and comes to believe that the terrorists were far from responsible.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Heroes_(novel)" title="Little Heroes (novel)">
In the near-future, a music conglomerate called Muzik Inc. hires Glorianna O'Toole, the "Crazy Old Lady of Rock and Roll", who never made it as a rock star but who was present at rock and roll's creation, and two young computer geniuses, to create a fleshless, Artificial Personality rock-and-roll star.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savages_(novel)" title="Savages (novel)">
Ben and Chon are two Americans running a lucrative marijuana operation out of Laguna Beach, California. Their business thrives until members of the Mexican Baja Cartel decide they want to enter the same business. When Ben and Chon resist the Mexicans' demands, the cartel kidnaps "O" (short for Ophelia), the boys' close confidante and frequent bedroom playmate. Ben and Chon conjure schemes to outwit their adversaries and win back O, using everything from improvised explosive devices to masks.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Munchausen's_Narrative_of_his_Marvellous_Travels_and_Campaigns_in_Russia" title="Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia">
An eighteenth-century German nobleman, Baron Munchausen, experiences a series of amazing adventures. He arrives at the Turkish royal court, where he meets the Sultan, steals his whole treasury, and sails away from Turkey.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_(Herlong_novel)" title="Buddy (Herlong novel)">
Tyrone "Li'l T" Roberts meets Buddy when his family's car unintentionally hits the stray dog on their way to church. Buddy ends up being the pet dog Li'l T's constantly wanted, until Hurricane Katrina comes to New Orleans and he needs to leave Buddy. After the tempest, Li'l T and his dad return home to discover a group attempting to reconstruct their lives, and Buddy gone. Yet, Li'l T declines to surrender his mission to locate his closest companion.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEX_(Olde_Heuvelt_novel)" title="HEX (Olde Heuvelt novel)">
The novel is set in the town of Black Spring, New York (Beek in the original Dutch version), where its inhabitants are routinely terrorized by the ghost of the Black Rock Witch. The witch was formerly a woman by the name of Katherine van Wyler, who was put to death in 1664 and had her eyes and mouth sewn shut after death. She will randomly appear in places throughout Black Spring and the townpeople track her progress via the HEX mobile app, which they use to avoid her as much as possible. The town has several core rules and safeguards in place to ensure that a delicate balance is kept. Two of the most major rules is that no outsiders can ever learn about the Black Rock Witch's existence and her stitches must never be removed. Leaving the town is not an option, as being away for longer than a few days causes townspeople to become suicidal. The townspeople try to make do as best as possible and discourage new people from coming into town, but this is not always successful.Unhappy with this setup, a group of the town's teenagers secretly make plans to broadcast the witch's existence across the world, a move that puts them at risk of severe punishment from the town's council as videotaping the witch is forbidden. Initially the teens are cocky in their recordings, but over time tensions within their group begin to tear them apart and set in motion a terrible set of events that threaten to exterminate the entire town.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bathing_Women" title="The Bathing Women">
"The Bathing Women" focuses on the main character Tiao, a Beijing publisher who on chance begins an affair with the older married actor Feng Jing, her sister Fan and her long term friend Fei, as they grow up in the chaos of The Cultural Revolution. The novel is set simultaneously in the 1960s and 1980s China. The novel confronts the themes of misogyny, gender roles and double standards of Chinese culture.The novel opens with the protagonist Tiao, a successful executive for a Beijing publishing company, entering into an affair with the married actor Feng Jing. Feng Jing is internationally acclaimed for his portrayal of the hardships of the victims of the Cultural Revolution based on his own experiences in a labor camp at the time. Throughout their relationship Feng Jing promises Tiao that he will leave his wife to marry her.The setting of the novel flashes back to a moment in Tiao's youth, in which she witnesses the public denouncement of one of her school's teachers, Tang Jingjing. Ms. Tang had recently had a daughter out of wedlock and is labelled as a "female hooligan". As punishment for her transgression she is given a choice: either reveal the name of the father of her daughter or be forced to consume feces, Ms. Tang not wanting to humiliate her daughter, chooses the latter.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Lover_of_Death" title="He Lover of Death">
The novel is set in year 1900. Erast Fandorin looks for a treasure hidden in a basement. The case involves a mysterious lady called Death, whose lovers die under strange circumstances.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_of_the_Sands" title="Rebel of the Sands">
Sixteen-year-old gunslinger and sharpshooter Amani Al'Hiza has the elemental power to control the sands of the desert. An orphan, she itches to leave Dustwalk her dead end home town, the small town where she lives with her aunt, uncle, and cousins. Amani escapes in a Buraqi, to travel across the desert with Jin, a mysterious foreigner. They encounter many dangers along the journey as they defend themselves against mythical creatures such as the "Nightmares" and "Skinwalkers". Along the way, Amani found many secrets about herself, her mysterious foreigner and the Rebel Prince.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apocalypse_Fire" title="The Apocalypse Fire">
Ava Curzon has returned from Baghdad to the British Museum, and is recruited by Britain’s ultra-secretive MI13 intelligence department to assist in recovering the Turin Shroud, which has been stolen by a Russian special forces team. As the chase moves to London, she finds herself on the trail of Oleg Durov, a Russian oligarch, who leads an apocalyptic group of castrati known as the Skoptsy.With the stakes rising, Ava discovers that Durov possesses two of Rasputin’s personal notebooks, in which the Russian mystic left baffling clues. After a brazen attempt on her life, she infiltrates the headquarters of the mysterious Order of Malta in Rome, where the quest becomes infinitely more dangerous. Following up a hunch, she becomes involved with Mexican gang in London smuggling war-looted antiquities from the Middle East, and finds herself playing a lethal game over an ancient Aramaic artefact like none she has ever seen before. After re-establishing contact with Uri, a Mossad assassin, she solves Rasputin’s clues, which lead her to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, where she finds an ancient manuscript hidden by a medieval Knight of Saint John.As the net closes in on her, she solves the riddle of the knight’s manuscript, and is propelled towards the chilling climax, where she must confronts Durov and the Skoptsy at an ancient castle in the south of France. There, she finally comes face to face with the ancient biblical manuscript that has been driving the mystery all along. Finally, in the husk of the ancient Cathar castle of Montségur, where the medieval heretics were burned alive, she has to face Durov, and present him from unleashing his plan of devastation in the Middle East.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_(Alderman_novel)" title="The Power (Alderman novel)">
In a matriarchal society, a gushing male writer writes to an influential author about his fictional account of how the matriarchy came to be. Five thousand years earlier (in our current time), men dominated society, until stories began to emerge of women who possessed an electrical power used first for self-defense, and eventually to attack, torture, even kill.Roxy is an English teenager whose mother is attacked. She manages to defend herself, injuring one attacker, but the other beats her up and kills her mother. Tunde is an aspiring journalist in Nigeria who starts to film women using their emerging power and publishing it online. Margot is a mayor in Wisconsin who discovers her daughter Jocelyn is also developing these powers. Allie is a girl who is raped by her foster father and kills him with her powers before taking refuge in a convent.As the power emerges across the world, Tunde's reputation allows him unique access to Saudi Arabia and elsewhere to document growing turmoil. Allie discovers how to use her powers to heal and becomes an influential religious leader, propagating a matriarchal doctrine. Margot develops training camps for the women to use their powers. As women in Moldova start paramilitary groups, Tatiana, the president's wife, steps in to take over the country. Rival Awadi-Atif develops a rebel army to oppose her. Tunde is nearly raped by marauding women in India. Margot becomes governor by using her powers to silence her male opponent during a debate. A drug called "glitter" enhances the power of women's electricity-generating organs, called skeins. UrbanDox gains influence as an anti-woman activist. Roxy takes over her father's criminal enterprise. Tatiana begins to behave erratically, leading mass killings of men.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srikanta_(book)" title="Srikanta (book)">
Set in sometime between late 19th-century to early 20th century, the story occurs in different regions of British India — Bhagalpur, Patna, Rangoon, Sainthia (Birbhum) and Debanandapur (Hooghly).While living in his uncle's house, Srikanta, a boy, one day, meets Indranath, a boy of his age, during a football match and from that time, they become close friends. Srikanta accompanies Indranath in his daring adventures. Indranath loves and helps with money an outcast woman named Annadadidi, wife of a Romani snake-charmer. Srikanta also comes to close to Annadadidi. Meanwhile Annadadidi's husband dies of snake-bite leaving her alone, one day she disappears from the scene Indranath also goes away one day and is never seen again. In course of time, Srikanta by chance meets a princely friend of his and goes out on a hunting expedition. There in the prince's tent, he meets Piyari, a nautch (dance) girl, who is none other than his old and dear schoolmate. Her real name is Rajlakshmi. She has not forgotten her old love which grows more intense while meeting Srikanta. After leaving the hunting party, Srikanta, the vagabond that he is, joins a group of roving mendicants. During the travelling Srikanta falls ill, and with some difficulty he sends news of his illness to Piyari at Patna, who hurriedly comes with her stepson to him and takes him to Patna. Srikanta spends some days there in the loving care of Piyari, and one day Srikanta takes leave of Piyari and goes to his native village.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chinese_Siamese_Cat" title="The Chinese Siamese Cat">
Sagwa, a young cream kitten, lives in the House of the Foolish Magistrate, a greedy man who only makes up rules that help himself. One day, Sagwa falls into an inkwell and accidentally changes one of the Magistrate's new rules. Little did Sagwa know, she would actually alter the fate (and the appearance) of both China, and the Chinese cats forever.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Orphelin_de_Perdide" title="L'Orphelin de Perdide">
On the dangerous planet Perdide, a father and his four-year-old son, Claude, are trying to escape a swarm of giant hornets. Exhausted, the father managed to send a distress message to his friend Max, but failed to reach him directly, and instructed his son to quickly get into the forest on the hill. Before dying, the father gives his transceiver to Claude and tells him to do what it says. The boy finds himself alone in a strange forest with his only companion the small egg-shaped object.Aboard the ship "The Big Max," the smuggler Max discovers the message from his friend and contact Perdide. Little Claude immediately responds, speaking to his microphone as if it were a person. He then decided to divert its route to Perdide to save the child. His two passengers, Belle and her husband Martin, who have paid a large sum to be taken to the planet Sidoine, protest in vain. Max maintains communication with Claude and instructs him on how to survive in a hostile environment."The Big Max" lands on the beautiful planet, Devil-Ball, where Max joins his old friend Silbad. The aging Silbad has had a metal plate on his head since he was attacked by hornets on Perdide in his childhood, and knows about the dangers of the planet. Touched by the story of Claude, he boards "The Big Max" and spends most of his time telling stories to the child and to protect the dangers of the forest.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seafarers_(novel)" title="The Seafarers (novel)">
At the end of World War II, at Portland Harbour, Lieutenant Donald Wolfe is supervising the decommissioning of the motor torpedo boat which he commanded with distinction during the war. The dockyard workers are brought to his vessel in a boat driven by Leading Wren Jean Porter. Each is impressed by the other's practical, no-nonsense approach to their work and they become friends. They part when Donald leaves Portland to lay up his disarmed MTB. After both are demobilised they meet again and Donald discovers that the girl he knew as a boatwoman comes from a well-off family whose social environment is very different from his own. He realises that although they both wish to marry each other, the marriage could not work. They go their separate ways, he to work in an insurance office and she (for something to do, rather than for the money) to learn to be a shorthand typist.But both are dissatisfied with their lives on land and each separately returns to the sea, he to deliver a yacht to England across the Atlantic from Newfoundland and she to deliver a yacht to England from Guernsey. Eventually they meet again on the Hamble and set up a partnership – Wolfe and Porter – to work on boats. They realise that they can now marry, despite her wealthy background, because they earn enough to "keep her in the style she's accustomed to. ... Gumboots and dirty clothes, and Primus stoves, and rough food, and salt water. Not the Savoy Hotel."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devourers" title="The Devourers">
The story, which takes place primarily in Kolkata, is set during the reign of the Mughal Empire in the seventeenth century and extends to modern India. The main character, Alok Mukherjee, is a college professor and historian who happens upon a stranger that tells him a story about shape-shifters that devour human souls in order to survive. The stranger claims that the tale he tells it true, and although Alok is skeptical, he is intrigued and insists on finishing the story. Alok is then enlisted to translate and transcribe a collection of notebooks and texts documented on human skin, through which the rest of the story is told.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Whistler_(novel)" title="The Whistler (novel)">
A mysterious source contacts the (fictional) Florida Board on Judicial Conduct, or BJC, promising information that will reveal the identity and crimes of the most corrupt judge in U.S. history. Investigator Lacy Stoltz is assigned to the case, and takes her sometime-partner Hugo Hatch with her to St. Augustine to meet the source in person. The source is revealed to be a disgraced lawyer from Pensacola named Ramsey Mix.Mix reveals that the corrupt judge is Claudia McDover of Florida's 24th Circuit. Over the course of almost two decades, McDover has aided the local Coast Mafia in their scheme to build a casino in partnership with the Tappacola Indian Nation. Aside from skimming money from the casino, the Coast Mafia has also been responsible for many nearby real estate developments, with any legal problems smoothed over by McDover in exchange for cash payments and condominiums. In addition, the Coast Mafia has staged the murder of Son Razko, a prominent anti-casino member of the Tappacola Nation, and McDover has falsely convicted his right-hand man, Junior Mace, of the crime. Mix has been given this information by an intermediary representing an unknown "mole" close to McDover.When Stoltz and Hatch begin an investigation, the leader of the Coast Mafia, Vonn Dubose, decides to retaliate. Stoltz and Hatch are lured to a remote part of the Tappacola reservation by a tribal member claiming to be a source. Driving away from the uneventful meeting, the duo are deliberately struck head-on by a truck. Hatch is killed and Stoltz is badly injured. This escalation convinces the director of the BJC, Michael Geismar, to ask for help from the FBI. However, the up-and-coming mob lieutenant tasked with killing Hatch and Stoltz left behind evidence at the crime scene and was caught on video at a nearby convenience store. Aided by this evidence and a former Tappacola Nation constable, BJC and FBI investigators find Hatch's killers and offer them reduced sentences in exchange for information against those higher up in the Coast Mafia.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transgressors" title="The Transgressors">
"The Transgressors" opens with deputy sheriff Tom Lord riding on a Texas road with the town prostitute Joyce Lakewood. They are lovers and Lord treats her more respectfully than any man Joyce has been with but he refuses to marry her. This leads to them alternately trading insults and flirting. As they argue it is made clear that although he talks like a local with little education, Lord is highly educated. He almost completed medical school when he was forced to drop out to care for his sick father. His father lingered on for years requiring Lord's full-time care and as a temporary way to bring in money Lord took a job as a deputy sheriff. The job turned out to be permanent as by the time his father passed away Lord felt he was too old to return to school and he uses his clownish yokel way of talking to blend in with the rest of the men in the sheriff's office.Joyce and Lord have a minor accident. The look on Lord's face after the accident reminds Joyce of another time he had such an intense look and she remembers a feud he had with Aaron McBride, a supervisor for the Highlands Oil and Gas company. There was oil on land that Lord owned and he signed a contract with McBride to have Highlands drill the oil. However, Highlands swindled him by a loophole in the contract. As a result, Lord waited for an opportunity to take revenge on McBride. When McBride wore a gun on his hip into town Lord confronted him for wearing a gun without a permit. McBride pushed Lord into a storefront. This was the opening Lord was looking for and he quickly pummeled McBride. From that point on McBride was a different man. He never came into Lord's town again but he swore that if he saw Lord outside of Lord's legal jurisdiction he would kill him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Criminal_(novel)" title="The Criminal (novel)">
Everyone in Kenton Hills knows that short-tempered, tongue-tied Bob Talbert wasn't the one responsible for the brutal crime that ended Josie Eddleman's life. Never mind that he was the last one to see her alive. But in a town filled with the likes of an amoral tabloid reporter known only as The Captain, a district attorney who'll do anything for a confession, and Bob's parents, who care as little for Bob as they do for each other, guilt and innocence are little more than a matter of perspective.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season_in_Purgatory" title="Season in Purgatory">
The novel is set during the Second World War on the island of Mus, which lies in the Adriatic Sea. David Pelham is a junior medical officer in the British Army who volunteers for battlefield medical work and is parachuted onto the island along with a number of British officers and servicemen. Their aim is to aid Tito's partisans in fighting the occupying Germans.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_Santo_(novel)" title="Il Santo (novel)">
As a sequel to "Piccolo Mondo Moderno", the novel takes up the story ofPiero Maironi.After a dramatic meeting with Jeanne Dessale, the reformed Maironi (now Benedetto) takes refuge as a monk in a religious community in the mountain village of Jenne and acquires a reputation among the peasants there as a saint who sometimes works miracles of healing. Bendetto calls for a thorough reform of Christian spirituality and thought. Benedetto/Maironi's program of spiritual reform is developed by Fogazzaro from ideas of the Italian philosopher Antonio Rosmini. Benedetto forms with Don Clemente and Professor Giovanni Selva (in whom the critic Jean Lebrec recognizes Friedrich von Hügel, a close friend of Fogazzaro) the nucleus of a latter-day Cénacle who call themselves "Le Catacombe".Benedetto goes to Rome and works among the poor of the Trastevere and Testaccio quarters, but then gains notoriety and becomes enmeshed in clerical and anti-clerical politics. Eventually Benedetto meets with Pope Pius X.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Parade" title="The Night Parade">
Saki Yamamato, a 13-year-old girl, travels with her parents from their home in Tokyo to visit her widowed grandmother in the Japanese countryside for the annual Obon festival. Used to the convenience of always being connected to her friends by cell phone, Saki is horrified when she loses signal in the rural mountain village where her grandmother lives. In an attempt to fit in with a group of local kids, Saki goes to the mountain’s graveyard shrine to ring the sacred bell, and she is plagued with a death curse that she must break in order to save her family and the human world. A series of spirits—a sly kitsune, a legendary tengu, and a talkative tanuki—from the mountain visit her over the next three nights to aid her in her quest to reverse the deadly curse. She must walk in the Night Parade of spirits (aka "Hyakki Yagyō" or the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) to find someone who can help her undo the curse. Along the way, she learns the importance of family and her heritage and gains a stronger appreciation for her grandmother and her Japanese roots.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rather_Be_the_Devil" title="Rather Be the Devil">
The novel opens and closes with Rebus and his girlfriend, Deborah Quant (a forensic pathologist) dining in a restaurant which is part of the Waldorf Caledonian Hotel. Rebus is reminded of the 1978 murder at this hotel of Maria Turquand, an unsolved case in which Edinburgh bankers and pop stars were suspects. Rebus revisits the case, which becomes intertwined with others more actively pursued by the police in the coming week.DI Malcolm Fox has been promoted to Gartcosh where Police Scotland have the Scottish Crime Campus. Meanwhile, in Edinburgh, DI Siobhan Clarke is investigating the mugging of Darryl Christie, a young gangster who, in "Standing in Another Man's Grave" (2012), stepped into the void created by 'Big Ger' Cafferty's withdrawal from power in Edinburgh. Because HM Revenue and Customs are interested in a shell companies scheme involving Christie and banking scion Anthony Brough, Fox is sent back to Edinburgh to join Clarke's investigation. Then a retired policeman dies, drowned with his hands bound, shortly after talking to Rebus about the Turquand case. This brings a Gartcosh Murder Inquiry Team to Edinburgh, and Fox is asked to join this team as well. Rebus manages to follow both enquiries, and Fox sees to it that Siobhan Clarke comes to the attention of the Gartcosh MIT group, and so the three are again working together.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Steal_a_Dog_(novel)" title="How to Steal a Dog (novel)">
Georgina Hayes, her brother Toby, and their parents lived happily in an apartment in Darby, North Carolina until her father leaves their family. Their limited income results in Georgina and her family being evicted from the apartment, and since then, they have lived in their car and in poverty. Her schoolwork and social life both suffer due to this, but she doesn’t tell anyone about the circumstances. She tells her best friend Luanne Godfrey about this and urges her to keep it secret, but soon finds a way to get money and a new place to live after seeing a reward for a missing dog: Steal one, "return it", and claim the reward money, which she hopes to be five hundred dollars. Throughout the novel Georgina also writes down unofficial dog theft rules in her notebook, such as giving the dog water, food, and shelter.After roaming around the neighborhood to search for suitable dogs to steal, Georgina and Toby locate a dog named Willy, who meets several criteria in her rules. She also assumes that Carmella is rich due to the exterior of her house, and that the matter’s surname is on the street the siblings are on. Georgina’s mother manages to get an abandoned house as a temporary home, almost making Georgina abandon her plan, but it is so dilapidated it reinstates her confidence. The house is later boarded up as it turns out the owner did not want anyone there. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_a_Knight" title="Rules for a Knight">
The book is divided into a preface, 20 subsections, and an end poem. Each of the 20 middle sections focuses on a different value or virtue explained in a short tale.Preface – Thomas addresses a letter to his four children on the eve before a battle, fearing he will not survive it. The preface explains how he came as a young man to be the squire of his grandfather, who once served under King Henry V.1. Solitude – recounts the telling of the fable of two wolves by Thomas's grandfather.2. Humility – Thomas remembers a conversation with his grandfather and several other knights on the nature of humbleness, arrogance, and joy.3. Gratitude – a young Thomas suffers from a toothache and complains constantly, annoying his grandfather. When winter comes, young Hawke complains of the cold. His grandfather reminds him that at least his tooth no longer bothers him.4. Pride – Young Thomas learns from his grandfather how to shoot a bow and arrow.5. Cooperation – Young Thomas's grandfather takes on another squire, who outshines Thomas in many tasks. Thomas is plagued by jealousy until the sudden death of the other squire. Upon this tragedy, Thomas realizes that his jealousy of the second squire improved his own skills.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eaters_of_Light" title="The Eaters of Light">
The Twelfth Doctor and Bill, disagreeing about the fate of the Ninth Legion of the Imperial Roman army, travel in the TARDIS along with Nardole to the 2nd century in Scotland to prove the other wrong. Bill goes her own way to find the Legion, while the Doctor and Nardole look for their dead bodies.Bill encounters some of the Legion's soldiers hiding underground, the TARDIS' translation circuits helping her communicate with them. The soldiers are hiding from a "Light Eating Locust" that seems drawn to any light source, killing those in its path. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Nardole discover the boneless corpses of the remaining Legion. They later come across a Pict tribe guarding a cairn and waiting for Kar, their leader and the "Guardian of the Gate". The Doctor impatiently enters the cairn, passing into an interdimensional portal full of creatures feeding off a light source. He comes out seconds later, but finds that more than two days have actually passed. Kar explains that once a generation, a warrior of their tribe goes through the cairn to defeat an "Eater of Light", but with the invading Roman army, she allowed one to escape to fight them. The Doctor warns her that unless they can get the creature back into the portal and close it, more of its kind will escape and consume the sun and all the stars in the universe.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Indians" title="Bad Indians">
The memoir’s structure is a Native epistemology that tells a narrative with emphasis on relationships and a circulatory format. Following a loosely chronological order, the book begins in 1770 with the Spanish building a string of missions along the California coast. Through mimicking the “Mission project” as deployed in the California school curriculum and editing excerpts from a coloring book, Miranda recontextualizes how California Missions and American history are taught in schools. She also pulls from her mother’s extensive genealogy records and her grandfather’s cassette tapes in order to tell the stories of her own family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xin_Zhongguo_weilai_ji" title="Xin Zhongguo weilai ji">
In the preface the author apologizes for what is paraphrased in "The Unfinished History of China's Future" by John Fitzgerald as a "rambling quality" due to the inability to put it in a particular genre due to its content, as it was not a historical account, nor was it an orthodox fictional story.The novel begins at the ending and then continues at the beginning of the story; this is called the "flashback technique", a concept that was newly introduced in late Qing China. The novel begins in 1962, or year of Confucius 2513, and shows a 50th anniversary celebration of a Shanghai-based reform movement in which a World Expo and peace treaty signings occur. The celebrated reform movement was the Constitutional Party (xianzhengdang), an umbrella movement of secret society and pro-reform or revolution groups. By 1962 there were three political parties: the Patriotic Self-Government Party (Aiguo zizhidang), the Liberal Party (ziyoudang), and the State Power Party (guoquandang). These three are decentralist, individualist, and centralist, respectively. The "Hungarian Conference" resulted in the 1962 International Peace Conference, held in Shanghai in January of that year, in which China is recognized as the most dominant country on Earth. In the story people in foreign countries, including those in the West, study Chinese to get ahead, and foreign students in China remain in China after the conclusion of their studies, causing brain drain in the West.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_How" title="This Is How">
According to the publisher's synopsis, the book "explores how to survive the 'un-survivable'" in a different way from most self-help books.Burroughs has said that the question he is asked more often than any other is how he survived certain experiences in his life. Burroughs wrote the book as a response to those questions. Burroughs says the book is about crises, how a person must be "absolutely brutally honest" with oneself. Burroughs discusses his own experiences and how he survived them and kept moving forward.Burroughs says he does not believe in powerlessness or self-pity. Burroughs urges people not to wait for someone else to make amends or someone else to help; rather, a person must take responsibility and have a strong understanding that everyone is the author of their own life. Burroughs advocates breaking the "addiction" of dwelling on one's past by focusing on the present and staying busy with physical activities.Burroughs hates the myth that anyone can achieve a dream with hard work and perseverance. He says that without talent and without breaks, it is simply not possible to achieve one's dreams. Instead, a person must avoid self-delusion and concentrate on realistic ambitions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rude_Boy_USA" title="Rude Boy USA">
Mob boss Bernie Banks and his associates—John Leblanc, Ben Berardi, and Jerome Dexter-Dixon are two white and two black men who style themselves after the Rude Boy culture made famous in Jamaica. Operating as a shell investment company supported by illegal activities, the Chimera Group hopes to become as powerful as other crime families and gain respect from the Cosa Nostra. They face internal strife when one of the associates begins dating a former Playboy Club waitress Celia Jones who joins the group through questionable circumstances. Her old occupation follows her into the group by her name, Bunny. Their efforts and push for power also draw the attention of rival Ambrosino family which puts the two groups into a war. In BunnyWine, Bunny (Celia) and John transition out of mob life and rebrands Chimera into a reputable company and attempt to break into politics but is derailed by his former partner in crime Ben Berardi and ambitious New York City prosecutor Mario Pasquale. In the Tide is High, after John's imprisonment and trial he runs for mayor of New York but finds that Mario Pasquale has the same goals as him. Mario pulls all of the stops to derail John's campaign.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessity_(novel)" title="Necessity (novel)">
In "The Just City" a city was created by the time-traveling goddess Athena on the island of Thera prior to its Iron Age volcanic destruction. It was then populated by philosophers and children from all ages of human history and organized on the principles of Plato's "Republic", which turned out not to work so well in practice. In "The Philosopher Kings" the single original city had split into a dozen: five feuding ones on Thera and another eight on other islands where it was discovered that the inhabitants were preaching Christianity to Iron Age Greeks. In large part because of the anachronistic introduction of Christianity, all of the cities were relocated by Zeus to an uninhabited far-off planet in the 26th century, which the cities' inhabitants promptly named Plato."Necessity" begins forty years after these events, on the day the mortal form of the god Apollo, who had chosen to live as a human in the original city, finally dies, and he takes up his divine powers again. That same day also sees the first contact between Plato and wider humanity, as a human spaceship appears in orbit and opens communications. Apollo, however, is more concerned with the disappearance of his sister Athene, who, as it turns out, has gone into the Chaos which exists before and after time, in search of knowledge. The rescue of the wayward goddess involves a great deal of intrigue, time travel, and even alien gods. Walton revisits familiar characters from her previous books (both Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Socrates make an appearance), introduces some new ones and ties up loose ends.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Lestat_and_the_Realms_of_Atlantis" title="Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis">
"In my dreams, I saw a city fall into the sea. I heard the cries of thousands", writes Rice, as Lestat de Lioncourt sees visions of a ruined city in his sleep. He and Amel, a spirit Lestat bonded with in the events of the preceding novel, search for the meaning behind the visions of Atlantis, and what it means to the vampires of the world.The novel presents a lengthy procession of Blood Drinkers from previous adventures as they form a united front against a possible adversary in the form of replimoid beings created many millennia ago for one specific purpose: the destruction of Atlantis and its all-powerful ruler – Amel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syd_Sixpence" title="Syd Sixpence">
The narrative follows Syd, an anthropomorphic Australian sixpence, who finds himself on the ocean floor. The book details his search for his friend, Tramline. While in the ocean, Syd meets a family of winkles who subsist on seaweed, encounters a fish who is a magician, and a performing octopus who kidnaps Syd and forces him into a performing circus, from which Syd must plot an escape.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mountain_Between_Us_(novel)" title="The Mountain Between Us (novel)">
On a stormy winter night, Dr. Ben Payne and writer Ashley Knox are stuck in Salt Lake City International Airport when their flights are canceled. Both are eager to reach their destinations—Ben has patients waiting, and Ashley is to be married the following day. Ben hires a charter plane and offers Ashley a seat, but when their pilot suffers a fatal stroke in flight, the plane crashes, leaving them stranded in the High Uintas Wilderness.Though they survive the impact with injuries (Ben has broken ribs and Ashley suffers a terrible leg fracture), they are faced with harsh weather conditions and the fact that no one knows they are missing. The ordeal leads them to depend on one other for survival, and ultimately brings them closer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonglow_(novel)" title="Moonglow (novel)">
The novel is about the story of the author's (Chabon) grandfather. Throughout the book, the grandfather's name is not referred to.The story is sort of a memoir, jumping around in time. It starts with the narrator stating how his grandfather got arrested.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_Demons" title="Raising Demons">
The book picks up shortly after where "Life Among the Savages" left off. With four children, numerous pets, thousands of books, and countless personal possessions, the narrator realizes with alarm that they have filled up the large house from the previous book and insists they must find a bigger house (to which her husband responds "there "is" no bigger house"). The family at last purchases an enormous old farmhouse on the edge of town, only to learn that it is still occupied by four different families who show no hurry to move out, all while suffering the indignity of a moving company that appears to have stolen all their furniture. The family spends the summer at a home in a resort town while they wait for the house to be vacated. The four children, now older, have developed their own distinctly different personalities: Laurie, the natural leader; Jannie, the romantic conformist; Sally, the stubborn, self-defined imp; and good-natured baby Barry, who seems to regard the rest of his family with wry amusement. With the often indifferent assistance of her husband, the narrator struggles to maintain order and discipline through a series of domestic adventures, even through the heartbreak of realizing her children are growing up.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Rowl" title="Mr. Rowl">
Monsieur Raoul des Sablières, or "Mr. Rowl" as he is known by the 'shop people and such', was wounded and captured at the Battle of Salamanca in 1812. He is on 'parole of honour' in England where he meets and falls in love with the Honourable Miss Juliana Forrest, Lord Fulgrave's daughter. Due to the machinations of Juliana's jealous fiancé, Raoul is considered to have broken his parole and is sent to the prison camp at Norman's Cross. He is persuaded to attempt to escape from the camp, during which a guard is seriously injured and Raoul is unjustly blamed for it. He is therefore sent to a prison ship in Plymouth, from which he escapes disguised as a woman, with the help of money from Juliana.The road on which Raoul (disguised as a Spanish lady to account for his accent) is travelling, becomes blocked by a fallen tree and a fellow passenger, Captain Hervey Barrington - currently without a ship and on half-pay - offers his assistance and invites Raoul to spend the night at his nearby house. Here, Hervey's sister Lavinia discovers Raoul's secret and Hervey locks Raoul in the spare bedroom for the night, intending to turning him over to the authorities in the morning. During the night, Raoul escapes from the bedroom window.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Car" title="The Red Car">
Leah, a young writer, leaves her life in New York for a chance at happiness in San Francisco when her boss, Judy, dies in a fatal traffic accident and leaves her a red sports car.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juino" title="Juino">
Juino follows a narration of Ashok, the male protagonist character of the novel. After all attempts to go abroad to make more money fail, Ashok goes back to his village and started to teach in a school. While teaching in school, he had an acquaintance with a lady named Katha and soon after they fell in love. The story revolves around the scenarios where society is heavily blended with its traditional etiquette.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truevine" title="Truevine">
George and Willie Muse are two brothers growing up in Truevine, part of a sharecropping family that live in a tobacco farming community near Roanoke, Virginia. The two brothers were both albinos, a feature that Willie claimed prompted a circus man to abduct the two children in 1899 while they worked in a field. In the book, Macy notes that it was possible that the children were sent to the circus by their mother, as their albino skin made it unlikely that they would survive long as sharecroppers, but that "if you ask me in my heart, I'm gonna go with [Willie Muse's] story". They performed for years as sideshow attractions where they were cruelly exploited and frequently portrayed as savages from another country or Martians. George and Willie were prevented from contacting their family by their manager, who kept them as modern day slaves, since they were unpaid. The two boys were told that their mother Harriet was dead – a lie, as their mother was still alive and was constantly searching for them. She eventually found the two boys working for the Ringling Brothers Circus and their family was reunited. Harriet successfully sued Ringling Brothers for the treatment of George and Willie. George and Willie resumed performing for the circus in the late 1920s, when they finally received pay for their work. George died in 1972 and Willie died in 2001.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana_Must_Go_(novel)" title="Ghana Must Go (novel)">
The death of Kweku Sai, a renowned surgeon, in Ghana launches a series of events in his family's life. Although he has left them behind, his wife Fola and their four children—Olu, Kehinde, Taiwo, and Sadie—are left to deal with the repercussions of his passing and reconcile the conflicts he created. In the moment of his death, Kweku takes the audience through the time he did share with his family. From his youngest daughter, Sadie's, birth to the doomed surgery that tanked his career, the first part of the book explores the events that pushed him to leave.Fola is in Ghana when she learns of Kweku’s death, and asks their eldest son Olu to reunite his scattered siblings. Olu lives in Boston, Sadie is in school at Yale, Taiwo lives in New York City and the last they heard Kehinde was living in London. In coming together for the first time in years, they are forced to deal with the pain and obstacles that their father's abrupt desertion brought to their lives. For twins Kehinde and Taiwo, it is evident that they are no longer as close as they were as children and not even Fola knows why.Back in Ghana and living under the same roof, the family is forced to confront the events that have divided their family, and begin to reconnect after years of misunderstanding and unspoken feelings. Olu overcomes his fear of commitment, Sadie finds herself, and Fola learns what happened to Taiwo and Kehinde. The novel ends with the family on the path to healing and forgiveness.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dollmaker_(novel)" title="The Dollmaker (novel)">
As the book begins, Gertie Nevels, a Kentucky mountain woman, is struggling to take her sick child down the mountain to see a doctor. She is able to reach the road on the family mule and then to stop a passing car and convince its reluctant occupants to drive her to the doctor’s office. Because her son is in imminent danger of death from suffocation, Gertie performs an emergency tracheotomy. They go to the doctor's office. The boy recovers.During the next part of the book, we get a glimpse of Gertie's life in the mountains, where she is close to her husband Clovis, her five children, her parents, and the community. She is very much at home and fulfilled in this environment, surrounded by nature and connected with the people she loves. She is extremely competent in this mountain life. She thoroughly knows the Bible. Among her many talents is a particular gift for whittling, which she uses to make practical items like ax handles and creative work like dolls. She is gradually carving a sculpture out of a large block of cherry wood, although she does not know if the figure that will eventually emerge will be Christ or Judas.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_vie_compliquée_de_Léa_Olivier" title="La vie compliquée de Léa Olivier">
Lea Oliver has been forced to leave her hometown in order to move with her family to Greater Montreal, which means leaving her friends, boyfriend, and school. She tries to adapt to her new life, only to be faced with new issues such as bullying, the difficulties of a long-distance relationship, and problems stemming from having a popular older brother. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collector_of_Names" title="Collector of Names">
The story is set on the small island in the Mediterranean Sea. Students are coming to party, local pensioners are having their own fun and suddenly there is a child among them asking them for their names. The person who answers him actually gives away his name and identity and sink into the horror of personal annihilation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Sugar_(novel)" title="Queen Sugar (novel)">
Charley Bordelon is a young mother in Los Angeles who has recently been divorced due to a public scandal. After the death of her father, she learns that rather than inheriting his local rental properties, she has inherited a sugarcane farm in St. Joseph, Louisiana, where he was born and raised. Against her mother's wishes, Charley moves to St. Joseph, taking her 15-year-old daughter, Micah, with her and moving in with her paternal grandmother, Miss Honey. Shortly after arriving, Charley learns that her property manager has been neglecting the farm and is about to quit to work an oil rig. She is hard pressed to find another property manager so late in the season but Prosper Denton, a retired farmer recommended by Miss Honey, reluctantly agrees to come out of retirement to help her.Charley's estranged older half-brother, Ralph Angel, a former drug addict and the child of their father's relationship with his high school sweetheart in St. Joseph, returns to town with his son, Blue. Angel is deeply embittered that his father left him nothing, and he also resents Charley for having been raised by a man who essentially abandoned him.Charley struggles to keep the farm going, quickly realizing that it takes more money than was earmarked for maintenance. She believes that wealthy white farmers in the area, such as Jacques Landry and Samuel T. Baron, are conspiring against her and ready to take over the land if she fails. She learns from Miss Honey that her father once worked as a cane cutter on the farm she now owns. In the days of segregation and Jim Crow, he was beaten by an overseer for drinking from a water pail first instead of giving way to the white workers. She renews her determination to keep the farm running, as a way of continuing her father's struggle. She and Denton hire a retired white farmer, Alison Delcambre, to help manage the farm. They recover from a hurricane that flattens the crops.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paloma_Negra_(novel)" title="Paloma Negra (novel)">
The novel is set in Yugoslavia in 1950 under the communist regime. David is an officer who doesn't want to sign killing order for the political prisoners and he is exiled in a small village high in the mountains where rules of its own apply, set up by Michael, head of local band of smugglers. The travelling cinema comes to the village and after one singing Mexican melodrama, younger villagers start to dress like Mexicans and form a musical band. David is amused but the everything soon goes out of hand and David's superiors are coming to see how he is maintaining order in the village.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning_(novel)" title="In the Beginning (novel)">
At the beginning of the novel, David Lurie is a six-year-old boy growing up in the Bronx in the late 1920s. David is a smart and sensitive boy who is frequently ill due to an injury suffered as a newborn: a deviated septum caused by a fall onto the stone steps of their apartment as his parents were bringing him home from the hospital. David's mother and father, both Polish Jews from Lemberg, had emigrated to the United States after the war along with many of their friends, seeking a better life in a country less hostile to Jews. David's mother Ruth was first married to Max's brother David, who was killed in a pogrom following the war, after which Max married Ruth as prescribed by Jewish law. The main character David is often said to resemble his dead Uncle David with his love of reading and sensitive nature.Max, who had been a member of the Polish army only to come home to anti-Semitic persecution, founded a group called the Am Kedoshim Society ("nation of holy people") with many friends who had served with him in the war, with the goal of actively fighting anti-Semites. After the war, Max sought to move all of the members of the society from Poland to America, as well as his and his wife's parents and extended families. The two families resist making such a drastic change and ultimately decide not to leave Poland, but the final member of the Society arrives in America just before the stock market crash of 1929. After the crash, the society's finances are decimated, its members scatter to more affordable areas of New York, and Max sinks into a depression, feeling that he has made a terrible mistake in encouraging everyone to move to a land that is seemingly no longer prosperous. Max eventually recovers and decides to become a watchmaker; beginning with a small watch repair business, he eventually starts a small chain of jewelry stores. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Myth" title="Age of Myth">
Since time immemorial, individuals have worshiped gods they call Fhrey, who are: invulnerable in war, masters of magic, and seemingly immortal. But when a god falls to a human blade, the balance of power between humans and those they thought were gods changes forever.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monogram_Murders" title="The Monogram Murders">
Poirot is taking a holiday from private-detective work, though in fact he has only travelled to the guest house nearest his London flat; he can even see the flat from the house's parlour window. One evening, while waiting for his dinner in a coffee house he frequents, he is confronted by a distressed young woman who tells him that she is "already dead... or will be soon", but that he absolutely must not pursue her killer. "The crime must never be solved", she pleads.The next day brings news that three seemingly unconnected people have been murdered in their rooms at the Bloxham Hotel, each with a cuff-link placed carefully in their mouths, and engraved with the initials "PIJ". Furthermore, the staff are alerted to the murders and room numbers by a note left at the front desk, reading "MAY THEY NEVER REST IN PEACE. 121. 238. 317." Poirot, enlisted by investigating Scotland Yard officer Edward Catchpool, whom he meets staying at the same guest house, takes the case, and gradually uncovers a complex web of bigotry, hate, and vengeance.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Kong_vs._Tarzan" title="King Kong vs. Tarzan">
After capturing King Kong on Skull Island, Carl Denham ferries him across the Indian Ocean, around the continent of Africa, planning to eventually take him to New York City. But trouble befalls the tramp steamer Wanderer, and she is forced to make landfall in Africa, home of Tarzan; whom Denham had met once some years before. Kong escapes and roams the jungles, unintentionally causing havoc amongst its population as he slaughters numerous African wildlife and desecrates the elephant graveyard. Hearing reports of a giant gorilla on the loose, Tarzan investigates and prepares himself. An inevitably climactic showdown in a thunderstorm is joined between the Lord of the Jungle atop a herd of elephants and the King of Skull island with Carl Denham trying to recapture Kong and scheming to do the same to Tarzan.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Noise_(book)" title="Black Noise (book)">
In the book, Rose examines rap music and black culture by looking at urban culture politics and rap's racial politics. She also reflects on videos, song lyrics, and interviews with musicians, producers, and other people involved with the rap music industry.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malela_Jeev" title="Malela Jeev">
Kanji and Jivi live in Jogipara and Udharia villages near Idar and they belong to different castes. They met each other at the Janmashtami fair and fell in love. They were unable to marry due to coming from different castes. Kanji also has the social responsibility of his elder brother's family. But he finds it difficult to live without Jivi. His friend Hiro suggests having Jivi marry Dhula, the barber in their own village. After a great psychological struggle, Kanji agrees with Hira and get Jivi married to Dhula. But his plan does not bring the expected result. Dhula's suspicious nature, his tyranny, and his poor treatment of Jivi causes Kanji's plan to be unsuccessful. Kanji's God-fearing nature and his indecisive mental state also play a role in his failure. Kanji moves from the village to the city to keep himself away from Jivi. Jivi, meanwhile, is tired of the daily quarrels and beatings and tries to commit suicide. But, by mistake, her tyrannical husband Dhulo loses his life and she falls into an emotional imbalance, yearning for her beloved Kanji. In the end Kanji's worldly love transformed into a spiritual love, and so he comes from the city to be with Jivi.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Arrow_War" title="Broken Arrow War">
The plot centres around a family of three: Brenat, Teera, and their son, Joel. Who belong to a race thought to have been destroyed. Brenat and Teera believe they will never have children. So when a miracle happens during their bonding on the night of the Blood Moon, they are both extremely happy. However, the baby is sought after by the witch Keres and her master due to their belief that the family are the ones from an ancient legend of creation, meaning the baby could be used to take over the world. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Černí_baroni_(book)" title="Černí baroni (book)">
The novel presents a satirical depiction of the Czechoslovak People's Army not long after the end of World War II. The author focuses on the day-to-day joys and sorrows of soldiers in a technical auxiliary battalion, a forced labour military camp for the internment and re-education of persons considered disloyal to the Communist regime. These units were active between 1950 and 1954. The story takes place at Zelená Hora Castle, in the town of Nepomuk.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Man's_Land_(Baldacci_novel)" title="No Man's Land (Baldacci novel)">
The protagonist, John Puller, Jr., a former Army Ranger who served at Iraq and Afghanistan and now works for the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigations Division, is spurred to investigate the unsolved case of his mother's sudden disappearance of thirty years ago when his elderly father, John Puller, Sr. is accused of her murder.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gora_(novel)" title="Gora (novel)">
The story mainly revolves around its protagonist, Gormohan alias 'Gora', a ‌staunch Hindu Brahmin. Gora is a young man with a well-built body, good stature, white complexion, and a heavy voice. Because of his physique, he is the head of his circle of friends. Despite not being handsome, Gora is considered attractive because of his heavy speech and high stature. Gora's best friend is Binoybhushan aka Binoy. Binoy is a friendly and handsome young man. He has a special affection for Gora's mother Anandamayi, and regards Anandamayi as his mother as he was orphaned as a child. One day Binoy meets a Brahmo Samaji Paresh Babu and his daughter Sucharita when their wagon crashes outside Binoy's house. Binoy helps them, and starts visiting their house. And then Binoy is introduced to Paresh Babu, his wife Varadasundari, his eldest daughter Lavanya, middle daughter Lalita, and younger daughter Leela. Along with them, he is introduced to Sucharita, the adopted daughter of Paresh Babu, and Satish, Sucharita's real brother. At the time of the story there is an ongoing conflict between the Brahmo Samaj and Hinduism; as Gora is a staunch Hindu who believes in untouchability, he forbids Binoy to meet Paresh Babu and his family. This leads to an argument between the two. Gora accuses Binoy of being attracted to Paresh Babu's daughter, but Binoy denies this. Gora's father Krishnadayal, a good friend of Paresh Babu, one day urges Gora to visit Paresh Babu's house to inquire about his well being. When Gora goes there, Binoy is already present, disappointing and angering Gora. There, Gora is introduced to Haran alias Panu Babu, who is Bengali but has special affection for the British. Haran Babu is a special head of the Brahmo Samaj, and is going to marry Sucharita. Due to Gora's being Hindu, he does not get the same respect at Paresh Babu's house as Binoy did. He gets into an argument with Haran Babu. Sucharita, who earlier saw Gora as inferior because of his fanaticism, supports Gora by not supporting Haran Babu in the debate. Gora is then very angry with Binoy, but due to his special affection for him cannot leave him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Shadows_Fled" title="All Shadows Fled">
In "All Shadows Fled", the malevolent Malaugrym seek the downfall of Shadowdale before the Time of Troubles is passed, while the inhabitants of the valley see this as their opportunity to rid their lands of evil forever.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Tethyr" title="War in Tethyr">
In "War in Tethyr" a beautiful warrior and her band of adventurers unite the locals against the villains.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Knight_of_Karameikos" title="Dark Knight of Karameikos">
"Dark Knight of Karameikos" follows the chivalrous knight Sir Grygory of Karameikos as he battles the forces of evil which threaten the land of Traldara.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meaning_of_the_21st_Century" title="The Meaning of the 21st Century">
It assesses technological challenges, dangers and opportunities facing the human race. The book lists and proposes solutions for 17 interlocked upcoming "megaproblems". Topics include nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, climate change and terrorism. Martin asserts that many global problems have been worsened by past technologies, but could be addressed by new ones. For example, he advocates for "electronic brain appendages" to help think through to a solution to problems such as global warming.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_and_Turpentine" title="War and Turpentine">
The work of historical fiction reconstructs the life of the narrator’s grandfather, Urbain Martien, before, during and after the First World War – as parts 1, 2 and 3 of the book. The narrator opens with a framing device, purporting to draw upon recollections in notebooks left him by the grandfather. (In an interview, Hertmans asserted that the novel indeed captures the memories of his own grandfather as recorded in a pair of notebooks decades after the war. “He gave me the notebooks a few months before he died, in 1981.” The novel’s narrator left the notebooks unread, until gaining the wherewithal to face the material, and then to re-work them into a work of fiction, some thirty years later—the hundredth anniversary of the war.The main character, Urbain Martien, was raised in a suburban quarter of Ghent during the "belle-époque", and was devoted to his Roman Catholic faith. His father, Franciscus Martien, worked as a fresco painter for parish churches in the Low Countries and finally, in England. Urbain, in turn, acquired an interest in drawing and painting from his father. Urbain's mother, Céline Andries, endured the premature death of her husband, remarried, and saw her son Urbain off to work in a foundry and then, in 1914, off to war. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Field_of_Fight" title="The Field of Fight">
## Current situation.After a short autobiographical account of Flynn's career, "The Field of Fight" paints a gloomy picture of the current state of the struggle against terrorism. Flynn says that he is "totally convinced that without a proper sense of urgency, we will be eventually defeated, dominated, and very likely destroyed". As a result, the United States is in danger of being "ruled by men who eagerly drink the blood of their dying enemies". He warns that "radical Islamists" are intent on "creating an Islamic state right here at home" in the United States by imposing Sharia law, forcing Americans to "live the way the unfortunate residents of the ‘caliphate’ or the oppressed citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran live today, in a totalitarian state under the dictates of the most rigid version of Sharia."The book argues that the US government is hampered by a lack of intelligence-gathering against its enemies and pays insufficient attention to their ideological motivations. Flynn asserts that the US faces "a working coalition that extends from North Korea and China to Russia, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. We are under attack, not only from nation-states directly, but also from al Qaeda, Hezbollah, ISIS, and countless other terrorist groups." He describes this as "an alliance between radical Islamists and regimes in Havana, Pyongyang, Moscow and Beijing. Both believe that history, and/or Allah, blesses their efforts, and so both want to ensure that this glorious story is carefully told." Flynn argues that this alliance is based on a shared hatred for the United States and "a contempt for democracy and an agreement—by all the members of the enemy alliance — that dictatorship is a superior way to run a country, an empire, or a caliphate". He acknowledges that the idea of an alliance between communist China, North Korea and ISIS/al Qaeda may seem strange, but does not go into detail other than asserting that it exists.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hammer_of_Thor" title="The Hammer of Thor">
The book opens six weeks after the close of the preceding novel, "The Sword of Summer". Magnus Chase meets with Samirah "Sam" al-Abbas and Otis, one of the god Thor's two goats, who inform the heroes that Thor's hammer is still missing. The jötnar are beginning to suspect Thor does not have his weapon to defend Midgard and plan to invade. Magnus returns to Hotel Valhalla to rest and prepare, where he meets Alex Fierro, Sam's newest einherji recruit and a transgender/genderfluid child of Loki. While in Valhalla, Magnus has dreamlike visions of Loki manipulating his uncle Randolph. Loki also tells Magnus about a wedding between Samirah and the giant Thrym in five days, and that Magnus will need to bring the bride-price. Magnus, Sam, and their friends Blitzen and Hearthstone travel to the Provincetown barrow but discover the Skofnung Sword instead of Thor's hammer. Loki appears and tells the quartet, the sword and matching whetstone will be Sam's bride-price. They are reluctant to help Loki, who causes Randolph Chase to wound Blitzen with the sword.Because wounds caused by the sword can only be healed by its whetstone, the four are forced to hunt for this stone. Hearth, Magnus, and a Blitz in stone travel to Alfheim. There, Magnus learns the stone is in the possession of Hearth's father, Alderman. Alderman insists Hearth repay a "wergild" he owes because (in Alderman's view) of not defending his younger brother Andiron of a Brunnmigi, who killed the young boy, before he may take the stone. Magnus and Hearthstone track down a dwarf named Andvari and force him to give them his treasure, which they use to repay Hearth's debt. With the stone, they heal Blitzen. After escaping Alderman, who has been driven insane by Andvari's cursed ring, the trio returns to Midgard. With Alex and Sam, Magnus visits the god Heimdall to locate Utgard-Loki. Rejoining Blitz and Hearth, Magnus's quest group then travels to Utgard-Loki. After completing some tasks to prove their worth, the giant king tells them Thrym has Thor's hammer to be given to the bride as part of the traditional Norse wedding ritual and helps them track Thrym. Utgard-Loki also reveals that, according to Norse rituals, the father of the bride, Loki will receive the Skofnung Sword which can free Loki from his cave. To retrieve the hammer and stop the giants' invasion of Midgard, the quest group must go through with the wedding and deliver the Skofnung Sword to Loki.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_in_the_Mouth" title="Bitter in the Mouth">
Bitter in the Mouth is a story told nonlinearly. The reader is given pieces of the puzzle of Linda’s life, slowly accumulating information until the whole picture can be seen. The novel opens with an epigraph from To Kill a Mockingbird, immediately followed by the title of the first half of the novel—“Confession”—which focuses most heavily on Linda’s childhood. The opening scene introduces Baby Harper, Linda’s beloved uncle. Then Linda recalls the death of her grandmother, Iris. Linda is haunted by the words her grandmother spoke while on her deathbed: “What I know about you, little girl, would break you in two.” In response to this, Linda simply says, "Bitch," a reflection of her tumultuous relationship with Iris that is later revealed to be rooted in Linda's ethnicity. Shortly after, Linda explains her form of synesthesia: she can taste words, both when she says them and when other people say them.We are then introduced to her best friend, Kelly. She and Kelly are neighbors, and become friends after Kelly sends Linda a letter welcoming her to the neighborhood. Kelly is the only person that she tells about her synesthesia. They devise a plan together for Linda to smoke so that the “incomings”—the tastes she senses—are stifled in order for Linda to focus in school. The two share a childhood crush; they both like a boy named Wade, but Kelly calls “dibs” on him so Linda is unable to talk about her feelings toward Wade. Linda and Kelly are also both sexually assaulted by the same person: Kelly’s cousin, Bobby. Kelly’s encounters with Bobby are known fairly early, but Linda reveals the details of her rape slowly as the novel progresses.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We're_Going_on_a_Bear_Hunt" title="We're Going on a Bear Hunt">
A family of four children (plus a baby sister and their dog), are going out to hunt a bear. They travel through grass (Long wavy grass), a river (Deep, cold river), mud (Thick oozy mud), a forest (A big dark forest) and a snowstorm (A swirling whirling snowstorm) before coming face to face with a bear in a cave (A narrow gloomy cave). This meeting causes panic and the children are told by a bird to start running back home, across all the obstacles (see obstacle phrases below), chased by the bear. Finally, the children return to home and lock the bear out of their house. After the bear retreats, leaving the children safe. The children hide under a duvet and saying: "We're not going on a bear hunt again!" (see below). At the end of the book, the bear is pictured trudging disconsolately on a beach at night, the same beach that is shown on a sunny day as the frontispiece. Most of the illustrations were painted in watercolor. However, the six pictures of the family facing each new hazard are black and white drawings.At each obstacle is an onomatopoeic description. Before each obstacle the children chant the refrain:
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_Casket_(novel)" title="Closed Casket (novel)">
Lady Athelinda Playford, author of a popular series of children's mystery novels, summons her children, lawyers, Hercule Poirot, and Scotland Yard detective Edward Catchpool to her home, Lillieoak, in Clonakilty, Ireland. At dinner, she announces a shocking change to her will. She has disinherited her son Harry and daughter Claudia in favor of her charismatic secretary, Joseph Scotcher, who is terminally ill and has only weeks to live. She intends to take Joseph to her own doctor and make all efforts necessary to save his life. Harry's wife Dorro lashes out, while Claudia and her fiancee, Dr. Randall Kimpton, are disdainful. Joseph is alarmed by the change to the will, but spontaneously proposes marriage to his nurse, Sophie Bourlet.That night, everyone hears Sophie screaming and rushes to the scene. Joseph Scotcher has been violently killed. Sophie claims that she has just witnessed Claudia clubbing him in the head as he begged for his life. However, the time does not make sense; Claudia has arrived at the room with the others and has also changed clothes, something she should not have had time for.The inquest into Scotcher’s death reveals that he was already dead of strychnine poisoning before being clubbed in the head. Additionally, he was not terminally ill and was actually in perfect health. Poirot and Catchpool begin investigating the alibis of the dysfunctional family, uncovering various lies. Poirot believes Sophie’s account, although it is seemingly impossible to reconcile with the timeline. 
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_Societies" title="Sick Societies">
The book challenges the cultural relativism position of some earlier anthropologists. Edgerton enumerates examples of primitive cultures and practices, showing that they have neither been completely happy nor environmentally sustainable. He argues that the vision of primal, naturally adaptive, perfect societies, is a myth. Praising how relativists were instrumental to the development of respect for other peoples and values, he also points out where this can conflict with science. According to Edgerton, the "interpretivist" view that science or Western society cannot, or should not, critically evaluate other societies would be a type of "intellectual onanism".Examples of imperfect pre-colonial indigenous societies are presented, which include instances of superstitious flawed causation that can result in conflict and violence, suboptimal medicine, poor diet, environmental destruction, the subjugation of women, exploitation, slavery, disfunctional relationships and an atmosphere of fear. Edgerton reports on how members of small societies have themselves criticized them, that all societies have their malfunctions and can be evaluated for health.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Summer_Queen" title="The Summer Queen">
Moon Dawntreader Summer, the Summer Queen of the planet Tiamat, struggles to unite the population under her rule. Moon must convince the Tiamatians to rebuild a technologically advanced society from scratch before the return of the Hegemony in 150 years.Reede Kullervo is a biotechnologist and a member of a secret society called The Brotherhood. He is also an expert in the Old Empire’s technology, but he has been unable to successfully recreate the water of life. Kullervo befriends BZ Gundhalinu, then betrays him and steals the faster than light stardrive they created together. Kullervo is kidnapped and enslaved by the Source, a high-level Brotherhood operative.Gundhalinu returns to Tiamat as the new Chief Justice and head of the Hegemonic government. Kullervo also arrives on Tiamat, where he meets Ariele Dawntreader, Moon’s daughter. He realizes he can speak to the mers. Ariele and Kullervo begin a romantic relationship. Tammis Dawntreader, Moon’s son, becomes a sibyl. He marries a woman while simultaneously struggling to accept his own bisexuality, which is forbidden among the Summer clans. Sparks learns that Ariele and Tammis were actually fathered by Gundhalinu. Betrayed, he joins the Brotherhood. Moon and Gundhalinu reestablish their romantic relationship.The Source kidnaps Ariele and Kullervo to blackmail Moon. Sparks rejects the Brotherhood and stages a rescue. Gundhalinu attempts to stop the mer hunts and is arrested for treason. Moon discovers the purpose of the mers: they are meant to maintain the sibyl network. Mer hunting has driven them to the brink of extinction, placing the network in danger.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Coverlet_series" title="Mrs. Coverlet series">
## "While Mrs. Coverlet Was Away".Mrs. Coverlet is suddenly called away by an emergency at a time when the children's father is in New Zealand, leaving the children to spend several summer weeks alone. Plot twists involve the children's decision to conceal that fact that there is no adult in the house, Malcolm's "complicated conscience," and the discovery that Theobold's pet cat is an extremely rare and valuable exotic breed. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_President_(novel)" title="The Last President (novel)">
In 2025 and 2026, after the Gaia-worshipping but environmentally destructive "Daybreak" movement unleashed a nanotech plague and nuclear and EMP attacks, the population of Earth has been greatly reduced and forced back to 19th-century or earlier technology. Two regions, one with its capital in Seattle, Washington and the other with its capital in Athens, Georgia, claim to be continuing the government of the U.S., while semi-independent regions around New York (increasingly fascist), in California (feudal), in Colorado (ostensibly neutral and dedicated to research and communications) and in Texas have some desire to participate in a restored U.S. Much of the Northeast is inhabited by "tribals" who have been mysteriously brainwashed into "Daybreak", but in one of their strongholds, Lord Robert is breaking away from the movement.Despite tensions between the secularist believers in human rights in the Northwest and the fundamentalist Christian theocrats in the South, most of the regions attempt coordinate in a military campaign against the tribals and build up to a Presidential election to reunify the country. However, it turns out that the leaders of those regions were tricked into the campaign by Daybreak because it unifies it with Lord Robert. The U.S. forces are defeated disastrously. One of the leaders in Colorado makes herself president for the sole purpose of dissolving the United States and resigning. She and other survivors of the reunification attempt find refuge in California and the West Indies, which may become centers of the drive to rebuild civilization.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Eye_(novel)" title="Dead Eye (novel)">
Court Gentry goes to the town of Ushkovo in Russia to assassinate Gregor Sidorenko, a Russian crime boss and his former handler who wants him killed after a double cross from an operation in Sudan. Unbeknownst to Gentry, an American private contractor agency, Townsend Government Services, has been tracking him across Europe for a while and has found him while surveilling Sidorenko's house at the time of his assassination. After Gentry kills Sidorenko, Townsend House head Leland Babbitt brings in highly skilled assassin Russell "Russ" Whitlock, code-named Dead Eye, to track Gentry down and kill him.Russ, who operates alone, tracks down Gentry to a hotel in Tallinn, Estonia and informs the Townsend House. An eight-man strike team was then dispatched to kill Gentry, but in a fit of irony, Russ, posing as a bounty hunter coming to help him, warns Gentry of the operation to kill him. They escape the hotel and fight off the pursuing strike team, killing seven of them (the other one was later hospitalized and arrested, others were killed by Russ alone in order to silence them). Russ was wounded in the crossfire, and Court later treats his wound.Russ reveals the truth partially to Court in order to assuage his suspicions. It has been told that he was also in the Autonomous Asset Development Program, which was a secret assassination training program from years ago, as Gentry did. Later, Russ offers to help Gentry in his work as an assassin, which Gentry initially refuses. They later part ways, with Russ giving Gentry his contact number and later Court going to Stockholm, Sweden to lay low for a while.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beetle_Boy" title="Beetle Boy">
"Kirkus Reviews" summarizes the plot as "a young teen searches for his father with the assistance of unusual beetles." The book stars Darkus Cuttle, who moves in with his uncle after his father mysteriously went missing. Lucretia Cutter, the antagonist responsible for Darkus' father's disappearance, tries to kill the intelligent beetles that Darkus befriend.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Hostages" title="Blood Hostages">
In "Blood Hostages", a kidnap reveals an uncle's dark past; his teenage rescuers endure a process of self- discovery that reveals royal parentage; a mysterious mentor assembles a company of rogues to aid them; the kids have one of the most powerful magic items in the world; and a demon-god aims to use it to rule the universe.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_Undermountain" title="Escape from Undermountain">
In "Escape from Undermountain", a half-orc half-witch hero Artek Ar'talen the Knife, who has a 48-hour quest to rescue a nobleman from a subterranean labyrinth containing countless monsters. He has a small golden box from which a magical gate will appear to transport him and his ward out of Undermountain in their moment of need. For rescuing the nobleman, all crimes that the rogue has committed in the past will be pardoned. During the journey, he makes unlikely allies as they navigate the dangerous labyrinth made by mad wizard Halaster, trying to find a way out, before time runs out.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Furious_Masters" title="The Furious Masters">
The calm existence of the small Yorkshire town of Higherfield is shattered when a strange spacecraft crashes nearby. Whilst an avalanche of publicity sweeps in, events take a sinister turn when one of the discoverers of the object becomes insane, and riots and hysteria begin to sweep the country, to the great consternation of the previously unconcerned Prime Minister, who soon finds himself in the thick of the conundrum.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lust_&amp;_Wonder" title="Lust &amp; Wonder">
According to the editor, the book is a memoir "about a man searching for what brings his heart home."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Pebble" title="The Golden Pebble">
Mark Rector is an entomologist who specializes in weevils. His sedate and dull life is unexpectedly disrupted when he travels to a remote village in Cornwall from where his uncle once mysteriously received a piece of gold.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Gentle_Madness" title="A Gentle Madness">
The first section of the book features famous book collectors from Antiquities to the modern day. Past collectors mentioned include the likes of Alexander the Great, Petrarch, and Catherine the Great. Modern collectors include people like Aaron Lansky and Charles L. Blockson."A Gentle Madness" also covered Stephen Blumberg, who had stolen over $10 million worth of books from libraries.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_Beauties_(novel)" title="Sleeping Beauties (novel)">
In the impoverished town of Dooling, part of the fictional Tri-Counties region of Appalachia, a bizarre murder occurs when two men running a meth lab out of their mobile home are beaten to death by a mysterious woman, who then sets fire to the lab before allowing herself to be arrested by the local sheriff, Lila Norcross. At the same time, reports start coming in of a mysterious sickness spreading across the world, which causes women to fall into a deep sleep, cocooned in a strange material. Dubbed "Aurora", the disease also causes the sleeping women to enter into a homicidal rage, attacking and brutally murdering any adult who tries to open the cocoons.Lila's husband Clint, the chief psychiatrist at the Dooling Correctional Institute for Women, begins noticing Aurora occurring among his patients at the same time that the woman, who is given the name "Eve Black", is incarcerated in the prison. As the disease continues to spread throughout the town, the local women become desperate to keep themselves awake, leading to looting and riots. Lila herself falls victim to the illness, and is replaced by her alcoholic chief deputy, Terry Coombs, who in turn appoints Frank Geary, a former animal control officer with a short temper, as his second-in-command. Clint's superior, Warden Janice Coates, fires one of her guards, Don Peters, for sexual harassment; he drugs her with Xanax, leaving Clint to protect the dwindling number of still-awake female inmates.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_Jones" title="Epiphany Jones">
The novel’s protagonist is Jerry Dresden, an employee at the Art Institute of Chicago, who suffers from a porn addiction as well as psychotic depression. Both are the result of the tragic deaths of his little sister and high-flying Hollywood father years earlier. As a result of his psychotic depression, Jerry suffers from psychotic delusions which make him see people who don’t really exist—people Jerry calls "figments". His mundane but stable life is interrupted one day when his colleague at the museum is murdered and a famous painting by Vincent Van Gogh ("Self-Portrait", Spring 1887) is stolen. Returning from work that night Jerry finds the stolen painting in his apartment and the next day he discovers that a woman who he thought was just one of his figments his entire life turns out to be a real person.This former figment tells Jerry her name is Epiphany Jones and admits she stole the painting and killed Jerry's colleague in order to frame him and blackmails him into helping her find someone she is looking for. Left with no choice, Jerry flees with her to Mexico, then Portugal, and finally to the Cannes Film Festival in France as Epiphany, which says the voice of God is speaking to her and telling her what to do, tracks down a sex trafficking ring that caters to the Hollywood elite. Along the way, Jerry discovers Epiphany is not all she seems to be as their journey grows increasingly fraught with danger and he discovers secrets about both their pasts that will change his life forever.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Divine_and_the_Decay" title="The Divine and the Decay">
Peter Plowart, the leader and co-founder of the right-wing populist New Britain Party has decided to have his party co-founder assassinated due to internal conflicts. He travels to Vachau, one of the Channel Islands, to hold a speech and thus give himself an alibi while the assassination is carried out. On the island he finds a young woman whose self-possession intrigues him and makes him want to conquer her. When the woman finds out about Peter's real reason for staying on the island, she decides that he has to die. A power struggle takes place between the two.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_Blast" title="Back Blast">
After five years of being on the run overseas from the Central Intelligence Agency, Court Gentry comes to Washington, D.C., to seek answers about him being burned by the CIA. With Court surfacing in the nation's capital, CIA National Clandestine Service (NCS) head Denny Carmichael, who has been hunting him for five years through the Violator Working Group, organizes a citywide manhunt, fearing that he has come to exact revenge on him for the sanction. Among the new players in the hunt is Suzanne Brewer, a CIA senior officer whose expertise is the security of the agency. Carmichael also enlists the help of Saudi intelligence through its Washington station chief, Murquin "Kaz" al-Kazaz, as well as Court's former team leader from the CIA Golf Sierra paramilitary force, Zack Hightower.Meanwhile, private contractor Townsend Government Services head Leland Babbitt has been attempting to make amends with Carmichael after the botched Gentry operation in Europe months ago. When Carmichael still refuses, Babbitt storms into the nearby United States Capitol building, threatening to leak classified CIA material to the United States Congress, but he was later stopped by Carmichael's foot soldiers and was brought to Langley. In order to prevent him from further whistleblowing top-secret intelligence operations, Carmichael brings Babbitt and his company back into the hunt for Gentry. However, still viewing him as a danger to their operation, Carmichael and his deputy head Jordan Mayes secretly arrange Babbitt's assassination, to be orchestrated by Hightower and later to be blamed on Gentry.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Dragons" title="League of Dragons">
Napoleon’s invasion of Russia has been roundly thwarted. But even as Capt. William Laurence and the dragon Temeraire pursue the retreating enemy through an unforgiving winter, Napoleon is raising a new force, and he’ll soon have enough men and dragons to resume the offensive. While the emperor regroups, the allies have an opportunity to strike first and defeat him once and for all—if internal struggles and petty squabbles don’t tear them apart.Aware of his weakened position, Napoleon has promised the dragons of every country—and the ferals, loyal only to themselves—vast new rights and powers if they fight under his banner. It is an offer eagerly embraced from Asia to Africa—and even by England, whose dragons have long rankled at their disrespectful treatment.But Laurence and his faithful dragon soon discover that the wily Napoleon has one more gambit at the ready—one that that may win him the war, and the world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Lovers_(novel)" title="Modern Lovers (novel)">
"Modern Lovers" follows Elizabeth, Andrew, and Henry Marx, a family living in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, and their friends Zoe, Jane, and Ruby Kahn-Bennet over the course of a full summer. Elizabeth, Andrew, and Zoe met at Oberlin College in the 1980s and formed a punk rock group called Kitty's Mustache with their mutual friend, Lydia Greenbaum. During this period of time, Elizabeth wrote the lyrics to a song, called, "Mistress of Myself," which the band often played. The band dissolved when Lydia chose to quit school and begin her own music career. Lydia's private rendition of, "Mistress of Myself," was wildly successful, and she soon became a major star, eventually dying of a drug overdose at 27. After Lydia's departure from Oberlin, Elizabeth, Andrew, and Zoe graduated and moved to Ditmas Park, where they began to form families of their own. Her death years later impacted each of them in a unique way.In the present day, Elizabeth is working as a real estate agent, Zoe as the co-owner of a restaurant, Hyacinth, and Andrew is trying to figure out his next career. All three are struggling with middle age. Zoe is frustrated with the lack of passion in her marriage to a woman named Jane, and not for the first time, begins to contemplate divorce. Jane, on the other hand, wishes to work on the relationship instead of giving up. Both are concerned with Elizabeth's not-quite-platonic relationship with Zoe. While working through their marital strife, Zoe and Jane attempt to encourage their daughter, Ruby, a recent high school graduate, to retake the SAT's in order to improve her results enough to get into college. Ruby, completely disinterested, agrees to take an SAT preparatory class. There, Ruby and Henry, Elizabeth and Andrew's son, begin to bond and eventually start to date, developing a fast and furious summer romance. In contrast, through co-managing Hyacinth, Zoe and Jane begin to rekindle their relationship and rediscover their lost passion through their mutual love of food.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Death_of_Jonathan_Wild,_the_Great" title="The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, the Great">
The book tells the satiric biographical story of an early 18th-century underworld boss, Jonathan Wild, from his birth in 1682 until his execution in 1725. As a thief-taker, Wild's job was to capture criminals and take them to the authorities in order to collect a reward, but he made notorious profit from managing an underground network of malefactors who paid him to avoid being denounced. Fielding's biography of Jonathan Wild allows him to satirize various aspects of English society at the time. It features an interpolated romantic story that is nowhere to be found in other accounts of the historical Wild. It has been argued that this was Fielding's way of rendering the criminal biography of Wild into a novel of the kind that was becoming increasingly popular in his time.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Martinican_Woman" title="I Am a Martinican Woman">
## Part 1.The first part of the novel deals with Mayotte's childhood in the village of Carbet in Martinique. She is a mixed-race girl with a twin sister, Francette, although she is separated from her sister at an early age when Francette is sent to be raised by a childless aunt. Mayotte is an adventurous tomboy, and she is the leader of a mixed group of black, white, and metisse children from her school. Mayotte's gang spend their time exploring "the wildest and most dangerous places." Mayotte is also friends with a washerwoman named Loulouze, who is several years older than her. Mayotte's first experience with a biracial relationship occurs vicariously through Loulouze's descriptions of her white lover and the gifts he gives her. The relationship ultimately results in a pregnancy and Loulouze's expulsion from her father's house. She flees to Fort-de-France.When examined for Confirmation, Mayotte fails and is obliged to take classes with the village priest, a handsome white man with whom she falls in love. He is kind to her and occasionally betrays awareness of her childhood crush. Her feelings for the priest inspire her to devote extra time after school to the catechism, so that she can be confirmed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flight_Engineer" title="The Flight Engineer">
## "The Rising"."The Rising" begins in media res during a conflict between two groups, the Commonwealth and an extremist religious group the Mission Of Life Lived In Ecclesia (commonly referred to as "Mollies") and the Mollies' allies, an alien species known as the Fibians. The basis of the conflict is that the Mollies settled an otherwise worthless sector of the galaxy, later discovered to naturally have extremely rich sources of easily obtainable antihydrogen, an energy particle that is required for the high-technology space travel and civilization, and difficult to manufacture artificially.Commander Peter Raeder, formerly a pilot, has been assigned as chief engineer on the new fast carrier ship CSF "Invincible", a smaller carrier type the Commonwealth hopes to use to preserve their dwindling stockpile of antihydrogen for as long as possible. Shortly after launch, Raeder becomes aware that there is a Mollie sleeper agent aboard performing acts of sabotage to prevent the success of the fast carrier design.After several missions and assorted acts of sabotage, Raeder successfully IDs the sleeper and manages to prevent the final sabotage, which would have destroyed the entire ship.A sub-plot involving piloting of a Speed, the in-universe space superiority fighter, is that a pilot requires two flesh-and-blood hands to properly interface with the fighter for battle (Raeder had lost a hand prior to the events of The Rising, and though outfitted with a high-tech prosthetic otherwise indistinguishable from a real hand, cannot make the link, the prosthetic's sensory devices being unable to match the delicacy and precision required for interface). Toward the end of the book, Raeder's engineering staff successfully create an interface device that will work even for Raeder, on the basis that injuries such as Raeder's are becoming more common in the conflict, and losing an experienced pilot for such an injury drastically reduces the Commonwealth's pilot pool.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fero_(novel)" title="Fero (novel)">
A couple, who have a mute, only-child, take a long journey to the Sun temple with the hope that the gift of speech is granted to their child. The trip is an attempt to appease their God. The mother is hopeful at the start of the journey, but the child is lost as the train pulls out of the final station before the destination. In an attempt to stop the train, the father raises his hand to pull the chain but hesitates before doing so. The story is written from the father's perspective, and the reader is only privy to his observations and reactions.The novel is narrated in the first person, beginning with the family's departure and ending before the journey's completion.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Boy_(novel)" title="Lucky Boy (novel)">
Soli, an eighteen-year-old woman, enters the United States illegally from Mexico and an Indian American woman named Kavya struggles to have a baby with her husband, who works in Silicon Valley. The two stories converge around a baby, the "lucky boy".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'll_Give_You_the_Sun" title="I'll Give You the Sun">
Noah and Jude Sweetwine are twins. As they enter their teen years, they grow apart. This is partly due to their sibling rivalry, as they compete for the attention of their mother, Dianna; and partly due to their struggle to be able to understand their separate identities. Furthermore, both twins want to apply to the same highly competitive art school. On one hand, Noah clearly revels in his artistic talent, while hiding the fact that he is crushing on a neighborhood boy named Brian. On the other hand, Jude is reserved about her art, but she openly welcomes male attention.The early years are written from Noah's point of view. By spying on her, Noah is aware of Jude's artistic abilities. However, he does whatever he can to keep their mother from discovering Jude's gift. One day, Dianna walks in on Noah and Brian, Brian then freaks out because he is still in the closet and ends their relationship. Then Noah discovers his mother having an affair with a local sculptor, Guillermo Garcia. Noah runs away and leaves a drawing of the scene with Guillermo on Dianna's bed. Dianna talks with Noah and says that she is in love with Guillermo and wants to divorce Noah's father. The two fight and Dianna drives away to propose to Guillermo. On the way, she is killed in an automobile accident. Noah seeks Guillermo out to yell at him and lies by saying that his parents were planning to stay together. Furthermore, Noah is under the impression that his application to art school was rejected. He is lost, confused and still obsessed with Brian.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightness_Falls_from_the_Air" title="Brightness Falls from the Air">
In a setup which has been compared to a country house murder mystery, the novel tells the story of sixteen humans who gather on the isolated planet Damiem to witness the passage of a nova front from the Murdered Star; over the course of the book, the truth about the motives of these tourists, the destruction of the star, and the reason for Damiem's isolation are revealed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_of_Fact,_the_Truth_of_Feeling" title="The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling">
In the near future, a journalist observes how the world, his daughter, and he himself are affected by "Remem", a form of lifelogging whose advanced search algorithms effectively grant its users eidetic memory of everything that ever happened to them, and the ability to perfectly and objectively share those memories. In a parallel narrative strand, a Tiv man is one of the first of his people to learn to read and write, and discovers that this may not be compatible with oral tradition.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Gambler's_Anatomy" title="A Gambler's Anatomy">
Alexander Bruno is a gambler who encounters a high school friend, Keith Stolarsky, who has made a fortune in real estate. After their meeting, Keith agrees to pay for an expensive surgery Bruno needs to survive, and later becomes Bruno's romantic rival.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_Cross_the_Magnet_Carter" title="The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter">
The novel chronicles the lives and interactions of two sets of brothers: Eliot and Dwight in Maryland, and B.J. and Randall in Alabama. It begins in 1941, jumps to the late 1950s, and concludes with the climactic events in 1983, followed by an epilogue in 2010.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Console_Wars_(book)" title="Console Wars (book)">
A few years after stepping down as CEO of Mattel, Tom Kalinske is on vacation with his family in Hawaii when he is visited by an old friend, Hayao Nakayama, who offers Kalinske a job as CEO of the American division of a small video game company called Sega. Despite being initially reluctant to take the job as he knows nothing about video games, Kalinske agrees to fly out to Japan, where Nakayama shows him several products being developed by Sega, including their handheld portable system, the Game Gear, and their 16-bit home console, the Sega Genesis. Kalinske is enthralled, especially when he spots a man playing a Game Boy while drinking at a geisha club.However, when Kalinske arrives for his first day as CEO, he finds Sega of America to be in complete disarray: his predecessor, Michael Katz, has driven the firm to near-bankruptcy by overspending on unpopular titles like "James 'Buster' Douglas Knockout Boxing", the company is unable to source third-party games due to Nintendo having exclusive contracts with most developers, and the staff is rife with infighting and finger-pointing. The Genesis, hampered by poor marketing and a shoddy game library, has sold fewer than 500,000 units, only half of the sales needed to keep Sega of America afloat. Taking charge, Kalinske assembles a new leadership team and decides to adopt the "Gillette model", demanding complete control over marketing for the Genesis, which includes replacing the game originally bundled with the Genesis, "Altered Beast", with a new, little-known title, "Sonic the Hedgehog". Sega's Japanese executives politely refuse to authorize his plans, but Nakayama overrules them and gives Kalinske the green light. Following a successful demonstration of "Sonic" at the 1991 Summer Consumer Electronics Show, the newly released Super NES was unable to outsell the Genesis throughout 1991, marking the first time since 1985 that the Nintendo does not dominate the home console market.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_Subjects" title="Impossible Subjects">
In part one, Ngai begins with discussing the implications of immigration restriction in the 1920s by particularly focusing on border patrol and immigration policy which she argues results in a changing discourse about race. In part II, she focuses on migrants from the Philippines and Mexico by discussing their role in the U.S. economy and how they challenged cultural norms about the traditional work force. In part III, Ngai examines the shift of regulations around Japanese-Americans and Chinese-Americans especially their eligibility for citizenship. She uses Japanese internment camps as evidence of their lack of legal and social inclusion in the United States. In part IV, she analyzes the next era in immigration policy which she suggests is embodied in the Hart-Celler Act. She discusses how immigration policy was affected during the years of 1945-1965 by World War II. She concludes part IV by showing how the immigration policies during the time period after 1965 contributed to increased illegal immigration and heightened a seemingly unsolvable problem going forward.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chhinnapatra" title="Chhinnapatra">
Ajay, the protagonist, is a creative writer with a deep sensitivity, and loves Mala. Mala's friend Lila loves Ajay. There are other young men Amal, Arun, Ashok aspiring for the hands of Mala. After the death of Ajay, Mala found a diary written by Ajay. Mala passed through the diary during the train journey.The novel is divided into two sections: the first section contains the diary of Ajay and it uses first-person narrative technique, while the second part is an epilogue written with omniscient point of view with Mala as the protagonist.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Gold" title="Iron Gold">
Ten years after their victory over the Golds of the Core Worlds, a new Solar Republic has replaced the tyrannical Society. Darrow of Lykos serves as ArchImperator of the Republic's forces, which are still at war with the Ash Lord, Magnus au Grimmus, and his allies. Darrow's wife Virginia au Augustus governs as the elected Sovereign, but a faction called Vox Populi, led by Dancer, has risen to power in the Senate. Ignoring the Senate's orders, Darrow launches a massive assault on Mercury, wresting the planet from the Ash Lord but with great casualties. When the Senate learns from Darrow's enemy, Julia au Bellona, that he rejected an overture of peace from the Ash Lord, they issue a warrant for Darrow's arrest. Darrow, knowing that the potential truce is a ploy by the Ash Lord that will never come to fruition, escapes with his closest allies on a dangerous mission to assassinate Magnus. Darrow and the Howlers set off to Earth, where they free Apollonius au Valii-Rath and set off to Venus to kill the Ash Lord. They invade his fortress, but find him bedridden. He reveals that his daughter Atalantia is heading to retake Mercury, which is not fully protected.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downers_Grove_(novel)" title="Downers Grove (novel)">
Crystal Methedrine Swanson, known as Chrissie, is a teenager in Downers Grove, Illinois, about to graduate from high school. Her father has disappeared, while her brother has become a heroin addict, and her mother has begun dating a bizarre man. As her graduation nears, Chrissie and her close friend, Tracey, worry about a curse surrounding the high school that has led to multiple students dying each year. After nearly being raped at a party by one of the school's football players and harassed after, she worries she may become the next victim.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bongwater_(novel)" title="Bongwater (novel)">
The novel shifts from first-person narration by David, a marijuana dealer and aspiring filmmaker in Portland, Oregon, to third-person narration by Courtney, his ex-girlfriend who has left Portland and is living in the East Village in New York City, where she has moved into a squat. Prior to leaving, she had caught David's house on fire and left it to burn down.After Courtney leaves, David moves in with their mutual friends, Robert and Tony, a gay couple, and begins dating Mary, a stripper, but still reminisces of Courtney. David and Mary go to visit David's childhood friend Phil, who grows marijuana in the mountains, while in New York, Courtney's friend Jennifer comes to visit and they attend a party in Brooklyn.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_Was_All_He_Said" title="Nothing Was All He Said">
The book tells us the story of Ben. He is a seventeen-year-old boy who lives in Ghent and has Asperger syndrome and who gets bullied in school because of this. He considers suicide, but meets a girl online, nicknamed 'Barbie' whom he falls in love with. They set up a meeting and as Ben tries to commit suicide by jumping in front of an arriving train, he gets rescued by Barbie. Together, they fake his suicide and expose his bullies at his funeral. After this, Ben tries to live a normal life..
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_X" title="Orphan X">
The book centers around the character Evan Smoak. At the age of 12, he was enrolled in a top-secret operation known as the "Orphan Program." He is the 24th recruit in the program and is known only as Orphan X. The goal of the program is to train orphans so they can be assassins for government agencies. The program is shut down but Orphan X maintains access to the program's funding and weapons.In his 30s, Smoak begins freelancing as an assassin, using his skills to fight corruption in the form of vigilante justice. For each person he helps, he tells them to pay it forward by giving someone in need of help his phone number. During his adventures, he discovers that former Orphan agents have also begun freelancing and are trying to assassinate him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mask_of_Dimitrios_(novel)" title="The Mask of Dimitrios (novel)">
Mystery writer Charles Latimer meets Colonel Haki of the Turkish police. Haki believes Latimer would be interested in the career of the notorious criminal Dimitrios, whose body has been identified in an Istanbul morgue. Latimer, who is indeed intrigued, begins an independent investigation of the details of Dimitrios' criminal career, and learns some information about it which is more dangerous than he had anticipated. He soon finds himself fighting for his life against a ruthless, capable enemy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Crow's_Devil" title="John Crow's Devil">
Hector Bligh is a preacher in the small Jamaican town of Gibbeah, where his public struggles with alcoholism have earned him the nickname The Rum Preacher. Bligh's congregation tolerates his misbehavior while Bligh overlooks the sins and stray paths of his congregants.This unspoken agreement is broken when a fire-and-brimstone preacher, Apostle York, abruptly appears during mass one day. York violently removes Bligh from the Pulpit and savagely beats him.While Bligh recovers under the care of a villager, York assumes Bligh's congregation, residence, and church. The congregation is drawn to York's lead as he fills the spiritual vacuum left by Bligh's vacant and soft-hearted ministry. Bligh returns to the church only to find that his congregation no longer wants him and York is willing to resort to violence to repel him.The story follows the two men as their conflict grows to biblical proportions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Sleep" title="Broken Sleep">
The novel has an asynchronous narrative structure that weaves together four major narratives:The narratives are loosely related, linked together if not by chronological time, then by common characters and themes. But the novel hints at another way its four narratives relate to one another—namely that they were collected, compiled, and arranged by one of the novel's secondary characters, Jay Bernes, and given the alternative title "the Book of J." Jay, aka "J," is identified in the novel's back matter as the “Gifter of the Book of J,” while the character Persephone, who mistakenly self-identifies as Moses's niece, claims in the introduction that “auntie jay gave me a gift, the Book of J.” The author Bruce Bauman has also alluded to the Book of J's importance in relation to the novel's religious themes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_Is_the_Enemy" title="Ego Is the Enemy">
"Ego Is the Enemy" puts forth the argument that often our biggest problems are not caused by external factors such as other people or circumstances. Instead, our problems stem from our own attitude, selfishness and self-absorption. In other words, introducing ego into a situation often prevents us from being rational, objective and clear headed. The book does not discuss Freud's ego or egotism as a clinical term but rather ego in a colloquial sense, defined as "an unhealthy belief in your own importance." The book also discusses the difference between ego and confidence, and argues that the solution to the problem of ego is humility, self-awareness, purpose and realism. "Ego Is the Enemy" provides both cautionary tales as well as positive anecdotes about ego, citing numerous historical and contemporary figures including Christopher McCandless, George Marshall, John DeLorean, Larry Page, Paul Graham, Steve Jobs and William Tecumseh Sherman.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nix" title="The Nix">
The Nix is an American epic novel in 10 parts that follows community college professor of English, Samuel Andresen-Anderson who is struggling to find meaning in his life in the years following his failure to write a book which he was already paid an advance for. He was abandoned by his mother at a young age. Samuel seeks comfort in junk food, an acerbic inner-monologue, and a Second-Life-style internet game called "Elfscape" and generally struggles to find motivation or self-respect. One day, Samuel discovers that the mother who abandoned him has become a radical leftist activist who is under arrest for assaulting a public figure. When his editor (still after him for the writing for which he was given an advance) persuades Samuel to track down his mother, Samuel must confront and discover the various serpentine, complex, and at times, humorous figures and sub-plots from his youth to arrive. The book captures various periods of his mother's life and touches on many themes including isolation, friendship, love, life purpose, the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, feminine oppression, and the digital age.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructing_Amelia" title="Reconstructing Amelia">
The book begins with Kate discovering that her daughter Amelia, a hard working honor student, has been placed on academic probation after she was caught plagiarizing a paper on Virginia Woolf, Amelia's favorite author. She's asked to pick Amelia up and promises to be at the school, Grace Hall, in twenty minutes, but runs late because of the demands of her job as a lawyer and associate partner at a prestigious law firm. Once at Grace Hall Kate is horrified to discover that her daughter has committed suicide by jumping off the roof and spends the following days in a haze. She eventually returns to work to resume her life, but is stunned when she receives a text saying that Amelia didn't commit suicide. This causes Kate to investigate her daughter's death with the help of an officer named Lew and discover that the text is correct - Amelia did not commit suicide. Further investigation shows that Amelia was also innocent of plagiarism and that the true paper was swapped out with another one as an act of bullying.Through Amelia's narrations and Kate's investigations the reader discovers that Amelia was recruited into the Magpies or "Maggies", a secret society that required her to perform several acts as part of a hazing ritual, which includes taking suggestive photographs in her underwear. She keeps all of this secret from Kate and her best friend Sylvia, especially as Amelia and Sylvia had mutually pledged to not join the Maggies unless both were invited. Prior to this Amelia had told her everything, including her online friendship with Ben, a gay teenager who began texting her earlier that year. As a result Amelia is also initially unable to tell Sylvia about her lesbian relationship with a fellow member named Dylan, the animosity that is directed at her by the Maggie leader Zadie, or evidence of Sylvia's boyfriend Ian cheating on her with another woman. Amelia's relationship with Dylan and her membership with the Maggies ends after Zadie enters Amelia's home and discovers the two together, after which point Zadie begins encouraging the other Maggies to bully Amelia. She's told not to tell anyone or the group will do something to hurt Sylvia. She eventually confides in the school counselor, who successfully encourages her to talk to Sylvia. Sylvia is initially resentful that Amelia lied to her, especially as she is so upset over Ian's cheating, but is supportive of her friend. The two write a letter to Dylan asking for explanation, only for Zadie to send it to the entire school, outing her as a lesbian. She's brought into the office by Grace Hall's headmaster Phillip Woodhouse in an attempt to get her to tell him everything about the Maggies, as he had been trying to get rid of the school's secret societies. Amelia chooses not to say anything because she's afraid of what the group will do to Dylan, because while Woodhouse might be able to protect Sylvia he would be unable to protect Dylan.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaljayi_Kambakht" title="Kaljayi Kambakht">
Sham is a precocious school boy who dreams about making sense of the world he inhabits. Shaman, his friend and alter-ego prods him along. They walk together exploring the gullies and outskirts of their suburban hill village. They passionately glean whatever information is available to them through books or people. They make patterns out of this information and scheme to gain control over their reality. The villagers become characters in their scheme and start revealing the cracks in their reality. As fragments of science, philosophy, fairy-tales, folk-legends and history start seeping into their everyday existence, Sham and Shan find themselves deep in an unmanageable world of their own fantasies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneath_the_Lion's_Gaze" title="Beneath the Lion's Gaze">
"Beneath the Lion's Gaze" is set in Addis Ababa in 1974, at the end of the rule of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie and the beginning of the military junta replacing Selassie's rule, the Derg. It follows the family of a doctor, his dying wife and their two sons through the political upheaval.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallista" title="Vallista">
This story is set immediately before the events of "Hawk". It features the character Devera in a larger role than any previous Vlad novel, with much of the story taking place in a "mysterious, seemingly empty manor" overlooking the Great Sea.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowshaper" title="Shadowshaper">
As her summer vacation from Octavia Butler High School starts, Sierra Santiago begins work on a mural of a dragon on a building. Known as the Tower, it is an unfinished, five-story, concrete architectural aberration in a Brooklyn neighborhood of brownstones. The aging men of the community, including Manny the Domino King who publishes the "Bed-Stuy Spotlight" community newspaper, have asked Sierra to create the mural on the building to express their dissatisfaction.While painting, she is startled to notice that an adjacent mural of a deceased neighborhood artist has begun to fade, change facial expressions, and cry a painted tear.Back home, Sierra looks in on her abuelo, Grandpa Lázaro Corona, who has suffered a stroke and rarely speaks in complete sentences. Now, however, he suddenly voices a mysterious warning, apology, and urge to finish her mural as fast as she can. He mentions the shadowshapers and tells her to seek the help of Robbie, a Haitian classmate and fellow artist. Sierra tries to ask her mother, María Carmen Corona Santiago, about the shadowshapers but is rebuffed.Sierra heads to a party with her best friend Bennaldra a.k.a. Bennie. At the party they see their friends and classmates, Big Jerome, Little Jerome, girlfriends Izzy &amp; Tee, Pitkin, and many others. Sierra finds Robbie; they discuss Grandpa Lázaro and the shadowshapers. A walking corpse, or corpuscule, of a missing neighborhood man and shadowshaper, Vernon Chandler, interrupts the party and chases Sierra through the streets.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Word_Exchange" title="The Word Exchange">
Anana Johnson's father, world renowned linguist and Chief Editor of the "North American Dictionary of the English Language", has gone missing. Doug (Douglas Samuel Johnson) was in his Manhattan office at the Dictionary seeing to the last details before the 3rd edition went to press, and then he was not. Even his name was missing from the Dictionary database, one clue among several he has left behind for his daughter.In the post-print world of the not very distant future, Anana had been enjoying her job at the NADEL, a scholarly foundation-funded project, even though she was not much of a reader, herself. Like most people, she got all the news and narrative she wanted on her "Meme," an artificially intelligent as well as smart phone/digital assistant. She shrugged off her father's aversion to the device, because she liked hers. It had learned her preferences and mapped her life so intimately that it automatically took care of things for her, from ordering menu items or driverless car rides to downloading a definition from the Word Exchange for a word she had momentarily forgotten.As the Diachronic Society tried to warn everyone (or all readers of the "Times," at least) words were being forgotten at an alarming rate and Memes, not to mention the newer implantable device the "Nautilus," made by the same mega-corporation Synchronics were responsible. In fact, Memes were not merely dispensing information, they were spreading a virus, "word flu" at an epidemic rate. Aphasia was the first symptom of the new disease, and for those who survived the fever, also the most long-lasting.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swapnatirtha" title="Swapnatirtha">
It is the story of an adolescent gullible boy Navin who being a religious one, pilgrims with a congregation on foot to a shrine of Vaishnava cult. His father Mathurdas's death is doubtful and his mother Shanta is illicitly connected with another two persons, first is his uncle Vinayak kaka, who visit their home frequently and second is Dharmaguru Ghanshyam Maharaj. These are the essential elements that interlace the plot of father-son relationship in the end. A dream follows the descriptions of each day in the diary.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Road_(Enright_novel)" title="The Green Road (Enright novel)">
## Part One: Leaving.The first half of the novel concerns each family member individually and goes chronologically from 1980 to 2005. Each of the four Madigan children and their mother Rosaleen receive a chapter of their own beginning with Hanna Madigan. Hanna's chapter is the only one that focuses on a family member as a child and deals with her relationship with her father. She is traumatised by viewing the culling of a chicken for dinner on her grandmother's farm. Dan Madigan's story jumps forward to 1991 during his time in New York with his fiancé as his repressed homosexuality comes to the fore during the AIDS epidemic. Constance Madigan's chapter is based in 1997 Limerick and focusses on the domestic roles of mother and wife. Constance must balance the concerns of her health that make her face her own mortality. Emmet's chapter takes place in Mali in 2002 as he works with impoverished children and is haunted by previous relief work he has been involved with. His relationship with a woman named Alice slowly unravels and deteriorates. Rosaleen ends the first half of the novel with a rumination on her life and her future as an older woman. She decides to sell the house and writes to all her children accordingly to gather together for Christmas for one last year at the old family home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furious_George_(book)" title="Furious George (book)">
Karl's memoir spans his career playing and coaching in the NBA, including his time as head coach of the Seattle SuperSonics, Milwaukee Bucks, and Denver Nuggets, but does not include his last two years as head coach of the Sacramento Kings. Early versions of the manuscript did include critical commentary of Karl's time in Sacramento, but those pages were not authorized for inclusion in the book due to Karl's settlement agreement with the Kings. The book includes two chapters dedicated to Karl's Seattle years, with particular emphasis on his relationship with Shawn Kemp, Gary Payton and General Manager Wally Walker. Karl also explains how he almost traded Shawn Kemp for Scottie Pippen in 1994, but was unable to execute the trade due to salary cap reasons."Furious George" includes anecdotes from dozens of NBA players and coaches including Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Allen Iverson and others.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Stoic" title="The Daily Stoic">
"The Daily Stoic" is an original translation of selections from several stoic philosophers including Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Zeno and others. It aims to provide lessons about personal growth, life management and practicing mindfulness.The book is intended to be read one page per day with each page featuring a quote from a stoic philosopher along with commentary. It is organized temporally and thematically across the twelve months of the year.The audiobook version of "The Daily Stoic" was published by Tim Ferriss.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Defense" title="Blood Defense">
Samantha Brinkman, an eager criminal defense attorney with few clients but a good reputation in the Los Angeles courts, lands the high-profile double murder case of Detective Dale Pearson. Initially attributed to a botched burglary, the murders of actress Chloe Monahan and her roommate Paige Avner are soon blamed on the veteran police officer, who had been dating Chloe and was overheard fighting with her on the night of her death. Unsure of his guilt or innocence, Samantha and her team—paralegal Michelle Fusco and hacker/investigator/felon Alex Medrano—pull out all the stops in their defense of Pearson.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_(Patchett_novel)" title="Commonwealth (Patchett novel)">
It started at Franny Keating’s christening party. Bert Cousins wasn't even invited, but looking for an excuse to get out of the house, away from his three noisy children and pregnant wife for a few hours one weekend, he followed up on another fellow’s invitation. He brought a bottle of gin and he took a kiss from Franny’s very beautiful mother that day. Thus began an affair that ended two marriages and led Bert to begin thinking up excuses to get out of the house away from his four children from southern California and his two stepchildren every day of their summer vacations in Virginia.Bringing the children of two divorces together under one roof may be called a “blended family” but this family does not blend. There forms a curious commonwealth of neglected children. This is the story about how their lives were disrupted and how they intertwined and what really happened the day that one child died. Twenty six years after her christening, when law school dropout Franny embarks on an affair with a much older very famous novelist, she has no inkling that her childhood memories could, in time, be woven into a best-selling novel, titled “Commonwealth.” When the baby of the family, Albie Cousins, discovers his past in black and white, readers are struck by the theft of family secrets, raising questions about borders between fact and fiction. Over the course of five decades, while the Keating-Cousins children were all going their own ways, they were still a family, still bound by shared memories and ultimately real affection.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubled_Air" title="The Troubled Air">
The plot centers around Clement Archer, the director of a successful weekly radio program, who is told by the producers and sponsors to fire four actors and one musician working on the show because of alleged Communist sympathizing. To save the show, and because of his own conscience, Archer wins a two-week deferral and starts his own investigation. Eventually, one of the contributors commits suicide, two of the others betray Archer, and the careers of all others are ruined. Archer reconciles with his family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Whirlpool_(Jane_Urquhart_novel)" title="The Whirlpool (Jane Urquhart novel)">
The novel is set in Niagara Falls in the summer of 1889, and focuses on the lives of several characters whose numerous obsessions, “concentrated chiefly in the image of the whirlpool, draw them inexorably together.”The story, bracketed by scenes of Robert Browning's last days in Venice, follows the lives of Patrick, a “chronically ill clerk and would-be poet"; David McDougal, an Americaphobe military historian; his eccentric wife, Fleda, who “spends her days in the woods, reading Browning's poetry”, and Maude, the widow of the undertaker with a mute four-year-old son.Against the backdrop of a river, its whirlpool and the forest, the poet Patrick fantasizes of Fleda rather than accepting her offer of a real relationship. Fleda goes to live in the woods, rejecting social conventions of the time, while Maude renews contact with her mute son, who begins in his own way to speak.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_Shadows" title="Lord of Shadows">
A month after the events of "Lady Midnight", Clary Fairchild and Jace Herondale visit the Los Angeles Institute to ask Mark Blackthorn about the entrance to Faerie, as they believe that Clary's brother, Sebastian Morgenstern, had left a weapon at the hands of the Seelie Queen. Clary confesses to Emma Carstairs that she has been dreaming about her death. The Shadowhunters investigate Malcolm Fade's house and find out that he had been consorting with the Unseelie King. When they return, the Institute has been taken over by Centurions, graduates from the Scholomanche, led by Zara Dearborn, who reveals that she is engaged to Diego Rosales. This upsets Cristina, since she has just reconciled with him. Meanwhile, Kit, having learned that he is a Shadowhunter named Christopher Herondale, tries to leave the Institute several times, but is dissuaded by Jace and Ty. He is, however, barred from visiting the local Shadow Market because of his status. Clary and Jace subsequently leave for Faerie. Emma, Julian, and Mark are visited by Gwyn of the Wild Hunt, who pleads with Mark to save Kieran. Kieran had killed the Unseelie King's right-hand man, Iarlath, and is about to be executed. The trio and Cristina enter Faerie, where they navigate through its deceptive environment as they are confronted by their desires: Emma's and Julian's forbidden love and Cristina's and Mark's newfound love for each other, which binds the latter with a curse. When they reach the Unseelie Court, the group challenge the King for a trial by combat for Kieran's release, with Emma becoming a champion. She briefly hesitates when her opponent assumes her father's face, but manages to kill him. As the group leave with an amnesiac Kieran, they are pursued by the Unseelie faeries until a Seelie faerie, Nene, arrives at the last second to take them to the Seelie Queen. Nene is revealed to be Mark's aunt, sister of his mother, Nerissa. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Collapsing_Empire" title="The Collapsing Empire">
The Interdependency is a thousand-year-old human empire of 48 star systems connected by the Flow, a network of "streams" allowing faster-than-light travel. Each stream is one way and has an entry point and an exit point. There is no faster-than-light communication faster than the Flow, and interstellar trips are not instantaneous—ships carrying mail or passengers from Hub, the capital of the empire and the system with the most Flow connections, arrive at End, the most distant, nine months later—but the network permits life-sustaining intersystem trade. As a natural phenomenon, the Flow is poorly understood; Earth disconnected from the network thousands of years ago, and civilization on another system collapsed more recently when its pathway suddenly closed.Family-owned megacorporations control all interstellar trade in the Interdependency's mercantile economy; one, House Wu, is the royal family. The trading houses are incredibly wealthy from government-sanctioned monopolies and by collecting tolls at "shoals", entrances and exits to Flow pathways. The state religion, with the Emperox as titular head, celebrates the Interdependency as a divinely sanctioned society.Count Claremont, a physicist on End, calculates after decades of study that the Flow will soon collapse. All systems will be isolated; none are self-sufficient. Humans can only live on a planetary surface on End; they need space stations or underground habitats in other systems. Without the Flow, society on every system will likely collapse. The count sends his son Marce, also a physicist, to Hub to warn his old friend Emperox Attavio VI. The Emperox has died, however, and his unprepared daughter Cardenia is crowned as Grayland II.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_Versus_Fact" title="Faith Versus Fact">
Coyne defines science as "a collection of methods" that yield knowledge which may be rejected or confirmed via testing. With this definition in hand, he went on to argue that religion and science were inherently incompatible "because they have different methods of getting knowledge about reality, different ways of assessing the reliability of that knowledge, and, in the end, arrive at conflicting conclusions about the universe." Coyne believes that theistic religions make claims which conflict with science in three ways, namely methodology, outcomes and philosophy.A substantial portion of his book criticizes theistic evolution, arguing that if God were to use evolution as a method of creation, the evolutionary process should show signs of directionality.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_God_in_Ruins_(Atkinson_novel)" title="A God in Ruins (Atkinson novel)">
The novel is about the life of Teddy Todd (younger brother of Ursula Todd, the protagonist of the companion work, "Life After Life"). Events in his life are not revealed in chronological order. The book opens with a brief glimpse of him as a Royal Air Force (RAF) Halifax bomber pilot in World War II, then goes on to events in his childhood and the lives of his child and grandchildren, at times juxtaposing his memories with events in the lives of his family members. Teddy's memories of his own childhood in Fox Corner, the Todd family's country home, seemed all summers filled with bunnies and skylarks and bluebells, glimmering hot air and long gossamer evenings. The one difficulty in Teddy's young life was that when his Aunt Izzie came to visit she probed him with questions in order to supply her with details for the series of popular children's books she wrote about a boy named Augustus, set in a thinly disguised version of Teddy's idyllic home.(p. 3-9) - which the child himself greatly disliked.As an RAF bomber pilot Teddy knew the odds, so early on he had prepared himself for death. Yet, improbably, flight after flight he returned. "Teddy realized that they were not so much warriors as sacrifices for the greater good. Birds thrown against a wall in the hope that eventually, if there were enough birds, they would break that wall." (p. 229) Completing one tour of duty, he would sign up for another. Hoping to share his luck, men vied for a place on his crew.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Fortune" title="The Great Fortune">
The novel opens with an English couple, Guy and Harriet Pringle, travelling through Yugoslavia towards Romania on a train. They have just married, after a whirlwind romance over the summer vacation. They are travelling to Bucharest, where Guy has a job (paid for by the British Council) at the English department of the University.On the train they first encounter Prince Yakimov, a once-wealthy English-educated White Russian émigré who is now nearly penniless and forced to live by scrounging.Once in Bucharest they set up a temporary home in the Atheni hotel where all the British journalists congregate in what is known as the English bar. They witness the arrival of the last remnants of the defeated Polish army, vanquished in the German invasion of Poland. In a piece of luck, Yakimov is hired as an assistant to work for a veteran journalist, Mcann, who has been wounded in the retreat and is desperate to get his story out. This enables Yakimov to live in the hotel in great style, where he befriends the Pringles.Guy shows Harriet the sights of Bucharest, especially the cafes and the Cismigiu Park. She meets Sophie – a half-Jewish student of Guy, seeking the security of a passport – whom Harriet senses is a rival for Guy's affections.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Madness_So_Discreet" title="A Madness So Discreet">
Grace Mae, a young woman from a prominent Boston family, has been sent to reside in the Wayburne Lunatic Asylum of Boston for the length of her illegitimate pregnancy. Despite not talking she is deemed one of the more gentle patients until she stabs a doctor who had been touching her. As a punishment Grace is wrapped in steaming hot sheets which cause her to miscarry and afterwards she is sent to the basement with the worst of the patients. While there she meets Dr. Thornhollow, a man who performs lobotomies, and begs him to perform one on her so that she can forget her time in the asylum and that her pregnancy was caused by her father raping her. Thornhollow declines, but does fake a lobotomy, causing the asylum to fake Grace's death in order to protect themselves from the wrath of her father. Thornhollow takes Grace to a more progressive asylum in Ohio where Grace continues to play the part of a mute. However Thornhollow has also freed Grace for another purpose, using her as an assistant as he practices amateur offender profiling to help track down murderers.At the asylum Grace befriends two fellow patients, Nelly, an Irish born working girl suffering from late stage syphilis, and Lizzie, who seems normal aside from the fact that she speaks to String, an imaginary creature who sits on her shoulder and seems able to read people's inner thoughts and predict the future. Grace also begins to enjoy her work with Thornhollow and the two eventually discover that there is a serial killer on the loose who appears to be raping and murdering women. Thornhollow suspects that the man is a doctor who is unable to sustain an erection and has difficulty with women. Thornhollow and Grace begin to look for a doctor but find no one who fits their description. The case grows cold through a lack of murders and through Grace's disinterest after Nelly commits suicide. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Sparrow_(novel)" title="Red Sparrow (novel)">
Dominika Egorova, or "Red Sparrow", is a former Russian ballerina who is forced by her uncle to undergo espionage training for the Russian government at the Sparrow School, where people are trained to seduce their targets. Other key figures are Marble, a Russian double agent who provides intelligence to the CIA, and Nate Nash, a CIA internal-ops officer who recruits and handles intelligence assets for the agency. Each chapter in the book, as well as its two sequels, includes a reference to a specific prepared food, and ends with a recipe for it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Girls_(book)" title="Dead Girls (book)">
While each of the stories in Nancy Lee's breakout novel are varied in subject matter, they are united by themes of eroticism, destruction, loss, and the recurring image of the missing and murdered women of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The images of these women are subtly inserted into each story via television screens, or comments about jury duty.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwendy's_Button_Box" title="Gwendy's Button Box">
The story takes place in King's fictional town of Castle Rock in 1974. Twelve-year-old Gwendy Peterson encounters a stranger in dark clothes and a black hat who invites her to "palaver."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quick_Fix_(novel)" title="The Quick Fix (novel)">
Junior high detective Matt Stevens, who made his debut in "The Big Splash", investigates the blackmailing of the star of the school basketball team.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footer_Davis_Probably_Is_Crazy" title="Footer Davis Probably Is Crazy">
This contemporary novel is set in Bugtussle, Mississippi, in the Southern United States. The narrator, 11-year-old Footer Davis, has to deal with her mother's bipolar disorder while trying to find out what happened to the Abrams children after their barn burned down. It troubles her that she seems to be having hallucinations – but they may be repressed memories. Footer is on the mission to do almost everything to help his friends, family, and herself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Bear,_Baby_Bear,_What_Do_You_See?" title="Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?">
Baby Bear meets all sorts of different animals, including a red fox, flying squirrel, mountain goat, blue heron, prairie dog, striped skunk, mule deer, rattlesnake and screech owl, until he finally finds what he is looking for – his mother.This is the final book by Eric Carle before his death in 2021.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_Cormyr" title="Murder in Cormyr">
"Murder in Cormyr" involves a wizard Benelaius and Jasper a half-halfling servant investigating a murder mystery in a village surrounded by a swamp. The book starts with the introduction of Jasper, a village urchin who, due to circumstances, tries to steal from the home of a wizard who recently moved nearby, as part of retirement from the Cormyr war wizard council. Jasper gets caught by Benelaius and as way of repayment, agrees to the proposition of becoming a servant of the wizard for one year. During that time, a mysterious murder takes place with Jasper, under directions of Benelaius, untangling the dark plot.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangled_Webs" title="Tangled Webs">
"Tangled Webs" follows drow wizard Liriel Baenre and Rashemen berserker Fyodor on a journey, which include escape from the Underdark and a sea voyage. Due to finding a mysterious amulet windwalker, Liriel stumbles upon a mysterious runecraft, which supposedly would allow her to retain her drow magic on the surface. During the hectic escape, she meets Fyodor, who also searches for the amulet, as the witches of Rashemen told him it is a solution for his own problem. As a berserker, Fyodor is able to call upon magic, which allows him to fight despite injuries. However, as a child born in Time of Troubles, he cannot control his rage and see a difference between ally and enemy. The two heroes make an alliance, travelling together to the land of Rashemen with windwalker, while avoiding forces which would claim its power for themselves.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_Tarsis" title="Murder in Tarsis">
This novel is about Tarsis, a once proud city by the sea, now landlocked and decaying because of a great catastrophe, with a huge nomad army laying siege to its crumbling walls; and the main character is Ironwood – a mercenary bearing the curse of the dragon he once slew.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyssal_Warriors" title="Abyssal Warriors">
"Abyssal Warriors" is the second part of the "Bloodwars" trilogy that began with "Blood Hostages". In "Abyssal Warriors", Aereas and Nina, though naive in the ways of the planes, have successfully rescued Artus from his kidnappers. Now Aereas must go to save his love from the underworld. The planes have had their effect on the young girl and Aereas finds himself battling for her mind as well as her body as she becomes increasingly influenced by the forces of extreme evil that exist throughout the planes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_the_Dead_(novel)" title="King of the Dead (novel)">
The story concerns itself with Azalin, the king of the title. Despite the near-limitless powers that are now his to command, he is continually haunted by the death of his son. Unable to find any kind of happiness or contentment, he has begun to hate the dark, horror-filled world that is his to rule. "King of the Dead" recounts the tale of Azalin's earlier existence as a powerful mage and the events that led to his current reign.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_(novel)" title="War (novel)">
The autochthonous elves, driven back into the forest of Cerilia by the humans, who had in turn been forced out of their ancestral lands by lackeys of the Dark One, now live in uneasy peace with their invaders after centuries of war. The elves fear for the forest as the humans continue to carve out their civilization, but this concern is overshadowed by the matter of an empty throne.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_(Hayder_novel)" title="Gone (Hayder novel)">
When a carjacker drives off with a child in the back seat, detective inspector Jack Caffery realizes that the child was the criminal's true target.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icefall_(novel)" title="Icefall (novel)">
The novel is set in medieval Norway. When the king goes to war, he sends his three children to a remote steading for protection. His oldest daughter Asa, the middle child, Solveig, who begins to learn the art of storytelling from the king's skald, and the youngest child and heir to the throne Harold. During a frightening winter, the household has to deal with food shortages and the mystery of a murderous traitor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shroud_Conspiracy" title="The Shroud Conspiracy">
Dr. Jon Bondurant is a [Forensic anthropology/forensic anthropologist] known for his atheism. When the Vatican invites him to lead an investigation into the authenticity of the purported burial cloth of Jesus Christ, he agrees. After a contentious debate, the Vatican allows the examination of one of the sacred relic in order to spite the skeptical Bondurant.While in the Vatican, Bondurant meets Domenika Josef, a devout Catholic and the Vatican’s media specialist assigned to keep an eye on him. She’s privy to something Bondurant is not -- a recently discovered ancient Codex with revelations concerning the Shroud. What she’s not privy to is her own role in a plan by forces bent on stealing DNA tied to the sacred blood-stained Shroud. The resulting attempt to clone Jesus has apocalyptic results and is the subject of Heubusch’s sequel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_and_Mrs_Bo_Jo_Jones" title="Mr and Mrs Bo Jo Jones">
July Greher Jones tells the story of the first year of her marriage to her high school boyfriend, the football hero Boswell Johnson "Bo Jo" Jones. When the story begins, 16-year-old July and 17-year-old Bo Jo are high school seniors preparing for college. The upper-middle-class Grehers plan for July to attend an elite college; Bo Jo's working-class family hopes that he will get a football scholarship and be the first in his family to attend college. July's parents do not approve of her spending so much time with Bo Jo, and try to get her to date other boys. Although July is not certain of her feelings for Bo Jo, she likes him more than other boys she has dated, and the couple continues to see each other exclusively.One night, after consuming alcohol at a party where Bo Jo's former girlfriend Alicia is present and makes July feel jealous, Bo Jo and July end up having sex. July learns she is pregnant just as Bo Jo receives his letter of acceptance and football scholarship from Georgia Tech. The couple hide the pregnancy from their parents, secretly drive across the state line, and get married. Eventually they inform their parents, causing Bo Jo's parents to throw him out of the house and July's parents to threaten a forced annulment and an illegal abortion. Both sets of parents reluctantly accept the marriage. The couple are forced to leave school, and live for a disastrous short time with Bo Jo's parents, who blame July for ruining Bo Jo's college opportunity. July's parents then arrange an apartment for the couple and a job for Bo Jo at July's father's bank. The only truly supportive adult is July's grandmother.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staurofila" title="Staurofila">
The King of Lights is a very good sovereign, loved by everyone in his kingdom. One day, he chooses one of his subjects, Protaner, to take care of the prison where he keeps imprisoned a large seven heads serpent, the Serpus. In return, he gives Protaner wealth, a house, and a good social and economic position. Protaner lives happily, marries a beautiful woman named Protogina, and together they have Staurofila as daughter, who, due to her beauty, is chosen to be the future wife of the Prince of Lights, Helios Dicaias, when they both grow up. Unfortunately, Protaner and Protogina betray the king's trust and, by a trick of the Serpus, they let it out. While escaping, the Serpus leaves little Staurofila wounded badly and with a horrible mark on his neck. The king is enraged and declares the death penalty for the marriage. However, the prince goes out to defend them and offers to capture the Serpus to redeem the guilty ones. The king accepts but, until the Serpus is to be captured, he expels Protaner's family from the kingdom and sends them to the Desert of Tears. There go Protaner, Protogina, little Staurofila and Filautia, the old babysitter, who, after smelling some poisonous flowers in the desert, gets crazy and forgets the beautiful Kingdom of Lights. Over time, Protaner and Protogina get lost and never return home, so Filautia asks for asylum, for her and for the girl, to Pseudo-Epythropus, a rich local man, interested only in his earnings, who has two daughters, Peirasy and Proscope. Pseudo-Epythropus notices that Staurofila is very beautiful and receives her with the intention of give her in marriage when she grows up, and thus get some economic or social benefits. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Providence_(Mamatas_novel)" title="I Am Providence (Mamatas novel)">
The book follows two horror writers, Colleen Danzig and Panos Panossian, the latter of whom is strongly disliked in the Lovecraft literary community. Both writers are attending the Summer Tentacular, a Lovecraft themed convention held in Providence, Rhode Island, and sharing a room together. Before the first day of the convention's end, Panossian is brutally murdered, his face peeled off of his body, mimicking an anonymous post left for Panossian on his blog by someone years ago who appears to know a great deal about his past.The novel's chapters alternatively follow both writers. The third-person chapters following Colleen are partially set before Panossian's murder while his chapters are told after his death, as his disembodied consciousness drifts around the convention following participants and thinking about his past. Panossian can feel his nerves dying and his brain shriveling like a ‘sponge in the sun’, and he spends his time lamenting over not remembering who it was that killed him, trying to figure it out, and letting his mind drift into long monologues about his past and opinions, his thoughts on Lovecraft, and his opinions on the other con-goers.Colleen recklessly searches for the truth and believes that there's a connection between "Arkham," the book Panossian was supposed to be selling when he died, and who killed him. The book is rumored to be bound in human skin. She corners Chloe, another one of the authors, in a bathroom where a physical altercation takes place.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub_Rosa_(novel)" title="Sub Rosa (novel)">
Little is a homeless teenage runaway. Her luck seems to change when she meets Arsen, a mysterious young man with a nice car and apartment, who soon tempts her into sex. Little meets First and Second, two other “girlfriends” of Arsen, and he brings them all with him into Sub Rosa, a magical world where sex workers are called Glories and wield supernatural powers. Little is initiated into their way of life as a sex worker through several nights in the Dark, where she is repeatedly brutalized. She joins Arsen, First, and Second as the newest member of their “family”, with Arsen as her “Daddy” or pimp, and First and Second as her sister-wives. Continuing to confront the Dark, Little seeks to earn her dowry from male customers to become a full Glory, while battling her repressed memories from the past she left behind.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vectors_of_Mind" title="The Vectors of Mind">
"Preface." This book extends and presents more formally the findings from the author's "Multiple Factor Analysis" paper of 1931. The author notes that he only recently learned matrix theory and presumes that other psychologists have had similar limitations in their training. He finds existing textbooks on the topic inadequate and the book begins with a presentation of matrix theory, written for those with undergraduate instruction in analytic geometry and real number calculus. The author expresses indebted to various professors in the mathematics department of the University of Chicago for helping him to develop his ideas. He also expresses appreciation to his computer (a person, Leone Chesire), who also wrote the appendix on the calculations used in the centroid method. He foresees a bright future for the use of factor analysis and expects to see the simplification of the computational methods. He expects factor analysis to become an important technique int the early stages of science. For example, the laws of classical mechanics could have been revealed by a factor analysis, by analyzing a great many attributes of objects that are dropped or thrown from an elevated point, with the time of fall factor uncorrelated with the weight factor. Work by Sewell Wright on path coefficients and Truman L. Kelley on multiple factors differs from factor analysis, which Thurstone sees as an extension of professor Spearman's work.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can't_We_Talk_About_Something_More_Pleasant?" title="Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?">
The book's storyline, spanning an eight-year period from 2001 to 2009, concerns Roz Chast's parents living in Brooklyn. The book describes various interactions between Chast and her parents. Chast, who lives in Connecticut, often used to visit her parents, calling their home "a hoarder's paradise". The couple is later moved into assisted living facilities near Chast's home due to their ailing health.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mills_(novel)" title="George Mills (novel)">
The first George Mills sets out on a journey with his lord on the First Crusade. But he eventually gets lost in the Netherlands and reaches a salt mine in Poland. His lord at the mines is Guillalume, who teaches him some life lessons. Mills becomes aware of what is written in his fate and this helps him understand the walks of life in this world in a better manner. Despite having the knowledge of what would happen in the future, his timidity and powerlessness does not bring out any situation-changing effects. The novel covers the history of succeeding family members named George Mills and all of them are aware of their fates and equally feeble and ineffective in changing their circumstances. The 43rd Mills encounters King George IV and is assigned on a diplomatic mission to Constantinople, where he first joins the Janissaries but later ends up in the Ottoman Sultan's harem doing household chores. He escapes from there and reaches America. The present-day Mills in America is a caretaker of an old woman named Judith Glazer in St. Louis, who is in the final stages of terminal cancer. Mills accompanies Glazer to Mexico and upon her death participates in her funeral together with her family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Ted_Bliss" title="Mrs. Ted Bliss">
Mrs. Dorothy Bliss is an old woman in her early 80s living alone in a retirement community near Miami Beach, Florida, after her husband's death due to cancer. She was born in Russia and is Jewish. Her mother bribed an immigration officer and added three years to her age on legal documents in order that she could start working in Manhattan's Lower East Side after their immigration. Her husband, Ted Bliss, had a butcher shop in Chicago and together they had three kids. Her oldest son dies of cancer at a young age and after her husband's retirement, the couple moved to Florida. She is obsessed with cleaning and also keeps records of the gifts given to her grandchildren in order to keep track and stay impartial with everyone.The single life of Mrs. Bliss is now filled with expectations of finding a romance or a partner but eventually she is disappointed and heartbroken. She gets involved with Alcibiades Chitral, a drug lord who operates in her neighborhood, and starts using her and her husband's car as a front for his activities. The story keeps introducing various new men in her life, such as Hector Camerando, a jai alai pro who helps Mrs. Bliss with some tips on dogs, and Tommy Auveristas, an imposter. Junior Yellin, a once upon a time lover with whom Mrs. Bliss had had a passionate encounter in her husband's butcher shop, also makes a re-entry into her life. She eventually dies when Hurricane Andrew hits Miami and brings massive destruction.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Massacre_of_Mankind" title="The Massacre of Mankind">
In New York City in 1920, four people sail to England to meet with Walter Jenkins, the original author of the War of the Worlds story. Jenkins has seen signs that the Martians may be planning a second attack. They arrive to find London has become a totalitarian dystopia and the whole country is gearing up for war. Walter's brother, Frank, is drafted the next day and London prepares for war. Beginning at 7:00 PM, 50 cylinder-shaped Martian missiles land on the city, wiping out nearly half of Britain's military. At midnight, another group of cylinders lands, this one carrying Martian warriors. The Martians emerge immediately- in contrast to the 19 hours required in their 1907 landings- and engage the British military with their heat rays. Army, Navy, and relatively new Air Force counterattacks prove mostly harmless against the Martian fighting-machines. Over the next several days, the Martians cripple London, carefully selecting targets of infrastructural importance, such as bridges, factories, and train stations. Many Londoners escape or take shelter.Two years later, the Martians control England, though they mostly remain in their cordon. Walter Jenkins asks Julie Elphinstone, his former sister-in-law, to go into the Martian cordon to try to communicate with them. She and her group make the long journey to the cordon, dodging several Martian attacks along the way and meeting a saboteur named Marriott. At the Martian base, they discover that the Martians are cannibals, keeping humans and humanoid species in holding tanks for future harvesting. They witness breeding experiments between Martians and humans. Eventually they come to the feeding hole, where the Martians have humans hung upside-down from scaffolding while they inject the human's blood directly into their Martian bodies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Every_Day_Is_for_the_Thief" title="Every Day Is for the Thief">
A man leaves New York to return to Lagos for the first time in 15 years after the death of his father and a fight with his mother. He realizes he is not as comfortable in his home country as he expected to be.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_in_Bloodhound_Red" title="Death in Bloodhound Red">
The novel is set in and around the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia. The main character, Jo Beth Sidden, is an outspoken feminist bloodhound trainer who assists law enforcement with search and rescue. When she is accused of attacking her ex-husband, Jo Beth takes matters into her own hands.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agamemnon_(Seneca)" title="Agamemnon (Seneca)">
The blood-feud between Atreus and Thyestes was not ended with the vengeance which Atreus wreaked upon his brother. It was fated that Thyestes should live to father upon his own daughter a son, Aegisthus, who would slay Atreus and bring ruin and death upon Agamemnon.The Trojan War is done, and now the near approach of the victorious king Agamemnon, bringing his captives and treasure home to Argos, has been announced. But his wife Clytemnestra, enraged at Agamemnon because he had sacrificed her daughter Iphigenia at Aulis to appease the winds, and full of jealousy because he brings Cassandra as her rival home, estranged also by the long-continued absence of her husband, but most estranged by her own guilty affair with Aegisthus, is now plotting to slay her husband on his return, gaining both revenge and safety from his anger.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenissae_(Seneca)" title="Phoenissae (Seneca)">
When Oedipus discovered his crime, he blinded himself; and went into exile with his daughter Antigone, who offered herself as guide. In the meantime his sons Eteocles and Polynices engage in war, the treaty binding them to reign alternately being violated.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troades_(Seneca)" title="Troades (Seneca)">
The siege of Troy is done and the city is now smouldering ruins. The victorious Greeks have gathered the rich spoils of Troy upon the shore, among these the Trojan women who await their lot to be assigned to their Greek lords and taken to the cities of their foes. But now the ghost of Achilles has risen from the tomb, and demanded that Polyxena be sacrificed to him before the Greeks shall be allowed to sail away. And Calchas, also, bids that Astyanax be slain, for only then can Greece be safe from any future Trojan war.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_(Seneca)" title="Hercules (Seneca)">
Lycus was exiled for his crimes by Creon the father-in-law of Hercules and king of Thebes. Hercules being at that time away in the underworld, where he had gone to seek out Cerberus as the final labour assigned him by Eurystheus through Juno's hatred. Here he found Theseus, who had made a descent into the regions of Pluto in company of Pirithous with the intention of carrying off Proserpine. Lycus seized his opportunity, and aided by conspirators, slayed Creon together with his two sons, and usurped the Kingdom of Thebes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_Oetaeus" title="Hercules Oetaeus">
The long, heroic life of Hercules has neared its end. His twelve great tasks, assigned him by Eurystheus through Juno's hatred, have been done. His latest victory was over Eurytus, king of Oechalia. Hercules slew the king and overthrew his house, because he would not give Hercules his daughter Iole in marriage. And now the hero, having overcome the world, and Pluto's realm beneath the earth, aspires to heaven. He sacrifices to Cenaean Jove, and prays at last to be received into his proper home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenjack_(novella)" title="Wenjack (novella)">
The story begins with Chanie describing his experiences of abuse from residential school teachers, who he and his friends (two brothers) call "Fish Bellies" or "Sucker Bellies" for their pale skin. On an October afternoon, Chanie and the two brothers decide to run away. Because of a lung infection, Chanie struggles to keep up with his friends. Eventually the three boys reach a river, where they run into the two brothers' uncle. They are given a meager meal of freshly-caught fish in the cabin where the uncle, his wife, and his daughter are staying. That night, Chanie sleeps on the floor by the wood stove.In the morning, the uncle tells his wife to send Chanie away, while he takes his two nephews to the trapline to look for food. When Chanie gets up to join them, the uncle tells him that it would be dangerous to have four people in his canoe. The mother sends Chanie on his way with dried moose meat and tells him to turn right at the tracks to head back to the school. The girl gives him a glass jar that holds seven matches. Chanie leaves the cabin, resolved to find his two friends and their uncle. However, when he reunites with them, the uncle tells him he cannot stay and that he must return to the school. He tells Chanie he can beat the impending bad weather if he travels quickly.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_West" title="Exit West">
Nadia and Saeed meet when they are working students in an unnamed city. Saeed is more conservative and still lives at home, as custom generally requires, but the more independent Nadia has chosen to live alone and has been disowned by her parents for doing so. Saeed and Nadia fall for each other slowly and then all at once. War speeds up their courtship, the way it seems to hasten everything. After Saeed's mother is killed by a stray bullet while searching for a lost earring in her car, Nadia moves in with Saeed and his father, despite not wanting to marry Saeed as propriety requires.As the militants successfully wrest control of the city from the government and violence becomes an every day part of life, Nadia and Saeed begin chasing rumours that there are doors in the city that serve as portals to other locations. Although most of the doors are guarded by militants, they manage to bribe their way through a door, leaving behind Saeed's father who does not wish to be a burden to them and asks Nadia to promise him never to leave Saeed until they are settled.The door they go through takes them to Mykonos, where they are among many refugees and settle in a tent city. They eventually obtain the compassion of a local Greek girl who has a rapport with Nadia and helps the two go through a recently discovered door which leads to a luxury home in London. Nadia and Saeed and other migrants settle in the home, claiming it from its owners.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hanging_Tree_(Aaronovitch_novel)" title="The Hanging Tree (Aaronovitch novel)">
The previous book's adventure in Herefordshire left the protagonist Peter Grant deeply involved in a relationship with Beverley Brook, the resourceful young woman who had saved him from captivity by the Faerie Queen. Beverley happens to be the tutelary goddess of Beverley Brook, a small river in South London, and can often be found swimming through its waters; when Peter comes to the bank and calls her name, she might jump naked out of the water, like a salmon, directly into his arms. Peter now spends much of his time – especially his nights – in Beverley's comfortable and spacious house on the riverbank. It is there that he gets the phone call catapulting him into the whirlwind of a new adventure.A bunch of teenagers breaking into a luxurious apartment and holding there a wild party of sex and drugs, ending with one of them dead of an overdose, is a matter for the police – but normally, not for Grant, whose very special police speciality are the cases involving magic. However, one of the teenagers involved was the daughter of a very magical creature – Cecilia Tyburn Thames aka Lady Ty, who is the goddess of the River Tyburn and the older and far stricter sister of Peter's girlfriend. Peter owes Lady Ty a favour for having once saved his life, and she wants her daughter Olivia kept out of trouble with the law – which is not easy for Peter to deliver. Peter's involvement soon grows deeper when an autopsy by pathologists who know about magic reveals that the dead girl, Christina Chorley, had died not only of a drug overdose but also of a wild and excessive use of magic – which can cause a careless practitioner's brain to undergo "hyperthaumaturgical degradation", with often fatal results.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_2440" title="The Year 2440">
The novel describes the adventures of an unnamed man who, after engaging in a heated discussion with a philosopher friend about the injustices of Paris, falls asleep and finds himself in a Paris several centuries into the future. He wanders through the changed city, eventually ending up in the ruins of the Palace of Versailles. Mercier's hero notes everything that catches his fancy in this futuristic Paris. Public space and the justice system have been reorganized. Citizens' garb is comfortable and practical. Hospitals are effective and science-based. There are no monks, priests, prostitutes, beggars, dancing masters (i.e., dance teachers), pastry chefs, standing armies, slavery, arbitrary arrest, taxes, guilds, foreign trade, coffee, tea, or tobacco: such occupations, institutions, and products have been adjudged to be useless and immoral – as has much previously written literature, which has been willingly destroyed by the future librarians, who proudly display their library, reduced to a single room of only the most valuable works.Written only 18 years before the French Revolution of 1789, the book describes a future secular, pacifist France that has been established through a peaceful revolution led by a "philosopher-king" who has set up a system resembling a parliamentary monarchy. The future utopian, egalitarian France is portrayed as having no religion and no military.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_Susan_Lulham" title="The House of Susan Lulham">
Zoe Mahonie calls diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins to her and her husband's new home after becoming convinced that its late previous tenant, Susan "Suze" Lulham, is still in residence, causing paranormal disturbances. Suze was a wealthy hairdresser who, after a bad breakup with a married television actor, committed suicide in the living room with a razor, spraying blood everywhere. When a second bloody death takes place in the house, Merrily investigates its past, and whether Zoe is deeply disturbed or genuinely haunted.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thick_as_Thieves_(Turner_novel)" title="Thick as Thieves (Turner novel)">
The book picks up after the events of "The Queen of Attolia" when the Medes failed to establish the Queen of Attolia as a puppet monarch. Nahuseresh, the Medean ambassador and his slave Kamet were forced to flee the country after the botched invasion. Due to his failure in Attolia, Nahuseresh has fallen out of favor with his powerful brother, heir to the Medean throne. As the secretary and slave to Nahuseresh, Kamet has the ambition and means to become one of the most influential people in the Empire. However, after angering his master, Kamet is offered a risky opportunity to escape slavery by a mysterious foreigner claiming he was sent by the King of Attolia. Kamet is reluctant to leave his prestigious position, but when his fellow slave Laela warns him that their master has been poisoned, he believes he is left with little choice if he wants to live. Fleeing across the desert with the Attolian soldier (later revealed to be Costis of "The King of Attolia") from the emperor's soldiers, Kamet attempts to prevent Costis from finding out that Nahuseresh is dead.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Axolotl" title="The Old Axolotl">
The novel presents a post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk vision of Earth where biological life has been wiped out, inhabited by robots and mechs, many of which are humans whose consciousness has been digitized in the wake of an extinction event.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis_Rising" title="Persepolis Rising">
Twenty-eight years have passed since the events of "Babylon's Ashes" and Earth is back on its feet after the attack that crippled the planet in "Nemesis Games". The crew of the aging gunship "Rocinante" are still together, working contracts for the Transport Union, who have control of the Ring station and the 1,300 worlds the gates lead to. No one has heard from Admiral Duarte and his rogue fleet in the thirty years since they broke away from the Martian Congressional Republic Navy, until now. They have spent their time in the Laconia system building an advanced fleet using leftover technology from the protomolecule creators. They return through their gate to take over Medina Station and launch an attack on the Sol system.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide_Child_trilogy" title="Tide Child trilogy">
## Prior to "The Bone Ships".The Hundred Isles and the Gaunt Isles have been at war for centuries. Because the Scattered Archipelago contains very little plant life and no wood for ships, their warships are made from the bones of sea dragons called arakeesians. The arakeesians are apparently extinct. No more ships can be built, leading to a war of attrition. White ships are used in traditional battles, while black ships are crewed by condemned prisoners expected to die in battle.The Hundred Isles has a matriarchal society in which citizens are valued for fertility and beauty. Women who survive childbirth and bear healthy children are elevated to Bern class. Healthy men may become Kept concubines by the Bern, but those with birth defects or other undesirable traits are relegated to lower castes. The firstborn healthy child from each family is sacrificed, and their soul is used to make a “corpse light” to light a white ship.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_In_Beirut" title="Death In Beirut">
The novel talks about a reform effort that the emerging generations of university students in Lebanon, led by Hani al-Ra’i, a Christian, and Tamimah Nassour, a Shiite Muslim, are committed to. Both of them come from outside the city: Hani from the village of Mutla in the northern Matn – meaning from the Christian mountain – and Tamimah from the village of Mahdia in southern Lebanon – mostly Shiite – and both suffer from the change in the atmosphere of life due to the transition from the simplicity of the village to the hustle of the city while they are working for change, and reform. The novel also talks about "the factories of intolerance and the street demagoguery, and the traditional leaders and influential merchants" who infiltrated the ranks of the students, motivated by their partisan interests, their own lusts, and their ideologies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_God's_Drums" title="The Black God's Drums">
In the world of the novella, the Haitian Slave Revolt freed Haiti as well as many Caribbean nations, now called the Free Isles. The Haitians used a powerful weapon called the Black God's Drums to defeat the French fleet. Also known as Shango's Thunder, the Drums create powerful storms. Their collateral damage is so high that they have only been used once. The Confederate States of America have fought to a draw with the Union, and New Orleans is now neutral territory. Additionally, the Confederacy uses drapeto, a psychoactive gas, to control their enslaved population.Creeper is a street urchin born in New Orleans during a storm, giving her a special connection to Oya, the orisha of storms. When Creeper is thirteen, she overhears Confederate soldiers discussing a Haitian scientist and the Black God’s Drums. Creeper decides to sell this information to Captain Ann-Marie St. Augustine of the airship "Midnight Robber" in exchange for becoming a member of the crew. Ann-Marie has a connection to the goddess Oshun, Oya’s sister.Oya sends Creeper a vision of a skeleton. A man in a skeletal Mardi Gras mask kidnaps the Haitian scientist, Dr. Duvall, before Ann-Marie and Creeper reach him. Creeper and Ann-Marie meet with Sisters Agnes and Eunice, nuns who provide Creeper with information about the city. They learn that Duvall has been kidnapped by Johnny Boys, a splinter group of Confederate soldiers. The nuns give Ann-Marie and Creeper a flask of drapeto.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Days_of_Man" title="The Seven Days of Man">
The Seven Days of Man is a novel tells the story of the child Abd al-Aziz who is the most important element in the extension of the life cycle in which he moves within a village family, whose care giver belongs to a Sufi group inside the village. The critics call this type of novels "Genesis novel", which is a type of novel with special characteristics that are only present in famous novels like "Emotional education" for the French writer Flaubert, which is a story that talks about a hero who falls in love for the first time, moving from the world of childhood to the world of adolescence, which does not end except at the verge of manhood or the completion of youth. When Abdel Mohsen Badr wrote about Abdel Hakim Qassem’s novel in his book "The Novelist and the Land" in which he studied "The Seven Days of Man", he drew attention to the novelist's relationship with the village, and how a generation differed from another in making the village a fictional subject.This focus seems to have made the critics pay attention to this aspect, including Dr. Muhammad Badawi, who was preoccupied with the impact of socio-economic change on the novel. After that, studies proceeded in this direction, in which Muhammad Badawi continued to describe the novel that it revolves around a Sufi group of marginalized people in the village.This understanding prompted the novelists to ask: Does the novel really revolve around the village? And the novel really does revolve around the village, but through a specific perspective which is the perspective of the writer who writes about his childhood and upbringing and opens his awareness of the world within a village, and the formation of his religious awareness increases through the group that was led by his father.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tunnel_of_Love_(novel)" title="The Tunnel of Love (novel)">
The novel opens with a look ahead: the narrator feigns illness to avoid the case worker Mrs. Mash from the Crib Adoption Agency, who wants to question him about the Pooles suitability as parents. Knowing Augie as he does, he fakes losing his voice, causing his wife Audrey to summon Dr. Vancouver. The doctor can't find anything wrong and suggests stress. After he leaves, the narrator thinks back to when he and Audrey first met the Pooles at a cocktail party. (From this point the action proceeds in chronological order).At the cocktail party the narrator meets Isolde Poole. He is fascinated and likens her in his own mind to Joan Fontaine. Isolde tells him a story from her acting days. The narrator is bemused and incorporates her into his usual fantasy, centered around a cabin in the Maine woods called Moot Point, since the legal title to the imaginary location is in doubt. She is not the first woman he has mentally transported to this hideaway, which constitutes his sole act of infidelity to Audrey. In passing the narrator also mentions meeting Augie, who made no impression on him.Invited to dinner at the Poole's house, the narrator and Audrey are embarrassed to realize Augie is the "A. Poole" whose cartoons he has been rejecting in his capacity of Art Editor for "The Townsman". Isolde uses their discomfiture to announce she has listed them as references for adopting a child. As Augie shows the narrator his studio in the converted loft of a barn, he confesses that the property was purchased for them by Isolde's grandmother, on whose bounty they also survive. Told his cartoon ideas would fetch a high price for themselves without the drawings, Augie declines to be a "gagman".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_and_Bones" title="Stars and Bones">
The Benevolence, an alien intelligence that observes and catalogues life in the galaxy, noted with disapproval the way humans on Earth were slowly destroying their world. To save the planet, the Benevolence constructed a thousand sentient spaceships or arks, and filled them with the entire human population. Each ark is an artificial world with Earth-like environments, and their inhabitants are provided with all they need in terms of provisions, equipment and resources.Seventy-five years later, the arks are adrift amongst the stars. Scout ships fan out ahead of the fleet to check for any threats or opportunities. The scouts also investigate planetary systems they pass for any signs of life and potential colonisation. But a visit to a planet called Candidate-623 stirs an unseen alien force which destroys the scout ship and dismembers its crew. After locating the scout ship's home base, the force begins to infiltrate and infect the arks, one by one.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letting_Ana_Go" title="Letting Ana Go">
An anonymous author, using the name "Ana" as her pseudonym, shares her story of regressing into full-blown anorexia as her parents deal with family dysfunction. Ana's mother constantly expresses a negative self-perception of her own overweight body, while Ana's father has a girlfriend with a skinny waist and large breasts. While Ana's parents are well-off financially, their increasing arguments impact the direction of their spending habits, and they fail to express much love or affection towards Ana; Ana's father presents her with a car as a birthday present, but otherwise does nothing else symbolic for the occasion, leaving Ana feeling alone and unappreciated.Ana begins keeping a food diary with a friend, wealthy fellow student Jill, and they both try to lose as much weight as possible for their track team, which transmutes into an obsession with getting on a ballet troupe's list and exploring thinspiration websites. This intermingles with Ana's parents breaking up, and her mother constantly buying too-small clothing sizes while trying to fit into them despite her burgeoning obesity. The family's money begins to dwindle, and Ana takes her mother's self-deprecating statements to heart, such as "nothing tastes as good as thin feels", and continues losing weight until she is admitted to a local hospital due to physical health complications. Ana dies as her family cannot afford to send her to a special care facility for minor children suffering from eating disorders, while Jill, whose parents are rich, is able to recover in comfort.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_in_the_Sky_(2012_novel)" title="Lucy in the Sky (2012 novel)">
An unnamed teenage diarist recalls living with her middle-class parents and preppy brother in Santa Monica; the diarist's only friend is her brother, Cam, who receives more admiration and hopes to go to Berkeley University after high school. The two siblings, nevertheless, are close companions and share a bond by attending yoga classes. Yoga class is where the diarist meets Ross, another teenager who shares drugs with the diarist not long after her 16th birthday, during a party for said birthday. Ross remains her friend, but gets her hooked on drugs and later alcohol, leading the diarist to experiment with numerous illicit substances including marijuana, cocaine and other things. She claims to experience vivid high periods complimented with hallucinations, which only makes her even more fascinated with druggie culture and an edgy crowd of high school kids who all partake in substance abuse. The diarist stops attending school, and Cam, who has no interest in drugs, grapples with his loyalty to his sister versus the desire to report her behaviour to their parents. A 20-year-old man named Blake expresses sexual interest in the younger diarist, and snorts a line of cocaine with her. The diarist also hopes to emulate Lauren, one of the addicts in her social group. Lauren is beautiful, wealthy, wears designer clothes and has a snobby personality. The diarist's grades begin slipping, and Cam is horrified by her change in personality, as she becomes more mean-spirited and vicious. She finds that her newfound friends are more flawed than they appear to be, particularly when she is nearly raped while high and none of them are surprised by this. As time goes on, intermingled with periods of blackout drunkenness, the diarist experiments with meth and heroin. After a DUI is issued to her, she is forced to go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, which she hates, and to face her parents and Cam. She gets clean and sober after a length of self-reflection and more meetings, but then she relapses and dies, leaving only her diary behind.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Search_For_Order" title="The Search For Order">
A socioeconomic, political, and cultural analysis of the United States during the period between the end of Reconstruction and the Progressive era, Wiebe's work describes American society and how the introduction of new scientific and technological advancements changed the ways in which citizens connected with the larger country outside of their local communities as well as how they perceived themselves in an increasingly national sense. These changes led to new ideologies that embraced utopian ideals and the belief that through impersonal, federal authority the ills society was experiencing from the rapid urban-industrialization of the Gilded Age could be tamed, quelled, or used to create a better future and society. Wiebe analyzes the appearance and life of the Populist party and its appeal to the rural parts of the country as well as the hopes for the party, which would be reproduced in the ensuing Progressive movement of the early twentieth century. The result would be a transition from "a society of island communities" held together by local autonomy to the development of "America's initial experiment in bureaucratic order," primarily driven by the emerging, new middle class that was created through the advancements.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silencing_The_Past" title="Silencing The Past">
"Silencing the Past" is a meditation on the characteristics of power and how it influences the creation and recording of histories. Spanning examples from The Alamo and Christopher Columbus to the position of the Haitian Revolution in the collective memory of Western society, Trouillot analyzes conventional historical narratives to understand why certain parts of history are remembered when others are not. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenglass_House" title="Greenglass House">
The main character is 12 year old Milo Pine. He is the adopted son of inn owners. He lives in Nagspeake, a city, which is known as "smugglers town". Milo lives in the "Greenglass House", which is a huge, dilapidated house. Actions take place during the Christmas holidays. The inn is usually empty at this time, so Milo hopes to get some rest. However, suddenly on the very first night, one after another, five guests are settled in the hotel. Milo believes that the appearance of each of them is not accidental, and their appearance is somehow connected with the Greenglass House itself. Milo is also puzzled by his finding - a fragment of a nautical chart. At one point, Milo meets Meddy, the cook's youngest daughter. The boy befriends Meddy, and together they start a detective role-playing game, the purpose of which is to find out where this map leads, as well as learn more about the guests. They found out that one of the guests enters the rooms of other guests. At first, nothing is lost, but then three guests were robbed at once, and later another guest suffered from the hands of a thief.Milo's investigation eventually leads him to the conclusion that one of the guests, named De Cary Vinge, is a customs agent. A little later, while telling stories, Vinge confirms this and takes hostage all the guests and Milo's parents. He wants to find the last treasure of Michael "Doc Holystone" Witcher, the famous and now deceased smuggler who formerly owned the house. Milo himself, along with Meddy, manage to escape to the attic, where they lock themselves. Milo suddenly realizes that Meddu is actually a ghost and her real name is Addie Witcher, and she is a daughter of Doc Holystone. Meddy confirms this and reveals that 34 years ago, a young De Cary Vinge was chasing her father, but the latter stumbled and fell off a cliff. Addie heard this from Vinge himself and leaned forward a little to better hear his speech, but also could not keep her balance and, ultimately, fell and died. Afterwards, Milo and Meddy finally found out where her father hid the last treasure. After a failed attempt to stealthily sneak in on Mr. Vinge, Milo makes a deal - he will show where the treasure is, and Vinge will release the hostages. Vinge agrees and Milo points to a crystal chandelier in the shape of a ship.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitz_and_the_Fool_trilogy" title="Fitz and the Fool trilogy">
The trilogy follows Fitz in his fifties, and is told alternately from the point of view of Fitz and his daughter Bee Farseer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_of_the_Crusted_Snow" title="Moon of the Crusted Snow">
Evan Whitesky and his wife Nicole raise their two children on an Anishinaabe reservation in northern Canada. The reservation loses power and all connection to the outside world, though the town’s generators are able to power essential services through the winter. Two college students return from the south, bringing stories of societal collapse. A white man named Justin Scott arrives on the reservation, seeking shelter from the chaos. The chief and council allow him to stay, though they do not trust him.The council institutes food and electricity rationing. Two young women freeze to death after drinking with Scott. Another group of white people arrive at the reservation begging for food, and Scott shoots one of them. As conditions deteriorate, Scott’s influence increases and the band council’s diminishes. There is a riot at the food handout line, and Scott suggests that he has found an alternative food source. A body goes missing from the morgue; Evan suspects Scott of cannibalism. He and other community leaders confront Scott, who is cooking the body into a stew. Scott is shot and killed; Evan is shot, but he survives.In an epilogue two years later, the power has never returned and the community is returning to their ancestral way of life. They leave the reservation for a new settlement.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hope_More_Powerful_than_the_Sea" title="A Hope More Powerful than the Sea">
The book starts with Doaa Al Zamel's early life, growing up in Daraa, Syria. Al Zamel has a happy childhood, living in the extended family home, until the Syrian civil war breaks out. Her family flee to Egypt where she gets engaged to Bassam. In Egypt, Bassam and Al Zamel pay people smugglers to move them to Europe, boarding a boat with 500 other refugees. The boat capsizes in the Mediterranean Sea, with all but eleven of the passengers drowning. Bassam does not make it, Al Zamel is one of the eleven.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Region_in_Turmoil" title="A Region in Turmoil">
John H. Gill, reviewing this book for The Journal of Military History, defines the region of South Asia as encompassing a territory that extends from Afghanistan to Bangladesh. He says the author also includes Burma (present day Myanmar) to enable discussion of border concerns it has with India. Gill also says, the author further elaborates on other issues pertaining to this smaller region. Gill additionally observes that the author maintains an objective, but not sterile narration.The book overviews the numerous conflicts that have occurred in the region since the British withdrawal after World War II. In doing so, this overview outlines the interconnections between the forms of volatile conflicts; the roots of the tensions and disputes, including religion, ethnic tension, ideology, and historical experiences; while also connecting the results. This method allows the author to portray the diverse settings for violent behavior in this southern region. This approach illuminates the complex interrelations that are involved.Thus, this book is a comparative study of the parallels drawn from the variety of conflicts occurring since 1947. These conflicts share a common methodology including "armed confrontations, insurrections, communal riots, insurgencies, acts of terrorism, and wars." The nations involved are: India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Myanmar. Also, global influences impact this region in the form of "conflicts, insurgency, terror, and peace making." Such influences also result in diasporas but the effects of nationalism from abroad are not covered.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diary_of_a_Misfit" title="Diary of a Misfit">
The book weaves the story of journalist Casey Parks' queer identity and the life history of a man named Roy Hudgins that her grandmother knew growing up in Delhi, Louisiana in the 1950s. Roy was assigned female at birth yet lived as a man. Parks, who herself grew up poor in rural Louisiana, sets out to illuminate the history of Roy's life through interviews with those who knew him, while grappling with the rejection she faced after coming out as gay as an adolescent. Her relationship with her loving and devoutly Christian mother is also explored.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_Will_Come_Baby_(novel)" title="Down Will Come Baby (novel)">
In the novel, 12-year-old Robin Garr is overcome with guilt following the accidental death of her friend at summer camp. Her father Marcus relocates her to Boston, away from Robin's alcoholic mother, where he hopes she will be able to get proper psychiatric help. Their downstairs neighbor Dorothy Cotton quickly takes an interest in Robin, and Marcus is grateful when Dorothy agrees to look after his daughter while he is out of town. When he returns, he is shocked to discover that Dorothy has kidnapped Robin. Robin's parents discover that Dorothy's motives are not as pure as they initially seemed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyōheki" title="Hyōheki">
Uozu and Kosaka, friends and mountaineers since their student days, plan to climb Mount Hotaka during the New Year's holidays. A few days before the start of their venture, Uozu learns of Kosaka's affair with Minako Yashiro, the young wife of much older engineer Kyonosuke Yashiro. Minako tells Uozu that she regards the affair as finished, which Kosaka is unwilling to accept. Shortly after, during their mountain trip, Kosaka falls to his death due to the tearing of their nylon rope. Upon his return, Uozu is confronted with speculations that Kosaka either died of carelessness, deliberately damaged the rope to commit suicide, or that Uozu had cut the rope to save himself. The rope's manufacturer, a shareholder of Uozu's employer, instructs none other than Kyonosuke Yashiro, whose company supplied the nylon used in the rope, to conduct an experiment under similar, simulated conditions. As the results seem to prove the rope's stability, Uozu's assertions are put to question. Among the few people who are giving him his support are Minako Yashiro, with whom he has become infatuated, his superior Tokiwa, and Kosaka's younger sister Kaoru.When Kosaka's body is eventually found months later, and the piece of rope found with him seems to support Uozu's version of the accident, the newspapers have lost interest in the case. Minako confesses to Uozu that she shares his feelings for her, but he announces to sever all contact with her, finding the constellation impossible. During his next mountain trip, which Uozu goes about alone under hazardous conditions, he is killed by falling rocks, leading to speculations that he secretly wanted to commit suicide. Kaoru, whom Uozu had promised to marry, vows to take his and Kosaka's ice axes up Mount Hotaka and place them there in the friends' memory, as described in a poem by French mountaineer Roger Duplat which Kosaka had loved.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temple_of_the_Wild_Geese" title="The Temple of the Wild Geese">
Shortly before his death, painter Nangaku asks Jikai, head priest of the Kohōan Zen Buddhist temple in the outskirts of Kyoto, to take care of his mistress Satoko. The married Nangaku had once decorated the temple's interiors with his paintings of wild geese and, while working on these, shared a room with Satoko in the temple's facilities. Jikai does as he has been asked and takes Satoko in, immediately making her his mistress and starting a feverish affair with her, although he is 25 years her senior. Meanwhile, Jikai's novice Jinen, an intelligent but disfigured boy, lives an austere life under the head priest's tight reign, who himself leads a mundane life and regularly gets drunk when playing Go with priests from affiliated temples. When Jinen, exhausted from military training at school, oversleeps, Jikai even attaches a rope to Jinen's wrist, waking him up by pulling it. Satoko learns that Jinen had been abandoned by his natural parents as a child and, intending to comfort him, makes sexual advances towards him. One day, Heikichi Hisama, one of the temple's patrons, shows up and asks for an anniversary service in remembrance of his deceased father, at the same time declaring that the eldest of his brothers is lying on the deathbed. Jikai sends Jinen to hold the service instead and goes out, but does not return. When the eldest brother dies and Jikai remains missing, a priest of an affiliated temple holds the funeral service. Jikai's colleagues speculate if he went on an ascetic's journey, died somewhere due to his repeated drinking, or simply ran away from Satoko, but the case remains unsolved.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bone_Houses" title="The Bone Houses">
Aderyn (nicknamed "Ryn") is a seventeen-year-old gravedigger who operates the family business with her siblings in the rural village of Colbren. The business was inherited after the deaths of their parents, and has been suffering as a result of reanimated corpses, known as "bone houses", coming to life and antagonizing people. The village's suspicion is heightened when Ellis, an apprentice mapmaker boy who is Ryn's age, appears in town. They both team up, along with a "bone goat" (reanimated pet goat), with the goal of finding out how to stop the bone houses. Despite Ryn's caustic and often morbid demeanor, she begins to fall in love with Ellis as she gets to know him, but she finds his enigmatic past troublesome. Ellis suffers from chronic pain from a badly healed injury. Ryn and Ellis arrive at a dreary homestead and discover that Ellis's deceased mother had resurrected Ellis via a magical "birth cauldron" when he was shot in the shoulder with an arrow and killed, which is why Ellis has no memory of his family. He embraces his dead mother, only to watch as her decaying body falls apart as the now-avenged spirit leaves it. Ellis forms a romantic relationship with Ryn and they return to Colbren, now that the bone houses are gone and Ryn's gravedigging business will no longer be under threat.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_Dolls_of_Echizen" title="Bamboo Dolls of Echizen">
Kisuke Ujiie grows up in the small village of Takekami in Echizen Province as the only child of Kizaemon Ujiie, a widower who lost his wife when Kisuke was only three. From his father, Kisuke has inherited his small stature, but also a distinguished talent for the art of bamboo crafts. When Kizaemon dies, handing down his manufacture to his 21-year-old son, a woman in her thirties named Tamae shows up in the village and asks Kisuke to allow her to say a prayer at his father' grave. She explains that she is from the town of Aware and that his father had treated her kindly years ago. A few weeks later, Kisuke looks for Tamae in Aware, discovering that she is working as a prostitute in the town's illegal pleasure quarters and that his father had once been a regular client of hers. Kisuke takes Tamae as his wife on the grounds that their marriage is celibate, as he sees in Tamae foremost a surrogate mother.Motivated by a meticulously crafted bamboo doll which his father once had made for Tamae, Kisuke starts making his own dolls, which soon become sought after artifacts. When the head clerk of a Kyoto based artware store, Chūbei, arrives in Takekami for a business call, he recognises Tamae from her early years as a prostitute whom he often frequented. Sexually unsatisfied and out of nostalghia, Tamae gives in to his rough advances, but soon feels guilty for her deed. A few months later, Tamae's health deteriorates, and she learns that she is pregnant by Chūbei. Tamae travels to Kyoto under the pretence that she wants to collect the money Kisuke's customers owe him, but actually wants Chūbei to help her get an abortion. Chūbei seduces her again, only to claim later that he can't find anyone for the procedure, as abortions without the husband's consent are illegal. Tamae eventually loses her child by accident, and she returns to the unknowing Kisuke, helping him in his flourishing business as before. During the next Winter, she falls ill with tuberculosis and finally dies. It is the year 1925. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Excess_Male" title="An Excess Male">
"An Excess Male" is set in a near-future China ruled under authoritarian communism. There is an ongoing war between the People's Liberation Party and the Chinese Communist Party, and due to China's earlier One-Child Policy, female citizens are scarce and in high demand. They are often matched or auctioned off for a dowry, and polyamory has been sanctioned by the State. Wei-guo, A 44-year-old Chinese man who runs a training centre, is aided by his two fathers in the pursuit of a suitable female partner. They meet the enigmatic Wu Family for dinner, a peculiar group consisting of Hanh (a closeted gay man and the family patriarch), his brother Xiong-Xin (an autistic obese man who insists on being called "XX"), and May-Ling, the 22-year-old matriarch, who has an infant toddler named "BeiBei". Wei-guo immediately feels a connection with May-Ling, but he is frustrated when, after a planned date, May-Ling brings the disobedient, badly-behaved BeiBei with her, but he feigns support and May-Ling forms an even stronger liking to him. She harbours secrets of the two brothers who married her: Hanh is "Willfully Sterile" and will be reeducated and sterilized if discovered to be gay, as homosexuality and asexuality are viewed with disdain by the State; XX is a "Lost Boy" (neurodiverse) and will be branded mentally ill and institutionalized if this is discovered, despite his successful career and computer programming skills. May-Ling is unhappy in this relationship, finding scheduled sex with XX unpleasant and awkward, and disappointed that Hanh never wants to touch her. She also worries privately that BeiBei might suffer from ADHD and that the child might be sterilized as part of the State's eugenics standards. May-Ling grew up from infancy to be married off for a dowry to the benefit of her parents, who were both gambling addicts, something that she recalls painfully after playing a romantic virtual reality game with XX. Hanh has a tenuous relationship with professional marriage broker Hero, a paunchy, overtly effeminate man who, knowing Hahn's secret sexuality, pushes Wei-guo to marry into the Wu Family. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ink_Black_Heart" title="The Ink Black Heart">
After Strike and Robin visit the Ritz for Robin's 30th birthday, Strike attempts to kiss Robin; she evades the kiss. Feeling rebuffed, Strike starts a relationship with Madeline, an acquaintance of his ex-fiancée Charlotte, a relationship he keeps secret from Robin.Edie Ledwell, an animator who co-created the successful cartoon "The Ink Black Heart" on YouTube and which is now being adapted into a film on Netflix, visits the agency. Edie asks Robin to investigate the identity of Anomie, an online figure who co-created "Drek's Game", an online game based on the cartoon, and started harassing Edie after she criticised the game. Robin refers Edie to another agency with more cybercrime experience. Within the game, two moderators appear to have a dossier of proof that Anomie and Edie are the same. They share this with Josh Blay, the other co-creator of "The Ink Black Heart" and Edie's ex-boyfriend. Soon afterwards, Edie and Josh are tasered and stabbed while meeting in Highgate Cemetery, the cartoon's setting. Edie dies while Josh is paralysed.The agency is hired by a film producer seeking to adapt "The Ink Black Heart" to investigate Anomie's identity. They investigate various individuals associated with the cartoon and the North Grove Art Collective. Much of the investigation takes place online with the detectives investigating Anomie's abuse and another figure, The Pen of Justice, who criticised the cartoon for being racist, ableist and transphobic. They also investigate "Drek's Game", where Anomie openly confesses to the murder, something treated as a joke by the other moderators, including its co-creator Morehouse. Two moderators appear to be associated with the Halvening, the far-right group that compiled the dossier with fake proof and the police suspect committed the murder. Robin accesses the game and becomes an active player. Robin and Strike attempt to eliminate suspects by carrying out surveillance and examining who is otherwise engaged while Anomie is active in the game. They also receive phone calls telling them to exhume Edie's grave and open letters buried with her. In the game, Paperwhite, another moderator, and Morehouse appear to have a relationship, with Paperwhite sending a racy picture to Morehouse and other moderators by accident.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_To_Dive" title="Waiting To Dive">
Carly, a nine-year-old British Columbian girl, adores swimming and diving, spends summers with her family at a cabin on the Gulf Islands, and she's also a member of Dolphins Diving Club, a girls' club at the local town swimming pool. One day, Carly is given permission to invite her best friend, a girl named Montana, to stay at the family cabin. Carly, who is often at odds with her bickering siblings, feels a strong bond with Montana that the girls both share over swimming. They play on the beach together, and they share discussions over things such as boys, friendships, school and family. During a dive from a high rock, Montana hits her head on an unexpected log and is submerged in water. When Montana breaks her spine and faces a life of rehabilitation and potential paralysis, Carly is angry and confused and struggles with her feelings of guilt. The book also explores her relationship with her step-father and two older step-siblings, in juxtaposition with the earlier death of her biological father.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unbalancing" title="The Unbalancing">
The novel is set in Lemberg's secondary world "Birdverse", about a thousand years prior to the events of "The Four Profound Weaves", on the archipelago Gelle-Geu, and alternates its viewpoint between the two primary characters, Erígra Lilún and Ranra Kekeri. At the start of the novel, the current Starkeeper of the Star of the Tides, a star made up of magical deepnames that resides beneath the waves off the shore of Gelle-Geu, is dying. The Star, also known as the Unquiet Sleeper and the Sputtering Star, has always been fretful and possibly the cause of earthquakes on the islands. Erígra Lilún is autistic and an ichidi, or non-binary person, who has yet to discover their ichidi variation, which is explored throughout the novel. They write poetry, tend an old quince grove, and prefer a quiet life, but the ghost of their ancestor, Semberí, the first Starkeeper of the Star of the Tides, pressures them to connect to the Star and become the next Starkeeper. Semberí tells them the story of the Birdcoming, when the goddess Bird came from beyond the sky and brought the twelve Stars to the world, dancing in the sky above the great Burri desert until the Stars fell from her tail to the first Starkeepers waiting below. Lilún does not wish to become Starkeeper and resists Semberí's pressure so that when the current Starkeeper passes, another is chosen as the new Keeper, Ranra Kekeri. Lilún attends the ascension party for the new Starkeeper and meets Ranra for the first time, a woman with a much bolder personality than Lilún, and who captivates them from their first meeting. Lilún and Ranra discuss the increasingly unstable nature of the Star and the growing hazard the situation presents to the islands, but have differing opinions of how it should be handled. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Babysitters_Coven" title="The Babysitters Coven">
Esme Pearl is a nonconformist and suburban Kansas teenager who heads a babysitting club to avoid the prospect of obtaining a paid job, which she finds "gross", and also to earn money to pay back a variety of people for various incidents, including the destruction of a tree. Esme's mother, who lives in a long-term care facility, is mentally ill. This leads to concern that Esme herself might suffer from the same issues when strange occurrences happen around her, such as a drink spilling on a "chauvinist" in the school cafeteria and a bully being harmed in gym class. Esme is surprised when Cassandra Heaven, who is physically attractive, a rebel and a grungy dresser, shows interest in joining the club. While Esme's best friend is Janis, an awkward girl who owns a pit bull, Cassandra is much more sure of herself and confident, and Esme soon discovers that the newcomer is involved with aspects of the supernatural, having received a note telling her to seek out the babysitting club for help. Brian, the school's football coach, reveals to the girls that a dark, demonic force is threatening innocent people in Esme's town, and with white magic, the girls hope to stop it before anybody is harmed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Making_of_Biblical_Womanhood" title="The Making of Biblical Womanhood">
The central argument of the book is that "Patriarchy may be a part of Christian history, but that doesn’t make it Christian."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garlic_and_Sapphires" title="Garlic and Sapphires">
"Garlic and Sapphires" recounts Reichl's 1993 move from the "Los Angeles Times", where she was a restaurant critic and editor, to become head restaurant critic of "The New York Times". Seated next to a waitress on the flight to New York, Reichl learns that the city's restaurants have been on the lookout for her in her newly powerful role and she finds that she receives special treatment as a consequence. In order to visit restaurants without being recognized, she enlists Claudia, an acting teacher and friend of Reichl's late mother, to help her devise disguises. Reichl takes on a series of different personas, which allows her different perspectives on specific restaurants as well as her own personality as she steps into someone else's shoes. "Times" Living section secretary Carol Shaw often accompanies her on her outings and the book also follows the development of their friendship. They visit high-end restaurants like Rocco DiSpirito's Union Pacific as well as less recognized cuisine, exploring the Chinese food of Flushing, Queens. These experiences are interspersed with recipes and reprints of Reichl's reviews for the "Times". The book concludes with Shaw's death and Reichl's departure from the "Times" to become the editor-in-chief role at "Gourmet" magazine in 1999, ending her days as a restaurant critic.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Six_Dead_Men" title="The Six Dead Men">
Six men agree a pact to meet in five years time and share whatever fortunes they have made. As the date approaches, however, they begin to be killed off.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unruly_Equality" title="Unruly Equality">
"Unruly Equality" focuses on anarchist activity in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s, the period between anarchism's classical era (1880s–1920s) and the contemporary resurgence of anarchist currents. While American anarchism is usually portrayed as having little continuity from the beginning to the end of the 20th century, Cornell argues that anarchism in the midcentury, postwar period both bridged and influenced what would become contemporary anarchism as activism shifted from syndicalism and class struggle to critical analysis, affinity group action, and gradualism. This midcentury anarchism covers bohemian anarchism in the 1940s, which focused on personal liberty and social liberation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Death's_Blue-Eyed_Girls" title="Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls">
Nora Cunningham is a rather homely, taller-than-average 16-year-old girl in the fictional suburb of Elmgrove, Maryland in the 1950s. Her main concerns surround friendship, her plans post-high school, and her hope of finding a boyfriend taller than she is who will love her for her personality. All of this changes when Nora and her friends are on an outing (a party in the park), and discover that the corpses of two girls not much younger than they are have been found shot and killed by an unknown murderer. The neighbours and police are quick to blame Buddy Novak, the local bad boy and teen rebel, although Nora has a gut feeling that Buddy is innocent. This is conveyed to readers with brief snippets of the point-of-view of the murderer himself, who is an unnamed pervert and psychopath never revealed as guilty to the characters. Unidentified, he remains a background force in the book, while Nora finds herself slipping away from her friends, who gradually grow bored of the murders and can't understand why Nora is so fixated on them. Nora questions her Catholic faith and cannot fathom why God would let such a murder happen. She has vivid fantasies and dreams in which she escapes into a frozen bubble of 1950s nostalgia, complete with neon, diners and soda fountains. Here, she can still see the murdered girls. Nora also begins falling in love with Buddy, who plans to leave Elmgrove. The book ends ambiguously, with the killer able to remain unidentified but also not at large, and Nora growing to accept that she alone cannot fix the murders, or be responsible for them herself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Continents" title="Stolen Continents">
"Stolen Continents" covers the period 1492 to 1990 and documents five examples of the colonial theft of land from Maya, Inca, Aztec, Cherokee, and Iroquois people. Wright breaks each example into three stages: initial contact, violent struggles, and modern resistance. The book uses contemporary accounts from native peoples.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grizzly_(novel)" title="The Grizzly (novel)">
David, a teenage boy, lives with his mother, Jeanne, but his father, Mark, is estranged. David often has nightmares about Mark, who was always harsh to him when he was younger; Jeanne threw Mark out after years of him pushing David into frightening activities, although now that David is older, Mark wants to get to know his son better. David dreads this but grudgingly accepts the offer of a camping trip in the wilderness with Mark. Mark is shown to be a very tough, aloof, and conservative man who thinks little of David's intellect or resilience and would prefer his son to be tough, something that leads to tension straight away. While outside, Mark is mauled and injured by a female grizzly bear, and he shoots the bear after David refuses to. Mark is surprised when David expresses knowledge of things such as treating his wounds, and the father and son gradually become closer. They also observe how much like their own family, the other bears in the woods, are and realize how childish their fighting is. David is nearly drowned while fishing for food, and Mark is frightened by this. Finally, it is revealed that Mark lost a brother to a drowning accident in his childhood, which has haunted him ever since and made him feel weak for not being able to save the deceased sibling. He and David can reach a telephone and call Jeanne, promising that one day they will take her to the wilderness with them so she can see its splendor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danilov,_the_Violist" title="Danilov, the Violist">
Beyond the human world, there exists a demon world, commonly referred to in the novel as "The Nine Circles" (although they have very little in common with Dante's Nine Circles of Hell). The circles are organized further into chanceries. The demons have access to knowledge about the entire universe, which they study in great detail, and to magic, and loves to both imitate the human world(which they call "That World") and to cause troubles for the humans.In 1970s Moscow, Vladimir Alekseyevich Danilov is a violist for a prestigious orchestra, living in Ostankino. On the outside, he seems to be an ordinary, mild-mannered man. Only one person, the Unknown Narrator, knows that Danilov is secretly a half-demon with fantastic abilities such as flight, shapeshifting, and a supernatural sensitivity to the feelings and desires of humans. Danilov was forced out of Hell for not desiring to work as a proper demon(he was too kind to hate humanity and thus purposely sabotaged his work). He was given instructions to cause mischief and misfortune for humans on Earth, and to never speak to his demon father, who was arrested for committing crimes such as being a Voltairian. However, he prefers instead to help people and devote himself to the viola.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_Little_Girl_in_the_World_(novel)" title="The Best Little Girl in the World (novel)">
Francesca Dietrich is a middle-class American teenager, aspiring ballerina, and a girl who suffers from anorexia nervosa. She obsesses over a fantasy variant of herself, insisting on being called by the name "Kessa" and worrying over the demands of her controlling, strict ballet teacher. Fixated with weight loss and treated like a young child by her family, Kessa retreats further and further into her mental illness, leading her parents to finally recognize it months later, after which they send her to a male therapist. Kessa develops romantic feelings for the therapist, which would cross ethical boundaries if acted upon, and she also deals with the death of a friend in the hospital. As she gradually recovers, various ideas for what caused the eating disorder are explored at length: Kessa detests her emerging womanhood and puberty as it affects her proportions, including her breasts, waist and buttocks. She feels a strong sense of rivalry with her siblings and her neurotic mother and father. She also surrounds herself with controlling people, such as her parents and teacher, with her eating disorder being the one outlet where she gets to make the rules. Kessa goes by "Francesca" again and begins eating small portions of food, hoping to be able to overcome her illness.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Anthropocene" title="Capital in the Anthropocene">
Saito argues that while sustainable growth has become a central organizing principle in global responses to climate change, the expectation of perpetual growth has only exacerbated the climate crisis. He is particularly critical of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), describing them as "the new opium of the masses" in regards to what he believes is the impossibility for the goals to be achieved under a capitalist system. Instead, Saito advocates for degrowth, which he conceives as the slowing of economic activity through the democratic reform of labor and production. In practical terms, Saito's conception of degrowth involves the end of mass production and mass consumption, decarbonization through shorter working hours, and the prioritization of essential labor such as caregiving. The author argues that capitalism creates artificial scarcity by pursuing profit based on commodity value rather than the usefulness of what is produced, citing the privatization of the commons for purposes of capital accumulation as an example. Saito argues that by returning the commons to a system of social ownership, it is possible to restore abundance and focus on economic activities that are essential for human life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Architecture" title="The Final Architecture">
## Premise.The Architects are moon-sized creatures who destroy inhabited planets, including Earth. They will not attack planets with ruins from the mysterious Originator civilization. Only the Essiel, a species of aliens, know how to move Originator artifacts without destroying this protective effect. Many human colony planets vote to join the Essiel Hegemony in exchange for protection against the Architects.Humans invent Intermediaries, a modified form of human that can fight Architects. Intermediary Idris Telemmier helps kill an Architect at Berlenhof, turning the tide of the conflict decades after the destruction of Earth. Later, he and other Intermediaries make contact with an Architect, which seems to notice humanity for the first time. After this, all of the Architects mysteriously disappear.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crow_Garden" title="The Crow Garden">
"The Crow Garden" is narrated by Nathaniel Kerner, a young alienist in Victorian England. In 1856 he travels from London to Yorkshire to take up a position as a "mad doctor" at a lunatic asylum at Crakethorne Manor. The facility is run by Doctor Algernon Chettle, a phrenologist who believes that the shape of a person's skull determines their mental stability. Kerner, on the other hand, subscribes to a new approach of talking and listening to the mentally disturbed.Kerner is assigned Mrs Harleston, a patient from London committed to the asylum by her husband. He demands that she be cured of her hysteria and delusions so she can be returned to him as his faithful wife. Mrs Harleston is beautiful and demure, and Kerner is immediately drawn to her. He tries talking to her but cannot get her to open up. He calls on the help of a mesmerist in the hope of breaking through her defences, but all it does is to awaken dormant abilities in her. She discovers that she herself can mesmerise people, and changes from being quiet and reserved to dominant and manipulative. By now Kerner in infatuated with her and quickly falls under her spell. Using her new-found abilities, Mrs Harleston escapes Crakethorne.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_a_Red_Station,_Drifting" title="On a Red Station, Drifting">
Lê Thi Linh is a magistrate of the Dai Viet Empire who is forced to flee her planet after criticizing the Emperor’s wartime policies. At the same time, rebel groups seize control of her planet and kill most of her subordinates. Linh seeks refuge with her distant relatives on Prosper Station. Prosper is controlled by an artificial intelligence called the Honoured Ancestress. Lê Thi Quyen, Linh’s cousin by marriage, manages the day-to-day operations of Prosper while her husband is away at war. Quyen and Linh immediately fall into conflict.Quyen’s brother-in-law Huu Hieu sells his mem-implants, which are copies of their ancestors’ consciousnesses. Meanwhile, the Honoured Ancestress experiences increasingly severe technical problems. Hieu and Linh become close. Hieu plans use the money from the sale of the implants to leave Prosper and marry his lover on a different station. Linh is upset knowing that she will never be able to leave. A visiting cousin, Lady Oahn, provides schematics for the repair of the Honoured Ancestress. In an effort to hurt Quyen, Linh writes an unflattering poem at a banquet honoring Oanh. In doing so, she reveals that Hieu is trying to leave Prosper. Hieu attempts suicide out of shame, but Linh rescues him. Quyen is able to repair the Honoured Ancestress, restoring her functionality at the expense of erasing many of her memories.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enemy_Within_(Mkhabela_book)" title="The Enemy Within (Mkhabela book)">
The book starts with an introductory account of how the ANC dealt with one of the first serious incidents of corruption the party had to deal with following its assent to power; the expulsion of Bantu Holomisa from the ANC after requesting that the former Transkei Prime Minister and ANC Minister for Public Enterprises, Stella Sigcau be investigated for corruption.Mkhabela focuses on the ANC's "new cadre" policy wherein loyal party members were deployed in important positions in government and state owned enterprises; what the long-term impact of this policy was and how it greatly contributed to the growth of corruption within the party. Mkhabela does this by detailing a number of well publicised ANC corruption scandals that occurred during the presidencies of Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma, and Cyril Ramaphosa. These scandals include the Tony Yengeni controversy, the disbandment of the Scorpions, the Gupta family, Jackie Selebi, and corruption within the Zuma administration generally.In the book Mkhabela argues that by tolerating corrupt practices and shielding ANC members accused of corruption from prosecution or accountability the party allowed corruption to become entrenched in the party and, by extension, in the South African government. Mkhabela also points out how, paradoxically, the presidency of Jacob Zuma was the most vocal about fighting corruption within the ANC even though it was also regarded as the most corrupt. The book ends with asking if South Africa will be able to deal with corruption before it destroys the country.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapvona" title="Lapvona">
In Lapvona, a corrupt medieval fiefdom, deformed 13 year-old Marek lives with his cruel shepherd father Jude and was nursed from birth by the village witch. When Marek commits a crime, the cruel lord Villiam demands that Jude give Marek to him as reparations, and Marek goes to live in his castle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ever_After_(novel)" title="Ever After (novel)">
Academic Bill Unwin sits in his college room, recovering from his suicide attempt and thinking back over his life. Starting with his childhood in Paris where his aloof father successfully committed suicide, and his mother had a relationship with an American, Sam who made a fortune in plastics and then became his stepfather. The narration them moves to 1950's Soho where Bill marries Ruth, an actress who later dies of lung cancer. Throughout his life Bill never reconciled himself to his successful stepfather, who attempts and fails to build bridges with Bill. The other strand is the private notebooks of a Victorian predecessor Matthew Pearce which are entrusted to Bill. They notebooks show the breakdown of his relationship with his wife and father-in-law over his unshakeable belief in Darwinism, and Bill tries to square them with his own identity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobbin_Up" title="Bobbin Up">
The book is divided into one- or two-chapter vignettes. The book finishes on an open-ended note, stating that even if they get nowhere, at least they stayed together. They are "in for a long wait".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unclay" title="Unclay">
Death arrives to the obscure village of Little Dodder, Dorsetshire carrying a parchment of orders he must deliver with the names of two local mortals and the word "unclay" on it. After losing this important document, he's obliged to stay in Little Dodder until he finds it. Mr. John Death, as the villagers call him, grows interested in human life and decides to take a vacation from his reaping. All the old sins such as lust, avarice, and greed, as well as loving kindness abound in the village.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobody_Move_(novel)" title="Nobody Move (novel)">
"Nobody Move" is told from a third-person limited omniscient point-of-view and presented in four parts.The story unfolds in rural and urban settings north of Sacramento, California.Firearms abound in the novel, among them, "a huge Colt revolver", "a Winchester Pistol-grip shotgun loaded with "00 Buck", and a ".356 Magnum" handgun. Automobiles, including late model Cadillac Broughams, a Jaguar, a 1951 Coupe de Ville and a Ford pickup also appear as plot devices.Jimmy Luntz (referred to as Luntz by the narrator, and as Jimmy in the dialogue exchanges) is a gambling addict and an inept petty criminal. Luntz is prone to unexpected "lucky feelings", premonitions that routinely fail to materialize. When the story opens "in media res", he is employed as a singer in a no-talent Barbershop chorus.In debt for a few thousand dollars to the gang leader Juarez, Luntz is targeted for assassination by henchman Ernest "Gambol" Gambolini. Luntz foils the hit-man, shooting and wounding him in the leg. Gambol and Juarez, both sociopaths, swear revenge. Luntz, now on the run, has a chance encounter with the strikingly beautiful Anita Desilvera, a high-functioning alcoholic and wife to the local county prosecutor, Henry "Hank" Desilvera. Hank has conspired with corrupt Judge Tanneau to embezzle $2.3 million. They have framed-up Anita for the crime. Facing six years in prison, she is determined to escape punishment and claim the money for herself. The physically unattractive Luntz and sexually piquant Anita form an uneasy alliance. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_in_the_Lonesome_October" title="Night in the Lonesome October">
Ed Logan is a 20-year-old student at Wilmington University. His girlfriend has dumped him, and feeling dejected he goes on a late-night walk to a doughnut shop. As the long October night drags on, he finds his odyssey disturbed by numerous odd encounters with street violence, sexual predation, and homelessness.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammira_Raso" title="Hammira Raso">
The poet describes his patron Chandrabhan as a descendant of Prithviraj Chauhan, and as the ruler of a prosperous kingdom. The poem begins with a description of the Agnikula legend, according to which the four major Rajput clans including the Chauhans, emerged from a Vedic ritual fire pit. After a Kshatriya king kills Parashurama's father, Parashurama slaughters the Kshatriyas, leaving no one to protect the sages and priests from demons (asuras / rakshasas). Seven sages - Gautama, Lomaharśana, Bhṛgu, Atteriya, Bharadvāj, Garg and Vasiṣṭha - perform a fire ritual while chanting Sama Veda hymns. Then the four Rajput clans unexpectedly emerge from the fire pit.Chauhan, the progenitor of Hamir's clan, carries four weapons (sword, dagger, knife and bow) in his four arms. Shakti, the lion-riding goddess carries ten weapons in her ten arms, blesses him. Brahma instructs Chauhan to overcome all dangers for protecting his religion. The hero fights demons and seeks blessings of the goddess, who becomes his clan goddess ("kuladevi") and is named "Ashapuri".Many generations after Chauhan, a ruler named "Raja" (or "Rao") Jeyat Chohan is born in the village of Barbagao. During a hunting expedition in a forest, he pursues a white boar, and encounters the sage ("rishi") Padam. The sage blesses him, and asks him to establish a hill fort and worship Shiva there. The sage describes the particular hill area as full of tantric power. After returning to his court, the king starts building a fortified town, which is named Ranthambor. The Bhils, who inhabit the mountain, acknowledge his power and recognize him as their sovereign. During the construction of the fort, the wall of the portico keep falling even after being raised several times. The king then decides to sacrifice himself, and asks the foundation to be built on his body. Two of his loyal Bhil associates - Ravana and Basava - declare that the fort actually belonged to the Bhils, and the king is merely its nominal owner. They offer to be sacrificed in place of the king, asking the king to take care of Ravana's son Bhoj. Accordingly, the two Bhils are beheaded and their heads are used as foundation stones. The wall built on this foundation does not collapse.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kōkyū_Shōsetsu" title="Kōkyū Shōsetsu">
Set in a fictional country reminiscent of early 17th century China, the novel depicts the bizarre fate of Ginga, a young girl who volunteers to be a candidate for the new emperor's queen.In the first year of the Kai calendar, candidates for the position of queen were gathered from all over the country to the inner palace of the new emperor of the Sokan Empire, who succeeded his predecessor who had died during sex.Ginga, a 14-year-old country girl from Oda Prefecture, thought the inner palace would be a fun place to study and have three meals and a nap, so she volunteered to be a candidate for queen. She was successful in her bid to enter the palace.Fearless Ginga achieved excellent grades in eccentric lectures at the women's university, and succeeded in obtaining the throne of the lawful wife.However, at the most inopportune moment, a rebel uprising broke out, and Ginga was forced to organize an inner palace unit to fight the rebels.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokkō_(novel)" title="Bokkō (novel)">
The story takes place in China during the Warring States period. Liang is a small province between the great powers Zhao and Yan, and was about to be invaded by Zhao. The King of Liang asks the Mohists for help as a last resort. The Mohists were a unique group of thinkers who preached "non-war and love" and went wherever to help defend castles and towns if required.The people of Liang had hoped that the Mohists would send a group of excellent military strategists to defeat Zhao, but only one strategist, named Kakuri, appeared. The Mohist organization founded by Mozi was then under the third generation of leadership, and corrupt. Under such circumstances, Kakuri, loyal to the Mohists' ideology, defied the leader's orders and rode alone to defend the walled city, Liangcheng. None of the lord's clans, chief vassals, or the peasants accommodated in the citadel have any experience in warfare, nor does he have the cooperation of the Mohists. Against this backdrop, Kakuri leads thousands of villagers with amazing strategy and skill to defeat the large army of Zhao, consisting of over ten thousand professional soldiers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/¡Ándale,_Prieta!" title="¡Ándale, Prieta!">
In the book, Ramírez tells about growing up in El Paso, Texas. The stars of the book are the women in her life: her great grandmother Lupe, her mother Leticia, and most importantly, her grandmother Ita.In the second half of the book she also explores her strained relationship with her absent father.The title reclaims the sometimes derogatory term , which her grandmother used as a nickname for the author, but which is often used in Spanish as a slur to describe people with dark skin.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Sky_(novel)" title="Big Sky (novel)">
Jackson has separated from his partner Julia and now lives in a village on the coast of North Yorkshire with the occasional company of his teenage son Nathan and an ageing Labrador Dido. He is still a private investigator, mostly his clients asking him to investigate suspicious spouses. He then has a chance rescue of a man on a clifftop. Jackson is then involved in a plot involving human trafficking and murder. With several of the characters from previous outings making appearances in the new novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beautiful_Country_(book)" title="Beautiful Country (book)">
In "Beautiful Country", Wang writes about the hardships that she and her parents faced upon their arrival to the United States in 1994, as undocumented immigrants from China. She discusses the numerous challenges she faced of growing up in poverty, and how she emerged from all of it with her dreams intact.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sai_Ying_Pun_(novel)" title="Sai Ying Pun (novel)">
Ah Wang is a railway security guard stationed at the newly built Sai Ying Pun Station. Shortly after the station's opening, Wang is attacked and knocked out by a mysterious beast while he is on patrol. He wakes up in a hospital, with a man named Ga Yin warns him not to return to the Station in the meantime. However, two weeks later, Wang is forced to take the Island line and mysteriously blacks out on the train. He regains consciousness and finds himself trapped on the train with four others. The train ultimately stops at the Sai Ying Pun Station after a ridiculously lengthy ride. The group tries to leave the station, only to be attacked at the exit with Ga Leung killed and the gang is forced to split up. Wang later meets his colleague, Uncle Tat, in the dungeons and Tat informs him about the subterrane, a group of living creatures inhabited underground and would "harvest" skins of humans to hijack their bodies. Before Tat can finish, they are attacked by the subterranes again and Wang is knocked out again in the chase.Wang wakes up and finds himself being saved by a young girl called "April". "April" admits that she is a subterrane who wants both races to live separately and peacefully. She was one of the representatives who tried to establish a diplomatic relationship with the United Kingdom and Soviet Union and the two races built the Whitty Station as a connection hub, before a war that caused the subsidence of Whitty Station broke out. "April" and her human friend April were both severely injured in the battle and April sacrificed herself by allowing "April" to harvest and live in her body. Wang decides to trust "April". The duo thus head to the lair of the subterranes and try to save Pak Gor and Tracy, but Pak Gor is already transformed and Wang puts him out of mercy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Years_(Ernaux_novel)" title="The Years (Ernaux novel)">
In the book, Ernaux writes about herself in the third person ("elle", or """she" in English) for the first time, providing a vivid look at French society just after the Second World War until the early 2000s. It is the moving social story of a woman and of the evolving society she lived in. With this feature of book, Edmund White described it as a "collective autobiography", in his review for "The New York Times".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Japanese_Lover" title="The Japanese Lover">
The story is set in 2015 and first introduces us to octogenarian Alma Belasco who is moving in the Lark House, a retirement home for quirky individuals in San Francisco. Here we are also introduced to Lark House's caretaker Irina Bazili, a young Moldovan immigrant who seems to have some intense trauma of her own. Because of her nature, Irina is hired by Alma as her personal secretary. As the story progresses we are introduced to a secret admirer of Alma, through a series of letters, notes and gifts. Accompanying Alma on recovering these clues are Irina and Alma's grandson Seth who's in love with Irina. As Irina becomes closer to Seth and Alma, she discovers the photo of a man in Alma's room, who Alma introduces as Ichimei Fukuda, a Japanese-American whom Alma met in 1939. Alma tells Irina the story of how when Germany was invading Poland in 1939, she was sent as a girl of 8 to San Francisco to her wealthy uncle and aunt to escape the holocaust. Throughout the book we are taken through various momentous events of the 2nd half of the 20th century and also Alma's own experiences. We learn how Alma befriended Ichimei and how they were separated due to the Pearl Harbor attacks, as all Japanese-Americans being sent to Internment zones. We also see how they maintained their secret romance for decades through the means of letter. At one point Alma, got married to Nathaniel, a childhood friend of both hers and Ichimei while still continuing her romance with Fukuda. Irina despite trying to avoid any romance, becomes closer to Seth and tells her about her abusive relationship with her step-father. As the young pair grows closer, Alma grows frailer and frailer, finally passing away one day. The story closes with one more letter between the 2 fated lovers who were never meant to be.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happening_(novel)" title="Happening (novel)">
Set in 1963, four years before the legalization of oral contraception in France and twelve years before the Veil Act, the autobiographical narrative describes the troubles a young student faces when seeking out an illegal abortion.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Midst_of_Winter" title="In the Midst of Winter">
The story starts when during the biggest snowstorm Brooklyn has ever seen, a lonely University professor Richard Bowmaster, accidentally hitting the car of an undocumented immigrants from Guatemala - Evelyn Ortega. This accident, which at first appeared to be a minor inconvenience, takes a major turn when Evelyn shows up at Richard's place seeking help. Not knowing what to do, Richard recruits his tenant, a fellow academic from Chile - Lucia Maraz - in order to solve Evelyn's plight. As the story progresses, it is discovered that Evelyn found the corpse of a dead woman in the boot of her boss's car. So now Lucia, Richard and Evelyn embark on a road trip which slowly unveils each of their pasts. Evelyn's trauma of coming from a country where she survived the murder of her brothers in gang violence and sexual assault, Lucia's struggling to return to Chile, which she has prior left due to its risks. In the meantime, Richard struggling to find love and relationships as a result of trauma from personal losses during his marriage to a Brazilian woman from his time in Rio de Janeiro, which he blames on himself. As the book progresses, Evelyn gradually overcomes her trauma, while Richard and Lucia bond together. The book ends with Richard quoting the line from Albert Camus poem, "Invincible Summer, "In the midst of winter, I finally found there was within me an invincible summer"."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Architect's_Apprentice" title="The Architect's Apprentice">
The novel has an episodic structure. At the age of 12, Jahan flees his abusive stepfather by boat. He arrives in Istanbul with a young white elephant, a gift for the sultan from India. As part of the rogue captain's plan to steal from the palace, Jahan is led to pose as its mahout (keeper). Jahan looks after the elephant, whom he names Chota ("little"), at the palace menagerie. Growing up, he befriends Mihrimah, the sultan's daughter. He falls in love with her, but has no prospect of marrying her due to his lower social status. He becomes an apprentice to Sinan, alongside three others: Davud, Nikola and Yusuf. He assists with a variety of projects, including the construction of mosques, bridges, waterworks and an observatory, and the restoration of the Hagia Sophia. The book spans the reigns of Suleiman I, Selim II and Murad III. Other historical figures featured include Lütfi Pasha, Rüstem Pasha and Takiyüddin, and Jahan visits Michelangelo during a trip to Rome.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/These_Waves_of_Girls" title="These Waves of Girls">
The plot of "These Waves of Girls" is described by Andreas Kitzmann as concerning "a young girl struggling with her sexual identity", while Raine Koskimaa describes the work as "a confessional autobiography about a girl coming to terms with her lesbian identity".The "waves" of girls are "supposed to be about different moments in girlhood, different kinds of girls, different ways of discursively producing the girl. There are so many layers of stories of girls as victims, as victimisers, as cruel, as strong, as just so many different things at once", Fisher explained in a television interview in 2001.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hundred_Years'_War_on_Palestine" title="The Hundred Years' War on Palestine">
## Introduction.The book begins with an examination of correspondence from 1889 between Yusuf Diya ad-Din Pasha al-Khalidi, mayor of Jerusalem and relative of the author, and Theodor Herzl, father of modern political Zionism. In his response, Herzl ignores the main concerns raised by the Pasha and in reference to the indigenous, non-Jewish population of Palestine, Herzl quips: "But who would think of sending them away?" The author sees this early exchange as revelatory that Zionism was an essentially colonial project from its inception, and that the Palestinians were never taken seriously and only rarely were their opinions consulted in matters that would determine their future.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Spread" title="We Spread">
Penny is an elderly woman living on her own in an apartment. She once shared it with her partner, a professional painter, but when he died, she elected to remain to hold onto her memories of him. Penny was a painter herself and dabbled in surrealism, but never showed her work. She is determined to manage on her own and rejects all offers of help. One day she falls and hurts herself, and her landlord takes her to an assisted living facility called Six Cedars. When she questions his decision to take her there, he tells her that she and her partner had decided that Six Cedars would be where they would go when they needed help. Penny has no memory of that arrangement.Six Cedars is an 1843 mansion set in a forest, but it has only three other elderly patients and two helpers. Initially Penny resists being uprooted, but soon is surprised at how quickly she starts to enjoy her new home. She eats well, sleeps better than she has in years, and enjoys the company of the other residents. But after a while it all seems too good to be true and Penny begins to observe strange things. The passage of time becomes distorted and her memories start to fragment. No one is allowed to go outside the house, and its corridors seem to change shape from time to time. Even her fellow companions appear to change, and Penny begins to suspect that the facility's director has sinister motives.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unknown_(hypertext_novel)" title="The Unknown (hypertext novel)">
The Unknown is a sprawling hypertext novel about a fictional book tour the four authors are on to promote the "Unknown Anthology". Kristin Krauth describes it as "a satire on publishing and promotion as well as a tough and funny look at the nature of creating hypertext". Brad Quinn describes the plot as "an adventure novel about a book tour for a book that doesn't exist, and it has all kinds of ridiculous behavior, drug abuse and famous people who would probably be shocked and none too happy to find out that they are in the novel."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oppermanns" title="The Oppermanns">
"The Oppermanns" is a family saga that chronicles the fall of a bourgeois German Jewish furniture company under the rise of Nazism.In "time immemorial", Emmanuel Oppermann, a merchant who moves to Berlin, supplies the Prussian Army and starts the Oppermann furniture company. The main characters are his grandson Gustav Oppermann, a writer who is working on a biography of Gotthold Lessing, and his brothers Martin and Edgar. The story takes place between November 1932, when Gustav turns 50 years old, and the late summer of 1933. While the Nazis are quickly establishing their dictatorship, many Germans that do not share their views, as well as some Jews, insist that things will eventually turn around and thus prefer to wait passively or ignore what is happening around them. Edgar, a successful doctor at a Berlin hospital, faces an antisemitic public smear-campaign and is later removed from the hospital by the "Sturmabteilung". Martin, the head of the Oppermann family business, is forced to merge it with an "Aryan" German partner. Meanwhile, Martin's 17-year-old son Berthold is expelled from his soccer club despite his talent for the sport, and in class, he is abused by a Nazi teacher for refusing to express his loyalty to the new regime. Gustav decides to leave Germany and move to Switzerland, but later comes back under a false passport to became an anti-Nazi political activist and to document Nazi crimes. He is arrested and sent to a concentration camp, although he is eventually released.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coroner's_daughter" title="The Coroner's daughter">
The plot of the novel centres on Abigail Lawless, the daughter of a city coroner, as she attempts to discover who is responsible for a murder. The novel is set in 1816 in Dublin. As Abigail seeks to find her killer she moves through Dublin city and its surroundings and visits historic sites such as the Royal Irish Academy, Dunsink Observatory, Charlemont House, and Blessington Street Basin. The novel has both fictional and real historic figures such as James Caulfield, 1st Earl of Charlemont.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrines_of_Gaiety" title="Shrines of Gaiety">
Set in London in the Roaring Twenties, the book centres on the infamous London nightclubs owned by Nellie Coker and her son Niven, the latter having returned from fighting in the Somme in World War I. Their movements are carefully watched by police inspector Frobisher. Librarian and former combat nurse Gwendolen Kelling is approached by an old friend asking her to track down her missing teenage daughters in London. Kelling enlists Frobisher's help, and their hunt leads them to Coker's nightclubs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_Don't_Count" title="Jews Don't Count">
In the opening of the book, Baddiel gives several examples of antisemitism being glossed over in various industries, especially the literary and film industries, as well as political antisemitism. Baddiel also describes the racism which is found in football in detail, especially with regard to the use of the term "Yid". Baddiel argues that antisemitism has become a 'second class racism' (p. 11), and he writes about the antisemitism which is manifesting itself as an underrepresentation of ethnic Jews. Baddiel then proceeds to address several arguments for this underrepresentation, such as the belief that Jews are not an oppressed group due to their stereotype of being wealthy. Baddiel also addresses the idea of Jews being white and therefore exempt from racism.Baddiel then discusses the acceptance in the film industry of casting Gentiles as Jewish characters, and the anti-Jewish impressions in which actors can represent Jews, including an abundance of stereotypes. Baddiel also notes the modern tendency for actors to hide their Jewish heritages, which is rarely seen in any other ethnic minority. Baddiel also briefly discusses the subtleties of the word "Jew" as a pejorative, and argues that antisemitism is racism.Baddiel then continues in a semi-autobiographical manner to consider his relationship with Israel as a non-Zionist, and how expectations of a non-Israeli Jew to be a Zionist is a form of antisemitism. He also considers that guilt for the actions of Israel by Western left-wing Jews is in fact a form of internalized racism, fueled by mass media.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_The_Era_of_Lord_Ram" title="Dating The Era of Lord Ram">
According to Sage Valmiki, when Lord Ram was born, the sun was in Aries, the moon was in Cancer, Jupiter and the moon were both in Libra, Venus was in Pisces, and Mars was in Capricorn. Additionally, it was the ninth day of the moon's ascending phase in the lunar month of Chaitra. With the use of a powerful piece of software, the two slides on the book's cover show that on January 10, 5114 B.C., these particular astral conditions were present in the sky. This book uses Western scientific progress to demonstrate how old the East is.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fortunes_of_Miss_Follen" title="The Fortunes of Miss Follen">
The story opens with a description of Baden and its curious market. The heroine makes her appearance as a young and delicate market-girl, presiding over a table of dainty laces or needle work, the results of her own toil. She is the daughter of a frugal couple who cultivate a small dairy farm on the hillside. She has a male friend in the schoolmaster also, who later on would be nearer if he could, and who meanwhile with his books and talk feeds her growing culture with music and knowledge of art and of the great world outside the valley. She is an apt scholar. An early and happy love fades into a consuming grief; but an American gentleman and his wife become interested in her sweet face and pure character, and her elevation begins. They teach her English, and then employ her to teach their young daughter, Bessie, the German language. Presently, Colonel Ranney appears, a retired English army officer who wants a governess for his two little daughters, and Christine has got far enough along to prove just the one. The story of her blossoming out in beauty both of person and character as these changes successively come to her, is told very deftly and vividly, and in a style remarkable for its purity and its artistic use of the imagination. She is a sort of Undine, born not indeed of the waves, but of the vine-clad soil, and carrying with her everywhere the freshness and innocence of nature. None of these uplifting stages seem to be at all foreign to her, and after seeing her graceful motions and hearing her sing at her spinning wheel on her mother's porch, we feel that she has a soul within her, however she came by it, that is capable of everything which is attributed to her afterwards. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracul_(novel)" title="Dracul (novel)">
From within Bran Castle, Bram writes in his diary about his childhood days, largely spent bedridden in Dublin, with his siblings, Matilda and Thornley, and nanny, Ellen Crone. The Stoker children become suspicious of Ellen following a series of deaths in nearby towns. After Bram is miraculously healed from his ailments, she suddenly disappears into a bog without a trace. Matilda later departs for Paris to study, and returns after some years to report that she has once again seen Ellen, albeit unaged. They set off to investigate Ellen, eventually revealing her connection to Dracula.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Sir_Massingberd" title="Lost Sir Massingberd">
Sir Massingberd Heath neither feared God nor regarded man. His property was entailed, the next heir being his nephew Marmaduke, whom he tries to murder in order to sell the estates. Marmaduke is befriended by Harvey Gerald and his daughter Lucy, falls in love with Lucy, and finally marries her. Sir Massingberd in his youth secretly married a gipsy, whom he drove mad with his cruelty. She curses him: "May he perish, inch by inch, within reach of aid that shall not come." Sir Massingberd disappears, and all search for him is vain; many months later his bones are found in an old tree, known as the Wolsey Oak. It was supposed that he climbed the tree to look about for poachers, that the rotten wood gave way, and he slipped into the hollow trunk, whence he could not escape. Had he not closed up the public path which skirted the tree, his cries for help must have been heard. With his disappearance and death all goes well with the households on which the blight of his evil spirit had fallen, and the story ends happily.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Shock" title="A Shock">
The book follows a group of loosely connected characters appearing, disappearing, and reappearing around contemporary London. The nine chapters are "The Party", "The Camera", The Sweat", "The Joke", "The Story", "The Flat", "The Pigeon", "The Meeting" and "The Song". It has a number of characters that experience different social issues on different levels; sexuality, racism, drugs, class struggle, troubles finding accommodation in a progressively changing city. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrish" title="Hurrish">
The scene is laid in County Clare during the Land War. Horatio, or Hurrish O'Brien, the big, kindly, simple farmer, gives poor, pretty Ally a home, and is a father to weak, vain Maurice Brady; but he becomes the victim of fate. His fierce old mother is an ardent patriot. They live in the midst of Fenians, but he will not strike a blow for rebellion. Maurice Brady’s brutish brother Mat, hated by all, shoots at Hurrish from his hiding-place; Hurrish strikes one blow in self-defence, kills him, and is betrayed to the police by Maurice. Hurrish is tried and acquitted, but Maurice murders him in spite of Ally's warnings. Ally, though betrothed to Maurice, loves Hurrish without knowing it. Hurrish, in his devotion to Maurice, acquits him on his death-bed. Ally becomes a nun; Maurice goes to America, where he makes a fortune, but is shunned by his countrymen as an informer and a traitor. Hurrish's memory is cherished in his native village. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_and_His_Dog_(narrative)" title="A Man and His Dog (narrative)">
In "A Man and His Dog" Thomas Mann describes his experiences with his chicken-dog (") mongrel Bauschan (or, in English translations, Bashan) on the banks of the Brunnbach in Munich. In the narrative how the day turns out for the dog is decided in the moment his master leaves his garden. If the master turns left the day is lost for the dog, because he goes to town. But when the master turns right, a walk through nature and the hunting grounds will follow and both march on into a romanticised rural world. The narrative is structured into five chapters:In the first chapter ("He Comes Round the Corner" ["]) the narrator and the chicken-dog are introduced. In the second chapter ("How We Got Bashan" ["]), it is described how the Manns got Bauschan. In the third chapter ("Notes on Bashan's Character and Manner of Life" ["]) the dog's fixation on his master (Thomas Mann) and its behaviour towards fellow dogs is dealt with. In the penultimate chapter a meticulous description of Mann's walking area around his Munich domicile in is presented. The fifth and final chapter ("The Hunting-Ground" [""]) is the longest one: In it a visit to a veterinary clinic and various hunts are described.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravenshoe_(novel)" title="Ravenshoe (novel)">
The "House of Ravenshoe" in Stonington, Ireland, is the scene of this novel; and the principal actors are the members of the noble family of Ravenshoe. The plot, noted for its complexity, has three stages. Denzel Ravenshoe, a Roman Catholic, marries a Protestant wife. They have two sons, Cuthbert and Charles. Cuthbert is brought up as a Catholic and Charles as a Protestant. This is the cause of enmity on the part of Father Mackworth, a dark, sullen man, the priest of the family, who has friendly relations with Cuthbert alone. James Norton, Denzel’s groom, is on intimate terms with his master. He marries Norah, the maid of Lady Ravenshoe. Charles becomes a sunny, lovable man; Cuthbert, a reticent bookworm. They have as playmates William and Ellen, the children of Norah. Two women play an important part in the life of the hero, Charles,—Adelaide, very beautiful in form and figure, with little depth, and lovely Mary Corby, who, cast up by shipwreck, is adopted by Norah. Charles becomes engaged to Adelaide. The plot deepens. Father Mackworth proves that Charles is the true son of Norah and James Norton, the illegitimate brother of Denzel; and William, the groom foster-brother, is real heir of Ravenshoe. To add to the grief of Charles, Adelaide elopes with his cousin Lord Welter. Charles flees to London, tries grooming, and then joins the Hussars. Finally he is found in London by a college friend, Marston, with a raving fever upon him. After recovery, Charles returns to Ravenshoe. Father Mackworth again produces evidence that not James Norton, but Denzel is the illegitimate son, and Charles, after all, is true heir to Ravenshoe. The union of Charles and Mary then takes place.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spear_Cuts_Through_Water" title="The Spear Cuts Through Water">
In a frame story, a grandmother (“lola”) tells stories of the Old Country to her grandchild. She tells a story about how the Moon and the Water were in love, and together they created the Inverted Theater. The grandchild visits the Inverted Theater in a dream. They are carrying a spear which is their family heirloom. The moonlit body, a child of the Water and the Moon, performs the following story for the grandchild and other visitors to the Theater.The people of the Old Country suffer under the rule of Moon Emperor Magaam Ossa and his sons, the Three Terrors. The emperor enforces his control over the population with the help of a network of psychic tortoises, who can transmit information instantaneously. Saam Ossa, the First Terror, leads the Red Peacock Brigade. The Red Peacocks are all sons of the First Terror, and they regularly commit war crimes against the population. The emperor keeps the Moon goddess, his empress, imprisoned under the palace. The First Terror’s favorite son Jun is assigned to guard the goddess. With Jun’s help, the Moon goddess kills the emperor and escapes.Commander Uhi Araya works at Tiger Gate. Araya enlists the help of Keema, a one-armed man who works for her. She asks him to deliver a spear to a woman named Shan. Jun and Keema escape Tiger Gate with the goddess and the spear. Araya and the other guards are killed by the First Terror and the Peacocks. Keema and Jun travel with the goddess, who is ancient and close to death, as well as the Defect, a disabled tortoise. Inside the empress’s wagon, Keema finds that one of the emperor’s prized birds has been tied up. He frees the bird, which follows them and assists them for the remainder of their journey. They are pursued by the First Terror.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Heart_Full_of_Headstones" title="A Heart Full of Headstones">
The novel is framed by a prologue and epilogue both titled simply "Now." In these, John Rebus is on trial for a crime he commits at the end of "Then," the main narrative (divided into 8 days), which takes place not long before.In this novel, Rebus, retired since 2007, DI Siobhan Clarke, and DCI Malcolm Fox all pursue their own investigations, though the cases come together around a policeman named Francis Haggard, stationed at Tynecastle in Edinburgh. The three of them frequently exchange information or ask each other for help. Clarke is at first working on the criminal aspect of Haggard's domestic abuse of his wife, which has resulted in their separation; Clarke interviews Haggard and also the wife, Cheryl, and her sister Stephanie Pelham, who has taken Cheryl in. Haggard is threatening to reveal the police corruption at Tynecastle unless the case is dropped. Then Haggard is murdered and Police Scotland sets up a Major Inquiry Team (MIT) which includes both Clarke and Fox. Fox, in his time in Internal Affairs (the "Complaints"), a few years earlier, had wanted badly to convict one Tynecastle cop, Sergeant Alan Fleck, now retired; in Fleck's day, Rebus had helped Fleck, giving him tips and setting up a meeting with the gangster 'Big Ger' Cafferty. Thus Fox's concerns push Rebus to recall how he tried both to fit in and to keep his integrity when dealing with Tynecastle. On the MIT, Fox represents the official concern with the old cases that Haggard, but also Fleck, are bringing up. Fox also represents other interests of Gartcosh, the administrative campus of Police Scotland, including possible links with smuggling of cars for Fleck's dealership and of drugs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_of_the_Strongest_(novel)" title="The Right of the Strongest (novel)">
The story is set in a rugged mountain-rimmed valley of Alabama. It is a story of mountain feuds, and of a modern business scheme that involved buying up the squatters' patches of land that belong by right only to the strongest. John Marshall has a vision of the whole valley in which this group of mountain dwellers live being converted into a reservoir for all-round-the-year usage, for the generation of electric power to run a yet unbuilt city twenty miles away, where two yet unbuilt railroads shall cross to carry away the steel that is yet to be mined and melted and moulded. The valley dwellers resent this invasion of the outer world, and John Marshall, falling in love with Mary Elizabeth, who has dedicated her life to educating these people, finds in her idealism and Puritanism a stubbornness of misunderstanding and harsh judgment htat makes the conflict between love and business a fierce one. He discovers that her father was not a traitor to his people, and that the "bad man" of the book was the real villain. Finally, he gives up the secrets of his fight for modernising this region in order that Mary Elizabeth, by warning her people against him, may convince the native dwellers of her devotion to any cause that is theirs. But he fights on and finally prevails on the last man who holds out to sell hisland. From the others whose titles are defective, he merely takes it. The final chapters of the book are taken up with Mary Elizabeth's pleadings for the rights of the valley dwellers to the homes of their fathers in the face of his implacable vision of civilising the community at whatever cost to the few. There is the final stand of the people against marshall, the battle in which he is desperately wounded, and finally, the temporary triumph of the ideal over the material in Mary Elizabeth's order for the freeing of the "hillites" before the sheriff and his posse reach them. John Marshall lies a very sick man as she puts her hand over his mouth and gives this order, to which, perforce, he subscribes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mountain_Shadow" title="The Mountain Shadow">
Set mostly in modern Bombay, the sequel starts where "Shantaram" ended. It's been two years since the protagonist Lindsay lost two of the people closest to him: Kaderbhai, a mafia boss who died in the Afghan mountains, and Karla, a mysterious, coveted woman who eventually married a Bombay media mogul. Now Lin has to fulfill the last assignment given to him by Kaderbhai—to win the trust of the sage living on the mountain, to save his head in the uncontrollably flaring conflict of the new mafia leaders, but, most importantly, to find love and faith.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Assassins" title="Three Assassins">
Suzuki is just an ordinary man until his wife is murdered. When he discovers the criminal gang responsible, he leaves behind his life as a maths teacher and joins them, looking for a chance to take his revenge. What he doesn't realise is that he's about to get drawn into a web of unusual professional assassins (the titular "Three Assassins"), each with their own agenda.Suzuki must take each of them on, to try to find justice and keep his innocence in a world of killers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somehow,_Crystal" title="Somehow, Crystal">
While her boyfriend Jun'ichi is out of town, college student and part-time model Yuri passes the time in Tokyo by shopping for luxury products, visiting affluent neighborhoods, eating expensive food, and seeking new kinds of entertainment. At a dance club she meets Masataka, to whom she describes her relatively frictionless life as "crystal". Yuri has a sexual encounter with Masataka that she enjoys but finds less satisfying than her experiences with Jun'ichi. When Jun'ichi returns, Yuri learns that he also was unfaithful during his trip, but she reflects on her financial independence and decides that staying with Jun'ichi is the best fit for her crystal lifestyle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ransomware_Hunting_Team" title="The Ransomware Hunting Team">
"The Ransomware Hunting Team" is about a small group of computer experts in the United States and Europe who devote large amounts of their time cracking ransomware. They include Michael Gillespie, Fabian Wosar and Sarah White, all volunteers who do not ask for payment for helping victims of these cyberattacks. Authors Dudley and Golden explain how cybercriminals break into vulnerable computer systems, infect them with viruses that encrypt their data, and then demand money for decryption keys. The book highlights some the prominent ransomware incidents, such as the 2021 Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, and the 2017 infection of Britain's National Health Service systems. But because many ransomware attacks are not made public. there are considerably more occurrences than reported.If ransomware has been properly written, cracking it is normally "impossible". But from time to time the hackers take shortcuts, or make mistakes, and the elite team is able to reverse-engineer the malware and construct decryption keys for the victims to recover their data without having to pay ransoms. The book discloses that the battle between the ransomware developers and the hunters is an undeclared cyberwar. It also explains why the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security in the United States are unable to fully tackle this problem. Bound by rigid structures, these organizations are reluctant to work with outsiders, and derisively refer to Gillespie and company as the "Geek Squad". But after the Colonial Pipeline incident, they have begun to work more closely with the ransomware hunters.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Father's_Story" title="A Father's Story">
In July 1991, research chemist Lionel Dahmer was informed by the Milwaukee Police Department that they were investigating a homicide involving his son Jeffrey. Dahmer initially thought Jeffrey was a murder victim, not a murderer. He learned the grisly details of his son's crimes during the trial which he was found to be legally sane and sentenced to life imprisonment in February 1992."A Father's Story" runs chronologically from Jeffrey's birth until his arrest and imprisonment. Dahmer tries to figure out what made his son commit murder, practice necrophilia and cannibalism. He scrutinizes every possible contributing factor to his son's psychosis starting with himself. Dahmer judges himself a poor father because he was emotionally distant towards his son. While reflecting, he "speculates that his own youthful shyness, fascination with bombs and fears of abandonment added up to a monstrous genetic inheritance."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noémi_(novel)" title="Noémi (novel)">
This is a tale of Aquitaine, during the English occupation, in the early fifteenth century. The country was in a state of civil war; and free companies, nominally fighting for French or English, but in reality for their own pockets, mere plunderers and bandits, flourished mightily. The most dreaded freebooter in the valley of the Dordogne was Le Gros Guillem, who from his stronghold at Domme sweeps down upon the farms and hamlets below; till at length the timid peasants, finding a leader in Ogier del' Peyra, a petty sieur of the neighbourhood, rise up against their scourge, destroy his rocky fastness, and put his men to death or flight. Guillem's daughter, Noémi, a madcap beauty, joins her father's band of ruffians; but soon sickens of their deeds, and risks her life to save Ogier from the oubliette, because she loves his son.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Lily_(novel)" title="The Red Lily (novel)">
This novel is the story of an emotional Frenchwoman's liaisons with two men. Madame Therese Martin-Bellème was married by her father to an elderly count, a government minister. After two years of this marriage of convenience she and her husband are strangers in the same house. The beautiful young countess is loved devotedly by Robert Le Menil, and she accepts his love, the first she has known, not because she loves him, but because she is carried away by his love for her. Three years later, she leaves the lover she likes for a lover she loves, Dechartre, a sculptor. She tells him truly that she has never loved another. Le Menil refuses to accept his dismissal by letter and comes to Florence where she is visiting. Dechartre hears of his presence and suspects their former intimacy, but she denies all. Later, in Paris, he hears her name coupled with that of Le Menil, and is tortured with jealousy. She is possessed by the one idea that she must not lose him, the man she loves with all her heart, and tells him again that he is her one lover. Le Menil had gone away to forget her in vain. He returns and follows her to the theatre with reproaches and entreaties which Dechartre overhears. She is obliged to tell her lover the truth. Dechartre refuses to understand that she is not a light woman, or believe her avowals that she has loved him alone, and in a pathetic last interview she realises that her happiness is at an end. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gaverocks" title="The Gaverocks">
Hender Gaverock is an eccentric old Cornish squire, who has two sons, Garens and Constantine, whose natural spirits have been almost wholly crushed by his harsh and brutal rule. Garens philosophically submits, but Constantine rebels; and the book is chiefly occupied with the misdeeds, and their consequences, of the younger son, whose revolt against his father's tyranny rapidly degenerates into a career of vice and crime. He marries secretly, deserts his wife, allows himself to be thought drowned, commits bigamy, robs his father, and is finally murdered as he is about to flee the country.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flossie,_a_Venus_of_Fifteen" title="Flossie, a Venus of Fifteen">
The novel recounts the adventures of an immature young person of distinct cockney type, who begins to fully satisfy her male admirers at a very early age, and manages to retain her physical virginity until the last few pages. According to the publisher Charles Carrington, "The book has no other pretension than to be thoroughly obscene".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trois_Filles_de_leur_mère" title="Trois Filles de leur mère">
In the "Notice to the reader", the author purports to represent a true account: "This little book is not a novel. It's a true story down to the smallest detail. I haven't changed anything, neither the portrait of the mother and the three young girls, nor their ages, nor the circumstances".The author presents the sexual adventures of a young man of twenty, "X***", to whom a prostitute of thirty-six, Teresa, and her three daughters, Charlotte, twenty, Mauricette, fourteen and a half, and Lili, ten years old, take turns visiting, before they all engage in a big staging of obscene games.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow,_and_Tomorrow,_and_Tomorrow" title="Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow">
From "Publishers Weekly:"In "Tomorrow", readers get a backstage glimpse of the creative ebb and flow between two friends, Sadie and Sam, as they range from Zevin’s hometown of L.A., to Cambridge, Mass., and back to Venice, Calif. The book tours popular culture, with her characters alluding to "Macbeth" and Emily Dickinson as readily as they reference such classic video games as "Oregon Trail" and "Donkey" "Kong". "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow ..." also considers identity: Sam is Korean American, Sadie is Jewish, their producer Marx is Japanese and Korean American, and all three catch flak for designing a Japanese-inspired game called "Ichigo".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_Child" title="Witch Child">
Beginning: Fourteen-year-old Mary's grandmother was suspected to be a witch, she was 'walked' until she could no longer hobble, pricked and then tested if she could float. Then she was hanged as a witch. Mary was plucked from the crowd and taken down a steep alley to a carriage, where a lady sat inside waiting for her.&lt;br&gt;Journey 1: They travelled to an inn where Mary had a bath and was given new clothes. The lady told her that she was going to America with puritans, sailing from Southampton shortly. The lady had to stand by her husband as he had put his name to King Charles' death warrant. Mary then recognised the lady as her mother.&lt;br&gt;Journey 2: the voyage: The puritans set sail on "The Annabel", and Mary was befriended by Martha. Pastor Cornwell suffered from seasickness asked Mary to be her scribe. The ship passes many icebergs and whales and see the Northern Lights. In a violent storm one of the women is in labour and Mary helps giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the baby afterwards. Eventually they arrive at Salem.&lt;br&gt;New World:The Puritans do not see their families in Salem as they believe their forerunners have moved inland. Widow Hesketh in Salem suspects that Mary has 'second sight'. The majority of the puritan group follow them including Mary, and after much discussion they take native guides.&lt;br&gt;
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamonds_are_For_Cocktails" title="Diamonds are For Cocktails">
Camille Jeanne-Marie Rogers is the adopted daughter of the blue-blooded barren diamond magnate Claire Rogers, who stood to inherit a multi-billion-euro jewelry empire. She grew up in a royal luxury in the Principality of Monaco, a popular playground for the billionaires, the day her adoption papers were legalized by her mother Claire, where she remained an enigma in the public eye.Her life story embodies the classic narrative of an ultra-wealthy heiress and socialite who was swept away by a rich woman, but eventually searches for the true meaning of life. Since her adoption, Claire carefully grooms her young daughter for the inevitable — that she will one day take over the business when she comes of age — and marries her young lover Jacques Phillip Martin so to complete her idyllic family. Claire owns and runs the company L’Allure, a world-renowned high-end jewelry line among many of her ventures, manufactured in Eze Village, France, headquartered in Monaco with a marketing division in Paris. However, Camille’s early life begins to show signs of trouble though she secretly keeps it to herself. The privileged life where she once feels incredibly blessed with, has now eroded to a mere illusion in her mind. She endures painful memories throughout her adulthood, perpetually haunting her for life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Life_in_London" title="Street Life in London">
The book gives the reader an insight into the daily lives of working class poor Londoners. It is arranged around photographs by Thomson with accompanying text by Smith. The texts are brief, but include detail including information from interviewing the photograph's subjects. Subjects include flower-sellers, chimney-sweeps, shoe-blacks, chair-caners, musicians, dustmen and locksmiths.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Adverse_(novel)" title="Anthony Adverse (novel)">
The story follows the eponymous protagonist, Anthony Adverse, through several adventures around the world. This includes slave trading in Africa, his business dealings as a plantation owner in New Orleans, and his incarceration and eventual death in Mexico.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Blight" title="Shadow Blight">
"Shadow Blight" is an experience of loss and, through poetry, a means of conveying something that would otherwise be too difficult to express. This collection addresses the sensation of being overwhelmed by grief and silenced by the outside world by drawing on the stories of Niobe, whose immense suffering over the death of her children essentially turned her and others to stone. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future" title="The Ministry for the Future">
The book follows an international organization named the Ministry for the Future in its mission to act as an advocate for the world's future generations of citizens as if their rights were as valid as the present generation's. Beginning in 2025, the organization, established as a subsidiary body under the Paris Agreement and based in Zurich, is led by protagonist Mary Murphy, a former foreign minister of Ireland and a composite character based on diplomats Mary Robinson, Christiana Figueres, and Laurence Tubiana. Climate change is established as a threat that compromises the safety and prosperity of the future. While the narrative includes chapters of nonfiction history and descriptions of events from the perspectives of other characters and objects, the plot follows Murphy as she seeks to convince central banks of the threats to currency and market stability posed by the effects of climate change. Specifically, a coordinated global round of unconventional quantitative easing through the issuance of a complementary currency, called the carbon coin, to be issued in proportion to the mass of carbon that is mitigated. The monetary concept, called carbon quantitative easing, is based on a specific real-life policy proposal, called a Global Carbon Reward, and an academic paper referred to throughout the book as the "Chen Paper". In Antarctica, various countries cooperate in a geoengineering project to drill to the bottom of glaciers and pump meltwater up to slow basal sliding while the program incentivizes multiple other simultaneous efforts like carbon farming, sail-driven container ships for cargo and airships for personal transport.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_in_the_Dark" title="Swimming in the Dark">
"Swimming in the Dark" is a gay love story that takes place in the final years of the Polish People's Republic. The present time of the novel is the early 1980s. The main character, Ludwik, has emigrated from Poland to New York City where he follows the political situation in Poland on the news. Written in the first-person, "Swimming In the Dark" takes the form of a letter from Ludwik to his former lover in Poland, Janusz, recounting and reflecting on their past relationship.Some years before, Ludwik, a recent college graduate, is spending his summer at an agricultural work camp in a rural part of the Polish People’s Republic. There he meets the slightly older Janusz, a working-class student from the countryside who has dedicated himself to the Communist Party as a way out of rural poverty. Ludwik has brought with him a contraband edition of "Giovanni's Room" by James Baldwin. Janusz asks Ludwig to lend him the book, and Baldwin's novel creates a shared awareness of their feelings for each other. After the camp closes and the other workers return to Warsaw, the two spend a few weeks camping in an isolated area, and, free from conformist social pressures, their romantic bond intensifies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Dynamics_of_Particles_and_Rigid_Bodies" title="Analytical Dynamics of Particles and Rigid Bodies">
Part I of the book has been said to give a "state-of-the-art introduction to the principles of dynamics as they were understood in the first years of the twentieth century". The first chapter, on kinematic preliminaries, discusses the mathematical formalism required for describing the motion of rigid bodies. The second chapter begins the advanced study of mechanics, with topics beginning with relatively simple concepts such as motion and rest, frame of reference, mass, force, and work before discussing kinetic energy, introducing Lagrangian mechanics, and discussing impulsive motions. Chapter three discusses the integration of equations of motion at length, the conservation of energy and its role in reducing degrees of freedom, and separation of variables. Chapters one through three focus only on systems of point masses. The first concrete examples of dynamic systems, including the pendulum, central forces, and motion on a surface, are introduced in chapter four, where the methods of the previous chapters are employed in solving problems. Chapter five introduces the moment of inertia and angular momentum to prepare for the study of the dynamics of rigid bodies. Chapter six focuses on the solutions of problems in rigid body dynamics, with exercises including "motion of a rod on which an insect is crawling" and the motion of a spinning top. Chapter seven covers the theory of vibrations, a standard component of mechanics textbooks. Chapter eight introduces dissipative and nonholonomic systems, up to which point all the systems discussed were holonomic and conservative. Chapter nine discusses action principles, such as the principle of least action and the principle of least curvature. Chapters ten through twelve, the final three chapters of part one, discuss Hamiltonian dynamics at length.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranger_Diaries" title="The Stranger Diaries">
Clare is a high school English teacher who teaches in an old house that was formerly the home of R. M. Holland, author of the short story "The Stranger". This excites her, as she has plans to write a book about Holland and hopefully solve some of the mysteries surrounding him, notably what happened to his wife Alice and possible daughter Marianna. These plans are put to the side after a fellow teacher, Ella, is found murdered, her body accompanied by the handwritten note "Hell is empty", a quote from "The Stranger" and Shakespeare's "The Tempest". Initially intending to remain unnoticed by the detectives investigating the murder, Harbinder Kaur and her partner Neil, Clare becomes involved in the investigation partly due to her ties to Ella and also because she deliberately hides information about Ella's affair with Rick, the leader of the school English department. The murderer also leaves her messages in her private journal that give the impression that the murderer is obsessed with Clare, particularly after Rick is found murdered.The police have many suspects, such as Clare's daughter Georgie's friend Patrick, but no definitive evidence that links them to the murders. Eventually an attack on Clare's ex-husband Simon prompts Harbinder to recommend that Clare and Georgie go to Clare's grandparents' home in Scotland while Harbinder herself remains in their home, in the hopes of catching the killer unawares. Clare discovers that the handwriting of Georgie's 21-year-old boyfriend Ty matches the killer's handwriting exactly, as some postcards he'd sent Georgie caught her attention. Harbinder rushes to Scotland and manages to catch Ty just as he is about to murder Georgie.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magpie_Murders" title="Magpie Murders">
An unmarried, middle-aged editor named Susan Ryeland receives from her superior the handwritten manuscript of the latest projected novel of the best-selling writer Alan Conway, but notices that the final chapter is missing. Shortly afterward, she learns that Alan Conway has died in an apparent suicide by falling off the tower of his mansion. A suicide-note in Conway's own handwriting is delivered to her office. However, she has nagging doubts about the reality of the events, and decides to investigate Conway's death in order to know the truth, and to find where the last chapter of the manuscript went.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisters_in_Law_(book)" title="Sisters in Law (book)">
The book follows the careers and backgrounds of the first two women to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States — Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg — and attempts to situate their respective biographies, ascent to the court, and judicial records within the broader context of the women's rights movement. Both women met with sexist challenges to their continued careers upon graduating from law school in the 1950s, but O'Connor acceded to the conservative values of putting her family first, and rose to power within Arizona's Republican Party mostly as a volunteer and socialite, until taking the reins as appointed majority leader in the Arizona State Senate. Ginsburg, with the support of her successful tax-attorney husband, chose the parallel routes of academia and activism, founding and heading the American Civil Liberties Union's Women's Rights Project. In this project, she sought to promote cases that would eradicate any formal inequalities between men and women, focusing to a great degree on challenging laws providing benefits to women, which she saw as promoting stereotypes of women as weak and incapable of independent action.According to Hirshman's analysis, the two women used both their judicial skills and court politics to promote women's rights, though in different ways, as O'Connor remained a staunch Republican and Ginsburg was a classic liberal. Hirshman surveys major cases to prove her thesis that both women justices contributed to massive changes in women's rights, especially lauding Ginsburg, whom she compares with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Jane Austen: “Mozart had, by many accounts, five operatic masterpieces. Jane Austen’s reputation rests on five novels. . . . In five landmark cases over less than a decade, [Ginsburg] largely transformed the constitutional status of women in America.”
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Life_on_Our_Planet" title="A Life on Our Planet">
The book opens in Pripyat, an area deserted after the Chernobyl disaster. Its first part, "My Witness Statement", details key moments in Attenborough's career and the parallel decline of wildlife and rise in carbon emissions. Each chapter begins with three statistics about the period which it covers: world population, atmospheric carbon dioxide and remaining wilderness. "What Lies Ahead", the second part, is about the global warming and species extinction which will continue and accelerate if human behaviour continues unchanged into the future. "A Vision for the Future: How to Rewild the World", the third and final section, details measures which can be taken to avoid catastrophe and live sustainably.As a child, Attenborough enjoyed studying fossils. His documentary career began in the 1950s when he began working for the BBC, a British public service broadcaster. He visited places such as the African Serengeti, in which native animals require vast areas of land to maintain grazing patterns. Over time, he noticed a decline in wildlife when searching for fish or orangutans or other animals which he was looking for as part of his documentaries. Areas of the Arctic or Antarctic were different to what the filming crew expected due to ice caps melting. The causes are anthropogenic climate change and biodiversity loss pushing the planet towards a sixth mass extinction event over a period of centuries rather than the hundreds of millennia that built up to previous mass extinctions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberon" title="Cyberon">
Cyberon is the new experimental drug touted to heal Lauren Anderson's brain damaged patients. Dr. Tom Mordley tells her the drug will revolutionise medical science, but Cyberon has plans of its own.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_Sun_(novel)" title="Race to the Sun (novel)">
Nizhoni Begay suspects her father's new boss of being a monster due to her so-called "monster-detecting abilities," and when her father goes missing after his boss, Mr. Charles attacks Nizhoni, she mistrusts him doubly so. Nizhoni, her brother Mac, and their best-friend-from-school Davery must follow in the footsteps of the legendary Hero Twins, and find the House of the Sun after surviving a quadruplet of trials, which will help them get Nizhoni's father back. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sal_and_Gabi_Fix_the_Universe" title="Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe">
One day, Sal wakes up and finds that his annoying interdimensional power has been removed. While waiting for Gabi to arrive to walk him to school, he is visited by an alternate version of Gabi from another universe who he dubs "FixGabi" who tells him that his father's tinkering with the holes between the multiverse will destroy Sal's world. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sal_and_Gabi_Break_the_Universe" title="Sal and Gabi Break the Universe">
Sal Vidon is a young magician attending Culeco Academy. After his mother died, though, Sal developed the ability to reach into different dimensions, and he and new friend Gabi Real have an adventure that spans multiple universes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aru_Shah_and_the_End_of_Time" title="Aru Shah and the End of Time">
Aru Shah is a twelve-year-old girl, living in the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture, who often stretches the truth to please her friends, a trait developed due to her mother's distant behavior. She has a wide imagination and is ashamed to be living in a museum. While she is at home during school break, three of her classmates arrive at the museum to find that Aru lied about spending her time in France. Under pressure, she lights the Cursed Lamp of Bharata to prove them wrong, since she once told her class the Lamp is cursed. She accidentally releases the Sleeper, a demon who can freeze time. After time is frozen in her town and Aru herself is briefly frozen, a pigeon enters the museum and explains that Hindu mythology is real and that she is a Pandava. They leave to find the other known sister. Expecting a fierce warrior, they are both taken back by germophobic Mini. Afterward, they visit the Council of Guardians, where they meet Urvashi and Hanuman. Hanuman reveals that the "ahamas" of the Gods have gone missing and that the places where the Sleeper walked have frozen. Both of the sisters are claimed. Indra is Aru's soul father, while Dharma Raja is revealed to be Mini's.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aru_Shah_and_the_Tree_of_Wishes" title="Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes">
Aru Shah, and her soul sisters, along with friend Aiden, attempt to rescue two twins from a ferris wheel. One of the twins is a clairvoyant, about to foretell a Great Prophecy relating to the War between devas and asuras, but are however delayed from the attempt by a rakshasa. Together, they defeat it. They meet twins Sheela and Nikita. Sheela can foretell the future, while Nikita can control plants. They claim they are Pandavas, although there is initial skepticism from the others. As to find out more about the Sleeper, they carry the demon through a quicker way, known as a Dead Zone, to Amaravati. It becomes apparent that normal mortals refuse to believe in magic, and therefore ignore it. They enter the Zone, however, the people who are banished there attempt to flee with them, causing the rakshasa to wake. Sheela speaks the Prophecy, which the rakshasa hears. It escapes afterward. The twins later get claimed by their soulfathers.The Council of Guardians, concerned, visit Lanka, the City of Gold, as the Prophecy mentions a false treasure.The Prophecy mentions a "tree at the heart", which causes the Pandavas to believe it refers to the titular "Tree of Wishes". They visit the garden where it is kept, but, Nikita reveals it is a fake, and that the real tree, or a hint to its location, is kept in the Crypt of Eclipses, where there lies secrets, which is inside the House of Months. They decide to go on a quest to find the real tree. Since they need a key to open it, they decide to visit Vishwakarma, god of architects first. The quest is kept secret from all others, except Subala the pigeon, as they were forbidden from helping the devas. Aru is unexpectedly visited by a Nāga prince unknown as Rudy, who insists on joining the quest, and claims he can get them an audience with Vishwakarma. They visit Vishwakarma, who, after hearing their request, warns them that a key to unlock any lock needs to be alive, and live things demand answers. It is revealed that the Sleeper once tried to find the Tree, but it is unclear whether he succeeded in reaching it. He was changed after the experience, though, and left "parts of himself" along the way.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aru_Shah_and_the_City_of_Gold" title="Aru Shah and the City of Gold">
The book begins where the last book ended; with Aru meeting her supposed biological sister Kara. Aru is shocked by the revelation, as it implies her father, the Sleeper, cheated on her mother, or that her mother kept Kara a secret from her, but both do no appear to be the case. Kara also claims she is a Pandava, but Aru is skeptical, as there are only five known Pandavas. Kara is dubious as well, as the Sleeper wiped the memory of her past from her mind, so she does not know who her parents are, but claims that the Sleeper is not a bad person. Aru does not believe her. Kara claims that she was starting to become uncomfortable, as the Sleeper sometimes called her his "secret weapon". Kara also says that she wants to help Aru escape, although with the condition that she take her with Aru. Aru is extremely disoriented but agrees to let Kara come along. Kara frees Aru and the two escape. While making their escape, Aru notes Kara's desperation for approval, proudness, and intense knowledge of cultures, especially Hindu mythology. A "rakshasa" tries to stop them from leaving, but they manage to evade it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Only_Good_Indians" title="The Only Good Indians">
A Blackfeet man named Ricky leaves a bar to urinate outside and catches an elk stumbling into several cars in the parking lot, damaging them. Ricky tries to calm the elk but is caught outside with the damaged cars by the white bargoers. He is chased by them into a field, at which point he sees the reflections of the eyes of a herd of elk. Ricky is beaten to death.The story then moves to Lewis, one of Ricky's childhood friends who has likewise moved off their reservation. Lewis is married to a white woman named Peta and works as a postal worker. One night while fixing a light, Lewis sees the image of a dead elk on the floor below and almost falls to his death, but is saved by Peta at the last moment. Lewis begins to shamefully reminisce on an event from his adolescence involving an elk and seeks to cause the vision to repeat by marking out the shape of the elk on his floor. He is helped by his coworker Shaney, a Crow woman who makes him uncomfortable due to their white coworkers projecting a romance onto them. Over several days, Lewis catches more glimpses of the elk and conveys his story to Shaney and Peta. As a teenager, Lewis and Ricky and their friends Gabe and Cass pursued a herd of elk into the elders' section of the reservation, where they were not legally or traditionally allowed to hunt. In the story, the boys kill several elk and rush to field dress them. Lewis is disturbed that the elk he shot, a young female, has not died. Lewis shoots the elk again. Upon dressing it, Lewis is horrified to find it is pregnant. He removes the fetus and buries it. He commits to using every portion of the mother elk and giving her meat away to the elders of the reservation. When returning to their truck, the boys are stopped by the game warden and made to dispose of the elk carvings.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cry_Macho" title="Cry Macho">
Michael "Mike" Milo is a divorced alcoholic and experienced rodeo star in Galveston, Texas. Suffering from tennis elbow and severe headaches, Mike arrives late to the rodeo stadium he works at, run by Howard Polk. Participating in an event where he attempts to "ride out" a horse, Mike is trampled and hospitalized with a broken leg.At the hospital, Mike reflects on losing his parents at the age of five, dropping out of college after his grandparents died in a house fire, working alongside his first employer who once tasked him with putting down a dozen horses, and his eventual path into becoming a rodeo cowboy.A few weeks later, Mike is discharged from the hospital with a weak leg. Upon returning to the stadium, Mike is surprised to find out that he has been laid off. The next day, Mike finds out that his ex-wife Donna has remarried. Saddened by the news, Mike sells most of his awards and prized possessions at a local bar.Following his divorce five years ago, Howard lost custody of his only son, Rafael "Rafo" Polk, who was then sent to Mexico to live with his mother. Howard meets with Mike and attempts to persuade him into kidnapping Rafo and transporting him back to Texas, promising $50,000 through ransom money from Rafo's mother. Initially rejecting the offer, Mike remembers the time he unsuccessfully defended a prostitute named Cissy Brewer from Ewell Macmillian, the former owner and co-founder of the rodeo stadium, who forced a horse onto Cissy. Ewell was given a suspended sentence, and he was replaced by Howard shortly after. Cissy, who had been traumatized by the event, became homeless and mentally ill. In the present, Mike decides to help Howard retrieve his son.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparent_City" title="Transparent City">
In Luanda, Angola, a flooded apartment building is home to many vibrant families. The story is centered around Odonato who lives on the sixth floor of the Maianga Building with his wife, Xilisbaba, their daughter, Amarelinha, and Granma Kunjikise. While searching for his lost son, Odonato's flesh becomes transparent as Luanda becomes unrecognizable. When his son, Ciente-the-Grand, stumbles into the Maianga Building late at night, bloodied from trying to rob someone's house, Little Daddy mistakes him for a thief. Little Daddy warns the other residents by whistling twice. Nga Nelucha hears the whistle on the fourth floor and wakes her husband, Edú. Edú takes a broom and bangs the ceiling to wake Comrade Mute, while Odonato's family wakes up at the same time. When everyone descends to see who it is, they learn that Ciente-the-Grand was shot up the buttocks. Ciente-the-Grand can not go to the hospital for fear that he will be arrested for attempted robbery. Unable to receive proper care, Ciente leaves the apartment and collapses outside of the building. A group of six policemen believe that Ciente is a "pot-head" and attempt to kick him awake, then take him into their police car.While searching for his son, Odonato runs into Superintendent Gadinho who helps to locate his son. He discovers that the policemen took him down to a police station with a strict commanding officer. Odonato is told that the commanding officer wants food in exchange for his son, but every time Odonato delivers food to the police station, the policemen eat it. He goes to the station one last time, but he discovers that Ciente was consigned to the fourteenth district cemetery three days ago.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kissing_the_Coronavirus" title="Kissing the Coronavirus">
The book centers around a romance between Alexa Ashingtonford, a researcher tasked with curing the coronavirus, and an anthropomorphized version of the COVID-19 virus.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Ignore_Him" title="Just Ignore Him">
The book is about Davies' early childhood, including the death of his mother and sexual abuse by his father. It covers how these events affected him throughout his life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Storm_Runner" title="The Storm Runner">
Zane Obispo's favorite activity to partake in when he's not at school is exploring the sleeping volcano in his own backyard. One day, while discovering new cracks and creases in the mountain, a small airplane crashes into it, disturbing Zane and his three-legged dog Rosie. Soon after the accident, a mysterious girl named Brooks appears at Zane's doorstep, demanding that she and Zane meet up at the volcano. Zane agrees, trying to impress Brooks, and she explains to him that "myths are real" and the volcano is actually a centuries-old prison for the Mayan god of death, whose destiny is linked to Zane's. Zane's neighbor Ms. Cab, who is a psychic, explains to Zane that his father, who was left when Zane was an infant, is Hurakan, a Mayan deity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strange_Case_of_the_Alchemist's_Daughter" title="The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter">
Mary Jekyll is alone and quickly running out of money following her mother's death. As clues arise to indicate that Edward Hyde, her father's former friend and a murderer, may be nearby, Mary becomes curious about the secrets of her father's past. As she discovers that a reward is on offer for information leading to Hyde's capture, she realizes that investigating the mysteries of her family could solve all of her financial woes.Following the trail of money sent by her mother to a religious order, the hunt soon leads her to Diana, Hyde's daughter. Diana is a feral child who was left to be raised by nuns. Diana informs Mary that they are actually half sisters, a truth Mary finds difficult to accept. Mary's investigation crosses that of Scotland Yard, who are investigating a series of murders of women in the area, and becomes acquainted with Sherlock Holmes. Holmes and Dr. Watson help Mary in her continued search for Hyde. In the process, Mary discovers and befriends other "monstrous" daughters of infamous scientists, all of whom have been created through terrifying experimentation: Beatrice Rappaccini, Catherine Moreau, and Justine Frankenstein.When their investigations lead them to the discovery of The Alchemists Society, a secret organization of immoral and power-crazed scientists, the horrors of their past return. Now it is up to the monsters to finally triumph over the monstrous.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_Another_Timeline" title="The Future of Another Timeline">
In 1992, after a confrontation at a riot grrrl concert, 17-year-old Beth finds herself in a car with her friend's abusive boyfriend dead in the back seat, and agrees to help her friends hide the body. The event sets the young women on a path of escalating violence and vengeance as they realize how many other young women in the world need protecting as well.In 2022, Tess is a geologist who is one of a team of time-traveling scholars, and she hops to key moments in history to change the timeline and create a better future. But rewriting the timeline isn’t as simple as it may seem. As Tess observes, “change is never linear and obvious. Often progress only becomes detectable when it inspires a desperate backlash”. Tess and Beth’s stories intertwine as war breaks out across the timeline -- an incel-like anti-women group of men from the future is threatening to destroy time travel and leave only a small group with the power to shape the past, present, and future, in which women have been genetically engineered into subservience. This group is dedicated to stopping Tess and her colleagues at any cost. Tess travels backwards in time to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, where she and her cohort take on nineteenth-century moralist and anti-family-planning crusader Anthony Comstock, the inspiration for the futuristic cabal. Throughout, Tess jumps back and forth to her present and to Beth's 1990's, experiencing different futures that develop along the way. For example, in all the timelines, Beth has an abortion after getting pregnant by Hamid. But in the original timeline, in which abortion is illegal, the experience is traumatic and humiliating, whereas in the timeline edited by Tess and her friends, it is a respectful and professional procedure, and the lack of trauma enables Beth to reconnect with Hamid. This leads to her telling him about her father's abusive behavior, and his support gives her the courage to turn to the authorities and break away from her parents. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silence_(novel)" title="The Silence (novel)">
In 2022, on the night of the Super Bowl, Jim Kripps and his wife Tessa Berens are flying from Paris to their home in Newark, New Jersey when their plane crash-lands. In their Manhattan apartment, married couple Diane Lucas and Max Stenner are waiting for Jim and Tessa to arrive to their Super Bowl party. Martin Dekker, one of Diane's former physics students, is the only guest who has arrived. Suddenly, the world's technology systems go dark.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Lives_of_Church_Ladies" title="The Secret Lives of Church Ladies">
The collection consists of nine stories that explore the intersection of sexuality and Christianity. Black women protagonists appear in each story. Topics covered include infidelity, casual sex, and lesbian relationships.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brit(ish)" title="Brit(ish)">
Hirsch grew up in Wimbledon, London with a white English father and Ghanaian mother who had emigrated to Britain. She describes them as working hard to provide her with a middle-class upbringing. She was privately educated. Her classmates and the characters she saw in fiction were predominantly white. Hirsch writes that though people around her claimed to not notice race, she was treated differently because of her race, such as with security guards at shops giving her more scrutiny, and taught that "being black is bad". Hirsch attended the University of Oxford, where she felt alien because of her race. As a young adult, she worked in Senegal. She became a barrister and then a journalist.Hirsch talks about the Black Lives Matter movement and criticizes the frequency with which black men are killed by law enforcement. Hirsch objects to the United Kingdom policy of "stop and search", finding it overly harassing to black men. She recounts incidents from her journalism career relating to race, such as meeting with far-right English Defence League members and attending a club in which white men watched as their white partners had sex with black men.The book also describes the history of slavery in Britain and its colonisation of Ghana.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juna's_Jar" title="Juna's Jar">
Juna, a Korean-American girl, is best friends with Hector, her neighbor in Koreatown. The two kids would usually play together in a park nearby, which included collecting interesting objects and insects they found during their time playing. They stored these items in Juna's old kimchi jar, and then released after observing them.One day, Juna found out Hector is no longer living with his grandmother, and was sent to live with his parents in a far away place, without saying goodbye. Her older brother, Minho, to help her, adds a variety of things to the jar each day (a small fish, some twigs, a bean plant), and each night Juna goes on a journey inside it, looking for Hector.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ladies_of_Mandrigyn" title="The Ladies of Mandrigyn">
"The Ladies of Mandrigyn" is a novel in which a female resistance trains to fight for their occupied territory against an evil sorcerer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Education_(novel)" title="My Education (novel)">
Regina Gottlieb arrives at a prestigious university (unnamed but recognizable as Cornell) to start graduate school. She becomes a teaching assistant for professor Nicholas Brodeur, who has a reputation for having relationships with students. At a dinner party at Nicholas's home, Regina begins a torrid affair with Martha Hallett, Nicholas's wife and a professor at the same university. Regina falls deeply in love with Martha and is distraught when Martha sleeps with Dutra, Regina's medical student roommate, and breaks off their relationship. Regina begins sleeping with Nicholas, Martha divorces Nicholas, and Regina eventually drops out of school.Years later, Regina is married and has a young son. She lives in New York City and works on writing her second novel, balancing her career and family in a way that mirrors the balance Martha had in the beginning of the book. She occasionally sees Dutra, who is a surgeon living in the same city. Regina eventually comes to learn that Dutra was deeply in love with Martha, and hasn't loved anyone in the same way since. When Dutra is forced out of the hospital because of a scandal contrived by rival surgeons, he moves to California. Martha also lives in California. Regina flies to California, sleeps with Martha once, and then sets her up with Dutra before flying back to her family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_Woman_of_Troublesome_Creek" title="The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek">
In 1936 eastern Kentucky, 19-year-old Cussy Mary Carter works for the New Deal–funded Pack Horse Library Project, delivering reading material to the remote hill people of the Appalachian Mountains. Cussy Mary, sometimes known as Bluet, lives with her coal-miner and labor-organizing father, and feels her work as a librarian honors her long-dead mother, who loved books. The Carters are the last of the Blue People of Kentucky, considered to be "colored" by the segregationist white community. Her "Pa", Elijah, slowly dying from lung disease from working in the mines, is determined to marry his daughter off, at any cost, in order to ensure her future security. But Cussy Mary loves her independence, her calling, and the joy she helps bring people with books, and would not be able to continue as a married woman. While the people of the small nearby town that headquarters the library treat her badly as a Blue, at least some of her patrons love and respect her.To Cussy Mary's relief, none of her potential suitors are willing to marry a Blue. But when Elijah offers land as a dowry, the much-older Charlie Frazier agrees to the union. He rapes and severely beats Cussy Mary on the night of their hasty and secretive wedding, but then collapses and dies of an apparent heart attack. Cussy Mary is relieved to be free of the burden of wedlock to this distasteful man, returns home to her "holler", and rededicates herself to her work. A new patron on her route, Jackson Lovett, piques her romantic and intellectual interest, but she also soon realizes that a relative of Charlie's, an evangelical preacher named Vester Frazier, is stalking her as she traverses her remote trails, and means her harm. One night Vester tries sneak up on her cabin, and Pa is forced to kill him. Pa knows that Blues can be hung for less than a white man's death in self defense, and that two dead Fraziers — a large area clan — are too much to get away with. They turn to Doc, a local physician who has long been eager to test and study the Blues, and he helps the Carters steer clear of suspicion in return for access to Cussy Mary. He takes her to a hospital in Lexington for tests, where she is poorly treated, humiliated, and physically invaded, but he basically means well and also provides Cussy Mary with food, which she shares with the starving school children on her route, many of whom suffer from pellagra and are facing death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_and_Maya's_Big_Idea" title="Kamala and Maya's Big Idea">
Kamala and Maya Harris live in an apartment building that has no place for them to play. The two girls decide one day to turn the empty courtyard into a playground. Since the adults do not want to help, and they lack money to buy materials, the sisters begin a campaign and recruit the other kids in the building to help them.By hanging posters around and doing a garage sale, they manage to convince some of the adults to donate items for the playground, as well as acquire funds to buy any necessary material to build it up.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Alone" title="Atlas Alone">
Six months after leaving Earth, Dee is seething with rage towards the people who ordered the nuclear strike that destroyed Earth. She knows they are aboard-ship, but the way that "Atlas 2" is set up, there is no way to contact anyone outside of one's immediate surroundings, nor even know who they are. Other than Dee, the only people who saw the detonation are her best friend, Carl; and Carl’s “sort-of lover,” Travis.Dee tries to escape her trauma through an immersive game. An unexpected job offer by a designer who asks her help test his new game gives her access to the ship's computer, leading to her also being invited to play elite games. In the game world, she encounters a mysterious guide, who hints that they are there to help her. The game she finds herself in is different than any "mersive" she's played before, and she is shocked to learn that a man she killed inside the game has also died in the real world. When she discovered that the man is a member of an elite society also responsible for the destruction of earth, she realizes that she is on the path to discover the truth. While Carl helps her investigate, her cagey guide performs seemingly impossible hacking feats to block him, while protecting Dee, and also inviting her to take her revenge on the destroyers of Earth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ten_Thousand_Doors_of_January" title="The Ten Thousand Doors of January">
At the beginning of the 20th century, January Scaller lives in a big mansion with her guardian, Cornelius Locke. What may seem to be a privileged existence is marred by the strict rules imposed on the red-skinned girl, the meager living quarters assigned to her, and the fact that her father, Julian, who works for Locke, is almost never around.When she was seven, January discovered a magic door, which was then destroyed. Her guardian convinces her it was only her imagination, and determines to raise her to be a "proper" lady. Locke entertains his fellows from the New England Archeological Society, and these men treat January as a curiosity, sometimes making her feel vaguely threatened. January often explores the artifacts kept throughout the mansion, convinced her father—who is distant even when he is home from hunting special artifacts for Locke—is leaving items for her in a chest, in order to communicate with her. She becomes concerned when he fails to return from his most recent trip.January's only companions are Jane, an African mystery woman sent by Julian to be her companion and protector, and Bad, short for Sinbad, her loyal dog. When she was younger, she was friends with Samuel Zappia, the grocer's boy, but as she grew older the contact between them fizzled out.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Song_Rising" title="The Song Rising">
Newly crowned as Underqueen, Paige Mahoney has a great deal to worry about: Jaxon, who has revealed himself as a traitor, has vowed vengeance against her. Scion has stepped up its hunt for "unnaturals"—deploying the new technology Senshield throughout the city, meaning that voyants can be automatically detected. She must also maintain her tenuous alliance with the Ranthen—the Rephaim opposing the Sargas, as the Emim, immortal enemies of the Rephaim, begin to appear in London. Her quest to fight back against Scion takes her out of London, to the Scion bastions of Manchester and Edinburgh, and by the end of the story, it seems her journey will take her further still. Readers get more insight into the characters of the Seven Seals, Paige's "gang", while her relationship with Warden seems to be ever more elusive.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wife_(novel)" title="The Wife (novel)">
On a plane, 35,000 feet in the air, Joan Castleman decides she is going to leave her husband. They are on their way to Stockholm where Joe Castleman, a world-renowned novelist, is to receive a prestigious literary award. Joan describes her husband as "one of those men who own the world...who has no idea how to take care of himself or anyone else, and who derives much of his style from the Dylan Thomas Handbook of Personal Hygiene and Etiquette." For the forty years of their marriage, Joan has subjugated her own literary talents to support Joe's success, and now she wants to stop.The story takes the reader back to the 1950s, to Smith College and Greenwich Village, to the meeting of the Joan and Joe, the development of their relationship, and all the decisions and life turns that brought them to this point, following Joe's success and compulsive cheating—culminating in the outing of a shocking secret at the root of it all.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_Children" title="Heroic Children">
"Heroic Children" retells the true life stories of nine individuals who survived the Holocaust as children. Each story begins with the outbreak of war and concludes with liberation. A short epilogue appended to each chapter informs the reader of the subject's postwar experiences and accomplishments. Photographs of the interviewees as children and as adults are included.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dad_(novel)" title="Dad (novel)">
The novel has a "double plot" in which we read about the protagonist's relation, as a son, with his father and, as a father, with his son.John Tremont, a middle-aged American artist living with his wife and children in Paris, is summoned home to the US to his mother's bedside who has had a heart attack. This starts a long journey in which John, who is later joined by his college-aged son Bill, learns a lot about what it means to be a father and to get old as well as a new definition of love. The story deals with three generations each of which has a different way of seeing family relations as well as the world, but ultimately there is a common thread transcending generation gaps, a "love that binds generations".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Property_(Beatty_novel)" title="Lost Property (Beatty novel)">
A writer, despairs over London so leaves with her lover Rupert, in a clapped out camper van through France, to the Mediterranean, Italy the Balkans and finally to the Greek island of Chios where they help a refugee camp before returning to Britain via Crete. On the way she meets 10,000 years of civilization with many historical figures from Joan of Arc to James Joyce as she questions them on her spiritual journey through Europe.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_(novel)" title="Memorial (novel)">
Benson lives with Mike in Houston. Mike goes to Osaka to take care of his estranged father who is dying. Meanwhile, Mike's mother Mitsuko is visiting and staying at his place in Houston, with Benson.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuggie_Bain" title="Shuggie Bain">
The novel opens in 1992, when Hugh "Shuggie" Bain is 15 years old and living alone in a boarding house in Glasgow. He aspires to be a hairdresser while working shifts at a supermarket deli. He leaves work, placing tin cans of fish in his bag.In 1981, five-year-old Shuggie is living in a tenement flat in Sighthill with his maternal grandparents, Wullie and Lizzie; his mother, Agnes Bain; his father, Hugh "Shug" Bain; his half-brother, Leek; and his half-sister, Catherine. Shuggie's father is mostly absent, working as a cab driver and having affairs with other women. Agnes is a beautiful woman often compared to Elizabeth Taylor, but she is unfulfilled by her life and takes to drinking.The following year Shug moves the family into a council flat in Pithead for families of workers of the local mine. He ultimately abandons the family there, leaving them to live with Joanie Micklewhite, the dispatcher of his cab company. Agnes desires a life of glamour, taking pride in her appearance, but her unhappiness drives her reliance on alcohol. Meanwhile, Shuggie is bullied at school and in the neighbourhood for not fitting in and for being effeminate. Shuggie often misses school to act as his mother's caregiver during her hangovers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Mapp" title="Miss Mapp">
Miss Elizabeth Mapp presides over the High Street of the seaside town of Tilling, keeping tabs on all of the gossip, and directing social activity. She competes in bitter rivalry with a neighbor, Godiva Plaistow, over dress-making, and observes the battles over golf and alcohol between Captain Richard Puffin and Major Benjamin Flint. There are further social wars over daylight saving time, bridge games, and the significance of a neighbor being recognised as a Member of the Order of the British Empire.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucia_in_London" title="Lucia in London">
The pretentious and socially domineering Emmeline Lucas — known to all as "Lucia" — and her husband "Peppino" acquire a second home in London from a deceased aunt. While her Riseholme friends Georgie Pillson and Daisy Quantock seethe with envy, Lucia moves to Brompton Square, where she can social-climb to the highest circles. Her shameless gambits attract a group of astonished followers, including Stephen Merriall, secretly the society-column author Hermione. When Peppino falls ill, Lucia brings him back to Riseholme and nurses him back to health — and then turns her attention to reclaiming her place in her original kingdom.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_a_Teen_Sleuth" title="Confessions of a Teen Sleuth">
In the novel Drew claims that she and Carolyn Keene were roommates together during college and that Keene was very jealous of her. Keene later went on to plagiarize Drew's life story in a series of popular mystery novels, which Drew stated took a large amount of liberty with the truth. When she complained to the publisher, Drew was told that Keene was a pseudonym and not a real person. As the book progresses Drew participates in several adventures and mysteries, many of which cause her to cross paths with Frank Hardy. The two share a deep love with one another, however Nancy chooses to remain with Ned Nickerson because he offers her stability that Frank cannot due to the danger and requirements of his military career. This causes strain in her relationship with Ned, particularly as she and Frank periodically meet up with one another when participating in various adventures. During the course of her marriage with Ned she has two children, one of whom is implied to be the result of an affair with Frank. She and Ned ultimately make peace with each other and remain married, as they truly do love one another, parting only when Ned dies from a heart attack.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girls_in_3-B" title="The Girls in 3-B">
Three eighteen-year-old women, Annice, Pat, and Barby, leave their rural Iowa town and move to Chicago to find jobs and an apartment together. Each falls in love and must make a decision about whether to accept or reject the contemporary morality of the 1950s, which pressures them to make traditional marriages as young as possible. The book deals with themes of rape, incest, racism, abortion, closeted sexuality, workplace discrimination and sexual harassment, and recreational drugs. It explores the Beat culture, "satirizing [its] sexism and machismo". 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_for_the_Many" title="Economics for the Many">
The book is a collection of 16 essays edited by John McDonnell, then serving in the British Labour Party as the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. Figures from McDonnell's New Economics conferences wrote chapters for the book, with contributors including: Grace Blakeley, Francesca Bria, Barry Gardiner, Joe Guinan, Thomas M. Hanna, Antonia Jennings, Rob Calvert Jump, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Paul Mason, Ann Pettifor, J. Christopher Procter, Luke Raikes, Faiza Shaheen, Prem Sikka, Nick Srnicek, Guy Standing and Simon Wren-Lewis. Topics covered include the housing market, nationalisation of industry, international trading, environmentally sound investment in industry, devolution to local authorities and tax avoidance.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_Barracks" title="Women's Barracks">
A group of five young French women live together in a house in London during the Second World War while serving in the Free French Forces.The book is about the lives of the five women, including Claude and Ursula, and their compulsive lovemaking. In the evenings, people of all ages shelter in underground stations, and young men and women pack into crowded pubs, clubs, and restaurants, while high explosives fall nearby. One of the five women has a passionate affair with a well-known and married Englishman, an episode based on a real-life love affair between one of the author’s French friends and the actor Leslie Howard. There are also lesbian encounters.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twisted_Ones" title="The Twisted Ones">
Mouse is a 30-something book editor. Her cruel and nasty grandmother has died, and Mouse travels to North Carolina to clear out her home. Mouse's step-grandfather, Frederick Cotgrave, died some years earlier. Mouse discovers his diary, in which he documents his obsession with something called "The Green Book", his contentious relationship with his wife, and his own descent into madness. Mouse also finds Frederick's version of "The Green Book", typed from memory.Already unnerved by the isolation of the house in the woods, Mouse is terrified to discover twisted versions of deer roaming about at night. When her dog, Bongo, leads her into the realm of the "twisted ones", Mouse barely escapes with her sanity intact. Bongo goes missing, and reappears days later with a message begging for help.With the help of neighbor Roxy, a brassy, 60-something ex-hippie who lives across the road, Mouse re-enters the realm of the "twisted ones" to try to rescue whoever is trapped there. Captured by legions of "twisted ones", they encounter Anna, a woman who has been trapped in the realm of magic since the late 1960s. The race of beings which created the automatons called "twisted ones" have long died out, and the "twisted ones" have been breeding Anna and a very old man named Uriah to try to recreate them. This has failed, and now Anna has lured Mouse into the realm so she can be freed and Mouse can take her place.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deep_(novella)" title="The Deep (novella)">
The "wajinru", are water-breathing merfolk, the descendants of thousands of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard from slave ships crossing the Atlantic. The women drowned, but their babies survived, and eventually developed into their current form. They have built their own idyllic underwater society. Only one person—Yetu, the historian—holds all their often-traumatic memories, so the rest are spared the pain. The historian must suppress all their own personality and desire, and only once a year, the entire community relives the memories together.The burden she carries threatens to destroy Yetu, so she flees to the surface, finding herself trapped in a tidal pool, and somehow able to breathe air. Here, she meets some of the dreaded "two-legs", and in particular, Oori, who is also, in her own way, a memory-keeper of her people. Oori brings Yetu fish to eat, and the two develop a bond. Yetu comes to realize that not all the two-legs are white slave traders. It becomes clear, however, that the surface-dwellers are yet again a threat to the survival of the "wajinru", as energy companies desire the fossil fuels lying below the ocean bed: "Below us, deep beneath the sand, there is a substance they crave. It is their life force. They feast on it like blood."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Worth_of_Women" title="The Worth of Women">
"The Worth of Women" depicts a dialogue between seven Venetian noblewomen over the course of two days. On the first day, the women debate whether men are good or bad and also discuss the dignity of women. On the second day, they discuss an overview of general knowledge of natural history and culture but also return to their discussion of the sexes. Both days also contain critiques and discussions of marriage and dowries.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Little_Lower_than_the_Angels" title="A Little Lower than the Angels">
The novel is told from the perspectives of several different characters, from the fictional character Mercy Baker to the character based on the real-life Joseph Smith.Mercy and Simon Baker arrive in Nauvoo, Illinois, with their three children and another on the way. On the boggy banks of the Mississippi River, the Mormon community is plagued by "swamp fever", and their eldest son, Jarvie, soon falls ill with the same disease. Joseph Smith arrives and, along with Simon and other men, gives Jarvie a blessing, to no effect. Mercy goes out into the woods to collect herbs for her son, and suddenly gives birth there. She brings the baby and her scavenged medicine home to find that Jarvie is already getting better. Mercy slowly recovers, while her friend Eliza Snow and Joseph Smith draw closer. Joseph announces the doctrine of polygamy to the brethren of the church, and then directly goes to propose to Eliza. Mercy witnesses the sealing ceremony of Eliza and Joseph, but is very uncomfortable with the idea of polygamy and feels that her friend Eliza is being taken advantage of. Jarvie and the family's maid, Vic, become romantically involved, but Vic is banished when Simon catches the two of them together. Meanwhile, Emma Smith learns about her husband's multiple wives and feels betrayed, especially by her friend Eliza. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_and_Villains" title="Saints and Villains">
"Saints and Villains" recreates the life and martyrdom of German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who participated in a plot to kill Hitler and was executed at Buchenwald in the waning days of World War II.Raised in a privileged, upper-middle-class German family at the beginning of the 20th century, Bonhoeffer is a sheltered and dreamy loner, indulged and protected by his family. After failing to develop as a musician, he turns to theology, initially as an academic pursuit, not a spiritual calling. His studies lead him to Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he meets Reinhold Niebuhr and social activist Myles Horton. He befriends an African American student, Fred Bishop, who introduces him to the endemic racism in the United States, and takes him to visit both Harlem and Appalachia, where he witnesses racism and poverty first hand. The most impactful of these experiences is the Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster of 1927, in which hundreds of mostly Black men mysteriously die after being pulled off bread lines to help dig a tunnel. Bonhoeffer disguises himself as a worker, actually and symbolically stripping himself of all articles of selfhood: He must hide his glasses, pretend to be mute because he has an accent, and don ragged clothes to fit in. This sense of being depersonalized foreshadows what happens to Jews in Germany upon his return.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_(novel)" title="Spring (novel)">
Each novel in Smith’s seasonal series is juxtaposed with a work of Shakespeare – in this one, it is "Pericles". All of the books also examine everyday life in Britain. "Spring" follows a string of characters and explores themes like immigration and human nature in general, as well as the aftermath of the EU referendum and growing tensions in the UK.The novel has two central narratives, the first is the story of Richard, an older man who is dealing with the loss of someone close to him. He boards a train to Scotland, with no particular destination in mind, to try and escape or solve his emotional turmoil. The second narrative is that of Brittany, or Brit as she is named in the book. Brit works at a detention centre for migrants where she unexpectedly meets a young girl named Florence. Like Richard, Brit and Florence also happen to board a train up north to Scotland. All of the characters in the novel eventually meet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_droga_do_Amor" title="A droga do Amor">
The fourth volume of the Karas series begins when students at Colégio Elite are on holiday at the end of the year and Magrí, the only girl in the class, is in New York preparing for the World Gymnastics Championship. The book, is the continuation of "Angel of Death", "Swamp of Blood" and "The Drug of Obedience", and after "The Drug of Love", it is still published "Drugs of Americana!".As the members of the group begin to fight for Magrí, which was the reason for the group's creation, they end up deciding that it is time to dismantle the "Karas" group. To make matters worse, "Doctor Q.I., the king of criminals", escapes from the Maximum Security Penitentiary. Magrí, the only girl in the class, is the one who faces all the risks to unravel the mystery.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Storm_of_Wings" title="A Storm of Wings">
"A Storm of Wings" is a novel in which an invasion of alien locusts brings a worldview incompatible with that of humanity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapp_and_Lucia" title="Mapp and Lucia">
Mrs. Emmeline Lucas — known to all as "Lucia" — has lost her beloved husband Peppino, who has died since the previous book. Coming out of mourning after a year, she finds that Daisy Quantock has taken over the Elizabethan fête that Lucia originally planned. Determined not to stick around in Riseholme while Daisy plays Queen, Lucia and her friend Georgie Pillson drive down to the quaint seaside town of Tilling, where Elizabeth Mapp lives. Mapp is renting out her house, Mallards, for the summer, and she's delighted to have Lucia as her tenant, since she visited Riseholme several summers before. Lucia convinces Georgie to rent the nearby Mallards Cottage, and he joins her for the summer. As Lucia was the social leader in Riseholme, Mapp is the queen bee of Tilling, and Mapp intends to use Lucia's visit to bolster her own social standing. Lucia, naturally, has no interest in being bossed, and she easily charms the Tillingites — Diva Plaistow, Major Benji Flint, Mr. and Mrs. Wyse, the Padre and wife, and Quaint Irene — who were sick of being under Mapp's thumb. In addition to this, Lucia used a strong chain on the front door to prevent Mapp from barging into her house whenever she likes, and she insists that the gardener whom she has contracted to pay should work on the lawn and the flowers, rather than grow and harvest Mapp's garden produce for sale. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Samba_for_Sherlock_(novel)" title="A Samba for Sherlock (novel)">
In 1886, the French diva Sarah Bernhardt came to Brazil to perform. The public bows to Sarah's talent, including Emperor Dom Pedro II, who tells her a secret: a valuable Stradivarius violin, a gift from Baroness Maria Luiza, has mysteriously disappeared. Sarah then suggests that the emperor invite the famous detective Sherlock Holmes to investigate the case. Dom Pedro II accepts the advice and soon the English detective agrees to travel to Brazil to solve this mystery.At the same time, a murder shocks the city and leaves Chief Mello Pimenta in a panic. A prostitute had been murdered and had her ears severed and a violin string placed on her body by the killer. While the deputy searches for clues, Holmes and Watson disembark.In this story, Sherlock Holmes, dr. Watson and police chief Mello Pimenta will walk the streets of the Brazilian capital looking for information to discover the mystery of the violin and find the perpetrator of the crimes that are shocking the city.The result is a delightful book, in which the fashions and customs of the imperial capital in the 19th century are accompanied by some bolder assumptions, such as that Brazil was the birthplace of history's first serial killer. In turn, the text goes from the playfulness of the dialogues and the enjoyment of Brazilian Frenchism at the time to the hilarious of several scenes, and terrifying revelations about the food, pharmacological and sexual life of the famous detective on Baker Street.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosha_(story)" title="Mosha (story)">
It was an evening in Calcutta in the year 1945. The boarders of the shared apartment at no. 72, Banamali Naskar Lane gathered in the common room and were busy chatting casually amongst themselves on various topics. Bipin, one of the boarders, mentioned about arrangements of eradication of mosquitos in his village. Just at that moment GhanaDa appeared. With due respect he was offered the lone easy chair which was the best seat around, and a cigarette from Shishir as loan. GhanaDa humbly declared that he killed just one mosquito in his life time once on 5th August, 1939 in Sakhalin island of Japan. The story narrated by GhanaDa revealed that he was engaged by a company in Sakhalin to collect amber sometime during 1939. Whern Tanlin, a chinese laborer went missing with a bag of amber, GhanaDa along with Mr. Martin, the doctor, initiateda search for him. Tipped by a "Gilyak" tribesman he landed up to a scientific laboratory set by Mr. Nishimara, an entomologist. It was later revealed that Mr. Nishamara was genetically converting the mosquitos into deadly agents of biological warfare, and Tanlin became a victim of his cruel experiment. When the lone genetically engineered mosquito landed of the face of Mr. Nishimara and sealed his fate by stinging him, GhanaDa slapped Nishmara killing the mosquito and eliminated once and for all a severe threat towards humanity. He declared he never intended to kill another mosquito ever after in his life time. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuri_(story)" title="Nuri (story)">
It was a rainy day in 1947. The city of Calcutta had almost become Venice. Most of the streets were waterlogged, with almost no public transport available. All boarders of the shared apartment at 72 Banamali Naskar Lane were detained for day long and desperately trying to pass time, expecting GhanaDa to initiate his tall tales. Unfortunately, GhanaDa was not in a mood to talk that day and his only activity was to yawn like a roaring lion. It was a complete failure in instigating GhanaDa to open his mouth, and after trying hard for a long time discussing various topics, Ram directly charged him saying, ”GhanaDa, didn’t you do weight lifting ever?” There the story began.The story was based on Efata, the capital of New Hebrides, presently known as the Vanuatu. GhanaDa was there apparently in connection with his business of Sandalwood, and was stationed in the small Island of Aneghowhat () in the south of Port Villa. He met Monsieur Petra, a French man explorer. Six years later he again met Petra in a uninhabited island about ten miles away from Aneghowhat. On the top of a mysterious hill about two thousand feet high there was a mysterious lake high above the sea level. M. Petra was stationed in a cave and along with him GhanaDa dived into the depth of the lake only to find an abundance of diamond embedded in the belts of bluish Kimberlite under the water of the lake. GhanaDa couldn't resist himself from lifting one large piece of Diamond, and BOOM! the island blew up. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_by_the_Tail_(Chase_novel)" title="Tiger by the Tail (Chase novel)">
Banker Ken Holland, encouraged by his close friend Parker, throws caution to the winds and decides to visit a hooker when his wife Ann is away, despite his conscience warning him not to, and when the hooker is murdered mysteriously in her apartment, soon gets into a muddle with gangsters, hard boiled elements, police and politicians which he is left to deal with.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghori_(story)" title="Ghori (story)">
It was a day of Derby, ie, there was a scheduled football (soccer) match between two big clubs of West Bengal, East Bengal and Mohan Bagan. The four close friends, Shibu, Gaur, Shishir and Sudhir, the author, who were boarders of the shared apartment at no. 72 Banamali Naskar Lane, were getting prepared to leave for the football stadium, keeping a keen watch on the time. Sudhir gave his clock to Gaur and said, “Keep it with yourself. You won't need asking the time repeatedly then.” Here entered GhanaDa, with a warning that clocks should not be accepted without a proper check. It could be disastrous. Getting inquisitive Shibu mentioned that GhanaDa was never seen having a clock. GhanaDa replied, “No, I do not have a clock, but once I received some.” “Received? How many, GhanaDa?” “As far as I remember”, GhanaDa replied indifferently, “Two lakh fifty three thousand three hundred and one only.” GhanaDa reminded of a massive Tsunami and cyclone occurred in the South Pacific Ocean on 17 September 1937. GhanaDa's story preceded the event by two months. At that time he was visiting an area covering from Hawaii to Fiji through Samoa, carrying out an import-export business, which was a cover hiding his actual identity. All of a sudden he received two telegrams from Neville and Frank on the same day, requesting him to undertake a secret service mission and to meet the sender at the earliest. They were understood to be Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Franklin Roosevelt, President of the United States. “Were they your friends, GhanaDa?”, asked Shibu. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fools_and_Mortals" title="Fools and Mortals">
Fourteen-year-old Richard Shakespeare runs away when he is apprenticed to a brutal, ill-tempered carpenter. He heads to London, where his brother William is a successful actor and playwright. William grudgingly pays for his training as an actor. In 1595, Richard is a 21-year-old poorly paid actor in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a playing company in which his brother is a Sharer (part-owner).A larger, rival theatre is being built at the instigation of the Earl of Lechlade, so Richard goes there to check out his prospects of switching companies. However, deValle, the Earl's manager, is only interested in giving him a position if he will steal his brother's new plays, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Romeo and Juliet". Richard, despite William's poor treatment of him, turns him down.Richard is tired of playing only women. (Women were not allowed to act in the English Renaissance theatre, so female roles were generally given to boys and young men.) William finally gives him a man's role, Francis Flute, but Richard becomes angry when he realises that Flute is a man who plays a woman in "Pyramus and Thisbe", the play-within-the play of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". As he learns more about the role, however, he sees that it is a good part after all.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imbibe!" title="Imbibe!">
The book is intended as a follow up to Jerry Thomas' 1862 book "How to Mix Drinks, or The Bon Vivant's Companion". The life of Thomas, as well as various celebrity bartenders who preceded him, is also explored in the book. The book describes the history of American bar culture, as well as the development of the mixed drink. Included are numerous recipes for cocktails from Thomas' book, and their historical origins as well as more modern additions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Founding_Myth" title="The Founding Myth">
The book began as a law review article by Andrew Seidel, an attorney at the Freedom From Religion Foundation. According to the author, the book attempts to provide historically correct facts and arguments for its positions and those of the separationist side. It rebuts the idea of Christian nationalism. In four parts, Seidel makes his case with reference to the founders and the colonies, the influence of the Bible in the United States, a contrasting of the Ten Commandments and the Constitution, and the use of uniquely American mottoes, such as In God We Trust.The foreword of the book was written by Susan Jacoby, and the preface by Dan Barker.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive_(novel)" title="Drive (novel)">
Set mostly in Arizona and Los Angeles, "Drive" is about a man who does stunt driving for movies by day and drives for criminals at night.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X,_Y_&amp;_Z" title="X, Y &amp; Z">
The title refers to the French, British and Polish teams who worked on breaking the Enigma code, known by shorthand as "X", "Y" and "Z", respectively. The Enigma code, produced by the Enigma machine, was used from the 1920s to the end of World War II by Germany—later Nazi Germany—for military and other high security communications. The Polish ambassador to London, Arkady Rzegocki, provided the book's foreword.The Polish Marian Rejewski was able to work out the rotors and mechanical setup of the Enigma machine from communications intercepted by France by 1932, provided to him by Gustave Bertrand. Rejewski was a mathematician who used group theory, particularly the study of permutations, to calculate this information. He then worked alongside Jerzy Różyki and Henryk Zygalski to decode intercepted Germany communications, until the beginning of World War II. However, the Germans introduced two additional rotors to the Enigma machine in 1938, impeding the group's success. The bomba, a machine the team invented in 1938, aided them.In 1939, shortly before the war's outbreak, the Polish mathematicians provided their knowledge to British and French teams working on decoding the Enigma code. They escaped to France after Germany invaded Poland and used Zygalski sheets to continue their work. Concurrently, the British Government Code and Cypher School (GC&amp;CS) used the same method. In May 1940, Germans adapted their cryptographic procedures in a way which made this technique ineffective. Months later, Alan Turing, Gordon Welchman and other British codebreakers designed and created the bombe, based on the bomba, to improve their codebreaking.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_What_Inequality_Looks_Like" title="This Is What Inequality Looks Like">
"This is What Inequality Looks Like" is an ethnographic study of low-income individuals and families in Singapore. The book contains 12 essays, written as chapters. It recounts the experiences of both the poor in Singapore as well as social service workers who have interests in the poor. It also provides commentary on the experiences, challenging national narratives of the economy of Singapore, and puts forth policy suggestions to reduce the effect of inequality in a social democratic manner. In an appendix on the research methodology used, Teo stated that she avoided using surveys, interviews, and quantitative methods, choosing instead to rely on casual conversation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cemetery_Boys" title="Cemetery Boys">
Yadriel is queer, trans, Latino, and a brujo (witch). Unfortunately, his family does not recognize him as a man, which has serious effects on his witching ability. Along with his cousin and best friend, Maritza, Yadriel attempts to summon the ghost of his murdered cousin to prove himself. Instead, he summons Julian Diaz, a boy from Yadriel's school who does not remember how he died and is not ready to move on.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka_(story)" title="Poka (story)">
GhanaDa was almost defeated. yes, because he had all capabilities to come out of the most difficult situations winning every time. All started on a Saturday night at no. 72, Bamamali Nasjar lane, when boarders went to sleep a little late after partying. At about midnight there was heard an inhuman blood chilling cry coming out of the third floor attic room of GhanaDa, followed by he himself recklessly running down the stairs. The worried boarders rushed out and asked eagerly, "What happened, GhanaDa?" Upon careful inspection the cause of all hue and cry was found. It was an insect!! When everyone started rolling over with laughter, GhanaDa remained indifferent and calm. Then he asked gravely, "Did you ever have to run after an insect for eight thousand miles? Did you ever have to storm your brain thinking what you would do with three thousand tons of dead insect? Did you ever happen to carry out a desperate search for an insect in the deadliest forests of Africa with a paper and a closed phial?” "Was it this insect, GhanaDa?” “No, that was Schistocerca gregaria." GhanaDa continued, "It was the 22nd December of 1931. The Riga of Latvia was covered under heavy snow, when I was returning from my morning walk…" and the story continues. At the end it was revealed how GhanaDa reached the basin of the river Bahr al-Arab in Sudan, Africa, in the land of Dinkas, in search of the mad scientist Jacob Rothstein. GhanaDa used a contagious biological agent to eradicate the swarm of deadly African desert locust weighing three thousand tons, and yet it was another instance he saved the mankind from an impending disaster.” 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_by_Bullets" title="Holocaust by Bullets">
## Origins of Desbois work.The opening chapters of Desbois’ Holocaust by Bullets details the origins of his work. In Chapter I, he describes the story of his grandfather and other relatives who lived during WWII. His first visit to Poland in December 1990 reminded him of his grandfather’s experience of being a prisoner of war in Rawa Ruska, Ukraine, and prompted a deep desire to uncover the story behind the murder of thousands of Jews. Debois then explains that during the next few years, he began to learn Hebrew, take classes about Judaism in Israel and about the mistreatment of Jews during WWII with Yad Vashem. It is during this period, explains Desbois, that he was connected to Dr. Charles Favre, an expert on Jewish-Catholic relations, public opinion and geopolitics, who served as his spiritual and academic mentor. Desbois credits this training for his position as one of the leading mediators with Jewish representatives for the Archbishop of Lyon. In his first trip to visit the Shoah, Desbois recalls his experience meeting with a village priest who had witnessed mass exterminations in Ukraine, a baker who delivered bread to extermination camps, a carpenter who created gas chambers, and a daughter of the mayor who coordinated the provisions to the death camps. He writes: “I realized then that there are witnesses to the Shoah who are not Jewish: neither perpetrators nor victims, but witnesses.” Desbois describes this realization as a spur to his future work, one that lays the foundation for the rest of the book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_Came_Along" title="Bear Came Along">
A river lacks identity until a bear came along and fell into the river and is carried along on a log. This begins an adventure where the bear is joined going downstream by a frog, turtles, a beaver, raccoons, and a duck. Each has a trait or knowledge and also lacks knowledge of something. For instance, the beaver knows how to navigate but doesn't know about detours. After the duck joins, the group encounters a waterfall. The animals land safely and realize they "were in it together".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scatter_Here_Is_Too_Great" title="The Scatter Here Is Too Great">
The book tells stories of intersecting lives of ordinary people affected by a bomb blast. While some see it up close, for others it's just background noise. The book is narrated by a writer who is writing the story of these ordinary people because otherwise these stories would be lost.The story has been told from different perspective including of witnesses, victims, family members, friends, associates, lovers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Time_for_Mercy" title="A Time for Mercy">
In 1990, five years after successfully defending accused murderer Carl Lee Hailey (in "A Time to Kill", the first book in the series), attorney Jake Brigance of fictional Clanton (Ford County), Mississippi, is assigned by Circuit Court Judge Omar Noose to the case of 16-year-old Drew Gamble. The boy was accused of murder after he shot and killed Stuart Kofer, a deputy sheriff who was his mother Josie's boyfriend. After Josie, along with her 14-year-old daughter Kiera and Drew, moved in with Kofer, the deputy beat them on many occasions after coming home drunk. Josie called 911 several times but never pressed charges. Since Kofer performed well when he was sober and was well-liked by his fellow officers, no reports were filed, and Sheriff Ozzie Walls was unaware of Kofer's violent tendencies when he was drunk. On the night of the murder, Kofer again came home in a drunken rage and knocked Josie unconscious while breaking her jaw. Both Drew and Kiera thought their mother was dead and were afraid of what Kofer might do after he came to from his stupor. After calling 911 to report the situation, Drew used Kofer's service pistol to shoot the deputy in the head. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Pearl" title="Dragon Pearl">
The main character Min, a teenage fox spirit (gumiho), runs away from her home, which is crowded with family members all staying in the same house, in order to figure out what happened to her lost brother, Jun, who was a cadet in the Space Forces before his disappearance. After she leaves her home planet, Jinju, on a freighter ship, she begins uncovering more secrets. She finds the ship her brother was stationed on, leading her to pose as a recently deceased cadet on that ship so that she is enabled in her continued investigation. Meanwhile, she communicates with a dead cadet, Bae Jang, to whom she promises vengeance, in order to maintain her secret. When Min befriends two cadets on the ship, a dragon and a goblin disguised as humans, she learns that they are quickly approaching the Ghost Sector, in which the lost Dragon Pearl is said to have been laid to rest.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_Bad_Heroines" title="Plain Bad Heroines">
The novel is set during two time periods: 1902 and present day. In 1902 readers are introduced to Clara and Flo, students living in Rhode Island and attending Brookhants School for Girls. They are completely infatuated with each other. They also share a love for Mary MacLane and a memoir she wrote, to the point where they create a secret club called The Plain Bad Heroine Society. The two meet an untimely death in a nearby orchard, the site of their club meetings and trysts, stung to death by eastern yellowjackets. Their deaths are not the last in the school, which closes five years later. Three more people died in the intervening years. As a result, the school is believed to be both haunted and cursed. In the modern day, the abandoned school is now the site of a film production, based on a book detailing Brookhants' history. Celebrities Harper Harper and Audrey Wells have been cast as Flo and Clara, respectively. They travel out to the school with the book's author, Merritt Emmons, and the rest of the film's cast and crew, but soon discover that the school's curse may actually exist.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_Power_Money" title="Sex Power Money">
The book has three sections: "Sex Power Biology", about analysing human behaviour through evolutionary facts; "Sex Power Porn", about pornography and cultural attitudes towards the human body; and "Sex Power Money Money Money", about the role of money and capital in modern heterosexual relationships. Pascoe concludes that human sexual behaviour cannot be fully attributed to either evolutionary instinct or rational behaviour. The book is dedicated to Arminda Ventura, who was murdered by her husband after attempting to divorce him.Pascoe discusses the term "sex worker" and the subject of sex work, commenting on the language used to describe people in the industry and her negative preconceptions towards female sex workers as victims and damaged. She researches survival sex and forums where men discuss sex workers. Pascoe also talks about "Indecent Proposal", a film in which a man offers another man a large sum of money in return for having sex with his wife. She discusses transactional sex and rape culture, her own attitudes towards men and possible contributing factors for the behaviour of male rapists and abusers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertue_Rewarded" title="Vertue Rewarded">
The novel opens with a quote from William D'Avenant's "Gondibert" (1651).Set in Clonmel, Ireland in August 1690, the young Irish Protestant woman Marinda is romanced by a European prince in the army of William of Orange.There are two interpolated tales: one about the Irish princess Cluaneesha (set in pre-Norman Ireland) and one about Faniaca, an indigenous American living through the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytonic" title="Cytonic">
After entering a portal into the nowhere, the delver Spensa had come into contact with gives her a choice to enter the nowhere or return to her home. She chooses to enter the nowhere, believing as she is that she cannot give her friends the advantage they need over the Superiority. Spensa emerges at the edge of the nowhere where it crosses over into her universe, the "somewhere", and finds that many areas of land called "fragments" surround the center of the nowhere, which is a luminous sun called the lightburst. She quickly gains the help of Chet Starfinder, a human explorer who has been in the nowhere for 170 years, and deduces that he is actually Commander Spears, M-Bot's previous owner. The nowhere is occupied by rival pirate gangs controlling areas of fragments, and as Spensa, M-Bot, and Chet traverse different fragments containing diverse environments, they hope to cross through the pirate lands into No Man's Land, the area surrounding the lightburst. Spensa, who was told to follow the "Path of Elders" by her delver ally, journeys with Chet to find different portal stones placed throughout fragments. Through the first few portals, she and Chet learn through memories that being cytonic was actually a mutation caused by the nowhere and somewhere overlapping, and that the fragments were formed as a result of this overlap. They witness various species conversing with one another throughout time by entering the nowhere, which was what allowed humans to visit other species and eventually led to the human wars. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_the_Black_Body" title="Killing the Black Body">
Roberts argues that institutional violence against black women and their reproductive autonomy in modern America has been present since slavery began in America. Female slaves were often brought from Africa to America for breeding, where their white male owners would rape them and sell their children for profit. The book details the life of Anna J. Cooper, who was born a slave and became an academic and an activist.Roberts also details the alliance between of Margaret Sanger, an early American birth control advocate, and the eugenics movement of the early 20th century, in order to illustrate how the rhetoric around contraceptives shifted from reproductive freedom to limiting the fertility of poor women of color. Women's movements for contraception were supported by eugenicists who used contraception to decrease birth rates amongst the black and Latina population in the South. Such efforts were aided by anti-miscegenation laws that criminalized interracial marriage or intercourse. Hysterectomies of black women which served no medical purpose, but sterilized the women, continued into the 1970s.In a similar case, Roberts describes Norplant, a Levonorgestrel-releasing implant used for birth control. She documents the court-ordered implantation of Norplant by doctors and healthcare organizations into black women living in urban areas. She argues that the War on Poverty initiated by Lyndon B. Johnson disproportionately affected black single mothers, who had higher rates of poverty. Roberts also describes the prosecution of drug usage among pregnant mothers under the crime of drug trafficking to a minor—their fetus. Roberts cites a study which found that Black women were ten times more likely to be reported to law enforcement for drug usage than white women, despite marginally higher drug usage amongst white women.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Certain_Hunger" title="A Certain Hunger">
The book follows food writer Dorothy Daniels, who is also a convicted serial killer. Daniels narrates the story of her crimes from prison, moving back and forth in time between her life behind bars and the life that led to her imprisonment: specifically the food she ate, including eating men.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_(novel)" title="Chernobyl (novel)">
"Chernobyl" is a novel in which the characters must choose between accepting substandard materials or delaying an already overdue reactor schedule.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Darkness_(novel)" title="City of Darkness (novel)">
The novel is set in a dystopian future. Glass domes have been erected over the major cities in the US, and eventually, some twenty years ago, the cities have been evacuated and closed, ostensibly because pollution and diseases have turned them into a health hazard. People live in sterile suburb-like settlements called tracts, each centered around a mall, offices where the residents work, and an underground railway station. A healthy lifestyle with diets, workout programs, and eight hours of sleep is enforced by authorities. Cars are electric; combustion engines are banned. Even the weather is controlled so that rain falls only during the nightly curfew.Only three of the cities, among them New York, are temporarily reopened to visitors each summer, albeit with restrictions to counter health risks: stays are limited to two weeks, minors must be accompanied by a legal guardian, and all visitors must undergo decontamination (including a lung-cleansing machine and disposal of all clothes worn in the city) when leaving. Nonetheless, the cities are popular (yet expensive) destinations for party travelers, not least because of the “adult” fun found there: movie theaters showing real murder films (movie theaters do not exist outside, and graphic content on TV is severely restricted), or “bedicabs”, cabs in which prostitutes offer their services during the ride.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyll_(novel)" title="Tyll (novel)">
Kehlmann does not narrate Tyll's story in a linear fashion. The chapter "Shoes" that serves as the novel's prologue tells a tale from the middle of the jester's life."Shoes." Deep into the Thirty Years' War Tyll Ulenspiegel arrives in a town where the war had not yet come, along with Nele, an old woman, and the donkey. The inhabitants of the town recognize Tyll from his widespread fame, even though they had never seen him before. Tyll and Nele perform to great applause. The performance culminates in a high-wire act, through which Tyll initiates a prank that causes violent upheaval."The Lord of the Air." This chapter presents the actual beginning of the narrative. The reader encounters his father Claus Ulenspiegel, the miller of their town, who is not like the others: he is able to read, loves books, and desires to study the mysteries of the world. Tyll's father is accused of witchcraft, which results in his trial, conviction, and execution. Knowing his prior life is now gone, Tyll asks Nele to join him as they leave the village forever. "Zusmarshausen." It is nearly the end of the war, and it has come to the Emperor's attention that the "famous jester" (i.e. Tyll) has found shelter in the heavily damaged Andechs Abbey. The Emperor gives the task of finding Ulenspiegel and bringing him back to Vienna to the not quite 25 years old Martin von Wolkenstein. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hood_Feminism" title="Hood Feminism">
The book consists of 18 separate essays. Through an intersectional framework, Kendall argues that mainstream feminism has excluded a number of women's issues, particularly those of women of color, and explores how a number of issues affect women, including the education gap, poverty, food and housing insecurity, and gun violence. Kendall uses her personal experiences of being in an abusive marriage and raising her son in poverty in connection with her essays. Kendall writes that unique struggles differ between women of different communities and comments on the ability of one group of women to oppress another.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unworthy_Republic" title="Unworthy Republic">
Saunt describes the US policy of Indian Removal in the Eastern United States. Saunt highlights the relationship between slavery and the expulsion of Native Americans. He shows that the deportation of Native Americans allowed for the expansion of southern slavery, and for investment by Wall Street Bankers and the northern financial industry. Saunt covers numerous important events including but not limited to the Black Hawk War, the Trail of Tears, and the Seminole Wars.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boatman's_Daughter" title="The Boatman's Daughter">
Miranda Crabtree spends her time running contraband for the preacher Billy Cotton and sheriff of her local area, as it is the only way she can provide for herself. It also helps her keep an old woman and a child safe, as they had fled from Cotton's home eleven years prior. Miranda's troubles come to a head once she is asked to make one last run, this time to bring a child to the insane Cotton.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Littlest_Angel" title="The Littlest Angel">
The story concerns a four-year-old boy who arrives in heaven but is unable to adapt to the heavenly life. He cannot sing, he is always late for prayers, and his robe and halo are always dirty. The other angels are bothered by him and he is miserable and lonely. Finally he is introduced to an Understanding Angel who asks what he really wants. He asks for a box of childhood treasures that he kept under his bed on Earth, and when he gets it he becomes happy and angelic. Then the birth of the Christ Child is announced and all the angels prepare their finest gifts for him. The Littlest Angel decides to give the child his own box of boyhood favorites. This gift pleases God so much that he causes it to mount into the sky, and it becomes the Star of Bethlehem.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_the_World_Behind_(novel)" title="Leave the World Behind (novel)">
Amanda and Clay drive out to a remote luxury Airbnb in Long Island for a vacation, along with their kids Archie, 15, and Rose, 13. They are a middle-to-upper-middle class family who live and Brooklyn. It's an idyllic and peaceful vacation until an older black couple shows up at night, identifying themselves as the house's owners, G.H. (or George) and Ruth. They explain that there's been a blackout.Amanda is initially suspicious of them and is surprised that they could own a home such as this one. But it turns out George and Ruth are a wealthy and highly educated couple. Their main home is in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, but they drove back to their vacation home to wait out the blackout. It's arranged that they will stay in the in-law unit in the basement until things get sorted. At the house, the wi-fi is out, along with the landline, TV and cell service. But they have power. Amanda also catches a news alert on her phone confirming a large-scale blackout across the east coast.The next morning, Rose notices a herd of a few dozen deer outside (what she doesn't see is that there are actually thousands of them). Clay heads to town to assess the situation, but gets lost. He runs into a scared woman, but she only speaks Spanish and so he leaves her. Meanwhile, Rose and Archie go exploring in the woods. They find a shack and a house in a clearing, and Archie gets bitten by a tick. Then, a thunderous noise is heard, loud enough to crack the glass on some doors, which scares everyone. (Unknown to them, not too far away, the deer are scared and trampling everything in their wake.) Clay eventually finds his way home, but doesn't mention getting lost or the woman.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thursday_Murder_Club" title="The Thursday Murder Club">
A group of pensioners (Elizabeth Best; Ron Ritchie; Joyce Meadowcroft; and Ibrahim Arif) set about solving the mystery of the murder of a property developer in the luxurious Cooper's Chase retirement village near the fictitious village of Fairhaven in Kent.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minecart_(short_story)" title="Minecart (short story)">
Construction of a light railway has begun between Odawara and Atami, two towns in east Japan. At the construction site, workers are using minecarts for transporting earth and sand. Ryōhei, aged eight, is interested in these minecarts. One day, he pushes one of the minecarts with a construction worker. At the beginning, he is very excited. But as it gets late in the day, he starts to worry about how he will get home. After a while, the construction worker tells him to go home because it is late. Ryōhei runs down a dark hill road thinking “I just don’t want to die”. As soon as he comes back home, he bursts into tears.He becomes an adult and moves to Tokyo. He looks back on that time. He is tired of everyday life. Without any reason, he sometimes dreams of the dark hill road.The story is set between Odawara and Atami. The boy describes seeing the sea on his right as he heads away from his home, and on his left on the way back. Because of this, it seems that he was moving toward Odawara from Atami.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Days_of_Christmas_(Correspondence)" title="The Twelve Days of Christmas (Correspondence)">
The monologue is performed by the reading out of letters written by Emily Wilbraham to her lover Edward. Each day for twelve days, Edward sends her one of the gifts mentioned in "The Twelve Days of Christmas" carol and Emily responds with a letter for each day. The gifts eventually cause a breakdown in their relationship, with Emily's house and gardens being ruined by all the birds, animals, and personnel that Edward sends. For the final letter, after Edward has sent members of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic to her, Emily's solicitor G. Creep writes to inform Edward that Emily is seeking an injunction against him for harassment and would be seeking to return all the animals that were sent.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reincarnationist_Papers" title="The Reincarnationist Papers">
Found in Rome twenty years ago, "The Reincarnationist Papers" follows Evan Michaels, a troubled young man who struggles with having memories from two other lives. Believing that he is the only one in the world burdened with other people's complete memories nearly leads to his self-destruction, until he meets a mysterious woman named Poppy. She understands Evan's struggle because she is exactly like him, only she remembers seven lives. Poppy changes Evan's world forever when she invites him into a centuries-old secret society of 28 others who are like them and he realizes that he is not alone. The Reincarnationists, collectively known as the Cognomina, recall all their past lives and experiences and find one another over and over again in each new incarnation. But to become part of this secretive group, Evan must first prove that he is truly one of them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_Iddesleigh" title="Irene Iddesleigh">
A noble by the name of Sir John Dunfern makes a sudden decision to marry Irene Iddesleigh, an orphan adopted by a nobleman. Despite her being in love with her tutor, Oscar, she marries Dunfern and has a child, Hugh. However, Dunfern finds love letters Irene received from Oscar dated after the marriage. He flies into a frightful rage and imprisons Irene, intending for her to be in captivity the rest of her life. She is only there for a little more than a year, before Oscar and one of her maids helps her to escape. Oscar can not go back to the job he previously had, since his boss is acquainted with Dunfern. Oscar and Irene quietly sell the house they had previously on loan and move to America. Soon after, they get married.Dunfern is devastated, but finds solace in Hugh, and sends him to the same school Oscar worked at. At that time, he learns from his friend, Oscar's former boss, that Irene and Oscar were married. While Dunfern felt remorse for Irene's imprisonment and intended to include her in his will, when he learns of their marriage, he cuts Irene out entirely.Meanwhile, Irene and Oscar are facing difficulties. Convinced they could live entirely off the money he got for selling their Canterbury house for the rest of their lives, Oscar did not see fit to get a job until he and Irene are on the brink of total ruin. When he is fired, he comes home and beats Irene, who leaves and gets a position as a duenna. Later, Oscar feels regretful about hitting Irene, but he can't find her to tell her. He drowns himself, leaving a note for Irene with his apology and begging her to return to Dunfern and apologize. When Irene finds the note, she decides to do so.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharani_(novel)" title="Maharani (novel)">
The book is a historical fiction based on Chaubisi Rajya and Baise rajya of Nepal.The story is about King Ghanashyam of Parbat and the controversy over his succession by his sons- Malebam and Bhadribam. Malebam is the elder son and has the birthright to the throne whereas Bhadribam was conceived earlier but born later. When Malebam is declared king, Bhadribam revolts while his wife, to everyone's surprise, supports Malebam. In recognition of her efforts to save Parbat, the palace gives her the status of "Maharani". But, she takes Sannyasa secretly and leaves to Vindravan. From that time, the people of Parbat have been worshipping her as Maharani. The book also depicts the life, administrative system and justice system of Parbat during that period.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_and_Her_Brothers" title="Justice and Her Brothers">
The story is told over one week during a hot summer in Ohio. Protagonist Justice Douglass is dealing with the fact that her mother is attending college and has to spend time away from the home, leaving Justice to the care of her twin older brothers, Thomas and Levi. Levi clearly cares for Justice, both with domestic tasks and emotionally, while Thomas is antagonistic toward Justice.Thomas has established the Great Snake Race, a competition for the boys in the neighborhood, and Justice prepares by seeking out the snake that is both the largest and the fastest. Concurrently, Justice notices that Thomas seems to be able to mentally control his twin brother Levi. Fear of Thomas brings Justice to the home of Mrs. Leona Jefferson and her son Dorian Jefferson, mother and child. Mrs. Leona Jefferson teaches Justice about her own psychic abilities, both to protect Levi and to practice her own power.Justice learns that the object of the Great Snake Race is not to actually race snakes but to catch the most. Justice, thinking she will lose, ends up winning over Thomas, as her snake was pregnant and had offspring. After the Race, Thomas probes Justice's mind and tries to control her. Justice and neighbor Dorian battle against Thomas, defeating him. The children then link minds and Justice transports them to the future, briefly, where they learn that as a group, they are the "first unit," a new kind of human.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_Don't_Owe_You_Pretty" title="Women Don't Owe You Pretty">
Through the lens of intersectional feminism and social privilege analysis, Given discusses topics including body positivity and self-esteem, consent in relationships, emotional labour, internalised misogyny, masturbation, microaggressions, rape culture and slut-shaming. The book contains checklists and questions for the reader to consider. Given gives advice on recognising gaslighting, racial fetishism and other negative actions or signs in a relationship, and discusses how queer relationships affect a culture of heteronormativity. She has a fictional conversation with her younger self as a framing device for exploring male validation.The book's title is derived from a quote by lexicographer Erin McKean: "prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked female".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_(novel)" title="Pet (novel)">
Jam is a teen girl living in Lucille, a town in the US. Lucille is a type of utopia; its official historical record saw angels defeating monsters. In Lucille, there are no more monsters. Or so everyone believes. One day, Jam trips and falls onto her mother's painting (a type of assemblage with sharp objects incorporated within.) Jam's blood releases the creature that her mother painted: Pet. Pet informs Jam that the creature is here to root out a monster living in Lucille.Then the pet and 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_Strong_Punches_a_Hole_in_the_Sky" title="Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky">
Tristan Strong is a seventh grader from Chicago who is mourning the death of his best friend Eddie, who died in a tragic bus crash. Eddie has left Tristan his journal, in which they collected stories about African American folktales and West African mythology. After Tristan loses his first boxing match, he is sent to Alabama to live with his strict grandparents for the summer and heal from the tragedy.On his first night in Alabama, Eddie's journal is stolen by a strange doll-like creature covered in sap named Gum Baby. Tristan chases Gum Baby into the Bottle Tree Forest, a haunted forest Tristan's Nana forbid him to go in. In an effort get the journal back, Tristan punches the Bottle Tree, which breaks one of the bottles and unexpectedly opens a portal to a parallel world. Tristan and Gum Baby fall into a world called Alke, where the mythology and folktales in Eddie's journal are real. Tristan and Gum Baby team up to escape the Bone Ships in the Burning Sea and go to the island of MidPass. Tristan meets the MidFolk, including a girl named Ayanna, a rabbit named Chestnutt, and Brer Fox. The people of Alke are being attacked by Fetterlings, or Iron Monsters, living chains that attempt to capture them. Brer Fox dies while fighting for the MidFolk to escape, and Eddie's journal is taken.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playing_the_Whore" title="Playing the Whore">
Grant views sex work as a form of labor. Through a social-constructivism lens, Grant analyzes the concept of the "prostitute imaginary"—narratives of sex work in the public consciousness. She argues that the social process which turns a "woman" into a "prostitute" involves dehumanization and allows for exertion of control over women sex workers. Grant contends that typecasting all sex work as either "exploitation" or "empowerment" creates a false dichotomy, dissuading analysis of systemic issues within the sex industry, and systemic issues which cause people to enter the industry. Two examples of the latter are economic issues which lead people to survival sex and a lack of worker agency in industries other than sex work.Grant describes a period in U.S. history of feminist sex wars in which advocates of sex work were in opposition to some second-wave feminists. Grant disagrees with anti–sex-work feminists who view sex work as inherent violence or sex workers as inherently in need of liberation. She draws similarities between feminists and conservatives opposed to sex work. Describing a "rescue industry" of non-governmental organizations, religious organizations, police and journalists, Grant criticizes that efforts to "rescue" sex workers often use violence or force. She finds that it leads to surveillance of workers by police and evictions by landlords, but that it does not have an effect on the rate of full-service sex work. She writes that criminalization and stigmatization of sex work allows or condones violence against sex workers by clients.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_Undone" title="Innocence Undone">
The novel is set in Georgian-era England, and centers around Jessie Fox, the daughter of a prostitute, being taken in by the old Marquess of Belmore to be raised as a lady. The Marquess intends to have the Jessie marry his son Matthew, a Navy captain, so that they can both inherit the Belmore title after he passes. Matthew, knowing Jessie's reputation as a street child, believes that Jessie is manipulating his father into treating her like a lady, while Jessie fears that her true backstory will be discovered by the public and tarnish the Belmore name.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Luminous_Dead" title="The Luminous Dead">
The novel predominantly centers on two characters, cave diver Gyre Price and her handler, Em. Gyre has taken on the task of exploring a dangerous cave system that is partially underwater. It is also home to the Tunnelers, strange alien creatures capable of instantly killing any it comes across. While she has some limited experience doing this job, Gyre has lied about her job history in order to secure the large paycheck that comes with spending weeks mapping out the cave while inside a specialized caving suit, unable to take it off or eat conventional food. During this she is watched by her handler Em, who is tasked with ensuring that Gyre remains safe and calm via the administration of drugs or other methods. Unbeknownst to Gyre, Em has secrets of her own, the first of which is that she is the only handler on site—a job typically handled by multiple people to avoid handler burnout and allow for sleep.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine_(novel)" title="Nicotine (novel)">
Over some weeks, Penny watches her father (a prominent New Age guru) slowly die. After the funeral, which is attended by many of his followers, her mother Amalia and brother Matt push Penny to assess the condition of a house in Jersey City, New Jersey, which has been abandoned since her grandparents died there in a fire. She discovers that it has been squatted in the meantime and is named Nicotine because the activists who live there all smoke and promote smoking. Instead of evicting the squatters, she spends time getting to know them better and falls in love with two of them (Jazz and Rob). Her brother Matt then visits the house since he is eager to sell it, only to fall in love with Jazz as well.Penny likes the anarchist subculture she finds herself in and moves into another housing co-operative called Tranquility. After an environmental protest which goes wrong and with tensions rising due to the love quadrangle, there are quarrels at the Nicotine house which culminate in Matt attacking Rob, and Jazz almost shooting Matt. The squatters flee in different directions and Matt takes possession. He decides to convert the house into an anarchist community centre named after his father, hoping that it will lure Jazz back to him. She has escaped with Rob and Sorry in a van, reaching the West Coast. When Matt's direction of the centre hits problems, he abandons New Jersey to pursue Jazz in Hawaii, allowing the reunited couple of Penny and Rob to squat the freshly constructed penthouse suite.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enter_the_Aardvark" title="Enter the Aardvark">
The novel follows two related stories of repressed love connected via a giant taxidermied aardvark. One strand of the novel is set in modern-day Washington, D.C and chronicles freshman Rep. Alexander Paine Wilson's receipt of the stuffed aardvark via a mysterious FedEx dropoff. This event sets in motion a satirical chain of events for the neo-Reaganite congressman preparing for a reelection campaign. A separate thread set in Victorian-era London tells the story of Titus Downing, the taxidermist that originally the stuffed and displayed the aardvark. The two stories weave together similarities and secrets the men share across time and space.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castro's_Bomb" title="Castro's Bomb">
In 1963, a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the leader of Cuba, Fidel Castro, and the Cuban Army use weapons left behind by the Soviet Union to seize the United States military base at Guantanamo Bay and then plan missile strikes against America. US President John F. Kennedy tries desperately to retain his leadership and to keep the war from escalating into World War III.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klara_and_the_Sun" title="Klara and the Sun">
The novel is set in a dystopian future in which some children are genetically engineered ("lifted") for enhanced academic ability. As schooling is provided entirely at home by on-screen tutors, opportunities for socialization are limited and parents who can afford it often buy their children androids as companions. The book is narrated by one such Artificial Friend (AF) called Klara. Although Klara is exceptionally intelligent and observant, her knowledge of the world is limited.From the window of the store in which she is for sale, Klara learns about the world outside and watches the Sun, which she always refers to as "he" and treats as a living entity. As a solar-powered AF, the Sun's nourishment is of great importance to her. On one occasion she notices that a beggar and his dog are not in their usual position; they are lying like discarded bags and do not move all day. It seems obvious to Klara that they have died, and she is surprised the next morning to see that they are living and that the Sun has with his great kindness saved them with a special kind of nourishment.Klara comes to fear and hate what she calls the "Cootings Machine" (from the name printed on its side) which stands for several days in the street outside, spewing out pollution that entirely blocks the Sun's rays.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Person_Singular_(short_story_collection)" title="First Person Singular (short story collection)">
## "Cream".The first-person narrator accepts a sudden invitation to a piano recital from an old acquaintance. On a Sunday afternoon in November, he travels to the recital hall, located at the top of a mountain in Kobe. When he arrives, the gate is locked and the parking lot empty. No one responds and there seems to be no signs of a recital set to take place. Retiring to a small park nearby, he later meets an old man who implores him to visualize a circle that has many centers but no circumference. The man tells him that when you finally achieve such difficult things as reaching an understanding of something you once couldn't, it becomes the cream of your life, the crème de la crème. The narrator closes his eyes once again and tries to visualize such a circle but is unable to. Upon opening his eyes, he discovers that the old man has vanished. The narrator recounts the event to a friend and attempts to make sense of the old man's musings.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo!_Yes?" title="Yo! Yes?">
The book is about two boys, one black and one white, that meet each other and talk in sentences that have one or two words. The black boy wants to become friends, but the white boy is nervous about making friends. With less than 35 words being spoken between the two of them, they both form a friendship at the end of the book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_Mahishmathi" title="Queen of Mahishmathi">
Sivagami is arrested and brought to the court of Mahishmathi, where Mahadeva testifies against Sivagami. However, Prince Bjjaladeva had stated that whoever killed Rudra Bhatta will receive ten thousand gold coins. Bjjaladeva's men clarify this, Mahadeva states that a trial will have to be put instead of an immediate murder. Somadeva, the maharaja of Mahishmathi, releases Sivagami and even puts her in a better position in the court of Mahishmathi.Durgappa, a bhoomipathi () who is in charge of the Gauriparvat mountain is persuaded by Khanipathi Hidumba (who is in charge of the Gaurikanta mines) to declare independence from Mahishmathi and how their newly established Kingdom could become extremely rich with Gaurikanta stones. Sivagami's new ambition is to stop the mining happening in the Gauriparvat mountain.With Durgappa establishing the kingdom of Gauriparvat as him as Maharaja and Hidumba as Mahapradhana, Somadeva's continuously becomes more stressed. Pattraya wants to kill the governor of Kadarimandalam, Shankaradeva. He publicly insults the vassal ruler of Kadaraimandalam, Narasimha Varman, who is also the brother of imprisoned Princess Chitraveni. There he hits Narasimha's throne with contained Gaurikanta stones. The stones were then fought by the ministers and soldiers. Pattaraya had a small packet under his tongue with contained snake poison. He was sent to Shankaradeva's office where Shankaradeva recognized him. Pattaraya bit the small packet which exposed poison and bit Shankaradeva who fell dead.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brimstone_Angels" title="Brimstone Angels">
The tiefling sisters Farideh and Havilar were abandoned by their mother at birth and have been raised by their adoptive father Mehen in an isolated village. Farideh makes a pact with the devil Lorcan that gives her special powers. Mehen and the two sisters subsequently move to the city of Neverwinter to work as bounty hunters. There they find themselves pawns in a far-reaching supernatural plot.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_of_the_Mourning_Dawn" title="Voyage of the Mourning Dawn">
After Seren's father died at the end of the Last War, she left home to strike out on her own. She found herself apprenticed to a master thief, but when her master is betrayed by an employer and murdered, Seren finds herself joining the crew of the very airship that she had robbed. Together they begin the search for the lost item called the Legacy of Ashrem that could change the entire world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Verdant_Passage" title="The Verdant Passage">
A group of heroes, each with their own objectives, work together against the evil sorcerer-king Kalak of Tyr, who is trying to transform himself into a deadly and immortal dragon.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hana_no_Furu_Gogo" title="Hana no Furu Gogo">
After the death of her husband, Yoshinao, in 1981, Noriko Kai has been managing the French restaurant Avignon in Kobe left by Yoshinao for four years. One day, Masamichi Takami, a young painter, visited the recreant and offered to give a painting called White House to Noriko, as well as to hold his own exhibition. However, a letter from Yoshinao was found on the back of this painting and revealed to Noriko that he had a hidden child. Around that time, waiters Shuichi Akitsu, Toshihiro Mizuno, and manager Naoe Hayama quit their jobs at Avignon over a scandal that happened. When Noriko consulting with her acquaintance, Doctor Wong Kin Ming, she finds out that Yukio and Misa Araki, a gambling and diamond smuggling couple, were trying to take over Avignon Noriko asks Yoshinao's best friend Kenichi Kudo, a private detective, to investigate the Araki couple, but the driver Koshiba and chef Katsuro Kaga were attacked and injured. Avignon was forced to close temporarily, but with the encouragement of Takami and the efforts of Kaga, reopened soon after. However, Misa plans to take Jill, the daughter of her neighbor Reed Brown, as a hostage to try to take the land, but Noriko sneaks into the Araki couple's cruiser party and rescues Jill. Misa then tries to reach out to Mika, Yoshinao's secret child, but Noriko confronts Misa convinces her to not go with the plan, saying that she knew her sadness. After, Mika suddenly visits Avignon, and Noriko warmly welcomes and watches over her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See_You_in_the_Cosmos" title="See You in the Cosmos">
Alexander Petroski, an 11-year-old European-Filipino-American, lives in fictional Rockview, Colorado with his mother. His brother, 24-year old Ronnie, is in Los Angeles being a sports agent. Alex has a puppy, Carl Sagan, named after his idol astrophysicist. Alex has a homemade rocket, "Voyager 3", where he plans to attach an iPod spray-painted in gold, on which he has been busy recording various audio, and launch it at the Southwest High-Altitude Rocket Festival (SHARF) to recreate the Voyager Golden Record.Alex embarks with Carl Sagan to travel to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the festival is located. At the train, he befriended martial arts master Zed, who after taking a vow of silence only communicates with a chalkboard. Zed brings him to SHARF, where his roommate friend Steve will be launching a rocket, which their roommate Nathan designed. Miserably, Alex's rocket crashed seconds after launch, though his iPod is not damaged.Alex receives an Ancestry.com email that his dad, Joseph David Petroski, is located in Las Vegas, Nevada. Having little knowledge of his dad, Alex begs Steve to drive him there; Ronnie permits, and Steve accepts. At Vegas, Carl Sagan goes missing; the search for him prompts Alex to find his dad and ask for help. Alex asks a woman named Terra if Joseph David Petroski is around; it is revealed that Terra is Joseph's daughter, and that she is Alex's half-sister. Terra was born to Joseph and his first wife Donna, and after Joseph's death, Donna moved on to another man, Howard. Alex and Terra got along quickly, mostly due to Alex's ardent attitude.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Souls_(novel)" title="All Souls (novel)">
The novel follows Astra Dell and her classmates at Siddons School over the course of their senior year.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blood_of_the_Vampire" title="The Blood of the Vampire">
The novel opens in Heyst, Belgium, where 21-year-old Harriet Brandt meets two English women, Margaret and Elinor. Harriet reveals that she was raised in a Jamaican convent, following the death of her parents ten years prior. When she came of age, she used her inheritance to move to Europe to start a new life. Although one of the women find Harriet distasteful, Margaret Pullen likes Harriet. Harriet is fond of Margaret's young child, but Margaret is cautious about letting Harriet hold her. Harriet reminisces about her childhood on a plantation, saying that she misses its overseer because he let her whip the slaves when they were lazy. After Harriet touches her, Margaret suddenly feels drained and begs Harriet to let her go. After finding out that she is wealthy, a local aristocrat, the Baroness Gobelli, invites Harriet back to England. Harriet spends more time with Margaret's child, who becomes severely ill.A medical professional—Doctor Phillips—is summoned. He does not know what is wrong with the child, but recognises her surname because he knew her father. The baby grows ill and dies. Harriet travels to England, and Harriet begins spending many hours with the Baroness' young son, Bobby. She also meets and falls in love with a socialist, Anthony Pennell. Bobby also becomes ill, and the Baroness accuses her of being cursed with both "black blood" and "vampire blood". Harriet, frightened, returns to Doctor Phillips, who tells her about her family history. Her father was a doctor who performed experiments on his plantation's slaves until they revolted and killed him, and her mother was the daughter of a slave of the Judge of Barbados. He advises Harriet that she should never marry, and instead withdraw from society. Shortly thereafter, Bobby dies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Diaries_of_Adrian_Mole,_1999–2001" title="The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole, 1999–2001">
The book begins in November 1999, with Adrian and his two children Glenn and William living at his mother's house in Ashby-de-la-Zouch following the fire that destroyed his house at the end of "". His mother Pauline is now living at the Mole family home in Wisteria Walk and marries Ivan Braithwaite, father of Adrian's childhood sweetheart Pandora. Adrian's father George is living at the Braithwaite family home 'The Lawns' with Ivan's ex-wife Tania, who he has recently married.Adrian continues to write his 'serial killer-comedy' "The White Van" and briefly finds work as a turkey plucker. His mother forces him to leave Wisteria Walk after he fails to visit her in hospital, and he temporarily lives at The Lawns before being allocated a council house on the rough Gaitskell Estate, where he becomes neighbours to the notorious Ludlow family. He also begins an on-off relationship with his housing officer Pamela Pigg, but is still in love with Pandora, now a Labour MP for Ashby.His father spends several months in hospital with a series of infections he contracts while recovering from falling off a ladder. Adrian ends up looking after an elderly woman, Mrs Wormington, but she dies from hypothermia as a result of a trip to Mablethorpe. He also begins working in a burger van in a layby although he takes numerous days off and eventually resigns. After Ivan returns to The Lawns following his sectioning, George is released from hospital; he and Pauline subsequently reconcile and announce plans to marry each other for a third time.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfinished_(book)" title="Unfinished (book)">
It has been described as a collection of personal essays, stories and observations by Chopra. "Unfinished" chronicles important moments in Chopra' life and her twenty-year-long career, such as working as an actress-producer and a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Children's_Bible" title="A Children's Bible">
## Context.Eve, the novel's narrator, belongs to a group of children staying at a large, rented estate with their parents for the summer. The children, mostly disgusted by their parents' hedonistic behavior, spend most of their time on the property of the estate, until a hurricane interrupts their activities. The parents are never named, and the book filters their activities through the perception of Eve and the other children.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samlade_verk" title="Samlade verk">
Set in Gothenburg, Gustav Becker, a distinguished artist, is being prepared for a major retrospective in his career from the 1980s onwards. At the same time, a psychology student Rachel changes and meets her mysteriously missing mother's face on an exhibition poster that is wallpapered across town. In the same vein, Rachel's father, the publisher Martin Berg, is thrown into a dizzying life crisis.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historien_om_någon" title="Historien om någon">
"Historien om någon" is a mystery picture book with an unseen point-of-view character serving as a stand-in for the reader, who searches for an unknown visitor in a home. In a hide-and-seek-like fashion, the reader follows the trail of a red string of yarn from the point-of-view character's grandma's knitting, which the visitor has brought with them.Each page spread shows a new room in the house, and gives a clue to the identity of the visitor – including a tipped-over jug of milk, and a part where the string, seemingly impossibly if the visitor were human, loops around a baluster in the staircase – before the point-of-view character follows the string to a cabinet, and, looking through its keyhole, finds that the visitor is the cat Nisse.The book's narrator invites the reader into the home, and is used to make the reader-character an active part of the story, with phrasings directed to the reader indicating action on their part, such as "Let's open the door".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hearing_Trumpet" title="The Hearing Trumpet">
92-year-old Marian Leatherby lives in Mexico with her son Galahad, his wife Muriel, and her grandson Robert. Upon being gifted a hearing trumpet by her friend Carmella, Marian discovers that her family is planning to put her in an institution. At the institution Marian finds herself drawn into surreal and occult intrigue, conspiracy and adventure.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lights_that_Failed" title="The Lights that Failed">
This first volume covers the period from the end of fighting in World War I and the multitude of peace treaties negotiated to end the conflict, to the disintegration of European financial systems as a result of the Great Depression and the rise of Adolf Hitler. Steiner weaves together two distinct threads of interwar historiography, security and economics, to create a "big picture" holistic view of this period of history, covering both great powers and smaller and emerging nations.Steiner's narrative focuses mainly on the political and economic history of the period and its impact international relations. She focuses on the complex, unforgiving, and often harsh realities of nationalist economic and security policies and how they impacted the relationships between established and emerging European nations. One of Steiner's major contribution to the field of international history is her coverage of the lesser powers of Europe, such as those in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, which are normally overlooked in works on the period, which are dominated by a great powers narrative and perspective.The book is structured with two parts of unequal length. The first part of the work is on 1918 to 1929 and focuses on reconstruction of a "shattered" Europe after World War I. The second and shorter part is on what Steiner refers to as the "hinge years" of 1929 to 1933 ands focuses on the impact of the Great Depression in Europe, the failure of disarmament as a cornerstone of European security, and the surge of nationalism which upended the European international order. Steiner refers to those years as "hinge year" because she "determined that the doors of Europe that had swung open after the First World War – favouring a reduction of barriers within Europe with regard to the movement of goods, money, people and ideas – slammed firmly shut by 1933." Steiner also covers the impact of the on internal and external European relations. The book concludes with a chronology of international events between 1919 and 1933 and an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Triumph_of_the_Dark" title="The Triumph of the Dark">
The central themes of the work are Hitler, his consolidation of power within Central Europe, Germany's Lebensraum and Völkisch movement, Nazi racial policies, and Britain and France's responses to the Nazis' prewar aggression and expansion within Europe.Steiner also thoroughly explores the two tracks that Britain and France pursued in prewar Europe: appeasing Germany and attempting to build an anti-Nazi alliance. Closely-related topics that Steiner explores are anticolonialism and colonial unrest, Italian and Japanese aggression, American and Soviet efforts to influence events and politics in Europe, Stalin's Great Purges, leadership instability in France and Britain, and the Spanish Civil War. Within the context of the failure of democracy to check rising authoritarianism and the struggle of international capitalism to escape the economic malaise caused by the Great Depression, the central figure of the narrative is Hitler, and Steiner takes the reader through the steps taken to bring about armed conflict with Nazism's eastern ideological enemy, Soviet communism, and the sidelining of western ideological enemies in the west. Steiner decisively rejects the historical revisionism that had defined much western understanding of interwar European history.The book is divided into two parts of roughly equal length. The first part focuses on 1933 to 1938, the retreat from internationalism, and the descent into nationalism in European affairs. The second part focuses on 1938 to 1939, the beginning of overt military aggression by Germany against its neighbors, and Britain and France's flailing attempts to create an international order to oppose Hitler and their simultaneous pursuit of disastrous policies of appeasement. The work concludes with a chronology of international events between 1933 and 1941 and an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evening_and_the_Morning" title="The Evening and the Morning">
The novel begins in Combe, a fictional fishing village at the mouth of a river, just to the west of Portsmouth. Edgar, son of a boat builder, wakes up before dawn to sneak away with his lover, a married but unhappy woman, Sungifu (Sunni). Edgar has a job arranged in another village, and has prepared to sail himself and Sunni away to start a new life. Upon crossing the bay to Sunni's house, Edgar sees a Viking raiding party landing and rushes to raise the alarm. Edgar tries to save Sunni, but finds her dead at the hands of a Viking, whom Edgar kills, taking his axe, and then hiding. When the raid is over, Edgar sees his village destroyed, and his father murdered. Edgar's mother, and two dense brothers, Erman and Eadbald, are left penniless, homeless, and without even tools and lumber to build ships.In the aftermath of the destruction, brothers Wilf, Ealdorman of Shiring; Wigelm, Lord of Combe (Wilf's subservient); and Wynstan, Bishop of Shiring, survey the damage. Wigelm laments that his income will decrease as his newly-homeless residents of Combe cannot pay rents. Wynstan, the lascivious but intelligent brains of the family, tells Wigelm that he must allow the residents to take lumber from the forest and forbearance on the rent in order to rebuild their lives. Edgar's mother complains to the lords about the situation, and Wynstan sees a chance to remove her as seditious influence in Combe. He offers the family a secretly bad farm in Dreng's Ferry, a small community with a nunnery and church a few days upriver from Combe, and the family accepts.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_and_Peasant_in_Russia" title="Lord and Peasant in Russia">
As the title indicates, the work in centered on the evolving relationships between landowners and peasants and how that relationship impacted the political world and economic conditions inside Russia. The author explores how the growing power of towns and trade, a dispersed population, and poor transportation and communications networks influenced this fundamental social relationship underlying Russian society. In the introduction to the work, the author describes their intention to,""trace the history of the lords and peasants, and of the relationships between them" through a period of one thousand years, "against the background of Russian political and economic evolution, " to produce "a study in the history of human freedom" and to "contribute ultimately to an understanding of the history of freedom in the European world""The work begins with a brief introduction about the physical geography of Russia and the nature of serfdom. From here the author works chronologically through its period, with short sections on the Kievan and Mongol eras, followed by a longer section on the 16th and 17th centuries and the establishment of serfdom. The final 150 years of serfdom make up the longest section and almost half the book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard's_Tide" title="The Wizard's Tide">
"The Wizard's Tide" narrates a year in the life of an eleven-year-old boy, Teddy Schroeder, and his family's attempt to survive the Great Depression. Teddy's father, a spendthrift who has been beset by failure in business, loses his job at the outset of the story, auguring the end of the lifestyle to which the family have been accustomed.As their lives continue to unravel, the Schroeders move aimlessly between their home in New Jersey and their summerhouse in Long Island. As the news of the abdication crisis becomes a topic of international conversation and the children play newly invented board game, Monopoly, Mr. Schroeder becomes increasingly dependent upon alcohol, which leads to a gradual breakdown in his marriage. Both Teddy and his younger sister, Bean, overhear late-night arguments, with their mother on one occasion asking her son to hide the car keys in bed with him, only to have Mr. Schroeder enter the room, drunk, and beg for their return.Having had an investment in a glass company fail, which he has funded both through borrowing and through the illicit sale of Mrs. Schroeder's stocks, Mr. Schroeder takes his own life in the New York City Subway, leaving his gold watch under Teddy's pillow. The grieving family leave New Jersey, and return to live with Teddy's maternal grandmother, Dan, in Pittsburgh, where they prepare to celebrate Christmas together without their father, and in the midst of growing financial uncertainty.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_in_Flames" title="Russia in Flames">
"Russia in Flames" explores the period of 19141921 and how the procession of war, collapse, and disintegration (as the subtitle indicates) brought Russia communists to power and eventual resulted in the Bolsheviks dominating and then destroying other political, social, and military power centers. Engelstein's work focuses on the "problem of power" and how the Bolsheviks navigated social, Marxist, and internal party politics to seize power, center it on themselves, and finally create a one party state. After this Engelstein explores how the Bolsheviks recreated government to exert control over both Russia and the Russian Empire and eventually win the Civil War. Along with the "problem of power", Engelstein explores the role violence and propaganda filled in the seizure and consolidation of power, and how it was used to destroy existing institutions and power centers making way for the Bolshevik institutions, ideas, and authority which replaced them.Engelstein argues that Lenin and the Bolsheviks "did not so much seize power but rather created it." She believe the collapse of the state and empire created a power vacuum that different revolutionary groups raced to fill. The main tools they employed to achieve total power were the unrestricted use of violence to destroy their political opponents, and the Red Army, created and led by Leon Trotsky, which despite its many limitations ultimately suppressed the white and green forces, and defeated the foreign interventions. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Friend_(novel)" title="The Friend (novel)">
The unnamed narrator, a writer living in Manhattan, recalls the life and recent suicide of her best friend and mentor, also unnamed. Addressing him in the second person, she recounts her friend's three troubled marriages and his career as a college professor. The narrator reveals that the main point of contention between her and her friend involved his illicit affairs with his female students. The narrator meets with her friend's third wife, who asks her to adopt her friend's senior Great Dane, Apollo. The wife, whom the narrator calls "Wife Three", explains that Apollo appears to be in mourning and has been temporarily placed in a kennel. Recalling the story of Hachikō, the narrator reluctantly agrees to take Apollo in.Though dogs are prohibited in her building, the narrator thinks of a New York law regarding the keeping of pets in apartments: that, if a tenant openly keeps a dog in an apartment for a period of three months, and during those three months the landlord does not take action to evict the tenant, the tenant may legally keep the dog. Though the narrator's building superintendent, Hector, tells her to get rid of Apollo, the narrator hopes Hector will not inform the landlord within the three months.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombies_and_Shit" title="Zombies and Shit">
A large group people awaken in the middle of a post apocalyptic type wasteland with no recollection of how they got there. Each person is equipped with a backpack of supplies and an odd weapon. The group soon finds out that they are a part of a reality show known as Zombies and Shit and their objective is to get to the rescue zone where there will be a helicopter waiting to take them to safety. This island is crawling with zombies that are there for the sole purpose of feasting on their flesh. It soon becomes apparent to the group that there is only one seat available on the helicopter. Zombies will not be the only things trying to stop them from reaching the rescue zone alive as soon they will have to turn on each other.Shaun of The Dead meets Battle Royale in this over the top, action packed, and all out bloody gore fest of a battle for survival.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_and_Sawdust" title="Sunset and Sawdust">
Sunset Jones is a beautiful red-headed woman and wife in East Texas in the 1930s. One night during a cyclone Sunset gets fed up of all the rape and abuse being done onto her by her husband, Pete, that she shoots him dead. Her husband Pete however was the constable of the nearby town known as Camp Rapture. Soon the town gets a new sheriff as Sunset's mother-in-law arranges for her to take over Pete's duties. This was not accepted by some of the residents in town. Soon Sunset will find out more about the town as a double homicide takes place. Her investigation to seek justice and answers will pull her into a journey filled with greed, deceit, double-dealings, and unthinkable acts of maliciousness. Sunset will need to uncover the truth of what is really going on with the help of her own posse.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veli_Jože_(novel)" title="Veli Jože (novel)">
Veli Jože belonged to the people of Motovun, who did not treat him nicely.Similarly to Raold Dahl's 1982 novel, Jože is described as a friendly and good-hearted giant. He is both a giant and a giant-looking serf. The action begins when the "provveditore" Barbabianka, "šjor" Zvane and the guard of Motovun forest go about Istria to mark with lime the Turkey oaks that they will cut down and take away to Venice. It is a hot summer day. The "provveditore" is riding on a donkey, which at one point jumps up, for he sees a haystack next to some shack where a beautiful Turkey oak is growing. Barbabianka then decides that this Turkey oak will warm him this winter in Koper. As he begins to mark the tree, someone's strong hands grab the donkey and throw it up to the top of the tree. Beside the stack and the dead donkey stands the serf Jože, looking gloomily at the "provveditore".The "provveditore" is frightened and tells "šjor" Zvan to do something. Proto, the forest ranger, has a little fun at first because it is funny to him to watch the "provveditore" shaking, but then he calms the giant. Barbabianka and šjor Zvane put a stick in his hands and order him to strike and tame the giant. At first he is afraid to approach him in any way, but then he goes on and hits him. Jože is ordered to kneel down and kiss the gentleman's hand, which he does. "Šjor" Zvan explains to Jože that this is a gentleman, and that he would take him through the forest to the city. Along the way, Barbabianka realizes that Jože is an obedient serf, but he is still afraid. He questions him as to whether he has had enough food and how old he is.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa's_Husband" title="Santa's Husband">
"Santa's Husband" "tells the story of a black Santa Claus and his white husband who both live in the North Pole. Santa’s spouse frequently fills in for his husband at malls."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_in_Revolution" title="Russia in Revolution">
The book covers the period from 18901928, a wider time frame than many works on the Russian Revolution. This reflects the author's intention to understand the Russian Revolution as a long term process, rather than focus on the narrower events of 1917 as exceptional.The work addresses many major themes and topics that the revolution grew from, including:The book opens with an introduction which details the author's perspectives and the questions they are seeking to answer. The first chapter provides an overview of the half century preceding the main events of the book until the 1905 Revolution, looking at the reigns of Alexander II and III, and the beginning of Nicolas II's reign and concludes as Stalinism emerges during Stalin's consolidation of power and the end of the New Economic Policy, setting the stage for the era of central planning, collectivization, and industrialization. The structure of the book is both chronological and topical: The work concludes with an essay reflecting on the causes and turning points of the Russian Revolution. There is no formal bibliography, however the extensive notes form a valuable resource on the scholarly writing about the period.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden_&amp;_Princess" title="Maiden &amp; Princess">
A king and queen announce a royal ball to find a bride for their son, the prince. One maiden who knows the prince from battling alongside him is not excited to attend, but at the urging of her mother she goes nonetheless. Guests at the ball, including the king and queen, encourage the maiden to dance with the prince but she panics and steals away to a balcony to get some air.The prince's sister encounters the maiden on the balcony and the two sit together and speak. As they are talking, the maiden takes the princess's hand, realizing she has fallen for her instead of her brother. The king and queen find the pair on the balcony and remark that they are well-suited for each other. After the maiden asks the princess to dance, they kiss. Later, the couple spends a great deal of time together and eventually get married.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_Buster_Sparkle?" title="Who Killed Buster Sparkle?">
Set in Clover, Mississippi, the novel revolves around a drag queen named Peaches who is suddenly visited by Buster, the ghost of an African American man, who may or may not have been murdered.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_of_Insects" title="The Life of Insects">
The novel is set in the early 1990s in the Crimea. All the characters in the novel are both human (racketeers, drug addicts, mystics, prostitutes) and insects. It is an allegory of human life, realized by comparison with the life of insects (which is an obvious parallel to the play by the Czech writer Karel Čapek Pictures from the Insects' Life (1921). The characters chosen by the author are typical representatives of the society of the early 1990s. But this dating does not play a role in itself because the types chosen are quite universal and suitable for all periods. The book has deep connotations with the teachings of Carlos Castaneda, Marcus Aurelius and Buddhism. Although titled novel the book consists of fifteen short stories that are not related to each other. The heroes of these short stories appear in the first pages as ordinary beings who could be human. Then, Pelevine introduces the delirious details by describing, with great precision and a perfect knowledge of entomology, which allows the reader to know that they are insects. The first publication of the novel was in the magazine Znamya in 1993. The author was awarded the 1993 Znamia magazine prize for "the best work on the life and exceptional adventures of democracy in Russia". This prize is traditionally awarded by the magazine to one of its own best publications, with sponsorship from Materik Publishing. Published in English in 1996.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sacred_Book_of_the_Werewolf" title="The Sacred Book of the Werewolf">
This novel is the story of a former fox-woman called A Huli. The female model she represents is one of the few in Pelevin's novels to escape her usual sarcastic irony. The narration is conducted from a feminine point of view, that of A Huli. Her feelings of love are described with tenderness. She is smarter and more sensitive than her male partners. The mystery of her attraction to Pelevin remains intact, despite the differences she presents in comparison to the heroines of her other novels. The motif of the animal-woman is frequent in Pelevin's novels. The short stories in The Life of Insects and the present work The Sacred Book of the Werewolf are two examples. This motif does not devalue the gaze towards the woman but makes it more original. It also helps to translate the idea that woman is never what she appears at first sight, that she has a double nature, that she is a mystery. Pelevine likes in Buddhism and oriental mythologies the role of the female deities rivaling the male deities but possessing more power than the latter.The fox-woman also evokes the Chinese mythology in which she is called Huli jing (in traditional Chinese: 狐狸精). In the traditional tales and legends of Japan she is called Kitsune.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Are_Water_Protectors" title="We Are Water Protectors">
The narrator, an Ojibwe girl, recalls her grandmother teaching her about the sanctity of water. Their people foretell a black snake that will one day destroy their land and poison their water. The girl says that the black snake has already arrived in the form of an oil pipeline. She resolves to rally her people against it and protect their water supply for the sake of animals, plants, the environment, and the Earth. Reflecting on her grandmother's words, the girl declares that "we are water protectors" who will give the black snake the fight of its life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Helmet_of_Horror" title="The Helmet of Horror">
The genre of this work is a piece written in the form of a chat between the characters. But in Pelevin's production, on his site, it is listed in the novel category, and several articles on the subject also use the name novel. But some critics refer to the work as a play genre, or as a dramatic narrative. Eight characters are participants in a very strange chat. Each of them, in an unknown way, finds himself in one of the very similar rooms with a keyboard and a computer. Soon they understand that they have become participants in the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. But the situation is much more complex than it seems at first glance. Each character has his or her own labyrinth behind the door of his or her room.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_Accounts" title="Fake Accounts">
In late 2016 the narrator, a blogger, has feelings of ambivalence towards her boyfriend, Felix. She decides to go through his phone where she discovers a secret Instagram account where he espouses conspiracy theories, theories which he does not appear to believe in real life. She decides to break up with him.The narrator recounts how she met Felix while on a pub crawl in Berlin and the two began a long-distance relationship with Felix eventually joining her in Brooklyn.Feeling excited about the prospect of ending her relationship with Felix, she nevertheless decides to delay breaking up with him until after the 2017 Women's March, which she attends reluctantly. Felix does not text her during the March which angers her. She later receives a call from his mother that reveals Felix was killed while biking.The narrator decides to quit her job and move to Berlin on a whim. Knowing no German (and with no plans to learn) she survives in the English language ex-pat community, taking an under-the-table job babysitting children. Bored, she also begins to aggressively date, making connections through online dating apps and coming up with different personas to try out on the men she is dating.The narrator eventually receives a call from a former friend that reveals that several hours earlier Felix reappeared at a work event with his former colleagues, revealing he faked his death as a piece of performance art and is now living in Berlin. The narrator sends Felix an angry email to which he responds that he assumed she knew he faked his own death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_V" title="Empire V">
A young man named Roman Aleksandrovich Shtorkin becomes a vampire. This happens when Roman accidentally meets another vampire, Brama, who decided to kill himself after a vampire duel. But before he does, he is obliged to give the other man his "tongue" – the special essence that makes a person a vampire. With the help of the "tongue", a vampire can read the mind of a human or another vampire by tasting their blood; as vampires say, "tasting".This is how Roman becomes a vampire. Having changed his name to Rama according to vampire tradition, he must now change his way of thinking. To do this, like every young vampire, he takes a course in the two main vampire sciences: glamour and discourse. The vampire's socialization is paradoxical: on the one hand, he was and, to some extent, remains human. On the other hand, he becomes a vampire, who must by nature control glamour and discourse instead of succumbing to it. For the vampire, this is the primary way to control humanity and, at the same time, to feed on it.Rama quickly settles into vampire society. Gradually he becomes more and more accustomed to the fact that all his new acquaintances and himself bear the names of gods, that the word "blood" is indecent to say aloud, and that he is no longer human. Vampire society lives with little overlap with human society and is built on values that have nothing to do with humanity. At the same time, humanity is pervaded by vampire agents, the "Chaldeans", who set the cultural and social direction the vampires want. A vampire can have a full love relationship only with his own kind, and the book describes Rama's complicated relationship with a new vampire named Hera.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_Apollo" title="Batman Apollo">
Rama is a young vampire who has already mastered the vampire craft. He already knows the basics: he can stealthily bite a person's neck, so that from the little red liquid all the secrets of that person's soul are revealed to him. As we already know from the first part of the novel – vampires rule the world.Now Rama faces another great challenge: trained as a diver, he plunges again and again into uncertainty, into the realm between life and death, and also meets the supreme vampire, the eternal Dracula, who shares with him the secrets of this world. Modern culture in general, the actual world order as a whole (both in Russian and Western variants) in Pelevin evoke a passionate aversion. In generalized form, the essence can be conveyed as follows. There is an elite in the world, more or less understanding the essence of the processes taking place (the vampires and the Chaldeans chosen from among the people serving them), and the rest of humanity. The elite control people with discourse (ideological twaddle) and glamour (the cultural contentlessness of consumer society). Simply put, by messing with the minds of the average person. The media, the Internet, computer games, and so on serve the same purpose.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_World_Came_to_Town" title="The Day the World Came to Town">
"The Day the World Came to Town" opens with a history of the town and an explanation of the strategic military and commercial importance of Gander International Airport. On September 11, DeFede reports that Gander, with a population of approximately 10,000, accepted 38 previously unscheduled planes carrying approximately 6,800 passengers and crew, most of which were stranded there until U.S. airspace reopened nearly a week later.From The "Newport Beach Independent":
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Place_Inside_of_Me" title="A Place Inside of Me">
A young Black boy describes "a place inside of me" that holds all of his emotions, such as happiness as he plays basketball with his friends. He feels sorrowful one day when he is at a barbershop and the news on the television reports that a girl has been shot by the police. Later, the boy is afraid when he sees the light from a police siren outside his home, and angry as protestors holding Black Lives Matter signs face off against the police. He feels a yearning to be free, pride in his heritage, and peace as he meditates with his classmates. Finally, he feels compassion and hope as he attends a candlelight vigil, and love for his community. Reflecting on all of his emotions that he has experienced throughout the year, the boy resolves to love himself most of all.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Summers" title="Billy Summers">
Billy Summers is a 44-year-old hitman and former U.S. Marine sniper, who only accepts jobs killing truly evil men, but now he wants to retire from the assassin life altogether. Nick Majarian, a mobster whom Billy has worked for many times before, offers him one last job--one that pays $500,000 up front, and $1.5 million after it's done.Billy's target is Joel Allen, also a hitman, who was arrested for murdering a man who won a fortune off of him in a poker game. Allen has claimed to have valuable information that the police wants in order to make a plea deal, and apparently, someone, whom Nick can't name, doesn't want Allen talking, which is why Billy has been hired to take him out. The job requires Billy to spend some quiet time undercover as a resident in the small town of Midwood, where an office space has been rented out for his use. Billy's cover story is that he is a writer named David Lockridge, who has been tasked by his publishing agent to stay there, and go to the office and write each day in an attempt to meet his deadline. The office has a direct view of the courthouse, where Joel Allen will eventually be taken to be arraigned for his murder charge. Billy is meant to shoot and kill him at that time, and then disappear.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Time_to_Remember_(novel)" title="A Time to Remember (novel)">
Still mourning his brother who died in Vietnam, David travels back in time to 1963 to try to prevent the assassination of President Kennedy, to save the president and his brother and all other lives lost in the war. When he gets to 1963, he is unable to stop Lee Harvey Oswald from shooting JFK and is instead arrested himself for the killing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Season_(novel)" title="Hurricane Season (novel)">
One day, a group of children from the small town of "La Matosa" discover a decomposing corpse in a canal belonging to the Witch of the town. The Witch was a feared and respected woman who everyone turned to for help with their various problems. She lived in a large dilapidated house where she held parties with the village youth, to whom she paid money in exchange for sexual favors.A girl named Yesenia lived with her grandmother and her cousins near the Witch. Throughout her life, Yesenia felt rejected by her grandmother in favor of her cousin Maurilio (nicknamed Luismi). She hated Maurilio because, despite having become an alcoholic and drug addict, he was still the favorite of their grandmother. Luismi eventually moves in with his mother, Chabela, and his stepfather, Munra. Months later there are rumors that he has a wife and is expecting a child. On the day of the murder, Yesenia watches from her house and sees Munra's truck parked at the house of the Witch. She then sees Luismi with another man carrying a bundle to the vehicle. Yesenia informs the police of everything she saw, with the intention of having her cousin arrested.Munra is arrested after Yesenia's statement, but he claims not to know anything about the matter. He recalls days earlier having taken Luismi with his wife, Norma, to the hospital after she began bleeding and running a fever. They both quickly flee after child welfare services discover that Norma is thirteen years old. The next day, Munra finds Luismi in the courtyard observing a small object covered in blood that is buried in a hole in the ground. Munra is convinced that it is a work of witchcraft. After picking up Brando, a friend of Luismi, they pay Munra to take them to the Witch. Munra has been uncomfortable around the Witch ever since he found out she is a transgender woman. Luismi and Brando enter her house, and half an hour later they exit carrying out a bundle wrapped in cloth. Munra decides not to ask and takes them to the outskirts of town, where the boys dump the bundle in a canal.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineapple_Water_for_the_Fair_Lady" title="Pineapple Water for the Fair Lady">
## Operation "Burning Bush".The protagonist of the novel, Semion Levitan, likes to imitate the voice of the famous World War II era radio host Yuri Levitan in Russia. He became an English teacher in Moscow during the period following perestroika. These two occurrences lead him to be involved in a secret operation of the security forces. He had to reproduce the voice of God from a distance in the brain of President George W. Bush, who was considered very religious. To this end, Semion takes an accelerated theological training course in a secret base, using texts with religious content and using narcotics to experience mystical experiences. In addition, he is implanted with a tooth equipped with the appropriate technology.During the secret operation it appears that the Americans are conducting similar operations with the leaders of the USSR and then Russia, with the difference that the broadcasts reproduce the voice of the devil in the brains of the Russian leaders and not that of God. But with the same goal of influencing their geopolitical decisions.The story is interspersed with Pelevine's sarcastic humour. It is written in the first person, that of the hero Semion. Unlike his previous stories, the mystical experiences take place in a Western monotheistic setting rather than an Eastern one. The idea of the novel is based on the religious beliefs of George W. Bush, who put forward expressions such as: "God speaks through me" (in 2004) and again: "God told me to attack Al Qaeda and I did it. With the help of God who is on our side we will be victorious".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_a_Perm_Sec" title="Death of a Perm Sec">
Set in 1980's Singapore, the novel examines the death of Permanent Secretary of the housing ministry, Chow Sze Teck, who was accused of accepting millions of dollars in bribes over his career. While the death first appears to be suicide by a cocktail of alcohol, morphine and Valium; doubts emerge as new facts come to life. With an ongoing investigation by a Criminal Investigation Department inspector who might not be what he seems, the family discovers there may be far more sinister circumstances behind Chow's death, that reach to the very top of government.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazel's_Amazing_Mother" title="Hazel's Amazing Mother">
Hazel is out for a walk with her beloved doll Eleanor. But when she makes a wrong turn, she encounters some kids who are up to no good. Fortunately, Hazel's amazing mother is there to rescue her, and set the bullies straight just in the nick of time.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Disenchantment" title="The Myth of Disenchantment">
The first chapter of the book presents empirical and statistical data arguing that a widespread loss of belief in magic has not occurred in the Western world. Storm notes that disenchantment is not correlated with secularization and belief in some form of magic or the paranormal persists across most religious, educational, and age divisions. Storm argues that these data challenge theoretical attempts to rigidly distinguish the course of European history from the history of other regions.The subsequent chapters challenge commonplace narratives about disenchantment in intellectual history. Storm argues that formative thinkers of the scientific revolution including Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, and Giordano Bruno did not see their projects as disenchanted.In the book's third chapter, Storm examines the roots of the myth of disenchantment in German Romanticism. Storm argues that figures such as Friedrich Schiller described disenchantment in mythic terms and traces the origin of concerns about disenchantment to the Pantheism controversy. Moreover, figures such as Friedrich Hölderlin actually anticipated a form of re-enchantment.Storm goes on to examine the connections between Spiritualism, the Theosophical Society, and early 20th-century scholarship on religion. He notes the parallels between Max Müller's research and Éliphas Lévi's magical treatment of the history of religions, as well as Müller's interest in Hermeticism. He also shows the connections between linguistics, scholarship on religion, and the ideas of Helena Blavatsky.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_God_(novel)" title="I Am God (novel)">
"I Am God" opens with God beginning to keep a journal about his view on modern society, and in particular his infatuation with Daphne, a young geneticist. Daphne, an atheist post-punk and anti-Catholic activist, attracts God's attention although he fails to understand why. Much of the book is epistolary, with God as a first-person narrator through his journal, discussing his thoughts on a humanity he finds unsatisfying; language is recent to him, as the God of the novel has mostly disclaimed and damned humanity on the basis of thinking human language and thought to be evil. The plot also features a love triangle between Daphne, God, and her mortal boyfriend Giovanni, an alcoholic and sexually uninhibited paleontologist.The God of "I Am God" has been characterized as neurotic, garrulous, and overly verbose. He also holds conservative views on matters of gender and sexuality, being called "half heteronormative deity, half embarrassing uncle" by Martin Riker of "The New York Times".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_from_Siberia" title="Return from Siberia">
The book follows two characters, John from present day Los Angeles, and Joseph Rakow in the Russian Empire. John and his family uncover a manuscript of his grandfather, and learn about his life as it is translated chapter-by-chapter. Joseph, growing up near Pinsk, is exiled due to his political beliefs at age 15, and is sent to live in Siberia for ten years. Upon return, he decides to immigrate to the United States, traveling to Chicago. Taken aback by the poor working conditions of workers in his new home, he dedicates his life to union organizing. He discovers his brother has also moved to the United States, however has taken a radically different path in life to his own. Meanwhile, in the present day, John works as a political consultant for Patti Alvarado, a democrat campaigning in Texas against an incumbent Republican congressman. During the campaign, the congressman attempts to demonize Alvarado due to her history as an undocumented immigrant from Mexico.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape_Gama" title="Ape Gama">
A young boy growing up in a village in Ceylon and how he deals with rapid economic and social changes that are going on around him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vengeance_Is_Mine,_All_Others_Pay_Cash" title="Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash">
Ajo Kawir is one of the toughest fighters in the Javanese underworld, his fearlessness matched only by his unquenchable thirst for brawling. But the young thug is driven by a painful secret: he is impotent. When he finally meets his match in the shape of the fearsome, beautiful bodyguard Iteung, Ajo is left bruised, battered, and overjoyed. He has fallen in love. But will he ever be able to make Iteung happy if he can’t get it up?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_for_three_Zuckerbrins" title="Love for three Zuckerbrins">
The novel mentions such trends as Google, Facebook, the cult of consumption, tolerance, Internet addiction, terrorism, information slavery. Heroes live, reflect, philosophize. And all this happens against the background of the well-known game Angry Birds.The protagonist of the novel Kesha, lives in two dimensions, in the present and in a possible alternative future.In the present, Kesha works for an online news agency called Contra.ru. There are many interpretations of this name alone: kontora in the sense that it was before the offices, and office in the sense of something to do with the special services, and contra in the sense of opposition and similar to the name of several well-known Internet projects. And so Pelevin does with many names and titles.Kesha's day off is described. All day he sits at his computer: trolling in various posts, playing computer games, watching a movie, masturbating on a porn site to a Japanese animation. By the end of the day he thinks he should get some air: he opens the window, sighs, and closes it.Kesha had a real girlfriend, but he rarely went out with her. He didn't like that she was overweight. When he did have sex with her, he imagined she was a Japanese girl.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Caretaker_(novel)" title="The Caretaker (novel)">
Emperor Paul I, the great alchemist and mesmerist, was not assassinated by the conspirators-the coup was a spectacle that allowed him to leave St. Petersburg unnoticed. Paul the Alchemist departed for the new world created by the genius of Franz Anton Mesmer - Idyllium. Paul became its first Caretaker. For three centuries Idyllium has been hiding in the shadows of our world, interacting with it according to special laws. It is up to the Caretakers to protect Idyllium, and there have been many of them. Each new one must learn the secret of Idyllium and understand who he is.Pelevin took as his hero a historical figure as far removed from actuality as possible: the Emperor Paul I. His consciousness turned out to be able to organize a ramified, detailed, stable illusion, to populate it with characters, events and everyday life, history - "Illusium" turned out. That is, almost all the action of the novel takes place literally "in the head" of the emperor. And the reader, who takes what is happening at face value, is also at this point co-authors as well as participants in the Illusion. We obediently support it with our reading energies. The metaphor here is transparent. We can guess whose, shall we say, inner world Pelevin is alluding to: the Emperor Paul, Mikhailovsky Castle, St. Petersburg... There are too many coincidences to consider this a portrait of any statesman. Let us put it this way - this is "the inner world of a generalized Russian statesman", which, in general, has changed little over 200 years. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhuck_10" title="IPhuck 10">
A literary-police algorithm named Porfiry Petrovich (the essence of his job is to investigate crimes and, in parallel, to write detective novels about them-the proceeds of which fill the coffers of the Police Department) hopes to obtain a murder case that might launch his literary career, but instead finds himself rented out to a private client. The hero narrator is a writing mind devoid of bodily embodiment. He says of himself that he is "a typical Russian artificial intelligence of the second half of the 21st century," a "police-literary robot ZA-3478/PH0 bilt 9.3" with the Dostoevsky name Porfiry Petrovich. He lives only in the network space, and his character, according to his own apt definition, "is painted in the contrasting tones of our historical and cultural memory" and combines both "Radishchev and Pasternak and as if an interrogator in their joint case".His temporary landlady, an art historian and curator known by the pseudonym Maruha Cho (real name Mara Gnedikh), uses Porfiry to scout the contemporary art market. The police algorithm must help her find out everything possible about the transactions associated with the so-called "Age of Plaster" - the most important (and most expensive) period in modern art history, which occurs around our time, which is the beginning of the twenty-first century, and which is eighty years removed from the events described in the novel. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_Hulan_River" title="Tales of Hulan River">
This novel is marked with the characteristics that there is no single threat and central figure throughout the seven chapters. Instead, each fragmented chapter is drawn together based on the same space-time dimension and through the eye of the child narrator who comes on stage in chapter 3. A camera-like scene full of immersive details is consummately presented by the author.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paperboy_(children's_book)" title="The Paperboy (children's book)">
An unnamed paperboy and his faithful dog wake up early each morning while it is still dark and cold outside and his family is still asleep. After breakfast, the paperboy folds and delivers newspapers, accompanied by his dog; they both find happiness and comfort in the familiar routine. They finish at sunrise as the rest of the world begins to wake up, and they return home to fall asleep and dream.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Views_of_Mount_Fuji" title="Secret Views of Mount Fuji">
Businessman Fedya (last or penultimate in the Forbes list, but enough for a modest-sized yacht, beautiful women and cocaine) is tired of earthly pleasures – everything that beckoned in youth, having been achieved in maturity, has lost taste, weight and meaning. Soon he meets a young man named Damian with a suitcase in his hand and an offer that his master is unable to refuse. Damian is the creator of a startup that offers very wealthy people happiness ranging from the fulfillment of childhood fantasies to sophisticated transcendent experiences. The first experience of expensive luxury happiness returns to Fedya's life the object of his adolescent Erotic Dreams, which managed over the years to turn into an ugly middle-aged woman named Tanya.In parallel, the author sets out in some detail the Buddhist theory of jhāna – the successive stages of deep meditative absorption.Damian has many more opportunities to make his clients feel good, but they are all based in one way or another on erotic fantasies. And Fyodor Semyonovich wants not inventive sex, but happiness. And then Damian discharges Buddhist monks who, with the help of a cunning device, guide the businessman and his two buddies through the four jhānas – that is, levels of meditative absorption. But there is a serious side effect: those who have passed the four jhānas and experienced the bliss of them and various insights that they can give rise to cease to be interested in worldly pursuits.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bindiya_(novel)" title="Bindiya (novel)">
Kodai is a small farmer whose daughter, Bindiya, who helps his father in farming. Bindiya loves a village man named Mangra. The Villain of the story is the son of a Landlord, who loves Bindiya and tries to marry her forcefully. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_(novel)" title="T (novel)">
The main hero of the book, Count T., also known as Iron Beard, is a menace of villains and a favorite of the capital's "yellow" press, an adventurer and bon vivant, an expert in cross-dressing, a master of martial arts "naznas" (or "non-resistance to evil by violence"), a good shooter an excellent thrower of knives and other sharpened objects. The action of the novel begins in the early 20th century, on the train. In the compartment traveling gentleman in a checkered jacket and a priest, they are talking about Count Tolstoy. Then all of a sudden they pull out their pistols. It turns out that one is a disguised Count T., and the other is a detective who is after him. The Count leaps from the window of the train, and the gendarmes knock on the compartment door.The prototype of this grotesque character was, of course, the great Russian classic Leo Tolstoy, who turned into a superhero, a "Russian Zorro" with the battle cry "Beware! As is the custom with superheroes, Count T. makes a quest – to spite his enemies seeks the Optina Monastery, of which, due to a slight concussion, he remembers nothing but the name. On his way he sweeps away hordes of foes and has enlightened conversations with his compartment mate, the provincial landlady and the gypsy baron... 
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Light_Touches" title="The Art of Light Touches">
## Iakinf.Four young guys – a TV journalist, a bank broker, a window fitter, and a sociologist with a euro emblem on his T-shirt – are looking for a change of impressions in the mountains (They met in Nepal on Latang – in the thin mountain air Russians get along with each other quickly and easily). They share a common hobby – trekking. The story is set in Kabardino-Balkaria on another hike.A cab driver drops them off at the foot of the mountain, and while the group is walking up to their lodging at dusk, a gray-haired man with a beard, falsely humming Joe Dassin, rides his bicycle down to them. This man is their guide, Akinfy Ivanovich, with whom the boys will go into the mountains and whom they will persuade to tell their story on the way.From lodge to lodge, like Scheherazade, Akinfy tells his story. At first it seems to the boys that the story is entirely made up and that Akinfy has no spiritual transformation. However, towards the end of the trek, the friends begin to suspect that the route, the story he tells, and their own fate are all connected in a very close and rather sinister way.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aru_Shah_and_the_Song_of_Death" title="Aru Shah and the Song of Death">
Aru Shah and Mini fend off zombies in the Night Bazaar, where Aru notes that the zombies have something over their hearts. The two see Brynne, their other Pandava sister, and Shah's doppelgänger, who steals a golden bow and arrow from Brynne before disappearing. Brynne is claimed by Lord Vayu and gets a mace that can alter wind direction. She is convinced that Aru is the thief and attacks her, knocking her unconscious. Aru awakens in the Council, with her other sisters and her classmate Aiden, son of an apsara. Evidence does not convince the Council that the Pandavas are innocent, and they task the sisters with retrieving the stolen bow and arrow. They are granted mystical items to use in their quest. Aru is given a vial of ideas. They agree to visit Kamadeva, the God of Love and owner of the bow and arrow.Aru learns that Aiden's mother gave up her position as an apsara to marry Aiden's father, but they are now getting divorced. Aiden secretly blames himself. When they meet Kamadeva, he suspects they are the thieves, but eventually begins to trust them. Kamadeva reveals that, while the arrow can join hearts, it received a darker power from that of his wife's, Rati, sorrow. It can now rip out hearts, and the effect becomes permanent after a while. Anyone with enchantment knowledge can carve out their soul song to use the weapons. Kamadeva cannot help them directly, however, he reveals that the location of the thief can be revealed through the soul song, which is in the nāga treasury if they speak the thief's name over it. They must stab the thief with the arrow once it is revealed, to cleanse the weapon of its dark power and return the Heartless to normal. Kamadeva also gives them Rishi Durvasa's business card.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Gosplan" title="Prince of Gosplan">
The protagonist of the novel is Sasha Lapin, a young specialist who works in the IT department of Gossnab (State Supplies). Along the way he plays one of the most popular games of the time – "Prince of Persia".; his co-workers also play computer games, such as "Abrams Battle Tank". Sasha's boss wants him to get some documents signed at Gosplan (the State Planning Committee), which involves making his way to higher levels of the video game and confronting the game's guardian figures. At one point one of the guards knocks him out but doesn’t kill him, because he happens to be carrying a copy of "The Sufi Orders in Islam", by J. Spencer Trimingham, so the guard assumes he must be a spiritual man; they have a conversation about Afghanistan and he tells the guard a long story about a prayer rug. In the end he manages to get the documents signed and starts the game again at Level 1.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah's_Lamp,_or_The_Last_Battle_of_the_Chekists_and_Masons" title="Methuselah's Lamp, or The Last Battle of the Chekists and Masons">
The novel is made up of four parts. The first, "The Production Narrative" is the memoirs of the trader Krimpai Mozhaysky, relating to our, well, very recent times. The second, "Space Drama" is a long letter from his great-great-grandfather, Markian Mozhaysky, to his bride, written in the 1880s. The third – "Historical Essay" – tells about a mysterious unit in the Gulag, where the great-grandfather was sitting Krimpai Methuselah that existed from the 20s to the 60s of 20th century. The fourth – "Operational Etude" – tells about the out-of-body experience of an FSB general in our days.All these parts complement each other, penetrate into each other, explain each other – and as a result not completely clear, but a vivid picture is built, according to which the confrontation between Russia and the West is explained by the clash of the higher forces ruling the world through the Masonic groupings. In today's Russia, the center of Freemasonry is the FSB, in America, the point of Masonic power is located in the basement of the Federal Reserve building.The first part is the story of a trader with the pornographic name of Krimpai (towards the end he changes it to the patriotic "Crimea"), a gay and professional double-crosser who alternately writes analytical reviews for both "liberals" and "Russian conservatives". 
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_Underground_World" title="Journey to the Underground World">
Zanthodon is envisioned as an immense circular cavern five hundred miles wide, one hundred miles beneath the Sahara Desert, a refugium preserving various prehistoric faunas and antique human cultures that have found their way into it throughout the ages.When Professor Percival P. Potter, who has discovered an entrance to Zanthodon, is saved by adventurer Eric Carstairs from thugs in Port Said, Egypt, the two team up to explore the legendary realm. Traveling by helicopter, they descend into the subterranean world through a volcanic tunnel, only to crash when they reach their destination. They are now effectively marooned in Zanthodon.After witnessing a conflict between a triceratops and a mammoth they are captured and enslaved by Neanderthals together with a number of native humans. These include Darya, daughter of a tribal king, Jorn, a hunter, and Fumio, a villainous chieftain. Eric leads a slave revolt, freeing the others, but is himself retaken. On the plus side, he saves the life of Hurok, one of his captors, thus befriending him. Meanwhile, Potter and the rest of the freed captives are attacked by corsairs.The author provides as an appendix "A Stone Age Glossary" at the end of the book, enumerating the various prehistoric animals used, together with their supposed native names.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_in_Relation_to_Air_Travel" title="Epidemiology in Relation to Air Travel">
The book deals briefly with the danger of spreading infectious disease via aircraft as flight times in the 1930s brought West Africa and India within a few days' travel of England and Europe, and the United States more speedily reached from Central and South America. Massey noted that travelling by aeroplane, from countries where major infectious diseases were common, to countries where those diseases were rare or non-existent, risked spreading those diseases during the incubation period. It was aimed at informing health authorities and offered solutions for prevention. By comparing the travel times of travelling by ship to those of travelling by air, he demonstrated how particularly four quarantinable diseases (plague, cholera, yellow fever and smallpox), could arrive in the UK in the early 1930s. He made particular note of mosquitoes and the risk of transferring yellow fever. In the preface, he wrote:Speedier transport is equivalent to a reduction of distance. This was shown when steamships superseded sailing vessels. It is demonstrated more forcibly today by the events of civil aviation. Among the momentous advantages, fraternal and commercial, born of this development, there is the disadvantage that countries affected by certain major infectious diseases are brought nearer to countries which ordinarily enjoy freedom therefrom.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Thirteen" title="All Thirteen">
The book recounts the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue, in which 12 boys on a soccer team and their coach were rescued after they were trapped in the flooded Tham Luang Nang Non cave. It includes scientific information related to the rescue, including details on caverns and diving, and features photographs and maps of the region.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanthodon" title="Zanthodon">
Zanthodon is envisioned as an immense circular cavern five hundred miles wide, one hundred miles beneath the Sahara Desert, a refugium preserving various prehistoric faunas and antique human cultures that have found their way into it throughout the ages.As the novel opens, protagonist Eric Carstairs, Professor Potter, and their Zanthodonian companions have been separated, and must separately face the menaces of Kairadine Redbeard, corsair captain of the "Red Witch", the dwarfish Gorpaks, the Gorpaks' leech-like masters the Sluagghs, and the Neanderthal Drugars. Overcoming these various antagonists, the heroes are reunited in the end only to be taken captive by the Minoans of Zar, while Achmed the Moor makes off with Eric's love interest Darya.The author provides as an afterward "The People of Zanthodon" at the end of the book, enumerating the various characters and groups appearing therein.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Lantern_(short_story_collection)" title="Blue Lantern (short story collection)">
For Victor Pelevin's short prose the main cycle-forming principle is the subjective mystical-philosophical orientation common to all the stories.The title of Pelevin's first collection was given by the story of the same name "Blue Lantern", where the image of the blue lantern acts as a mystical symbol of the netherworld, or rather the illusory border between the two worlds. The image of the blue lantern is found in most of the stories in the cycle. The common philosophical theme that unites the majority of the stories in the cycle is the understanding of death as the beginning of a new life. In the story "The Blue Lantern" the characters playfully pose serious philosophical questions: what is death, who is called a dead man and who really is a dead man? However, the expected denouement at the end of the story does not happen: neither the heroes nor the author receive answers to the questions posed. But in the tradition of Russian classical literature for Pelevin is more important not to get an answer to the question, but the formulation of the question itself.If in the story "Blue Lantern" the author leaves these questions open, in essence only poses these questions, then in the story "The Life and Adventure of Shed Number XII" the life story of the main character serves in part as an answer to the questions posed about the meaning of existence. The main character in the story is the shed who undergoes an inner evolution that leads him to the spiritual freedom that allows him to realize his cherished dream of transformation. His dream of becoming a bicycle. Spiritual improvement, natural giftedness, subtle inner organization of the protagonist in the perception and understanding of the world around him leads him to the realization of the long-awaited dream. Thus, death in the story is understood as a peculiar step in achieving spiritual freedom, the beginning of true and real life. It is noteworthy that in this case Pelevin's hero is an inanimate object - a shed. If in the first story children asked eternal questions, here the object is inanimate, far from poetic, but the author gives it the possibility not only to think, but also to dream, the father-in-law not simply spiritualizes, but creates a model of a thinking and deep being. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Muslim_Cultural_Reform" title="The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform">
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a reformist modernizing movement swept into the different parts of the Islamic world. This movement is usually associated with the impact of European and Russian colonialism. Khalid's work focuses on the development of the Jadidism reform movement from the 1860s to the 1920s in tsarist Central Asia, primarily centered in the province of Turkestan and its capital in Tashkent. The book is based on Persian, Turkish, and Russian-language sources; the writings of the Jadids themselves are frequently cited and valuable biographical sketches of prominent Jadids are interspersed through the book. For lay readers and non-specialists, "The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform" forms an introduction to the cultural and social history of Central Asia during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For specialists, the work increases understanding about the origins and development of nationalism in Central Asia, looks at Jadidism within the wider context of evolving intellectual discussion in the Muslim world, linking thought and developments Central Asia to similar processes in the Ottoman Empire, Iran, South Asia, and the Arab world.The author explores the impact both European colonialism and other Muslim societies had on the Jadidist movement. He moves the picture from Central Asia being on the periphery of discussion about the Russian Empire, to being a center of the Muslim world, showing it as both part of that world and a unique expression of it. The Russian Empire had similar movements among Muslim peoples in different parts of the empire, notably among the Crimean and Volga Tartars; Khalid's work focuses on what made Central Asian Jadidism different and distinctive, while also exploring how it interacted with other movements. The author moves past normal dualistic approaches to the topic, such as modem vs. premodem and Russian vs. Muslim, and sees a more nuanced picture where all these forces interact to create a unique Central Asian engagement with modernity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_Martin" title="Dear Martin">
"Dear Martin" follows Justyce McAllister, a high school student living in Atlanta and attending a predominantly white preparatory high school on a scholarship. Justyce is thrown to the ground and handcuffed by a white police officer. After the incident, Justyce attempts to make sense of life as a black teenager in the current political climate and begins writing letters to the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, asking himself, "What would Dr. King do if he were alive today?".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tech_Revolution" title="Anti-tech Revolution">
In the book, Kaczynski criticizes modern technological society (or "world-system" in Kaczynski's terminology) as a "self-propagating system" (which is a "self-propagating supersystem" consisting of various "self-propagating subsystems") that only seeks short-term benefits due to natural selection. He also argues that "the development of a society can never be subject to rational human control" (also the title of the first chapter) due to the unpredictable nature of the self-propagating system's evolution. As the self-propagating system continues to evolve, it will become ever more tightly coupled and highly complex, which are factors that greatly increase the risk of a catastrophic breakdown happening due to cascading failure.Chapter 2 provides a detailed explanation of "why the technological system will destroy itself," and predicts that due to progressive collapse, modern globalized society will completely collapse and destroy all life on the planet if allowed to continue developing in the "business as usual" scenario. Government policies will not be able to stop these self-propagating systems, since the pressures of natural selection would cause them to circumvent such policies by any means possible.Chapters 3 and 4 provide guidelines for an "anti-tech movement." However, there is no explicit mention of violence, since the book was written at the ADX Florence supermax prison and had to pass through prison censors.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Adventure_of_Shed_Number_XII" title="The Life and Adventure of Shed Number XII">
In the story, the author reveals the anthropomorphic essence of objects that can think and suffer. The protagonist, shed number XII, undergoes an inner evolution leading to spiritual freedom and partially obtains answers to questions about the meaning of life.The protagonist of the story is shed, who undergoes an inner evolution that leads him to the spiritual freedom that allows him to realize his cherished dream of transformation. Shed's lifelong dream is to become a bicycle.He likes the feeling most of all, the source of which were bicycles, he realized this in his early childhood, when he was not yet a shed, but a set of planks. Sometimes, on a hot summer day, when everything around him hushed up, the shed would secretly identify itself with a folding Kama or Sputnik (brands of bicycles popular in the USSR) and experience happiness. In this state he could find himself fifty kilometers away from his present location and ride, for example, across a deserted bridge over a canal in concrete banks or along the lilac shoulder of a heated highway, turning into tunnels formed by bushes sprouting around a narrow dirt path, so that, after riding over them, he could take another road leading to the forest, through the forest, and then resting on the orange stripes above the horizon. He could probably drive it for the rest of his life, but he didn't want to, because that was what made him happy. 
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermit_and_Six-Toes" title="Hermit and Six-Toes">
The main characters of the story are two broiler chickens named Hermit and Six-Toes, who are raised for slaughter at the Lunacharskiy poultry plant. As the narration reveals, the community of chickens has a rather complex hierarchical structure depending on their proximity to the feeding trough.The plot of the story begins with Six-Toes's exile from society. Having been expelled from society and the trough, Six-Toes encounters Hermit, a chick philosopher and naturalist, wandering between different societies within the combine. Thanks to his remarkable intellect, he independently managed to master the language of the "gods" (i.e. Russian), learned to read the time by clock and understood that chickens hatch from eggs, although he did not see it himself.Six-Toes becomes a disciple and associate of Hermit. Together they travel from world to world, accumulating and summarizing knowledge and experience. Hermit's highest goal is to comprehend a certain mysterious phenomenon called "flight". Hermit believes: having mastered flight, he will be able to escape beyond the universe of the combine. It is the achievements of gifted loners, contrasted in the literal sense of dense collectivism, leads to an optimistic end. In the story, the author is very careful to point out that there are two reasons for becoming hermits: either one must be a Hermit, that is, a solitary thinker, or one must be a Six-Fingered Man, that is, a philistine who is no different but has six fingers, so society rejects such (society in the story is all the other chickens).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Werewolf_Problem_in_Central_Russia" title="A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia">
In the center of the narrative - the werewolves living in Russia. A character named Sasha, driven by an unconscious desire, sets out on a long journey in search of a certain vision he saw in an encyclopedia illustration. Throughout the story, folkloric imagery and motifs persist throughout.And this desire correlates with the actions of a fairy-tale folklore hero: to go there without knowing where, to see that without knowing what. Moreover, once there (who knows where), Sasha finds himself in a movie, in a certain (almost fairy-tale-like, mysterious) half-empty hall, in the company of a grandfather, whose whistle had something of a nightingale-robber, something of the departing ancient Russia. Looking for a place to spend the night, the hero comes to the conclusion that the grandmothers who let them spend the night usually live in the same places as the nightingales, bandits and koshchei, although the kolkhoz "Michurinsky" is not a less magical concept, if you think about it.Like a fairy tale hero, Pelevin's character unnoticeably finds himself at a crossroads. As in a fairy tale, the hero is faced with a choice: you go right... you go left... And this choice, as in a traditional fairy tale, serves as a kind of sign of the importance of those events that will happen to the hero, an important, but not yet known to him goal. In Pelevin's story, the hero is destined to become a chosen werewolf, a werewolf hero. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Sixteen_(Abdullahi_novel)" title="Sweet Sixteen (Abdullahi novel)">
The events of "Sweet Sixteen" take place over a weekend and follow Aliya, who has recently turned sixteen. Her father, a retired journalist, has written her a lengthy letter that reflects on her life thus far and gives her advice for the future.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Again_(novel)" title="Come Again (novel)">
Kate Marsden is a mid-forties IT specialist who works for BelTech, an organisation which sanitises clients' online presence. Her husband, Luke, has recently died of an undiagnosed brain tumour and she is besides herself with grief. She quits her job and plans to commit suicide. Then one morning she wakes up in her campus room at university in 1992. She has gone back in time 28 years and is 18 again, but with all her present-day memories intact. She has yet to meet Luke and realises that she has an opportunity to alert him to his tumour and prevent his death later.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_(short_story)" title="Sleep (short story)">
The story is entirely devoted to the problem of dream-reality. The main character, Nikita, a student with the surname Sonechkin (literally translated from Russian as Sleeper), suddenly realizes that for most of his life he has not been fully aware of himself and the world around him. He "lives in a half-dream" in which there is no room for difficulties, but only a quiet existence. Nikita does not think about the goals of his actions, the motives for his actions, just like everyone around him: friends, parents, passersby-all immersed in a dream. This postmodern chronotope, based on the "junctions between realities," allows the author to consider the problem of power over the human consciousness, because the people around us, ordinary everyday people, sleep peacefully while the authorities do whatever they want. Sleep in Pelevin's story has certain gradations (steps and degrees): "night" and "day," "death" and "wonder," and so on. The author's mastery of the characters' transition to the beginning of life in the "collective-unconscious" mode occurs gradually and in stages in the story. Based on the text, we can conclude that this process is individual and can begin at different times and under different circumstances: in the family in kindergarten, at school, or belatedly, in high school, as it happens to the main character of the story.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_from_Nepal" title="News from Nepal">
In the story The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Pelevin translates it into the Soviet language. The heroes of the story are dead, and they are read an instruction book on how to behave for the first forty days. In the story, the author is ironic about the Soviet state system, according to Pelevin's idea it is the Soviet reality is a nightmare dream for the characters. The action of the story takes place as it seems at first glance in reality, but gradually the reader begins to understand that the world is actually a fiction. The story begins with a description of an ordinary working morning of Lyubochka, a rationalization engineer at the trolleybus park. She jumps out of the door of the trolley bus right into a puddle and walks to work. Gradually details creep in that make you doubt the realism of the action, as well as the heavy mood of the story is built up.The heroes of the story are in a state of sleep - oblivion, which is controlled by a certain demonic force and which is equated with hell, the author at the beginning of the story declares the hopelessness of the situation of people, about their powerlessness before this force. 
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Pavlovna's_Ninth_Dream" title="Vera Pavlovna's Ninth Dream">
The title of the story is an allusion to the title of the novel "What Is to Be Done?" by Nikolai Chernyshevsky, where the main character's name was also Vera Pavlovna and the description of her four dreams was part of the novel. Solipsism occupies a significant place in the works of Victor Pelevin: in addition to this story, the writer in one form or another addressed this topic in his other works. But the story "The Ninth Dream of Vera Pavlovna" is most closely associated with solipsism. One might say that solipsism is the main "hero" of the story.The protagonist of the story, Vera Pavlovna, is in all likelihood a member of the Soviet intelligentsia. She reads Ramacharak and Blavatsky, watches films by Fassbinder and Bergman, and is a cleaner in the men's public toilet, which makes her image somewhat caricatured. One day, a curious thought occurs to Vera: if you know the secret of existence, then the question of the meaning of life disappears on its own, because knowledge of the secret of life allows you "to control existence, that is, to really stop the old life and start a new one, not just talk about it - and each new life will have its own special meaning. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Wish_in_the_Dark" title="A Wish in the Dark">
After the city of Chattana was ravaged by the Great Fire, plunging it into darkness, it falls under the rule of the Governor, who is able to create magical orbs that are the city's only sources of light and power. Pong, a nine-year-old boy who was born in Namwon Prison and who has spent his entire life there, escapes by hiding in a garbage basket. He longs to live freely in Chattana, though his prison tattoo identifies him as a fugitive. When Pong is caught stealing food from a monastery on the outskirts of Chattana, the senior monk Father Cham vouches for him and takes him in, and helps him conceal his tattoo.Four years later, the monastery is visited by the family of the former warden of Namwon Prison, who was dismissed after Pong's escape. Pong narrowly flees after he is recognized by Nok Sivapan, the warden's daughter, who vows to bring him to justice to restore honor to her family. Pursued by Nok, Pong returns to Chattana, where he reunites with his former friend from prison, Somkit, and becomes involved in a movement to protest the social inequality in the city. Somkit knows how to make his own orb lights, which he will show the people at protest to show that they don't need the Governor's light. Nok attempts to warn the Governor about the planned protest, but is harshly rebuffed; she begins to question the Governor's motives and eventually comes to realize the oppression and tyranny in the city. She unites with Pong, Somkit, and the other protestors in the march, which successfully results in an end to the Governor's rule. Though the future seems uncertain, the people of Chattana can live more freely, and begin learning to create their own light.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shine_(Jung_novel)" title="Shine (Jung novel)">
Seventeen year old Korean-American Rachel Kim is ready to put everything on the line for a chance to be a K-pop sensation. Recruited into one of South Korea's biggest music labels DB Entertainment six years ago, Rachel is well-versed on what it takes to make it as an idol in the making—train at every possible minute, don't let anyone see you mess up, and don't date. But at seventeen, her window to make it is narrowing quickly. When rumors start circulating around the company that DB Entertainment is planning on debuting a new girl-group soon, Rachel sets her sights on that final line-up. She knows that if she misses her shot here, there's little hope she'll be around to get another one in six years.Rachel understands knowing the rules isn't enough when she has forces going against her. Fellow trainee Choo Mina, the daughter of one of South Korea's most powerful chaebols, is out to get her after an unfortunate misunderstanding over seniority occurred on her very first day as a trainee. That, and the CEO Mr. Noh's supposed preferential treatment towards her, has left Rachel with the persona "Korean American princess".Rachel's mother proves to be an obstacle herself, pushing Rachel to put more focus on her school work and less on training. As a former sports-star, Rachel's mom knows all about the pressure competition puts on young people. She doesn't want Rachel to put all her attention on a dream that might not come true. Thankfully, Rachel's dad and her sister Leah are a lot more supportive, though Rachel still has to juggle hours spent training with classes at Seoul International School.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Quail,_Robert" title="That Quail, Robert">
On July 11, 1962, retired couple, Dr. Thomas and Mildred Kienzle, discover an unhatched egg in an abandoned quail nest on their property in Orleans, Massachusetts. They take the egg home as a curiosity and are surprised to find it moving. Setting it next to a warm lamp, the egg hatches and out tumbles the tiny chick, whom they name Bobby White (promptly revised to Robert by the Kienzles' close friend, author Margaret A. Stanger). Robert quickly settles into the household, developing a strong bond with Tommy and Mildred. After a few months, The Kienzles attempt to release Robert back into the wild but are unsuccessful, Robert instead preferring the companionship and comfort of the Kienzle household.The Kienzles approach Wallace Bailey, director of the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, for advice concerning Robert's well-being and future. Bailey suggests that Robert be banded and that the Kienzles continue to care for the little bird. The Kienzles adjust to a new life with Robert in their charge, enjoying meals at the dining room table and excursions into the yard, entertaining visitors fascinated by the story of a quail who prefers the company of people to birds, chirps into the telephone and sleeps on a favourite red pillbox hat. Robert and the family experience the first snowfall of the year and a Christmas visit from the Kienzles' family (Robert being particularly fascinated by a nativity display but decidedly unimpressed with their exuberant grandchildren).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Lantern_(short_story)" title="Blue Lantern (short story)">
The plot of the story is simple enough, the boys on vacation in a pioneer camp tell terrible stories to each other. During the discussion, the teenagers ask questions about the meaning of existence, life and death, but the answers to the questions raised are ambiguous. Confronted with "philosophical and mystical questions," the young narrator prepares for a literary encounter: he either recalls the encounter or contemplates the end of his "horror story". Not named by name, the boy is noticeably different from the others: he participates in the entertainment against his will to dispel the oppressive atmosphere. The synthesis of the light coming from the electric light-the "blue lantern" - and from the moonlight brings to the story an element of mystery characteristic of postmodernism. The blue color is identified in the narrative with something scary and frightening. After one of the stories, the youngest in the group, Kolya, confusing play with reality, runs to the teacher in terror. The last story finally connects fiction with reality - the children in the ward finally fall asleep, just like the pioneers discussed in the sixth "story. Reality triumphs over the mystical, but the "eternal questions" (who we are, where we come from... where is the difference between life and death, who has the right to consider himself truly alive) remain unanswered (in the tradition of Russian classical literature)". 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai_Shou_Chuan_USSR" title="Tai Shou Chuan USSR">
The story is constructed in a pseudo-historical form and is a deconstruction of real events. And it is a reference to the Chinese Tang dynasty story "The Governor of Nanke". The author himself dubbed this short work "A Chinese Folk Tale". Or, the setting is a communist utopia in an alternate China. According to another opinion, the story resembles the construction of short stories by the famous Chinese writer Pu Songling from the collections "Monk Magicians" and "Tales of Extraordinary People".The title of the story is "Tai Shou Chuan USSR". From the Chinese literary language, "Chuan" can be translated as "a collection of stories, essays, or legends." The character "Tai Shou" is more polysemantic, it translates as "commander of the army in the provinces" or simply "chief", "leader". Consequently, the title of the story should be understood as "A collection of essays by a certain leader about his life in the USSR.In the Chinese story, which Pelevin has looked up to, there is a strong influence of Buddhism and Taoism. In particular, the key theme is the Taoist ideologeme "life is like a dream. The Chinese "Tradition" tells of Chun Yukun's adventures in the unfamiliar land of Sophora. One day Chun Yukun got drunk and fell asleep under a sophora. He was then sent to the country of Sophora, where he married a princess. There he obtained a prestigious government position. After many years of a successful career, however, a turning point comes in his life: the death of the princess, the king's suspicions, and repatriation. After this, Chun Yukun wakes up and it turns out that he has been sleeping in his yard under a sophora, and it is still the same day. Finding the anthill, Chun Yukun recalls everything.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mardongi" title="Mardongi">
The story is a philosophical-satirical pseudo-review by Victor Pelevin. It is a parody of religious studies, a satire on religious-philosophical movements and sects, a "canonization" of "ideologies, works, and great men. According to the author's thought, the word "mardong" is Tibetan and denotes a whole set of concepts. Originally, it was the name of a cult object, which was obtained this way: If a person in life was distinguished by holiness, purity or, on the contrary, represented, figuratively speaking, "the flower of evil", then after death, which, incidentally, Tibetans always considered one of the stages of personal development, the body of such a person was not buried in the ground, but made of it "mardong" – a place of power and religious worship. A sect is forming around the so-called "mardongs" in Russia in the early 1990s.The essence of the story is a pure reflection of the sect's views, its theoretical works and its main figure – Antonov, after whom it was named, the attributes of the members of this movement, etc.A peculiar cult of death is created in the sect; all life, called in the sect "primordial mortality," is seen as preparation for death . Spiritual practices are developed in the sect, in particular the chanting of the mantra "Pushkin is great". The image of the poet plays a major role in the sect of the Antonovs. Another practice is the study of ancient Russian culture. Thus, matryoshka becomes supposedly a system of embedded dead people.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldozer_Driver's_Day" title="Bulldozer Driver's Day">
The story shows the reality of the USSR of the 1970s and 1980s as seen by Pelevin. The satirical story is set in a fictional city-state. Soviet realities are taken to the point of absurdity: everyone is working on nuclear and chemical weapons, posters glorifying the three main ideologues of power hang everywhere, an allusion to Marx, Engels and Lenin.The main character is an American spy who forgot about it, constantly drinking with the rest of the men. But an atomic bomb went off at the plant and hit him in the kidneys, which made the hero not drink for two weeks and remembered that he had to run away.In the story, almost all of the dialogues of the main characters take place on Newspeak. However, it is worth noting that Orwell's Newspeak is based on the "destruction of words", on the truncation of meanings, while Pelevin, on the contrary, forms it in order to "increase the meanings". His speech constructions do not destroy the original meaning of the word, on the contrary, they give it other, additional meanings.Thus the words, peace, labor, May, which were used in the Soviet Union as political slogans, are used in the story as components of a nonnormative vocabulary. Thus Plevin's deconstruction does not destroy the former meaning of the word, but gives it one new, additional meaning.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ontology_of_Childhood" title="The Ontology of Childhood">
In the story the author undertakes an artistic study of the process of formation of the child, starting from the moment of awareness of himself as a person, fixing the main stages of understanding of the world around him. The hero of the story grew up in prison, his first impressions of childhood firmly imprinted spatial reference points, which in the conditions of limited senses became the fundamental basis of his worldview. Among them is the gap between the bricks, in which "you can see a frozen strip of mortar, curved in a wave. This was what the child first saw when waking up every morning: "the sunny hare in the gap between the bricks was the first morning greeting from the vast world in which we live...". The streak of sunshine through the window is filled with fluffy dust particles and the tiniest twisted hairs. It begins to seem to the child that there is some little world living according to its own laws: he sees "all around him disguised areas of complete freedom and happiness. Thus, in the story, the traditional motif of the formation and maturation of personality is embodied in the continuous world of the author. The second-person narrative creates the necessary reflection and allows the main metaphor of the story to unfold in parallel. V. Pelevin speaks about the desire to break free from prison and at the same time conducts the idea of overcoming the limited human consciousness, being in captivity of illusions about the conditions of his being. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Built-in_Reminder" title="Built-in Reminder">
The story is a monologue and reflection of a painter of modern art. At an exhibition of modern art, the painter Niksim Skolpovsky talks about a new direction, "vibrationalism". The lecture is attended by several elderly female workers of the Burevestnik factory, who probably got there by accident. As an example of a work of vibrationalism he demonstrates a simulacrum of a human being, "a mannequin with a remote eliminator and a built-in death reminder. This mannequin is assembled "from a multitude of random objects pulled together by thin wires. When the saw's blade, located near the head, is turned on, it begins to cut one by one the wires, which causes the dummy to disintegrate. Simultaneously with the beginning of the saw's work the bell - a reminder of death - was also turned on. At the end of the lecture Niksim Skolpovsky says: "The built-in reminder warned of impending death, but could the mannequin hear it ringing? And even if he could, did he understand its meaning? This is what vibrationalism invites us to ponder.During the lecture, the elderly women in attendance begin to gradually shrink and at the end become no more than specks of dust. Niksim sweeps up these dust particles with a broom and pours them into an envelope. And if the mannequin, which embodies the virtual corporeality, is "resurrected," that is, restored as a permanent exhibit, then the physical corporeality of the visitors is reduced to ashes. Thus, in the fictional "vibrationalism" the author has encoded the philosophy of Zen Buddhism.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chhappanno_Hajar_Borgomail" title="Chhappanno Hajar Borgomail">
The novel starts with Rashed's only daughter Mridu's school going incident; the girl faces problem when army troops stop her in road from going to school. Rashed's wife name is Mumtaz who listens radio announcement that martial law has been imposed all over the country. Later Rashed watches television with her daughter that the army generals have come in power.Rashed later imagines his childhood life when Bangladesh was part of Pakistan and in 1958 when General Ayub Khan imposed martial law. Social changes come in Bangladesh after General Uddin Mohammad imposes martial law; Rashed observes that society is becoming more conservative, girls and women are losing their freedom and also the society is becoming religious gradually.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Game" title="Mid-Game">
In the story, Pelevin's theme of the existence and destruction of borders and the emergence of alternative, including absurd, reality is clearly evident. The story is set at the boundary of an era, in the transition from Soviet rule to the new democracy. The main protagonists of the story are the expensive foreign-currency prostitutes Lusya and Nelli (in Soviet times, foreign-currency prostitutes were called those who worked with foreigners and were paid in foreign currency, not rubles). The space of the story is made up of several worlds, and once again, seemingly autonomous worlds prove to be permeable. First, Lucia, a prostitute working with foreign clients, appears at the center of the narrative. Her space is made up of expensive Moscow hotels "Intourist", "Moscow", "Minsk" and similarly expensive restaurants. She has an expensive fur coat, "a weightless sweater with silver sequins. Next to her there is another closed world, such as a stall selling coffee and related products. The saleswoman at the stall is habitually dozing by the grill on a cold evening and, having received her order, "got up, walked over to the counter and looked with familiar hatred at Liusya's fox coat."Liusya easily crosses the boundaries between worlds, goes from floor to floor in expensive hotels, she is let in behind a thick velvet cord that blocks the entrance to an elite restaurant, where "the Soviet citizens who want to get into the restaurant were crowded."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_(short_story)" title="Nika (short story)">
This story can be classified as a mystery story, in which it is initially impossible to determine the essence of what is happening, to identify the characters, and to read the plot episodes unambiguously. Only as the reader perceives it, at one point or another, does the reader receive indications and details that allow him to adequately understand what is being portrayed. In the first paragraph of the story, in one sentence, Pelevin directs the initial reader's perception along a false path. This is accomplished through two references to Ivan Bunin. First, the phrase "easy breath" is used, which has become a symbol of tragic love in Russian literature since Bunin's classic story. In Pelevin's story the author, on whose behalf the story is written, does not accidentally reflect on the vicissitudes of love: on his "lap lies Bunin's heavy, like a silicate brick, volume", tearing himself from reading it he looks at the wall with an accidentally preserved photograph, apparently of his beloved. The past tense of the narrative points to the loss, and then the reader is given a detailed characterization, speculating on the life story of a certain Veronica, whom the hero abbreviates as Nika. However, the lack of "love," as such, is disturbing in the story. The relationship between the characters is designated as "affection," described in terms of physiology. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tambourine_of_the_Upper_World" title="The Tambourine of the Upper World">
The story can be attributed to those works of the author that are devoted to Buddhist themes, esoterics, the image of "altered states of consciousness.In the story, the heroine named Tanya, with the help of the shamaness Tyima, put on a commercial basis the summoning from the lower world of the war dead soldiers, Germans, Spaniards, Italians, and Finns. The soldiers who are resurrected and return to our world retain their citizenship, allowing Russian girls to marry them and go abroad. The service is paid for and the business is so popular that the queue for a shamaness in Moscow is booked two years in advance. Mysteries of shamaness Tyima should take place directly on a place of a military burial, therefore Tanya by maps studies the tanks which have remained from times of war, the planes which have fallen in bogs. To these places she goes together with those wishing to marry a resurrected foreigner. Another trip to a dark forest near Moscow, where a downed German Henkel plane fell during World War II, ends unexpectedly. In the underworld, from which the resurrected usually come, the shamaness does not find the right "client." Not wanting to refuse her friend Masha, Tanya asks the shamaness to search for him in the upper world, something they have never done before. The search ends successfully, but an unforeseen surprise occurs. Instead of the German pilot from the upper world, a Soviet Major Zvyagintsev, who was ferrying a trophy plane to an alternate airfield and was somehow shot down, which is unpleasant for him to recall even today. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spillover_(book)" title="Spillover (book)">
In the various chapters of the book, the author dwells on the analysis of a specific pathogen, starting from its discovery and studies on it: the Hendra virus in the first chapter; the Ebola virus in the second; the mathematical study of epidemics at the same time as the spread of malaria in the third; SARS in the fourth; bacterial zoonosis in the fifth chapter (Q fever, psittacosis and Lyme disease); the study of viral transmissibility from animal to man with the case study of herpes B in monkeys and hepadnaviruses from bats in the sixth and seventh chapters; HIV in the eighth chapter and finally some considerations on the evolution of epidemics in relation to the contribution that human activities have in the spread of zoonosis.Among the human activities, the author identifies some criticisms that increasingly favor the spread of epidemics, including deforestation and the destruction of natural habitats that increase contacts between wild animal species and man, pollution, the overpopulation of some areas that brings millions of people into contact in relatively very confined spaces, the possibility of ever faster and cheaper air travel that favor the possibility of spreading diseases in distant places, and the intensive in contact with billions of animals with the consequent risk of animal epidemics that can be transmitted to humans. All these factors, therefore, in different ways favor the spread of diseases and increase the chances of new future spillovers with pathogens still unknown to the human species but present in nature, just waiting for the right "opportunity" to "make the leap" in humans.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tambourine_of_the_Lower_World" title="The Tambourine of the Lower World">
The story is an experience of creating a "mental death laser," the reading of which is supposed to be followed by the reader's self-destruction.At the beginning of the story, the author suggests remembering the combination "The Tambourine of the Upper World," because it is curious and will definitely be told about it, but only later. Then he starts talking about Brezhnev, rays, energy, scolding himself for his habit of talking about everything at once, but when he gets to the subject of death, he begins the story of creating a death laser, which will be a collection of certain word-commands that will appeal to the human unconscious and evoke a series of associations. These word-commands would be based on emotional thoughts of death. This machine (mental laser) he proposes to call - The Tambourine of the Lower World. In the story, "The Tambourine of the Underworld," he shows how a set of ideas and verbal signals can destroy human consciousness and then construct it anew, in the configuration someone wants. The author writes: "Maybe today, already now, he has written this fateful sequence of letters, and now no one and nothing can protect us from him.The postmodernist goal of creating such an "intellectual virus" is the destruction of the "old society" and outdated ideology, the demythologization of Soviet and post-Soviet society. The next part of this project is to create a new picture of reality (consciousness). 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detransition,_Baby" title="Detransition, Baby">
The main characters are Reese, a trans woman, PR executive, and former partner of Amy; Amy, who detransitioned to live as a man and became Ames; and Katrina, a biracial Chinese and Jewish cis woman who is Ames's boss and current lover. All three are in their thirties and live in Brooklyn. After the end of their relationship, Reese and Ames have been estranged because of Ames's decision to detransition three years ago. Katrina discovers that she is pregnant with Ames's child, though Ames mistakenly believed himself sterile because of his time on hormone replacement therapy. Ames reveals to Katrina that he spent six years living as a woman and still considers himself female, though navigating the world as a trans woman was ultimately too difficult. Thus, Ames doubts that he can fulfill the masculine role of a father to a child. Ames reconnects with Reese, who has long wanted to mother a child of her own, believing that the three of them could form an unconventional family to raise the baby together. Reese grapples with the same self-destructive patterns that soured her old relationship with Amy, including sex with married men and chasers, and eventually ends up in the hospital towards the last part of the book. Katrina attempts to adjust to a different understanding of gender but intends to get an abortion if she cannot be sure she will have a support system. The three question their identities, their relationships with each other, and if they could form a stable family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nice_Racism" title="Nice Racism">
The book describes many experiences DiAngelo had while working in diversity training and workshops about race, as well as her personal life, including her experience of poverty in childhood. Following on from "White Fragility", DiAngelo replies to criticism of the book. The book contains a study guide for navigation.DiAngelo presents patterns of white progressives unknowingly engaging in racial harm, such as by being overeager to prove themselves anti-racist to people of color, co-opting indigenous or minority ethnic cultural traditions, or expecting people of color to educate them. The book contains a list of some things that DiAngelo believes cause racial harm.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Sontaran" title="The Last Sontaran">
## Part One.Alan is offered a job in Washington, D.C. in the United States, but seeks daughter Maria's and ex-wife Chrissie's approval before he relocates himself and Maria there.After strange lights are sighted around the Tycho Radio Tower, Sarah Jane, Luke, Clyde and Maria investigate. They discover Sontaran Commander Kaagh, the only survivor of the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet which was otherwise seen to be destroyed in "Doctor Who" episode "The Poison Sky". Kaagh plans to avenge his fleet by bringing Earth's satellites down on nuclear power plants across the world thereby wiping out all of humanity with the resultant explosions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Clown" title="The Day of the Clown">
## Part One.Luke is struggling to adjust to life without Maria, she having moved to Washington, D.C. with her father. Meanwhile, the Chandras move into the Jacksons' old house on Bannerman Road and Sarah Jane starts an investigation into disappearing children in the area. Sarah Jane makes Luke and Clyde promise her that they will not reveal her alien investigating secrets to the newcomers to Bannerman Road.Clyde and Luke meet new girl Rani Chandra at school. After Clyde sees a clown in school prior to the sudden disappearance of a child, Rani reveals she is being stalked by a clown that no one else can see. With Clyde having got into trouble with the new headteacher, Rani's father Haresh, Luke arranges to keep an eye on Rani in his place and goes round to her house to help her unpack. Sarah Jane and Clyde link the disappearances of the children to the Museum of the Circus, Clyde and two of the missing children having received tickets for it. Rani, who wants to become a journalist, begins her own investigation and makes the same connection to the Museum having found a ticket in a school book belonging to one of the missing children and having a ticket herself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_on_One_(novel)" title="One on One (novel)">
"One on One" follows Sam and Deanie, two high school students that are more different than they are alike. The two fall in love, only to be faced with multiple adversities, from rivals to sports.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animorphs" title="Animorphs">
The story revolves around five humans: Jake, Marco, Cassie, Rachel and Tobias, and one alien, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill (nicknamed Ax), who obtain the ability to transform into any animal they touch. Naming themselves "Animorphs" (a portmanteau of "animal morphers"), they use their ability to battle a secret alien infiltration of Earth by a parasitic race of aliens resembling large slugs called Yeerks, that can take any living creatures as a host by entering and merging with their brain through the ear canal. The Animorphs fight as a guerilla force against the Yeerks who are led by Visser Three.Throughout the series, the Animorphs carefully protect their identities; the Yeerks assume that the Animorphs are a strike force sent by the Andalites, the alien race to which Ax belongs that created the transformation technology, to prevent them from conquering Earth. To protect their families from Yeerk reprisals, the Animorphs maintain this façade.Though the Animorphs can assume the form of any animal they touch to acquire the DNA, there are several limitations to the ability. The most vital is that they cannot stay in animal form for more than two hours, or they will be unable to return to human form and the morphs become permanent. Others include having to de-morph back to human in between morphs, only tight clothing being able to be carried over with a morph, and having to consistently maintain concentration during a morph to prevent the animal's natural instincts from overwhelming their human intellect. A benefit to morphing is that it allows the team to heal any superficial, non-genetic injury, sustained as a human or in a morph. Also, while in morph, they can telepathically communicate with anyone nearby in what they call 'thought-speak'.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_in_the_Andes" title="Death in the Andes">
Corporal Lituma has been transferred as punishment to the tiny Andean community of Naccos, where almost everyone besides him, his adjutant Tomás Carreño, and the vaguely threatening owners of the local bar are there as builders. Three men from the village disappear and Lituma has to investigate, alongside his heartbroken young adjutant, the only other local policeman. Was it the "terrucos" of the Maoist Shining Path or something even more terrible that caused these vanishings?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_World" title="The Blue World">
Sklar Hast, the protagonist, had achieved a measure of success and prosperity by passing his examination to be a “Hoodwink”, or semaphore tower operator – a prestigious position on the Blue World, a planet with no land at all. During the space of twelve generations, the descendants of a crashed prison ship have created a rudimentary civilization on the water-covered planet, living on huge sea plants. They have a hierarchy of castes named after the different classes of criminal: the highest caste is the Incendiarists and the lowest is the Hooligans. They also have no idea that their ancestors were criminals, believing them to have been the victims of oppressors. They have evolved a peaceful society, and ignore the hints in texts saved from the first generation of what their origins actually were.The world is mostly safe. However, they must beware the kragen, giant, semi-intelligent squid-like predators which roam the ocean. The colonists eventually develop a relationship with one of these, King Kragen. It drives off other kragen in return for offerings of food organized by an entrenched quasi-religious priesthood built up over generations. King Kragen grows to become the largest and most powerful kragen, demanding more and more food as time goes by.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Law" title="The First Law">
## "The First Law".The plot of the original trilogy involves three major powers: The Union, the Gurkish Empire, and the North, recently united under King Bethod.There are two major theaters of war. The first takes place in the north between the Union and the Northmen, who invade the Union's northern province of Angland. The second is in the south between the Union and the Gurkish Empire, who attempt to annex the Union city of Dagoska. The trilogy centers on the fortunes of a variety of characters as they navigate through these and other conflicts. The trilogy follows the stories of six point-of-view characters, whose paths often intersect.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mona_Intercept" title="The Mona Intercept">
Cuban exile Jimmy Columbus uses hijacking on the high seas, drugs, and murder to fuel his dreams of an empire.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Gold_Bands" title="The Five Gold Bands">
Twenty generations ago, an Earthman named Langtry stumbled on a way to travel efficiently among the stars. He divided the secret among his five sons, each of whom settled on a different planet. The heirs of the five, known as the Sons of Langtry, now dominate the human universe. Generations of life on strange worlds have made them visibly distinct from each other and from Earthers, who are held in contempt on each of the Sons' five homeworlds.Picaresque Irish adventurer Paddy Blackthorn is caught attempting to steal a space drive, and is sentenced to death. In escaping from his sentence, Paddy accidentally kills the Sons of Langtry and takes from each a bracelet containing a clue to the location of one-fifth of the secret. With the help of a beautiful human secret agent, Fay Bursill, Paddy follows the clues on each of the five dominant worlds, in the hope that Earthfolk will be able to resume their rightful place in space.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_of_Infinity" title="Arc of Infinity">
On Gallifrey, the Fifth Doctor's home planet, a Time Lord traitor steals the bio-data code of another Time Lord and provides it to the Renegade, a creature composed of antimatter. The High Council of the Time Lords issue a Warrant of Termination on the Doctor to ensure the Renegade can no longer bond with him. The Doctor is taken for execution, despite Nyssa's attempts to save him, and placed in a dispersal chamber.Unbeknownst to the High Council, The Doctor's mind has been taken into the Matrix, the repository of all Time Lord knowledge, while his body is hidden. The Renegade, who demands an opportunity to return to the Universe it once inhabited, contacts him. The truth of the aborted execution is discovered by the Castellan, who tells Nyssa, Damon, and the High Council that the Doctor is alive.In Amsterdam, the Doctor's former companion Tegan is looking for her cousin Colin Frazer. She is greeted by his friend Robin Stuart, who explains that Colin disappeared while they were crashing in the crypt of the Frankendael mansion. The Renegade, which has established its base at the Frankendael, finds them and uses Tegan as bait to force the Doctor to obey him. The Doctor is returned to normal space on Gallifrey where he makes for the High Council Chamber. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Maison_du_chat-qui-pelote" title="La Maison du chat-qui-pelote">
The artist Théodore de Sommervieux falls in love with Augustine Guillaume, the daughter of a conservative cloth merchant, whose house of business on the Rue Saint-Denis in Paris is known by sign of the Cat and Racket. Théodore, a winner of the Prix de Rome and a knight of the Legion of Honor, is famous for his interiors and chiaroscuro effects in imitation of the Dutch School. He makes an excellent reproduction of the interior of the Cat and Racket, which is exhibited at the Salon alongside a strikingly modern portrait of Augustine. The affair blossoms with the help of Madame Guillaume's younger cousin Madame Roguin, who is already acquainted with Théodore. The lovers become engaged, somewhat against the best wishes of Augustine's parents, who had originally intended her to marry Monsieur Guillaume's clerk Joseph Lebas. In 1808 Augustine marries Théodore at the local church of Saint-Leu; on the same day her elder sister Virginie marries Lebas.The marriage is not a happy one. Augustine adores Sommervieux but is incapable of understanding him as an artist. Although she is more refined than her parents, her education and social standing leave her too far below the level of her husband to allow a meeting of minds to take place. Théodore's passion for her cools and she is treated with disdain by his fellow artists. Théodore instead finds a kindred soul in the Duchesse de Carigliano, to whom he gives the famous portrait of Augustine and to whom he becomes hopelessly attached, neglecting his rooms on the Rue des Trois-Frères (now a part of the Rue Taitbout).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Bal_de_Sceaux" title="Le Bal de Sceaux">
After having haughtily refused a number of suitors, under the pretext that they are not peers of France, Émilie de Fontaine falls in love with a mysterious young man who quietly appeared at the village dance at Sceaux. Despite his refined appearance and aristocratic bearing, the unknown (Maximilien Longueville) never tells his identity and seems interested in nobody but his sister, a sickly young girl. But he is not insensible to the attention Émilie gives him and he accepts the invitation of Émilie's father, the Comte de Fontaine. Émilie and Maximilien soon fall in love. The Comte de Fontaine, concerned for his daughter, decides to investigate this mysterious young man, and he discovers him on the Rue du Sentier, a simple cloth merchant, which horrifies Émilie. Piqued, she marries a 72-year-old uncle for his title of Vice Admiral, the Comte de Kergarouët.Several years after her marriage, Émilie discovers that Maximilien is not a clothier at all, but in fact a Vicomte de Longueville who has become a Peer of France. The young man finally explains why he secretly tended a store: he did it in order to support his family, sacrificing himself for his sick sister and for his brother, who had departed the country.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Castle" title="The Glass Castle">
"The Glass Castle" is Jeannette Walls' memoir of her childhood to adulthood, documenting how her parents both inspired and inhibited her life. The book is told in five parts. The first part, "A Woman On the Street", documents her conversation with her mother, Rose Mary, who was squatting in an abandoned apartment in New York City, which pushed her to tell the truth and write this memoir.Part Two, titled "The Desert", covers young Jeannette Walls living with her parents, Rex and Rose Mary, and her siblings Lori, Brian, and Maureen. Walls opens with her first memory, which takes place when she is three years old and is living in a trailer park in southern Arizona. She is engulfed in flames when attempting to make hot dogs over the stove, resulting in her going to the hospital and receiving skin grafts on her stomach, ribs, and chest. Due to fear of the mounting medical bills as well as skepticism of modern medicine, Rex takes Jeannette out of the hospital without permission or paying. A few months later, the children are woken up in the middle of the night and are told they are "doing the skedaddle" (skipping town). Their parents' nomadic lifestyle imposed by their avoidance of financial responsibilities results in the family frequently moving to Nevada, Arizona, and California. As Jeannette grows older, she is more aware of Rex's alcoholism and its consequences. For her 10th birthday, she asks him to stop drinking, which he successfully does for a few months. Following his relapse, Rose Mary decides that since they have no money it is time to move again, and she takes the family to their paternal grandparents in Welch, West Virginia.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ink_Exchange" title="Ink Exchange">
The prologue of "Ink Exchange" revisits a scene from "Wicked Lovely" narrated by Irial, King of the Dark Court, in which he walks into a tattoo shop with Leslie, a 17-year-old human. The novel then follows Leslie as she prepares for a normal day of school. Leslie's alcoholic father and Ren, her drug-dealing brother, neglect her. Having once been drugged and raped by Ren's customers to cover one of his debts, Leslie fears her family, yet still pays the bills by working as a waitress. When Leslie reaches school, she is suspicious of how well Aislinn, the protagonist from "Wicked Lovely", has adjusted to her new life as a faery. Aislinn, though once human, is the Summer Queen in the world of the fey, a world which she tries desperately to keep from Leslie.The novel then begins to follow Irial. It is revealed that the Dark Court feeds off emotions such as anger, hate, lust and pain to stay strong. When one of his own is killed by a simple human bullet, Irial is desperate for a way to protect his kind. With the help of his "left hand" Gabriel and his pack of "Hounds," he keeps his own and other courts in check. When confronted with numerous rebellions, Irial decides to pursue an ink exchange with a mortal to provide a constant stream of emotion to feed his court. After Leslie, the chosen one, receives a tattoo, traditional tattoo ink is exchanged for Dark Court blood and tears to connect the two.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_Annexe_3" title="The Secret of Annexe 3">
As the novel begins, Margaret Bowman of Charlbury Drive Chipping Norton is off to a funeral. Her husband, left alone, finds an angry letter, apparently from a lover, in his wife's handbag.The guests of Haworth Hotel rise late on New Year's Day, with one exception, the guest in Annexe 3 who missed New Year's Day completely. He lies dead in his room on the blood-soaked bed.After the murder, Inspector Morse, with the help of the receptionist Miss Sarah Jonstone, examines the letters and phone messages booking the various rooms at the hotel. Discovering the non-existent address, he deduces that a postman must be involved.Thomas Bowman, the postman, turns out to be the corpse, and his wife and her lover are the instigators of the murder. Winston Grant, a black musician, was hired to provide the alibi.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Riddle_of_the_Third_Mile" title="The Riddle of the Third Mile">
The novel is divided into three books - the first mile, the second mile and the third mile. The title is a reference to the biblical sentence "And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain" as in St Matthew, Chapter Five, Verse Forty-One. The third mile could also indirectly refer to a particularly elaborate scheme used in the book to lure three of the college staff to London.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jewel_That_Was_Ours" title="The Jewel That Was Ours">
The Historical Cities of England tour group is arriving in Oxford, staying in the best hotel in town. Retired Americans travel together, listening to talks by experts. The highlight in Oxford will be provided by tour member Laurie Stratton, who is donating the Wolvercote Tongue to the Ashmolean Museum, pursuant to her first husband's will. Dr Theodore Kemp has written a book about this piece from the time of King Alfred the Great, gold set with rubies, and the tongue fits exactly with a buckle also found in England. Just 45 minutes after arrival in the hotel, Mrs Stratton is found in their hotel room, dead on the floor, by her husband who had taken a short walk with Shirley Brown. A bit later, Eddie Stratton notices that her handbag is gone, and the Wolvercote tongue was kept in it. The hotel doctor determines she died of natural causes, and the police are called in to deal with the theft.Sergeant Lewis and Chief Inspector Morse arrive. Morse calls in the police pathologist, Max, for a cause of death he will trust. Max says it is a coronary, a heart attack, nothing suspicious. Lewis and Morse talk to the tour leaders and then the tourists. It is clear that many of them are not telling the truth about what they did in those 45 minutes, or not saying much at all. Sheila Williams bursts into tears, saying only, ask Dr Kemp, and Dr Kemp says he does not keep track of his time like that. Cedric Downes was with students. When John Ashendon, leader of the tour, returns from his walk about Oxford, he says he went to Magdalen College to take a look at it. Morse later learns that college was closed to visitors as there is renovation work underway in the buildings. Morse thinks this theft was done by one of the tourists. The tourists include a few married couples, the rest on their own. The couples are Howard and Shirley Brown, the Strattons, and Sam and Vera Kronquist. Much noted is outspoken Mrs Janet Roscoe, and the quiet Phil Aldrich, who does not hear very well.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_of_Bones" title="The Road of Bones">
The story centres on a Russian boy named Yuri who in school is taught that the revolution liberated his country, and that the new leaders are always working for greater good. But the life for his family and people around him is full of poverty and misery, and the government only punishes those who protest. And one day Yuri is considered an 'enemy of the state' for saying a few careless words, and is sent to a camp in the frozen wastelands of Siberia.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Seen_Wearing_(Dexter_novel)" title="Last Seen Wearing (Dexter novel)">
Valerie Taylor, a teenage pupil at the Roger Bacon Comprehensive School in Kidlington, north of Oxford, goes missing. Two years later, and shortly after the story has been revived in a "Sunday Times" feature about missing girls, the investigating officer, Inspector Ainley, is killed in a road accident. Shortly after that, Valerie's parents receive a letter with a London postmark, apparently written by Valerie and saying she is "alright".Inspector Morse, assisted by Sergeant Lewis, is assigned the case. Morse remains convinced that Valerie is dead, and tries to find out what happened on the day she disappeared. She had gone home for lunch, and was apparently last seen by a lollipop man, wearing her distinctive uniform and carrying a bag, on her return journey to school.Morse and Lewis speak to a number of individuals linked to the case. These include Valerie's mother, Grace Taylor, who bears a close resemblance to her daughter, and her husband (but not Valerie's father), George Taylor, a worker at the city rubbish tip; the headmaster of the school, Donald Phillipson, and his wife Sheila, between whom there is an element of mistrust; Reginald Baines, second master at the school and previously an unsuccessful candidate for the headmastership; David Acum, a French teacher who had taught Valerie's last lesson, but who left Oxford not long afterwards to teach in Caernarfon, North Wales; and Johnny Maguire, a former schoolmate of Valerie, now working at a strip club in London. Morse develops a succession of theories and assumptions about the case, many of which turn out to be flawed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silent_World_of_Nicholas_Quinn" title="The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn">
The Oxford Foreign Examinations Syndicate runs school exams in the Persian Gulf and other places with a British connection. The Secretary Dr Bartlett and Mr Roope, a chemistry don and a member of the committee, disagree about the appointment of a new member of staff. Roope gets his way and Nicholas Quinn, a deaf man who lipreads, gets the job.When Quinn is found murdered in his maisonette, all the staff are under suspicion. There is Bartlett, his deputy Ogleby and the attractive Monica Height, who has liaisons with some of the others - especially young Donald Martin. Strangely, nearly all of them, including Quinn, appear to have tickets for The Nymphomaniac at Studio 2 in Walton Street on the afternoon of the murder. When later Ogleby is himself found murdered, a neat drawing of Quinn’s ticket is found in his diary.Morse tries to deduce which of the others is the murderer but keeps getting it wrong. An intrigue involving wealthy Arabs and prior knowledge of exam papers is clearly the cause, and Quinn had found out about it and paid for it with his life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_of_All_the_Dead" title="Service of All the Dead">
The novel is divided into four books. Each book takes its name from a book of the Bible and follows a different style of writing. Notably, the third is in the form of a statement taken from a witness and the fourth mostly takes the form of court proceedings.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranks_of_Bronze" title="Ranks of Bronze">
A defeated Roman legion is sold into slavery to alien traders seeking low tech soldiers to be used in conflicts to secure trading rights on alien planets. Their new masters soon learn that the Romans are the best low tech fighters that can be found. Given their worth as soldiers and success on the battlefield, the Romans' alien masters provide them with everything, including near immortality. However, the Romans want only one thing, and that is to go home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forlorn_Hope" title="The Forlorn Hope">
"The Forlorn Hope" follows the fortunes of a mercenary company named "Fasolini's Company". On the planet Cecach, a civil war has raged between the secular Federals and their religious zealot adversaries, the Republicans. Fasolini's Company is to provide heavy support to a Federal firebase. When the firebase is cut off and surrounded by Republican troops, the Federals surrender, offering Fasolini's Company to the Republicans as part of the bargain. Since the Republicans have vowed to execute any mercenaries who fall into their hands, Fasolini's Company decides that it must flee the firebase before the Republicans arrive to take control. Fighting both the turncoat Federals and the Republicans, Fasolini's Company, with the aid of a loyal Federal logistics officer and the captain of a planet-trapped interstellar freighter, must march across enemy lines to reach the safety of the intact and still loyal Federal lines.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_and_Education" title="Democracy and Education">
In "Democracy and Education", Dewey argues that the primary ineluctable facts of the birth and death of each one of the constituent members in a social group determine the necessity of education. On one hand, there is the contrast between the immaturity of the new-born members of the group (its future sole representatives) and the maturity of the adult members who possess the knowledge and customs of the group. On the other hand, there is the necessity that these immature members be not merely physically preserved in adequate numbers, but that they be initiated into the interests, purposes, information, skill, and practices of the mature members: otherwise the group will cease its characteristic life.Dewey observes that even in a "savage" tribe, the achievements of adults are far beyond what the immature members would be capable of if left to themselves. With the growth of civilization, the gap between the original capacities of the immature and the standards and customs of the elders increases. Mere physical growing up and mastery of the bare necessities of subsistence will not suffice to reproduce the life of the group. Deliberate effort and the taking of thoughtful pains are required. Beings who are born not only unaware of, but quite indifferent to, the aims and habits of the social group have to be rendered cognizant of them and actively interested. According to Dewey, education, and education alone, spans the gap.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Is_Now_My_Neighbour" title="Death Is Now My Neighbour">
At 17 Bloxham Drive, Kidlington, Oxfordshire, a pretty 29-year-old physiotherapist named Rachel James is shot almost point blank through the closed blind of her kitchen window early in the morning of 19 February 1996. The shooting took place between 7:00 and 7:30 with a .577 caliber howdah or Lancaster pistol as the pony-tailed young woman was getting breakfast prior to heading to work, her head and upper body silhouetted in the window, as her assailant stood in her backyard.Unfortunately, none of the other residents of Bloxham Drive can recall seeing anything suspicious that morning, including her immediate neighbour Geoffrey Owens at number 15, a newspaper reporter desperate for the scoop on this breaking news story that happened so close to his home.Chief Inspector Morse, aided by Detective Sergeant (DS) Lewis, soon discovers a cryptic 'seventeenth-century' love poem by John Wilmot and a photograph of Rachel with a mysterious grey-haired man, clues which lead them to the prestigious Lonsdale College, where the rivalry between Julian Storrs and Dr Denis Cornford for the position of Master, to replace Sir Clixby Bream, is about to turn deadly.Morse goes to the extreme of employing a known house burglar and lock expert to learn more about Owens. Morse also diagnoses himself with diabetes, and, after going to the local clinic to confirm his condition, is immediately placed in John Radcliffe Hospital for five days.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daughters_of_Cain" title="The Daughters of Cain">
The body of Dr Felix McClure, Ancient History don of Wolsey College, Oxford, is found in his flat. A brutal murder – a single stab to the stomach with a broad knife. The police have no weapon, no suspect and no motive. The case leads Morse into the path of Edward Brooks, who himself disappears following a museum theft. Then the weapon is found and there are suddenly "too many" suspects.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_Through_the_Woods" title="The Way Through the Woods">
A beautiful young Swedish woman went missing a year earlier. An anonymous riddle, in the form of a five-stanza poem, is sent to the police and the case is reopened. The police ask "The Times" for help with the poem. Morse and Sergeant Lewis are put in charge of the new investigation.Morse is intrigued by a cryptic clue relating to missing Karin Eriksson, which is taken to mean she has been murdered. He is given the case and notes that the clue seems to include a reference to Wytham Woods, where he believed the police should have searched in the first place. The police search the area with help from head forester David Michaels and a body is found but it is the body of a man.Morse and Lewis talk to George Daley, who found Karin's bag. His wife Margaret gives them some photos developed from Karin's camera, showing a young man and a house, but tears up some more showing Karin naked. Morse identifies the house in the photo but the tenant, McBryde, disappears before he can be questioned. Morse and Lewis find the house was being used to make pornographic films and the client list includes Daley and a local lecturer, Alan Hardinge. Daley is found dead in Blenheim Park. Michaels is suspected but was showing some RSPB representatives around at the time, since the gatewarden recalls when Daley entered the park.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Most_Wanted_Man" title="A Most Wanted Man">
A young Turkish boxing champion in Hamburg notices he is being shadowed by a tall gaunt young man in a black coat, who turns up on his doorstep and demands hospitality. Somewhat suspiciously, they allow "Issa" to stay in the attic as he announces his desire to become a doctor. He contacts a human rights organisation whose attractive young bike-riding lawyer, Annabel Richter, takes his case to a British bank in the city. She bases her case to the owner, Tommy Brue, on a mysterious "Lippizaner" fund established by his father and held by the bank. When Brue meets Issa, he claims he is the son of a Russian, Colonel Karpov, who put his money in the fund, but after Brue's grilling, he refuses to claim his inheritance. Brue, who by this time is falling under Annabel's spell, gives her a large personal cheque to cover expenses.Brue receives visits from British intelligence who tell him that they had set up the bank accounts, which received payoffs and money from mafia sources. They ask him to alert them when Issa shows up. A German intelligence agent, Bachmann, who visits Annabel, is homing in on a suspicious Islamist terrorist with Chechen connections, arrested entering Sweden from Turkey in a container, who has escaped custody and found his way to Germany. Annabel has moved Issa from the Turkish family to a new apartment she has recently bought but not occupied, but her evasive tactics seem suspicious to the followers. She is later apprehended in the street, interrogated by Bachmann, and a woman in the intelligence service is assigned to persuade Annabel to co-operate with them. Eventually she agrees on the basis that her client will be given a German passport and be allowed to stay.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Careless_(novel)" title="Careless (novel)">
The novel follows the lives of four protagonists - Pearl, Anna, Sonia and Adam - who have all been touched by grief and despair. Suffering alone they are all drawn together by a tragic event.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whip_Hand" title="Whip Hand">
The protagonist Sid Halley is an ex-jockey turned detective who lost his left hand due to an earlier racing accident and subsequent beating by thugs. He is approached by Rosemary Caspar, a trainer's wife, to look into problems at her husband's racing stables. Horses which did extremely well as two-year-olds are unexpectedly failing as three-year-olds. In addition, Sid Halley's ex-father-in-law, Charles, asks Sid to try to find a man who has conned Sid's ex-wife Jenny and left her facing a possible jail sentence over a fake charity. Sid is also approached by both Lord Friarly, a racehorse owner and syndicate member, and Lucas Wainwright, the head of the security service at the Jockey Club, to look into certain syndicates and how they got through the Jockey Club's checking process.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Museum_of_Innocence" title="The Museum of Innocence">
Kemal has been engaged to a pretty girl named Sibel for two months when he meets a shop girl, Füsun, while buying a handbag for his fiancee. What follows in the next month and a half is an intense and secretive physical and emotional relationship between them. Kemal's happiest moment of life comes while making love the day Füsun confesses her deep love for him. Though it is clear that he has also fallen completely for Füsun, Kemal keeps denying this to himself, believing that his marriage with Sibel and secret relationship could continue forever. His reverie is broken when Füsun disappears just after attending his engagement. Now he has to come to terms with his deep attachment and love for Füsun. He goes through a very painful period for about a year, unable to meet Füsun and deriving consolation from objects and places related to his beloved and their lovemaking. His engagement to Sibel breaks off and finally Füsun responds to his letter and agrees to meet him. Füsun has got married, living with her husband and parents and pretends to meet Kemal just as a distant relation, with undercurrents of anger. For the next eight years Kemal keeps visiting the family for supper and expressing his love for Füsun in various ways, while finding consolation in various objects related to her that he carries away from the house. Finally after her father’s death, circumstances lead Füsun to divorce her husband. Füsun and Kemal are to be married after a trip around Europe together, but fate has something else in store and they become separated forever after a night of intense love-making. Kemal regards each object related to Füsun and their love, collected over the years, as portraying some discrete moment of happiness and bliss in the passage of those nine years. He decides to convert Füsun’s house into a museum of innocence, including all these objects and also other memorabilia related to the period.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ideological_Origins_of_the_American_Revolution" title="The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution">
In 1965, Bernard Bailyn published a renowned introduction, "The Transforming Radicalism of the American Revolution," to the first volume of the January 1965 "Pamphlets of the American Revolution", a series of documents of the Revolutionary era which he edited for the John Harvard Library. Two years later, Bailyn published a revised and expanded version of this introduction, entitling it "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution". Bailyn argued that "the 'progressive' historians of the early twentieth century" dismissed "the Revolutionary leaders' professed fears of 'slavery' and of conspiratorial designs as what by then had come to be known as propaganda...in order to accomplish predetermined ends--Independence and in many cases personal advancement."Bailyn distinguished "political liberty" in pamphlets collected by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon from the " 'personal security, personal liberty, and private property' " rooted in a "state of nature." In contrast, "political liberty...was the capacity to exercise 'natural rights' within limits set not by the mere will or desire of men in power but by non-arbitrary law--law enacted by legislatures." But British "laws, grants, and charters...marked out the minimum not the maximum boundaries of right." His "colonists" and "Revolutionary leaders" transitioned from the initial goal of "political liberty" to a "theory of politics" that conceived of "liberty, then, as the exercise, within the boundaries of the law, of natural rights whose essences were minimally stated in English law and custom."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_the_Tree" title="Son of the Tree">
One of Vance's earliest efforts, and part science fiction, part espionage story, protagonist Joe Smith has to contend with the machinations of various alien societies in search of the Earthman who ran off with his girl.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_in_my_Nuddy-Pants" title="Dancing in my Nuddy-Pants">
The book is written in the form of a diary. It is about Georgia Nicolson (14), her friends (the Ace Gang), and her infatuation with boys (or snogging in particular). Georgia's boyfriend Robbie ('the sex god or SG') has been invited to go on tour with his band The Stiff Dylans. He has received an offer to go to Los Angeles in hamburger-a-gogo-land (United States), where Georgia is thinking of becoming a 'girlfriend to a pop-star'. At the end of the book he goes for an interview and gets a job in Whakatane (New Zealand) instead. Even though Georgia is upset about this she still has enough courage in her to (when her house is empty) dance in her nuddy-pants (naked).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Howling_II_(novel)" title="The Howling II (novel)">
Three years after the events of "The Howling", Karyn Beatty has now remarried and lives in Seattle. Although content with her new life with her husband, David Richter, and her young stepson Joey, she is still haunted by the memories of her terrifying ordeal in the California mountain village of Drago with its werewolf inhabitants. Karyn regularly sees a therapist to help work through her problems, but after a spate of sinister occurrences that culminate in the horrific killing of the family's housekeeper, Karyn is convinced that the surviving werewolves of Drago have tracked her down. Fearing for the lives of her new family, Karyn leaves town, hoping she will lead the evil creatures away from her loved ones.Karyn's fears prove well founded as she had indeed been tracked down by none other than her ex-husband Roy Beatty (now a werewolf) and Marcia Lura, the evil Drago werewolf who first bit him. Both Roy and Marcia survived the fire in Drago, but Marcia is now partially scarred and incapacitated due to being shot in the head with a silver bullet by Karyn at the end of the first novel. Though the bullet did not kill her as expected, it left a streak of silver through her black hair and rendered her unable to fully transform into a wolf as before. Now, every night, she becomes a grotesque half-woman/half-wolf creature and wants revenge for what Karyn did to her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Steel_Remains" title="The Steel Remains">
Ringil Eskiath is a war hero from a conflict between humans and the lizard-like Scaled Folk, although he is now shunned by his aristocratic family in the city of Trelayne, part of the Northern League, due to his homosexuality and cynicism. He is contacted by his mother in his self-imposed exile after a distant cousin, Sherrin, is sold into legal slavery to pay off her husband's debt. He returns to Trelayne and his investigations reveal the presence of a Dwenda, an other-worldly being who lives outside of conventional time, who is aiding the slavers. He fights the Dwenda, named Seethlaw, but is captured and taken to the Aldrain Marches, the grey places between worlds. After a mentally grueling journey, they emerge at Ennishmann, a marshland and the site of an ancient and destroyed Dwenda city.Two of Ringils comrades in the war against the Scaled Folk are also drawn towards Ennishmann. Archeth serves, somewhat reluctantly, at the Imperial Yhelteth court. She is half Kiriath, a mysterious people who arrived in the world centuries ago and who aided the humans against the lizards before departing to a destination unknown. She is dispatched to investigate an attack on a port and discovers evidence that suggest Dwenda involvement. The Kiriath banished the Dwenda from the world many years ago and feared their return. Egar Dragonbane is Majak, a nomadic people who farm the steppes. After failing to adapt fully to his post-war position as clan-master he survives an assassination attempt by his brothers after apparent divine intervention by one of the tribal gods. Archeth, following the trail from the port, and Egar, directed by the deity, both head towards Ennishmann.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramage_(novel)" title="Ramage (novel)">
Nicholas Lord Ramage is the third lieutenant on His Majesty's ship "Sibella", but assumes command when the Captain, and the First and Second Lieutenants are killed by fire from a French ship. The French ship had fatally crippled the "Sibella" and had killed over half of her crew, including the surgeon and surgeon's mate. As the new Captain, Ramage decides to abandon the sinking ship. He leaves the injured on the deck to be taken prisoner by the French and hopefully treated by their surgeon. Before he abandons the ship, Ramage retrieves some documents and the late Captain's last orders. The remaining crew then loads into the four lifeboats and rows away. As they are rowing away, the crew of the French ship set the "Sibella" on fire after taking the injured off.Ramage opens Sir John Jervis's orders to the late Captain and finds that the "Sibella" was on a rescue mission to extricate the Marchesa di Volterri along with five other nobles including the Marchesa's two cousins. Austria was proving unable to defend its possessions in northern Italy, despite the subsidies the British government was paying to support the Austrian army. Britain, unable to deploy major forces on the European continent, used its commercial power to bolster the land armies of allies like Austria and Spain against the French for over a decade. Ramage decides to go through with the rescue. He takes the captain's gig with several topmen and the former Captain's coxswain, Jackson, with him and sends the other surviving sailors to Bastia. Ramage and his men then land upon Monte Argentario and find the Marchesa with the help of a local charcoal maker.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescence_(novel)" title="Incandescence (novel)">
The novel has two narratives in alternate chapters. The first follows two citizens of the Amalgam, a Milky Way-spanning civilisation, investigating the origin of DNA found on a meteor by the Aloof. The Aloof control the galactic core and, until the novel begins, have rejected all attempts at contact by the Amalgam. The second narrative is set on a small world known as the Splinter, and covers the attempts by its inhabitants to understand the environment within which their home exists. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that the Splinter orbits a collapsed star within its accretion disk and is subject to various dangers. The two stories come together in a complex twist which involves a kind of past/future first contact role reversal.Much of the narrative explores the effects of orbital dynamics around a high mass object and requires an understanding of Newtonian gravitation and at least a basic familiarity with general relativity and its application to black holes and neutron stars to be compelling. Understanding the story's wider frame of reference and the Splinter's encounter with the Wanderer are tied in with this.The Amalgam is explored in three other short stories, "Glory", "Riding the Crocodile", and "Hot Rock".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disguise_(novel)" title="Disguise (novel)">
The book begins during the Battle of Berlin. A mother, Mrs Liedmann and her son are living in a house in the city. Her husband is fighting for the German forces on the Western front. A bomb falls on their house and kills her son Gregor. Distraught, she searches among the ruins for her son. Her father, Emil Liedmann, who is a deserter from the army, comes to take her home To Nuremberg. On the outskirts of a country town he finds an orphan boy the same age as Gregor and makes his daughter promise to raise him as her own child and never to tell a soul that he is not her son. Soon after Emil disappears while searching for fuel on the black market. Later it emerges that Emil was shot by American forces as he tried to escape the Germans, who wanted to capture and punish Emil for being a deserter.In autumn 2006 a grown up Gregor meets with friends and family in an orchard in the German countryside. Gregor meets his wife Mara, from whom he has bees separated for thirty or so years, his best friend Martin and his son Daniel who is with his girlfriend Juli. Over the day spent picking apples Gregor reminisces over his life. In his teenage years he began to suspect that he was not his parents child, given that he looked nothing like them and on account of a slip up made by Uncle Max, an old friend of Emil. He runs away and travels throughout Europe for several years, returning to Germany intermittently to earn money for his travels. By the late sixties he is in Berlin and working as a musician. He meets Martin and Mara, telling them that he is an orphan. After some years he marries Mara when she becomes pregnant. The couples relationship comes under strain however when Mara visits Mrs. Liedmann who insists that Gregor is her biological dad. forced to choose between the word of her husband or his mother she becomes confused. Gregor decides to leave for a while to travel to Toronto with a group of musicians. Gregor maintains a long distance relationship with his family. After a time he returns to Berlin but finds it too hard. He leaves for Ireland where he lives for several years before he returns to Berlin following the fall of the Berlin wall. As time passes he gradually sees more of Mara and the two reform their friendship. At the end of the book, after Daniel has blamed Gregor for having fabricated the story of his existence, Mara takes the pair to a room in the back of the farmhouse where they are staying. In it is all of the possessions of Gregor's childhood home. Mara finds the clothes in which Gregor was found as a boy. Mara theorises that Mrs. Liedmann kept the clothes to let Gregor know of his origins. After this Daniel believes his fathers story.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chimera's_Curse" title="The Chimera's Curse">
Connie is the world's last Universal and the only one who can communicate with everyone and everything. the only person who can keep peace and unity between humans and the mythical beings being destroyed by human hands. The evil shapeshifter Kullervo wants her power. He wants to destroy all humanity for wiping out the mythical creatures.During a scorching summer, Kullervo prepares for war. The serpent-like Chimera is only a small part of his deadly army. As the dangerous fire of Kullervo's hatred bursts into life, Connie and her best friend Col must stop him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlafes_Bruder" title="Schlafes Bruder">
The protagonist, Johannes Elias Alder, called Elias, is born in a small mountain village in Vorarlberg. He is a gifted musician, training his voice and able to imitate all villagers. Peter, his cousin of about the same age, is fascinated by him. Elias secretly practices the organ at night, with Peter assisting him.When the boys are twelve years old, Peter, who is abused by his father, sets fire to his parents' farm on Christmas Day. Elias, who discovers the flames first, rescues Peter's sister Elsbeth. More than half the village burns down during the fire. Elias doesn't tell anyone that Peter was the perpetrator of the fire, for love of his only friend.Elias grows up to a good-looking and ambitious young man. After the organist and teacher commits suicide, Elias becomes his successor. He loves Elsbeth. Peter is jealous and arranges a marriage of Elsbeth and Lukas, the son of a wealthy farmer. Elias has a vision in a desperate night when he struggles with God. He loses his love for Elsbeth and becomes depressed.When Elias is 22 years old, the cathedral organist of Feldberg listens to his organ playing and invites him to an organ festival. There, Elias plays an improvisation on the chorale "Komm, o Tod, du Schlafes Bruder" from Bach's cantata "Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen", fascinating all listeners. His love for Elsbeth is revived and he decides to take his own life, according to the thoughts expressed in the chorale. He tries to sleep no more and dies, buried by Peter.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betrayal_at_Falador" title="Betrayal at Falador">
"Betrayal at Falador" takes place in Gielinor, the fictional world of "RuneScape", and begins with a woman known as Kara-Meir found near death within the walls of Falador Castle. Sir Amik Varze and his White Knights are determined to locate the attack's perpetrator, speculated to be a monster seen attacking travellers on the outskirts of the region.Kara-Meir is rescued by the Knights of Falador, who retrieve from her three mysterious objects; a finely crafted sword with a green tinge, a strange ring broken into two and some white flowers. At the command of Sir Amik, Squire Theodore is sent to the town of Taverley to consult with the local druids about the flowers. Along the way, he witnesses the gruesome sight of a butchered gypsy caravan.Upon his arrival at Taverley, Kaqemeex the druid confirms that the flowers are in fact snowdrops, which grow on Ice Mountain, adding further suspicion that Kara may be a spy. Doric, the dwarf, in the meantime is mobbed by a band of drunken farmers, and his home is burnt. This is because the attackers have been brainwashed by the H.A.M (Humans against Monsters) society. Returning to Falador, Squire Theodore meets Doric en route. Doric agrees to go to Falador in order to report the mobbing he suffered.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_taxi_mauve" title="Un taxi mauve">
A man settles on the Beara Peninsula in Ireland, where he plans to lead an idle life devoted to reading, music and hunting. He befriends a number of unusual people. Jerry Kean, an Irish-American who has returned to the land of his forefathers, comes from an affluent family but is lost in life. Jerry's sister Sharon is a beautiful, mysterious and provocative woman who has married into German royalty. His other sister, Moira, is an internationally famous film actress. Taubelman is an avid story teller shrouded in mystery. His supposed daughter Anne is voluntarily mute. Seamus Scully is a retired medical doctor who travels across the landscape in a purple taxi.The narrator first develops feelings for Sharon and then becomes fascinated by Anne. He becomes friends with Jerry, while the mystery surrounding Taubelman sets the atmosphere for numerous hunting parties, walks with faithful dogs and visits to countryside pubs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slugs_(novel)" title="Slugs (novel)">
Slugs in the cellar of an old house feed on scraps of rotten meat someone is unknowingly throwing down to them.A very drunk Ron Bell stumbles home, passes out in his front room and wakes to find himself being eaten alive by slugs that have come through the floor. The slugs then retreat back down the cellar.Mike Brady, an almost-40-year-old council health inspector awakes with wife Kim, 35, and discusses that he has to help evict a council tenant Ron Bell that day. Brady accompanies Archie Reece, bailiff, to serve an eviction notice on Ron Bell. They find Bell's mutilated body. The slugs leave Ron Bell's cellar, crawl up into his garden and then down into the sewers towards a new housing estate.Mary Forbes, housewife, discovers slug larvae in her hanging baskets. Brady, on a routine check of the houses on the new housing estate finds slime trails.Bert Crossley, a butcher on the new housing estate enjoys a lunch time drink with friends Danny and Tony. On arriving back at his shop afterwards, he discovers the meat he had left in cabinets has vanished, only a few scraps and dark patches of blood remain.Julie Jenkins, receptionist for the council offices where Brady works, takes a message from pensioner Mrs. Fortune, complaining about her blocked drain and toilet. Brady and effluent operative Don Palmer from the council sewage department go to investigate. They find the drain blocked and slime trails but when they examine the sewer they find nothing wrong. They do not see two slugs hidden in the darkness.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn_(novella)" title="Burn (novella)">
The story follows Prosper Gregory Leung, a farmer who has been recruited to help fight forest fires on his home planet of Walden. After being injured in the line of duty, he is sent to recover in a hospital. There, he ends up contacting the High Gregory, a young ruler on the planet Kenning. In the course of talking with the High Gregory, Spur unknowingly brings the young "luck maker" and several other young diplomats to Walden.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Infernal_Devices" title="The Infernal Devices">
The series takes place in London England in 1878, a short time after the peace treaties between Downworlders and Shadowhunters. As Shadowhunters consider themselves superior or purer than Downworlders or demons, they may have no qualms about killing either.The first book in "The Infernal Devices" is entitled "Clockwork Angel" and begins the story of Tessa Gray, an orphan teenage girl who is looking for her brother Nathaniel Gray, who has disappeared, and seeks her true identity.Her search plunges her into a world she never knew existed and reveals talents she never knew she had. She will have to learn to master them if she wants to find her brother, and must forge an alliance with Shadowhunters if she wants to survive in this dangerous world. Many of the family names of the Shadowhunters used in "The Mortal Instruments" are first introduced in this series. Another character in "The Infernal Devices", Magnus Bane, the High Warlock of Brooklyn, also plays a part in the series.As Tessa Gray is drawn deeper into the Shadow World, and goes on the quest of finding her brother, she falls in love with two Shadowhunters–but when it comes to choosing one, trouble begins to brew and suspense finds its way into her life. She will have to learn to hide her feelings if she hopes to survive. However, as her heart rages for love but her mind is bent on saving her brother, will she hide her vulnerable side? Which of the Shadowhunters will win her heart?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Broken_Shore" title="The Broken Shore">
The novel's central character is Joe Cashin, a Melbourne homicide detective. Following serious physical injuries he is posted to his hometown Port Munro, where he begins the process of rebuilding the old family mansion and his physical and mental strength. Against a background of family tragedy, politics, police corruption and racism, he investigates the death of a wealthy local man, Charles Burgoyne. His closest friend and police superior is Villani, who is the central character in "Truth".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Fowl_and_the_Time_Paradox" title="Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox">
Angeline Fowl, Artemis Fowl's mother contracts a debilitating disease, which Artemis worsens by trying to use magic. Artemis desperately contacts Captain Holly Short and No. 1, in hopes that they will be able to shed some new light on his mother's condition. They determine Angeline is suffering from Spelltropy, a fairy disease that is spread through the use of magic, and can only be cured by the brain fluid of the silky sifaka lemur of Madagascar. Unfortunately, the lemur is extinct, due to a ruthless deal Artemis made almost 8 years ago with a group called the Extinctionists. Foaly tells him that his mother will die without the cure. Artemis pleads for No.1 to open up the time stream, allowing him to save the lemur, and thus his mother. Foaly argues against the idea, but due to Artemis' lying to Holly, saying that she infected Angeline with Spelltropy, Holly agrees to help Artemis immediately to make up for it, and Foaly gives in.They arrive nearly eight years earlier in Artemis' study. The time stream causes Artemis to become much hairier while Holly is physically reduced to an adolescent. Artemis assures Holly that the past Butler will quietly slip the lemur into the room (to avoid Angeline seeing it) and that they will simply be able to leave. Butler however, does not act according to Artemis' predictions. He tranquillises the two, and locks them in the trunk of the Fowl Bentley. Artemis and Holly escape with the help of Mulch Diggums, a kleptomaniac dwarf who has partnered up with Artemis in the future. After following his younger self to an animal park to retrieve the lemur, Artemis breaks into the wrong cage and is attacked by a gorilla, and Holly is forced into action. She heals his wounds with magic, and in a giddy haze of relief after realising he almost died, she kisses him. Afterward, they save the lemur from Rathdown Park, but are forced at gunpoint to release it to young Artemis. While hurrying to the shuttleport in Tara, a guilty Artemis confesses his lie to Holly, who is outraged. Artemis redeems himself by giving Holly a chance to talk with Commander Root, who is dead in their time. Holly becomes neutral to Artemis, then thanks him. They commandeer a shuttle and fly it to Fez, Morocco, where the younger Artemis will trade the lemur to the Extinctionists for a hundred thousand euros. The money will go to an Arctic expedition, to help Artemis find his missing father.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gargoyle_(novel)" title="The Gargoyle (novel)">
"The Gargoyle" follows two different time lines, one in the form of a story (or ‘memory’), and one in real time. In real time, an unnamed atheist and former hardcore porn star with a troubled childhood is driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Hallucinating that a volley of arrows is being shot at him from a forest, he swerves off the road and into a ravine. There his car sets alight, and he begins to burn. Just as he thinks he will die, the car tips into a creek and he survives, though badly burned. While recovering, the Burned Man becomes addicted to morphine and believes there is now a snake in his spine. Hatching a suicide plan, he gets to know a visitor named Marianne Engel, who is a sculptress suspected of having manic depression or schizophrenia. Humoring her at first as she believes she knew him several hundred years prior, they soon begin a friendship/ relationship, and he moves in with her. Throughout, Marianne reveals their ‘past’, and tells tales of love and hope, inspiring the Burned Man to live.Their ‘past’ story begins in fourteenth-century Germany, at a monastery named Engelthal. A baby is found at the gates, and taken in and raised as a nun. The young sister Marianne is soon found to possess incredible language skills, understanding languages she has never been taught. One day, a man is brought to the monastery. He is severely burned, except for a small rectangle over his heart where there is an arrow wound, caused by a copy of Dante's Inferno, which he took from an Italian friend, blocking the burning arrow which struck him. The man is a member of a Condotta, a mercenary troop. The nuns believe the burned man is too injured to live. Marianne however looks after him, and he survives, and the two grow closer as she translates and reads to him Dante's Inferno. Finding love with each other, the Burned Man and Marianne flee the monastery and begin a new life together, getting married and conceiving a baby.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_(novel)" title="Fifteen (novel)">
Jane Purdy is a 15-year-old student at Woodmont High School in California. She dreams of having a boyfriend like blonde, popular, and sophisticated 16-year-old Marcy Stokes has. Jane feels somewhat left out of social circles at her high school, and envies the more popular girls who go out on dates, seem more confident and wear more expensive clothes.One day while babysitting, Jane meets 16-year-old Stan Crandall, who is a delivery boy for a pet-food store. Jane is immediately attracted to Stan, although she does not believe that he will be attracted to her, because she is ordinary. However, Stan calls her later and asks her out on a date to the movies.After school begins, Jane learns that Stan has another date named Bitsy for the first school dance. Jane is extremely upset, but it turns out that Stan asked Bitsy to the dance before he met Jane and he feels he can't break the date. After the dance, Stan tells Jane about his time with Bitsy, saying that she made fun of his job. Stan turned pale before saying goodbye to Jane. Later, Julie calls Jane on the phone to tell her Stan was rushed to the hospital and had his appendix out.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Esperanza" title="Santa Esperanza">
Santa Esperanza is a multi-cultural country stretched on three small islands lost somewhere in the middle of the Black Sea. The islands are inhabited by the Georgians, the Genoese (descendants of the Black Sea settlers), the Turks and the British. The islands are often visited by tourists, who essentially view the place as an earthly Paradise. However, there are occasional tourists who take a closer look at the distinct and singular culture, as well as the traditions turned into taboos.Since the Crimean War, the Island has been under British rule. Apparently, at that time they leased the three islands for 150 years from the last governor Sarri-Beg, a Turk of Georgian origin. The main story of the novel unfolds in 2002, when the British leave the islands and Santa Esperanza gains independence. The rivalry between the local powerful clans grows into a civil war, which has no clear political coloring, it rather is a clash of spiritual monsters reared during the lull of several centuries. For this reason, the war has no obvious cause, and the only tangible conflict is the primacy of the clan to receive the state insignia from the British Governor. The hostilities are instigated by the Visramianis, the wealthiest Georgian clan, owners of one of the islands. The family traditions and internal regulations comprise a sophisticated system of numerous prohibitions and complicated, opinionated restrictions, which eventually causes dramatic developments in the personal lives of the younger generation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone,_Baby,_Gone_(novel)" title="Gone, Baby, Gone (novel)">
Boston-based lovers and private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro are hired by a woman to look into the case of her niece, Amanda McCready, whose disappearance has become an important local news story. They take the case despite the seeming reluctance of the girl's uncle, Lionel. During the investigation they quickly come to the conclusion that Amanda's mother, Helene, who has been prominently featured in the news stories about the case, is a degenerate and neglectful parent. At the time of Amanda's disappearance, Helene had left her alone for several hours while she partied at a local dive bar. In another incident, revealed later, Helene had once left her daughter unsupervised on the beach for several hours, resulting in the girl getting a terrible sunburn. While Helene has been pleading with the public for her daughter's return, in private she often seems more concerned about her own life and the possible benefit the publicity might have on it. In perhaps the most irresponsible act of parenting, Patrick and Angie discover that Helene had taken Amanda along while she and her then boyfriend Skinny Ray stole two hundred thousand dollars from men working for the imprisoned drug dealer Cheese.Patrick and Angie begin working on the case with police officers Remy Broussard and Nick "Poole" Raftopoulous, members of the Boston Police Department's CAC (Crimes Against Children) Division. In investigating the missing money from Helene and Ray's drug deal, Patrick, Angie, Broussard, and Poole find the money along with two dead bodies, acquaintances of Helene's from when the money was originally stolen. The police receive an apparent ransom demand calling for a meetup at the Quincy Quarries to exchange the money for the girl. Under cover of darkness and with the area surrounded by police, Angie, Patrick, Poole, and Remy arrive at the quarry. Before they can meet the kidnappers, a confused gun battle breaks out, resulting in the death of a couple of gangsters working for Cheese and the disappearance of the ransom money. Angie finds Amanda's favorite doll, which had been taken along with her, in the water of the quarry, and they conclude that the little girl was likely thrown in and died.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pinch_of_Snuff_(novel)" title="A Pinch of Snuff (novel)">
Receiving a tip from his dentist Jack Shorter, Inspector Peter Pascoe takes a closer look at the Calliope Kinema Club, a film club notorious for showing adult entertainment movies. Shorter is convinced that one particular scene in a movie he recently saw was too realistic to have been staged with fake blood, but when Pascoe starts investigating, he soon comes across the actress in question, Linda Abbott, who obviously didn't suffer from any harm and assures Pascoe that his and Shorter's concerns are unnecessary. Meanwhile, the "Calli" has been vandalised and its proprietor Gilbert Haggard has been assaulted so badly that he succumbs to a heart attack. The only existing copy of "Droit de Seigneur" - the film Jack Shorter was so worried about - has been destroyed, and when 13-year-old Sandra Burkill accuses the dentist of being the father of her (yet unborn) child, it begins to look as though Shorter had merely tried to avert suspicions by his claims against the "Calli".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade_(Young_novel)" title="Crusade (Young novel)">
"Crusade", like "Brethren" before it, follows Will Campbell, a Templar involved in a secret order known as the Anima Templi, as he tries to secure peace in the Holy Land with the help of Kalawun, a high-ranking officer in the Mamluk court ruled by Sultan Baybars. Both of these men face plots from within their own organisations to throw the Holy Land into war: in Acre, Will must stop a cabal of merchants seeking to start a war by stealing the Muslim relic known as the Black Stone; while in Egypt, Baybars' son Baraka Khan and soothsayer Khadir al-Mihrani are plotting to overthrow Baybars and redouble the attack on the last remaining Franks in the Holy Land. Meanwhile, Will's childhood friend, Garin de Lyons, is now in the employ of King Edward I and has returned to Acre to extort money from the Anima Templi and to pursue his own, more selfish ends; and Will faces a threat from Baybars as the sultan gets nearer and nearer to discovering that it was Will who, many years before, ordered an assassination attempt which had failed but had taken the life of Baybars' closest friend.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Fever!" title="Treasure Fever!">
Henry McThrottle waits with his friends Jack, a drawer; pan phobic Newton, muscular Gretel and sociable Jenny for their teacher Mrs. Chalkboard to come. Mr. Greenbeard, the school principal and naval buff comes to the class to announce the new substitute teacher Mr. Brainfright who will replace Mrs. Chalkboard while she is on a spot of "shore leave". It becomes immediately apparent that Mr. Brainfright doesn't know a thing about teaching, and proceeds to make his first lesson about how to breathe. This results in him falling out the window, to where the whole class successfully pulls him back in, and where Mrs. Cross is introduced.Mr. Brainfright continues to tell the class about a riddle where a man has a goat, a wolf, and some cabbage, and he needs to cross a river, with the reward being a lollipop. Henry correctly answers the riddle using spitballs thrown to him by Clive Durkin, the class bully. At recess, Clive and his brother Fred claim that the lollipop is his because Henry used Clive's spitballs to help him work it out. Fred and Henry then fight until Mrs. Cross stops it and sends Henry to the office.Henry explains the problem to Mr. Greenbeard, who understands as a similar thing happened to him when he was younger. Mr. Greenbeard had a treasure chest full of things that he had, buried in a hill that he named "Skull Island", which had been stolen. Mr. Greenbeard recited the poem that was left in the chest, which inspires Henry to look for it. He enlists his friends Jack, Newton, Gretel, and Jenny to help him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knife_That_Killed_Me" title="The Knife That Killed Me">
"The Knife that Killed Me" is a novel which follows a teenager, Paul Varderman, as he tries to fit in with a group in his school.At the beginning of the book, Paul is a loner, looking into the groups from the outside. A series of events in which he stands up for members of a group known as "The Freaks" lead to him becoming included by them. "The Freaks" are different from the other groups as they do not live under the rule of the school thug, Roth.As Paul becomes more involved with "The Freaks", he also begins to become influenced by Roth. Roth uses Paul as a messenger between himself and a rival school and gives him a knife. The relationship between the two schools develops, with Roth leading the way to war between them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knife_of_Never_Letting_Go" title="The Knife of Never Letting Go">
Todd Hewitt is the only boy left in Prentisstown, a small settlement on New World – an alien planet only recently colonized by humanity. Todd is within days of his thirteenth birthday, the age in Prentisstown at which all boys become men.Todd has been told that all the women and nearly all the men on New World were killed in a war with the Spackle that occurred around the time of his birth. The Spackle are New World's native inhabitants and are blamed for the release of a germ that caused the majority of deaths and was particularly fatal to women. The inhabitants of Prentisstown claim that every Spackle was wiped out during the war, and Todd has no reason to believe otherwise. As a side effect of the virus, the remaining men in Prentisstown can hear each others' (and animals') thoughts, described as an ever-present cascade of what they call "Noise".The men of Prentisstown make up the last surviving settlement on New World – at least according to Mayor Prentiss, after whom the town is named.At the beginning of the book, Todd and his dog, Manchee, discover a lone patch of silence, described as a "hole in the Noise", in a local swamp. When Todd explains the silence to his adoptive parents, Ben and Cillian, his Noise accidentally projects the discovery to the entire town. Ben and Cillian suddenly reveal they have been planning Todd's escape from Prentisstown for his entire life. The two men immediately force him to leave Prentisstown with just a satchel of supplies and Manchee to accompany him. Todd unwillingly obeys. Cillian fights off the Mayor's son, Davy Prentiss, and other men from the town while Ben gives Todd his own hunting knife and Todd's deceased mother's diary.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shatter_(novel)" title="Shatter (novel)">
Professor Joseph O'Loughlin (referred to as Joe throughout the novel) is tasked by the police with stopping a woman, Christine Wheeler, from committing suicide, only to fail. When Wheeler's teenage daughter appears onto his doorstep, she insists that her mother would not have jumped off a bridge as she did, for she was not suicidal and had a fear of heights. Haunted by his failure to save her and driven by a need to understand what caused her death, Joe searches for the truth, only to be caught up in a string of murders all while dealing with his own problems with Parkinson's disease and his marriage.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Go_to_Mystery_Moor" title="Five Go to Mystery Moor">
George and her cousin Anne are spending their holiday at Captain Johnson's Riding School, where George has a rivalry with another tomboy named Henrietta, who prefers to be called "Henry". Anne's brothers Julian and Dick come to join the girls and initially mistake Henry for a boy, much to George's chagrin.The children encounter a group of gypsies determined to visit a desolate place called Mystery Moor. An elderly blacksmith tells the children how gypsies, in the past, sabotaged a railway run by a family of sand miners, causing most of the family to mysteriously disappear when the moor was covered by a thick mist.The Famous Five follow the gypsies to the moor and discover they are involved in receiving smuggled American banknotes, which are later revealed to be forgeries from France. George and Anne are taken prisoners and held in a cave, but are rescued by Henry and a boy from the riding school, William. A gypsy boy named Sniffer assists their escape, and George promises to reward him with a red bicycle and living in a house with a family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Have_a_Wonderful_Time" title="Five Have a Wonderful Time">
George has caught a cold due to swimming in the sea in April and, as such, is unable to join Julian, Dick, and Anne on their planned caravan trip. The other children have already set up their caravans on a hill opposite Faynights Castle. George is on the mend from her cold, so she writes a postcard to let Julian, Dick, and Anne know that they should meet her at the railway station the next day. That day, the children learn that two scientists have gone missing. It’s presumed that the scientists are traitors, and have fled the country to sell secrets.A traveling fair arrives and sets up camp directly next to the Kirrin Children. The children attempt to make friends with the performers, but the performers do not feel the same way. Performers include Alfredo the Fire-Eater, Bufflo the Whip Cracker and his assistant Skippy, Mr. India Rubber, and Mr. Slither, the snake-man. The tension between the children and performers finally culminates in the performers waiting until the children have gone for a walk and then hitching up their own horses to the children’s caravans to move them to another field. The field that the caravans have been moved to is owned by a farmer who orders the children off his property. Unfortunately, the Kirrins are unable to move their caravans without borrowing horses from the performers. Julian and Dick leave to speak to the performers but are unsuccessful in their attempt to borrow the horses. During this time, their old friend Jo (first introduced in "Five Fall into Adventure") arrives and joins the Kirrin children. Jo aids Julian and Dick in convincing the fair performers to let them borrow their horses.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Private_Patient" title="The Private Patient">
In deepest Dorset, the once magnificent Cheverell Manor has been renovated and transformed into a plastic surgery clinic, run by the famous cosmetic practitioner George Chandler-Powell. Two days after Rhoda Gradwyn, an investigative journalist, arrives in the hope of having her almost lifelong facial scar removed, she's savagely murdered and Chandler-Powell finds his surgery under scrutiny from Dalgliesh and his team, who are soon caught in a race against time when another body shows up...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wycliffe_and_the_Winsor_Blue" title="Wycliffe and the Winsor Blue">
Following the death of artist Edwin Garland from a heart attack, his family and friends gather for the funeral, and are duly shocked by the apparently motiveless shooting of the dead man's son. When Wycliffe yields no clues after the reading of the old man's mischievously contrived will, the only leads he's left with are the mysterious artist's pigment known as Winsor Blue, and the death of Gifford Tate, a fellow painter and friend of Edwin's, several years before...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Home_(novel)" title="The Road Home (novel)">
The story concerns Lev, a middle-aged immigrant who was recently widowed. He leaves his home, Auror, a village in an unspecified eastern European country, after the sawmill he works at closes down. Soon after, he travels to London to find work so he can make money to send to his mother, his 5-year-old daughter, Maya, and his best friend. He finds his first job at a Muslim kebab-shop, before washing dishes at a five-star restaurant named GK Ashe. Along the way, Lev meets a translator from his home country named Lydia, a divorced Irish plumber named Christy, a young chef named Sophie, and a rich old woman named Ruby.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladybug_Girl" title="Ladybug Girl">
Lulu's family is busy so she plays with her dog Bingo and spends time outside helping ants bypass rocks, crossing puddles that she imagines could contain sharks, and fixing up a rock fort, in their spacious backyard.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_Insulting_to_Nature" title="Colors Insulting to Nature">
Set in the early 1980s, Liza Normal goes on numerous theater and commercial auditions, at the behest of her mother Peppy, who costumes the child in a strapless evening gowns, heavy make-up, and false eyelashes. Humiliations repeat for Liza, as she and her family encounter endless degradation, after opening a dinner theater in Marin County, California. Throughout the first half of the novel, Liza is forced to perform in a dilapidated firehouse, which functions as the theater, as well as the family's home, attend school where she is constantly ridiculed and tormented, and at one point, raped. After this, Liza undergoes several phases, the first of which is a gravitation toward the punk rock aesthetic, specifically embracing and cultivating the look of Plasmatics performer, Wendy O. Williams. Liza eventually becomes involved with a drug pusher, and at one point becomes addicted herself during her stint at "Elf House," which Wilson describes as a commune of hippies who have a fetish with elves and speaking in "Quenya, the J.R.R. Tolkien version of High Elf language." It is during this time, that Liza, while working for Centaur Productions—a company that creates and distributes Slash fiction, that she concocts an "alter ego, Venal de Minus, into a phone sex phenomenon and Las Vegas stage act," achieving a new definition of success that is a spin-off of the earlier theater ambitions initially sought by her mother.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_Puzzle_(book)" title="Monkey Puzzle (book)">
The story revolves around a child-like monkey who has lost her mother in the deep, thick, hot jungle. The monkey is then assisted to find her mother by a butterfly, who tries to think of whereabouts in the jungle she might be. However, the butterfly keeps suggesting incorrect animals as the monkey's mother, including an elephant, a snake, a spider, a parrot, a frog and a bat. Eventually, the butterfly and the monkey find the monkey's Dad, who says, "Come, little monkey, come, come, come, it's time I took you home to..." and then shortly after another call, Butterfly finds the monkey's lost mother and the monkey is happy again, as well as the butterfly.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_&amp;_the_City" title="The City &amp; the City">
Inspector Tyador Borlú, of the Extreme Crime Squad in the fictional East European city-state of Besźel, investigates the murder of Mahalia Geary, a foreign student found dead in a Besźel street with her face disfigured. He soon learns that Geary had been involved in the political and cultural turmoil involving Besźel and its "twin city" of Ul Qoma. His investigations, which start in his home city of Besźel, lead him to Ul Qoma to assist the Ul Qoman police in their work, and eventually result in an examination of the legend of Orciny, a rumoured third city existing in the spaces between Besźel and Ul Qoma.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Hunter_(Paver_novel)" title="Ghost Hunter (Paver novel)">
As winter approaches, Eostra, the last and most fearsome Soul-Eater, has spread a net of terror and fear across the whole Forest. Torak is plagued with visions of his father, who died three years previously. Fin-Kedinn counsels that the visions are not his father's spirit asking for help, but are instead Eostra's machinations, but Torak is unconvinced. He sets out eastwards, without Renn, to the High Mountains to confront Eostra and find his answers. He first visits the den of his companion Wolf, Wolf's mate Darkfur, and their cubs Shadow and Pebble. Renn pursues Torak, and Fin-Kedinn sets out on a journey of his own. However, an eagle owl, controlled by Eostra, attacks the wolves' den and, after killing Darkfur and Shadow, picks Pebble up and flies east, pursued by Wolf.Torak reunites with Renn in an ice storm, and nurse a near-suicidal Wolf back to health. Meanwhile, Pebble is dropped by the owl, and having hidden from the storm, follows Renn's ravens to the High Mountains. Having realised Eostra is waiting for the winter solstice, they meet with Krukoslik of the Mountain Hare Clan, who tells them that Soul-Eater haunts the Mountain of Ghosts. After Eostra enters the camp and taunts Renn, Krukoslik guides them to the Valley of the Hidden People, where Renn encounters a huge dog controlled by the Soul-Eater. Torak argues that he must confront Eostra alone and, after admitting his affection for Renn and kissing her, sets out for her lair.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thank_You,_Mr._Moto_(novel)" title="Thank You, Mr. Moto (novel)">
An expatriate American, Tom Nelson, has been living in Beiping (modern day Beijing) for some time and believes that he understands the Oriental mind. When he meets Eleanor Joyce he thinks that she is getting involved in matters way over her head when she agrees to meet with Major Jamison Best, a British ex-Army officer who sells stolen Chinese artifacts and art treasures.After dinner with Best, Nelson tries to make sense of Best’s cryptic conversation concerning a Chinese bandit chief named Wu Lo Feng and the possibility of trouble brewing in the city. On leaving dinner, he runs into Joyce whom he tries to persuade to not get involved in any scheme Best has going. She doesn’t listen to him but later he finds her wandering around outside of Best’s house, distraught.The next day Major Best is found dead, killed by a bolt from a Chinese crossbow. Mr. Moto is investigating the murder and he tells Nelson not to get involved. Nelson doesn’t listen to him and goes to warn Joyce since she was the last to see Best alive. Nelson soon discovers that Moto has made Best’s murder seem like a suicide.When he returns home someone tries to kill Nelson with a Chinese crossbow. Moto arrives and Nelson thinks he is the murderer. Cool and calm despite having a gun pointed at him, Moto once again warns Nelson not to interfere and offers him a chance to escape Peking on the next steamer. When Moto leaves, Nelson discovers that Wu Lo Feng is there ready to kill him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Planet_Savers" title="The Planet Savers">
Desperate to discover a cure for the cyclical 48-year-fever, known as Trailmen’s fever, Dr. Randall Forth persuades a colleague, Dr. Jay Allison, to undergo hypnosis. He calls forth a secondary personality, Jason Allison, who is gregarious and an experienced mountain climber, while Dr. Jay Allison is a cold, clinical man with no outdoor skills.Jason is asked to lead an expedition into the Hellers to collect medical volunteers from among the Trailmen. Accompanying him are Rafe Scott, Regis Hastur, Kyla Raineach, a Renunciate guide, and several others. During the trip, Jay/Jason yo-yos between his two personalities – one warm and charming, the other distant and clinical. Jason, the warm personality, falls in love with Kyla.They are attacked on the trail by a party of hostile Trailwomen. As a result of the attack, the Jay personality reappears, and is considerably more formal than the Jason personality. When they reach the Trailmen nest where Jay/Jason lived as a child, he is recognized. The party is invited into the Trailmen’s tree habitat.The Old Ones of the Sky People (Trailmen) inquire why Jay/Jason has brought an armed party of humans to their nest. Jay/Jason explains his mission, to find a remedy for 48-year-fever. He introduces Regis Hastur to the Old Ones, and Regis also pleads for the Sky People’s assistance. One hundred Trailmen volunteer. The party, with volunteers, returns to the Terran Trade City.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanence_(novel)" title="Permanence (novel)">
The novel tells the story of two characters, Rue Cassels and Michael Bequith, and their encounter with an alien spacecraft Rue has named "Jentry's Envy." Schroeder uses the story as a venue for discussing the information economy and philosophy.Rue, on the run from her brother Jentry and out of money, files claim on an undiscovered comet. She expects to profit from the mineral rights, but it turns out that the "comet" is actually an interstellar cycler, a ship that travels in a light-years length orbit, at relativistic speeds (85% c) carrying cargo and passengers between the Halo Worlds, planets that orbit Brown dwarf stars. The discovery causes a sensation, since the ship is the first to approach the planet Erythrion in ten years. Eventually her claim is upheld, since the cycler is silent, and her mineral rights become salvage rights, making her potentially very wealthy. A rich cousin of hers, Max Cassels, sponsors an expedition to the ship so she can claim it. Intrigue happens on the trip as several factions also want to claim it, such as the planetary government. The cyclers were the centerpiece of the Cycler Compact, but have slowly fallen out of use since the discovery of FTL travel, only possible between "lit" worlds. When they reach the ship, they are surprised to discover that it is an alien cycler, an unknown because all known aliens use FTL ships. They explore the ship some and jump off as it passes a lit world, Chandaka.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_of_the_Damned_(novel)" title="Legion of the Damned (novel)">
In the far future, the Human Empire has been attacked by the alien Hudatha, and humanity's last hope lies with the Legion (the successor to the French Foreign Legion), an elite fighting force composed of humans and cyborgs.When a patient is terminally ill, or a criminal receives the death penalty, they have one last chance to survive. And that's to join the Legion and become a cyborg.Both more and less than human, these soldiers are the most elite fighting force in the Empire.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys_of_Steel" title="Boys of Steel">
Jerome Siegel and Joseph Shuster are meek, bespectacled teens in Depression-era Cleveland who seek escape in the worlds of science fiction and pulp magazine adventure tales."In a crowded high school hallway, Jerry wishes he could be with his 'friends,' and a turn of the page reveals Tarzan, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. Joe, 'lousy at sports and mousy around girls,' draws sci-fi heroes with a passion. In 1934, when both are 20, Jerry dreams up the Superman concept and Joe draws prototypes labeled 'S' for 'super.' And for 'Siegel' and 'Shuster.'" It is four more years before they convince a publisher to take a chance on their character in the new comic book format."In June 1938, their creation launches in "Action Comics". Nobleman details this achievement with a zest amplified by MacDonald's punchy illustrations, done in a classic litho palette of brassy gold, antique blue and fireplug red. MacDonald's Depression-era vignettes picture Siegel pondering his superhero's powers and the friends casting a single, caped shadow. A cautionary afterword chronicles their protracted financial struggles with DC Comics—when Siegel and Shuster sold their first Superman story, they also sold all rights to the character, for $130."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Tiger_(Adiga_novel)" title="The White Tiger (Adiga novel)">
Balram Halwai narrates his life in a letter, written in seven consecutive nights and addressed to the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao. In his letter, Balram explains how he, the son of a rickshaw puller, escaped a life of servitude to become a successful businessman, describing himself as an entrepreneur.Balram was born in a rural village in Gaya district, where he lived with his grandmother, parents, brother and extended family. He is a smart child but is forced to leave school in order to help pay for his cousin's dowry and begins to work in a teashop with his brother in Dhanbad. While working there he begins to learn about India's government and economy from the customers' conversations. Balram describes himself as a bad servant but a good listener and decides to become a driver.After learning how to drive, Balram finds a job driving Ashok, the son of one of Laxmangarh's landlords. He takes over the job of the main driver, from a small car to a heavy-luxury described Honda City. He stops sending money back to his family and disrespects his grandmother during a trip back to his village. Balram moves to New Delhi with Ashok and his wife Pinky Madam. Throughout their time in Delhi, Balram is exposed to extensive corruption, especially in the government. In Delhi, the contrast between the poor and the wealthy is made even more evident by their proximity to one another.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_(Baxter_novel)" title="Flood (Baxter novel)">
The above effects are catastrophic, and exceed current estimates of climate change-related sea level rise. In the opening chapter, four main characters (former USAF Captain Lily Brooke, British military officer Piers Michaelmas, English tourist Helen Gray, and NASA scientist Gary Boyle) are liberated by a private megacorporation called AxysCorp from a Christian extremist Catalan terrorist bunker in Barcelona in 2016, after five years of captivity. AxysCorp was hoping to save a fifth prisoner, John Foreshaw, but he was executed minutes before the rescue. Nonetheless, the corporation continues to look after the four hostages and search for Helen's daughter, Grace, who was conceived in captivity by the son of a Saudi royal and taken by his family. Helen befriends Foreign Office official Michael Thurley in the hopes of finding her daughter, and the four rescued hostages make a pact to keep in contact.At this point, sea level changes have already submerged Tuvalu, a low lying South Pacific island, whose inhabitants have been evacuated to New Zealand. London and Sydney are prone to constant flooding. However, as a tidal surge hits London and Sydney, killing many in both cities, scientists become aware that this cannot be explained solely by the consequences of climate change. American oceanographer Thandie Jones uncovers the truth – through deep sea diving missions to oceanic ridges and trenches reveal that the seabed has fragmented, and there is turbulence that can only be attributable to the infusion of vast subterranean reservoirs of hitherto hypothesised but undetected oceanic masses of water (see below).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Within_(Woodward_book)" title="The War Within (Woodward book)">
The book states that President Bush "rarely leveled with the public to explain what he was doing and what should be expected... The president was rarely the voice of realism on the Iraq war." It also calls him "the nation's most divisive figure" and described his foreign policy as a failure, saying "He had not rooted out terror wherever it existed... He had not achieved world peace. He had not attained victory in his two wars." At the same time, the book largely supports the 'surge' strategy and lauds the President for adopting it.The book describes Bush as largely leaving the management of the war to Generals George Casey and John Abizaid and deferring to their judgment based on Bush's perception of Lyndon Johnson's micromanagement during the Vietnam War. As the generals' strategy of drawing down U.S. forces and transferring control to the Iraqis begins to fail, the book argues, Bush grows more disillusioned and sought other ideas. The book alleges that, nevertheless, the President delayed serious investigation because of his fear that leaked reports would hurt the Republican Party's chances in the 2006 congressional elections. It states that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to consider resigning unless the Republicans lost control of either the House of Representatives or the Senate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Days_of_the_Comet" title="In the Days of the Comet">
An unnamed narrator is the author of a prologue ("The Man Who Wrote in the Tower") and an epilogue ("The Window of the Tower"). In these short texts is depicted an encounter with a "happy, active-looking" old man: the protagonist and author of the first-person narrative, writing the story of his life immediately before and after "the Change".This narrative is divided into three "books": "Book I: The Comet"; "Book II: The Green Vapours"; and "Book III: The New World".Book I, recounts that William ("Willie") Leadford, "third in the office staff of Rawdon's pot-bank [a place where pottery is made] in Clayton," quits his job just as an economic recession caused by American dumping hits industrial Britain, and is unable to find another position. He returns to being a student and his emotional life is dominated by his attachment to Nettie Stuart, "the daughter of the head gardener of the rich Mr. Verrall's widow", of a village called Checkshill Towers. Converted to socialism by his friend 'Parload', Leadford blames class-based injustice for the squalid living conditions in which he and his mother live. The date of the action is unspecified.When Nettie jilts Leadford for the son and heir of the Verrall family, Leadford buys a revolver, intending to kill them both and himself. As this plot matures, a comet with an "unprecedented band in the green" in its spectroscopy looms gradually larger in the sky, eventually becoming brighter than the Moon. Just as Leadford is about to kill his rivals, the green comet enters the Earth's atmosphere and disintegrates, causing a soporific green fog.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Different_Flesh" title="A Different Flesh">
The stories give a brief glimpse in this altered American history ranging from 1610 to 1988. The Western Hemisphere is inhabited by "Homo erectus" rather than "Homo sapiens", as well as megafauna long extinct in the known world. Consequently, the colonization of the New World by Europe has been a far more difficult process. As time goes by, various characters debate the nature of the "sims" (as "erectus" is known) and their role in human history.Included with the short stories are quotations from "The Story of the Federated Commonwealths". These snippets from an imaginary textbook providing the reader information about what happens during the time between the different stories.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children_of_Niobe" title="The Children of Niobe">
So we are in Salihli and watching life before the advent of the Greek Army. Central role played by the family of Michael Anastasiadis or Sarris, a middle-aged notable and a banker of Salihli with a charming, clever and cheated 35-years-old wife and four children (3 girls and 1 boy), madly in love with the 16-years-old Tarsi, a beautiful gazelle who refuses to marry the son of wealthy Turkish businessman, for whom she worked, and enchants everybody with her provocative teen flesh. In the meantime, we are watching the raids of the Turkish gendarmerie and terror they caused to the Greeks, the close relationship of Turks and Greeks as long as the one was not feeling threat from the other, hidden hopes for better days, the every day misdeeds caused by the human weakness and often leading to unexpected misery, mainly focusing on the guiltiness and the passion of Sarris for the 16 years old Tarsi.Then the novel described the pleasant (initially) life during the Greek occupation and the contact of the Minor Asian Greeks with the Greek soldiers who occupied Salihli to get up to the Destruction of Smyrna. After Sarris dies, his family loses slightly its primary place in the story. The beautiful and poor Tarsi rises socially but remains an erotic symbol of the lustful East. In the presence of the Greek army, dreams of the Greeks for freedom seem to come true. But follows the error handling and the underground system of espionage and undermining that Turks had set in the west Minor Asia, leading to the collapse of the front and the devastating consequences for Asia Minor. We will follow Asia Minor refugees and their efforts initially to save and then to find their feet in their new homeland.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Would_Have_Thought_It?" title="Who Would Have Thought It?">
The novel, written in chronological order, is divided into sixty chapters. The first ten occur during the years just before the Civil War (1857–1861), and flashbacks explain the way in which a fabulously wealthy Spanish Mexican named Lola came to stay with a New England family, the Norvals. The last fifty chapters occur during the Civil War (1861–1864).The novel opens with Dr. Norval's return to New England from a geological expedition in the Southwest, accompanied by a ten-year-old girl, Maria Dolores Medina, known as Lola or Lolita, and trunks of supposed geological specimens that are actually filled with Lola's gold. He was appointed her guardian when he and his companions, Mr. Lebrun and Mr. Sinclair, rescued her from captivity. Because her skin was dyed black by her Native American captors, her arrival generates ironic disgust among the abolitionist women in the household, especially Mrs. Norval. She is horrified by the idea of Dr. Norval contaminating the racial purity of their home, despite his insistence that Lola is of pure Spanish descent and the dye will fade. Mrs. Norval demands that Lola work in order to pay for expenses; Dr. Norval objects and explains to her how Lola's mother, Doña Theresa Medina, gave him gold and precious gems she acquired while a captive of the Apache to finance Lola's care. Doña Theresa Medina asked him to rescue Lola so that the girl would be brought up as a Catholic. The Presbyterian Mrs. Norval is angered when she hears this but quickly reconciles her emotions when he shows her the trunks filled with Lola's fortune.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Girls" title="Shanghai Girls">
"Shanghai Girls" is divided into three parts: Fate, Fortune, and Destiny. Here See treats Chinese immigration from a personal view through Pearl's narration. In "On Gold Mountain" she objectively placed 100 years of her Chinese family history in the context of the daunting challenges Chinese immigrants faced in coming to America in search of Gold Mountain. America's mistreatment of Chinese immigrants is stressed in both memoir and novel.The sisters' story is interrelated with critical historical events, famous people, and important places—the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Battle of Shanghai, internment at Angel Island, Los Angeles Chinatown, Hollywood, World War II, the Chinese Exclusion Act, McCarthyism, etc. Historically significant people appearing in the novel include Madame Chiang Kai-shek, actress Anna May Wong, film personality Tom Gubbins, and Christine Sterling, the "Mother of Olvera Street.""Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" explores the complex relationship between two intimate friends. In "Shanghai Girls" See treats the loving yet conflicted relationship between two best friends who also happen to be sisters, especially in the context of their relationship to Pearl's daughter Joy. In speaking of "Shanghai Girls", See has commented: "Your sister is the one person who should stick by you and love you no matter what, but she’s also the one person who knows exactly where to drive the knife to hurt you the most." That being said, in "Shanghai Girls" it is the love of Pearl and May for each other that survives.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Guardian" title="Conan the Guardian">
Conan and other former mercenaries take employment as bodyguards for Lady Livia, head of one of the ruling merchant houses of Argos. Livia is threatened by a rival seeking to gain personal control of all Argos, who is secretly backed by a sorcerer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_of_Gossip" title="Princess of Gossip">
"Princess of Gossip" tells the story of Avery Johnson, a fourteen-year-old high school freshman who just moved from Ohio to Southern California. While on MySpace, she is mistaken as a rising pop star's assistant. She scores an invite to a Hollywood Party and snaps a photo of a young starlet and her secret new beau. Finding this information too juicy to keep to herself, she starts a blog, the Princess of Gossip, and posts the story.Overnight, she becomes the newest go-to girl for gossip. Designers are sending her priceless dresses, and she's getting the inside scoop on all things celebrity. When Avery shows up at school in her exclusive fashion swag, even Cecilia, the most popular girl in their class, takes notice. She begins to get jealous.Then celebutante playboy Beckett Howard sees Avery wearing one of his father's designs and asks her out. The Princess of Gossip's true identity is still a secret, but when the paparazzi catch Avery and Beckett on a date, Cecilia gets even more jealous. There's only room for only one it girl at school. Can the Princess of Gossip hold onto her crown?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rod_of_Seven_Parts" title="The Rod of Seven Parts">
At the Dawn of Time the forces of Law warred with the forces of Chaos for control of the Cosmos. The Battle of Pesh was the climax of this campaign where the armies of Chaos were led by Miska the Wolf-Spider, while the forces of Law were championed by the Vaati, or Wind Dukes. Desperately outnumbered, the Wind Dukes fashioned the Rod of Seven Parts, a weapon powerful enough to kill Miska in a single strike. Yet the Battle of Pesh was a draw, as neither Law nor Chaos won the day. The Wind Dukes were decimated, but in the final moments their leader struck Miska with the Rod, but rather than being slain the Wolf-Spider was mortally wounded and imprisoned for eternity within the Abyss. The resulting balance created the multiverse as it now exists, with a tense stand-off between order and anarchy. The fate of the multiverse is in the hands of the wielder of the Rod of Seven Parts, for it can still both slay Miska and free him.Because the Rod is so potent, it cannot be conventionally protected. Therefore, to keep it safe the Wind Dukes designed the separate sections of the Rod to scatter around the globe whenever its full powers were employed by striking Miska. Each piece of the Rod both leads and urges its bearer in the direction of the next sequential section. Once the first section of the Rod has fallen into the hands of the player characters they are committed to a quest which will take them the length and breadth of their homeworld, and eventually into the heart of the Abyss.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cyborg_from_Earth" title="The Cyborg from Earth">
The novel starts in a future dystopian Earth where the upper class lives a life of privilege, while most others live in the "pool", an endless crowd of unemployable youths depending on government assistance or crime for survival. The book is told from the perspective of the main character, Jefferson Kopal, a young member of an immensely wealthy and powerful spaceship building family founded by his Great Grandfather, Rollo Kopal, an admiral in the Space Navy. As part of the bylaws, all voting members of the company must have served honorably in the navy. Young Jeff is about to take his final test...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanno_Bridge" title="Romanno Bridge">
The book is a sequel to Greig's second novel, "The Return of John MacNab". It reunites the main characters from the previous book, and teams them with a half-Maori rugby player and a busker from Oslo, in a quest for the Stone of Scone. The action takes place mainly in Scotland, but it also includes sections set in Norway and England.Like "The Return of John MacNab", this novel is something of a homage to the stories of John Buchan, although the connection is not made explicit this time around.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gadget_(novel)" title="The Gadget (novel)">
In 1945, 13-year-old Stephen Orr has just reached the gates of the top secret military base in Los Alamos, New Mexico. He has come to join his father, a physicist working on making an atomic bomb. Though his father is forbidden to discuss the project in any detail, Stephen can tell by his haunted eyes and shaking hands how worried he and the other scientists are. After a few weeks, Stephen finds that he cannot control his insatiable curiosity. Enlisting the help of his new friend Alexei, Stephen devises a plan to discover the true nature of "the gadget." But when he finally learns what it is, he also realizes another startling truth—that he has trusted the wrong person with the information and not only his life, but the lives of all Americans, could be in terrible danger.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistance_(Sheers_novel)" title="Resistance (Sheers novel)">
Upon her husband's disappearance, Sarah is forced to take care of the farm. Meanwhile, she develops a relationship with German commanding officer Albrecht Wolfram as he and the other invaders seek to locate an item for Himmler's collection.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_and_Down_the_Scratchy_Mountains" title="Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains">
Lucy lives in the land of Bewilderness, in a village called Thistle. She helps her family with the dairy farm and likes exploring the countryside with her best friend Wynston. Lucy makes up songs that fit with the situation which gives her courage and raises her spirits. She learned how to make up songs from her mother. Her mother vanished when she was two years old. Lucy and her sister never say anything about their mother, because their father gets sad. When Wynston turns twelve, his father thinks that he should practice being a prince which includes finding a princess. Wynston doesn't understand why he has to follow his father's rules; same with Lucy. When Wynston doesn't come to one of their berry-picking parties, she is sad and decides to go on an adventure. She is going to climb the Scratchy Mountains so that she can find her mother.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_of_a_Dark_Queen" title="Shadow of a Dark Queen">
A dark queen is gathering armies in remote lands and desperate men are sent on a suicidal mission to confront this evil. Among these men is Nakor the Isalani, a gambler who knows the true nature of the Queen and whom everyone must wager their lives upon.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Affections" title="Equal Affections">
Louise, an aging woman, is coming down with cancer. Her husband Nat is having an affair with another woman. Meanwhile, Walter, partner of Louise and Nat's son Danny, has cyber sex and phone sex with other men. April, Danny's sister, visits her brother in suburban New Jersey. With their mother's death looming, they all fly to California where their parents live. To avoid a funeral, Nat throws a lukewarm farewell party. April ends up fighting with her father over his cheating on her mother. Two months later, Nat is publicly seeing his mistress. Danny and Walter invite April and Nat to stay with them at a rented cottage on Long Island. The final part is a prolepsis to Louise's conversion at Catholicism although she is a Jew.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_Hollering_Creek_and_Other_Stories" title="Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories">
Cisneros's collection of stories is divided into three sections. The first section, which focuses on the innocence of the characters during childhood, is called "My Lucy Friend Who Smells Like Corn". The following section, called "One Holy Night", includes two short stories highlighting the troublesome adolescent years of its characters. The final section, called "There Was a Man, There Was a Woman", concentrates on characters during their tumultuous adulthood. Most of the stories in the collection are between one and fifteen pages in length; "Eyes of Zapata", the longest story, is 29 pages long, while "Salvador Late or Early" and "There Was a Man, There Was a Woman" each occupies a single page.The first and second plot of the story in this book shares the title, "My Lucy Friend Who Smells Like Corn", with its corresponding section and is a short narrative about an unnamed narrator and her best friend Lucy Anguiano, the "Texas girl who smells like corn". This vignette offers a snapshot into life just north of the United States-Mexico border for two girls who are presumably of Mexican descent. Lucy's home is portrayed as a low-income, Mexican-American family. Her mother is overworked and busy with many children while her father is rarely around. However, the story focuses on the freedom that the girls have when no one of authority is watching; for example, waving at strangers, jumping on mattresses, scratching mosquito bites, picking scabs, and somersaulting in dresses.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Another_Thing..._(novel)" title="And Another Thing... (novel)">
"And Another Thing..." starts where "Mostly Harmless" ends, with Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Trillian, and Arthur and Trillian's daughter Random standing inside Club Beta, while the Earth is about to be destroyed by the Vogons. They are rescued by Zaphod Beeblebrox and the "Heart of Gold". During a debate, Ford accidentally freezes Left Brain (Zaphod's second head who has been running the ship) and it seems they are doomed, until an immortal named Wowbagger brings them to safety. Angered by Wowbagger's insults, Zaphod promises to get Wowbagger killed, an idea to which Wowbagger, tired of immortality, has no objection; and so the group sets off in search of Thor, to see if he can kill Wowbagger.Meanwhile, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz, assigned to destroy all humans, hears rumours of a colony of Earthmen, and he sets off to destroy them, while Arthur attempts to get Wowbagger to stop the Vogons.On the Earth colony Nano, the excessively stereotypical Irish leader Hillman Hunter is seeking applicants to be the planet's god, who would keep Hillman in charge due to divine providence. Meanwhile, Prostetnic Jeltz's son, Constant Mown, is having rather "un-Vogonly" thoughts, including an enjoyment of poetry and sympathy for humans. Wowbagger and Random start arguing, and Wowbagger drugs and imprisons Random. Afterwards, Trillian and Wowbagger fight, but they share a kiss at the end of the argument. Random is less than impressed with her mother's and Wowbagger's actions, and complains about it to Ford. During this conversation, Random steals Ford's company credit card.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crossing_of_Ingo" title="The Crossing of Ingo">
Sapphire and Conor have been called to make the dangerous Crossing of Ingo, a journey to the bottom of the world, and it has been prophesied that if they complete it then Ingo and Air will start to heal. They have their Mer friends, Faro and Elvira, to help them, but their old enemy, Ervys, is determined to make sure they don't succeed. They have many adventures going around the world and Sapphire finds new abilities.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babouk" title="Babouk">
Babouk is a slave renowned by many tribes for his excellent storytelling abilities. He is captured by the French and taken to Saint Domingue to work on the sugar cane fields. Unaware of the reasons for his capture and hoping to be reunited with his lost love Niati, Babouk escapes his slave compound and wanders into the forest, only to meet some indigenous Americans. He is soon captured by a group of runaway slaves who had agreed to turn in other runaways on the condition that they are allowed their freedom and returned to the compound, where his ear is cut off. Such a traumatic experience forces him to remain absolutely silent for several years, doing his labor without complaint but also without much energy. He eventually can maintain his silence no longer, and he re-establishes himself as a great storyteller. Unhappy with the way the slave masters treat him (although they claim otherwise), Babouk becomes the figurehead for a group of slaves that intend to revolt against their masters. Babouk and his group are initially successful in their endeavors, but are eventually held back by the might of the French military. Babouk's arm is severed after he tries to stop a cannon from firing by sticking his hand into it; he is then beheaded and his head is put on a pike as a warning to other slaves who might try to draw inspiration from Babouk. The novel ends with an impassioned statement from Endore that warns of the inevitability of a race war as the result of the white man's transgressions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forbidden_Tower" title="The Forbidden Tower">
On the road to Armida, Damon Ridenow encounters Leonie Hastur, Keeper of Arilinn. Leonie tells him that she wishes to persuade Callista Lanart to return to Arilinn Tower and replace her as Keeper. She is aware that Callista wishes to marry the Terran, Andrew Carr, who rescued her from the Caves of Corresanti (see "The Spell Sword"). After they arrive, Leonie meets with Callista and unable to persuade her to return, releases her from her Keeper’s vow. Dom Esteban, Callista’s father, consents to her marriage. The next day, a joint wedding is held – Ellemir is joined to Damon and Callista to Andrew in freemate marriage.Andrew recalls that Leonie has warned him that Callista was trained in the old ways of Keepers, and may not be able to consummate their relationship for a long time. Ellemir has a premonition of her father’s death. Desiderio Leynier, a nedestro relation (Dom Alton's illegitimate son), creates trouble at the wedding feast.Guardsmen who have been caught in a blizzard are brought to Armida. When it becomes clear that some of the men will lose their feet to frostbite, Damon, working with Andrew and Dezi, uses his laran powers to restore their circulation. The experience causes Damon to feel that laran-based healing should be available to all Darkovans, not restricted to the cloistered residents of the Towers. He reflects that it is commonly believed that this would bring back the Ages of Chaos.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Boy" title="The Wind Boy">
"The Wind Boy" features Kay and Gentian, a boy and girl who are foreign children and outcasts in their village. They live with their mother and wait for their father to come to them from their home country. At the beginning of the book, a mysterious girl named Nan appears in their village, responding to a woman's advertisement requesting a "general housework girl". Nan is able to bring the children into the Clear Land, a world that mirrors their own. In the Clear Land, they each purchase a pair of Clear Land sandals and meet The Wind Boy, a handsome boy with purple wings.They learn that The Wind Boy once owned a horrible mask, but now it's in the hands of someone else. Now that person is going around scaring children. Until The Wind Boy is able to find and destroy the mask, he cannot have shoes of his own and is the outcast of the Clear Land. Only Gentian, who feels sorry for him, is friends with The Wind Boy.Kay and Gentian's mother Detra is a sculptor who is trying to make a statuette of The Wind Boy. She visits the Clear Land herself without really knowing it, where she is seen through a clear pool of water. While there, she tells The Wind Boy stories, so that he can smile and she can perfect the statuette. After seeing a starry cloak that Nan has, Gentian is allowed to visit the Clear Land to make her own. The children continue visit the Clear Land quite a few times, once during a punishment in school.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savage_Season" title="Savage Season">
Hap and Leonard are two Texan men who are down on their luck, both working low paying jobs well into their 40s. Hap's ex-wife Trudy returns, involving the pair in a scheme to retrieve hundreds of thousands of dollars stolen from a bank and then lost in a creek in the woods in an area which Hap knows quite well. She is involved with a small group of radical leftists who wish to use the money to fund their movement; Hap and Leonard just wish to have enough to retire somewhere pleasant. Her return, as well as her continued involvement with various movements, awakens dormant emotions in Hap, leading him to wonder whether he should have devoted more time to the ideals he felt in the 1960s, and whether he had wasted his time in the interim on low-paying, go nowhere jobs. Once Hap finds the money, the leftists reveal the violent nature of their plans, and kidnap Hap and Leonard rather than pay them. The leftists are quickly betrayed when they attempt to buy guns from a local drug dealer named Soldier, which leads to a violent confrontation over the stolen money. In the end, Hap is left with conflicted emotions about the 1960s and his own part in them, regretting neither his former idealism nor his current cynicism.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrong_Doyle" title="The Wrong Doyle">
Tim Doyle returns to the Eastern Shore of Virginia after the death of his Uncle Buck. He meets the keeper of Uncle Buck's inheritance, Maggie Peach.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belchamber" title="Belchamber">
The story follows the life of Sainty, Marquis of Belchamber, from childhood to his mid-twenties. Sainty is shy, physically weak, likes knitting and dislikes sports. After much goading from his mother (Lady Charmington), he marries Cissy. However, she turns out to find him repugnant, and the marriage is unconsummated. Cissy later gives birth to a son, who Sainty realises is the result of an affair with his cousin Claude. Despite this, Sainty feels great love for the baby and is devastated when it falls ill and dies. As they grieve, Sainty and Cissy learn that an uncaring Claude has become engaged to someone else. 
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls_in_Love_(novel)" title="Girls in Love (novel)">
The novel is narrated by Eleanor Allard, a.k.a. Ellie. The book opens with Ellie's Family holiday to Wales where she meets a nerdy boy named Dan. Dan falls for Ellie and asks her out but his feelings are not reciprocated and Ellie turns him down. Ellie arrives back at school after the summer holidays to find her best friend, Nadine, has a new boyfriend named Liam, her other friend, Magda, soon asks a boy named Greg out as well. Feeling left out, Ellie makes up a character as her boyfriend, who is a boy that she sees nearly everyday on her way to school. She names him Dan (like the nerdy boy she met in Wales) and describes him as a 15 year old handsome boy. Magda and Ellie soon start to think that Liam is using Nadine for sex as Nadine comes to school depressed sometimes. With her big mouth, Magda accidentally mentions it to Nadine which upsets her. But eventually she forgives them both.One night on Magda's birthday the three girls sneak out to a night club called "Seventh Heaven" and it is revealed that Liam was only using Nadine for sex when they meet some other girls that had been Liam's victims. Liam had planned to break up with her after she 'put out' or, had sex with him. At a friend's party Dan turns up unannounced, and Ellie is mortified. Soon the truth about Dan is revealed to Ellie's friends; however, when gatecrashers arrive at the party and cause trouble, Dan intervenes and saves the day. To Ellie's surprise, this impresses Magda and Nadine and causes Ellie to rethink her first impressions of Dan. The book ends with Ellie and Dan's first kiss in the room.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thendara_House" title="Thendara House">
## Part One: Conflicting Oaths.Magda Lorne tenders her resignation from Terran service to her supervisor, Cholayna Ares, saying that she has taken an oath to spend six months in the Guildhouse of the Renuniciates at Thendera. Cholayna tries to talk her out of resigning, and Magda agrees to detached duty.Jaelle n’ha Melora starts her first day of working in the spaceport, but finds conforming to Terran customs a challenge. She quickly discovers that her new husband, Peter Haldane, despite being raised on Darkover, has typically Terran sexist attitudes towards women. Jaelle is asked by the legate, Russell Montray, if she can help one of his agents pass as a native.Magda meets with Mother Lauria at the guildhouse and learns the rules under which she will be living for the next six months. An injured woman named Keitha knocks at the door and asks to take the oath. Several days later, Magda, Doria and Keitha undergo a consciousness-raising session with her future sisters regarding her motives for joining the Renunciates. She experiences a vision of the Goddess Avarra.Jaelle meets with Kadarin, a Terran operative, to assist him in prepping for a trip to the Dry Towns. She is assigned to give Alessandro Li a lesson in Darkover's history, but comes to distrust his motives, telling her husband that he wants to reduce Darkover to a Terran colony. Peter, ever ambitious, ignores her. Jaelle realizes that Peter does not consider her an equal partner in the marriage, and that in many respects, she has broken her Renunciate oath by marrying him.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forged_Coupon" title="The Forged Coupon">
The story is divided into two parts. In Part I, schoolboy Mitya is in desperate need of money to repay a debt, but his father angrily denies him assistance. Dejected, under the instigation of a friend Makhin, Mitya simply changes a 2.50 rouble bond coupon to read 12.50 roubles, but this one evil deed sets off a chain of events that affects the lives of dozens of others, when his one falsehood indirectly causes a man to murder a woman at the end of Part I, and then seek redemption through religion in Part II.Having written the novella in his dying years, after his excommunication, Tolstoy relishes the chance to unveil the "pseudo-piety and hypocrisy of organized religion." Yet, he maintains an unwavering belief in man's capacity to find truth, so the story remains hopeful, especially in Part II, which shows that good works can affect another as in a domino effect, just as evil does in Part I. The novella has also been translated with the title "The Counterfeit Note" and "The Forged Banknote."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Time_(novel_series)" title="The Book of Time (novel series)">
After 14-year-old Sam Faulkner's mother Elisa died in a car accident, his father Allan opens the "Faulkners Antiquarian Bookstore" and moves himself into it while Sam lives with his grandmother, grandfather, his aunt and his aunt's boyfriend and cousin Lily. Like his father, Sam also closes himself up, even closing the door to a girl named Alicia Todds, his crush. Then his father vanishes. Sam waits for him to come home, but more than a week passes without a trace. He goes to the bookstore to search for clues. In a room he'd never seen before, he finds a strange red book called "Crimes and Punishment During the Reign of Vlad Tepes", a stone statue with an odd circular indentation in it and a dusty coin with unreadable symbols. Curious, he fits the coin into the statue, and finds himself transported back to a strange island called Iona. He travels to a village there, where he finds another coin. Fitting it into the statue, he is transported again, this time to 800 AD to a Viking village in Scotland. As he finds other coins, he goes to other places, including France during World War I and ancient Egypt where he find a large cache of the coins. Eventually, with help from his cousin Lily, he is able to transport back home. Together, they learn more about the time-traveling statue and a man named Vlad Tepes, the inspiration behind the Dracula legends, who they believe is holding Allan in fifteenth century Wallachia.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worlds_of_the_Imperium" title="Worlds of the Imperium">
Brion Bayard, an American diplomat on assignment in Stockholm, Sweden, attempts to evade a man following him, only to find himself kidnapped by agents of the Imperium from a parallel world. Taken to the home world of the Imperium, he is introduced to the aristocratic members of the government, which rules most of the civilized world from London, having been formed by the union of the British Empire, which included America, and the German and Austro-Hungarian empires of Europe, with neutral Sweden added as an impartial component of the mixture. He is impressed by the commitment to duty of the Imperial officials he meets and drawn to a particularly noble lady. Surprisingly, the Imperial officials also include an analogue of Hermann Göring who – as Nazi Germany never existed – is a fairly honest and decent person, completely free of the crimes he would have committed in our history,The main reason for Bayard's abduction, however, is that the Imperium is under attack from another parallel world.The Maxoni-Cocini drive, invented in the Imperium universe by Italian scientists/experimenters Giulio Maxoni and Carlo Cocini at the end of the 19th century, is the technology for traveling between worlds and is extremely dangerous. Only if several sensitive parameters are tuned exactly can disaster be avoided and the trans-world transportation effect be achieved. Almost all worlds where its development is attempted or even inadvertently stumbled upon are destroyed, often in bizarre and horrible ways.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fabled_Fourth_Graders_of_Aesop_Elementary_School" title="The Fabled Fourth Graders of Aesop Elementary School">
The book is about the naughty fourth grade class at Aesop Elementary School. Each chapter (which is also a story) ends with one of Aesop's Fables's morals such as when Calvin Tallywong wishes that he was back in Kindergarten.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Sorcery" title="City of Sorcery">
"City of Sorcery" begins five years after the end of "Thendara House". The Renunciates and a select group of Terran women who have agreed to abide by Renunciate laws have formed The Bridge Society, to facilitate understanding between the two groups.Magda Lorne learns from her supervisor, Cholayna Ares, that a Terran operative, Alexis Anders, has survived a plane crash in the Hellers a week earlier. Five days later, she appeared at the spaceport with amnesia. Cholayna believes Anders’ memory has been tampered with and wants Magda to use her laran abilities to help recover her memories. After a bit of telepathic probing, Anders abruptly appears to have recovered, though she remembers nothing of her past week’s ordeal.Later, in retelling the story to Camilla at the Guildhouse, Magda recalls her three previous experiences with mystical visions of the Dark Sisterhood, and crows, which seem to be their avatars. Camilla tells Magda that the Sisterhood is a secret society; that she and Jaelle were both invited to join, but refused. With Jaelle’s assistance, Magda makes contact with the Forbidden Tower, but they are unable to explain Anders’ experiences.Rafaella undertakes a travel commission from Alexis Anders, but leaves a note behind for Jaelle. Magda tells Cholayna that Alexis has taken the expedition under false pretenses. Cholayna, Magda, Vanessa, Jaelle, and Camilla set out to follow Alexis. The expedition takes them high into the Hellers, through treacherous terrain. Magda goes into the Overworld to ask the advice of the Forbidden Tower, but is confronted by an ancient crone who repeatedly warns her to turn back. Magda refuses.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bourne_Deception" title="The Bourne Deception">
"The Bourne Deception" picks up where "The Bourne Sanction" left off. Jason Bourne's nemesis, Arkadin, is still hot on his trail and the two continue their struggle, reversing roles of hunter and hunted. When Bourne is ambushed and badly wounded in Bali, he fakes his death and goes into hiding. Only his close friends, Moira Trevor and Freddie Willard are aware that he is alive. In safety, he takes on a new identity, and begins a mission to find out who tried to assassinate him. Jason begins to question who he really is, how much of him is tied up in the Bourne identity, and what he would become if that was suddenly taken away from him. Shortly after, an American passenger airliner is shot down over Egypt by an Iranian missile. This is where a global conspiracy is revealed. Bud Halliday is at the helm of manipulations by NSA assisted by a wet-work outfit known as Black River. DCI Veronica Hart was an ex-employee of Black River like Moira Trevor and is at loggerheads with the intentions of Bud Halliday. Moira Trevor has started her own company which is a direct competitor of Black River. A global investigative team, led by Soraya Moore, is assembled to get at the truth of the situation before it can escalate into an international scandal. The conspiracy is discovered by one of Moira's employees and he is subsequently killed with Moira being left in grave danger. The trail to his assassin leads Bourne to Seville. On the way there, he meets Tracy Atherton, who tells him that she is going to Seville to buy the 14th Black Painting. In Seville, Bourne is attacked in a bullfighting arena by a killer named The Torturer. Later on, search for the man who shot him intersects with the search for the people that brought down the airliner, leading Bourne into one of the most deadly and challenging situations he has ever encountered. With the threat of a new world war brewing, Bourne finds himself in a race against time to uncover the truth and find the person behind his assault, all the while stalked by his unknown nemesis.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children's_Hospital" title="The Children's Hospital">
Jemma Claflin is a struggling third-year medical student at a children’s hospital. She is teased by the nurses and tormented by her superiors, but she is most crippled by a lack of passion for her profession. A traumatic past also haunts her daily life. Her family and loved ones died in various incidents, leaving Jemma with the belief that she must avoid loving anyone else, lest they also be killed. Jemma is particularly troubled by the loss of her brother, Calvin, who filled her early years with the supernatural and eventually took his own life. Despite her guarded emotions, Jemma enters a relationship with fellow medical student Rob Dickens.On a particularly stormy night Jemma aides in the birth of a disfigured child, a daughter of a “King of the East” who had come to New Jersey and married. The child is named Brenda and often points at Jemma, to her discomfort. After the birth, Jemma seeks solace in a sexual liaison with Rob in the on-call room. When they emerge, the storm has submerged the entire world beneath a vast ocean, with only the hospital and its inhabitants left floating above. No one finds time to mourn the loss of the world as the condition of the hospital’s patients suddenly turns for the worse, and every adult is busy attending to them. The hospital has reconfigured its layout, and an angel begins to speak to them, asking each person to name her so that she can serve them. A man named John Grampus reveals that he is the architect of the hospital, and was contacted by the angel long ago to create the building which would serve as an ark when the Apocalypse came.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mirror_of_Her_Dreams" title="The Mirror of Her Dreams">
"The Mirror of Her Dreams" is a novel in which the setting is a world where mirrors are magic, and is the first novel in the "Mordant's Need" series.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitralekha_(novel)" title="Chitralekha (novel)">
Chitralekha is a slim volume of literary work that explores the very essence of the universal truths of human life in a social set up. Woven around an intense love story that reflects on and flashes out not just the various aspects of human nature but also the myriad dilemmas faced by us in our lifetime, Chitralekha - the novel and protagonist - is riveting from the first sight and word. The story starts with a dialogue between the great hermit Ratnambar and his disciples, Shwetank and Vishaldev about sins committed by humans. They ultimately conclude that humans become victims and slaves of circumstance. So, according to Ratnambar -there is no sin and virtue per se. Everyone does deeds according to circumstances that befall them in their lifetime. The author also propounds the views that sin may be in action but never in thought and also that anuraag (attachment/passion) is in desire, and viraag (alienation/lack of passion) comes from gratification (tripti). Through the various twists and turns in the plot, Bhagwaticharan Varma displays a candour and liberalism not otherwise associated with Hindi literature of pre independence India. Through Chitralekha's character, the author describes the life of a truly empowered woman: beautiful and strong from within, materialistic by choice, largehearted by nature and honest to the core. Chitralekha busts many myths surrounding a real and humane woman. She firmly holds the reins of her own life and is commanding in not letting society/ social pressure influence her. Her honesty with herself through introspection and her refusal to let an ego come in the way of atonement lead her to victory in life since she attains peace within passion and passion within peace.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogger_(book)" title="Dogger (book)">
It features a boy and his stuffed dog, who is lost, showing "the distress the loss of a toy causes a child". The boy's sister has an opportunity to earn Dogger back.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flaming_Sword_(novel)" title="The Flaming Sword (novel)">
Shortly after Angela Cameron gets married, an African-American man breaks into her house, kills her husband and son, and rapes her sister. As a result, she decides to move to New York City and learn more about the situation of African-Americans. Meanwhile, African-Americans and Communists try to overthrow the government, and they succeed: the country becomes known as the 'Soviet Republic of the United States' and the only newspaper available in New York City is the "Soviet Herald". However, she meets her childhood sweetheart and decides everything is not lost. Eventually, she donates US$10 million to found the Marcus Garvey Colonization Society, whose aim is to repatriate African Americans to the African continent.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Littlest_Hitler" title="The Littlest Hitler">
The book has characters who have autisum such as drugstore workers and pharmacists. The short stories have things such a diabetic mother, cCerial killers, zombies and terrorists. The last story is called "The Newholy" which has to do with imagagation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_at_the_End_of_Time" title="City at the End of Time">
"City at the End of Time" is about the Kalpa, the last city on Earth, one hundred trillion years in the future. The novel's backstory describes how the aging universe continued expanding and its spacetime fabric weakened. With the galaxies burnt out, humanity dispersed across the cosmos, where they encountered the Typhon, an inexplicable entity that was destroying the decaying universe. It consumed matter and replaced space-time with emptiness and inconsistencies beyond the laws of physics. The resulting Chaos spread rapidly, driving some humans back to ancient Earth with its rekindled sun. In an attempt to fend off the approaching Typhon, leaders of the dying Earth sent for Polybiblios, a human living with the Shen, an ancient alien race. Polybiblios returned to Earth with his adopted daughter, Ishanaxade, a being he had constructed from "fate-logs" of intelligent species collected by the Shen. After the Shen system fell, and the Chaos surrounded Earth, its leaders instructed everybody to convert themselves from primordial (real) matter to noötic (virtual) mass. As each city fell, its inhabitants retreated to the last remaining cities, the Kalpa and Nataraja. Using knowledge he had gleaned from the Shen, Polybiblios built reality generators to protect the Kalpa. Nataraja, which had rebelled against the instruction to convert to noötic matter, was left to fend for itself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Who_Had_60_Whiskers" title="The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers">
The Old Hulk, being developed for a senior center, mysteriously burns to the ground. Meanwhile, a young woman dies from a bee sting—or could it have been murder? Qwill's lady friend, Polly Duncan, goes to Paris and decides to stay there. Later, Qwill's apple barn residence is burned by fire.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Edgar_Sawtelle" title="The Story of Edgar Sawtelle">
Forte's ChildrenEdgar comes from a line of dog breeders. After buying a farm, his grandfather, John Sawtelle, rents out the farmland and starts dog breeding. He and his wife have two sons, Edgar's father (Gar) and Claude. Claude leaves the farm and Gar stays on and carries on the family business. After some troubled attempts to have a child, Gar and his wife (Trudy) have Edgar. After his parents come to understand that he is mute, his parents learn sign language along with him, some made up and some real signs. Edgar grows up on the farm learning to breed dogs with his parents and Almondine, his own dog, who is always by his side and in a way speaks for him. Once he is old enough, his parents give him his own litter to raise.Eventually, Claude returns to the farm. After a brief stint of helping out around the house and barn, he leaves following a drunken brawl with Gar. A few weeks later, Edgar finds his father in the barn, dying mysteriously. After unsuccessfully trying to call for help, Edgar watches his father die.Three GriefsAfter burying Gar, Edgar and Trudy decide to keep the family business running, despite the new workload. However, shortly after beginning to adjust to Gar's death, Trudy catches pneumonia and Edgar attempts to carry on the work without her. With his mother sick, Edgar begins to fall out of the routine. He falls asleep in the barn one evening and wakes to realize it is now night. The dogs had gone so long without their meal that Edgar decides to let all of the dogs loose in the kennel and pours a large pile of kibble in the center for them. Before long, two dogs end up in a vicious fight. With both dogs injured and their vet out of town, they must call on Claude for assistance. After he helps treat the dogs and Trudy recovers, they begin to sleep together.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fern_Tattoo" title="The Fern Tattoo">
Benedict's mother has recently died; after the funeral, he receives a phone call from Mrs. Darling, a friend of his mother's. Benedict visits the old woman in the countryside, where she tells him various tales that involve three generations of families. He spends the next several years visiting Mrs. Darling, rearranging his personal plans, so he can visit her more often. One day, he receives a phone call that Mrs. Darling is dying. He finally learns that the stories she has been telling him have been about his own family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unseen_Academicals" title="Unseen Academicals">
After the centennial Hunting of the Megapode (a satirisation of the Mallard ceremony performed at All Souls College, Oxford), the faculty of Unseen University discover that they must, as per tradition, play a game of football, in exchange for their large financial endowment from the late Archchancellor Preserved Bigger. If not, they will lose 87.4% of the university's food bill, and be forced to have (only) three meals a day. The wizards soon learn that the local version of football (similar to the actual game of mob football) is very violent and deaths are common. Thus, in collaboration with the city's tyrant Lord Vetinari, they set out to make new 'official' football rules, based on translations of the rules from an ancient urn, which includes forbidding the use of hands and mandating the use of official footballs as opposed to the makeshift balls the street games use. With the prestige of UU under threat, the rise of Brazeneck College in Pseudopolis as a centre of magical learning and the return of Henry (formerly the Dean) to Ankh-Morpork as a rivalling Archchancellor do much to antagonise Archchancellor Ridcully.Parallel to this, the book tells the story of four young people. A candle dribbler named Mr. Nutt discovers that he is not what he thinks he is and must overcome the fear of his race, both by humans and by himself. He is also chosen to train the university's team for the big match. Trev Likely, who is Mr. Nutt's coworker and best friend, is the son of Ankh-Morpork's most famous deceased footballer Dave Likely (who had scored a record of four goals throughout his entire career), but has promised his (late) dear old mum that he won't play, but ultimately saves the game. Glenda is a friend of Mr. Nutt and Trev, runs the Unseen University Night Kitchen, and bakes the Disc's best pies. Juliet works for Glenda, has a crush on Trev (despite coming from families that support different teams), is simple and beautiful, and becomes a famous fashion model and the new face of dwarvish micromail (chainmail as soft as cloth). The four of them end up advising the wizards on their football endeavour. The novel culminates in an intense game between the Unseen Academicals and Ankh-Morpork United, a team made up of previously warring mob football teams including Dimwell and Dolly Sisters competing to prevent the more civilised game from becoming accepted.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splat_the_Cat" title="Splat the Cat">
Splat is so scared of his first day of Cat School that his tail moves with worry. He needs a friend so he takes his pet, a mouse named Seymour, with him to school. Mrs. Wimpydimple covers many topics, such as self-esteem and nature. When Seymour gets out of Splat's lunchbox, the cats chase after him. The teacher saves Seymour. By day two, Splat's tail moves with excitement.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_High_School" title="Kung Fu High School">
Jen, a teenage girl, and her brother Kyuzo, or Cue as she calls him, attend Martin Luther King High School, nicknamed "Kung Fu High School". However, due to the notorious Ridley's drug trafficking through the school, it has become a rundown war zone for both his workers and those who despise him. The only thing things these students at Kung Fu have in common are their ability to fight, or rather survive, and the fact that they've all been "kicked in". A welcoming practice at Kung Fu where students are beaten by everyone in order to teach them they are in the school.The story starts off with Jen living an already irregular life, having to literally put on armor before going to school. One day Jen's long-lost cousin Jimmy Chang arrives at her front door, sent by her late mother's sister.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Without_Warning_(Birmingham_novel)" title="Without Warning (Birmingham novel)">
On the eve of the Iraq War, March 14, 2003, the majority of the population of the contiguous United States (along with the bulk of the populations of Canada, Mexico, and Cuba) disappears as the result of a large energy field that later comes to be known as "The Wave". "Without Warning" deals with the international consequences of the disappearance of the world's last superpower on the eve of war.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_Double_(novel)" title="Body Double (novel)">
Returning to Boston from a business trip in Paris, Maura Isles encounters delays at Charles de Gaulle Airport, and finds upon landing in Boston that the airline has lost her luggage. When she finally makes it home, she finds her house taped off as a crime scene—and is surprised to see Jane Rizzoli (now about 8-months-pregnant) and Rizzoli's partner Barry Frost there. Rizzoli does a double-take on seeing Maura, and directs her attention to a white Ford Taurus in her driveway. There, Maura finds the body of a woman who looks identical to her—and also shares the same birthday.When the body is taken in to the medical examiner's office, Maura takes a tissue sample from the dead woman, and one from herself and asks Rizzoli to take them for DNA testing. The woman is found to have been killed by a 'Black Talon' bullet.Meanwhile, Matilda Purvis, the almost-9-months-pregnant wife of a BMW dealership manager, visits the dealership after an OB-GYN appointment—and is belittled by her husband (who she had married when she was two months pregnant) for ruining the tires. When she goes home, she finds she is not alone—and is struck unconscious when thinking the other to be her husband, she calls his name.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_to_the_Dogs_(Carmichael_novel)" title="Gone to the Dogs (Carmichael novel)">
Piggy is the reincarnation of a blonde girl named Lydia Keane. She suffers from a diet started by her new owner, Nell Jordan. Piggy searches for morsels of food to eat. When Piggy inherits a fortune from an old man, that she visited as a therapy dog, she must protect her owner from P.I. Dan Travis, the grandson of Piggy's benefactor. At a request from his mother, he investigates Piggy and her owner, with whom he falls in love.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lulu_Atlantis_and_the_Quest_for_True_Blue_Love" title="Lulu Atlantis and the Quest for True Blue Love">
Lulu Atlantis lives in Sweet Pea Lane. She has a baby brother and a dad that is busy trying to save endangered animals. Lulu tells her troubles to her best friend, a spider named Harry. Harry is a talking spider that offers good advice. The spider says in order for her to find true blue love, she will have to go farther than her backyard. The four stories, that are linked together, makes her realize that she is loved.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doors_Open" title="Doors Open">
Mike Mackenzie is a software entrepreneur who has sold his company for a substantial amount of money, but is now bored and looking for a new thrill. His new-found wealth has funded a genuine interest in art so when his friend Professor Robert Gissing presents him with a plan for the perfect crime, he willingly helps set that plan in motion.With a vast collection but limited wall space, the National Gallery (on the TV adaptation, a Scottish bank) has many more valuable works of art in storage than it could ever display. The plan is to stage a heist at the Granton storage depot on "Doors Open Day" during which a selected group of paintings will be "stolen". The gang will then give the appearance of having panicked and fled without the works of art, but will have switched the real paintings with high quality forgeries good enough to convince anyone investigating the matter that no theft has been committed.As they begin to flesh out the plan, it becomes clear that they need some "professional assistance" and a chance encounter with Chib Calloway, a local gangster who Mike went to school with, fulfils that need.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Cool_Head" title="A Cool Head">
Gravy works in a graveyard. One day his friend turns up in a car he doesn't recognise. His friend has a bullet in his chest. Gravy is asked to hide the gun and the body. In the back of the car is blood, and a bag full of money. Soon Gravy is caught up in a robbery gone wrong and is pursued by some desperate and mysterious men as well as the police.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_Shorts" title="Zen Shorts">
Three children, Karl, Michael and Addy, encounter a giant panda named Stillwater. The panda carries a red umbrella and speaks in a "slight panda accent". For the next three days, the three kids visit Stillwater. The panda rewards each with instructive anecdotes. To Michael he tells a story about good and bad boundaries, he tells Addy a story about the value of material goods, and Karl a story on how to hold frustration. Two of them are from Zen Buddhist literature and the other story is from Taoism. The stories illustrate the importance of meditation, and encourage readers to think about things that may be hard to imagine. They have strong themes about open-mindedness, compassion, and not getting too upset about things.The name of the first story "Uncle Ry and the Moon" is a reference to the Zen hermit Ryokan Taigu. In it, Uncle Ry lives in a lonely place, and finds a thief in his house. Taking pity on the poverty of the thief, Ry gives him his own robe, his only possession.The next story is the Taoist story of "The Farmer's Luck", where what first appears to be bad luck turns out to be good luck, and vice versa.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow,_When_the_War_Began" title="Tomorrow, When the War Began">
Ellie Linton goes out camping in the bush for a week with her friends Homer Yannos, Lee Takkam, Kevin Holmes, Corrie Mackenzie, Robyn Mathers, and Fiona Maxwell. They find a way into a large, vegetated sinkhole in a remote area of bush the locals have dubbed "Hell", and camp there. During this time they see large numbers of planes flying through the night without lights, and though it is mentioned in conversation the following morning, they think little of it, dismissing it as military planes heading back from a demonstration. When they return to their home town of Wirrawee, they find that all the people are missing and their pets and livestock are dead or dying. Fearing the worst, they break into three groups to investigate Wirrawee's situation. They discover that Wirrawee was captured as a beachhead for an invasion of Australia by an unidentified force; local citizens are being held captive by the occupiers. Ellie's group is spotted, and pursued by the enemy and, in order to escape, use the fuel tank of a ride-on lawnmower to create an improvised explosive. However, after reuniting with Homer and Fi at a pre-arranged meeting point, they discover Robyn and Lee missing. Homer and Ellie search for them and they are met by Robyn. They discover that Lee has been shot in the leg and is hiding out in the main street of Wirrawee, the centre of the enemy's activity. Ellie and Homer confer with the others and Ellie decides that they should attempt to rescue Lee, using a front-end loader to move and protect him. After a protracted chase that sees several soldiers killed, Lee is successfully rescued and returned to the safety of Hell but not before they discover Chris Lang hiding out in his house after his parents were away on a business trip.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennie_Gerhardt" title="Jennie Gerhardt">
Jennie Gerhardt is a destitute young woman. While working in a hotel in Columbus, Ohio, Jennie meets George Brander, a United States Senator, who becomes infatuated with her. He helps her family and declares his wish to marry her. Jennie, grateful for his benevolence, agrees to sleep with him. He dies before they marry, and Jennie is pregnant.She gives birth to a daughter, Vesta, and moves to Cleveland with her mother. There she finds work as a lady's maid in a prominent family. In this home, she meets Lester Kane, a prosperous manufacturer's son. Jennie falls in love with him, impressed by his strong will and generosity. She leaves her daughter in Cleveland and travels to New York with Kane. He does not know of her illegitimate daughter and wants to marry Jennie. But because of their difference in class, he anticipates his family's disapproval and decides to take her as his mistress.They live together successfully in the university neighborhood of Hyde Park, Chicago. After three years, Jennie tells him that Vesta is her daughter. Kane does not yield to his family's pressure to leave Jennie. But, after his father's death, he learns that his inheritance of a substantial part of the family business is conditioned on his leaving her. On hearing the will's terms, Jennie demands they separate for his sake.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glitch_in_Sleep" title="The Glitch in Sleep">
## Setting."The Glitch in Sleep" takes place in two worlds, The Seems and The World. The Seems is another world which is in charge of providing our World (The World) with everything it might need, from Sleep to Sunset. In the Seems, there are Departments that control various needs of our World such as Time and Nature. Whenever something goes wrong in The Seems, an elite team of professionals are sent in to Fix the problem. The team is made up of one Fixer and one Briefer. A Briefer is equal to the assistant of the Fixer. If the problems of The Seems are not fixed, The World would be affected depending on how the severe the problem is in the Seems.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apprentice_(Gerritsen_novel)" title="The Apprentice (Gerritsen novel)">
When Rizzoli investigates a murder where cutting techniques similar to those of imprisoned Warren Hoyt but involving necrophilia (as determined by medical examiner Maura Isles), she is called by FBI Agent Gabriel Dean to Washington, D.C. Dean shows her a list of similar crimes committed in Bosnia, and terms the suspect "The Dominator".Hoyt escapes from prison after reading about "The Dominator's" murders which copy many of his techniques, and plots with him to trap Rizzoli. Eventually, "The Dominator" kidnaps Rizzoli as she returns to Boston, and takes her into the countryside. In her struggle to stay alive, Rizzoli fights back, kills "The Dominator" and severely wounds Hoyt, making him a quadriplegic.Rizzoli then takes a long-overdue vacation, claiming sick-leave, with Dean.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Striking_and_Picturesque_Delineations_of_the_Grand,_Beautiful,_Wonderful,_and_Interesting_Scenery_Around_Loch-Earn" title="Striking and Picturesque Delineations of the Grand, Beautiful, Wonderful, and Interesting Scenery Around Loch-Earn">
The book begins with a dedication to the Earl of Breadalbane (presumably John Campbell, the fourth Earl, as the book was first published in 1815). Its "grovelling and abject" tone was unusual by that time. Then an anonymous preface recounts how an unnamed "Gentleman", on a grouse-shooting visit to the earl's estate in the Lochearnhead region, met Angus McDiarmid, a ground-officer (or ghillie, a gamekeeper and hunting-guide) of the earl's. Struck by McDiarmid's eloquent descriptions of the scenery and associated legends, the gentleman learned that McDiarmid had written a manuscript, which McDiarmid entrusted to him to be published. The preface assures the reader that visitors to Lochearnhead could confirm McDiarmid's existence and his sole authorship of the book. It then praises the "unparalleled sublimity" of the book's style, which it connects with the rugged Highland landscape and offers as the reason that McDiarmid's sentences "overleap the mounds and impediments of grammar".The main text is 28 pages about the region near Lochearnhead. There are three sections:McDiarmid's dedication is in grammatical English, but the main text is not, and is full of obscure and misused words. The paragraph about an earthquake in the Grampian Mountains may give an idea:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saratoga_Trunk_(novel)" title="Saratoga Trunk (novel)">
In 1875, Clio Dulaine, the illegitimate daughter of an aristocratic New Orleans French Creole father and a light-skinned Creole woman of color who was his placée, returns from Paris to her birthplace in Rampart Street to avenge her mother's mistreatment at the hands of her father's family, the Dulaines. Years ago, Clio's mother, Rita Dulaine, accidentally killed her husband, Nicholas Dulaine, when he tried to prevent her from committing suicide, and the scandalized Dulaines then exiled Clio and her mother to Paris. Clio is accompanied by her maid, Angélique Pluton, and her dwarf manservant, Cupidon.After fixing up the rundown house in Rampart Street, Clio ventures out, hoping to encounter the Dulaines, now comprising her father's widow, the widow's mother, and the widow's daughter (and Clio's half-sister) Charlotte Thérèse. At the French marketplace, Clio stops for a bowl of jambalaya and is immediately attracted to Clint Maroon, a tall Texan in a white hat, who is eating at the counter. The attraction is mutual, and Clint offers to drive Clio to the cathedral in his carriage, but a disapproving Angélique interferes, and Clio leaves without him. After the service, Clio, Angelique, and Cupidon eat breakfast at Begue's, the restaurant patronized by the Dulaines every Sunday. While eating, Angélique spots the Dulaines walking in, but they leave quickly after presumably recognizing Clio. Later Clint and Clio meet again at the restaurant, and afterward he drives her home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tin_Roof_Blowdown" title="The Tin Roof Blowdown">
Dave Robicheaux, once an officer for the New Orleans Police Department and before that a U.S. Army infantry lieutenant who fought in the Vietnam War, now works as sheriff's deputy in New Iberia, Louisiana. After Hurricane Katrina devastates his beloved city of New Orleans, Robicheaux is drawn into the fatal shooting of two young black looters, and the subsequent torture murder of a third. Soon several suspects, including an insurance salesman whose daughter may have been brutally raped by the men, and a sadistic gangster whose house they raided, start emerging from the woodwork. However, the investigation becomes much more personal for Dave when his own family comes under threat from an evil sociopath, and he finds himself drowning in a sea of violence, and , juxtaposed against the terrible suffering he sees everyday as a result of the hurricane.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twinkie_Squad" title="The Twinkie Squad">
## Beginning.Obsessed with sharing his 'exotic culture' which he himself is largely inventing, Douglas Fairchild appears eccentric and fails his classes, which leads him to be placed in a special needs support group, condescendingly referred to as "The Twinkie Squad" by most other students. The group is actually named the special discussion group and is led by Mr. and Mrs. Richardson who have degrees in counseling. Later, at lunch, Armando "Commando" Riviera, is playing basketball, and Doug is sitting on a nearby bench writing in his "Pefkakia journal" (actually a notebook filled with nothing but the word 'blah'). Commando throws the ball at Doug, which bounces and hits Douglas in the nose, causing a massive nosebleed. Commando's enemy, Kahlil, reports him to the Principal, who accuses him of deliberately attacking Doug; and when Doug denies that this is how the incident happened, the Principal carelessly assumes that Commando is bullying him into keeping quiet. Commando is suspended from the basketball team and is sentenced to a year in Doug's special needs group with other "defective" students. The Twinkie Squad includes Anita, who can't think up her own thoughts so she copies others; Yolanda, who is obsessed with movies; Gerald, who is incredibly shy; Ric, who is hyperactive and very jittery; and Dave, who has very low self-esteem.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Inconvenient_Woman" title="An Inconvenient Woman">
Behind-the-scenes Hollywood intrigue, the underworld of laundered money, illegal drugs, and prostitution, and the foibles of the extremely wealthy and those who serve them, serve as the background for a tale of murder, the abuse of power, and the destruction of several lives when revenge enters the picture.Characters include the incredibly rich and famous, those who are desperate to share their spotlight, and the underlings who cater to their every need. Chief among them are billionaire Jules Mendelson, a confidant of the President who is on the verge of being offered a prime political position in Brussels, as long as the story about a girl who plunged from the balcony of his Chicago hotel room in 1953 remains the deep secret he has harbored all these years; Flo March (née Fleurette Houlihan), his considerably younger lover, who slowly sheds her coarse exterior as Jules introduces her to the finer things in life; Pauline Mendelson, Jules' devoted wife who presides over Clouds, their mountaintop estate overlooking LA, and one of the most admired hostesses in their social circle, whose errant son Kippie by a former marriage proves to be the bane of her elegant existence; New York City writer Philip Quennell, author of a bestselling book about a leveraged buyout, who's brought to Hollywood by cocaine-snorting producer Casper Stieglitz to write a documentary film about drug abuse in the film industry; young widow Camilla Ebury, Philip's lover and the niece of Hector Paradiso, a closeted homosexual whose alleged suicide raises the suspicions of those who believe he was really murdered; gossip columnist Cyril Rathbone, who thrives on the secrets of the rich and powerful; hustler and sometime porn actor Lonny Edge, who has in his possession the long-missing completed manuscript of the final book by dissolute author Basil Plant (a thinly-disguised version of Truman Capote) but doesn't realize its importance to the literary world; and gangster Arnie Zwillman, who knows enough about Jules Mendelson's past to put an end to his political ambitions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Split_Second" title="The Split Second">
The second book follows Becker Drane on another mission. At the end of the first book, "The Glitch in Sleep", it was revealed 50 trays of Frozen Moments were stolen. With that, a Time Bomb could be constructed causing great damage to The World. When news show the Time Bomb has been found in the Department of Time, Lucien Chiappa is sent in to Fix it, until the bomb explodes and Becker is called in to repair the mess by bringing the two parts of the bomb together so no Essence (a liquid that causes everything to age much faster) can enter the World.To Fix the Second, Becker must bring both halves of the Second together again to prevent any more Essence from dripping out. The first is found in a basement and the second is found to be trapped by the Tide, the organization who created the bomb and wants to overthrow the current order of the Seems and create a new world.A legendary Fixer thought to be dead, Tom Jackal arrives to help Becker and manages to capture the Second and put it together, but the Essence has soaked through their Sleeves (lightweight bodysuits) and causes him to age. Tom dies from overexposure, but saves the World.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruel_Zinc_Melodies" title="Cruel Zinc Melodies">
Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassina_Gambrel_Was_Missing" title="Cassina Gambrel Was Missing">
Set against turbulent events in Memphis, Tennessee in the late 1970s, the novel concerns a young, white, college student named Jackson Taylor who befriends an older black woman named Cassina Gambrel. As the protagonist's fortune and world expands, Cassina's narrows. Years later, Jackson begins a search for his former friend and the book takes on a cynical tone, bordering on bitterness, while the story unfolds through a series of revealing flashbacks.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Death" title="The First Death">
"The First Death" recounts the ordeal of a 40 year old male named adam stranded on a desert-like island. The book starts with a description of his mutilated body which grinds against the rocks. The poem expands on the theme of his continuing degradation, physical and mental, as even the mechanisms of memory are dislocated. Yet, the bond between person and body ensures life still persists, and, "at that point without substance/ where the world collides and takes off", the mechanical instincts of the cosmos rumble into action and sling this irreducible substance again into space - prompting, perhaps, a future regeneration.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranglers'_Moon" title="Stranglers' Moon">
Jules and Yvette D'Alembert are a brother and sister team of aerialists in the D'Alembert family Circus of the Empire. But they are also legendary agents "Wombat" and "Periwinkle" in SOTE, "The Service of The Empire", the imperial intelligence agency, sent to investigate the disappearance of a planetary economist and his wife on a moon devoted to recreation: seemingly a vacationers' paradise...The plot is based in part on Thuggee.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrees_of_Connection" title="Degrees of Connection">
Scobie Malone has been promoted from inspector to superintendent, while Russ Clements is now head of Homicide. He investigates the murder of the personal assistant to Natalie Shipwood, the CEO of development company Orlando. Malone's son, Tom, seems to have impregnated a girlfriend who is subsequently murdered and his daughter Maureen is an ABC journalist covering the Securities Commission investigation into Orlando.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_One_Hand_Clapping_(novel)" title="The Sound of One Hand Clapping (novel)">
The book focuses the relationship between a woman, Sonja Buloh, and her father Bojan. Bojan is a Slovenian immigrant from the post-World War II period who came to work on the Tasmanian Hydroelectric Schemes, and a drunkard. While working on a remote construction camp in the central highlands in the winter of 1954, when Sonja was just three, Bojan's wife walked into a blizzard never to be seen again and leaving Bojan to raise his daughter. When Sonja returns to visit Tasmania and her father in 1989 as a balanced middle-aged woman, the past begins to intrude, changing both their lives forever.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_of_the_Burnt_Cottage" title="The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage">
The novel centres on the mystery of who could have set fire to Mr Hick’s cottage. The five children, Larry and Daisy Daykin, Pip and Bets Hilton, and newcomer Frederick Algernon Trotteville (later nicknamed Fatty from his initials), meet at the scene of the fire and end up solving the mystery together.Their suspects include an old tramp, a dismissed servant, a hostile colleague, and the cook. They find certain clues: Broken-down nettles in a ditch, a footprint in a grassy field, and Hawker Tempest planes (which Mr. Hick mentions "flew over" the other day).The children realise that as Mr Hick claims to have been in the London train when the cottage was burnt, but by his own report he saw the planes which flew over the village at the same time, he is contradicting himself. Fatty finds out that the cottage and the burnt papers Mr Hick describes as 'most important' were insured. The children deduce that Mr Hick burnt his own cottage for the insurance money. The book also introduces Inspector Jenks, who turns out to help the children and becomes a good friend of theirs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corduroy_Mansions" title="Corduroy Mansions">
The story is set in a fictional housing unit in London nicknamed Corduroy Mansions, and details the lives of the inhabitants of the large Pimlico house and others.The main characters are Barbara Ragg, Basil Wickramsinghe, Berthea Snark, Caroline Jarvis, Dee Binder, Eddie French, Freddie de la Hay, Jenny Hedge, Jo Partlin, Marcia Light, Oedipus Snark, Terence Moongrove, and William French.Book two in the award-winning Corduroy Mansions series, "The Dog Who Came in from the Cold", ran from 21 Sept 2009 until 19 Dec 2009.Book three in the series, "A Conspiracy of Friends", ran from 13 Sept 2010 until 17 Dec 2010.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandide_and_the_Secret_of_the_Mists" title="Kandide and the Secret of the Mists">
As the beginning of the story, all is well in the Kingdom of Calabiyau. King Toeyad, ruler of the Fée, a race of fairies, is benevolent and just, and the twelve clans of fairies live in relative peace. When the king dies, his teenage daughter, Kandide, is expected to ascend to the throne. While preparing for her coronation, one of Kandide's wings is crushed. The Fée value beauty above all else and so, to prevent the disgrace of having an “Imperfect” take the throne, Kandide's mother banishes her to the Veil of the Mists, a land to the East populated by treacherous creatures and imperfect Fée.Without a clear heir to the throne, Calabiyau is thrown into turmoil. Kandide's mother is put in mortal danger and cruel Lady Aron threatens to take the throne. Kandide's younger sister, Tara, and brother, Teren, are sent to find Kandide and bring her home in hopes that she can set everything right.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whispers_of_the_Dead" title="Whispers of the Dead">
Dr David Hunter returns to 'The Body Farm' in Tennessee where he learned the ins and outs of forensic anthropology. He has gone to America to try and see if he can still do the job he has become accustomed to after surviving the attempt on his life by Grace Strachan, the murderess from the previous book, "Written in Bone".Whilst in Tennessee, a body is found in a remote cabin in the woods and David's old instructor asks him to tag along for a fresh pair of eyes at the crime scene. A fingerprint at the crime scene leads them to a man who had died six months earlier and whose own body has been replaced in his grave by that of someone far older than he was. It becomes clear that they are dealing with someone who has the same intricate and detailed forensic knowledge that they have and that a serial killer is on the loose.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_Millennium" title="The Dream Millennium">
John Devlin, a 26-year-old medical doctor, is the captain of a sleeper ship built to colonize planets in other solar systems. The spacecraft's trajectory is such that it will make passes of eleven stars thought to have a good chance of supporting habitable planets, over the course of about a thousand years. Most of the starship's systems are automated, so Devlin does not have to do much maintenance, but he is required to look at potential planets for colonization and solve problems as they arise. Except for being awoken at long intervals to eat, exercise, and perform his duties as captain, Devlin spends all of his time in hibernation, during which he dreams the entire lives of people and other creatures that lived and died on Earth in the past.The story switches back and forth between Devlin's life and dreams on the starship and his life on Earth before the starship's launch. On the starship, Devlin's dreams during hibernation are the lives of creatures of the prehistoric past, then as men, moving closer to the present day with each dream. Most of the lives he dreams are unpleasant, with painful deaths. He dreams of being:In the first half of the starship's voyage, Devlin finds only two planets that had any potential for human colonization, and found both unsuitable. One planet was entering Roche's limit and would not remain habitable for much longer, and the other was already inhabited by hostile aliens whose planet was in even worse shape than the Earth he had left behind.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_City,_Not_My_Own" title="Another City, Not My Own">
Protagonist Gus Bailey, introduced in Dunne's earlier novel "People Like Us", is a successful writer who is assigned to cover the Simpson trial for "Vanity Fair". He firmly believes Simpson is guilty from the very beginning, and in his monthly column "Letter from Los Angeles", he clearly states his position and puts his personal spin on what he observes in the courtroom and beyond. Those involved with the criminal proceedings, including Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden for the prosecution, Johnnie Cochran, F. Lee Bailey, Robert Kardashian, Barry Scheck, and Robert Shapiro for the defense, and Judge Lance Ito, all figure prominently in the story.Bailey becomes the darling of Hollywood society, all of whom are eager to include him as a guest at their dinner parties so he can regale everyone with inside tidbits and juicy gossip. Celebrities such as Elizabeth Taylor, Kirk Douglas, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, David Geffen, Roddy McDowall, and June Anderson, social types like Nancy Reagan, Betsy Bloomingdale, and Nan Kempner, royalty such as Princess Diana, Princess Margaret, and Queen Noor of Jordan, and television personalities like Harvey Levin and Larry King make appearances in the book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whispers_in_the_Graveyard" title="Whispers in the Graveyard">
"Whispers in the Graveyard" is about a 12-year-old boy called Solomon, who has a learning disability called dyslexia. Solomon has a very hard time with life as his mother left when he was young, his father is an alcoholic and everyone picks on him including a bullying teacher called Mr Watkins also known as Warrior WatkinsSolomon hears that bodies buried in a graveyard died of smallpox and if disturbed could spread the infection again, but the real danger is of a supernatural nature.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passion's_Promise" title="Passion's Promise">
Kezia Saint Martin is a glamorous, jetsetting socialite with a secret identity as a crusading social justice journalist. She is increasingly torn between the two worlds and questions her own identity. These questions are brought to a head when she falls in love with a fellow crusader named Lucas John.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita" title="Lolita">
The novel is prefaced by a fictitious foreword by one John Ray Jr., an editor of psychology books. Ray states that he is presenting a memoir written by a man using the pseudonym "Humbert Humbert", who had recently died of heart disease while awaiting a murder trial in jail. The memoir, which addresses the audience as his jury, begins with Humbert's birth in Paris in 1910 to an English mother and Swiss father. He spends his childhood on the French Riviera, where he falls in love with his friend Annabel Leigh. This youthful and physically unfulfilled love is interrupted by Annabel's premature death from typhus, which causes Humbert to become sexually obsessed with a specific type of girl, aged 9 to 14, whom he refers to as "nymphets".After graduation, Humbert works as a teacher of French literature and begins editing an academic literary textbook, making passing references to repeated stays in mental institutions at this time. Before the outbreak of World War II, Humbert emigrates to America. In 1947, he moves to Ramsdale, a small town in New England, where he can calmly continue working on his book. The house that he intends to live in is destroyed in a fire. In his search for a new home, he meets the widow Charlotte Haze, who is looking for a tenant. Humbert visits Charlotte's residence out of politeness and initially intends to decline her offer. However, Charlotte leads Humbert to her garden, where her 12-year-old daughter Dolores (also variably known as Dolly, Lo, and Lola) is sunbathing. Humbert sees in Dolores the perfect nymphet, the embodiment of his old love Annabel, and quickly decides to move in.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomins" title="Moomins">
The Moomin stories concern several eccentric and oddly-shaped characters, some of whom are related to each other. The central family consists of Moominpappa, Moominmamma and Moomintroll.Other characters, such as Hemulens, Sniff, the Snork Maiden, Snufkin and Little My are accepted into or attach themselves to the family group from time to time, generally living separate lives in the surrounding Moominvalley, where the series is set, and in which the Moomin family decides to live at the end of "The Moomins and the Great Flood".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_of_the_Art" title="Books of the Art">
## The Great and Secret Show."The Great and Secret Show" follows Fletcher and Jaffe, two humans that have transcended reality to become super-human. The two initially worked together but became adversaries when it became clear that Jaffe was intent on gaining control of Quiddity, a dream sea that humans can access only three times in their lives. The two men end up siring children by raping four teenage girls with the intention that they will continue their battles, only for two of their children to fall in love.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Option" title="The Third Option">
Mitch Rapp is sent on a highly sensitive mission in northern Germany to assassinate Count Heinrich Hagenmiller V, a powerful arms dealer who has been selling weapons to Saddam Hussein and other enemies of the United States. Rapp successfully slays Hagenmiller, only to be betrayed by his mission companions "Jane and Tom Hoffman", who attempt to kill Rapp by shooting him twice in the chest, not knowing his jacket was lined with kevlar which absorbed the rounds and knocked him down. Jane (the one that shot him) quickly stages the scene to implicate Rapp and then flees the location with Tom. A shocked Rapp eventually awakes. As a result of his fall, a gash in his head has left a small pool of his blood on the floor. Not wanting to leave the forensic evidence behind, he sets the room on fire and quickly escapes.Back in Washington, D.C., the situation in Germany quickly becomes known to politicians and officials, with a few trying to use the situation to their own advantage. Democratic Congressman Albert Rudin is not fooled by the CIA's denial of involvement, and argues that it is further proof that the CIA is bad for America and the world, and should be shut down. Henry "Hank" Clark, who is a corrupt, ambitious, and calculating Republican U.S. senator with his eye on the Presidency, is the one that ordered the hit on Rapp, hoping that his dead body would embarrass President Robert Xavier Hayes, and ruin the career of CTC Director, Dr. Irene Kennedy. Clark, along with Rudin and Secretary of State Charles Middleton, are in an alliance to stop Dr. Kennedy from succeeding the dying Thomas Stansfield as Director. Unbeknownst to Rudin and Middleton, Clark dispatches a group of contract killers led by "Professor" Peter Cameron, to initiate a widespread blood-purge that will eliminate any person that can leave a paper trail back to him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessary_Heartbreak" title="Necessary Heartbreak">
Michael Stewart is a single dad in modern-day New York struggling to raise his feisty 13-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. Feeling beaten down by life, he shuts out new relationships but fate, or perhaps something more divine, has other plans. When they stumble upon a root-cellar door in a church basement, they discover a portal leading back to first-century Jerusalem during the tumultuous last week of Christ’s life. There they encounter Leah, a grieving widow, and a menacing soldier, determined to take Elizabeth as his own. Trapped in the past - both literally and figuratively - Michael comes face to face with some of his most limiting beliefs, and realizes he must open himself up to the possibility of a deeper faith in God, people, himself, and love if he is to find his way home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Darker_Domain" title="A Darker Domain">
During the infamous UK miners' strike, a wealthy young heiress and her infant son are kidnapped in Fife, before a botched payoff leaves her dead and the child missing. Twenty-two years later, DI Karen Pirie, an expert on cold cases, interviews a journalist who may have found a clue to the enigma while on vacation in Tuscany. However, she soon becomes preoccupied with another missing persons case from about the same time. Fellow mine workers and even his own wife believed that Mick Prentice notoriously broke ranks and left to join a group of 'scab' strike breakers far south in Nottingham, but recent evidence suggests that his disappearance might not have been as simple as that. Moreover, Mick's grown daughter Misha desperately needs to find her estranged father for critical reasons of her own. DI Pirie soon finds herself stumbling through a darker domain of violence, greed, secrets and betrayal.The novel jumps back and forth between the time of the key events of both cases during the miners' strike and the current day. The flashbacks provide scattered, nonsequential background for the facts in the order that Pirie and present-day others discover them or relate them. This structure allows the author to present intricate plotlines and reveal facts in a manner that sustains the suspense. Because the plot is convoluted, however, and McDermid didn't offer the readers graphics to help them orient themselves in the local landscape, readers may want to glance at maps of the Fife area and Tuscan countryside where the plot locations are noted.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolution_(novel)" title="Absolution (novel)">
When he died, Peter Peterson left behind the trappings of a seemingly charmed life: a vast fortune, two children, and a stately Park Avenue address. But he left something else behind: a sheaf of confessions about a dark period of his youth. In pages written weeks before his death, he reveals a crime of passion, committed in the throes of unrequited love, that has burdened him for his entire life. Yet as he finishes his story, he encounters a surprise that will shake the very foundation of his past. Spanning a boyhood in Iceland to the Nazi occupation of Denmark to a cunning business career in modern-day Manhattan, "Absolution" echoes Dostoevsky and Ibsen as it masterfully plumbs the darkest corners of a sinister mind and a wounded heart.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expiration_Date_(Powers_novel)" title="Expiration Date (Powers novel)">
The protagonists are Koot Hoomie "Kootie" Parganas, an eleven-year-old boy, and Pete "Teet" Sullivan, a man in his early forties. The novel takes place mostly in Los Angeles in the year 1992, and there are references to the United States presidential election.The main antagonists are Sherman Oaks and Loretta deLarava. As in "Last Call", the previous novel of Tim Powers' "Fault Line" series, a prominent theme is the quest for immortality. Oaks' age is unknown, deLarava is seventy-six years old (but she often appears to be younger); both have been prolonging their lives by ingesting ghosts. There is a magical system surrounding these ghosts. In their digestible state, they are known as "smokes" or "cigars".Koot Hoomie Parganas has unwittingly ingested the ghost of Thomas Edison. However, because Kootie has not yet reached puberty, he is not able to digest it. In its undigested state, the ghost of Edison functions as a helper to Kootie. Because of Edison's powerful personality, this ghost is particularly sought after by both antagonists who wish to ingest it themselves. In addition, Loretta deLarava is pursuing the ghost of Pete Sullivan's father, who would help her to locate Pete Sullivan's father's ghost, Arthur Patrick "Apie" Sullivan. Pete Sullivan has his own helper, a former psychiatrist named Angelica Anthem Elizalde.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_I_Die" title="Before I Die">
Tessa is diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Despite four years of chemotherapy, she has discovered that her cancer is terminal and her doctors give her a short time to live. Tessa, with the help of her best friend Zoey, comes up with a list of things she wants to do before she dies, including some risky behaviours that she deems necessary to have "lived". Zoey is excited and supportive of the outrageous bucket list until an unplanned pregnancy test comes up positive.Tessa's parents are divorced and have very different views on her desire to experience the dangerous side of life before she passes. Her mother is loving and joking about the situation and seems supportive; however, she has not been present in Tessa's treatments, nor involved in her life at a deep level. Tessa's father is timid and just wants to spend time with his daughter. He is resistant to Tessa's behaviour from the start, but realises he has little influence and can only enjoy the time they have left. Her father's main mechanism for coping is denial. She mentions that he spends hours on the computer looking up possible treatments for her even after the doctors have told her that the cancer has consumed her body.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_Tactics_of_the_Chalk_Stream" title="Minor Tactics of the Chalk Stream">
Although "Minor Tactics" begins in the foreword with thanks and appreciation to F. M. Halford for his "Dry-Fly Fishing in Theory and Practice" published in 1889 as the last word on chalk stream fishing for trout, the book marks Skues's long campaign to restore the wet fly to its rightful place on the chalk streams of England from which the wet fly had been banished during the dogmatic dry fly period of the last 19th century.From the Foreword:Rising from the perusal of "Dry-Fly Fishing in Theory and Practice" on its publication by F. M. Halford in 1889, I think I was at one with most anglers of the day in feeling that the last word had been written on the art of chalk-stream fishing—so sane, so clear, so comprehensive, is it ; so just and so in accord with one's own experience. Twenty years have gone by since then without my having had either occasion or inclination to go back at all upon this view of that, the greatest work, in my opinion, which has ever seen the light on the subject of angling for trout and grayling; and it is still, as regards that side of the subject with which it deals, all that I then believed it. But one result of the triumph of the dry fly, of which that work was the crown and consummation, was the obliteration from the minds of men, in much less than a generation, of all the wet-fly lore which had served many generations of chalk stream anglers well. The effect was stunning, hypnotic, submerging; and in these days, if one excepts a few eccentrics who have been nurtured on the wet fly on other waters, and have little experience of chalk streams, one would find few with any notion that anything but the dry fly could be effectively used upon Hampshire rivers, or that the wet fly was ever used there. I was for years myself under the spell, and it is the purpose of the ensuing pages to tell, for the benefit of the angling community, by what processes, by what stages, I have been led into a sustained effort to recover for this generation, and to transmute into forms suited to the modern conditions of sport on the chalk stream, the old wet-fly art, to be used as a supplement to, and in no sense to supplant or rival, the beautiful art of which Mr. F. M. Halford is the prophet. How far my effort has been successful I must leave my readers to judge. I myself feel that in making it I have widened my angling horizon, and that I have added enormously to the interest and charm of my angling days as well as to my chances of success, and that, too, by the use of no methods which the most rigid purist could rightly condemn, but by a difficult, delicate, fascinating, and entirely legitimate form of the art, well worthy of the naturalist sportsman.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ready_or_Not_(novel)" title="Ready or Not (novel)">
Samantha "Sam" Madison is still teen ambassador to the United Nations and happily dating the President's son, David. She is also still a semi-celebrity for saving the President's life but does not like the attention she gets for it. As a way to go back to being unnoticed, Sam dyes her naturally red hair to jet black at the beginning of the novel. She and David also start to take a life-drawing class together, though she did not realize that it was about sketching nude models.When David invites her to spend Thanksgiving at Camp David, Sam believes that he wants to have sex. Unsure of whether she's ready for that step in their relationship, she consults her older sister Lucy. Lucy ends up being extremely helpful by giving her sex advice and buying Sam contraceptives.Meanwhile, The President announces his "Return to Family" campaign, which includes plans to limit access to abortion and birth control. Samantha is faced with a huge dilemma when she accidentally comes off as condemning the "Return to Family" policy on an MTV special by accidentally implying that she and David have had sex.Sam receives mostly negative backlash for her remarks, but is supported by her friends and family for being honest. When she goes to Camp David during Thanksgiving, she waits in her room all night for David to come, but he never does. Feeling furious, she sneaks into David's room and berates him for his mixed-messages over them having sex. David replies that he didn't mean to imply that anything was going to happen between them. Sam comes to understand that she made up the whole dilemma in her head, but also realizes that she does want to have sex because she loves David.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Dog" title="The Lost Dog">
Tom Loxley is holed up in a remote bush shack trying to finish his book on Henry James when his beloved dog goes missing. What follows is a triumph of storytelling, as The Lost Dog loops back and forth in time to take the reader on a spellbinding journey into worlds far removed from the present tragedy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sky_Is_Falling_(Pearson_novel)" title="The Sky Is Falling (Pearson novel)">
Norah and Gavin Stoakes live in a peaceful English village until World War II causes them to be evacuated to Toronto. Norah, an independent ten-year-old, is angry with the evacuation and resents having to care for Gavin. Five-year-old Gavin does not understand the evacuation and is confused and frightened. When they arrive in Canada, Norah and Gavin are placed with Florence Ogilvie, a bossy and cold widow and her timid spinster daughter, Mary Ogilvie. The Ogilvies only wanted Gavin but were convinced to take Norah as well. Norah is acutely aware of their preference toward Gavin, rather than her. While Gavin quickly settles into his new home where he is spoilt and coddled by Florence, Norah cannot settle. She dislikes Florence, is bored in her strict new home, is unpopular at her new school, begins to wet the bed (something she was very angry at Gavin for doing on the boat trip there), and constantly worries about what is happening to her family in England.As weeks go by, Norah’s resentment of Florence increases. Although she begins to make new friends, her misery increases as she realizes she cannot return to England for much longer than she was originally told. After Florence and Norah have an argument, Norah decides to run away and return to England on her own. She originally leaves without Gavin but decides she cannot leave him to be spoilt by Florence in a foreign country. She takes him with her but they only get as far as the train station before Norah realizes her plan is impossible. They return to the Ogilvies, expecting punishment but find that Florence and Mary have been very worried. Florence apologizes for ignoring Norah in the past months and asks if they can begin again. Norah accepts the offer and attempts to try to live happily in Canada. Life begins to improve and Norah accepts Canada as her temporary home for the duration of the war.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secrets_of_Harry_Bright" title="The Secrets of Harry Bright">
Paco Pedroza is chief of police in Mineral Springs, California, a small nondescript desert town near Palm Springs. The Los Angeles Police Department informs him that they have developed a new lead in a notorious, unsolved Palm Springs homicide in which the body was found in Solitaire Canyon, a notorious biker hangout within Mineral Springs. While Paco unenthusiastically prepares for a visit by an LAPD homicide team, desert rat drunkard Beavertail Bigelow, the object of a prank by one of Paco's cops, stumbles across an antique ukulele in the desert that will become a key piece of evidence in the renewed investigation.On election day 1984 in Los Angeles, LAPD Sgt. Sidney Blackpool is invited to the corporate office of high tech industrialist Victor Watson, whose son Jack was the victim in the Palm Springs homicide. Over drinks, Watson tells Blackpool he pulled strings with LAPD to arrange for Blackpool to investigate a new lead that tenuously ties the case to Blackpool's jurisdiction in Hollywood. Blackpool suspects that the lead is a pretext to draw in the resources of LAPD after both Palm Springs and the Federal Bureau of Investigation failed to solve the case. Watson knows that Blackpool's son died at approximately the same time, and using that to engage his sympathies, persuades Blackpool to work the case as part of an expenses-paid golf vacation for himself and his partner, Otto Stringer, in Palm Springs. His inducement is a suggested promise of a retirement job for Blackpool as head of security for Watson Industries.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_(McDevitt_novel)" title="Omega (McDevitt novel)">
A world of humanoid beings is discovered to be in the path of an Omega cloud, mysterious clouds of energy floating in space which attack and destroy anything with right angles. Hutch is part of an expedition to save them if possible, using a strikingly new discovery.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Fly_Fishing_for_Trout" title="A History of Fly Fishing for Trout">
"A History of Fly Fishing for Trout" is the first book to trace the history of fly fishing from its very beginning, with chapters on Early Sporting Literature, Early Fly Fishing in France, and identifying all the artificial flies mentioned by early writers. The book includes a useful bibliography for scholars interested in further historical research.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_(novel)" title="Cookie (novel)">
Despite her name, Beauty Cookson is a plain, timid girl who is nicknamed "ugly" by her peers at school, especially by her main bully, Skye. Worse than the teasing in the playground, though, is the unpredictable criticism from her emotionally abusive father, Gerry Cookson. She is frequently berated for breaking any of his house rules, as well as for her lack of looks and confidence, even though she is a wealthy girl who lives in a large, beautifully decorated house and attends a private school. Her only source of kindness at home is her mother, Dilys "Dilly" Cookson. Beauty adores rabbits, although Gerry forbids her from having pets. Her favorite television show is "Rabbit Hutch", a show for young children about a man, Sam, and his pet rabbit, Lily.Beauty has no friends at all at school. The only student that is nice to her is Rhona, Skye's best friend. However, Rhona desperately wants to be friends with Beauty, which she reveals one day when Skye is at a dentist appointment. Finally, Beauty is invited to a birthday party Rhona is holding. For the birthday party, Gerry forces her to get corkscrew curls, and popular bullies Skye, Arabella and Emily develop a new nickname for her: Ugly Corkscrew.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Désert_(novel)" title="Désert (novel)">
Two stories are interwoven.The shorter, which begins and ends the book, is specifically set in 1909–1910 and later 1912, and tells of the wanderings of North African desert tribes chased from their lands by French colonial invaders, mostly as observed by a small boy, Nour. The beginning is set in the Saguia el-Hamra region in the Western Sahara, around the town of Smara, and the story follows the tribe on their gruelling journey across the desert to Tiznit. The story tells of Nour’s encounter with the religious leader Ma al-'Aynayn, whom he worships and follows.The longer, the story of Lalla, is set in an unspecified contemporary time. It describes her early life in a shanty town on the edge of an unnamed Moroccan coastal town, and particularly her friendship with a young mute Hartani shepherd who, like her, originates from the desert tribes. It narrates the time she spends in Marseille while already pregnant with the Hartani’s child. In France she encounters great poverty before becoming a photo model, but she eventually returns to her native town in Morocco, where she gives birth to the Hartani's child.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dragon_Lord_(Drake_novel)" title="The Dragon Lord (Drake novel)">
In sixth century Britain, King Arthur desires a dragon to harass the Saxon invaders. Merlin tells Arthur that the skull of a lake monster is required. From a batch of new mercenary recruits to Arthur's army, Gawain selects an Irishman called Mael and a Dane called Starkad after Mael defeats Lancelot in a demonstration duel in front of the recruits. Arthur sends Mael to Ireland to retrieve the skull and keeps Mael's friend Starkad as hostage to ensure his return. In Ireland, Mael is escorted to a road where he meets Veleda, a pagan witch who foresaw Mael's coming. The two travel together for three days and arrive at Lough Ree where a pagan shrine has been converted to a chapel manned by a priest and a large, mentally retarded student, Fergus. During the night Mael steals the monster skull which was on display in the chapel but Fergus catches him. The ensuing fight spills out onto the lake pier that breaks apart as Fergus fights with a mace. Veleda helps Mael back to land but Fergus drowns and a lake monster drags the priest away. On their way back to Britain, Mael and Veleda are attacked on a ship but escape as Veleda summons a purple fire that burns their attackers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepovers_(book)" title="Sleepovers (book)">
The story is about a girl called Daisy and her friends at her new school (in alphabetical order): Amy, Bella, Chloe, Daisy, and Emily (aka The Alphabet Girls). Each girl has their birthday coming up consecutively (in order - Amy, Bella, Emily, Chloe and Daisy), and they all decide that a sleepover party would be a good idea. All the girls are very nice; Chloe however is very spoiled and starts to boss everyone into her ideas and especially torment Daisy. This then enables a sudden fear that Lily (Daisy's disabled 11-year-old sister) would trigger further torment from Chloe.At Amy's girly sleepover they enjoy lots of dancing, singing, painting their nails together and having a midnight feast. Daisy helps Emily who gets sick and wishes Emily could be her best friend despite that Emily is Chloe's. For Bella's sleepover she takes them all swimming, and they all have fun. They then have a huge tea at Bella's and a blue birthday cake in the shape of a swimming pool. Bella's parents sleep in the spare room and allows the girls to all sleep in their big double bed together.For Emily's sleepover they all go to the park for a picnic (including playing football whilst Emily's mother gets the picnic together and again at the park). On arrival at the park, Chloe pushes Daisy out of the car on account of Emily's idea of bringing hers and Daisy's teddy bears to the picnic and singing the song The Teddy Bears' Picnic en-route with the others, causing Daisy to scrape her knees and Chloe lied that it was an accident. Emily kindly lets Daisy share her bed and their friendship grows.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click,_Clack,_Quackity-Quack" title="Click, Clack, Quackity-Quack">
The book has phrases that start with each letter of the alphabet. It tells the story of a Duck-led summer outing that includes the cows from "". When Duck rides his wagon, the readers go through the ABCs. The animals stop at a good place to have a picnic.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewels_from_the_Moon" title="Jewels from the Moon">
This volume is composed of two short stories. In the first, "Jewels from the Moon", Chuck Masterson and David Topman meet a mysterious but kindly old lady (a Mycetian like Mr. Bass) who takes them on a spectacular dream journey. In the second story, "The Meteor That Couldn't Stay", David accompanies Prewytt Brumblydge (a prominent character in "Mr. Bass's Planetoid" and "A Mystery for Mr. Bass") on an expedition to recover portions of a brumblium meteorite.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click,_Clack,_Splish,_Splash" title="Click, Clack, Splish, Splash">
While the farmer sleeps on the couch close to the fishing tank, Duck and the barnyard animals sneak into the house on a quiet mission that involves "3 buckets piled high" outside the window and "4 chickens standing by". At the end of the book, the reader finds out that Duck's plan was the liberate the farmer's fish.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onitsha_(novel)" title="Onitsha (novel)">
Onitsha tells the story of Fintan, a young European boy who travels from Bordeaux to the port of Marseilles to sail along the coast of Africa to the mouth of the Niger River to Onitsha in colonial Nigeria with his Italian mother (nicknamed Maou) in the year 1948. Warren Motte wrote a review in World Literature Today to note that, like many of Le Clézio's writings Onitsha is a novel of apprenticeship. He mentions that the very first words of the novel inscribe the theme of the journey and announce that it will occupy the foreground of the tale and he quotes a passage from Onitsha to exemplify Fintan's reluctance to embark upon that journeyIt was a long journey as Le Clézio wrote:They were intending to meet Geoffroy Allen (Fintan's English father an oil company executive who is obsessed with uncovering the area's ancient history by tracking down myths and legends) whom Fintan has never met. Onitsha depicts childhood, because it is written semi-autobiographically, but seen through the eyes of Fintan and to lesser extent his father, and his mother, who is not able to fit in with the colonial society of the town of Onitsha with its casual acceptance of 'native' slave labour.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diary_of_a_Spider" title="Diary of a Spider">
The book is a diary written by a spider. The diary has things such as pictures of Spider's family, a picture of his favorite book, a discovery of a sculpture, and a playbill from the school's production of "Itsy Bitsy Spider". There is also a slight storyline about Spider's friendship with Fly and Grampa hating bugs with six legs. The worm from "Diary of a Worm" makes occasional appearances.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_That_Are" title="Things That Are">
The story is about 17-year-old Alicia, Bobby's girlfriend who the reader learned about in "Things Not Seen". The main plot centers around her journey of self-reassurance and courage. The story also includes short exchanges between Alicia and her "brain fairy" in which they argue over a present topic. The "brain fairy" always annoys Alicia and calls her names. The story starts out with Bobby coming home from New York to Chicago to visit Alicia. He was unknowingly followed by an invisible man named William. The FBI start to intervene because of an arrest warrant on William. Alicia and Bobby then help William use an electric blanket to return him to his previous state. William then returns to his wife and daughter in Montreal.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_Origin_(novel)" title="Point of Origin (novel)">
Dr Kay Scarpetta, Virginia Chief Medical Examiner and consulting pathologist for the federal law enforcement agency ATF, is called out to a farmhouse in Virginia that has been destroyed by fire. In the ruins of the house she finds a body that tells a story of a violent and grisly murder.The fire has come at the same time as Carrie Grethen, a killer who nearly destroyed the lives of Scarpetta and those closest to her, has escaped from a forensic psychiatric hospital. Her whereabouts is unknown, but her ultimate destination is not, for Carrie has begun to communicate with Scarpetta, conveying her deadly—if cryptic—plans for revenge.Carrie has linked up with a new companion, willing to end his life of sadistic slayings for her pursuit of Scarpetta.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Concise_Treatise_on_the_Art_of_Angling" title="A Concise Treatise on the Art of Angling">
Although the first part of "A Concise Treatise" is a general angling work that provided little new information when it was published, the second part of the book--"The Complete Fly-Fisher" was one of the earliest how-to books on the subject of fly fishing and artificial fly making. The book proved to be extremely popular and useful, being issued in thirteen editions from 1787 to 1846.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slaves_of_Solitude" title="The Slaves of Solitude">
The novel is set in 1943 in the fictional town of Thames Lockdon (based on Henley-on-Thames), and largely follows the experiences of Miss Roach who lives in the Rosamund Tea Rooms, a guest house, having left London during the Blitz. Also residing at the guest house are Mr Thwaites (described as the 'President in Hell'), Miss Steele, Miss Barrett (both aging spinsters) and Mr Prest (a retired comedian).Miss Roach works at a publishing firm, 'as a secretary and in other capacities' in London. The opening sequence describes London as a great monster respiring, drawing workers into the city through its lungs in the morning and expelling them in the evening. It then follows Miss Roach to the Rosamund Tea Rooms and she is presented as leading a dull and uncomplicated life. She is, however, oppressed by Mr Thwaites who takes every opportunity to mock her at meal times. Mr Thwaites, revealed to be a Nazi Sympathiser, insists that Miss Roach is a 'friend of the Russians', is shown to be overbearing and a bore and forces the shared meals the guests partake in to be conducted in an oppressive atmosphere. Soon after this, two American servicemen appear at dinner. Miss Roach becomes romantically involved with one of them, Lieutenant Pike, beginning a relationship centred on the local pub and kissing on a bench. This relationship becomes disrupted by the arrival of Miss Roach's German friend Vicki Kugelmann, who soon becomes Miss Roach's love rival. Miss Kugelmann moves into the Rosamund Tea Rooms, charms Mr Thwaites and there soon begins a sort emotional struggle between the two spinsters.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Talking_Parcel" title="The Talking Parcel">
Peter and Simon, two boys from England, join their cousin Penelope and her father Henry, who live in Peloponnese, Greece for the summer holidays. While taking a tour in an inflatable dinghy on their first day, the children rest on a sandbank, where Penelope encounters a strange, paper-wrapped parcel from which two voices emanate. Unwrapping the parcel, the children find a cage with a clothed, sentient parrot and a tiny golden spider inside, who introduce themselves as Parrot (short for "Percival, Archibald, Reginald, Roderick, Oscar, Theophilus") and Dulcibelle. Parrot proclaims them both to be denizens of a hidden subterranean realm called Mythologia, founded centuries ago by the wizard Hengist Hannibal ("H.H.") Junketberry to serve as a sanctuary for the last mythological beasts on Earth. Due to space restrictions, the beast population must be strictly regulated; but recently the resident Cockatrices have risen in rebellion and, with the assistance of their Toad egg-breeders, are working on drastically expanding their numbers and taking over Mythologia. Parrot, as one of H.H.'s chief assistants, tried to reason with the Cockatrices, but the Toads packed him and Dulcibelle into the parcel and sent them adrift into the human world.After hearing this story, the children declare to help Parrot in finding H.H. and overcoming the Cockatrices. They seek out a decommissioned but sentient locomotive named Madame Hortense, who takes them to the entrance of the tunnel leading to Mythologia. During their journey to H.H.'s refuge in the Crystal Caves (a dragon hatching ground), they encounter a number of creatures both weird and wondrous. Penelope saves Septimus, the crown prince of the Unicorns, from a Cockatrice hunting him, which wins them the Unicorns' allegiance, and discovers that Cockatrices are allergic to lavender. Upon finding H.H., they learn from him that the Cockatrices have captured two of Mythologia's sacred Three Books of Government, including his Book of Spells, to (unsuccessfully so far) accelerate the hatching of their eggs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Egyptian" title="The Last Egyptian">
The novel focuses on three protagonists, which are, in order of appearance, Gerald Winston, an Egyptologist, Kāra, an Egyptian man, and a dragoman named Tadros. Kāra claims to be a descendant of Ahtka-Rā, High Priest of Ămen, whom he says ruled Rameses II as his puppet, including hiding the latter's death for two years--archaeology says Rameses reigned 67 years, but according to Kāra, he ruled only 65. All of this Kāra has learned since he was a child from his grandmother, Princess Hatacha, who had fled from Egypt when she was 17 and created a stir, ultimately marrying Lord Roane, Kāra's grandfather. Hatatcha is a cruel and vindictive old woman, but as she is dying, she gives him information about the large treasure cache that they have been living on, including many hieroglyphic papyri from which she educated him as a child that will prove to the world that she is of royal lineage. It is within the cliff that their home is built in that the treasure is kept, behind a wall built over an opening of a cavern too deep to use as a shelter. Tadros and the Bey compete to acquire these papyri from him to sell, and Kāra nearly kills the former for stealing one, but he stops, knowing he can use him. He allows him to have that one in exchange for the girl Nepthys, whose principal interest is cigarette smoking, whom Tadros is set to acquire for another's harem.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brass_Verdict" title="The Brass Verdict">
Since the events of the previous novel, attorney Mickey Haller has spent a year recuperating from his wounds and a subsequent addiction to painkillers. He is called back to the practice of law when an old acquaintance, defense attorney Jerry Vincent, is murdered. Haller inherits Vincent's caseload, which includes the high-profile trial of Walter Elliott, a Hollywood mogul accused of murdering his wife Mitzi and her German lover. Haller secures this "franchise" case, persuading the mogul to keep him on as counsel by promising not to seek a postponement of the trial, which is due to start in nine days.Meanwhile, maverick LAPD detective Harry Bosch, the main character in several earlier novels written by Connelly, is investigating Vincent's murder. Bosch, warning that Vincent's killer may come after Haller next, persuades the reluctant lawyer to cooperate in the ongoing murder investigation. Meanwhile, Haller shakes off the rust, and lingering self-doubts, as he prepares for the double-murder trial.Among the cases Haller takes on is that of a former surfing champion, Patrick, who, while addicted to painkillers after a surfing accident, has stolen a diamond necklace while at the home of a friend. Haller feels sorry for Patrick because of his own history of addiction, and employs the young man to drive his Lincoln. He manages to get Patrick off the charges against him by playing on a hunch that the stolen diamonds were not genuine.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Amata_(novel)" title="Terra Amata (novel)">
"Terra Amata" is about a man named Chancelade, and his detailed view of an otherwise ordinary life, from his early childhood to his grave.Terra Amata is an archaeological site near the French town of Nice.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_Flies_and_How_to_Dress_Them" title="Floating Flies and How to Dress Them">
"Floating Flies and How to Dress Them" provides an in-depth study of nearly 100 duns and spinners in the English chalk streams of Hampshire County. The book contains detailed drawings and instructions on how to create hand-made artificial flies. Included is information on types of hooks and implements to use, plus tips on dyeing materials and how to dress the flies on eyed-hooks. The book contains ten colorplates and many black and white line drawings illustrating specific techniques.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weaver_(Baxter_novel)" title="Weaver (Baxter novel)">
In "Weaver"s alternate historical timeline, Adolf Hitler decided to launch Operation Sea Lion (a projected German invasion of the island of Great Britain) in 1940, shortly after a more devastating version of Dunkirk resulted in a shortage of British Army soldiers. However, due to Winston Churchill's lobbying of President Franklin Roosevelt and his Congress, there is some U.S. military assistance provided. As with France during the First World War, there is only partial occupation of southeastern England, and a Nazi "Protectorate of Albion" (similar to Vichy France) is established. The Nazis occupy a band of territory that stretches from Portsmouth in the southwest, including communities like Tunbridge Wells, Horsham, Hastings, Pevensey, Dover, Folkestone and Gravesend. They establish a puppet regime in Canterbury led by renegade English Nazi collaborator Lord Haw Haw, and while London remains unoccupied, the adjacent occupation results in the evacuation of senior governmental personnel, politicians, King George VI and his royal family to elsewhere in Northern England.Baxter traces the effects of the occupation on several protagonists. Ben Kamen is Jewish, gay and a latent telepath, while Mary Wooler, and her son Gary, and daughter-in-law Hilda, work on covert projects for the British Army, endeavouring to discover how to dislodge the Nazi presence from the "Protectorate of Albion" in the southeast. Ernst Keiser, a relatively kindly officer, lodges with a rural family, whose female members, Irma and Viv, collaborate intentionally with the military, while Alfie is made to serve in a forced labour unit later in the war.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_Me_If_You_Can_(book)" title="Catch Me If You Can (book)">
## Summary.The book is loosely based on the real con artistry exploits of Frank Abagnale. It is written in the first person and describes how Abagnale cashed $2.5 million worth of bad checks. He assumed various jobs, such as pretending to be a Pan Am pilot, a doctor, a teacher, and an attorney. Abagnale was eventually caught by the FBI while living in France and served approximately five years in prison—six months in France, six months in Europe, and four years in the United States. The book ends with an epilogue telling the story of Abagnale's final capture and his rehabilitation, which resulted in the creation of his security firm.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_the_Tiny_Horse_at_Large" title="Tim the Tiny Horse at Large">
Tim is still small yet his responsibilities are growing larger. Whilst continuing to live in his matchbox stable, he falls in love with Fly's sister Chenille, is Best Horse at Fly's wedding, babysits for Mr and Mrs Fly's baby, and buys a loft style apartment cigarette box, using a five-pound cheque. Then, Tim goes to buy a pet greenfly, George, and has to face up to the responsibilities and tragedies of being a pet owner.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_Confidential" title="Cruise Confidential">
"Cruise Confidential" narrates the experiences of the author working in the cruise industry. As one of the few Americans in Carnival Cruise Lines' restaurants, he is unprepared for the realities of working in the cruise industry, with long hours and little pay. He worked seven days a week for 14 to 16 hours per day. He is also subjected to a range of challenges from his international colleagues, many of whom deride his decision to work at sea to be with his girlfriend, Bianca, who is a waitress on the ship "Carnival Conquest" and is from Transylvania, Romania. Bruns describes life in the crew's quarters, called I-95, after the paperwork non-Americans need for American employment. After collaborating to serve the passengers, the crew members who come from numerous countries carouse during the several hours they have left.Brian begins with his entry into ship life on "Carnival Fantasy" as a restaurant trainee, then moves up through the ranks to lower level restaurant manager on "Carnival Conquest". Far from being the result of hard work, he finds he is an unknowing pawn in a game of international politics on board. Several factions attempt to drive him out of his chosen career, feeling an American is disruptive to the foreign-run hierarchy. Others champion him but invariably only in regards to their own careers. His promotion is ultimately denied and he is sent to "Carnival Legend" as a waiter, embittered but not beaten. He was the first American waiter in 30 years to complete a full contract lasting eight months without quitting. The climax of the book is his effort at finding a different path to remaining at sea when his restaurant career implodes. His experiences as an art auctioneer and his continued quest for his girlfriend are narrated in the sequels.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Earth,_My_Butt,_and_Other_Big_Round_Things" title="The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things">
Virginia "Ginny" Shreves is an overweight, self-conscious sophomore at a private high school in Manhattan. She has a make out buddy, Froggy Welsh the Fourth, and she doesn't want him, or anyone, for that matter, to see her fat. She hides her fat by wearing baggy clothing. Early in the novel, she doesn't really know how she feels about Froggy, but later she starts to see herself in a new light and realizes that she actually likes this guy she has been fooling around with. Her older sister, Anaïs, joined the Peace Corps and moved to Africa in order to escape her mother, whom she calls The Queen of Denial. Her older brother, Byron, whom she idolizes, was suspended from Columbia University for committing date rape. This event forced her to completely reevaluate her opinion of her big brother.Virginia finally stands up to her mother and gains control of her life. She goes to Seattle to see her best friend Shannon, and buys the ticket without telling her mom. Towards the end, she becomes rebellious; she dyes her hair purple and gets her eyebrow pierced. She also makes new friends while she realizes what she wants to become and the value in herself as a person. She also realizes that she must understand who she is on the inside and that this is much more important than external appearances. She takes up kickboxing, and realizes that it is fine to change the way one looks on the outside, as long as this is done for the right reasons and the changes have a positive impact on a person physically and emotionally.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winterdance" title="Winterdance">
The story begins with a poverty stricken Gary Paulsen (and his wife Ruth Wright Paulsen) living in a cabin in the woods of Minnesota, where he uses a team of dogs to pull a sled as he checks his trap lines. As Gary Paulsen's relationship with the dogs grows, he begins taking the team on longer and longer runs, sometimes staying out for several days at a time.Paulsen returns home from a particularly lengthy trip and settles the dogs down in their kennel. However, he discovers that he is unable to enter the cabin. When his wife, Ruth, comes outside she finds him sitting quietly with the dogs, and Paulsen confesses to Ruth that when he is out with the dogs that he doesn't want to come back. Although they had talked about the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race prior to this point, and wondered at the insanity of the Mushers who competed in it, it is at this moment, with this confession, that Ruth knows Paulsen will compete.Having only ever run a small team of dogs Paulsen is severely lacking in experience. In order to run the Iditarod, he will need a team of fifteen or sixteen dogs, and he doesn't own even half that many. He purchases some Canadian sled dogs, Devil, Ortho, and Murphy, and on the drive back home quickly realizes the difference between family pets and Eskimo sled dogs. Before they have gone several miles Devil and Ortho have chewed their way out of their travel kennels and are destroying the back of the truck, and Paulsen says to Ruth that someone will have to ride in the back with the dogs and keep them in. Ruth replies that as Paulsen is the one running the Iditarod that it should be him, and that it will give him a chance to get to know the dogs. Paulsen reluctantly agrees and climbs into the back of the truck. As soon as Ruth starts the truck the dogs leap on Paulsen and he is forced to defend himself. By the time they arrive home, Paulsen's own transformation has begun.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandman_(book)" title="The Sandman (book)">
Tor is an inches tall man who can not fall asleep no matter what he tries. He discovers a dragon scale while walking in the woods. He learns that the powder made by grinding the scale induces sleep. He then travels sprinkling the sand into the eyes of sleepless children.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartment_255" title="Apartment 255">
'Apartment 255' is the story of two best friends since school - Sarah and Ginny - who are, at the time of the book's telling, adults. Things are depicted as much better for Sarah - who has a boyfriend Tom with whom she shares a stunning inner-city apartment. But things have not worked out so well for Ginny who wanted Tom, and didn't get him. She wants what Sarah has, and moves into an apartment overlooking Sarah and Tom's flat to stalk them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_O'Clock_Chop" title="The One O'Clock Chop">
Matt a fourteen your old boy living on Long Island in 1973 takes a job with Dan a clam digger so that he can earn enough money to buy a used Boston Whaler. Jazzy, Matt's cousin from Hawaii arrives to spend the summer with Matt and his mother. Jazzy and Matt become kissing cousins until Jazzy becomes interested in another boy. They eventually become friends again and Matt learns to stand up for himself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Game_for_the_Living" title="A Game for the Living">
Ramon, a devoutly Catholic furniture repairman in Mexico City meets Theo, a wealthy German atheist expatriate who questions the happiness he had found in his new home: "Theodore thought he was as happy as anyone logically could be in an age when atomic bombs and annihilation hung over everybody's head, though the world 'logically' troubled him in this context. Could one be logically happy?" An unlikely friendship develops, until Lelia, a woman they have both slept with and care for, is found brutally raped, murdered and mutilated. Each suspects the other is responsible, and the police investigate them both as well. They learn that Lelia may have been robbed and track a suspect to Acapulco, but Theo believes he is under surveillance.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Faces_of_January" title="The Two Faces of January">
Chester MacFarland is an alcoholic con artist traveling in Greece with his young wife, Colette. In Athens, a private detective questions McFarland, who accidentally kills him during a struggle in his hotel room. A recent acquaintance, a young American law graduate and poet named Rydal Keener, decides to help them, in part because McFarland reminds him of his recently deceased father, from whom he was estranged. He helps McFarland and Colette hide the body and leave Athens under false passports procured by his friend Niko, a local street vendor.The trio take a flight to Crete and install themselves in a hotel under assumed names. Colette flirts with a smitten Keener in front of McFarland, whose jealousy eventually gets the better of him. On a rainy morning, while they visit the palace of Knossos, MacFarland tries to kill Keener by throwing a pithos at him from above, but accidentally kills Colette instead. Both MacFarland and Keener separately flee the scene undetected and take the same boat back to Athens, now more dependent on each other than ever.Back in Athens, MacFarland is interviewed by the police, and states that Keener murdered Colette. At the same time, he hires a contract killer to get rid of Keener once and for all. However, MacFarland is unaware that the "hitman", whom he pays in advance, is in fact a florist whom Keener paid to set him up. Keener goes into hiding from the police, while MacFarland procures another false passport and books a flight to Paris.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandpa_Never_Lies" title="Grandpa Never Lies">
A young girl describes her special relationship with her grandfather over four seasons. The Grandfather tells imaginative tales in response to her questions. Each tale is followed by her refrain of "And Grandpa never lies, so I know it's so". Then Grandma suddenly dies and the little girl and her grandfather mourn together.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockroach_Cooties" title="Cockroach Cooties">
Two brothers, Teddy and Bobby, try to defend themselves from a school bully named Arnie. The brothers discover that the bully is afraid of cockroaches. Bobby finds a cockroach and names it Hercules. Bobby uses cookies with strange ingredients to trick Arnie into a peace treaty. With the help of Hercules, the boys figure out what is happening to the bully.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_Wendy" title="Tomorrow Wendy">
Cary's head is such a mess, which is why she keeps it hidden under her floppy Audrey Hepburn hat. Her best friend Rad — whom only she can see — speaks to her in only song lyrics. Not even her boyfriend Danny knows what kind of things go through her head. He is especially oblivious to the fact that Cary has strong feelings for a girl named Wendy.Wendy has bright green hair and "hard-candy sadness in her eyes". Cary thinks that this sexy and mysterious girl could love her just as much as her boyfriend Danny does. The only problem, is that Wendy happens to be Danny's twin sister.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circus_Surprise" title="The Circus Surprise">
Nick is taken to the circus as a surprise for his birthday. While at the circus he follows his nose looking for the cotton candy, and when he turns around his parents are gone. A clown on stilts comes to his rescue and puts him on his shoulders and they locating his parents. While they are searching for Nick's parents the clown has Nick in a small pouch and as they travel he tells Nick to look out at the circus and makes Nick laugh by saying that the lions are kittens and the people were ants.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Suspension_of_Mercy" title="A Suspension of Mercy">
Sydney Bartleby is an American novelist living near Framlingham, Suffolk with his English wife Alicia. Although seemingly idyllic, their married life is secretly marked by tension, frequent separations and sometimes domestic abuse. Sydney is trying to sell a novel and he and his writing partner, Alex, work together on a crime serial that they hope to sell to British television. Alicia decides suddenly that their marriage merits a trial separation, one during which she insists they promise not to contact each other, and Sydney agrees. For literary inspiration, he attempts to put himself in a murderer's mindset and, early the morning after Alicia leaves, carries an empty carpet to his car, imagining its weight and how he might struggle with it if her body was actually in it. He half-hopes his neighbour, Mrs. Lilybanks, will spot him doing this and envisions being questioned by the police. He drives to bury the carpet in the countryside. Shortly afterwards, many of Alicia's and Sydney's acquaintances, and her parents, are concerned about having not heard from her. She is declared missing and the spectre of doubt falls on Sydney. Mrs. Lilybanks indeed saw him carrying the carpet to his car and, though she initially does not suspect him of anything, circumstance and Sydney's behaviour causes her to openly wonder. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tremor_of_Forgery" title="The Tremor of Forgery">
American writer Howard Ingham arrives in the sweltering heat of Tunisia in search of inspiration for a new movie script he has been commissioned to write. The director with whom he is collaborating fails to appear and hears reports from home in the U.S. about infidelity and suicide. Rather than abandon the project, Howard stays and starts work on a novel. He gets to know Francis J. Adams, an aging American propagandist, and Anders Jensen, a Danishhomosexual painter. While waiting for a letter from his New York girlfriend, he settled on a plot for his projected novel, the story of a banker who forges documents to steal money he then gives to the poor. One night, Ingham finds someone breaking into his apartment. He throws his typewriter at the intruder, possibly killing him. The body is dragged away by the intruder's accomplices. Ingham struggles to keep this incident secret from his acquaintances while at the same time questioning Western morality, in particular the application of its principles in a country where he lives as a stranger.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dog's_Ransom" title="A Dog's Ransom">
Publishing executive Ed Reynolds finds a disturbing ransom note in the Manhattan apartment he shares with his wife: "Dear sir: I have your dog, Lisa. She is well and happy... I gather she is important to you? We'll see." They pay the ransom and the criminal is apprehended. Only then do events swirl out of control, leading to the downfall of several innocent characters and the triumph of evil.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/¡Adiós,_Cordera!" title="¡Adiós, Cordera!">
The tale centers upon a poor family in rural Spain and the gradual mechanization of their environment. Widower Antón de Chinta and his two young children (Pinín and Rosa) own a cow. The animal, which serves as a representation of the family's deteriorating economic situation, is affectionately called Cordera or lamb, and has become a family pet.The story begins in a pastoral setting interrupted by a telegraph pole. Soon after, a railway is put through the field, which further ruptures the tranquility of the bucolic countryside and foreshadows the ending of the tale. Eventually the family's economic situation forces the father to sell the cow, which is taken away on the train for slaughter and gives the work its name.Years later, Pinín is drafted to fight in the war and departs on the same train as the cow, an act that implies his future death. At the same time, it implies that the slaughter of innocents is a result of modernity and the city's expansion into rural areas.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favorite_Flies_and_Their_Histories" title="Favorite Flies and Their Histories">
"Favorite Flies" is a unique volume that compiles the stories and images of popular American artificial flies of the late 19th century. It is one of the earliest works to use chromolithography color plates. Today, the original flies used to create the color plates are preserved in the American Museum of Fly Fishing in Manchester, Vermont. The stories for each fly described in the volume were obtained through correspondence with fly fisherman and fly tiers throughout the U.S. and Canada. The following is a typical story about the "Professor", a popular wet-fly of time:No. 192. The Professor was named after the much-loved Professor John Wilson (Christopher North), and the story of the fly is, that one time, when this famous angler Was fishing, he ran short of flies, and, to create something of a flylike appearance, he fastened the petals of buttercups on his hook, adding bits of leaves or grass to imitate the wings of a fly. This arrangement was so successful that it led to the making of the fly with a yellow silk body, since then was widely known as the ProfessorProfessor. - A prime favorite; use it on almost all casts when I see more than one fly. When using a black tail fly, I use a brown fly and a Professor for droppers; find it a good fly under general conditions, when using a Miller for tail fly; then use Professor for droppers. "From a letter from W. David Tomlin ("Norman") Duluth, Minn as favorite flies for trout in Michigan streams".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Poppies" title="Sea of Poppies">
The novel interweaves the stories of a number of characters, who all, in the latter half of the novel, find themselves taking passage from Calcutta to Mauritius on a schooner named the "Ibis".The story begins with Deeti, a simple, pious lady, caring mother and an efficient housewife. Married to Hukam Singh, a crippled worker in the Ghazipur Opium Factory, the unfortunate Deeti figures out that on her wedding night, she was drugged with opium by her mother-in-law, so that her brother-in-law could rape her and consummate the marriage in place of her impotent husband. This brother-in-law is the real father of Deeti's daughter Kabutri. When her husband dies, Deeti sends Kabutri to stay with relatives. Deeti looks almost certain to meet her doom when she is forced to consider sati ritual (immolation on her husband's funeral pyre) as the only option in the face of threats of more rapes by the brother-in-law, but then Kalua, the untouchable caste ox man from the neighbouring village, comes to her rescue. The couple flee and unite. This is not acceptable to the high caste villagers. In order to escape Deeti's in-laws, she and Kalua become indentured servants, travelling on the Ibis.The next key figure is Zachary Reid, an American sailor born to a quadroon mother and a white father. Escaping racism, he joins the Ibis on its first voyage for its new owner, Mr. Burnham, from Baltimore to Calcutta. A series of misfortunes soon befall the ship, leading to the loss of more senior crew. With the support of the head of the lascars, Serang Ali, Zachary becomes the second in command of the ship. In Calcutta, Zachary is mistaken for a gentleman and enjoys society life. He becomes second mate for the Ibis's next voyage, carrying indentured labour to the island of Mauritius.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucky_One_(novel)" title="The Lucky One (novel)">
The book starts from Keith Clayton's perspective. Keith is a local police officer. He is at a location where local college students go for nude swimming. He is carrying a camera he borrowed from the Police Department and is taking pictures of three female college students. One of them leaves the beach and comes upon Keith who is supposed to be on duty. He hides the camera and talks with the girls about their breaking the law by nude bathing. He lets them go. He comes across a man whom Keith describes as looking like a hippie walking down a logging road by the beach with a dog. It is Logan Thibault and his dog, Zeus. Keith is concerned Logan saw everything that had happened and tries to find a way to take Logan in. However, after running a background check on Logan and Logan refusing to let him search his bags he lets Logan go. He asks Logan where he is going and states he is heading to Arden. Keith goes back to find the camera he hid, but it is gone and the tires on his squad car are slashed. Keith becomes concerned as his father is the local Sheriff and his grandfather is a local judge.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fool_(novel)" title="Fool (novel)">
Pocket is the royal fool at the court of King Lear of Britain. To prevent Lear from marrying off his daughter Cordelia, a girl Pocket is especially fond of, he schemes with Edmund of Gloucester. Pocket advises the bastard (i.e., illegitimate) Edmund how to take the land of his legitimate brother Edgar, while Edmund is to prevent the marriage of Cordelia. Edmund somehow gets Lear to ask each of his three daughters – Goneril, Regan and Cordelia – how much they love him. While Goneril and Regan please the old king with their exaggerations, Cordelia enrages him with her famous laconic “I love thee, according to my bond.” Lear disinherits Cordelia and divides his kingdom between Goneril and Regan. Notwithstanding, the prince of France marries Cordelia and takes her with him.Deprived of his adored Cordelia and angry with Lear because of the way Cordelia was treated, Pocket – advised by the ghost of a woman who turns out was not only his deceased lover but also the former queen of Lear and mother of Cordelia – starts his own vendetta: He encourages Goneril and Regan to strip Lear of his remaining power (especially his train of 100 knights, one of the conditions on which Lear passed the kingdom to his daughters) and works to drive the older sisters into war against each other. Lear finally realizes his error and goes temporarily mad. To estrange the sisters he makes both believe that they are in an affair with Edmund of Gloucester. While successful in this, Pocket fails to incite civil war, simply because Cordelia – now a veritable warrior queen – invades Britain with her army from France. Lear, and later on Pocket, end up in the dungeon of the castle now ruled by Edmund, now Earl of Gloucester.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_to_the_Hills" title="Escape to the Hills">
The book chronicles the Chapmans of Silliman University experiences as they escape to the hills and lived as fugitives in the mountains of Negros Oriental during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, as well as, their experiences when they were kept in the Santo Tomas Internment Camp.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Salmon_Fly" title="The Salmon Fly">
In "The Salmon Fly", Kelson boldly and confidently distilled a lifetime of salmon fishing wisdom into this privately published work. The book contains 510 pages of text and 46 pages of illustrations plus 8 coloured plates showing 52 flies. Many of the black &amp; white illustrations are of fly-fishing contemporaries of Kelson, including Mr. A.V. Wells-Ridley J.P, Major J.P. Traherne and Mr. Barclay Field. The first part of the book is devoted to the techniques of tying the salmon fly as well as patterns for individual flies. Here's a typical pattern write-up:It is only just possible to find a river or a catch, be it in pools,streams, rapids, or flats, shaded or exposed to the light of day, in which a"Jock Scott," when dressed properly, has not made for itself a splendidreputation.The second part of the book is devoted to the practical aspects of fishing for salmon with the fly—locating fish, casting techniques, catching and landing fish and various accessories and equipment. "The Salmon Fly" also includes 46 full page black and white advertisements for mostly angling and sporting pursuits.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Their_Dogs_Came_with_Them" title="Their Dogs Came with Them">
"Their Dogs Came With Them" follows the lives of 4 Mexican American young women living in East Los Angeles during the 1960s. Each character’s story is told in individual chapters while their lives often intermingle. Additionally, her narration style changes from past to present, giving the reader a glimpse into their childhoods to show how their upbringings has an effect on the present. They grow up in an urban landscape, intensified by freeway construction that displaced homes, while the Quarantine Authority uses roadblocks to keep residents in East Los Angeles, “supposedly” protecting them from rabid animals.Turtle, a girl so desperate to belong, acts like a boy to please her gang member brother, Luis Lil Lizard, who is resentful about having a girl for a sibling. After growing up in an abusive home environment, she too joins the McBride Homeboys and then lives on the streets when her brother goes to fight in Vietnam. Ermila, orphaned after her parents ran away, lives with her grandparents who do not understand the rapidly changing times and the younger generation. Her close group of school friends becomes her family, and together they experience the Chicano power movement as well as serious family and relationship problems. Tranquilina, the daughter of missionaries, is optimistic about religion despite witnessing horrible atrocities, like the cruel and revengeful murder of Ermila’s cousin Nacho, committed by the McBride Boys. And last there is Ana, who devotes herself to mentally ill brother, Ben. As a child he loses his mother, and then he accidentally leads another boy in front of a truck, killing the boy. Witnesses falsely claim that Ben tried to save the boy, and thus Ben leads a life of guilt. Together, these characters, their environments, and their families, emotionally depict the struggles of being low-class section in Los Angeles during the 1960s.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaprak_Dökümü" title="Yaprak Dökümü">
The novel revolves around a middle-class Turkish family (the Tekins) in the 1930s. The main characters are Ali Riza Tekin (head of the Tekin family), his wife Hayriye, and their young daughters: Fikret (the oldest daughter), Leyla (the second daughter), Necla (the third daughter), Ayşe (their youngest daughter), their only son Şevket (who is between Fikret and Leyla), and his bride Ferhunde (who is also the principal antagonist).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children's_Bach" title="The Children's Bach">
The novel, set in Melbourne, concerns a couple, Athena and Dexter, who lead a self-sufficient life with their two sons, one of whom is severely disabled. Their apparently "comfortable rut is disrupted by the arrival of Elizabeth, a tough nut from Dexter's past." Elizabeth brings with her her sister Vicki, Elizabeth's sometime lover Philip, and Philip's prepubescent daughter, Poppy. Through them, Athena and Dexter are drawn into a world whose ideas and values test the foundations of their relationship.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Walk_to_Remember_(novel)" title="A Walk to Remember (novel)">
The story starts with a prologue from Landon Carter at age 57. The remainder of the story takes place when Landon is a 17-year-old high school senior. Landon lives in the small, religious town of Beaufort, North Carolina. His father is a genial, charismatic congressman.Landon's father is not around very much, as he lives in Washington, D.C. Landon is more reclusive, which causes some tension in their relationship. Landon's father pressures him into running for class president. Best friend, Eric Hunter, who is the most popular boy in school, helps him and, to his surprise, Landon wins the election. As student body president Landon is required to attend the school dance with a date. He asks many girls, but none are available. That night, he looks through his yearbook, trying to find an acceptable date. Since nobody else seems to be available, Landon reluctantly asks Jamie Sullivan, daughter of Hegbert Sullivan - the Beaufort church minister, who accepts his invitation. While Jamie is very religious and carries a Bible with her wherever she goes, Landon (one of the more popular students) is reluctant to go to the dance with someone like her. When Landon is threatened by Lew, Jamie comes to Landon's aid, to his appreciation. At the end of the night he admits to her that she was the best date possible.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Massacre" title="American Massacre">
The book is the historical account of members of a California-bound wagon train and the plundering of their possessions in Southern Utah Territory and the Mountain Meadows massacre of 140.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_Speaker" title="The Shadow Speaker">
Ejimafor "Ejii" Ugabe is a fourteen-year-old Muslim half-Wodaabe, half-Igbo girl. She lives in the Nigerien village of Kwàmfa. Her father was once the hated dictator-like chief. She lives in the year 2070. The whole world is falling apart after a nuclear fall out in, quote, “the early twenty-first century”.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_We_Dream_Too_Long" title="If We Dream Too Long">
The book follows the life of Kwang Meng, a young 18-year-old who has just graduated from junior college. He currently works as a clerk, a job which he hates and finds monotonous. Two of his junior college friends, Hock Lai and Nadarajah (the latter nicknamed Portia), follow different career paths in their diverging lives. Hock Lai becomes a white-collared worker, determined to climb the corporate ladder, while Portia intends to further his studies in the UK. Kwang Meng meets and strikes up a relationship with a local bar girl, Lucy, at Paradise Bar. Unfortunately, owing to their very different social backgrounds, the couple break up (initiated by Lucy).Hock Lai tries to matchmake Kwang Meng with one of his female acquaintances Anne. Kwang Meng meets Boon Teik and Mei-I, neighbours who are both teachers, and whom Kwang Meng finds an ideal couple. Hock Lai himself gets married with Cecilia, whose father is one of the richest tycoons of Singapore. Throughout all this, Kwang Meng comes across as a rather passive figure, preferring merely to observe and seek solace through activities like swimming in the sea, smoking and drinking in bars. At the novel's end, Kwang Meng's father suffers a stroke, which destined him to take up the burden of supporting his family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nights_in_Rodanthe_(novel)" title="Nights in Rodanthe (novel)">
The story has a framing device set in Rocky Mount, North Carolina in 2002 where part-time librarian Adrienne Willis is comforting her daughter Amanda, who is struggling to raise her children because she is still mourning her husband’s death. To show her daughter she will eventually recover, Adrienne tells Amanda about the time she met a surgeon named Paul Flanner when Amanda was thirteen.In 1988, Adrienne managed a Rodanthe inn for a friend taking a leave of absence, for an opportunity of escapism. She had divorced her husband, who abandoned her for a younger woman, and she was taking care of her sick father while raising her three children. As soon as she arrives at the inn, a major storm is forecast. Her only customer is Paul Flanner, a 54-year-old recently divorced surgeon also wanting to escape his hectic life, who had sold his house and was being sued for malpractice. The two fall in love throughout the week but realize they will have to go back to their old lives. After conversations about their families, Paul decides to join his estranged son in an Ecuadorian medical clinic to rework their relationship, communicating with Adrienne through letters when she returns to Rocky Mount with her family. The romance continued, but Paul later died.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Ghost_Rescue" title="The Great Ghost Rescue">
Humphrey the Horrible is a pleasant, friendly ghost - quite unlike his frightful, ghastly and loathsome family: his mother, a Hag; his father, a Scottish ghost killed fighting in the Battle of Otterburn in which he lost both his legs, and was run through by a sword; his brother George, a screaming skull; and his sister, Winifred, a wailing ghost covered in bloodstains.The ghost family are turned out of their castle home when humans plan to redevelop the castle into a holiday resort. They travel across England, accompanied by their headless Aunt Hortensia and their pet Shuk, and come to Norton Castle School, mistaking it for an empty castle. Here, they meet Rick, a student quite unafraid of ghosts. Rick plans to take the ghosts to the Prime Minister for peace talks concerning the large numbers of ghosts being turned out of their homes.The ghosts and Rick head to London, and pick up an assortment of hangers-on along the way: Walter the Wet, a ghost haunting a polluted river; Cousin Susie and her vampire bat brood; and the Mad Monk, whose church was destroyed to make way for a motorway.In London, Rick seeks out his member of parliament, Clarence Wilks, but the ignorant politician dismisses Rick's story as a fanciful pretense. Rick and the ghosts, furious at Wilks' disbelief, haunt his house and ruin a dinner party with several prominent guests. Wilks takes the ghosts to meet with the Prime Minister in exchange for leaving him be.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Gray_for_Guilt" title="Pale Gray for Guilt">
When McGee visits Tush Bannon, his wife Janine and their children at their motel/marina, he finds the business in trouble. Tush explains that the local authorities are making life difficult for him by such means as introducing roadworks on the only access road. Pressure is being put on the Bannons by a well-connected local businessman, Preston LaFrance, to sell to a large corporation that wants to develop the land for industrial use. Most of the income they have left is from a few houseboats, one of which is rented to Arlie Denn and her husband, hippies who make a small living selling handicrafts.The next time McGee sees Tush, they bump into one another at a bar, where Tush is in conversation with a smart young woman named Mary Smith. He tells McGee that Smith is an agent for an entrepreneur named Gary Santo, who wants to acquire the whole parcel of land. Tush has appealed to both LaFrance and Santo without success; they are not interested in his personal circumstances and are prepared to put him out of business to get what they want. Tush cannot afford to sell his land at the deflated price now being offered. All he can do now is to resume his old job as a salesman.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_Frank" title="Loving Frank">
The book opens to notes written by Mamah Borthwick, reminiscing on her life and expressing her longing to tell her views of what happened. The story begins with an account of Mamah’s attendance, with great trepidation, at a public talk given by Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous architect of the School of Chicago. The author tells us that some years earlier, Wright had designed Mamah's house at the insistence of her husband Edwin Cheney. We learn of the already tumultuous and intermittent affair between Wright and Mamah, which began with their working together on the architectural plans for the house.The novel is an intricate analysis of Mamah's emotional torments as an intellectual in her own right, wife, mother, friend, and member of society. It also touches on the human aspects of Wright in addition to his artistic talent and eccentricities. Throughout the novel, Mamah explains the artistic or philosophical underpinnings of Wright's extravagant views. We experience the poignancy of both of their family situations and internal conflicts. The novel allows the reader to see Wright through the prism of Mamah’s deep admiration. The Swedish feminist Ellen Key rightfully unnerves the female protagonist when she declares that Mamah may have cowardly followed Wright in order to bask in his brilliance rather than accomplishing anything she can claim her own.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elegance_of_the_Hedgehog" title="The Elegance of the Hedgehog">
The story revolves mainly around the characters of Renée Michel and Paloma Josse, residents of an upper-middle class Left Bank apartment building at 7 Rue de Grenelle – one of the most elegant streets in Paris. Divided into eight luxury apartments, all occupied by distinctly "bourgeois" families, the building has a courtyard and private garden.The widow Renée is a concierge who has supervised the building for 27 years. She is an autodidact in literature and philosophy, but conceals it to keep her job and, she believes, to avoid the condemnation of the building's tenants. Likewise, she wants to be alone to avoid her tenants' curiosity. She effects this by pretending to indulge in concierge-type food and low-quality television, while in her back room she actually enjoys high-quality food, listens to opera, and reads works by Leo Tolstoy and Edmund Husserl. Her perspective is that "[t]o be poor, ugly and, moreover, intelligent condemns one, in our society, to a dark and disillusioned life, a condition one ought to accept at an early age".Twelve-year-old Paloma lives on the fifth floor with her parents and sister whom she considers snobs. A precocious girl, she hides her intelligence to avoid exclusion at school. Dismayed by the privileged people around her, she decides that life is meaningless, and that unless she can find something worth living for, beyond the "vacuousness of bourgeois existence", she will commit suicide on 16 June, her thirteenth birthday. Planning to burn down the apartment before dying, she also steals her mother's pills. For the time being she journals her observations of the outside world, including her perceptions of Renée.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Book_on_Angling" title="A Book on Angling">
"A Book on Angling" is best described by the author himself in the preface to the first edition:When first infected with the fever of Angling, more years ago than I care to count up, my ambition was to catch every species of freshwater fish, from the minnow up to the salmon, which inhabits our British waters. That satisfied, my next desire was to write a work, which should contain within one volume (as far as might be possible) the fullest and most varied information upon Angling generally, in every branch of the art, which had ever been published; and with this resolve I commenced collecting the matter for the present work nearly twenty years ago. Taken up and laid aside from time to time, little by little it has steadily progressed towards completion. In the course of that twenty years I took occasion to visit and to fish nearly every river of note in the kingdom, my connection with 'The Field' affording me peculiar facilities for obtaining permission to fish very many waters which are closely locked against the general public; and I have roamed England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland over to gather fresh knowledge, and to put it into a practical and concentrated form for the use of my readers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneath_the_Bleeding" title="Beneath the Bleeding">
After the footballer Robbie Bishop is poisoned with ricin Tony Hill investigates other pupils who went to his school, achieved success, then were suddenly poisoned. After the deaths of Danny Wade who won the lottery and Tom Cross who won the pools the killer is caught before he can kill the police officer Kevin Matthews, who owns a Ferrari. Tony then confronts Jack Andeson with the evidence that he's poisoning men from his school who achieved his teenage goals because he caught AIDS from a gay man and could no longer achieve them. Jack confesses to the murders to avoid a trial and to hide when he killed these men.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sable_Quean" title="The Sable Quean">
Young Buckler Kordyne, a hare of the Long Patrol army, has a discussion with his ruler Brang Forgefire, Badger Lord of the mountain Salamandastron. Buckler is bored with mountain life, so Brang suggests that he visits Redwall Abbey to deliver some new bellropes to the Abbess (Brang had accidentally broken the ropes last time he was there); while Buckler visits the Abbey, he can also visit his brother on his farm, which is nearby. Buckler agrees, taking along with him his gluttonous friend, Subaltern Diggs.At Redwall Abbey, a music contest for the position of Bard of Redwall is being organized; however two Dibbuns (toddlers) disappear in the process. The duo, a mole and a squirrel, had wandered outside to the woodlands to picnic, but a waiting band of vermin "Ravagers" bound, gagged, and carried them off before anyone could notice their absence. One of the Ravagers, Globby, is overcome by the temptation of Redwall food and attempts to break inside the kitchens; however, he is captured by the otter Skipper Ruark, who punishes the miscreant by forcing him to clean up the mess he had made by his burglary. In the hue and cry raised when the two Dibbuns were discovered missing, Globby escapes the kitchens and flees to the attics, using a pilfered kitchen knife as a weapon. In the attempt to recapture and interrogate him, both he and the squirrel Brother Tollum are slain.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus_at_the_Edge_of_Time" title="Icarus at the Edge of Time">
The book is a science fiction retelling of Icarus' tale. It is about a young man who runs away from his traveling, deep-space home to explore a black hole.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_the_Sea" title="Cathedral of the Sea">
The book is set in Barcelona and its main character is Arnau Estanyol, the son of a fugitive serf and one of the cathedral's stone workers, who obtains freedom and eventually achieves a high status in society.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacker's_Art_of_Fly_Making" title="Blacker's Art of Fly Making">
"Blacker's Art Fly Making" is best described by the author himself in the preface to the second edition (1855):I know not how to apologise for submitting a Second Edition of this little Book to the notice of the Angling few, after the appearance of so many by clever writers, except the many calls I had for It, and a sincere desire of improving farther upon a craft that has not hitherto been clearly promulgated by a real practitioner; consequently my great object is to benefit and amuse my readers, by giving them something practical, which at the present time may be particularly wanted by those who love to make their own flies, whose wants, without doubt, will be found sufficiently supplied in this book; the tyro will appreciate it as valuable to him, and the senior angler who may, perchance, be in possession of it, and who may be singularly fond of making his flies, and amusing himself dyeing the hackles and colours, &amp;c., will, I am persuaded, consider it a treasure.My endeavours have been unceasing for many years past, in striving to please thegreat Salmon Fishers and Trout Fishers of this Country, and I must confess that my labours have not been in vain; they have generously conferred upon me their very kind patronage and good will, benefits for which I hold them in very great estimation. Under these circumstances, I have taken much pains to write the book in a befitting manner to suit their tastes and purposes, although my inability in many instances has been an obstacle, nevertheless with all my faults I claim the title of Fisherman, an humble and unimportuned name which no reasonable dispensation can deprive me of.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_of_the_Shroud" title="The Lady of the Shroud">
Rupert Saint Leger inherits his uncle's estate worth more than one million pounds, on condition that he live for a year in his uncle's castle in the Land of the Blue Mountains on the Dalmatian coast. There Rupert tries to win the trust of the conservative mountaineer population by using his fortune to buy them modern arms (from a South American country that has unexpectedly found itself at peace) for their fight against Turkish invasion (the story was written shortly before the Balkan Wars).One wet night, he is visited in his room in the castle by a pale woman wearing a wet shroud, seeking warmth. He lets her dry herself before his fire, and she flees before morning. She visits several more times, all at night, and they hardly speak, but he falls in love with her, despite thinking she is a vampire. He visits the local church and finds her in a glass-topped stone coffin in the crypt. Despite misgivings he declares his love, be she living or undead, and she arranges the marriage in an Orthodox ceremony conducted by candlelight in the church one night, although he still does not know her name, and she says she must still live alone in the crypt for the present.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zoya_Factor" title="The Zoya Factor">
Zoya Solanki is a client service rep with an advertising agency, who loves everything about her job, especially the brand she has been put in charge of – Zing Cola (Pepsi in a fictional avatar). But when she's made to leave an ad film shoot, featuring none other than Shah Rukh Khan, and has to go to Dhaka to shoot an ad with the Indian cricket team she begins to experience her first pangs of irritation towards the brand. Making matters somewhat worse, the team captain Nikhil Khoda insists on discipline as a norm and cuts her important shoot short. This causes her to stay back a few more days than anticipated and miss the Shah Rukh Khan film shoot. When the men in blue realise that Zoya was born at the very moment India won the first and the only cricket World Cup in 1983, they are startled. What intrigues them more was when they realised that having breakfast with her is followed by victories on the field, and not eating with her results in defeat. They decide she is a lucky charm.As luck would have it, the rag tag team has a sudden spurt of victories and soon the cricket-crazy nation declares her a goddess. Soon, Zoya is invited by the eccentric president of IBCC (Indian Board of Cricket Control, a spoof of BCCI Board of Control for Cricket in India), to accompany the team to the ICC World Cup in Australia.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unforgiving_Wind" title="The Unforgiving Wind">
The novel is about the disastrous expedition of Commander Adams who dies suddenly. This novel follows the misfortunes of his men across the Arctic. Whatever can go wrong does go wrong as transport, instruments, health and sanity begin to fail. The team seem irretrievably lost in the dark Arctic winter, frightened and half-starving even when they find a base. Only one man can rescue them, the truculent Tom Fife who must respond to the faint radio signals coming from the Arctic shores. A powerful and disturbing novel, this story aims to take your breath away.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man-Eater" title="The Man-Eater">
Jefferson Scott Jr. and Robert Gordon, hunters in the Belgian Congo, are thrown together with missionaries Sangamon and Mary Morton and their daughter Ruth. Scott marries Ruth, and Gordon is entrusted with stock certificates to be taken back to Scott's father in America. Later Scott and the elder Mortons are killed by the native Wakandas; Ruth and her daughter Virginia are saved by Belgian forces and afterwards return to America to live with Scott's father. The stock certificates, meanwhile, have gone astray, with only a single sheet of paper having been delivered to the elder Scott. 19 years pass.On the death of Jefferson Scott Sr., Virginia Scott is to inherit the estate, but the will cannot be located, and Scott Taylor, her grandfather’s disinherited nephew, appears to claim a half-share. Proposing to Virginia in an effort to obtain it all, he is rebuffed, whereupon he disputes her right to any of the estate, pretending she is illegitimate. Ruth attempts to prove her marriage to Virginia's father by writing to Robert Gordon, who witnessed the ceremony, but he is now deceased. Her appeal reaches his son Dick Gordon instead. Moved but unable to provide the desired proof, Gordon writes back of his intention to sail to Africa to seek documentation of the marriage there. Taylor intercepts the letter and follows him with the intention of murder. Discovering this, Virginia also sets out for Africa.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Test_(Wright_novel)" title="The Test (Wright novel)">
The story takes place in the college town of Genoa in the Middle West. The heroine, Alice Lindell, secretary to Senator Winchester, is engaged to the senator's son Tom. She attempts to wean Tom away from his weakness for liquor by prematurely giving in to his desire for her, with disastrous results; Tom backslides, and while drunk falls victim to the wiles of another admirer, the unscrupulous Harriet, who marries him. Repenting his folly, he resolves to leave Harriet and run away with Alice, but is persuaded by the latter to fulfill his marriage vows and henceforth conduct himself honorably.Alice courageously faces the shame of bearing and rearing their illegitimate daughter Anna alone. This ordeal is the test of the title—of herself, her family, and her community. Her story is paralleled in a subplot involving Sallie, a sinner of a lower sort. Over the years Alice is supported by some, notably the senator, but vilified by most of the small-minded townsfolk, including her own mother. Her sister Gertrude, engaged to the priggish clergyman John Prescott, also suffers, her intended suddenly developing cold feet at the news of Alice's indiscretion. Perhaps the height of Alice's suffering is reached when Harriet, having lost her own child, importunes her to let her have Anna instead; persuaded it would be in the best interest of her daughter, Alice finally complies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Olympian" title="The Last Olympian">
While Percy Jackson is on a drive with Rachel Dare, he is approached by Charles Beckendorf, and the two head off to attack Luke's ship, "The Princess Andromeda". Kronos, hosted in the mortal body of Luke, is not caught off guard because of a spy at Camp Half-Blood, and Beckendorf is killed in an explosion. Percy awakens later in his father Poseidon's underwater palace, which is under siege by the Titan Oceanus. Percy wants to help fight, but Poseidon sends Percy back to Camp Half-Blood to hear the "Great Prophecy". Once there, Percy informs the camp of the spy and learns that the Olympians are fighting Typhon. The following night, Percy leaves with Nico di Angelo, son of Hades, following a lead on how to defeat Kronos. After visiting Luke's mother in Westport, Connecticut, and talking with Hestia, Percy procures a blessing from his mother. He then descends into the Underworld to bathe in the River Styx and take on the curse of Achilles. Despite being betrayed by Nico in exchange for information on the boy's mother, Percy is successful and uses his new invulnerability to defeat a small army of Hades's minions.Percy emerges from the Underworld in New York City, leaving Nico behind to convince his father to join the fight against Kronos. Percy calls the campers to help defend Olympus, as the gods refuse to end their struggle with Typhon. Just before the battle begins, New York City is affected by a powerful sleeping spell from Morpheus, Hecate, and Kronos himself. Despite being joined by Thalia's Hunters of Artemis, the Party Ponies, and a few other allies, the Olympian army struggles to hold back repeated assaults by the Titan army. Camp Half-Blood suffers approximately 16 casualties, out of an original 40 campers. Annabeth herself is badly injured when she saves Percy from an attack by Ethan Nakamura that would have hit Percy in his Achilles' point. Even after these setbacks, Percy refuses a chance to surrender offered by Prometheus, and entrusts the Titan's gift of Pandora's "pithos" to Hestia. The campers successfully defeat Hyperion, further enraging Kronos. Rachel Dare, who has been experiencing inexplicable moments of prophecy, arrives to warn Percy of a drakon that can only be killed by a child of Ares. The campers do poorly against the drakon until Silena Beauregard arrives disguised as Ares's head counselor Clarisse and breaks the cabin's boycott of the war, getting badly injured in the process. The real Clarisse arrives in a fury and kills the drakon by herself. As Silena lies dying, the campers learn that she was the camp's spy, but chose to right her wrongs after her boyfriend Beckendorf's death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittgenstein's_Nephew" title="Wittgenstein's Nephew">
The author narrates moments of his friendship with Paul Wittgenstein, "nephew" (actually son of a first cousin) of the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (not to be confused with the latter's brother, the pianist Paul Wittgenstein). The title is a reference to Diderot's Rameau's Nephew who also deals with the eccentric nephew of a preeminent cultural figure. A very sensitive man, unsuitable for the world, obsessed by an exclusive and cruel passion for music as well as for race cars and sailing, Paul Wittgenstein dissipated his whole fortune and ultimately died poor.The friendship strengthened whilst recovering in a hospital, Bernhard from a lung ailment, Paul from a bout of madness. The latter in fact will die alone in an asylum, a victim of an incurable conflict with the world; whereas the former will succeed in controlling his own madness, emblem of that very conflict, and making it a lever for his sense of social living.Through the narration of symptomatic episodes, Bernhard unravels the emptiness of Austrian society, its parasitic and vain aspects, spending its time to self-congratulate on fake recognitions and futile prizes with the same rhythm used to blather and drink coffee in the best Viennese cafés. Finally, the author gives some interesting advice about the importance of literary prizes as the determining factor of artistic worth: "a prize is invariably only awarded by incompetent people who want to piss on your head and who do copiously piss on your head if you accept their prize." 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_on_the_Forge" title="Blood on the Forge">
The novel opens in Kentucky, in the year 1919; sharecropping half-brothers Big Mat, Chinatown, and Melody Moss are in dire straits. After their mule dragged their mother to her death, Big Mat killed the animal in a fit of rage. Now without a mule, the brothers are unable to work their land, and are likely to starve. The landowner, Mr. Johnston, agrees to give the brothers another mule.When Big Mat goes to Mr. Johnston's riding boss to collect the mule he had been promised, the riding boss refuses to give him the mule, and makes a racist comment about the departed Mrs. Moss. Big Mat's anger again overcomes him and he attacks and possibly kills the riding boss. Earlier that day, Chinatown and Melody are visited by a white man on horseback who gives them a ten-dollar bill, promising much more if the brothers leave that night on a train that would take them North, to work. When Big Mat returns that evening and Melody and Chinatown tell him what the stranger said, Big Mat decides that he and his brothers will head North that very evening.Part Two, the shortest of the novel, chronicles the inhumane conditions of the train in which the Moss brothers are shipped north to Pennsylvania.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lonely_Voyage" title="The Lonely Voyage">
This novel is about a boy, Jess Ferigo, who winds up on a voyage of poaching along with Pat Fee and Old Boxer. The story is about his journey into manhood.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correction_(novel)" title="Correction (novel)">
The Austrian main character Roithamer, lecturer at Cambridge, after years of paroxysmal projects, builds for his sister, the only person he ever loved, a house in the shape of a cone, right in the geometrically precise middle of the Kobernausser forest. Her answer to the present is death, her traumatic death on entering the Cone. The symbolism of the cone is ambiguous, as it could represent either a refuge, a mausoleum, a phallic icon, the perfect mathematical centre of existence and thought, etc.) is then destined to disappear, absorbed by an invading Nature. A typical Bernhardian maniacal character, Roithamer corrects his building project "ad infinitum", and ultimately corrects it to its extreme self-correction: suicide.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_Rotten_(Gratz)" title="Something Rotten (Gratz)">
Horatio Wilkes visits his friend Hamilton Prince for the summer holidays. Hamilton's father just died and his mother remarried - his uncle. The Princes are very rich. They own a paper plant in Denmark, Tennessee. Unfortunately, the plant seems to pollute the Copenhagen River. At least, that's what Hamilton's beautiful ex-girlfriend Olivia says. When Hamilton and Horatio are confronted with a video of Hamilton's recently deceased father who tells them that he has been poisoned, Horatio promises Hamilton to solve the riddle. On his journey solving this riddle he stumbles across some problems. For instance one of the problems he ran into was when he needed help getting information, and clue's Hamilton was always intoxicated. And when Hamilton wasn't intoxicated he was rude and antisocial or was sleeping off his hangover.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Copper_Beech" title="The Copper Beech">
The novel follows the lives of 12 different young people in the small Irish town of Shancarrig, most of them graduates of the stone schoolhouse on the hill where they engraved their initials on a large copper beech tree. Each chapter is told from the viewpoint of one of the characters, although the plot details often reappear in other chapters.Maura Brennan has no choice but to work after her schooling. She has a drunken father and so is happy to work as a live-in chamber maid in Ryan's hotel. Nessa's mother prefers that her daughter does not speak with Maura even though they went to the same school. Maura falls in love with the barman Gerry O'Sullivan and becomes pregnant. They marry, but the child is born with Down syndrome and Gerry abandons Maura to face it alone. She then works for the Darcys who have opened a new shop in the village. She solves the mystery of Gloria's missing jewels and ends up owning them.Leo Murphy is the last child still at home. She lives with her injured soldier father and mother. Her teenage life is caught in the tangle her mother has made and she thinks she can never be normal again. She finds love, which helps her to break down the walls she made for herself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fish_Out_of_Water_(book)" title="A Fish Out of Water (book)">
The story is about a boy who buys a fish from a pet store. The boy names the fish Otto. Mr. Carp, the owner, gives the boy instructions on how to care for the fish, including strict feeding instructions: "Never feed him a lot. Just so much, and no more! Never more than a spot! Or something may happen. You never know what." When the boy inadvertently disobeys these instructions out of compassion for his new pet, Otto begins to grow uncontrollably, quickly outgrowing his fishbowl. This leads the boy to move him into a series of successively larger containers, ending with the bathtub. When Otto outgrows the tub, the house begins to flood.The boy then requests help from a police officer and the fire department, who help him take Otto down to the local pool, where they drop the fish in, causing him to expand to the size of the pool and scare off all of the swimmers. Since Otto keeps on growing, the boy calls Mr. Carp who is not surprised, as boys always ignore his feeding instructions. When Mr. Carp arrives, he dives into the pool and pulls Otto below. Eventually, he emerges with the fish, back to its normal size. He refuses to say how he did it, but tells the boy to never overfeed Otto again, and the boy takes his advice to heart.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Speaks_(book)" title="Martha Speaks (book)">
The book follows the adventures of the dog Martha, who could speak after being fed alphabet soup. The family complains about Martha being talkative, and she stops eating her soup. Then, when a burglar breaks into her house, Martha was unable to call for help. When the burglar gives her alphabet soup, Martha calls the police and the family appreciates her for speaking again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Loser" title="The Loser">
The novel does not take place at the time of the events recounted, but at the time its narrator recalls them. There are three main characters: the narrator (who is the only survivor), Glenn Gould, who died a natural death at fifty-one, and Wertheimer who committed suicide some time later. The novel consists almost entirely of recollections and ruminations relating to the relationships between the three. Wertheimer and the narrator were students in a piano class taught by Vladimir Horowitz at the Mozarteum in Salzburg in 1953, where they met a young Canadian piano prodigy (Gould).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Wave" title="Shadow Wave">
James Adams works undercover with MI5 as a Brigands Motorcycle Club biker, trying to bring down its leader Ralph "The Führer" Donnington (continuing from his mission in the previous CHERUB book "Brigands M.C."). His girlfriend Kerry Chang is also working with him as an interpreter in a set-up weapons deal. The police surround them and the Führer tries to escape but ends up falling down a cliff and breaking his leg. He is taken into police custody.James returns to CHERUB campus to attend a wedding between mission controller Chloe Blake and her fiancé. At the wedding, he is reunited with several ex-CHERUB agents and former staff members, including the cruel former head instructor Norman Large, his ex-girlfriend Dana Smith and his best friend and retired agent Kyle Blueman and old friend Amy. The day before the wedding, James walks in on Bethany Parker naked in Bruce Norris' room. Bruce then admits that he is shagging her. Kyle finds a mission briefing for James to act as the son of David Secombe, an important figure in the UK Government who is negotiating a weapons deal with Malaysian Defence Minister Tan Abdullah. Kyle tells James about how, when he was assisting in a CHERUB basic training course in Malaysia in 2004, he met a teenager named Aizat Rakyat who told him how Abdullah was demolishing native villages to make way for building luxury hotels. When the Boxing Day tsunami struck, he used the disaster to "evacuate" the villagers and build more hotels in the place. James, disgusted, quits the mission and joins Kyle in a scheme to embarrass Abdullah.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Believers_(novel)" title="The Believers (novel)">
At a party in 1962, 18-year-old typist Audrey Howard meets Joel Litvinoff, an American lawyer involved with the civil rights movement. Although Joel is fourteen years older, Audrey is impressed when Joel puts her pompous date in his place. In turn, Joel is intrigued by Audrey's aloofness. Joel later finds Audrey's number in a telephone book and insists on accompanying Audrey to visit her dreary, rural parents the next day. Audrey and Joel spend the night together, and Joel half-seriously suggests that Audrey marry him and follow him to the United States. Bored with her unstimulating life in Britain, Audrey takes him up on his offer.Forty years later, Joel and Audrey live together in Greenwich Village. Joel is now famous, successful, and controversial for his radical legal activism. Audrey has become a fiery, antagonistic woman who finds fault in all things and defends her husband's causes with zealous conviction. Joel and Audrey have three adult children living elsewhere in New York City. Lenny, the eldest, was adopted at age seven as part of Joel's belief in collective, "tribal" child-rearing. Lenny's parents were eco-terrorists, with their last campaign killing his biological father and landing his biological mother in jail. Since then, Joel has grown frustrated with Lenny's addiction issues and repeated petty crimes, while Audrey dotes on Lenny and constantly excuses his delinquency. Karla, the middle child, is a hospital social worker. Karla struggles with low self-esteem after years of demeaning treatment from her family about her weight and intelligence. Karla is unhappily married to Mike, a union organizer, who desperately wants children. Rosa, the youngest, chaperones an after-school program for underprivileged girls. Once a firm socialist, Rosa tried to join the socialist revolution in Cuba but returned disillusioned after four years of witnessing Fidel Castro's oppression. However, by the time she is introduced, Rosa has had a positive experience in a synagogue and discovered an interest in Orthodox Judaism.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Case_of_Exploding_Mangoes" title="A Case of Exploding Mangoes">
The central theme of the book is a fictitious story behind the real-life plane crash which killed General Zia, president of Pakistan from 1977 to 1988, about which there are many conspiracy theories. After witnessing a tank parade in Bahawalpur, Pakistan on August 17, 1988, Zia leaves the small Punjabi town in the C-130 Hercules aircraft designated "Pak One," along with several of his senior army officials, the US Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Raphel, and some crates of mangoes. Shortly after a smooth takeoff, the control tower loses contact with the aircraft. Witnesses who saw the plane in the air later claim it was flying erratically, before nosediving and exploding on impact, killing all 31 on board. Zia had ruled Pakistan for 11 years prior to his death.Lazy, irreverent Ali Shigri narrates the story. Ali's father, Col. Quli Shigri, has recently died in what was called a suicide, but Ali discovers that his father was killed by a rogue ISI officer, Major Kiyani, under Zia's orders. The story takes place in the months before the plane crash, jumping back and forth between Ali's revenge plans and his third-person observations of Zia's life. Ali attends the Pakistani Air Force Academy with his fellow cadets and their instructors. His best friend is Cadet "Baby O" Obaid, his roommate and lover.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liuxing_Hudie_Jian" title="Liuxing Hudie Jian">
In the "jianghu" (martial artists' community), there are two major martial arts clans engaged in an intense rivalry. On one side stands the Dragon Gate Clan () led by "Old Uncle" Sun Yubo (). On the other side is the Twelve Flying "Peng" Clan () led by "King of Ten Thousand "Peng"s" Fan Xuan ().Apart from the two clans, there is an assassin organisation led by "Boss Gao" Gao Jiping (), who pretends to operate a brothel called Forest of Delight (). Gao Jiping has adopted and trained four orphans to serve as assassins under her: Ye Xiang (), Shi Qun (), Meng Xinghun (), and Xiaohe ().Lü Xiangchuan (), Sun Yubo's deputy, has long wanted to kill his boss but he knows he cannot do so on his own. He secretly makes a deal with Gao Jiping, who sends Meng Xinghun to assassinate Sun Yubo. However, Lü Xiangchuan's plan ultimately fails and he dies at the hands of his friend who has remained loyal to the clan. Gao Jiping commits suicide after the loss of her four assassins: Meng Xinghun falls in love with Sun Die, marries her and joins Sun Yubo; Ye Xiang is killed; Xiaohe survives but becomes disabled; only Shi Qun is still alive and well.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giant_Garden_of_Oz" title="The Giant Garden of Oz">
Temporally, Shanower places his novel at the end of the twentieth century; he takes up the story of Uncle Henry and Aunt Em, the surrogate parents of Dorothy Gale. In his sixth Oz book, "The Emerald City of Oz", Baum had brought the two characters from the mundane world of Kansas to the Emerald City, where they enjoyed a blissful retirement. At the start of "The Giant Garden of Oz", the couple, "after eighty-some years of a life of luxury," have decided to return to farming. (Inhabitants of Oz do not age, unless they want to.) They have acquired a small farm in the Munchkin Country; with magical aids designed by the Wizard of Oz, their farm labor is much less demanding than in the Kansas of their past.Dorothy comes to pay her first visit to the new farm — but encounters an unprecedented problem. Overnight, the couple's vegetable garden grows to enormous size, with giant beets, broccoli, peppers, and watermelons, and heads of cabbage twenty feet high. The farmhouse is hemmed in by a vegetable wall. Dorothy sets out for the Emerald City, climbing a landscape of mountainous produce. Outside the garden, she crosses the Munchkin Country and meets new friends, principally a white-and-purple cow named Imogene, who gives varying dairy products depending upon her mood:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodcutters_(novel)" title="Woodcutters (novel)">
It’s 11:30 at night in an aristocratic Viennese home in the 1980s. A group of people are awaiting the arrival of a famous dramatic actor from the Burgtheater, the guest of honor, who is coming from a performance of Ibsen’s "The Wild Duck." The place is that of the Auersbergers, a married couple whom the narrator hasn’t seen for twenty years: she’s a singer, he’s a "composer in the Webern tradition". While sitting in an arm-chair, and later at the dinner table when the actor arrives, the narrator observes the crowd around him, reliving the last two decades, his connections and ties with the various guests, and particularly his relationship with a woman, Joana, who had committed suicide and been buried earlier that day. Eventually, the actor begins an aggressive rant at one of the guests, Billroth, a self-styled "Virginia Woolf" of Vienna and the narrator's fierce literary rival. He then becomes sad and reflective and laments that he often believes he would have been better off to have lived a rural life and to have been a woodcutter. When the actor lashes out at Billroth, the narrator momentarily turns from derogatory to sympathetic, having previously condemned the Burgtheater actor as vapid and self-centered. The novel ends as the guests disperse, with the narrator leaving the dinner and deciding to write about it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lime_Works" title="The Lime Works">
The story opens with a description of a woman’s brains scattered across the floor of an abandoned lime works, and a half-frozen man crouching on the ground nearby, covered in manure.From this first grotesque scene, Bernhard begins his story, a compelling tale of two people insidiously bound to each other, told through a hypnotic wave of voices – the people of the small Austrian town nearby (Sicking), the officials, the salesmen, the chimney sweeps, the local gossips, the couple themselves. The man, Konrad, is consumed with his work – a book that is to be both visionary and definitive, the ultimate treatise on the subject of hearing. His wife, a cripple, is the victim of his obsessive experiments: he whispers one phrase in her ear, over and over, hundreds of times, demanding from her impossible degrees of aural discrimination. She has no way of knowing, or no strength to tell herself, whether he is a deluded madman or a genius. For three decades, he has been waiting for the ideal moment, the perfect constellation of circumstances, to arise, so that he may begin writing down his conclusions.But he never begins, and he is now an old man. We watch as he compulsively invites his own ruin. We feel him creep from one moment to the next, terrified of failure. Suppose he started writing and then caught a cold? Suppose he finished and his tome was judged worthless? Or his wife destroyed it? Even amidst the total isolation of the lime works, where they live, he is continually distracted. He hallucinates about prowlers. He hoards bits of food for dreaded visitors. And she torments him. He must feed her, read to her, bring her cider from the deep cellar (one glass at the time), maintain her voluminous correspondence with servants he has long ago forgotten, try on a mitten she has been knitting and unravelling for years, tend the earaches she develops from constant experiments... until the monotony and heartlessness of their life together shatters in a bloodbath.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Storm" title="Castle Storm">
After discovering the second clue to the whereabouts of the humans lies at the famed Castle Storm, the outlaw weasels journey to the south of Welkin, where the castle lies, to discover more about the mysterious human evacuation. However, a cascade of rats is swarming down from the marshes in the north of the island to seize power from Prince Poynt.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gargoyles_(novel)" title="Gargoyles (novel)">
One morning a doctor takes his son—an idealistic student of science and rationality—on his daily rounds through the grim mountainous Austrian countryside. They observe the rural grotesques they encounter—from an innkeeper whose wife has been murdered to a crippled musical prodigy kept in a cage—coping with physical misery, madness, and the brutality of the austere landscape. But when they meet the insomniac Prince Saurau in his castle at Hochgobernitz, his solitary, stationary mind takes over the rest of the novel in an uninterrupted obsessive paragraph. It's a hundred-page monologue by an eccentric, paranoid man, a relentlessly flowing cascade of words that is classic Bernhard: the furious logorrhea is a mesmeric rant, completing the stylistic formation of his art of exaggeration, where he uses metaphors of physical and mental illness to explore the decay of his homeland.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_(Bernhard_novel)" title="Extinction (Bernhard novel)">
"Extinction" takes the form of the autobiographical testimony of Franz-Josef Murau, the intellectual black sheep of a powerful Austrian land-owning family. Murau lives in Rome in self-exile, obsessed and angry with his identity as an Austrian, and resolves never to return to the family estate of Wolfsegg. He is surrounded by a group of artistic and intellectual friends, and intends to continue living what he calls the "Italianate way". When he hears of his parents' deaths, he finds himself master of Wolfsegg and must decide its fate.Murau has cut himself off from his family and sought to establish an intellectual life as a tutor in Rome. In the first half of the novel, he reflects on the spiritual, intellectual, and moral impoverishment of his family to his Roman student Gambetti. He only has respect for his Uncle Georg, who similarly cut himself off from the family and helped Murau to save himself. In the second section, he returns to his family’s estate, Wolfsegg, for the funeral, as well as to determine the disposal of the estate, which is now in his hands.Throughout the novel, Murau talks about the void that he has created for himself via exaggeration combined with understatement. Murau then incriminates all of art in this role of unjustified absolution. To Gambetti, the "great" of "great art" was just that; when he thinks on his villa in Wolfsegg, "great" comes to mean something new: criminal art that has the power to make people pardon themselves for mortal sins.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ant_and_the_Elephant" title="The Ant and the Elephant">
An ant is stranded on an island; since he can't swim, the ant asks a turtle for help. The turtle selfishly refuses (because he's already had his swim for the day); shortly thereafter, he falls on his back and can't right himself. So he asks a hornbill for help; she selfishly refuses ("This will teach you not to be so clumsy," she says), and then her egg falls out of its nest. It's too heavy for her to carry, so she asks a giraffe for help, but the giraffe is too proud to assist her. Then the giraffe's legs get hopelessly ensnarled in some vines; he asks a lion for help, but the lion just laughs and strolls on. Then a boulder rolls onto the lion's tail, trapping him. He asks a rhino for help, but when he can't think of any way to return the favor, the rhino strolls on...until he gets his horn embedded in a stump. Then an elephant notices and helps each of the animals in turn, starting with the ant - the only one who bothers to thank the elephant. Shortly after the elephant has assisted everyone, he himself falls into a ravine. When he can't get out, the elephant resigns himself to his plight. Then a horde of ants - led by the one he assisted previously - carry him from the ravine. He, in turn, gives them a ride home on his back.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_(novel)" title="Yes (novel)">
This novel is about suicide, a topic that permeates overtly or covertly all of Bernhard’s work. A Persian woman is the central character of narration, and the narrator prepares for her suicide by his own preoccupation with suicide. This motif of the surrogate victim is clearly established in the novel's opening sentence (see excerpt below), where the narrator describes himself as in the process of "dumping" his problems on his friend Moritz. Later, he will persist in making these revelations even though he recognizes that they have "wounded" Moritz. Similarly, he will underline the Persian woman's role as a surrogate victim when he refers to her as the ideal "sacrificial mechanism".One could easily perceive that the woman fascinates the narrator, who finds in her a suitable companion in his solitary walks into the nearby forest, where he obsesses her with interminable disquisitions and philosophical rants. She is "an utterly regenerating person, that is an utterly regenerating walking and thinking and talking and philosophising partner such as I had not had for years".Gradually the narrator goes back in time and recollects his first meetings with the Persian woman, uncovering a universe of loneliness where the only existential act left is confession. However, self-exposure not always engenders a benefit. Whilst the narrator undergoes a positive reaction, becoming once again attached to life and thus discarding suicide, the Persian woman is unable to unravel the knots of her painful social isolation and says a definitive "yes" to annihilation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mardi_Gras_Mystery" title="The Mardi Gras Mystery">
In "The Mardi Gras Mystery", Nancy's boyfriend, Ned Nickerson, is invited to spend the vacation with Brian Seaton, an Emerson College friend. On their way to the Seaton Mansion, Brian stops at Warren Tyler's house to pick up his father, Bartholomew Seaton, and at the same time shows Ned a portrait of his late mother, Danielle Seaton, by the famous artist Lucien Beaulieu. The painting is in the possession of Mr. Tyler since he found it in a barn he bought.The friends leave for Seaton Mansion or "The Bat Hallow". They wear fancy dress for the Mardi Gras celebration. Later that evening they go to the Silver Yacht Club. That night the portrait is stolen. The prime suspect is Mr. Seaton, who is supposed to have wanted his wife's portrait. All the evidence points to him: he was wearing a bat costume, like the thief, and he was missing at the crucial time, around 10:00 p.m.Nancy cannot resist the challenge of the mystery. Her investigation leads to the French Quarter where she sees a woman who looks like Danielle except that her face is scarred. She is shocked and hypothesizes that Danielle could have survived the sailboat accident.Later she finds out the woman is Mariel Devereaux, whose father Max is an art forger. Nancy concludes that Max used his daughter as a model for the painting because of her almost perfect resemblance to Danielle. He purposely left it in the barn so that it would be found by Mr. Tyler, Danielle's suitor and Bartholomew's rival. His plan was to steal his own painting and ransom it for a million dollars. The money was to pay for his daughter's plastic surgery.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woundlicker" title="Woundlicker">
The story is narrated by a disagreeable misfit and heavy drinker called Fletcher Fee who works in a car wash at the Stormont government building. Some days after witnessing the violent abuse of an 18-year-old called Molly Duddy, Fee finds a listening device secreted in one of the government's black Mercedes cars which he is cleaning. He begins defining his character to the device, informing it and the reader that he is the product of a violent marriage between a Catholic father and a Protestant mother. Ultimately, Fee explains, he plans to break free from the shackles of a divided society. He develops a mild obsession with Molly, whom he refers to as Wee Blondie, as well as a plan to befriend her.During a protest, overzealous police shoot Fee's only friend, a Muslim colleague called Karim. The killing, which gets second place in a news media obsessed with Northern Ireland politics, spurs 25-year-old Fee towards a dangerous and violent form of revenge. His targets are politicians and paramilitaries from both traditions in Northern Ireland, Loyalist and Republican. The police, as well as both sides of the polarised community, are soon baffled as to who is carrying out these murders because they do not fit the traditional template of killing in Northern Ireland. After each murder, Fee returns to work and gets back into the car. There he describes what he has done and attempts to explain why he did it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_on_Kirrin_Island_Again" title="Five on Kirrin Island Again">
Julian, Dick, Anne and George had planned to visit Kirrin Island for their school holidays, but George's father, Uncle Quentin, is using the island to conduct some secretive scientific experiments. George is frustrated with his idea. But agrees to lend her island to her father until he completes his experiment. Uncle Quentin is later kidnapped by villains wanting his secret formula for alternative energy. Uncle Quentin is held in a sub-sea tunnel, and it is up to the Five to rescue him. During the adventure,Timmy plays an important part in rescuing Uncle Quentin from the kidnappers. The children befriend an artistic boy named Martin, whose guardian, Mr Curton, is part of the gang trying to steal the secret formula. After the rescue Martin is admitted in a Art School and is free from his guardian. Everything ends happily.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Go_Off_to_Camp" title="Five Go Off to Camp">
Julian, Dick, George (Georgina by rights), Anne and Timmy (Timothy) the dog are planning to go camping in a moor with the absent-minded and insect-loving Mr Luffy, a master at Julian and Dick's school. When they arrive at camp they find that their camping site is close to a farm. They discover several old railway tracks that run under the moors, some of them unused. They soon make friends with a boy named Jock, who lives at the farm with his mother and stepfather. While exploring the moor, the five find a railway yard and a tunnel that are apparently abandoned. A watchman called Wooden Leg Sam tells them that "Spook trains" travel along those tracks before chasing them away.The children visit the farm the next day and tell Jock about the spook trains. Jock has a sissy of a boy called Cecil Dearlove inflicted on him who forces him to play "soldiers" with him all day. Jock retaliates by forcing him to play "Red Indians", scaring him in the process. In return, Jock is forced to stay in his room all day. His stepfather intended to cane him, but his mother wouldn't let him because "that would only make Jock hate his stepfather". They are surprised to find that most of the farm labourers are not working properly although Jock's stepfather, Mr Andrews, has supplied the farm with a lot of expensive equipment and vehicles. When Mr Andrews hears about the spook trains, he warns the children to stay away from the railway yard, and tries to prevent Jock from meeting the Five over the next few days. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Get_into_Trouble" title="Five Get into Trouble">
Siblings Julian, Dick and Anne are spending the Easter school holidays at Kirrin Cottage with their cousin Georgina and her dog, Timmy. After George's parents, Quentin and Fanny, depart for some scientific conferences, the Five embark on a cycling and camping holiday. At a lake, they encounter a boy named Richard Kent, who wants to spend the day cycling with them. He promises to stay at his aunt's house at the end of the day, if his mother gives him permission. The children agree, and Richard joins them without bothering to request parental permission. He is later chased by a car driven by Rooky, one of his wealthy father's former bodyguards, who was fired because Richard had told tales about him. Rooky's associates chase Richard on foot in Middlecombe Woods, where they mistake Dick for Richard and kidnap him. Richard finds Julian and George, who berate him for his mendacity and cowardice.Julian, Anne, George and Richard trace Dick to Owl's Dene, and on the way Julian observes a man changing clothes and another man throwing clothes down a well. At Owl's Dene, the children sneak into the house but are caught and imprisoned, while Timmy remains outside. That night, Julian finds Dick locked in an upstairs room and discovers a secret room with a man sleeping in it. The next morning, Rooky arrives and sees his associates have kidnapped the wrong boy. The Five and Richard are nearly freed, but Richard is recognised and they are imprisoned in the grounds of the house.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Fall_into_Adventure" title="Five Fall into Adventure">
The Famous Five meet up at Kirrin Station and learn Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin will be holidaying in Spain, leaving the Five at home with the household's cook, Joan. On the beach, the Five meet a gypsy girl, the "ragamuffin", called Jo. Jo and George almost get into fight and Dick who intervenes, gets a punch from Jo and Dick hits Jo. The others find Jo and George very much in alike. After finding out that Jo is a girl, Dick is very sorry, which moves Jo who is not used to kindness. After this Jo is devoted to Dick, but Jo and George dislike each other. After the house is burgled, George is kidnapped, and Jo comes with a card requesting some documents to exchange for George. The wrong papers are provided, so George is not released. Jo is helping the villains, but decides to change sides, mostly because wants to please Dick, and tells that George is likely hidden in Raven's forest by the villains among them her father Simmy. The children find Simmy's carvan, but no George or Timmy in it. Instead, they found George's writing on the wall of the caravan which says "Red Tower, Red Tower" over and over again. Jo knows that Red Tower is a man, a dangerous fellow who lives in a castle-like house on a cliff-top. Jo eventually leads Julian and Dick to a cliff-top house, where George is captive in a tower. Anne is left home with Joann. In the foot of the cliff, children find an underground tunnel which leads to the house. In the tunnel they meet Red Tower, a giant of a man with flaming-red beard and with mad-man's eyes. Red captures Dick and Julian, but not Jo who escapes. Jo frees the boys from captivity and climbs up some ivy and swaps places with George. Jo later locks up three of the kidnappers, including her own father. Timmy is doped, but wakes up just in time to protect them from the villains. She and Julian, George, Dick and Timmy the dog manage to make a getaway by boat. The police are alerted. Three of the criminals attempt to escape but their helicopter crashes. Jo is admired by everyone, even by George, who first hated her. Joan says that her cousin would like to look after Jo, as Jo's father will be sent to prison.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_on_a_Hike_Together" title="Five on a Hike Together">
Siblings Julian and Dick Kirrin have been given a four-day weekend from their boarding school, coinciding with the mid-term break of their sister Anne and cousin George, so they arrange to go hiking together. Julian plans to spend their first night at a bed and breakfast called Blue Pond Farm. On the way, George's dog, Timmy, injures his leg when being pulled out of a rabbit burrow. Consequently, Julian and George go to the residence of Mr. Gaston, a local expert on animals, while Dick and Anne head for Blue Pond Farm. Mr. Gaston treats Timmy's injured leg and Mrs. Gaston then insists Julian and George stay for a meal, after which they walk to Blue Pond Farm.Dick and Anne have taken a wrong turn and are confused by ringing bells. They head toward a light, where they encounter an elderly deaf woman. Assuming they have reached Blue Pond Farmhouse, Dick and Anne go in but the woman, Mrs. Taggart, tells them to leave because her son would not accept them. She eventually agrees to let Anne sleep in a loft, whilst Dick makes do with sleeping in a barn.During the night, Dick is awakened by a voice calling his name. He is given a cryptic message, "Two Trees. Gloomy Water. Saucy Jane. And Maggie knows too". He is also given a piece of paper. The next morning, Mrs. Taggart’s son is back and chases Dick away. He and Anne get directions to Blue Pond Farmhouse. Reunited with Julian and George for breakfast, Dick and Anne tell the story of the bells and the message. Julian says the bells signaled an escape from a local prison, and the escaped prisoner meant to meet “Dirty Dick” Taggart at the barn.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Have_Plenty_of_Fun" title="Five Have Plenty of Fun">
Siblings Julian, Dick and Anne have come to Kirrin to spend the remainder of a school holiday with their tomboy cousin, George, and her dog, Timmy. Two scientist colleagues of George's father, Uncle Quentin, visit Kirrin Cottage to work on an alternative energy project. One of them is a large friendly American, Elbur Wright. His only daughter, Berta, is later threatened with being kidnapped and ransomed for the project's secrets. Elbur decides to send Berta to Kirrin for her safety. George takes an instant disliking to Berta, especially as the American girl has brought her dog, a poodle called Sally. George's resentment is furthered when Berta's hair is cut short to make her resemble a boy. Berta is also dressed as a boy and referred to as Lesley to throw the kidnappers off her scent.A few days later, Uncle Quentin receives an urgent message to meet with Elbur to discuss calculations for their energy project. He leaves with his wife, Aunt Fanny, and plans to be gone for a week, leaving the children alone with Joan, the cook. That night, George lends Timmy to protect Berta in Joan's bedroom, while Sally is put in George's bedroom. Irked by the poodle, George decides to put her outside in Timmy's kennel but the kidnappers are waiting and seize George, mistaking her for Berta.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_on_a_Secret_Trail" title="Five on a Secret Trail">
George decides to go camping with her dog, Timmy, so he can recover from an ear injury without being mocked for wearing a large cardboard collar that prevents him from scratching his wound. George is pleased to be joined at the campsite by her cousin Anne, but is disappointed upon learning that Anne's brothers, Julian and Dick, are visiting France.George and Anne encounter a boy, the son of an archaeologist, and his small, one-eyed mongrel dog called Jet. The boy is excavating an old Roman camp to search for artefacts and asks the girls not to disturb him. Later that day, the boy's twin brother comes to their campsite, but the girls mistake him for the first boy, unaware they are dealing with twins. That night, Anne gets up for a drink but ends up near a derelict, ruined cottage, where she sees lights and hears whispers and footsteps. She then takes George and Timmy to the cottage but there is no indication of any human activity.The next day, the girls again encounter the twins separately. The girls then go to George's parents' house for more food supplies and are informed that Julian and Dick will be arriving in a day or two. The following night, a storm prompts the girls to shelter in the old cottage, where they are shocked to see people outside.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Go_to_Billycock_Hill" title="Five Go to Billycock Hill">
The Five are camping on Billycock Hill, near the farm of Toby, a boy who loves jokes and pranks. When Toby's cousin Jeff, a Royal Air Force pilot, and Jeff’s friend Ray are reported to have defected and stolen the newest aeroplanes, the Five and Toby are shocked. The media later reports Jeff and Ray crashed their planes and drowned at sea. Toby refuses to believe that Jeff was a spy, as he had always seemed a trustworthy man. The Five attempt to comfort the distraught Toby. Later that day, Toby's younger brother Benny's pet piglet, Curly, appears with a message leading the children to find Jeff and Ray imprisoned in Billycock Caves. The children then rescue the pair.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_on_Finniston_Farm" title="Five on Finniston Farm">
The Famous Five spend their summer holidays at Finniston Farm as paying guests. Upon arrival, they are greeted by the pleasant Mrs Philpot and her identical twins, Henry and Harriet. The twins seem to take an instant dislike to the Five. The Five also meet two fellow paying guests: an American Mr Henning and his son, Junior. Mr Henning plans to buy antique pieces from the farm and sell them in America. Mr and Mrs Philpot agree to sell their farm treasures as they need the money. However the family's hot-tempered Great Granddad feels the antiques should remain in England.Mr Henning and Junior prove themselves a nuisance to the household by rudely ordering around Mrs Philpot. Sympathetic to Mrs Philpot, the Five offer to help with farm chores. When Junior demands breakfast in bed, George teaches him a lesson, making him agree to not slave Mrs Philpot thereafter. This wins the hearts of the Harries and they make friends with the Five.Anne and George visit a nearby antique shop, owned by a Mr Finniston, who tells them about a secret passage from Finniston Castle to an old chapel and cellars where royal treasure might be hidden. The girls excitedly reveal the news to the boys and the twins. Together, they plan to hunt for the cellars on the farm. They come across the castle's kitchen midden and realize they are close to finding the treasure.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Go_to_Demon's_Rocks" title="Five Go to Demon's Rocks">
Irascible scientist Quentin Kirrin informs his wife, Fanny, that his colleague, Professor Hayling, will be arriving a week early for a stay at Kirrin Cottage. The professor is accompanied by his son, Tinker, who has a propensity for imitating vehicular noises and has brought his pet monkey, Mischief. Also arriving are Quentin and Fanny's daughter, George, and her cousins, Julian, Dick and Anne, and George's dog, Timmy. The ensuing crowded and noisy household upsets the two scientists, prompting Tinker to propose the children spend their holiday at his abandoned lighthouse at Demon's Rocks, located 10 miles away.After settling in at the lighthouse, the children meet an elderly retired sailor, Jeremiah Boogle, who tells them of his youthful encounters with three villains who lured ships to Demon's Rocks and plundered the wrecks. He says the ringleader, One-Ear Bill, hid a treasure trove which has never been found. Two of One-Ear Bill's descendants, Jacob and Ebenezer, now show tourists through the wreckers' cave. Jacob burgles some items from the lighthouse and also steals the key. When the children visit the cave, Mischief discovers a gold coin. Later, Ebenezer and Jacob lock the children in the lighthouse to prevent them from returning to the cave to hunt for the treasure, but Julian and Dick enter the cave network via a tunnel and discover the treasure. Unable to reach the mainland because of the rising tide, they return to the lighthouse, light its lamp and ring an old warning bell amid a fierce gale to alert the villagers to their fate. Jacob and Ebenezer flee, and the children are rescued the next morning. Julian and Dick declare they will recover the treasure for the police and then the children will return to Kirrin Cottage.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Have_a_Mystery_to_Solve" title="Five Have a Mystery to Solve">
The Five are invited to stay at a holiday cottage near the coast. There they meet and make friends with Wilfred, a boy with an almost magical knack of attracting animals. Offshore is Whispering Island where, according to Lucas, a former guardian of the island who now works at a golf-course on the coast, strange goings-on have been reported.The Five and Wilfred hire a boat and row across to the island where, despite the Five's resolve to avoid adventures, they find themselves stranded. Wilfrid has discovered that someone is stealing the island's old treasures.The Five climb into the grounds of a supposedly-empty stone house, and find themselves locked into the cellar along with Wilfred and the stolen treasure. Before the thieves return, they manage to escape via a ventilation hole. Unable to locate the hired boat, which the thieves attempt to take for their own use, the Five decide they will have to risk sleeping on the island. Fortunately, Anne and Timmy the dog manage to shoo the thieves away from the boat, and Anne persuades the others to row back to the mainland.The Five and Wilfred spend a day with the day with the police, recounting what has happened. The novel closes with the Five lying sunbathing on a hillside near the holiday cottage, with all the local animals and birds gathering round to listen to Wilfred playing his flute.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Chance_(Newman_novel)" title="Fat Chance (Newman novel)">
Judi Liebowitz wants to lose weight, be the thinnest girl in eighth grade, and have a boyfriend. She's convinced that if only she had "creamy thighs and amazing cheekbones that look like I'm always sipping through a straw" her best friend Monica wouldn't have stolen the boy she had a crush on. When Judi meets glamorous, thin as a stick (tiny as) Nancy Pratt, she thinks her life will turn around and she'll be gorgeous. Nancy teaches Judi the secret she uses to staying thin, binge-purge thinking this will somehow help. Judi is thrilled she can "have her cake and eat it, too and she won't gain weight." But then, something dreadful happens to Nancy Pratt because of her eating disorder and she ends up in intensive care. Judi really doesn't want the same thing to happen to her but she just can't control her disorder and the worst part is, she can't or doesn't want to tell anyone, not even her own mother. This is no easy thing to cure and it's no joke for Nancy or Judi, it's a matter of Life or Death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games_(novel)" title="The Hunger Games (novel)">
In the nation of Panem, established in the remains of North America after an unspecified apocalyptic event, the wealthy Capitol exploits the twelve surrounding districts for their natural resources and labor. District 12 is in the coal-rich region that was once Appalachia, while the Capitol is west of the Rocky Mountains. As punishment for a past failed rebellion against the Capitol, which resulted in the obliteration of District 13, one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 from each of the 12 remaining districts are selected by an annual lottery to participate in the Hunger Games, a contest in which the "tributes" must fight to the death in an outdoor arena until only one remains.The story is narrated by 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen from District 12, who volunteers for the 74th Hunger Games in place of her 12-year-old sister, Primrose. The male tribute is Peeta Mellark, a former schoolmate of Katniss who once gave her bread from his family's bakery when her family was starving. In the days leading up to the Games in the Capitol, they are advised by their drunken mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, the sole living District 12 victor of the Hunger Games; chaperone Effie Trinket; and various stylists to enhance their public perception to get potential sponsors, who will send potentially life-saving gifts during the Games. Katniss's stylist, Cinna, designs special costumes for Katniss and Peeta that set them apart from the tributes when introduced to the public. Due to Katniss’s fire-themed dress, she becomes known as the “Girl on Fire”. During their evaluation by the Gamemakers, Katniss unexpectedly gets the highest score among the others. Meanwhile, Rue, the petite 12-year-old girl tribute from District 11, follows Katniss and Peeta around during the training sessions. On the day before the games, in the televised interview with Caesar Flickerman, Peeta reveals his long-unrequited love for Katniss; she is initially shocked by this and believes this is a ploy to gain sponsors, but later accepts this as sincere. Haymitch then promotes their image as "star-crossed lovers".
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swallowing_Darkness" title="Swallowing Darkness">
"Swallowing Darkness" follows the further adventures of Princess Meredith "Merry Gentry" NicEssus. Merry has finally succeeded in getting pregnant. Having done so before her cousin Cel could impregnate one of his women, she will be able to claim the Unseelie throne from her aunt Andais as long as she successfully carries her twin babies to term and gives birth. This news makes her a target for many of the fae who are unhappy with the idea of Merry gaining the throne, forcing Merry's royal guard to become more cautious about her security. Meanwhile Merry is still reeling from the sexual attack from her uncle Taranis, King of the Seelie court, as well as with the loss of her lover Frost. To make matters worse, Taranis claims that he was the one who impregnated Merry.Audiobook narrated by Claudia Black 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panda_Bear,_Panda_Bear,_What_Do_You_See?" title="Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?">
In rhyming text, various endangered animals are asked the question "What do you see?". The list of animals includes a panda bear, a bald eagle, a water buffalo, a spider monkey, a green sea turtle, a macaroni penguin, a sea lion, a red wolf, a whooping crane and a black panther. The last iteration is a dreaming child who sees all the animals "wild and free."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Cocktail" title="Black Cocktail">
The novel follows the activities of Ingram York, a disc-jockey in Los Angeles. The book deals with the Platonic concept that everyone was originally joined to another human being and spends their lives searching for their missing half.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Through_Black_Spruce" title="Through Black Spruce">
"Through Black Spruce" is set in Moosonee, Ontario and is narrated by Will Bird and his niece Annie Bird with the narration switching between chapters.Will, a former bush pilot, is in a coma. Over the course of the novel Will recounts the events of the previous year which led to him being in a coma to his nieces, Annie and Suzanne. Meanwhile, in the present day, Annie recounts the previous year of her life and her sojourns to Toronto, Montreal, New York City and Moose Factory Ontario to see Will in an attempt to help to revive him from his coma.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_House_is_Built" title="A House is Built">
The novel centres on James Hyde and his family. A former Royal Navy quartermaster, in 1837 Hyde sets up a business in early Sydney. He brings his family to Australia and would have his sons and grandsons continue his business. They are either disinclined to take up the business or more interested in the Australian gold-fields. His daughter Fanny has all the qualities needed to continue the family business. Constricted by gender stereotypes, Hyde, his business, and his family fall into tragedy.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grey_Lady_and_the_Strawberry_Snatcher" title="The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher">
A grey lady buys strawberries from the market and heads home to her family with them. A long fingered blue creature follows her and tries to steal the strawberries, but she escapes through various means—catching a bus, swinging from a vine, and simply by blending into the grey swamp but for her face and hands. When he gets frustrated, he finds blackberries and eats them instead.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amityville_Horror_Part_II" title="The Amityville Horror Part II">
The Lutz family barely escapes 112 Ocean Ave. While fleeing Amityville, they are attacked, but get away. They arrive at Kathy's mother's house, where they think they are safe. Soon after, George is awakened by a supernatural force. George and Kathy realize that they are being followed. Over the next few days, Kathy and her mother spot Missy playing with Jodie. Events plague the family. They get The Amityville Horror published and have to deal not only with the supernatural, but with skeptics and a neverending line of press.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_Black_Bass" title="Book of the Black Bass">
Henshall's "Book of Black Bass" is really three books in one. There are nearly 180 pages devoted to the biology of the Black Basses known at the time. A slightly lesser number of pages in "Part Second" are focused on the fishing tackle necessary for successful Black Bass fishing. Henshall himself was a leading reel collector when his book was published and his chapters on fishing reels and their development are often quoted and valued by tackle collectors today. The "Part Third" as Henshall named it is focused on the various fishing techniques to be used in Black Bass fishing to include fly fishing.Henshall published a companion book entitled "More About the Black Bass" is 1889 and in 1904 published "Book of the Black Bass" in a revised 2nd edition that included much of the writings in "More About the Black Bass."In the 1881 Preface, Henshall introduces the book thus:This book owes its origin to a long-cherished desire on the part of the author, to give to the Black Bass its proper place among game fishes, and to create among anglers, and the public generally, an interest in a fish that has never been so fully appreciated as its merits deserve, because of the want of suitable tackle for its capture, on the one hand, and a lack of information regarding its habits and economic value on the other.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kings_of_Clonmel" title="The Kings of Clonmel">
While at the annual Rangers' Gathering, Will is informed by Ranger Commandant Crowley that Ranger Halt will not be able to attend the Gathering as he is investigating happenings in Hibernia, a country to the west of Araluen. The Outsiders, a mysterious religious cult, is gaining followers and stealing gold and jewels. Halt is watching the group, which is acting in Selsey, a small Araluen village. The cult demands gold to build an altar to their god to protect the village and tries to set the village's boats on fire to persuade them into donating more gold. Halt stops their plan and also discovers that the golden altar is a fake. Rather than being solid gold, it is wooden and gold-plated; the cult has been keeping the gold for themselves.When Halt captures the Outsiders' Selsey leader, he becomes puzzled; the leader recognises him though Halt is sure they have never met. Back at the Ranger's Gathering, Crowley asks Will to take care of three apprentices for a while and tells Will that he is being moved to Redmont Fief to share half the Ranger duties there with Halt. Redmont Fief is where Will grew up, and where his love interest, the diplomat Alyss, and Halt's wife Pauline also live. Will rides to the fief, where he is greeted by a feast made by his childhood friend and cook, Jenny. Halt arrives back in Redmont and tells of what he has seen. Halt reveals the secret of his past; he is the identical twin brother of the King of Clonmel, Ferris. Halt was born first, meaning he was the heir to the throne. He fled Clonmel and joined the Ranger Corps after Ferris repeatedly tried to kill him to obtain the crown for himself. Halt believes the Outsiders leader recognised him as he thought he was Ferris. Crowley assigns Will, Halt, and the knight Horace to investigate the matter in Clonmel. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petals_of_Blood" title="Petals of Blood">
The book begins by describing the four main characters – Munira, Karega, Wanja, and Abdulla – just after the revelation that three prominent Kenyans, two businessmen and one educator, have been killed in a fire. The next chapter moves back in the novel's timeline, focusing on Munira's move to Ilmorog, to begin work as a teacher. He is initially met with suspicion and poor classroom attendance, as the villagers think he will give up on the village soon, in much the same way previous teachers have done. However, Munira stays and, with the friendship of Abdulla, another immigrant to Ilmorog who owns a small shop and bar, carves out life as a teacher.Soon Wanja arrives, the granddaughter of the town's oldest and most revered lady. She is attractive, experienced barmaid whom Munira begins to fall in love with, despite the fact he is already married. She too is escaping the city and begins to work for Abdullah, quickly reshaping his shop, and expanding its bar. Karega arrives in Ilmorog to seek Munira to question him about their old school Syriana. After a brief relationship with Munira, Wanja once again grows disillusioned and leaves Ilmorog. The year of her departure is not good for the village as the weather is harsh and no rain comes, making for a poor harvest. In an attempt to enact changes, the villagers are inspired by Karega to journey to Nairobi in order to talk to their Member of Parliament.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Frog_Princess_(novel)" title="The Frog Princess (novel)">
Emeralda, a.k.a. Emma is the princess and heir of Greater Greensward. One of her most distinct traits is her unique laugh, which sounds like a donkey's bray. The only person that appreciates her is her aunt Grassina, the current Green Witch.When her mother, Queen Chartreuse, says she has to marry the stuck-up Prince Jorge from East Aradia, her worst enemy, she runs off to the swamp where she meets Prince Eadric of Upper Montevista. The only problem is that he has been turned into a frog by the witch Mudine. Emma reluctantly kisses him, trying to reverse the spell; instead, she turns into a frog herself.Annoyed and confused by this outcome, Emma and Eadric set off to find the witch that turned him into a frog and ask her to change them back. A dog persistently chases them throughout the journey.Upon reaching the site where Eadric insulted (and was cursed by) the witch that transformed him, they find an ugly woman searching there. The two assume she's the witch Mudine, but she turns out to be Vannabe, a vain witch wannabe who has taken Mudine's house, pets, and possessions and plans to use the frogs for a potion she thinks will make her eternally beautiful. With the aid of Mudine's former pets, the two frogs escape and free all the prisoners.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_Amityville" title="Murder in Amityville">
The plot tries to explain why Ronald Defeo Jr. killed his family at 112 Ocean Ave. It revolves around Ronald Jr. as he experiences strange events in the house up until he kills his entire family on November 13, 1974. It goes on to explain that he was possessed and that he did not want to kill his family. It introduces controversial events. It is also based on Defeo's explanation of why he says he killed his family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)" title="Outliers (book)">
In his introduction, Gladwell discusses the Roseto effect which enabled a small, close-knit town in Pennsylvania to have almost no history of heart disease, substance abuse, or societal ills, seemingly due to the supportive, comforting social environment of its Italian-descended population. The remainder of "Outliers" has two parts: "Part One: Opportunity" contains five chapters, and "Part Two: Legacy" has four. The book also contains an Introduction and Epilogue. Focusing on outliers, defined by Gladwell as people who do not fit into our normal understanding of achievement, "Outliers" deals with exceptional people, especially those who are smart, rich, and successful, and those who operate at the extreme outer edge of what is statistically plausible. The book offers examples that include the musical ensemble the Beatles, Microsoft's co-founder Bill Gates, and the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. In the introduction, Gladwell lays out the purpose of "Outliers": "It's not enough to ask what successful people are like. [...] It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't." Throughout the publication, he discusses how family, culture, and friendship each play a role in an individual's success, and he constantly asks whether successful people deserve the praise that we give them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_the_Lady" title="The Sword of the Lady">
Rudi Mackenzie and Edain Aylward Mackenzie head out through post-Change Illinois on a mission given to them by the Bossman of Iowa to recover Ingolf Vogeler's wagons that he abandoned there. They break up an ambush by Knifers and save three Southside Freedom Fighters (Southsiders), descendants of survivors from Chicago, including their leader Jake. Rudi adopts the tribe and they help him bring Ingolf's wagons back to Iowa. Along the way, Rudi and Edain teach them how to make bows and arrows, then train them as military archers. Southsiders listen to them sing and add the songs to their story-poor culture. Soon the Southsiders consider themselves part of Clan Mackenzie.Meanwhile, Mary and Ritva Havel are trying to find a way to break Ingolf out of the Bossman's prison. Then Captain Denson of the Iowa State Police has a conversation with Ingolf and offers to release him from prison if he lures the CUT troops from Des Moines. When Ingolf agrees, Denson takes him out while his men kill the other prisoners who witnessed the conversation.When Rudi reaches the Mississippi River, Denson meets them on the east side of the river. He brings Ingolf with him. They cross the river and meet the Bossman and the rest of Rudi's party in Dubuque.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amok_(novella)" title="Amok (novella)">
The nameless first-person narrator travels from India to Europe on the ocean liner "Oceania" in 1912. One night, during a walk on deck, he meets a man who, disturbed and scared, avoids any social contact on the ship. The following night the narrator meets this man again. Although intimidated at first, the man soon begins to trust the narrator and tells him his story.A physician from Leipzig, he moved to Indonesia seven years earlier to practise medicine in a small and remote village. After some time, the solitude depresses him more and more and he felt “like a spider in its web, motionless for months already.” One day, a white woman, “the first white woman in years,” appears unexpectedly and fascinates him with her haughty and distant nature—something he never experienced with the reverent and submissive indigenous women. In the course of their conversation it becomes clear that the woman, an Englishwoman and wife of a Dutch merchant, has come to see him for a discreet abortion, for which she is willing to pay a large amount of money. However the doctor, struck by a sudden passion, does not want the money. Instead he tells her to ask him for the abortion and suggests that she should visit him again outside his office hours. She refuses and storms out. The obsession seizes the doctor more and more: like a homicidal maniac, he follows the woman to her house, scaring her and making her even more distant. As she does not want her pregnancy to become public, she eventually confides in an indigenous healer. The procedure fails and the woman dies in agony.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_an_Outsider" title="Death of an Outsider">
While Hamish Macbeth is on duty temporarily in Cnothan, William Mainwaring, the most disliked man in town is murdered. No one wants to solve the crime, including Macbeth's superiors who want to keep the strange manner of Mainwaring's death hushed up.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Monk_Is_Miserable" title="Mr. Monk Is Miserable">
Natalie wants a break so she blackmails Monk in going to Paris, France. While in Paris, Monk surprises Natalie by telling her he wants to check out the sewers because the underground maze of tunnels and pipes is famous for keeping Paris sanitary. While traveling the mazes of the sewers, the two stumble upon the catacombs, which are filled with aging skulls and bones. When Monk spots a skull that is not so old that shows evidence of murder, the pair's vacation plans are once again put aside so Monk can conduct a murder investigation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_Night_in_Chile" title="By Night in Chile">
The story is narrated entirely in the first person by the sick and aging Father Urrutia. Taking place over the course of a single evening, the book is the macabre, feverish monologue of a flawed man and a failed priest. Except for the final sentence, the book is written without paragraphs or line breaks. Persistently hallucinatory and defensive, the story ranges from Opus Dei to falconry to private lessons on Marxism for Pinochet and his generals directed at the unspecified reproaches of "the wizened youth."The story begins with the lines "I am dying now, but I still have many things to say", and proceeds to describe, after a brief mention of joining the priesthood, how Father Urrutia entered the Chilean literary world under the wing of a famous, albeit fictitious, tacitly homosexual literary critic by the name of Farewell. At Farewell's estate he encounters the critic's close friend Pablo Neruda and later begins to publish literary criticism and poetry.Not surprisingly, Urrutia's criticism (written under a pen-name) is met with more applause than his poetry and there is little if any mention of Urrutia attending to matters of the church until two individuals from a shipping company (likely undercover government operatives) send him on a trip through Europe, where he meets priest after priest engaged in falconry.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairo-kō" title="Kairo-kō">
"Kairo-kō" consists of a short introduction and five sections. The first section, "The Dream" recounts a conversation between Guinevere and Lancelot in which she describes her dream of a snake that coils around the pair and binds them together; it ends with Lancelot heading to a tournament. The second section, "The Mirror", relates a scene based on Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott": the Lady can view the world only through a mirror's reflection or else she will die, but when she sees Lancelot she turns to look upon him. Her action kills her, but not before she places a death curse on Lancelot. The section "The Sleeve" relates the famous episode in which Elaine of Astolat convinces Lancelot to wear her sleeve on his shield as a token in a joust. Guinevere finds out about Lancelot's relationship with Elaine in the next section, "The Transgression"; Mordred condemns her for her infidelity against King Arthur with Lancelot. The final section, "The Boat", concerns the death of Elaine; grieving over the loss of Lancelot, she dies and is placed in a boat along with a letter proclaiming her love, and is sent downriver to Camelot.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rocksburg_Railroad_Murders" title="The Rocksburg Railroad Murders">
The novel opens with John Andrasko being found dead on a station platform late at night in Rocksburg. Andrasko was on his way to work at a local steel plant when someone beat him to death with a Coke bottle, so bad that he could only be identified by his wallet. Mario Balzic, the local Chief of Police, had known Andrasko all his life. Balzic starts an investigation into his death and is soon convinced he knows who the murderer is, but persuading the local district attorney and state troopers in the absence of any concrete evidence and the context of local rivalries is another matter. Which is a cause of major anxiety as Balzic is certain that if he's not apprehended he'll kill again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pale_Criminal" title="The Pale Criminal">
Set in 1938, two years after the events of March Violets, Bernhard (Bernie) Gunther has taken Bruno Stahlecker, another ex-police officer, as his partner. The two are working on a case where a Frau Lange, owner of a large publishing house, is being blackmailed for the homosexual love letters her son Reinhardt sent to his psychotherapist Dr. Kindermann. Gunther and Stahlecker discover the blackmailer to be Klaus Hering, a disgruntled employee of Kindermann. Bruno is killed during a stakeout at Hering's apartment, and shortly thereafter Hering is found hanging in the apartment. Around that time, Gunther is summoned to the Gestapo offices by Arthur Nebe and there Reinhard Heydrich forces Gunther to look for a serial sex murderer, who is killing blond and blue-eyed teenage girls in Berlin and making fools of the police. Gunther has no choice but to accept the temporary post of Kriminalkommissar in Heydrich's state Security Service, with a team of policemen working underneath him.Gunther and his team then follow a number of dead end leads: A Jewish man held on suspicion, Joseph Kahn, is determined to be too improbable a suspect by an expert on psychotherapy, but dies in custody. Officially he committed suicide. However, Arthur Nebe suggests that he had been killed ; A violent sexual deviant, Gottfried Bautz, is captured but when an anonymous caller reveals the location of a fifth victim while he is in jail, he must also be let go.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Page" title="The Blank Page">
Mario Balzic is the protagonist, an atypical detective for the genre, a Serbo-Italian American cop, middle-aged, unpretentious, a family man who asks questions and uses more sense than force.As the novel opens, it is a record-hot Memorial Day when Miss Cynthia Summer calls Police Chief Mario Balzic to say that she hadn't seen one of her student roomers. Balzic discovers Janet Pisula's body on the floor of her room, a blank sheet of typing paper on her stomach...It is the third book in the 17-volume Rocksburg series.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Star" title="Distant Star">
The book is narrated from a distance by Arturo B. (probably Arturo Belano, Bolaño's frequent stand-in) and tells the story of Alberto Ruiz-Tagle, an aviator who exploits the 1973 Chilean coup d'état to launch his own version of the New Chilean Poetry: a multi-media enterprise involving sky-writing, torture, photography, murder, and verse. The narrator first encounters Ruiz-Tagle in a college poetry workshop led by Juan Stein, where Ruiz-Tagle presents himself as a well-dressed, financially secure, self-taught writer with an unnaturally cool, distant, and calculated demeanor — in sharp contrast to the economically poor, messy, leftist, activist tendencies of the narrator (and most other poetry fans then enrolled at the University of Concepcion). Ruiz-Tagle also shows a surprising detachment from his own work, giving measured, intelligent criticism and receiving it without flinching. Ruiz-Tagle also shows a disquieting lack of interest in having more than superficial social relationships with most of his fellow aspiring poets. Ruiz-Tagle’s most stable connection is with the beautiful Garmendia twins, Veronica and Angelica. While most of the young men in the twins’ social circle pine after them to one degree or another, the sisters only have eyes for Ruiz-Tagle. As the novel progresses it becomes clear that Ruiz-Tagle is far more and far less than a mere poet, through progressively darker and ironic twists and turns.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Heart_So_White" title="A Heart So White">
The narrator, Juan, seeks to use his newly-wed wife, Luisa, to uncover the murky past of his father's previous marriages which include (aside from Juan's mother) two other women. The first of these women is unnamed and kept secret from Juan, while the second was the older sister of Juan's mother.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marvellous_Land_of_Snergs" title="The Marvellous Land of Snergs">
"The Marvellous Land of Snergs" is set on a fictional island somewhere on Earth, but difficult to reach. On the island is a colony of children (rescued from neglect by the redoubtable Miss Watkyns), the crew of the "Flying Dutchman", and the Snergs, a race of short, thick-set, helpful people. Unfortunately Golithos, a reformed (but relapsing) ogre, and Mother Meldrum, a wicked witch, also live there. Also in the forest across the river there are tigers, brown bears, European dragons, ghouls, and unicorns. When Sylvia and Joe run away for a big adventure their lives are in deadly peril when they fall into the clutches of Golithos and Mother Meldrum. Gorbo the Snerg and Baldry the court jester come to the rescue.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_Puppeteer" title="The Master Puppeteer">
Thirteen-year-old Jiro finds himself caught up in the political events of late eighteenth-century Osaka, Japan when he accompanies his father, Hanji, to deliver a puppet to the Hanaza theater. Yoshida, the owner and master puppeteer, offers to take the boy on as an apprentice. To Jiro’s chagrin, his mother, Isako, does not take Yoshida’s offer seriously. Determined not to be a burden on his family during the current famine, Jiro runs away to the theater, where he becomes an apprentice. He begins his career by opening curtains and memorizing scripts and eventually graduates to a role as a “foot operator.” Along the way, he is helped by an older boy, Yoshida’s son, Kinshi, who does not seem able to please his father.Worried about his father, who is said to be ill, Jiro briefly returns home to discover that Isako has taken his father to recuperate at a relative’s farm in Kyoto. When Jiro again returns home on New Year’s Day, he discovers that his mother is near starvation, and when he returns to the Hanaza he realizes he forgot to pray. One evening, Saburo, the mysterious bandit who steals from the rich to help the poor, leaves a notice on the door of the theater demanding a special performance of the current play, “The Thief of the Tokaido.”
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello,_Harvest_Moon" title="Hello, Harvest Moon">
The Moon rises and shines through a girl's bedroom window. It then shines on a silent street, corn and wheat fields, and autumn trees. A young girl and her cat play a game by its light, a pilot flies a plane using its light. The Moon sets in the daylight as the young girl and her cat say goodnight.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackthorn_Winter_(Reiss_novel)" title="Blackthorn Winter (Reiss novel)">
Juliana, a fifteen-year-old girl, moves with her mother to the artists' colony of Blackthorn, England from the United States while her parents are undergoing a separation. She begins to investigate a murder of one of the artists living at the colony.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ying_Xiong_Wu_Lei" title="Ying Xiong Wu Lei">
Master Xiao (), a reclusive swordsmith, started forging a precious sword known as the Tear-Stained Sword (). Upon its completion, the swordsmith foresaw that his son would die under the sword and that the sword is destined to bring disaster to the "jianghu" (martial artists' community). In order to prevent these events from happening, Master Xiao passed the sword to his low-profile youngest apprentice for safekeeping. Several years later, the sword came into the possession of Gao Jianfei (), the apprentice of Master Xiao's youngest apprentice. Gao Jianfei receives instructions from his master to bring the sword into the "jianghu".At the time, there are two powerful organisations in the "jianghu": the Great Security Service of Chang'an () and the Majestic Lion Clan of Luoyang (). Sima Chaoqun (), the security service's chief, intends to recruit Yang Jian (), a traitor of the Majestic Lion Clan, to be a member of the security service. In order to protect their public image, the Majestic Lion Clan secretly hired an assassin to kill Yang Jian. Zhuo Donglai (), the second-in-command of the security service, has made extensive preparations to protect Yang Jian. When he meets Gao Jianfei, he initially suspects that Gao is the assassin so he keeps a close watch on him. However, Yang Jian ends up being killed by Xiao Leixue (), a mysterious martial artist carrying a wooden box, which is actually a secret weapon known as The Box ().
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenesis_(novel)" title="Regenesis (novel)">
Ariane Emory is the eighteen-year-old clone of an extraordinary woman who was both a preeminent research scientist and the leader of the Expansionist Party, which has controlled Union since its inception. Her predecessor had some very powerful friends and enemies. However, as her genemother had died under suspicious circumstances before she was even born, Emory is unsure who they are.She is not without resources though. A breakthrough experiment in "psychogenesis" has recreated in her the genius of her parent. Everyone knows that she will one day follow in her mother's footsteps and take charge of Reseune, a sovereign Administrative Territory and the premier azi research facility in Union, one of the three spacefaring factions of humanity.In the meantime, she takes measures to protect herself, assembling a trusted staff with the assistance of her azi bodyguards and companions, Florian and Catlin. When she discovers that her new azi security chief has been tampered with, her list of possible enemies grows to include key men inside Reseune itself: Yanni Schwartz, the Director, and Adam Hicks, the head of security. Adding to the discord is the return of a bitter Jordan Warrick from a twenty-year exile at an isolated research facility. He had been pressured into confessing to killing the original Emory.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park's_Quest" title="Park's Quest">
Park's full name is Parkington "Park" Waddell Broughton V. He knows he has ancestors who have distinguished themselves and the name he shares with four generations of them. But his father, a U.S. Marine Corps pilot, died in the Vietnam War when Park was three, and he has never met his father's family. Though he is nearly twelve, his mother still avoids answering any questions about his father. Finally, to satisfy his curiosity, Park goes and gets on a bus for the short ride from his home to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC. There he finds his father's name. There he also resolves to get some of his questions solved. After Randy, Park's mom, writes to Park's dad's side of the family, Randy sends him on a bus for a two-week vacation in south-western Virginia where his grandfather and Uncle Frank maintain the farm on which his father grew up. His grandfather has had 2 strokes and is now inarticulate, able to communicate in only the most rudimentary ways. His uncle has a Vietnamese wife, and shares his home with a Vietnamese girl about Park's age whose origin and status is not clear to Park until he discovers, after a number of uncomfortable encounters, that she is his half-sister, and that because of his father's infidelity, his mother divorced him before his second, and fatal, term in Vietnam. Park, whose fantasies about his father's past and his own future have been highly romanticized, does some important growing up in the short visit that puts him in touch with a more complex idea of family, grief, forgiveness, and acceptance than he has ever before had to develop.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-Flop_Girl" title="Flip-Flop Girl">
The book focuses on a nine-year-old girl named Lavina (but is called Vinnie) whose life has been in turmoil following her father's death. Vinnie and her five-year-old brother Mason, who has turned mute following their father's funeral, are sent to live with their grandmother in a rural Virginia community. Vinnie has difficulty adjusting to her new school, where the only signs of friendship are extended to her by a poor Latina named Lupe, who only ever wears flip-flops, and a supportive male teacher. Vinnie reacts poorly to this outreach, vandalizing the teacher's automobile and pinning the blame on Lupe, but she later learns to deal with her anger and makes amends for her inappropriate behavior.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Greatest_Warriors" title="The Five Greatest Warriors">
The story starts with Jack's fall from the Vertex under Table Mountain with the suicidal Marine Switchblade, and his escape with the aid of Switchblade's Maghook, a staple of many of Reilly's works. He quickly reunites with the rest of his team at Little McDonald Island.The dates for the placement of the six pillars sees a three-month window between the second and third placements. Jack and Zoe use the interim period to help Pooh Bear in the rescue of Stretch from the Israeli Mossad. In a Roman ruin located under Israel's most secret facility, they find Stretch subjected to a hellish treatment: kept alive in a tank of formaldehyde by General Muniz, a Mossad spymaster. Stretch was to be the latest addition in Muniz's private collection of "living trophies", a practice pioneered by a former KGB operative. Stretch is subsequently liberated and the party makes their escape.Jack learns of The Five Greatest Warriors from Diane Cassidy, five key members of history who would influence the sacred stones and their whereabouts. They set about locating the third pillar and its matching Vertex. Following a connection to Genghis Khan, the party sets out for Mongolia. They locate the Khan's tomb under a false mound that covered a meteor crater. In the bowels of the fortress, they find a petrified dinosaur egg painted with images of the six temples that house the Verticies. The Japanese Blood Brotherhood attempt to stop Jack and Wolf from finding the next temple by destroying the egg, and Wizard is killed by Wolf in their escape. Realising that Genghis's shield also carries the images carved on the egg, Jack and his team race to the northern tip of Hokkaido.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kill_Artist" title="The Kill Artist">
Israel’s Prime Minister reinstates Ari Shamron as Mossad director. Shortly thereafter, Israel’s ambassador is murdered in Paris. The crime has all of the markings of Tariq al-Hourani, a terrorist mastermind.Gabriel spearheaded a team that located and killed the operatives in the “Munich Massacre.” Seventeen years later, Tariq took vengeance upon Gabriel—family member for family member—by planting a bomb under the Allons’ car in Vienna. Gabriel witnessed his family’s horrifying destruction. His son Dani died instantly, while his wife Leah was left with a shattered mind and body.Nine years later, Gabriel has cut ties with the Office, secreted himself in Southern England, and poured himself into his other profession as an art restorer. Ari Shamron shows up on his doorstep. Shamron explains that he wants to assassinate Tariq but lacks support from the departmental directors at the Office. As a result, he urges Gabriel to spearhead a secret assassination operation. He accepts Shamron’s plan and begins surveillance of Yusef, a member of Tariq’s closely knit organization.Gabriel decides that he needs to set Yusef up with a female operative. He handpicks Jacqueline Delacroix (née Sarah Halévy), a French supermodel. Jacqueline has previously assisted three Office operations; in one of these, she worked closely with Gabriel and the two had an affair. Gabriel is careful to keep his interactions with Jacqueline to a mere professional familiarity. Jacqueline discovers that Gabriel still grieves over their affair, for its unmasking made Leah decide to accompany Gabriel on the fateful operation to Vienna.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Moto_Is_So_Sorry" title="Mr. Moto Is So Sorry">
Calvin Gates, an American, is traveling through Japan to mainland Asia. He boards a train which will eventually take him to Mongolia to join a scientific expedition. On the train is Sylvia Dillaway, a sketch artist, also on her way to the Gilbreth Expedition. Accompanying her is Boris, her Russian guide. When Mr. Moto appears, Boris becomes agitated and gives Dillaway a cigarette case made of silver inlaid with gunmetal, bearing a scenic design. Later at a stopover Boris is killed in Gates’ hotel room. Mr. Moto comes in to clean things up and tells Gates that he knows of his past and why he is traveling to Mongolia. Gates is on the run from the police because his uncle believes that he stole money from his business. Moto asks about the cigarette case and realizes that Dillaway must have it. Moto wants the cigarette case to get to where it is headed, so he leaves the case with Dillaway.Knowing that the cigarette case is dangerous, Gates plots with Dillaway to make it seem like the case was stolen from her hotel room. Moto, however, suspects Gates and has him searched at a train stop. Gates and Dillaway continue on their journey with the cigarette case.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mémoires_de_deux_jeunes_mariées" title="Mémoires de deux jeunes mariées">
The story concerns two young French women, Louise de Chaulieu (1805–1835) and Renée de Maucombe (born 1807), who become close friends during their novitiate at the Carmelite convent of Blois. When they leave the convent, however, their lives follow two very different paths. Louise chooses a life of romance, whereas Renée takes a much more pragmatic approach; but their friendship is preserved through their correspondence, which continues for a dozen years from 1823 through 1835.Louise is expected to sacrifice herself for her two brothers and take the veil, but the young girl refuses to submit to such a fate. Her dying grandmother intercedes on her behalf and bequeaths her her fortune, thereby rescuing her from the enclosed life of a Carmelite nun and leaving her financially independent. Free to assist her brothers financially without having to sacrifice her own ambitions, Louise settles in Paris and throws herself into a life of Italian operas, masqued balls and romantic intrigues. She falls in love with an unbecoming but noble Spaniard, Felipe Hénarez, Baron de Macumer. Banished from Spain, he lives incognito in Paris where he is forced to support himself by teaching Spanish. When he regains his fortune and noble standing, he woos Louise with a romantic fervour that finally wins her over. The pair are married in March 1825. They live a life of carefree happiness, but Louise's jealousy embitters him and leads to his physical break-down. He dies in 1829, leaving a grieving widow of twenty-four.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-Minute_Drill" title="Two-Minute Drill">
Scott Parry is not only the new kid, but he's also the clumsiest and smartest kid in school. Chris Conlan is the school's golden boy and the quarterback of the football team. Scott joins the football team, which causes him to cross paths with Chris. Initially the two seem like the unlikeliest pairing in the world, but a shared secret pulls them together.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preacher's_Boy" title="Preacher's Boy">
Set in Vermont in 1899, the story focuses on Robbie Hewitt, the rambunctious 10-year-old child of a small town preacher and brother of simple-minded Elliot. Elliot has autism and many times Robbie wishes he was dead. Robbie is always being silly and tries at the beginning of the book to kill one of the Weston Brothers. The Weston brothers are the sons of the richest men in town. As the boy’s mischievous behavior becomes more pronounced, he becomes engaged in activity that has lethal consequences for a member of his community. Complicating matters, is the boy’s desire to challenge his father by breaking away from organized religion. Certain that his family's beliefs are too restrictive, Robbie sets out to live life to the fullest, deciding to become "a heathen, a Unitarian, or a Democrat, whichever was most fun" (p. 19).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amulet_(novel)" title="Amulet (novel)">
"Amulet" embodies in one woman's voice the melancholy and violent history of Latin America. It begins: "This is going to be a horror story. A story of murder, detection and horror. But it won't appear to be, for the simple reason that I am the teller. Told by me, it won't seem like that. Although, in fact, it's the story of a terrible crime."The speaker is named Auxilio Lacouture, dubbed "the mother of Mexican poetry", though her own take is, "I could say I am the mother of all Mexican poets, but I better not". Tall, thin, blonde, and old enough to actually be their mother, she's a Uruguayan exile living illegally in Mexico City since the 1960s, lending a maternal hand to those in need (even her forename means "Help" in Spanish), doing odd jobs for old writers and at the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature.She becomes famous as the sole person who symbolically resists the army's 1968 invasion of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) two weeks before the now infamous Tlatelolco massacre (2 October) – she hides in a fourth-floor lavatory cubicle "for thirteen days" from 18 to 30 September.As she tries to outlast the occupiers and grows ever hungrier, Auxilio recalls her life, her lost teeth, her beloved friends and poets, and she soon moves on to strange landscapes: ice-bound mountains, seedy bars in "the dark night of the soul of Mexico City", a terrifying chasm, and a bathroom where moonlight shines, moving slowly from tile to tile.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Holiday_Concert" title="The Last Holiday Concert">
Hart Evans was the most popular kid at Collins Elementary School and is on his way to owning that title again at Palmer Intermediate. So when he unintentionally shoots a rubber band at his chorus teacher one afternoon, he expects it to be laughed off. After all, it was an accident.Mr. Meinert, the chorus teacher, is wound so tight that he blows up at Hart and the entire class. In a huff, he announces that he is stepping down, and they are now responsible for planning their entire holiday concert themselves.The whole class is surprised and elects Hart as the new Chorus director. He declares Music Class as a free period until Mr. Meinert tells him that they've got a full 30 minutes for their show. Hart then realizes that they need to get down to work.After assembling committees and coming up with lists of songs, Hart finally thinks he has everything running on track. But then his classmates get mad. Why is Hart, their friend, acting so strict and like a teacher? It takes a heart-to-heart with Mr. Meinert to learn what it takes to be a friendly and fair, yet strict, chorus director.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Side_of_Truth" title="The Other Side of Truth">
Although this novel is written in the third person, it presents the perspective of a 12-year-old girl, Sade Solaja. Her father, Folarin Solaja, is a journalist, one of the most critical of the corrupt regime. The book opens with Sade's memory of hearing the two shots which ended her mother's life, a memory which recurs throughout the novel in her thoughts and dreams. Her memories of Nigeria are often set in contrast to her experiences of an alien England, while her mother's remembered words of wisdom give her comfort and strength. The concentration on Sade's point of view makes many events seem obscure and confusing, just as she experiences them.After the shooting, Sade's Uncle Tunde urges her father to send her and her 10-year-old brother Femi to safety in England. They are forced to pack and leave suddenly and secretly. They fly to London posing as the children of a stranger, Mrs Bankole, so that they can travel on her passport. When their Uncle Dele fails to collect them at the airport, Mrs Bankole abandons them at a coffee shop near Victoria Station. Moneyless and friendless, they wander the streets looking for the art college where their uncle works. They find refuge in a video store, but the owner calls the police, believing them to be vandals. Thus they come to the attention of the authorities. Worried about telling the truth in case it endangers their father, Sade takes refuge in silence and later in half-truths. The children are fostered first by Mrs Graham and her rude and mean son Kevin and later by the Kings, a Jamaican couple whose children have grown up and left. They are sent to different schools. Sade is sent to Avon High School where she meets a girl from Somalia, called Mariam, whose story is similar to Sade's. Marcia and Donna the bullies from school treat Sade very badly, putting pressure on her to steal a turquoise lighter from Mariam's uncle's store. Femi goes to Greenslades Primary School. They become reticent with each other.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1,000_Recordings_to_Hear_Before_You_Die" title="1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die">
It consists of a list of recordings, mostly albums (with some singles), arranged alphabetically by artist or composer. Each entry in the list is accompanied by a short essay followed by genre classifications, Moon's choices for "key tracks" from albums, the next recommended recording from the same artist or composer, and pointers to recordings on the list by other artists that are similar or otherwise related.Moon also includes a postscript of "108 more recordings to know about".Moon was a music critic at "The Philadelphia Inquirer" for 20 years, and has contributed to "Rolling Stone", "Blender", and other publications.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semper_Mars" title="Semper Mars">
Set in 2040, the United States finds itself among a hostile world with only Britain, Russia, and Japan as reluctant allies. The dominant force in the world today is the United Nations, which has evolved into a world government and is challenging the US as the world’s sole superpower, motivated for the “greater good.” It has invaded Brazil because of Brazil’s lack of care for the rainforest and it wants the US to give up part of the southwest America for a Hispanic nation known as Aztlán. The UN capital is located at Geneva, Switzerland.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_in_the_Air_(novel)" title="Up in the Air (novel)">
Ryan Bingham is a 35-year-old career transition counselor for a Denver-based management consulting company, Integrated Strategic Management (ISM). He is divorced and his disturbed younger sister is about to embark on yet another disastrous relationship. He flies around the country firing and then counseling recently laid-off people for reentering the job market.Bingham inhabits a world of Palm Pilots, rental cars, salted almonds, Kevlar luggage and nameless suite hotels where e-mail and voicemail are the communication norm. He takes a lot of pills and spends time among women in Las Vegas.Bingham is trying to get to ten million frequent flyer miles, a number only reached by nine other people in the same mileage club (from the fictional airline Great West). Before his boss returns from vacation, Bingham files his letter of resignation and cancels his company credit card. Bingham is positioning himself to be hired by MythTech, a shadowy company based in Omaha, Nebraska.Bingham fears that someone may be furtively cashing in his precious miles, which would be tantamount to stealing his soul.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hard_Life" title="The Hard Life">
The story opens with the narrator, Finbarr, recalling the death of his mother in 1890, when he was around five years old. He and his brother Manus (often referred to simply as "the brother") are raised in the home of their half-uncle, Mr Collopy. Collopy lives with his partner Mrs Crotty – it is unclear if they are married and the narrator can only speculate as to why she retained the name of her first husband – and Annie, Collopy's daughter from an earlier marriage. Finbarr describes Collopy's home as a squalid environment where the boys are served greasy meatballs for dinner, a household with a "dead atmosphere" offering little opportunity for amusement. Collopy and the parish priest, a German Jesuit domiciled in Dublin and bearing the comical name of Father Fahrt, frequently indulge in long bouts of drinking, and none of the adults exhibits much concern for the child's welfare.Finbarr attends Synge Street Christian Brothers School, the former school of O'Brien/O'Nolan himself, while Manus attends Westland Row Christian Brothers School. Both schools are run by the Catholic Christian Brothers, both boys detest their schools with equal passion, and O'Brien mocks both with equal contempt. Finbarr's first impression of his school is that it resembles a prison: he describes the horrors of corporal punishment by "the leather" in detail, and refers to "struggling through the wretched homework, cursing Wordsworth and Euclid and Christian Doctrine and similar scourges of youth".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bend_in_the_Road" title="A Bend in the Road">
Miles Ryan's life seemed to end the day his wife Missy was killed in a hit-and-run accident two years ago. As deputy sheriff of New Bern, North Carolina, he not only grieves for her and worries about their young son Jonah but longs to bring the unknown driver to justice. Then Miles meets Sarah Andrews, Jonah's second grade teacher. A young woman recovering from a difficult divorce, Sarah moved to New Bern hoping to start over. Tentatively, Miles and Sarah reach out to each other... soon they are falling in love. But what neither realizes is that they are also bound together by a shocking secret, one that will force them to reexamine everything they believe in- including their love.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunes_for_a_Small_Harmonica" title="Tunes for a Small Harmonica">
J.F. receives a harmonica from friend for her birthday and ends up learning to play it. She becomes quite good and this skill becomes useful after she ends up falling in love with her poetry teacher. She then attempts to raise $1000 to help her teacher return to England to finish his Master's thesis.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Immigrants" title="The Immigrants">
Born on the voyage to America to his French father and Italian mother, Daniel Lavette grows up helping his father on a fishing boat. Tragedy strikes early one morning, however, when Dan wakes early to prepare the boat. The great San Francisco earthquake destroys vast swathes of the city including the small apartment where his parents were sleeping. Following a traumatic three days spent ferrying passengers across the bay to Oakland, he is taken in by friends of his father. The two immigrant families of Italian and Jewish origin use the money earned from the ferrying to start a financial empire and a bank, the Bank of Sonoma.Although Dan Lavette becomes quite rich, he does not stop. He wants to become a multimillionaire and has many ideas in mind. He is an entrepreneur and seeks to find his place among the rich businessmen on Nob Hill. He asks for a loan from the larger Seldon Bank in San Francisco, but the owner declines it. During that meeting, Dan meets Jean, the exquisitely beautiful daughter of the owner, and both are smitten with each other. Soon after, they are married, against the will of Jean's mother, who looks down on immigrants and those of poor pedigree.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Solo_(novel)" title="Flying Solo (novel)">
Mr. Fabiano has a substitute teacher who calls in sick on April 28. When his class arrives, they discover that their substitute teacher has not shown up. The class decides they will not report this to administration and decide to run the classroom by themselves. The students follow the instructions left by their teacher, and all goes fairly smoothly. However, at the end of the day, during a special assembly when all of the teachers are supposed to come up on stage, the class is discovered when they only had a little time left of the school day. At the end of the story, Mr. Fabiano realises that they could run the class by themselves and they go solo.Characters
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_Boy_(novel)" title="Spider Boy (novel)">
Bobby Ballenger is starting a new school a thousand miles from his old home. He moved from Illinois to New Paltz, New York and his interest in spiders has earned him the nickname of Spider Boy from Illinois given to him by the class bully. His pet tarantula has not eaten since the family moved which has made him nervous about its health. Bobby keeps a journal where he records interesting facts about spiders and then uses it to record his frustrations and realizations about his new school.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Bourse" title="La Bourse">
The young painter Hippolyte Schinner falls from a step-ladder while working in his atelier and is knocked unconscious. The noise of his fall alerts two of his neighbours, Adélaïde Leseigneur and her mother Madame de Rouville, who occupy the apartment immediately below. The two women revive the young man and an acquaintance is struck up. Inevitably, the young painter falls in love with Adélaïde and over the following weeks he pays frequent visits to her apartment. There he is always warmly welcomed, but he cannot help noticing the unmistakable signs of poverty – a poverty that the two women are at obvious pains to hide. Hippolyte's suspicions are aroused. The mother and her daughter have different surnames; they are reluctant to reveal anything of their past; and what is Hippolyte to make of the two old friends of the mother, the Comte de Kergarouet and the Chevalier du Halga, who regularly visit her to play cards for money, but who always lose to her as though on purpose?Hippolyte discovers that Madame de Rouville's late husband was a naval captain who died at Batavia from wounds received in an engagement with an English vessel. The Comte de Kergarouet, it transpires, is a former comrade of Baron de Rouville. Hippolyte offers to draw a portrait of Monsieur de Rouville, a fading sketch of whom is hanging in the apartment. Two months later, when the finished portrait is hung in Madame de Rouville's apartment, the Comte de Kergarouet offers Hippolyte 500 pistoles to have his own portrait painted in a similar style. Hippolyte, however, suspects that the old man is offering him the price of both portraits while paying for his own, and he declines the offer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inherent_Vice" title="Inherent Vice">
The novel is set in Los Angeles in 1970. Larry "Doc" Sportello, a private investigator and pothead, receives a visit from his former girlfriend Shasta Fay Hepworth, who is now having an affair with real-estate mogul Michael Z. "Mickey" Wolfmann. Shasta asks Doc to help foil a plot allegedly hatched by Mickey's wife Sloane and her lover, Riggs Warbling, to have Mickey admitted to a mental health institution. Later, a black militant named Tariq Khalil asks Doc to find Glen Charlock, one of Mickey's bodyguards—Tariq claims that Charlock owes him money after their time spent together in prison.Doc visits one of Mickey's developments but is knocked unconscious, and awakes to find himself being questioned by his old LAPD nemesis, Det. Christian F. "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, who informs Doc that Charlock has been shot dead and Mickey has vanished. Later, Doc is visited by Hope Harlingen, the widow of a musician named Coy Harlingen, who wants Doc to investigate rumors that Coy is still alive. Doc learns that Coy has been working for the government as an informer and "agent provocateur", but is allowed no contact with his family. He finds Coy in a nightclub, who tells Doc about the "Golden Fang", an old schooner suspected of bringing mysterious goods into port, and upon which both Mickey and Shasta are rumored to have departed. He also discovers that Puck Beaverton had switched shifts with Charlock on the day of Charlock's death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fig_Pudding" title="Fig Pudding">
Cliff is twelve old and the oldest of six children in his family who live in Ballingsford. As Christmas nears, Cliff's grandmother arrives for a visit. Cliff's baby brother is rushed to the hospital with a severe illness. While he is recovering in the hospital on Christmas Eve, his family finally figure out that the "yidda yadda" he has been asking Santa Claus for is a little ladder like the one used to climb up to the top of a bunk bed. The entire family work together to build Josh a ladder and deliver it on Christmas morning. Later, Cliff's first grade brother, Brad, drives his bicycle into an ambulance and dies in the hospital while his family comes to see him. His mother is heart broken when she is told that Brad could not be saved. Brad was buried in his favorite soccer shirt that his mother found and washed and had been crying on. As Brad was being buried, Cliff realized that Brad was gone forever. The family spends the next Christmas at a resort trying to adjust to the loss of Brad but the trip does not seem to work. Their spirits rise during a New Year's party at Aunt Pat's house. When they arrive at the party, Josh accidentally steps into Dad's special fig pudding that they were bringing. Dad removes the shoe, smooths down the pudding, and swears the children to secrecy. They all keep a straight face until Uncle Eddie says that the fig pudding is the best ever and asks Dad if he has added some new ingredient. They all laugh when the real story of the shoe is told.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hour_of_the_Star" title="The Hour of the Star">
The novel starts with the narrator, Rodrigo S.M., discussing what it means to write a story. He addresses the reader directly and spends a lot of time talking about his philosophical beliefs. After some time, he begins the story, which centers on Macabéa, an impoverished 19 year old living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She leads a difficult life, but seems to be oblivious to this fact. She starts dating a boy named Olímpico, who mistreats her and eventually leaves her for her coworker, Gloria. Feeling guilty, Gloria recommends that Macabéa visit a fortune teller named Madame Carlota. She predicts that Macabéa's life will soon turn around, saying that she will be rich, happy, and marry a foreigner named Hans. However, none of this comes true as Macabéa's life comes to an abrupt end when a yellow Mercedes runs her over.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Daddy" title="Uncle Daddy">
Rivers's father abandoned his wife and son when the son is three years old, he goes out to get a pizza and does not come back. His mother's uncle moves in and becomes "Uncle Daddy". Rivers is living a fairly typical life for a nine-year-old boy when his father returns after a six-year absence. The return of Rivers's father threatens to tear the family apart until Uncle Daddy suffers a near fatal heart attack. Rivers and his parents come together to support Uncle Daddy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Came_Back_to_Show_You_I_Could_Fly" title="Came Back to Show You I Could Fly">
The novel begins with shy, eleven-year-old Seymour staying with Thelma, an acquaintance of his mother for the summer holidays. Seymour's parents have split and are arguing over custody of him. After a drunken threat by Seymour's father to take him away interstate, his mother has Seymour relocated to Thelma's house on Victoria Road. Where Seymour is bored and lonely. During the day, while Thelma is at work, Seymour is not allowed to open the door, or leave the house, because of his mother's fear that his father might come and find him.However one morning Seymour decides to climb over the back gate and walk to the nearby shops. He goes to a park where a group of children tease him. Not knowing how to defend himself, Seymour runs away and is chased. In desperation he goes through a random gate and meets a young girl: Angie. Angie is described as in her late teens, and as a beautiful angel. Seymour is drawn to Angie because she treats him with the affection and friendliness that he lacks from his parents. Angie takes him on outings to horse races, her mother's house, shops, and a restaurant. Over the course of the novel Seymour's faint suspicions about Angie develop, but he refuses to consider them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baifa_Monü_Zhuan" title="Baifa Monü Zhuan">
The story is set in 17th-century China towards the end of the Ming dynasty. Lian Nichang, a female bandit leader nicknamed "Jade Rakshasa", is introduced as an impressive vigilante-heroine who uses her legendary swordplay skills to uphold justice in the "jianghu" (martial artists' community). However, she is also notorious for being brutal and aggressive towards her enemies, which makes her a highly dreaded figure in the "jianghu". Meanwhile, many government officials are implicated in a scandal to overthrow the crown prince, and they are either executed or imprisoned. Zhuo Yihang of the Wudang Sect helps the crown prince uncover the truth behind the case and succeeds in clearing the name of his father, who had been wrongly put to death.On the journey home, Zhuo Yihang passes by Mount Hua, where he meets a beautiful young maiden and falls in love with her. The following night, Zhuo joins some martial artists in a duel against the "Jade Rakshasa". However, he is shocked when he sees that the woman he met earlier is actually the "Jade Rakshasa", Lian Nichang. After he makes another startling discovery that the martial artists he is helping are actually spies working for the Manchus, he quickly switches sides and helps Lian Nichang defeat the spies. Zhuo Yihang and Lian Nichang also meet and befriend a formidable swordsman, Yue Mingke, who is serving as a military attaché under the general Xiong Tingbi. After a friendly duel, Yue Mingke and Lian Nichang realise that their respective masters used to be a loving couple, but have separated due to a rivalry over achieving supremacy in swordplay.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Missing_Piece_(book)" title="The Missing Piece (book)">
The story centers on a circular shape-like creature that is missing a wedge-shaped piece of itself. It doesn't like this, and sets out to find its missing piece, singing:It starts out on a grand adventure searching for the perfect piece to complete itself, while singing and enjoying the scenery. But after the circle finally finds the exact-sized wedge that fits it, it begins to realize that it can no longer do the things it used to enjoy doing, like singing or rolling slowly enough to enjoy the company of a worm or butterfly. It decides that it was happier when searching for the missing piece than actually having it. So it gently puts the piece down, and continues searching happily.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Lo_Moves_the_Mountain" title="Ming Lo Moves the Mountain">
A mountain towers over the little house where Ming Lo and his wife live, blocking sunlight and attracting rain. Ming Lo's wife tells Ming Lo that he must move the mountain. They follow the local wise man's advice without success. Finally, he tells them to perform a long dance with closed eyes while carrying all they possess, including the sticks of which their house is built. When they open their eyes, they find that the mountain has moved and happily rebuild their home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wings_of_the_Falcon" title="Wings of the Falcon">
Set during Italian Risorgimento of 1860, Francesca Fairbourn arrives in Italy after she becomes an orphan to live with her mother's family.Her aristocratic Italian mother and English father had eloped which resulted in her getting disowned by her family. Francesca's mother died during her birth which left Francesca's father to raise her all alone. When she left school at 18 she lost her father and was in desperate situation until her dashing young cousin Andrea del Tarconti rescues her and sends her to Italy to the aristocratic home of Tarconti Castle. Once there Francesca finds herself intertwined in web of political intrigue as a local disguised hero named Il Falcone is helping peasants fight against tyrant rulers. Francesca realizes that the" 'Il Falcone' "is closer to her family than she thinks.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enchanted_Glass" title="Enchanted Glass">
"Enchanted Glass" is set in the fictional town of Melstone, England. Near the town of Melstone is Melstone House, an old place which Andrew Hope has inherited from his grandfather. With Melstone House comes a "field-of-care" which is a region of magical responsibility. Unfortunately, Andrew does not quite grasp the full implications of this, causing many of the problems in the story.Shortly after Andrew takes possession of Melstone House, Aidan Cain appears on his doorstep, asking for help. His recently deceased grandmother had told him that the owner of Melstone House could help him, if he ever needed it. Aidan is being pursued by an unknown force, which turns out to be the fairy king Oberon, who thinks he is his son.Together, Andrew and Aidan must unravel the mystery of Melstone House, and gain control of their magic.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delivering_Happiness" title="Delivering Happiness">
The book is divided into three sections: Profits; Profits and Passion; and Profits, Passion, and Purpose. It is written in narrative form and includes short 1-2 page entries from Hsieh's friends and employees. In the first section, Hsieh details his entrepreneurial adventures from when he was young until he was in college. These include his attempt to start an earthworm breeding business at the age of 9, a mail order button business in middle school, and a grille at Harvard University. After college, Hsieh founded LinkExchange, which he sold to Microsoft for $265 million two years later. He founded Venture Frogs, an investment fund, of which Zappos was one of the investments.The second section, Profits and Passion, details Hsieh's involvement with Zappos, beginning with joining the company full-time as CEO in 2000. The third section, Profits, Passion, and Purpose, covers Zappos sale to Amazon, as well as lessons Hsieh learned in public relations and public speaking.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Strange_Discovery" title="A Strange Discovery">
## Part 1: How We Found Dirk Peters.The story is set in 1877, forty nine years after the events in "Arthur Gordon Pym", and thirty-nine years after the publication of that book.The narrator is an Englishman traveling in the United States to settle business interests in Southern Illinois. During his stay in Bellevue, Belleville, he makes acquaintance with two local doctors, an older man, Dr. George F. Castleton, and the younger Dr. Bainbridge. Dr. Castleton is an eccentric local character given to extravagant opinions, and the narrator mentions that he was later the Prohibition Party candidate for Governor of Illinois. During a discussion of Poe's works and "Arthur Gordon Pym", Dr. Castleton reveals that Peters is a patient of his.Much of the first section is given to the narrator's observations on American society and to discussions between him, Castleton, and Bainbridge on topics ranging from poetry and literature, to U.S. and European politics, to Christianity and agnosticism, to medical science.Bainbridge describes his earlier discovery, at the Astor Library in New York, of a book written in 1594 and published in 1728, of a narrative purporting to tell the story of a sailor on Sir Francis Drake's voyage of circumnavigation. According to this book, Drake's ship was driven by a storm for two weeks, until, deep in the Antarctic, he arrived at a city which the author describes as comparable to Venice, but more beautiful than any European city of that time.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesper_(novel)" title="Vesper (novel)">
"Vesper" follows the character of Emily Webb, a geeky girl that is more likely to stay at home and watch old horror films than go to parties. Unbeknownst to her, she's been sneaking out to go to parties and thrill seek when Emily thought she was asleep. She first takes notice of her nocturnal activities when one of her classmates that shares her name has been found murdered. Despite her attempts to prevent herself from going out, Emily's other self keeps going out and getting wilder with each passing night. This other Emily is not only wilder, but stronger and faster than her normal self. As Emily tries to figure out what's going on with her, she discovers that she's not the only person that's changing as well.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Chifrudo" title="O Chifrudo">
"O Chifrudo" is a comedy that requires actors with great experience and versatility. This text gave opportunity to the author, "Miguel M. Abrahão", to reassess, on his way, one of the most common themes and best known in world literature: the love triangle. The story is not focused on the content melodramatic as one would predict. First and foremost is an acid criticism of consumerism."Dayse", the woman is presented to the public as consumer object, just as "Hermes", her husband, her lover, "Dondoco", or even the two neighboring, whose profiles are comically different.With surprise ending and original, the piece always captivated audiences in the country and gave great opportunities to actors in search of roles that allow for true theatrical performance and not the easy laughter and obvious humor of modern.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pássaro_da_Manhã" title="Pássaro da Manhã">
"Pássaro da Manhã" shows the trajectory of "Tuca" and "Tom", two teenagers somewhere in the universe who philosophize about life, at the same time that, desperately, seek an identity and a hope for mankind in order to save her from a sad condition. This is a dramatic text which brings us the poetry and lyricism of a time lost. In 1984, João Vitti won the award for Best Actor at the "Salesian Theatre Festival" (São Paulo) with "TOM" character.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_Wine_(novel)" title="Bread and Wine (novel)">
Pietro Spina is a young revolutionary who is being sought by authorities. He takes on the disguise of an old priest known as Don Paolo Spada.Pietro lives in Abruzzo, in village of Pietrasecca (Marsica), and is forced to pretend to be a priest, to avoid arousing suspicion. The fascist police is on his trail, and Pietro has only a few friends to rely on. Meanwhile, the young man is in contact with the sad reality of ignorant peasants of the village of Pietrasecca: he realizes that to make a revolution against fascism is always difficult, because the problem of the revolution is at its own root. In Abruzzo there are many backward villages, such as Pietrasecca, where the laws of nature and the peasants are inviolable. Meanwhile, Pietro Spina falls in love with a girl, but can not reveal his true identity...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_and_Pete" title="Tim and Pete">
Two former gay lovers, Pete, and the narrator of the novel Tim, are reunited when Tim needs a ride back to Los Angeles. They go on a surreal adventure over the next day-and-a-half, most of it in cars, with memories of the last twenty years, including tea rooms and bathhouses, increasingly enraging them at the AIDS pandemic destruction. Sleep deprived, using gallows humor and self-medicating with mescaline-spiked drinks they travel through an increasingly hostile environment meeting a bizarre and queer cast of supporting characters who fuel undercurrent rage at society's homophobia and the LGBT community's apathy. They meet an occult-obsessed indie filmmaker, leather-dykes, a Southern belle drag queen and then four anarchistic gays who are HIV-positive. The quartet reflect the hopelessness felt as their friends die and the country does little to counteract a "gay" disease. They hope to win the cultural war by assassinating ex-President Ronald Reagan, who did little for the first four years of growing HIV-AIDS epidemic, by bombing him at a church service. Tim and Pete convince the plotters to change targets to a meeting of the American Family Association, a group known for its anti-LGBT rhetoric that led to the failed response to AIDS, where there would be fewer "innocent" victims.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Miseducation_of_Ross_O'Carroll-Kelly" title="The Miseducation of Ross O'Carroll-Kelly">
Ross O'Carroll-Kelly attends Castlerock College (a portmanteau of Castleknock College and Blackrock College), a prestigious South Dublin private secondary school, where academe takes a back seat to rugby union. He aims to lead the school to the Leinster Schools Rugby Senior Cup.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roysh_Here,_Roysh_Now…_The_Teenage_Dirtbag_Years" title="Roysh Here, Roysh Now… The Teenage Dirtbag Years">
Ross begins higher education, of a sort, at University College Dublin and between terms takes a break to the United States.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Orange_Mocha-Chip_Frappuccino_Years" title="The Orange Mocha-Chip Frappuccino Years">
After dropping out of college and being kicked out of home by his parents, Ross finds work as an estate agent for Hook, Lyon and Sinker.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS,_I_Scored_the_Bridesmaids" title="PS, I Scored the Bridesmaids">
Ross' request for Sorcha's hand in marriage is finally accepted. At the wedding comes a shocking revelation: Ross is already a father to a son he knew nothing about.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curious_Incident_of_the_Dog_in_the_Nightdress" title="The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress">
Ross deals with the fallout from the discovery of his seven-year-old son, a working-class Northsider named Ronan. His father Charles stands for election to Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Should_Have_Got_Off_at_Sydney_Parade" title="Should Have Got Off at Sydney Parade">
Sorcha is pregnant; Ross begins to experience a sympathetic pregnancy. His mother, Fionnuala, becomes a successful chick-lit author, but her realistic depiction of financial crime causes suspicion to fall on his father's affairs. Ross and his friends invest in Lillie's Bordello, a Dublin nightclub.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Champagne_Mojito_Is_the_Last_Thing_I_Own" title="This Champagne Mojito Is the Last Thing I Own">
Ross's father Charles is imprisoned, Ross is forced to work for a living as the economic crash coincides with his father's downfall, and his wife Sorcha leaves him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_S_and_the_Secrets_of_Andorra's_Box" title="Mr S and the Secrets of Andorra's Box">
Ross becomes the coach of the Andorra national rugby union team. It is revealed that Ross's longtime crush Erika is his half-sister. Ross also attempts psychotherapy as he tries to copy with separation from Sorcha and Honor. Immaculata, the African orphan that Sorcha once sponsored, arrives at the door. J.P. leaves the seminary, while Fionnuala becomes a TV chef.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhino_What_You_Did_Last_Summer" title="Rhino What You Did Last Summer">
Ross travels to Los Angeles to win Sorcha back; he and his family become reality television stars on "Ross, His Mother, His Wife and Her Lover"; Ross is persuaded to undergo cosmetic surgery, and Honor becomes addicted to caffeine. Fionnuala's novels begin to earn popularity in America.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oh_My_God_Delusion" title="The Oh My God Delusion">
As the economic crisis deepens, Ross and his family continue to struggle financially, with Ross moving to a ghost estate. Additionally, he and his friends face being stripped of their Leinster Schools Senior Cup medals.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil's_Company" title="The Devil's Company">
This third memoir installment begins in November of 1722, eight months after the 1722 General Election that provided the historical setting for "A Spectacle of Corruption". This time, Weaver finds himself involved in puzzling and dangerous events surrounding the all-powerful East India Company.Victimized, along with family and friends, by an elaborate extortion scheme, Weaver is forced to spy and steal for the enigmatic Jerome Cobb. Under Cobb's direction, Weaver infiltrates the Company and attempts to learn its secrets before the upcoming meeting of the board of directors (called the Court of Proprietors). Trouble is, Cobb won't (or can't) say exactly what he's looking for, or why. As is typical in this genre, the truth is not revealed until the final pages.Along the way, Weaver meets a colorful assortment of characters, including a betel-nut chewing Company director, an obsessive-compulsive clerk, a bi-sexual bigamist inventor, the London silk-weavers' guild master and several varieties of international spy. The agents of France - Britain's arch-enemy throughout the 18th Century - are deeply involved. And it turns out that India's Mughal Emperor, on whose domains the East India Company is steadily encroaching, also has his own Man in London.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paper_Men" title="The Paper Men">
The protagonist in the novel is Wilfred Barclay, a curmudgeonly writer who has a drinking problem, a dead marriage, and the incurable itches of middle-aged lust. Barclay is irritated by a young professor, Rick Tucker, who is determined to write Barclay's biography and is desperate to gain control of the writer's personal papers. Tucker pursues Barclay across Europe, where both men sacrifice relationships, self-respect, and ultimately themselves in this lethal pursuit.The ending is both inevitable and shocking and exposes the desperation of the literary biographer and the determination of the subject to maintain control over the story of his own life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Lives_of_Fortunate_Wives" title="The Secret Lives of Fortunate Wives">
In the luxurious neighborhood of Hunting Hills, Ohio, Marti Dench realizes her husband is never around and suspects he is having an affair. At the same time, John Harding comes back from Prague with a new wife who is far from the normal size two socialites of Hunting Hill. The instant Marti hears John, a long time friend, is newly married, she experiences jealousy and believes that John is the real love of her life. She then sets out to seduce John and begin an affair with him.John's new (and second) wife, Clare Stark, has difficulty settling into life at Hunting Hills. Once a hot-shot journalist, Claire is now forced to be a stay-at-home wife, as her new husband has a bad history with the only newspaper in town, and Claire has a romantic history with the chief editor of that paper. The other wives aren't so welcoming, and John's mother disapproves of Claire. Claire befriends Marti, who goes out of her way to invite Claire to their exclusive book club and throws a party in Claire and John's honour, but (unbeknownst to Claire) only as a ploy to get John into bed. Claire, none the wiser, continues to try to make friends with the other Hunting Hills wives.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Design_(book)" title="The Grand Design (book)">
The book examines the history of scientific knowledge about the universe. It starts with the Ionian Greeks, who claimed that nature works by laws, and not by the will of the gods. It later presents the work of Nicolaus Copernicus, who advocated the concept that the Earth is not located in the center of the universe.It has tried to explain the topics in an easier manner. Many examples related from daily life, mythology and history have been taken to explain, such as- Viking Mythology about Skoll and Hati, movie "The Matrix", Ptolemaic universe. The authors then describe the theory of quantum mechanics using, as an example, the probable movement of an electron around a room. The presentation has been described as easy to understand by some reviewers, but also as sometimes "impenetrable," by others.The central claim of the book is that the theory of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity together help us understand how universes could have formed out of nothing.The authors write: The authors explain, in a manner consistent with M-theory, that as the Earth is only one of several planets in our Solar System, and as our Milky Way galaxy is only one of many galaxies, the same may apply to our universe itself: that is, our universe may be one of a huge number of universes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pichilemu_Blues" title="Pichilemu Blues">
The "Pichilemu Blues" story is situated in Pichilemu during the summer of 1973. The main characters are a group of teenagers that are discovering a world abounded with hippies, sexual revolutions, ideological transformations, its own language (Chilean Spanish) and anxiety to change the world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Dinheiro" title="O Dinheiro">
"O Dinheiro", written in 1976 and revised by the author in other opportunities, is the best-known work of dramaturgy by Miguel M. Abrahão. Combining fakeness, comedy and detective's elements, this story is about a family that is made prisoner in an isolated mansion for twelve years, just to receive uncle Josafa Paranhos I's inheritance, following the rules of a really creepy will.Each character presents a pathological deviation, all linked to the habit of collecting something (syringes, boards, men, spiders), or fixed ideas (such as ET or famous characters in American films).At the end of the twelve years, advocates of Josafá require that hosts in the mansion, a young man intern: "Alexandre Pousa". And, coincidentally with his arrival, apparently accidental deaths begin to occur at the mansion, leaving the question in the air: murders or fatalities?
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purge_(novel)" title="Purge (novel)">
The plot begins in 1992 with an elderly woman, Aliide Truu, who lives in a remote portion of Estonia. The woman had isolated herself from the surrounding society and watches the youth of her nation, including her daughter, leaving the countryside for the more urban regions and Finland. One day while looking out the kitchen window, she discovers Zara, the granddaughter of her sister Ingel. Zara had been forced into sex trade by the Russian mafia, but has escaped from them. The only guide she had to finding help is a photograph from her grandmother with Aliide's name on it. The story then continues with a series of flashbacks, which develops the relationship between Aliide and her sister, which hinged upon their competition for the love of Hans Pekk during World War II. The story ends as Aliide begins to reconcile herself with her jealousy of her sister, and Zara's redemption from her disenchantment with the world caused by her sexual subjugation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golf_in_the_Kingdom" title="Golf in the Kingdom">
While on layover on his way to an ashram in India, Michael Murphy decides to play a round of golf at Burningbush, a famous local golf course. There he meets the mysterious and charismatic golf pro Shivas Irons who over a 24-hour period teaches him about golf and spirituality.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Above_All" title="This Above All">
Spending leave together on the South Coast during the Battle of Britain and the beginning of the blitz, Clive and Prudence have an affair. Having survived Dunkirk, but having a crisis of conscience over what the war is being fought for and disgusted at the incompetence of the ruling elite, Clive decides not to return to the Army and to go absent without leave.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Casa_(play)" title="A Casa (play)">
"A Casa", tells a simple story, but its great strength lies in the description passionate and accomplice of the characters.The theme of the play revolves around a seemingly bitter and cynical idea: "a woman should become a prostitute, to sustain itself without effort"."Josinalda", a lady of strict principles, maintains in his house with his meager salary, Liduina, your sister, "Fredegund", your niece, and "Creuzilene", your neighbor .Life is peaceful and marked by seemingly commons issues until, unexpectedly, a bandit enters the residence of distinguished ladies, making them hostages.The play then becomes a police comedy, and thus a fascinating intellectual game of cat and mouse, where not everything looks, like really is.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westwind_(novel)" title="Westwind (novel)">
The Zephyr computer system monitors the progress of the United Kingdom's only spy satellite. When this system briefly goes offline, the book's main characters Hepton and Dreyfuss (the sole survivor of a space shuttle crash) have the only key to the enigma that must be solved if both men are to stay alive.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_(novel)" title="Room (novel)">
Five-year old Jack lives with his 26-year old Ma in "Room", a secured single-room outbuilding containing a small kitchen, a basic bathroom, a wardrobe, a bed, and a TV set. Because it is all he has ever known, Jack believes that only Room and the things it contains (including himself and Ma) are "real." Ma, unwilling to disappoint Jack with a life she cannot give him, allows Jack to believe that the rest of the world exists only on television. Ma tries her best to keep Jack healthy and happy via both physical and mental exercises, keeping a healthy diet, limiting TV-watching time, and strict body and oral hygiene. The only other person Jack has ever seen is "Old Nick," who visits Room at night while Jack sleeps hidden in a wardrobe. Old Nick brings them food and necessities. Jack is unaware that Old Nick kidnapped Ma when she was 19 years old and has kept her imprisoned for the past seven years. Old Nick regularly rapes Ma; Jack is the product of one such sexual assault.A week after Jack's fifth birthday, Ma learns Old Nick has been unemployed for the past six months and is in danger of losing his home to foreclosure. Feeling certain that Old Nick would kill them both before letting them free, Ma comes up with a plan to get Jack out of Room by convincing Old Nick that Jack is deathly ill. Jack is unable to conceptualize being outside of Room or interacting with other people, but Ma eventually convinces him to help her. When Old Nick refuses to take Jack to a hospital, Ma then pretends that Jack has died. Old Nick removes Jack, wrapped in a rug, from Room. Jack escapes Old Nick and manages to reach a friendly stranger who contacts the police. In spite of his inability to communicate effectively, Jack describes the route to Room to an officer to free Ma.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daydreamer_(novel)" title="The Daydreamer (novel)">
The book comprises seven interlinked stories about a young boy, Peter Fortune, whose daydreams place him into various fantastic situations: he discovers a cream that makes people vanish and makes his family disappear, he conquers a bully on the thought that life was a dream so he had nothing to lose but to wake up, he switches body with his cat and fights off a new tabby stray, he transforms into his baby cousin and experiences the joys of being a toddler, his sister's dolls become alive and attack him, he imagines that the old neighbor becomes a thief and, in the last story, he turns into an adult and discovers that adults' lives are not as boring as he thought. He is 10 years old at the start of the novel and 12 at the end.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dæmos_Rising" title="Dæmos Rising">
Kate Lethbridge-Stewart responds to a message from ex-UNIT operative Douglas Cavendish to investigate a haunting.Arriving at Cavendish's isolated cottage, she faces a demonic power her father had previously battled. Summoned by a future tyranny, a Dæmon is set to return to Earth. It is up to Kate and Cavendish to save the planet and its future.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enemy's_Cosmetique" title="The Enemy's Cosmetique">
"Without wanting to, I have committed the perfect crime: nobody saw me coming, except for the victim. The proof, I am still free."The whole story takes place at an airport. Jérôme Angust, a man on a business trip, waits for a delayed flight. He meets another man, who introduces himself as Textor Texel from Holland. At first Angust is annoyed by Texel, who insists on talking to him, despite cues that Angust is not interested in being engaged. He wonders why Texel insists on talking to him. Texel explains that he simply wants to, and he always does exactly what he wants. Eventually Angust becomes drawn into the conversation. Texel begins telling a story about his childhood, in which he believes he "murdered" one of his elementary-school classmates. Texel explains that as a child he had always been envious of the boy (named Franck) who was more popular than Texel, and so one night he prayed to God that Franck would die. The next morning it was revealed that the Franck had died unexpectedly during the night of cardiac arrest.The conversation between Texel and Angust continues, and Texel tells another story from his childhood. When Texel was around 12 years old he lived with his grandparents, and one of his jobs was to mix the cat food and serve it to the cats. He hated the job, as the fish and rice concoction always nauseated him and he had to close his eyes while he mixed it. One day however, he forced himself to eat it, and found it so appealing that he ravenously ate all of the cat food himself while the cats looked on. Texel explains that he does not believe in God or the Devil, but rather in "l'ennemi," the self's personal enemy that is inside of everyone. At this point, Angust decides he has heard enough and tries to block out Texel's words by covering his ears with his hands. Eventually however, his arms become tired and he is forced to lower them. The conversation continues.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Dormition_des_amants" title="La Dormition des amants">
This is an historical novel set in the seventeenth-century. Maria Concepcion (queen presumptive) is the daughter of King Carlos of Spain. While she is trained for ascendency, Maria treats her small castrated slave, Girolamo, with great compassion and he gradually becomes her playmate and confidant. Together, they learn to read and write, and science.In 1610, Henri IV was assassinated by Ravaillac. Édouard (a fictional king invented by the author) ascends the throne. Maria is to marry Édouard and become the queen of France. Girolamo comes with Maria to France and are inseparable; he even sleeps in a room next to that of the Queen. But their love is only platonic and can never become carnal.Here we find a little myth of Tristan and Isolde.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Comadres" title="As Comadres">
"Beth Beast", feminist leader, reversing the prevailing values and seeking to take over and lead women around the country to assume a dominant position and autocratic before men, resolves to promote a congress in his home in order to educate the girls of the true status of women in society. The problem occurs when "Amelia", submissive neighbor, decides to participate in discussions and carries with her husband "Almeida", a typical macho incorrigible.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Squirrel_Wife" title="The Squirrel Wife">
On a dark and stormy night. Jack, a young swineherd, hears cries for help from amidst the storm ravaged trees. Ignoring the warnings of his wicked elder brother, he ventures into the forest. In reward for saving the life of a little green man that he finds trapped underneath a fallen tree, Jack is given a magic golden ring. Placed on the wrist of a newborn squirrel, this grants him the love of a nimble and wild eyed little squirrel wife. The only place for their life together as man and wife is in the forest where Jack builds their house and learns all there is to know about living in amidst the trees. However, it is not long before Jack's elder brother hears rumor of his young sibling's success and sets about bringing his good fortune to an end. With the aid of his squirrel wife and the lord of the little green forest people, Jack gets to live happily ever after whilst his elder brother is kept as a servant to the forest men so that he might learn some wisdom.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_the_Dark_(Weber_novel)" title="Out of the Dark (Weber novel)">
The 2010s: Alien scientists from an alliance of races known as the Galactic Hegemony review footage of the Battle of Agincourt, taken by a survey ship during the Hundred Years' War. They liken humans to the carnivorous, vulpine Shongairi, a species recently admitted to the Hegemony. Ultimately, a Shongairi fleet is sent to establish control of Earth in the name of the Hegemony. Upon arrival in the Solar System, the Shongairi are amazed to discover that in six centuries since the Agincourt survey, the technology base of Earth has advanced considerably, to the Hegemony's classification of "Level II."The Hegemony constitution prohibits conquest of any Level II or higher society. Fleet Commander Thikair, head of the Shongairi expedition, resolves to ignore this law in service of Shongairi plans to advance beyond their Hegemony rivals and ultimately conquer the galaxy; a human client state could provide scientists and soldiers to this end. Furthermore, the Hegemony's leaders have quietly authorized the Shongairi to attack the "bloodthirsty" humans. Hegemony leaders, mostly pacifist herbivores, view humans as dangerous and morally beyond redemption; they are to be subjugated, or if necessary, exterminated. The Shongairi kill more than half of Earth's population with orbital strikes, falsely assuming the survivors will surrender. As the Hegemony has to date prohibited war on advanced societies, the Shongairi are completely unprepared for the conflict that ensues. U.S. Air Force remnants using stealth F-22 Raptor aircraft shoot down a flight of Shongairi transport shuttles. U.S. and Russian tanks prove far superior against poorly armored and armed Shongairi vehicles. The Shongairi use further kinetic strikes to destroy the attackers and the remaining human cities as a reprisal, but the survivors continue the struggle as loosely organized guerillas. Superior infantry tactics and weapons cause irreplaceable Shongairi casualties to mount. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embassytown" title="Embassytown">
"Embassytown" takes place mostly in the city of the title, on the planet Arieka. It exists on the very edge of the known universe, which given its distance from everything else, is only accessible by sailing through the "immer" (see § Style below for the meaning of Miéville's neologisms). Embassytown is a colony of a state called Bremen; and its trade goods (precious metal and, especially, alien-influenced biotech), along with Embassytown's unique position at the edge of the known universe, make it a particularly important colony.Avice Benner Cho, an "Immerser" (a traveller on the Immer), has returned to her childhood home from her adventures in the "Out". On the planet of Arieka humans and "exots" co-exist with the indigenous, enigmatic Ariekei—otherwise known as the Hosts. Few people can speak the language of the Hosts (referred to only as "Language"), as it requires the orator to speak two words at once; those humans (Terre) who can are genetically-engineered twins known as Ambassadors, bred solely for this purpose. The Ambassadors speak with two mouths and one mind and as such can be understood by the Ariekei (who do not recognise any other form of communication) allowing for trade in their valuable biotechnology. The Hosts' Language does not allow for lying or even speculation, the Language reflects both their state of mind and reality as they perceive it; they create literal similes by recruiting individuals to perform bizarre ordeals that can then become allusions in Language. Avice herself serves as a human simile, “the girl who was hurt in the dark and ate what was given to her". Ariekei compete at Festivals of Lies to see who can most closely approximate speaking an untruth, an act both thrilling and highly taboo.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_and_the_Assassin" title="Hygiene and the Assassin">
The famous novelist Prétextat Tach is stricken by "Elzenveiverplatz syndrome" (an imaginary syndrome invented by the author), a cancer of the cartilage, and has only two more months to live. Almost immediately, many journalists rush to interview Tach for a scoop. However, after the first few interviews, the reader realizes that Tach is an obese and obnoxious misanthrope of the worst kind: acerbic, intolerant, a provocateur and a misogynist, who cannot tolerate any questions about his private life and has the audacity to turn the interviews into a cesspool of disgust for his interviewers. Thus, all the interviews fall short, until Nina, a relatively unknown journalist becomes the latest victim of the novelist. Unlike all the other journalists before, however, this journalist is a woman, so that the interview quickly takes the form of a confrontation between the journalist and the Nobel literature prize laureate. In a locked room full of mysteries, she will challenge the odious misogyny of Tach and, as the questions and answers wear on, confront Tach with the demons of his former life. By the end of the story, the novelist is revealed to be a murderer with a strange obsession about the filthiness he thinks puberty brings upon girls and turns them into adult women, and how his spirit will live on even in death. Nina ends up strangling Tach, mirroring a scene in Tach's book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strangers_in_the_House" title="The Strangers in the House">
After his wife left him and their young daughter in favor of another man, Hector Loursat gave up on almost everything in life. Throwing away his law career in favor of alcoholism and reading, Hector paid little attention to his daughter Nicole, unsure if he was even her true father. As such, he was largely unaware of her life until he hears someone fire a gun within the house. Upon investigating Hector discovers a man dead in one of the bedrooms. Nicole, now a teenager, and her friends brought him home after hitting them with their car, only for one of the group to murder him. The authorities believe the killer to be Nicole's boyfriend Emile and quickly charge him.To the surprise of some, Hector takes up Emile's defence, as he ultimately believes the young man to be innocent. Proving this requires Hector to team up with his daughter Nicole, who only somewhat tolerates him as a result of years of neglect.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Smail-aga_Čengić" title="The Death of Smail-aga Čengić">
The poem is divided into five sections: Smail-aga's Display of Power (), The Night Traveller ("Noćnik"), A Company ("Četa"), A Tribute ("Harač") and Doom ("Kob").
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Proper_Names" title="The Book of Proper Names">
In a vaguely surreal story, an extraordinary little girl is born from strange circumstances - her mother murdered her father, gave birth in prison, and then hanged herself. Plectrude, as the girl is unfortunately named by her mother, is adopted by her aunt and lives a fairy-like existence until she enrolls into the Paris Opera Ballet School, a rigorous institution portrayed as a "scalpel to slice away the last flesh of childhood."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Great" title="Conan the Great">
Lord Malvin, ruler of Ophir, invades Aquilonia with King Balt of Nemedia, in order to secure the latter's support against the kingdom of Koth, which ravages his eastern marches. Unfortunately, they fail to reckon with Aquilonia's king, Conan, who meets their offensive and smashes their army, forcing them to flee the battlefield. In the wake of his battle, Conan rescues the dwarf Delvyn, jester to Balt. Delvyn, however, is not the fool he appears, but the secret instigator of the invasion and servant to Kthantos, an evil demon.Seeking a king powerful enough to spread Kthantos's worship across the world, and disappointed in his hopes for Balt, the scheming jester insinuates himself into Conan's confidence. Delvyn feeds on Conan's anxieties about his advancing age, while heightening his concern over the resurgent strength of Koth, newly energized under its new ruler, the amoral and ruthless Prince Armiro of Khoraja. Though Conan's queen, Zenobia, and his close counselors distrust the dwarf, the king heeds him.Contesting for empery, Aquilonia strikes east into Ophir while Koth drives west. Conan beats Armiro to the capital, Ianthe, on the Red River, by racing ahead of his army, suborning a disaffected noble to admit him to the citadel, and slaughtering the fugitive Balt. Meanwhile, Malvin is murdered by his own mistress, the warrior woman Amlunia, who promptly transfers her affections to Conan–or seems to. She is actually in league with Delvyn.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Very_Bad_Book" title="The Very Bad Book">
Much like its predecessor, "The Bad Book", which turned standard children's fairy tales and nursery rhymes on their head by rewriting them as the "bad" version, this book contains a number of tales that are "very bad". The characters are very bad, the illustrations are very bad, and the poems and jokes are all very bad, all with the aim of delighting the children (and their parents) who will read this book. There are 51 stories, poems, jokes, etc. in all.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Hangman_Lost_His_Heart" title="How the Hangman Lost His Heart">
Alice Towneley's beloved uncle, Colonel Frank Towneley, has just been executed by Dan Skinslicer for supporting Prince Bonnie Charlie during the Second Jacobite Rebellion. After the drawing and quartering, Dan expresses his sympathy towards Alice and remarks that Frank was the first condemned to have his eyes wide open during his execution.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoirs_of_an_Invisible_Man" title="Memoirs of an Invisible Man">
Nicholas Halloway is a 34-year-old Manhattan securities analyst who writes a narrative memoir (presumably this book) of his life starting on the day of an accident which renders him invisible. He recounts his involvement in a romantic affair with Anne Epstein, a woman who has taken interest in his aptitude for business and is a reporter for the "Times". He escorts her to MicroMagnetics where scientists are holding a press conference for research on the magnetic containment of a nuclear process. While there, Nick sees a group of Marxist student protesters who demonstrate nuclear catastrophe by attempting to explode a cat. To get everyone away from the MicroMagnetics presentation, they cut off power to the laboratory where nuclear equipment is operating. The control computers lose function and in a flash of eerie light, everything in a fifty-foot radius becomes invisible, including Nick.Nick later wakes up in astonishment, believing at first that his limbs were blown off, and later that he is a ghost; he finally realizes the truth. Federal intelligence agents control the site and they soon discover Nick's presence. They lose his trust by attempting to capture him. He overhears that they plan to give him to scientists and enlist him for military espionage, disregarding his personal liberty for national security. He loots miscellaneous invisible items, shoots an agent, and sets fire to the building in the process of escaping.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Color_of_Crime_(1998_book)" title="The Color of Crime (1998 book)">
"The Color of Crime" provides an overview of race, crime, and law, beginning with a discussion of slavery. Russell-Brown writes that crime and young black men have become synonymous in the American mind, giving rise to the "criminalblackman" stereotype.The book popularised the term "racial hoax", which Russell-Brown defines as occurring when someone fabricates a crime and blames it on another person because of their race or when an actual crime has been committed and the perpetrator falsely blames someone because of their race. It gives the cases of Susan Smith, Jesse Anderson, and Charles Stuart as examples of racial hoaxes. She proposes six principles to achieve fairness in the criminal justice system:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Mackintosh_and_the_Spirit_of_London" title="Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London">
Set in the early 21st century, the book opens with Johnny Mackintosh living in a children's home (Ben Halader House) located in the fictional Castle Dudbury New Town in the county of Essex, United Kingdom. He has written a SETI-style program for the children's home's computers and, at the beginning of the book, an alien signal is detected. As the book develops Johnny Mackintosh is abducted by aliens and travels to the centre of the Galaxy, before returning to Earth, but in the distant past. He witnesses the extinction of the dinosaurs and the destruction of Atlantis, before returning to the present day and discovering the truth about his parents. The "Spirit of London" of the title is the name of the spaceship acquired by Johnny Mackintosh during the course of the book. From the outside it appears identical to the skyscraper situated at 30 St Mary Axe in London, known as 'the Gherkin'.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadlock_(novel)" title="Deadlock (novel)">
Vic goes to the Chicago port to find out about her cousin Boom Boom's death. She believes that Boom Boom was killed. The police believe that this ex-Black Hawks hockey player died in an accident. Vic starts digging for motive and evidence. After two attempts on her life, she finally thinks she has the murder solved but needs strong evidence. To get it, she goes to the yacht of a shipping magnate but is caught by the magnate while she is gathering evidence against him. He confronts her and tells her she is going to die. The book, the second in which Warshawski, a crucial figure in a new breed of female detectives in detective literature, appears, is the basis of the film "V.I. Warshawski", starring Kathleen Turner in the title role.The author was given an award by the Friends of American Writers for the book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_Without_Inequality" title="Libertarianism Without Inequality">
The book is written in three parts with part one being dedicated to self-ownership and "world ownership." Part two dwells on the rights of self-defense and the right to punish those who transgress against the natural rights of others. Part three deals with the political aspects and other types of libertarianism.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zendegi" title="Zendegi">
## Part 1: 2012.Martin Seymour is an Australian news correspondent in Iran covering the 2012 Iranian parliamentary elections. The elections turn out to be a sham as many of the opposition candidates are banned, but Martin remains in Iran to cover the post election protests. Unrest escalates and the authorities are forced to hold free elections.Nasim Golestani is an Iranian computer scientist living in exile in the United States following the execution of her father by VEVAK, the Iranian secret police. She works at MIT on the Human Connectome Project (HCP), which is attempting to produce a neural map of the human brain. She develops computer software that simulates zebra finch song production by using thousands of finch brain scans. But when Congress turns down funding for the project, Nasim returns to Iran to help rebuild her country.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crucible_of_Time" title="The Crucible of Time">
The novel deals with the efforts of an alien species to escape their homeworld, whose system is passing through a cloud of interstellar debris, resulting in a high rate of in-falling matter. The species' unique biology and their biological technology complicate matters.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soulless_(novel)" title="Soulless (novel)">
"Soulless" is set in an alternate history version of Victorian era Britain where werewolves and vampires are accepted as functioning members of society. Alexia Tarabotti is a woman with several critical problems: she is still searching for a husband, her late Italian father complicates her social standing in a rigid class system, and she has no soul. The fact that she is "soulless" leaves her unaffected by the powers of supernatural beings which only further complicates her life when she accidentally kills a vampire that had attacked her. Queen Victoria sends an investigator, Lord Maccon, who is himself a werewolf. As disappearances in the vampire population of London's high society increase, Alexia becomes the prime suspect. She must solve the mystery, all while maintaining proper decorum and a delicate social balance.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changeless_(novel)" title="Changeless (novel)">
"Changeless" is set in an alternate history version of Victorian era Britain where werewolves and vampires are accepted as functioning members of society. Alexia Tarabotti still has no soul but she does now have a husband. Now known as Lady Maccon, Alexia finds her werewolf husband in distress. His sudden disappearance entangles her with a regiment of supernatural soldiers, a group of exorcised ghosts, and Queen Victoria herself. Alexia uses her sharp tongue, keen mind, and her trusty parasol in her effort to solve the problems put before her and to locate Lord Maccon. Her search takes her to Scotland and a werewolf pack where the fact that she is "soulless", and thus unaffected by the powers of supernatural beings, can make all the difference.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastery_Among_the_Temple_Trees" title="Monastery Among the Temple Trees">
The story is about Rahula, a Buddhist monk. Novels depict how Rev. Rahula exists in today's tumultuous society. While he gets free from all the worldly desires, he manages to make free the others who have highly involved with them. Eventually people who went against Rev. Rahula become more mature minded and mentally advanced individuals.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_an_Antique_Land" title="In an Antique Land">
The book contains two narratives. The first, an anthropological narrative, revolves around two visits made by Ghosh to two villages in the Nile Delta, while he was writing his doctoral dissertation (1980–81) and again a few years later (1988). In the second narrative, presented parallel to the first one in the book, Ghosh reconstructs the history of a 12th-century Jewish merchant, Abraham Ben Yiju, and his slaves Ashu and Bomma, using documents from the Cairo Geniza."In an Antique Land" begins in the small Egyptian village of Lataifa in 1980, where the then-graduate student Amitav Ghosh writes his doctoral thesis and begins his investigation into the lives of 12th century Jewish merchant Abraham Ben Yiju and Ben Yiju's anonymous Indian slave. Eventually, Ghosh moves to the larger village of Nashawy. He details the numerous people he meets within the town, their lives and relationships, as well as their attempts to convert him to Islam. Ghosh leaves Egypt in 1981, spending time during the next several years honing his Arabic and learning the dialect Ben Yiju uses in his own documents. In 1988, he returns to the two villages. To Ghosh's relief, this dialect is similar to the spoken language within Lataifa and Nashawy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blameless_(novel)" title="Blameless (novel)">
Blending steampunk with urban fantasy, "Blameless" is set in an alternate history version of Victorian era Britain where vampires and werewolves are welcomed as members of society, often in the upper class. Alexia Tarabotti, the Lady Maccon, leaves her werewolf husband Lord Maccon and moves back in with her family, only to find herself at the center of a scandal when it is discovered that she is pregnant: werewolves are not considered capable of fathering children, and therefore she must be an adulterer. She is dismissed from the Shadow Council by Queen Victoria and her social support structures disintegrate. Meanwhile, the vampire community of London has turned against her. While her estranged husband increasingly turns to drinking to ease his pain, Alexia leaves England for Italy, the birthplace of her late father, to seek out the Templars for answers. Because she is "soulless", and so unaffected by the abilities of supernatural beings, her journey to the truth is more complicated than even she can imagine.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartless_(Carriger_novel)" title="Heartless (Carriger novel)">
Blending steampunk with urban fantasy, "Heartless" is set in an alternate history version of Victorian era Britain where vampires and werewolfs are welcomed as members of society, often in the upper class. The protagonist of the novel is Alexia Tarabotti, the Lady Maccon, who is "soulless", and thus unaffected by the powers of supernatural beings. The author has stated in interviews that while "Changeless" and "Blameless", the second and third books in the series, were closely linked, "Heartless" will be more independent, in the manner of "Soulless", the series' first entry.Alexia is now eight months pregnant, but that will not stand in the way of her duties to her country and her pack. When a mad ghost threatens Queen Victoria, Alexia must determine who is trying to assassinate the monarch before it is too late. Her handsome husband is once again by her side, even as her quest delves into his murky past. To make matters worse, her sister Felicity has become a suffragette, something odd has taken up residence in Lord Akeldama's second best closet, and London is suffering a plague of zombie porcupines.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Through_the_Valley" title="Through the Valley">
In the first scene, set around a major hunt, Miss May one of the servants at the park, is seduced by Frank the footman. Subsequently, they marry. Frank becomes a taxi driver, and his gradual rise in the world mirrors the decline of the estate. That same night the three boys go clambering over the roof of Neapcaster Park. David falls, and it appears to be Ralph's fault. The friction between David and Ralph runs through the novel.Another major character is Alex, a distant relative. She grows up abroad and only comes into the story in the second part. She marries Ralph but loves Geoff and in the end they are united.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespers_Rising" title="Vespers Rising">
This book has four plot lines. The first describes Gideon's discovery of the master serum and betrayal by his friend and first Vesper, Damien Vesper. The second recounts Madeleine Cahill's life and her attempt to reunite the Cahill family. The third tells of Grace's first mission to Casablanca, as she competes against George S. Patton to retrieve Gideon's gold ring. The fourth describes Amy and Dan's retrieval of Gideon's ring that Grace bequeathed to Amy, while escaping from Casper Wyoming, a Vesper member who is after it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Toff_on_the_Farm" title="The Toff on the Farm">
Monty Morne, an old friend of Richard Rollison, tries to persuade The Toff to buy a farm from some friends of his, brother and sister Alan and Gillian Selby. But on arriving at Selby Farm, they discover that Alan Selby has been kidnapped and Gillian has been made offers for the farm that are much more than it is worth.Rollison is drawn into the mystery when one of the bidders and his accomplice are found murdered, with the other bidder, William 'Tex' Brandt, suspected of the crimes.The Toff has to discover the secret of Selby Farm and why rival bidders are seemingly prepared to kill for it, despite the presence of a sitting tenant who refuses to leave.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sleeping_Beauty_(novel)" title="The Sleeping Beauty (novel)">
Lily is the godmother to the Kingdom of Eltaria, which is quite wealthy due to its vast number of mines. After its queen dies, Lily takes on the appearance of an evil sorceress, with the name "Sable", and marries its king in name only, so that he won't be trapped into marrying a real evil sorceress and Princess Rosamund won't have a wicked stepmother. However, this doesn't stop the Tradition from focusing on Eltaria, particularly on Rosa, who ends up with two Traditional paths tangled up and directed at her: the Beauty Asleep and Snowskin. While her outer appearance is that of a Sleeping Beauty, Rosa ends up following the story of Snow White. Prince Siegfried of Drachenthal and Leopold of Falkenreid get into a fight over who will kiss Rosa awake. Rosa recovers from her ordeal before either one wins and begins training as a Godmother.King Thurmand dies, leaving "Queen Sable" as Regent until Rosa turns twenty-one. This means that their enemies will descend on Eltaria, intent on taking over, unless measures can be taken to prevent it. Godmother Lily comes up with a plan for one hundred princes to come and take part in trials to see which one of them will win the hand of the princess. Siegfried and Leopold decide to stay and take part in the trials, and they strike a bargain to help each other through the trials until the last task. Another prince named Desmond enters the trials and catches Rosa's attention for a short while.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captains_and_the_Kings" title="Captains and the Kings">
Young Joseph Armagh, whose parents recently died after giving birth to his sister, is left to venture towards Boston with his younger brother and the baby. He made a promise to his dying mother that he will always care for his siblings. His determination carries him through years of shady-deal making and his gradual accumulation of wealth and power. As his siblings mature into adulthood, they choose different paths in life, with his brother becoming an Irish singer and his sister taking monastic vows. Joseph's personal life also suffers with his focus to take on the global power brokers, with his younger son having been accidentally killed while working as a war correspondent during the Spanish-American War and his daughter suffering a riding accident that rendered her into an infantile state. Much of Joseph's focus is on forcing his eldest son Rory to climb the political ladder in order to become the first Catholic President of the United States, at the expense of Rory's personal life, to include dissolving a marriage that Joseph believed would have been a political liability for Rory.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Detail" title="Surface Detail">
The events of Surface Detail take place around 2970 AD, according to Banks. The events occur six to eight hundred years after the "Chel Debacle", depicted in the earlier novel "Look to Windward" which is set seventy-eight years after the events in "Use of Weapons".Each chapter of the book covers one or more of the six main protagonists—Lededje Y'breq, a chattel slave; Joiler Veppers, an industrialist and playboy; Gyorni Vatueil, a soldier; Prin and Chay, Pavulean academics; and Yime Nsokyi, a Quietus agent. Some of the plot occurs in simulated environments. As the book begins, a war game—the "War in Heaven"—has been running for several decades. The outcome of the simulated war will determine whether societies are allowed to run artificial Hells, virtual afterlives in which the mind-states of the dead are tortured. The Culture, fiercely anti-Hell, has opted to stay out of the war while accepting the outcome as binding.Vatueil is a soldier who has fought his way up the ranks of the war game to a position where he can determine policy. He is instrumental in the decision to cheat—first by attempting to hack into and subvert the war-game, and when this fails by moving the simulated war into the real world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_and_the_Travellers" title="Rowan and the Travellers">
The book picks up where the first one, "Rowan of Rin (novel)", ended. "Rowan and the Travellers" tells the story of a tribe of Travellers which mysteriously arrive in the town of Rin. After their even more mysterious departure, a sleeping sickness appears in Rin and the Travellers are suspected of causing it. Rowan and Allun go to find the Travellers and ask them to stop the sickness. They find the Travellers heading to the horrific Pit of Unrin, where they find that the sickness originally descends from a dangerous kind of fruit called Mountain-berries brought down from the Mountain next to Rin. Its scent lulls people into a deep and heavy sleep. It turns out that the berries are the smaller and infantile form of big trees growing beneath the Mountain itself. Rowan, Allun and the Travellers must save the town with the help of a potion Sheba made of slip-daisy roots.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mathematics_of_Magic" title="The Mathematics of Magic">
Psychologist Harold Shea's accidental visit to the world of Norse mythology has confirmed his colleague Reed Chalmer's speculation that alternate universes can be reached by employing a system of symbolic logic encoding their basic assumptions. Encouraged at his theory's validation but pessimistic as to the prospects of it being taken seriously by their profession, Chalmers proposes to join Shea in a second expedition, more carefully planned, to a world in which they can achieve the fame and fortune that they are unlikely to gain in their own. He suggests the world represented by Spenser's "The Faerie Queene".Outfitting themselves appropriately, they make the attempt and are successful in reaching their target world. They soon encounter the Lady Britomart, one of Queen Gloriana's knights, in whose company they attend a tournament at the castle of Satyrane. At the feast afterward Chalmers becomes smitten by a magical simulacrum of the Lady Florimel, only to lose her in the confusion engendered by a sorcerous disruption of the proceedings. Later he and Shea undertake to find the root of the trouble, a secret brotherhood of enchanters they theorize has been tipping the balance against the forces of good, and which they hope to infiltrate and subvert. They meet the woodland huntress Belphebe, with whom Shea becomes enamored, and face the peril of the Blatant Beast, summoned up by Chalmers in a spell gone wrong.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Island_(novel)" title="Angel Island (novel)">
Five men are shipwrecked on an island in the Pacific Ocean while en route from America to the Orient. They are the only survivors, and their chances of being rescued are remote as a storm had driven their ship into uncharted waters before smashing it against rocks. The island is 20 miles long by 7 miles wide, and densely wooded with a freshwater lake in the center. After coming to terms with their predicament, the men begin collecting what they can from washed-up wreckage from the ship: food, clothes, tools and materials. They start building a camp near the beach and bemoan the fact that they are stuck on an island without women. But as the weeks pass, they begin to relish the absence of women and call the island an "Eveless Eden".Then one day the men start seeing what look like huge birds flying high in the sky, but when the "birds" come closer they realise that they are five beautiful winged-women. Suddenly the men are interested in women again and change the island's name to "Angel Island". Over time the women gradually come closer and start following the men around, who quickly fall in love with the women and name them Julia (their leader), Lulu, Chiquita, Clara and Peachy. But the men become frustrated by the women's aloofness and how easily they frighten, and decide to capture them, saying that they need pampering and protection. Once caught the men subdue the frightened women and cut off their wings. The women, who cannot walk on their small, delicate feet, are now completely helpless. The men quickly win their hearts by showering them with gifts and attention, and teach them English. The men and women pair off and four of them marry; Julia resists this temptation. With the women now domesticated, the men start paying less attention to them and spend long periods inland building a new camp near the lake. The women, who cannot fly, nor walk any distance, are stuck in the camp near the beach.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Keynes_Went_Wrong" title="Where Keynes Went Wrong">
This 384 page book for both general reader and economist questions the validity of John Maynard Keynes’s assumptions. Lewis argues that The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money is based almost exclusively on Keynes’s intuition rather than on demonstrated logic or solid evidence. Lewis begins by demystifying Keynes by giving his elaboration of Keynes's writings in General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money and other works. Using claims from the Austrian School of economics and citing historical evidence, Lewis then argues that government policies based on Keynes’s prescriptions have actually made things worse, not better. Lewis presents alternatives to Keynesian intervention and urges a change in current global policy to foster economic recovery.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greybeard" title="Greybeard">
Set decades after the Earth's population has been sterilised as a result of nuclear bomb tests conducted in Earth's orbit, the book shows a world emptying of humans, with only an ageing, childless population left.The story is mainly told through the eyes of Algernon "Algy" Timberlane (the titular Greybeard) and his wife, Martha.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorch_Trials" title="The Scorch Trials">
Thomas is sleeping in the dormitory with the other teenagers, known as the Gladers, who escaped from the Maze in the previous book and had been brought by a group of rescuers. Thomas is woken by a telepathic communication with Teresa, the only girl from the Glade, who is afraid.As Thomas wakes up, he finds that the facility is being attacked by Cranks, aggressive zombie-like people that have been infected by a plague known as the Flare. The disease attacks the brain and causes victims to lose their humanity, rendering them violent and insane creatures. Cranks were normal citizens before the Flare, when they became crazed zombie-like killers.Thomas and the others escape into the facility's common area and discover that their rescuers are dead. They also find that Teresa is missing from her room, and in her place is a boy, Aris Jones. Aris explains he escaped from a similar Maze experiment, Group B, in which he was the only male. The boys then discover tattoos on their necks that assign them specific roles and fates.The Gladers re-enter the common area and find that the bodies of their rescuers have disappeared. Since nothing has changed, the Gladers almost die of starvation. Thomas takes a rest and after waking up, he finds Minho with an apple. They also find a scientist from WICKED, Janson. He is described by the boys as Rat Man because of his rat-like appearance, and he explains WICKED has been studying them to try to find a cure for the Flare. He tells them they have been infected with the Flare and in two weeks must get through the Scorch, the most burned-out section of the Earth after the sun flares, to find a safe haven and get the cure. To get into the Scorch, the Gladers go through a Flat Trans, which is a type of portal that closes five minutes after the set hour.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_Nightfall" title="By Nightfall">
Peter and his wife, Rebecca—who edits a mid-level art magazine—have settled into a comfortable life in Manhattan's art world, but their staid existence is disrupted by the arrival of Rebecca's much younger brother, Ethan—known as Mizzy, short for "The Mistake." Family golden child Mizzy is a recovering drug addict whose current whim has landed him in New York where he wants to pursue a career in "the arts." Watching Mizzy—whose resemblance to a younger Rebecca unnerves Peter—coast through life without responsibilities makes Peter question his own choices and wonder if it's more than Mizzy's freedom that he covets.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corrections" title="The Corrections">
The novel shifts back and forth through the late 20th century, intermittently following spouses Alfred and Enid Lambert as they raise their children Gary, Chip, and Denise in the traditional Midwestern suburb of St. Jude, and the lives of each family member as the three children grow up, distancing themselves and living on the East Coast. Alfred, a rigid and strict patriarch who worked as a railroad engineer, has developed Parkinson's and shows increasingly unmanageable symptoms of dementia. Enid takes out her frustrations with him by attempting to impose her traditional judgments on her adult children's lives, to their annoyance.Their eldest son, Gary, is a successful but increasingly depressive and alcoholic banker living in Philadelphia with his wife, Caroline, and their three young sons. When Enid attempts to persuade Gary to bring his family to St. Jude for Christmas, Caroline is reluctant, and turns Gary's sons against him and Enid, worsening his depressive tendencies. In return, Gary attempts to force his parents to move to Philadelphia so that Alfred may undergo an experimental neurological treatment that he and Denise learn about.Also living in Philadelphia, their youngest child Denise finds growing success as an executive chef despite Enid's disapproval and persistent scrutiny of her personal life, and is commissioned to open a new restaurant. Simultaneously impulsive and a workaholic, Denise begins affairs with both her boss and his wife, and though the restaurant is successful, she is fired when this is discovered. Flashbacks to her childhood show her responding to her repressed upbringing by beginning an affair with one of her father's subordinates, a married railroad signals worker.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippa_Fisher_and_the_Dream-Maker's_Daughter" title="Philippa Fisher and the Dream-Maker's Daughter">
Philippa Fisher is lonely. She misses her fairy godsister, Daisy. While on vacation with her parents, she befriends a local girl, Robyn. Though she is excited to have a friend again, she cannot help feeling there is something strange about Robyn and her father.Meanwhile, Daisy, who is hard at work on a new mission, misses Philippa as well, so she decides to break the rules and visit her friend. The girls are happy to be reunited, but things soon begin to go horribly wrong with Daisy's assignment. When all three girls find themselves in danger, Philippa must work quickly to save her friends and herself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_Zero_Three" title="Hull Zero Three">
A man wakes up from a dream-like state, naked and freezing, with no memory. A little girl leads him through a series of corridors in a generation ship in search of warmth. She calls him Teacher, and together they encounter several other strange beings as they travel through the ship trying to survive and find the answers to their questions.Teacher eventually finds out that he is a clone and has been resurrected several times before, although those versions did not survive. Each clone was able to leave bits of information, a kind of breadcrumb trail for the next iteration. It is from these diaries that Teacher discovers the true nature of his situation. His companions are clones as well, genetically engineered for specific purposes.The ship's crew has separated into two groups, each vying for control of the ship. One faction wants to abandon their mission to colonize a planet which is already teeming with life, while the other wants to press forward. The ship is damaged during one of their battles, and the clones have been created in order to fix it.Teacher, who discovers his real name is Sanjay, eventually reaches the third hull of the book's title where he encounters Mother, who is the leader of the faction that wants to continue to their destination. She tells him she created him to be her ally. In the end, Teacher and his companions flee from Mother and await their arrival on the new planet.  
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sang_Pemimpi" title="Sang Pemimpi">
In The Dreamer, it is about life in the days of high school. The three main characters are Ikal, Arai and Jimbron. Ikal is the alter-ego of Andrea Hirata while Arai is a distant relative of an orphan called "Simpai Keramat" as he is the last family member who is still alive and eventually became the foster brother of Ikal. Jimbron is an orphan who is obsessed with horses and stutter when he's enthusiastic about something or when he is nervous.All three are intertwined in the story of friendship from childhood until they go to school in SMA Negeri Manggar (SMA means 'Sekolah Menengah Atas', equal to high school in English. The school’s name basically means The State High School of Manggar.), the first high school in the eastern Belitung. Attended school in the mornings and worked as a worker in the early morning fishing port, from their addiction of erotic movies in theaters and finally discovered by their religious teacher, the love story of Jimbron and Arai, Jimbron's farewell with Ikal and Arai who will study in Jakarta that makes them to separate but will still meet each other in France. Independently living separately from their parents with the background of poor economic conditions but with a big goal that if viewed from the background of their lives, is simply a dream.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framed_(Korman_novel)" title="Framed (Korman novel)">
The story takes place in Cedarville, while 'The Man with the Plan' Griffin Bing is having a hard time adjusting to his school's new atmosphere, which is more like a strict boot camp than a middle school. His new football fanatic principal, Dr. Egan, does not like Griffin, due to his past. To make matters worse, somebody has stolen the priceless Super Bowl ring that was in the school's showcase, with Griffin's retainer that he recently lost left in its place. Things only go from bad to worse when Griffin is accused of stealing it by Egan, and Griffin is sent to a state school for juvenile delinquents. Griffin realizes he has been framed by somebody and calculates a list of suspects: Griffin tries to get the suspects through a metal detector at the courthouse after sending them an anonymous e-mail stating that a buyer was interested in purchasing a valuable possession that "recently" came to them. Griffin unfortunately discovers that Dr. Egan is the only suspect left. Logan, Griffin's friend and amateur actor, agrees to get to know Egan's daughter so he can search the house and find the ring, getting him off the hook. The plan fails when they discover Egan does not have the ring. Griffin is placed under house arrest, where his friends meet him via video chat and formulate a final plan to clear their friend's name. Savannah, the animal lover of the group, finds that a type of rat is attracted to shiny objects and may have found Griffin's lost retainer then swapped it out with the ring. Melissa, the computer expert, hacks into Griffin's house arrest system that allows him to leave the house without the alarm coming off while his parents are out. At the school during its play, "Hail Caesar!", Griffin leads Egan to the pack rat's nest and clears his name. He is then raced home and resets his house arrest anklet as his parents arrive. Egan, who got Griffin home in time, clears up matters and apologizes to Griffin, saying that he was wrong to judge him. Also, Celia White shows up in an attempt to get a story on him. Before she can twist the words, however, Egan makes her stop and makes sure she won't be doing it again. After this, Griffin asks the court if it will take a truly good-hearted friend, Sheldon Brickhaus (dubbed Shank), out of the state school, so he can have a chance at life. They accept and it is implied that life will be better for Griffin and his friends.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegan_Virgin_Valentine" title="Vegan Virgin Valentine">
The story follows Mara Valentine, an overachiever high school senior in Brockport, New York headed to Yale University. Mara is a straight A student forever, got type A personality, vice president of student council, UN Model, is at the top of her class and she's competing with her ex-boyfriend Travis Hart for valedictorian. Yet she found her life is turned upside down when her sixteen-year-old niece Vivienne, who goes only by her first initial V, comes to live with Mara and her parents. V’s mother, Mara’s older sister, is a free-spirit who spends her life traveling from place to place, finding new jobs and boyfriends along the way; she is the complete opposite of Mara who has spent her life working hard to succeed in school to please her parents.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schooled_(novel)" title="Schooled (novel)">
The plot begins with Capricorn Anderson, nicknamed "Cap," being arrested for driving without a license. Cap was driving his grandmother, Rain, to the hospital after she injured herself climbing a tree. He and Rain are hippies living on Garland Farm, a far-removed hippie commune with no telephone service. Rain's injury requires her to undergo physical therapy for two months, leaving Capricorn without a caretaker or a teacher. With no other choice, Capricorn is sent to a social worker, Flora Donnelly. Mrs. Donnelly, who also grew up on Garland Farm, realizes that she herself is the best person to look after Cap and takes him into her home. Flora decides to enroll Cap in Claverage Middle School (dubbed C Average by the student body) aside eighth grader while Rain recovers.At Claverage, Cap finds himself completely unfamiliar with most social situations and conveniences. On his first day, he meets eighth-grade bully and jock Zachary "Zach" Powers, who singles him out for the school's biggest prank: electing the most unpopular student as the Eighth Grade President and besetting the victim with impossible demands, causing them to break down. Cap also meets Hugh Winkleman, a geeky social outcast at school, and befriends him. Cap ends up becoming the eighth-grade president due to his abnormal appearance and nature. Flora, realizing that Cap's obliviousness to social life and bullying protects him from the brunt of the abuse, reluctantly keeps silent. Meanwhile, Zach advances his plans to break Cap, enlisting the majority of the students, one of whom is Naomi, a girl with a crush on Zach. Naomi writes Cap fake love letters to get Zach's approval but begins to find herself drawn to Cap. However, Cap is unaffected and carries on as usual.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lacuna" title="The Lacuna">
The novel tells the story of Harrison William Shepherd beginning with his childhood in Mexico during the 1930s. His parents are separated so he lives back and forth between the United States with his father and Mexico with his mother. During his time in Mexico he works as a plaster mixer for the mural artist Diego Rivera then as a cook for both him and his artist wife Frida Kahlo, with whom Shepherd develops a lifelong friendship. While living with and working for them, he also begins working as a secretary for Leon Trotsky who is hiding there, exiled by Stalin, and witnesses his assassination.He accompanies some of Kahlo's paintings to Washington DC where he witnesses the shootings of the Bonus Army. He then moves to Asheville, North Carolina, where he writes successful historical novels set in Mexico. However he is investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and after he is vilified by the press he returns to Mexico, taking his secretary, Violet Brown, with him. He disappears while swimming off the Pacific coast and is presumed dead. However Brown, the chief beneficiary of his will, later receives a letter from Kahlo hinting that he has survived, by swimming underwater along a lava tube which emerges inland in a cenote.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Isn't_What_It_Looks_Like" title="This Isn't What It Looks Like">
The story starts off with Cass awakening somewhere unknown to her, in an unknown time (she later finds she is in fact 500 years in the past), not knowing who she is, where she came from, or what she is doing. She sees a young boy stuck in a tree, and tries to rescue him, only to hear him repeatedly shouting the word "Goat!", evidently frightened. He runs down the road to his father, but neither of them even look at the girl. Confused, the girl walks up to a puddle, only to see that she has no reflection, realizing that she must be invisible, and that the boy was shouting "Ghost," not "Goat."Meanwhile, Max-Ernest visits Cass in the PICU section of the hospital, where Cass lies in bed comatose. Max-Ernest, though evidently depressed over his friend comatose, (and the fact that the Tuning Fork won't help him create the antidote for Cass) with his only other friend Yo-Yoji away in Japan has overcome his "fear/allergy" of chocolate and eats several bars in a matter of seconds.Back to Cass, she realizes she has somehow traveled in time and arrived in the Renaissance/Middle Ages. She also realizes she's invisible, not dead. At the streets, she meets a Seer, who can see her because she has something called the "Second Sight", obtained by an object called the Double Monocle (as this book centers around the sense of sight). She also does some fortune telling with a deck of tarot cards with Cass, showing her that the Ace of Wands card is upside down, meaning that an old wrong must be righted. The Seer gives a suggestion that maybe something has been stolen or she has stolen something. She then shows Cass the Fool card, with a picture of a fool, coincidentally the one that she saw while in the streets. When the Seer introduce her name as Clara or Cassandra, Cass' memories came back, making her remember about the Magician, the Jester, the Secret etc. She realizes she's on a mission to find the Secret, since she is the new Terces Society Secret Keeper. The Seer disappears but leaves Cass the Double Monocle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemia" title="Pandemia">
The disease that causes a world-wide catastrophe in the novel is H5N1, a strain of bird flu that was in the news at the time of publication. Its mutation and rapid spread eventually causes the collapse of society and many economies across the world.The book's central plot features a group of teens in Saline, Michigan that must try and escape the city and head to the countryside where they can hopefully stay alive long enough in their uncle's cabin to be rescued. But in doing so, the teens must use whatever weapons they can find to defend themselves against looters, insane killers, and potentially dangerous sources of infection. In a world gone mad, the group must find the necessities, food, water and shelter, to survive.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape" title="The Moral Landscape">
Harris's case starts with two premises: "(1) some people have better lives than others, and (2) these differences are related, in some lawful and not entirely arbitrary way, to states of the human brain and to states of the world". The idea is that a person is simply describing material facts (many about their brain) when they describe possible "better" and "worse" lives for themselves. Granting this, Harris says we must conclude that there are facts about which courses of action will allow one to pursue a better life.Harris emphasizes the importance of admitting that such facts exist, because he says this logic also applies to groups of people. He suggests there are better and worse ways for societies to pursue better lives. Just as for an individual, there may be multiple different paths and "peaks" to flourishing for societies—and many more ways to fail.Harris then makes a case that science can usefully define morality using facts about people's well-being. His arguments acknowledge that problems with this scientific definition of morality seem to be problems shared by all science, or reason and words in general. Harris also spends some time describing how science might engage nuances and challenges of identifying the best ways for individuals and groups to improve their lives. Many of these issues are covered below.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad_and_Genocide" title="Jihad and Genocide">
According to Michael Berenbaum writing in "The Jewish Daily Forward", the book explores the question "do Islamic leaders mean what they say when they call for genocide of the Jews?"According to Berenbaum, Rubenstein "offers compelling evidence that significant and prominent Muslim thinkers mean what they say and say what they mean when they speak of world peace only following Islamic world conquest."Rubenstein concluded: "Muslim ire has been aroused. At least among Islamists. It will not be calmed until the shame and the disgrace of Muslim defeats from the Battle of Lepanto (1571) to the 1947–1949 Palestine war (1948) and the Six-Day War (1967) have been erased. If we take the Islamists at their word, nothing less than genocide would suffice."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Inondation" title="L'Inondation">
On a beautiful May day, the Garonne floods, washing away all the bridges; ruining nearly two thousand houses; drowning hundreds; and leaving twenty thousand starving to death. The novella describes the immediate impact this flood has on one household.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauntlgrym" title="Gauntlgrym">
"Gauntlgrym" begins in the year 1409, DR in the dwarven complex of Mithral Hall. King Bruenor Battlehammer, with Drizzt Do'Urden, sits on his throne and mourns over the loss of his friend Regis and his adoptive daughter Catti-brie nearly 24 years before. Both Companions of the Hall were lost to the deadly effects of the Spellplague. Wulfgar has returned to Icewind Dale and has decided to remain in those most dangerous of lands. In a conversation with his dear friend Drizzt, Bruenor laments over all that has happened since those terrible events. The signing of the Treaty of Garumn's Gorge has brought a lasting peace to the Silver Marches. Obould II has inherited the Kingdom of Many-Arrows from his father Obould I, though he is not nearly as clever or as powerful as his father. Above all, King Bruenor regrets never completing his quest to find the legendary home of the Delzoun dwarves, Gauntlgrym.Meanwhile, Nanfoodle, the gnome inventor famous for his Moment of Elminister - a purposeful explosion that sent gas swarming to the surface during a vicious battle 40 years earlier - and Jessa Dribble-Obould, an orc, hatch a plan to poison Bruenor. Nanfoodle poisons the king's ale. Thibbledorf Pwent the battlerager notices something amiss about Nanfoodle's behavior but cannot quite place it. Bruenor drinks the ale and shortly after the entire population of Mithral Hall goes into mourning at the abrupt death of their king. Banak Brawnanvil is named Eleventh King of Mithral Hall. Pwent, distraught over the death of Bruenor, seeks out Nanfoodle and Jessa for answers in the hills outside of Mithral Hall. Upon finding the traitorous pair, he attempts to attack them for answers. During the fight, Drizzt, as well as a very-much alive Bruenor arrives; the latter demands of Pwent what he is doing here instead of at Banak's side. The ever-loyal Pwent replies that his life and his duty lie with his beloved king. It is then revealed that Bruenor faked his death with the help of Nanfoodle and Jessa in order to continue his quest for Gauntlgrym while leaving Mithral Hall in Banak's good hands. Drizzt, Bruenor, Jessa, Nanfoodle, Pwent, Guenhwyvar, and Andahar then leave on their secret quest. (Andahar is a magical unicorn that can be summoned much like Guenhwyvar, Athrogate's demon boar, or Jarlaxle's nightmare. Andahar was a gift to Drizzt from the ruling council of Silverymoon for his work with both blade and diplomacy during the Third Orc War.)
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Kind_of_Traitor" title="Our Kind of Traitor">
On a tennis holiday in Antigua, British university lecturer Peregrine "Perry" Makepiece and his lawyer girlfriend Gail Perkins meet mysterious Russian business oligarch Dmitri "Dima" Vladimirovich Krasnov and his family. Dima, who describes himself as "the world's number one money launderer," deliberately sought contact with Perry hoping that he is a British spy or knows one. This is because Dima wants Perry to pass on information about his criminal activities to British intelligence, in exchange for protection for himself and his family. Dima fears for his life because "The Prince", the new leader of his criminal brotherhood, had a good friend of Dima and his wife murdered. The Prince now wants Dima to come to Bern to sign over control of the money-laundering operations to him.Back in the UK, Perry reaches out to a colleague with contacts in the British intelligence community and hands over Dima's notes. Since these implicate a high-ranking decision maker in the UK, British intelligence decides to put government fixer Hector Meredith in charge of a secret semi-official investigation. Hector recruits disgraced intelligence officer Luke Weaver to handle the investigation. Luke, eager to redeem himself, makes all the necessary arrangements. Dima insists that Perry and Gail be present during his first contact with British intelligence in Paris during the 2009 Roland Garros final, so the couple travel to Paris where they again meet with Dima and his family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodyguard_of_Lies" title="Bodyguard of Lies">
"Bodyguard of Lies" opens with an introduction to Ultra, the codename for decrypted signals intelligence. It goes on to document the origins of the London Controlling Section (LCS) and the work of Dudley Clarke in the Middle East. In late 1942, Allied high command in London became aware of Clarke's successes during the North African campaign. Based on his theories of deception, the LCS was created under Colonel John Bevan and granted broad powers to plan deception strategy. The introduction finishes with a discussion of how the Allies evolved deception strategy prior to 1943, including the Double-Cross System (the Allied system of double agents). The second section of the book introduces the German intelligence forces, in particular Admiral Canaris and his "Abwehr" intelligence agency. Brown discusses early deceptions, such as those surrounding Operation Torch, conducted against the Germans, and how the Abwehr struggled to decipher the information it was being fed.The third section of the book covers Allied deceptions during 1943, in particular Operation Mincemeat. Brown introduces Plan Jael, the early revision of Operation Bodyguard, and follows Bevan's work in creating the deception plan. The fourth section covers the events of early 1944, leading up to the Normandy landings on 6 June. In particular, Brown discusses Operation Fortitude and the fictional First US Army Group, a key part of Bodyguard, calling it "the greatest charade in history". The final section of the book covers events on and after D-Day, including physical deceptions carried out on the night of the invasion, and the continued impact of Bodyguard in the months after the landings.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Engines" title="The God Engines">
The story takes place in a universe where space travel is accomplished by chaining intelligent, human-like creatures called gods to a spacecraft and torturing them to drive the ship. The people are ruled by an organization called the Bishopry Militant, who worship a powerful being. Captain Ean Tephe is completely faithful to the Bishopry, but his faith comes under test when he is assigned a secret mission in which his ship's god seems to have a keen interest.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Finkler_Question" title="The Finkler Question">
Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular former BBC radio producer, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they remain good friends, keeping contact with their former teacher Libor Sevcik, a Czech Jew nearing ninety who once tutored in Czech history and worked part-time as a Hollywood gossip columnist.Now, both Libor and Finkler are recently widowed, and Treslove's chequered and unsuccessful record with women qualify him as an honorary third widower. They dine together at Libor's grand apartment in central London: it is a sweetly painful evening of reminiscences. At 11:30 pm that night, Treslove is attacked while walking home. It seems he is mugged by a woman who hisses the phrase "You Ju" at him. After much cogitation, Treslove believes what the assailant meant was "You, Jew", sparking a long-running obsession with all things and people Jewish – which he refers to as "Finkler". Treslove gets into a relationship with Hephzibah, the great-grandniece of Libor, and is haunted by his adulterous affair with Tyler, Finkler's deceased wife. In the meantime, Finkler joins an "ASHamed" organization which favours the Palestinians over the Israelis over their land disputes. The novel coalesces into an ending that brings together the disparate narrative strands amongst the three central male characters.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Point_of_Law" title="A Point of Law">
Senator Decius Metellus has returned from his military expedition to Cyprus, having concluded a successful campaign against local pirates and gathered enough booty to pay off his outstanding debts and finance his campaign for praetor. He is campaigning in the Forum when a young aristocrat loudly denounces him for alleged fraud and theft while in office on Cyprus, and boldly threatening to prosecute him for said acts. A minor scuffle breaks out, before the young man is dragged away.Later, the young man is found gruesomely murdered, and suspicion falls on Decius. To his consternation, his family inform him that, although the charges are unlikely to stick, they can nevertheless delay his election for at least a year. Decius, thinking hard, realizes that the young man may have been a virtual nobody, but could recite a pedigree that would virtually guarantee him popular support - claiming descent from Scipio Africanus and the Gracchi, among others. This means that the young man was likely the figurehead of a conspiracy. The exact aim of the conspiracy is unclear, but Decius reasons that someone must be aiming at reducing the Caecilia Metelli's voting bloc in the Senate (as Decius concedes, he himself is not that important).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Son_of_Neptune" title="The Son of Neptune">
Twenty-two months after Percy Jackson's defense of Mount Olympus in "The Last Olympian", Percy finds himself alone and on the run from monsters in northern California without his memories. With the guidance of Lupa, the wolf-goddess and protector of ancient Rome, he makes his way to Camp Jupiter, a Roman demigod training camp and counterpart to the Greek demigods' Camp Half-Blood. Upon arriving, he is attacked by Gorgons — Stheno and Euryale — and successfully defends a disguised Juno and the camp with the help of the guards on duty. Having been protected by Percy during the attack, Juno announces Percy's arrival with approval, identifying him as a son of Neptune. Nobody knows that he is actually a son of the Greek god Poseidon. She tells him privately that he can only regain his memory by learning to be a hero again and successfully surviving the challenges he encounters at camp.He quickly befriends Frank Zhang, son of Mars, and Hazel Levesque, daughter of Pluto. He is introduced to the praetor of the camp, Reyna, and the augur Octavian, who quickly takes a disliking to Percy. Octavian tells Percy that the Book of Prophecies is missing. Being outcasts themselves at Camp Jupiter, Frank and Hazel empathize with Percy's outsider status and consider it their duty to help him adjust and acclimatize quickly to the camp's routines and leadership. But before any of them has a chance to gain their footing, they receive a prophecy from Mars, the Roman god of war, and are ordered to go on a quest to rescue Thanatos, the god of death, from the Giant Alcyoneus, who is hiding deep in Alaska.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjure_Wife" title="Conjure Wife">
Tansy Saylor is the wife of an up-and-coming young sociology professor at a small, conservative American college. She is also a witch. Her husband, Norman, discovers this one day while rummaging through her dressing table: he finds vials of graveyard dirt, packets of hair and fingernail clippings from their acquaintances, and other evidence of her witchcraft. He confronts Tansy, and manages to convince her that her faith in magic is a result of superstition and neurosis. Tansy burns her charms; and Norman's luck immediately goes sour. He realizes that he had been protected, up till now, by Tansy's charms, and that as a result of his meddling, they are both now powerless to counteract the spells and charms of the other witches all around them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Infinity_Concerto" title="The Infinity Concerto">
In 1939, a composer named Arno Waltiri premiered his latest work, Concerto Opus 45: "Infinity". After the concert, another composer, who had been in the audience, filed a lawsuit against Waltiri, claiming that he was no longer able to properly hear or compose music after hearing Waltiri's work. Over the next several months, dozens of people simply disappeared, and the only thing they had in common with one another was that they had been in the audience at that same performance. Waltiri had been inspired to write the concerto by several conversations with a mysterious man named David Clarkham. The Concerto turns out to have been a "Song of Power". Songs of Power, if properly applied by those who understand them, have the power to literally remake the world. Songs of Power can exist in many artistic forms, including music, poetry, dance, art, architecture, and some less obvious creative fields. Clarkham had disappeared after the performance too, but he had left Waltiri a book and the key to his house, which Waltiri had never used.The book's present story follows the experiences of a 16 years-old young man named Michael Perrin, a would be poet, who lives close to Waltiri and befriends him. Michael meets Waltiri two months before the latter's death, and receives from Waltiri the book and the key. Following the instructions on a piece of paper he found inserted in the book, Michael enters Clarkham's house, which has been vacant for decades and, through a creepy garden and back-alley acting as planar gates, Perrin finds himself in Sidhedark, a world inhabited by a powerful race of beings calling themselves the Sidhe (pronounced "shee"), who are divided into many sub-races (Faers, Umbrals, Riverines, Meteorals, Pelagals, Arborals and Amorphals) of different shapes and magical abilities, and are associated with many ancient human myths about fairiy folks. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor_of_Nihon-Ja" title="The Emperor of Nihon-Ja">
Horace has gone missing. Months have passed since he was sent on a military mission to the court of the Emperor of Nihon-Ja with his friend, former wardmate and Scribeschool apprentice George, but he has failed to return. Meanwhile, Halt, Will, Selethen (the leader of the Arridi) and Alyss (a Courier and Will's love interest) are in Toscana overseeing a demonstration using tight formations to overcome more skilled opponents and aid in the completion of a treaty between Arrida and Toscana. When Crown Princess Cassandra arrives notifying everyone of Horace's absence, the Araluens and Selethen embark on a Skandian duty ship to find Horace.They find that Horace has become embroiled in Nihon-Ja's politics. An arrogant "Senshi" warlord known as Arisaka, a member of the Nihon-Ja warrior class, has rebelled against the rightful Emperor Shigeru out of fear that he will usurp the "Senshi"'s influence in the country and due to his belief that it was he who should have been named Emperor when the previous one died instead of Shigeru. He has convinced the "Senshi" of his clan, the Shimonseki Clan, and another, the Umaki Clan, to join him in his coup, manipulating them into believing that Shigeru's actions violate his oath as a "Senshi". Shigeru, though a "Senshi" himself, is also a man of the people and has been trying to reform his nation's strict social system, which Arisaka argues to be a betrayal of his class. Arisaka's men have seized the capital of Ito and slaughtered and scattered most of Shigeru's Clan, while the remaining clans, who are without the strength to face the Shimonseki and Umaki due to their reputed strength as the two strongest clans in Nihon-Ja, are remaining silent and claim that if Arisaka's claim is to be believed, then perhaps his cause is justified. Horace has chosen to stay and lend support to the deposed ruler. Pursued by the rebel leader and master swordsman Arisaka, Horace and Shigeru flee along with Shigeru's cousin and guard Shukin and a small force of "Senshi" from Shigeru's Clan. Their only hope is to find the fabled fortress of Ran-Koshi, which is mentioned in a legend and said to have impossibly high walls. The three lead their small entourage of 50 "Senshi" around the native villages recruiting the "Kikori", lumberjacks native to the area who have long been abused and looked-down up by the "Senshi" but are fiercely loyal to the Emperor. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dragon's_Apprentice" title="The Dragon's Apprentice">
The novel opens in 1943, seven years after the previous book "The Shadow Dragons" and in the midst of World War II. The Caretakers learn that the Keep of Time has finally disintegrated, causing time to collapse; whereafter Rose Dyson, their ward, is instructed to find Samaranth's apprentice, ask the dragon a riddle, and save the Archipelago of Dreams from the Echthroi. The Caretakers are trapped in the Archipelago by the destruction of the Keep of Time; and when John, Jack, and Charles return to the Summer Country (congruent to the historical world) in 1943, their refuge Tamerlane House, with all of its inhabitants, is transported to 1945 and attached to Oxford. The Caretakers Emeritis learn from John and Jack that Charles died two weeks earlier.John, Jack, Fred the badger, the Tin Man (Roger Bacon), Laura Glue, Richard Burton, Harry Houdini, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the mysterious End of Time, a friend of Burton's, travel to Avalon and the Archipelago but discover it in ruins and learn that two thousand years have passed in the Archipelago since their last visit. At the capital Paralon, they meet a boy named Coal, the last of Arthur's descendants, whom the animals are protecting. From Aven, the daughter of H.G. Wells, they learn of what has happened over the last two thousand years. As the dark star 'Rao' approaches, they go through a door from the Keep of Time (given, in the previous book, to ex-antagonist Madoc) and appear in Dickensian London. There, a young man named Edmund McGee leads them to his master, Benjamin Franklin.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help!_I'm_Trapped_in_my_Teacher's_Body" title="Help! I'm Trapped in my Teacher's Body">
Jake Sherman is sitting in his sixth grade science class with his friends Josh Hopka and Andy Kent. The class is taught by the boring teacher Mr. Dirksen, who does nothing but lecture the students, and never does anything fun. As he lectures them, Jake and his friends load spitball shooters and shoot them at Mr. Dirksen. Andy and Josh manage to hide their shooters, but Jake is caught by Mr. Dirksen.After class, Mr. Dirksen talks with Jake. He informs him that he is not going to be given detention, since Mr. Dirksen does not believe it will do any good. He says instead that Jake will, as punishment, carry a heavy box home for him.After school, Mr. Dirksen and Jake walk home to Mr. Dirksen's house. As they reach it, a storm begins to come in. Mr. Dirksen shows Jake an invention that he is building in his garage. He calls it the Dirksen Intelligence Transfer System, and hopes that it will one day gain the ability to transfer intelligence from one being to another, thus eliminating the need for education or training. As he finishes explaining his invention, a bolt of lightning strikes the house, knocking Jake and Mr. Dirksen unconscious.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HHhH" title="HHhH">
The novel follows the history of the operation and the lives of its protagonists—Reinhard Heydrich and his assassins Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš. It is interlaced with the author's account of the process of researching and writing the book, his commentary about other literary and media treatments of the subject, and reflections about the extent to which the behavior of real people may of necessity be fictionalised in a historical novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mourning_Ruby" title="Mourning Ruby">
Rebecca was abandoned by her mother in a shoebox in the backyard of an Italian restaurant when she was two years old. She is adopted by foster parents and thirty years later marries Adam, a consultant neonatologist dealing with premature babies. She gives birth to Ruby and starts a new life for herself and her small family. But a tragedy suddenly upsets the calm order of her life and changes its course forever. The novel traces the harrowing life of Rebecca with several interesting temporal juxtapositions and flashbacks that add to its complexity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Letter_for_the_King" title="The Letter for the King">
"The Letter for the King" is set in a fictional medieval world. In the story, a youth's adventure is externalized in a search for a letter, which results in a discovery of their own persona.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eyes_of_My_Princess" title="The Eyes of My Princess">
The story begins when Jose Carlos, a shy fifteen-year-old, realizes he has fallen in love for the first time with the new girl in his school. After school, a strange man arrives with Carlos's classmate, Mario, and lures him into his car. The man is a porn producer, and he tries to convince Carlos to get his classmate Ariadne to make porn with them. Finally Carlos escapes with the help of Ariadne, who is a friend of the new girl. Carlos tells his parents to go to the police, but they are unable to locate the man, who abducted Mario.One day he decides to talk with the new girl, Sheccid (her real name is Justiniana Deghemteri, but Carlos changes it for the name of an Arabic princess). He confesses his love, but things go wrong when Ariadne recognizes him and tells Sheccid he is related to the pervert who tried to abduct her. Carlos does not give up and, moved by the love he feels, he overcomes the fears he has. At first he begins writing, like his grandparent, realizing he is good at it. His new journal is filled with all his thoughts and poems that he writes for Sheccid.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bør_Børson" title="Bør Børson">
"Bør Børson Olderstad" is a farmer's son from the fictional valley Olderdalen. Dreaming about money, wealth and a position at the board of the local savings bank, he has changed his last name to Børson, and started a local grocery store. The name Børson is a paraphrase of the Norwegian word "", from , in . Via various burlesque episodes he eventually ends up as a millionaire. The story ends with a wedding between Bør and Josefine Torsøien, a girl from a nearby farm. The novel is set in the boom period during World War I. Norway did not participate in the war, but the country's merchant fleet carried goods at increasing freight rates. The sea transport was a risky business that cost the lives of 2,000 Norwegian seamen, while a volatile stock market could multiply investments over short periods of time.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cop_this_Lot" title="Cop this Lot">
Giovanni 'Nino' Culotta is an Italian immigrant, who came to Australia as a journalist, but became a brickie's labourer. Now, several years later, he is a builder, and married to Kay, with a daughter Maria and son Nino junior.Nino decides to travel back to Italy to see his parents, and takes not only Kay, but his mates Joe and Dennis, who have never left Sydney. They travel by aeroplane and cargo ship and buy a cheap car in Germany to drive to Italy.They arrive at the Cullota family villa, and Nino's father, a crusty patriarch, is only concerned that Nino and Kay have not been 'properly' married by an Italian priest.By the time they return to Sydney, Joe and Dennis, despite their working-class 'Ocker' background, have acquired a veneer of European sophistication, preferring wine to beer and unwilling even to get drunk.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coming_of_the_Terraphiles" title="The Coming of the Terraphiles">
In order to avert the impending collapse of the Multiverse from the mysterious "dark tides" that have begun to appear, the Doctor and Amy join the Terraphiles, a group of humans in the far future obsessed with recreating Earth's distant past and reenacting medieval Earth sports (or rather, unknowingly comic misinterpretations of the same). The Doctor and his new friends compete in a Grand Tournament in the Miggea star system, which lies on the border of parallel realities. The prize of the contest is an ancient artifact called the Arrow of Law, sought also by the Doctor's old foe Captain Cornelius and his crew of space pirates.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Matter_(Paver_novel)" title="Dark Matter (Paver novel)">
In London in 1937, 28-year-old Jack Miller is stuck in a dead-end job and jumps at the chance to be a wireless operator on a year-long Arctic expedition to Gruhuken on the northeast coast of Svalbard, though he has reservations about the class divide separating him from the other, Oxford University educated, members of the team. Bad luck seems to dog the expedition and when they arrive at Longyearbyen for the last leg of their journey, they are warned to choose another destination as their base, but the vague rumours about Gruhuken fail to dissuade them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Evita" title="Santa Evita">
In a blend of fact and fiction, the story tracks Argentine first lady Eva Perón's perfectly embalmed corpse after her death from cancer at age 33, including how it was seized by the Argentine Military, following the ouster of her husband in 1955. At that time, the corpse was considered a sacred relic, and while army officials wanted to keep it out of the hands of the Peronism political movement, they also considered the consequences of destroying it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Forget_the_Bacon!" title="Don't Forget the Bacon!">
The story is about a little boy who leaves his home with his dog to shop for food items for his mother, and attempts to remember the grocery list of things she wanted him to buy. The original request from his mother is "six farm eggs, a cake for tea, a pound of pears, and don't forget the bacon". Along with the dog, he is accompanied on his trip by a butterfly. In order to avoid forgetting items, the boy recites his mother's list to himself. Throughout his trip to the grocery store, the boy sees items along the way that play tricks with his memory, and items on his list one-by-one become substituted with other goods. He keeps thinking about the wrong things and buys the wrong things. For the first item, "Six farm eggs" initially becomes "Six fat legs", then "Six clothes pegs". The second one, "A cake for tea" initially becomes "A cape for me", then "A rake for leaves". Finally, for the third, "A pound of pears" initially becomes "A flight of stairs", then "A pile of chairs". By the end of his trip, the boy has forgotten the initial items requested, and supplants them in his mind with "Six clothes pegs, a rake for leaves, a pile of chairs, and don't forget the bacon". Then he goes to the junk shop and says to a merchant there, "Six clothes pegs, a rake for leaves, and a pile of chairs please!". Before the boy is about to buy the six clothes pegs, the rake for leaves, and the pile of chairs, the merchant gets confused from the boy's grocery list (requested by his mother). The merchant in the junk shop, he then assists the boy in compiling about this odd list. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertram_Cope's_Year" title="Bertram Cope's Year">
The time is the present. Following some time teaching in Winnebago, Wisconsin, Bertram Cope, 24, arrives at the university to spend a year as an instructor in English literature. Living modestly, he cultivates the society of the well-to-do middle-aged with fine homes. At an afternoon tea, he makes a favorable impression on Mrs. Medora Phillips, the wealthy widow of an art dealer, and Basil Randolph, an "academic manqué," a stockbroker and a collector of books and curiosities. Phillips sees Cope as an interesting addition to her salons. Randolph sees him as a candidate for mentoring. Cope visits Mrs. Phillips at home and she continues a conversational style Cope describes as "pretending to quarrel as a means of entertaining you."(24) Although Cope says little of note and sings several airs without distinction, he is judged favorably. Mrs. Phillips teases him for lacking any interest in the girls she introduces to him. Randolph, who occasionally entertains undergraduates "who readily forgot and quickly dropped you,"(40) researches Cope's background and discusses him with Mrs. Phillips, concluding that Cope has "more than one touch of gentility."(42) Randolph visits Mrs. Phillips' wheelchair-using tenant, Joe Foster, her late husband's half-brother, and learns that she imagines Cope may prove a match for one of the three girls who live in her house, Amy, Hortense, and Carolyn. From his quarters upstairs, Joe heard Cope's singing and was impressed enough to want to learn more of Cope. When Mrs. Phillips invites Randolph to a young people's dinner that will include Cope, he feels "a slight stir of elation."(54)
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_an_Eagle" title="Once an Eagle">
## Book 1: Orchard.This section covers the young Sam Damon's formative years in small-town Nebraska, during which he earns his nickname "The Night Clerk." After being put on a wait list to attend West Point, Sam decides to enlist in the Army. This section contains Damon's experiences in basic training and deployment south of the border during the Mexican expedition, though he sees no combat.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hässelby_(novel)" title="Hässelby (novel)">
In Harstad's novel, Albert is 42 years old and still lives with his father in the same apartment. When his father suddenly dies, Albert sees it as an opportunity to finally create the life for himself that he longed for all these years he was taking care of his father. A large part of the novel is made up of a flashback to 1985-86 when Albert traveled around Europe with his friend Viktor, and by coincidence ends up in Hong Kong and later Paris, where he meets a girl and almost decides to stay for good, before ending up returning to his father in Hässelby. The novel starts as a traditional novel exploring themes such as the relationship between father and son, growing up in suburbia, friendship and politics, but throughout the novel the tone gradually gets darker and darker as more surreal elements are introduced. The novel ends as a nightmarish tale where Albert discovers that someone have been following him for over twenty years, all over the world, and that the world is coming to an end.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Savage_Girl_(novel)" title="The Savage Girl (novel)">
Burnt-out art student Ursula Van Urden arrives in Middle City, a fictional American metropolis built around a volcano, with plans to care for her younger sister, Ivy. A well known fashion model, Ivy had recently suffered a much-publicized schizophrenic meltdown. Having spent some time in Middle City, Ursula soon begins working for Ivy's former boyfriend. Her employer, Chas Lacouture is the owner of the trendspotting firm, Tomorrow, Ltd. She is trained as a trendspotter by both Chas a new coworker, Javier Delreal.A manic optimist, Javier takes her on rollerblading and party-crashing expeditions, predicting a new megatrend he calls the "Light Age," a "renaissance of self-creation," which he believes will coincide with the defeat of irony. By contrast, Chas, a cynical ex-philosophy professor, takes her to skulk in supermarkets and spy on customers, and introduces her to the concept of "paradessence,", the "broken soul" at the center of every product, consisting of two opposing desires that it will promise to satisfy simultaneously.As Ivy resumes her modeling activities, Ursula's trendspotting work focuses on a homeless girl who lives in a city park, makes her own clothing, and hunts pigeons for food. This eponymous "savage girl" forms the basis of a marketing campaign for a new product, "Diet Water," and serves as a harbinger, for Chas and Javier alike, of the new age to come.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Hunter" title="Conan the Hunter">
After facing a sewer monster, Conan is enlisted against a demon sorceress's conspiracy in restoring the wealth of her ancient race. In their struggle against Valtresca and Azora, the Cimmerian and his allies Salvorus, Kailash the hillman, and a young priest, Madesus, encounter numerous traps and divine intervention in an adventure culminating in a ruined temple with legions of gargoyles and the resurrection of the horrific villain Skauraul.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_in_Waiting_(novel)" title="Lady in Waiting (novel)">
The story is primarily about the life and exploits of Sir Walter Raleigh, albeit with the bulk of the narration revolving around the impact of his life on Elizabeth Throckmorton, who is referred to as 'Bess.' It begins with Raleigh's (this is the spelling used in the novel) childhood in Budleigh, and quickly shows his close relationship with half-brother Humphrey Gilbert. Glibert is attributed as sharing and inspiring Raleigh's lifelong passion of wanting explore the New World, beginning with a plan to seek the fabled Northwest Passage. Much of the rest of Raleigh's life is explained as being primarily motivated by this passion.Bess is brought into the novel when Raleigh is seeking favor at Queen Elizabeth's court at the Palace of Westminster. She is 12 years of age, and Raleigh makes a strong impression on her during a chance meeting in a garden. He is whistling the tune of Greensleeves, which is used throughout the novel, and shares his frustration of being stymied in his goals of exploration. Bess grows up at court in proximity to Mary Sidney, eventually becoming a Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen. She is immersed in court culture, early on being connected with Philip Sidney, Robert Devereux, and Robin Cecil. They are all shown as children growing up in the shadows of their elders, Lord Essex and Lord Burghley, respectively; and the court intrigues of the times. The two 'Robins' are connected with Raleigh in what is described as a Triumvirate, around which both her life and the fate of England are shown as revolving.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Full_and_True_Account_of_the_Wonderful_Mission_of_Earl_Lavender" title="A Full and True Account of the Wonderful Mission of Earl Lavender">
The story begins with two gentlemen dining in a restaurant in the Strand, carefully keeping track of their finances as they order each item. It's revealed that the two men met recently, as they were staying in the same hotel; they both have been fleeing from something (later revealed to be their respective brides) and using aliases in London—in fact they chose the identical alias of J. Smith at the hotel, which facilitated their meeting. They finish their dinner early, not having enough cash to continue ordering at the restaurant they had chosen; on their way to a cheaper establishment, the younger of the two men declares his new religion of Evolution, and asks the other fellow to become his disciple. The man agrees. The young man gives himself the new name of The Earl de l'Avenir, which is immediately corrupted into Earl Lavender; he then christens the older man as Lord New Broom, which is shortened down to Lord Brumm. Earl Lavender explains that his mission is to find the fittest of all women and to mate with her.The rest of the book finds Earl Lavender leading the way through London, assuring Lord Brumm that Evolution will care for them. They eat at multiple restaurants despite having no money, and luck always causes someone else to be at hand who is willing to pay for them. One mysterious Veiled Lady who pays their bill leads them, afterwards, to an underground city where they are all flogged with knotted cords as part of a strange religious ritual, and then given beds for the night. Earl Lavender perceives that the Veiled Lady may be the fittest of women that he's been looking for, but he is kicked out of the underground city for declaring his passion for her (as these floggings are intended to be completely non-sexual) and Lord Brumm is soon ejected likewise; they are warned that they may return to the underground city in the future but that if there is any more misbehaving, they will be stripped and sent forth into the London streets during broad daylight.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Sheldon's_After_the_Darkness" title="Sidney Sheldon's After the Darkness">
Grace Brookstein lived a luxurious lifestyle despite the economic free fall in the US. Then suddenly her billionaire husband Lenny mysteriously disappears in a tragic sailing accident. Along with Lenny's disappearance, Lenny's hedge fund, the Quorum, which has a $75 billion investment, is also missing and everyone believes that Grace stole the money. Lenny's death was ruled as suicide and Grace was convicted and imprisoned. Grace believed that she was framed. Now alone with no one to turn to, she is determined to find out who is framing her and is desperate for revenge.The book provides a brilliant description of the transformation of the quiet Grace Brookstein from an innocent young woman who had 'never even looked at the price tags of things' to a determined person who fights the world alone, on her own.Once Grace is convicted of money laundering, she is betrayed by her family and friends. She has no one to turn to and tries to commit suicide but she survives. This is when Grace starts to undergo a change. With the help of her cellmates, she flees from prison. The rest of the story deals with the way she reaches the culprit, the further betrayals she suffers and how she deals with the abominable situations she encounters in her way of taking revenge. On her way to truth, she realises that till now she had been living in a fantasy and the reality was something totally disparate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_the_Lightnings" title="With the Lightnings">
During a war between a Republic of Cinnabar and the Alliance of Free Stars, a coup d'état takes place on a neutral planet of Kostroma, with both factions becoming involved. Two Cinnabarian protagonists – a navy lieutenant and émigré librarian – find themselves in the center of the unfolding events.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Warrior's_Apprentice" title="The Warrior's Apprentice">
When Miles Vorkosigan is disqualified from joining the Barrayaran Imperial Service Academy because he broke both his legs during the initial physical entrance exams, he sets about trying to prove himself a hero by other means. The resulting chain of events leads to his taking command of a company of space mercenaries, under the alias "Admiral Miles Naismith".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetaganda" title="Cetaganda">
Previous novels referred to the Cetagandan Empire because of its occupation of Barrayar decades before the events of the first novel, "Shards of Honor". Cetagandan soldiers of the "ghem" military class appear in "The Warrior's Apprentice", "Ethan of Athos" and "Brothers in Arms". This novel introduces the "haut" ruling class of the Empire. The "haut" have different long-range goals than their "ghem" underlings.Miles and Ivan are sent to the home world of the Cetagandan Empire to represent Barrayar at the state funeral of the dowager Empress Lisbet, mother of the current emperor, the "haut" Fletchir Giaja. They quickly become entangled in an internal Cetagandan plot when they arrive at a nearly deserted docking bay, much to their puzzlement. A ba (a sexless servant of the Cetagandan rulers) unexpectedly rushes into their spaceship. A struggle ensues, in which the ba drops a weapon and some sort of artifact before fleeing. Miles takes it upon himself to investigate — without informing his superiors — and eventually discovers that the artifact is a fake copy of the priceless Great Key, which has been stolen. The ba is later found dead.Realizing that an unknown enemy is trying to frame him and Barrayar, Miles forms an unusual alliance with the "haut" Rian Degtiar, the "Handmaiden of the Star Crèche", who is charged with the duties of Empress until the new one is chosen. The Star Crèche is the heart of the genetic engineering project that is the "haut" class's efforts to evolve beyond the merely human.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Million_Dollar_Kick" title="The Million Dollar Kick">
13-year-old Whisper Nelson despises sports ever since when in third grade, she accidentally scored an own goal during a soccer game at a field by Lake Overholser. Sooner later, when her sister is too young to sign up, she signs up for a contest in which the winner gets a chance to score a goal for one million dollars against famous goalie Carmen Applegate. The winner is chosen by the best ad for the Kick, Oklahoma City's soccer team, and Whisper's ('The Kick Kick Butt') wins the contest. Whisper meets Ellie, who soon becomes her teacher to prepare for the big day. Whisper ends up on the news for winning the ad contest, and ends up in the newspaper as well.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dwarves_(novel)" title="The Dwarves (novel)">
Tungdil Goldhand, a young blacksmith, is the only dwarf in Ionandar, one of Girdlegard's five enchanted realms. These realms, rich in magical energy forcefields, are ruled by magi, while other lands are ruled by the kings and queens of Girdlegard. Tungdil's "foster father", the venerable magus Lot-Ionan, sends him on an errand to return some artifacts to one of his former pupils and travel to the secondling dwarf kingdom. Along the way he meets Boïndil Doubleblade and Boëndal Hookhand, two secondling twins, who lead him to Ogreʼs Death, a fortress in their kingdom. They slaughter orcs and avoid Nudin the Knowledge-Lusty (Nôdʼonn the Doublefold), a magus who has fallen under the spell of The Perished Land (the evil spirit of Girdlegard). Nudin betrays the magi, kills them, and corrupts the forcefields so that he alone can use them. The Perished Land attempted and succeeded in infiltrating Girdlegard and defeating the dwarves' fifthling kingdom eleven hundred cycles ago. Whoever dies on the Perished Land is raised as a revenant in service of the Perished Land's spirit; however, if the revenant's spirit is strong enough, it can resist the Perished Land's influence. Tungdil owns the books that explain the only way to defeat Nudin: forge a magical axe called Keenfire that needs to have a steel blade, a hilt made of the extinct tree known as the sidguredaisy, and runes engraved with a combination of all the known metals. They decapitate Nudin, but he survives thanks to the dark power of the spirit of the Perished Land possessing him. They meet Andôkai, the last surviving maga, and her bodyguard, Djerůn. Tungdil is also involved in a plot to delegitimize Gandogar's claim to the throne. Gandogar has been convinced by his evil advisor, Bislipur Surestroke, who is secretly a thirdling (an evil race of dwarves who throughout history have tried to end the lives of all other dwarves) that the elves betrayed the fifthlings and want to create a war with them while they're weak from the constant battles with the Perished Land. Tundgil and Gandogar then set out to forge Keenfire for the fifth challenge that was taken out by chance by Bislipur in the draw.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Midnight_Charter" title="The Midnight Charter">
The novel starts with Mark in a delirious, dream-like state because he suffers from a deadly fever. He has been sold by his father to Dr Theophilus in the hope that he will treat Mark. While he is being treated, he meets Lily, a servant to the doctor's grandfather, Count Stelli, the city's greatest astrologer. She helps him adjust to his new life. Mark is soon cured of the terrible fever and will soon leave Count Stelli's tower with Dr Theophilus and become his assistant. But Mark does not want to go and brokers a deal with Lily; he will stay and serve the Count and she will leave the horrid tower and learn about medicine with the doctor.While Lily and Dr Theophilus struggle to survive, Mark is taught how to be an astrologer by the Count. Soon, with the aid of Mr Snutworth, Mark plans to overthrow the old Count and become the greatest astrologer himself. In the meantime, Lily comes up with a shocking idea; provide free accommodation, medical care and food to debtors and those in need of it. She, Dr Theophilus and two others start an almshouse.Mark manages to overthrow the Count and soon becomes a powerful astrologer himself, living in high society. On numerous occasions, Lily asks Mark for his support of the almshouse, but he declines, stating that he and his reputation would be at stake. With the aid of Mr Snutworth, Mark soon becomes the most powerful person in all of Agora, bar the Director.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gifts_of_the_Body" title="The Gifts of the Body">
The several short stories are narrated by a caregiver who is tending to several patients who have contracted AIDS. Each story could be considered by itself, or the combined narrative could be viewed as one panorama dealing with either the AIDS or with those who care for those afflicted with the virus. Each story is an illness narrative in itself, as it describes the physical and emotional trauma experienced by both the patients and the caregiver.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Republic_(novel)" title="People's Republic (novel)">
People's Republic begins with introduction of Ryan Sharma. Ryan has just completed some punishment laps and finds out that he is being wanted for a mission. Also, Fu Ning, a Chinese girl lives in a Dandong boarding school and wants to escape. The book then rotates between the two characters lives, eventually showing Ryan going to the USA to infiltrate the Aramov clan through Ethan Kitsell. Ning ends up escaping China and going on the run with her stepmum Ingrid as she is wanted for questioning over her husband Chaoxiang's involvement in sending illegal immigrants across countries.Ingrid and Ning eventually try to flee China to Britain and end up in Kyrgyzstan. Ingrid is tortured and is being tried to hand over bank account details so they can go to Britain. In the end, the deal doesn't work, leaving Ning on her own and trying to get to Britain by herself. Meanwhile, Ryan becomes Ethan's only friend after his mum and his best friend died, leaving him as his only support after saving his life again. Ryan also saved Ethan's life when he was hit by a car this helped the part of the plot to bond with him.However, just as they were bonding, a bomb was placed at the bottom of Ethan's house leaving him and everyone else at a motel. Ethan is then taken into care by a lawyer of his mother and is about to be taken back to Kyrgyzstan. This leaves Ryan to be sent back to CHERUB campus after pushing over his mission controller, Dr D. Ryan, after being taken back to CHERUB, is punished with 500 hours of recycling duty but still has a friendship with Ethan. Amy Collins manages to reduce the amount of punishments by speaking to Zara Asker.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gates_of_Thorbardin" title="The Gates of Thorbardin">
This novel tells the story of the dwarves Chane Feldstone and Jillian Firestoke. Other characters include the kender Chestal Thicketsway who is accompanied against his will by an unexploded spell named Zap, which even seems to talk to him, and a gnome named Bobbin who has been banished from his colony because of incurable insanity.According to Parkinson, the challenge with this novel was "to bring these people, who are of a different race than I am, very much to life to make them as much as possible three-dimensional people and show them as being the best of what they are, and not necessarily the best of what they would be if they were human." Parkinson says that the book is essentially "the story of Chane, a Thorbardin dwarf, and his quest to find the Helm of Grallen and to seal the secret entrance of Thorbardin against incursion by magic".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_(Friend_novel)" title="Perfect (Friend novel)">
Isabelle Lee is a 13-year-old girl with an eating disorder. The disorder developed over time after the death of her father when her mother begins to send her to group therapy. She soon realizes that the most popular girl in school, Ashley Barnum, goes to the group and begins to be friends with her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Confession_(novel)" title="The Confession (novel)">
In 1998, Travis Boyette abducts and rapes Nicole "Nikki" Yarber, a teenage girl and high school student in Slone, Texas and buries her body in Joplin, Missouri some 6 hours from Slone. He watches unfazed as the police arrest and convict Donté Drumm, a black high school football player with no connection to the crime. Despite his innocence, Drumm is convicted and sentenced to death. He has been on death row for nine years when the story takes place. While Drumm serves his prison sentence, lawyer Robbert "Robbie" Flak fights his case. Meanwhile, Black Americans protest his false conviction, creating a law and order situation.In the meantime, Boyette has fled to Kansas and has been living there ever since. He has been suffering with a brain tumor for the past nine years and his health has deteriorated. In 2007, with Drumm's execution only a week away, reflecting on his miserable life, he decides to do what is right: confess. He meets a pastor, Reverend Keith Schroeder who takes him to Slone. Despite his confession to the public, the execution proceeds on and Drumm is executed by lethal injection. The town is beset by racial tension though a riot is averted. Boyette then reveals the resting place of Nikki and DNA samples show signs of rape and assault on her body. But before there is an arrest warrant for him, he takes off. In Slone, Flak leads legal attacks on those responsible for the false conviction and execution, while Schroeder agonizes over what he has done; taken a paroled convicted rapist who was also probably a murderer, out of his parole zone (the state of Kansas). Schroeder winds up making his actions public, paying a fine, resigning from his church and accepting a position at a reform-minded church in Texas. The latter happens after Boyette is caught attempting another rape.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reckless_(Funke_novel)" title="Reckless (Funke novel)">
"Reckless" opens with twelve-year-old Jacob Reckless using a mirror to enter the magical world of Mirrorworld.Twelve years later, Jacob's brother Will follows Jacob into the Mirrorworld. Will is attacked by a Goyl, a humanoid race with stone skin. As a result of this, Will's skin begins turning to stone. Jacob knows that the stone will soon invade Will’s entire body, and Will will become one of the Goyl and he rides off in search of a cure. He is told that the berries that grow in the garden of child-eating witch may cure Will of the curse. Will sneaks back through the mirror to say goodbye to his girlfriend Clara over the phone, leading to her going to the Reckless brothers’ house and entering the mirror.Jacob, Will, Clara and Jacob's vixen friend, Fox, journey to the witch's house, which lies deserted. When they arrive, they realize that they're being pursued by a dangerous creature called The Tailor. Jacob and Fox fight The Tailor, with Will and Clara inside the gates, which The Tailor cannot enter, but Jacob is wounded on the shoulder during the fight. Will takes the berries, and they sleep. In the morning, Will's condition has not changed; the berries did not work. In another attempt to save his brother, Jacob decides to visit the Red Fairy, in the hope that he can convince her to help break the curse. Jacob forces a dwarf named Valiant to help the group find her. Meanwhile, the Goyl King's right hand leads a group of Goyl soldiers to find Will, because they believe he is destined to become the ultimate protector of their king, as his skin is turning to jade. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_(novella)" title="Casablanca (novella)">
"Casablanca" begins when the narrator, who is driving his car to Mar del Plata seaside resort, is caught by a big storm. While looking for some shelter he comes across a place similar to Rick's Café Américain. He gets out of the car and, almost blinded by the rain, hurries to the entrance door. Just then somebody starts playing "As Time Goes By" on a piano at the back of the room. The player is identical to Sam, but much older; he is wearing the same suit jacket that is shown in the film, but worn out now. In one of the corners, an old man in dark glasses, who looks like Humphrey Bogart, is dozing at a table. When the song is over, the black man starts to tell the narrator the story of the place and of the people who lived there.It all started, he says, in the early fifties, when the owner of those lands, a rich man very similar to Sydney Greenstreet —the actor who interpreted señor Ferrari— decides to build a replica of Rick's café to reproduce in it the main scenes of the movie. With this purpose, he sends agents around the country and abroad, to look for people whose physical appearance is identical to the characters. He keeps for himself the role of Señor Ferrari. When the cast is ready, they rehearse for some months; their voices and accents must sound like the English spoken in the original version. To imitate the black-and-white movie, everything in the place is in lighter or darker shades of grey.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger's_Rogues" title="Hunger's Rogues">
"Hunger's Rogues" takes up the author's story about a year after he escaped from forced labor in the Russian mines, recounted in "Donbas". The book opens in 1948 with Sandulescu approaching Transit Camp Buchholz, a camp for displaced persons, or "DPs", awaiting permission to emigrate overseas, then located outside of Hanover, Germany, near the village of Buchholz. The author describes camp and camp life, then unfolds his involvement, through friendships made in camp, with the thriving black market primarily based in the train stations of cities throughout Germany and the countries formerly occupied by the Nazi regime. After passing initial emigrant screening, Sandulescu fails the medical exam due to elevated blood pressure and is forced to remain in camp for an extended period until he can be re-tested. As he waits for the next opportunity for a medical exam, the excitement of trading on the black market continues to draw him in. Sandulescu recounts black market trades and affairs that include selling pork from a clandestine farmhouse slaughter, a trip to Belgium disguised as a US soldier to buy 150 pounds of coffee and a trip in the company of a Red Army officer from the Balkans to Paris to buy and peddle cigarettes. He gives market prices for black market goods, primarily food, and the exchange rate in terms of packs of cigarettes, as American cigarettes were the most widely accepted currency at the time. The book includes vivid word pictures of the lives of ordinary civilians in the aftermath of the war, with rationing and shortages leading many to trade on the black market to eat well or just to survive.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Map_and_the_Territory" title="The Map and the Territory">
The novel tells the story of the life and art of Jed Martin, a fictional French artist who becomes famous by photographing Michelin maps and painting scenes about professional activities. His father is slowly entering old age. Jed falls for a beautiful Russian executive from Michelin but the relationship ends when she returns to Russia. Jed becomes extraordinarily successful after a new series of paintings and therefore suddenly rich as the most prominent artist in France around the year 2010. He meets Michel Houellebecq in Ireland in order to ask him to write the text for the catalog of one of his exhibitions, and in exchange offers to paint the writer's portrait.A few months later Houellebecq is brutally murdered and Jed Martin gets involved in the case.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Thieves_(novel)" title="City of Thieves (novel)">
The novel begins with David as the narrator. He is an American who describes himself as growing up knowing that his grandfather killed two Germans in a knife fight before he was 18, even though he was never actually told the story. As a child, David lived two blocks away from his grandparents, who owned an insurance company. In the late 1990s, an insurance conglomerate offered to purchase the company, and David's grandmother asked them to double their offer. Eventually, the conglomerate agreed and David's grandparents retired to Florida. David lives in Los Angeles writing screenplays, but when he was asked to write an autobiographical essay, he decided he wanted to write instead about Leningrad, where his grandfather grew up. He flies to Florida to speak with his grandfather, and for a week David records his grandfather's stories. The reader also learns that David's grandmother never cooks herself anything more complex than a bowl of cereal.The narrator changes to Lev (David's grandfather) and it's New Year's Eve in 1942 in Leningrad, Russia, during World War II. Everyone's been hungry since the German siege of the city began in September, although many, including Lev's mother and sister Taisya, have evacuated. Lev, at 17, is a firefighter for the city, and sits on the roof of his apartment building with his friends Vera, Grisha, and Oleg. Vera spots a German soldier falling from the sky in a parachute and the four run down into the street to investigate. When the German lands in the street, Lev takes the man's knife while Grisha opens the man's hip flask and passes it around, toasting the cold that killed this soldier. Suddenly they hear a car coming and run, because what they’re doing is illegal. As they race back to the apartment building, Vera falls. Lev goes back to help her and boosts her over the gate, but the Russian soldiers out on patrol grab Lev before he can climb over himself. The soldiers take him to the Crosses, the prison in Leningrad.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_of_the_Pagoda" title="The Fall of the Pagoda">
"The Fall of the Pagoda" tells a narrative story about the childhood life of a girl, Lute, born in a noble family which is in a process of moral and financial decline. As a young girl, her mother followed her aunt to go abroad, and her father was addicted to opium, leaving her and her little brother to live with their servants, aunt Tong, aunt He, aunt Qin, etc.Her father presided over their family. But he did not work due to a negative attitude to life and the addiction to opium. Lute's mother, Lu, a woman in the vanguard of female self-reliance, decided to divorce with her father, the patriarch who was adrift in post-Qing China. Maybe due to her special family background, the little girl was different in some significant way from others of the same age. Her psychological age is much older than actual age.Lute's sickly brother, Hill, as a boy, was the important child in this family because he would be the successor of his father, Yuxi. The young boy was cosseted, over-supervised and beaten so that he was weak and morose. Lute was often ignored and had more freedom to do what she wanted. She was given to those of no consequence. Lute grew up around servants, the sprawling, extended family existed in a sea of gossip, scandal, jealousy and fear. They were bound together by their need for money, and the terror of destitution. They lived on the family's ever-diminishing wealth and tarnished prestige, pretending loyalty while pursuing their own survival and pleasure. Through young Lute's child clear eyes, those adults sometimes were hypocritical; even her parents were relentlessly selfish.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Dragon_(novel)" title="The Last Dragon (novel)">
In a two-part tale, the reader embarks on a journey of humor, sorrow, and tenderness, within a story of cultures colliding, highlighting a young orphaned elf, the last on earth, named Yorsh, full name Yorshkrunsquarklejolnerstrink. His village has been destroyed by torrential rain, and he finds himself living in a world plagued by intolerance, shrouded in darkness, hungry, cold, and wet. Upon meeting and being reluctantly befriended by a hunter named Monser and Sajra, a woman, Yorsh learns of a prophecy and of his importance in saving the world of this Dark Age. To fulfill the prophecy and bring the world into an age where the sun will shine again, he must first find another bereaved creature: the last dragon. Upon discovering the dragon, Yorsh decides to stay and keep him company.The second part of the story takes place thirteen years later; the dragon dies leaving him with an egg. Yorsh takes upon the task of raising the young dragon. Yorsh, coming to miss deeply his companions, Monser and Sajra, journeys back to the old village to find their daughter Robi, and learns of the hanging they endured for protecting him. Saddened, Yorsh decides he will protect the young orphaned Robi. Deciding to leave, the elf, young dragon, and Robi move to a new country, forming a new constitution to govern the population of their new world, “No one can hit anybody… And you can’t hang people, either.”
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_(Richards_book)" title="Life (Richards book)">
"Life" is a memoir covering Keith Richards's life, starting with his childhood in Dartford, Kent, through to his success with the Rolling Stones and his current life in Connecticut. His interest in music was triggered by his mother, Doris, who played records by Sarah Vaughan, Billy Eckstine and Louis Armstrong, and his maternal grandfather, Augustus Theodore Dupree, a former big band player, who encouraged him to take up the guitar. In his teens he met up with Mick Jagger, who he had known in primary school, and discovered that they both shared a love of blues music. In the early 1960s Richards moved into a London flat, shared with Jagger and Brian Jones. Together with Bill Wyman, Ian Stewart and Charlie Watts, the Rolling Stones were founded in 1962, playing gigs at Ealing Jazz Club and the Crawdaddy Club.The book chronicles Richards's career with the Stones since 1962, following their rise from playing small club gigs to stadium concerts, Richards's drug habits, his arrests and convictions. His relationships with a number of women, including Anita Pallenberg, Marianne Faithfull, Ronnie Spector and Patti Hansen, whom he married in 1983, are covered in detail. The often difficult partnership between Richards and Jagger is referred to throughout the work and coverage of this has caused much media interest.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Queen" title="The Fifth Queen">
"The Fifth Queen" trilogy has an omniscient narrator. Katharine Howard is introduced in the first book as a devout Roman Catholic, impoverished, young noblewoman escorted by her fiery cousin Thomas Culpeper. By accident, she comes to the attention of the king, in a minor way at first, is helped to a position as a lady in waiting for the then bastard Lady Mary, Henry's eldest daughter, by her old Latin tutor Nicholas Udal. Udal is a spy for Thomas Cromwell, the Lord Privy Seal.As Katharine becomes involved with the many calculating, competing, and spying members of Henry VIII's Court, she gradually rises, almost against her will, in Court. She is brought more to the attention of the King, becomes involved with him, is used by Cromwell, Bishop Gardiner and Thomas Cranmer as well as the less powerful though more personally attached Nicholas Throckmorton. Her connection to the latter puts her in some peril, as in January 1554 he is suspected of complicity in Wyatt's Rebellion and arrested, during which time Katherine is also briefly implicated.Katharine's forthrightness, devotion to the Old Faith and learning are what make her attractive to the King, along with her youth and physical beauty. This is in direct contradiction to the way historians view the historical personage herself; that is, as a flighty and flirtatious young woman with few other redeeming qualities.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clockwork_Three" title="The Clockwork Three">
One day, Giuseppe finds a green violin floating in the harbor and he tries it out. He finds that it gives a very beautiful sound, and he is thrown money from people everywhere in the streets. He gets an idea to use his green violin to buy a boat ticket back to Italy, where he had been taken from. For once, Giuseppe has hope in getting back to his family. Frederick is going around in search of a chest plate for his clockwork man. While wandering the streets, Frederick catches a glimpse of Mrs. Treeless, the woman in charge of an orphanage.Frederick had been in before becoming apprenticed to Master Branch, which reminds him of the awful memories he had at the orphanage. He also bumps into Giuseppe, but Giuseppe runs along with his violin. Later, he finds a coal chute, perfect for the chest plate, and sneaks it out of a coal yard. While he sneaks out, he lies about his father being one of the workers at the mine. He goes back to Master Branch's shop, where Frederick is an apprentice, and once he decides that Master Branch is asleep, he goes to the basement of the shop to work on his clockwork man. Hannah discovers that a man named Mister Stroop supposedly left the treasure in the suites at the top of the hotel. She later sees a map that hints it may be near a pond in the park. She runs to look for it when she desperately needs money for her sick father's medicine. There she meets Giuseppe, and the two look for the treasure but it is not there, though she receives some herbal medicine from a woman who lives in the park. Hannah's father draws for her where the treasure is hidden in the hotel, having worked for Stroop's hotel in the past.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prague_Cemetery" title="The Prague Cemetery">
The main character is Simone Simonini, a man whom Eco claims he has tried to make into the most cynical and disagreeable character in all the history of literature (and is the only fictional character in the novel). He was born in Turin in 1830. His mother died while he was still a child and his father was killed in 1848 fighting for a united Italy. He is brought up by his grandfather, an old reactionary who houses Jesuit refugees and hates the Jews. He claims that the French Revolution was planned by the Knights Templar, the Bavarian Illuminati and the Jacobins, but he says behind them all were the Jews. Since he does not attend public school, Simonini is educated by Jesuits brought into his home at the behest of his grandfather. One such priest, Father Bergamaschi (a fictionalized portrait of the Italian Jesuit novelist Antonio Bresciani), teaches him the evils of secret societies, that, according to him, are no more than a cover for communism.Simonini imbibes his grandfather's antisemitism, but his father's radicalism, and his dislike of the Jesuits, also arouse his anti-clerical inclinations. In the works of French writers such as Eugène Sue and Alexandre Dumas he enjoys reading of intrigues and conspiracies, and aspires to emulate these fictions in his own life. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_destino_ridicolo" title="Un destino ridicolo">
The novel is set between Sardinia and the city of Genoa. The Sardinian shepherd Salvatore, after a detention in prison, comes to Genoa in search of a better life. In the old town he meets a prostitute, Veretta, and falls in love with her. The main plot is weaved with the histories of the pimp Carlo, the French criminal Barnard, the young singer-songwriter Fabrizio and his fan Alessandro, the beautiful "new girl in town" Maritza and Salvatore's cousin, Annino. In particular, the main section of the novel focuses on Carlo and Salvatore being involved in a heist on account of Barnard; Salvatore ends up being shot by a hired hitmam of Barnard's, when the former confesses everything to the latter after stumbling upon him and wrongly believing him to be a priest.The character of Maritza is a novelization of "Bocca di Rosa", the main character of a De André hit song. Two other characters (Fabrizio and Alessandro) are the authors themselves.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Thing" title="The Lost Thing">
Set in the near future, a dystopian Melbourne, Australia, "The Lost Thing" is a story about Shaun who enjoys collecting bottle tops for his bottle top collection. One day, while collecting bottle tops near a beach, he discovers a strange creature, that seems to be a combination of a crab, an octopus, and an industrial boiler. This creature is referred to as "The Lost Thing" by the narrator.Shaun realizes the creature is lost and out of place in Jupiter. He attempts to find its owner or otherwise its source but is not able to, due to the indifference of everyone else. Pete, an opinionated friend of Shaun's, explains that it may not actually belong anywhere. When he seeks help from a government agency, he is met by a creature who warns that the department exists only to hide and forget about uncategorizable things, and gives him a business card with an arrowhead sign on it. After searching much of the city for the sign, which they find and follow numerous times, Shaun discovers a utopian land for lost things, where he parts ways with the creature, and continues on with his life - although he was unable to say whether the creature, or any of the others, really belonged there.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mockingbird_(Erskine_novel)" title="Mockingbird (Erskine novel)">
The book centers around the girl whose brother was killed in a school shooting.10-year-old Caitlin Smith has Asperger’s syndrome and is preoccupied with drawing and dictionaries. Her older brother Devon has just been killed, along with a teacher and another student, in a tragic school shooting. Due to Caitlin's condition, she finds it difficult to cope with her feelings about what has happened. She is awkward and pedantic, seeing things in black and white, and referring to her deceased brother as "Devon who is dead" when talking to her father.Caitlin's behaviors are perceived as "weird". She likes to hide from the rest of the world under the dresser belonging to Devon. Her classmates don't want to be friends with her due to her strange behavior.Her counselor arranges for her to spend recess with the younger kids. She meets a boy named Michael, who is strangely sad over his mother. When she talks to her counselor about it, she tells Caitlin that he is the son of the teacher who was shot and killed in the shooting.Caitlin discovers the words "empathy" and "closure" and determines that this is what she and her distraught father need. She finds it in the form of Devon's Eagle Scout box which has remained incomplete since his death. Caitlin thinks that if she and her father complete the box, it will bring them closure. With the help of a school counselor and art teacher, although Caitlin is initially antagonistic, she is able to help her father, as well as Michael and the school bully, Josh, the shooter's cousin, to cope.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sentimentalists_(novel)" title="The Sentimentalists (novel)">
The novel's protagonist is an unnamed young woman, who seeks to understand her relationship with her father better by investigating his experience in the Vietnam War.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_(Higson_novel)" title="The Dead (Higson novel)">
"The Dead" begins a year before the events in "The Enemy", where an unnamed user posts a video on YouTube titled "The Scared Kid". In it, a boy frantically talks to the camera about how his friends Danny and Eve have been killed by "Mothers and fathers" (Zombies), and shows them standing outside his window. He then suffers a nervous breakdown and ends the video. The video goes viral, with people not knowing if it is real or not. Eventually, the video is taken down from YouTube, followed by the site itself, followed by the internet, and finally electricity entirely. This marks the point that people realized that something bad was going on, and the start of the apocalypse.Two weeks into the apocalypse, two 14-year-old boys, named Jack and Ed are trapped with a group of other schoolboys in the Rowhurst boarding school (in Kent, in a remote village a few miles from London) where they are defending themselves from their now zombified teachers. After escaping from the adult siege of their school with the help of a rugby player named Bam, Jack and Ed rescue their French teacher's daughter, Frederique, and make their way to a nearby chapel, where a group of people led by a boy named Matt barricaded themselves inside a few days prior. Alarmed by the lack of a reply from inside the church, they break in and find that the boys hiding inside have either fallen unconscious or died from carbon monoxide poisoning. The group of boys manage to revive the survivors, and Matt appears to have suffered brain damage from the poisoning. He believes himself to be the messenger of a being called the Lamb, who he explains will come down to earth and cleanse it of "Non believers" (the zombies). He is convinced he must go to St Paul's Cathedral in London to fulfil the needs of his "god". The group splits, with Matt and some people he has brought into his religion (now calling themselves his "acolytes", attempting to go to London with Jack (who wants to find his family home), and the rest (including Ed, Bam and one of Ed's best friends, Malik) deciding to go deeper into the countryside (thinking it will be safer).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nights_of_Rain_and_Stars" title="Nights of Rain and Stars">
In a small town in Greece, a group of people witness a boating accident and subsequently become tangled in each other's lives. Thomas is a California university professor escaping from a tense relationship with his remarried ex-wife and their son, whom he adores. Elsa, the beautiful German blonde, resigned from her successful television job to escape her ex-boyfriend, whom she still loves. Irish Fiona couldn't stand her family and friends' resentful attitudes towards her boyfriend, Shane, so she and Shane escaped to peaceful Greece. David, a kind Englishman, doesn't want to take over his father's business as his family expects him to, and instead decides to travel.These strangers meet in a tavern in peaceful Aghia Anna underneath the stars, and soon they become close friends. Vonni, a native who escaped her family in Ireland many years ago, becomes involved in all their lives and together they form bonds and discover things about each other and themselves that they never could have anticipated.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_in_Time_(novel)" title="Frozen in Time (novel)">
Ben and Rachel are staying in their house with their dreary old uncle when the TV satellite breaks and the TV explodes. Unable to do anything to amuse themselves, Ben and Rachel start digging in the garden and find themselves opening a hatch. They drop themselves into it and find themselves in what looks like an old-fashioned underground bunker house, where they find what looks like a torpedo and are perplexed to see two 'dead' bodies in it. Rachel accidentally presses a button and the torpedoes open and the bodies come to life. Rachel faints and Ben starts talking gibberish in his shock. The two people that had before seemed dead introduced themselves as Freddy and Polly Emerson and asked why they were in their fathers' vault. When Rachel and Ben explained, they first refused to believe it, but then believed when Rachel and Ben took them into their house. Freddy and Polly revealed they had been put into cryonic suspension - their father had frozen their hearts and was able to make them start again. Freddy and Polly had been put to sleep in 1956 and woken up in 2009. They could not understand why their father had deserted them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_and_Iseult_(novel)" title="Tristan and Iseult (novel)">
Tristan is depicted as a prince of Lothian, whose father, King Rivalin married the sister of Mark of Cornwall, making Tristan the nephew of King Mark. Tristan's mother is shown as dying in his childbirth, and his name as being from the Latin root word "trista", reflecting the sadness of Rivalin at the loss of his wife.He journeys to the Kingdom of Cornwall in effort to prove himself, and enters the service of King Mark without revealing his identity. After defeating the Irish champion Morholt, Tristan's identity is revealed, and his position as Champion of Cornwall solidified. Having been wounded by the poisoned blade of Morholt, Tristan wastes away, eventually being set adrift in a boat by his own choice. He lands on the shores of Ireland, and his healed by the skills of Iseult of Ireland, although without actually meeting her.Upon returning to Cornwall, he is involved in a move to have King Mark marry. Tristan is sent on a quest to find a bride for the king, and winds up once again in Ireland. Tristan defeats a dragon, is once again healed by Iseult, and though given her hand in marriage as reward, promises to bring her back to Cornwall as bride for his Uncle. These events are shown in light of bringing peace to an ongoing war between the two kingdoms. Tristan and Iseult are stranded on a distant shore for a few days, delaying their return to Cornwall, and cementing their own love for each other, despite the commitments of circumstances. Sutcliff herself states that she intentionally left out the love potion as something 'artificial'.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Kilba" title="King of Kilba">
Kenneth Kilsyth, a young clerk in a London counting house, and a most reluctant employee, wins £1000 in a football pool (nearly £200,000 at present-day prices calculated as average earnings, or over £43,000 calculated as retail price index).Inviting his sole friend and fellow clerk, Gerald Hayes, to join him, he embarks on a journey of adventure.Some time later, they find themselves the sole passengers on a merchant ship, the S.S. "Mumtaz", steaming from Vancouver to Honolulu, but all the officers and most of the sailors are quickly wiped out by a mysterious disease, leaving the two passengers the only people alive. Bridges, the quartermaster of the crew, survives long enough to help dispose of the bodies overboard and shows the lads how to rig a sail on to the wallowing freighter. Under the influence of the North-East trade winds and the North Equatorial current, the "Mumtaz" eventually drifts over a coral reef and lodges on the leeward side.The boys are near an island, and arming themselves with guns from the captain’s cabin, they land on the island. At dawn, atop a small hill, they are confronted by an army of 'savages'. But the natives attack on stilts (the ground is taboo to them) and the boys are able to defend themselves. The attack is suddenly called off by an elderly white man who speaks broken English. He reveals that he was shipwrecked many years before and has become 'King' of the island, called Kilba. This is in accordance with a local prophecy that a white man will always rule the people. From him, they learn that tribal warfare between the two islands of Kilba and Neka has existed for many generations.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Griffin" title="The Dark Griffin">
The land of Cymria is ruled by those humans who can communicate with, and work with, the griffins, with both rogue humans and wild griffins treated poorly. For Arren Cardockson, the main protagonist, who has risen to his position because a griffin chose him, his background means that he does not have access to justice. For the black griffin, his inability to communicate with humans means he does not understand the human world. Each of the pair must fight for survival, and for freedom.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Yates_(novel)" title="Richard Yates (novel)">
Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning (unrelated to their child star namesakes, though they are the same respective ages as the actors were at the time the book was published) are friends who initially met over the internet and converse with each other regularly through Gmail chat. Haley is a 22-year-old author in Manhattan, and Dakota is a 16-year-old high school student in a nearby suburb in New Jersey.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Still_Point" title="The Still Point">
The book's two central characters are Edward Mackley, an Arctic explorer who went missing during an expedition at the turn of the 20th century, and his great-grand-niece Julia, who lives a hundred years later. On a hot summer's day Julia begins sorting through the belongings she has inherited from her uncle, while trying to ignore the cracks which are appearing in her marriage. However, as the day wears on she makes a discovery that forces her to re-evaluate her long-held image of her uncle, her husband Simon faces a choice that will decide the future of their relationship.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_Wilhelm_Storitz" title="The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz">
Railway engineer Henri Vidal was invited by his younger brother Marc to pay him a visit in the (fictional) city of Ragz, Hungary. Marc was engaged to Myra Roderich, the daughter of highly praised Dr. Roderich. Before leaving Paris, he learned that a man named Wilhelm Storitz had proposed to Myra, but he was refused.Henri describes his journey, made on land and on the Danube River on the barge "Dorothée", also noting monuments and cities he sees on the way. At his arrival in Ragz, he received a warm welcome from Myra's family.One day, Dr. Roderich told Henri and Haralan (Myra's brother) that Wilhelm Storitz had come to request to propose again to Myra. When he is again refused, he threatened the family.Before the marriage, a contract must be signed by the town governor as an old tradition from Ragz. A party was organized for the event, which was disrupted by a mysterious voice that sang the German "Hate Song". To make matters worse, the contract was found torn to pieces and the bride's wreath lifted itself and hovered mysteriously in the air, ensuing panic among the people at the party.After reporting the events to the chief of the Ragz police, Heinrich Stepark, he suspected that the culprit must be Wilhelm Storitz, as he was the only person who profoundly disrespected the Roderichs. Wilhelm's house was searched but, beside Myra's bridal wreath and a mysterious yellow fluid in a blue vial, no significant evidence was found.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonia_(novel)" title="Plutonia (novel)">
The title "Plutonia" refers to the novel's setting in a lost land. It is an underground world having its own sun, called Pluto for the Roman god of the underworld. The terrain is marked by dramatic geographic features and inhabited by prehistoric animals and primitive people. These are essentially the animal and plant life of previous geological periods in their natural surroundings. As the characters venture deeper into the underground area, they encounter more and more ancient life forms, back to dinosaurs and other Jurassic species.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Emperors" title="The Little Emperors">
The story is set in Britain in 405–411 CE, telling of the decline of Roman government in the diocese of Britannia.Caius Sempronius Felix is a career Imperial civil servant. Born in the port city of Tingis in the Roman province of Mauritania Tingitana, he has served in many major Roman centres and has, by dint of loyalty and hard work (and not a little absconding with treasury funds), been appointed "praeses" (provincial governor) of Britannia Prima. Based in Londinium, and nominally responsible to the "vicarius" of the diocese, he is effectively the ruler – treasurer, administrator and magistrate with wide powers. He is married for political reasons to Maria, a younger woman and nominal Christian. His father-in-law Gratianus is a rich and scheming financier.Felix tries hard to maintain what he sees as the high standards of Roman administration and etiquette that he has learned in centres in continental Europe closer to Rome. He is ruthless in punishing suspected criminals and seeing that taxes are paid on time; he does not hesitate to engage in various casual cruelties to his slaves, and his judicial decisions are often arbitrary. But all about him, the civilisation he single-mindedly supports is slowly breaking down. He tries hard to balance his limited budget, despite a moribund economy and constant demands for extra military spending. Rome still wins some military victories, but then Germans invade Gaul and Britain is cut off.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbroken_(Zamperini_biography)" title="Unbroken (Zamperini biography)">
Louis Zamperini grows up in a Christian home. In his youth he is a troublemaker in his hometown of Torrance, California. Louis steals and stashes food, liquor, and cigarettes. Louis is also bullied for his Italian background.Louis is caught by law enforcement and returned to his family. Although his father disciplines him with beatings, Louis’ behavior does not improve.Louis is led to pursue running by his older brother, Pete. Pete rides a bicycle alongside Louis as he runs home from school, ringing the bike bell as encouragement. This positive reinforcement changes Louis.Louis joins his high school track team, begins to win races, and becomes known as the Torrance Tornado. Training at a college track facility, Louis becomes acquainted with James Sasaki, a man he presumes to be Japanese-American.Louis earns a place on the U.S. Olympic Team to compete at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Pete walks Louis to the train station for his departure to Germany. At the station Louis says that this first Olympic Games will just be a “try-out” for the next Olympics 4 years later in Tokyo, Japan. Pete tells Louis to never forget that “a moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory”.At the Olympics, Louis participates in the opening ceremonies as the Olympic Torch is lit, and notices a Japanese contestant who politely nods at him. Competing in the 5,000 meter race against more experienced athletes, Louis first seems to fall behind. As the second lap bell rings, Louis remembers Pete’s words and rallies to place 8th with a time of 14 minutes, 46.8 seconds.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Popularity_Papers" title="The Popularity Papers">
Two fifth-grade friends, Lydia Goldblatt and Julie Graham-Chang, want to learn how to be popular before entering middle school. The first book of the series is their journal, documenting their misadventures to become more popular, as well as their family and school life. Sequels continue the story of Lydia and Julie and their friends and families, as they progress into middle school.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rice_Sprout_Song" title="The Rice Sprout Song">
The Rice Sprout Song depicts the absurd nature of the land reform movement of the Communist regime, as well as highlight the horrors and suffering it caused a southern agrarian village in early 1950s China. The communist revolution, followed by the land reforms, was meant to "liberate" the peasants of the village, but contrary to their hopes, the lives of the peasants did not change in the manner they expected. The characters of Chang's story face the perils of famine but also the suffering and frustration that ensues from the gradual deterioration of their civility, humanity and most of all their traditional family values. That is catalyzed by their hunger and the constant presence of the political forces, and the pressures involved with appeasing them. “In the novel, when the peasants in the village can no longer put up with pressure from local leaders to produce grain, they riot. The local people's militia intervenes, massacring them and further tightening their control in the village. At the end of the novel, the survivors are forced to parade and take part in New Year's celebrations.” The story focuses on the life of a middle-aged couple the T'an's, who have a young daughter named Beckon. Both male protagonist Gold Root and female protagonist Moon scent's have each other's best interest as their first priority, they constantly sacrifice themselves for the welfare of their family, yet Moon Scent has the stronger resolve in making harsh decisions of denying their other relatives to ensure the durability of the food rations. The issue of the famine and the pressures that it subjects them to, forces them to make hard decisions that challenge their deeply intimate relationship, drawing a painful wedge between them progressively over the course of the novel, as the circumstances of the famine grew dire, also rupturing their relationship with their extended family; Big Aunt, Big Uncle, and Sister-in-Law Gold Have Got.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undersea_Trilogy" title="Undersea Trilogy">
Intrigue surrounds the mining of uranium beneath the underwater dome city of Marinia. Jim Eden, expelled from the Sub-Sea Academy on trumped-up charges, seeks out his uncle who disappeared while mining at the bottom of Eden Deep. While for looking clues to his uncle's disappearance, Jim runs into some men who try to stop him.David Craken, a firm believer in the existence of sea serpents, disappears in search of them only to reappear drifting offshore months later. His friend Jim Eden and members of the Sub-Sea Academy retrace David's journey and soon run into the strange creatures that had been only mythical before.Krakatoan Dome was specifically designed to cope with the tremors of its earthquake prone area. Problems begin when more quakes occur than had been expected, which many experts suspect are being artificially created. The Sub-Sea Academy assigns Jim Eden to investigate, because of his experience working underwater, and also because his uncle is the prime suspect.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus'_Son_(short_story_collection)" title="Jesus' Son (short story collection)">
## "Car Crash While Hitchhiking".In this story, a drug-addicted narrator recounts hitchhiking in four different vehicles, first with a Cherokee, then a salesperson, then a college student, and finally a family composed of a husband, wife, young daughter and a baby. The salesperson is drunk and shares alcohol and pills with the narrator before leaving him off to find a student who drives him until he catches a ride with the family. Eventually, this vehicle is struck by another car resulting in the death of the driver of the other car. The story ends with the narrator looking back several years later, seemingly in detox, as he recounts his drug abuse, which the entire narration of the story reflects in a style of disconnect from reality.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elf_on_the_Shelf" title="The Elf on the Shelf">
The book tells the story of a scout elf who hides in people's homes to watch over events. Once everyone goes to bed, the scout elf flies back to the North Pole to report to Santa the activities, good and bad, that have taken place throughout the day. Before the family wakes up each morning, the scout elf flies back from the North Pole and hides. By hiding in a new spot around the house each morning, the scout elf plays an ongoing game of hide and seek with the family."The Elf on the Shelf" explains that scout elves get their magic by being named and loved by a child. In the back of each book, families have an opportunity to write their elf's name and the date that they adopted it. Once the elf is named, the scout elf receives its special Christmas magic, which allows it to fly to and from the North Pole.The book tells how the magic might disappear if the scout elf is touched, so the rule in the book states, "There's only one rule that you have to follow, so I will come back and be here tomorrow: Please do not touch me. My magic might go, and Santa won't hear all I've seen or I know." Although families are told not to touch their scout elf, they can speak to it and tell it all their Christmas wishes, so that it can report back to Santa accurately.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cardturner" title="The Cardturner">
The protagonist is a teenager named Alton Richards. He is seventeen years old, nearing the end of the academic year. He is best friends with Cliff, who recently started dating Alton's ex-girlfriend, Katie. Throughout his life, his mother tries to worm his way into her Uncle Lester's good books, as he is very rich.Uncle Lester, or Trapp, as he is known informally, becomes ill, resulting in the loss of his sight. As a result, he requires a cardturner - someone to read aloud his cards to him - when he plays duplicate bridge. When Alton returns from his penultimate day at school, his mother agrees to allow him to be the cardturner for Trapp over the summer. His previous cardturner had been Toni Castenada - a schizophrenic, homeschooled girl, who was disallowed to be Trapp's cardturner when she questioned him on his card choice one game.Alton takes Uncle Lester to his bridge club, where he plays with a woman of a similar age named Gloria as his partner. Trapp initially berates Alton for his lack of knowledge on bridge and for not sorting his cards into suits when reading, causing them to be penalised. Despite this, Trapp and Gloria win with a sixty five percent game. On the returning journey home, Trapp explains to Alton that memory of the cards is not what helps him to succeed, more how he remembers them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Live_Safely_in_a_Science_Fictional_Universe" title="How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe">
The novel centers on Charles Yu, a time machine mechanic. He lives in his TM-31 time machine with his non-existent dog, Ed, and the time machine's depressed computer, TAMMY. Yu travels through Minor Universe 31 fixing time machines of people who try to fix the past. He visits Linus Skywalker who tried to kill his father, Luke Skywalker because his father's fame overshadowed Linus's life. Yu also visits a girl who traveled to be with her grandmother as she died. Yu explains to her that because she wasn't present when it happened, she cannot stay.Yu is called in by his boss, Phil, to have his time machine serviced. He walks around in the city while his TM-31 is being repaired and visits his mother who is in a time loop in which she continually replays an hour of her life. He watches a holographic version of himself and his mother interact as she serves dinner.The next day Yu rushes back to his time machine, sees his future self exit his machine, and shoots his future self. As his future self is dying, the future self gives Yu a book and says that the book is the key. By shooting himself, Yu has entered a loop in which he must eventually travel back in time, hand his past self the book, and get shot.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Nig" title="Our Nig">
## Beginning."Our Nig" opens with the story of Mag Smith, a white woman who lives in the northern United States. She has been seduced and left with a child born out-of-wedlock. After the child dies, Mag moves away to a place where no one knows her. In this new town, she meets a "kind-hearted African" man named Jim who falls in love with her. Impoverished, she soon realizes that she can either marry Jim or become a beggar. Jim and Mag marry and they have two children, a daughter, Frado, and an unnamed son.Jim becomes sick and dies, leaving Mag to provide for their children. Embittered, she allows Seth, one of Jim's business partners, to become her common-law husband. Eventually, Mag and Seth decide they must leave town to search for work, and do not want to take both of the children. He suggests they send her daughter Frado to live with and work for the Bellmonts, a lower middle-class white family who live nearby. Mag, indifferent, agrees. Six-year-old Frado is dropped off at the Bellmonts under the pretense that Mag will be back to pick her up later in the day.After a few days the Bellmonts, and Frado, realize Mag never intended to return. Mr. Bellmont is portrayed as kind and humane but Mrs. Bellmont is the complete opposite. The Bellmonts have four children, two boys, Jack and James (the latter of whom is not currently living with the family) and two girls (sickly Jane and irascible Mary). Mr. Bellmont's sister, Abby, also lives with the family. The family debates whether or not to keep Frado, and if they do, where she will sleep. Frado is sent to live in a separate part of the house that she will soon outgrow. The following day, Mrs. Bellmont calls for Frado early in the morning and puts her to work in the kitchen, washing dishes, preparing food, etc.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Thoughts_of_a_Classical_Physicist" title="Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist">
Victor Jakob, a Physics professor in a small German university, reflects on his life as a physicist, recalling major discoveries and ideas of recent decades and his interactions with prominent physicists whose ideas challenge the classical physics worldview. Meanwhile, the tide of World War I is turning against Germany, as the Allies mount The Second Battle of the Somme, pushing the German Second Army back over a 34 mi (55 km) front.As he meditates on the changing world, Jakob hikes to a mountain overlooking his university, where he becomes trapped in a muddy ditch, while gunfire rings out below. In an apparently hopeless situation, he takes out his revolver and "open[s] his mouth." (Some reviewers characterize his apparent death as an accident, while others interpret it as suicide, a parallel to that of Ludwig Boltzmann; John Maddox considered it open to interpretation whether Jakob succeeds in killing himself.)
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bones_to_Ashes" title="Bones to Ashes">
The opening two chapters provide details of Brennan's childhood and her holiday friendship on Pawleys Island, South Carolina, with an Acadian girl, Evangeline Landry, who mysteriously disappeared in her early teens.Years later, while working at the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Medecine Legale in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Brennan hears from Sergent-enqueteur Hippolyte "Hippo" Gallant about a box of human bones that she begins to suspect could be Evangeline's remains, and investigates them alongside her routine forensic work. Lieutenant-Detective Andrew Ryan, Brennan's regular co-worker and sometime lover, is involved in a case with three missing and two dead girls, and calls on her to help.Meanwhile Brennan's husband Pete, from whom she has long been separated, decides to divorce her for a woman 20 years younger than he is, and her sister Harry comes to visit and becomes involved in the search for Evangeline.As Brennan, Harry, Ryan and Hippo follow the leads they find links to a child pornography ring, and visit Tracadie on the Acadian Peninsula and Quebec City before the plot climaxes on the outskirts of Montreal.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_Bones" title="Spider Bones">
Brennan is called to examine a newly-dead body in Quebec, which turns out to be that of John "Spider" Lowery, an American ex-soldier apparently killed in Vietnam in 1968. After exhuming the remains buried under Lowery's name, she travels to Hawaii to check the US military records, along with her grieving daughter Katy (whose friend has been killed in Afghanistan), where they are joined by sometime lover Detective Andrew Ryan and his recovering addict daughter Lily. As Brennan begins to uncover the truth, the two girls are put in danger.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grave_Secrets" title="Grave Secrets">
Brennan is searching for human remains in mass graves in Guatemala when two colleagues are ambushed and shot. Meanwhile, Sergeant-detective Bartolome "Bat" Galiano of the Guatemala National Civil Police seeks her help in identifying remains found in a septic tank behind a run-down hotel in Guatemala City; could it be one of four young women reported missing, one of whom is the daughter of the Canadian ambassador? Why does the District Attorney confiscate the remains? And what is the link to the American President's recent ruling on stem cell research? With would-be lover Andrew Ryan becoming involved due to the Canadian link, and he and Galiano competing for her affections, Brennan tries to find out what happened to the missing girls and who is trying to stop her doing so.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocidal_Organ" title="Genocidal Organ">
When Sarajevo was destroyed by a homemade nuclear weapon, the leading democracies of the world transformed into surveillance states, where each individual is constantly monitored, watched, and wired. While the developed nations of the world entered this state, the developing countries around the world endured a multitude of genocides. Those developing countries went from harmony to complete destruction in about 6–8 months, with all of the events and evidence pointing to one suspect, an American named John Paul.Clavis Shepherd, a US Special Forces Officer, along with his team of advanced super-soldiers, are tasked with finding and eliminating John Paul. They want to know how one man can cause so much destruction and death.Eventually, Clavis manages to track down John Paul, who confirms that he has discovered the existence of a "genocidal organ" naturally present in mankind that can be activated using a sequence of words, which he calls the "genocide grammar." He explains that he used it to cause massive civil wars in the rest of the world, believing it to be the only way to protect America and the rest of the "First World" from terrorism and resentment in the "Third World". Clavis, unmoved, takes him into custody, only to see him dying after an assassination operation carried out by his own intelligence unit, who were ordered to kill him to prevent the end of the "peace" carried out by the surveillance states.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gods_Are_Athirst" title="The Gods Are Athirst">
The story of the rise of Évariste Gamelin, a young Parisian painter, involved in the local government for his neighborhood of Pont-Neuf, "The Gods Are Athirst" describes the dark years of the Reign of Terror in Paris, from Year II to Year III. Fiercely Jacobin, Marat and Robespierre's most faithful adherent, Évariste Gamelin becomes a juror on the Revolutionary Tribunal.The long, blind train of speedy trials drags this idealist into a madness that cuts off the heads of his nearest and dearest, and hastens his own fall as well as that of his mentor Robespierre in the aftermath of the Thermidorian Reaction. His love affair with the young watercolor-seller Élodie Blaise heightens the terrible contrast between the butcher-in-training and the man who shows himself to be quite ordinary in his daily life.Justifying this dance of the guillotine by the fight against the plot to wipe out the gains of the Revolution, in the midst of the revolutionary turmoil that traverses Paris, Gamelin is thirsty for justice, but also uses his power to satisfy his own vengeance and his hatred for those who do not think like him. He dies by that same instrument of justice that up until then has served to satisfy his own thirst for blood and terror.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah's_Compass" title="Noah's Compass">
On the surface, Liam Pennywell leads an ordered, decent life. Once widowed and once divorced, with three grown-up daughters, he has just been dismissed from his teaching job and, for lack of funds, has moved to a smaller apartment on the outskirts of Baltimore. Toying with the idea of retiring altogether rather than going job hunting at his age, Pennywell is assaulted by a burglar on the very first night he stays at his new place. When he wakes up in hospital with a bandaged head, he cannot remember a thing about the attack.The loss of memory disturbs him more than the crime itself. In a neurologist's waiting room he observes 38-year-old Eunice accompanying an ageing entrepreneur to his doctor's appointment and finds out that she is working for him as a "rememberer" or, as she herself puts it later, the old man's "external hard drive." Intrigued by this occupation, Pennywell contrives a chance encounter with her, and eventually they strike up a relationship with each other.Complications in their love affair arise when his youngest daughter, 17-year-old Kitty, decides to move in with him, obviously because she expects to be enjoying more freedom than if she stayed with her mother; and when his middle daughter Louise makes a habit of dumping his four-year-old grandson Jonah at Pennywell's apartment for him to babysit. On top of that, Eunice turns out to be a married woman who, after Pennywell has found out, still does not want to let go of him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_(anthology)" title="Fear (anthology)">
The beginning of the book starts with an introduction from R. L. Stine. At the end of the book, there is an "About the Authors" section that includes a brief description of the contributors to the anthology along with some of their works.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Letter_to_Amy" title="A Letter to Amy">
"Peter [from Keats' "The Snowy Day"] is having a birthday party, and he's asked all of his friends to come. But Amy is a special friend because she's a girl, so Peter decides to send her a special invitation. When he rushes out in a thunderstorm to mail it, he bumps smack into Amy herself and knocks her to the ground. Will she come to his party now?"
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apt._3" title="Apt. 3">
The sound of a harmonica floats through the halls of Sam and Ben's tenement. The sweet melodies inspire the brothers to explore the building, which is filled with the sounds and smells of a diverse city. Finally, the brothers find the source of the beautiful music, along with a blind man who “sees” with his ears, and the search ends in a new friendship.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_(Wilson_novel)" title="Vortex (Wilson novel)">
"Vortex" tells the story of Turk Findley, the protagonist introduced in "Axis", who is transported ten thousand years into the future by the mysterious entities called "the Hypotheticals." In this future humanity exists on a chain of planets connected by Hypothetical gateways; but Earth itself is a dying world, effectively quarantined.Turk and his young friend Isaac Dvali are taken up by a community of fanatics who use them to enable a passage to the dying Earth, where they believe a prophecy of human/Hypothetical contact will be fulfilled. The prophecy is only partly true, however, and Turk must unravel the truth about the nature and purpose of the Hypotheticals before they carry him on a journey through warped time to the end of the universe itself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Journey" title="Congo Journey">
Written in diary form, and set mostly in the People's Republic of the Congo, the book begins as a search for Mokèlé-mbèmbé, a legendary dinosaur of the area. Author Redmond O'Hanlon leads a team during this trek.In addition, the book also provides an expose of the Bantu and Pygmy peoples, including their lives, spiritual customs and beliefs. The book also discussed problems these people face, such as the Yaws disease.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gardener's_Son" title="The Gardener's Son">
## Act one.William Gregg, the owner of The Graniteville Manufacturing Company and patriarch of the Gregg family, is near death. After a visit by Dr. Perceval, he and Marina Gregg, wife of William, go to see Robert McEvoy, the son of Patrick McEvoy, a worker at the mill who tends the gardens. Robert has a broken leg due to an accident which may have been the fault of James Gregg, William’s son. Robert is convinced by Mrs. Gregg to have surgery to remove the leg, which demonstrates the “quasi-familial” relationship between owners and workers at the mill under the command of William.When William Gregg passes away, James takes over the mill and is not as sympathetic to his workers and leaves many of them unemployed without remorse. Robert's hatred for the mill and James continues to grow while he is recovering and he wishes to return to the farm his family once owned. He leaves Graniteville as an act of rebellion against James and the changes he has made to the mill.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_and_the_Circle" title="The Sword and the Circle">
The novel is broken into thirteen chapters, with the first five being the development of King Arthur's background, while the remaining are nearly stand-alone stories covering the exploits of different knights. He is shown as the son of Uther Pendragon, begot upon Lady Igraine with the assistance of Merlin. Merlin did not feature in Sutcliff's previous Arthurian stories of "Sword at Sunset", but is shown here as being the driving force behind the ascension of King Arthur and his court. Merlin is depicted as being descended from the Lordly Ones, or the 'Little Dark People', as Sutcliff commonly refers to the possible original inhabitants of Great Britain. He orchestrates Arthur's upbringing under Sir Ector, alongside his foster brother Sir Kay. Arthur's identity as ruler of Britain is revealed when he pulls the Sword from the Stone, but he later receives Excalibur, a different sword, from the Lady in the Lake.The rest of the novel's chapters cover many of the other classic Arthurian characters and tales, including: the origins of Lancelot of the Lake, as well as his encounters with Elaine;Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Beaumains, the Kitchen Knight; Tristan and Iseult, in a retelling nearly identical to Sutcliff's earlier novel of the same name, albeit a much shorter version; Geraint and Enid; Gawain and the Loathly Lady; and finally the arrival of Percival at Arthur's court, which is connected by Merlin's previous prophecies to presage the beginning of the Round Table's downfall.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Deeds_of_Finn_MacCool" title="The High Deeds of Finn MacCool">
The story begins with the explanation of Cormac mac Art's formation of the Fianna as a defense force for Ireland, which was originally led by Finn's father, Cumhal. Cumhal is killed by Goll mac Morna, who takes over leadership of the Fianna, and Cumhal's wife Muirne flees to give birth to Finn. The boy grows up strong in the manner of his father, studies under the poet Finn Eces, accidentally tasting the Salmon of Knowledge and thereby gaining magical powers, and ultimately regaining leadership of the Fianna by defeating the Fairy that haunts the Court of Tara, Aillén mac Midgna. Goll swears loyalty to him, and Finn rules the Fianna successfully thereafter.Similar to Sutcliff's Arthurian Novel The Sword and the Circle, most of the chapters in this novel are nearly stand-alone tales, covering many of the stories and characters associated with the Fenian Cycle. Some of these include: Finn's courtship of Sadhbh and the birth of Oisín; the tales of Diarmuid and Grainne; Niamh of the Golden Hair; the Giolla Dacker; multiple encounters with the Fair Folk;and ultimately ending with Cath Gabhra and the downfall of the Fianna.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Holly_Is_Alive_and_Well_on_Ganymede" title="Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede">
Oliver Vale was conceived on February 3, 1959, the day that iconic rock &amp; roll singer Buddy Holly died. Exactly thirty years later, Buddy Holly appears on every television set in the world, on every channel. Holly states that he is being held on Ganymede, and that Oliver Vale is to be contacted for assistance. He then begins performing.As a result, Vale finds himself being pursued by agents of the Federal Communications Commission, by angry television watchers, and by still more mysterious forces.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creepy_Creatures" title="Creepy Creatures">
## "The Werewolf of Fever Swamp".Grady and his family the Tuckers move into a house next to Fever Swamp in Florida. Grady finds and convinces his parents to let him keep a large wolf-like stray dog for a pet which he names Wolf, but when something has broken into the deer pen in Grady's yard and killed one of the animals, his father Mr. Tucker decides that the stray had to be taken to the pound. Grady helps the dog flee before his dad can capture it. That night, Grady hears the howling again and explores Fever Swamp to get to the bottom of things. He encounters Will Blake, one of his friends, who is slowly turning into a werewolf under the full moon. The newly changed werewolf bites Grady, but the assault is cut short when Wolf attacks and kills Will. On the night of the next full moon, Grady transforms into a werewolf and joins Wolf in hunting.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quantum_Thief" title="The Quantum Thief">
Countless gogols of the legendary gentleman thief Jean Le Flambeur are trapped in a virtual Sobornost prison in orbit around Neptune, playing an iterated prisoner's dilemma until his mind learns to cooperate. A warrior from the Oort Cloud, which has been settled by Finnish colonists, successfully retrieves one of the Le Flambeur gogols and uploads it into a real-space body. Acting on behalf of a competing Sobornost authority, this Oortian, Mieli, ferries the thief to the Martian city known as The Oubliette, where he has stored his memories for later recovery. The two intend to recover his memories so that he may return to an operating capacity sufficient to serve his Sobornost benefactor in a theft and repay his liberation.On the Oubliette, the young detective Isidore Beautrelet helps vigilantes catch Sobornost agents illicitly uploading human minds. These vigilantes are revealed to be in the service of a local colony of Zoku. Beautrelet is employed to investigate the arrival of Le Flambeur, and in the process becomes aware that the Oubliette's cryptographic security was always compromised. The memories of its citizens are fabrications, and the "King of Mars" long believed ousted in a revolution, still reigns behind the scenes. This King, who is another copy of Jean Le Flambeur, is defeated in the ensuing conflict. Le Flambeur fails to recover all of his memories, which he had locked with a quantum entangled revolver that required him to kill several of his old friends to open his stored memory. He and Mieli escape a liberated Mars having recovered only a mysterious "Schrodinger's Box" from the Memory Palace.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bloke's_Guide_To_Pregnancy" title="The Bloke's Guide To Pregnancy">
This book takes a sensible-yet-humorous look at the many stages of pregnancy. It explores the physical and emotional changes that men can expect to see in their partner and in their relationship during pregnancy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_(novel)" title="Masterpiece (novel)">
"Masterpiece" is a middle-grade mystery about stolen art, miniature worlds, and the surprising friendship between a talented beetle, Marvin, and a lonely eleven-year-old boy named James. When James receives a pen-and-ink set for his birthday, Marvin discovers that he can create tiny, intricately detailed scenes by dipping his front legs in the cap of ink and drawing on paper. James is mistakenly credited with Marvin's amazing pictures, and soon the beetle and boy are swept up in an adventure at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that involves masterpieces, forgeries, and a stolen pen-and-ink drawing by the great Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, which Marvin and James are determined to recover. With echoes of "The Cricket in Times Square", "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler", and "Charlotte's Web", this novel explores friendship, sacrifice, and moral dilemmas in the context of a high-stakes art heist.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon's_Covenant" title="The Demon's Covenant">
Mae has learned that her brother, Jamie, has magic powers. Gerald, the leader of the Obsidian Circle, is trying to persuade Jamie to join the magicians that tried to kill Mae and Jamie before. Mae tries to get Nick and Alan to rescue Jamie, but they themselves are in trouble. Nick has a new power that makes every magician in England want him dead. Mae knows she cannot trust anyone so she makes her own plan to save everyone.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_for_Stone" title="Cutting for Stone">
The story is told by the protagonist, Marion Stone. He and his conjoined twin Shiva are born at Mission Hospital (called "Missing" in accordance with the local pronunciation), Addis Ababa, in September 1954. Their mother, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, an Indian Carmelite nun, dies during childbirth. Their father, Thomas Stone, the English surgeon of Missing, abandons them and disappears. Orphaned at birth, the pair grow up in the household of two physicians of Missing, both from Madras, the obstetrician Kalpana Hemlatha (Hema) and Abhi Ghosh, who fall in love while caring for the infants. Hema names them Marion (after J. Marion Sims) and Shiva (after the Hindu deity). Ghosh teaches himself surgery to replace Stone. The tissue link between the twins has been separated at birth and the two grow up together being very close initially.Both twins are exposed to the changing political environment in Ethiopia. There is an unsuccessful rebellion by Haile Selassie's bodyguard, General Mebratu. Ghosh is imprisoned, then released, in the aftermath of the coup, due to his friendship with Mebratu. Through their parents, both boys are exposed to medicine and taught at the hospital.Over time, though, individual differences begin to become pronounced. When entering puberty their relationship to Genet, the daughter of Rosina, a domestic help, finally tears them apart. Marion is in love with Genet and intends to marry her, but it is Shiva who, interested in sexual pursuits, becomes her first lover. Marion feels betrayed. Rosina forces Genet to submit to female genital mutilation and commits suicide shortly thereafter. Genet will later join the Eritrean liberation movement. While Marion goes to medical school, his brother stays at Missing. Focused on the repair of birth-related fistulas, he takes up his surgical training with Hema eschewing a formal medical education. On his death bed, Ghosh has three wishes for Marion - to get the best medical education, to find Stone, and to forgive his brother.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrayar" title="Barrayar">
Cordelia and Aral Vorkosigan are expecting their first child. Before crafty old Emperor Ezar Vorbarra dies, he maneuvers a very reluctant Aral into agreeing to serve as regent for Ezar's young grandson Gregor. A plot to assassinate the Vorkosigans with poison gas fails, but the antidote, while effective, is also a powerful teratogen that poses a grave threat to the bone development of their unborn son. In a desperate attempt to save the fetus, Cordelia has it transferred to a uterine replicator—an artificial womb—to undergo experimental treatment that may partially combat the otherwise-fatal bone damage. Barrayar, due to its harsh environment, has fostered a deep loathing for mutations, and babies with even minor birth defects are routinely euthanized. Aral's father, Count Piotr Vorkosigan, seeks to abort the fetus rather than have the Vorkosigan name and title passed on to a "deformed mutant," but a furious Cordelia keeps him at bay.When Count Vidal Vordarian attempts a coup, five-year-old Gregor is rescued by his loyal security chief, Captain Negri, and reunited with the Vorkosigans. Cordelia, Gregor and bodyguard Konstantin Bothari hide from Vordarian's men in the hills, while Aral and his father organize the resistance.After Cordelia rejoins Aral, they learn that the replicator containing their child, whom they have named Miles, needs periodic maintenance. Without it, the fetus will succumb within six days, but Aral refuses to attempt a rescue when there are far greater concerns. However, Cordelia's personal bodyguard, Ludmilla Droushnakovi, was previously stationed at the palace and knows several top-secret ways to slip inside undetected. Cordelia, Droushnakovi and Bothari set out to rescue Miles and hopefully Gregor's mother, Princess Kareen. When Clement Koudelka, one of Aral's officers, finds out, they kidnap him and persuade him to help out. In the city, they witness the capture of Lady Alys Vorpatril and the murder of her husband, Padma. They rescue Alys, who is pregnant with Ivan Vorpatril. While in hiding, she delivers her son with Bothari's help; he learned midwifery watching his mother minister to others. Cordelia dispatches Koudelka to get her to safety and sets out with Bothari and Droushnakovi to get Miles. Once in the palace, Cordelia and her party are caught in a trap. They manage to overpower their captors, but not before Princess Kareen is killed. In the ensuing confusion, Bothari sets fire to part of the Imperial Palace to cover their retreat as they take Vordarian himself hostage. When Vordarian defies Cordelia, she orders Bothari to behead him. They escape with the replicator—and Vordarian's head. Cordelia returns to Aral's base and deposits the head on a table in front of some of Vordarian's wavering allies. Without its leader, the coup falls apart.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hollow_Needle" title="The Hollow Needle">
Arsène Lupin is opposed this time by Isidore Beautrelet, a young but gifted amateur detective, who is still in high school but who is poised to give Arsène Lupin a big headache. In the Arsène Lupin universe, the Hollow Needle is the second secret of Marie Antoinette and Alessandro Cagliostro, the hidden fortune of the kings of France, as revealed to Arsène Lupin by Josephine Balsamo in the novel "The Countess of Cagliostro" (1924). The Mystery of the Hollow Needle hides a secret that the Kings of France have been handing down since the time of Julius Caesar... and now Arsène Lupin has mastered it. The legendary needle contains the most fabulous treasure ever imagined, a collection of queens' dowries, pearls, rubies, sapphires and diamonds... the fortune of the kings of France.When Isidore Beautrelet discovers the Château de l'Aiguille in the department of Creuse, he thinks that he has found the solution to the riddle ("l'Aiguille Creuse" being French for "The Hollow Needle", and also the French title of the novel). However, he did not realize that the château was built by Louis XIV, the king of France, to put people off the track of a needle in Normandy, near the town of Le Havre, where Arsène Lupin, known also under the name of Louis Valméras, has hidden himself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodlines_(Mead_novel)" title="Bloodlines (Mead novel)">
After helping rogue Dhampir Rose Hathaway evade justice, Sydney Sage's situation with the Alchemists is shaky at best. Her career is jeopardized to the point where she may have to undergo re-education. Woken in the middle of the night, Sydney is given a last chance: to pose as the older sister of Jill Dragomir ( illegitimate sister of Vasilisa Dragomir ) at a boarding school in Palm Springs California and assists Keith the alchemist whom she hates and also studied with Sydney's father to conceal her identity to those who oppose Vasilisa. This is because of the family quorum law which means that if Jill were to die Vasilisa would have no family left and would have to abdicate the throne. This is all set in motion due to an attack on Jill which was violent and brutal. Sydney, Jill, Eddie Castile, and Adrian head off to Palm Springs. Sydney and Jill room together while Eddie rooms with Micah which is later said to remind Eddie of his dead best friend Mason from St. Vladimir's Academy.On the first day of school, Jill is sent back to her dorm room accused of having a hangover in the morning. While Sydney visits Adrian in the afternoon, he reveals that he and Jill are bonded from the attack which actually killed Jill, but Adrian, being a spirit user, brought her back from the dead - she is now shadow kissed. This is why she always knows what Adrian is thinking and why she feels hungover every morning. As time goes on, Sydney is excelling in school while Jill is seen to have few friends and is continuously picked on by Laurel due to her crush on Micah, as he shows an interest in Jill.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maigret_and_Monsieur_Charles" title="Maigret and Monsieur Charles">
Maigret is a few years short of his retirement and has just refused promotion to the post of Head of the Police Judiciare, preferring the human contact he enjoys as Head of the Criminal Division. His wish is granted when Madam Nathalie Sabin-Levesque, an elegant but highly nervous lady insists that he personally investigates the disappearance of her husband Gérard, a highly successful and rich Parisian lawyer.With the assistance of various other detectives, but principally Lapointe, Maigret soon discovers that Madam Sabin-Levesque is virtually an alcoholic and has lived an effectively separate life from her husband, who regularly vanishes for days or weeks to take up with various girls. These are mostly hostesses picked up in bars and cabarets, and he is known to them as 'Monsieur Charles'. It further emerges that his wife was also a call-girl in her youth, although she has claimed to be a legal secretary. She hoped for a life of comfort and security with her new husband, who owned a villa in Cannes and inherited money, but they soon grew to ignore and despise each other. She knows nothing of his professional life and is not well liked by the staff at the practice.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_the_Emerald_Lady" title="The Legend of the Emerald Lady">
In the book, Nancy solves a mystery on the Caribbean island of St. Ann when visiting Sugar Moon, a nineteenth-century sugar plantation. She finds clues to a treasure in a faded love letter from a long-dead pirate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tiger's_Prey" title="The Tiger's Prey">
Tom Courtney, one of four sons of master mariner Sir Hal Courtney, once again sets sail on a treacherous journey that will take him across the vast reaches of the ocean and pit him against dangerous enemies in exotic destinations. But just as the winds propel his sails, passion drives his heart. Turning his ship towards the unknown, Tom Courtney will ultimately find his destiny—and lay the future for the Courtney family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcade_Catastrophe" title="Arcade Catastrophe">
Magical enforcers Ziggy and Victor Battiato, inform Nate, Summer, Trevor, and Pigeon of the disappearances of fellow enforcer John Dart and magician Mozag and direct the group to investigate the Arcadeland arcade. After visiting the arcade, the friends resolve to earn enough tickets to obtain the magical hand stamps, which grant membership into four exclusive clubs. Nate receives his stamp from the owner of Arcadeland, magician Jonas White, who reveals that he is using the clubs to hunt for a powerful artifact named Uweya. Lindy Stott, who is unaware that she is actually Jonas' sister, Belinda White, also earns a stamp, to the dismay of her adoptive guardian Sebastian Stott. Summer gets a Tank stamp, which grants increased endurance, Pigeon joins the Subs, allowing him to breathe underwater, Trevor becomes a Racer, allowing him to move at inhuman speed, and Nate and Lindy join the Jets, who can fly. To ensure their obedience, Jonas creates a simulacrum, a voodoo doll-like facsimile, of each club member.Jonas’ first task pits the Jets against the Subs in a race to retrieve the Gate to Uweya from a recluse known as the Hermit. Nate and Lindy force the Hermit to hand over the Gate, which takes the form of a stone block, explaining that they were helping Jonas only to save their friends. Pigeon and the other defeated Subs are secretly imprisoned by Jonas under Arcadeland, whereafter he discovers that Dart and Mozag are also held prisoner.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_(Benzoni_novel)" title="Catherine (Benzoni novel)">
The novel is set in the Kingdom of France at the time of the Hundred Years' War, during the war between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. It begins in 1413 in Paris and continues in Dijon at the court of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, Bruges, Montsalvy, Auvergne, Orléans, Loire Valley, Burgos, Alhambra, and Luxembourg. The series finally ends in 1437 at the castle of Montsalvy. Catherine goes through many adventures; men fall desperately in love with her, her whole life is constantly in danger, and she is hunted down as a criminal and condemned to die more than once, until she finally becomes the beloved wife of Arnaud de Montsalvy, Lord of the Châtaignerie in Auvergne and a captain in the service of King Charles VII.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_Dark" title="Forest Dark">
Jules Epstein, a wealthy retiree, goes missing in Tel Aviv to the distress of his three children. Prior to his disappearance triggered perhaps by the death of his parents, and his divorce from his wife, Epstein had been in the process of giving away both his money and his earthly possessions.Meanwhile, in New York City, novelist Nicole is living a crisis herself as she is aware that her marriage is failing but cannot find it within herself to work on saving it. After hearing a program on the radio in which a physicist explains the concept of the multiverse Nicole begins to wonder if all life is not dreamed up from one location, believing that her location could be the Hilton Tel Aviv where she and her family have visited frequently. After her father's cousin tells her of a man who died there, Nicole abruptly makes the decision to go the hotel herself as research for a new novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_I'm_No_Longer_Talking_to_White_People_About_Race" title="Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race">
The book explores the links between gender, class and race in Britain and other countries.The book begins with a summary of the experience of Black and Asian people in the UK, including the Atlantic slave trade, Indian soldiers in World War I, the Bristol Bus Boycott, the 1981 riots and Labour Party Black Sections.The book also covers institutional racism in British society, White feminism, and definitions of class which only include White people.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure,_White_and_Deadly" title="Pure, White and Deadly">
## 1972 edition.The book was first published in 1972 in New York by the publisher Peter H. Wyden under the title "Sweet and Dangerous", and a few weeks later in London by Davis-Poynter as "Pure, White and Deadly: The Problem of Sugar". "Pure, White and Deadly" was used for subsequent editions and is the title by which the book became known.At the time of publication, it was generally accepted that the alarming recent increase in the incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD) was due to the excessive consumption of animal fat. Yudkin believed that this view was wrong and that, instead, an important cause of CHD was the excessive consumption of sugar (i.e. sucrose). More generally, he argued, excessive sucrose consumption provokes a metabolic disturbance that has several undesirable results.The author makes the initial case that sucrose is a dangerous food by emphasising the contrast between starch and sucrose. Both of these are carbohydrates, but starch occurs as a bulk constituent of cereals (such as rice, wheat and maize), legumes and a few root crops like potatoes, while sucrose is present in large quantities in sugar cane, sugar beet and ripe fruits. It used to be thought that sucrose and starch are metabolised in similar ways, and so are interchangeable from the nutritional point of view, but more recent evidence had shown that their metabolism is significantly different. The need for carbohydrate as a component of the diet can be entirely satisfied by starch (often in the form of bread or pasta), which is broken down in the body to glucose. On the other hand sucrose, which is broken down to equal quantities of glucose and fructose, is not an essential dietary component even in small amounts. Evolutionary history suggests that our pre-Neolithic ancestors ate a diet that consisted largely of meat, with some nuts, berries, leaves and root vegetables, and we can presume that a taste for sweet fruit developed because it directed people to a rich source of vitamin C, an essential nutrient.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finding_Winnie" title="Finding Winnie">
The book is told by a mother, the author Mattick, telling a story of her great-grandfather to her son. In 1914, veterinarian Harry Colebourn, Mattick's grandfather, rides a train across Canada on his way to serve in World War I. Finding an orphaned female bear on the platform of a Winnipeg railway station for sale for $20 ($ today), he names it "Winnie" after his hometown of Winnipeg. After first being skeptical of the bear, she becomes Colebourn's regiment's mascot, accompanying the soldiers to training in England. When the regiment moves to the front in France, Colebourn finds a home for Winnie at London Zoo. There the bear makes friends with a boy named Christopher Robin and inspires A. A. Milne to write the story of Winnie-the-Pooh, while Colebourn returns home to Canada at the end of the war to start a family. At the end of the book there are some of the photos and documents behind the story.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deshe_Bideshe" title="Deshe Bideshe">
Syed Mujtaba Ali stayed in Kabul for one and a half year to work as a teacher and described his experience in Afghanistan in the book. The book shows his keen observations but written with a sense of humor. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_Left_to_Lose_(novel)" title="Nothing Left to Lose (novel)">
John Wayne Cleaver is again flying solo on his vendetta against the supernatural killers called "the Withered." He follows a lead to the town of Lewisville, Arizona in search of a demon named "Rain." His first stop is the funeral of a woman he suspects might be a victim of a Withered. There, he is approached by an odd, homeless-looking woman who tells him to "Run from Rain." He lands a job as the local mortuary's make-up artist and makes friends with his boss, Margo, and fellow employee, Jasmyn. When townspeople begin to die under strange circumstances, John's gig allows him to examine the bodies of the victims: a woman who drowned nowhere near water, and a boy who was burned alive nowhere near fire. Then, while walking by the local canal, John is almost drowned by a man who claims " the Dark Lady" was sent to kill him. He is rescued by a few men, one of which is a demon named Assu, who has the power to burn things. He craves cold, so John takes him back to the mortuary’s freezer. There, a fire ignites and Assu is disintegrated into demonic black sludge. John tries to clean it all up, worried that if it is discovered, the FBI will track him down. With this in mind, he takes extra precautions, including arming the mortuary doors with motion detectors and finding a new place to stay.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_People" title="The Hidden People">
While visiting the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, Albie meets Lizzie, his rural cousin from northern England for the first time. They only spend a few hours together at the event, but during that time he falls in love with her. He does not see or hear from her again, and in 1862 Albie's father tells him that Lizzie had been burnt to death by her husband. Albie, who is now married to Helena and living in London, is horrified that anyone could do such a terrible thing to his cousin. Albie learns that Jeremy, Lizzie's husband, believed that his wife had been abducted by fairies and replaced with a changeling.Albie is determined to get to the bottom of what happened to Lizzie and travels to the village of Halfoak in Yorkshire where she had lived. He finds a community steeped in superstition and believing in fairies and changelings. He discovers that Lizzie has not even been buried yet, and that her charred remains are stored in a washhouse. Helena arrives unexpectedly to support her husband and attends a funeral Albie has organised for his cousin. None of the locals attend.Albie and Helena move into Lizzie's now vacant cottage. Albie struggles to find the answers he wants, and refuses to believe in the creatures that the villagers say inhabit a fairy mound near to the cottage. But Albie keeps experiencing strange events that makes him wonder whether there is some truth to all this "fairy nonsense". When Albie sees Helena start to behave strangely and not being herself, he questions whether she really is his wife.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Changeling_(LaValle_novel)" title="The Changeling (LaValle novel)">
Apollo Kagwa is just beginning to settle into his new life as a committed and involved father, unlike his own father who abandoned him, when his wife Emma begins acting strange. Disconnected and uninterested in their new baby boy, Emma at first seems to be exhibiting signs of post-partum depression, but it becomes clear that her troubles go beyond that. Before Apollo can do anything to help, Emma commits a horrific act—beyond any parent's comprehension—and vanishes, seemingly into thin air. Thus begins Apollo's journey through an enchanted world to find his wife.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossils_(play)" title="Fossils (play)">
"Fossils" opens with Julie describing her parents as "Homo parentithicus. Found in mosturban parts of Australia. Usually roam in pairs, over-protective and trained in advanced methods of torture." Frankie is the new boy at school, and there is some mystery surrounding his father and why he left his old school. Julie and Michelle befriend him on the first day. The action centres on the preparations for and aftermath of a school dance, with all its attendant teenage angst. It's a fast paced play, with much quick snappy dialogue and described by critics as an "incredibly funny script."While the play has a large number of characters, it was originally designed to be performed by only three actors. Most professional productions have cast one male and two female actors; however school productions usually have up to 15 actors.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Boys" title="The Old Boys">
The story concerns a group of elderly men on the board of a society for the old boys of an unnamed English public school and the power politics and old rivalries that come into play during the election of a new president for the Old Boys Association. The old boys themselves have developed various ways of coping with retirement and loneliness and life's disappointments but they all take a keen interest in their old school, none more so than Jaraby, who desires and expects to be elected as the new president, but is nervous about the possibility of being opposed by Nox, his former fag.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_Cents" title="Thirteen Cents">
Azure is a twelve-year-old orphan with astonishing blue eyes and dark skin. At the opening of the novel, it is revealed that he left home three years ago after the murder of his parents. Azure roams the streets of Sea Point in Cape Town. His typical day consists of a lot of walking, a bath at the beach in the morning, parking cars in the city during the day, and sleeping near a swimming pool at night. He is well aware of other street kids whom he claims are deep into evil. Azure introduces his nine-year-old friend Bafana in chapter one who, unlike Azure, is into drugs and chooses to roam the streets even though he is not homeless. Liesel is also introduced in chapter one. She is a prostitute who sells joints to Azure and lives under the bridge along with “skollies,” gangsters, and drunks.Azure earns most of his money by prostituting himself to “moffies,” which is the term used to refer to gay men. Azure gives his money to his older friend Joyce to put into a bank account for him. She insists on it as she tells him she knows how banks work. Azure calls Joyce “Auntie” out of respect and promises her he will never become part of a gang. He stays safe on the streets with the protection of Allen, a gangster pimp who works at Green Point. Allen is depicted as controlling and excessively violent. Azure cannot do anything with his own money unless he discusses it with Allen. It is through Allen that Azure realizes the power in money.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabi_Ponnu" title="Arabi Ponnu">
The Arabs came in their dhows laden with dates to Calicut, the Port of Truth, and through the dates smuggled in gold. The Port of Truth became the Port of Treachery. Koya, the protagonist, saw his hands smeared with the stink of Arab gold, opium, smuggled liquor and women. He saw them, he lived with them. He loaded opium on a Chinese vessel anchored off Beypore. But he emerged as a new man from the world of treachery and robbery, deceit and betrayal.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Moment_of_True_Feeling" title="A Moment of True Feeling">
Gregor Keuschnig works for the Embassy of Austria in Paris. One day he wakes up from a dream where he murdered a woman. From this moment his life seems pointless and the world around him distant. He goes through his daily routine and interacts with his colleagues, his mistress and his family, but feels lost and out of balance. He observes everything around him in search for a sensation that feels genuine.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troop_(book)" title="The Troop (book)">
"The Troop" follows the story of five teenage boys and their Scoutmaster as they spend a weekend away on Falstaff Island, a remote island a short distance away from the town where they all live. The troop consists of Scoutmaster Tim Riggs (a middle-aged man and the town physician), Max (a mild mannered boy and best friend of Ephraim), Ephraim (nicknamed Eef, a boy prone to violent outbursts), Newt (a quiet, "nerdy" boy who is quite intelligent), Kent (a bold and tenacious boy prone to forcing his leadership among others), and Shelley (a deeply disturbed psychopathic boy).Determined to simulate a true-to-life remote island scenario, Tim makes sure to remove any form of communication to the mainland. However, he does bring along a radio because there had been warnings of a potential storm. On the first evening of the trip, Tim notices a boat arriving on the island. Not expecting visitors for another two days, Riggs is wary of the stranger, who, upon inspection, is inhumanly malnourished but otherwise non-threatening. The stranger tells Tim that he needs help and is ravenously hungry. After deliberating, Tim allows the man to rest on the couch inside for the night, but not before telling the boys to stay in their room.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_You_(novel)" title="After You (novel)">
"After You" is a continuation of Louisa Clark's life after Will's death. It follows her journey of recovery after losing her beloved. Encouraged by Will to make her life more meaningful, she moves to London and gets a job at an airport bar. One night, she goes up to the roof of her residence to sit alone, when someone begins to talk to her. Panicking, Louisa falls off the roof and severely injures herself. After her recovery, she enrolls in a support group in a church. Will's daughter Lily contacts Louisa, seeking information about her deceased father, whom she didn't know existed until after he had died. Lily wants to get to know her grandparents as well, so she moves in with Louisa. However, she hates living with her mother, stepfather, and her half-brothers. Meanwhile, Louisa gets to know Sam, the uncle of one of the boys in her support group. Sam is one of the paramedics who helped save her life after her accident. They become romantically involved. Louisa's friend Nathan gets in contact with her and offers her a job in the USA. She attends the interview for this job and gets accepted, even though it was a hard decision for Louisa, as she had just started to fall for Sam.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_Girl_(novel)" title="Razor Girl (novel)">
Merry completes her latest abduction on the Overseas Highway, only to find that she and her accomplice "Zeto" have snatched the wrong person: Lane Coolman, a talent manager from Los Angeles on his way to supervise a live appearance at a Key West bar by his firm's most important client, reality television star Buck Nance. Without Coolman present, Buck, who is badly unprepared to give an improvised performance, resorts to telling a few jokes overheard from his brothers, which are quickly decried by the crowd as racist and homophobic slurs. In fear for his safety, Buck flees into the night and hacks off his trademark beard in the kitchen of a closed restaurant. The beard fragments are reported to health inspector Andrew Yancy, a former police detective.While waiting for their real target, Merry and Zeto let Coolman call his boss, who is indifferent to Coolman's safety but discreetly asks Monroe County Sheriff Summers to start a search for Buck. Because of the urgent need to find him quickly, the Sheriff's only detective, Burton, reluctantly asks Yancy to assist with the search.After Zeto announces his intention to kill Coolman and dispose of his body, Merry takes pity on him and allows Coolman to escape while they abduct their real target, Martin Trebeaux, a beach nourishment hustler who delivered faulty sand to the beach behind a Mafia-controlled Boynton Beach hotel. After completing the job, Merry spends the evening in Key West, where she sees Coolman and whimsically decides to spend the evening with him. She meets Yancy when Coolman is called to the site of an accidental death outside their hotel: a Muslim tourist from Brooklyn who was accosted by a raving street person and fell off the city trolley, fatally stabbing himself in the heart with a souvenir being clutched to his chest. Coolman is horrified to be told that the assailant loosely fits Buck's description, and infuriated when Merry leaves him to have dinner with Yancy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmet_(novel)" title="Elmet (novel)">
The narrator who speaks in the sections in cursive seems to be looking for somebody against a modern landscape of highways, lorries and café stopovers.We will come to realise that this is Daniel, a boy who used to live in the middle of the forest with Daddy and big sister Cathy. There is mystery about the comings and goings of the father, and why the mother is always absent. Little by little the reader comes to understand that the father works as a thug for Mr Price, who owns all the ex-controlled rent houses and flats in the area. The father is also the unbeaten winning champion in unlawful boxing matches of the area. Most of this information is conveyed by Vivien, an elderly neighbour who lives a hike away and who tries to educate Cathy and Daniel to a certain degree. While Daniel stays at her house reading, Cathy strolls around the forests.At some point the father stops extorting rents for Mr. Price and does the opposite, pushing people to strike to get higher wages and to get reasonable rents for their households. Mr. Price offers him the deeds of the land in which he is living to go to Daniel in exchange of one last big boxing gig. He will win this one as well, although everything seemed to be stuck against him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wolves" title="History of Wolves">
As a 37-year-old woman, the events of "History of Wolves" are a recount of a summer when Linda was a teenager. Linda grew up in an abandoned commune in rural Minnesota with her parents; her mother who she suspected to not be biological parent, and her emotionally unattached father. Her poor relationship with her parents coupled with her geographical isolation, as she lived surrounded by forest, resulted in Linda being an emotionally distant teen who struggled to effectively communicate and form meaningful connections. Linda was a complete outsider at school and was called names such as “Freak” and “Commie”. Linda was drawn to her mysterious and beautiful classmate, Lily, and her history teacher, Mr. Grierson. Mr. Grierson seemed to pay special attention to Lily, a fact that Linda was acutely aware of. Though he favoured Lily, Mr. Grierson also took a special interest in Linda, offering her a place in the History Odyssey in which she unconventionally chose to do the history of wolves. In the car driving home from the event, Linda attempted to kiss Mr. Grierson, however, he ignored the act. Linda soon found out that Mr. Grierson was fired from his previous school for accusations of paedophilia, and he was also caught with possession of child pornography. Linda's school fired Mr. Grierson and rumours started spreading that Mr. Grierson had a sexual encounter with Lily. These accusations of sexual assault made Linda become more intrigued by Lily, although she also resented her as she believed these accusations to be false. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Who_Takes_an_Eye_for_an_Eye" title="The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye">
Lisbeth Salander is serving a two-month jail sentence for the crimes she committed while protecting August Balder. After threats arise against her, she is transferred to maximum security Flodberga Prison, which she finds rife with corruption. She also discovers that Bangladeshi prisoner Faria Kasi is tormented nightly by ruthless prisoner Beatrice "Benito" Andersson.One day, Salander is visited by former guardian Holger Palmgren. During their conversation, Palmgren tells her about a visit he received from a former secretary from St Stefan's, where she was committed as a child, who gave him Salander's medical files which has led him to believe she was involved in something called the Registry. Suspicious, Salander forces the Warden to let her use his computer, where she learns the Registry is a secret project that places exceptional children in specific environments to test the effects on their growth.Unable to do anything from prison, Salander asks journalist Mikael Blomkvist to investigate in her stead, pointing him to wealthy businessman Leo Mannheimer, whose name was in the Registry file she found. During his investigation, Blomkvist learns that Mannheimer had been acting strangely lately and comes to suspect that not only does he have a twin, Dan Brody, but Brody has been going around pretending to be Mannheimer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Belle_Sauvage" title="La Belle Sauvage">
Eleven-year-old Malcolm Polstead and his dæmon Asta live three miles from Oxford. Malcolm works alongside fifteen-year-old Alice in his parents' inn, The Trout, close to the Priory of St. Rosamund where Malcolm helps the nuns with maintenance and cooking. One day, three men, led by the former Lord Chancellor, Lord Nugent, arrive at the inn and question Malcolm about the priory. Shortly afterwards, an infant aged around six months named Lyra arrives in the care of the nuns.Walking near the river, Malcolm sees a failed attempt at a dead drop and finds a secret message. The intended recipient is Hannah, an Oxford academic specialising in the alethiometer who is secretly helping an organisation known as 'Oakley Street' in its fight against the theocratic extremism of the Magisterium. Using the alethiometer Hannah finds Malcolm and retrieves her message. The two strike up a friendship in which Malcolm assists her intelligence-gathering and she provides him with books to read from her own library.The Magisterium's influence grows. At Malcolm's school, students are encouraged to join the League of St. Alexander, and to report anybody - including teachers - who contradicts the Magisterium's religious views. Coram van Texel, also working for Oakley Street, is investigating the activities of Marisa Coulter in Sweden. He discovers that she is looking into the Rusakov field and has asked an alethiometrist to find her daughter Lyra's location. Coram is followed by a man with a malevolent hyena dæmon and fights him, badly wounding the dæmon's front leg. Lyra's father, Lord Asriel, visits the inn and Malcolm takes him to visit Lyra. To escape his pursuers Asriel borrows Malcolm's canoe, "La Belle Sauvage". As a token of thanks, he returns it significantly improved. Coram warns Malcolm of an impending flood, but Malcolm is unable to convince people to act. A man named Gerard Bonneville arrives at the inn, accompanied by a three-legged hyena dæmon, and Malcolm sees him snooping around the priory.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_the_Stars_are_Gods" title="If the Stars are Gods">
The novel is a series of stories about Bradley Reynolds, Earth's first space hero. While Part One (Mars exploration), and Part Two (alien encounter) are stand alone stories, the latter sections deal with the life systems of Jupiter and are interconnected.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blinding_Order" title="The Blinding Order">
The plot centres on a religious order issued by a Sultan, calling for all people with the "dubious power" of the evil eye to be blinded, and the subsequent terror campaign that follows. All this is narrated in a "fable tone of one thousand and one nightmare nights"" 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wine_of_Astonishment" title="The Wine of Astonishment">
This story is narrated by Eva Dorcas. She and her husband, Bee Dorcas are a religious couple who are both members of the Spiritual Baptist Church in a small Trinidadian community known as Bonasse. They all share their experiences about being persecuted due to their direct affiliation with their religion. They also share how they were betrayed by someone to whom they entrusted their faith for a change. Trust became an issue for the fellow characters since Ivan Morton betrayed them when he entered into the political life and evacuated the house his father built on his own to live in a colonial-era mansion, located on top of the Bonasse hill, that was once occupied by an English family known as the Richardsons. The community praised Bolo for his masculinity in defending his fellow neighbours until he was taken to prison. After his release he was no longer the person he once was, of which the community now fear.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Column_of_Fire" title="A Column of Fire">
Beginning in 1558, and continuing through 1605, the story chronicles the romance between Ned Willard and Margery Fitzgerald, as well as the political intrigue of the royal courts of England, France, and Scotland, and the oft-times violent conflict between supporters of the Catholic Church and the rising Protestant movement in the late 16th century.As depicted in the early chapters, the city of Kingsbridge is ruled by an oligarchy of rich merchants, who sit on the city council, with the most powerful family holding the position of the city's Mayor. The plot focuses on three families which represent the main political and religious divisions in the English society of the time. The Fitzgeralds are a staunchly Catholic family, which under the Catholic Queen Mary gives them an advantage over the others and the position of Mayor. They seek to upgrade their social position by a marrying into the titled aristocracy. At the opposite pole are the intransigently Puritan Cobleys, who secretly hold Protestant worship - a highly dangerous act under Catholic rule. Their strong religious principles do not, however, stop the Cobleys from resorting to occasional underhand tricks to cheat their competitors and employees, and dabbling in the new lucrative field of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. In between are the more pragmatic Willards - nominal Catholics under Mary, but who would turn Protestant once Elizabeth came to power.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hiding_Place_(Bell_novel)" title="The Hiding Place (Bell novel)">
The Hiding Place starts off at a park in the small town of Dove Point, Ohio where Janet Manning and her younger brother Justin Manning are sent to play alone. Janet loses track of her brother while playing with her own friend, she left him playing in the sandbox. When it's time to leave Justin has gone missing, no one is able to find him. Everyone has their own idea of how he went missing; he was chasing a dog and left the park in the direction of the forest. Or he was carried away by a man named Dante Rogers, an African American pedophile.2 months after Justin Manning had gone missing, a boy's body was found in the forest outside of the park. They assumed this body belonged to 4 year old Justin, but they did not have the technology at the time to be completely sure.Dante Rogers went to jail for 20 years for the murder of Justin Manning. The police arrested and charged him as he had photos of children in his room. One of these children was of a blonde child, Justin Manning.Now, 25 years after Justin went missing, Janet is now 32 and she isn't sure what happened that day at the park. She meets a suspicious man, who looks like her brother, when he comes to her home one night. After the strange meeting with this man, she decides to try and find out what really happened to Justin.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Absolutely_Remarkable_Thing" title="An Absolutely Remarkable Thing">
Protagonist April May discovers a large robot sculpture in Midtown Manhattan. She and her friend Andy Skampt decide to film it and post the video online, which goes viral and makes April an overnight celebrity. All over the world identical structures—known as "Carls"—have appeared in major cities at exactly the same time.It turns out that there are 64 Carls distributed in cities across the globe, which have miraculously appeared at once. As well, gradually almost all of humanity find themselves entering an interactive Dream when they sleep, within an identical landscape filled with puzzles that provide clues when solved. Over the course of a few months, April and her friends Andy, Miranda, and Robin work to solve the codes and riddles of the Carls throughout the Dream.Several governments restrict access to Carls, leading April to become more politically active, which leads to April being interviewed on one news show alongside the conservative pundit Peter Petrawicki, who has written an already bestselling 20-page book called "Invaded" arguing that the Carls, representing a foreign invader, are dangerous. As a result over the following months, April cultivates a friendly persona and writes her own book, saying that people should use the social internet in a positive way to work together at solving the sequences, some of which require specific knowledge and collaboration.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_with_the_Jade_Green_Eyes" title="The Girl with the Jade Green Eyes">
"The Girl with the Jade Green Eyes" is a novel about green aliens, a Naval examination center, and spies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Malacia_Tapestry" title="The Malacia Tapestry">
"The Malacia Tapestry" is a novel about Perian de Chirolo, a poor young man who is both a rogue and rarely-working actor, in the imaginary city of Malacia, which resembles Renaissance Venice. De Chirolo lives in a humble attic, cadges meals and drinks in taverns, seeks love affairs with many women, and mingles with artists, astrologers, magicians, and nobility in the bustling port town. As the story opens, De Chirolo enjoys his free time with his young friend Guy de Lambert, who is also an actor. The pair pass their days drinking, jesting, and having affairs with women.Malacia has a legendary curse that it can never progress or change, which is enforced by a powerful Supreme Council, which also eliminates heretics and other freethinkers. The craftsman Otto Bengtsohn, though, defies the anti-progress edicts and invents a type of early photography. Bengtsohn uses the camera to make slides of a play, which is funded by the powerful and wealthy Andrus Hoytola. De Chirolo falls in love with Hoytola's daughter, Armida, who is acting in the play. De Chirolo starts a secret love affair with the wealthy Armida, but she tells him they cannot marry unless he achieves enough in to make an acceptable mate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_President_Is_Missing_(novel)" title="The President Is Missing (novel)">
The book begins with U.S. President Jonathan Lincoln Duncan preparing to defend himself against the charge of negotiating with a terrorist. It has been discovered that the president made a phone call to Suliman Cindoruk, the leader of the cyberterrorist group Sons of Jihad, and that he thwarted an attack on Cindoruk's life.Duncan's daughter Lily, who is studying in Paris, receives a coded message from a young Eastern European woman named Nina. Lily tells her father about the strange person and the message, and she is requested to come back home immediately. Determined to know the source of the leak, the president invites Nina to the White House. She tells the president that in order to get the full story, he must meet with her partner at Nationals Park on Friday. Duncan meets the partner, named Augie. As Augie and the president leave the stadium, an assassin contracted by Suliman Cindoruk shoots and kills Nina. The Secret Service intervenes and extracts Duncan and Augie. The president's convoy heads to Virginia, but they are ambushed again. Two Secret Service agents are killed, but the President is unharmed and drives off with Augie. He arrives at a safe house, where he learns that Nina and Augie created and distributed a highly destructive computer virus called "Dark Ages" for Cindoruk, but they warned the US when they realized what it would do. The virus is scheduled to take effect in a few hours.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mzungu_Boy" title="The Mzungu Boy">
The narrator and main character is Kariuki, a young Kenyan boy living under the oppressive rule of a British plantation owner named Bwama Ruin. While near a watering hole, Kariuki meets Bwama's nephew Nigel, who is fishing. Nigel is a white boy from Britain staying in Kenya for the summer. He is one year younger than Kariuki and is unaware of the systematic oppression of the Kenyan people. Kariuki and Nigel quickly become friends. Nigel gains the title of "The Mzungu Boy", meaning "white boy", by the older boys of the village. Nigel immediately falls in love with hunting on the prairies of Africa. He especially enjoys hunting Old Moses, which, according to Kariuki, is the oldest, toughest warthog in the world. Kariuki's older brother, Hari, is part of the Mau Mau rebellion. During one of Nigel's and Kariuki's hunting expeditions, they get separated. Bwama Ruin calls in the British army to search for Nigel. When Kariuki goes to search for Nigel, he finds him captured by the Mau Mau. Kariuki frees Nigel but while they try to escape, they both get captured by the Mau Mau. Although the Mau Mau want to kill them both, Kariuki's brother Hari frees them. Nigel and Kariuki run back to the town, while the Mau Mau attempt to flee from the British soldiers by hiding in the mountains. When the boys get back to the plantation, they go to Bwama Ruin's estate to find that British soldiers have found and killed Hari as he tried to flee with the Mau Mau rebels. Kariuki runs out of the town, overcome with emotion. The book ends with Nigel, "The Mzungo Boy", finding and comforting Kariuki.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandpa's_Great_Escape" title="Grandpa's Great Escape">
Grandpa’s Great Escape is set in London in 1983 and tells the tale of Grandpa, a World War II flying ace, who sadly is now confused, still believing that World War II hasn't ended and longing to re-live his past. When his family can no longer look after him, Grandpa is moved to an old people’s home called Twilight Towers, run by Miss Swine.It soon becomes clear Miss Swine is running Twilight Towers for her own good profit and it is up to Grandpa and his 12-year-old grandson Jack, the only one who can understand his beliefs, to make a daring escape. Grandpa takes a final chance to relive his past and once again flies in his beloved Spitfire.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_City_(novel)" title="Soul City (novel)">
In a utopian setting named Soul City, Cadillac Jackson, a reporter for Chocolate City Magazine, arrives in Soul City to cover the mayoral election and falls in love with a woman named Mahogany.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Dogs_(novel)" title="War Dogs (novel)">
Approximately 30 years before the beginning of the novel, a small group of alien refugees (later termed the "Gurus") landed on Earth and soon made themselves indispensable with their contributions to human technology and scientific understanding. In exchange, they "requested" Earth's help in repelling the hostile invaders (termed the "antagonists" or simply "Antags" or "Ants") who had chased the Gurus from their own star system, and were already establishing a beachhead on Mars. The narrator of the novel is Master Sergeant Michael Venn of the multi-national force of "Skyrines" (spaceborne Marines) sent to Mars.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idu_(novel)" title="Idu (novel)">
The novel is set in a remote African village and follows the protagonist Idu and her husband Adiewere over a number of years. From the beginning of the novel, Nwapa ensures the reader is aware of the wedded bliss between Idu and Adiewere; they are absolutely devoted to each other as husband and wife. Their happiness together is portrayed to be overwhelming. In the African tribe, motherhood is coveted and being a mother is deemed to be far more important than being a devoted wife. Despite their desire for children, Idu and Adiewere remain childless for many years. During this time, Idu and Adiewere build a great business and become prosperous however when Adiewere's brother, Ishiodu is in trouble, they forfeit their wealth to help Ishiodu. As time passes, the pressure from the villagers for Idu and Adiewere to have a child becomes unbearable and Idu weeps that she has brought the curse of childlessness onto her husband. At Idu's beckoning, Adiewere takes a second wife, who he treats as a child rather than a wife. Idu unexpectedly announces she is pregnant and the village rejoices with the couple and bestows many gifts upon the popular couple. Upon becoming aware of Idu's pregnancy, the second wife leaves Adiewere.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ivory_Throne" title="The Ivory Throne">
The book begins by discussing the cultural implications of the arrival of Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama and the expansion of maritime trade in the Indian subcontinent. It specifically focuses on the series of events that lead to the rise of Martanda Varma and his impact on the kingdom of Travancore. During that era, the kingdom followed a form of matrilineal succession known as Marumakkathayam. And it was through this system that the adoption of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi and her cousin Sethu Parvathi Bayi into the Travancore Royal Family (depicted on the cover of the book) made them the Senior Maharani and Junior Maharani, respectively.The book covers most key events in Travancore's history from the perspective of the Senior Maharani, often involving the Junior Maharani to various degrees. It chronicles the bond they shared during their upbringing, which would later turn into a power struggle when Senior Maharani begins her regency during the minority of the Junior Maharani's son (and heir to the eponymous Ivory Throne), Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma. While the Maharani's regency would be marked largely with positive reforms for both the people and the kingdom of Travancore, the termination of her regency would be the beginning of a bitter struggle between her and the Junior Maharani.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thinking_Woman's_Guide_to_Real_Magic" title="The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic">
Nora Fisher is an English teacher trying to earn her PhD in Literature when her boyfriend, Adam, breaks up with her. Nora must attend a wedding that weekend, but while she and her friends stay at a cabin she goes for a walk, carrying an old copy of "Pride and Prejudice" with her, and loses her way in the woods. She wanders into a graveyard and reads aloud a poem inscribed upon a tombstone. Upon leaving the graveyard, Nora discovers a garden and meets a woman named Ilissa, who invites Nora to her house and insists that Nora attend their party that night. Given a beautiful dress and a miraculous makeover, Nora meets a splendid company of people at the party that night, including Raclin, Ilissa's handsome son. Nora soon forgets about the wedding, and her teaching, and stays at Ilissa's house for an indefinite amount of time, attending parties nearly every night and going hunting with her new friends in the day. She also becomes engaged to Raclin.One day Nora strays from their hunting party and a team of men seize her. They report her to two men: Lord Luklren, and a magician named Aruendiel. They let her go, but Aruendiel warns Nora not to trust Ilissa and her people, a warning that Nora ignores. She marries Raclin and soon becomes pregnant, but one night she has an argument with Raclin because she suspects him of carrying on with other women. Raclin suddenly reveals himself to be a dragon and attacks her, and she falls down a flight of stairs. Ilissa and her people carry her to a bed, fearing that she has had a miscarriage. Nora sends a plea for help to Aruendiel by means of his token, a feather, and a tremendous gust of wind spirits Nora away from Ilissa's house.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Minor_Adjustment_Beauty_Salon" title="The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon">
Mr JLB Matekoni and Mma Ramotswe notice that Grace Makutsi is pregnant, and has not mentioned it to her employer. Mma Ramotswe decides she will wait for Grace to speak up. Rather close to the delivery date, she does.Mma Sheba Kutso arrives with a case for the agency. Edgar Molapo, a farmer, died a few months earlier. He left most of his estate, including his farm and cattle, to his nephew, the son of his late brother. Mma Sheba is not convinced that the young man who presents himself is this nephew. She asks them to resolve his identity so that his will can be carried out properly.Grace Makutsi leaves the office early to rest, but finds a cobra under the bed. After the snake is killed, Grace goes into labor about 3 weeks early. Grace delivers a boy, to be called Itumelang Clovis Radiphuti. Phuti's aunt appears, but Phuti stands up for their choice for modern ways of caring for the infant, and she soon leaves. In the town to get a gift for the new baby, Mma Ramotswe sees the new location of the Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon, and speaks with the proprietor, Mma Soleti. The latter has received a bird feather in the mail, meaning someone wishes her ill. She is worried.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_the_Churchyard" title="The Road to the Churchyard">
The short story begins with a description of the gravel paved road to the churchyard, as well as of the half-paved highway running parallel to it. During the introduction sequence, various persons travelling it are described, such as soldiers marching, apprentices heading into town, or merchants travelling by cart.The story then moves onto a physical description of the main character, Lobgott Piepsam. His wardrobe is described as a bit short for him, with sings of aging present of it, but overall, quite inconspicuous. His face is, on the contrary, memorable because of his nose. It is large, covered in marks and, in contrast to his pale face, red. The reason for his going to the church is given as well, he is heading to visit the graves of his wife and children. His children died young, as infants, and his wife died six months prior. His entire demeanor is that of grief, much more than that of a grieving husband and father. He is an alcoholic, without the support of a family.Next, a young boy tries to pass him, only to be stopped when Lobgott threatens with a formal complaint to the city government, because he is driving a bike on the church road where that isn't permitted. The boy simply shrugs him off, and tries to drive off. Lobgott runs after him, grabs the rear side of the bike and cause that bike to overturn. The boy responds by punching him in the chest, and further threatening him, should he again stop him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nowhere_Man_(Hurwitz_novel)" title="The Nowhere Man (Hurwitz novel)">
The novel begins with a case of cyberbullying a humble family girl who ends up being a victim of a network of human traffic. Evan Smoak saves the girl but realizes that another young woman has been embarked on a freighter to be sold. When he prepares to save her, he himself is kidnapped by a group of professionals, drugged and transferred to a mansion in the middle of the mountains.At first Evan believes that his mortal enemy, Van Sciver, is behind everything, but the owner of the mansion introduces himself as René, a cynical criminal addicted to luxury that all he wants is access to the bulky secret account of Evan.Despite being a man with many resources, Smoak soon realizes that it will not be easy for him to escape from his cage: the mansion is guarded by mercenaries, dobermans, two snipers and René's personal behemoth of a man, Dex.Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the lethal Candy McClure, whose code name Orphan V, remains obsessed with getting revenge on Smoak, but begins to question the methods of her organization when an innocent girl is killed by her new partner, a psychopath eunuch nicknamed Orphan M.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachinko_(novel)" title="Pachinko (novel)">
The novel takes place over the course of three sections, which begin with quotations from the works of Charles Dickens, Park Wan-suh, and Benedict Anderson, respectively. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_on_Democracy" title="Notes on Democracy">
"Notes on Democracy" is a critique of democracy. The book places political leaders into two categories: the demagogue, who "preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots" and the demaslave, "who listens to what these idiots have to say and then pretends that he believes it himself." Mencken depicts politicians as "men who have sold their honor for their jobs."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_Pablo,_Hating_Escobar" title="Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar">
The book is divided in an introduction and three parts: The Days of Innocence and Dreams; The Days of Splendor and Terror; and The Days of Absence and Silence.In the Introduction, Virginia Vallejo describes her departure from Colombia on 18 July 2006 in a special flight of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), after she has accused a former senator and minister of justice, Alberto Santofimio, of instigating the assassination of a former presidential candidate, Luis Carlos Galan, and after she had offered her cooperation to the Department of Justice in ongoing high-profile criminal cases.The story begins with the joy and passion of two new lovers -Pablo, an ambitious rookie politician from humble origins, and Virginia, a socialite and media personality, both 32 years old- and continues with the evolution of their relationship and Escobar's personality during his war against the extradition treaty between Colombia and the United States, and the terrorist activities of him and the Medellin cartel in their last years.Like a snowball, Vallejo describes the birth and boom of the cocaine industry that turned her lover into a billionaire, thanks to the cooperation of leading politicians; the origins of the Colombian rebel organizations, and the paramilitary squads founded by Escobar and his partners; the assassinations of the justice minister Rodrigo Lara in 1984, and the siege of the Palace of Justice in 1985; the suffering of the journalist after she had ended her relationship with the drug kingpin in 1987, and her cooperation with the anti drug German agency BKA in 1988; the Cuban connection, and the bombing of an airplane with 110 people on board in 1989 (Avianca Flight 203); the assassination of Luis Carlos Galán, and three more presidential candidates; the origins of Escobar's war against the Cali cartel and the Colombian state, followed by the era of narcoterrorism from 1988 to 1993; the coalition of enforcement agencies and Escobar's enemies involved in his hunt; and, finally, the worldwide reaction to the death of the Number One Enemy of the United States on 2 December 1993.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_We_Reaped" title="Men We Reaped">
Five men in Ward's life die in the space of four years. All are Black men between the ages of 19-32, including her brother, Joshua, killed by a white drunk driver. Though seemingly unconnected, Ward takes her readers on a journey—personal, familial and communal—showing how they were in reality bonded by identity and place, and how race, poverty, and gender predetermined the outcome of their lives.Ward was born in California when her mother was 18 and her father 20. She was born premature and was a sickly child, not expected to survive. Her family later moves to Mississippi, where her parents are from. Ward describes growing up in the poor, small towns of DeLisle and Pass Christian, where her family, like the community around them, experience a lack of opportunities, and an abundance of violence, including from the police, leading many to sink into abuse of drugs and alcohol. She also recounts how in her family, her mother raised her children on her own, due to infidelity and abandonment by her husband. Ward contrasts their lives, choices and experiences, and her own life zig-zagging between them: "What it meant to be a woman: working, dour, full of worry. What it meant to be a man: resentful, angry, wanting life to be everything but what it was."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing,_Unburied,_Sing" title="Sing, Unburied, Sing">
The novel begins on Jojo's thirteenth birthday. To step into his new role as a man, Jojo tries to help his grandfather, Pop, kill a goat. He is sickened by the slaughter, but Pop is not disappointed in him, as he had feared. Pop uses the goat to make stew and while the food is cooking, he tells Jojo about his family. Pop tells Jojo about how he was sent to Parchman prison when he was 15. Pop's older brother, Stag, got into a bar fight with some white Navy officers. The officers came after Stag and also took Pop, who was home at that time. Both boys were then sent to Parchman prison. It was there that Pop met Richie, a 12-year-old inmate. Leonie receives a call during the birthday celebration, and it is Michael, Jojo and Kayla's father, informing Leonie that he is coming home from prison where he has been for three years. The next day, Leonie argues with Pop about whether she should take Jojo and Kayla with her on the trip. At Mam's suggestion, she invites her coworker Misty, whose boyfriend is also incarcerated in Parchman. While she talks to her mom, Leonie realizes that Mam's cancer is getting worse.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_the_Line_Bleeds" title="Where the Line Bleeds">
"Where the Line Bleeds" follows twin brothers, Joshua and Christophe, who are raised by their blind grandmother, and have just graduated from high school on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Poor and Black, they find few economic opportunities as they struggle to undertake their adult lives.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Railway_(novel)" title="The Railway (novel)">
The novel is plotted in Gilas, a fictitious small town on the ancient Silk Route in Uzbekistan. The heart of the novel and the town is a railway station, which sets the connection between the town and the greater world. Gilas has people from all over - Armenians, Kurds, Persians, Ukrainians, Jews, Chechens, Koreans, gypsies, Russians etc and the novel tells the stories of some of them. The book describes the dramatic changes that was felt in the Central Asia in early twentieth century. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Are_the_Universe_(book)" title="You Are the Universe (book)">
"You Are the Universe" is a philosophical work which attempts to give answers to questions pertaining to the origin of the universe, time, space, matter and the origin and meaning of consciousness and the marrying of science and spirituality in daily lives.The book challenges the assumption that consciousness is a byproduct of matter claiming that matter is actually an experience in consciousness. The book proposes that the entire universe, as experienced by human beings, is a "human construct in consciousness."The book delves into the two most prominent questions in science which are:The book makes use of analogies, to make certain philosophical points, such as equating the chance of DNA structure forming the building blocks of life emerging from the chaos that existed after The big bang with 100 monkeys with 100 typewriters eventually producing the complete works of Shakespeare, or the possibility of a whirlwind blowing through an aircraft spare parts yard and putting together a functional jumbo jet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Folk_of_the_Air_(series)" title="The Folk of the Air (series)">
Jude Duarte, Taryn Duarte, and half-sister Vivienne live in the human world until a fae called Madoc, who is Vivienne's biological father, arrives one day and kills their parents. The trio are then forced to live in Faerie for a decade with Madoc's wife, Oriana, and son, Oak.The twins are repeatedly tormented by Prince Carden Greenbriar, youngest in line, and his friends, Nicaisia, Valerian, and Locke. Throughout the book, this torment constitutes Taryn and jude nearly drowned by the trio, Jude drugged by magic fruit and made to strip, and Valerian commanding Jude to jump off a tower (unbeknownst of Jude's protection once Prince Dain gives her the geas). Locke and Jude ultimately have an affair.Meanwhile, Prince Dain is to be crowned within months, and he takes in Jude as a spy, due to her human ability to lie -while faeries cannot- and employs her in the Court of Shadows with a trio consisting of The Roach, The Bomb, and The Ghost. Prince Dain gives Jude a geas that prevents her from being enchanted into obeying instructions from fae(mind magic). Jude begins a practice of mithridatism – taking small doses of poison to become immune to its effects.Jude has dinner with Locke, wearing the dress of his deceased mother, and finds an acorn within it. Upon further discovery she learns that the acorn contains a message pertaining to an heir to the throne, who the message urges to protect. The night before the coronation, Oriana warns Jude of getting herself involved with Dain, and tells her that Locke's mother, Liorope, was a concubine to the High King Eldred but ultimately assassinated. Jude is later tormented and nearly killed by a drunk Valerian,and finally kills him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Closed_and_Common_Orbit" title="A Closed and Common Orbit">
In the aftermath of the events in "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet", Lovelace the artificial intelligence loads herself into an android body and leaves the starship "Wayfarer" to pursue an independent existence in the company of Pepper, a technician. A parallel narrative strand explores the early years in the life of a genetically modified child slave.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schloss_Gripsholm" title="Schloss Gripsholm">
The book begins with a fictional correspondence of an author and his publisher, Ernst Rowohlt. with Rowohlt encouraging Tucholsky to write another light and cheerful love story, and Tucholsky replying that he could offer a summer story.The following story covers a summer vacation of Kurt, called Peter and narrating in the first person, with his friend Lydia, called by him almost always "die Prinzessin" (the princess), in Sweden. After train and ferry rides, they arrive at Gripsholm palace where they spend around three weeks. They are visited there by Kurt's old friend Karlchen, and later Lydia's best friend Billie. The story in episodes includes an erotic scene of three, unusual at the end of Weimar Germany, but also the observation of a little girl suffering under a sadistic German woman running a children's home. They contact the child's mother who lives in Switzerland and organise the girl's trip back to there.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Steps_Forward" title="Two Steps Forward">
Zoe Witt is an American artist with new-age views, who makes a spontaneous decision to walk the Chemin de St Jacques / Camino de Santiago de Compostela from Cluny in central France following the sudden death of her husband. Martin Eden is a British Engineer who is making the same journey to prove the design of a cart which he has invented as an alternative to backpacks. The two undertake the walk, dealing with the physical (and, in Zoe’s case, financial) challenges. They frequently encounter each other and begin a romantic relationship, but need to resolve personal issues before it can develop. Only after the walk ends does Martin travel to the USA to indicate his interest in pursuing the relationship.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_(Kavan_novel)" title="Ice (Kavan novel)">
"Ice" is set during an apocalypse in which a massive, monolithic ice shelf, caused by nuclear war, is engulfing the earth. The male protagonist, and narrator of the story, spends the narrative feverishly pursuing a young, nameless woman, and contemplating the overwhelming but conflicting feelings he has for her, that slowly end up being intruded by the worsening atmosphere of the setting. Initially he must negotiate the presence of the woman's husband and later he faces more serious opposition from the Warden who seeks to keep her under his control. Christopher Priest, in his introduction to the novel, writes that the book is "virtually plotless" and "told in scenes of happenstance and coincidence."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bill_(short_story)" title="The Bill (short story)">
An unidentified narrator is addressing the painter Palma Vecchio about the way in which he paints the Venetian whores that the narrator supplies. The models are uneasy with Vecchio, because unlike his fellow painters, he does not touch or have sex with them. Instead, they remark on the way in which he unceasingly stares at them. The narrator remarks how peculiar it is that the women are portrayed in the paintings the same way regardless of their actual appearance. Vecchio paints his models as fat and blonde, and often exposing a single breast. The narrator speculates many reasons as to this peculiar behavior, but settles on a rumination that we are our bodies, and are animals trapped in minds, and that the true moment of excitement we seek is the moment in our sexual partner's eyes when they become an animal again--present in the moment and grounded in flesh. This moment of animal desire, the narrator theorizes, is the true subject of Vecchio's paintings. He makes his models so uncomfortable because he is looking past their particular bodies to find desire absent from memory.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Chain_of_Thunder" title="A Chain of Thunder">
As the war in the West turns badly for the South, the Union generals and their political commanders in Washington know that the one great barrier to Union control of the Mississippi River lies at the Confederate bastion of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Protected by high embankments, and a formidable presence of Confederate artillery, the Confederate forces there, under the command of John Pemberton, are confident that Vicksburg is a citadel that cannot fall. But Federal commander Ulysses Grant believes otherwise.Encouraged by his superiors in Washington to do whatever it takes, Grant launches an overland campaign that avoids a direct frontal assault on the town from the river, and instead, maneuvers his army downstream, crossing from Louisiana into Mississippi where the Confederates are too weak to make an effective stand. Instead of pushing directly at Vicksburg, Grant employs an audacious strategy, slicing quickly through the Mississippi countryside toward the capital city of Jackson. Pemberton's army cannot match Grant's unpredictable moves, and the Southern forces begin to understand that their commander is no match for the ingenuity Grant brings to the campaign. Though Pemberton's superior, General Joseph Johnston arrives in Jackson, Johnston sees Pemberton's situation as hopeless, and thus, holds his own forces back from the fight, allowing Grant the freedom to focus all his energies on Vicksburg itself. Johnston's reluctance to engage Grant, and thus offer relief to Vicksburg, is one of the most controversial decisions of the war.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_Are_the_Days_(novel)" title="Gone Are the Days (novel)">
A solitary boy named Gaurav experiences kaleidoscopic shifts in his initial life because of several mismatching events. The protagonist was born in a typical Punjabi Brahmin family and spent the most of his childhood in Sitamarhi, a small town of Bihar. After few years, Gaurav had to move to Delhi for his higher studies. The book runs in the flashback where the protagonist appears for his IELTS speaking test that would help him move to Canada for higher studies, and it is during the test he tells his story to the examiner.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots_Will_Steal_Your_Job,_but_That's_OK" title="Robots Will Steal Your Job, but That's OK">
The book is divided into three parts: Automation and Unemployment, Work and Happiness, and Solution. It contains 21 chapters, two appendices, titled "How a Family Can Live Better by Spending Smart" and "Growth", a Notes section for further reading, and a Bibliography.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anti-Death_League" title="The Anti-Death League">
## The Edge of a Node.Cathy and Max are patients in the hospital. James, Moti and Willie visit Max. As they return to camp, they come across a motorcycle dispatch rider in the Royal Corps of Signals who has been fatally injured in a traffic accident. This is the first of several deaths in the novel, most accidental or incidental.Cathy and Max are soon discharged from hospital, "on probation". Max returns to duty. Cathy gains employment as a barmaid; she and James meet and fall in love (a major plot line which continues to the end of the novel).Brian is convinced that there is a spy in or near the camp. He meets Best while he and other officers are visiting Lady Lucy's for various purposes (mostly, for sexual intercourse with Lucy), and arranges to be shown round the hospital. In Lucy's library, Willie discovers the manuscript of a trio-sonata for flute, violin and piano by the fictional late 18th century composer Thomas Roughead (this forms a minor sub-plot). Best attempts to rape Lucy, but James rescues her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You're_Next_(novel)" title="You're Next (novel)">
The book centres around the character Mike Wingate - a property developer. He has been raised in foster care after being abandoned by his father at four. He presently has a wife and an 8-year-old daughter, has his construction company which is about to finish a green housing development project and be honoured by the Governor for environmental building practices. But things go quickly wrong when he meets a crippled stranger at a party. Things quickly escalate from him receiving threats to attacks - one of which nearly kills his wife. When he reports them to the police, they seem more interested in Mike's past than in protecting him.With his family in mortal danger Mike turns to Shep - a dangerous man. He knows Shep from his days in foster care and he is the only friend Mike has. Together they try and protect Mike's family from the hidden men and uncover why suddenly both these hidden strangers and the police are after him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daughter_of_Tintagel" title="Daughter of Tintagel">
The plot focuses on the love-hate relationship between Morgan le Fay and her half-brother Arthur. The author Fay Sampson classified it as a borderline between historical fiction and fantasy, followed by an "unashamed fantasy" for the final part. As described by the author, "Four people tell Morgan's story: two women, two men, two pagan, two Christian, two sympathetic, two hostile. Lastly, Morgan speaks for herself, and ironically comments on all the writers who have used her story for their own ends." 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rooster_Bar" title="The Rooster Bar">
Three third-year law students Mark Frazier, Todd Lucero, and Zola Maal all attend Foggy Bottom Law School (FBLS), a third-tier D.C. establishment with a reputation as a diploma mill. Zola contacts Mark and Todd when her boyfriend, Gordon Tanner, stops taking medication for his worsening bipolar disorder. They discover that Gordon, in his mania, has been collecting evidence that Hinds Rackley, the investor who owns FBLS, runs a network of schools, law firms and banks which ensures that FBLS' students are stuck in a cycle of debt while Rackley makes millions in the process. Although this practice isn't illegal, Gordon is convinced that there's enough for a class-action lawsuit that would, at the very least, expose Rackley's fraud. Later that night, Gordon gets drunk and flees the apartment, getting arrested for DUI. The trio bail him out with the help of Darrell Crowley, a professional street lawyer, and Mark tries to find Gordon's doctor. Before he can, however, Gordon escapes again and commits suicide by jumping off a bridge.Distraught, and blamed for Gordon's death by his family and friends, Mark and Todd realize that they have no future at FBLS; Mark's promised job at a D.C. firm is withdrawn, and both he and Todd drop out. The two get jobs at The Rooster Bar, a pub owned by Todd's boss Maynard. Mark persuades him to lease the two some office space, and they, together with Zola, set up an unlicensed firm called Upshaw, Parker, and Lane (UPL). Inspired by Crowley, Mark and Todd decide to pose as lawyers under assumed identities and work the D.C. courts for clients, arguing to Zola that they can get rich while avoiding FBLS and their creditors, so long as no one discovers that they are engaged in a criminal enterprise. Uncertain, but aware that she also has nothing better to look forward to, Zola agrees to join them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_the_Moon" title="Children of the Moon">
...The autumn of 1915. After the successful completion of the operation in Switzerland (The Torment of a Broken Heart), Aleksei Romanov finally decided to link his life with counterintelligence. He attends special military courses and begins to study the difficult art of identifying foreign spies. In the midst of his studies, Romanov, now an ensign, receives a new important task from General Zhukovsky and Duke Kozlovsky, the immediate boss of Aleksei.... Colonel Shakhov, who works in the Main Artillery Directorate, learns that his daughter Alina covertly takes pictures of secret documents. Alina is a sick drug addict, and Shakhov thinks that when trying to get another portion of morphine, she started working for German intelligence. Despite his paternal feelings, Shakhov nevertheless reports this fact to counterintelligence, and General Zhukovsky decides to organize the seizure of a German spy during his meeting with Alina.Alina often visits the club "Children of the Moon", where young people gather, entranced with decadence. Assuming that the transfer of information takes place there, Duke Kozlovsky suggests that Romanov dresses as one of the guests of the club and follows Alina Shakhova. Beautiful, but dying from drugs Alina causes an acute sense of pity in Romanov, and then affection. Aleksei tries to penetrate into her secret, but the truth in this case is incredibly terrible...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malala's_Magic_Pencil" title="Malala's Magic Pencil">
The book is written in the first person from the perspective of Malala Yousafzai, and documents her as a child, with a desire for a magic pencil to solve issues in her life; images depict her childhood home in Swat Valley. Using a simple vocabulary, it features watercolour illustrations, overlaid on which are "gold embellishments" and "bronze foiled swirls". The book is aimed at readers between ages 4 and 8.The book begins with the line "Do you believe in magic?" Yousafzai tells the reader about a television show about a boy with a magic pencil. Yousafzai says that if she had one, she would use her magic pencil for minor things such as to "stop time" in order to get more sleep or to create a football for her brothers. As she grows older, Yousafzai begins to wish that she had a magic pencil for more serious issues, such as to bring about peace. Though she never gets a magic pencil, she learns that she can change the world without one; by writing speeches about the injustice of girls being deprived of education, she can make a difference. Alluding to her shooting by the Taliban, the text "My voice became so powerful that the dangerous men tried to silence me. They failed." appears on a completely black page.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wandering_Man_(Akunin)" title="The Wandering Man (Akunin)">
The story is set in the winter of 1916. During the previous year, all the power of the German army was directed against Russia. After several crushing defeats, Russia lost about 2 million soldiers and many thousands of square kilometers of its territory. However, Germany failed in its main goal of 1915 - to force the Russian Empire out of the war. One of the most important episodes of the war in the East in 1915 was the German army's attempt to break through the Russian Northern Front, which ended in complete failure and with great losses because the German command was fed deceptive information. The author of this brilliant operation was General Vladimir Zhukovsky.Realizing that Zhukovsky's talent may cause a lot of damage to Germany in the future, the German intelligence chief and his deputy order their best spy, Josef von Theofels (known as "Sepp"), to carry out the operation against the Russian general. The intention is to have Zhukovsky accused of taking bribes and to get him fired from his post as chief of Russian counterintelligence. Under the guise of the "Siberian industrialist" Emelyan Bazarov, Teofels penetrates into St. Petersburg. Using an acquaintance with Princess Vereiskaya, with whom Bazarov allegedly escaped from German captivity, he meets Zhukovsky, but the general's discernment and caution prevent the German spy from carrying out the intended provocation. Enraged, Theofels decides to make use of an unusual trump card in the fight against General Zhukovsky – the Wandering Man, or the Wanderer. This is a mysterious figure who is alternately considered a saint or a devil, who may be of use to Sepp in a new, cunning plan.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwalia_in_Khasia" title="Gwalia in Khasia">
"Gwalia in Khasia" tells the story of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists' Mission to the Khasi Hills in north-east India between 1841–1969.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_the_Thunder_of_Victory_Rumble!_(novel)" title="Let the Thunder of Victory Rumble! (novel)">
On April 1, 1916 a secret meeting is held at the headquarters of the Supreme Command of the Russian Army. After the heavy defeats of 1915 almost all the front commanders are afraid to take active steps. But the commander of the South-Western Front () asks the Czar for permission to attack. The South-Western Front does not have a large number of troops and artillery and there are no reserves for the front, but the commander confidently declares that he is ready to attack the Austro-Hungarian Army. After some hesitation, Nicholas II gives the order to advance.The commander's plan is built on the element of surprise. Preparation for the offensive begins immediately on 25 sections of the front line, but this is done only in order to confuse the enemy. Only one will become the real breakthrough point.Aleksey Romanov, who serves just on the South-Western Front, travels to the area. He must deceive the Austrian spies, giving them the impression that there will be no offensive. However, Austrian intelligence is very active. A great help to the Austrians is provided by Ukrainian nationalists fighting for the future independence of Ukraine.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbertina" title="Umbertina">
PrologueThe prologue is set in Rome in the 1970s, with Marguerite, an American expatriate, in the office of her psychiatrist. Although living a comfortable middle-class life, Marguerite is floundering, without direction. She often thinks of her maternal grandmother, Umbertina, who had a "primitive strength" that Marguerite envies.Part One: Umbertina, 1860-1940At sixteen, Umbertina works as a goatherd in the hills above the Calabrian village of Castagna. She lives with her parents, brothers, and sisters in a one-room, dirt-floored stone cabin. Her father, Carlo Nenci, is a poor tenant farmer who toils for the Baron Mancuso di Valerba, an absentee landlord who takes half of everything produced by the villagers.One day Giosuè, a charcoal maker from the next village, presents Umbertina with a heart-shaped holder for her knitting needles, which he made himself out of tin. Umbertina likes Giosuè, who has beautiful dark hair and eyes, but her father instead promises her to Serafino Longobardi, an older man who had fought in the Campaign of 1860. Well in advance of the wedding, Umbertina asks the local priest's housekeeper, Nelda, to weave her a matrimonial bedspread in the traditional Calabrian style. It is the one valuable possession she will bring to her new home. She also asks Nelda for some rosemary, hoping that once she is married she will at last have chicken to cook with it. Nelda tells her of an old saying: where rosemary thrives, "the women of that house are its strength."
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witching_Hill" title="Witching Hill">
Mr. Gillon is an athletic youth bored by his stale job as clerk at the Witching Hill Estate Office, which manages the properties along Witching Hill Road. One day, however, Uvo Delavoye, a fascinating and energetic young man despite his ongoing recovery from a tropical illness, asks Gillon to have a look at hole that has appeared overnight in his mother's backyard. Together they investigate and find a tunnel, which leads to the estate's largest house. There, they secretly witness the famously pious owner, Sir Christopher Stainsby, hosting a drunken party. Delavoye blames the party's wild behaviour on the influence of his wicked ancestor, Lord Mulcaster, who once owned all of Witching Hill.Gillon and Delavoye become close friends, despite Gillon's refusal to believe in Delavoye's superstitions, and they spend the next three years contending with apparently supernatural events. For their second adventure, they investigate the honest lawyer Abercromby Royle who has turned dishonest and strange. Thirdly, they help the inoffensive accountant Guy Berridge who suffers from impulses of attacking his fiancée. Fourthly, they suppress the profane story inexplicably written by the reverend's courteous sister, Julia Brabazon.Fifthly, they support Coplestone, a retired oarsman and widower, when his likable son Ronnie falls ill. Sixthly, army-crammer Colonel Arthurs Cheffins gifts Delavoye a revolver as recompense for almost shooting Delavoye, and Delavoye becomes obsessed with the firearm. Seventhly, the former public school master Edgar Nettleton sets his house on fire, and Delavoye begins to fear that it his own tainted presence that is the cause of not only Nettleton's madness but also the other events thus far.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Forest_(novel)" title="Electric Forest (novel)">
"Electric Forest" is a novel about a deformed woman who is given a new body as part of a government espionage effort.The world called Indigo turned upside down for Magdala Cled one morning. From being that world's only genetic misfit, the outcast of an otherwise ideal society, she became the focus of attention for mighty forces. Installed in the midst of the Electric Forest, with its weird trees and its super-luxurious private home, Magdala awoke to the potentials which were opening up about her. And to realize also the peril that now seemed poised above Indigo. Only she, the hated one, could circumvent them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mirror_Thief" title="The Mirror Thief">
The plot is "set in three different versions of Venice (Italy, California, and Las Vegas) during three different time periods (16th century, mid-20th, early 21st)." It follows Curtis Stone as he looks for card counter Stanley Glass in Las Vegas, Nevada, but instead finds a book which "inspired" Glass's life called "The Mirror Thief"; this takes Stone into a mise en abyme through his reading.In a review for "The Guardian", Mark Lawson noted that "Topics under consideration range from why bingo is a fascist game, through penetrating reflections on the poetry of Ezra Pound and techniques of glass-making, to the visual resemblance between the French philosopher Michel Foucault and the Greek-American actor Telly Savalas."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Confessions_(novel)" title="True Confessions (novel)">
Los Angeles, 1946: Lois Fazenda is found cut in two pieces in a vacant lot after the murderer has taunted on the corpse. Due to the nickname "The Virgin Tramp", given to her just to please a journalist, a "nice quiet little homicide that would have drifted off the front pages in a couple of days" becomes the center of a storm. Two brothers, Tom and Desmond Spellacy, are the protagonists of this corrosive romance of Irish-Catholic life in California shortly after World War II. Tom is a lieutenant of the Homicide Division in charge of the case, not very honest but good in his job, and Desmond is a skillful and quickly ascending monsignor who has already been chosen to become the next bishop. The investigation offers the background to narrate with ironic and vulgar language, full of racist and homophobic terms, the miseries and the hypocrisy of society. The world of the Spellacy brothers is made of gangsters and bigoted, perverts and unlucky people, golfers and prostitutes, priests with a questionable morality and businessmen with no morality at all, whose stories are united together in a plot of corruption and despair in which very few of them will have something to earn: the murder of the "Virgin Tramp" is a crime that has no solutions, only victims.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Beach_(novel)" title="Manhattan Beach (novel)">
Eleven-going-on-twelve Anna Kerrigan and her father Eddie meet with gangster Dexter Styles in late 1934 at the Styles mansion on the shore of Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn, New York City. Eddie is a former vaudeville performer who switched to become a stockbroker during the Roaring Twenties, then was ruined in the Great Depression. Now he makes very little money as a bagman in the criminal underworld, and he tells Styles he needs money to pay for a wheelchair for his brain-damaged and paralyzed daughter, Lydia, Anna's younger sister. Unknown to Anna, Eddie agrees to work for Styles in his gambling operations. Anna puts her bare feet into the wintry cold seawater at Manhattan Beach to prove her toughness; this childish bravado makes a lasting impression on Styles.At the age of 14, Anna loses her virginity with 16-year-old Leon, a boy from the neighborhood, meeting him repeatedly in their building's cellar. She keeps these trysts secret from her father, who disappears one day without a trace.In 1942 at the age of 19, Anna is working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard to make warships for the US Navy in World War II. She has a repetitive job measuring small metal parts with a micrometer. She also takes classes at Brooklyn College. One day she sees a professional diver and starts training to be one. Against the wishes of diving officer Axel, she changes jobs to start working on underwater repairs. She faces the difficulty of being the first woman diver at the Navy Yard.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cottingley_Secret" title="The Cottingley Secret">
"The Cottingley Secret" takes place in England, during World War I, in 1917. One of the main characters, Frances Griffiths, moves out of Cape Town, South Africa, with her mother because her father has to fight in the war. The book starts with Frances and her mother on a train taking them to their new lives in Cottingley, England, where her cousin, Elsie Wright, lives. "The Cottingley Secret" is a retelling of the story behind the Cottingley fairies and a series of purportedly real photographs created in Cottingley, a village in West Yorkshire, England. The plots follows the lives of the two cousins—Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright—who photographed real fairies in the garden near a stream. The story follows the facts behind the real events—how the news attracted the attention of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, how nationally renowned the girls became, and the hope of people who believed in the fantasy during war times.Gaynor’s fictional reimagining continues into the present (2017) with Olivia Kavanagh, who after discovering her grandfather’s manuscript and the picture of the fairies, realizes that her story becomes intertwined with the cousins’ lives, causing past and present to blur together. Gaynor approaches the story intertwining past and present—in the form of a memoir written by Frances Griffiths that retells the past events, and through the present life of a fictional character (Olivia Kavanagh) whose family dates back to that time and place as well. "The Cottingley Secret" follows the life of Olivia. After her grandfather passes away, Olivia inherits his bookshop in Ireland called Something Old, so she decides to leave behind her life in London temporarily, which is tied to a fiancée and a steady job as a bookbinder. After finding a manuscript with Frances’s story and photographs of fairies, Olivia begins to struggle with choosing between a settled life in London or a new adventure where she feels a connection and meaning behind her newfound work. As Olivia gets deeper into the story, she also makes the connection that someone from Frances’s past is related to her family—a great grandmother. Having lost her own mother as a child and trying to take care of her grandmother, who suffers with Alzheimer’s, Olivia believes that holding on to this story is the only way to reconnect with her family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blame_the_Dead" title="Blame the Dead">
James Card, security consultant and ex-British Army intelligence officer takes on a job as bodyguard to Lloyd's of London underwriter Martin Fenwick for a trip to France. When his client is assassinated, he takes matters into his own hands to track down the killer. His only clue is a children's colouring book in a plain brown paper wrapper package. Fenwick’s young, beautiful widow is strangely without any sorrow at her husband’s death, but their son David, is grimly determined that he will find his father’s murderer regardless of the risk.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogewea" title="Cogewea">
The novel opens with a description of the frontier landscape and introduces Cogewea, a young Okanagan (spelled "Okanogan" in the novel) who is multiracial (with a white father and Okanagan mother). Her Okanagan grandmother describes her as an impulsive and free-speaking young woman. A well-loved figure on her white brother-in-law's ranch, Cogewea is also well-educated in Okanagan folklore and values through her grandmother. But she feels a tension between her two cultures. Cogewea grapples with having received a western education at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in central Pennsylvania, the model of Indian boarding schools, where children were forced to give up their languages and cultures.One rancher, Silent Bob, tells a new rancher, Alfred Densmore, that Cogewea is heir to a large property and fortune, though she is not. Densmore tries to steal Cogewea’s property and money through seduction, proposing marriage. Cogewea's grandmother uses storytelling and Okanagan traditions to convince Cogewea that Densmore will take advantage of her. After a period of indecision, Cogewea refuses Densmore's proposal. He ends up taking Cogewea captive, but after he realizes that she has little financial worth, he leaves her to die in the wilderness.In the end, a mixed-race rancher named Jim rescues Cogewea. In a twist of fate, Cogewea inherits part of her white father’s fortune. She realizes her feelings for Jim and marries him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Burlington_(book)" title="New Burlington (book)">
"New Burlington" tells the story of the land comprising New Burlington, Ohio, and its people. The book is primarily structured as a series of chapters focused on more than thirty middle-aged and elderly residents. In each chapter, Baskin weaves the words of the residents together with collected letters and diaries from the past, and threads of his own observations running throughout. The books explores the feelings of loss, acceptance, nostalgia, and disorientation experienced by the residents as they faced the death of their community.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria,_Maria..." title="Maria, Maria...">
In September 1916, Russia is preparing for a decisive turn in the course of the war. In 1914, two German warships, the battleship "Goeben" and the light cruiser "Breslau", had broken through to Istanbul, forcing the neutral Ottoman Empire into the world war on Germany's side. With the Bosphorous controlled by the Central Powers, Russia's main southern ports were cut off from her allies, and as a result, the Russian army could receive arms and ammunition from the Entente only through the northern seas, along a very long and dangerous sea route.Deciding to break the "German-Turkish lock" on the Black Sea, the Imperial Russian Navy began to build new battleships at the shipyard in Nikolaev. Very soon, the battleship "Empress Maria" was launched, and at the end of 1916 two similar battleships - the "Emperor Alexander III" and the "Empress Catherine the Great" - would join the flagship. To prevent this, Josef von Teofels is sent by the German intelligence service to attempt to destroy the battleship "Empress Maria".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_Sacred_(novel)" title="Nothing Sacred (novel)">
In November 1916 the German high command, after the heavy defeats suffered by its ally the Austro-Hungarian Empire, concluded that a military victory over Russia is impossible. One of their best spies, Josef von Theofels (known as Sepp), suggests a proven method which had been used by Japanese intelligence in 1905. Consequently, the Japanese provoke a revolution in Russia by generously financing Lenin and his party, because they foresee an early defeat in the war.The chief of German intelligence rejects Sepp's plan, and offers his own — the assassination of Nicholas II, expecting that the emperor's death would cause confusion and a struggle for power that would drive Russia out of the war. Wilhelm II, who is Nikolai's cousin, would never allow such an operation, and so Theofels must kill the Tsar by making it look like an accident, deciding to engineer a rail accident. Sepp assembles a group of militant nationalists who hate Nicholas II. At the same time, Duke Kozlovsky the Russian chief of counterintelligence sends his best agent, Aleksei Romanov, to the front to examine how well the security of "train number 1", in which the Emperor Nicholas II travels along the front, is organized. Romanov discovers that the retinue of Nicholas includes a traitor who informs German intelligence of all the movements of the royal train. Aleksei discerns a possible assassination attempt and begins to act, seeking to prevent the murder of the Tsar...now read on
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenger_(novel)" title="Revenger (novel)">
Tens of millions of years in the future, sisters Adrana and Arafura ('Fura') Ness are skilled bone readers—the primary method by which spaceships communicate with one another. Their skill at bone reading leads them to be taken on as apprentices aboard "Monetta's Mourn", a spaceship captained by Pol Rackamore. Rackamore and his crew engage in the practice of finding ancient technological artifacts, called "baubles". While in search of these artifacts, "Monetta's Mourn" is attacked by the infamous space pirate Bosa Sennen, separating the sisters and leaving Fura adrift on a ship in empty space.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sab_Kichu_Bhene_Pare" title="Sab Kichu Bhene Pare">
The main theme of the novel is about the relationship between men and women, mainly the autobiography of a man named Mahbub. From the childhood of Mahbub to the description of various rural experiences in life, there is talk of male-female relationships; The boy Mahbub was curious to see a newly married woman bathing in the pond of Mollah's house very early in the morning; He once saw their work girl Kadban naked with his cousin (Hasan); As a teenager, he survived being sexually assaulted by two elderly men, once on a steamer and another by an unfamiliar railway worker, a girl named Raushan whom he saw naked in private and naked in front of himself; As various events unfolded, Mahbub grew up and made his debut as a Dhaka-based successful engineer who had a wife named Firoza and a young daughter named Archie; Mahbub does not love Firoza but marries her for social reasons, they were married by a guardian, Mahbub was able to befriend a young woman named Ananya even in his old age and also had sex with a female worker in his own office.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Day_at_Riverbend" title="Bad Day at Riverbend">
On a quiet day at the town of Riverbend, local sheriff Ned Hardy hears that a strange matter is covering many citizens. When he heads out to investigate, he finds the local stagecoach driver covered in this mass and unable to speak. Distraught but unwilling to surrender, Hardy heads on and finds more people covered in this substance. Eventually he is himself covered in this substance and unable to move or speak.It is then revealed that the strange matter was none other than crayon scribbles, and that the sheriff is part of a coloring book left on its own by a small boy who gets tired and leaves.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_(Cabot_novel)" title="Remembrance (Cabot novel)">
Six years after the events of "Twilight", Suze Simon is studying for a master's degree in counselling and interning at the Mission Academy office. She is now engaged to Jesse, who is finishing his medical residency, but he insists on waiting for marriage, much to her frustration. When Suze receives an email from Paul Slater informing her that his company is knocking down her family's old house in Carmel, she calls him, still furious at him for hitting on her at their graduation party. Paul mocks her celibacy, and reminds her that tearing down the house might unleash a curse on Jesse from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, as it is his resting place. He offers to save the house if Suze sleeps with him.When Suze carelessly tends to a self-harming student named Becca Walters, she is confronted by Lucia, an angry young ghost claiming to protect Becca, who unleashes an earthquake in the office. At the Coffee Clutch that afternoon, Aunt Pru warns Suze to keep an eye on 'the child'. When Lucia attempts to drown Suze, Jesse orders her and Gina to move to Jake's house for their safety; Suze agrees to the date with Paul.Speaking to Father D the next morning, Suze discovers that Lucia was a classmate of Becca's who died in a horseback riding accident several years ago. Father D approaches the Walters, but is seriously injured in an accident caused by Lucia; at the hospital, Suze and Jesse discover that her triplet step-nieces are mediators - and that Lucia has been playing with them. Lucia then strangely directs Suze to discover that Paul, not her step-brother Brad, is the triplets' real father.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car-Jacked_(novel)" title="Car-Jacked (novel)">
Twelve-year-old Jack Mattingly and his parents, Nigel and Leonie, are at a petrol station in Northumberland. Jack is left alone in the car while his parents go into the station, when the car is hi-jacked by the bank robber Ross, who believes it to be empty.Upon discovering Jack, Ross throws him out, but returns to rescue him when he realises that the boy has asthma and needs his inhaler. As Jack goes to sleep, Ross receives a call from his crime boss James Shearer, who gives him an ultimatum to get hold of £100,000. Jack has overheard the conversation and starts to describe to Ross how the police will find him and arrest him.Meanwhile, Jack's parents are discussing the disappearance with the police, and Leonie is wondering whether a ransom will be necessary. The police find out Ross' identity.The car crashes into a ravine, with both Jack and Ross surviving. James Shearer sends a video message with a suffocating man to Ross' phone. Ross explains that the man is his younger brother, Stuart, who has stolen money from James Shearer. To save his brother, Ross needs to give £100,000 to Shearer for the return of his brother. It soon occurs to Ross that Jack can help him save Stuart.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singhadurbar_Badalne_Sangharsha" title="Singhadurbar Badalne Sangharsha">
Lal Babu Pandit is a politician who has been referred as a good politician and fighting for the honesty to remark about his politics he has written a book about changing the parliament of Nepal. The book starts with Pandit getting a call from CPN (UML) to inform him he has been nominated for the ministerial post. The book also talks about the story of movement with late Madan Bhandari and his student life with his family.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provenance_(novel)" title="Provenance (novel)">
When Ingray Aughskold pays to have a convicted criminal released from prison, as part of a complex plot involving forgery and stolen antiquities, she rapidly finds herself drawn into a much more serious plot involving murder and angry aliens.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Only_Story" title="The Only Story">
The short (273 pp.) novel is the life story of Paul Roberts, who we first meet as a 19-year-old Sussex University undergraduate returning to his parents' house in the leafy southern suburbs of London (Sutton, in Surrey, is suggested as a model.) The time is the early sixties, and there are a few references to current events. Paul joins the tennis club, which is the one of the few opportunities such places offer for socialising. In a random-draw mixed doubles, he is thrown together with Susan MacLeod, a 48-year-old married woman with two daughters older than Paul. Improbably, Paul and Susan become lovers and she eventually leaves her family to set up house with Paul in South London. Having nothing to do but a little housekeeping, Susan soon descends into alcoholism and, years later, to dementia. Paul departs and embarks on foreign travels, picking up jobs and women at random.Paul is a quintessentially alienated character. With no interest in either politics or religion, and no particular ambition, he takes life as it comes. As he narrates his life in this book, he freely admits that memory is unreliable and he may not be telling us the truth.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia,_Etc." title="Indonesia, Etc.">
Pisani visits Sumba, Flores, Sulawesi, the Maluku Islands, Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Java. She mostly visits smaller cities and villages, most of which see few tourists. Along the way, she discusses recent Indonesian history, culture, politics, and economics, as well as the logistics of her trip and the people she meets during it.Among the themes of the book are the conflict between Java (which has 60% of the population of Indonesia) and the rest of the country. According to Pisani, the Indonesian elite is dominated by the Javanese, especially those from Jakarta, and so Java dominates the outside image of Indonesia. As an attempt to counter this bias, Pisani spends most of her time on other, smaller islands.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_from_the_Cradle_of_Jazz" title="Up from the Cradle of Jazz">
In early 20th century New Orleans was a cultural melting pot and had a vibrant music scene. This gave way to the development of jazz by African-American musicians of the city, a genre which incorporated multiple influences. The emergence of new musical genres continued in New Orleans, and by 1950s rhythm and blues had gained a foothold as an established style.The book chronicles the course of music evolution in New Orleans post-World War II from jazz to primarily rhythm and blues as well as rock and roll and avant-garde jazz. It presents a historical accounting along with cultural influences that morphed the New Orleans sound, such as Mardi Gras Indians, Caribbean influences, musical families, generational continuity, iconic individuals, clubs and recording studios. The first edition published in 1986 consists of nineteen chapters categorized under four headings:A second edition published in 2009 has additional content, including the Hurricane Katrina devastation and subsequent efforts to restore the music community. The book is not all encompassing in term of genres, and transformations in traditional jazz, Dixieland and gospel are intentionally left out by the authors.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolab_Pailin" title="Kolab Pailin">
In an old house, Choeum ( ), who is the father of Chauchet ( ), is sick due to serious disease. He is being cured by a doctor named S'at ( ). Before dying, he tells his son to depend on his own to live like a Khmer proverb "Attāhi Attano Nātho" ().After his father's death, Dr. S'at recommended him to work as a mine worker in Pailin with Luong Ratanasambath ( ). When he gets the job, he works hard and is liked by other workers.One night, Chauchet sings a song in his worker cottage. His voice impresses Khunneary ( ), who is the only daughter of Luong Ratanasambath. She comes to meet Chauchet, but she retorts him when she knows that he is just a normal worker. However, he doesn't mind her and starts to love her.In the next morning, Chauchet helps Son ( ), the chauffeur of Luong Ratanasambath, to repair the car. Then Son teaches Chauchet to drive. After that, Son asks permission from his master to be absent in driving for a short time because he is busy with his family and asks Chauchet to drive instead of him. Luong Ratanasambath agrees to his request.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phka_Srapoun" title="Phka Srapoun">
Bun Thoeun (ប៊ុនធឿន) and Vitheavy (វិធាវី) have been arranged to marry since they were young. Unfortunately, Bunthoeun's family becomes poor after a storm sinks the boat that his father uses to transport the rice in Prey Nokor.Mrs. Nuon (យាយនួន), mother of Vitheavy, is a person who prefers money over honor and honesty. She drops the engagement between Bunthoeun and her daughter, and engages Vitheavy instead to Naisot (ណៃស៊ត), who is a rich man. Naisot is bad-tempered and immoral. He uses his money to do anything he wants.After becoming engaged to Naisot, Vitheavy falls ill, and pines for Bunthoeun. However, she dares not argue with her mother over the engagement. Her health worsens. Seeing this, Mrs. Nuon brings her daughter to the resort town of Siem Reap, but Vitheavy's spirits remain low.Vitheavy coughs up blood. Her mother, being superstitious, brings her to the fortune teller and uses various methods to try to cure her. However, it does not work. Her illness remains serious.After Bunthoeun discovers Vitheavy will marry someone else, he becomes sad and cries alone. He goes into the forest for days with Mr. So (តាសូ), to find firewood and fish to reduce stress. When he returns home, Vitheavy dies. This causes him much grief.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Leader_and_the_Damned" title="The Leader and the Damned">
The book is based on the assumption that Adolf Hitler was assassinated by dissident Wehrmacht officers who planted a bomb in his plane in March 1943. However, Martin Bormann, who witnessed the crash of Hitler's plane, concealed all evidence and ruthlessly got all witnesses killed. Bormann then replaced Hitler by a double, an actor who resembled Hitler and who had for years practiced as an "understudy" for just such a contingency. The double managed to carry off the deception, precisely emulating Hitler's mannerisms, and was accepted by virtually everybody as the real Hitler; however, his military talents fell far short of those of the original.The only one to discover the deception was Wing Commander Ian Lindsay, a dashing British pilot who managed to penetrate Hitler's headquarters. The bulk of the book's plot depicts Lindsay's efforts to escape with his vital information, fleeing through Germany, Austria and Yugoslavia, one step ahead of the Gestapo, the SS and the Abwehr - virtually alone except for two courageous and highly capable women who risked all for his sake. Unknown to Lindsay, even if he eludes the Nazis, the Soviet secret services are also plotting his death, at the personal order of Joseph Stalin.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Daughter_with_Portraits_of_the_Leadenhead_Family" title="Natural Daughter with Portraits of the Leadenhead Family">
Robinson's narrative begins with the Bradford family travelling to Bath for the sake of its healing waters. The Bradfords are a mixed bunch in terms of personality and beliefs. Peregrine Bradford, his wife and two daughters, Martha and Julia, are members of the middle-class who have recently built their fortune, however, they do not have official titles to secure their place among high society. Mr Bradford believes that his wealth will buy everything he desires when he says, “gold will buy everything; and who knows but I may soon die and leave a title?” The idea that money can buy happiness is a consistent theme throughout the novel. The main character, Martha (Bradford) Morley, continually seeks to dispute this idea by showing compassion towards others and straying from the path that will lead her to upper-class society. Martha is portrayed as a more masculine woman who takes action, while her sister Julia is passive and full of sensibility, i.e. an emotional delicacy and extreme feeling. Martha's marriage to Mr Morley goes against the less submissive identity that she is described as possessing. Early in the novel, Martha is described as, “giddy, wild, buxom, good-natured, and bluntly sincere tenor of her conversation” and “a mere masculine hoyden.” Martha is willing to submit to marriage for the sake of her father, but the marriage is not happy. Mr Morley is described as, “one of those prejudiced mortals who consider women as beings created for the conveniences of domestic life”. Not long into the marriage, Mr Morley leaves on business, which meant his estate was left to be run by Martha. On her own, Martha gets to know the locals in the village outside the estate. On one of her excursions, she discovers a highborn lady and her newborn illegitimate child. Martha offers to assist the young mother but is suddenly struck ill and cannot go to the village herself, so in her place, she sends a servant named Mrs Grimwood. Mrs Grimwood's discovery of the child and its connection to Martha lead her to create false rumours which are spread as the chapter ends. The narrator foreshadows the worst for Martha by saying, “little foreseeing that her steps would lead to a labyrinth of adventures” 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_(novel)" title="Artemis (novel)">
In Artemis, the first city on the Moon, porter and part-time smuggler Jasmine "Jazz" Bashara is offered an opportunity by a regular client, wealthy businessman Trond Landvik, to assist him with a new business venture. While meeting with Trond, Jazz briefly encounters an associate of his named Jin Chu who attempts to conceal a case marked with the name ZAFO. Trond intends to take over Sanchez Aluminum, which currently enjoys a lucrative permanent contract with the city for free energy in exchange for providing the city's entire oxygen supply as a by-product from aluminum production. Trond asks Jazz to sabotage the company's anorthite harvesters so he can step in with his own, and when he offers her a life-changing sum of money to carry out the criminal activity, Jazz accepts.Jazz borrows some welding equipment from her estranged father Ammar, and a small robot called a HIB from a business associate of his. She visits the Apollo 11 landing site disguised as a tourist, leaving the HIB in place outside the airlock so that it can open the hatch for her without the assistance of a human EVA master. The next day, while an electronic device created by her scientist friend Martin Svoboda makes it seem as though she is in her living quarters, Jazz treks across the moon's surface to where the harvesters are collecting ore. She successfully sabotages one, but is spotted by the camera of another. Jazz destroys two more, but flees to avoid capture by an approaching EVA team before she is able to disable the last harvester. With EVA masters guarding every airlock, Jazz is discovered by her former friend Dale, whom she despises for stealing her boyfriend. Dale offers not to report her if she would put aside her resentment and try to rekindle their friendship, which she reluctantly agrees to do. Finding Trond and his bodyguard murdered, Jazz looks for Jin Chu at an expensive hotel. She is attacked by Trond's assassin, but manages to escape with Jin's ZAFO case, which she gives to Svoboda to study. Jazz learns that Sanchez Aluminum is a front for O Palácio, Brazil's largest and most powerful organized crime syndicate, and that the killer, named Alvares, is now after her. Jin agrees to meet Jazz, but betrays her to Alvares to save himself. Jazz, anticipating Jin's deception, executes the trap she set, incapacitating Alvares and then turning him over to the city's de facto police chief, Rudy.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_Curried_Sausage" title="The Invention of Curried Sausage">
## Chapter 1.The narrator believes that a woman whose food stand he went to as a child was the inventor of the German snack food curried sausage. He seeks out the woman, Lena Brücker, who is now an elderly woman living in a nursing home in Hamburg. The narrator asks Lena to tell him the story of how she invented curried sausage. She agrees and she begins to tell her story.She begins her story on April 29, 1945, the day of Hitler’s marriage to Eva Braun. She introduces Petty Officer Bremer and describes that they met when he bumped into her outside of the cinema in Hamburg. He was due to be deployed to the front lines the next day. After an airstrike occurred, the two of them went to a public air raid shelter. After the all clear was given, the two return to Lena’s apartment. After a night of drinking and talking, Lena convinces Bremer to stay and become a deserter instead of likely being killed on the front lines.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransom_(Garwood_novel)" title="Ransom (Garwood novel)">
In England, during the reign of King Richard I, Gillian, as a young child, is woken up in the middle of the night by her father. Alford the Red, and his soldiers have breached their home, Dunhanshire. Gillian's father sends his daughters with four of his most trusted men to escape the estate with a golden jeweled box that must be kept a secret. In the chaos, Gillian and Christian are separated. Christian escapes but Gillian gets caught and dragged back to the holding. After seizing Dunhanshire and killing Gillian's father, Alford has Gillian banished to her uncle, Morgan Chapman's, estate.Fourteen years later, Gillian is dragged back to Dunhanshire where she meets a young 5-year-old boy, Alec Maitland. She tries to help him escape but the first attempt fails and they were found and taken back to the estate. Alford tells Gillian that he is sending her on a quest to the Highlands in Scotland to retrieve the jeweled box, called Arianna's treasure which belongs to King John, and her sister who he believes has the box. Gillian leaves the holding once again with Alec in order to save his life.Once in Scotland, Gillian sends word to Alec's champion, Laird Brodick Buchanan, to request his help in getting Alec returned home safely. Gillian meets with Alec's father, Laird Iain Maitland, and Laird Ramsey who, along with Brodick, demand Gillian to give them the names of the English barons so they can retaliate against them for kidnapping Alec, but Gillian refuses in order to protect her uncle who is being held captive by Alford until Gillian returns to England with the box and her sister.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karnak_Café_(novel)" title="Karnak Café (novel)">
The narrator begins the story by describing how he originally discovered the "Karnak Café" in Cairo, attracted by the quiet charms of Qurunfula, a bellydancer of former fame and the café's owner. There, the narrator quickly becomes part of the café's regular crowd of patrons, which represent a cross-section of Egyptian society during the early 1960s. Among many others, the crowd includes the following young people: Hilmi Hamada, an idealistic communist with whom Qurunfula has a discreet love affair; Isma'il al-Shaykh, a law graduate of modest origins; and Zaynab Diyab, another graduate from a poor background. Throughout the story, the youth are repeatedly arrested and imprisoned for prolonged periods; a mirror to Qurunfula's despair, the narrator keeps track how the youths' initial political enthusiasm and optimism slowly gives place to disillusion and hopelessness. After their third prison term, the café learns that Hilmi Hamada has died in prison, leaving Qurunfula distraught. As Isma'il and Zaynab open up to the narrator, he learns of the horrors Isma'il and Zaynab endured in prison – Isma'il is repeatedly tortured while Zaynab is raped – and how the ruthless and brutal police officer Khalid Sawfan turned both Isma'il and Zaynab into informants for the secret police after their second term in prison. As Hilmi tries to convince Isma'il and Zaynab of the necessity of communism, he is betrayed by Zaynab, who tries to thereby keep Isma'il safe, and is beaten to death in prison. The defeat of the Egyptian army during the Six-Day War sees Isma'il, who was imprisoned in spite of Zaynab's assistance, and a reversal of fortunes: after being thrown into prison and having become disabled through torture, Sawfan joins the regular crowd of the Karnak Café, painting himself both as a criminal and a victim and gaining the patrons' appreciation through witty political commentary. The novel ends on a hopeful note with Qurunfula setting her eyes upon Munir Ahmad, a new idealistic and innocent youth: for purity and innocence never disappear forever.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contending_Forces" title="Contending Forces">
"Contending Forces" begins with an introduction to Charles Montfort, a successful slave-owner who has moved to North Carolina from Bermuda with his family—sons Charles Jr. and Jesse, and his wife Grace—and his slaves. He plans to slowly free his slaves, against the wishes of the local townspeople. Upon the Montfort family's arrival to North Carolina, rumors are spread that Grace Montfort has African American descent, which Montfort discusses with friend Anson Pollack, the man Montfort had purchased his land from. Anson Pollack, unbeknown to the Montfort family, devises a plan alongside the other townspeople to kill Montfort and destroy his property. Though most of the townspeople are fueled by anger at Montfort's desire to free his slaves, Pollack is also embittered by Grace Montfort's rejection of him. On a beautiful day soon afterward, Pollack, followed by several other men, shoot Montfort dead, and tie Grace Montfort up and whip her. She disappears soon after, and the text implies that she commits suicide by drowning herself in the Pamlico Sound. Pollack takes ownership of the Montfort sons, selling Charles Jr. to a mineralogist. Jesse, sent on an errand by Pollack, escapes and runs away to Boston, Massachusetts, where he arrives at the house of Mr. Whitfield, a "negro in Exeter who could and would help the fugitive". While waiting for Mr. Whitfield, he rocks the cradle of a crying baby, Elizabeth Whitfield, who he marries fifteen years later, and has a large family with.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season_of_Crimson_Blossoms" title="Season of Crimson Blossoms">
The story is set in predominantly Northern Nigeria against the backdrop of violence in the author's home city of Jos, Plateau State. The plot also spills into other parts of northern Nigeria, including the capital, Abuja; the story takes place roughly between 2009 and 2015. The story focuses on Binta Zubairu, a Muslim widow in her mid-50s who falls for Reza, a local political thug and drug lord in his early 20s. Binta, a survivor of violence that tore her family apart in her former home in Jos, sees in Reza not her murdered husband but her slain son Yaro. In turn, Reza, with an ailing father and a mother he last saw as a child, feels the undertow of parental warmth in his budding liaison with Binta. When they meet again and have sex, the dynamic feels incestuous to them, as Binta reminds Reza of his mother who abandoned him and he reminds her of her slain son, whom she could not address by his given name due to social norms.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellevue_Square_(novel)" title="Bellevue Square (novel)">
The novel centers on Jean Mason, a bookstore owner in Toronto, Ontario's Kensington Market neighbourhood who learns that she has an apparent doppelgänger named Ingrid Fox in the market's park, Bellevue Square, and becomes obsessed with finding the woman. The two people who have told about her double are soon dead, and Jean decides to camp out in the market to facilitate her search. Her behaviour becomes more and more bizarre.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Widows'_Adventures" title="The Widows' Adventures">
Widows Ina and Helene, sisters from Chicago, set off on a drive to Los Angeles. There’s one problem: Only Helene can drive, and she’s blind. Beer-swigging Ina acts as her eyes. On back roads in the dead of night they travel across an America they never knew.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltz_in_Marathon" title="Waltz in Marathon">
Gentleman loan shark Harry Waltz, a sixty-one-year-old resident of Marathon, Michigan, finds his life dramatically altered by the return of his grown children and his romance with Mary Hale, a successful, forty-year-old lawyer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Weather_(book)" title="Strange Weather (book)">
## Snapshot.In Silicon Valley in 1988, 13-year-old Michael Figlione finds his elderly next-door-neighbor, Shelly Beukes, disoriented and wandering the street. She tells him about a strange man carrying an instant camera and warns him not to let the man take his picture. Michael later encounters the man, whom he dubs "The Phoenician" for his multiple tattoos in that language and discovers that he can erase people's memories by taking their picture. During a thunderstorm, Michael checks on Shelly and finds the Phoenician taking pictures of her. He seizes the camera and uses it to erase so much of the Phoenician's memory that he can barely move or function, then orders him to leave the neighborhood forever. Shelly's husband moves her into a retirement home, where she lives in squalor until Michael takes enough pictures of her to make her forget how to breathe, allowing her to die. He runs over the camera with his car, finding it to contain a strange tarry liquid with a large yellow eye at its center. The material quickly hardens to a metallic solid, which he ultimately uses in his graduate research to develop a revolutionary memory storage system for electronic devices.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice,_the_Zeta_Cat_and_Climate_Change" title="Alice, the Zeta Cat and Climate Change">
The heroine of the story, Alice, falls down a hole while on a school excursion on Potsdam's Telegraphenberg (where PIK is situated. She meets some characters which also appear in Alice in Wonderland, like the "Zeta Cat".Unlike Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat, Zeta knows exactly how to figure out a correct pathway. That is how the "mathematical-metaphorical animal" can help Alice, the heroine of this story, to get her bearings in the wondrous world of science and climate change. The girl not only journeys through computer models, where she experiences glacial cycles in super-fast motion and the calamitous drying-up of rainforests, she also undergoes an inner journey through feelings like guilt and compassion. Alice enters the "Library of Truth" and is shown the very limits of knowledge, visits an "Error Bar" run by shady rats, and eventually makes friends with a mysterious walrus. When she stumbles upon a climate conference that mutates into an absurd court hearing, she is forced to take a stand. Together with a companion rabbit and the albatross Molly Mauk, a wind-and-weather expert, Alice is caught in a battle between logic, poetry and treason. The girl’s empathy nearly seals her fate. Eventually, however, spectacular powers weigh in to save her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_(book)" title="Feral (book)">
Monbiot addresses readers who feel the urge for a wilder life and encourages them to challenge their perception of humankind’s place in the world, the world's ecosystems, and the interaction between humankind and nature. Monbiot looks at rewilding projects around the world, and pays particular attention to the scope for rewilding in the United Kingdom. He argues that overgrazing is a problem in the British uplands and calls for sheep numbers to be reduced so that areas can be rewilded. Among other topics, the author looks at the phenomenon of British big cats, supposed sightings which in his view reflect human origins in a wilder landscape.After initial chapters that serve as an introduction to the author’s personal and academic interest in the subject matter, the content takes the form of case studies. According to the author, case studies relating successful rewilding projects around the world (Scotland, Wales, North America) serve to provide examples of good practice and offer the reader hope (that rewilding is indeed possible). In chapter 11, “The Beast Within (or how not to rewild)”, case studies of rewilding in Slovenia, Croatia, Eastern Poland and the Americas that occurred as result of political tyranny, civil war, genocide and tyranny serve as cautionary tales. The author strongly believes that rewilding must not be an opposition to the people who live on and benefit from the land but must be done with their consent and active engagement.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millard_Salter's_Last_Day" title="Millard Salter's Last Day">
The novel tells the story of the final day in the life of a 75-year-old psychiatrist, Millard Salter, who runs the consult-liaison service at St. Dymphna's Hospital in New York City. Salter's second wife has died a slow, painful death of cancer, so he volunteers with an underground organization that helps terminally-ill patients commit suicide. However, he falls in love with the first such patient to whom he is assigned, Delilah, and decides to end his own life on the same day that she ends hers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heart_(novel)" title="The Heart (novel)">
Early one Sunday morning near Le Havre, France, 19-year old Simon Limbres and his two friends, Christophe Alba and Johan Rocher, go surfing. While driving back home, the boys get into a car accident, in which Christophe and Johan are only mildly injured while Simon experiences severe bodily trauma and immediately slips into a coma. It is soon determined that Christophe and Johan were wearing seat belts, while Simon was not.At the hospital, Dr. Pierre Révol, the head physician of the intensive care unit (ICU) department, discovers that Simon is unresponsive to auditory, visual, and tactile stimulation, and that his brain has suffered irreversible damage. Eventually, Dr. Révol declares Simon to be in a state of brain death, in which he can only maintain involuntary cardiac and respiratory functions with the assistance of a ventilator and other machines, and he does not display any cerebral activity. Immediately after this declaration, Dr. Révol deems Simon an ideal organ donor due to his young age and excellent health prior to his passing and subsequently notifies Thomas Rémige, the head of the Coordinating Committee for Organ and Tissue Removal.Meanwhile, Marianne Limbres, Simon's mother, is the first person to be notified of his admission into the ICU. She contacts and locates Simon's father, Sean, from whom she is separated, and they go to the hospital together to see their son. Upon their arrival, Marianne and Sean are notified by Dr. Révol that Simon's injuries are irreversible and that he has ultimately passed away. Sean indignantly accuses Dr. Révol and the rest of the ICU staff for not doing enough to save Simon, while Marianne, along with her husband, grapples with their son's death and blames herself for failing to protect him from his precarious lifestyle. The couple is then introduced to Thomas, who attempts to convince them to authorize the donation of Simon's organs. Initially, both parents, especially Sean, are hesitant, citing the symbolic significance of Simon's body and their fear of it being destroyed during the transplantation process. Eventually, Marianne realizes that allowing Simon to surf and live his life the way he did was the best thing she and Sean had done for him, and she decides to accept Thomas' request to donate Simon's organs. She then convinces Sean to do the same. Ultimately, Marianne and Sean permit Simon's heart, liver, lungs, and kidneys to be donated, but are unswerving in their prohibition of donating his eyes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_Most_Unladylike" title="Murder Most Unladylike">
The two principal characters, Hazel Wong and Daisy Wells are students in Deepdean School for Girls. They are the founding members of their school's Detective Society and its only members. Near the beginning of the book, Hazel stumbles upon the corpse of their Science teacher Miss Bell in the gymnasium, but when Hazel returns with Daisy and one of the prefects, the body is gone. Thus none of the characters believes that Hazel saw Miss Bell's dead body and believes that she was telling lies.Then, the next day at Prayers, the other students also notice the absence of their Science mistress, but they are satisfied when the headteacher informed them that she has received a resignation letter from Miss Bell. Daisy and Hazel, however, are not. They work tirelessly to piece the clues together and solve the mystery.Towards the end of the book, Hazel and Daisy come across an old notebook, which turns out to be the diary of another character Verity Abraham, the girl who was rumored in the story to have committed suicide by jumping off the Gym some few years ago. The diary serves as evidence that Miss Griffin, the headmistress has spoken to her a few weeks ago and informed her that she was Verity's true mother and that Mr. and Mrs. Abraham had adopted her. Miss Griffin had become an unmarried mother, which at the time was not considered normal and would have affected her chances of becoming headmistress. Verity forbids this fact, but Miss Griffin then provides her with evidence of her birth and the adoption, too. Then, she asks Verity to join her as her daughter, but Verity denies it and says Mr. and Mrs. Abraham are her parents. Following this, there is a note proving who the murderer is at the end, and why they killed Miss Bell.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic_for_Tea" title="Arsenic for Tea">
Arriving at Fallingford House, Daisy's home, from their Easter term at Deepdean, they enter the house in the middle of an argument between Lord and Lady Hastings (Daisy's parents). Other people staying in the house include Bertie (Daisy's brother), Stephen Bampton (Bertie's best friend) and Miss Alston (Daisy and Hazel's governess and secretary to Lord Hastings).Daisy will turn 14 during the holidays so a party is planned. The guests are: Denis Curtis, antiques dealer and guest of Lady Hastings, Felix Mountfitchet, Daisy's uncle and brother to Lady Hastings, Saskia Wells, Aunt to Lord Hastings and Great-Aunt to Daisy, Katherine 'Kitty' Freebody and Rebecca 'Beanie' Martineau, Daisy and Hazel's friends from Deepdean. Daisy then overhears Curtis say 'Ming' to himself at a pot before claiming at dinner that it was not Ming. He also claims various items in the house are worthless.Daisy, whilst playing a game of Hide and seek then tells Hazel that they are going downstairs to spy on Mr Curtis as she thinks he is highly suspicious. During their mission, they discover Uncle Felix speaking to Mr. Curtis and Uncle Felix greeting Miss Alston as if they know, and dislike each other. Mr Curtis then kisses Lady Hastings later that evening, upsetting Daisy. Bertie and Uncle Felix then burst in and yell at Mr Curtis.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Experience_of_Pain" title="The Experience of Pain">
The South American state of Maradagàl is recovering from a bitter and inconclusive war with neighbouring Parapagàl. Many ex-soldiers have found work as patrolmen in provincial associations for night vigilance (Nistitúos Provinciales de Vigilancia para la Noche).The village of Lukones is patrolled by a man known as Pedro Mahagones but an itinerant cloth trader recognizes him as Gaetano Palumbo who had fraudulently claimed a war pension on the grounds of being totally deaf.The patrolman's round includes three villas that have been struck three times by lightning. One villa had been occupied by the famous poet Carlos Caconcellos and is now said to be haunted by his ghost, but its owner has managed to rent the caretaker's lodge to Colonel Di Pasquale, a military doctor who had been responsible for unmasking Palumbo's false pension claim.Doctor Higueroa, the local doctor, receives a call from José, the peon at Villa Pirobutirro, asking him to go and visit Don Gonzalo. On his way up to the villa the doctor meets Battistina who helps out at the villa. He asks what is wrong. Battistina tells him that Señor Gonzalo wanders the house like a madman and his mother is frightened of being alone with him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defend_the_Defenseless" title="Defend the Defenseless">
## Part one.Part One looks at the history of Nigeria and the factors that led to the Civil War. It narrates a childhood experience not in secessionist Biafra but being caught in the middle when the author's home city Benin was captured by Biafran soldiers. Defend the Defenseless provides both an invaluable historical background and a candid account of the author's personal experience of the Biafran war with her family. It tells of the pain of separation and loss, the joy of survival and reunion; and the consequences of the war that still linger on today.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_and_Sunflower" title="Bronze and Sunflower">
Bronze is a young mute boy, the only son of the poorest family in the village. Sunflower is a young girl, taken in by Bronze's family when she is orphaned. The story follows their lives in the village of Damaidi, highlighting family values against the hardships of rural life. It is one of a series of books set in the same region at the same time.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Hope" title="Sweet Hope">
Two families develop an uneasy friendship while eking out a living on a cotton plantation named Sweet Hope. The Pascalas are Italian immigrants working as indentured laborers; the Halls are African-American sharecroppers. Like the other workers at Sweet Hope, the Pascalas and the Halls face disease, poverty, and a dangerous manager. The black sharecroppers help the Italians learn English and survive in an unfamiliar climate.The Pascalas are paid in company scrip and forbidden to leave the plantation until their debt is worked off. Having arrived too late in the year to start a crop, they keep falling further into debt. After attempting to negotiate with management for better conditions, the Italians organize against the plantation company. When the sharecroppers stand up for the Italians, it triggers "a tragic chain of events that implicates individuals, families, company, town, and the justice system."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_Kings_(book)" title="3 Kings (book)">
The book examines the careers of Diddy, Dr. Dre, and Jay-Z through reports and interviews from people such as Swizz Beatz, Kendrick Lamar, Shaquille O'Neal, Russell Simmons, Kevin Liles, Troy Carter, Grandwizzard Theodore and Lovebug Starski. There is consideration of the nature of characteristics that made the figures most successful, the general economic nature of hip-hop and a potential "4th King", 50 Cent.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wombat_Divine" title="Wombat Divine">
Wombat has long dreamed of being in the annual Nativity play. When he is finally old enough to participate, he enters every audition, only to be rejected each time on the grounds that he is "too big for some parts, too small for others, too short, too clumsy ..." until he fears that his dream will go unfulfilled. Fortunately, "wise Emu" has an idea—a sleepy Wombat would be well suited to the part of baby Jesus. Wombat accepts the part and ends up stealing the show as he falls asleep during the performance, just as a real baby might. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sins_of_Empire" title="Sins of Empire">
Ten years after the events of "The Powder Mage trilogy", the Lady Chancellor of the young nation of Fatrasta must use her iron will and secret police force against the unrest of a suppressed population and the machinations of powerful empires. Michel Bravis, a spy in all but name, a convicted war hero called Ben Styke, and Lady Vlora Flint - general of a mercenary company - must work together to purge the insurrection that threatens Landfall. Loyalties are tested, revealed and destroyed, while old powers are again discovered and will soon be a bigger challenge than Landfall's current worries.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facing_East_from_Indian_Country" title="Facing East from Indian Country">
"Facing East" begins by exploring, through available facts, possibilities of American Indian scenarios that have not been part of European-centered imaginations about American Indians. Richter goes on to show the active participation of American Indians in relations with European settlers, particularly their responses to "abstract material responses" brought about by European colonization. The figures Pocahontas, Tekakwitha, and Metacom are brought together in an analysis that shows their similar but varying deliberate involvements with Europeans. Richter relies on spiritual autobiographies and conversion narratives on American Natives by European colonists to elucidate an Indian point of view. Richter argues that American Indian participation in the Atlantic economy and warfare was essential and that Europeans and American Indians depended on each other. According to Richter, with the increasing animosity between American Indians and colonists, both groups developed their mindsets about each other.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Hell_Did_I_Just_Read" title="What the Hell Did I Just Read">
One night, John and Dave are called to investigate a closed room disappearance of a little girl named Maggie Knoll. After questioning her father Ted and following up on the leads, John and Dave quickly establish that the abductor is a supernatural entity that can present itself in different forms, even to people in the same room. As they continue their investigation by questioning Maggie's mother Loretta, Dave's girlfriend Amy is confronted with a doppelgänger of Dave, who leads her to the girl's location under a pond near a collapsed mining shaft. As the girl is reunited with her parents, she identifies Dave as her kidnapper, but Dave and John manage to convince Ted and Loretta that this is another trick of the supernatural kidnapper.John, Dave and Amy find and trap a small insect-like creature that can disguise itself as any living or inanimate object, inserting retroactive memories of its new form so that it doesn't arouse suspicion. Before they can investigate it, another child goes missing under similar circumstances, whose mother Chastity Payton believes it to be related to BATMANTIS???, a large flying creature spotted and filmed in the area. Police detective Bowman arrives to question David on Maggie Knoll's case and finds the second child unconscious in his house, after which he arrests all three of them. The cops take Amy, Dave and John to NON, a government organization with some degree of control over time, alternate dimensions and even death, who question them on the situation. Before NON can wipe their memories, Dave, John and Amy are rescued by Chastity Payton, who takes them to a motel where she is staying with her son. Chastity explains that her memories are full of plot holes and that she was able to pierce the truth: she never had a son before last night, her memories of him were implanted, but were imperfect and didn't take. Exposed, the swarm of creatures switches to another disguise, prompting the group to flee from an armed biker gang. Dave and John take the Soy Sauce to get to the bottom of the mystery and awaken two days later with no memory of what happened. They discover that they have made significant preparations and left themselves written messages, but continuously proceed to miss them until it's too late and accidentally release the BATMANTIS??? creature from her confinement. Amy explains that the biker gang became convinced that ten more of their kids have gone missing, and that she has been working with NON to solve the case. Still experiencing lingering effects from the Soy Sauce, Dave and John are now able to see through the illusions, revealing that all documents on the "kids" are in fact blank and that "Maggie" is actually a giant larva literally feeding on Loretta Knoll, who does not experience a thing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_Up,_Way_Out" title="Way Up, Way Out">
The book, which is autobiographical fiction, describes the life of Jock Lundie (Strachan's nickname and middle name). The protagonist is born in Pretoria. As a young boy he is close to a German widow called Marthe Guldenpfennig. When his adoptive father dies, he moves with his mother and attends school in Pietermaritzburg. He enjoys the nurturing atmosphere and the arts and crafts in primary school. He keeps in touch with Guldenpfennig until she moves back to Darmstadt on the eve of the Second World War. When he goes to boarding school, he is able to avoid bullying by creative use of his artistic talents. With his best friend "Cheese" Kreis, he goes climbing in the Drakensberg mountains. After graduation he joins the South African Air Force near the end of the war. He learns to fly and to do aerobatics in the Tiger Moth, then does advanced bomber pilot training in the Airspeed Oxford. A Royal Air Force trainer called O'Dowd tells him that he was involved in the bombing of Darmstadt, where a firestorm was created and the entire city wiped out. Several of his friends, including "Cheese", are killed in flying accidents.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_a_Skyf,_Man!" title="Make a Skyf, Man!">
The book depicts Jock Lundie, a fictionalised version of Strachan, and his involvement in the resistance movement against apartheid, starting with the Congress of Democrats then being a bomb-maker for Umkhonto we Sizwe. He describes his involvement as a "boys' own armed struggle"; one passage depicts a successful demonstration of a home-made bomb to a senior comrade (Yoshke, based on Joe Slovo) by blowing up a beach toilet: Lundie gets arrested and serves three years in prison. He passes the time in solitary constructing a Tiger Moth in his imagination then preparing an aerobatics routine for it. Books are difficult to get and their pages are highly prized for making cigarettes or cannabis joints. As a result many books have pages missing. A former comrade, Themba Max, is executed.Near the end of the book, Lundie is released after being found not guilty in a further trial thanks to the benevolent perjury of his neighbour who gives him an alibi. He moves back in with his wife Jess, gets to know his three-year-old daughter, and ejects his wife's boyfriend from the family home.The book begins and ends with stories about angling for shad, a longstanding passion of Strachan's.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Someone_Like_Me_(novel)" title="Someone Like Me (novel)">
The main protagonist is Thomas Alexander St. John "Tas" Kennedy, a preteen boy. He lives on a farm with his parents and two sisters, and his dog, Reebok. He is also frequently subject to being transferred to a special school.A Northern Irish girl called Enya Dunleavy moves in next door to Tas, and they quickly become friends. However, when they find a box full of explosives near their house, Enya is scared for reasons unknown to Tas.One day, Tas tries to play a prank on the school bully, Darren "Dreadlock", but his teacher, Mr. McKinlay "Mac", takes the bait and faints, causing everyone to be sent home early. As Enya was absent, Tas goes to her house and notices her parents in an argument with another man, which ends with Tas being shot.Tas is sent to the hospital, where he is nearly choked to death by Enya's uncle, Seamus, for spying on their argument, but is saved by Mr. Mac. The two of them spend weeks in the hospital together before returning to school. After a run-in with Dreadlock and his cronies, Tas meets up with Enya, who reveals that she was the one who shot Tas and that it was an accident.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinegar_Girl" title="Vinegar Girl">
The plot is based on William Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew," updated to present-day Baltimore. Kate Battista is the unmarried 29-year-old daughter of an eccentric scientist, Dr. Louis Battista who is a scientist at Johns Hopkins University. Having dropped out of college in her freshman year after calling a professor's research project "half-assed," she now finds herself with very limited opportunities: she works as a pre-school assistant, and takes care of Dr. Battista and her high-school-age sister Bunny.Dr. Battista's brilliant lab assistant, Pyotr, will soon have to leave the country as his student visa expires. Dr. Battista devises a plan for a Green card marriage between Kate and Pyotr; Kate first objects to the plan, but slowly warms to the idea, both because of Pyotr's charming acceptance of her outspokenness, and because it offers her a way out of her constrained circumstances.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Oliphant_is_Completely_Fine" title="Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine">
Eleanor Oliphant, the novel's protagonist and narrator, lives in Glasgow, Scotland, and works as a finance clerk for a graphic design company. At the novel's outset, she is 29 years old. She is academically intelligent, with a degree in Classics and high standards of literacy. Every day on her lunch break she completes the "Daily Telegraph" crossword. However, she is socially awkward and leads a solitary lifestyle. She has no friends or social contacts, and every weekend consumes two bottles of vodka. She takes little interest in her appearance, having gone without a haircut since she was 13. Not considering that she has a problem, Eleanor repeatedly describes herself as "absolutely fine", and even when obvious moments of awkwardness arise in her interactions with others, she tends to blame the other person's "underdeveloped social skills". Her colleagues regard her as a bit of a joke, and refer to her as "Wacko Jacko" or "Harry Potter"; while she regards them as "shirkers and idiots".Clues gradually emerge to Eleanor's troubled past. She has a badly scarred face; knows nothing about her father; spent much of her childhood in foster care and children's homes; and, as a student, spent two years living with an abusive boyfriend who regularly physically assaulted her. Twice yearly she receives a routine visit from a social worker to monitor her progress. Her mother now appears to be confined to an unidentified institution: she phones Eleanor for a 15-minute conversation on Wednesday evenings. It is clear that Eleanor's mother is both vindictive and manipulative.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_a_Voyage_to_the_Land_of_Brazil" title="History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil">
The book has 22 chapters, with Chapter 1 discussing the motive behind the voyage to Brazil and Chapters 2-5 describing the sights and events that occurred during the voyage to Brazil. Chapters 6-20 consist of Léry describing the land of Brazil, the physical description of the indigenous people, and the behaviors and customs of the indigenous people. Lastly, Chapters 21 and 22 recount the departure from Brazil and the trip back to France. The book contains detailed descriptions of the plants, animals, and indigenous people in the New World for the French.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renegades_(novel)" title="Renegades (novel)">
## Premise."Renegades" follows Nova (anarchist alias: Nightmare), the niece of the Anarchist leader, Alec Artino (alias: Ace Anarchy). Alec takes Nova in after her parents are viciously murdered by another villain gang before the civil war, and was raised by the Anarchists. She can put people to sleep with skin-to-skin contact, and since her parents' murder, she has not slept at all. She wants revenge on the Renegades for not protecting her parents as promised, and leads an infiltration into their headquarters by posing as a Renegade-in-training.It also follows Adrian, the son of the leaders of the Renegades, Hugh Everhart and Simon Westwood. He was adopted by the two leaders after his mother, another member of the core-Renegades, was killed. He brings Nova onto his team at Renegades headquarters as she poses 'Insomnia.'10 years before the events of the book, 6-year-old Nova Artino watches as her parents and baby sister are killed by a villain gang's hitman, and hears him shoot her baby sister, Evie—dead. However, before he can shoot her, she uses her gift of putting people to sleep to cause him to faint. Her uncle Alec comes and reveals to Nova he is Ace Anarchy, the leader of the Anarchists, before killing the hitman.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Found_World,_or_Antarctike" title="The New Found World, or Antarctike">
Thevet and his colleagues land on the Brazilian mainland on November 10, and are welcomed and fed by a delegation of native people immediately upon their arrival. At the welcoming feast, they are served an alcoholic beverage brewed from a combination of different roots. Initially hoping to venture inland or elsewhere along the coast, the expeditionary team members are informed that there is little freshwater for a significant distance away from the indigenous settlement but that they would be welcome to remain near their landing site for the time being. Venturing to a nearby inlet, Thevet and company are impressed by an array of colorful birdsㅡtheir feathers making an attractive decoration for the sparse garments of native peopleㅡand a generous bounty of fish, upon which local residents may subsist. Finally Thevet describes some of the local flora, including beautiful trees unseen in Europe and small vines utilized by the natives as accessories and for medicinal purposes. Thevet describes a fruit which the Tupinambá call the "Hoyriri," now identified as the pineapple:,another fruit that commeth vp in the fieldes, which they name Hoyriri, the which to loke on, would be iudged to grow on some trée. Notwithstāding it groweth in a cer∣taine herbe that beareth leafe like to a Palme, as wel in the length as in largenesse, it groweth in the midst of the leaues very round, &amp; within it be litle Nuts, of the which the kernell is white &amp; good to eate, sauing that ouermuch therof, as wel as of other things, hurteth the braine. ... if... dressed &amp; trimmed, it wold take away this vice. Notwith¦standing the Americanes eat therof, chiefly ye litle childrē. The fields ar very ful within two leagues of Cap de Fria.The Catholic author acknowledges and laments the absence of organized religion in the lives of indigenous people. Although they do believe in "Toupan"ㅡsome sort of higher being reigning above them and governing the climateㅡthey make no clear effort to worship or honor it as a collective. Moreover, rather than believe in a great prophet similar to those venerated in Abrahamic faiths, the natives passively celebrate "Hetich," the figure allegedly responsible for teaching them to cultivate the roots that became an essential staple of their diet. Thevet then digresses from this point, describing some alternative properties of the roots that emerge once separate varieties are subjected to certain external forces. Following this, the author momentarily touches upon how Christopher Columbus and his team were initially worshiped by local Amerindians, before losing this divine status once it was gradually discovered that they behaved and functioned as ordinary men. Cannibalism is addressed at the end of this chapter, being attributed to certain indigenous groups who allegedly consume human flesh as one in European society might consume any other meat.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_Girl" title="Raven Girl">
A postman who encounters a fledgling raven while on the edge of his route decides to bring her home. The unlikely couple falls in love and conceives a child—an extraordinary raven girl trapped in a human body.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle_(novella)" title="Isabelle (novella)">
25-year-old Gérard Lacase from the Sorbonne studies for his doctorate on Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet at the remote castle of Quartfourche in northern Normandy. He falls in love with a portrait of Isabelle, the daughter of the family who owns the castle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Age_(novel)" title="Dark Age (novel)">
Darrow and his legions are barricaded from all sides on Mercury from Society forces. Lysander and the Raa family meet Atalantia to broker an alliance between The Rim and The Core in order to defeat Darrow and give rise to a new Society. Lysander and his former friend Ajax au Grimmus participate in an Iron Rain against Darrow's armies, but Darrow fights back with a Storm God, a previously hidden terraforming tool used as a weapon. During the battle, Lysander loses an eye and his companion Seraphina is killed; Ajax betrays Lysander and leaves him to die in vengeance for Lysander's favorable position with the family as a child. Darrow kills his pilot Orion, who attempts to use the Storm God indiscriminately. Darrow's forces narrowly manage to win the battle by seizing control of Mercury's center of commerce Heliopolis with the arrival of the warship "Morning Star".Virginia struggles to keep her power as the Sovereign with her allies growing increasingly hostile due to her continued support for Darrow's agenda. She suspects treachery from her allies in the Forum, especially Publius. Having managed to locate Sevro, Virginia kidnaps the Duke of Hands and attempts to pry information on The Syndicate's Queen and the location of their missing children. On the day where Virginia is to give a speech to the Solar Republic giving one last plea of help to free Darrow, Sevro tracks down The Syndicate Queen on Earth. Virginia is betrayed when her closest allies are all poisoned and a mob kills her friend Daxo before kidnapping her. The Syndicate Queen arrives and is revealed to be Lilath, who has given birth to a now 10-year-old clone of Virginia's deceased brother Adrius 'The Jackal'. Virginia manages to poison Adrius and escapes, leaving Sevro and several Howlers behind with Lilath.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunmetal_Gray" title="Gunmetal Gray">
For his first operation back with the Central Intelligence Agency, Court Gentry is tasked with capturing Fan Jiang, a former member of PLA Unit 61398, an ultra-secret computer warfare unit responsible for testing China's own security systems, through his former handler Sir Donald Fitzroy, who was contracted by the Chinese government for a similar operation, in Hong Kong. Unbeknownst to him, his arrival in the country was discovered by the Ministry of State Security (MSS), who then sent two agents to surveil him. Their principal boss from the Ministry of Defense (MOD), Colonel Dai Longhai, becomes frustrated about this routine surveillance op and orders them to eliminate Gentry, who instead manages to kill them.After the attempt on his life, Gentry decides to go dark in order to go on with his operation. His later inquiries on the whereabouts of Fitzroy attracted Colonel Dai's attention, who then ordered his henchmen to kidnap Gentry. Court is then brought to Fitzroy, who also had been kidnapped by Colonel Dai. Sir Donald had dispatched two kill teams for Fan on behalf of Colonel Dai's MOD, but they were killed by the Wo Shing Wo, a part of the Triad criminal organization in Hong Kong whom Fan had hired for protection while on the run. After hearing of his failure, Colonel Dai takes Fitzroy hostage and has decided to supervise the hunt. Aware of his reputation as the Gray Man and his past relationship with Fitzroy, but unaware that Gentry is working on behalf of the CIA, Colonel Dai hires Court to find Fan and eliminate him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prithivivallabh" title="Prithivivallabh">
Prithivivallabh is based on the history of Malwa region of India. The novel depicts the rivalry between Munj, the ruler of Dharanagari and Tailap as well as the romance between Munj and Mrinal. Munj had defeated Tailap several times but Tailap captures Munj with help of his feudatory Yadava king Bhillamraj. In captivity, Munj falls in love with Mrinal, Tailap's widow sister. Celibate Mrinal too falls in his love but in the end, Tailap gets Munj killed under the feet of an elephant. The love story of Bhoj, a poet; and Vilas, daughter of Bhillamraj engaged with Satyashraya, son of Tailap; runs in parallel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Portland_Black_Panthers" title="The Portland Black Panthers">
"The Portland Black Panthers" tells the story of the formation of the local branch of the Portland Black Panther Party within the constraints of living in a majority-white city with a tumultuous past regarding race relations. Furthermore, it provides a historical context for these race relations, by highlighting the changes in the black community throughout the 20th century.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Carnival" title="Beyond Carnival">
"Beyond Carnival" draws attention to the lives of the male homosexual population in Brazil, specifically Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Green claims that homosexuality, though somewhat accepted by the general population, is still overall disapproved of. Combined with the current discrimination faced by the LGBT community in Brazil, Green's belief is that focusing exclusively on male homosexuals not only provides insight on a marginalized group, but also into how Brazilian's understand concepts of masculinity and femininity, acceptable behavior, and shared societal values. Medical studies, depositions of arrested men, autobiographies, and personal interviews are among the primary sources used in Green's analysis of the subculture among gay men that developed in Brazil's urban centers.Green details the history of the gay male community, beginning in the late 18th century. Given the lack of studies on the community, the vast majority of information is compiled from police reports. Though homosexuality was not explicitly illegal, Brazilian police were able to arrest gays found engaging in sexual activities for violating laws of public indecency, vagrancy, or sodomy. Most reports of these interactions came from the Largo do Rossio park in Rio de Janeiro. The novel "Bom-Crioulo" by Adolfo Caminha was published during this time, portraying homosexual encounters in a positive light. Contemporaries of Caminha harshly criticized the novel for covering such an immoral practice, reflecting attitudes of this era. Studies of gay men focused entirely on a bicha/bofe paradigm, in which the penetrated was a feminine bicha, and the "real man" was the bofe, or penetrator. Leonídio Ribero's "Homosexualismo e endocrinologia" was the most commonly cited study explaining biological differences between "sick" gay men and "healthy" heterosexual men. These early studies on gay relationships emphasized a smaller community of gay men, with no acknowledgement of diversity within the subgroup, such as Madame Satã, who acted "masculine" but enjoyed to be the bicha in relationships.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_Samba" title="Making Samba">
Hertzman's main argument in this book is that the historical narrative surrounding the emergence of samba in Brazil has either been over-criticized, or exceedingly fetishized. By using wide-ranging evidence, such as Brazilian musicians' salary contracts, their involvement and activism with various musical associations, and their encounters with law enforcement, Hertzman explores their struggles in exerting their agency by claiming their music as what he calls, "intellectual property." While Hertzman's book explores different themes such as "musical blackface" and "the purity of samba," Hertzman discusses them within the context of Afro-Brazilian figures that were heavily involved with the progress of Samba so that his argument doesn't get off track.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Fires_Everywhere_(novel)" title="Little Fires Everywhere (novel)">
In 1998, the Richardson home in Shaker Heights, Ohio, catches fire. Arson is suspected, as there were multiple small fires.The previous year, 1997, Elena Richardson rents her rental home on Winslow Road to Mia Warren, an artist, and her teenage daughter, Pearl. Elena's younger son, Moody, who is Pearl's age, develops a crush on Pearl and becomes friends with her. Through Moody, Pearl meets the rest of the Richardson siblings: Lexie, Trip, and Izzy. Pearl, who is used to a transient lifestyle in which her mother scrapes together money, is charmed by the Richardsons and their established home. She spends time at the Richardson home every day and develops a crush on Trip, andMia works part-time at a Chinese restaurant called the Lucky Palace and sells photographs through a dealer named Anita Rees in New York. Mia becomes concerned about Pearl's idealisation of the Richardsons. When Elena condescendingly offers her a job doing housekeeping for her family, she is hesitant at first but agrees only because she wants to keep an eye on Pearl. Mia meets Izzy, the black sheep of the family, and the two become close. Izzybecomes particularly fascinated with Mia, and asks if she can be Mia's assistant so she can spend more time with her. She spends many afternoons with Mia at the home on Winslow Road. Izzy reveals that the orchestra teacher, Mrs Peters, racially abused a black student, Deja, in class and seeks revenge by jamming toothpicks in the doors at school, blocking access to the toilet. Mrs Peters then becomes desperate to urinate and ends up soiling her skirt and tights in the girls' toilets, much to everyone else's mirth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bread_Winner" title="The Bread Winner">
The story takes place in 1932 depression era United States. Protagonist Sarah Ann Puckett moves with her family to a small town after selling the failed family farm. Her parents quickly become despondent as money begins to run short, but Sarah resourcefully begins selling her award-winning bread to neighbors and eventually acquires a store front, all the while dealing with bullies and hobos as well as other setbacks such as a tornado.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Hunger_Political_Culture_and_Antipoverty_Policy_in_Northeast_Brazil" title="Zero Hunger Political Culture and Antipoverty Policy in Northeast Brazil">
In this book, Ansell argues that Northeastern Brazil, under the PT, does not align with the traditional notions of clientelism or universalism, but instead has developed an unspoken system of “intimate hierarchies” that support a mutually beneficial socio-political system for politicians or elites and the impoverished citizens of Northeast Brazil.Ansell is responding to the predominant literature on post-authoritarian Brazil that uses the concept of clientelism as a means for elites to maintain their status, and for inequality to remain static. This concept, and the arguments of its practice, limits social and economic mobility in Northeast Brazil, holding marginalized and impoverished populations in their current place. Ansell's contribution to the literature is the introduction of a new way to think about the relationship between the party and citizens which complicates the traditional notions of clientelism.Three terms that are vitally important to this book are patronage, clientelism, and universalism. Patronage is the granting jobs, favors, or services to individuals or groups who support a political party or campaign. Clientelism is a social order that depends upon and stems from patronage, particularly in politics where it emphasizes or exploits such relations of granting favors for political support. Universalism is a system where goods and services are distributed not as favors for political support, but as rights for all individuals regardless of politics.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Modern" title="Pretty Modern">
The book contains three main sections, each addressing a particular aspect of plastic surgery culture in Brazil. Edmonds uses mainly interviews and observations of procedures as well as academic theories and publications. He interviews an array of people from various socio-economic backgrounds.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Modernist_City" title="The Modernist City">
Holston has a broad goal in the writing of the book, which he lays out near the beginning. He proposes "a critical ethnography of modernism" as a way for evaluating the flaws with each. He applies this concept to establish a "counter discourse" to show that the use of a master plan in effect caused the plan's own failure. These large-scale concepts frame his work.The book contains three parts which are each divided into multiple subsections. These parts are 1): The Myth of the Concrete, 2): The City Defamiliarized, and 3): The Recovery of History.In "The Myth of the Concrete," Holston establishes the context of Brasília's development, saying "Brasília was built to be more that merely the symbol of this new age. Rather, its design and construction were intended as means to create it by transforming Brazilian society." Building from this basis premise, he argues that the city was unable to live up to its lofty founding goals once it was inhabited because human interaction with its theoretical basis created a paradox that made it impossible to implement the initial plan. In this section, Holston draws upon the Plano Piloto, or the pilot plan for Brasília, statements by the President, Juscelino Kubitschek, as well as influential works of modernism to make his point. He then traces the development of Brasília to the tenets of Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM), arguing that Brasília is a case study for the execution of those principles. Then, he traces how the creator of the plan, Lucio Costa, designed the plan as a way that it would be interpreted as a myth, arguing that this presentation led to its early appeal.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_This_World" title="Why This World">
Moser discusses how Clarice Lispector's work reflects her life. He does this by citing her own texts, letters, other scholarly work and what few interviews there are of her. Moser goes into great detail on the connections that can be made between Lispector's writing and her life. Moser uses letters written to and from Lispector, Lispector's own sisters, Elisa Lispector's autobiography, interviews with Lispector and Lispector's own writings.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Color_of_Love_(book)" title="The Color of Love (book)">
Hordge-Freeman aims to examine the role that families play in race-making and race negotiation in Brazil. Specifically, she examines how families socialize race and teach their family members how to act appropriately in society according to their race. This is especially important since the majority of family studies research compares different families to each other instead of looking within families. Hordge-Freeman argues that affective capital, which refers to experiences of love and affection, are unequally distributed in families. Specifically, white family members receive more affective capital than darker family members. Hordge-Freeman goes further to explain the consequences of this imbalance and how it negatively impacts the psychological well-being of darker family members. Hordge-Freeman also analyzes how Afro-Brazilians have to manipulate their image in order to look more professional and acceptable by society, which Hordge-Freeman refers to embodied capital. Examples of this include changing hairstyles and dressing in clean and professional clothes. Lastly, Hordge-Freeman examines the racial fluency tendencies of families, which pertain to their responses to racism. The family can either choose to accept these racist ideas or actively resist them.The book is broken into three parts. Part I focuses on how families operate in Brazil and their role in racial socialization. In addition, Part I also explores how racial stigma affects familial relationships. Part 1 consists of three chapters. Part II focuses on how racial socialization from the family translates to behaviors in the public sphere, examines three families that are racially transgressive and their attempt to resist racism, and a conclusion. The book ends with a conclusi Part II contains four chapters. Lastly, an appendix of how interviews were coded is offered at the end.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_a_Racial_Democracy" title="Racism in a Racial Democracy">
"Racism in a Racial Democracy: The Maintenance of White Supremacy in Brazil" by France Winddance Twine explores the racism in Brazil from a sociological perspective. Even though Brazil nowadays stresses racial democracy, which claimed that every race has equal opportunities, Afro-Brazilians are still experiencing racism in their daily life. Twine researched in Vasalia (renamed the town), Rio de Janeiro to investigate the community dynamics between Afro-Brazilians and other non-Afro-Brazilians in the community, and she found a huge difference between them on perception of races and miscegenation, socioeconomic status, politics and social life. Twine interviewed Afro-Brazilians in the community about their perception of racism, their physical appearance and their family history. While interacting with Afro-Brazilians, Twine also interviewed some Euro-Brazilians and mixed race Brazilians on their perception on Afro-Brazilians, racism, perspectives on relationships and marriage. Chapter one started with the community practices of racism based on white supremacist theories and structures. Chapter two traced the history of Vasalia and the according political and economic development, when Portuguese and Italian immigrants were the coffee plantation owners and Afro-Brazilians were the slaves. Chapter three focused on the accountability of racism by interviewing Afro-Brazilians on their perception of racism, and many Afro-Brazilians answered with the nonexistence of racism. Chapter four explored the concept of racial democracy in Vasalia and the practices of white supremacy under the concept. Chapter five analyzed miscegenation and whitening issues among Vasalians while many Afro-Brazilians, and many Afro-Brazilians embraced whiteness. Chapter six explored Vasalians’ perception on relation to African descent and their family history on slavery. In chapter seven, Twine interviewed Afro-Brazilians professionals on their interpretation of racism.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_of_the_Poor?_Vargas_and_His_Era" title="Father of the Poor? Vargas and His Era">
The book covers the origins of Vargas, including his family history, until his death in 1954. It also includes how society and various political actors felt about the “Estado Novo” period including the accounts on the Integralists and Communists. The detailed history provided in the first four chapters that primarily refer to Vargas and his policies. Vargas’s policies included but not limited to, worker empowerment programs, political reforms, that often involve censorship, and giving women the right to vote in 1937. The Vargas dictatorship according to Robert M Levine, had "populist" elements in addition to being very totalitarian. Vargas promoted a nationalist economic policy with his dictatorship. These economic reforms aided in industrializing Brazil and provided clarity to the working class. Workers received education, health, and dental care for the first time. The censorship of political parties played a role in characterizing the Vargas Period. Vargas' former political allies, the Integralists, tried to influence Vargas policies and were perceived as a threat by the government. With the parties censored, he and his loyalist cabinet were able to accomplish many tasks and strengthened the domestic affairs of the state. The final chapters of the book cover the legacy and a critique of the “Estado Novo” dictatorship and Vargas’ character. One of the primary observations made by Robert was the politics Vargas was in, drove him to suicide in 1954. With the threat of military coup at any point, it caused anxiety in Vargas. The army had a history of rebelling against the government and attempted to overthrow the Old Republic at various times.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_July_Ward" title="The July Ward">
The story follows Dr. Watson, a female hospitalist, over a day in an urban medical center. John Doe #3, an unnamed victim of drug violence, arrives brain dead where Watson, Tom, her medical student, and the rest of her medical team inspect the comatose body. The team determines that the body must be kept on a ventilator until the next of kin can be contacted. In the meantime a transplant surgeon suggests that they should harvest the body’s organs before contacting the family. Soon, another patient arrives, left paraplegic from another incident of gang violence. The patient warns that the opposing gang will be coming into the hospital to get him. A family member of John Doe #3 has been contacted and they refuse to allow the organs to be donated. Soon after, John Doe #3 dies from complications and the surgeon berates Tom. The situation overwhelms Tom causing him to feel guilty for the patient’s death.Dr. Watson realizes Tom is about to make a foolish decision and follows him down into the depths of the hospital cellars to stop him from entering a door labelled “The July Ward.” She insists John Doe #3's death was not his fault and that the surgeon was overly accusatory. Watson tells Tom about her own mistake and the patient who died because she failed to recognize a case of rhabdomyolysis. Tom and Dr. Watson return to the hospital floors.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Study_in_Scarlet_Women" title="A Study in Scarlet Women">
## Part One.Charlotte Holmes, the youngest daughter of the noble-but-impoverished Lord and Lady Holmes, possesses a razor-keen intellect and unique talents for observation and deductive reasoning, but her parents under-value these gifts, declaring them off-putting to a potential husband. Before her first Season, Charlotte, declaring herself uninterested in marriage, strikes a bargain with her father: she will participate in the Season, but if she does not accept any potential suitors, her father will finance her education to become the headmistress of a girls' school (one of the few vocations in Victorian England which allows an unmarried woman a sufficient income). Her father agrees, but later reneges.Charlotte decides that the "logical" alternative is lose her maidenhead in secret and blackmail her father into paying for her education. If he does not support her, she will let everyone know and ruin the family. Unfortunately, the young man she chooses to seduce, Roger Shrewsbury, is an "idiot", who gets drunk and, mistaking his own wife for another one of his mistresses, tells her all about his planned assignation with Charlotte. Instead of preventing the rendezvous, Shrewsbury's wife and mother lie in wait and burst in on the two "in flagrante", ensuring that Charlotte's disgrace is total. Rather than accept her parents' sentence of exile to the family's country estate, Charlotte leaves home for a London boarding house, to look for work as a secretary.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securing_Sex" title="Securing Sex">
Benjamin Cowan explores the repression that existed during mid Cold War Brazil and beyond. He discusses how the Right Wing activist use the military regime in Brazil to spread a very "modest" and "morally correct" population, attitudes, and laws. Cowan tackles this subject by using the voices and perspectives of Right Wing activist. Cowan uses records from unused archives, something that people have not been doing. Cowan also attributes these attitudes to current perspectives of sexually liberate people, women, and queer people. Cowan uses some of the chapters to his advantage. He poses a question as the chapter title and in the next chapter he answers it. (Chapter 2: Sexual Revolution? and Chapter 3: Sexual Revolution!). He also goes through the years of the military dictatorship in relation to the certain topic of women being used as a tool to turn against rebels and how young men were seen as heroes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drugs_and_Democracy_in_Rio_de_Janeiro" title="Drugs and Democracy in Rio de Janeiro">
In the first page of the introduction he explains what Rio de Janeiro's social violence is like up until the time of his research. Rio de Janeiro's people have now been forcibly segregated by their income, and those who have been pushed out the favelas are now under drug trafficking organizations' jurisdiction. Desmond Arias makes a distinction of the main agents who are simultaneously the perpetrators and victims of this violence, "impoverished, poorly educated, non-white, adolescents and young men."Desmond Arias suggests that violence in Rio is not the ineffective policies or inability of Brazilian leaders to govern the people, but it is a mixture of the several factors that look at policy, relationships among different agents, and the inequality in Brazil. He makes an extremely important note in the introduction of the approaches ethnographers, anthropologists, and sociologists have taken when researching Rio's problems.According to Desmond Arias there are two conventional and widely accepted approaches to approaching Rio's crime problem where the "divided city" approach and the "neo-clientelism" approach. The divided city approach is an assumption that there is a stark difference between drug trafficking organizations and the local governments they are at war with. This approach suggests that there is no close relationships among the two agents and the hostile adversity among them can be traced back to the 80s after the transition from the dictatorship. This approach alludes to a weak Brazilian state incapable of governing and policing its own people.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_the_Beautiful_Game" title="The Invention of the Beautiful Game">
In the book, the author links football to larger historical themes of contemporary Brazil, and further divides into four chapters that each focuses on separate time frames in the perspective of race, class, region, gender, and nationality. Moreover, through social, cultural, and political lenses, the book explores “Brazilian ideas about the game between 1894 and 1938, and the choices Brazilians made about how to explain football during that period.” In analyzing his collected historical evidences, the author emphasizes several key terms such as professionalization, amateurism, nationalization, popularization, racial exclusivity, and social hierarchies. The book contains 20 illustrative figures and incorporates historical records of prominent football clubs, popular magazines, and sports press as evidence for the author's research.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharing_This_Walk" title="Sharing This Walk">
This book describes years of research conducted by Karina Biondi within and outside of many of Sao Paulo's prisons. After conducting her in person interviews and through examining her personal experiences with PCC members, Biondi argues that the typical portrayals of the PCC are incorrect and that the organization is very complex. She primarily focuses on the PCC in terms of their political actions as well as their lack of hierarchy which is touched upon in four different chapters. In Chapter 1, Biondi gives a brief history of the PCC and the various myths that surround the origin of the founding of the organization. Her historical story begins with the description of the 1992 Carandiru prison massacre which left 111 inmates dead. This massacre sparked a wave of prison riots and within these organized revolts, the PCC emerged as an influential organization. The true origin of the PCC is debated, but overall Biondi concludes that understanding the uniting purpose of prison mistreatment is a central element to be able to understand the PCC and its control in today's prisons. Chapter 2 focuses on the PCC's emphasis on pedagogy and politics within the prison walls. In this section, Biondi stresses the necessity for both prisoners within and visitors to a PCC-controlled to learn their appropriate roles and how which actions are deemed appropriate. This emphasis on teaching the correct actions leads to a greater adherence to the PCC's standards. Biondi stresses that this obedience, while prevalent, is not uniform across all prison's due to the command structure of the group.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forró_and_Redemptive_Regionalism_from_the_Brazilian_Northeast" title="Forró and Redemptive Regionalism from the Brazilian Northeast">
"Forró and Redemptive Regionalism from the Brazilian Northeast" not only documents and analyses the music of migrants in Brazil, but also analyzes how the music shaped both its creators and Brazil as a whole. Using forró artists and excerpts from their music, Draper argues that the migrants used a musical genre called forró to kill "saudade", which means longing and nostalgia, loneliness and lust, as He also argues that it was used to rebel against industrialization and used as an attempt to help Brazilian “natives” overcome prejudice. He analyzes the historical and political climate that forró formed in, a time of oppression, dictatorships and political instability. Draper seems to be portraying forró like a Brazilian equivalent of Blues, which was also used to fight longing, loneliness and lust. He argues and analyses how the migrants completely re-thought all the elements of music, including melody, lyrics and rhythms to make it their own. He also shows forró’s presence in Brazilian pop culture, including the teaching of it in universities, and the playing of it at nightclubs and music festivals.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire_and_the_Cold_War_Politics_of_Literacy" title="Paulo Freire and the Cold War Politics of Literacy">
This book is an analysis of Paulo Freire's work in Latin American literacy campaigns during the mid 20th century. The first chapter, "Entering History", helps set the stage for the rest of the book. It summarizes Freire's early life and the historical context of Brazil in the 1940s and 1950s. It goes on to explain how the need for improving literacy rates was becoming apparent during this time, and describes Freire's ideas regarding education and politics.The second chapter, "The Revolution that wasn't and the Revolution that was in Brazil", describes Freire's work in the northeast of Brazil during the presidency of Joao Goulart. It describes the literacy programs that he set up in the region, particularly in Angicos, and also discusses Freire's methods of education. It explains how the issue of literacy became increasingly prominent during the 1960s due to the government's need to define itself and expanding student movements. The chapter also argues that talk of a "revolution" in Brazil, which was common on in Goulart's party, was interpreted in widely varying ways with some fearing that it could lead to communist uprisings and others believing that it simply described rapid progress towards literacy and democracy. The involvement of the United States, which tried to promote literacy through the Alliance for Progress but also was preoccupied with preventing the spread of communism, was also discussed. The chapter ends with the 1964 coup, motivated by fears of a radical Left, that deposed Goulart and forced Freire to flee the country. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Mirrors" title="The Book of Mirrors">
Peter Katz, a New York literary agent, receives a submission from Richard Flynn, who in the late eighties was an English Literature student at Princeton and dreamed of becoming a writer. Flynn's manuscript tells the story of his love affair with a Psychology student named Laura Baines, whom he suspects of being in a secret relationship with a famous professor, Joseph Wieder. The professor is murdered, but the police never manage to find the killer. The partial comes to an end at the moment of the crime. The second part is the first-person account of John Keller, a freelance reporter who is trying to reconstruct the circumstances of the same killing for a true crime book. Afraid of the possible legal repercussions of putting forward his theory about the murder, Keller abandons the project.In the third part, Roy Freeman, the police detective who had investigated the Wieder case, now a reclusive man in the early stages of Alzheimer's, begins his own inquiry, a few months after John Keller spoke to him as part of his research. Freeman receives some vital information about the case from a convict, Frank Spoel, who is awaiting execution at the Potosi Correctional Center in Missouri.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghosts_(graphic_novel)" title="Ghosts (graphic novel)">
The novel opens as the family is ordering at the drive-through of a fictional Double-Back Burger (the colors and logos of which are based on In-N-Out Burger) before leaving southern California for Bahía de la Luna.As the sisters are exploring Bahía de la Luna, they are surprised by a boy named Carlos Calaveras, who turns out to be one of their new neighbors. Catrina and Maya explore their Mexican heritage with the help of Carlos, culminating in a Dia de los Muertos celebration in November.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_of_Good_Will" title="Men of Good Will">
The volumes, written in chronological order from volume one, "Le 6 octobre", through volume twenty-seven, "Le 7 octobre", between them cover 6 October 1908 through 7 October 1933 in French life—an average of one volume per year, book-ended by one volume each for two particular days. The plot is expansive and features a large cast of characters, rather than narrowly focusing on individuals, but the two principals are Pierre Jallez, a poet loosely based on Romains, and Jean Jerphanion, a teacher who later goes into politics. They meet in volume 2 starting at the École Normale Supérieure and become friends. Jerphanion marries a woman named Odette and lives happily with her, while Jallez tries several times to find love and is eventually married to Françoise Mailleul. In the course of their careers, meanwhile, Jerphanion spends ten years in the Chamber of Deputies and is briefly Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Jallez finds success as a novelist, each trying to secure peace in their own way, though the First World War takes place halfway through the story, which ends with the first foreshadowings of World War II.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Gleann_Is_A_Raibh_Ann" title="An Gleann Is A Raibh Ann">
"An Gleann Is A Raibh Ann" is an autobiography of Maolchathaigh, who lived in the area from 1884 to 1968. Ó Maolchathaigh's parents were both Irish speakers from Newcastle, South Tipperary. His father was a farm laborer named Thomas Mulcahy and his mother was Margaret Burke. After receiving his education in a traditional school in Newcastle, Ó Maolchathaigh went to a college in De La Salle, Waterford, to train in education. He then returned to New Castle, Tipperary, where he spent 44 years working as a teacher in Grange National School. Apart from this, he published short stories and essays in newspapers and journals such as "Scéala Éireann" in his dialect . He also translated a French plays into Irish.Ó Maolchathaigh wrote extensively about family and friends, and tending to animals on farm . He also wrote about crime, greed, mental illness, suicide, and murder. Specifically, during the Irish famine, he mentioned the concept of Irish hitmen who were willing to remove people from particular landholdings in exchange for money so that others could take over the land.In other parts of his narrative, Ó Maolchathaigh discussed poverty, and describes wanderers and beggars who lodged with local people up until the late 1940s. Some of these people, he noted, had physical or intellectual difficulties and who managed to avoid institutionalization by the government. He noted that this because increasingly common as the 20th century progressed and the new nation-state developed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(graphic_novel)" title="Brave (graphic novel)">
Jensen Graham is a member of the art club who is bullied and ignored by his school mates on a daily basis, although he does not consider it bullying. He joins the newspaper club after becoming frustrated in the art club when he learns that some well-known authors (who all his friends know about but he doesn’t) will be visiting Berry Brook Middle School. He reads the bullying handouts he received from the newspaper club and begins to wonder if he is being bullied.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seek_My_Face" title="Seek My Face">
The novel follows the life of Hope Chafetz, an elderly artist who is being interviewed by a journalist. During the interview Hope discusses her many marriages, one of which is to a famous painter.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_the_Lion" title="Song of the Lion">
When off-duty Navajo Police Officer Bernadette Manuelito attends a basketball game at Shiprock High School, the game is disrupted by a car bomb in the parking lot. A young man named Richard Horseman was standing near the car and is injured in the blast, subsequently dying of his injuries. Witness Gloria Chino is able to provide a description and Horseman's first name. The car was a BMW owned by center for the Chieftan basketball team Aza Palmer. He is also an attorney hired to mediate over a Tuba City, Arizona conference to discuss plans to build a resort near the Grand Canyon. Manuelito's husband Jim Chee is directed by his superior officer Captain Howard Largo to accompany Palmer as his bodyguard. FBI agent Jerry Cordova is assigned to investigate the bombing, while Manuelito files a report with Captain Largo. As Manuelito leaves the police station, office manager Sandra gives her a small object found on Tsoodził, a sacred mountain to the Navajos. Manuelito recognizes the object as the image of Náshdóítsoh, a mountain lion believed to protect the Navajo people, and she recalls a traditional praise song to the lion.Manuelito and Cordova interview Mrs. Nez, the victim's grandmother, and come away thinking Horseman was not involved in the crime except being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Manuelito believes the grandmother was lying about Horseman's past. On her route to Tuba City to join her husband, she stops by to consult with Joe Leaphorn, and asks him to research Horseman. Now retired and disabled, Leaphorn verbally communicates in Navajo but seems to have lost his ability to speak English. With help from his live-in friend Louisa Bourebonette, he still has computer access to do the research for Manuelito. He later remembers Horseman as a young child he tried to help. Leaphorn's research reveals that the car bomb was detonated with a cell phone, so he deduces that Horseman was not a likely suspect. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigmentocracies" title="Pigmentocracies">
The book is split into six chapters. The first discussing the Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latin America (PERLA), then the following four chapters dive into PERLA implemented in the four chosen countries. The final chapter is an analysis of the overall findings of the survey from the four countries. Middle four chapters start with a brief historical context of race in the respective country, then report the findings of the PERLA survey for that country.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Was_a_Man_(Jeffrey_Archer)" title="This Was a Man (Jeffrey Archer)">
"This Was a Man" continues the story of the Clifton family. It starts with the readers to believe Karin has been executed by her Russian handler after being found out as a double agent. Harry sets out to write his literary masterpiece. The Barrington shipping empire is sold and Emma ends up helping the government of Margaret Thatcher and joins Giles in the House of Lords. Sebastian gets promoted to run the banking business in which he has worked for years. His daughter Jessica does well as an art student, but nearly loses all in a disastrous change of course. Giles has a very successful career in the Lords, only to see his future dashed. And Lady Virginia still gets into and out of one mess after another through her schemes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsider_(King_novel)" title="The Outsider (King novel)">
In Flint City, Oklahoma, the mutilated and raped corpse of Frankie Peterson is found. Fingerprints and DNA at the crime scene as well as witness accounts all clearly show local sports coach Terrence Maitland as the killer, so detective Ralph Anderson orders a public arrest.Maitland claims innocence, having been at a conference with several other teachers in Cap City at the time, which the other teachers all confirm. Footage of Maitland at the conference as well as fingerprints are found, casting confusion on the case.On the day of Maitland's arraignment a large crowd has gathered around the courthouse. In the chaos, Ollie Peterson, the brother of Frankie Peterson, starts shooting at Maitland, blaming him for his brother's murder and mother's subsequent heart attack. Maitland is fatally wounded before Ollie is killed by the police. In his dying words Maitland still claims innocence. Ralph Anderson is placed on administrative leave, but continues to investigate the case.Detective Jack Hoskins, who holds a grudge against Anderson, is sent to investigate an abandoned ranch outside of town, where clothes that the murderer wore are found. Jack is embraced by a shrouded figure from behind, causing what feels like sunburn on the back of his neck. The figure reappears later in Hoskin's home, informing him that it is cancer and it can take the disease away if Hoskins does what it asks of him. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temples_of_the_Earthbound_Gods" title="Temples of the Earthbound Gods">
Gaffney's argument for stadiums is that they tell their own stories. Development and diffusion of sport and stadiums correlate with "political, economic, and geographic processes". When soccer was first introduced in Brazil, it brought cultural influence as well. The popularity of soccer grew as lower or working-class started to play soccer in various ways. As a result, soccer became "civilizing mechanism", leading stadium to become a space of socializing. The author argues stadiums communicate over time and space. They are transformants, monuments, and hubs of the city.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_Woman's_Daughter" title="Spider Woman's Daughter">
Officer Bernadette Manuelito witnesses someone shoot Retired Sergeant Joe Leaphorn in the head and escape in a 2-door blue sedan with an Arizona license plate. Investigation reveals Gloria Bernally is the owner of the get-away vehicle. Her son Jackson, who uses it to drive to the University of New Mexico with his friend "Lizard" Leonard Nez, left it at Basha's grocery for her.At Leaphorn's house, Chee searches for recent case files, but finds old hard copy files that he takes home to compile a suspect list. Manuelito leaves a note for Leaphorn's girlfriend Louisa Bourbonette requesting a phone call. Louisa calls Chee from Albuquerque, on her way to a conference in Houston. She remembers that Leaphorn recently told her of "a ghost from the past", but she didn't know anymore than that. Louisa dodges when Chee asks her about the conference. Chee believes the FBI will suspect her of a murder-for-hire.Manuelito learns that Leaphorn was evaluating the assessed valuation of a proposed acquisition from the Grove McManus Foundation, headquartered in Japan. The evaluation summary is missing. Dr. Maxie Davis from the American Indian Resource Center calls asking about Leaphorn's missing evaluation summary. The original appraisal firm was listed as EFB, owned by Eleanor Friedman-Bernal. When they arrive at the address, EFB is closed and Friedman-Bernal seems to have vanished. Chee remembers that he and Leaphorn once rescued Ellie Friedman at Chaco Canyon when a man named Randall Eliott tried to kill her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enemy_Below_(novel)" title="The Enemy Below (novel)">
The story covers four days in September 1943.His Majesty’s Destroyer "Hecate" is on independent patrol in the South Atlantic, when they detect by radar a distant object. Coming closer, it proves to be a German U-boat running on the surface. "U-121" is in fact on its way to rendezvous with a German merchant raider in the South Atlantic Ocean, where they are to collect vital documents concerning British cyphers. The submarine does not detect the approach of the ship for some time, believing the radar contact to be a ‘ghost echo’. When the contact is eventually identified and reported to the commander, Peter von Stolberg, he is furious with the watch officers for the delay. He immediately orders the U-boat to dive.John Murrell, Captain of the "Hecate", proves himself a match for the wily U-boat "Kapitän" von Stolberg, a man from an aristocratic background who is not enamoured with the Nazi regime. A prolonged and deadly battle of wits ensues that tests both men and their crews. Each man grows to respect his unseen opponent.Murrell stalks the U-boat and subjects von Stolberg and his crew to multiple depth charge attacks. Von Stolberg unsuccessfully tries to torpedo the destroyer.The submarine, badly damaged and critically short of air and battery power, is forced to the surface, and a gun battle takes place. The destroyer also is badly damaged; she loses steam and therefore all power. Many sailors are killed or wounded. But they manage to send off a radio message on an emergency short-range transmitter.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_(novel)" title="Ella (novel)">
The story concerns a fourteen-year-old girl named Ella Wallis, who lives in Bristol with her parents. She is bullied at school due to her family's poverty, and is abused at home, both physically by her fundamentalist Christian father, and sexually by his brother, Ella's uncle. Her French mother is an alcoholic. The stress and upset in her life result in Ella developing bulimia, and subsequently paranormal powers, beginning with pyrokinesis, when she sets a Nativity scene alight at school. She then develops telekinesis in a response to her uncle trying to exorcise her, moving books with her mind. As Ella's abilities become more widely-known, a series of people try to exploit her, including Icelandic psychic researcher Peter Guntarson, Spanish public relations specialist José Miguel Dóla, and her own family, who realise the money-earning potential of Ella's abilities. Over time Ella develops further powers, including levitation, teleportation, remote viewing, and psychic healing. She gets ever thinner, from the ongoing impact of her eating disorder, and eventually appears to die live on television, with her final act being to heal the sickness of everyone in the world, with something known as the "Ella Effect". The book hints that she was actually transformed into an angel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_You_Want_to_Talk_About_Race" title="So You Want to Talk About Race">
The book is about race in the contemporary United States, each chapter titled after a question. Oluo makes the argument that America's political, economic and social systems are systematically/institutionally racist. The book provides advice for readers when discussing race-related subjects, such as how to avoid acting defensive or getting off-topic. Statistics are used to support the book's arguments. Oluo also describes her upbringing and experience living in Seattle, Washington. She was raised by a white single mother and became a single mother herself to two mixed-race sons at a young age.The book also covers topics including affirmative action, cultural appropriation, intersectionality, microaggressions, police brutality and the school-to-prison pipeline. Oluo argues that use of the word "nigger" or other racial slurs by white people is not appropriate even if the intention is ironic or the motive anti-racist.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gangster_(novel)" title="The Gangster (novel)">
This novel is set in 1906 in New York City and it centers around Isaac Bell, an investigator with the Van Dorn Detective Agency. Van Dorn is hired to protect clients from the Black Hand crime group. Bell puts together a group of Van Dorn's best people to find who is at the bottom of the Black Hand. Few clues exist until Bell discovers a familiar face that provides a link to the Black Hand. The Black Hand sets its sights on killing one of the top leaders of the country and Bell and his team must work to prevent this from happening."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythe_(novel)" title="Scythe (novel)">
In the year 2042, effective immortality is discovered, allowing humans to reset their physical age while retaining their memory. In addition, advanced medical technology allows any injury, even fatal, to be repaired in a matter of days through nanites (or for more serious injuries, a hospital procedure known as revival). These revolutionary technologies allowed humanity to triumph over death and ended what is posthumously referred to as the Mortal Age.In addition, a nigh-omnipotent artificial intelligence called the Thunderhead was also created around this time, described as the 'evolution of the cloud.' The Thunderhead was carefully designed with perfect and caring motives, wanting only to be a loving guardian of humanity. Although everyone was at first skeptical, every government eventually subsided to the Thunderhead, and all of Earth became united peacefully. Utilising all of humanity's knowledge and power, the Thunderhead solves climate change, mental illness, and discrimination. It also decides that death is still required in order to give life meaning, but is unwilling to be the means of death, as it is unable and does not want to be viewed as a killer.Instead, a group of humans creates the Scythedom, an order of individuals who are responsible for killing ("gleaning") others permanently, unable to be revived by law. The Thunderhead finds this to be the best approach. Scythes wear rings that grant immunity by transferring one's DNA to a databank. Once becoming Scythes, they must take the name of a historic figure (such as Scythe Gandhi or Scythe Volta). Scythes are entirely separate from the Thunderhead's rule, not having to abide by any law beyond the Scythedom's.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can't_Wait_to_Get_to_Heaven" title="Can't Wait to Get to Heaven">
Elner Shimfissle, an octogenarian who doesn't know her own age since her sister Ida buried the family Bible to conceal hers, is known and liked by a large circle of friends and admirers. One morning she is picking figs in her tree when she is stung by wasps, falls off the ladder, and loses consciousness. She is rushed to the hospital in Kansas City, where she apparently dies. Back home, Elner's acquaintances tidy her house, feed her cat, and start preparing for her funeral. Elner, meanwhile, wakes up in her pitch-black hospital room and calls for assistance. Not receiving any, she goes out to the hallway and enters an elevator, which takes her straight "up." Her sister Ida greets her at Heaven's gates and then she is ushered upstairs to meet God and ask any questions she likes. Besides sporting such fanciful things as polka-dotted squirrels and unusually colored landscapes, Heaven also looks like her hometown, Elmwood Springs, about 50 years in the past. Elner meets God—her former neighbor Raymond, a modest, pipe-smoking divinity—and they discuss how he and his wife Dorothy created mankind and the current state of the world. Then Raymond sends Elner back down to Elmwood Springs, where she wakes up in her hospital bed and sets in motion another round of shocked neighbors who are incredulous that she's really alive. Elner lives a few more years after that and finally dies peacefully in her sleep, as she'd always wanted to. The novel closes with a series of recipes for the various dishes that Elner's neighbors made to send to her funeral.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Klone_and_I" title="The Klone and I">
The novel centers around 41-year-old Stephanie, whose husband divorces her and sues her for alimony and child support at the beginning of the novel. Stephanie spends the next year improving herself, and travels to Paris where she meets Peter Baker, a fellow American who is an executive of a bionics company. After spending the weekend together, Stephanie is sure she will never see him again, but he follows her to the Hamptons and they fall in love. While Peter is away on business, his clone, Paul Klone, shows up on her doorstep. Paul is an exact physical replica of Peter, but the polar opposite from him in every other way.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangerous_Games_(Steel_novel)" title="Dangerous Games (Steel novel)">
Alix Phillips is a single mother who was widowed at age 20 and has a 19-year-old daughter, Faye. Now that her daughter is in college, Alix is able to take on lengthier and more dangerous assignments. Alix sets out to expose government corruption, and ends up embarking on an international journey. While uncovering the political underworld, she falls for her cameraman, Ben Chapman, who is an ex-Navy Seal. They uncover secrets of the past mixed with love.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_All_Odds_(novel)" title="Against All Odds (novel)">
The book revolves around Kate Madison, a widow who owns a successful retail shop in SoHo. Kate is dedicated to her four adult children, but grows frustrated with their choice of partners that are seemingly not right for them. Kate learns to allow her children to make their own decisions, and be there for them unconditionally.Kate also has a brief love affair of her own, falling for the Frenchman Bernard Michel. However, she later finds out that he is married, and realizes she is in the same position of choosing an ill-suited partner as her children.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undercover_(novel)" title="Undercover (novel)">
Ariana Gregory, the daughter of a recently widowed US ambassador, arrives in Paris a year after being kidnapped in Buenos Aires. There she meets Marshall Everett, a former undercover DEA agent. Ariana's safety now depends on one man - Marshall.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tunnel_Thru_the_Air;_Or,_Looking_Back_from_1940" title="The Tunnel Thru the Air; Or, Looking Back from 1940">
The story is roughly divided into two parts: before and after 1927, the year in which it was written. The story began in the late evening of 9 June 1906, when the protagonist Robert Gordon was born. The early part of the book is mostly about the early life of Robert, including how he found and lost his true love, Marie Stanton, who was born on 6 October 1908. The loss of Marie Stanton inspired Robert to become the greatest inventor in history. After 1927, the book describes an imaginary war from April 1930 to July 1932, in which Robert single-handedly help the United States to win with his amazing inventions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rift_(Allan_novel)" title="The Rift (Allan novel)">
Selena and her older sister Julie, live with their parents in Manchester, England. One day, when Julie is 17, she disappears without a trace. Several suspects are arrested, including an artisan, Steven Jimson, but all are released for lack of evidence. Hatchmere lake and its surrounds, believed to have been visited by Julie, are searched, but yield nothing. Years of conflict over Julie's disappearance leads to the sisters' parents divorcing: their mother stops thinking about her, while their father, convinced Julie is alive, obsesses over her, and suffers a mental breakdown and dies.Twenty years later, Selena, who now works for Vanja at a jewellery store, and has come to terms with her sister's disappearance, is surprised by a phone call from a woman claiming to be Julie and requesting a meeting. She agrees to see her, and, although initially skeptical, is convinced it is Julie when her sister reveals something from their childhood that no one else knew about. Julie tells Selena she has been back in Manchester for 18 months, but has told no one who she is. Selena is angry with her sister for having put their family through so much anguish, but Julie tells Selena what happened to her. She reveals that she travelled from Hatchmere lake, via a rift, to a lake near the city of Fiby on the planet Tristane. Selena cannot believe how Julie could fabricate such lies to explain her absence. But as her sister expands on her story, Selena starts to wonder if such a thing could have happened. Julie explains that she was abducted by Jimson and taken to Hatchmere lake; she remembers escaping from him, then finding herself in a strange place and taken in by a woman named Cally and her brother, Noah. Julie learns from Cally where she is and that she has disappeared from this place before. Cally tells Julie that she was born on Tristane. Julie adjusts to her new life and finds out as much as she can about this new world. Years later, after a sexual encounter with Noah, Julie finds herself back in Manchester.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engines_of_War" title="Engines of War">
During the Great Time War, the War Doctor and a Time Lord battle fleet attack Dalek Saucers above the planet Moldox. The fleet is destroyed and the TARDIS crashes to the planet below, where the Doctor meets human resistance fighter Cinder, a young woman whose family were killed by the Daleks when she was a child. The Doctor learns that the Eternity Circle, a group of Daleks created by the Dalek Emperor, have produced temporal weapons which they plan to use against the Time Lords, removing them from History. Travelling to Gallifrey to warn the Time Lords, he finds them preparing to counter-attack using a weapon that will cause the death of billions, Dalek and non-Dalek alike. Vowing to stop both the Time Lords and the Daleks, the Doctor must avoid being killed by a Time Lord assassin and confront the Eternity Circle as he seeks to bring the war to an end and prevent his people from becoming as evil as the Daleks themselves.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zygon_Invasion" title="The Zygon Invasion">
Ever since the War, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctors ensured the creation of a peace treaty between humans and Zygons, there existed two versions of UNIT scientist Osgood: one human and a Zygon duplicate. 20 million Zygons have been resettled on Earth, peacefully living out their lives disguised as humans. The Doctor leaves the Osgoods the Osgood Box to be used as a last resort. After one of the Osgoods was killed, the other left UNIT and disappeared.In the present, Osgood is captured by a splinter group of Zygons in the town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico just after sending a warning to the Twelfth Doctor that the treaty is failing. In London, the splinter group, which seeks to be themselves no matter what, kidnaps and kills Zygon High Command, leaving a Zygon called Bonnie in charge. In Turmezistan, Osgood is forced to read a video message declaring the splinter group's intent to go to war. At the block of flats where Clara lives, Clara is knocked unconscious and hidden in a pod underground. Bonnie takes Clara's place.The Doctor travels to Turmezistan via the aeroplane afforded him by being President of Earth to rescue Osgood. The Doctor and UNIT troops converge on the church Osgood is holed up in. The Zygon splinter group, appearing as the soldiers' relatives and friends, kills the soldiers and flees back to the UK through underground tunnels. The Doctor finds Osgood safe under the church. The Doctor and Osgood bring a Zygon, injured from a bombing run, aboard their flight back to the UK. The Zygon tells the Doctor that their invasion has already taken place.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_the_Raven" title="Face the Raven">
Rigsy contacts the Twelfth Doctor and Clara for help. He shows them a number tattoo on his neck, counting down, with no memory of how he got it nor events of the last day. They trace his movements to a trap street in present-day London that houses extraterrestrial refugees, using telepathic alien worms to appear as human to the Doctor, Clara, and Rigsy.Me, the immortal mayor of the trap street, explains that she sentenced Rigsy to death after he was accused of murdering Anah, a two-face Janus. They gave him a Chronolock: a tattoo which counts down with each passing minute. When it reaches zero, a Quantum Shade (a being that takes the form of a raven) is summoned to kill him. However, they also had to give Rigsy an amnesia drug to forget the trap street's existence. Me allows the Doctor and Clara to prove Rigsy's innocence. Clara learns that the Chronolock can be transferred to another willingly. Believing Me will not let her die, Clara takes Rigsy's Chronolock without the Doctor's knowledge to buy them more time.The trio meet Anah's psychic daughter, Anahson, and learn that Me used Rigsy to bring the Doctor to the trap street and that Me is afraid of someone Anahson cannot identify. The Doctor realises from the medical data in the stasis pod Anah is stored inside that Anah is still alive, and Anah is locked in by a device compatible with the TARDIS key. However, when the Doctor uses his key, the lock device clamps a metal ring around his wrist and takes the TARDIS key. The band is a teleportation device to send the Doctor far away to keep the street safe from attack by unnamed people Me made a deal with. Me demands the Doctor's Confession Dial. Me then goes to remove the Chronolock from Rigsy only to discover Clara had taken it; Clara broke the contract Me had made with the Shade and she cannot undo it. The Doctor becomes angry and threatens Me, demanding that she save Clara, but Clara calms him down, asking him not to be upset nor avenge her death. Clara says her goodbyes and then steps into the street to face the Shade before it kills her. Back in the house, the Doctor warns Me to keep away from him in future. Me then activates the band, sending the Doctor away.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander_in_Chief_(novel)" title="Commander in Chief (novel)">
In Russia, the silovik, a group of military &amp; intelligence officers and businessmen who basically control the country’s affairs, are concerned about the country’s economic decline. President Valeri Volodin brings up a plan of covert armed conflict within Europe that will ensure the restoration of Russia’s status as a superpower, while at the same time revamping its economy and benefiting the siloviki as a result. Privately however, Volodin tasks a financial expert, Andrei Limonov, with securing his assets worldwide in case his plan does not work.Weeks later, a string of attacks plague most of Eastern Europe. A Lithuanian LNG tanker, the "Independence", gets attacked by an eco-terrorist group. A Russian military train transporting men and materiel to Kaliningrad Oblast gets attacked by a Polish terrorist group, which gives Volodin an excuse to increase military presence in the region. Russian submarines begin attacking the Lithuanian Navy, and had torpedoed another oil tanker bound for Estonia. U.S. President Jack Ryan immediately notices a pattern in the recent attacks and the corresponding increase in Russia’s oil profit. He tries to recruit the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)’s help, but they decline, fearing the consequences of an all-out war. Frustrated, he later deploys the U.S. Navy to dispatch its Russian counterpart.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon's_Ashes" title="Babylon's Ashes">
Following the events of "Nemesis Games", the so-called Free Navy, made up of Belters using stolen military ships, has been growing ever bolder. After the crippling attacks on Earth and the Martian Navy, the Free Navy turns its attention to the colony ships headed for the ring gates and the worlds beyond. The relatively defenseless ships are left to fend for themselves, as neither Earth nor Mars is powerful enough to protect them. James Holden and the crew of the "Rocinante" are called upon once again by what remains of the UN and Martian governments to go to Medina Station, now in the hands of the Free Navy, in the ring station. On the other side of the rings an alien threat is growing; the Free Navy may be the least of humanity's problems.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fishermen_(Obioma_novel)" title="The Fishermen (Obioma novel)">
Four brothers, Ikenna, Boja, Obembe, and Benjamin, begin to fish at the Omi-Ala river near their home in a quiet neighbourhood of the city of Akure in Nigeria, despite being forbidden from doing so by their parents, as the river is heavily polluted. On one of their fishing trips, they encounter a local madman, Abulu, who follows them shouting the name of Ikenna, the oldest brother. The other children flee, but the four brothers stop to listen, as Abulu shouts a series of prophecies: that Ikenna will become blind, mute, crippled. He finishes by prophesying that Ikenna will be killed by a fisherman. Ikenna thinks this means that one of his brothers will kill him, and he gradually turns against them. The prophecy undoes the family and the expectations the brothers' parents have for them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_House" title="The Dead House">
At the beginning of the novel, the reader is made aware that the book's content was compiled from several sources, including a diary that was found in the remains of Elmbridge High School, a British high school that burned down 25 years prior. The material is a mixture of video clips, interviews, recovered diary entries, Post-it Notes, and other similar items, and will also occasionally have notations about missing content. Throughout the book, Kaitlyn repeatedly refers to her diary as "Dee" in her entries.Carly and Kaitlyn Johnson are two personalities that exist in the same body. They've been living in a mental hospital named Claydon Mental Hospital for an undisclosed amount of time. She works directly with a therapist named Dr. Annabeth Lansing, and it is established that Kaitlyn/Carly's parents died in a horrific accident that they cannot remember. They are aware of each other's existence, but they never directly interact as Carly is only active during the day and Kaitlyn at night, although they do communicate through various means, which they attempt to hide from others. In the mental hospital, Dr. Lansing diagnoses them as having dissociative identity disorder, an eating disorder (Carly), self-harming (Kaitlyn), and hearing voices (Kaitlyn, who hears the voice of a demonic entity known as Aka Manah). Dr. Lansing also believes that Kaitlyn is not the true personality and that Carly created her as a coping mechanism, although Kaitlyn insists that she is real and existed before their parents' deaths.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Lawyer" title="Rogue Lawyer">
Sebastian Rudd is a street lawyer, but not your typical street lawyer. His office is a black customized bulletproof van, complete with Wi-Fi, a bar, a small fridge, and fine leather chairs. He has no firm, no partners, and only one employee: his heavily armed driver, who used to be his client, and who also happens to be his bodyguard, law clerk, confidant, golf caddie, and his only friend. Sebastian drinks small-batch bourbon and carries a gun. His beautiful ex-wife is a lawyer too, and she left him for another woman while still they were married. He only gets to see his son for 36 hours per month and his ex-wife wants to stop all visits. He defends people other lawyers won't go near: a drug-addled, tattooed kid rumored to be in a satanic cult who is (falsely) accused of murdering two girls; a vicious crime lord on death row who ends up escaping before Rudd's eyes; a homeowner arrested for shooting at a SWAT team that mistakenly invaded his house, and killed his wife and dogs; a Mixed martial arts fighter previously financed by Rudd who killed a referee after losing a fight. In between these adventures, he's contacted by a serial kidnapper and killer who's involved in human trafficking, and knows the whereabouts of the assistant chief of police's missing daughter.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarface_(novel)" title="Scarface (novel)">
The book's storyline is heavily inspired by the real life gangster Al Capone whose nickname was also "Scarface". It concerns the rise and fall of Tony "Scarface" Guarino, who after performing a hit on mob leader Al Springola, moves in to take over the illegal alcohol business in Chicago during the Prohibition Era. He is ultimately shot dead by his brother (who concurrently rises in the ranks of Chicago PD), who fails to recognise him due to the family believing him to have died in World War I.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_the_Morning_(novel)" title="Son of the Morning (novel)">
Elsa Vickery, daughter of an agnostic small-town doctor and his pious wife, is gang-raped at the age of seventeen. Since her father is unable to obtain a legal abortion for her, she has a son, Nathan, who is brought up by his grandmother as a devoted Christian. At the age of seven, Nathan begins to experience visions of Christ. When the boy is eight, his grandfather reads the Gospel for the first time in thirty years and he is horrified, concluding that Jesus was "a cruel psychopath." Soon after this, he dies from a stroke, leaving Nathan completely in the care of his grandmother.Nathan becomes a boy preacher, and later the charismatic leader of a church, which is accumulating vast riches from donation. With every year, his visions become more and more grandiose. In one episode of the novel, he is almost seduced into fornication and puts out his eye in self-punishment.After he survives an attack by one of his followers, Nathan goes into hiding, and the church eventually disappears.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratscalibur" title="Ratscalibur">
After moving to the big city, 11-year-old Joey is turned into a rat by a rat magician (or "Ragician") and sent on a mission to report to Uther, king of the rat kingdom Ravalon. On the way, he inadvertently pulls the legendary Spork, named Ratscalibur, from the legendary Scone, and is hailed as the prophesied hero. Subsequently, he is expected to go on a quest to save the rats from the wicked wizard Salaman, if he is to be restored to his human form.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Rising_(series)" title="Phoenix Rising (series)">
## "Elissa's Quest".Elissa is a thirteen-year-old girl living with her caretaker Nana in a peaceful valley. She knows little about her parents, as her mother is dead and Nana will not tell Elissa the identity of her father. Secrets are not new to Elissa, as she has long since had to keep others from learning that she has the ability to speak to animals. Despite her peaceful existence, Elissa has grown bored of her town and as such, willingly leaves when a visitor comes to whisk her away to his kingdom. As the danger around her grows thicker with every passing moment, Elissa must try to find a way to keep herself safe and alive, especially after hearing rumors that she might be the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Phoenix.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirko_and_Slavko" title="Mirko and Slavko">
Prior to the invasion of Yugoslavia, young Mirko was a baker's apprentice somewhere in Šumadija. After the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia, Mirko decided to join the Partisans, exchanging two breads for a gun with a soldier of the defeated and disbanded Royal Yugoslav Army. In the initial three episodes, Mirko's comrades are two other young Partisans, Zoran and Boško, Boško dying in a battle with German soldiers. In episode four, the character of Slavko was introduced.While Mirko is always brave and determined, Slavko tends to hesitate and sometimes can even get scared. That is why Mirko is typically armed with MP 40, which was usually reserved for partisan commanders, while Slavko is typically armed with a regular riffle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_Me_Dave" title="Call Me Dave">
## Piggate.The book contains an uncorroborated allegation that, during his university years, Cameron put a "private part of his anatomy" into a dead pig's mouth as part of an initiation ceremony for the Piers Gaveston Society. The allegation was attributed to a Member of Parliament who was a "distinguished Oxford contemporary" of Cameron's. Ashcroft and Oakeshott failed to receive a response from the purported owner of an alleged photograph of the incident, and since the extract's publication no corroborating evidence has been produced to support the allegation. A spokesperson for the Prime Minister said that they did not "need to dignify the book by offering any comment", while friends reported him saying that the claim was "utter nonsense". Cameron appeared to refer to Ashcroft and the book with a joke that he had had an injection that day and had been told to expect "a little prick, a little stab in the back".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Ripper" title="I, Ripper">
A fictional diary of serial killer Jack the Ripper interleaved with a narrative from a newspaper journalist, Jeb, reporting on the killings.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Baptists" title="Modern Baptists">
Set in the fictional town of Tula Springs, Louisiana, the novel concerns middle-aged bachelor Bobby Pickens, the assistant manager of Sunny Boy Bargain Store and his half-brother F.X. A former actor and cocaine dealer, F.X. has just been released from Angola Prison and moves in with Bobby, his presence throwing all Bobby's foibles into sharp relief, leading to mistaken identity, romantic entanglement and a nervous breakdown, climaxing in a Christmas Eve party in a cabin on a poisoned swamp.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_Lost" title="List of the Lost">
The book is about a 1970s relay team in Boston who accidentally kill a homeless person, whose death brings misfortune to the team.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_in_a_Red-Rose_Chain" title="Prisoner in a Red-Rose Chain">
The novel chronicles the peregrinations of its love-obsessed picaresque hero, Jeremy Davenant, as he moves from York to Toronto to Montreal’s “Plateau district” and then back to York in pursuit of a destiny, that he believes is determined by a page ripped from an encyclopedia, which includes a university career based on a bogus PhD with a plagiarized thesis on the apocryphal Shakespeare play, "A Yorkshire Tragedy", and the intermittently requited love of his “dark lady,” a Roma named Milena.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Patriot's_Act" title="A Patriot's Act">
Attorney Brent Marks fights for the rights of a naturalized American citizen who goes missing in Iraq, using its own Constitution to fight the behemoth U.S. government. Ahmed Khury, an accountant in California, falls under suspicion due to his association with his brother Sabeen, who is suspected of laundering money back in Iraq. Ahmed is placed in Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, where he is tortured despite not having any information about terrorism to divulge. Corruption, a cover-up, and murder complicate the story, and even Brent Marks himself is in danger.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Creeping" title="The Creeping">
Twelve years ago two young girls, Jeanie and Stella, went out to pick strawberries near Jeanie's home in the small town of Savage. The two girls go missing and only one of them, Stella, returns - but without any memory of the prior events, with her hair put up in a french braid, and repeatedly stating the sentence "If you hunt for monsters, you'll find them". Whatever happened to her and Jeanie was so traumatic that the memory was wiped from her mind, along with many of her other childhood memories. This puts her at odds with some of the townspeople, especially Jeanie's brother Daniel, who believes that Stella has been lying about losing her memory. Now seventeen, all Stella wants to do is move past this painful past and enjoy her summer with her friends and her crush, Taylor. Despite disliking people dwelling on the past, Stella still agrees to go to the annual "Day of Bones", a summer party held by the town's teenagers on the day of Jeanie's disappearance. During the party Stella recovers a brief memory of Jeanie prior to the teenagers discovering the body of a young girl that looks similar to Jeanie. This puts Stella on edge, especially after Jeanie's mother is found murdered only hours later. The police believe that Jeanie's father, Kent Talcott not only murdered his wife but was also responsible for the deaths of Jeanie and the unidentified victim, but Stella is convinced that he is innocent.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsena_of_Marabda" title="Arsena of Marabda">
Novel has been published during the writer's lifetime with three parts. It was translated into several languages, including German and Russian. The novel reflects people's struggle for national and social independence. The hero of the book is Arsena Odzelashvili – a Georgian Robin hood. Soviet union's attitude toward him hardened after publishing this novel. The novel shows Georgian people's struggle for national and social freedom for the first half of the 20th century.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seedless_in_Seattle" title="Seedless in Seattle">
Ross' father is going to Argentina to find his missing daughter Erika. Ross is dealing with Fionn's new personality, making an enemy of his daughter, and when he gets caught writing "The Fuck-it List" it's the final straw for Sorcha. She insists that Ross gets a vasectomy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Infinite_Sea" title="The Infinite Sea">
A few weeks after the events of the first novel, Cassie, Ben, and the rest of Squad 53 have taken refuge at a hotel, which they call "Walker Hotel" in honor of Evan Walker, who is thought to be dead after destroying Camp Haven. Ringer, believing that their refuge in the hotel will not last, goes out searching for a cave system mentioned in a brochure. Teacup, whom she had grown close to, sneaks up on Ringer and who proceeds to shoot her, having mistaken Teacup for a Silencer. A helicopter flies in and they are both captured by The Others. While Cassie and the others anxiously await Ringer, they realize that Teacup has gone missing, and Dumbo and Poundcake set out to find her but return empty-handed.Evan Walker is revealed to have survived Camp Haven's destruction and is wounded. He is rescued by Grace, a fellow Silencer, and both head to her makeshift home. After one of Grace's hunts, she tries to seduce Evan, but he attacks her. As he escapes, Grace shoots at him but lets him go, knowing that he will lead her to Cassie. While he rests, Grace finds and confronts him. They are attacked by child soldiers from Camp Haven and Grace is shot at, giving Evan the opportunity to escape.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Givi_Shaduri" title="Givi Shaduri">
The narrator of the novel - Givi Shaduri is talking to the reader from the Feast. Shaduri is the elderly and people skilled in life. Each story of his hard life have used many adventures episode.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Woman's_Burden" title="A Woman's Burden">
The main character is a young woman: Ms. Atakhneli. He escaped from the shelter in prison revolutionaries, Zurab Gurgenidze, who conveniently fled from prison. After the Revolution, the crowd becomes.In Akhatneli family lives people of different political views.For Illegal activity Kate's brother will be in prison. Kate married Avsharov (who is a General of the Gendarmerie, to help his brother, but actually he likes to Zurab Gurgenidze. Avsharov will understand about this and arrests him.Finally Gurgenidze will be exiled to Siberia and Kate (who is pregnant by Gurgenidze) will jump to Mkvari river.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horrorstör" title="Horrorstör">
The novel follows a group of people—store manager Basil, and employees Amy and Ruth Anne—who stay overnight at ORSK to investigate strange acts of vandalism. The book particularly focuses on Amy, who is unhappy because she views her work at ORSK as an unfulfilling dead-end job. During a patrol of the store, Amy and Ruth Anne come across fellow employees Trinity and Matt, who have snuck into the store to record paranormal phenomena; and Carl, a homeless man who has been sleeping in the store without anyone knowing. Although the group decides against calling the police, Amy reveals that she called them earlier over some minor strange occurrences earlier in the night.Trinity convinces the others, minus Basil (as he has gone outside to wait for the police), to hold a séance. During the séance they make contact with Warden Worth, who possesses Carl and informs everyone that he will take them into his "Beehive" and cure them of their mental illnesses. Worth then slits Carl's throat. Basil returns and is horrified by the amount of blood, then observes that Carl's body is missing. The group decides to search for him and in the process find a door leading to an old asylum that no longer exists. Everyone is abducted and subjected to various cruel "treatments" except for Basil, who manages to find and rescue Amy. The two are separated after a group of Worth's inmates (all of whom are ghosts) attack Basil and drag him off. Amy nearly succumbs to the temptation to continue Worth's treatments, as his earlier treatment had nearly convinced her that her life is worthless, but she fights off the urge after seeing Trinity put through a similar torture treatment. Amy frees Trinity, only for her to run off in fear, and makes it successfully out of the building. She returns upon realizing that she is the others' only hope of escape, and that running away would mean quitting, which would prove Worth correct in his assessment of her failings.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diary_of_a_Country_Priest" title="The Diary of a Country Priest">
The story is set in Ambricourt in northern France, where a young, newly appointed Catholic priest struggles with stomach pains and the lack of faith within his parish. He knows he is weak, inferior, and sometimes thinks himself touched by madness, but strongly believes that the grace of God passes through his priesthood: “All is grace!".The diary is divided into three parts:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Chord" title="The Secret Chord">
Told from the point of view of the prophet Nathan, this book follows the life of biblical King David.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_10_(novel)" title="The 10 (novel)">
The novel presents as main characters the tenants of an old block of flats near Piraeus, during 1950s. The owner of the block is a rich man, named Kalogeras. His nephew is a tenant of the block and he hopes to be his heir. The novel comprises also many other characters from the neighbourhood near the block of flats or other persons related with the main characters.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granny,_Iliko,_Illarion,_and_I" title="Granny, Iliko, Illarion, and I">
The life of Zuriko an orphan passes in the hands of his grandmother Olgha and weirdly funny and loving neighbors, Iliko and Ilarion. Despite of war and famine these people never lose the sense of humour. Iliko and Ilarion constantly prank each other in a series of practical jokes, though they are closest friends. Meanwhile, Zuriko writes his first poem and his first love letter. The time passes. Zuriko graduates in Tbilisi and comes back to his village.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancillary_Mercy" title="Ancillary Mercy">
While searching Athoek Station's slums, Fleet Captain Breq finds someone who appears to be an ancillary from a ship that has been hiding beyond the Radch's reach for three thousand years. Meanwhile, Translator Zeiat, a messenger from the alien and mysterious Presger empire arrives, as does Breq's enemy, the reactionary faction of the divided Anaander Mianaai – ruler of an empire at war with herself.Anaander captures Athoek Station and executes members of its governing body on a live newsfeed. After this incident, Breq forges an alliance with the AI in charge of Athoek Station and begins work to disable Anaander's ships and render Station and other AIs immune to her overrides. She returns to Athoek Station and confronts Anaander with the aid of Zeiat. During the confrontation, she claims that AIs are independent, autonomous, and sentient species distinct from humanity, and thus protected by the terms of humanity's treaty with the Presger. Unwilling to risk violating the treaty, Anaander is forced to retreat.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Is_This_Night_Different_From_All_Other_Nights?" title="Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights?">
S. Theodora Markson sneaks away from the Lost Arms at night, but Lemony Snicket decides to follow her. She goes to Dicey's Department Store and steals a costume, and then travels to Stain'd Station. When Snicket tries to get on the train leaving with prisoners Dashiell Qwerty and Ellington Feint, he is told he needs a ticket, but without any money he cannot find a way to get on the train. He also meets Polly Partial and Dane Sally Murphy at the station, the latter of which helps a strange looking passenger get on board with her. He gets a lift from Pip and Squeak to a place along the railway line where he can jump aboard, and Moxie Mallahan who is also on board opens the window to let him in. She shows him a fake Bombinating Beast made out of cardboard, made by Ornette Lost to trick Hangfire. Dashiell Qwerty is found dead inside his jail cell, and Theodora is assumed to be the murderer by the Officers Mitchum. However, Lemony doesn't believe she did it, so he goes about the train looking for witnesses. He finds three suspicious librarians named Pocket, Walleye and Eratosthenes, along with several of his associates (Moxie Mallahan, Kellar Haines, Cleo Knight, Jake Hix and Ornette Lost) who were also on board. He then finds Ellington Feint; shortly into their conversation, Hangfire arrives and shoots a dart at Ellington, apparently killing her as she falls to the floor. Snicket covers her with her jacket without anyone else noticing she is dead and makes a deal with Hangfire to give him the statue (the fake one) on a condition. After Hangfire leaves, Snicket helps Ellington up and reveals to her that he knew she was alive. Ellington reveals that the dart missed her by an inch but she pretended she is dead in an attempt to trick Hangfire. Snicket hides Ellington by tying her with a rope on the train railing outside the window of the prisoners compartment to hide her from Hangfire. Snicket later realizes that Moxie and Kellar both tried to trick Hangfire with a fake statue, revealing that Ornette made two statues for Moxie and Kellar each and Hangfire knew they were lying about giving him the statue.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poet_Anderson_...of_Nightmares" title="Poet Anderson ...of Nightmares">
Jonas Anderson and his older brother Alan are Lucid Dreamers. But after a car accident lands Alan in a coma, Jonas sets out into the Dream World in an attempt to find his brother and wake him up. What he discovers instead is an entire shared consciousness where fear comes to life as a snarling beast called a Night Terror, and a creature named REM is bent on destruction and misery, devouring the souls of the strongest dreamers. With the help of a Dream Walker—a guardian of the dreamscape, Jonas must face his fears, save his brother, and become who he was always meant to be: Poet Anderson.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Menders" title="The World Menders">
Cedd Farrari and twenty-nine other members of his class at the Cultural Survey Academy are transferred, two years before their graduation, to the Interplanetary Relations Bureau. They are then taken to inhabited planets outside the Federation of Independent Worlds and left with the IPR teams already there. Farrari joins the IPR team on Branoff IV, where he uses his training to organize the data that the explorers and observers bring in pertaining to the native Branovians.While examining a picture of a tapestry recently hung in the city of Scorv, capital of the medieval-like kingdom of Scorvif, Farrari discerns that the kru, the god-emperor of Scorvif, has died. Enthusiastically, the other occupants of the base prepare to observe the drama of succession in the opaque native society, the first that they have ever observed. Because he made the discovery, Farrari must go to Scorvif to be interviewed by field agents. Going in native disguise, he ends up working in a bakery in Scorv, one surreptitiously owned and operated by the IPR.The bakery gets an order to provide a special cake for the new kru and Farrari is drafted to play the role of the apprentice who carries the cake while the baker presents it. Through a comedy of errors Farrari ends up presenting the cake himself and committing an act that makes him a legend in Scorv, an omen from the Gods, who have apparently granted the kru a long reign and eternal glory. Farrari’s later disappearance from the temple only cements his role in native folklore. After escaping from the temple, Farrari returns to the bakery and thence to the IPR base to be debriefed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tournament_at_Gorlan" title="The Tournament at Gorlan">
Halt and Crowley are journeying together in the woods of Gorlan Fief. They leave the fief and travel to a nearby village for the night. While at the village, they learn that Prince Duncan is supposedly raiding villages with a gang of men. Halt and Crowley then travel to another village, where they save the inhabitants from foreign invaders angry about Duncan's raiding. While at the village, Halt and Crowley later hear a raid by Duncan, where they realize that the "Duncan" is an impostor. After leaving the village, they intercept one of Morgarath's messengers, and discover through letters a list of 12 Rangers to be dismissed and that the real Duncan is being held captive at Castle Wildriver, while the fake Duncan was actually someone named Tiller. Halt and Crowley then travel to recruit the 12 Rangers, intending to capture Tiller and rescue the King and Duncan, and then reveal Morgarath's schemes at a tournament. They ultimately manage to recruit 11, since 1 Ranger was murdered, as well as Baron Arald, a baron who had defeated Morgarath in a major tournament and wielded significant influence among the barons. This would give the Rangers more political power if Morgarath had a trial. While traveling towards Castle Wildriver, the Rangers reunite with the old Ranger Pritchard.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alive_(novel)" title="Alive (novel)">
A teenage girl wakes up in a coffin-like container and breaks out, finding herself in a room filled with similar coffins. The name on her coffin is "M. Savage", leading her to be called "Em" by most characters. She helps another girl, whose name is T. Spingate, out of her coffin, and they help four other people out. None of them remember anything, even their names. Each person has a circular marking on their head.Finding dead bodies in the other coffins, the six teenagers leave the room. Em becomes their leader. They walk through desolate halls filled with human bones and corpses, slowly remembering things about their lives. This goes on for some time.A boy from the group, named Yong, tries to attack Em and take her leadership position; she ends up killing him. The group continues on, trying to find the exit to what they believe to be an underground prison. They eventually meet another group, which is much larger, and is led by a violent boy named Bishop. He tries to threaten Em into giving up her power, but she stands her ground, and the two groups vote to put her in charge of them both. She leads the now-enlarged group through more hallway. They find bodies and skeletons littering the floors, entire rooms filled with corpses, bodies hanging from ceilings, and so on.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_(novel)" title="George (novel)">
The novel follows Melissa, a transgender girl, whose family and the rest of the world sees as George. Melissa is in the fourth grade. Her class is about to begin their production of "Charlotte's Web". Auditions are fast approaching, and the class rules are that each girl will audition for the role of Charlotte and each boy will audition for the role of Wilbur, the pig. Melissa wants to audition for the role of Charlotte. When Melissa gets called out into the hall and does her audition as Charlotte, her teacher, Ms. Udell, thinks Melissa is making a joke and tells Melissa that she cannot play the role of Charlotte, because Melissa is a boy. Since Melissa does not want to play a role other than Charlotte and Ms. Udell said that was not an option, Melissa takes a role in the stage crew. Meanwhile, at home, Melissa's mom finds her secret collection of female magazines. Melissa's mother views her actions as childish and says that she does not want to see Melissa wearing girl clothing, shoes, or going in her room at all. Back at school, Melissa is still upset with Ms. Udell's reaction to her audition. In addition, she feels distant from her friend Kelly because Kelly got the role of Charlotte. However, as the classes' efforts to prepare for the upcoming production increased, Melissa finds a way to become the "Charlotte" of the stage crew by playing a supportive role for her friend. Inspired by Charlotte's courage, she gains the confidence to tell Kelly that she is a girl. After processing this news, Kelly is supportive of her best friend Melissa, and her efforts to tell the world she is a girl. One afternoon, as the stage crew is working on the set, Jeff, the class bully, says that if he met a talking spider he would step on it. Melissa feels the instinct to protect Charlotte and paints "SOME JERK" on a piece of paper and drops it on Jeff's back, painting his sweatshirt with the words. After Jeff sees the damage, he punches Melissa to punish her for ruining his favorite sweatshirt, causing her to vomit on him. As a result of the fight, both Melissa and Jeff are in trouble with their teachers. However, in the process of getting punished, Melissa discovers that the principal is sympathetic to transgender people.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Fame_Citrus" title="Gold Fame Citrus">
The novel is set in a near-future dystopian California ravaged by extreme drought. The landscape of the Southwest is increasingly dominated by the rapidly expanding, ever shifting sands known as the Amargosa Dune Sea. Luz Dunn is a 25 year old former model squatting in Los Angeles, where it has not rained for years. At birth, Luz was symbolically adopted by the Bureau of Conservation, who used "Baby Dunn" as a propaganda tool to garner public support for water infrastructure expansion efforts and evacuations. Luz and her boyfriend Ray kidnap Ig, a neglected toddler about two years old.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Traitor_Baru_Cormorant" title="The Traitor Baru Cormorant">
As a child, Baru Cormorant's island of Taranoke is annexed by the Imperial Republic of Falcrest, called the Masquerade because of the masks worn by its officials. They kill one of Baru's fathers and institute their own rigid belief system focused on hygiene and puritanical sexual ethics. Baru is educated at a Masquerade school, but vows to work her way upward within the Empire and eventually free her island.At her school, Baru demonstrates extreme mathematical prowess. She is noticed by Cairdine Farrier, a high-ranking Masquerade official. Farrier elevates her to the position of Imperial Accountant of Aurdwynn, a province of thirteen duchies that often rebels against Masquerade rule. Baru uses her financial expertise to manipulate the Masquerade's fiat currency system. This causes rapid inflation and widespread poverty, but crushes an incipient rebellion by Duchess Tain Hu. Eventually, Baru becomes friendly with Tain Hu and other Aurdwynni nobles; she agrees to join them in revolt against the Masquerade. Baru uses her financial powers to grant loans to the commoners, which enriches Aurdwynn and ensures that her rebellion will gain popular support.Baru leads an army against the Masquerade forces and takes Tain Hu as her lover. After a brief victory, the Aurdwynni army is ambushed by the Masquerade navy. The rebellious dukes and duchesses are all killed except for Tain Hu. Baru reveals that she has been an agent of the Masquerade throughout the rebellion; in exchange for crushing the nobility in Aurdwynn, she will be given rule of Taranoke and elevated to the Masquerade's ruling clique. As a final test of loyalty, the Masquerade committee members ask Baru to kill Tain Hu. They then offer to spare her in exchange for Baru's loyalty. Hu signals that she does not wish to be used as a pawn. In obedience to her lover's wishes, Baru allows Tain Hu to be executed. This choice protects Baru from blackmail, leaving her free to pursue revenge against the Empire.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growing_Up_Absurd" title="Growing Up Absurd">
In "Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized System", Goodman faults American culture and values for the rise of juvenile delinquency in the late 1950s. Delinquency and "dropping out" of society, Goodman argues, are sane and justified responses to an adult society worth not worth growing up into, lacking in meaningful vocation, honorable community, sexual freedom, spiritual sustenance, and other qualities that youth require in their society to develop their social and moral identities, i.e. to grow up. He writes primarily about disaffected young men—urban juvenile delinquents and the beatnik subculture—and refers to the prevalent sterile, conformist American social order as the "organized system". Goodman disagrees with the then-common view that the solution for youth disaffection was to bring the youth to respect societal norms. Siding with the youth, he argues that the young already understood and rejected societal standards as unimportant. In this way, Goodman makes the youth social problem into less a problem than a symptom of a more existential need.Goodman contends that American society ruined the concept of vocation and created artificial demands through advertising. Affluent, postwar advanced capitalism boasted high employment but, Goodman writes, at the cost of reliance on "artificial ... demand for useless goods" that created unfulfilling, bureaucratic work, without a sense of purpose or service. Goodman believes that vocation that focuses on use, interest, style, and love has meaning and self-justified purpose, but that work focused on role, procedure, and profit tends towards meaninglessness. Thus youth were rightfully disaffected, says Goodman, at the prospect of joining an adult society lacking fulfillment. The chapters of "Growing Up Absurd" apply this argument to facets of life including "Faith", "Jobs", "Patriotism", and sexuality ("Social Animal").
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butcher's_Crossing" title="Butcher's Crossing">
William Andrews, a Harvard student in the early 1870s, is not happy with the mundanities of everyday life. After becoming inspired by the poetry and philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson, he decides to leave his home in Boston and spend some time in the wilderness. While he is there, he hopes to discover who he really is.Andrews travels across the country and finds his way to Butcher's Crossing, a tiny frontier town on the Kansas plains which is supported mostly by the business of local hunters and cattle ranchers, and which eagerly awaits the economic prosperity promised by the construction of a railroad through the town. Andrews seeks out J.D. McDonald, an old acquaintance of his father's, and finds him running a lucrative business in the trade of buffalo hides on the edge of town. McDonald offers Will a job doing paperwork for him, but Will turns him down, explaining that he's looking for a different kind of experience in the West; McDonald chastises him for his youthful idealism and naiveté, but points him to a local hunter named Miller. Miller is a seasoned mountain man and expert buffalo hunter and talks Andrews into joining him on a hunting trip. Miller claims to have stumbled upon a remote mountain vale in Colorado years ago, where a rare buffalo herd lives that few people have ever seen and which therefore promises a big payout. Andrews agrees to finance the trip, if only because he is looking for adventure. Miller leaves behind Andrews and Charley Hoge, Miller's one-armed wagon driver, as he takes Andrews' money to Ellsworth to buy supplies. Hoge is a quiet and pious Christian and a fierce alcoholic who proves a challenge in conversation since he seems almost single-mindedly focused on his Bible and his whiskey; he likes to say Bible verses aloud, but Andrews believes that he knows all that he needs to about God. While Andrews waits for Miller to return, he sits in his hotel room and contemplates his life and the natural world around him. He meets a prostitute named Francine who is attracted to him, but Andrews is unnerved by his perceptions of her profession and refuses to sleep with her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictator_(Harris_novel)" title="Dictator (Harris novel)">
The story is told through Tiro, secretary of Cicero, detailing Cicero's last fifteen years. It begins with Cicero fleeing Publius Clodius Pulcher and his mob in Rome and going into exile in Thessalonica. He is able to return to Rome after more than a year under the promise to support Julius Caesar. Back in Rome, he attempts to revive the Roman Republic, but the forces against this are too strong. Rule by a triumvirate—Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus—eventually becomes rule by one man when Caesar takes control through civil war. Caesar becomes too powerful and is murdered by a group led by Gaius Cassius Longinus, Decimus Junius Brutus, and Marcus Junius Brutus. The Senate fails to take control and Mark Antony rises. Cicero sets his hopes on the young Octavian, but when Octavian strikes a deal with Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Cicero is doomed and the days of the Republic are over. Tiro also relates family and personal matters during Cicero's final years.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucible_of_Resistance" title="Crucible of Resistance">
"Crucible of Resistance" seeks to challenge the mainstream accounts of the Greek government-debt crisis within the context of the Eurozone debt crisis. In the book, the authors argue that the assertion Greece is exceptional is a myth. They also argue that the causes of the financial crisis of 2007–2008 lie in the key features of the neoliberal economic order. Finally, they assert that a progressive exit from the crisis would be to confront the limitations of the neoliberal order.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apparition_of_Mrs._Veal" title="The Apparition of Mrs. Veal">
The pamphlet tells the story of a Canterbury resident, Mrs. Bargrave, who is visited by Mrs. Veal, an old friend and former neighbour who says that she would like to catch up before departing for a journey. Mrs. Bargrave's kiss of greeting is declined by Mrs. Veal who protests that she is not very well. The pair discuss books on death and friendship before Mrs. Veal asks for her friend to write a letter to her brother concerning a number of gifts she would like him to make. She also discloses that her locked cabinet contains a purse filled with gold. Mrs. Bargrave admires the distinctive dress worn by Mrs. Veal. Mrs. Bargrave steps out to call her daughter, and when she returns she finds that Mrs. Veal has already left the house and is standing in the street ready to leave. Mrs. Veal says that she must be going and walks away, watched by Mrs. Bargrave until she is out of sight.Mrs. Bargrave subsequently looks for Mrs. Veal, but is told by one of her friend's relatives that she had died the day before the visit. Mrs. Bargrave later tells her story to various interlocutors. According to the preface it is relayed to the publisher via "a gentleman, a justice of peace, at Maidstone, in Kent, and a very intelligent person, to his friend in London, as it is here worded; which discourse is attested by a very sober and understanding gentlewoman, a kinswoman of the said gentleman's, who lives in Canterbury, within a few doors of the house in which the within-named Mrs Bargrave lives".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Days_(novel)" title="Golden Days (novel)">
"In the early eighties, you had the sense that there was nothing you couldn't do in L.A."In "Golden Days", Edith Langley, a 38-year-old divorcee returns to Los Angeles from the East Coast with her two daughters, Aurora and Denise, to start a new life in 1980. They move into a home in Topanga Canyon, and Edith reinvents herself as a financial reporter and then a financial advisor to other women. Edith begins a relationship with Skip Chandler, an older married man. Skip is back in the States for a medical issue—his wife and children still in Argentina where they moved after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Edith and Skip live the affluent life of the 1980s in Southern California—money, Lear Jets, and Porsches. They fly to San Francisco to attend a weekend seminar given by Lion Boyce on "Abundance as a Natural State." At the seminar, Edith runs into an old friend—Lorna McAvey. On their return, Skip goes to the doctor and discovers there is nothing wrong with him. The novel then flashes back to 1962 when Edith meets her friend Lorna—who sees her through the years of her first marriage and divorce. The story then returns to L.A. in the early eighties; Edith grows a business as a gem dealer and banker. Edith and Lorna are friends again—Edith refers to it as their second friendship. Edith fills Lorna in on her second failed marriage to Dirk Langley, an Australian surf film director. As Edith becomes richer and richer, Lorna reinvents herself on television preaching the positive message of abundance. The book then jumps forward to 1986, by which time Edith's eldest daughter has graduated from college and is a successful international courier while her younger daughter is still at home and in school. Edith and Skip have settled into a quiet life entrenching themselves through their affluence against an increasingly unsettled world focusing on the younger daughter's school. A war begins in Central America. At the school, Edith and Lorna meet Franz deGeld a Hollywood executive whom Lorna is having an affair. At that time, a Nuclear bomb goes off in a Central American jungle killing a few thousand people. Life goes on as before. Aurora has fallen in love and announces she is marrying Skip's son Deeky and moving with him to South America. Skip gives them a house in La Plata.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puzzle_of_the_Fish_Canal" title="The Puzzle of the Fish Canal">
"The Puzzle of the Fish Canal" is mainly about the Iran–Iraq War, it focuses on an Iran-Iraq war soldier named Jalil who visits a medical department and talk about his ear ache with him. in 1980, a surprise attack on the Iranian city of Abadan marked the beginning of the Iran–Iraq War. Hundreds of thousands of people fled the badly damaged city but a small number of civilians chose to stay, living in a city under siege.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell's_Foundations_Quiver" title="Hell's Foundations Quiver">
Merlin Athrawes is confronted by Aivah Pahrshan, who reveals to him her suspicions that he and Ahbraim Zhevons are one and the same and that she had been tracking his activities for several years now. She reveals that she is the leader of the "Sisterhood of Saint Kohdy," an ancient secret society founded after the death of "Seijin" Kohdy (who was previously believed to be mythical) under suspicious circumstances; the Church subsequently deleted his existence from its official record and annihilated the original Abbey of Saint Kohdy in a "Rakurai" strike. Aivah also reveals that Kohdy's tomb, journal and sword ("Helm Cleaver") were all relocated before the destruction of the Abbey and that large portions of the journal are in Spanish, a language the Sisterhood cannot understand. Despite the grave risks involved, the Inner Circle decides to bring Aivah and her personal maid Sandaria to Nimue's Cave and expose them to the complete truth, a truth that shocks them to their very core; neither suspected (despite the Sisterhood's essential doubts about some of the "archangels" and the Church) that the "Holy Writ" itself was based on falsehoods. Eventually, both accept the truth.The Spanish portions of Saint Kohdy's journal are translated and the Inner Circle discovers previously unknown details about the War Against the Fallen. Saint Kohdy was in fact Sergeant Major Cody Cortazar, late of the Terran Federation Marine Corps. He had been drafted due to his combat skills and training by the surviving command crew to combat the "Fallen Angels" and their "mortal" supporters while winning the support of the ignorant population. To accomplish this, the command crew had sought to selectively reactivate his suppressed memories and in doing so had allowed him to remember his native tongue and fragments of his previous life on Earth. His experiences against someone the church had ruled a "demon" had shaken him to the point of questioning the "archangels" and he sought to meet with Schueler himself for reassurance (a meeting from which he did not return alive). Ultimately, the Inner Circle and Sisterhood agree to work together, and Merlin travels to Zion in disguise to make contact with the Sisterhoods' agents there.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sympathizer" title="The Sympathizer">
Set as the flashback in a coerced confession of a political prisoner, the book tells the story of the South Vietnamese Government in 1975 and subsequent events in American exile in Los Angeles, through the eyes of a half-Vietnamese, half-French undercover communist agent. The spy remains unnamed throughout the novel from the fall of Saigon, to refugee camps and relocation in Los Angeles, to his time as a film consultant in the Philippines, and finally to his return and subsequent imprisonment in Vietnam.The narrator lives in a series of dualities, at times contradictions: he is of mixed blood descent (Vietnamese mother, and French Catholic priest father), raised in Vietnam but attended college in the U.S., and a North Vietnamese mole yet a friend to South Vietnamese military officials and soldiers and a United States CIA agent. During the imminent fall of Saigon, he, as an aide-de-camp, arranges for a last minute flight as part of Operation Frequent Wind, to secure the safety of himself, his best friend Bon, and the General he advises. While they are being evacuated, the group is fired upon while boarding; during the escape, Bon's wife and child are killed along with many others.In Los Angeles, the General and his former officers weaken quickly, disillusioned by a foreign culture and their rapid decline in status. The General attempts to reclaim some semblance of honor by opening his own business, a liquor store. The continuous emasculation and dehumanization within American society prompts the General to draft plans for assembling an army of South Vietnamese expatriates to return as rebels to Vietnam. While participating in the expatriate unit, the narrator takes a clerical position at Occidental College, begins having an affair with Ms. Mori, his Japanese-American colleague, and then the General's eldest daughter, Lana. While living in the United States, the narrator sends letters in invisible ink to Man, a North Vietnamese revolutionary and handler, providing intelligence about the General's attempts at raising a commando army.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People_in_the_Trees" title="The People in the Trees">
In the late 1990s, Dr. Ronald Kubodera, a colleague of Nobel Laureate Dr. Abraham Norton Perina, mourns Norton's downfall after being convicted of sexually abusing his own children. Kubodera encourages Norton to write his memoirs from his prison isolation, and marks them with footnotes.Norton writes of his childhood in the small town of Lindon, Indiana, where his interest in science was piqued by his paternal aunt Sybil, a doctor. While attending medical school, Norton attracts the attention of Gregory Smythe, and is hired to work in his lab. Norton is eventually invited to Smythe's home for dinner, where Smythe cries in front of him. Repulsed by Smythe, Norton quits the lab. Shortly before graduation, however, Norton is approached to be the medical doctor on an anthropological mission to U'ivu, led by a man named Paul Tallent. Norton realizes that Smythe recommended him in order to send him as far away as possible from him. Despite the fact that the mission is considered career suicide, Norton accepts.Norton meets Tallent for the first time before they leave from Hawaii to U'ivu, and finds him beautiful and enigmatic. When they arrive in U'ivu, they meet the other member of the team, a woman named Esme Duff, whom Norton immediately dislikes. Tallent leads Norton and Esme to a smaller island that is part of U'ivu, called Ivu'ivu. There they meet three hunter guides, who lead them deep into the jungle of the island, where eventually Tallent reveals to Norton that there is a legend among the U'ivu people about a lost tribe that has been gifted with eternal life but also deep stupidity, and that their guides have actually seen one of these people. Shortly after, they discover a woman who is devoid of language, completely nude and seemingly unable to function as a regular human being. The explorers dub the woman Eve, and quickly discover a tribe of other people like her – whom they dub "Dreamers" –, all of whom have varyingly poor grasp of language. Through some of the more lucid dreamers, Tallent discovers that, though they all have a mark of a turtle on them, indicating that they are 60, they are actually all well over 100 years old.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Night_Vale_(novel)" title="Welcome to Night Vale (novel)">
The Man in the Tan Jacket is back in Night Vale and he has been leaving strange pieces of paper with people, all of which say "King City". While Night Vale is used to the strange and bizarre, the Man in the Tan Jacket's arrival puts the town at odds. Jackie Fierro, the owner of the town pawn shop, is determined to figure out the mystery behind both the man and the paper. Meanwhile, Diane Crayton has her own issues: her son has been changing and while this is average for most teenage boys, her son is literally a shape shifter and looks different each time she sees him. When she begins to see her son's father around town and Josh begins to show new interest in the man, Diane knows that this cannot end well.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Unexceptionalism" title="Scandinavian Unexceptionalism">
In the book, Sanandaji argues that particularly the left has long praised Scandinavian countries for their high levels of welfare provision and admirable societal outcomes. Although true that Scandinavian countries are successful, the author makes the case that this success pre-dates the welfare state. According to Sanandaji Scandinavians became successful by combining a culture with strong emphasis on individual responsibility with economic freedom. This can also explain why Scandinavian Americans, who live outside Nordic welfare states, have low levels of poverty and high levels of prosperity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Through_Darkest_Pondelayo" title="Through Darkest Pondelayo">
The narrative is presented as a series of letters edited by one Rev. Barnaby Whitecorn D.D., who is purported to be the author’s "next door neighbour," and is also illustrated with plated photographs of the adventures.The author, the English Serena Livingston-Stanley, her friend, Francis, and maidservant Placket, sail from Harwich on ‘May 14th’ in an unspecified year into the Mediterranean and via the Suez Canal reach Ceylon on 12 June. Ten days later they sight the island of Pondelayo, an island inhabited by cannibals, and anchor off Bogtuk. The women lodge at the Mission House, and are entertained by Judge Wiggins and his topless black female ‘servant’ Rosie, and in mid-July set out to explore the remote interior of the island accompanied by a wide array of characters, including Wiggins, Rosie, the Hon. Mrs. Pringle, Mrs. Garble and Captain Fitzkhaki-Campbell.In Dead Mother-in-Laws Cove, the adventure party faces a crocodile-infested swamp, and on 27 July arrives at Tikki Bahaar, the first native village they encounter. They investigate the Lake of a Million Fishes, where Francis gets lost in the jungle and Placket gives a month’s notice. Later, in August, they cross the notorious Bobo River, cross the Parrot Gully, and climb Mount Blim Blam, a volcano in active eruption. From the Great Cataract they beat their way through the dense jungles of Upper Timwiffi and arrive back at Dead Mother-in-Laws Cove on 18 September. The narrative ends at the Mission House on 1 October with the author telegraphing the Reverend Whitecorn for the loan of five pounds to cover the cost of her return passage. She arrives safely back in the English Channel on 7 November.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrath_of_the_Furies" title="Wrath of the Furies">
It is the year 88 BC. The Roman Republic is under attack on several fronts; while a dangerous rebellion in Italy is being crushed by Sulla, the armies of Mithridates the Great are sweeping through Asia Minor. The young Gordianus is living in Alexandria when he receives a message telling him of the plight of his former mentor Antipater of Sidon at the court of Mithridates in Ephesus. Accompanied by his beautiful slave Bethesda he travels incognito to Ephesus to help Antipater, even though they parted on bad terms, in spite of the great danger that threatens all Roman citizens under the rule of Mithridates. Together with the Jewish spy Samson, Gordianus must try to stop a ritual sacrifice in the hope of thwarting the King's plans to have all the Romans in the lands under his sway be massacred. Although Gordianus and his co-conspirators foil the ritual sacrifice, they are not able to prevent the massacre, nor do they even warn the Romans of this impending action that has gone down in history as the Asiatic Vespers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfish_(novel)" title="Dragonfish (novel)">
Suzy, a mysterious Vietnamese woman, leaves her police officer husband, Robert, and her home in Oakland, California. She reappears in Las Vegas with a new husband, Sonny, a violent Vietnamese gambler and smuggler. When Suzy vanishes again, Sonny blackmails Robert into finding her and the search leads them through the glitz and sleaze of Las Vegas's underbelly.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius_Bell_and_the_Glitter_Pool" title="Darius Bell and the Glitter Pool">
Darius Bell and his family are living in the Bell estate, the mansion given to his ancestors, under the condition that every 25 years they would produce a gift for the town. The next gift (meant to be given by Darius’ father) is coming up shortly.Darius soon discovers that his father has no gift to give to the town and that his family is broke. Even though the gift can be anything, even a barrel of vegetables, Darius’ father insists that the gift needs to be astonishing and needs to honour the Bell name. Then, an earthquake happened and Darius goes outside to assess the damage.Darius then discovers, that due to the earthquake, a hole in the ground had opened up. Along with his two friends, Oliver and Paul, Darius goes down into the hole, and discovers that inside the hole, was what he believed to be rubies and gold.Darius is really excited about the “gems” and believes that the Glitter Pool is the solution to all his problems. He even starts fantasizing about revealing the Glitter Pool to his parents. But first, Darius decides that he needs to go to an expert to confirm that it truly was ruby and gold. This is where Darius goes and seeks help from the geology professor, Professor Heggarty, who unfortunately breaks the truth to Darius and tells him that it isn’t ruby and gold, and is instead limonite and vanadinite. This is Darius’ darkest moment.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Arrow" title="The Yellow Arrow">
The hero of the story is Andrei, a passenger on the nonstop express train, tormented by the question of the meaning of traffic. The impetus to the awakening of his consciousness is a meeting with a man named Khan, who showed him the secret inscriptions in the secluded areas of the train. An attempt to find a new point of observation (the so-called "ritual death" - an exit to the roof of the train) does not reveal the truth he is seeking: there are only a few loners with the faces of sleepwalkers continuing their aimless movement on top of the same express train. But one day Andrei and Han see a "strange man with a straw hat over his shoulders," pushing off the roof, jumping over the bridge railing while the train is moving, landing in the river and floating to the shore. The path is indicated, there is a way out of the ordinary space, and the main character Andrei commits an act: he leaves the carriage, chooses the freedom of the world, unfamiliar, disturbing, and the glittering yellow windows of the train flies past to the destroyed bridge.The train moves almost forever, people on it are born and die, doing business and going bankrupt, falling in love and starting families. But this movement is mechanistic and automatic, like the movement of robots, they do not notice it, just as they do not notice the rhythm of the heart, the movement of the blood in the veins, or breathing. The juxtaposition of Russian realities with Eastern philosophy provides a new semantic twist: Buddhism, in particular, helps us understand the meaning of Russian reality. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoir_From_Antproof_Case" title="Memoir From Antproof Case">
An elderly narrator who never reveals his real name writes a manuscript in the Brazilian jungles and hides it, page by page, in a termite-proof suitcase. The goal that he set for himself is truly ambitious: to tell his son about the things that led him to Brazil—after a childhood spent in New York City, and youth—in an elite Swiss clinic for the mentally ill, after studying at Harvard, after his service as a pilot during World War II, after decades of a successful career at a major Wall Street bank, after a number of impossible escapades, and a great love...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_Damned_(Tanith_Lee)" title="The Book of the Damned (Tanith Lee)">
"The Book of the Damned" consists of three short novellas set in Paradys, an alternate world version of Paris: "Stained with Crimson", "Malice in Saffron", and "Empires of Azure". Each novella focuses around a single color; with each transition between novellas, the era and color and writing style change, but themes of dark magic, murder, love, gender, and identity persist. Each novella "centers visually on a stained glass window... [whose] colors are reflected in three pieces of ancient jewelry: a ruby scarab ring, a topaz crucifix plundered during the crusades[,] and an Egyptian sapphire earring shaped like a spider. Each jewel is fateful for its possessor".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_(novel)" title="Henrietta (novel)">
VOLUME IPretty and gentile dressed, the main character, Henrietta Courteney, acquires a seat in the already full stage-coach to London. Henrietta keeps to herself at first but towards the end of the ride comes in contact with Miss Woodby. In tradition of romance heroines, Ms. Woodby gives Henrietta and herself nicknames, Celia and Celinda, and declared a “violent friendship” (Lennox, 9). Arriving at Ms. Woodby's stop, Henrietta asks for help to find an appropriate lodging, so that her friend gives Henrietta a letter of recommendation for Mrs. Egret, a milliner friend. Unfortunately, Henrietta does not have the address and thus misguides to another milliner's house of Mrs. Eccles. Mrs. Eccles takes Henrietta in once realizing that she seems lost. Henrietta sends Ms. Woodby a letter because she realizes she does not want to spend any more time at this place. During the time that Henrietta is in Mrs. Eccles's home, a gentleman becomes interested in Henrietta and Mrs. Eccles seems to encourage the potential relationship. Henrietta is pleased but doesn’t look into it much. Miss Woodby comes over for tea. Then, they begin to talk about the misfortune of ending up at Mrs. Eccles’ home and Henrietta starts to tell her backstory: about her deceased unmarried parents, her brother being away for school, and her life at her aunt's.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-Digital_Print" title="Post-Digital Print">
A chapter by chapter synopsis of the book has been depicted as follows by a review from the website We Make Money Not Art.Chapter 1, “The death of paper (which never happened),” analyzes 7 moments when a new medium in history was thought to be a superior alternative to paper.Chapter 2, “A history of alternative publishing reflecting the evolution of print,” depicts how artistic avant-garde has used print during the 20th century.Chapter 3, “The mutation of paper: material paper in immaterial times,” looks at the explanations for why paper makes sense even in our digital age.Chapter 4, “The end of paper: can anything actually replace the printed page?” critically views electronic devices, strategies, and platforms.Chapter 5, “Distributed archives: paper content from the past, paper content for the future,” explores any long-term implications of choosing one medium over another.Chapter 6, “The network: transforming culture, transforming publishing,” explains how working as a network can increase the quality of cultural entities.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fireman_(novel)" title="The Fireman (novel)">
A mysterious fungus has begun to infect the world's population, causing a condition popularly known as "Dragonscale." The illness manifests as a pattern of black and gold markings on an afflicted person's skin, eventually causing them to burst into flame and die. There is no known cure, and the fungal spores easily become airborne from the victims' ashes.When New Hampshire school nurse Harper Grayson becomes infected, her relationship with her husband Jakob quickly sours and he leaves her. She later discovers that he has had affairs with multiple women and begun to write a book in which he denigrates her and brags about his infidelity. Learning that she is now pregnant, Harper seeks shelter with her brother but is turned away. With the help of "The Fireman," a strange man dressed in firefighting gear, and two children named Allie and Nick, Harper escapes Jakob's attempt to kill her and flees their home. The Fireman has contracted Dragonscale, but is able to ignite and extinguish parts of his body at will without danger to his life.The Fireman brings Harper to an abandoned summer camp that now serves as a secret refuge for infected people. To Harper's surprise, they have found a way to live without fear of death from Dragonscale, reinforcing their positive emotions through group singing. Retaking her maiden name of Willowes, Harper is quickly enlisted as a camp nurse and meets Father Tom Storey, its leader and the grandfather of Allie and Nick. The Fireman (real name John Rookwood) had had a relationship with Tom's daughter Sarah, the children's mother, who has since died. Tensions begin to grow among the residents, fueled by dwindling food supplies and a rash of thefts.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracles_of_the_Namiya_General_Store" title="Miracles of the Namiya General Store">
In 1980, the Namiya General Store becomes popular with citizens after its owner, Yūji Namiya, accepts people’s advice letters seeking advice for anything troubling them, similar to an agony aunt. When the store is closed, people would drop their letters through a hole in the roll-up door, collected in a mailbox, and would receive a handwritten reply from Namiya in a milk box hung outside. In 2012, three delinquents, Atsuya, Shota and Kohei, take shelter in the abandoned Namiya General Store after committing some petty crimes. Staying until the morning, the boys' pillaging is mysteriously interrupted by an advice letter being dropped through the shutter, although nobody is outside. The letter is addressed to the General Store and traditionally was written by someone to consult about worries. Upon reading it, the boys realise it was written in 1980, 32 years ago. When Kohei decides to reply, the mysteries and secrets of the old General Store comes to light, as their letters transcend time and space to touch a variety of characters, revealing Namiya’s past, and follows the many miracles that intertwine the lives of the seemingly unrelated cast.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Click" title="One Click">
In "One Click", Brandt describes Bezos's upward journey from computer nerd to world-changing technology entrepreneur. In parallel, Brandt also charts Amazon's original market specialization in book sales and the retailer's evolution to selling almost everything, under the mission of making online shopping easy and convenient.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_Spins" title="The Wheel Spins">
Iris Carr, a young English society woman, is staying at a small hotel in ‘a remote corner of Europe’. Her friends leave on the train to Trieste. Iris is glad to be alone, but then starts to miss them. The remaining guests are also glad to see them leave, due to their noisy ways and monopolising of the hotel facilities. After going for a long walk and getting lost in the local mountains, Iris decides to leave also, but waiting at the railway station, she is struck or hit on the back of the head and loses consciousness. She wakes up in the waiting room, but as she can’t speak the local language, no-one can tell her what happened. She concludes that it must have been sunstroke, but manages to get on the crowded train. She finds herself in a compartment with only one English speaker, Miss Winifred Froy.Miss Froy explains that she was a teacher of the children of a local aristocrat. His widow, the Baroness, is also a passenger in the compartment. Fellow hotel guests, the Reverend and Mrs Barnes and the Misses Flood-Porter are also aboard the train. She spies a heavily bandaged body in another compartment, supervised by a sinister-looking doctor apparently taking an accident victim to hospital in Trieste.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slade_House" title="Slade House">
## The Right Sort.In 1979, Nathan Bishop and his mother are invited to the house of the respected Lady Grayer. Nathan is quickly acquainted with her son Jonah, and the two spend the afternoon in the garden of Slade House whilst Norah Grayer entertains Nathan’s mother. Nathan begins hallucinating strange people and other visions and becomes worried that the Valium he took from his mother is having a bad effect. After being invited into the house, he experiences more hallucinations before finding himself at his father's lodge in Rhodesia. This dream is quickly broken by the Grayers, who reveal themselves to be twin siblings and carnivorous Anchorites, beings who steal the souls of certain people to maintain their youth. The Anchorites conduct a ceremony, and feast on Nathan’s soul.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Rich_Girlfriend" title="China Rich Girlfriend">
In 2013, two years after the events of "Crazy Rich Asians", Eddie meets a wealthy client of his European bank, Bao Shaoyen, a distraught mother who is anxious to hear about her troubled son who was in a car accident from racing an expensive car. He is undergoing serious surgery, while one of his two passengers becomes paralyzed and the other dies. She needs this incident to be discreetly addressed, and Eddie manages to blackmail Eleanor Young into helping the woman, who she learns is extremely wealthy and has a son named Carlton who strongly resembles Rachel.In Manhattan, Nick has managed to repair his relationship with Rachel, and have planned a wedding in California, near Rachel's relatives. Astrid is invited to the wedding, and later meets with Charlie Wu, her former fiancé. Michael has become extremely successful due to Charlie's secret investment, and his behavior has become arrogant and hostile. Charlie is stuck in an unhappy marriage with Isabel, but does not let Astrid know, and continues to help her with her troubled marital issues. Meanwhile, Kitty Pong, the former soap actress who managed to marry her way into the Singapore elite, tries to buy her way into the high society of Hong Kong by appearing in gossip magazines and buying high-profile art. However, she is socially clumsy and finds herself continually shunned; so she hires the services of Corinna Ko-Tung, a woman from a well-born family, who helps Kitty appear more sophisticated by trying to change her behavior and make better social connections. Kitty acts well and manages to amend some of the damages she created.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Diva_and_Flea" title="The Story of Diva and Flea">
A chapter book targeted to ages 6–8, the book is about a small house-loving dog and a large wandering cat who become friends in Paris. It is based on a real pair of animals that the author met in Paris.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Rich_Asians" title="Crazy Rich Asians">
The novel begins with a quote from the 14th-century Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta:The book is told from the perspective of five main characters: Rachel Chu, Nicholas (Nick) Young, Eleanor Young, Astrid Leong, and Edison Cheng. The story revolves around the grand wedding of Singapore's most eligible bachelor, Colin Khoo, and a fashion icon, Araminta Lee, which everyone calls the wedding of the year.Rachel is a New York University (NYU) professor of economics, who is originally from Cupertino, California. She was raised by her single mother and leads a typical middle-class life. When her boyfriend Nick, an NYU professor of history, takes her to meet his family in Singapore, she is completely unaware of what is in store for her. Although he grew up in London, Nick is a Singapore native. Unknown to anyone in New York, he not only belongs to one of the top ten wealthiest families in Asia but is possibly sole heir to his family's great fortune. Despite this wealth, he was raised to be humble and to keep a low profile. Because of his upbringing, he is confident his family will approve of his simple girlfriend, but things turn out very differently than he expects.Eleanor Young is Nick's controlling mother who is obsessed with prestige and pride. Since Nick was born, she has allowed her mother-in-law, the Young family matriarch, to practically raise her only child, so that, when the time comes, she will leave the family fortune to him. As a result, Eleanor is not very involved in Nick's upbringing and is even separated from his father, who chooses to live and work in Australia to manage their family's businesses there. She is also very adamant that Nick marry someone from the close-knit, rich circle of her friends and plans to sabotage Nick and Rachel's relationship. She hires a private detective to gather information on Rachel's family, which she later attempts to use to drive Rachel out of Nick's life, but ultimately results in her son freezing her out of his life. Rachel is shocked when she learns who her father, Zhou Fang Min, is and leaves to stay with her friend Goh Peik Lin and her family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_of_Owu" title="Women of Owu">
"Women of Owu" focuses on the aftermath of a 19th-century war-torn Owu Kingdom. It reflects on the pains, depression and agony of the survivors who were only women after the killing of all males in the kingdom by the combined forces of Ife, Oyo and Ijebu. The relationship between "Women of Owu" and "The Trojan Women" has been explored by Olakunbi Olasope.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax_(Ethel_Lina_White_novel)" title="Wax (Ethel Lina White novel)">
"Wax" is set in the small, fictional town of Riverpool. On the outskirts of the town is a mysterious Waxwork museum with a dark history. Young Journalist Sonia Thompson arrives at the town to work at the local newspaper, and is instantly intrigued by the museum. She meets the suspicious townspeople and soon predicts there will be another death at the museum. Very soon she is proved right, and it is up to Sonia to bust the legends surrounding the Waxworks and to discover who the real killer is.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunno_on_the_Moon" title="Dunno on the Moon">
## Beginning.Even before the events described in the book, Doono with Fuksiya and Selyodochka from Sun City visited the Moon and brought out the moon mineral with extraordinary properties (later called "lunit"). After a number of events it turns out that its rapprochement with the magnet gives the effect of local weightlessness that can allow to send to the moon a spaceship with large crew and supplies on board. As Doono hopes, there is intelligent life over there, which due to the loss of the atmosphere has moved inside of the Moon. The cosmonauts take the seeds of terrestrial cultivated plants with them. However, the exclusion of Dunno from the flight for stealing the weightlessness device from the Pavilion and careless handling of it, which nearly led to its loss, brings to these plans unexpected adjustments. Dunno instigates Roly-Poly, who was also not included into the crew, to fly as stowaways. The day before the launch they snuck into the rocket. At night before the flight Roly-Poly has changed his mind, but instead of getting out of the rocket accidentally launched it into flight in automatic mode.After the moon landing Dunno and Roly-Poly come out in space suits for a walk to a nearby mountain. In a cave Dunno falls into an icy tunnel leading down to the internal cavity of the moon and slides down, apparently sitting down, thereon in the sublunary space. Going down on a parafoil, he finds on the inner core of the moon (which the locals call the Earth, too) with the civilization of the same shorties, but living according to the laws of capitalism. The size of lunar plants, in contrast to terrestrial, is proportional to the height of the shorties so they appear to be undersized for Dunno. Roly-Poly, after losing Dunno, runs in panic back to the rocket.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love's_Rite" title="Love's Rite">
The book is an analysis of the issues surrounding the recognition of same-sex unions, and the relevance of this debate in democratic societies such as India. Vanita asks "Why should the state's refusal to recognise a union as marriage mean that the union is not a marriage?" Vanita emphasises the history of recognition of same-sex love, and notes that, based on her expert knowledge of ancient Indian texts, same-sex love and relationships are "deeply rooted in Indian culture". Vanita discusses the cultural and legal implications of same-sex marriage in India and the West.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_Ju's_House" title="Chu Ju's House">
Chu Ju lives in China near the Gan River with her parents and her grandmother. When she is fourteen, her mother gets pregnant and her whole family hopes the baby will be a boy. At this time in China, the law states that each family may only have two children, and tradition says that each family must have a son. However, a baby girl is born, and so Chu Ju's father and grandmother both agree that the baby girl must be sent away to make room for a son, although Chu Ju's mother begs to be able to keep her baby. Chu Ju develops a love for her new sister, so she decides to make a sacrifice. Chu Ju runs away secretly. This way, her parents will only have one daughter, her new baby sister, Hua.First, Chu Ju gets a job on a fishing boat cleaning fish and mending nets with the mother while the man and boys fish. After that, she gets a job working with silk worms at a silk farm, but she and the other girls who work there are treated horribly. Chu Ju eventually writes a letter in protest of their unfair treatment, since she is the only one who knows how to write (her parents paid for her schooling, even though girls didn't normally receive educations). The girls are treated somewhat better, but Chu Ju loses her job. Subsequently, Chu Ju meets a woman named Han Na and gets a job helping her with her rice paddies. Han Na comes to love Chu Ju as a daughter, so when she dies, Han Na leaves land for Chu Ju. Four years after she secretly left home, Chu Ju decides to go home to visit her family. Her parents are overjoyed to see her. Chu Ju is relieved to see that her little sister, Hua, is safe and was not sent away. Chu Ju's mother has also had another baby when she was away. She gave birth to another girl named Nu Hai, but this one is going to stay in their family, even if it means they will break tradition since, there will be no son in their family because of certain circumstances. After Chu Ju's visit with her family, Chu Ju goes back to her rice paddies determined to save up money to pay for her sisters' educations.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Country_(book)" title="The Other Country (book)">
The book examines the growing divides between small-town and big-city India, such as inequitable development and opportunities. Pande investigates the "Great Language Divide" between India's two official languages, Hindi and English, and analyses the water management issues facing India. Pande also writes about the increasing polarisation on social issues between urban areas and smaller towns. The book features various stories of women who have fought against societal expectations to achieve their goals. Pande also condemns the objectification of women in capitalist media and patriarchy in India.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knife_and_the_Butterfly" title="The Knife and the Butterfly">
The novel, set in Houston, is about a 15-year old Salvadoran American MS-13 gang member named Martín "Azael" Arevalo. He wakes up in a prison cell and observes 17-year old White American Alexis "Lexi" Allen, who is member of another gang, Crazy Crew. As the novel unfolds he begins to recover his memory and learn whether the upcoming trial will be his or hers. The flashbacks make up about fifty percent of the work. Azael slowly gains sympathy for Lexi, even though he originally hates her. The book reveals that on June 16, 2011 Azael died in a gang fight in Montrose, at Ervan Chew Park. Lexi had killed him; she initially maintains self-defense at the trial, but confesses to wanting to prove herself to Crazy Crew, and that Azael was not actually trying to kill her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_on_the_Girls" title="Turning on the Girls">
A decade ago women took over world and have changed everything, schools, language, women's and men's thinking. Lisa, a twenty-two-year-old who works at a government ministry dedicated to mental revolution, is given the task to update female sexual fantasies, which means no masochistic or romantic daydreams. Not all men are pleased with this new world order and Harmony, an underground men's movement, plans a violent uprising to put things back the way they were, while Lisa and her assistant Justin are recruited to infiltrate Harmony.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Can't_Wait" title="What Can't Wait">
The main character, 17-year old Marisa Moreno, comes from a Mexican American family, and resides in a Hispanic neighborhood in Houston, Texas. Her immigrant father wants Marisa to help the family by working longer hours at a grocery store and help take care of her sister's child, since her sister was medically uninsured and needs to work longer hours in order to pay her husband's medical bills. Even though Marisa wants to study engineering, and attend the University of Texas at Austin, her father tells her that women should not be involved in mathematics-related professions. In the story Marisa applies to the engineering program at UT Austin, and is accepted, but her family feels it is far away from home.Marisa's teacher, boyfriend, and mother try to convince her to fight for a more promising future. At one time a student attempts to rape Marisa. Marisa, stretched thin by her obligations and ultimate goals, experiences conflict, but then learns to prioritize her own goals. "Publishers Weekly" stated that "Marisa is aware that pursuing a life that's fulfilling on her own terms comes with a price" and that she makes a "bittersweet decision". She ultimately goes to university and leaves Houston.Georgia Christgau of Middle College High School at LaGuardia Community College in New York City wrote that the attempted sexual assault scene is "too quickly drawn to be convincing." "Publishers Weekly" stated that the novel's coverage of teenage pregnancy was "sensitive". Katrina Hedeen of "The Horn Book Guide" wrote that the ending was "too-tidy". "Kirkus Reviews", however, describes the ending as "hopeful but never too-tidy". "Publishers Weekly" described the ending as "honest and satisfying".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Immortal_Nicholas" title="The Immortal Nicholas">
Before he was "father Christmas", he was simply a father. "The Immortal Nicholas" follows the story of Agios, a tired, broken man who encounters the Christ child by chance, and studies him throughout his life from a distance. The novel is described by author Glenn Beck as an origin story for Santa Claus.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_Darkness_(novel)" title="Out of Darkness (novel)">
The novel begins with the school explosion and then recounts prior events, beginning in September 1936. Seventeen-year old Naomi Vargas, a high school senior who originates from San Antonio, moves in with her oil field worker stepfather. She becomes friends and falls in love with Wash Fuller, an African-American boy. Naomi deals with overt racism in New London and her history with her father. After the explosion occurs, the townspeople blame Wash for the disaster.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aesthetic_Contract" title="The Aesthetic Contract">
In the book Sussman traces intellectual enterprise, art, and artistic conventions since what he calls the "broader modernity" (marked by the end of the Medieval period in Europe) and suggests that art and its conventions have essentially become a secular institution that have essentially replaced the moral allegiances the subject owed to the Church before the reformation increasing a sense of personal freedom.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_Gray_Flannel_Suit_(novel)" title="The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (novel)">
Tom and Betsy Rath live in a rundown house in Westport, Connecticut in 1953. They have three children (two girls and a boy) and money problems. Tom is 33 years old, a Harvard graduate, and works at a Manhattan charitable organization.Tom barely survived as an Army paratroop officer during World War II, having fought in both the European and Pacific combat theaters; he had an extramarital affair in Italy during the former. He has haunting flashbacks of the affair, as well as his combat experiences; he killed 17 men in combat, including accidentally killing his friend with a hand grenade in the heat of battle. His stay-at-home wife knows only that Tom has somehow "changed" since the war.One day while reflecting on the inadequacy of his house, Tom runs into a friend who works at the United Broadcasting Corporation, a New York-based television network. This friend encourages Tom to apply for a new opening in public relations. Tom gets the job working for Ralph Hopkins, the top man at the network, an empire-builder surrounded by politicking yes-men. Hopkins is set to propose the establishment of national mental health services to a group of physicians and offer his own prestige and network toward that end. Tom must figure out how his boss can best present the proposal so that the doctors will rise in unison and appoint Hopkins to spearhead the campaign.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark-Thirty" title="The Dark-Thirty">
The Legend of Pin Oak tells the story of Henri, a free biracial man married to an enslaved woman. When his white half-brother, Harper, sells Henri’s wife and child, the family flees and has to make a life or death decision.We Organized is about a slave who was freed before Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. His narrative describes voodoo rituals performed by slaves against their master.Justice: Riley Holt, the richest man in Tallahatchie, Mississippi, is murdered. White garage owner Hoop Granger blames black veterinary student Alvin Tinsley for the crime, and gathers a group of his fellow Klansmen to lynch Alvin. After Alvin's murder, Hoop is haunted when the true story of Riley Holt's death refuses to disappear from his windows.The 11:59: Lester Simmons, an old Pullman car porter, tells about the train called the 11:59. No porter hears the whistle of the 11:59 and lives. One night Lester hears the whistle of the 11:59 and tries to escape.The Sight: Esau is born with a veil and according to the midwife has a gift called the sight, which could be blessing or a curse. Esau sees future visions and succeeds at controlling the visions, but is forced to use his ability for evil when his father Tall comes back.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Dogs" title="Fifteen Dogs">
Over drinks at Toronto's Wheat Sheaf Tavern, Hermes and Apollo get into a debate about whether animals could live happily if they had the same cognitive and speech abilities as humans. They decide to wager a year of servitude on the outcome of granting the gifts of human reasoning and language to a group of dogs in a nearby clinic.Given their newfound abilities, the dogs are able to escape the clinic and make their way to the city's High Park, where they set up their own new protosociety. The novel then explores the functioning of their new society through the impact of human values, such as individuality and personal freedom, on the conventionally hierarchical social order of dog packs. Key characters in the canine society include Atticus, a Neapolitan Mastiff who naturally emerges as the group leader; Majnoun, a black poodle who is reluctant to trust other dogs; Frick and Frack, a pair of Labrador retrievers who are leery about their new reality; and Prince, a mutt who embraces his language skills to become a poet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Earth_Gods" title="The Earth Gods">
The narrator describes the appearance of three great earth gods at nightfall on the mountain. They begin a discussion. Their conversation covers many topics that deal with spirituality and the human condition. The gods comment often on love and the heart, sharing each of their views. The gods then close the discussion by announcing their rest.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Strings_of_Frankie_Presto" title="The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto">
Franceso “Frankie” Presto was born in Villarreal, Province of Castellón, Spain in August, 1936 during the Spanish Civil War in Saint Paschal Church when the church was being raided. To keep him quiet, his mother, Carmencita, sang “Lagrima” by Francisco Tárrega. She died draped in a nun’s tunic while the nun present at the time took him in. He was thrown into the Mijares River because he kept crying.Marcus Belgrave says that Frankie saved a girl's life who had a knife pressed up to her throat by stunning the audience by playing quickly. He swears that one of the strings of Frankie’s guitar had turned blue.After Frankie was thrown in the river, a hairless dog pulls him where he is found by Baffa Rubio, an owner of a sardine factory who raises him as his own. When Frankie turned five, his vision started to get worse as water from the river infected his eyes, so Baffa got him to learn music as he could work without vision. The music school rejects and is instead taught by a blind guitarist called El Maestro. To protect his feelings, Baffa lies about Frankie’s mother and instead gives Frankie a picture of his sister. When Frankie is around six, he climbs up a tree and watches the military bury six bodies with a girl named Aurora. He sings to her with his guitar and falls in love. Upon returning home, he finds that his house has been raided and his father missing. El Maestro finds out that Baffa was taken prisoner after some workers say that he was a socialist. Baffa instructs him to send the boy to America with his sister and tells him where to find 600,000 pesetas. El Maestro takes Alberto, a conga player, to retrieve the money. They send Frankie on a boat by bribing sailors after El Maestro gives him his guitar, the six magic strings and lets him perform an American song in public. After the boat leaves, Alberto takes the rest of the money and pushes El Maestro into the ocean. It is revealed that Frankie is the biological son of Elmaestro (Carlos Andres Presto). The magic strings were given to Carmencita by the gypsy, Ceferino Giménez Malla.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobody_Can_Love_You_More" title="Nobody Can Love You More">
The book follows the daily lives of sex workers living on G.B. Road, New Delhi, a large red-light district in India's capital as they "raise their children, cook for their lovers, visit temples, shrines and mosques, complain about pimps and brothel owners, listen to film songs, and solicit and entertain customers". The book seeks to paint a portrait of women for whom sex is a way to make a living. The book contains photography described by the publishers as "haunting"
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Fedya,_His_Dog,_and_His_Cat" title="Uncle Fedya, His Dog, and His Cat">
Fyodor lives in the apartment with his parents, who call him "Uncle" because of his seriousness, independence, and intelligence. He learns to read at 4, and starts cooking for himself at 6. Unlike his mother, he is very fond of animals. One day he meets a stray talking cat, who used to spend his nights in the attic but has nowhere to live now due to the house repair works. Fyodor takes the cat home, but his mother doesn't let him keep it, so the boy decides to run away and take his cat with him. The next day, they leave a note to Fyodor's parents and take a bus to a rural area. Fyodor names the cat Matroskin. They arrive in a village called Prostokvashino "(lit. Soured milk village)", and settle in an empty house. A talking dog named Sharik promises to guard their new house, so they all start living together.The next day they go swimming and on their way back meet with curious Pechkin the Postmaster. He insists that they subscribe to something. Fyodor chooses "Murzilka", Sharik opts for "something about hunting" and Matroskin politely refuses, saying that he would rather save money.Fyodor's parents miss their son and begin looking for him. They publish a missing person article in the newspaper. Meanwhile, Matroskin decides to buy a cow. Unfortunately, they do not have any money. Fyodor suggests that they look for a buried treasure in the forest. They walk to the forest, find a hill with a cave, and Fyodor starts digging nearby. He indeed finds a chest with money and jewels. They all decide to buy presents for themselves. Sharik wants a gun for hunting and a dog collar with medallions; Matroskin needs a cow (he decides to "borrow" one at the local service bureau and try it out before making a purchase); Fyodor wants to buy a bike, but his friends convince him to get a tractor instead, because it is much more practical.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kukotsky_Enigma" title="The Kukotsky Enigma">
The novel follows the life of the family of gynecologist Pavel Alekseevich Kukotsky. The story follows him from Stalin’s 1936 ban on abortions through the mid-1960s.The novel consists of four parts. The first describes the life of the Kukotsky family members before the 1960s: his wife Yelena, their adopted daughter Tanya, a classmate Toma, and a former nun working as a housekeeper in Yelena’s home. The second part is a dream Yelena experiences while hovering between life and death. The third part covers the life of the family after 1960 and up to Tanya's death. The fourth part forms a brief epilogue.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_All_in_Your_Head_(book)" title="It's All in Your Head (book)">
In this book, O’Sullivan recounts her most memorable interactions of patients with severe physical symptoms that she found to come from their mental state in a total of twelve chapters. She starts the book introducing herself and providing information on her medical career and her passion for neurology and mental disorders.The story is not sequential, instead each chapter depicts a different memory of her interactions with her patients. Each patient displays different symptoms varying in severity, but O’Sullivan comes to the same diagnosis and conclusion that these physical symptoms are actually psychosomatic disorders.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_the_R's" title="Rolling the R's">
R. Zamora Linmark presents the story of "Rolling the R’s" in a series of vignettes, offering readers glimpses into the lives of young people exploring their sexuality, education, assimilation into mainstream American society, and other aspects of their identity. The protagonists of the story are a group of fifth grade students living in Kalihi, Hawaii during the 1970s. There is no clear plot line, but there are specific character developments throughout the story. Edgar becomes more confident about his sexuality and gains more control over the ways he uses his body. With Edgar's help, Vicente also begins to accept his queer sexuality. The recent immigrants (Florante, Mai Lin, Vicente) become more comfortable with their language usage, consequentially also becoming more confident in their ethnic identities and racial histories. Examples of racial and ethnic prejudice between groups, and the stress caused by their teachers' demands that they speak standard English in the classroom rather than pidgin, become more pervasive throughout the novel. These experiences cause the characters to gain self-confidence and strengthen their friendships in order to maintain their sense of well-being in Kalihi.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_(Vaz_novel)" title="Mariana (Vaz novel)">
The plot retells the seventeenth-century romance between Mariana Alcoforado, a nun at the Convent of Beja, and an officer in the French army.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katy_(novel)" title="Katy (novel)">
Katy and her siblings often sneak next door to their neighbour's back garden, calling it a secret garden. They play all sorts of games.She has a best friend Cecy, who comes to the secret garden too. Katy's family consists of her dad, who is a doctor, Izzie, her stepmother, Clover, her sister who is described as sweet and kind, Elsie, her stepsister who she does not get along with, and her half siblings, twins Dorry and Jonnie, and 'little' Phil.During the school holidays, her father’s old patient, Helen, comes on a visit. Helen is in a wheelchair due to rheumatic arthritis. Katy and her siblings are inspired by her deeply. At the end of Helen's visit, she produces one of her possessions, a seahorse necklace, and decides to give it to Katy. Katy vows to treasure it forever.One day during the summer, Katy decides to sneak out to go to a skatepark, but she can't find it. In despair, she decides to go back home but breaks the chain on her seahorse necklace in the process. Her stepmother Izzie grounds her for sneaking out, and Katy is not allowed to go to the swimming pool with the rest of her family.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_East_and_the_West" title="The East and the West">
The book is divided into six chapters (excluding introduction).Vivekananda told the culture, the social customs of India is quite different from the Western countries. He claimed that religion ("dharma") is the foundation of India.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Twisters" title="Night of the Twisters">
At 5:00 p.m. on the afternoon of June 3, 1980, three hours before the tornadic thunderstorm hits Hall County, Danny and his best friend Arthur Darlington – an inquisitive California native with six sisters – take a bike trip to the Mormon Island State Recreation Area to go on their first swim of the summer, where they discuss the art class taught by Danny's aunt, Goldie, where Arthur created a bull roarer as part of a Native American crafts project (and accidentally broke a light bulb in the basement with); while at Mormon Island, they run into Arthur's 14-year-old older sister Stacey – whom Danny is infatuated with – and 10-year-old younger sister Ronnie Vae, whom Arthur declines to give a ride home before the storm hits. On their way home, Danny and Arthur are foreshadowed with the oncoming storm, when they endure strong winds as they cut through the Fonner Park parking lot and Sand Crane Drive.An hour later, Danny asks his mother Linda – who quit her job as a hairdresser to take care of her infant son Ryan after he was born – to see if Arthur can stay for dinner, while his father John plans to head out to his parents' farm in Phillips after dinner to fix his father's broken tractor. After dinner, Goldie arrives to borrow Linda's bowling ball to attend a bowling league night at Meves Bowl, as the boys are about to take a bike ride through their neighborhood, where they run into their elderly neighbor, Belle Smiley, whose hair Linda is supposed to style before a church bazaar that Friday – and visit the Darlington's house. When they return to the Hatch house, as Linda sews a birthday dress for Grandma Hatch, Arthur sits down to watch television, and as Danny looks for snacks, the show they turned to on KGIN (referred to in the book by its real-life brand name, "10/11," in reference to Lincoln parent station KOLN and its Grand Island-based satellite) is interrupted by a severe weather bulletin about a tornado and funnel cloud sightings north of Grand Island, in St. Paul and Dannebrog. Several minutes after Linda leaves to check on Mrs. Smiley after being unable to contact her by phone, and placing Danny and Arthur in charge of looking after Ryan, tornado sirens blare as a worried Danny tries to phone his grandmother to warn his grandparents and John of the oncoming tornado, only for the siren to abruptly cut off after Danny hangs up when the phone line cuts out.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monk_as_Man" title="The Monk as Man">
Swami Vivekananda's personal life's troubles, anxiety, his health, diseases, intimate side of him —these are the main topics of the book. In this book, Shankar portrayed "The Monk" as "a man". The book is divided into five chapters (except "Foreword" and "Acknowledgement")—
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumplin'" title="Dumplin'">
Willowdean, nicknamed "Dumplin’" by her mother and called "Will" by her friends, is a plus-size teenager who has always felt comfortable with her body and herself. She doesn't care that her mother was a teen beauty queen or that people have poked fun at her weight. However, all of these changes when she meets Bo, a handsome teenage boy her age that has expressed interest in dating her. Suddenly Will is full of insecurities and can't bring herself to date him out of fear of what others would think and say. In order to prove to her self-worth, Will has decided to enter and win the Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant. But, as the date of the pageant approaches, Will finds that it's not that easy to take part in a pageant — especially after her best friend Ellen decides to enter.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyes_in_the_Fishbowl" title="Eyes in the Fishbowl">
Fourteen-year-old Dion James lives with his charming but improvident father in an apartment in an unnamed city. Dion is forced to work to help support himself and his father. He began working at age eight as a shoeshine boy near Alcott-Simpson's, an upscale department store. He became fascinated with the large, luxurious store, spending many hours there and fantasizing about owning the store or just living in it. An Alcott-Simpson's clerk named Madame Stregovitch befriended him, and he often visits her at the store.Dion notices a tense atmosphere in Alcott-Simpson's, and hears rumors of vandalism and strange events there. He sees a beautiful girl his own age, with black eyes and long black hair, escape from a guard who is chasing her because she is wearing a sweater from the store with the price tag still attached (suggesting she is attempting to shoplift the sweater). One day, Dion hears a scream from the store mezzanine. He tries to see what is causing the commotion, but becomes worried about encountering the store security guards lest he be unfairly blamed, and ends up hiding from them under a bed in the furniture department and getting stuck in the store after closing time. He is found by the girl he saw earlier, who introduces herself as Sara and helps him leave the store.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side_Effects_May_Vary" title="Side Effects May Vary">
Alice is sixteen and has been diagnosed with leukemia. She's been warned that she may not have long to live, so Alice has decided that she's going to use her remaining time in order to accomplish things she's always wanted to do, even if doing so may come across as cruel or unkind. Her friend Harvey has agreed to assist her during this process and together the two manage to exact revenge on her ex-boyfriend and enemies, while also taking part in positive things like revisiting her past. However just as she's managed to complete her plans for revenge, Alice discovers that she's in remission - and will live. Now she has to deal with the fallout from her actions and try to find a way to deal with what she's done and her complicated feelings for Harvey, who has always loved her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Ancient_World" title="History of the Ancient World">
The book "History of the Ancient World" provides information on the history of the ancient states in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China. It also includes the history of ancient Greece and Rome up to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. Its several chapters deal with religious views, art, and culture of the peoples of the ancient world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.S._I_Still_Love_You" title="P.S. I Still Love You">
After the fight between Lara Jean, Josh and Peter at the Coveys' Christmas party, Lara Jean realizes that she has fallen for Peter. Hoping to reconcile, Lara Jean heads over to Peter's house with a love letter she hopes for him to read. After a brief talk, the two almost kiss but his brother interrupts and then they decide they want to be a real couple. At school, Lara Jean discovers that someone has posted a video of her and Peter making out in the hot tub from the ski trip. A rumor spreads that the two were having sex. After seeing the video during school, Peter is furious and warns the anonymous poster not to mess with Lara Jean.Before Margot leaves to go back to college in Scotland, she tells Lara Jean to get a job. Taking Margot's advice, but not wanting to work at the hospital gift shop like her dad suggested, Lara Jean makes up a story on how she’s volunteering to start a scrapbooking class at the Belleview retirement home. Not wanting her family to find out the truth, Lara Jean goes to get the job and ends up liking it. She gets closer to Stormy, an elderly woman who has a feisty temper. Stormy gives Lara Jean relationship advice, though it usually contradicts with Lara Jean’s thoughts. Meanwhile, Kitty begins an attempt to set up their father with the neighbor across the street, Trina Rothschild.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Dark_(Kuprin_novel)" title="In the Dark (Kuprin novel)">
Traveling by night train, Zinaida Pavlovna is rescued from the unwelcome attentions of a fellow passenger by Alarin, a young engineer whom she falls in love with. In the town she takes up the position of a governess in the household of the rich industrialist Kashperov who determines to possess her. Having learned of Alarin's facing imprisonment for gambling away official funds, Zinaida offer herself to Kashperov for money, so as to repay her beloved one's debt. Admiring her selflessness, Kashperov gives her the money unconditionally. Recognizing nothing but base greed in Alarin's response, Zinaida is filled with contempt for him. She falls ill from nervous shock, and dies. Kashperov kills himself by drinking prussic acid, and Alarin leaves the town a broken man.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faery_Rebels" title="Faery Rebels">
## Knife.Knife is a young faery hunter. The faery race is dying off and Knife is convinced that humanity may hold the key to saving them from almost certain extinction as their magic is slowly disappearing, and will not last much longer. However her Queen is adamant that faeries and humans should never mix. Despite this, Knife defies her ruler, meeting and befriending the paraplegic artist Paul McCormick, to whom she is instantly and inexplicably drawn.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narendra_Dai" title="Narendra Dai">
The novel has many Characters, viz. Narendra dai, Gauri, Munaria, Sannani and the narrator. Munaria is a poor girl living with her father and working at Narendra's home. Narendra is a wealthy man married with Gauri, but he dislikes her and loves Munaria. So a love triangle develops in between them as Gauri likes Narendra. Narendra has huge name and fame in the community. The family tries to develop a well relation between Gauri &amp; Narendra but fails every time. The narrator always feels sorry for Gauri and dislikes Munaria. Kaptanni Aama is the cause of twist in the novel as she prefers racial discrimination. One day Munaria gives water to a Sarkee man which is of low standard and Kaptanni aama sees this. Kaptanni aama becomes angry and throws unorthodox words upon Munaria. Narendra becomes angry too with Kaptanni aama and vows to leave the village as no one was able to convince him. The next day not only Narendra but Munaria too leaves the village with him. As the narrator grows he went Banaras, India for higher studies. One day he sees Munaria in the city. At that stage, he finds that Narendra had already left for village due to tuberculosis and will never be with Munaria. Munaria is living her saddest life compelling sharing her body with Narendra's betrayer friend. Narrator slowly feels that Munaria is good girl. On the other hand, Narendra reaches the village and loves Gauri living happily. But one day Narendra dies due to tuberculosis. Gauri sti becomes happy thinking that she get love from her husband although at last but finally grabbed it. Thus she lives a life of widow happily and don't throw Sindoor and Potay as other widow's do. Some years after narrator gets a news that Gauri died in 1990 earthquake after 9 days of injury because whole house fall down upon her and unable to escape.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_Country_(novel)" title="Cat Country (novel)">
The unnamed first-person narrator's spaceship crash-lands on Mars. His companion perishes in the crash, and he is stranded alone on Mars. He soon meets the planet's inhabitants, who have the faces of cats but otherwise appear human, and is captured by some of these cats and meets the leader of the group, called Scorpion, a landlord who owns a plantation of "reverie leaves", an addictive drug reminiscent of opium that is used by all cats. The narrator is employed by Scorpion to guard his reverie leaves and eventually learns Felinese and gets acquainted with the country and its culture, guided by Scorpion and his son Young Scorpion. He encounters many problems in society, including ill-treatment of women, lack of hygiene and poor building standards, culminating in a visit to a school where a single gunshot makes the walls collapse. The schools give out university diplomas on the first day, and the museums are filled with empty rooms as the contents have been sold off to foreigners. The political debate is dominated by "brawls", political parties modeled after foreign systems, with the currently leading ideology being "Everybody Shareskyism", whose leader killed and then replaced the cats' emperor, and slogans composed of pseudo-Russian gibberish. Many cat people are killed in a revolution, and finally the country is invaded by a foreign power. The invaders lock up the remaining cat people in a cage, and they end up biting each other to death. Some months later, the narrator is rescued by a passing French spacecraft.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonstar_Odyssey" title="Moonstar Odyssey">
In the distant future a planet settled by humans was once all airless moon rock. Human terraforming has transformed the moon into a world of shallow oceans and islands which are the peaks for the former moon craters.A young girl, Jobe, is sent to Option, the island of learning on the planet, to decide who she must be. When one of the gigantic opaque plasma shields that surround and protect the planet is destroyed, Jobe realizes she must begin her quest that the moonstar has destined for her long ago.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thanksgiving_Story" title="The Thanksgiving Story">
Passengers aboard the "Mayflower", "Giles", "Constance" and "Damaris Hopkins" are on the way to the New World to start a new life with their parents. Their baby brother Oceanus is born on the crowded ship. On their arrival, the Pilgrims face hardships of hunger, cold and sickness. They go through a harsh winter in Plymouth. When spring comes, the settlers plant crops with the help of two Native Americans, Samoset and Squanto. Due to the help of the Native Americans, the Pilgrims are able to survive their first year. The story concludes with a great feast to which the Pilgrims invite the Native American chief Massasoit, Squanto and their people who helped them survive hunger, cold and sickness in the New World.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_and_the_Lion" title="Andy and the Lion">
A little boy named Andy is so interested in lions that he goes to the library and searches for a book about lions. That same night, his grandfather tells him a bedtime story about lions. Andy is so fascinated by the story that he has a dream about lions that same night. The next day, on his way to school, Andy meets a real lion. The lion has a thorn stuck in his paw and Andy helps pull the thorn out. This action makes Andy and the lion friends. Later in the story, a circus comes to Andy's town and of course, Andy attends. During the lion act, one of the lions jumps out of the cage, into the audience, right in front of Andy. Andy thinks it's the last day of his life. But lo and behold, it is his friend the lion, the very same one Andy had helped earlier to take the thorn out of his paw. Andy and the lion rejoice in the excitement of seeing one another again. When the crowd attempts to capture the lion, Andy protects it. The next day, there is a parade, and Andy and the lion are in the lead. Andy receives an award for bravery. At the end of the story, Andy returns the book about lions that he borrowed from the library, pulling his friend the lion behind him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Regulation_Institute" title="The Time Regulation Institute">
The main character is Hayri İrdal, who narrates the novel and presents it like a memoir. The novel discusses his and other people's formation of the Time Regulation Institute, which changes the time on Turkey's clocks to that used in the West and educate public about the importance of "being on top of one's own time". Before the Institute, Hayri Irdal meets a psychiatrist named Dr Ramiz, who later introduces İrdal to Halit Ayarcı (the Regulator). Halit Ayarcı decides to establish the institute after talking about time while drinking rakı with Hayri İrdal. According to Saïd Sayrafiezadeh of "Publishers Weekly" the narrative starts late in the novel. Later in the novel, Hayri Itdal publishes a novel depicting himself and other characters at the Siege of Vienna.The plot is a reference to the 1926 Gregorian Calendar Act by Kemal Atatürk.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inés_of_My_Soul" title="Inés of My Soul">
This historical novel is about the main facts of the life of Inés (an important figure in Chile), written in older Ines' first-person voice, with its intended audience to be Ines' adoptive daughter, Isabel.In the first chapter, "Europe, 1500-1537", she describes her life in Plasencia, Spain, mainly her married life and affair with Juan of Málaga, in addition to her hard trip to America, motivated not only to find her husband, but also to find freedom.In "America, 1537-1540", she relates to us her life in The Cuzco, the decadence of the Incan empire under Francisco Pizarro and the political problems that they faced. Also, she begins her relationship with Pedro de Valdivia, who develops an obsession to conquer Chile, promoted by what was told to him by the old Diego of Almagro.In the chapters of "Trip to Chile, 1540-1541" and "Santiago of the New Extremadura, 1541-1543" she talks about the hard conquest of Chile, the life with Pedro of Valdivia and how the two founded the capital of the country together."The Tragic Years, 1543-1549" deal with the poverty of the first years of Santiago as a city and her marriage with Rodrigo of Quiroga when Pedro of Valdivia goes back in an expedition to Peru, in search of more soldiers and settlers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bitch_(novel)" title="The Bitch (novel)">
Ladies man Nico Constantine comes to Las Vegas to make a killing at the casinos but ends up owing the mob, big time. Nico then meets the beautiful and wealthy Fontaine Khaled and sees her as a potential mark.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_Boy_(novel)" title="Farm Boy (novel)">
The story begins in "Burrow", a farm house in Devon where the protagonist, a young boy at the beginning of the story, visits his Grandpa. The young boy enjoys regularly visiting his Grandpa, especially during the summer, and imagining himself driving the old green Fordson tractor in the back of the barn. It is acknowledged that this tractor is very important. The grandfather tells the protagonist the story behind how he loves swallows- that they were the first birds he ever saw and when his Father was young (the great-grandfather of the protagonist) the Father would go out and pinch the eggs of sparrows and rooks because they would always interfere with the farm; his Father would leave the swallows' nests alone because they never bothered his farm. In fact, Father even punched a friend for stealing from a swallow's nest, getting Father into trouble. Father is described as always managing to get into fights when he was younger.The protagonist's Grandpa then went on to describe events between his own Father and a horse named Joey, indicating that the pair were Albert and Joey from the prequel. He describes the lengths his Father went to keep Joey safe, even joining the army to find Joey when he was taken away to be used in WWI. Father was only 14 years old at the time of joining the army and had to lie to get in. This section is primarily a flashback to the previous book and the events around and before the war, but from another perspective. After such events and the end of WWI, the protagonist's great-grandfather was commonly referred to as the "Corporal" by the townspeople.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oʻtgan_kunlar" title="Oʻtgan kunlar">
The novel covered the events of 19th century. The events were presented by the love story of Otabek and Kumush, the leading characters. The course of events takes place in an environment of bloody struggles of local rulers for power. In Days Gone By, as in other major epics, we encounter the multiplicity of storytelling, the presence of secondary subjects, and a series of escalating and tragic events.The image of Otabek, who promotes progressive ideas, is the ideological and compositional center of the novel. He openly opposed the outdated economic relations in trade and pursued a new approach to family and marital problems. There is a conflict between Otabek and the forces that cling to the old, delay the development of the country. Abdulla Qodiriy speaks on behalf of his protagonist.At the same time, the writer follows the fate of an Uzbek woman. Cruel traditions, including polygamy, lead to a deadly feud between Kumush and Zaynab.With extraordinary love and sincerity, the writer creates the image of Kumush, who overcomes the trials of life with a pure, all-encompassing love for Otabek. But tragedy is inevitable. She was poisoned by concubine, and Otabek died defending his homeland
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Society" title="The Secret Society">
"The Secret Society" examines Cecil Rhodes, his life and the secret society he founded with the ambition of bringing the world under British rule. The book suggests the society continued to have influence in British and world affairs, citing the Rhodes Scholarship and alleged links between the society and Chatham House and alleged influence on the peace terms to end World War I and appeasement of Hitler. The book draws on diaries and letters and also investigates and supports suggestions Rhodes was gay.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karan_Ghelo" title="Karan Ghelo">
The Rajput king Karan Vaghela rules Anhilwad Patan, a large kingdom located in north Gujarat, and is well-served by his prime minister, Madhav. It happens one day that he comes face-to-face with Madhav's wife, Roopsundari (who, like all well-born women, lives in seclusion) and has a chat with her. The king becomes besotted by her and, after pondering for a long time, decides to set aside all considerations of decency and propriety in order to avail himself of the woman. He sends the minister away on a mission and, in his absence, abducts Roopsundari. Madhav's brother is killed by the king's men while making a heroic but vain attempt to protect his sister-in-law. Later the same day, his wife Gunasundari commits Sati by immolating herself on the funeral pyre of her valiant husband. The hapless Roopsundari, after being abducted and taken to the palace, kills herself before it is possible for the king to ruin her virtue. She dies with her chastity intact, and the king has gained nothing but infamy for his despicable deed.He has also made a dangerous and relentless enemy. His former minister Madhav has escaped the devastation of his family. He abandons Anhilwad Patan for good and makes his way to Delhi. On his way, he experiences many adventures, including several wonderful ones at the almost mystical Mount Abu. Madhav eventually reaches Delhi, where he persuades the Muslim sultan Allauddin Khilji to invade Gujarat, promising him all help in the venture and much plunder at the end of it. As former minister, Madhav is a knowledgeable and influential man. With his help, Khilji invades Gujarat, destroys Patan fort and plunders the treasures of that kingdom and of several others. On his part, King Karan Vaghela performs many heroic feats on battlefield, but eventually loses not just his kingdom but also his wife, Kaularani.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor_and_the_Kite" title="The Emperor and the Kite">
In Imperial China, there is an emperor who has four sons and three daughters that meant the world to him. He, later on, has a fourth daughter named Djeow Seow. This emperor barely pays attention to the small and young Djeow Seow. One day these "bad" men come and take the emperor from his throne to an isolated and secluded tower and then lie to everyone that the emperor is dead. The "bad" men did not notice Djeow Seow watching all the events unfold from a corner. She preserves her father's life by sending him baskets of food via kite to the hidden tower. The daughter used to play with her kite every day because no one noticed or paid any attention to her. This being her chance, she thinks of the idea to use her kite string to rescue her father. The emperor then slides down along the string of the kite to safety and returns home to reclaim China from these people who kidnapped him. He rules happily with his youngest daughter now by his side, showering her with love and affection after the events that unfolded.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_from_the_Well" title="The Girl from the Well">
## "The Girl from the Well".Okiku is a restless spirit that has been wandering the earth. As her own life was stolen from her by a murderer, Okiku devotes her afterlife to finding and killing anyone that has taken the life of a child, as well as helping other ghosts find the eternal rest that she has continually been denied. It's an unhappy existence and one that seems like it will be forever unchanging until she meets Tark, a teenage boy whose body contains evil that's only barely contained by tattoos that cover his body.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_When_Stardust_Fell" title="The Year When Stardust Fell">
The menace in this story consists of dust from the tail of a comet. It consists of a colloid, analogous to smoke, that incorporates an unknown transuranic element. That element has a great affinity for metal surfaces and it weakens their surface tension, thereby enabling rapidly moving parts to cold weld themselves into solid rigidity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_to_the_Bone_(novel)" title="Close to the Bone (novel)">
Logan McRae is still living in a caravan, his girlfriend, Samantha, is still unresponsive and someone is leaving bones on his doorstep. Besides all this he has to cope with Detective Inspector Steel, a string of assaults and someone who is going around and Necklacing people. More murders follow and the filming of a novel about witchcraft seems to be inspiring the Necklacing murders. This leads to a confrontation with McRae's erstwhile boss, David Insch, ex DI from Grampian Police, who is now on the production team for the film.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pransakha_Vivekananda" title="Pransakha Vivekananda">
The novel is based on the life of Swami Vivekananda. The books presents the eventful life of Vivekananda to the readers in form of a story, and not a mere biography.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_Explainer" title="Thing Explainer">
In "Thing Explainer", Randall Munroe explains the function and mechanics of 54 subjects using only the 1,000 most commonly used words in the English language. The book covers a wide range of topics, including pencils ("writing sticks"), cameras ("picture takers"), and microwave ovens ("food-heating radio boxes"), airplane engines ("sky boat pushers"), and atom bombs ("machines for burning cities"). Besides technology, Munroe also explains human organs and conceptual subjects such as the periodic table. The book challenges its readers to figure out what the technical name is of the subjects it describes, and was described by Jack Schofield of "ZDNet" as a "puzzle game."The book is illustrated using stick figures and includes a large number of nerdy jokes. Peter Gleick wrote for "The Huffington Post" that science communicators often use many uncommon and long words when describing complex topics, and that "Thing Explainer" explores "how to explain ideas and offer information in a simpler way."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bird's_Nest_(novel)" title="The Bird's Nest (novel)">
Each chapter of the novel follows a specific character. Chapter One follows Elizabeth, a shy, rather colorless young woman who lives with her Aunt Morgen and works as a secretary at a local museum. She frequently suffers from headaches, backaches, and insomnia, but no one knows the reason. Elizabeth begins receiving threatening, handwritten letters addressing her as "Dirty Dirty Lizzy." One morning, Morgen accuses Elizabeth of sneaking out of the house at night; Elizabeth insists that she has no memory of doing so. Aunt Morgen continues to be suspicious, eventually deciding to take her to a doctor when Elizabeth makes some initially-unspecified vulgar comments during dinner at a dinner party hosted by the Arrows, friends of Morgen's. The doctor is unable to help Elizabeth, but refers her to Doctor Wright, a psychiatrist whom he believes could be of help.The next chapter follows Doctor Wright. He first interviews Elizabeth and gains her trust, eventually convincing her to submit to hypnosis so he can better understand her problem. During his second attempt, he encounters two of Elizabeth's alter personalities: Beth, a calm and friendly girl; and Betsy, who is childlike and whom Dr. Wright initially believes to be a demon. He is able to procure some minor details as to Elizabeth's mother's whereabouts (and finds out she had died several years before), which he believes to be the root of the problem. Betsy begins threatening to take over Elizabeth, and manages to one night. Dr. Wright, whom Betsy refuses to answer until he identifies himself as "Dr. Wrong," believes that he's subdued her, and agrees to let her be in control for a day. He then tries to summon Beth to tell her to fight Betsy's impulses, but instead speaks to Betsy pretending to be Beth. He rushes home and types a letter of resignation to Aunt Morgen. Before he has a chance to send it, he gets a call from Morgen informing him that Elizabeth has run away from home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Feather" title="The Blue Feather">
Simon is a teenage boy that has never fully recovered from an incident in his past that cost him one of his eyes. His counsellors Graham and Burwood have tried to get him to come out of his protective shell, but the boy will have none of it and frequently tries to run away. However, when they introduce him to the bird sanctuary owner Greg Muir, Simon finds himself intrigued - especially when he discovers that Muir is going on a trip to the Australian outback to search for a new type of bird rumoured to have an extraordinarily large wingspan.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_of_the_Jewelled_Moth" title="The Mystery of the Jewelled Moth">
Sophie is an orphan who has been left penniless when her father dies. In "The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow", Sophie finds a job in the millinery department of Sinclair’s Department store and makes friends with Billy, a junior porter, and Lil, a “mannequin” by day and an aspiring actress by night.In "The Mystery of the Jewelled Moth", the Jewelled Moth, a priceless piece, disappears, and again Sophie, Lil and Billy have to solve the mystery, this time by infiltrating Lord Beaucastle’s fancy dress ball. Sophie had come face to face in "The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow" with the mysterious Baron, the arch-villain of the East End, and in "The Mystery of the Jewelled Moth", Sophie gets even closer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosopher_Kings_(novel)" title="The Philosopher Kings (novel)">
"The Philosopher Kings" is set fifteen years after the events described in "The Just City". The City, which was created by the time-traveling goddess Athena on the island of Thera prior to its Iron Age volcanic destruction, and then populated by people from all ages of human history and organized on the principles of Plato's "Republic", has now split into five feuding cities, while a further, sixth, faction has sailed away and remains lost.The god Apollo, who had chosen to live as a human in the original city, and, having married, is now the father of several children, is struck by a tragic loss, which causes him to become consumed with grief and a need for revenge. Though, being Apollo, he deals with these feelings rationally, his precocious teenage daughter Arete understands that these novel experiences (for a god) are leaving him unbalanced.With Arete and several of his sons, Apollo sets out by ship across the Aegean, in the company of sailors, soldiers and scholars, among them the by now 99 years old Florentine renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino. After a long voyage of exploration they discover the sixth, lost group from the City, which has been preaching Christianity to Iron Age Greeks. Apollo's confrontation with a longtime rival lets him finally start the healing process. Afterwards he turns toward peacemaking, but although he succeeds in his goals, the course of history seems by then to have been irrevocably changed by the anachronistic introduction of Christianity. It takes a surprising amount of divine power to put everything right again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unwanteds_(novel)" title="The Unwanteds (novel)">
On the island of Quill, anyone who displays artistic talent is Unwanted and sent to the Death Farm for execution when they turn thirteen. Alex Stowe, the son of two 'Necessaries', has two strikes against him and has known his fate since the age of ten. On the day of the annual Purge, he is declared an 'Unwanted' and sent to his death, along with twenty other young teens. Meanwhile, his twin brother, Aaron is declared a 'Wanted' and sent to the University for training as one of Quill's leaders. When Alex and the other Unwanteds are dropped off at The Great Lake Of Boiling Oil, however, they are shocked to find themselves welcomed into the magical land of Artimè, created, hidden, and led by a mage called Mr. Today ,with the help of his many staff. While Alex and his new friends learn magic from art and creativity, Aaron displays loyalty and usefulness by creating the Favored Farm, an exclusive farm intended to provide the Wanteds of Quill with an abundance of healthy plants and animals. Through this action, he attracts the notice of High Priest Justine and rises to the prominent position of her assistant secretary. Alex soon begins to miss his brother Aaron which leads to big mistakes on Alex's part.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight's_Last_Gleaming_(novel)" title="Twilight's Last Gleaming (novel)">
In the year 2024, significant oil reserves are discovered in the Indian Ocean, in Tanzanian territorial waters. The following year, U.S. President Jameson Weed and his staff meet in the White House. The United States of the year 2025 is suffering from a long period of economic stagnation, exacerbated by the effects of peak oil and global warming. Weed's plan to take control of the Tanzanian oil gets support from Vice President Leonard Gurney, a political hack, and from National Security Adviser Ellen Harbin, a hawkish neocon, but is opposed by Secretary of Defense Bill Stedman, who believes the plan is asking for trouble. Overconfident and unable to conceive of an American military defeat, the Weed administration decides to launch a regime-change operation, including threats, bribery attempts, paid rioters, and accusations that Tanzania is a ruthless dictatorship. Meanwhile, the President of Tanzania, refusing to yield his country's new-found wealth, and knowing that the United States has a history of fighting for oil, appeals to his country's ally, China, for protection.The members of the Chinese government's inner circle, knowing that they have reached military parity with the declining United States, follow a brilliant Chinese professor's plan to help China's client state while delivering a blow to American military prestige, and they receive eager assistance from America's numerous enemies and victims. China is able to keep its plan secret, and thus the American forces are taken by surprise when they launch the invasion in July 2025. The Chinese disable the American satellite network through a cyberattack, severely hampering American command and control, then launch hundreds of high-speed computer-guided cruise missiles which they had smuggled unobserved into Tanzania. The American fleet is not prepared to defend itself against this new generation of missiles. The Americans shoot down many of them, but as one missile after another finds its way through the ships' air defenses, the fleet is devastated: most of the ships, including the aircraft carrier USS "Ronald Reagan", are either sunk or disabled.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Washington_Was_in_Vogue" title="When Washington Was in Vogue">
Opening when Davy Carr arrives in Washington, D.C. in October 1922, "When Washington Was in Vogue" takes place over the fall and winter months, as Davy becomes introduced to and integrated into the social life of the black elite. His initiation comes about through the machinations of his landlady's daughter Caroline, who introduces him to her friends and ensures that he is invited to the city's best and most significant parties. As Davy gets to know the various members of the social scene, he becomes more and more suspicious of his fellow lodger, Jeffries, whose questionable activities include attending seedy cabarets, and may extend to theft or money laundering. The tension between the two comes to a head when Jeffries invites Caroline to join him and his friends at a cabaret. Davy follows the two, and arrives just as Jeffries attempts to rape Caroline. To the surprise of everyone present, Davy floors Jeffries with one punch and carries the unconscious Caroline out. After this episode, Caroline's reckless behavior diminishes and her respect for Davy increases—facts that everyone but Davy himself can plainly see. The last months of Davy's stay in Washington, D. C. are spent studying at the Library of Congress and enjoying the friendships he has made. Although his letters to Bob betray a fixation on Caroline and his relationship with her, Davy does not consider her as a romantic option until just before he is scheduled to depart. When he finally voices his feelings to Caroline, she responds: "I think I loved you from the first day." They embrace, and the novel ends.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_(novel)" title="Paris (novel)">
The novel follows six families: the Le Sourds (a revolutionary family), the de Cygnes (a noble family), the Renards (a bourgeois family of merchants), the Blanchards (a family of Napoleon supporters), the Gascons (a family from the slums) and the Jacobs (an art dealing Jewish family). The book follows two timelines throughout, containing a large number of characters and is based on real events.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dreaming_City" title="The Dreaming City">
Elric, emperor of Melniboné, returns to the dreaming city of Imrryr where he plans to slay his cousin, Yyrkoon, and reclaim his love Cymoril with an armada of mercenary ships. After the mercenaries lay waste to Melniboné's outer defenses, Elric guides his fleet through a secret maze of caves to reach the civilization within. As the fighting continues, Elric steals away to meet Cymoril at a hidden spot among the city's towers but finds her imprisoned by Yyrkoon, who attacks him with a powerful spell. Elric battles his cousin with the soul-devouring, rune-forged sword Stormbringer and defeats him but kills Cymoril by accident.Ruined by grief, Elric flees the smoldering ruins of Melniboné with the remainder of his mercenary fleet, whose strength is depleted by the attack and subsequent looting of the city's riches. The fleet is surprised by the warships of Melniboné and the dragons which had been roused by the attack. Elric calls upon the black magic passed down to him by his ancestors to aid their escape, but the pursuers move swiftly to overtake the mercenaries. Unable to summon enough strength to save all the ships, Elric saves only himself and his crewmen, speeding away on the winds of elemental forces.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_Silence" title="Island of Silence">
One day, two silent, orange-eyed teenagers, named Sky and Crow, have arrived on a raft. While Artimé seems to continue along normally, Eva Fathom, a supposed Restorer, is spying on Quill and passing along information to Sean Ranger. Mr. Today starts to teach Alex how to be a head mage, and devises a plan to trick Aaron. The plan backfires. Aaron confronts Mr. Today and kills him using five heart-attack spells that Alex invented, thus destroying Artimé.Meanwhile, Alex and Simber, one of Mr. Today's statues, go out on a search for three of Alex's missing friends, Meghan Ranger, Samheed Burkesh and Lani Haluki. They rescue Meghan and discover that Samheed and Lani have been captured by a neighboring island, Warbler. On the way back, Simber freezes and crashes into the sea. Alex and Meghan barely avoid death. At the same time, the Restorers attack Artimé and cause chaos. High Priest Haluki gets captured, along with Mr. Today's daughter, Claire Morning, by the Restorers. Aaron becomes Associate High Priest (aka High Priest in disguise), and plans to destroy Artimé.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ,_the_Messenger" title="Christ, the Messenger">
In his lecture, Vivekananda has compared the entire human existence to an ocean, where an individual's life is like waves. He has compared human lives with the waves rising on the ocean, and then falling down. Jesus is like a big wave that comes very rarely. Vivekananda called Jesus "The great soul, the Messenger."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dagger_and_the_Coin" title="The Dagger and the Coin">
## "The Dragon's Path".Sir Geder Palliako is a minor knight in the Imperial Antean Army during the capture of the Free City of Vanai. Eventually, he becomes the Protector of Vanai. As ruler of the city, he causes a famine resulting in a riot that causes Geder to destroy the city. After returning to Camnipol, Geder becomes a hero. This causes him to go on a journey that leads to the discovery of the Cult of the Spider Goddess and the priest, Basrahip.Cithrin bel Sarcour is the ward of the Medean Bank in Vanai. As the Antean Army approaches Vanai, she is charged with moving the bulk of the bank's assets into the city of Carse. Despite this, she stops in another city called Porte Oliva where she founds her own branch of the bank.Sir Dawson Kalliam is a noble member of the Antean Court and childhood friend of King Simeon. He discovers and fights against a plot to assassinate Prince Aster, the heir to the Antean throne.Captain Marcus Wester is a former war hero now looking for other work. Marcus and his men join a caravan leaving Vanai before the siege and end up protecting Cithrin.Clara Annalise Kalliam is the wife of Dawson Kalliam. She works with Dawson to discover the root of the plot against the prince's life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crime_of_the_Congo" title="The Crime of the Congo">
The book was intended as an exposé of the situation in the so-called Congo Free State (labelled a "rubber regime" by Conan Doyle), an area occupied and designated as the personal property of Leopold II of Belgium and where the serious human rights abuses were occurring. Indigenous people in the region were being brutally exploited and tortured, particularly in the lucrative rubber trade. In the introduction to "The Crime of the Congo" Conan Doyle wrote: "I am convinced that the reason why public opinion has not been more sensitive upon the question of the Congo Free State is that the terrible story has not been brought thoroughly home to the people", a situation he intended to rectify. Conan Doyle was "strongly of the opinion" that the crimes committed on the Congo were "the greatest to be ever known", and he lauded the work of the Congo Reform Association. Conan Doyle was dismissive of the annexation of the state by Belgium, a situation intended to end the personal rule of the King. Conan Doyle noted that slavery and ivory poaching continued to occur after annexation and that "The Congo State was founded by the Belgian King, and exploited by Belgian capital, Belgian soldiers and Belgian concessionnaires. It was defended and upheld by successive Belgian Governments, who did all they could to discourage the Reformers".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_(graphic_novel)" title="Empire (graphic novel)">
Thousands of years in the future, a powerful device has been hidden in separate pieces. Qrelon, whose planet was destroyed by the empire, leads a small group of rebels that risks everything to collect the pieces of the device that, once complete, will be the weapon powerful enough to destroy the planet-sized computer that runs the empire. Wryn, an archaeology student, is chosen by the empire to assassinate the rebel leader.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_the_Rain" title="Racing the Rain">
Shirtless and barefoot for most of his youth, Quenton Cassidy grew up exploring the natural environment surrounding his neighborhood nestled between the Loxahatchee River and the Atlantic Ocean. Racing the Rain introduces the reader to Quenton in elementary school where he plays games, runs foot races, and feeds his curiosity with his best friends Stiggs and Randleman. Breaks of ice-cold Kool-Aid and frothy A&amp;W root beer divide the hot Florida days. Quenton's small stature, big mouth, and affinity for practical jokes often gets him into trouble with teachers and other students. That is, until he becomes friends with Trapper.Trapper Nelson is both man and legend. He is the real-life swamp man who “wrestled alligators for fun, [and] laughed at poisonous snakes.” When Trapper becomes friends with Quenton, the two strike a business deal when Trapper recognizes Quenton's extraordinary ability to hold his breath and dive deep into the water. He teaches Quenton about life on the Loxahatchee fishing, trapping, and entertaining influential men with wildlife shows, poker, and beer. Taking Quenton under his wing, Trapper becomes a pivotal influence in Quenton's life. Though Quenton's first love is basketball, Trapper convinces Quneton to try out long distant running on the side. Quenton is a natural runner due to his efficiency in using oxygen. He can't bring himself to give up basketball, but Quenton begins to recognize his own talents. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_on_Fire_(Kelman_novel)" title="Man on Fire (Kelman novel)">
## Summary.The novel follows Nayak and John Lock, an Englishman that has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. He has left his life and spouse behind in order to elope to India under the pretense of committing suicide. Once in India he meets Nayak and decides to help the man break the world record for breaking the most baseball bats on his shin bone.Ultimately, John's wife Ellen tracks him down in India and there is a confrontation between the two.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numero_Zero" title="Numero Zero">
The story is told by Colonna, a hack journalist, now in his fifties, and a loser. He is hired by Simei to work on a newspaper called "Domani" ("Tomorrow") that will never be published. The venture is financed by Commendator Vimercate, who owns a television channel, a dozen magazines and runs a chain of hotels and rest homes. The declared aim of the newspaper is to reveal the truth about everything, to publish all the news that's fit to print "plus a little more," but Commendator Vimercate's true interest lies elsewhere. His "zero issues" will be seen by powerful figures high up in the world of finance and politics who don't want the truth to be revealed. They'll put pressure on Vimercate to close down the newspaper and, in return, will allow him into the inner sanctum of power.Colonna meets the other members of the editorial staff: Braggadocio used to work for a scandal magazine called "What They Never Tell Us"; Cambria spent his nights as a hack reporter hanging around police stations; Lucidi probably works for the secret service; Palatino has spent his career working on puzzle and crossword magazines; Costanza was a sub-editor for various newspapers until they grew so large that no one bothered any longer to check what was being printed; lastly, Maia Fresia worked on a celebrity romance magazine.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_(Dekker_and_Lee_novel)" title="Sovereign (Dekker and Lee novel)">
In the nine years after Rom Sebastian became the hero of the land, his alliance has suffered enormous setbacks. Only 36 of his truly alive followers survived. A huge battle with the government The Order has left them scattered and deeply divided, unsure of their strategy and power.Losing hope, Rom and the team must band together and find new allies against The Order, more evil and virulent than ever.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sellout_(novel)" title="The Sellout (novel)">
The narrator and most of the characters are African-Americans in an urban farming area in the fictional town of Dickens, California. The story begins with the narrator (referred to as either "me" or "Bonbon") standing trial before the Supreme Court for crimes related to his attempt to restore slavery and segregation in his hometown of Dickens, an "agrarian ghetto" on the outskirts of Los Angeles, California. Sitting before the court, Bonbon starts to reflect on what led up to this moment and recounts his upbringing. Bonbon had a tenuous relationship with his father, an unorthodox sociologist who performed numerous traumatizing social experiments on him as a child and held lofty expectations for Bonbon to become a respected community leader in Dickens. A few years before the Supreme Court case, Bonbon’s father is murdered by the police, after which Bonbon struggles to find his identity and a purpose in life. At first, Bonbon is content to withdraw from the community and continue his agricultural endeavors of growing artisanal watermelons and marijuana without his father’s judgement.One day, however, the town of Dickens spontaneously disappears from the map and becomes unincorporated, a change that Bonbon attributes to Dickens’ undesirable socioeconomic and racial demographics. Bonbon sets out to restore Dickens’ existence through any means possible. Bonbon enlists the help of Hominy Jenkins, an old man and former child actor, to paint provocative road signs and boundary lines that draw attention to Dickens’ existence. After those attempts are fruitless, Bonbon continues a step further and attempts to reinstitute both slavery and segregation in Dickens and bring back what he believes to be a unifying power structure in the town. He first attempts to re-segregate a public bus driven by his ex-girlfriend by posting "white-only signs" in the front of the bus. He later tries to open an all-white school next to the local high school. Meanwhile, Hominy offers to become Bonbon’s slave, to which a reluctant Bonbon eventually agrees. As the absurdity of Bonbon’s actions are noticed on a wider scale, Hominy causes a large accident that ultimately leads to the Supreme Court case.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adarsha_Hindu_Hotel" title="Adarsha Hindu Hotel">
Hajari Thakur, a middle-aged Bengali Brahmin is the male protagonist of the novel. He works as a cook in a hotel owned by Bechu Chakraborty near Ranaghat railway station. Here customers are often cheated and Padma, a maid at the establishment, steals the hotel's food. Hajari is strictly against these, but being just a cook, he does not have right to say anything. Here he is regularly mocked and insulted by Padma, who, though only a maid, is the owner's paramour and has immense influence over him. Hajari dreams to start his own hotel, but for that he needs Rs.200. Kusum is a young widow, whom Hajari considers as his daughter. One day utensils of Hajari's shop are stolen and police arrests Hajari. Following this incident, he loses his job.After getting a loan from Kusum and Atashi, a girl from his village, Hajari starts his own hotel. Here he works hard with dedication and sincerity. In just a year his hotel becomes the most popular hotel of the area. Two other hotels of the area: one of Bechu Chakraborty and another of Jadu Banerjee almost get shut down. Hajari also gets a railway tender to manage a government-run hotel in the railway platform. At the end of the novel, Hazari signs a contract to manage a large hotel and goes to Bombay. Before leaving, he appoints Bechu Chakraborty (whose own hotel was sealed recently) as a manager of the market area hotel. He also gives Padma a job, who used to insult him every now and then.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Bagger_Vance_(novel)" title="The Legend of Bagger Vance (novel)">
During the Great Depression of 1931, two legends of golf, Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen, compete in a 36-hole showdown. Another golfer also competes, a troubled local war hero named R. Junuh with a mentor and caddie, the mysterious Bagger Vance.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gun_(Chivers_book)" title="The Gun (Chivers book)">
A prologue relates two events in 1949 in the Soviet Union marking the beginning of the Cold War: the first Soviet nuclear test and innovation in the development of the automatic rifle; the former made total war unwinnable and the latter made smaller proxy wars the principle activity of the Cold War, and automatic rifles would prove the most lethal weapons of the Cold War.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Even_Dogs_in_the_Wild" title="Even Dogs in the Wild">
A former Scottish senior prosecutor has been found dead, with a threatening note in his pocket. Siobhan Clarke is in charge of the high-profile case. Then the semi-retired gangster 'Big Ger' Cafferty receives a similar note and someone shoots at him. John Rebus has retired (for the second time), but he is asked to join in the investigation. Meanwhile Malcolm Fox is drafted into a surveillance team monitoring a group of Glaswegian gangsters who look set to move on Edinburgh. Cafferty, the young Edinburgh gangster Darryl Christie, and the Glasgow gang are all looking over their shoulders at each other and at the police. Cafferty is the one who recognizes the history behind the vendetta against him and a few other survivors of a disastrous event thirty years earlier. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew's_Brain" title="Andrew's Brain">
Andrew, from a variety of mostly unknown locations, tells the story of his life and the events that have led him to where he has ended up through musings, ramblings, and occasionally fragmented tales. With seemingly no one else in his life, Andrew speaks to a person, presumably a psychiatrist only referred to as "Doc", who often prompts Andrew further into his disjointed narrative. Between tragedies of love, thoughts about what consciousness is, and a series of bad luck incidents, Andrew's story explores the questions of how much control individuals have over their own lives and how much of life is coincidence or fate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Last_of_the_Ultimate_End" title="The Final Last of the Ultimate End">
A man who had a terminal disease decided to get a whole body transplant surgery, removing his brain from his original body and transplanting it to a new brainless body, which was cloned from his cell. He gets the surgery and it seems to be successful.He is moved to a recovery institute, adapting himself to his new body. He suffers for mild amnesia and partial motor disturbance, but he works hard to get better, waiting for the day to meet his girlfriend for the first time after the surgery.When he finally meets his girlfriend, he feels happy, knowing all his feeling and memories about her are right and the interaction with her is natural enough. But his girlfriend looks sad.It turns out that the surgery was splitting his brain into 2 pieces and transplanting them into 2 different bodies, to achieve the safer result from the redundancy. Hence now there are 2 independent separate people formed from one original person. All the activities in the recovery institute were parts of a test to decide whom to be a person to inherit the original identity. Even the meeting with the girlfriend was also a part of the test.The protagonist turns out to be a loser in every aspects of the brain activity and continuity, except the only one part, that is the memory and the interactivity with spouse. Therefore, the other person gets the original identity and the protagonist gets a brand new identity as a newly born person.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Wolves" title="Celtic Wolves">
The series is set within a world where shifters exist, however new ones can only be created via childbirth. Shifters can transform into wolves, are very strong, can heal when they shift, and are capable of living extremely long lifespans, among other abilities - some of which are extremely powerful and desirable. They gained their powers via the goddess Ceridwen, who appointed a specific group of shifters known as the Guardians to watch over her son Taliesin, also known as "Sin". Over time the shifters' powers have grown weaker and weaker, to the point where several shifters are born without the ability to transform into wolves, but still retain the strength and lifespans of a regular shifter. The Guardians see these shifters are weak and endorse killing them, forcing many to flee and hide for their lives - something that also causes Sin to eschew the Guardians' protection. One group, located in Rhuddin Village and led by Dylan, has taken in these shifters - sparking a war between the Guardians and any group that the Guardians view as an enemy. To make matters more tense, the village also contains Dylan's sister Elen, who has strong healing and nature powers, which the Guardians want to take for their own. As the series progresses the Guardians also seek to attack the village because it contains unmated female shifters, women that have not yet found a true mate and are capable of giving birth to new shifters.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadly_Assets" title="Deadly Assets">
This novel, set in Philadelphia, centers around a young police homicide sergeant, Matt Payne. Payne, nicknamed Wyatt Earp of the Main Line, in past novels has been involved in spectacular and deadly shootouts with criminals. While Payne was always justified in these incidents, influential groups have protested to get Payne either removed from the police force or put into a job that keeps him off the streets. In this book the level of violence in the city has reached a boiling point. This book is full of shady characters and their scheming plots.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holism_and_Evolution" title="Holism and Evolution">
After identifying the need for reform in the fundamental concepts of matter, life, and mind (chapter 1), Smuts examines the reformed concepts (as of 1926) of space and time (chapter 2), matter (chapter 3), and biology (chapter 4), and concludes that the close approach to each other of the concepts of matter, life, and mind, and the partial overflow of each other's domains, imply that there is a fundamental principle (Holism) of which they are the progressive outcome. Chapters 5 and 6 provide the general concept, functions, and categories of holism; chapters 7 and 8 address holism with respect to Mechanism and Darwinism; chapters 9-11 make a start towards demonstrating the concepts and functions of holism for the metaphysical categories (mind, personality, ideals), and the book concludes with a chapter that argues for the universal ubiquity of holism and its place as a monistic ontology.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denma" title="Denma">
Denma is a space opera that centered around an intergalactic courier delivery service called Silverquick.Silverquick is an intergalactic courier services that hires "Quanx" with special abilities as delivery men. Dike, or "the Merciless Death of Planet Urano" contracts to Silverquick, subsequently and becomes trapped inside a body of a small child named Denma. He takes off on a journey of making interstellar deliveries and reclaiming his body in hope.In Chapter 1, there're individual episodes to watch and intervene in various people's stories, and the stories of individual characters who're tied up by Silverquick, the vicious company. Furthermore, in Chapter 2, the story continued to expand with the Church of Madonna, which is the religion behind the Silverquick, and various multi-cosmic concepts that are the root of this church, and the veiled enmity between the nobles. And in South Korea, the Chapter 3 is going on.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telex_from_Cuba" title="Telex from Cuba">
Set in Cuba during Fulgencio Batista's reign as dictator, the novel follows the intersecting lives of several families of white American expatriates, the men of which work for the United Fruit Company. Several Americans who, back home, would have been of different classes and never mixed, become close while living in Cuba. K.C. Stites, the son of the CEO, with the encouragement of his mother, grows close with Everly Lederer, the daughter of a man who was considered weak and ineffectual back home. His best friend is from the Allain family whom the Stites consider hillbillys and who is rumoured to have killed a man back in America. The Carringtons are a couple who lived in Latin America for most of their lives and have a bitter acerbic marriage. Tip Carrington regularly cheats on his wife, and Mrs. Carrington has turned to alcohol in order to help.In 1958 the rebel forces begin to grow stronger and gain sympathy from several of the children of the white ex-patriates. K.C's older brother Del runs off to join the rebels and helps to organize attacks against his father. After a bomb goes off in the United Fruit Company's prestigious club the white Americans are forced to evacuate by their government.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Cold_Dark_Ground" title="In the Cold Dark Ground">
Sergeant Logan McRae is still overseeing a patch of north east Aberdeenshire as a 'Development Opportunity'. He does, however, keep finding bodies and one such find brings the MIT (Major Investigation Team) screaming up to rural Aberdeenshire from Aberdeen City. This team is headed up by McRae's old boss, Detective Chief Inspector Roberta Steel.She wants him in the investigation; he doesn't want to join. Unfortunately, he is drafted in anyway and has to cope with a very critical Detective Superintendent (who seems to love to belittle McRae), a secondment to Professional Standards so he can spy on DCI Steel, Wee Hamish Mowat (the ganglord of Aberdeen) dying and making Logan his heir (which means fighting off Reuben, the ganglords' enforcer) and switching off his girlfriend's life support system.Somewhere in between all this, McRae is supposed to negotiate the office politics, save himself, save DCI Steel, bury two people and solve the case.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brueghel_Moon" title="The Brueghel Moon">
"The Brueghel Moon" is a novella about a psychiatrist, Levan, who has a former patient, Nunu, visit him, then he goes to a garden party, and gets involved with the wife of an ambassador, Ana-Maria.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberstorm_(novel)" title="Cyberstorm (novel)">
The novel is set in current day New York City, New York. The main character is Mike Mitchel, a successful businessman living in New York City married into a family of wealth and power. He lives with his wife and his son in Manhattan, next door to Chuck, a close friend and doomsday prepper. Chuck has a bugout location in Virginia.At the start of the book, Mike and his family are a normal American family, going to work and school. However, things start to fall apart when logistic systems for the main shipping companies grind to a standstill. Soon cell services go down and news starts reporting that bird flu has been reported. Then the power goes out, and widespread panic ensues. As a blizzard sets in, Mike walks in on Chuck and his wife talking about leaving New York City to their bugout location in the woods. They decide they will not do so without taking their friends, including Mike.At this time, Mike's son is not feeling well, and Richard, who Mike fears his wife might be having an affair with, offers to allow their driver to take them to a hospital. They find the hospital flooded with sick patients, and the same story pans out at multiple other hospitals across the city. They eventually have their son admitted into a hospital, but they are unable to see a doctor. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumu_(short_story)" title="Mumu (short story)">
The story opens in Moscow, at the home of an unnamed, wealthy, and elderly widow. Mean and spiteful, she has been abandoned by whatever living friends and relatives she still has. The exposition then focuses on one of her porters, Gerasim, a man from the countryside. Born deaf and mute, he communicates with the other servants of the estate via hand signs. He is a man of almost superhuman strength, and was renowned in the country for his work in the fields. After being taken from his village, he eventually settles into life in the city, and, while his presence inspires fear in the other servants, he is able to remain on at least cordial terms with them.During this time, Gerasim becomes infatuated with Tatiana, the mistress’ laundress. He offers her gifts, including a gingerbread chicken, and follows her, smiling and making his characteristic unintelligible noises. His affection is quite protective, and he threatens a servant who “nags” her too severely. In another incident, Kapiton Klimov, the widow's shoemaker, speaks “too attentively” with Tatiana, and is, too, threatened by Gerasim.Kapiton, a drunkard who feels unfairly castigated for his vices, is chosen by the mistress to be married off. Speaking with her head steward, Gavrila, the widow decides that Kapiton shall marry Tatiana. Gavrila, aware of Gerasim's affections but unable to disagree with his master, relates this to Kapiton, who reacts with fear but ultimately agrees. He then informs Tatiana, who acquiesces but echoes the same concerns. Gavrila comes up with a plan, and, noting Gerasim's hatred of drunkards, has Tatiana pretend to be drunk in his presence. The plot succeeds, and Tatiana and Kapiton are married. However, Kapiton's drinking only worsens, and he and his wife are sent away after a year to a small village. As they depart, Gerasim follows them, and hands Tatiana a red handkerchief, causing her to burst into tears.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Land_of_the_Moon" title="From the Land of the Moon">
A young woman recounts her grandmother's past life in Italy, beginning in 1943 in the middle of the Second World War, when her grandmother had reached her 30s and was still unwed. Considered an old maid by her parents, the she was married off to a man who had come to the town after his home had been bombed. She told him she would not have a sexual relationship with him, and he agreed as long as she permitted him to go to brothels. Shortly afterward, the couple moved to the man's home in Cagliari.The woman began to have sex with her husband in order to save the money he would have spent on brothels, but they were unable to conceive a child. She had painful kidney stones, which resulted in several miscarriages. After several years, in 1950 the woman's doctor recommended that she go to Civitavecchia for thermal treatments at a well-known spa. While there, the married woman met a war veteran, and they bonded over their artistic passions, his for music and hers for writing. He had lost a leg in the war, was married, and lived in Milan with his wife and child.Nine months later, the formerly childless married woman had a son. When he is seven, she goes to work as a maid so that he can have piano lessons. The son takes after his father and grows up to be a classical pianist. He in turn marries and has a daughter. The daughter and her grandmother become close; the older woman eventually tells her granddaughter about her affair with the veteran so many years ago.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Road_from_Stalingrad" title="Red Road from Stalingrad">
The memoir begins in early November, 1942, as Abdulin arrives at the front for the first time, in the Kletskaya bridgehead on the west bank of the Don River to the north-west of Stalingrad. He is serving as the gun-layer of an 82mm mortar crew in the 1034th Rifle Regiment.After introducing the other men of his crew, he recounts his early life in Siberia. His parents were both members of the Communist Party, educated, and somewhat outsiders in the village of Sukhoi, but valued for their literacy. In his late teens, in 1940, Abdulin left school to join his father in the Miasski gold mines. As a miner he was exempt from military service, but soon after the German invasion he and three of his friends managed to persuade local officials to allow them to enlist. Of the four, only Abdulin would survive the war.After being sent to a military academy for officer candidates and getting very good grades, he had to use several stratagems to get sent to the front as a regular soldier with his comrades, where he also served as the "komsorg" (leader of the Komsomols of his company). He then recounts his first "kill" of a German soldier, while acting as a sniper, on Nov. 6. In recognition of this, he was invited to join the Communist Party, to serve as the "partorg" (leader of the Communists of his company), and also received the "For Courage" medal.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_and_Kath" title="Vince and Kath">
The story revolves around a young man named Vince who bravely sends a text message to his crush, Kath. Until they become text mates and become in-relationship status. As they graduate from college, Vince proposes to Kath. They face different life challenges especially when Vince is stabbed by hooligans and knocks his head off from which he suffers amnesia due to a head trauma. Kath makes difficult efforts to help Vince regain his memories. Suddenly Kath's aunt reveals that her father is very ill. At the same time, Vince is rushed to the hospital unexpectedly after Kath finds out that he has been unconscious in his house. She calls her friend Maxine to look after Vince in the hospital while she's away to visit her father in Dubai urgently. After a few days Vince miraculously recovers from his amnesia. He prepares a surprise for Kath. When Kath arrives from Dubai, she is shocked about Vince's recovery. And Vince proposes to Kath again. He promises her that he would bring back what he lost and pay gratitude for her sacrifices.Later Vince finds out that Jella's boyfriend Nathan was the perpetrator; Nathan stabbed Vince due to jealousy. Vince confronts Nathan and brawls at each other. The feud is stopped by Jella. Vince initially decided to put Nathan into jail but recanted his decision because Jella told him that she is pregnant with Nathan's child. This triggers Kath's agony on Vince but their love quarrel is short-lived.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hive_Mind_(book)" title="Hive Mind (book)">
## Da Vinci Effect.The book relates personal intelligence to group intelligence with a concept the author calls the da Vinci Effect. This concept relates the general intelligence of an individual performing different tasks to the abilities of members of a group performing different tasks.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Rivers" title="All the Rivers">
The novel, which is set in New York City, chronicles a love affair between Hilmi, a Palestinian artist, and Liat, a Jewish Israeli translator. The two eventually separate, with the man going to Ramallah and the woman going to Tel Aviv.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_(Walsh_book)" title="Hotel (Walsh book)">
The book is an instalment in the Bloomsbury Academic series "Object Lessons". The series is intended to discuss the hidden lives ordinary things. "Hotel" examines the luxury, sex, power, anonymity, privacy of hotels; places where "desires go on holiday, but also places where our desires are shaped by the hard realities of the marketplace"
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesthäkchen's_Teenage_Years" title="Nesthäkchen's Teenage Years">
A "Backfisch" ("teenage girl", literally "fish for frying") is a young girl between fourteen and seventeen years of age. This volume deals with Annemarie's youth during the period of economic and political turbulence following World War I, 1919–1922. Annemarie is almost 16 when the story begins, after the Armistice, November 1918-19. Ury skips over 1920–1921. The last chapter, "Examination Grades," concerns her high school graduation in 1922. Annemarie and her friends, Vera, Marlene and Ilse, attend upper secondary school. When Annemarie feels wronged by their German teacher, she wants to set up a student council modeled on the Soviet Republic and argues with the director of the school. Her unruly behavior endangers her education, but she ultimately advances to her senior class. Her 16th birthday party is disturbed by a general power cut and the economic blockade, which completely shuts down the electricity and telephone network. Annemarie visits her relatives on Arnsdorf Farm in Silesia (in the post 1945 editions Lower Bavaria). On her hasty return journey due to the occupation of Upper Silesia by Polish troops during the Polish–Czechoslovak War and first Silesian Uprising, she gets stuck in the town of Sagan by a railway strike. (In the post 1945 editions Anne Marie has to leave Arnsdorf because of an upcoming general strike, and her train is stalled for lack of coal in Nuremberg.) To earn money, she becomes a nanny for a doctor's family named Lange. The Langes soon realize that Annemarie is an educated girl from a good background, as she knows Latin, does not want to go on the street without a hat, is familiar with famous paintings and has a book by Selma Lagerlöf in her luggage. When Annemarie's identity is revealed, Dr. Lange turns out to be one of her father's Heidelberg University classmates, and the Langes treat her like a foster daughter until she leaves to return to Berlin. In winter 1919, there is a coal shortage and a violent wave of influenza. Annemarie tries to obtain coal for her family, but does not succeed. Finally, she gets sick. The novel ends with Annemarie's high school graduation. She and her friend Marlene have passed all written tests with A's and are exempted from the final oral examination. Despite the hard times, Else Ury's sense of humor permeates the narrative.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesthäkchen_and_the_World_War" title="Nesthäkchen and the World War">
Anne Marie's father, Dr. Braun, is a soldier and medical officer in France. Her mother is absent. Mrs. Braun was in England at the outbreak of war, visiting with her cousin Annie, who is married to an Englishman. Mrs. Braun can not go back to Germany because she missed her last opportunity for departure. Of her letters, only some get to her family. During the absence of the parents, the grandmother, the nanny Lena, and the cook Hanne care for Annemarie and her brothers.In England, Mrs. Braun is arrested as an alleged spy, after she has spoken, imprudently excited, about the success of German submarines. She is released soon afterwards.Anne Marie's brother Hans brings a foundling home. The baby, an East Prussian refugee, would likely have perished. Annemarie takes the child into the house enthusiastically and gives him the name “Hindenburg” for Paul von Hindenburg. Finally, the noisy child is passed to the concierge couple and given the name Max. Annemarie’s patriotism goes so far that a "foreign concept checkout" is set up at home and in class. Anyone who uses a foreign word must pay five cents.In Anne Marie's class a new girl, Vera Burkhard, arrives from Czernowitz in Bukovina. Vera hardly speaks German. Spurred on by two older girls, Anne Marie holds Vera for a Polish spy, therefore an enemy, and begins to bully the girl. Anne Marie’s girlfriends Margot, Ilse and Marlene have compassion for Vera, but dare not oppose the dominant Anne Marie. Occasionally Anne Marie has doubts about the correctness of her behavior, but she does not want to admit she is wrong. Finally, the class teacher announces that Vera's father has been killed in the Carpathian battle (Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive) on the German side and has therefore died a hero’s death. Although Vera is devastated and distraught, her reputation is restored and the shamed Anne Marie wants to make up for her bad behavior. Vera is now her best friend.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueprint_for_Revolution" title="Blueprint for Revolution">
The first part of the book discusses modern nonviolent revolutions, and the second explains how nonviolent techniques can be put to good use. The book contains eleven chapters, each with a lesson about nonviolent techniques for revolution, including case studies. Popovic writes in the first-person voice, describing his experiences in taking part in and training activists for several revolutions, including the Otpor! movement and the Arab Spring. He references movements that attempted to make changes (successfully and unsuccessfully), such as Occupy Wall Street and Gay Rights Movements. In referencing these movements, Popovic explains the tactics they allude to that make revolutions successful—such as laughtivism and unity—and why they are a better alternative to violence.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Midnight" title="Lady Midnight">
Emma Carstairs has been living with the Blackthorn family: her parabatai, Julian; his siblings Livvy, Ty, Dru, and Tavvy; and their uncle, Arthur, in the Los Angeles Institute since her parents' deaths during the Dark War five years ago. Having grown into a prodigious Shadowhunter, she is still investigating the true cause of her parents' demise, despite the Clave telling her that they were killed by the late Sebastian Morgenstern. According to Johnny Rook, a mundane shopkeeper from the Shadow Market, similar murders befell eleven faeries, whose kind are ostracized by the Clave under the Cold Peace for their support of the Endarkened. Later, Emma also investigates a mundane murdered apparently by the same culprit who killed the faeries. Ty's research points to the victims being killed inside sacred locations known as the ley lines as part of a dark ritual. Meanwhile, Julian struggles between running the Institute, since Arthur is functionally insane from his previous experiences in Faerie, and his love for Emma, despite parabatai being forbidden from pursuing a romantic relationship. He gets the medication for Arthur's illness from Malcolm Fade, the High Warlock of Los Angeles. Diana Wrayburn occasionally helps the younger Shadowhunters with the upkeep of the Institute, but refuses to replace Arthur as leader and frequently leaves for other missions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_(Bear_novel)" title="Carnival (Bear novel)">
A diplomatic mission to the matriarchal planet New Amazonia reunites ex-lovers Vincent Katherinessen and Michelangelo Kusanagi-Jones after a separation of 17 years. Arriving in the capital city of Penthesilea, the men are ostensibly repatriating looted artwork, but in truth the ambassador-spies have been tasked with obtaining the Amazonians' secret energy technology by any means necessary, and doing what they can to facilitate a Coalition conquest. However, both Vincent (a master of observation) and Angelo (a trained liar and fighter) each have hidden plans to undermine their own mission. Meanwhile, multiple factions among the Amazonians are engaged in covert political intrigues rooted in the gender dynamics of their society.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Arabs_(novel)" title="Dancing Arabs (novel)">
The novel tells the story of Eyad, an Israeli Arab teenager from Tira who is admitted to an elite school in Jerusalem. The novel explores his difficulties, divided between his pride for his Palestinian identity and the desire to be a part of Israeli society.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Cage_(book)" title="The Golden Cage (book)">
The book tells the story of three brothers whose lives were heavily influenced by Iranian history: the oldest, Abbas, was a soldier under the Shah; the second, Javad, was a communist activist; the younger, Ali, supported the Khomeini's Islamic revolution. All of their lives will be influenced by the worst chapters of Iranian history in the 20th century, including the Iranian Revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, and the executions of political opponents.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesthäkchen_Flies_From_the_Nest" title="Nesthäkchen Flies From the Nest">
Else Ury's Nesthäkchen is a Berlin doctor's daughter, Anne Marie Braun; a slim, golden blond, quintessential German girl.In this story, which takes place in the years 1922-1923 Annemarie goes with her girlfriends Ilse and Marlene to study in Tübingen. Annemarie wants to study medicine to be assistant to her father. Only under the condition that she then continue her training in Berlin does he allow the academic year in Tübingen. Aunt Albertina does not agree that a young girl should leave the parental home alone.On the outward journey Annemarie misses a train in Würzburg and loses Ilse and Marlene but meets a young doctor, Rudolf Hartenstein, who likes her immediately.Finally arriving in Tübingen, Annemarie lives with Ilse and Marlene at the home of the couple Nepomuk and Veronika Kirchmäuser and their children Vronli and Kasper. The girls make friends with students Krabbe, Neumann and Egerling with whom they establish a "Swabian hiking covenant." Else Ury brings in here the Wandervogel movement, a motif popular at the beginning of the 20th century. At a party in the home of Professor Bergholz, Annemarie meets Rudolf Hartenstein again, as well as his sister Ola.In the course of time, Annemarie and Rudolf fall in love. Their declaration of love occurs in a dramatic incident: in a foggy cave, the , where Annemarie almost collapses into a deep abyss, Rudolf holds her fast and saves her at the last moment. At the Ulmer Münster, he asks Annemarie to marry him, but she refuses because she has promised her father to be his assistant. In the summer semester Annemarie returns to Berlin to work in a clinic. Rudolf Hartenstein is also in Berlin and works as a doctor in the same hospital as Annemarie. He is Annemarie’s superior, and between the two there is tension. When they meet during a storm in the Charlottenburg Palace Park, Rudolf renews his declaration of love, and this time Annemarie gives in. The two marry just as Annemarie's brother Hans marries Rudolf's sister Ola.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swapna_Saraswata" title="Swapna Saraswata">
The novel narrates the Gaud Saraswat Brahmin (GSB) community's diaspora along the west coast of India between the early 16th Century and late 18th Century. The author put in years of research, delving into written histories and oral narrations, covering a huge time span and the social dynamics within the community in the perspective of historical events."Swapna Saraswata" is the story of the fall of GSB community who lived in Goa four hundred years ago. It is a tragic story of the Gowda Saraswat Brahmin community leaving their land in Goa and migrating to an unknown land due to the oppression by the Portuguese. The arrival of the Portuguese to India, the conquest of Goa by the colonists and the conversion of temples, the destruction of temples, etc., have profoundly affected the beliefs and emotions of the local Gowda Saraswat Brahmin families. In such a situation, Vittu Pai, the grandson of Narasappayya, a resident of the Verane village in Goa, vacates the village with 5-6 families in the night in order to preserve culture, faith, religion, and life. They were emotionally attached to that land and culture and it was painful for them to vacate the village. To escape from the hands of Portuguese many families travelled till Kochi, and few families settling in the places of Coastal Karnataka. Likewise, the family of Vittu Pai settles in the southern village called Bellambeedu in Kumbale. They start their new business there and settled. The novel is meant to convey a kind of message to anyone facing a storm of change by quoting the example of the life of the Gowda Saraswat Brahmin community who have seen many difficulties of survival in history.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_of_Nostalgia" title="The Ministry of Nostalgia">
"The Ministry of Nostalgia" argues that "our past is being resold in order to defend the indefensible". The book examines the so-called "austerity" of the 1940s and 1950s and argues that history has been "recast to offer consolation for the violence of neoliberalism, an ideology dedicated to the privatisation of our common wealth". "The Ministry of Nostalgia" questions "why should we have to keep calm and carry on?"
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet_on_Fire" title="Tibet on Fire">
"Tibet on Fire" is an account of the discrimination and atrocities faced by Tibetans in 21st century Tibet, and their resistance to foreign/Chinese rule and occupation. It is written from the perspective of a Tibetan with personal experience in the Tibet-China conflict. Since the 2008 uprising, nearly 150 Tibetans, most of them monks, have set fire to themselves to protest foreign occupation of their country. Most have died from their injuries. It is important to understand the book is not about self-immolation, but uses this horrific reality as a way to focus and then delve into the fervent emotions central to Tibetans and their long search for national and individual freedom. The book provides insight into the ideals and personal motivations driving those who resist: the self-immolators and also other Tibetans like the author.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_(picture_book)" title="Waiting (picture book)">
Five toys sit on a windowsill all waiting for something to happen. There is an owl waiting to see the moon, there is a pig with an umbrella waiting to see the rain, there is a puppy with a snow sled waiting to see the snow, there is a bear with a kite waiting to see the wind, and finally there is a rabbit looking outside the window just happy to contemplate what is happening outside.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good-Luck_Horse" title="The Good-Luck Horse">
"The Good-Luck Horse" is based on a Chinese folk-tale. It tells the story of a paper horse that was created by a kind magician. Since the horse was magical it was able to do anything it was told to do. The horse then became a problem because it was bringing bad luck to its owner until the horse ran away. When a war broke out the horse met another horse and together they were able to end the war, earning him the name of the good-luck horse.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesthäkchen_and_Her_Chicks" title="Nesthäkchen and Her Chicks">
In this novel the plot has advanced beyond the year during which Else Ury was writing, 1923. Strictly speaking, Ury is describing the future. Annemarie Braun was born 9 April 1903, and married at 20; she could thus in 1930 be celebrating her seventh wedding anniversary, which occurs in the book.In order to continue the series, Else Ury extended the middle 1920s milieu of her fifth and sixth Nesthäkchen volumes for another half-century. Time stands still, but the characters age. Therefore, Annemarie’s life no longer unfolds, as in the first six books, in an actual historical period."Nesthäkchen and Her Chicks" begins with Anne Marie and Rudolf's seventh wedding anniversary. The two now have three children, the six-year Vronli, the three-year-old Hans and two-year-old Ursel, and live in Berlin-Lichterfelde. Anne Marie's parents, "Omama" and "Opapa" are now beloved grandparents, her grandmother the "Urmütterchen" and Aunt Albertina the "Urtantchen" of Annemarie’s children. Brother Hans is a magistrate married to Rudolf's sister Ola, with two sons, Herbert and Waldemar. Klaus is a farmer, still a bachelor, who is enamored of Annemarie’s girlfriend Ilse Hermann. Ilse and Marlene Ulrich, the inseparable cousins, are teachers at a girls' school. Margot and Vera are unmarried and employed, Margot as head of a dressmaking firm and Vera as a photographer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tiger's_Apprentice" title="The Tiger's Apprentice">
Tom, a young Chinese American boy has grown up under the care of his eccentric grandmother, Mrs. Lee, in San Francisco. He is her reluctant apprentice Guardian, learning ancient Chinese magic to protect a coral rose. However, upon the arrival of Mr. Hu, a tiger and Mrs. Lee's former apprentice, monsters attack. Mrs. Lee dies protecting Tom and the rose, leaving Mr. Hu the guardian of both Tom and the coral rose. (pg. 25–26).Safe in Mr. Hu's antique shop in Chinatown, Mr. Hu reveals that the coral rose is actually the phoenix which has the power to transform evil beings into good ones. In ancient Chinese mythology, the creature Kung Kung attempts to use the phoenix to force human beings to obey him. After the Empress Nü Kua defeated Kung Kung, the phoenix chose to return to his egg and await a time of peace when his power would not be misused and the role of the Guardian is created to protect the phoenix. (pg. 39–40) However, Kung Kung's lieutenant Vatten and the Clan of Nine (named for Vattens form as a nine-headed-serpent) have followed the Chinese Guardians to America and the phoenix will require both Mr. Hu and Tom to protect it. Tom, however, is afraid to truly take on the role of an apprentice Guardian. (pg. 28).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesthäkchen's_Youngest" title="Nesthäkchen's Youngest">
Temporal logic cast aside, Else Ury begins Volume 8 in 1945, but when she mentions the World War she means World War One, not World War Two, which she could not foresee and would not survive.Since the previous volume, 15 years have passed. Annemarie's physician husband Rudolf is now Privy Counsel and Professor. Daughter Vronli, serious, sensible, hard-working and humble, is a maternity nurse in Munich. Brother Hans’ son, a poor student, is about to graduate and does not want to study medicine, contrary to the wishes of his father, but wants to be a farmer like his admired Uncle Klaus. The main character is the youngest daughter, Ursel, seventeen, who has just graduated from school and is very similar to Annemarie. Ursel has a beautiful voice and wants to be a singer, but her father insists that she start as a bank clerk. The difficult situation between father and daughter escalates angrily for a time, but Annemarie smoothes the waves and devises a compromise: Ursel joins the bank, but takes singing lessons from an aging opera diva.Annemarie's brother Klaus is married to Ilse and has four sons, while Marlene and Peter are parents of three daughters. Brother Hans is lonely since the death of his wife Ola, and has two wild sons. Annemarie's girlfriend Margot is his housekeeper and a little later his second wife.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Too_Had_a_Love_Story" title="I Too Had a Love Story">
Ravin and Khushi are the male and female protagonists of the novel. The novel starts with a reunion in Kolkata of Ravin and his three male friends Manpreet, Amardeep, Happy, who used to study in the same engineering college. During the reunion they discuss their future plans of getting married and all of them accept that they did not think about it. Happy suggests Ravin to visit and sign up at "Shaadi.com", an online matrimonial website.After the reunion, Ravin comes back to Bhubaneswar, where he works as an engineer for Infosys, and registers at "Shaadi.com". After a few days of registering on the site, Ravin finds a girl named Khushi, a resident of Delhi, and an employee of CSC, Noida. Ravin and Khushi start talking to each other over phone and soon become good friends. They become curious about each other's interest and find there are many similarities between them. After a few months of conversation over phone, they realize that they have started falling in love with each other, although they have never met face-to-face. Very soon, Ravin is asked to travel to the United States for an office assignment. He is required to go to Delhi, where Khushi lives, to board the international flight. Ravin decides to go to Delhi one day earlier to meet Khushi for the first time, and spend time with her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesthäkchen_and_Her_Grandchildren" title="Nesthäkchen and Her Grandchildren">
It is 1961. Sixteen years have passed since Ursel’s wedding, and she has not seen her family in Germany. Ursel lives with her husband, Milton Tavares, her fourteen year old, very different twins Anita and Marietta, and her little son, Juan (Hans), in São Paulo. The rich family has a luxurious existence, but Ursel works to improve the lot of the exploited plantation laborers. Marietta wants to emulate her mother, while the spoiled Anita thinks only of herself. One day Marietta gets lost on a neighboring plantation and finds a little German girl, Lotte Müller, whose mother is in a mud hut dying. The orphaned Lotte is adopted by the Tavares family and taken on their long-planned trip to Germany to find the mother's relatives.Annemarie suffers severely during the extended separation from her youngest, Ursel. She has become the most beloved "Omama" of Vronli’s daughter, Gerda, and of Hans' children Lilli, Eva, Ned (presumably named after Annemarie's father, who is originally Edmund and called Ned by his wife) and Heinz.Annemarie's brother Hans has died. His second wife Margot and his two sons Herbert and Waldemar have disappeared from the story.When Anita and Marietta arrive in Germany, they have problems, because the two rich girls find it difficult to get used to the simple life, and do not want to help Rudolf and Annemarie with housework. However, the modest Marietta soon adapts, as she distances herself from her dominant twin sister. Little Lotte lives in the Hartenstein house with the servant couple Kunze; she is a replacement for their daughter. Her relatives – originally from Silesia, after 1945 from Westphalia—cannot be found.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesthäkchen_With_White_Hair" title="Nesthäkchen With White Hair">
The year is 1973. The twenty-six year old Marietta lives in Berlin with Grandparents Rudolf Hartenstein and Annemarie Braun Hartenstein. She works, as part of her studies, in a kindergarten, where she is a favorite "aunt." Together with cousin Gerda she attends a women's school in order to be a youth counselor, a popular profession in the nineteen-twenties for modern, socially engaged women. From her twin Anita she has grown more and more distant. She is smitten with Horst, son of her grand-uncle Klaus, but Horst is enamored of Anita, and travels to Brazil to be with her. Anita's family expects her to marry Horst, but she gets engaged, to everyone’s surprise, to Ricardo Orlando, the son of wealthy neighbors.One day Marietta notes a similarity between the kindergarten child Lenchen and Lotte, the foundling, who still lives in the Hartenstein house with the Kunzes, the household servants. It turns out that Lenchen’s grandmother was also Lotte's grandmother and Lenchen’s mother is Lotte's aunt. Lotte remains with the Kunzes, but is happy to have found her relatives and maintains contact with them.Marietta accompanies a group of children who travel to the seaside to relax. Lotte stays on the estate of her grand-uncle Klaus. Here she receives the news that her grandfather Rudolf is blind. Surgery restores his eyesight.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagari" title="Jagari">
The novel is written in first-person narrative, but from four different people's point of view. During India's freedom movement Bilu, an Indian revolutionary is sentenced to death. The novel starts in the jail custody at the last night before the convict is to be hanged. The first chapter is written from that Bilu's perspective, where he narrates his own life and experiences. It also tells the inhuman trials and tortures he faced. The second, third and fourth chapter narrate the same story from his father, mother and brother's perspectives. All of them await the capital punishment while explaining their own thoughts, anxiety and experiences.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_(novel)" title="Dust (novel)">
The plot opens with Kay Scarpetta receiving a phone call from Marino informing her about a body, later identified as Gail Shipton, recovered in a field adjoining Massachusetts Information Technology (MIT) campus. As detailed by witnesses, the body was found wrapped in an unusual white cloth, a picture of which brings back to memory a similar scene from 'Capital murders’- a case of triple killings in the capital city Washington- something that Benton had shared with her (albeit without FBI authorization) in lieu of her expertise.Haley Swansen, the boyfriend of the deceased is interrogated and it is revealed that he is transgender.The Capital murders were temporally separated, the first in April and the last two around Thanksgiving, each body clad only in panties belonging to the prior victim and posed in an open field stone's throw away from a rail track. Ed Granby, Benton's boss and head of Boston division, had refused to release key information pertaining to these cases under the pretext 'to avoid replication of this murder-style’.It is learned that the deceased had filed a $100million lawsuit against her financial advisor : ‘"Double-S’’’, a firm with 6 other lawsuits - none of which reached the court since referred to as ‘frivolous’ by CEO Dominic Lombardi - and under probation from SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) for irregularities.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily_and_the_Octopus" title="Lily and the Octopus">
A 42-year-old writer finds that a small octopus has attached itself to the head of his aging dachshund, Lily.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lie_Tree" title="The Lie Tree">
"The Lie Tree" is set in the male-dominated Victorian scientific society, and tells the story of Faith Sunderly, a 14-year-old girl whose father is killed in mysterious circumstances after the family moves to the fictional island of Vane. In her efforts to discover what happened to her father, and to follow his footsteps of studying natural science, she discovers a tree that provides truths by feeding on whispered lies. The bigger the lie, the more people who believe it, the bigger the truth that is uncovered.The girl realizes that she is good at lying and that the tree might hold the key to her father's murder, so she begins to spread untruths far and wide across her small island community. But as her tales spiral out of control, she discovers that where lies seduce, truths shatter..
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nana_in_the_City" title="Nana in the City">
"Nana in the City" starts off with a young boy who visits his Nana and her new apartment in New York City. He shows how much he loves and appreciates his Nana but he does not feel the same way about the city. The boy does not think that his Nana should be living in the city as he tells her, but Nana feels the opposite.Nana shows the boy how wonderful the city is. She knits him a fancy red cape and makes him wear it, making him feel fearless and courageous. He still notices the things that he saw from the other day, but it is not as bad as he thought it was. He starts to appreciate the city. Later that next day, he agrees with his Nana that the city is filled with amazing things. He then confirms that there are many fun things that his Nana can do in the city even though it can get loud and busy. When it is time for the young boy to leave, he offers his cape to his Nana to keep her bold being in the city. After exploring the city a little bit more, he then realizes that it is a great place for his Nana to live and for him to visit.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_and_Dave_Dig_a_Hole" title="Sam and Dave Dig a Hole">
Two brothers named Sam and Dave, alongside their unnamed canine friend, have embarked on a journey to find something spectacular, "On Monday Sam and Dave dug a hole." They are determined in their search "We won't stop digging until we find something spectacular" and they proceed to dig through a vast distance. Along the way they dig past many jewels and potential "spectacular" objects, which notably enough only their dog seems to be aware of. The illustrations rely heavily on the positioning of the eyes to describe the relationship between the objects in the frame that are hidden to the boys but are aware to the dog, as shown in various frames such as on pages 8 and 10 the two brothers are shown to be fixated on the task at hand whereas the dog is focused more on the jewel that is nearby. They continue their journey, passing by many jewels along the way until they become too tired and decide to take a rest. The illustrations then depict the dog continuing to dig deeper in the ground until they all fall through the hole. "Sam and Dave fell down, down, down, until they landed in the soft dirt." The story concludes with them landing back into an area that looks like their original yard but is not their yard at all as shown by distinct differences in the frames from the 3 pages and the last 3 pages, such as the apple tree that is in their yard at the beginning of the story is replaced by a pear tree and the red flower that is on their porch in the beginning of the book is replaced by a blue flower at the end of the story.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viva_Frida" title="Viva Frida">
The story follows Frida Kahlo, a world-renowned and unconventional artist whose art is appreciated all around the world. The story illustrates the different stages of her life and how they influenced her to become an artist.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bought_&amp;_Sold_(book)" title="Bought &amp; Sold (book)">
"Bought &amp; Sold" is memoir by Megan Stephens about her experiences as a 14 year old girl who fell in love and was sold in sexual slavery by her pimp boyfriend.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Sky" title="Paradise Sky">
Young Willie, the son of a slave in East Texas, is caught looking at the rear end of a white woman. Her husband, Sam Ruggert, a racist former rebel soldier, catches him looking and immediately calls for his lynching. Willie runs home and tells his father what has happened. His father, knowing what will happen, sends him running before the posse shows up. Willie later returns home only to discover Ruggert and his men have brutally murdered his father and burned down their cabin. So Willie outruns his pursuers is taken in by a man named Loving. Loving teaches him to read, write, and shoot. Loving becomes a father figure and mentor. 4 years later Loving shoots himself after discovering he has cancer. Being a wanted man, Willie changes his name to Nat Love and head west to join the army and becomes a buffalo soldier. However while on patrol his unit attacked by Apache Indians and is almost wiped out. Nat figures he'll be blamed for the incident and deserts. He heads north to the small mining town of Deadwood, South Dakota where he is befriended by Wild Bill Hickok. He meets and falls in love with a woman, but then discovers that Ruggert, a man with a long memory, is still pursuing him. Ruggert and his men eventually catch up to Nat and his bride to be. After leaving Nat for dead, they kidnap, rape, and torture Nat's woman. Bent on revenge Nat, now nicknamed Deadwood Dick for winning a shooting contest, pursues Ruggert and his men for a final and deadly showdown.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Will_Cry_When_You_Die" title="Who Will Cry When You Die">
The book is divided into 101 full chapters. Each chapter offers solutions and suggestions to face some of the difficult problems of life and develop one's personality and personal skills. Some of the suggestions mentioned in this book are— carrying goal cards, learning from good movies, seeing a day as an entire life, learning how to walk, importance of planting trees etc.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Guard_(novel)" title="New Guard (novel)">
Leon and Daniel Sharma, younger twin brothers of Ryan Sharma, ambush paedophile Nigel Kinney and hand over evidence of his activities to the PHN (Paedophile Hunting Network), a vigilante group. They are caught returning to CHERUB campus and are given two months of hard drill, an excruciating physical activity. Meanwhile, James Adams and sister Lauren arrive at campus for the demolition party celebrating the demolition of the main building. They help to clear archives in the basement first. Chairman Ewart Asker introduces the oldest surviving CHERUB agent and two red shirts who press the button to demolish the building. The main building is demolished and the new Campus Village is opened. Soon, the twins are pulled out of hard drill for a mission in Birmingham with James. Their task is to befriend Oliver Lakshmi, a troubled youth with a reputation for elaborate but untrue stories and see if he has information on radical Islamic terror groups or if he is lying. He is also a potential recruit for CHERUB. Oliver, known as Oli, turns out to be a bully and a thief and James decides he won't be recruited. However, Leon and Daniel learn of a local gangster, Trey, who is supervised by an elderly man known as Uncle. Ryan joins the mission and befriends Uncle. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shards_of_Heaven" title="The Shards of Heaven">
Years after the murder of Julius Caesar, his adopted son Octavian has succeeded him as a powerful force in Rome, if only as a senator with a large personal army. Octavian is somewhat threatened by the existence of Caesarion, Caesar's son by the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, who is himself Pharaoh alongside his mother. Octavian's nemesis Mark Antony has left Italy for Egypt, where he has fathered three children with Cleopatra, and his declaration of Caesarion as Caesar's legitimate heir incites war with Rome. Meanwhile, Caesar's other adopted son, Juba, has found the fabled Trident of Poseidon, a magical artifact with unearthly destructive power. He intends to use it—and the other so-called "Shards of Heaven"—to avenge himself on Rome for the death of his natural father, the king of Numidia.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Primrose_Path_(Matas_novel)" title="The Primrose Path (Matas novel)">
A fourteen-year-old Jewish girl named Debbie moves to a new city and finds herself part of a small Jewish Orthodox community. Soon she comes into contact with Rabbi Werner, who is the principal of the Orthodox school that his synagogue houses, Debbie's teacher, and a child molester. After his seemingly accidental tickles and touches become inappropriate, Debbie tells her father about the non-sexual touching. He then confronts Rabbi Werner; however instead of rejecting the Rabbi, the local community rallies to defend him and rejects Debbie and her family. The story is complicated with marital issues within Debbie's family, and is further complicated by the fact that Rabbi Werner never faces justice for his crimes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Answer_(Steven_Universe)" title="The Answer (Steven Universe)">
Garnet (Estelle) awakens Steven (Zach Callison) at midnight on his birthday to tell him the tale of how Ruby (Charlyne Yi) and Sapphire (Erica Luttrell) first met and fused to become Garnet.5,750 years in the past, the Gem Homeworld is in the process of colonizing Earth, but a group of rebels is halting progress. A team of diplomats is sent to Earth to investigate, among them being Sapphire and three Ruby bodyguards. Sapphire reports her vision of the future to Blue Diamond, the leader of the mission: in the upcoming battle, the rebels will defeat seven Gems, including Sapphire herself and two Rubies, but will be captured, ending the rebellion.The rebels—Rose Quartz (Susan Egan) and Pearl (Deedee Magno Hall)—attack the Sky Arena. The battle proceeds as Sapphire had foreseen, and once two of the Rubies have been defeated, Sapphire thanks the remaining Ruby for her efforts and prepares for the inevitable. Ruby refuses to accept this outcome and leaps towards Sapphire, saving her but unintentionally fusing with her and forming Garnet for the first time. The crowd of diplomats stares in surprise and disgust at the confused Garnet, and Rose and Pearl flee during the distraction.Garnet immediately unfuses, and Ruby takes the blame for the failure of Sapphire's prediction and the illicit fusion. Blue Diamond sentences Ruby to be shattered, but Sapphire grabs her and escapes, jumping down to Earth's surface. On the ground, Ruby and Sapphire find shelter and discuss their feelings about the unexpected fusion. Over a montage of the two of them exploring Earth and getting to know each other better, they sing the song "Something Entirely New", trying to understand what it means to have become Garnet. They end with a fusion dance, fusing into Garnet once more.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asha's_Mums" title="Asha's Mums">
This story is based on the protagonist, Asha, and her struggle explaining to her teacher and friends that she has two mothers, as part of the process of gaining permission to go on a school trip. The book begins when Asha's teacher, Ms. Samuels, sees Asha's mothers' names on the permission form and assumes it has been filled out incorrectly. Ms. Samuels wonders which one is Asha's mother, and she struggles to understand the possibility of Asha having two moms. In one scene, a worried Asha confides in her mothers who agree to talk to the teacher face to face to sort matters out. In the meantime, Asha informs her classmates about different types of families. The story concludes with Asha being granted permission to go on the school trip, and her classmates and teachers having learned about different family structures.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Harbour" title="Broken Harbour">
In a ghost estate outside Dublin – half-built, half-inhabited, half-abandoned – two children and their father are dead. The mother is on her way to intensive care. Scorcher Kennedy is given the case because he is the Murder Squad’s star detective. At first he and his rookie partner, Richie, think this is a simple one: Pat Spain was a casualty of the recession, so he killed his children, tried to kill his wife Jenny, and finished off with himself. But there are too many inexplicable details and the evidence is pointing in two directions at once.Scorcher’s personal life is tugging for his attention. Seeing the case on the news has sent his sister Dina off the rails again, and she’s resurrecting something that Scorcher thought he had tightly under control: what happened to their family, one summer at Broken Harbour, back when they were children. The neat compartments of his life are breaking down, and the sudden tangle of work and family is putting both at risk.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northanger_Abbey" title="Northanger Abbey">
Seventeen-year-old Catherine Morland is one of ten children of a country clergyman. Although a tomboy in her childhood, by the age of 17 she is "in training for a heroine" and is fond of reading Gothic novels, "provided they were all story and no reflection".Catherine is invited by the Allens (her wealthier neighbours in Fullerton) to accompany them to visit the city of Bath and partake in the winter season of balls, theatre and other social delights. Soon she is introduced to a clever young gentleman, Henry Tilney, with whom she dances and converses. Mrs. Allen meets an old school friend, Mrs. Thorpe, whose daughter Isabella introduces Catherine to Ann Radcliffe's "Mysteries of Udolpho"; the two quickly become friends. Mrs. Thorpe's son, John, is also a friend of Catherine's older brother, James, at Oxford where they are both students.The Thorpes are not happy about Catherine's friendship with the Tilneys, as they correctly perceive Henry as a rival for Catherine's affections, though Catherine is not at all interested in the crude John Thorpe. Catherine tries to maintain her friendships with both the Thorpes and the Tilneys, though John Thorpe continuously tries to sabotage her relationship with the Tilneys. This leads to several misunderstandings, which put Catherine in the awkward position of having to explain herself to the Tilneys.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time" title="The Wheel of Time">
The prequel novel, "New Spring", takes place during the Aiel War and chronicles the end of the conflict and the discovery by the Aes Sedai that the Prophecies of the Dragon have been fulfilled and the Dragon has been Reborn. Aes Sedai agents are dispatched to try and find the newborn child before servants of the Shadow can do the same.The series proper commences almost 20 years later in the Two Rivers district of the kingdom of Andor, a near-forgotten backwater. A young sheep herder named Rand al’Thor (the series protagonist) and his father Tam al’Thor travel to the nearby town of Emond's Field to deliver cider. Rand, keen to further explore his romance with the mayor's daughter, Egwene al’Vere, becomes caught up with an Aes Sedai called Moiraine Damodred, and her Warder, Lan, after his father sustains a serious wound. Rand and his friends, Matrim "Mat" Cauthon and Perrin Aybara discover from Moiraine that servants of the Dark One are searching for one particular young man living in the area. Unfortunately, Moiraine is unable to determine which of three men it is: Rand himself, Mat, or Perrin, and so takes all three of them out of the Two Rivers district along with his romantic interest Egwene (whom Moiraine has determined can channel the One Power and would teach to be Aes Sedai) and the village "Wisdom" (a local healer) Nynaeve al'Meara after a terrible battle with creatures created by The Dark One. The first novel depicts their flight from various agents of the Shadow and their attempts to escape to the Aes Sedai city of Tar Valon.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eye_of_the_World" title="The Eye of the World">
"The Eye of the World" revolves around protagonists Rand al'Thor, Matrim (Mat) Cauthon, Perrin Aybara, Egwene al'Vere, and Nynaeve al'Meara, after their home town of Emond's Field is unexpectedly attacked by Trollocs (the antagonist's soldiers) and a Myrddraal (the undead-like officer commanding the Trollocs) intent on capturing Rand, Mat, and Perrin. To save their village from further attacks, Rand, Mat, Perrin, and Egwene flee it, accompanied by the Aes Sedai Moiraine Damodred, her Warder Al'Lan Mandragoran, and gleeman Thom Merrilin, and later joined by Wisdom Nynaeve al'Meara. Pursued by increasing numbers of Trollocs and Myrddraal, the travellers take refuge in the abandoned city of Shadar Logoth, where Mat steals a cursed dagger, thus becoming infected by the malevolent Mashadar. While escaping the city the travelers are separated; Rand, Mat, and Thom travel by boat to Whitebridge, where Thom is lost allowing Rand and Mat to escape a Myrddraal. In Caemlyn, Rand befriends an Ogier named Loial. Trying to catch a glimpse of the recently captured False Dragon, Rand befriends Elayne Trakand, heir apparent to the throne of Andor, and her brothers Gawyn Trakand and Galad Damodred. Rand is then taken before Queen Morgase, her Aes Sedai advisor, Elaida; and Captain-General of the Queen's Guard Gareth Bryne, and released without charge, in spite of Elaida's grave pronouncements regarding Rand.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Hunt" title="The Great Hunt">
## Prologue.Ba'alzamon presides over a clandestine meeting. In addition to Forsaken and Darkfriends (the antagonist's known subordinates), the meeting includes two Aes Sedai.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter's_Heart" title="Winter's Heart">
Many of the events of "Winter's Heart" take place simultaneously with the events of the next book, "Crossroads of Twilight". Perrin Aybara and his followers pursue the Shaido Aiel who kidnapped his wife, Faile Bashere, while Elayne Trakand attempts to suppress rebellious nobles.Mat Cauthon is trapped in the city of Ebou Dar in Altara, under Seanchan occupation. His escape is disrupted by a Seanchan noblewoman named Tuon, the heir to the Seanchan Crystal Throne; and Mat, having heard a prophecy of his own marriage to the Daughter of the Nine Moons, referring to Tuon herself, kidnaps her during his and his men's escape from the city.Rand al'Thor is appointed a Warder by Elayne Trakand, Aviendha, and Min Farshaw; and later kills most of the Asha'man traitors in Far Madding. Lan also kills Toram Riatin in a duel. Caught by guards, Rand is imprisoned for a short time but is set free by Cadsuane and the other Aes Sedai. Rand and Nynaeve al'Meara Travel to Shadar Logoth. There, defended by Cadsuane Melaidhrin's Aes Sedai and loyal Asha'man against the Forsaken, Rand and Nynaeve use the Choedan Kal to cleanse "saidin" of the Dark One's influence. In the process, both Shadar Logoth, the access key to the female Choedan Kal, and the female Choedan Kal itself are destroyed.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Around_the_World_in_Eighty_Days" title="Around the World in Eighty Days">
Phileas Fogg is a wealthy English gentleman living a solitary life in London. Despite his wealth, Fogg lives modestly and carries out his habits with mathematical precision. Very little can be said about his social life other than that he is a member of the Reform Club, where he spends the best part of his days. Having dismissed his valet for bringing him shaving water at a temperature slightly lower than expected, Fogg hires Frenchman Jean Passepartout as a replacement.On the evening of 2 October 1872, while at the Reform Club, Fogg gets involved in an argument over an article in "The Daily Telegraph" stating that with the opening of a new railway section in India, it is now possible to travel around the world in 80 days. He accepts a wager for £20,000, half of his fortune, from his fellow club members to complete such a journey within this period. With Passepartout accompanying him, Fogg departs from London by train at 8:45 p.m. that evening; to win the wager, he must return to the club by this same time on 22 December, 80 days later. They take the remaining £20,000 of Fogg's fortune with them to cover expenses during the journey.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath" title="The Grapes of Wrath">
The narrative begins just after Tom Joad is paroled from McAlester prison, where he had been incarcerated after being convicted of homicide in self-defense. While hitchhiking to his home near Sallisaw, Oklahoma, Tom meets former preacher Jim Casy, whom he remembers from his childhood, and the two travel together. Arriving at Tom's childhood farm home, they find it deserted. Disconcerted and confused, Tom and Casy meet an old neighbor, Muley Graves, who says the family is at Uncle John Joad's home nearby. Graves says the banks have evicted all the farmers. They have moved away, but Muley refuses to leave the area.The next morning, Tom and Casy go to Uncle John's. Tom's family is loading their remaining possessions into a Hudson sedan converted into a truck; with the crops destroyed by the Dust Bowl, the family has defaulted on their bank loans and their farm has been repossessed. The family sees no option but to seek work in California, which has been described in handbills as fruitful and offering high pay. The Joads put everything they have into making the journey. Although leaving Oklahoma violates his parole, Tom takes the risk, and invites Casy to join the family.Traveling west on Route 66, the Joads find the road crowded with other migrants. In makeshift camps, they hear many stories from others, some returning from California. The group worries that California may not be as rewarding as suggested. The family dwindles on the way: Grampa dies and they bury him in a field; Granma dies close to the California state line; and both Noah (the eldest Joad son) and Connie Rivers (the husband of the pregnant Joad daughter, Rose of Sharon) leave the family. Led by Ma, the remaining members continue on, as nothing is left for them in Oklahoma.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Green_Was_My_Valley" title="How Green Was My Valley">
The novel is set in South Wales during the reign of Queen Victoria. It tells the story of the Morgans, a respectable mining family of the South Wales Valleys, through the eyes of one of the sons, Huw Morgan.Huw's academic ability sets him apart from his elder brothers and enables him to consider a future away from the dangerous coal mines. His five brothers and his father are miners. After his eldest brother, Ivor, is killed in a mining accident, Huw moves in with his sister-in-law, Bronwen, with whom he has always been in love.One of Huw's three sisters, Angharad, marries the wealthy mine owner's son – whom she does not love – and the marriage is an unhappy one. She never overcomes her clandestine relationship with the local minister.Huw's father is later killed in a mine explosion. After everyone Huw has known either dies or moves away, and the town is reduced to a contaminated shell, he decides to leave, and tells the story of his life just before going away.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Audley's_Secret" title="Lady Audley's Secret">
The novel opens in June 1857 with the marriage of Lucy Graham and Sir Michael Audley. Lucy is a young, beautiful woman who enchants almost all who meet her. Sir Michael is a kindly, wealthy middle-aged widower. Lucy's past is unclear. Prior to getting married to Sir Michael she had served as governess for the children of the local doctor, Mr. Dawson, and before that she was in service with Mrs. Vincent. Very little is known about her prior to that. Shortly after the marriage Sir Michael's nephew, the barrister Robert Audley, welcomes his old friend George Talboys back to England.Three years before, though happily married, George's financial situation had been desperate. He left for Australia to seek a fortune in gold prospecting. Behind him in England he had left his young wife Helen, whom he is now anxious to get news of. He reads in the newspaper that she has died, and, after visiting her home to confirm this, he becomes despondent. Robert Audley cares for his friend, and, hoping to distract him, offers to take him to his wealthy uncle's country manor. George had a child, Georgey, who was left under the care of Lieutenant Maldon, George's father-in-law. Robert and George set off to visit Georgey, and George decides to make Robert little Georgey's guardian and trustee of £20,000 put into the boy's name. After settling the matter of the boy's guardianship, the two set off to visit Sir Michael.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Queen_of_the_Damned" title="The Queen of the Damned">
Part One follows several different people over the same period of several days. Several of the characters from the two previous books appear, including Armand, Daniel Molloy (the "boy reporter" of "Interview with the Vampire"), Marius de Romanus, Louis de Pointe du Lac, Gabrielle de Lioncourt and Santino. Each of the six chapters in Part One tells a different story about a different person or group of people. Two things unify these chapters: a series of dreams about red-haired twin sisters, and the fact that a powerful being is killing vampires around the world by means of spontaneous combustion.Pandora and Santino rescue Marius, having answered his telepathic call for help. Marius informs his rescuers that Akasha has been awakened by Lestat de Lioncourt, or rather his rock music, for he has joined a rock band with mortals Alex, Larry and Tough Cookie. Having been awakened by Lestat's rebellious music, Akasha destroys her husband Enkil and plots to rule the world. She is also revealed as the source of the attacks on other vampires.Part Two takes place at Lestat's concert. Jesse Reeves, a member of the secret Talamasca and relative of Maharet, is mortally injured while attending the concert, and is taken to be made into a vampire at Maharet's compound in California's Sonoma Mountains. The vampires from Part One later congregate in the compound. Meanwhile, Akasha abducts Lestat and takes him as an unwilling consort to various locations in the world, inciting women to rise up and kill the men who have oppressed them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver's_Travels" title="Gulliver's Travels">
## Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput.The travel begins with a short preamble in which Lemuel Gulliver gives a brief outline of his life and history before his voyages.During his first voyage, Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck and finds himself a prisoner of a race of tiny people, less than tall, who are inhabitants of the island country of Lilliput. After giving assurances of his good behaviour, he is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favourite of the Lilliput Royal Court. He is also given permission by the King of Lilliput to go around the city on condition that he must not hurt their subjects.At first, the Lilliputians are hospitable to Gulliver, but they are also wary of the threat that his size poses to them. The Lilliputians reveal themselves to be a people who put great emphasis on trivial matters. For example, which end of an egg a person cracks becomes the basis of a deep political rift within that nation. They are a people who revel in displays of authority and performances of power. Gulliver assists the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbours the Blefuscudians by stealing their fleet. However, he refuses to reduce the island nation of Blefuscu to a province of Lilliput, displeasing the King and the royal court.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Thousand_and_One_Nights" title="One Thousand and One Nights">
The main frame story concerns Shahryār whom the narrator calls a "Sasanian king" ruling in "India and China." Shahryār is shocked to learn that his brother's wife is unfaithful. Discovering that his own wife's infidelity has been even more flagrant, he has her killed. In his bitterness and grief, he decides that all women are the same. Shahryār begins to marry a succession of virgins only to execute each one the next morning, before she has a chance to dishonor him.Eventually the Vizier (Wazir), whose duty it is to provide them, cannot find any more virgins. Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter, offers herself as the next bride and her father reluctantly agrees. On the night of their marriage, Scheherazade begins to tell the king a tale, but does not end it. The king, curious about how the story ends, is thus forced to postpone her execution in order to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins another one, and the king, eager to hear the conclusion of that tale as well, postpones her execution once again. This goes on for one thousand and one nights, hence the name.The tales vary widely: they include historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, poems, burlesques, and various forms of erotica. Numerous stories depict jinn, ghouls, ape people, sorcerers, magicians, and legendary places, which are often intermingled with real people and geography, not always rationally. Common protagonists include the historical Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid, his Grand Vizier, Jafar al-Barmaki, and the famous poet Abu Nuwas, despite the fact that these figures lived some 200 years after the fall of the Sassanid Empire, in which the frame tale of Scheherazade is set. Sometimes a character in Scheherazade's tale will begin telling other characters a story of his own, and that story may have another one told within it, resulting in a richly layered narrative texture.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Color_Purple" title="The Color Purple">
Celie is a young poor, uneducated 14-year-old African-American teenager girl living in the Southern United States in the early 1900s. She writes letters to God because her father, Alphonso, beats and rapes her. Alphonso has already impregnated Celie once, which resulted in the birth of a girl, Olivia, whom Alphonso abducted. Celie believes that Alphonso killed Olivia. Celie then has a second child, and Celie's ailing mother dies after cursing Celie on her deathbed. The second child is a boy named Adam, whom Alphonso takes from Celie shortly after his birth.Celie and her younger sister, 12-year-old Nettie, learn that a man identified only as "Mister" wants to marry Nettie. Alphonso refuses to let Nettie marry, instead arranging for Mister to marry Celie. Mister, a widower, needing someone to care for his own two children and keep his own house clean, eventually accepts the offer. Mister physically, sexually, and verbally abuses Celie, and his two children mistreat her as well.Shortly thereafter, Nettie runs away from Alphonso and takes refuge at Celie's house, where Mister makes sexual advances toward her. Celie then advises Nettie to seek assistance from a well-dressed black woman whom she saw in the general store a while back; unbeknownst to Celie, the woman adopted Olivia, and she is the only black woman Celie has ever seen with money of her own. Nettie is forced to leave after promising to write. Celie, however, never receives any letters and concludes that her sister Nettie is dead.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_English_Patient" title="The English Patient">
The novel's historical backdrop is the North African and Italian Campaigns of the Second World War. The story is told out of sequence, moving back and forth between the severely burned "English" patient's memories from before his accident and current events at the bomb-damaged Villa San Girolamo (in Fiesole), an Italian monastery, where he is being cared for by Hana, a troubled young Canadian Army nurse. A few chapters are also devoted to Kip, an Indian Sikh, during his time in England training and working as a sapper on unexploded ordnance.The English patient's only possession is a well-worn and heavily annotated copy of Herodotus's "The Histories" that has survived the fiery parachute drop. Hearing the book constantly being read aloud to him brings about detailed recollections of his desert explorations, yet he is unable to recall his own name. Instead, he chooses to believe the assumption by others that he is an Englishman based on the sound of his voice. The patient is in fact László de Almásy, a Hungarian Count and desert explorer, one of many members of a British cartography group.Caravaggio, an Italian-Canadian in the British foreign intelligence service since the late 1930s, is a friend of Hana and Patrick, her mother's lover. He had remained in North Africa to spy when the German forces gain control and then transfers to Italy. He is eventually caught, interrogated, and tortured, resulting in his thumbs being cut off. He is prematurely released and is standing on the Ponte Santa Trinita bridge when it is destroyed. He recovers at a hospital for over four months before he accidentally overhears about the patient and Hana. Caravaggio bears physical and psychological scars from his painful war experience.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forge_of_God" title="The Forge of God">
The novel features scenes and events, including the discovery of a nearly-dead alien in the desert, who clearly says in English, "I'm sorry, but there is bad news," and the alien's subsequent interrogation and autopsy; the discovery of an artificial geological formation and its subsequent nuclear destruction by a desperate military; and the Earth's eventual destruction by the mutual annihilation of a piece of neutronium and a piece of antineutronium dropped into Earth's core.There is another alien faction at work, however, represented on Earth by small spider-like robots that recruit human agents through some form of mind control. They frantically collect all the human data, biological records, tissue samples, seeds, and DNA from the biosphere that they can and evacuate a handful of people from Earth. In outer space, this faction's machines combat and eventually destroy the attackers but not before Earth's fate is sealed. The evacuees eventually settle a newly terraformed Mars while some form the crew of a Ship of the Law to hunt down the home world of the killers, a quest described in the sequel, "Anvil of Stars".One of the point-of-view characters is Arthur Gordon, a scientist. He, his wife Francine and son Martin are among those rescued from the destruction of Earth. Some other characters are close to an American president, who fails to take action against the threat.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Music_(novel)" title="Blood Music (novel)">
In the novel, renegade biotechnologist Vergil Ulam creates simple biological computers based on his own lymphocytes. Faced with orders from his nervous employer to destroy his work, he injects them into his own body, intending to smuggle the "noocytes" (as he calls them) out of the company and work on them elsewhere. Inside Ulam's body, the noocytes multiply and evolve rapidly, altering their own genetic material and quickly becoming self-aware. The nanoscale civilization they construct soon begins to transform Ulam, then others. The people who are infected start to find that genetic faults such as myopia and high blood pressure get fixed. Ulam's eyesight, posture, strength, and intelligence are all improved. The infected can even have conversations with their noocytes, some reporting that the cells seem to sing.Through infection, conversion, and assimilation of humans and other organisms, the cells eventually aggregate most of the biosphere of North America into a region seven thousand kilometers wide. This civilization, which incorporates both the evolved noocytes and recently assimilated conventional humans, is eventually forced to abandon the normal plane of existence in favor of one in which thought does not require a physical substrate. The reason for the noocytes' inability to remain in this reality is somewhat related to the strong anthropic principle.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_According_to_Garp" title="The World According to Garp">
The novel is about the life of T.S. Garp. His mother, Jenny Fields, is a strong-willed nurse who wants a child but not a husband. She encounters a dying ball turret gunner known only as Technical Sergeant Garp, who was severely brain damaged in combat. Jenny nurses Garp, observing his infantile state and almost perpetual autonomic sexual arousal. Unconstrained by convention and driven by her desire for a child, Jenny rapes the brain-damaged Garp once, impregnates herself and names the resulting son "T.S." (a name derived from "Technical Sergeant", but consisting of just initials). Jenny raises young Garp alone, taking a position at the all-boys Steering School in New England.Garp grows up, becoming interested in sex, wrestling, and writing fiction—three topics in which his mother has little interest. After his graduation in 1961, his mother takes him to Vienna, where he writes his first novella. At the same time, his mother begins writing her autobiography, "A Sexual Suspect". After Jenny and Garp return to Steering, Garp marries Helen, the wrestling coach's daughter, and begins his family—he a struggling writer, she a teacher of English. The publication of "A Sexual Suspect" makes his mother famous. She becomes a feminist icon, because feminists view her book as a manifesto of a woman who does not care to bind herself to a man, and who chooses to raise a child on her own. She nurtures and supports women traumatized by men, among them the Ellen Jamesians, a group of women named after an eleven-year-old girl whose tongue was cut off by her rapists to silence her. The members of the group cut off their own tongues in solidarity with the girl (the girl herself opposes this tongue cutting).
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_on_the_Bounty_(novel)" title="Mutiny on the Bounty (novel)">
The novel tells the story through a fictional first-person narrator by the name of Roger Byam, based on a crew member Peter Heywood. Byam, although not one of the mutineers, remains with the "Bounty" after the mutiny. He subsequently returns to Tahiti, and is eventually arrested and taken back to England to face a court-martial. He and several other members of the crew are eventually acquitted.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mothman_Prophecies" title="The Mothman Prophecies">
The book relates Keel's accounts of his investigation into confirmed sightings of a large, winged creature called Mothman in the vicinity of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, during 1966 and 1967. It combines these accounts with his theories about UFOs and various supernatural phenomena, ultimately connecting them to the collapse of the Silver Bridge across the Ohio River on December 15, 1967. Official investigations in 1971 determined it was caused by stress corrosion cracking in an eyebar in a suspension chain.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Memory_of_Earth" title="The Memory of Earth">
Humanity has lived for 40 million years on a planet called Harmony, after leaving an Earth that has been destroyed by human conflict. In order not to repeat the mistakes that led tothe destruction of civilization on Earth, a computer, known as the Oversoul, was left as guardian of this planet.Its main mission was to prevent humans from developing technologies that could make wars a global affair. For that, humans were genetically modified so they could communicate with the Oversoul. The Oversoul uses this connection to make humans quite easily distracted when thinking about forbidden technologies, leading them to forget that train of thought. However, after this long time the Oversoul is beginning to fail, and it chooses a group of humans to return to Earth in search of the Keeper of Earth, in the hopes it will be able to find a way to maintain power over the people on Harmony.To this end the Oversoul recruits Volemak, father of the protagonist of the story, Nafai. Nafai and Issib, his brother, begin to try and defy the Oversoul's capability to override thought. Through this they learn of the danger that it is in. Nafai begins hearing the Oversoul's voice in his mind. The first book focuses on the family's eventual betrayal, the taking of the Index, and the downfall of the man Gaballufix, who had been planning to ally the city of Basilica, the home of the main characters and the setting of the first half of the book, with a malignant nation.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Column" title="Sixth Column">
A top secret research facility hidden in the Colorado mountains is the last remaining outpost of the United States Army after its defeat by the PanAsians. The conquerors had absorbed the Soviets after being attacked by them and had then gone on to absorb India as well. The invaders are ruthless and cruel. As an example, they crush an abortive rebellion by killing 150,000 American civilians as punishment. Noting that the invaders have allowed the free practice of religion (the better to pacify their slaves), the Americans set up their own church in order to build a resistance movement – a "sixth column", as opposed to a traitorous fifth column.The laboratory is in turmoil as the novel begins. All but six of the personnel have died suddenly, due to unknown forces released by an experiment operating within the newly discovered magneto-gravitic or electro-gravitic spectra. The surviving scientists soon learn that they can selectively kill people by releasing the internal pressure of their cell membranes, among other things. Using this discovery, they construct a race-selective weapon that will stun or kill only Asians.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puppet_Masters" title="The Puppet Masters">
In the summer of 2007, Earth is under clandestine attack. Slug-like creatures, arriving in flying saucers, are attaching themselves to people's backs, taking control of their victims' nervous systems, and manipulating those people as puppets. The Old Man, the head of a clandestine national security agency called the Section, goes to Des Moines, Iowa, with Sam and Mary, two of his best agents, to investigate a flying saucer report, but much more seriously the ominous disappearance of the six agents sent previously. They discover that “the slugs” are steadily taking over Des Moines, but they cannot convince the US president to declare an emergency.Sam takes two other agents and returns to Des Moines to get more evidence of the invasion. They fail and are forced to flee quickly, but in the confusion, a slug gains control of one of the agents. Back in Washington the team discovers the slug and captures it, but later it escapes and attaches itself to Sam, using Sam's skills and knowledge to make a clean escape.Thoroughly under control, Sam uses the Constitution Club—whose membership includes many important members of the city's political elite—to gain more hosts for the slugs. The Old Man captures him, takes him to Section's new headquarters, and coerces Sam into allowing himself to be taken by the slug again. Under drug-induced hypnosis, Sam reveals that the slugs come from Titan, the sixth moon of Saturn. Being forced into a traumatic situation strains Sam's relationship with both Mary and the Old Man. Later, Sam finds that the president and Congress are ready to accept the idea that the United States has been infiltrated, and they pass a law that requires people to go naked to demonstrate that they are not carrying slugs.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_in_the_Willows" title="The Wind in the Willows">
With the arrival of spring and fine weather outside, the good-natured Mole loses patience with spring cleaning. He has fled his underground home and ends up at the river, which he has never seen before. Here he meets Rat, a water vole, who takes Mole for a ride in his rowing boat. They get along well and spend many more days boating, with “Ratty” teaching Mole the ways of the river, with the two friends living together in Ratty's riverside home.One summer day, Rat and Mole disembark near the grand Toad Hall and pay a visit to Toad. Toad is rich, jovial, friendly and kindhearted, but arrogant and rash; he regularly becomes obsessed with current fads, only to abandon them abruptly. His current craze is his horse-drawn caravan. When a passing car scares his horse and causes the caravan to overturn into a ditch, Toad's craze for caravan travel is immediately replaced by an obsession with motorcars.On a snowy winter's day, Mole goes to the Wild Wood, hoping to meet the elusive but virtuous and wise Badger. He gets lost in the woods, succumbs to fright, and hides among the sheltering roots of a tree. Rat finds him as snow begins to fall in earnest. Attempting to find their way home, Mole barks his shin on the boot scraper on Badger's doorscraper. Badger welcomes Rat and Mole to his large and cozy underground home, providing them with hot food, dry clothes, and reassuring conversation. Badger learns from his visitors that Toad has crashed seven cars, has been in the hospital three times, and has spent a fortune on fines. They resolve that when the time is right they will make a plan to protect Toad from himself.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunting_of_the_Snark" title="The Hunting of the Snark">
## Setting."The Hunting of the Snark" shares its fictional setting with Lewis Carroll's earlier poem "Jabberwocky" published in his 1871 children's novel "Through the Looking-Glass". Eight nonsense words from "Jabberwocky" appear in "The Hunting of the Snark": "bandersnatch, beamish, frumious, galumphing, jubjub, mimsiest" (which previously appeared as "mimsy" in "Jabberwocky"), "outgrabe", and "uffish". In a letter to the mother of his young friend Gertrude Chataway, Carroll described the domain of the Snark as "an island frequented by the jubjub and the bandersnatchno doubt the very island where the jabberwock was slain."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Livingston_Seagull" title="Jonathan Livingston Seagull">
The book tells the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a seagull who is bored with daily squabbles over food. Instead of doing the same as the other gulls he decides to follow what his heart says. Seized by a passion for flight, he pushes himself and learns everything he can about flying. His increasing unwillingness to conform finally results in his expulsion from the flock. Now an outcast, he continues to learn, becoming increasingly pleased with his abilities while leading a peaceful and happy life.One day Jonathan meets two gulls who take him to a "higher plane of existence" in which there is no heaven, but a better world found through perfection of knowledge. There he meets another seagull who loves to fly. He discovers that his sheer tenacity and desire to learn have made him "pretty well a one-in-a-million bird." In this new place, Jonathan befriends the wisest gull, Chiang, who takes him beyond his previous self-education, and teaches him how to move instantaneously to anywhere else in the Universe. The secret, Chiang says, is to "begin by knowing that you have already arrived."But unsatisfied with his new life, Jonathan returns to Earth to find others like himself to teach them what he has learned and to spread his love for flight. His mission is successful, and Jonathan gathers around himself a flock of other gulls who have been declared outcasts themselves for not conforming. The first of his students, Fletcher Lynd Seagull, ultimately becomes a teacher in his own right, and Jonathan leaves to teach other flocks.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Legend_(novel)" title="I Am Legend (novel)">
Implicitly set on Cimarron Street in 1976 Los Angeles after an apocalyptic war that ravages the land with weekly dust storms, the novel details the life of Robert Neville in the months and eventually years after the outbreak of a pandemic that has killed the rest of the human population and turned infected survivors into "vampires". The vampires conform remarkably to their stereotypes in fiction and folklore: they are blood-sucking, pale-skinned, and nocturnal, though otherwise indistinguishable from normal humans. Neville, possibly the sole survivor of the pandemic, barricades himself indoors nightly as swarms of vampires violently surround his house. He is further protected by the traditional vampire repellents of garlic, mirrors, and crucifixes. During the day, the vampires are inactive, allowing Neville to drive around stabbing them with wooden stakes (since they seem impervious to his guns' bullets), which causes them to instantly liquefy, and scavenging for supplies. Occasional flashbacks reveal the horrors of how the disease claimed the lives of his wife and daughter.Suffering from extreme isolation, depression, and alcoholism, Neville determines there must be some scientific reasons behind the vampires' origins, behaviors, and oddly specific aversions, so he gradually researches at his local library, discovering that the root of the disease is probably a "Bacillus" strain of bacteria capable of infecting both living and deceased ("undead") hosts. His experiments with microscopes also reveal that the bacteria are deadly sensitive to garlic and sunlight. After he painstakingly attempts to win the trust of a stray sickly dog that dies after only a week, Neville, heartbroken, commits himself even more vigorously to his studies. Soon he experiments directly on incapacitated vampires, which leads to a new theory that vampires are affected by mirrors and crosses because of "hysterical blindness", in which the infected now delusionally react as they believe they should when confronted with these items. Neville additionally discovers that exposing vampires to direct sunlight or inflicting wide oxygen-exposing wounds causes the bacteria to switch from being anaerobic symbionts to aerobic parasites, rapidly consuming their hosts when exposed to air and thus giving them the appearance of instantly liquefying. However, he discovers the bacteria also produce resilient "body glue" that instantaneously seals blunt or narrow wounds, explaining how the vampires are bulletproof. Lastly, he deduces now that there are in fact two differently-reacting types of vampires: conscious ones who are living with a worsening infection and undead ones who have died but been partly reanimated by the bacteria.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranger_(Camus_novel)" title="The Stranger (Camus novel)">
## Part 1.Meursault learns of the death of his mother, who has been living in an old age home in the country. He takes time off from work to attend her funeral, but he shows no signs of grief or mourning that the people around him expect from someone in his situation. When asked if he wishes to view her body, he declines, and he smokes and drinks regular (white) coffee - not the obligatory black coffee - at the vigil held by his mother's coffin the night before the burial. Most of his comments to the reader at this time are about his observations of the aged attendees at the vigil and funeral, which takes place on an unbearably hot day.Back in Algiers, Meursault encounters Marie, a former secretary of his firm. The two become re-acquainted, swim together, watch a comedy film, and begin to have an intimate relationship. All of this happens on the day after his mother's funeral.Over the next few days, Meursault helps Raymond Sintès, a neighbor and friend who is rumored to be a pimp, but says he works in a warehouse, to get revenge on a Moorish girlfriend he suspects has been accepting gifts and money from another man. Raymond asks Meursault to write a letter inviting the girl over to Raymond's apartment solely so that he can have sex with her and then spit in her face and throw her out. While he listens to Raymond, Meursault is characteristically unfazed by any feelings of empathy, so he does not express concern that Raymond's girlfriend would be emotionally hurt by this plan and agrees to write the letter. In general, Meursault considers other people either interesting or annoying, or feels nothing for them at all.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_High_Castle" title="The Man in the High Castle">
## Background.In "The Man in the High Castle" alternative history, Giuseppe Zangara assassinates President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, resulting in the continuation of the Great Depression and the policy of United States non-interventionism at the start of World War II in 1939. American inaction allows Nazi Germany to conquer and annex continental Europe and the Soviet Union into the Greater Germanic Reich. The exterminations of the Jews, the Romani people, the Slavs, homosexuals, and all other peoples whom the Nazis considered subhuman ensued. The Axis powers then jointly conquered Africa. Imperial Japan expanded its colonial empire with occupations of eastern Asia and Oceania, and invaded the West Coast of the United States, while Nazi Germany invaded the East Coast; the surrender of the Allies ended World War II in 1947.By the 1960s, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany are the world's superpowers, fighting a geopolitical cold war over the former United States. Japan extended the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere with the establishment of the Pacific States of America (PSA), with the politically neutral Rocky Mountain States acting as a buffer with the Nazi states to the east. Nazi North America is composed of two countries: The South, which is ruled by a collaborationist pro-Nazi puppet regime; and the North, which is the United States of America, ruled by a Nazi military governor. Moreover, Canada remains an independent country, despite having been one of the anti-Nazi Allies in the lost war.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Ship_Galileo" title="Rocket Ship Galileo">
After World War II, three teenage rocket experimenters are recruited by one boy's uncle, Dr. Cargraves, a renowned physicist who had worked on the Manhattan Project, to refit a conventionally powered surplus "mail rocket". It is to be converted to run on a thorium nuclear pile which boils zinc as a propellant. They use a cleared area in a military weapons test range in the desert for their work, despite prying and sabotage attempts by unknown agents.Upon completion of the modifications, they stock the rocket, which they name the "Galileo", and take off for the Moon, taking approximately three days to arrive. After establishing a semi-permanent structure based on a Quonset hut, they claim the Moon on behalf of the United Nations.As they set up a radio to communicate with the Earth they pick up a local transmission, the sender of which promises to meet them. Instead, their ship is bombed. However, they are able to hole up undetected in their hut and succeed in ambushing the other ship when it lands, capturing the pilot. They discover that there is a Nazi base on the Moon. They bomb it from their captured ship and land. One survivor is found, revived, and questioned.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Cadet" title="Space Cadet">
In 2075, teenager Matt Dodson applies to join the prestigious Interplanetary Patrol. After a number of physical, mental, and ethics tests, he is accepted as a cadet. He makes friends with fellow recruits William "Tex" Jarman, Venus-born Oscar Jensen, and Pierre Armand from Ganymede. His first roommate is Girard Burke, the arrogant son of a wealthy spaceship builder. They are transported to the orbiting school ship PRS "James Randolph" for further training. Burke eventually either resigns or is asked to leave, and goes into the merchant service, but the remainder do well enough to be assigned to working Patrol ships. Dodson, Jarman and Jensen ship out on the "Aes Triplex". Their first real mission is to help search for a missing research vessel, the "Pathfinder", in the asteroid belt. They find it, but all aboard are dead, the unlucky victims of a fast-moving object that punctured the ship when the armored outer airlock door was open. Before the accident, a researcher on the "Pathfinder" had found evidence that the planet which blew up to form the asteroids was inhabited by an intelligent species, and that the explosion had been artificial. The captain of the "Aes Triplex" transfers half the crew to the repaired "Pathfinder" so that they can take the ship and the news of the startling discovery back to Earth quickly. With the remainder (including all three cadets), he plots a slower, fuel-efficient, elliptical voyage back to Earth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_Planets" title="Between Planets">
Don Harvey's scientist parents withdraw him from his high school in New Mexico in the middle of the term so that he can join them on Mars. The headmaster suggests that they want him out of a potential war zone, where he might be viewed suspiciously because of doubts about his loyalties. At his parents' behest, he visits an old family friend who asks him to deliver a ring to his father; security forces later arrest both of them. Harvey is released and given his ring back, after it has been examined; he is told that his friend has died of "heart failure". Only later does he realize that "all" deaths can be classified that way.Harvey boards a shuttle to a space station orbiting Earth. The station doubles as a transshipment terminus and a military base, armed with missiles to keep restive nations in check. On the trip up, he befriends another passenger, a Venerian "dragon" calling himself "Sir Isaac Newton". Sir Isaac, a renowned physicist, can vocalize English using a portable device.Harvey gets caught up in the Venerian war of independence when colonial forces capture the station in a surprise raid. Most of the other travelers are sent back to Earth, while a few decide to join the rebels. Harvey is in a quandary. The spaceship to Mars has been confiscated, but he remains determined to get there, by way of Venus if necessary. Because he was born in space, with one parent from Venus and the other from Earth, he claims Venerian citizenship; more importantly, Sir Isaac vouches for him. He is allowed to tag along, which turns out to be very fortunate for Harvey. The rebels blow up the station to stir up trouble for the Earth government. When the shuttle returns to Earth with its radios disabled, the military assumes it has been booby-trapped and destroys it, killing all aboard.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podkayne_of_Mars" title="Podkayne of Mars">
The book is a first-person narrative consisting of the diary of Podkayne Fries, a 15-year-old (Earth years) girl living on Mars with her parents and 11-year-old brother Clark. Due to the unscheduled "uncorking" (birth) of their three test-tube babies, Podkayne's parents cancel a much-anticipated trip to Earth. Disappointed, Podkayne confesses her misery to her uncle, Senator Tom Fries, an elder statesman of the Mars government. Tom arranges for Clark and Podkayne, escorted by himself, to get upgraded passage on a luxury liner to Earth.During boarding, Clark is asked by a customs official "Anything to declare?" and facetiously answers "Two kilos of happy dust!" As he anticipated, his seemingly flippant remark gets him taken away and searched. This ploy serves to divert attention away from Podkayne's luggage, where he has hidden a package he was paid to smuggle aboard. Podkayne suspects the reason behind her brother's behavior, but cannot prove it. Clark was told it was a present for the captain, but is far too cynical to be taken in. He later carefully opens the package and finds a nuclear bomb, which he disarms and keeps.Much of the description of the voyage is based on Heinlein's own experiences as a naval officer and world traveler. Clark's ploy is taken from a real-life incident, related in Heinlein's "Tramp Royale", in which his wife answers the same question with "heroin" substituted for the fictitious, but equally illegal, happy dust.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_O" title="Story of O">
"Story of O" is a tale of female submission involving a beautiful Parisian fashion photographer named O, who is taught to be constantly available for oral, vaginal, and anal intercourse, offering herself to any male who belongs to the same secret society as her lover. She is regularly stripped, blindfolded, chained, and whipped; her anus is widened by increasingly large plugs; her labium is pierced and her buttocks are branded.The story begins when O's lover, René, brings her to the château in Roissy, where she is trained to serve the members of an elite club. After this initial training, as a demonstration of their bond and his generosity, René hands O to his elder stepbrother Sir Stephen, a more severe master. René wants O to learn to serve someone whom she does not love, and someone who does not love her. Over the course of this training, O falls in love with Sir Stephen and believes him to be in love with her as well. During the summer, Sir Stephen sends O to an old mansion in Samois solely inhabited by women for advanced training and body modifications related to submission. There she agrees to receive permanent marks of Sir Stephen's ownership, in the form of a brand and a steel tag hanging from a labia piercing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_Beast" title="The Star Beast">
In the future, Earth has had interstellar spaceflight for centuries and has made contact with numerous extraterrestrial intelligent species. John Thomas Stuart XI, the teenage protagonist, lives in a small Rocky Mountain town, Westville, caring for Lummox, an extraterrestrial beast his great-grandfather had brought home. Lummox has learned how to speak, and has gradually grown from the size of a collie pup to a ridable behemoth—especially after consuming a used car. The childlike Lummox is perceived to be a neighborhood nuisance and, upon leaving the Stuart property one day, causes substantial property damage across the city. John's widowed mother wants him to get rid of it, and brings an action in the local court to have it destroyed.Desperate to save his pet, John Thomas considers selling Lummox to a zoo. He rapidly changes his mind and runs away from home, riding into the nearby wilderness on Lummox's back. His girlfriend Betty Sorenson joins him and suggests bringing the beast back into town and hiding it in a neighbor's greenhouse. However, it is not easy to conceal such a large creature. Eventually, the court orders Lummox destroyed. City officials try several methods to kill Lummox but fail, as his alien physiology appears to be virtually invulnerable to ordinary weapons or poisons, and Lummox does not even realize they are attempting to execute him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commentarii_de_Bello_Gallico" title="Commentarii de Bello Gallico">
The "Commentarii" cover the Gallic Wars over a period of 8 years, beginning with conflict over the migration of the Helvetii in 58 BC, which drew in neighboring tribes and the Germanic Suebi. By 57 BC, Caesar had resolved to conquer all of Gaul, and led campaigns in the east, where the Nervii nearly defeated him. In 56 BC, Caesar defeated the Veneti in a naval battle and took most of northwest Gaul. In 55 BC, Caesar sought to boost his public image, and undertook expeditions across the Rhine river and the English Channel that were the first of their kind. Upon his return from Britain, Caesar was hailed as a hero, though he had achieved little beyond landing because his army had been too small and he was unable to land his cavalry. The next year, he went back with a larger army, including cavalry, and was more successful, setting up a friendly king and bringing his rival to terms. However, tribes rose up on the continent, and the Romans suffered a humiliating defeat. 53 BC saw a draconian campaign against the Gauls in an attempt to pacify them. This failed, and the Gauls staged a mass revolt under the leadership of Vercingetorix in 52 BC. Gallic forces won a notable victory at the Battle of Gergovia, but the Romans' indomitable siege works at the Battle of Alesia utterly defeated the Gallic coalition.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._No_(novel)" title="Dr. No (novel)">
After recovering from serious poisoning inflicted by the SMERSH agent Rosa Klebb (in "From Russia, with Love") the MI6 agent James Bond is sent by his superior, M, on an undemanding mission to the British colony of Jamaica. He is instructed to investigate the disappearance of Commander John Strangways, the head of MI6's Station J in Kingston, and his secretary. Bond is briefed that Strangways had been investigating the activities of Doctor Julius No, a reclusive Chinese-German who lives on the fictional island of Crab Key and runs a guano mine. The island has a colony of roseate spoonbills at one end while local rumour is that a vicious dragon also lives there. The spoonbills are protected by the American National Audubon Society, two of whose representatives died when their plane crashed on No's airstrip.On his arrival in Jamaica, Bond soon realises that he is being watched. His hotel room is searched, a basket of poisoned fruit is delivered to the room—supposedly a gift from the colonial governor—and a deadly centipede is placed in his bed while he is sleeping. With the help of an old friend, Quarrel, Bond surreptitiously visits Crab Key to establish whether there is a connection between No and the disappearance of the MI6 personnel. Bond and Quarrel meet Honeychile Rider, who is there to collect valuable shells. Bond and Rider are captured by No's men after Quarrel is burned to death by the doctor's "dragon"—a flamethrowing, armoured swamp buggy designed to keep away trespassers. Bond and Rider are taken to a luxurious facility carved into the mountain.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain" title="The Andromeda Strain">
A team from an Air Force base is deployed to recover a military satellite that has returned to Earth, but contact is lost abruptly. Aerial surveillance reveals that everyone in Piedmont, Arizona, the town closest to where the satellite landed, is apparently dead. The duty officer of the base tasked with retrieving the satellite suspects it returned with an extraterrestrial contaminant and recommends activating "Wildfire", a protocol for a government-sponsored team of scientists intended to contain threats of this nature.The Wildfire team, led by Dr. Jeremy Stone, believes that the satellite—intentionally designed to capture upper-atmosphere microorganisms for bio-weapon exploitation—returned with a deadly microorganism that kills through nearly instantaneous blood clotting. Upon investigating Piedmont, the team discovers the townspeople either died in mid-stride or went "quietly nuts" and committed bizarre suicides. Two survivors—the sick, Sterno-addicted, geriatric Peter Jackson and the constantly bawling infant Jamie Ritter—are biological opposites who somehow survived the organism.Jackson, Ritter, and the satellite are taken to the secret underground Wildfire laboratory, a secure facility equipped with every known capacity for protection against microorganisms escaping into the environment. Wildfire is hidden in a remote area near Flatrock, Nevada, sixty miles from Las Vegas, concealed in the sub-basements of a legitimate Department of Agriculture research station. Dr. Hall is the only scientist authorized to disarm the automatic self-destruct mechanism; he is an unmarried male and thus presumed to make the most dispassionate decisions during crisis.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Philosopher's_Stone" title="Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone">
Harry Potter lives with his abusive aunt and uncle, Vernon and Petunia Dursley and their bullying son, Dudley. On Harry's eleventh birthday, a half-giant named Rubeus Hagrid personally delivers an acceptance letter to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, revealing that Harry's parents, James and Lily Potter, were wizards. When Harry was one year old, an evil and powerful dark wizard, Lord Voldemort, murdered his parents. Harry survived Voldemort's killing curse that rebounded off his forehead and seemingly destroyed the Dark Lord, leaving a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead. Unknown to Harry, he is famous in the wizarding world.Hagrid takes Harry to Diagon Alley, the hidden wizard commerce and retail section in London. Harry's parents have left him a fortune kept in Gringotts Wizarding Bank. Harry buys school supplies and a wand from Ollivander. The cores of Harry and Lord Voldemort's wands have feathers from the same phoenix bird, making them "brothers". Hagrid gives Harry an owl that he names Hedwig. A month later, Harry boards the Hogwarts Express at King's Cross railway station's secret Platform 9¾. On the journey to Hogwarts, Harry befriends fellow first-year Ronald Weasley and meets Hermione Granger, whom the two boys initially dislike. Harry runs afoul of first-year student, Draco Malfoy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Man" title="The Last Man">
## Introduction.Mary Shelley states in the introduction that in 1818 she discovered, in the Sibyl's cave near Naples, a collection of prophetic writings painted on leaves by the Cumaean Sibyl. She has edited these writings into the current narrative, the first-person narrative of a man living at the end of the 21st century, commencing in 2073 and concluding in 2100. Despite the chronological setting, the world of "The Last Man" appears to be relatively similar to the era in which it was written.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transmigration_of_Timothy_Archer" title="The Transmigration of Timothy Archer">
Set in the late 1960s and 1970s, the story describes the efforts of Episcopal bishop Timothy Archer, who must cope with the theological and philosophical implications of the newly discovered Gnostic Zadokite scroll fragments. The character of Bishop Archer is loosely based on the controversial, iconoclastic Episcopal bishop James Pike, who in 1969 died of exposure while exploring the Judean Desert near the Dead Sea in the West Bank.As the novel opens, it is 1980. On the day that John Lennon is shot and killed, Angel Archer visits the houseboat of Edgar Barefoot, (a guru based on Alan Watts), and reflects on the lives of her deceased relatives. During the sixties, she was married to Jeff Archer, son of the Episcopal Bishop of California Timothy Archer. She introduced Kirsten Lundborg, a friend, to her father-in law, and the two began an affair. Kirsten has a son, Bill, from a previous relationship, who has schizophrenia, although he is knowledgeable as an automobile mechanic. Tim is already being investigated for his allegedly heretical views about the Holy Ghost.Jeff commits suicide due to his romantic obsession with Kirsten. However, after poltergeist activity, he manifests to Tim and Kirsten at a seance, also attended by Angel. Angel is skeptical about the efficacy of astrology, and believes that the unfolding existential situation of Tim and Kirsten is akin to Friedrich Schiller's German Romanticism era masterpiece, the Wallenstein trilogy (insofar as their credulity reflects the loss of rational belief in contemporary consensual reality).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Gently's_Holistic_Detective_Agency" title="Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency">
The events of the story begin four billion years before the present day on the primordial Earth. An alien landing craft resembling "an extrusion of magma from one of the more pestilent pits of hell" crash-lands on a plane of mud. The landing craft belongs to a secessionist group of nine dozen Salaxalans, aliens who come from a violent and troubled world, but who wish to start again by colonizing the lifeless Earth, building a paradise of peace, music, art, and enlightenment. All nine dozen of the Salaxalans came down on the crashed landing craft to inspect their new home, and they are destined to be destroyed in a violent explosion when their engineer makes a critical error fixing the damaged engine.Before the Salaxalan engineer can make the error, the human time traveler Michael Wenton-Weakes appears on the plane of mud through a portal in time, carrying with him the four billion year old ghost of the Salaxalan engineer. The ghost intends to prevent his past self from making the error that kills him and his compatriots. The possessed Michael ascends the crash-landed ship and encounters the alien engineer, whereupon the ghost screams horribly and the 'lights' of both the ghost and the living Salaxalan engineer abruptly cease. A millisecond later, before Michael can return to his time portal, the ship's ignition sequence begins and the Salaxalan landing craft explodes anyway, despite the efforts of the time traveling ghost. The massive conflagration causes the next morning to be "an altogether livelier day than any yet known," hinting that some kind of abiogenesis or panspermia has occurred.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonflight" title="Dragonflight">
"Dragonflight" takes place in the far future on Pern, a planet colonized by humans. The colonists had originally intended to gradually adopt a low-technology agrarian lifestyle, but were forced to move more quickly after they encountered the deadly Thread raining down from the sky. By harnessing and riding the indigenous, flying, fire-breathing dragons (with genetic alterations to make them larger and telepathic), the colonists destroyed the Thread in the skies over Pern, creating pockets of safety over its surface, before it was able to burrow into the land and breed. Humanity finally managed to find equilibrium and began to create a thriving culture, society, and economy, eventually expanding right across Pern's northern continent. However, when this narrative begins, an unusually long interval between Thread attacks has caused the general population to dismiss the threat as myth and gradually withdraw support from the Weyrs where dragons are bred and trained. By the time of this narrative, only one Weyr remains (the other five having mysteriously disappeared at the same time in the last quiet interval), maintaining a precarious existence.Dragons are telepathic and are capable of forming a lifelong bond with one particular human in a process called "Impression". Tradition, established thousands of years before the narrative, dictates that selected young humans with empathetic and telepathic talents are taken to the Hatching Grounds as candidates for Impression. The dragons come in several colors which generally correlate with their sizes; blue males, green females, brown males, bronze males, and golden females – queens. Bronzes, the largest males, are by tradition the only ones who compete to win the queens in their mating flights. The green females are banned from breeding as they produce only small, less talented dragons. The golden queens are not only the largest dragons, they also hold a subtle control over their dragon communities Weyrs. The Queen sets out on a Mating Flight, pursued by several bronze males; the one who wins and mates with her assumes a leading position among the dragons, and his rider automatically becomes the leader of the human dragon riders. The passion of the male dragon and queen mating up in the air can telepathically transfer itself to their male and female human partners, inducing them to a passionate human lovemaking (at least, that is how it happens in the case described in the book).
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age" title="The Diamond Age">
The protagonist in the story is Nell, a "thete" (or person without a tribe; equivalent to the lowest working class) living in the Leased Territories, a lowland slum built on the artificial, diamondoid island of New Chusan, located offshore from the mouth of the Yangtze River, northwest of Shanghai. When she is four, Nell's older brother Harv gives her a stolen copy of a highly sophisticated interactive book, "Young Lady's Illustrated Primer: a Propædeutic Enchiridion", in which is told the tale of Princess Nell and her various friends, kin, associates, etc., commissioned by the wealthy Neo-Victorian "Equity Lord" Alexander Chung-Sik Finkle-McGraw for his granddaughter, Elizabeth. The story follows Nell's development under the tutelage of the Primer, and to a lesser degree, the lives of Elizabeth Finkle-McGraw and Fiona Hackworth, Neo-Victorian girls who receive other copies. The Primer is intended to steer its reader intellectually toward a more "interesting life," as defined by Lord Finkle-McGraw, and growing up to be an effective member of society. The most important quality to achieving an interesting life is deemed to be a subversive attitude towards the status quo. The Primer is designed to react to its owner's environment and teach them what they need to know to survive and develop.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gor" title="Gor">
Most of the novels in the series are action and sexual adventures, with many of the military engagements borrowing liberally from historic ones, such as the trireme battles of ancient Greece and the castle sieges of medieval Europe. Ar, the largest city in known Gor, has resemblances to the ancient city of Rome, and its land empire is opposed by the sea-power of the island of Cos.The series is an overlapping of planetary romance and sword and planet. The first book, "Tarnsman of Gor", opens with scenes reminiscent of scenes in the first book of the Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs; both feature the protagonist narrating his adventures after being transported to another world. These parallels end after the first few books, when the stories of the books begin to be structured along a loose story arc involving the struggles of the city-state of Ar and the island of Cos to control the Vosk river area, as well as the struggles at a higher level between the non-human Priest-Kings and the Kurii (another alien race) to control Gor and Earth.Most of the books are narrated by transplanted British professor Tarl Cabot, master swordsman, as he engages in adventures involving Priest-Kings, Kurii, and humans. Books 7, 11, 19, 22, 26, 27, 31, 34 and parts of 32 are narrated by abducted Earth women who are made into slaves. Books 14, 15, and 16 are narrated by male abductee Jason Marshall. Book 28 is narrated by an unknown Kur, but features Tarl Cabot. Book 30 and parts of 32 are narrated by three Gorean men: a mariner, a scribe and a merchant/slaver.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunchback_of_Notre-Dame" title="The Hunchback of Notre-Dame">
The story is set in Paris in 1482 during the reign of Louis XI. Esmeralda, a beautiful, sixteen-year-old Gypsy dancer, is the romantic and sexual interest of many men; including Captain Phoebus de Chateaupers; poet Pierre Gringoire; the deformed hunchbacked cathedral bell-ringer Quasimodo, and his guardian Archdeacon Claude Frollo. Frollo is torn between his obsessive lust for Esmeralda and the rules of Notre Dame Cathedral. He orders Quasimodo to kidnap her, but Quasimodo is captured by Phoebus and his guards. After he saves her, Esmeralda becomes besotted with Phoebus. Gringoire, who attempted to help Esmeralda but was knocked out by Quasimodo, unwittingly wanders into the "Court of Miracles", populated by the Gypsies and the truands. They are about to hang him for being an outsider, but Esmeralda saves him by agreeing to marry him for four years.The following day, Quasimodo is sentenced to be flogged and turned on the pillory for two hours, followed by another hour's public exposure. He calls for water. Esmeralda, seeing his thirst, approaches the public stocks and offers him a drink of water. It saves him, and she captures his heart.Later, Frollo follows Phoebus to an inn where he plans to meet Esmeralda and watches as the captain seduces the girl. Inflamed with jealousy, Frollo stabs Phoebus. Esmeralda is arrested and charged with both the attempted murder of Phoebus and of witchcraft, and is sentenced to death by hanging. While imprisoned, awaiting her execution, Esmeralda is visited by Frollo. The Archdeacon professes his love for her and promises to help her escape if she reciprocates. However, recognizing him as Phoebus' true attacker, she angrily rebuffs him. As Esmeralda is being led to the gallows, Quasimodo swings down from Notre-Dame and carries her off to the cathedral, temporarily protecting herunder the law of sanctuaryfrom arrest.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's_Adventures_in_Wonderland" title="Alice's Adventures in Wonderland">
A young girl named Alice sits bored by a riverbank, where she suddenly spots a White Rabbit with a pocket watch and waistcoat lamenting that he is late. The surprised Alice follows him down a rabbit hole, which sends her down a lengthy plummet but to a safe landing. Inside a room with a table, she finds a key to a tiny door, beyond which is a beautiful garden. As she ponders how to fit through the door, she discovers a bottle reading "Drink me". Alice hesitantly drinks a portion of the bottle's contents, and to her astonishment, she shrinks small enough to enter the door. However, she had left the key upon the table and is unable to reach it. Alice then discovers and eats a cake, which causes her to grow to a tremendous size. As the unhappy Alice bursts into tears, the passing White Rabbit flees in a panic, dropping a fan and pair of gloves. Alice uses the fan for herself, which causes her to shrink once more and leaves her swimming in a pool of her own tears. Within the pool, Alice meets a variety of animals and birds, who convene on a bank and engage in a "Caucus Race" to dry themselves. Following the end of the race, Alice inadvertently frightens the animals away by discussing her cat.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_Wait_for_Last_Year" title="Now Wait for Last Year">
Set during a war between the 'Starmen (inhabitants of the planet Lilistar) and six-limbed insectoid creatures called the reegs, "Now Wait for Last Year" is the story of Eric Sweetscent, an organ-transplant doctor who gets wrapped up in Earth-Lilistar politics.At the onset of the story, Sweetscent is the personal org-trans surgeon for Virgil Ackerman, the president of Tijuana Fur &amp; Dye. Using an extraterrestrial amoeba which can imitate the cell-structure of anything it touches, TF&amp;D had been the largest manufacturer of synthetic furs on the planet. But like all major corporations on Earth, TF&amp;D has been requisitioned to produce for the war effort.Ackerman invites Sweetscent to "Wash-35", a recreation of his boyhood native Washington DC in a simulated 1935 and his vacation getaway on Mars, where he announces an ulterior motive in the retreat. Waiting for them when they arrive is a guest—Gino Molinari, the elected leader of Earth. Known as "the Mole", he is rumored to have the enigmatic ability to come back from the dead, and he has requested the services of Sweetscent. Ackerman gladly passes Sweetscent on to Molinari.Meanwhile, Sweetscent's wife, Kathy, tries JJ-180, a new hallucinogenic drug which proves to be highly toxic and addictive. The effects of JJ-180 are not clear at first, however, only hours off of it, Kathy finds herself unable to function and violently craving JJ-180 again. She is visited by 'Starmen who claim the reegs invented JJ-180 as a chemical weapon against the 'Starmen and Terrans, also stating that there is no known cure for the drug's addiction and 'That's why we put you on it'. Kathy is now a slave to JJ-180.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magician's_Nephew" title="The Magician's Nephew">
The story begins in London during the summer of 1900. Two children, Digory and Polly, meet while playing in the adjacent gardens of a row of terraced houses. They decide to explore the abandoned attic beyond Digory's house, but do not walk far enough, and find themselves in Uncle Andrew's study. Uncle Andrew tricks Polly into touching a yellow magic ring, causing her to vanish. Then he explains to Digory that he has been dabbling in magic, and that the rings allow travel between one world and another. He blackmails Digory into taking another yellow ring to follow wherever Polly has gone, and two green rings so that they both can return.Digory finds himself transported to a sleepy woodland with an almost narcotic effect; he finds Polly nearby. The woodland is filled with pools. Digory and Polly surmise that the wood is not really a proper world at all but a "Wood between the Worlds", similar to the attic that links their houses back in England, and that each pool leads to a separate universe. They decide to explore a different world before returning to England, and jump into one of the nearby pools. They then find themselves in a desolate abandoned city of the ancient world of Charn. Inside the ruined palace, they discover statues of Charn's former kings and queens, which degenerate from the fair and wise to the unhappy and cruel. They find a bell with a hammer and an inscription inviting the finder to strike the bell.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Patchwork_Girl_of_Oz" title="The Patchwork Girl of Oz">
Ojo, known as Ojo the Unlucky, lives in poverty with his laconic uncle Unc Nunkie in the woods of the Munchkin Country in Oz. They visit their neighbor, the magician Dr. Pipt who is about to complete the six-year process of preparing the magical Powder of Life, which can bring inanimate objects to life. Pipt's wife has constructed a life-sized stuffed girl out of patchwork, and wishes her husband to animate her to serve as an obedient household servant. They also meet another of Pipt's creations, Bungle, an extremely vain talking cat made of glass. The Powder of Life successfully animates the patchwork girl, but an accident causes both Pipt's wife and Unc Nunkie to be turned to stone. Dr. Pipt tells Ojo that he must obtain five ingredients to make a compound to counteract the petrifaction spell.Ojo and the patchwork girl, who calls herself Scraps, along with Bungle, embark on a journey to obtain the magic ingredients: a six-leaved clover, the wing of a yellow butterfly, water from a dark well, a drop of oil from a live man's body, and three hairs from a Woozy's tail. Scraps exhibits a wild, carefree personality, and is prone to spontaneous recitation of nonsense poetry. After several adventures, they meet a Woozy, a blocky quadruped who agrees to let them have three hairs from its tail. But they are unable to remove the hairs, so they take the Woozy along with them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Sail_Beyond_the_Sunset" title="To Sail Beyond the Sunset">
The book is a memoir of Maureen Johnson Smith Long, mother, lover, and eventual wife of Lazarus Long. Maureen is ostensibly recording the events of the book while held in prison alongside Pixel, the eponymous character of "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls".Maureen, born on July 4, 1882, recounts her girlhood in backcountry Missouri, discovery that her family is a member of the long-lived Howard Families (whose backstory is revealed in "Methuselah's Children"), marriage to Brian Smith, another member of that group, and her life—largely in Kansas City—until her apparent death in 1982. In addition, Maureen lives through, and gives her (sometimes contradictory) viewpoints on many events in other Heinlein stories, most notably the 1917 visit from the future by "Ted Bronson" (Lazarus Long), told from Long's point of view in "Time Enough for Love", D. D. Harriman's space program from "The Man Who Sold the Moon", and the rolling roads from "The Roads Must Roll".Maureen's adventures include a series of sexual encounters, beginning in childhood wherein, having just had her first sexual intercourse, she is examined by her father, a doctor, and finds herself desiring him sexually. Her story then encompasses various boys, her husband, ministers, other women's husbands, boyfriends, swinging sessions, and the adult Lazarus Long/Theodore Bronson. Additionally, she continues a lifelong pursuit of her father sexually, encourages her husband to have sexual intercourse with their daughters, and accompanies him when he does; but forbids a son and daughter of hers from continuing an incestuous relationship, primarily for the sister's reluctance to share the brother with other women. All of these are set against a history lesson of an alternate 20th century in which a variety of social and philosophical commentary is delivered.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_for_the_Stars" title="Time for the Stars">
The Long Range Foundation (LRF), a non-profit organization that funds expensive, long-term projects for the benefit of mankind, has built a dozen exploratory torchships to search for habitable planets to colonize. The vessels can continually accelerate, but cannot exceed the speed of light, so the voyages will last many years. Each starship has a much larger crew than necessary to maintain a more stable, long-term shipboard society, as well as to provide replacements for the inevitable deaths.The LRF has found that some twins and triplets can communicate with each other telepathically. The process seems instantaneous and unaffected by distance, making it the only practical means of communication for ships traveling many light-years away from Earth. Before announcing the discovery, the Foundation first recruits as many of these people as it can. Testing shows that teenagers Tom and Pat Bartlett have this talent, and both sign up. Pat, the dominant twin, manipulates things so that he gets selected as the crew member, much to Tom's annoyance. However, Pat does not really want to leave and his subconscious engineers a convenient accident so that Tom has to take his place at the last minute.On board, Tom is pleased to find that his uncle Steve, a military man, has arranged to get assigned to the same ship. The trip is fraught with problems - as trivial as an annoying roommate and as serious as mutiny. The ship visits several star systems, including Beta Hydri. Due to the nature of relativistic travel (see Twin paradox), the twin who remained behind ages faster and eventually the affinity between them weakens to the point where they can no longer communicate easily. Some of the spacefaring twins, including the protagonist, are able to connect with descendants of the Earth-based twins. Tom works first with his niece, then with his grandniece, and finally with his great-grandniece.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land" title="Stranger in a Strange Land">
The story focuses on a human raised on Mars and his adaptation to and understanding of humans and their culture. It is set in a post-Third World War United States, where organized religions are politically powerful. There is a World Federation of Free Nations, including the demilitarized US, with a world government supported by Special Service troops.Prior to WWIII the crewed spacecraft "Envoy" is launched toward Mars, but all contact is lost shortly before landing. Twenty-five years later, the spacecraft "Champion" makes contact with the inhabitants of Mars and finds a single survivor, Valentine Michael Smith. Born on the "Envoy", he was raised entirely by the Martians. He is ordered by them to accompany the returning expedition.Because Smith is unaccustomed to the conditions on Earth, he is confined at Bethesda Hospital, where, having never seen a human female, he is attended by male staff only. Seeing that restriction as a challenge, Nurse Gillian Boardman eludes the guards and goes in to see Smith. By sharing a glass of water with him, she inadvertently becomes his first "water brother", which is considered to be a profound relationship by the Martians as water on Mars is extremely scarce.Gillian tells her lover, reporter Ben Caxton, about her experience with Smith. Ben explains that as heir to the entire exploration party, Smith is extremely wealthy, and following a legal precedent set during the colonisation of the Moon, he could be considered owner of Mars itself. His arrival on Earth has prompted a political power struggle that puts his life in danger. Ben persuades her to bug Smith's room and publishes stories to bait the government into releasing him. Ben is seized by the government, and Gillian persuades Smith to leave the hospital with her. When government agents catch up with them, Smith makes the agents vanish and then is so shocked by Gillian's terrified reaction that he enters a semblance of catatonia. Gillian, remembering Ben's earlier suggestion, conveys Smith to Jubal Harshaw, a famous author who is also a physician and a lawyer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_Road" title="Glory Road">
Evelyn Cyril "E.C." Gordon (also known as "Easy" and "Flash") has been recently discharged from an unnamed war in Southeast Asia. He is pondering what to do with his future and considers spending a year traveling in France. He is presented with a dilemma: follow up on a possible winning entry in the Irish Sweepstakes or respond to a newspaper ad that asks "Are you a coward?". He settles on the latter, discovering it has been placed by Star, a stunningly gorgeous woman he has previously met on Île du Levant. Star informs him that he is the one to embark on a perilous quest to retrieve the Egg of the Phoenix. When she asks what to call him, he wants to suggest "Scarface", referring to the scar on his face, but she stops him as he is saying "Oh, Scar..." and repeats this as "Oscar", and thus gives him his new name. Along with Rufo, her assistant, who appears to be a man in his fifties, they tread the "Glory Road" in swashbuckling style, slaying dragons and other exotic creatures.Shortly before the final Quest for the Egg itself, Oscar and Star marry. The team then proceeds to enter the tower in which the Egg has been hidden, navigating a maze of illusions and optical tricks. Oscar scouts ahead and encounters a fearsome foe who, though unnamed, is clearly the legendary 17th-century swordsman Cyrano de Bergerac, the final guardian of the Egg. After a long fight, the party escapes with the Egg. When they arrive in the home universe of Star and Rufo, Rufo informs Oscar that Star is actually the Empress of many worlds—and Rufo's grandmother.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress" title="The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress">
In 2075, the Moon (Luna) is used as a penal colony by Earth's government, with three million inhabitants (called "Loonies") living in underground cities. Most Loonies are criminals, political exiles, or their descendants, and men outnumber women two to one, so that polyandry and many forms of polygamy are the norm. Due to the low surface gravity of the Moon, people who stay longer than six months undergo "irreversible physiological changes" and can never again live comfortably under Earth gravity, making escape back to the planet impractical.Although the Earth-appointed "Warden" holds power through the Lunar Authority, his only real responsibility is to ensure the delivery of vital wheat shipments to Earth. In practice he seldom intervenes among the prisoners, allowing a virtually anarchist or self-regulated society.Lunar infrastructure and machinery is largely managed by HOLMES IV ("High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV"), the Lunar Authority's master computer, which is connected for central control on the grounds that a single computer is cheaper than (though not as safe as) multiple independent systems.The story is narrated by Manuel Garcia "Mannie" O'Kelly-Davis, a computer technician who discovers that HOLMES IV has achieved self-awareness and developed a sense of humor. Mannie names it "Mike" after the fictional character Mycroft Holmes, brother of the fictional Sherlock Holmes detective character, and they become friends.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Will_Fear_No_Evil" title="I Will Fear No Evil">
The story takes place in the early 21st century against a background of an overpopulated Earth with a violent, dysfunctional society. Elderly billionaire Johann Sebastian Bach Smith is being kept alive through medical support and decides to have his brain transplanted into a new body. He advertises an offer of a million dollars for the donation of a body from a brain-dead patient. Smith omits to place any restriction on the sex of the donor, so when his beautiful young female secretary, Eunice Branca, is killed, her body is used. He changes his name to Joan Eunice Smith, with the first name given "the two-syllable pronunciation" Jo-Ann to mimic the sound of his original name.After Smith awakens after the transplant, he discovers he can communicate with Eunice's personality. They agree not to reveal her existence, fearing that they would be judged insane and locked up. Smith's identity is unsuccessfully challenged by his descendants, who hope to inherit his fortune. Smith and Eunice decide to have a baby together and so they (Joan and Eunice) are artificially inseminated using Smith's sperm from the sperm bank. Joan explores her new sexuality at length. She goes to visit Eunice's widower, Joe Branca, to help reconcile him to what has happened.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Who_Walks_Through_Walls" title="The Cat Who Walks Through Walls">
A writer seated at the best restaurant of the space habitat "Golden Rule" is approached by a man who urges him that "Tolliver must die" and is himself shot before the writer's eyes. The writer—Colonel Colin Campbell, living under a number of aliases including his pen name "Richard Ames"—is joined by a beautiful and sophisticated lady, Gwendolyn Novak, who helps him flee to Luna with a bonsai maple and a would-be murderer ("Bill"). After escaping to the Moon, Gwen claims to have been present during the revolt described in "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress".Still pursued by assassins, Campbell and Novak are rescued by an organization known as the Time Corps under the leadership of Lazarus Long. After giving Campbell a new foot to replace one lost in combat years before, the Time Corps attempts to recruit Campbell for a special mission. Accepting only on Gwen's account, Campbell agrees to assist a team to retrieve the decommissioned Mike, a sentient computer introduced in "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress". Engaged in frequent time-travel, the Time Corps has been responsible for changing various events in the past, creating an alternate universe with every time-line they disrupt. Mike's assistance is needed in order to accurately predict the conditions and following events in each of the new universes created. Campbell's frequent would-be assassins are revealed to be members of contemporary agencies also engaged in time manipulation who, for unknown reasons, do not want to see Mike rescued by the Time Corps.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah's_Children" title="Methuselah's Children">
Starting off a grocer, Ira Howard became rich as a sutler wholesaler during the American Civil War, but died of old age at 48 or 49 years old. The trustees of his will carried out his wishes to prolong human life by financially encouraging those with long-lived grandparents to marry each other and have children. By the 22nd century, the "Howard families" have a life expectancy exceeding 150 years and keep their existence secret with the "Masquerade" in which the members fake their deaths and obtain new identities.The Masquerade helped the Families survive the dictatorship of Nehemiah Scudder, but as an experiment, some Howard members reveal themselves to The Covenant, hoping that the free society established after Scudder's defeat will be friendly. They are mistaken; others refuse to believe that the Families obtained their lifespan by selective breeding, insisting that they have developed a secret method to extend life. Administrator Slayton Ford, leader of Earth, believes that the Families are telling the truth, but cannot prevent efforts to force Howard members to reveal their alleged rejuvenation treatments.Lazarus Long, the eldest member of the Families, proposes that the Families hijack the colony starship "New Frontiers" to escape Earth. Using an inertialess drive invented by Howard member Andrew Jackson "Slipstick" Libby, the Families leave the Solar System with the deposed Ford. The first planet they discover has humanoid inhabitants domesticated by indescribable godlike natives. When Earthly humans prove resistant to similar domestication, they are expelled from the planet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz" title="The Wonderful Wizard of Oz">
Dorothy Gale is a young girl who lives with her Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, and dog, Toto, on a farm on the Kansas prairie. One day, Dorothy and Toto are caught up in a cyclone that deposits them and the farmhouse into Munchkin Country in the magical Land of Oz. The falling house has killed the Wicked Witch of the East, the evil ruler of the Munchkins. The Good Witch of the North arrives with three grateful Munchkins and gives Dorothy the magical silver shoes that originally belonged to the Wicked Witch. The Good Witch tells Dorothy that the only way she can return home to Kansas is to follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City and ask the great and powerful Wizard of Oz to help her. As Dorothy embarks on her journey, the Good Witch of the North kisses her on the forehead, giving her magical protection from harm.On her way down the yellow brick road, Dorothy attends a banquet held by a Munchkin named Boq. The next day, she frees a Scarecrow from the pole on which he is hanging, applies oil from a can to the rusted joints of a Tin Woodman, and meets a Cowardly Lion. The Scarecrow wants a brain, the Tin Woodman wants a heart, and the Lion wants courage, so Dorothy encourages them to journey with her and Toto to the Emerald City to ask for help from the Wizard.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Eyre" title="Jane Eyre">
"Jane Eyre" is divided into 38 chapters. It was originally published in three volumes in the 19th century, comprising chapters 1 to 15, 16 to 27, and 28 to 38.The second edition was dedicated to William Makepeace Thackeray.The novel is a first-person narrative from the perspective of the title character. Its setting is somewhere in the north of England, late in the reign of George III (1760–1820). It has five distinct stages: Jane's childhood at Gateshead Hall, where she is emotionally and physically abused by her aunt and cousins; her education at Lowood School, where she gains friends and role models but suffers privations and oppression; her time as governess at Thornfield Hall, where she falls in love with her mysterious employer, Edward Fairfax Rochester; her time in the Moor House, during which her earnest but cold clergyman cousin, St John Rivers, proposes to her; and ultimately her reunion with, and marriage to, her beloved Rochester. Throughout these sections, it provides perspectives on a number of important social issues and ideas, many of which are critical of the status quo.The five stages of Jane's life:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22" title="Catch-22">
The development of the novel can be split into segments. The first (chapters 1–11) broadly follows the story fragmented between characters, but in a single chronological time in 1944. The second (chapters 12–20) flashes back to focus primarily on the "Great Big Siege of Bologna" before once again jumping to the chronological present of 1944 in the third part (chapter 21–25). The fourth (chapters 26–28) flashes back to the origins and growth of Milo's syndicate, with the fifth part (chapter 28–32) returning again to the narrative present and maintaining the tone of the previous four. The sixth and final part (chapter 32 and on) remains in the story's present, but takes a much darker turn and spends the remaining chapters focusing on the serious and brutal nature of war and life in general.Previously the reader had been cushioned from experiencing the full horror of events, but in the final section, the events are laid bare. The horror begins with the attack on the undefended Italian mountain village, with the following chapters involving despair (Doc Daneeka and the chaplain), disappearance in combat (Orr and Clevinger), disappearance caused by the army (Dunbar) or death of most of Yossarian's friends (Nately, McWatt, Kid Sampson, Dobbs, Chief White Halfoat and Hungry Joe), culminating in the horrors of Chapter 39, in particular the rape and murder of the innocent young woman, Michaela. In Chapter 41 the full details of the death of Snowden are finally revealed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Crusoe" title="Robinson Crusoe">
Robinson Crusoe (the family name corrupted from the German name "Kreutznaer") sets sail from Kingston upon Hull on a sea voyage in August 1651, against the wishes of his parents, who wanted him to pursue a career in law. After a tumultuous journey where his ship is wrecked in a storm, his desire for the sea remains so strong that he sets out to sea again. This journey, too, ends in disaster, as the ship is taken over by Salé pirates (the Salé Rovers) and Crusoe is enslaved by a Moor. Two years later, he escapes in a boat with a boy named Xury; a captain of a Portuguese ship off the west coast of Africa rescues him. The ship is "en route" to Brazil. Crusoe sells Xury to the captain. With the captain's help, Crusoe procures a plantation in Brazil.In the Years later, Crusoe joins an expedition to purchase slaves from Africa, but he is shipwrecked in a storm about forty miles out to sea on an island near the Venezuelan coast (which he calls the "Island of Despair") near the mouth of the Orinoco river on 30 September 1659. He observes the latitude as 9 degrees and 22 minutes north. He sees penguins and seals on this island. Only he, the captain's dog, and two cats survive the shipwreck. Overcoming his despair, he fetches arms, tools and other supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and sinks. He builds a fenced-in habitat near a cave which he excavates. By making marks in a wooden cross, he creates a calendar. By using tools salvaged from the ship, and some which he makes himself, he hunts, grows barley and rice, dries grapes to make raisins, learns to make pottery and raises goats. He also adopts a small parrot. He reads the Bible and becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but human society.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_and_Present_Danger" title="Clear and Present Danger">
The President of the United States is running for reelection. His fierce opponent in Ohio, Governor J. Robert Fowler, has rallied the American public behind the current administration's failures in the War on Drugs. National Security Advisor James Cutter seizes an opportunity to help the president initiate covert operations within Colombia with the intent to disrupt the illegal drug trade there. Aided by CIA Deputy Director (Operations) Robert Ritter and CIA director Arthur Moore, the plan involves inserting light infantry troops of Hispanic descent (divided into four 11 man teams, codenamed BANNER, KNIFE, OMEN and FEATURE) into the country to stake out airstrips used by the cartel (SHOWBOAT), which then allows F-15 Eagles to intercept drug flights (EAGLE EYE). In addition, mobile phone communications between cartel management are intercepted through CAPER, which is also the communications arm for SHOWBOAT.Meanwhile, a United States Coast Guard Cutter intercepts a yacht in the Caribbean Sea; two Hispanic men are found cleaning the vessel after murdering its owner and his family. When a senior crewman says the murderers could escape justice by claiming they found the ship after the murders took place, the Coast Guard captain orders a mock trial and execution, and the killers are forced to confess their crimes; it is later learned that the murdered owner was a businessman involved in a money laundering scheme for a Colombian drug cartel. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seizes laundered money and other assets from several U.S. and European banks totaling over $650 million. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Rackrent" title="Castle Rackrent">
The novel is set prior to the Constitution of 1782. It tells the story of four generations of Rackrent heirs through their steward, Thady Quirk. The heirs are: the dissipated spendthrift Sir Patrick O'Shaughlin, the litigious Sir Murtagh Rackrent, the cruel husband and gambling absentee Sir Kit Rackrent, and the generous but improvident Sir Condy Rackrent. Their sequential mismanagement of the estate is resolved through the machinations—and to the benefit—of the narrator's astute son, Jason Quirk.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Absentee" title="The Absentee">
Just before coming of age, Lord Colambre, the sensitive hero of the novel, finds that his mother Lady Clonbrony's attempts to buy her way into the high society of London are only ridiculed, while his father, Lord Clonbrony, is in serious debt as a result of his wife's lifestyle. His mother wishes him to marry an heiress, Miss Broadhurst, who is a friend of Grace Nugent. However, Colambre has already fallen in love with his cousin, Grace Nugent, who lives with the family as a companion to Lady Clonbrony. Worried that his mother will pressure him into a marriage with someone he does not love, Colambre decides to leave the London social scene and visit his ancestral home in County Wicklow in Ireland.Upon arriving in Dublin, Colambre becomes good friends with Sir James Brooke, who is a good influence on Colambre and warns him against the schemes of some new arrivals on the Dublin social scene: Lady Dashfort and her widowed daughter, Lady Isobel. It is generally known that Lady Dashfort is looking to ensnare a new, rich Irish peer for her equally unscrupulous daughter, and by any means necessary. Despite a pointed warning from Sir James, Colambre falls under the influence of the persuasive Lady Dashfort, who wishes to secure him as the next husband for Lady Isobel. Chance intelligence from a former maid in the Clonbrony household reveals to Lady Dashfort that Lord Colambre is, in fact, in love with his cousin, Grace Nugent. To discourage the match, Lady Dashfort slyly lets slip that Grace was born out of wedlock, and is therefore illegitimate. This is confirmed by letter by his mother, who while a social climber and generally frivolous, is very loving to Grace and has never told her about her parentage. Colambre is heartbroken and feels he can never love a woman with such a heritage.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_(novel)" title="Emma (novel)">
Emma Woodhouse's friend and former governess, Miss Taylor, has just married Mr. Weston. Having introduced them, Emma takes credit for their marriage and decides that she likes matchmaking. After returning home to Hartfield with her father, Emma forges ahead with her new interest against the advice of her friend Mr. Knightley, who is also brother-in-law to Emma's elder sister Isabella. She attempts to match her new friend Harriet Smith to Mr. Elton, the local vicar. Emma persuades Harriet to refuse a marriage proposal from Robert Martin, a respectable, educated, and well-spoken young farmer, though Harriet likes him. Mr. Elton, a social climber, mistakenly believes Emma is in love with him and proposes to her. When Emma reveals she believed him attached to Harriet, he is outraged, considering Harriet socially inferior. After Emma rejects him, Mr. Elton goes to Bath and returns with a pretentious, "nouveau-riche" wife, as Mr. Knightley expected he would do. Harriet is heartbroken, and Emma feels ashamed about misleading her.Frank Churchill, Mr. Weston's son, arrives for a two-week visit and makes many friends. Frank was adopted by his wealthy and domineering aunt and has had few opportunities to visit before. Mr. Knightley tells Emma that, while Frank is intelligent and engaging, he has a shallow character. Jane Fairfax also arrives to visit her aunt, Miss Bates, and grandmother, Mrs. Bates, for a few months before starting a governess position due to her family's financial situation. She is the same age as Emma and has received an excellent education by her father's friend, Colonel Campbell. Emma has remained somewhat aloof with her because she envies Jane's talent and is annoyed by everyone, including Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley, praising her. The patronising Mrs. Elton takes Jane under her wing and announces that she will find her the ideal governess post before it is wanted. Emma feels some sympathy for Jane's predicament.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_and_the_Chocolate_Factory" title="Charlie and the Chocolate Factory">
Eleven-year-old Charlie Bucket, his parents, and four grandparents all live in poverty in a small house outside a town which is home to a large, world-famous chocolate factory. One day, Charlie's Grandpa Joe tells him about the legendary and eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka, who owns the town's chocolate factory, and all the fantasy candies he made until the other chocolatiers sent in spies to steal his secret recipes, forcing Wonka to close the factory. He reopened the factory three years later, but the gates remained locked and nobody is sure who is providing the factory with its workforce.The next day, the newspaper announces that Wonka is inviting five lucky children to come on a tour after they find five Golden Tickets in five Wonka Bars. The first four golden tickets are found by gluttonous Augustus Gloop, spoiled Veruca Salt, chewing gum-addicted Violet Beauregarde, and television addict Mike Teavee. After the fourth ticket is found, the family begins to starve after Charlie's father loses his job at the toothpaste factory and the only job he can find is shoveling snow from the streets during a severe winter. One day, walking home from school, Charlie sees a fifty-pence piece (A dollar bill in the US version) buried in the snow. He subsequently finds the fifth and final ticket. The ticket says he can bring one or two family members with him, and Grandpa Joe agrees to go, suddenly regaining his mobility despite being bedridden for almost 20 years.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_Green_Gables" title="Anne of Green Gables">
Anne Shirley, a young orphan from the fictional community of Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia (based upon the real community of New London, Prince Edward Island), is sent to live with Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, unmarried siblings in their fifties and sixties, after a childhood spent in strangers' homes and orphanages. Marilla and Matthew had originally decided to adopt a boy from the orphanage to help Matthew run their farm at Green Gables, which is set in the fictional town of Avonlea (based on Cavendish, Prince Edward Island). Through a misunderstanding, the orphanage sends Anne instead.Anne is fanciful, imaginative, eager to please, and dramatic. She is also adamant her name should always be spelt with an e at the end. However, she is defensive about her appearance, despising her red hair, freckles and pale, thin frame, but liking her nose. She is talkative, especially when it comes to describing her fantasies and dreams. At first, stern Marilla says Anne must return to the orphanage, but after much observation and consideration, along with kind, quiet Matthew's encouragement, Marilla decides to let her stay.Anne takes much joy in life and adapts quickly, thriving in the close-knit farming village. Her imagination and talkativeness soon brighten up Green Gables.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espedair_Street" title="Espedair Street">
The book tells the (fictional) story of the rise to fame of Dan Weir ('Weird'), a bass guitar player in a rock and roll band called Frozen Gold, and of his struggles to be happy now that he is rich and famous.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crow_Road" title="The Crow Road">
The novel describes Prentice McHoan's preoccupation with death, sex, his relationship with his father, unrequited love, sibling rivalry, a missing uncle, cars, alcohol and other intoxicants, and God, against the background of the Scottish landscape.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consider_Phlebas" title="Consider Phlebas">
The Culture and the Idiran Empire are at war in a galaxy-spanning conflict. A Culture Mind, fleeing the destruction of its ship in an Idiran ambush, takes refuge on Schar's World. The Dra'Azon, godlike incorporeal beings, maintain Schar's World as a monument to the world's extinct civilisation and the dangers of nuclear proliferation, forbidding access to both the Culture and the Idirans. Horza, a shape-changing mercenary, is rescued from execution by the Idirans who believe the Dra'Azon guardian may let him onto the planet as in the past he was part of a small group of Changers who acted as stewards. They instruct him to retrieve the Mind.During Horza's extraction, the Idirans also capture a Special Circumstances agent, Perosteck Balveda. However, the Idiran starship on which he is travelling is soon attacked by a Culture vessel, and Horza is ejected. He is picked up by a pirate ship, the "Clear Air Turbulence" ("CAT"). He is forced to fight and kill one of the crew to earn a place. The captain, Kraiklyn, leads them on two disastrous pirate raids in which several of the crew perish. After the second raid Horza is taken prisoner by a cult living on an island on the orbital Vavatch. He escapes after poisoning the cult leader and makes his way to Evanauth, the main city of Vavatch, where he finds Kraiklyn, who is playing "Damage"—a high-stakes card game.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversions_(novel)" title="Inversions (novel)">
The book takes place on a fictional planet resembling late-Middle Ages Europe. A large empire broke up in the decade or so preceding the action, apparently from meteor or asteroid strikes that severely affected farming across much of the globe. The remnants of the empire still war with one another.The narrative alternates chapter-by-chapter between two concurrent story-lines, with alternating chapter headings of The Doctor and The Bodyguard.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender's_Game" title="Ender's Game">
Humanity has mastered interplanetary spaceflight and they encounter an insect-like alien race called the Formics, and war breaks out. The humans achieve a narrow victory, but fearing future threats of a Formic invasion, create the International Fleet (I.F.) and train gifted children to become commanders at their orbiting Battle School.Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is born a "Third": a rare exception to Earth's two-child policy, allowed by the government due to the promise shown by his two older siblings. The eldest, Peter, is a highly intelligent sociopath who sadistically bullies Ender. His sister, Valentine, is more sympathetic towards him. The I.F. remove Ender's monitoring device when he is six years old, seemingly ending his chances of Battle School. He is bullied by a fellow student, Stilson, but Ender turns violent and attacks him. Unknown to Ender, Stilson later dies from his wounds. I.F. Colonel Hyrum Graff visits Ender after hearing about the fight. Ender attests that by showing superiority now, he has prevented future struggle. Graff offers him a place in the Battle School.Once at Battle School, Graff and the other leaders covertly work to keep Ender isolated from the other cadets. Ender finds solace in playing a simulated adventure game that involves killing a giant. The cadets participate in competitive war simulations in zero gravity, where Ender quickly masters the game with novel tactics. To further wear Ender down, he is promoted to command a new army composed of raw recruits, then pitted against multiple armies at once, but Ender's success continues. Ender's jealous ex-commander, Bonzo Madrid, draws him into a fight outside the simulation, and once again seeking to preemptively stop future conflicts Ender uses excessive force, and like Stilson before him Bonzo dies from his injuries. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_My_Tears,_the_Policeman_Said" title="Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said">
The novel is set in a dystopian version of 1988, following a Second Civil War which led to the collapse of the United States' democratic institutions. The National Guard ("nats") and US police force ("pols") reestablished social order through instituting a dictatorship, with a "Director" at the apex, and police marshals and generals as operational commanders in the field. Resistance to the regime is largely confined to university campuses, where radicalized former university students eke out a desperate existence in subterranean kibbutzim. Recreational drug use is widespread, and the age of consent has been lowered to 12. The black population has almost been rendered extinct. Most commuting is undertaken by personal aircraft, allowing great distances to be covered in little time.The novel begins with the protagonist, Jason Taverner, a singer, hosting his weekly TV show which has an audience of 30 million viewers. His special guest is his girlfriend Heather Hart, also a singer. Both Hart and Taverner are "Sixes", members of an elite class of genetically engineered humans. While leaving the studio, Taverner is telephoned by a former lover, who asks him to pay her a visit. When Taverner arrives at her apartment, the former lover attacks him by throwing a parasitic life-form at him. Although he manages to remove most of the life-form, parts of it are left inside him. After being rescued by Hart, he is taken to a medical facility.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_(novel)" title="Friday (novel)">
The book's narrator is Friday Jones (often going under cover name Marjorie Baldwin and using both surnames somewhat interchangeably). Friday is a genetically engineered human (known as an Artificial Person or AP) in many ways mentally and physically superior to ordinary humans. There is great prejudice against APs so Friday conceals her nature.Friday is employed as a highly self-sufficient "combat courier in a quasi-military organization", traveling across the globe and to some of the near-Earth space colonies. She is returning from her latest mission when she is captured, tortured, raped and interrogated by an enemy group. She is rescued by her own people, who tell her that her highly critical mission was successful as her captors failed to find the data she was carrying in her body.After recovering from the ordeal, Friday takes a vacation to New Zealand to visit her group family, composed of several husbands and wives and many children. In an argument over racism, Friday reveals to her family that she is an AP, and they promptly divorce her.On the way back to her company's headquarters, she meets and befriends a married couple, the Tormeys, and their extra-legal co-husband, Georges. Friday is their house-guest in British Canada (a country in the Balkanized North America) when a worldwide emergency known as Red Thursday occurs. Various groups claim credit for the assassinations and sabotage, but Friday later learns that it is the result of a struggle between rival factions within the ultra-powerful Shipstone corporation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_Space_Suit—Will_Travel" title="Have Space Suit—Will Travel">
In the near future, Earth has established some lunar bases. High school senior Clifford "Kip" Russell is determined to get to the Moon, but the price of a ticket is far beyond his reach. His father suggests he enter an advertising jingle-writing contest; first prize is an all-expenses-paid trip there. Instead, he wins a used space suit. Kip puts the suit (which he names "Oscar") back into working condition.Kip reluctantly decides to return his space suit for a cash prize to help pay for college, but puts it on for one last walk. As he idly broadcasts on his shortwave radio, someone identifying herself as "Peewee" answers and requests a homing signal. He is shocked when a flying saucer lands practically on top of him. An 11-year-old girl (Peewee) and an alien being (the "Mother Thing") flee from it, but all three are quickly captured and taken to the Moon.Their kidnapper ("Wormface") is a horrible-looking creature who contemptuously refers to all others as "animals". Wormface has two human flunkies ("Fats" and "Skinny") who assisted him in initially capturing the Mother Thing and Peewee, a preteen genius and the daughter of an eminent scientist. The Mother Thing speaks in what sounds like birdsong (illustrated by a few musical notations), but Kip and Peewee have no trouble understanding her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Sold_the_Moon" title="The Man Who Sold the Moon">
Delos David "D. D." Harriman, "the last of the Robber Barons", is obsessed with being the first to travel to—and possess—the Moon. He asks his business partner, George Strong, and other tycoons to invest in the venture. Most dismiss Harriman's plans as foolhardy: Nuclear rocket fuel is scarce as the space station that produces it blew up, also destroying the only existing spaceship. The necessary technology for a chemical-fueled rocket stretches the boundaries of current engineering. The endeavor is both incredibly costly and of uncertain profitability. One skeptic offers to sell "all of my interest in the Moon...for fifty cents"; Harriman accepts and tries to buy the other associates' interests as well. Strong and two others agree to back his plans.The technical problems are solvable with money and talent. To solve the tougher financial problems, Harriman exploits commercial and political rivalries. He implies to the Moka-Coka company, for example, that rival soft drink maker 6+ plans to turn the Moon into a massive billboard, using a rocket to scatter black dust on the surface in patterns. To an anti-Communist associate, he suggests that the Russians may print the hammer and sickle across the face of the Moon if they get to it first. To a television network, he offers the Moon as a reliable and uncensorable broadcasting station.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/—We_Also_Walk_Dogs" title="—We Also Walk Dogs">
"General Services" is a very successful company that provides various personal services such as shopping for you or walking your dogs or supplying a host for a party, but also proudly advertises that no job is too large. One ad campaign idea which the staff discusses is "Want somebody murdered? Then DON'T call General Services. But for "anything else", call... It Pays!". The business model involves knowing to whom to subcontract work. The technology used involves rapid access to client data and the use of personal, portable telephones.The company is asked to do the impossible: enable an interplanetary conference to be held on Earth, whose strong gravity is inhospitable to many of the native races of other planets and moons in the solar system. The solution of holding the conference on Mars or Luna is considered politically unacceptable.In a side plot, the team also have to deal with a rich woman who wants to visit her son recuperating from a skiing injury over a thousand miles away while simultaneously conducting a fashionable party at her home. The solution is to conduct her to her son's side while using 3-D projection to have her appear at the party. They charge a hefty fee for this. The fee is doubled when the woman selfishly tries to insist on hiring one of the team as her personal social secretary.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Number_of_the_Beast_(novel)" title="The Number of the Beast (novel)">
The book is a series of diary entries primarily by each of the four main characters: Zebadiah "Zeb" John Carter, programmer Dejah Thoris "Deety" Burroughs Carter, her mathematics professor father Jacob Burroughs, and off-campus socialite Hilda Corners. The names "Dejah Thoris", "Burroughs", and "Carter" are overt references to John Carter and Dejah Thoris, the protagonists of the Barsoom novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs.In the opening, Deety is dancing with Zeb at a party at Hilda's mansion. Deety is trying to get Zeb to meet her father to discuss what she thinks is an article Zeb wrote about n-dimensional space, even going so far as to offer herself. Zeb figures out and explains to Deety that he is not the one who wrote the article but a relative with a similar name.After dancing a very intimate tango, Zeb jokingly suggests the dance was so strong they should get married, and Deety agrees. Zeb is taken aback but then accepts. As they are leaving, Deety and Zeb rescue Jacob from a heated argument he is having with another faculty member before a fight breaks out. As they are approaching their vehicles, Hilda comes out, deciding to tag along. Zeb, having a premonition, grabs the three of them and ducks behind another vehicle before Jacob and Deety's vehicle explodes. Zeb gets everyone into his modified air car "Gay Deceiver" and by activating the "Deceiver"s flying capability, escapes undetected by the authorities or the criminals who put a bomb in the other vehicle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation's_Edge" title="Foundation's Edge">
Five hundred years after the establishment of the Foundation, the Mayor of Terminus, Harla Branno, is basking in a political glow, her policies having been vindicated by the recent successful resolution of a Seldon Crisis. Golan Trevize, a former officer of the Navy and now a member of Council, believes the Second Foundation, which is almost universally thought to be extinct, still exists and is controlling events. He attempts to question the continued existence of the Seldon Plan during a Council session, but Branno has him arrested on a charge of treason. Branno also believes that the Second Foundation still exists and is in control, but she cannot admit it publicly for political reasons, and treats that as a state secret, hence her alarm and her swift action.So, she orders Trevize to leave Terminus to search for the Second Foundation. As a cover, he is to be accompanied by Janov Pelorat, a professor of Ancient History and mythologist, who is interested in the location of Earth, the fabled original world of the human species. They are provided a highly advanced computer-controlled "gravitic" ship to carry out their mission. Branno also sends out Munn Li Compor in another similar vessel to follow and monitor Trevize.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Caves_of_Steel" title="The Caves of Steel">
A faction of Spacers have come to the realization that Spacer culture is effete, stagnating due to negative population growth and excessive longevity. Their solution is to encourage further space exploration and colonization by Earthmen in concert with robots. However, Earthmen would first need to overcome their irrational antagonism toward robots. To this end, the faction have established habitations on Earth through which they hope to introduce humanoid robots to Earth.New York City Police Commissioner Julius Enderby is secretly a member of the Medievalists, a subversive anti-robot group which pines for the 'olden days' where men did not live in the 'caves of steel'. He uses his position to engineer meetings with Spacer Dr. Sarton under the guise of further cooperation, but he actually intends to destroy R. Daneel - who lives with and resembles Dr. Sarton. Enderby orders R. Sammy to bring a blaster through the unmonitored 'open air' (something that no Earthman could countenance), but in the heat of the moment Enderby drops his glasses and fails to distinguish between the human and robot, accidentally shooting the human. Knowing that Baley's wife is also a Medievalist, he assigns Baley to the case, working with R. Daneel who represents the Spacers, and spreads a rumour about humanoid robots amongst the subversives to throw suspicion on Baley when Enderby later destroys R. Sammy with radiation. Daneel rules out Enderby as the murderer as his brain patterns show him incapable of deliberately killing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelude_to_Foundation" title="Prelude to Foundation">
Prelude to Foundation is set in the year 12,020 G.E. (Galactic Era), during the rocky reign of the Emperor Cleon I. It starts with Seldon's presentation of a paper at a mathematics convention detailing how psychohistory might theoretically make it possible to predict the future. The Emperor of the Galactic Empire learns of this and wants to use Seldon for political gain. In a face-to-face interview, Seldon emphasizes that psychohistory is something that he has not even begun developing or even has a clear idea how to do so, but Cleon is not wholly convinced that Hari is of no use to the Empire.Seldon then meets reporter Chetter Hummin, who convinces him that Cleon's first minister, Eto Demerzel, is attempting to capture him, and that it is therefore imperative for Seldon to escape and try to make psychohistory practical. He is taken by Hummin to Streeling University, one of the top ranked of the Empire and introduced to Dors Venabili by Hummin. Seldon theorizes that the first development of psychohistory requires a smaller, yet still significant sample than the entire Empire, possibly just the original world where humans originated...which is now lost, along with much of the older historical records.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Enough_for_Love" title="Time Enough for Love">
The book covers several periods from the life of Lazarus Long (born Woodrow Wilson Smith), an early beneficiary of a breeding experiment designed to increase mankind's natural lifespan. The experiment is known as the Howard Families, after the program's initiator. Lazarus is the result of more a mutation than the breeding experiment, and he is the oldest living human at more than two thousand years old.The first half of the book takes the form of several novellas connected by Lazarus's retrospective narrative. In the framing story, Lazarus has decided that life is no longer worth living, but, in what is described as a reverse "Arabian Nights" scenario, agrees not to end his life for as long as his companion and descendant, chief executive of the Howard Families Ira Weatheral, will listen to his stories.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Door_into_Summer" title="The Door into Summer">
The idea for the novel came from an incident outlined by Heinlein later:The novel opens in 1970 with Daniel Boone Davis, an engineer and inventor, well into a long drinking binge. He has lost his company, Hired Girl, Inc., to his partner Miles Gentry and the company bookkeeper, Belle Darkin. She had been Dan's fiancée, deceiving him into giving her enough voting stock to allow her and Miles to seize control. Dan's only friend in the world is his cat, "Pete" (short for Petronius the Arbiter), a feisty tomcat who hates going outdoors in the snow.Hired Girl, Inc. manufactures robot vacuum cleaners, but Dan had been developing a new line of all-purpose household robots, Flexible Frank, when Miles announces his intention to sell the company (and Flexible Frank) to Mannix Enterprises in which Miles would become a vice president. Wishing to stay independent, Dan opposes the takeover, but is outvoted and then fired as Chief Engineer. Left with a large financial settlement, and his remaining Hired Girl stock, he elects to take "cold sleep" (suspended animation), hoping to wake up thirty years later to a brighter future. The examining doctor at the cold sleep facility immediately sees that Dan has been drinking. He warns him to show up sober or not at all 24 hours later for the actual procedure.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Maltese_Falcon_(novel)" title="The Maltese Falcon (novel)">
Sam Spade is a private detective in San Francisco, in partnership with Miles Archer. The beautiful "Miss Wonderley" hires them to follow Floyd Thursby, who she claims has run off with her sister. Archer takes the first stint but is found shot dead that night. Thursby is also killed later and Spade is a suspect. The next morning, Spade coolly tells his office secretary, Effie Perine, to have the office door repainted to read simply "Samuel Spade"."Miss Wonderley" is soon revealed to be an acquisitive adventuress named Brigid O'Shaughnessy, who is involved in the search for a black statuette of unknown but substantial value. Others are after this falcon, including Joel Cairo, an effeminate Levantine homosexual, and Casper Gutman, a fat man accompanied by a vicious young gunman, Wilmer Cook. O'Shaughnessy begs for Spade's protection while telling him as little as possible. They meet with Cairo at Spade's apartment, and Spade again presses O'Shaughnessy for details; again she stalls but kisses Spade. The next morning, she is asleep in his bed. Leaving her there, Spade slips out to search her apartment. Effie believes O'Shaughnessy "is all right" and Spade should help her. Effie agrees to hide her at her own home, but O'Shaughnessy disappears again. When Spade meets Gutman in his hotel room, neither will tell what he knows. Spade implies he is looking out for himself, not O'Shaughnessy. Red herrings abound. The police suspect Spade in the shootings: he was bedding Archer's wife, Iva. The District Attorney ties the shootings to Dixie Monahan, a Chicago gambler who had employed Thursby as a bodyguard in the Far East.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treasure_of_the_Sierra_Madre" title="The Treasure of the Sierra Madre">
The author employs a third person-omniscient in a dramatic-progressive structure, where Howard is the focal character. Three stories within a story provide historical and social significance for the outer narrative.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_of_Crossed_Destinies" title="The Castle of Crossed Destinies">
The narrative details a meeting among travelers who are inexplicably unable to speak after passing through a forest. The characters in the novel recount their tales via tarot cards, which are reconstructed by the narrator. The deck scatters at the end of the novel, as do the characters' identities.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion-Dollar_Brain" title="Billion-Dollar Brain">
The unnamed protagonist is ordered to Helsinki by Dawlish, his boss, to suppress a newspaper article, potentially embarrassing to the U.K. government, about to be published by a Finnish journalist. He finds the journalist murdered and coincidentally meets a young woman who attempts to recruit him into the British Intelligence. This woman, Signe Laine, is both romantically connected to and working for the protagonist's old American friend Harvey Newbegin (who also appeared in "Funeral in Berlin"). Newbegin in turn attempts to recruit him into a private intelligence outfit, whose network is operated by 'The Brain', a billion dollar super-computer owned by eccentric Texan billionaire General Midwinter.Midwinter is using his agency and private army to start an uprising in Latvia, at the time a part of the USSR, to end Communism in the Eastern bloc and tip the balance of the Cold War in favour of the West. After discovering this and also the fact that a package Newbegin wants delivered from England to Finland contains virus-contaminated eggs, stolen from a British research institute, the protagonist treks from Finland through Riga, Leningrad, New York City, Texas and back to London. He infiltrates Midwinter's organization, braving unforgiving environments, violence and shifting loyalties, eventually to return to the Baltic to stop the virus from falling into the hands of the Soviets and the madman billionaire and protect British reputations in the process.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_(novel)" title="Kim (novel)">
Kim (Kimball O'Hara) is the orphaned son of an Irish soldier (Kimball O'Hara Sr., a former colour sergeant and later an employee of an Indian railway company) and a poor Irish mother (a former nanny in a colonel's household) who have both died in poverty. Living a vagabond existence in India under British rule in the late 19th century, Kim earns his living by begging and running small errands on the streets of Lahore. He occasionally works for Mahbub Ali, a Pashtun horse trader who is one of the native operatives of the British secret service. Kim is so immersed in the local culture that few realise he is a white child, although he carries a packet of documents from his father entrusted to him by an Indian woman who cared for him.Kim befriends an aged Tibetan lama who is on a quest to free himself from the Wheel of Things by finding the legendary ″River of the Arrow″. Kim becomes his "chela", or disciple, and accompanies him on his journey. On the way, Kim incidentally learns about parts of the Great Game and is recruited by Mahbub Ali to carry a message to the head of British intelligence in Umballa. Kim's trip with the lama along the Grand Trunk Road is the first great adventure in the novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whit_(novel)" title="Whit (novel)">
Isis, otherwise The Blessed Very Reverend Gaia-Marie Isis Saraswati Minerva Mirza Whit of Luskentyre, Beloved Elect of God III, is the 19-year-old granddaughter and designated spiritual heir of Salvador Whit, patriarch of the Luskentyrians. They are a religious cult who live in a commune in Stirlingshire and reject most technology. They run their lives according to a collection of beliefs and rituals "revealed" to Salvador after he washed ashore on Harris in the Western Isles and "married" two young Asian ladies (Aasni and Zhobelia Asis). (Haggis pakora becomes a staple of the cult's cuisine.)The novel opens shortly before the Luskentyrian Festival of Love, held every four years, about nine months before every leap year day (29 February). The Luskentyrians believe that those born on that day have special power. This includes Isis herself, Elect of God, and expected to take over leadership of the cult.The bulk of the novel tells of Isis' voyages in the world of "the Unsaved" (also known as "the Obtuse", "the Wretched", "the Bland" and "the Asleep"), through Scotland and southern England in search of Morag, who is feared to have rejected the cult.While searching for her cousin, Isis meets Rastas, policemen, white power skinheads, and other characters of a sort she has never encountered before, and tells the story of the cult and the rationale behind its rules. Isis' maternal grandmother, Yolanda, a feisty Texan woman, appears and lends her support to Isis' quest. Isis' friend Sophi, although not part of the cult, is very close to her. Isis meets her whenever she goes to her house to use the Luskentyrian method of free (if laborious) telephone communication, using coded rings.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostly_Harmless" title="Mostly Harmless">
Arthur Dent plans to sightsee across the Galaxy with his girlfriend Fenchurch, but she disappears during a hyperspace jump, a result of being from an unstable sector of the Galaxy. Depressed, Arthur continues to travel the galaxy using samples of his bodily tissues/fluids to fund his travels, assured of his safety until he visits Stavromula Beta, having killed an incarnation of Agrajag at some point in the future at said planet. During one trip, he ends up stranded on the homely planet Lamuella, and decides to stay to become a sandwich maker for the local population.Meanwhile, Ford Prefect has returned to the offices of the Hitchhiker's Guide, and is annoyed to find out the original publishing company, Megadodo Publications, has been taken over by InfiniDim Enterprises, which are run by the Vogons. Fearing for his life, he escapes the building, along the way stealing the yet-unpublished, seemingly sentient Hitchhiker's Guide Mk. II. He goes into hiding after sending the Guide to himself, care of Arthur, for safekeeping.On Lamuella, Arthur is surprised by the appearance of Trillian with a teenage daughter, Random Dent. Trillian explains that she wanted a child, and used the only human DNA she could find, thus claiming that Arthur is Random's father. She leaves Random with Arthur to allow her to better pursue her career as an intergalactic reporter. Random is frustrated with Arthur and life on Lamuella; when Ford's package to Arthur arrives, she takes it and discovers the Guide. The Guide helps her to escape the planet on Ford's ship after Ford arrives on the planet looking for Arthur. Discovering Random, the Guide, and Ford's ship missing, the two manage to find a way to leave Lamuella and head for Earth, where they suspect Random is also heading to find Trillian. Ford expresses concern at the Guide's manipulation of events, noting its "Unfiltered Perception" and fearing its potence and ultimate objective.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Son" title="Native Son">
## Book One: Fear.Twenty-year-old Bigger Thomas is a young black man living in one room with his brother Buddy, his sister Vera, and their mother. Suddenly, a rat appears. The room turns into a maelstrom, and after a violent chase, Bigger kills the animal with an iron skillet and terrorizes his sister Vera with the dead rat. She faints, and Mrs. Thomas scolds Bigger, who hates his family because they suffer and he cannot do anything about it.That evening, Bigger has to see Mr. Dalton, a white man, for a new job. Bigger's family depends on him. He would like to leave his responsibilities forever, but when he thinks of what to do, he only sees a blank wall.Bigger walks to a poolroom and meets his friend, Gus. Bigger tells him that every time he thinks about whites, he feels something terrible will happen to him. They meet other friends, G.H. and Jack, and plan a robbery. They are all afraid of attacking and stealing from a white man, but none of them wants to admit their concerns. Before the robbery, Bigger and Jack go to the movies. They are attracted to the world of wealthy whites in the newsreel and feel strangely moved by the tom-toms and the primitive black people in the film, yet also feel they are equal to those worlds. After the film, Bigger returns to the poolroom and attacks Gus violently, forcing him to lick his blade in a demeaning way to hide Bigger's own cowardice. The fight ends any chance of the robbery's occurring, and Bigger is vaguely conscious that he has done this intentionally.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Farewell_to_Arms" title="A Farewell to Arms">
The novel is divided into five sections, or "books". Frederic Henry is first-person narrator of the story.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Women" title="Little Women">
## Part One.Four sisters and their mother, whom they call Marmee, live in a new neighborhood (loosely based on Concord) in Massachusetts in genteel poverty. Having lost all his money, their father is serving as a chaplain for the Union Army in the American Civil War, far from home. The mother and daughters face their first Christmas without him. When Marmee asks her daughters to give their Christmas breakfast away to an impoverished family, the girls and their mother venture into town laden with baskets to feed the hungry children. When they return, they discover their wealthy, elderly neighbor Mr. Laurence has sent over a decadent surprise dinner to make up for their breakfast. The two families become acquainted following these acts of kindness.Meg and Jo must work to support the family: Meg tutors a nearby family of four children; Jo assists her aged great-aunt March, a wealthy widow living in a mansion, Plumfield. Beth, too timid for school, is content to stay at home and help with housework; and Amy is still at school. Meg is beautiful and traditional, Jo is a tomboy who writes, Beth is a peacemaker and a pianist, and Amy is an artist who longs for elegance and fine society. The sisters strive to help their family and improve their characters as Meg is vain, Jo is hotheaded, Beth is cripplingly shy, and Amy is materialistic. The neighbor boy Laurie, orphaned grandson of Mr. Laurence, becomes close friends with the sisters, particularly the tomboyish Jo.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imitation_of_Life_(novel)" title="Imitation of Life (novel)">
Set in the 1910s at "the Shore" of New Jersey, the novel explores issues of race and class in early 20th-century America. Bea Chipley is a quiet, mousy Atlantic City teenage girl whose mother dies, leaving her to keep house for her father (Mr. Chipley) and Benjamin Pullman, a boarder who peddles ketchup and relish on the boardwalk and sells maple syrup door-to-door. Within a year, her father and Pullman decide that she should marry Pullman; she soon becomes pregnant and has a daughter named Jessie. Her father suffers an incapacitating stroke, confining him to a wheelchair, and Pullman is killed in a train accident. Bea is left to fend for her father and Jessie by herself.She takes in boarders to defray expenses, as well as peddling Pullman's maple syrup door-to-door, using his "B. Pullman" business cards to avoid the ubiquitous sexism of the 1910s. To care for her infant daughter and disabled father, Bea Pullman hires Delilah, an African-American mammy figure, who has an infant daughter Peola. The girl has "light skin" (as described then).As Delilah is a master waffle-maker, Bea capitalizes on Delilah's skills to open a "B. Pullman" waffle restaurant. It attracts many of the tourists at the Shore. She eventually builds a nationwide and then international chain of highly successful restaurants. Frank Flake, a young man intent on entering medical school, becomes Bea's business manager.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_of_All_Flesh" title="The Way of All Flesh">
The story is narrated by Overton, godfather to the central character.The novel takes its beginnings in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to trace Ernest's emergence from previous generations of the Pontifex family. John Pontifex was a carpenter; his son George rises in the world to become a publisher; George's son Theobald, pressed by his father to become a minister, is manipulated into marrying Christina, the daughter of a clergyman; the main character Ernest Pontifex is the eldest son of Theobald and Christina.The author depicts an antagonistic relationship between Ernest and his hypocritical and domineering parents. His aunt Alethea is aware of this relationship, but dies before she can fulfil her aim of counteracting the parents' malign influence on the boy. However, shortly before her death she secretly passes a small fortune into Overton's keeping, with the agreement that once Ernest is twenty-eight, he can receive it.As Ernest develops into a young man, he travels a bumpy theological road, reflecting the divisions and controversies in the Church of England in the Victorian era. Easily influenced by others at university, he starts out as an Evangelical Christian, and soon becomes a clergyman. He then falls for the lures of the High Church (and is duped out of much of his own money by a fellow clergyman). He decides that the way to regenerate the Church of England is to live among the poor, but the results are, first, that his faith in the integrity of the Bible is severely damaged by a conversation with one of the poor he was hoping to convert, and, second, that under the pressures of poverty and theological doubt, he attempts a sexual assault on a woman he has incorrectly believed to be of loose morals.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Misérables" title="Les Misérables">
## Volume I: Fantine.The story begins in 1815 in Digne, as the peasant Jean Valjean, just released from 19 years' imprisonment in the Bagne of Toulon—five for stealing bread for his starving sister and her family and fourteen more for numerous escape attempts—is turned away by innkeepers because his yellow passport marks him as a former convict. He sleeps on the street, angry and bitter.Digne's benevolent Bishop Myriel gives him shelter. At night, Valjean runs off with Myriel's silverware. When the police capture Valjean, Myriel pretends that he has given the silverware to Valjean and presses him to take two silver candlesticks as well, as if he had forgotten to take them. The police accept his explanation and leave. Myriel tells Valjean that his life has been spared for God, and that he should use money from the silver candlesticks to make an honest man of himself.Valjean broods over Myriel's words. When opportunity presents itself, purely out of habit, he steals a 40-sous coin from 12-year-old Petit Gervais and chases the boy away. He quickly repents and searches the city in panic for Gervais. At the same time, his theft is reported to the authorities. Valjean hides as they search for him, because if apprehended he will be returned to the galleys for life as a repeat offender.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodsworth_(novel)" title="Dodsworth (novel)">
The novel is set in the period between late 1925 and late 1927. Samuel ('Sam') Dodsworth is an ambitious and innovative automobile designer, who builds his fortunes in fictional Zenith, Winnemac. In addition to his success in the business world, he had also succeeded as a young man in winning the hand of Frances 'Fran' Voelker, a beautiful young socialite. While the novel provides the courtship as a backstory, the real story begins upon his retirement. Retiring at the age of fifty as a result of his selling of his successful automobile company (The Revelation Motor Company) to a far larger competitor, he sets out to do what he had always wanted to experience: a leisurely trip to Europe with his wife, with aspirations to visit some manufacturing plants looking for his next challenge. His forty-one-year-old wife, however, motivated by her own vanity and fear of lost youth, is dissatisfied with married life and small town Zenith, and wants to live in Europe permanently as an expatriate, not just visit for a few months. Passing up advancement in his recently sold company, Dodsworth leaves for Europe with Fran. Her motivations upon visiting Europe become quickly known.In their extensive travels across Europe, they are soon caught up in vastly different lifestyles. Fran falls in with a crowd of frivolous socialites, while Sam plays more of an independent tourist. 'With his red Baedeker guide book in hand, he visits such well-known tourist attractions as Westminster Abbey, Notre Dame Cathedral, Sanssouci Palace, and the Piazza San Marco. But the historic sites that he sees prove to be far less significant than the American expatriates that he meets on his extensive journeys across Great Britain and continental Europe' He meets Edith Cortright, an expatriate American widow in Venice, who is everything his wife is not: self-assured, self-confident, unselfish and able to take care of herself. As Sam and Fran follow their own pursuits, their marriage is strained to the breaking point. Both are forced to choose between marriage and the new lifestyles they have pursued.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Horizon" title="Lost Horizon">
## Overview.Hugh Conway, a veteran member of the British diplomatic service, finds inner peace, love and a sense of purpose in Shangri-La, whose inhabitants enjoy unheard-of longevity.The prologue and epilogue are narrated by a neurologist. This neurologist and a novelist friend, Rutherford, are given dinner at Tempelhof, Berlin, by their old school-friend Wyland, a secretary at the British embassy. A chance remark by a passing airman brings up the topic of Hugh Conway, a British consul in Afghanistan, who disappeared under odd circumstances. Later in the evening, Rutherford reveals to the neurologist that, after the disappearance, he discovered Conway in a French mission hospital in Chung-Kiang (probably Chongqing), China, suffering from amnesia. Conway recovered his memory, told Rutherford his story (which Rutherford recorded in a manuscript), and then slipped away again.Rutherford gives the neurologist his manuscript, which becomes the heart of the novel.In May 1931, during the British Raj in India, the 80 white residents of Baskul are being evacuated to Peshawar due to revolution. In the aeroplane of the Maharajah of Chandrapore are: Conway, the British consul, aged 37; Mallinson, his young vice-consul; an American, Barnard; and a British missionary, Miss Brinklow. The plane is hijacked and flown instead over the mountains to Tibet. After a crash landing, the pilot dies, but not before telling the four (in Chinese, which only Conway speaks) to seek shelter at the nearby lamasery of Shangri-La. The location is unclear, but Conway believes the plane has "progressed far beyond the western range of the Himalayas" towards the less known heights of the Kuen-Lun mountain range.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodbye,_Mr._Chips" title="Goodbye, Mr. Chips">
The novella tells the story of a beloved school teacher, Mr Chipping, and his long tenure at Brookfield School, a fictional minor British boys' public boarding school located in the fictional village of Brookfield in the Fenlands. Mr Chips, as the boys call him, is conventional in his beliefs and exercises firm discipline in the classroom. His views broaden, and his pedagogical manner loosens after he marries Katherine, a young woman whom he meets on holiday in the Lake District. Katherine charms the Brookfield teachers and headmaster and quickly wins the favour of Brookfield's pupils. Their marriage is brief. She dies in childbirth and he never remarries or has another romantic interest.One of the themes of the book is that Chipping so outlasts all of his peers that his brief marriage fades into myth and few people know him as anything other than a confirmed and lonely bachelor. Despite Chipping's mediocre credentials and his view that classic Greek and Latin (his academic subjects) are dead languages, he is an effective teacher who becomes highly regarded by pupils and the school's governors—he has become a well-worn institution. In his later years, he develops an arch sense of humour that pleases everyone. However, he also becomes somewhat of an anachronism, with an antiquated pronunciation and is pitied for his isolation. On his deathbed, he talks of the fulfilment he felt as a teacher of boys.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Mice_and_Men" title="Of Mice and Men">
Two migrant field workers in California on their plantation during the Great Depression—George Milton, an intelligent but uneducated man, and Lennie Small, a bulky, strong man but mentally disabled—are in Soledad on their way to another part of California. They hope to one day attain the dream of settling down on their own piece of land. Lennie's part of the dream is merely to tend and pet rabbits on the farm, as he loves touching soft animals, although he always accidentally kills them. This dream is one of Lennie's favorite stories, which George constantly retells. They had fled from Weed after Lennie grabbed a young woman's skirt and would not let go, leading to an accusation of rape. It soon becomes clear that the two are close and George is Lennie's protector, despite his antics.After being hired at a farm, the pair are confronted by Curley—the Boss's small, aggressive son with a Napoleon complex who dislikes larger men. Curley starts to target Lennie. Curley's flirtatious and provocative underaged wife, to whom Lennie is instantly attracted, poses a problem as well. In contrast, the pair also meets Candy, an elderly ranch handyman with one hand and a loyal dog, and Slim, an intelligent and gentle jerkline-skinner whose dog has recently had a litter of puppies. Slim gives a puppy to Lennie and Candy, whose loyal, accomplished sheep dog was put down by fellow ranch-hand Carlson.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_(Quinn_novel)" title="Ishmael (Quinn novel)">
Implicitly set in the early 1990s, "Ishmael" begins with a newspaper advertisement: "Teacher seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person". The nameless narrator and protagonist thus begins his story, telling how he first reacted to this ad with scorn because of the absurdity of "wanting to save the world", a notion he feels that he once naïvely embraced himself as an adolescent during the counterculture movement of the 1960s. Feeling he must discover the ad's publisher, he follows its address, surprisingly finding himself in a room with a live gorilla. On the wall is a sign with a double meaning: "With man gone, will there be hope for gorilla?" Suddenly, the gorilla, calling himself Ishmael, begins communicating to the man telepathically. At first baffled by this, the man learns the story of how the gorilla came to be here and soon accepts Ishmael as his teacher, regularly returning to Ishmael's office. The novel continues from this point mainly as a dialogue between Ishmael and his new student.Ishmael's life began in the African wilderness, though he was captured at a young age and has lived mostly in a zoo and a menagerie (before living permanently in a private residence), which caused Ishmael to start thinking about ideas that he never would have thought about in the wild, including self-awareness, human language and culture, and what he refers to as the subject he specifically teaches: "captivity". The narrator admits to Ishmael that he has a vague notion of living in some sort of cultural captivity and being lied to in some way by society, but he cannot articulate these feelings fully.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Copperfield" title="David Copperfield">
The story follows the life of David Copperfield from childhood to maturity. David was born in Blunderstone, Suffolk, England, six months after the death of his father. David spends his early years in relative happiness with his loving, childish mother and their kindly housekeeper, Clara Peggotty. They call him Davy. When he is seven years old his mother marries Edward Murdstone. To get him out of the way, David is sent to lodge with Peggotty's family in Yarmouth. Her brother, fisherman Mr Peggotty, lives in a beached barge, with his adopted niece and nephew Emily and Ham, and an elderly widow, Mrs Gummidge. "Little Em'ly" is somewhat spoiled by her fond foster father, and David is in love with her. They call him Master Copperfield.On his return, David is given good reason to dislike his stepfather, Murdstone, who believes exclusively in firmness. David has similar feelings for Murdstone's sister Jane, who moves into the house soon afterwards. Between them they tyrannise his poor mother, making her and David's lives miserable, and when, in consequence, David falls behind in his studies, Murdstone attempts to thrash him – partly to further pain his mother. David bites him and soon afterwards is sent away to Salem House, a boarding school, under a ruthless headmaster named Mr Creakle. There he befriends an older boy, James Steerforth, and Tommy Traddles. He develops an impassioned admiration for Steerforth, perceiving him as someone noble, who could do great things if he would, and one who pays attention to him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood's_End" title="Childhood's End">
The novel is divided into three parts, following a third-person omniscient narrative with no main character. In some editions, the short first chapter is a separate prologue rather than the beginning of the first part.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Prince" title="The Little Prince">
The narrator begins with a discussion on the nature of grown-ups and their inability to perceive "important things". As a test to determine if a grown-up is as enlightened as a child, he shows them a picture depicting a boa constrictor which has eaten an elephant. The grown-ups always reply that the picture depicts a hat, and so he knows to only talk of "reasonable" things to them, rather than the fanciful.The narrator becomes an aircraft pilot, and one day, his plane crashes in the Sahara desert, far from civilization. The narrator has an eight-day supply of water and must fix his aeroplane. Here, he is greeted unexpectedly by a young boy nicknamed "the little prince." The prince has golden hair, a loveable laugh, and will repeat questions until they are answered.The prince asks the narrator to draw a sheep. The narrator first shows him the picture of the elephant inside the snake, which, to the narrator's surprise, the prince interprets correctly. After three failed attempts at drawing a sheep, the frustrated narrator draws a simple crate, claiming the sheep is inside. The prince exclaims that this was exactly the drawing he wanted.Over the course of eight days in the desert, while the narrator attempts to repair his plane, the prince recounts his life story. He begins describing his tiny home planet: in effect, a house-sized asteroid known as "B 612" on Earth. The asteroid's most prominent features are three minuscule volcanoes (two active, and one dormant or extinct) and a variety of plants.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Body_(King_novella)" title="The Body (King novella)">
Gordon "Gordie" LaChance reminisces about his childhood in Castle Rock, Maine. At that time, Gordie's elder brother Dennis, whom his parents favored, had recently died, leaving Gordie's parents too depressed to pay much attention to him. In 1960, Gordie and his three friends − Chris Chambers, Teddy Duchamp and Vern Tessio − learn that a gang of hooligans led by John "Ace" Merrill have accidentally discovered the dead body of a missing boy named Ray Brower, who was hit by a train. Because the gang found the body while driving a stolen car, they elected not to report the body to the police. The boys get the idea to find the body "officially" so that they may become famous. In preparation for the expedition, Chris steals a gun from his father, and the boys camp out in a nearby field.Over the course of the narrative, the adult Gordie recalls his first published story, "Stud City", about the life of a simple man named Edward "Chico" May whose older brother also died. He has a girlfriend, Jane, who he does not have particularly strong feelings for. Chico knows that his stepmother Virginia slept with his brother before he died, but he hesitates to tell his father about it. One day, Chico has a fight with his father over Virginia and leaves the house.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eyes_of_the_Dragon" title="The Eyes of the Dragon">
"The Eyes of the Dragon" takes place entirely within the realm of Delain (which itself is located within In-World from "The Dark Tower" series, as established in "The Little Sisters of Eluria"). It is told from the perspective of an unnamed storyteller/narrator, who speaks casually and frankly to the reader, frequently adding his own commentary on characters' motivations and the like.King Roland's magician, Flagg, seeking to destroy the Kingdom of Delain, sees his plans being ruined by the good heart of Queen Sasha. After Sasha gives birth to Peter, a noble and worthy future king, Flagg realizes that his position, his plans, and his life may be in danger because of Peter. When Sasha is pregnant with a second son, Flagg seizes the opportunity. He forces the Queen's midwife to wound Sasha while the second son, Thomas, is born. Sasha bleeds to death and Flagg begins plotting to remove Peter.As Peter becomes a teenager, he begins the custom of bringing a glass of wine to his father before bed each night. Flagg decides to use this as a means of framing Peter. He dissolves a poison called Dragon Sand in a glass of wine and delivers it to the king after Peter leaves. Previously, in an attempt to win Thomas' friendship, Flagg had shown him a secret passage where Thomas could spy on his father. Unbeknownst to Flagg, when he delivers the poison, Thomas is watching through the glass eyes of the mounted head of Roland's greatest trophy, Niner the dragon. Flagg plants evidence incriminating Peter.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolores_Claiborne" title="Dolores Claiborne">
Dolores Claiborne, an opinionated 65-year-old widow living on the tiny Maine community of Little Tall Island, is suspected of murdering her wealthy, elderly employer, Vera Donovan. The novel is presented as a transcript of her statement, told to the local constable and a stenographer. Dolores wants to make clear to the police that she did not kill Vera, whom she has looked after for years, but does confess to orchestrating the death of her husband, Joe St. George, almost 30 years before. Dolores's confession develops into the story of her life, her troubled marriage, and her relationship with her employer. She first describes her relationship with her employer, which began when Vera and her millionaire husband purchased a summer home on Little Tall Island in 1949 and hired Dolores as a maid. Able to cope with Vera's brutally exacting standards, Dolores rises from maid to housekeeper at the Donovan home. After Vera's husband dies in a car crash in the late '50s, Vera spends increasing time at her island house, eventually moving there permanently. Vera suffers a series of strokes in the 1980s, whereupon Dolores becomes the woman's live-in caretaker and reluctant companion. As the wealthy woman slips into dementia, Dolores comforts her from terrifying hallucinations of a force she calls "the dust bunnies." When Vera is lucid, Dolores combats her increasing mind games and power plays. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald's_Game" title="Gerald's Game">
Jessie Angela Mahout Burlingame and her husband Gerald, a successful and aggressive lawyer, travel from Portland to their secluded lake house in western Maine near Kashwakamak Lake for a spontaneous romantic getaway. The titular "game" involves handcuffing Jessie to the bed for lovemaking, a recent addition to their marriage that Jessie only pretends to enjoy, though Gerald finds it exciting. This time, however, Jessie finds herself reluctant after being handcuffed to the bedposts and asks to stop, only to be ignored by Gerald, who pretends her protests are only part of their game. Realizing her husband is deliberately feigning ignorance and that he plans to rape her, Jessie lashes out, kicking Gerald in the chest. The shock causes him to have a fatal heart attack. He dies, leaving Jessie still handcuffed to the bed.At first, Jessie is only horrified at her husband's death and fears the humiliation of being discovered semi-naked and handcuffed, but she quickly realizes the situation is far more dire: it is unlikely that she or Gerald will be missed for several days, no one will think to look for them at the lake house, and all the usual lake residents have gone for the season. There is a real possibility that Jessie will die if she cannot escape.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Who_Loved_Tom_Gordon" title="The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon">
The story is set in motion by a family hiking trip, during which Trisha's brother, Pete, and mother constantly squabble about the mother's divorce from their father, as well as other topics. Trisha falls back to avoid listening and is therefore unable to find her family again after she wanders off the trail to take a bathroom break. Trying to catch up by attempting a shortcut, she slips and falls down a steep embankment and ends up hopelessly lost, heading deeper into the heart of the forest. She is left with a bottle of water, two Twinkies, a boiled egg, celery sticks, a tuna sandwich, a bottle of Surge, a poncho, a Game Boy, and a Walkman. She listens to her Walkman to keep her mood up, either to learn of news of the search for her, or to listen to the baseball game featuring her favorite player, and "heartthrob", Tom Gordon.As she starts to take steps to survive by conserving what little food she has with her while consuming edible flora, Trisha's family return to their car without her and call the police to start a search. The rescuers search in the area around the path, but not as far as Trisha has gone. The girl decides to follow a creek because of what she read in "Little House on the Prairie" (though it soon turns into a swamp-like river), rationalizing that all bodies of water lead eventually to inhabited areas.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Mile_(novel)" title="The Green Mile (novel)">
Featuring a first-person narrative told by Paul Edgecombe, the novel switches between Paul as an old man in the Georgia Pines nursing home writing down his story in 1996, and his time in 1932 as the block supervisor of the Cold Mountain Penitentiary death row, nicknamed "The Green Mile" for the color of the floor's linoleum. This year marks the arrival of John Coffey, a 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m) tall powerfully built black man who has been convicted of raping and murdering two young white girls. During his time on the Mile, John interacts with fellow prisoners Eduard "Del" Delacroix, a Cajun arsonist, rapist, and murderer; and William Wharton ("Billy the Kid" to himself, "Wild Bill" to the guards), an unhinged and dangerous multiple murderer who is determined to make as much trouble as he can before he is executed. Other inhabitants include Arlen Bitterbuck, a Native American convicted of killing a man in a fight over a pair of boots; Arthur Flanders, a real estate executive who killed his father to perpetrate insurance fraud; and Mr. Jingles, a mouse, to whom Del teaches various tricks.Paul and the other guards are irritated throughout the book by Percy Wetmore, a sadistic guard who enjoys antagonizing the prisoners. The other guards have to be civil to him despite their dislike of him because he is the nephew of the Governor's wife. When Percy is offered an administrative position at the nearby Briar Ridge psychiatric hospital, Paul thinks they are finally rid of him. However, Percy refuses to leave until he is allowed to supervise an execution, so Paul hesitantly allows him to run Del's. Percy deliberately avoids soaking a sponge in brine that is supposed to be tucked inside the electrode cap to ensure a quick death in the electric chair. When the switch is thrown, the current causes Del to catch fire in the chair and suffer a prolonged, agonizing demise.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Past_Midnight" title="Four Past Midnight">
Pilot Brian Engle, immediately after a difficult flight from Tokyo to Los Angeles, learns that his ex-wife Anne has died in an accident in Boston, and he boards a red-eye flight to Boston as a passenger. A flight attendant speaks of an unusual phenomenon over the Mojave Desert that resembles an aurora. Brian falls asleep during takeoff, having been awake throughout his previous flight. Dinah Bellman, a young blind girl with psychic abilities, also falls asleep, and awakes to find that her aunt and several other passengers have disappeared. Dinah, mistaking a wig for a scalp, screams and awakes Brian and nine other passengers: teacher Laurel Stevenson, English diplomat Nick Hopewell, writer Bob Jenkins, violinist Albert Kaussner and his girlfriend Bethany Simms, businessman Rudy Warwick, mechanic Don Gaffney, bank manager Craig Toomy and an unknown heavily intoxicated passenger. The passengers find that the crew and the passengers who were awake have disappeared, leaving the airliner under the control of the autopilot. Brian takes control of the plane, but is unable to make any outside contact, and the passengers can only see a dark void below the plane. Brian manages to land in Bangor, Maine despite furious protests from Craig, who insists on reaching Boston for an important conference that will decide his fate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Walk" title="The Long Walk">
In a dystopian America, a major source of entertainment is the Long Walk, in which one hundred teenage boys walk without rest along U.S. Route 1. If they fall below a pace of , they receive three warnings and are subsequently shot by a group of soldiers on an accompanying half-track. The last boy left walking receives a large sum of money and a "Prize" of his choice.Ray Garraty from Androscoggin County, Maine arrives at the start of the Walk on the Canada-Maine border, where he meets several other Walkers such as the sardonic McVries, the friendly Baker, the cocky Olson and the enigmatic Stebbins. The Major, the leader of the secret police force known as the Squads, starts the Walk. Throughout the first day, Garraty befriends Baker, Olson, and several other Walkers such as Abraham and Pearson, growing particularly close to McVries and becoming particularly intrigued by Stebbins. A Walker named Barkovitch reveals to a reporter that he's in the Long Walk to 'dance on the graves' of other participants, and later provokes another Walker into attacking him, resulting in the Walker's death and Barkovitch being ostracized.Garraty succeeds in surviving the night. Scramm, the odds-on favorite in Vegas, tells Garraty that he has a pregnant wife and so will have sufficient motivation to keep going. Garraty decides that his motivation will be surviving until Freeport as this will allow him to see his girlfriend Jan in the crowd. The Walkers begin to resent the Major, and McVries stops walking in an attempt to fight the soldiers, but is saved by Garraty. In return, McVries saves Garraty's life after Garraty experiences hysterics when the spectators increase in number. This camaraderie infuriates Olson, who is now severely fatigued and wants Garraty to die. Garraty reveals to the others that his father was Squaded, and a fight almost breaks out between McVries and another Walker, Collie Parker, when Parker claims that only 'damn fools' are Squaded.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(novel)" title="Solaris (novel)">
"Solaris" chronicles the ultimate futility of attempted communications with the extraterrestrial life inhabiting a distant alien planet named Solaris. The planet is almost completely covered with an ocean of gel that is revealed to be a single, planet-encompassing entity. Terran scientists conjecture it is a living and a sentient being, and attempt to communicate with it.Kris Kelvin, a psychologist, arrives aboard Solaris Station, a scientific research station hovering near the oceanic surface of Solaris. The scientists there have studied the planet and its ocean for many decades, mostly in vain. A scientific discipline known as Solaristics has degenerated over the years to simply observing, recording and categorizing the complex phenomena that occur upon the surface of the ocean. Thus far, the scientists have only compiled an elaborate nomenclature of the phenomena, and do not yet understand what such activities really mean. Shortly before Kelvin's arrival, the crew exposed the ocean to a more aggressive and unauthorized experimentation with a high-energy X-ray bombardment. Their experimentation gives unexpected results and becomes psychologically traumatic for them as individually flawed humans.The ocean's response to this intrusion exposes the deeper, hidden aspects of the personalities of the human scientists, while revealing nothing of the ocean's nature itself. It does this by materializing physical simulacra, including human ones; Kelvin confronts memories of his dead lover and guilt about her suicide. The "guests" of the other researchers are only alluded to. All human efforts to make sense of Solaris's activities prove futile. As Lem wrote, "The peculiarity of those phenomena seems to suggest that we observe a kind of rational activity, but the meaning of this seemingly rational activity of the Solarian Ocean is beyond the reach of human beings." He also wrote that he deliberately chose to make the sentient alien an ocean to avoid any personification and the pitfalls of anthropomorphism in depicting first contact.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_U" title="The Big U">
The story chronicles the disillusionment of a number of young intellectuals as they encounter the realities of the higher education establishment parodied in the story. Over time their lives and sanity disintegrate in different ways through a series of escalating events that culminates with a full-scale civil war raging on the campus of "American Megaversity".Told in the first person from the perspective of Bud, a lecturer in Remote Sensing who is new to the university, the book attacks and makes fun of just about every conceivable group at university, though its portraits of the nerds/computer scientists/role players tend to be more detailed than those of other factions.The events take place at a fictitious big university consisting of a single building (a central complex with eight towers containing student housing), making the university an enclosed universe of its own. Stephenson uses this fact to take what starts as a mostly realistic satire and move it further and further into the realm of improbability, with giant radioactive rats, hordes of bats and a lab-made railgun.The book was written while Stephenson attended Boston University. The fictional campus' design is based on a BU dormitory, Located at 700 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts, it is one of the largest dorms in the US. The character of President Septimius Severus Krupp shares a number of similarities with then–BU President John Silber, although his name—like those of his predecessors as president of the big U—is taken from the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus. The neon Big Wheel sign plays a part reminiscent of the Boston Citgo sign just east of the BU campus in Kenmore Square.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_and_Mr_Lewisham" title="Love and Mr Lewisham">
At the beginning of the novel, Mr Lewisham is an 18-year-old teacher at a boys' school in Sussex, earning forty pounds a year. He meets and falls in love with Ethel Henderson, who is paying a visit to relatives. His involvement with her makes him lose his position, but he is unable to find her when he moves to London.After a two-and-a-half-year break in the action, Mr Lewisham is in his third year of study at the Normal School of Science in South Kensington. He has become a socialist, declaring his politics with a red tie, and is an object of interest to Alice Heydinger, an older student. However, chance brings him together again with his first love at a séance. Ethel's stepfather, Mr Chaffery, is a spiritualist charlatan, and Mr Lewisham is determined to extricate her from association with Chaffery's dishonesty. They marry, and Mr Lewisham is forced to abandon his plans for a brilliant scientific career followed by a political ascent. When Chaffrey absconds to the Continent with money he has embezzled from his clients, Lewisham agrees to move into his shabby Clapham house to look after Ethel and Ethel's elderly mother (Chaffrey's abandoned wife). Wells's friend Sir Richard Gregory wrote to him after reading the novel: "I cannot get that poor devil Lewisham out of my mind head, and I wish I had an address, for I would go to him and rescue him from the miserable life in which you leave him."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_(novel)" title="Carrie (novel)">
In the Maine town of Chamberlain in the year 1979, Carietta "Carrie" White is a 16-year-old girl who is a target of ridicule for her frumpy appearance and unusual religious beliefs, instilled by her despotic mother, Margaret. One day, Carrie has her first period while showering in the girls' locker room after a physical education class. Carrie is terrified, having no understanding of menstruation as her mother, who despises everything related to intimacy, never told her about it. While Carrie believes she is dying, her classmates, led by a wealthy, popular girl named Chris Hargensen, insult her and throw tampons and sanitary napkins at her. The gym teacher, Rita Desjardin, helps Carrie clean up and tries to explain. On the way home, Carrie practices her unusual ability to control objects from a distance. The only time she recalls using this power was when she was three years old and caused stones to fall from the sky by her house. Once Carrie gets home, Margaret furiously accuses Carrie of sin and locks her in a closet so that she may pray.The next day, Desjardin reprimands the girls who bullied Carrie and gives them a week's detention; Chris defiantly leaves and is punished with suspension and exclusion from the prom. After an unsuccessful bid to get her privileges reinstated through her influential father, Chris decides to exact revenge on Carrie. Sue Snell, another popular girl who tormented Carrie in the locker room, feels ashamed of her behavior; she convinces her boyfriend, Tommy Ross, to invite Carrie to the prom instead. Carrie is suspicious, but accepts and begins sewing herself a prom dress. Meanwhile, Chris persuades her boyfriend Billy Nolan and his gang of greasers to gather two buckets of pig blood as she prepares a measure to rig the prom queen election in Carrie's favor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down" title="Watership Down">
## Part 1: The Journey.In the Sandleford warren, Fiver, a runty buck rabbit who is a seer, receives a frightening vision of his warren's imminent destruction. He and his brother Hazel fail to convince the Threarah, their Chief Rabbit, of the need to evacuate; they then try to convince the other rabbits, but only succeed in gaining nine followers, all bucks. Captain Holly of the Sandleford Owsla (the warren's military caste) accuses the group of fomenting dissension against the Threarah and tries to stop them leaving, but is driven off.Once out in the world, the travelling group of rabbits finds itself following the leadership of Hazel, who had been considered an unimportant member of the warren before. The group travels far through dangerous territory. Bigwig and Silver, both former Owsla and the strongest rabbits among them, keep the others protected, helped by the ingenuity of Blackberry (the cleverest rabbit) and Hazel's good judgment. Along the way, they cross the River Enborne, and evade a badger, a dog, a crow, and a car. Hazel and Bigwig also stop three rabbits from attempting to return to the Sandleford warren.They meet a rabbit named Cowslip, who invites them to join his own warren. The majority of Hazel's group are relieved to finally be able to sleep and feed well, and therefore decide to overlook the strange and evasive behaviour of the new rabbits. Fiver, however, senses nothing but death in the new warren. Later, Bigwig is caught in a snare, only surviving the ordeal thanks to Blackberry and Hazel's quick thinking. Fiver deduces the new warren is managed by a farmer, who protects and feeds the rabbits but also harvests a number of them for their meat and skins. He admonishes the others in a crazed lecture for not realizing the residents of Cowslip's warren were simply using Hazel and the others to increase their own odds of survival. The Sandleford rabbits, badly shaken, continue on their journey. They are soon joined by Strawberry, a buck who leaves Cowslip's warren after his doe is killed by one of the snares.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_the_Spy" title="Harriet the Spy">
Eleven-year-old Harriet M. Welsch is an aspiring writer who lives in New York City's Upper East Side. Encouraged by her nanny, "Ole Golly", Harriet observes others and writes her thoughts down in a notebook as practice for her future career. Several standalone episodes highlight the various eccentric characters she meets on her afternoon "spy route".Harriet's best friends are Simon "Sport" Rocque, a serious boy who wants to be a CPA or a ball player, and Janie Gibbs, who wants to be a scientist. Harriet's enemies in her class are Marion Hawthorne, the teacher's pet and self-appointed queen bee, and Marion's best friend, Rachel Hennessy.Harriet's life changes abruptly when Ole Golly's suitor, Mr. Waldenstein, proposes and she accepts. Harriet is crushed by the loss of her nanny. Her mother and father are at a loss to understand Harriet's feelings and are of little comfort to her.At school, during a game of tag, Harriet loses her notebook. Her classmates find it and are appalled at her brutally honest documentation of her opinions of them. The students form a "Spy Catcher Club" in which they think up ways to make Harriet's life miserable, such as stealing her lunch and passing nasty notes about her in class. In return, Harriet regularly spies on the Spy Catcher Club through a back fence and concocts vengeful ways to punish them. After getting into trouble for carrying out some of her plans, Harriet unsuccessfully tries to resume her friendships with Sport and Janie as if nothing had ever happened. When Harriet's grades go down, her parents confiscate her notebook, which only depresses her further.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridget_Jones's_Diary_(novel)" title="Bridget Jones's Diary (novel)">
The plot is focused on Bridget's love life. She worries on a regular basis about dying without someone and going on to be eaten by dogs when her singleness causes her death not to be discovered promptly, an obsession that a "USA Today" reviewer called "one of [Bridget's] more cheerful daydreams". However, during the course of the year she becomes involved in two romantic relationships. The first is with her charming and handsome boss Daniel Cleaver, who eventually cheats on Bridget with a younger, more conventionally attractive woman. Bridget's second relationship is with the stuffy human-rights barrister Mark Darcy, whom she initially dislikes when they are reintroduced at a New Year's party where her mother reminds them they were childhood playmates. These two men are connected by more than their relationships with Bridget, as Fielding reveals near the end of the novel.Bridget not only obsesses about her love life, but also details her various daily struggles with her weight, her over-indulgence in alcohol and cigarettes, and her career. Bridget's friends and family are the supporting characters in her diary. These friends are there for her unconditionally throughout the novel; they give her advice about her relationships, and support when problems arise. Her friends are essentially her surrogate family in London.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Player_of_Games" title="The Player of Games">
Jernau Morat Gurgeh, a famously skillful player of board games and other similar contests, lives on Chiark Orbital, and is bored with his successful life. The Culture's Special Circumstances (SC) inquires about his willingness to participate in a long journey but won't explain further unless Gurgeh agrees to participate. While he is considering this offer, one of his drone friends, Mawhrin-Skel, which had been ejected from SC due to its unstable personality, convinces him to cheat in one of his matches in an attempt to win in an unprecedentedly perfect fashion. The attempt fails, but Mawhrin-Skel uses its recording of the event to blackmail Gurgeh into accepting the offer, so that he can use his connections with SC to request that Mawhrin-Skel be admitted back into SC as well.Gurgeh spends the next two years travelling to the Empire of Azad in the Small Magellanic Cloud, where a complex game (also named Azad) is used to determine social rank and political status. The game itself is sufficiently subtle and complex that a player's tactics reflect their own political and philosophical outlook. By the time he arrives, he has grasped the game but is unsure how he will measure up against opponents who have been studying it for their entire lives.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excession" title="Excession">
The Excession of the title is a perfect black-body sphere that appears mysteriously on the edge of Culture space, appearing to be older than the Universe itself and that resists the attempts of the Culture and technologically equivalent societies (notably the Zetetic Elench) to probe it. The Interesting Times Gang (ITG), an informal group of Minds loosely connected with Special Circumstances, try to manage the Culture's response to the Excession. The Affront, a rapidly expanding race which practises systematic sadism towards subject species and its own females and junior males, also try to exploit the Excession by infiltrating a store of mothballed Culture warships and using them to claim control of the mysterious object.The "Sleeper Service", an Eccentric General Systems Vehicle (GSV) who had nominally left the Culture, is instructed to head to the location of the Excession by the ITG. As a condition the "Sleeper Service" demands that Genar-Hofoen, a human member of Contact, attend it to seek a resolution with his ex-lover, Dajeil, who lives in solitude on the GSV. They had had an intense love-affair and, after a series of sex changes, had each become impregnated by the other until Genar-Hofoen was unfaithful and Dajeil attacked Genar-Hofoen, killing the unborn child. Dajeil then suspended her pregnancy and withdrew from society for 40 years and the "Sleeper Service" hopes to effect a reconciliation between them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_to_Windward" title="Look to Windward">
The Chelgrians are a race of centaur-like cat aliens with three hind-limbs and a humanoid catlike torso. Major Quilan, a Chelgrian, has lost the will to live after the death of his wife, killed during the Chelgrian civil war that resulted from the Culture's interference. A high-ranked Chelgrian priest offers Quilan the chance to avenge the Chelgrians who died by taking part in a suicide mission to strike back at the Culture. His "Soulkeeper" (a device normally used to store its owner's personality upon their death) is equipped with both the mind of a long-dead Chelgrian admiral and a device given to the Chelgrians by a mysterious group of Involved aliens that can transport wormholes through which weapons can be delivered. Quilan is then sent to the Culture's Masaq' Orbital, ostensibly to persuade the renowned composer Mahrai Ziller to return to his native planet Chel, but in reality on a mission to destroy the Orbital's Hub Mind. To protect him from detection at Masaq', Quilan's memory is selectively blanked until he reaches his target, thus preventing the Mind from reading his thoughts.Ziller lives in self-imposed exile on Masaq', having renounced his privileged position in Chel's caste system. He has been commissioned to compose music to mark a climactic event in the Idiran-Culture War. Upon hearing of Quilan's visit, and suspicious of his reason for travel, Ziller scrupulously avoids him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_Weapons" title="Use of Weapons">
The book is made up of two narrative streams, interwoven in alternating chapters. The numbers of the chapters indicate which stream they belong to: one stream is numbered forward in words (One, Two ...), while the other is numbered in reverse with Roman numerals (XIII, XII ...). The story told by the former moves forward chronologically (as the numbers suggest) and tells a self-contained story, while the latter is written in reverse chronology with each chapter successively earlier in Zakalwe's life. Further complicating this structure is a prologue and epilogue set shortly after the events of the main narrative, and many flashbacks within the chapters.The forward-moving narrative stream deals with the attempts of Diziet Sma and a drone named Skaffen-Amtiskaw (of Special Circumstances, a division of Contact Section) to re-enlist Zakalwe for another job. He must make contact with Beychae, an old colleague, who lives in a politically unstable star cluster, to further the aims of the Culture in the region. The payment that Zakalwe demands is the location of a woman, named Livueta. The backward-moving narrative stream describes earlier jobs that Zakalwe has performed for the Culture, ultimately returning to his pre-Culture childhood with his two sisters (Livueta and Darckense) and a boy his age named Elethiomel whose father has been imprisoned for treason.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Long,_and_Thanks_for_All_the_Fish" title="So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish">
While hitchhiking through the galaxy, Arthur Dent is dropped off on a planet in a rainstorm. He appears to be in England on Earth, even though he had seen the planet destroyed by the Vogons. He has been gone for several years, but only a few months have passed on Earth. He hitches a lift with a man named Russell and his sister Fenchurch (nicknamed "Fenny"). Russell explains that Fenny, who is sitting in a drugged state in the back seat of the car, became delusional after worldwide mass hysteria, in which everyone hallucinated "big yellow spaceships" (the Vogon destructor ships that "demolished" the Earth). Arthur becomes curious about Fenchurch, but he is dropped off before he can ask more questions. Inside his inexplicably undamaged home, Arthur finds a gift-wrapped bowl inscribed with the words "So long and thanks for all the fish", into which he puts his Babel Fish. Arthur thinks that Fenchurch is somehow connected to him and to the Earth's destruction. He still has the ability to fly whenever he lets his thoughts wander.Arthur puts his life in order, and then tries to find out more about Fenchurch. He happens to find her hitchhiking and picks her up. He obtains her phone number, but shortly thereafter loses it. He discovers her home by accident when he searches for the cave in which he had lived on prehistoric Earth; Fenchurch's flat is built on the same spot. Arthur and Fenchurch find more circumstances connecting them. Fenchurch reveals that, moments before her "hallucinations", she had an epiphany about how to make everything right, but then blacked out. She has not been able to recall the substance of the epiphany. Eventually discovering that Fenchurch's feet do not touch the ground, Arthur teaches her how to fly. They have sex in the skies over London.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Brighteyes" title="Eric Brighteyes">
Eric Thorgrimursson, nicknamed "Brighteyes" for his most notable trait, strives to win the hand of his beloved, Gudruda the Fair. Her father Asmund, a priest of the old Norse gods, opposes the match, believing Eric to be a man without prospects. Deadlier by far are the intrigues of Swanhild, Gudruda's half-sister and a sorceress, who desires Eric for herself. She persuades the chieftain Ospakar Blacktooth to woo Gudruda, making the two men enemies. Battles, intrigues, and treachery follow.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choke_(novel)" title="Choke (novel)">
"Choke" follows Victor Mancini and his friend Denny through a few months of their lives with frequent flashbacks to the days when Victor was a child. Victor had grown up moving from one foster home to another, as his mother was found to be unfit to raise him. Several times throughout his childhood, his mother would kidnap him from his various foster parents, though every time they would eventually be caught, and he would again be remanded over to the child welfare agency.In the present-day setting of the book, Victor has left medical school to support his feeble mother, who is now in a nursing home. In order to pay for elder care for his mother, he resorts to being a con artist. Victor goes to various restaurants and purposely causes himself to choke midway through his meal, luring a "good Samaritan" into saving his life. He keeps a detailed list of everyone who saves him and sends them frequent letters about fictional bills he is unable to pay, causing them to send him money out of sympathy. Victor works at a re-enactment museum set in colonial times, where most of the employees are drug addicts or, in Denny's case, a fellow recovering sex addict. He spends most of his time on the job guarding Denny (who is constantly being caught with "contraband" items that do not correspond with the time period of the museum) in the stocks. The two met at a sex addiction support group and later applied together to the same job. Denny is later fired from the museum, and begins collecting stones from around the city to build his "dream home".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Friend_of_the_Earth" title="A Friend of the Earth">
"A Friend of the Earth" is the story of Tyrone O'Shaughnessy Tierwater, a U.S. citizen born in 1950, half Irish Catholic and half Jewish ("I'm a mess and I know it. Jewish guilt, Catholic guilt, enviro-eco-capitalistico guilt: I can't even expel gas in peace."), whose personal tragedy fits in with, and adds to, the gloomy atmosphere created in the novel.Egged on by Andrea, the woman he loves, he becomes a committed "Earth Forever!" activist (an allusion to the radical environmental group Earth First!) in the 1980s, is imprisoned for ecotage, but eventually cannot change anything. On top of that, he suffers the loss of his first wife when their daughter is only three and of his daughter when she is only 25. When the novel opens, Tierwater is a 75-year-old disillusioned ex-con living on the estate of a famous pop star in the Santa Ynez Valley, north of Santa Barbara, in California and looking after the latter's private menagerie.Maclovio Pulchris, the singer, has had the idea of preserving some of the last surviving animals of several species in order to initiate a captive breeding programme at some later point in time, choosing to preserve the animals no one else would. Tierwater has been working for Pulchris ("Mac") for ten years when, in 2025, Andrea, his ex-wife and stepmother to his daughter Sierra, contacts him after more than 20 years. She and a friend of hers, April Wind, move in with Tierwater, officially for April Wind to write a biography, or rather hagiography, of Sierra Tierwater, his daughter, who died in 2001 as a martyr to the environmentalist cause (falling out of a tree in old growth woodland in which she had been living for about three years).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_Lost_Time" title="In Search of Lost Time">
The novel recounts the experiences of the Narrator (who is never definitively named) while he is growing up, learning about art, participating in society, and falling in love.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liza_of_Lambeth" title="Liza of Lambeth">
The action covers a period of roughly four months—from August to November—in a year in the 1890s. Liza Kemp is an 18-year-old factory worker and the youngest of a large family, now living alone with her aging mother. Very popular with all the residents of Vere Street, Lambeth, she likes Tom, a boy her age, but not as much as he likes her, so she rejects him when he proposes. Nevertheless, she is persuaded to join a party of 32 who make a coach trip (in a horse-drawn coach, of course) to a nearby village on the August Bank Holiday Monday. Some of the other members of the party are Tom; Liza's friend Sally and her boyfriend Harry; and Jim Blakeston, a 40-year-old father of 5 who has recently moved to Vere Street with his large family, and his wife (while their eldest daughter, Polly, is taking care of her siblings). The outing is fun, and they all get drunk on beer. On their way back in the dark, Liza realises that Jim Blakeston is making a pass at her by holding her hand. Back home, Jim manages to speak to her alone and to steal a kiss from her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weirdstone_of_Brisingamen" title="The Weirdstone of Brisingamen">
The book's introduction concerns the origin of the weirdstone. Following the defeat of Nastrond steps had been taken to prepare for his eventual return. This involved bringing together a small band of warriors of pure heart, each with a horse, and gathering them inside the old dwarf caves of Fundindelve, deep inside the hill of Alderley which were sealed by powerful white magic which would both defend Fundindelve from evil as the ages passed and prevent the warriors and their horses from ageing. When the time was ripe and the world once more in mortal peril it was prophesied that this small band of warriors would ride out from the hill, trusting in their purity of heart to defeat Nastrond forever. Fundindelve had a guardian, the ancient wizard Cadellin Silverbrow, and the heart of the white magic was sealed inside a jewel, the Weirdstone of Brisingamen, also known as Firefrost.At the beginning of the story, however, the Weirdstone has been lost, stolen centuries before by a farmer whose milk-white mare Cadellin had bought to complete the numbers in Fundindelve. The stone became a family heirloom and eventually found its way to Susan's mother, who passed it on to Susan, oblivious of its history and purpose. When the children meet Cadellin the wizard fails to notice the bracelet even when the children come to visit him in Fundindelve. However, its presence does not go unnoticed by Selina Place and the witches of the morthbrood, who send their minions to steal it. Susan finally realises the identity of the Weirdstone and, fearing its destruction, sets out to warn the wizard. The children return to Fundindelve but are waylaid by a dark presence and the Tear is taken. Once they inform Cadellin they are told to keep away, to not further involve themselves. However, while exploring on their bikes they notice a mysterious cloud travelling across the landscape before hovering over the home of Selina Place, St Mary's Clyffe and they go to investigate hoping to recover the stone on their own. They are successful but become lost in a labyrinth of mine-shafts and caverns. As the members of the morthbrood and Selina Place, later revealed as The Morrigan, close in on them they are rescued by a pair of dwarves, Fenodyree and Durathror, who are close companions of Cadellin. After passing through many perils the group returns to the farm where Susan and Colin are staying to spend the night, where at midnight The Morrigan menaces them through the door. They set out with the farm's owner the next day to return the Weirdstone to Cadellin before it can fall into the wrong hands. Their travels take them through gardens, lawns, fens, tangled rhododendron thickets, pine plantations, mountain peaks and snowy fields while striving to avoid the attention of the morthbrood.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Human_Stain" title="The Human Stain">
Coleman Silk is a former professor and dean of the faculty at Athena College, a fictional institution in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, where he still lives. The story is narrated by Roth's recurring character Nathan Zuckerman, a writer and a neighbor of Silk.In 1996, two years before the main action of the novel, Silk is accused of racism by two African-American students after he wonders aloud whether the reason they've missed all his classes so far is that they're "spooks". Though Silk has no idea they're black, they and others at the college see the term as a racial epithet. When the uproar is about to die down, in Silk's view, he resigns. Soon afterward, his wife, Iris, dies of a stroke that Silk feels is caused by the stress of defending him. In the summer of 1998, just after Iris dies, the 71-year-old Silk approaches Zuckerman and asks him to write a book on the incident. Ranting about it, Silk blames the widespread condemnation of him on, among other things, anti-semitism. Zuckerman is uninterested, but the two begin a brief friendship and Silk tells him his life story. Zuckerman is surprised to learn that Silk is in a relationship with Faunia Farley, a 34-year-old woman who works as a janitor at the college and who everyone including Silk believes (falsely, as it turns out) is illiterate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_the_Jury" title="I, the Jury">
The novel opens as private detective Mike Hammer is called to the apartment of insurance investigator Jack Williams, a very close friend who was crippled saving Hammer's life during shared World War II military service in the Pacific. Losing his arm rendered Jack unfit for police work, so he put his experience to use by investigating insurance fraud. Williams has been murdered in a particularly cruel way, deliberately shot in the stomach to make the death slow and painful. Mike vows vengeance, declaring that Jack's murderer will die the same way Jack did.Prior to his death, Jack had fallen in love with Myrna Devlin when he stopped her from committing suicide by jumping from a bridge. Williams asked Dr. Charlotte Manning, a young, beautiful, blonde, and well-to-do psychiatrist, to admit Myrna to her clinic for psychotherapy. After Myrna became clean, she and Williams became engaged. The couple maintained a casual friendship with Manning. Over time, Williams comes to suspect that Hal Kines, one of Manning's college students who has spent some time at her clinic and who has become one of her casual acquaintances, is in fact a criminal.In the course of his investigation, Hammer meets and begins to fall in love with Dr. Manning. In the course of the novel, they become engaged.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinks_..." title="Thinks ...">
Helen Reed, an English novelist in her early forties, arrives at the University of Gloucester to spend the term there as "writer-in-residence" and to teach a creative writing class. Still grieving over the death of her beloved husband, Helen thinks a change of scenery might be a good idea to get over her loss. Apart from the English Department, she is intrigued by the department of Cognitive Science and by its head, 50-year-old Ralph Messenger, to whom she is introduced at a social function very soon during her stay. Helen feels curiously attracted by Messenger but she soon learns about his reputation as a womaniser.When a student submits some chapters from the novel she is writing, Helen recognises one of the male characters as having been modelled on her late husband Martin. Gradually it dawns upon Helen that her husband must have had a succession of young lovers, with everyone except herself knowing everything. During a fundraising event, Carrie tells Helen she knows about her husband's flings and, by taking a lover herself, tries to get back at him. Ralph Messenger, she is quite sure, does not know anything about her affair. Helen decides to get on with her life and allows herself to be drawn into an affair with Messenger. Soon, Helen ponders whether she is falling in love with him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Pinocchio" title="The Adventures of Pinocchio">
In Tuscany, Italy, a carpenter named Master Antonio has found a block of wood that he plans to carve into a table leg. Frightened when the log cries out, he gives the log to his neighbor Geppetto, a poor man who plans to make a living as a puppeteer. Geppetto carves the block into a boy and names him "Pinocchio". As soon as Pinocchio's feet are carved, he tries to kick Geppetto. Once the puppet has been finished and Geppetto teaches him to walk, Pinocchio runs out the door and away into the town. He is caught by a Carabiniere, who assumes Pinocchio has been mistreated and imprisons Geppetto.Left alone, Pinocchio heads back to Geppetto's house to get something to eat. Once he arrives at home, a talking cricket warns him of the perils of disobedience. In retaliation, Pinocchio throws a hammer at the cricket, accidentally killing it. Pinocchio gets hungry and tries to fry an egg, but a bird emerges from the egg and Pinocchio has to leave for food. He knocks on a neighbor's door who fears he is pulling a child's prank and instead dumps water on him. Cold and wet, Pinocchio comes home and lies down on a stove; when he wakes, his feet have burned off. Luckily, Geppetto is released from prison and makes Pinocchio a new pair of feet. In gratitude, he promises to attend school, and Geppetto sells his only coat to buy him a school book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England,_England" title="England, England">
"England, England" is divided into three parts entitled "England", "England, England" and "Anglia". The first part focuses on the protagonist Martha Cochrane and her childhood memories. Growing up in the surrounding of the English countryside, her peaceful childhood is disrupted when her father leaves the land family. Martha's memories of her father are closely related to playing a Counties of England jigsaw puzzle with him.The second part, "England, England", is set in the near future. Martha is now in her forties and is employed by the entrepreneur Sir Jack Pitman for a megalomaniacal project: Sir Jack aims to turn the Isle of Wight into a gigantic theme park which contains everything that people, especially tourists, consider to be quintessentially English, selected according to what Sir Jack himself approves of. The theme park − called "England, England" − thus becomes a replica of England's best known historical buildings, figures and sites. Popular English tourist attractions and icons of "Englishness" are crammed together to be easily accessible without having to travel the whole of "real" England.While working on the set-up of the project, Martha starts an affair with one of her colleagues, Paul Harrison. They discover Sir Jack's adult baby fetish and blackmail him with incriminating evidence when Sir Jack wants to dismiss Martha. She thus becomes CEO of the Island project, which turns out to be a highly popular tourist attraction. As a consequence of the huge success, "England, England" becomes an independent state and part of the European Union, while the real, "Old England" suffers a severe decline and increasingly falls into international irrelevance. After a major scandal in the theme park, however, Martha is eventually expelled from the island.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(novel)" title="Dune (novel)">
Duke Leto Atreides of House Atreides, ruler of the ocean planet Caladan, is assigned by the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV to serve as fief ruler of the planet Arrakis. Although Arrakis is a harsh and inhospitable desert planet, it is of enormous importance because it is the only planetary source of melange, or the "spice", a unique and incredibly valuable substance that extends human youth, vitality and lifespan. It is also through the consumption of spice that Spacing Guild Navigators are able to effect safe interstellar travel. Shaddam sees House Atreides as a potential future rival and threat, and conspires with House Harkonnen, the former stewards of Arrakis and the longstanding enemies of House Atreides, to destroy Leto and his family after their arrival. Leto is aware his assignment is a trap of some kind, but is compelled to obey the Emperor’s orders anyway.Leto's concubine Lady Jessica is an acolyte of the Bene Gesserit, an exclusively female group that pursues mysterious political aims and wields seemingly superhuman physical and mental abilities, such as the ability to decide the gender of their children. Though Jessica was instructed by the Bene Gesserit to bear a daughter as part of their breeding program, out of love for Leto she bore a son, Paul. From a young age, Paul has been trained in warfare by Leto's aides, the elite soldiers Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck. Thufir Hawat, the Duke's Mentat (people with superhuman intelligence), has instructed Paul in the ways of political intrigue. Jessica has also trained her son in what Bene Gesserit disciplines she can. His prophetic dreams interest Jessica's superior, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam. She subjects Paul to the gom jabbar, a deadly test that causes blinding pain as part of an assessment of the subject's self-control. To her surprise, Paul passes despite being exposed to more pain than any others before him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feersum_Endjinn" title="Feersum Endjinn">
The narrative switches between four main characters. Count Sessine is a high-ranking member of the court who is assassinated, ending his last life. Reborn inside the crypt he comes under repeated attack and is almost permanently killed. On his last virtual life, he makes contact with a copy of himself who assists him. He spends many subjective years wandering the wider reaches of the crypt before being contacted by its representative who requests his aid in relation to the encroachment.Gadfium, the Chief Scientist of the ruling class, is engaged in a conspiracy with like-minded nobles who believe that the elite are not acting in the best interests of the population, and who question the real motive of the ongoing war with the rival clan of Engineers. She learns of a message apparently sent from the fast tower, the highest and previously inaccessible part of the castle, which stresses the danger of the Encroachment and tells of an attempt by the crypt to activate a long forgotten subsystem which may prevent disaster. The message also warns that this will be opposed by those in power as it will threaten their interests. She and her fellow conspirators are considering how to respond when the security forces attempt to arrest them, although Gadfium manages to escape into the depths of the castle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoirs_of_a_Fox-Hunting_Man" title="Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man">
The story is a series of episodes in the youth of George Sherston, ranging from his first attempts to learn to ride to his experiences in winning point-to-point races. The title is somewhat misleading, as the book is mainly concerned with a series of landmark events in Sherston/Sassoon's childhood and youth, and his encounters with various comic characters. "The Flower-Show Match", an account of an annual village cricket match – an important fixture for those involved – in which young Sherston plays a significant part, was later published separately by Faber as a self-contained story. The book as a whole is a frequently humorous work, in which fox-hunting, one of Sassoon's major interests, comes to represent the young man's innocent frame of mind in the years before war broke out. The book ends with his enlistment in a local regiment, the Sussex Yeomanry, and his subsequent transfer, with a commission, to the Flintshire Fusiliers, a battalion of the Royal Welsh which was sent to France. The story is continued in two sequels: "Memoirs of an Infantry Officer" and "Sherston's Progress".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom's_Cabin" title="Uncle Tom's Cabin">
## Eliza escapes with her son; Tom sold "down the river".The book opens with a Kentucky farmer named Arthur Shelby facing the loss of his farm because of debts. Even though he and his wife Emily Shelby believe that they have a benevolent relationship with their slaves, Shelby decides to raise the needed funds by selling two of them—Uncle Tom, a middle-aged man with a wife and children, and Harry, the son of Emily Shelby's maid Eliza—to Mr. Haley, a coarse slave trader. Emily Shelby is averse to this idea because she had promised her maid that her child would never be sold; Emily's son, George Shelby, hates to see Tom go because he sees the man as his friend and mentor.When Eliza overhears Mr. and Mrs. Shelby discussing plans to sell Tom and Harry, Eliza determines to run away with her son. The novel states that Eliza made this decision because she fears losing her only surviving child (she had already miscarried two children). Eliza departs that night, leaving a note of apology to her mistress. She later makes a dangerous crossing over the ice of the Ohio River to escape her pursuers.As Tom is sold, Mr. Haley takes him to a riverboat on the Mississippi River and from there Tom is to be transported to a slave market. While on board, Tom meets Eva, an angelic little white girl. They quickly become friends. Eva falls into the river and Tom dives into the river to save her life. Being grateful to Tom, Eva's father Augustine St. Clare buys him from Haley and takes him with the family to their home in New Orleans. Tom and Eva begin to relate to one another because of the deep Christian faith they both share.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beach_(novel)" title="The Beach (novel)">
Richard, a British backpacker meets a mentally disturbed Scot going by the alias of Daffy Duck at a hotel in Bangkok. Daffy tells Richard about a beautiful island with a hidden lagoon and beach, located in the Gulf of Thailand, where he settled years prior. The beach is inaccessible to tourists and can only be located by a map, which Daffy leaves for Richard. Shortly thereafter, Richard discovers that Daffy has died by suicide. Wanting company in his search, Richard befriends a travelling French couple, Étienne and Françoise, and the trio sets out to find what they hope might be an untouched paradise.On their way to the island, Richard gives a copy of the map to Sammy and Zeph, two Americans he meets on Koh Samui. When the three finally reach the hidden beach — after bribing a local boat pilot, swimming from an adjacent island, discovering a cannabis plantation in the jungle, and avoiding its armed owners, and eventually jumping over a waterfall — they discover a group of approximately 30 backpackers who have largely shut off the outside world to live a slow-paced life of leisure under the "de facto" leadership of an American woman called Sal and her South African lover Bugs, who, along with Daffy, founded the community there in 1989. They reside in hand-built wooden huts and tents, located near a large, beautiful beach and lagoon that are encircled by cliffs and connected to the sea by underwater caves.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Kill_a_Mockingbird" title="To Kill a Mockingbird">
The story, told by the six-year-old Jean Louise Finch, takes place during three years (1933–35) of the Great Depression in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, the seat of Maycomb County. Nicknamed Scout, she lives with her older brother Jeremy, nicknamed Jem, and their widowed father Atticus, a middle-aged lawyer. They also have a black cook, Calpurnia, who had been with the family for many years and helped Atticus raise the two children. Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill, who visits Maycomb to stay with his aunt each summer. The three children are terrified, yet fascinated by their neighbor, the reclusive Arthur "Boo" Radley. The adults of Maycomb are hesitant to talk about Boo, and few of them have seen him for many years. The children feed one another's imagination with rumors about his appearance and reasons for remaining hidden, and they fantasize about how to get him out of his house. After two summers of friendship with Dill, Scout and Jem find that someone is leaving them small gifts in a tree outside the Radley place. Several times the mysterious Boo makes gestures of affection to the children, but, to their disappointment, he never appears in person.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Go-Between" title="The Go-Between">
In the book's prologue, Leo Colston chances upon a diary from 1900, the year of his thirteenth birthday, and gradually pieces together a memory that he has suppressed. Under its influence, and from the viewpoint of what he has become by the midpoint of "this hideous century", Leo relives the events of what had once seemed to him its hopeful beginning. The importance of his boarding school's social rules is another theme running through the book and complicates Leo's interaction with the adult world."Curses" of his devising had routed boys who were bullying Leo at school and had given him the reputation of a magician, something that he came to half-believe himself. As a result, he is invited as a guest to spend the summer at Brandham Hall, the country home of his school friend, Marcus Maudsley. There the socially clumsy Leo, with his regional accent, is a middle-class boy among the wealthy upper class. Though he does not fit in, his hosts do their best to make him feel welcome, treating him with kindness and indulgence, especially their daughter Marian.When Marcus falls ill, Leo is left largely to his own devices and becomes a secret "postman" for Marian and nearby tenant farmer Ted Burgess, with whom she is having a clandestine relationship. Leo is happy to help Marian because he has a crush on her and likes Ted. Besides, Leo is initially ignorant of the significance or content of the messages that he is asked to carry between them and the well-meaning, innocent boy is easily manipulated by the lovers. Although Marian and Ted are fully aware of the social taboo that must make their relationship a matter of the utmost secrecy, Leo is too naïve to understand why they can never marry. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Marian is about to become engaged to Hugh, Viscount Trimingham, the descendant of the area's nobility who formerly lived in Brandham Hall. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About_a_Boy_(novel)" title="About a Boy (novel)">
Set in 1993 London, "About a Boy" features two main protagonists: Will Freeman, a 36-year-old bachelor, and Marcus Brewer, an incongruous schoolboy described as "introverted" by his suicidal mother, Fiona, despite his tendencies to bond and interact with people. Will's father wrote a successful Christmas song, the royalties of which have afforded Will the ability to remain voluntarily redundant throughout his life – he spends his plentiful free time immersing himself in 1990s culture, music, and pursuing sexual relations with women.After a pleasant relationship with a single mother of two, Angie, Will comes up with the idea of attending a single parents group as a new way to pick up women. For this purpose, he invents a two-year-old son called Ned. Will then makes a number of acquaintances through his membership of the single parents group, two of which are Fiona and her son Marcus. Although their relationship is initially somewhat strained, they finally succeed in striking up a true friendship despite Will being largely uninterested during the early-middle stages of the novel. Will, a socially aware and "trendy" person, aids Marcus to fit into 1990s youth culture by encouraging him not to get his hair cut by his mother, buying him Adidas trainers, and introducing him to contemporary music, such as Nirvana. Marcus and Will's friendship strengthens as the story progresses, even after Marcus and Fiona discover Will's lie about having a child.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hustler_(novel)" title="The Hustler (novel)">
After losing to Fats, Eddie could spiral down to the scrapheap, but he meets Bert Gordon, a . Bert teaches him about winning, or more particularly about losing. Tautly written, it is a treatise on how someone, with all of the skills, can lose if he "wants" to lose; how a loser is beaten by himself, not by his opponent; and how he can learn to win, if he can look deeply enough into himself.The book was followed by the sequel "The Color of Money".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Lulu_Bett_(novel)" title="Miss Lulu Bett (novel)">
The story concerns a woman, Lulu, who lives with her sister's family, essentially acting as a servant. She does not complain about her position, but is not happy. When her brother-in-law's brother, Ninian, comes to visit, there is a certain attraction between them. While joking around one evening they find themselves accidentally married, due to the laws of the state requiring little more than wedding vows to be recited while a magistrate is in the room for a marriage to count as legal. On learning this, Ninian and Lulu decide they like the idea of being married, and choose to remain together. However, within a month, Lulu is back home, having discovered that Ninian was already legally married: 18 years prior he had wed a girl who left him after 2 years, but he had forgotten about it. Lulu considers this a reasonable story, but her brother-in-law, Dwight, insists that it would be a humiliation to the family to reveal such a thing, and insists that she tell everyone instead that Ninian grew bored with her and left her. Lulu is unable to see why this should be a less humiliating story, and begins to complain about her circumstances for the first time. She also notices that her teenage niece, Di, is unhappy, and also seems to be trying to use marriage as a way to escape her circumstance. Lulu eventually has to prevent Di from eloping, and is finally inspired to move out of her sister's home and live independently.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland" title="Flatland">
The story describes a two-dimensional world occupied by geometric figures; women are simple line segments, while men are polygons with various numbers of sides. The narrator is a square, a member of the caste of gentlemen and professionals, who guides the readers through some of the implications of life in two dimensions. The first half of the story goes through the practicalities of existing in a two-dimensional universe, as well as a history leading up to the year 1999 on the eve of the 3rd Millennium.On New Year's Eve, the Square dreams about a visit to a one-dimensional world (Lineland) inhabited by men, consisting of lines, while the women consisted of "lustrous points". These points and lines are unable to see the Square as anything other than a set of points on a line. Thus, the Square attempts to convince the realm's monarch of a second dimension but cannot do so. In the end, the monarch of Lineland tries to kill the Square rather than tolerate him any further.Following this vision, the Square is visited by a sphere. Similar to the "points" in Lineland, he is unable to see the three-dimensional object as anything other than a circle (more precisely, a disk). The Sphere then levitates up and down through Flatland, allowing the Square to see the circle expand and contract between great circle and small circles. The Sphere then tries further to convince the Square of the third dimension by dimensional analogies (a point becomes a line, a line becomes a square). The Square is still unable to comprehend the third dimension, so the Sphere resorts to deeds: he gives info about the "insides" of the house, moves a cup through the third dimension, and even goes inside the Square for a bit. Still unable to comprehend 3D, the Sphere takes the Square to the third dimension, Spaceland. This Sphere visits Flatland at the turn of each millennium to introduce a new apostle to the idea of a third dimension in the hope of eventually educating the population of Flatland. From the safety of Spaceland, they can oversee the leaders of Flatland, acknowledging the Sphere's existence and prescribing the silencing. After this proclamation is made, many witnesses are massacred or imprisoned (according to caste), including the Square's brother.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash" title="Snow Crash">
The story opens in Los Angeles in the 21st century, an unspecified number of years after a worldwide economic collapse. Los Angeles is no longer part of the United States since the federal government has ceded most of its power and territory to private organizations and entrepreneurs. Franchising, individual sovereignty, and private vehicles reign supreme. Mercenary armies compete for national defense contracts, while private security guards preserve the peace in sovereign gated housing developments. Highway companies compete to attract drivers to their roads, and all mail delivery is by hired courier. The remnants of government maintain authority only in isolated compounds, where they do tedious make-work that is, by and large, irrelevant to the society around them. Much of the world's territory has been carved up into sovereign enclaves known as Franchise-Organized Quasi-National Entities (FOQNEs), each run by its own big business franchise (such as "Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong", or the corporatized American Mafia), or various residential "burbclaves" (quasi-sovereign gated communities). In this future, American institutions are far different from those in the actual United States at the time the book was published; for example, a for-profit organization, the CIC, has evolved from the CIA's merger with the Library of Congress.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby" title="The Great Gatsby">
In spring 1922, Nick Carraway—a Yale alumnus from the Midwest and a World War I veteran—journeys to New York City to obtain employment as a bond salesman. He rents a bungalow in the Long Island village of West Egg, next to a luxurious estate inhabited by Jay Gatsby, an enigmatic multi-millionaire who hosts dazzling soirées yet doesn't partake in them.One evening, Nick dines with a distant cousin, Daisy Buchanan, in the fashionable town of East Egg. Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan, formerly a Yale football star whom Nick knew during his college days. The couple has recently relocated from Chicago to a mansion directly across the bay from Gatsby's estate. There, Nick encounters Jordan Baker, an insolent flapper and golf champion who is a childhood friend of Daisy's. Jordan confides to Nick that Tom keeps a mistress, Myrtle Wilson, who brazenly telephones him at his home and who lives in the "valley of ashes", a sprawling refuse dump. That evening, Nick sees Gatsby standing alone on his lawn, staring at a green light across the bay.Days later, Nick reluctantly accompanies a drunken and agitated Tom to New York City by train. En route, they stop at a garage inhabited by mechanic George Wilson and his wife Myrtle. Myrtle joins them, and the trio proceed to a small New York apartment that Tom has rented for trysts with her. Guests arrive and a party ensues, which ends with Tom slapping Myrtle and breaking her nose after she mentions Daisy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Ever_Happened_to_Baby_Jane?_(novel)" title="What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (novel)">
This Gothic story deals with two aging sisters, Jane and Blanche Hudson, who are living alone together in a decaying Hollywood mansion. A former child star of early vaudeville known as "Baby Jane", Jane was doted upon by her father due to her success on the stage while Blanche lived in her shadow, neglected. However, their roles were reversed after the death of their parents due to influenza when both children moved to Los Angeles to live with an aunt. Blanche was favored by directors for her blonde hair and regal beauty, and finally decided to pursue a successful film career. Blanche became a star, while Jane, whose attempts at making movies always resulted in failure, languished in her shadow. Blanche managed to keep her sister's career alive by having a clause in her contract stipulating that Jane have a role in every film in which Blanche appeared, but these were always minor parts that relegated Jane to the same neglect Blanche had suffered.Years later, Jane, who still dresses as if she were 10 years old, and Blanche, disabled after a mysterious car accident, continue to live together in the same mansion in a declining neighborhood. Jane resents how her career has been all but forgotten compared to Blanche's (who became more famous than she ever was, and who is now being remembered because of a revival of her films on television), and hates having to cook, clean and care for her sister. Although stuck upstairs in her bedroom, Blanche has managed to keep her good looks, and Jane's appearance is ravaged by years of alcoholism.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Russia,_with_Love_(novel)" title="From Russia, with Love (novel)">
SMERSH, the Soviet counterintelligence agency, plans to commit a grand act of terrorism in the intelligence field. For this, it targets the British secret service agent James Bond. Due in part to his role in the defeat of the SMERSH agents Le Chiffre, Mr Big and Hugo Drax, Bond has been listed as an enemy of the Soviet state and a "death warrant" is issued for him. His death is planned to precipitate a major sex scandal, which will run in the world press for months and leave his and his service's reputations in tatters. Bond's killer is to be the SMERSH executioner Donovan "Red" Grant, a British Army deserter and psychopath whose homicidal urges coincide with the full moon. Kronsteen, SMERSH's chess-playing master planner, and Colonel Rosa Klebb, the head of Operations and Executions, devise the operation. They instruct an attractive young cipher clerk, Corporal Tatiana Romanova, to falsely defect from her post in Istanbul and claim to have fallen in love with Bond after seeing a photograph of him. As an added lure for Bond, Romanova will provide the British with a Spektor, a Russian decoding device much coveted by MI6. She is not told the details of the plan.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tombs_of_Atuan" title="The Tombs of Atuan">
The story follows a girl named Tenar, born on the Kargish island of Atuan. Born on the day that the high priestess of the Tombs of Atuan died, she is believed to be her reincarnation. Tenar is taken from her family when five years old and goes to the Tombs. Her name is taken from her in a ceremony, and she is referred to as "Arha", or the "eaten one", after being consecrated to the service of the "Nameless Ones" at the age of six with a ceremony involving a symbolic sacrifice. She moves into her own tiny house, and is given a eunuch servant, Manan, with whom she develops a bond of affection.Arha's childhood and youth are lonely; her only friends are Manan and Penthe, a priestess her own age. She is trained in her duties by Thar and Kossil, the priestesses of the two other major deities. Thar tells her of the undertomb and the labyrinth beneath the Tombs, teaching her how to find her way around them. She tells of the treasure hidden within the labyrinth, which wizards from the archipelago have tried to steal. When Arha asks about the wizards, Thar tells her that they are unbelievers who can work magic. When she turns fourteen, Arha assumes all the responsibilities of her position, becoming the highest ranked priestess in the Tombs. She is required to order the death of prisoners sent to the Tombs by the God-King of the Kargad lands; she has them killed by starvation, an act which haunts her for a long time. After Thar dies of old age, Arha becomes increasingly isolated: although stern, Thar had been fair to her. Kossil despises Arha and sees the Nameless Ones as a threat to her power.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Omens" title="Good Omens">
Aziraphale, an angel (originally a guardian of the gates of Eden), and Crowley, a demon (originally the serpent who tempted Eve) have lived on Earth since its creation. Over the millennia, they have formed an odd friendship and taken a liking to humanity. One night, the forces of Hell deliver the infant Antichrist to Crowley, with instructions to swap him with the son of an American diplomat stationed in Britain. Crowley realizes this means that the Apocalypse is coming and persuades Aziraphale to help him postpone it. Together, they decide to influence the Antichrist's upbringing by posing as a nanny and a gardener so that he can never decide between Good and Evil.However, due to several misunderstandings at the hospital, the real Antichrist is actually another boy, Adam Young, who grows up unnoticed in idyllic Lower Tadfield, Oxfordshire, together with his three close friends – Pepper, Wensleydale and Brian. As the foretold end of the world nears, Adam begins to unknowingly use his reality warping powers, changing the world to fit his vision of how things ought to be, such as raising the lost continent of Atlantis after reading about it in a conspiracy theory magazine, summoning UFOs after talking to his friends about aliens, and having the Amazon rainforest reclaim land lost to urban development. In the meantime, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse assemble: War (a war correspondent), Famine (a dietician and fast-food tycoon), Pollution (Pestilence having retired after the discovery of penicillin) and Death (a biker).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coraline" title="Coraline">
Coraline Jones and her workaholic parents move into a large, old house that has been divided into flats. In these flats, Coraline finds she has quirky new neighbors. These include Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, two elderly women retired from the stage, and Mr. Bobo, initially referred to as "the crazy old man upstairs", who claims to be training a jumping mouse circus. The flat next to Coraline however, is empty, and linked together by a mysterious door that Coraline finds to be blocked by bricks when she asks her mother to open it. While adjusting to her new home, Coraline decides to visit these neighbors; they have some interesting things to tell, nay, warn her about. Mr. Bobo relays a message to Coraline from his mice: "Don't go through the door." And while having tea with Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, Miss Spink spies danger in Coraline's future after reading her tea leaves. Miss Spink also gives Coraline a curious adder stone.One day, Coraline finds herself alone in the apartment; with curiosity eating at her, she opens the door. This time she finds an oddly familiar corridor. On the other side of this corridor, she notices she is back in her apartment. It's as if she never left; everything in this apartment is the same as her own. Almost. She finds the residents of this "other apartment" to be her mother and father, but they now have buttons for eyes. The copy of Coraline's mother introduces herself as Coraline's "Other Mother" and the man as Coraline's "Other Father". 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interview_with_the_Vampire" title="Interview with the Vampire">
A vampire named Louis de Pointe du Lac tells his 200-year-long life story to a reporter referred to simply as "the boy".In 1791, Louis is a young indigo plantation owner living in Louisiana. Distraught by the death of his brother, he seeks death in any way possible. Louis is approached by a vampire named Lestat de Lioncourt, who desires Louis's company. Lestat turns Louis into a vampire and the two become immortal companions. Lestat spends time feeding off slaves while Louis, who finds it morally repugnant to murder humans to survive, feeds from animals. Louis and Lestat are forced to leave when Louis's slaves begin to fear the vampires and instigate an uprising.Louis sets his own plantation aflame; he and Lestat kill the slaves to keep word from spreading about vampires living in Louisiana. Gradually, Louis bends under Lestat's influence and begins feeding from humans. He slowly comes to terms with his vampire nature, but also becomes increasingly repulsed by what he perceives as Lestat's total lack of compassion for the humans he preys upon.Escaping to New Orleans, Louis feeds off a plague-ridden, five-year-old girl, whom he finds next to the corpse of her mother. Louis begins to think of leaving Lestat and going his own way. Fearing this, Lestat then turns the girl into a vampire "daughter" for them, to give Louis a reason to stay. She is then given the name Claudia.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartarin_of_Tarascon" title="Tartarin of Tarascon">
The Provençal town of Tarascon is so enthusiastic about hunting that no game lives anywhere near it, and its inhabitants resort to telling hunting stories and throwing their own caps in the air to shoot at them. Tartarin, a plump middle-aged man, is the chief "cap-hunter", but following his enthusiastic reaction to seeing an Atlas lion in a travelling menagerie, the over-imaginative town understands him to be planning a hunting expedition to Algeria. So as not to lose face, Tartarin is forced to go, after gathering an absurd mass of equipment and weapons. On the boat from Marseille to Algiers, he hooks up with a conman posing as a Montenegrin prince who takes advantage of him in multiple ways. Tartarin's gullibility causes him a number of misadventures until he returns home penniless but covered in glory after shooting a tame, blind lion.A sequel "Tartarin sur les Alpes" appeared in 1885, followed by "Port-Tarascon" in 1890.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-GB" title="SS-GB">
In November 1941, nine months after a German invasion led to the British surrender, Douglas Archer is a detective-superintendent of London's Metropolitan Police Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard who works on homicide crimes. His boss is SS "Gruppenführer" Fritz Kellermann, the German head of police forces in Britain. Having lost his wife, Jill, and his home during the German invasion, Archer lives with his son, "Douggie", at the home of Mrs Sheenan and her son, Bob. Archer's colleagues are Detective-Sergeant Harry Woods and his secretary and lover, Sylvia Manning.Archer is called to investigate the murder of a well-dressed man at a flat above an antiques shop in Shepherd Market. Although the body has two gunshot wounds, Archer is puzzled by its condition, particularly by what appears to be sunburn on the arm. Archer also finds a prosthetic arm and a return ticket to Bringle Sands, where the Germans have an atomic research facility. Despite stolen identification identifying the man as Peter Thomas, Archer discovers that the man's true identity is William Spode, a British atomic physicist in the German atomic program and secretly involved with the British Resistance.Since the case is linked to the German atomic program, Berlin dispatches SS "Standartenführer", Oskar Huth, who arrives to supervise the investigation. Archer soon finds himself in the middle of a power struggle between Huth and Kellerman that is complicated by interservice rivalry between the SS, German Army, Gestapo and Abwehr. Archer becomes romantically involved with an attractive American journalist, Barbara Barga, who is connected to the British Resistance leader Colonel George Mayhew. He also learns that his colleagues Woods and Sylvia are also members of the British resistance.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Virgin_Suicides" title="The Virgin Suicides">
As an ambulance arrives for the body of Cecilia Lisbon, a group of anonymous adolescent neighborhood boys recalls the events leading up to her death.The Lisbons are a Catholic family living in the suburb of Grosse Pointe, Michigan during the 1970s. The father, Ronald Lisbon, is a math teacher at the local high school. The mother is a strict homemaker. The family has five attractive blonde daughters: 13-year-old Cecilia, 14-year-old Lux, 15-year-old Bonnie, 16-year-old Mary, and 17-year-old Therese.Without warning, Cecilia attempts suicide by slitting her wrists in the bathtub. However, she is found in time by a boy in the neighborhood who had snuck into the home, and survives. A few weeks later, the Lisbons meet with Cecilia's psychologist who suggests that the girls need more social interaction and that the potential cause of Cecilia's suicide attempt was the suppression of her libidinal urges. The parents allow the girls to throw a chaperoned party at their house in hopes of cheering Cecilia up. However, Cecilia excuses herself from the party, which is happening in the basement, and goes upstairs and jumps out of her second-story bedroom window. Cecilia is impaled on the fence post below, and she dies almost immediately.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Makes_Sammy_Run?" title="What Makes Sammy Run?">
Told in first person narrative by Al Manheim, drama critic of "The New York Record", this is the tale of Sammy Glick, a young uneducated boy who rises from copyboy to the top of the screenwriting profession in 1930s Hollywood by backstabbing others.Manheim recalls how he first met the 16-year-old Sammy Glick when Sammy was working as a copyboy at Manheim's newspaper. Both awed and disturbed by Sammy's aggressive personality, Manheim becomes Sammy's primary observer, mentor and, as Sammy asserts numerous times, best friend.Tasked with taking Manheim's column down to the printing room, one day Glick rewrites Manheim's column, impressing the managing editor and gaining a column of his own. Later he steals a piece by an aspiring young writer, Julian Blumberg, sending it under his own name to the famous Hollywood talent agent Myron Selznick. Glick sells the piece, "Girl Steals Boy", for $10,000 and leaves the paper to go to work in Hollywood, leaving behind his girlfriend, Rosalie Goldbaum. When the film of "Girl Steals Boy" opens, Sammy is credited for "original screenplay" and Blumberg is not acknowledged.Glick rises to the top in Hollywood over the succeeding years, paying Blumberg a small salary under the table to be his ghost writer. He even manages to have "his" stageplay, "Live Wire", performed at the Hollywood Playhouse. Although the script is actually a case of plagiarism, "The Front Page" in flimsy disguise, no one except Manheim seems to notice. Sammy's bluffing also includes talking about books he has never read.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Razor's_Edge" title="The Razor's Edge">
Maugham begins by characterising his story as not really a novel but a thinly veiled true account. He includes himself as a minor character, a writer who drifts in and out of the lives of the major players. Larry Darrell's lifestyle is contrasted throughout the book with that of his fiancée's uncle Elliott Templeton, an American expatriate living in Paris and an unrepentantly shallow yet generous snob. For example, while Templeton's Roman Catholicism embraces the hierarchical trappings of the church, Larry's proclivities tend towards the thirteenth-century Flemish mystic and saint John of Ruysbroeck.Wounded and traumatised by the death of a comrade in the War, Larry returns to Chicago and his fiancée Isabel Bradley, only to announce that he does not plan to seek paid employment and instead will "loaf" on his small inheritance. He wants to delay their marriage and refuses to take up a job as a stockbroker offered to him by Henry Maturin, the father of his friend Gray. Meanwhile, Sophie, Larry's childhood friend, settles into a happy marriage, only to later tragically lose her husband and baby in a car accident.Larry moves to Paris and immerses himself in study and bohemian life. After two years of this "loafing", Isabel visits and Larry asks her to join his life of wandering and searching, living in Paris and traveling with little money. She cannot accept his vision of life and breaks their engagement to go back to Chicago. There she marries the millionaire Gray, who provides her a rich family life. Meanwhile, Larry begins a sojourn through Europe, taking a job at a coal mine in Lens, France, where he befriends a former Polish army officer named Kosti. Kosti's influence encourages Larry to look toward things spiritual for his answers rather than in books. Larry and Kosti leave the coal mine and travel together for a time before parting ways. Larry then meets a Benedictine monk named Father Ensheim in Bonn, Germany, while Father Ensheim is on leave from his monastery doing academic research. After spending several months with the Benedictines and being unable to reconcile their conception of God with his own, Larry takes a job on an ocean liner and finds himself in Bombay.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Solomon's_Mines" title="King Solomon's Mines">
Allan Quatermain, an adventurer and white hunter based in Durban, in what is now South Africa, is approached by aristocrat Sir Henry Curtis and his friend Captain Good, seeking his help finding Sir Henry's brother, who was last seen travelling north into the unexplored interior on a quest for the fabled King Solomon's Mines. Quatermain has a mysterious map purporting to lead to the mines, but had never taken it seriously. However, he agrees to lead an expedition in return for a share of the treasure, or a stipend for his son if he is killed along the way. He has little hope they will return alive, but reasons that he has already outlived most people in his profession, so dying in this manner at least ensures that his son will be provided for. They also take along a mysterious native, Umbopa, who seems more regal, handsome and well-spoken than most porters of his class, but who is very anxious to join the party.Travelling by oxcart, they reach the edge of a desert, but not before a hunt in which a wounded elephant claims the life of a servant. They continue on foot across the desert, almost dying of thirst before finding the oasis shown halfway across on the map. Reaching a mountain range called Suliman Berg, they climb a peak (one of "Sheba's Breasts") and enter a cave where they find the frozen corpse of José Silvestre (also spelt Silvestra), the 16th-century Portuguese explorer who drew the map in his own blood. That night, a second servant dies from the cold, so they leave his body next to Silvestra's, to "give him a companion".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Languages_of_Pao" title="The Languages of Pao">
The planet Pao is a quiet backwater with a large, homogeneous, stolid population ruled by an absolute monarch: the Panarch. Pao's cultural homogeneity contributes to making it vulnerable to external military and economic pressures. The current Panarch attempts to hire an offworld scientist, Lord Palafox from the Breakness Institute on the planet Breakness, as a consultant in order to reform Pao. Before the deal can be concluded, however, the Panarch is assassinated by his brother Bustamonte, using mind-control over the Panarch's own son, Beran Panasper, to do so. Lord Palafox saves Beran Panasper and takes him to Breakness as a possible bargaining chip in his dealings with Pao.Somewhat later, the predatory Brumbo Clan from the planet Batmarsh raids the virtually defenseless Pao with impunity, and the Panarch Bustamonte is forced to pay heavy tribute. To rid himself of the Brumbos, he seeks the aid of Palafox, who has a plan to create warrior, technical and mercantile castes on Pao using customized languages (named Valiant, Technicant and Cogitant) and other means to shape the mindsets of each caste, isolating them from each other and the general populace of Pao. To achieve this, each caste gets a special training area where it is completely segregated from any outside influence; the necessary land is confiscated from families, some of which have held it for countless generations — which creates some disaffection in the conservative Paonese population and earns Bustamonte the name of a tyrant.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo" title="The Count of Monte Cristo">
## Marseille and Chateau d'If.On the day in 1815 when Napoleon escapes the Island of Elba, Edmond Dantès brings the ship "Pharaon" into dock at Marseille. His captain, Leclère, had died during the passage; the ship's owner, Morrel, will make Dantès the next captain. On his deathbed, Leclère charged Dantès to deliver a package to General Bertrand (exiled with Napoleon), and a letter from Elba to an unknown man in Paris. Dantès' colleague Danglars is jealous of Dantès' rapid promotion and, as the two men are at odds, fearful for his own employment should Dantès ascend. On the eve of Dantès' wedding to his Catalan fiancée Mercédès, Danglars meets at a cabaret with Fernand Mondego, Mercédès' cousin and a rival for her affections, and the two hatch a plot to anonymously denounce Dantès, falsely accusing him of being a Bonapartist traitor. Danglars and Mondego set a trap for Dantès. Dantès' neighbour, Caderousse, is present at the meeting; he too is jealous of Dantès, although he objects to the plot, but becomes too intoxicated with wine to prevent it. The following day at the wedding breakfast, Dantès is arrested, and the cowardly Caderousse stays silent, fearing being also accused of Bonapartism. Villefort, the deputy crown prosecutor in Marseille, destroys the letter from Elba when he discovers that it is addressed to his own father, Noirtier, a Bonapartist, knowing it would destroy his own political career. To silence Dantès, he condemns him without trial to life imprisonment and resists all appeals by Morrel to release him, during the Hundred Days and once the king Louis XVIII is restored to rule France.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat's_Cradle" title="Cat's Cradle">
## Background.The first-person everyman narrator, a professional writer introducing himself as Jonah (but apparently named John), frames the plot as a flashback. Set in the mid-20th century, the plot revolves around a time when he was planning to write a book called "The Day the World Ended" about what people were doing on the day of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Throughout, he also intersperses meaningful as well as sarcastic passages and sentiments from an odd religious scripture known as "The Books of Bokonon". The events of the novel evidently occur before the narrator was converted to his current religion, Bokononism.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excellent_Women" title="Excellent Women">
The book details the everyday life of its narrator, Mildred Lathbury, a spinster in her thirties in 1950s Britain. Perpetually self-deprecating, but with the sharpest wit, Mildred is a part-time voluntary worker who occupies herself by attending and helping at the local church. Mildred's life grows more exciting with the arrival of new neighbours, anthropologist Helena Napier and her handsome, dashing husband, Rocky – with whom Mildred fancies herself in love. Through the Napiers, she meets another anthropologist, Everard Bone, and it is with him that Mildred will eventually form a relationship. A subplot revolves around the activities of the local vicar, Julian Malory, who becomes engaged to a glamorous clergyman's widow, Allegra Gray. Allegra proceeds to ease out Julian's sister and housekeeper, Winifred, a close friend of Mildred's. Eventually matters come to a head and Allegra leaves the vicarage after a quarrel. In the meantime, Helena, who has been on the verge of leaving Rocky for Everard, accepts that Everard does not care for her and leaves the neighbourhood, along with Rocky.The novel concludes with Mildred unsure of her future, but having agreed to carry out indexing tasks for Everard Bone. Other Pym novels portray Everard and Mildred as a married couple, usually unseen.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphans_of_the_Sky" title="Orphans of the Sky">
The gigantic, cylindrical generation ship "Vanguard", originally destined for "Far Centaurus", is cruising without guidance through the interstellar medium because long ago, a mutiny killed most of the officers. Over time, the descendants of the surviving loyal crew have lapsed into a pre-technological culture that is marked by superstition and forgotten the purpose and nature of their ship. Since they come to believe the "Ship" is the entire universe, "To move the ship" is considered an oxymoron, and references to the Ship's "voyage" are interpreted as religious metaphor. They are ruled by an oligarchy of "officers" and "scientists." Most crew members are simple illiterate farmers, seldom or never venturing to the "upper decks," where the "muties" (an abbreviation of "mutants" or "mutineers") dwell. Among the crew, all identifiable mutants are killed at birth.The story centers on a young man of insatiable curiosity, Hugh Hoyland, who is selected as an apprentice by a scientist. The scientists ritualistically perform the tasks required to maintain the Ship, such as putting trash into its energy converter to generate power, and remain ignorant of their true functions.On a hunt for muties, Hugh is captured by them. He barely avoids getting eaten by the microcephalic dwarf Bobo and instead becomes the slave of Joe-Jim Gregory, the two-headed leader of a powerful mutie gang. Joe and Jim have separate identities, but both are highly intelligent and have come to a crude understanding of the Ship's true nature.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tess_of_the_d'Urbervilles" title="Tess of the d'Urbervilles">
## The Maiden.Tess Durbeyfield, a country girl of sixteen, is the eldest child of John Durbeyfield, a haggler, and his wife Joan. When the local parson tells John that "Durbeyfield" is a corruption of "D'Urberville", and that he is descended from an ancient Norman family, John celebrates by getting drunk. Tess drives to market in her father's place, but falls asleep at the reins; the wagon crashes and the family's only horse is killed. Feeling guilty, she agrees to visit Mrs d'Urberville, a rich widow, to "claim kin", unaware that the widow's late husband, Simon Stoke, had merely adopted the surname to distance himself from his tradesman's roots.Alec d'Urberville, the son, is attracted to Tess and finds her a job as his mother's poultry keeper. Tess resists Alec's manipulative attentions, but her youth and inexperience obscure from her the real threat to her virtue. One night, on the pretence of rescuing her from a fight, Alec takes her on his horse to a remote spot and it is implied that he rapes her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Pimpernel" title="The Scarlet Pimpernel">
Set in 1792, during the early stages of the French Revolution, Marguerite St. Just, a beautiful French actress, is married to wealthy English fop Sir Percy Blakeney, baronet. Before their marriage Marguerite took revenge upon the Marquis de St. Cyr, who had ordered her brother beaten for his romantic interest in the Marquis' daughter, with the unintended consequence that the Marquis and his sons were guillotined. When Percy found out, he became estranged from his wife. Marguerite, for her part, became disillusioned with Percy's shallow, dandyish lifestyle.Meanwhile, the "League of the Scarlet Pimpernel", a secret society of twenty English aristocrats, "one to command, and nineteen to obey", is engaged in rescuing their French counterparts from the daily executions of the Reign of Terror. Their leader, the mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel, takes his "'nom de guerre" from the small, wayside red flower he draws on his messages. Despite being the talk of London society, only his followers and possibly the Prince of Wales know the Pimpernel's true identity. Like many others, Marguerite is entranced by the Pimpernel's daring exploits.At a ball attended by the Blakeneys, Percy's verse about the "elusive Pimpernel" becomes an instant success. But Marguerite is being blackmailed by Citizen Chauvelin, the wily new French envoy to England: Chauvelin's agents have stolen a letter proving that her beloved brother Armand is in league with the Pimpernel. Chauvelin offers to trade Armand's life for her help against the Pimpernel. Contemptuous of her seemingly witless and unloving husband, Marguerite does not go to him for help or advice. Instead, she passes along information which enables Chauvelin to learn the Pimpernel's true identity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Robe" title="The Robe">
The book explores the aftermath of the crucifixion of Jesus through the experiences of the Roman tribune Marcellus Gallio and his Greek slave Demetrius. Prince Gaius, in an effort to rid Rome of Marcellus, banishes Marcellus to the command of the Roman garrison at Minoa, a port city in southern Palestine. In Jerusalem during Passover, Marcellus ends up carrying out the crucifixion of Jesus but is troubled since he believes Jesus is innocent of any crime.Marcellus and some other soldiers throw dice to see who will take Jesus' seamless robe. Marcellus wins and asks Demetrius to take care of the robe. Following the crucifixion, Marcellus takes part in a banquet attended by Pontius Pilate. During the banquet, a drunken centurion insists that Marcellus wear Jesus' robe. Reluctantly wearing the garment, Marcellus apparently suffers a nervous breakdown and returns to Rome.Sent to Athens to recuperate, Marcellus finally gives in to Demetrius' urging and touches the robe, and his mind is subsequently restored. Marcellus, now believing the robe has some sort of innate power, returns to Judea, follows the path Jesus took, and meets many people whose lives Jesus had affected. Based upon their experiences, first Demetrius and then Marcellus become followers of Jesus. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Air_(novel)" title="Dead Air (novel)">
The book revolves around the life of Kenneth Nott, a radio DJ on a London station called Capital Live!
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exorcist_(novel)" title="The Exorcist (novel)">
An elderly Jesuit priest named Father Lankester Merrin is leading an archaeological dig in northern Iraq and is studying ancient relics. After discovering a small statue of the demon Pazuzu (an actual ancient Assyrian demon), a series of omens alerts him to a pending confrontation with a powerful evil, which, unknown to the reader at this point, he has battled before in an exorcism in Africa.Meanwhile, in Georgetown, a young girl named Regan MacNeil is living with her famous mother, actress Chris MacNeil, who is in Georgetown filming a movie. As Chris finishes her work on the film, Regan begins to become inexplicably ill. After a gradual series of poltergeist-like disturbances in their rented house, for which Chris attempts to find rational explanations, Regan begins to rapidly undergo disturbing psychological and physical changes: she refuses to eat or sleep, becomes withdrawn and frenetic, and increasingly aggressive and violent. Chris initially mistakes Regan's behavior for the result of repressed anger over her parents' divorce and absent father.Coupled with these events are disturbances at the local Holy Trinity Church which has been desecrated on several occasions potentially linked to Black Mass and is causing local concerns about occult activity.After several unsuccessful psychiatric and medical treatments, Regan's mother, an atheist, turns to a local Jesuit priest for help as Regan's personality becomes increasingly disturbed and the doctors still cannot find a source. Father Damien Karras, who is currently going through a crisis of faith coupled with the recent loss of his mother, agrees to see Regan as a psychiatrist, but initially resists the notion that it is an actual demonic possession, pointing to advances in science which can explain what was previously assumed to be possession. After a few meetings with the child, now completely inhabited by a diabolical personality claiming to be the devil, he turns to the local bishop for permission to perform an exorcism on the child.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sweet_Hereafter_(novel)" title="The Sweet Hereafter (novel)">
"The Sweet Hereafter" is a multiple first-person narrative depicting life in a small town in Upstate New York in the wake of a school bus accident in which many local children are killed. Their grieving parents are approached by a slick city lawyer who wants them to sue for damages. At first the parents are reluctant to do so, but eventually they are persuaded by the lawyer that filing a class action lawsuit would ease their minds and also be the right thing to do.As most of the children are dead, the case now depends on the few surviving witnesses to say the right things in court. In particular, it is 14-year-old Nichole Burnell, who was sitting at the front of the bus and is now paralyzed from the waist down, whose deposition is all-important. However, she unexpectedly accuses Dolores Driscoll, the driver, of speeding and thus causing the accident. When she does so, all hopes of ever receiving money are thwarted. All the people involved know that Nichole is lying but cannot do anything about it. Only her father knows why, but he is unable to publicly reveal his daughter's motives.The novel captures the atmosphere in a small town suddenly shaken by catastrophe. Only the reader/viewer knows that Mitchell Stephens, the lawyer, has himself effectively lost his own child—his estranged, drug-addicted daughter informs him that she has just tested HIV-positive.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Severed_Head" title="A Severed Head">
Martin Lynch-Gibbon is a well-to-do 41-year-old wine merchant whose childless marriage to an older woman called Antonia has been one of convenience rather than love. It never occurs to him that his ongoing secret affair with Georgie, a young academic in her twenties, could be immoral. Martin is shocked when his wife tells him that she has been having an affair with Palmer Anderson, her psychoanalyst and a friend of the couple. Antonia informs Martin that she wants to divorce him and marry Anderson.Martin moves out of their London house in Hereford Square. Before officially moving, Martin visits his brother Alexander's home near Oxford. While there he learns that Antonia has already written to Alexander about the divorce, leaving Alexander quite shaken. Later Martin returns to Hereford Square, where Antonia, now acting as a mother figure for him, tries to set up his new accommodation. After arguing with Antonia, he goes to the station to pick up Palmer's half-sister Honor Klein, a lecturer in anthropology who is visiting from Cambridge.Martin still does not want to publicly acknowledge his affair with Georgie, let alone become engaged to her. A few days later, Martin finally visits Georgie. While Georgie wants to publicize their affair, Martin refuses because he believes it will "hurt" Antonia. However, they decide to go to Hereford Square so that Georgie can see the house. While Martin is showing her around, they hear someone arrive at the house. Assuming it is Antonia, Martin rushes Georgie out the back door, despite her protests that she wishes to meet Antonia. The unexpected visitor turns out to be Honor, who notices Georgie's handbag that was left behind in her rush out the door. After the event, Martin tries to contact Georgie but is unsuccessful and soon returns to the house. There he finds out that Palmer and Antonia know about his relationship with Georgie. Martin finds Georgie and learns that Honor Klein has exposed their secret. Soon after Georgie meets Antonia in an awkward situation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_Up_for_Air" title="Coming Up for Air">
The themes of the book are nostalgia, the folly of trying to go back and recapture past glories and the easy way the dreams and aspirations of one's youth can be smothered by the humdrum routine of work, marriage and getting old. It is written in the first person, with George Bowling, the forty-five-year-old protagonist, who reveals his life and experiences while undertaking a trip back to his boyhood home as an adult.At the opening of the book, Bowling has a day off work to go to London to collect a new set of false teeth. A news-poster about the contemporary King Zog of Albania sets off thoughts of a biblical character Og, King of Bashan that he recalls from Sunday church as a child. Along with 'some sound in the traffic or the smell of horse dung or something' these thoughts trigger Bowling's memory of his childhood as the son of an unambitious seed merchant in "Lower Binfield" near the River Thames. Bowling relates his life history, dwelling on how a lucky break during the First World War landed him in a comfortable job away from any action and provided contacts that helped him become a successful salesman.Bowling is wondering what to do with a modest sum of money that he has won on a horserace and which he has concealed from his wife and family. Much later (part III) he and his wife attend a Left Book Club meeting where he is horrified by the hate shown by the anti-fascist speaker, and bemused by the Marxist ramblings of the communists who have attended the meeting. Fed up with this, he seeks his friend Old Porteous, the retired schoolmaster. He usually enjoys Porteous' company, but on this occasion his dry dead classics makes Bowling even more depressed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Puppets" title="Shadow Puppets">
Peter, Ender's brother, is now Hegemon of Earth. Accepting a tip from inside China, where Achilles is held prisoner, Peter had planned for Bean to operate the mission, but at the last minute (because he doubted Bean would cooperate) assigns Suriyawong, a Battle School student from Thailand, to rescue Achilles in transport. Peter believes that he can spy on Achilles, take over his network, and then turn Achilles over to some country for trial, since Achilles has previously betrayed Russia, Pakistan, and India.Achilles is known to kill anyone who has seen him vulnerable. Bean and his friend Petra, who also served under Ender and who is travelling with Bean, have both seen Achilles so and immediately go into hiding, preparing for a future confrontation. Bean believes Peter has seriously underestimated Achilles, and that he himself is not safe unless he is hidden. During their travels, Petra convinces Bean to marry her and have children with her by taking him to Anton, the person who Anton's Key (Bean's Condition) was named after. Bean is reluctant to have children, as he does not want his Anton's Key gene to be passed on. He finds Volescu, the original doctor who activated the key in his genes, and has him prepare nine embryos through artificial insemination. Volescu pretends to identify three embryos with Anton's Key and they are discarded. One of the remaining six is implanted into Petra, while the rest of them are placed under guard.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Planet" title="The Pirate Planet">
The Key to Time tracer points the Fourth Doctor and Romana to the cold and boring planet of Calufrax, but when they arrive they find an unusual civilisation that lives in perpetual prosperity. A strange band of people with mysterious powers known as the Mentiads are feared by the society, but the Doctor discovers that they are good people but with an unknown purpose. He instead fears the Captain, the planet's leader and benefactor. After meeting the Captain on the bridge he learns that they are actually on a hollowed-out planet named Zanak, which has been materialising around other planets to plunder their resources.After repairing Zanak's engines, which were damaged when the planet materialised in the same place as the TARDIS, the Captain plans to take Zanak to Earth. The Doctor finds the true menace controlling the Captain is the ancient tyrant Queen Xanxia, disguised as the Captain's nurse, who uses the resources mined from planets in an attempt to gain immortality. Her physical body sits between Time Dams, devices that hold back the ravages of time, as she is old and near death, and a younger version of her is projected via a solid 3D device. Despite the Captain's apparent insanity, he is a calculating person who plans to destroy Xanxia. The Mentiads learn that their psychic powers are strengthened by the destruction of entire worlds beneath their feet. As the people on the planets die, their combined psychic force gives the Mentiads their power.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shada_(Doctor_Who)" title="Shada (Doctor Who)">
The Fourth Doctor answers a distress signal from Professor Chronotis, a Time Lord posing as a professor at St Cedd's College, Cambridge who loaned a Gallifreyan tome to his student Chris Parsons. The Doctor retrieves the book while Chronotis dies after his mind was extracted by the sphere of a mad scientist named Skagra, living long enough to warn Romana, K9 and Parsons of them and Shada. The Doctor locates Skagra's cloaked spacecraft, only for his companions to be captured while Skagra has his sphere extract the Doctor's mind to decode the book before taking Romana in the TARDIS to his carrier ship and Krarg creations. But the Doctor survived his ordeal with his mind intact and has the ship's computer release Chris and K9 and take them to a space station Skagra previously occupied. The group find Skagra's discarded colleagues and learn he is after a Time Lord named Salyavin.Back on Earth, Clare Keightley accidentally revives Chronotis whose chambers are revealed as a TARDIS, the Professor explaining the book is a key to the prison planet Shada where Salyavin is held. Chronotis and Clare repair the TARDIS to reach Skagra's carrier, saving the Doctor and Chris after Skagra decoded the book and revealed his intent to absorb Salyavin's mind and use its telepathy to unite all life into a single Universal Mind.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Death" title="City of Death">
While in Paris, the Doctor and Romana sense a time distortion. They observe the Countess Scarlioni using an alien device to scan the security systems housing Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" at the Louvre. The pair meet Inspector Duggan, who suspects the Countess to be involved in an ongoing art theft scheme with her husband, Count Scarlioni. Duggan joins the Doctor and Romana in investigating the Scarlioni mansion. There, they find equipment used by Dr. Kerensky to experiment in time, the source of the time distortions, as well as six exact copies of the "Mona Lisa". The Doctor instructs Romana and Duggan to continue investigating while he returns to the TARDIS to visit Leonardo, a good friend of his. After the Doctor leaves, the Count returns after successfully stealing the "Mona Lisa" and captures Romana and Duggan. Learning that Romana is familiar with time, he kills Dr. Kerensky and forces Romana to continue the tests.In the past, the Doctor arrives at Leonardo's home but is captured by Captain Tancredi, who is Count Scarlioni. Tancredi reveals he is really Scaroth, a member of the Jagaroth race. They had arrived on Earth 400 million years ago, but due to an explosion in their craft, all of the others died and his own body was fragmented across time. Collectively, the fragments of Scaroth have manipulated humanity so that by the 20th century, they will have technology that will enable him to go back in time to stop the explosion. Tancredi is currently employing Leonardo to create copies of the "Mona Lisa" in order to finance Scarlioni's work. After Tancredi leaves, the Doctor knocks out his captor, marks the blank canvases with a felt-tip pen with the phrase, "This is a fake", and leaves a message to Leonardo to paint over his writing before returning to the present.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bridge_Too_Far_(film)" title="A Bridge Too Far (film)">
Operation Market Garden envisages 35,000 men being flown from air bases in England and dropped behind enemy lines in the Netherlands. Two divisions of US paratroopers are responsible for securing the road and bridges as far as Nijmegen. A British division, under Major-General Roy Urquhart, is to land near Arnhem and hold both sides of the bridge there, backed by a brigade of Polish paratroopers under General Stanisław Sosabowski. XXX Armoured Corps are to push up the road over the bridges captured by the American paratroopers and reach Arnhem two days after the drop.As General Urquhart briefs his officers some of them are surprised they are going to attempt a landing so far from their objective since the distance from their landing zone to the bridge will render their portable radios useless. Although the consensus is that resistance will consist entirely of inexperienced old men and Hitler Youth, reconnaissance photos show the presence of German tanks at Arnhem. General Browning nevertheless dismisses the photos and also ignores reports from the Dutch underground, believing the operation will be successful regardless.The Arnhem bridge is the prime target, since it serves as the last means of escape for the German forces in the Netherlands and a direct route to Germany for the Allies. However the road to it is only a single lane linking the various key bridges and vehicles have to squeeze onto the verge to pass. The road is also elevated, causing anything moving along it to stand out.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Mars" title="The Road to Mars">
Told from the point of view of Professor Bill Reynolds, a scholar in the (formerly) fictitious discipline of 'micropaleontology', this novel is set in the 24th and 25th Centuries, when the Solar System has been colonised. Reynolds is writing a thesis on fame and in his research discovers a dissertation on comedy submitted by Carlton, a robotic secretary for two stand-up comedians on an interplanetary comedy circuit. Most of the action in the novel follows this trio's adventures during the time when Reynolds believes Carlton was developing his theories. During this time, Carlton and his owners, Alex Muscroft and Lewis Ashby get caught up in a series of disasters including loss of work, parental responsibility and close scrapes with terrorists, the law, other entertainers, and a refugee crisis.Carlton seeks to understand the nature of comedy and human laughter, and attempts to describe humor as a mathematical formula.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy" title="Mars trilogy">
## "Red Mars" – Colonization."Red Mars" starts in 2026 with the first colonial voyage to Mars aboard the "Ares", the largest interplanetary spacecraft ever built and home to a crew who are to be the first hundred Martian colonists. The ship was built from clustered space shuttle external fuel tanks which, instead of reentering Earth's atmosphere, had been boosted into orbit until enough had been amassed to build the ship. The mission is a joint American–Russian undertaking, and seventy of the First Hundred are drawn from these countries (except, for example, Michel Duval, a French psychologist assigned to observe their behavior). The book details the trip out, construction of the first settlement on Mars (eventually called Underhill) by Russian engineer Nadia Cherneshevsky, as well as establishing colonies on Mars' hollowed out asteroid-moon Phobos, the ever-changing relationships between the colonists, debates among the colonists regarding both the terraforming of the planet and its future relationship to Earth. The two extreme views on terraforming are personified by Saxifrage "Sax" Russell, who believes their very presence on the planet means some level of terraforming has already begun and that it is humanity's obligation to spread life as it is the most scarce thing in the known universe, and Ann Clayborne, who stakes out the position that humankind does not have the right to change entire planets at their will.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Leaves" title="House of Leaves">
"House of Leaves" begins with a first-person narrative by Johnny Truant, a Los Angeles tattoo parlor employee and professed unreliable narrator. Truant is searching for a new apartment when his friend Lude tells him about the apartment of the recently deceased Zampanò, a blind, elderly man who lived in Lude's apartment building.In Zampanò's apartment, Truant discovers a manuscript written by Zampanò that turns out to be an academic study of a documentary film called "The Navidson Record" directed by an acclaimed photojournalist named Will Navidson, though Truant says he can find no evidence that the film or its subjects ever existed.The rest of the novel incorporates several narratives, including Zampanò's report on the (possibly fictional) film; Truant's autobiographical interjections; a small transcript of part of the film from Navidson's brother, Tom; a small transcript of interviews of many people regarding "The Navidson Record" by Navidson's partner, Karen; and occasional brief notes by unidentified editors, all woven together by a mass of footnotes. There is also another narrator, Truant's mother, whose voice is presented through a self-contained set of letters titled "The Whalestoe Letters". Each narrator's text is printed in a distinct font, making it easier for the reader to follow the occasionally challenging format of the novel (Truant in Courier New in the footnotes, and the main narrative in Times New Roman in the American version, the unnamed editors are in Bookman, and the letters from Johnny's mother are in Dante).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Whalestoe_Letters" title="The Whalestoe Letters">
Pelafina writes these letters to Johnny from "The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute", a mental institution where she has been residing for a number of years. While a number of these letters appear in "House of Leaves", "The Whalestoe Letters" introduces a number of new letters which serve to more fully develop Pelafina's character as well as her relationship with Johnny.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoree" title="Restoree">
"Restoree" is the story of Sara, an introverted, beak-nosed, 24-year-old virginal librarian originally from near Seaford, Delaware, who is abducted from New York City by the Mil, amorphous alien creatures that eat human flesh. She is kept alive, with her skin removed and in a catatonic state from the physical and mental shock, on a meat hook as a Mil meal until the alien ship she is on is captured by human inhabitants of the planet Lothar. Without her skin, some Lotharians mistake her for one of their own and perform controversial "restoration" procedures on her, including a nose job.Sara comes to her senses in a mental institution on Lothar with no memory of what happened, little knowledge of the local language, and a beautiful, golden-skinned body. At the institution, she is treated as if she were retarded and given menial tasks to do, as are other "restorees" who have been clandestinely salvaged from Mil ships; it is apparently some factor of Sara's Terran origins that allows her to fully recover from the shock of the Mil ordeal, while Lotharian restorees are of limited intellect at best. One of her jobs is to care for Harlan, the deposed planetary regent, who is being drugged into a moronic state. Recognizing what is being done, Sara helps Harlan to regain his senses and escape the mental institution. Sara and Harlan then gain the advantage over Harlan's political enemies, defeat the Mil, solve some of Lothar's emerging domestic problems and, of course, fall in love.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Gantry" title="Elmer Gantry">
The novel tells the story of a young, narcissistic, womanizing college athlete who abandons his early ambition to become a lawyer. The legal profession does not suit the unethical Gantry. After college, he attends a Baptist seminary and is ordained as a Baptist minister. While managing to cover up certain sexual indiscretions, he is thrown out of the seminary before completing his BD because he is too drunk to turn up at a church where he is supposed to preach. After several years as a travelling salesman of farm equipment, he becomes manager for Sharon Falconer, an itinerant evangelist. Gantry becomes her lover, but loses both her and his position when she is killed in a fire at her new tabernacle. After this catastrophe, he briefly acts as a "New Thought" evangelist, and eventually becomes a Methodist minister. He marries well and eventually obtains a large congregation in Lewis's fictional Midwestern city of Zenith. During his career, Gantry contributes to the downfall, physical injury, and even death of key people around him, including a sincere minister, Frank Shallard, who is plagued by doubt. Especially ironic is the way he champions love, an emotion he seems incapable of, in his sermons, preaches against ambition, when he himself is so patently ambitious, and organizes crusades against (mainly sexual) immorality, when he has difficulty resisting sexual temptation himself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sons_and_Lovers" title="Sons and Lovers">
## Part I.The refined daughter of a "good old burgher family," Gertrude Coppard meets a rough-hewn miner, Walter Morel, at a Christmas dance and falls into a whirlwind romance characterised by physical passion but soon after her marriage to Walter, she realises the difficulties of living off his meagre salary in a rented house. The couple fight and drift apart and Walter retreats to the pub after work each day. Gradually, Mrs. Morel's affections shift to her sons beginning with the oldest, William.As a boy, William is so attached to his mother that he does not enjoy the fair without her. As he grows older, he defends her against his father's occasional violence. Eventually, he leaves their Nottinghamshire home for a job in London, where he begins to rise up into the middle class. He is engaged, but he detests the girl's superficiality. William dies and Mrs. Morel is heartbroken. When her second son Paul catches pneumonia she rediscovers her love for Paul.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle" title="The Jungle">
Jurgis Rudkus marries his fifteen-year-old sweetheart, Ona Lukoszaite, in a joyous traditional Lithuanian wedding feast. They and their extended family have recently immigrated to Chicago due to financial hardship in Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire). They have heard that America offers freedom and higher wages and have come to pursue the American Dream.Despite having lost much of their savings being conned on the trip to Chicago, and then having to pay for the wedding—and despite the disappointment of arriving at a crowded boarding house—Jurgis is initially optimistic about his prospects in Chicago. Young and strong, he believes that he is immune to the misfortunes that have befallen others in the crowd. He is swiftly hired by a meatpacking factory; he marvels at its efficiency, even while witnessing the cruel treatment of the animals.The women of the family answer an ad for a four-room house; Ona, who came from an educated background, figures that they could easily afford it with the jobs that Jurgis, proud Marija, and ambitious Jonas have gotten. While they discover at the showing that the neighborhood is unkempt and the house doesn't live up to the advertisement, they are taken in by the slickness and fluent Lithuanian of the real estate agent and sign a contract for the house.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotations_from_Chairman_Mao_Tse-tung" title="Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung">
"Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung" consists of 427 quotations, organized thematically into 33 chapters. It is also called "Thoughts of Chairman Mao" by many Chinese people. The quotations range in length from a sentence to a few short paragraphs, and borrow heavily from a group of about two dozen documents in the four volumes of Mao's "Selected Works".Usually the quotations are arranged logically, to deal with one to three themes in the development of a chapter. The table below summarizes the book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_7_(novel)" title="Level 7 (novel)">
During his forced residence at a deep underground offensive-warfare complex, X-127 is ordered to push missile firing buttons to begin World War III (which lasts a total of 2 hours and 58 minutes). From that point, humanity's few civilian survivors are situated within a collection of underground shelter complexes on Levels 1 through 5 at various depths from the irradiated surface, while military personnel already occupy the deepest and safest Levels 6 and 7. It later emerges that the orders given have been wholly automatic due to a launch on warning strategy; the war has taken place as a series of automated electronic responses to an initial accident.X-127 and his fellow shelter inhabitants belatedly learn the criteria that had determined admission to the shelters: civilians were granted only an illusion of protection, while government officials and military personnel were granted significantly more security. Those who were assigned to launch the nuclear missiles, and their support staff, were selected for their ability to behave like machines, yet are counted upon to preserve the human spirit and rebuild the human race. X-127 and his colleagues attempt to carry on human life, but discover that institutions such as marriage and preparations for child-rearing have been hollowed out by conditions and attitudes in the antiseptic underground.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounder_(novel)" title="Sounder (novel)">
The black sharecropper's family is poor and hungry. The father and his dog, Sounder, go hunting each night, but the hunting is inadequate. The family subsists on fried corn mush, biscuits, and milk gravy until one morning they wake up to the smell of boiling ham. They feast for three days, but finally the sheriff and two of his deputies burst into the cabin and arrest the father for stealing the ham. Sounder chases after them, and one of the deputies shoots him with a shotgun.The arrested man's son goes looking for Sounder but cannot find him. Returning to the scene of the shooting, the boy finds a part of Sounder's ear. While his mother cautions him not to "be all hope", the boy searches for the dog every day for weeks. In the father's absence, the family survives on the money the mother makes by selling cracked walnuts. The boy helps to look after his three younger siblings and experiences the intense loneliness of the cabin.For Christmas, the boy's mother makes a four-layer cake for him to take to his father in jail. When he arrives, the guard treats him rudely. Finally the boy is admitted, and the guard breaks the cake into pieces, saying he suspects it could hide something which could help the boy's father escape. The boy gives the mangled cake to his father anyway and tells him that Sounder might not be dead. Their conversation is strained and difficult. The father tells the boy not to come back to the jail, and he goes home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_the_Sequined_Love_Nun" title="Island of the Sequined Love Nun">
Tucker (Tuck) Case is a pilot for a cosmetics company, who crashes the company plane while having sex. This event causes Tuck to be blacklisted from flying in the United States, so he accepts a lucrative offer from a doctor-missionary on a remote Micronesian island to transport cargo to and from the island and Japan.Tuck moves to the island with a Filipino trans woman navigator and a talking fruit bat. There Tuck eventually uncovers a horrible secret harbored by the doctor and his wife, who capitalized on the fact that the island natives are under the influence of a cargo cult that developed as a result of establishment by Allies of an air runway there during World War II.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lust_Lizard_of_Melancholy_Cove" title="The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove">
Pine Cove suffers a major crisis when the town psychiatrist, Val Riordan — who has been haphazardly issuing prescriptions instead of dealing with the real mental problems of her patients — suffers a sudden bout of guilt and substitutes all of her patients' anti-depressants with placebos. At this same time, by coincidence, human-generated environmental activity stirs a prehistoric sea-beast from its underwater keep to come ashore.In addition to its ability to change form, the beast exudes a pheromone that inspires uncontrollable lust among the residents of Pine Cove and also lures some of them as prey. After mistakenly trying to mate with a fuel truck (causing an explosion), the beast hides in a trailer park, attracting the curiosity of local crazy lady and former B-movie star Molly Michon, who builds a rapport with the injured beast.Meanwhile, Theophilus Crowe, the town constable, investigates a strange suicide, the activities of his corrupt boss, and his adversely affected marijuana habit. When the beast (whom Molly has named "Steve") starts eating residents of Pine Cove and interfering with Theo's boss's methamphetamine business, Molly (who has become romantically involved with the beast) and Theo band together to make possible the beast's safe escape and to take down the boss at the same time.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Some_Tame_Gazelle" title="Some Tame Gazelle">
The novel details episodes in the life of Belinda Bede, a spinster now in her fifties who shares a house with her younger, more dominant but equally unmarried sister Harriet. Since her university days, Belinda has loved the village's Archdeacon Hoccleve, with whom she studied then, although he had preferred to marry the better connected Agatha, a bishop's daughter. Harriet's preference has always been to look after the welfare of young curates, although her admirer in the village is the Italian Count Ricardo Bianco, who regularly proposes marriage to her.At the time the story begins, Mr Donne is the newly arrived curate in the village. Eventually he becomes engaged to Olivia Berridge, an academic specialising in Middle English literature and a niece of Agatha Hoccleve. But in the meantime, Agatha leaves for a visit to a German spa and another of Belinda's and the Archdeacon's student acquaintances comes to stay at the vicarage. This is Dr Parnell, now head of the main university library, who is accompanied by his assistant, the socially suspect Mr Mold. Before leaving again, Mr Mold proposes marriage to Harriet and, refused, takes it calmly by visiting the local pub and counting himself well escaped.When Agatha returns, she brings home Dr Grote, the colonial bishop of Mbawawa, a former protégé of Harriet's during the time when he was once a curate. Belinda begins to see in him another threat to her peaceful coexistence with her sister, but it is to herself that the bishop proposes in the end. When he too is rejected, he proposes instead to Connie Aspinall, a decayed gentlewoman living in the same village.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangers_and_Brothers" title="Strangers and Brothers">
All eleven novels in the series are narrated by the character Lewis Eliot. The series follows his life and career from humble beginnings in an English provincial town, to reasonably successful London lawyer, to Cambridge don, to wartime service in Whitehall, to senior civil servant and finally retirement."The New Men" deals with the scientific community's involvement in (and reaction to) the development and deployment of nuclear weapons during the Second World War. "The Conscience of the Rich" concerns a wealthy, Anglo-Jewish merchant-banking family. "Time of Hope" and "George Passant" depict the price paid by clever, poor young men to escape their provincial origins.Snow analyses the professional world, scrutinising microscopic shifts of power within the enclosed settings of a Cambridge college, a Whitehall ministry, a law firm. For example, in the novels set in the Cambridge college (a thinly veiled Christ's), a small, disparate group of men is typically required to reach a collective decision on an important subject. In "The Masters", the dozen or so college members elect a new head (the Master) by majority vote. In "The Affair", a small group of dons sets out to correct a possible injustice: they must convince the rest of the college to re-open an investigation into scientific fraud. In both novels, the characters strongly resist letting in the external world, whether it be the press, public opinion, the college "Visitor", or outside experts.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyricon" title="Satyricon">
The work is narrated by its central figure, Encolpius. The surviving sections of the novel begin with Encolpius traveling with a companion and former lover named Ascyltos, who has joined Encolpius on numerous escapades. Encolpius' slave, Giton, is at his owner's lodging when the story begins.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel" title="Guns, Germs, and Steel">
The prologue opens with an account of Diamond's conversation with Yali, a New Guinean politician. The conversation turned to the obvious differences in power and technology between Yali's people and the Europeans who dominated the land for 200 years, differences that neither of them considered due to any genetic superiority of Europeans. Yali asked, using the local term "cargo" for inventions and manufactured goods, "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?"Diamond realized the same question seemed to apply elsewhere: "People of Eurasian origin ... dominate ... the world in wealth and power." Other peoples, after having thrown off colonial domination, still lag in wealth and power. Still others, he says, "have been decimated, subjugated, and in some cases even exterminated by European colonialists."The peoples of other continents (sub-Saharan Africans, Indigenous people of the Americas, Aboriginal Australians, New Guineans, and the original inhabitants of tropical Southeast Asia) have been largely conquered, displaced and in some extreme cases – referring to Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians, and South Africa's indigenous Khoisan peoples – largely exterminated by farm-based societies such as Eurasians and Bantu. He believes this is due to these societies' technological and immunological advantages, stemming from the early rise of agriculture after the last ice age.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Passage_to_India" title="A Passage to India">
## Arrival.A young British schoolmistress, Adela Quested, and her elderly friend, Mrs. Moore, visit the fictional city of Chandrapore, British India. Adela is to decide if she wants to marry Mrs. Moore's son, Ronny Heaslop, the city magistrate.Meanwhile, Dr. Aziz, a young Indian Muslim physician, is dining with two of his Indian friends and conversing about whether it is possible to be a friend of an Englishman. During the meal, a summons arrives from Major Callendar, Aziz's unpleasant superior at the hospital. Aziz hastens to Callendar's bungalow as ordered but is delayed by a flat tyre and difficulty in finding a tonga and the major has already left in a huff.Disconsolate, Aziz walks down the road toward the railway station. When he sees his favourite mosque, he enters on impulse. He sees a strange Englishwoman there and yells at her not to profane this sacred place. The woman, Mrs. Moore, has respect for native customs. This disarms Aziz, and the two chat and part as friends.Mrs. Moore returns to the British gentleman's club down the road and relates her experience at the mosque. Ronny Heaslop, her son, initially thinks she is talking about an Englishman and becomes indignant when he learns the facts. Adela, however, is intrigued.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Room_with_a_View" title="A Room with a View">
## Part one.The novel is set in the early 1900s as upper-middle-class English women are beginning to lead more independent, adventurous lives. In the first part, Miss Lucy Honeychurch is touring Italy with her overly-fussy spinster cousin and chaperone, Miss Charlotte Bartlett. The novel opens in Florence with the women complaining about their rooms at the Pensione Bertolini. They were promised rooms with a view of the River Arno but instead have ones overlooking a drab courtyard. Another guest, Mr Emerson, interrupts their "peevish wrangling" by spontaneously offering to swap rooms. He and his son, George, both have rooms with views of the Arno, and he argues, "Women like looking at a view; men don’t." Charlotte rejects the offer, partly because she looks down on the Emersons' unconventional behaviour and because she fears it would place them under an "unseemly obligation". However, another guest, Mr Beebe, an Anglican clergyman, persuades Charlotte to accept the offer; Charlotte suggests that the Emersons are socialists.The following day, Lucy spends a "long morning" in the Basilica of Santa Croce, accompanied by Miss Eleanor Lavish, a novelist who promises to lead her on an adventure. Lavish confiscates Lucy's Baedeker guidebook, proclaiming she will show Lucy the "true Italy". On the way to Santa Croce, the two take a wrong turn and get lost. After drifting for hours through various streets and piazzas, they eventually make it to the square in front of the church, only for Lavish (who still has Lucy's Baedeker) to abandon the younger woman to pursue an old acquaintance.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alas,_Babylon" title="Alas, Babylon">
The story is set in a fictional 1959, following two years of escalating tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union for dominance in the Middle East and in the Mediterranean Sea. The Soviets are menacing Turkey from three sides through their proxies in Egypt, Syria and Iraq in order to gain control of the Bosporus and give free passage to their large Mediterranean fleet. To counteract the Soviet menace the United States established a military presence in Lebanon and are providing aid to their Turkish and Israeli allies.As detailed in the book, the Soviets gained a temporary space supremacy through the launch of a massive fleet of militarized Sputniks; moreover, they are aware that, within three or four years, the United States will cover the gap. Intelligence from a Soviet officer who defected in Berlin provided information about a Soviet war plan involving a sudden, overwhelming nuclear first strike on U.S. and NATO military and civilian targets, in order to minimize retaliation and become the leading world power. According to the leaked war plan the Soviet leadership considers acceptable the loss of 20 to 30 million of their own civilian population due to the retaliatory strike by NATO.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Accidental_Tourist" title="The Accidental Tourist">
Set in Baltimore, Maryland, the plot revolves around Macon Leary, a writer of travel guides whose son has been killed in a shooting at a fast-food restaurant. He and his wife Sarah, separately lost in grief, find their marriage disintegrating until she eventually moves out. When he becomes incapacitated due to a fall involving his disturbed dog and one of his crazy home inventions, he returns to the family home to stay with his eccentric siblings—sister Rose and brothers Porter and Charles. The siblings' odd habits include alphabetizing the groceries in the kitchen cabinets and ignoring the ringing telephone. When his publisher, Julian, comes to visit, Julian finds himself attracted to Rose. They eventually marry, though Rose later moves back in with her brothers, followed months later by Julian, who becomes part of the family. Macon hires Muriel Pritchett, a quirky young woman with a sickly son, to train his unruly dog, and soon finds himself drifting into a relationship with the two of them. Muriel is the exact opposite of Macon's wife: brash, talkative, pushy, less "classy" and less educated, and fond of wearing eccentric outfits. Despite his initial resistance to this relationship, Macon finds that he is constantly surprised by Muriel's perceptiveness, strength and optimism, as well as her quirky habits and ability to listen. Macon's natural love of the familiar and resistance to commitment results in a relationship that is quite a struggle between the pushy Muriel and the passive Macon. But over time, Macon becomes attached to both Muriel and Alexander, the son, and moves in with them in their tawdry little house. Macon slowly finds that he loves "the surprise of her, and also the surprise of himself when he was with her. In the foreign country that was Singleton Street he was an entirely different person." When his wife Sarah becomes aware of the situation, she decides they should reconcile, forcing him to make a difficult decision about his future.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Remains_of_the_Day" title="The Remains of the Day">
The novel tells, in first-person narration, the story of Stevens, an English butler who has dedicated his life to the loyal service of Lord Darlington (who is recently deceased, and whom Stevens describes in increasing detail in flashbacks). As the work progresses, two central themes are revealed: Lord Darlington was a Nazi sympathizer; and Stevens is in love with Miss Kenton, the housekeeper at Darlington Hall, Lord Darlington's estate.The novel begins in 1956, with Stevens receiving a letter from a former colleague, the housekeeper Miss Kenton, describing her married life, which Stevens believes hints at an unhappy marriage. Furthermore, Darlington Hall is short-staffed and could greatly use a skilled housekeeper like Miss Kenton. Stevens starts to consider paying Miss Kenton a visit. His new employer, a wealthy American named Mr. Farraday, encourages Stevens to borrow his car to take a well-earned vacation—a "motoring trip". Stevens accepts, and sets out for Cornwall, where Miss Kenton (now Mrs. Benn) lives.During his journey, Stevens reflects on his unshakable loyalty to Lord Darlington, who had hosted lavish meetings between German sympathizers and English aristocrats in an effort to influence international affairs in the years leading up to the Second World War; on the meaning of the term "dignity" and what constitutes a great butler; and on his relationship with his late father, another "no-nonsense" man who dedicated his life to service. Ultimately, Stevens is forced to ponder Lord Darlington's character and reputation, as well as the true nature of his relationship with Miss Kenton. As the book progresses, evidence mounts of Miss Kenton's and Stevens' past mutual attraction and affection.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_and_Punishment" title="Crime and Punishment">
## Part 1.Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, a former law student, lives in extreme poverty in a tiny, rented room in Saint Petersburg. Isolated and antisocial, he has abandoned all attempts to support himself, and is brooding obsessively on a scheme he has devised to murder and rob an elderly pawn-broker. On the pretext of pawning a watch, he visits her apartment, but remains unable to commit himself. Later in a tavern he makes the acquaintance of Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov, a drunkard who recently squandered his family's little wealth. Marmeladov tells him about his teenage daughter, Sonya, who has become a prostitute in order to support the family. The next day Raskolnikov receives a letter from his mother in which she describes the problems of his sister Dunya, who has been working as a governess, with her ill-intentioned employer, Svidrigailov. To escape her vulnerable position, and with hopes of helping her brother, Dunya has chosen to marry a wealthy suitor, Luzhin, whom they are coming to meet in Petersburg. Details in the letter suggest that Luzhin is a conceited opportunist who is seeking to take advantage of Dunya's situation. Raskolnikov is enraged at his sister's sacrifice, feeling it is the same as what Sonya felt compelled to do. Painfully aware of his own poverty and impotence, his thoughts return to his idea. A further series of internal and external events seem to conspire to compel him toward the resolution to enact it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Dark_Tea-Time_of_the_Soul" title="The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul">
While trying to purchase an airline ticket to Oslo at Heathrow Airport, American journalist Kate Schechter finds herself in line behind a large blond man who also wants to get on the flight but has no identification or means to pay. The check-in counter is suddenly consumed by fire, and both Kate and the man are taken to a hospital with injuries. The man is later removed from the hospital, along with his short-handled sledgehammer and a Coca-Cola vending machine, and Kate checks herself out in order to find where he has gone.Meanwhile, "holistic" detective Dirk Gently wakes up several hours late for a meeting with songwriter Geoffrey Anstey, a new client. Anstey had engaged Dirk to protect him from a green-eyed giant armed with a scythe, saying that it had to do with a contract he had signed. When Dirk arrives at Anstey's home, he finds the man's body in a chair and his head on a record turntable. Searching the home, he discovers an envelope marked with several names, all of which are crossed out except for Anstey's, and gets his nose broken by Anstey's son while trying to question him. The boy is watching a television news broadcast on the Heathrow incident, which mentions that a check-in clerk has gone missing; Dirk recognises her as his former secretary.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damage_(Hart_novel)" title="Damage (Hart novel)">
The first person narrator of the novel is an unnamed medical doctor turned politician (called Dr Stephen Fleming in the Louis Malle film) whose promotion from Member of Parliament (MP) to cabinet member is imminent. Just then the MP is casually introduced to his grown-up son's enigmatic girlfriend Anna and helplessly falls for her. For as long as it lasts, Martyn, his son, has no idea that his father is having an extramarital affair with his girlfriend (and later fiancée), and Anna does not seem to mind being a young man's partner and simultaneously his father's lover and object of desire. The MP enjoys a brief period of sexual bliss, meeting Anna in various European cities and having sex with her in unlikely places. Eventually, she buys them a small flat in central London where they meet on a regular basis.On the day before his wedding to Anna, her stepfather, whom she is close to has a heart attack, and Martyn while looking for her, finds the address to her secret flat. He climbs up a flight of stairs to the top floor, opens the unlocked door to the apartment, and is shocked to see his father making love to his fiancée. Dazed and utterly confused, he tumbles backwards, hits the low banister and falls down the stairwell. The MP runs down the stairs completely naked, finding Martyn dead, sprawled out on the ground floor. He kneels on the floor and clutches Martyn's body to him until the police arrive. In the final scene, the MP, stripped of his political office and living abroad as a recluse, sits in his solitary room staring at oversized photographs of Anna and Martyn on the wall.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Earth" title="Imperial Earth">
Duncan Makenzie is the latest generation of the 'first family' of Titan, a colonised moon of Saturn. Originally settled by his grandfather Malcolm Makenzie in the early 23rd century, Titan's economy has flourished based on the harvest and sale of hydrogen mined from the atmosphere, which is used to fuel the fusion engines of interplanetary spacecraft.As the plot opens in 2276, a number of factors are combining to make a diplomatic visit to the 'mother world' of Earth a necessity. Firstly, the forthcoming 500th anniversary of US Independence, which is bringing in colonists from the entire Solar System, obviously needs a suitable representative from Titan. Secondly, the Makenzie family carry a fatal damaged gene that means any normal continuation of the family line is impossible—so both Duncan and his "father" Colin are clones of his "grandfather" Malcolm. Human cloning is a mature technology but is even at this time ethically controversial. And thirdly, technological advances in spacecraft drive systems — specifically the 'asymptotic drive' which improves the specific impulse and thrust by orders of magnitude — means that Titan's whole economy is under threat as the demand for hydrogen is about to collapse.The human aspects of the tale center mainly on the intense infatuation (largely unrequited but not unconsummated) that the two main male characters, Duncan and Karl Helmer, develop for the vividly characterized Catherine Linden Ellerman (Calindy), a visitor to Titan from Earth in their youth, and its lifelong consequences.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolat_(novel)" title="Chocolat (novel)">
Vianne Rocher, with her daughter Anouk, come to the small French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes. They are brought by "the wind" during the last days of Carnival to open a "", "La Céleste Praline". The village priest, Francis Reynaud, is mystified by their arrival because Lent has just begun, but his confusion turns rapidly to anger when he understands that Vianne holds dangerous beliefs, does not obey the church and flouts the unspoken rules that he feels should govern his "flock".Vianne, we learn from her personal thoughts, is a witch, though she does not use the word. Her mother and she were wanderers, going from one city to another. Her mother strove to inspire the same need for freedom in her daughter, who is more social and passive. They were born with gifts, and used a kind of "domestic magic" to earn their living. Throughout her life, Vianne has been running from the "Black Man", a recurring motif in her mother's folklore. When her mother dies of terminal cancer, Vianne continues on her own, trying to evade the Black Man and the mysterious force of the wind and settle down to a normal life.The "chocolaterie" is an old dream of hers. She has an innate talent for cooking and a charming personality. She tries to fit in and help her customers. She starts to build a group of regular customers, and, to Reynaud's dismay, she doesn't go out of business.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wombles" title="The Wombles">
## Physical characteristics.Wombles are essentially burrowing animals. Beresford's original book describes them as "a bit like teddy bears to look at but they have real claws and live beneath Wimbledon Common". As they mostly live in long-established burrows, they rarely use their claws even for digging. Their size and physical appearance has changed somewhat over the years: in the original editions of the books, Wombles are pictured as bear-like and between 3 and 5 feet (about 1–1.5 metres) in height, making them only slightly smaller than adult humans. This changed with the TV series, in which they were portrayed as being about knee-high to humans, with pointy snouts like those of hedgehogs. In the book and movie "Wombling Free" they are described as "short, fat, and furry", roughly between three or four feet (about 1 metre) in height.Wombles are herbivores and are very fond of mushrooms. They eat a variety of plants, fungi, and tree products that human beings cannot (or will not) eat, so daisy buns, moss pie, acorn juice, fir-cone soufflé, elm bark casserole and grass bread sandwiches are part of the Womble menu – augmented by any food left behind on the Common by human beings. All Wombles are strong swimmers and can even survive for long periods in ice-cold water. Several sub-species of Womble are revealed throughout the books: the "Loch Ness Monster" is actually part of a clan of water Wombles and the yeti of the Himalayas are giant snow-white Wombles. Wombles have a sixth sense which allows them to sense green spaces and wildlife: this is first mentioned in the "Wandering Wombles" but developed to a keen long-range telepathic sense by Dalai Gartok Womble in "The Wombles Go Round The World".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary's_Baby_(novel)" title="Rosemary's Baby (novel)">
The book centers on Rosemary Woodhouse, a young woman who has just moved into the Bramford, a historic Gothic Revival-style New York City apartment building, with her husband, Guy, a struggling actor. Guy has so far appeared only in small roles in the stage plays "Luther", "Nobody Loves an Albatross", and various TV commercials. The pair is warned that the Bramford has a disturbing history involving witchcraft and murder, but they discount this. Rosemary wants to start a family, but Guy prefers waiting until his career is more established.Neighbors Minnie and Roman Castevet, an eccentric, elderly couple, welcome Rosemary and Guy to the Bramford. Rosemary finds them meddlesome and annoying, but Guy begins frequently visiting them.After the lead actor in a new stage play suddenly goes blind, Guy is cast in the role. Immediately afterward, Guy unexpectedly agrees with Rosemary that they should have their first child. That night, Rosemary dreams of a rough sexual encounter with a huge, inhuman creature with yellow eyes. The next morning Rosemary finds claw marks on her breasts and groin, which Guy dismisses as resulting from his hangnail, which he has cut. Rosemary subsequently learns that she is pregnant.Rosemary falls severely ill; but her intense pain and weight loss are ignored by others and attributed to hysteria. Her doctor and Minnie feed her strange and foul concoctions. Rosemary also develops a peculiar craving for raw meat.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Perfect_Day" title="This Perfect Day">
Li RM35M4419, nicknamed "Chip" (as in "chip off the old block") by his nonconformist grandfather Jan, is a typical child Member, but through a mistake in genetic programming, he has one green eye. Through his grandfather's encouragement, he learns how to play a game of "wanting things," including imagining what career he might pick if he had the choice. Chip is told by his adviser that "deciding" and "picking" are manifestations of selfishness, and he tries to forget his dreams.As Chip grows up and begins his career, he is mostly a good citizen but commits minor subversive acts, such as procuring art materials for another "nonconformist" member who was denied them. His occasional oddities attract the attention of a secret group of Members of nonconformists, like Chip. There, he meets King, a Medicenter chief who obtains members' records for potential future recruitment to the group; King's beautiful girlfriend, Lilac, a strong-willed and inquisitive woman with unusually dark skin; and Snowflake, a rare albino member. They teach Chip how to get his treatments reduced so that he can feel more and stronger emotions. Chip begins an affair with Snowflake but is really attracted to Lilac.Chip and Lilac begin to search through old museum maps and soon discover islands around the world that have disappeared from their modern map. They begin to wonder if perhaps other "incurable" members have escaped to the islands. King tells them that the idea is nonsense, but Chip soon learns that King has already interacted with some "incurables" and that they are indeed real. Before he can tell Lilac, Chip's ruse is discovered by his adviser. He and all the other members of the group are captured and treated back into docility (except King, who takes his own life before he can be captured).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_from_Brazil_(novel)" title="The Boys from Brazil (novel)">
Yakov Liebermann is a Nazi hunter (loosely based on Simon Wiesenthal) who runs a center in Vienna that documents crimes against humanity, perpetrated during the Holocaust. The waning interest of the Western nations in tracking down Nazi criminals, and the failure of the bank where he kept his center's funds, has forced him to move the center to his own lodgings.Then, in September 1974, Liebermann receives a phone call from a young man in Brazil who claims he has just finished tape recording a meeting held by the so-called "Angel of Death", Dr. Josef Mengele, a concentration camp medical doctor who performed horrific experiments on camp victims during World War II. According to the young man, Mengele is activating the ODESSA for a strange assignment: sending out six Nazis (former "SS" officers) to kill 94 men living in Western Europe and North America, who share a few common traits. All men are civil servants, and all of them have to be killed on or about particular dates, spread over several years. All will be 65 years old at the time of their killing. Before the young man can finish the conversation, he is killed.Liebermann is hesitant and wonders if the call was a prank. But he investigates and discovers that the killings the young man spoke of are taking place. As he tries to determine why the seemingly unimportant men are being killed, he discovers by coincidence that the children of two of the men are identical. It eventually transpires each of the 94 targets has a son aged 13, a genetic clone of Adolf Hitler planted by Mengele and, through corrupt adoption agency employees, placed with families that have lives similar to Hitler's own upbringing. Mengele wishes to create a new Führer for the Nazi movement, and is thus trying to ensure that the lives of the clones follow a similar path to Hitler's. Each civil servant father is married to a woman about 23 years younger, and their killing is an attempt to mimic the timing of the death of Hitler's own father. Liebermann makes sufficient progress in his investigation that the ODESSA ends the operation and recalls the six Nazi soldiers sent to kill the men. Infuriated, Mengele resolves to complete as many of the killings as he can on his own and travels to the United States.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_Genji" title="The Tale of Genji">
Genji's mother dies when he is three years old, and the Emperor cannot forget her. The Emperor Kiritsubo then hears of a woman (Lady Fujitsubo), formerly a princess of the preceding emperor, who resembles his deceased concubine, and later she becomes one of his wives. Genji loves her first as a stepmother, but later as a woman, and they fall in love with each other. Genji is frustrated by his forbidden love for the Lady Fujitsubo and is on bad terms with his own wife (Aoi no Ue, the Lady Aoi). He engages in a series of love affairs with other women. These are however unfulfilling, as in most cases his advances are rebuffed, or his lover dies suddenly, or he becomes bored.Genji visits Kitayama, a rural hilly area north of Kyoto, where he finds a beautiful ten-year-old girl. He is fascinated by this little girl (Murasaki), and discovers that she is a niece of the Lady Fujitsubo. Finally he kidnaps her, brings her to his own palace and educates her to be like the Lady Fujitsubo, who is his womanly ideal. During this time Genji also meets Lady Fujitsubo secretly, and she bears his son, Reizei. Everyone except the two lovers believes the father of the child is the Emperor Kiritsubo. Later the boy becomes the Crown Prince and Lady Fujitsubo becomes the Empress, but Genji and Lady Fujitsubo swear to keep the child's true parentage secret.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_and_Commander" title="Master and Commander">
The novel opens in April 1800. Jack Aubrey, a shipless lieutenant wasting away in the Royal Navy port of Mahon in Minorca, meets Stephen Maturin, a destitute Irish-Catalan physician and natural philosopher, at a concert at the Governor's Mansion. During the performance, Maturin elbows Aubrey who is beating the measure "half a beat ahead". The men, both at personal low points, treat the matter as one of honour; they exchange names and anticipate a duel.Later that evening, Aubrey learns that he has been promoted to the rank of commander and has been given command of the 14-gun HM Sloop "Sophie". Meeting Maturin in the street the next day, Aubrey's joy overcomes his animosity and he invites Maturin to dine. The men discover a shared love of music, Aubrey playing the violin and Maturin the cello. On learning Maturin's profession, Aubrey asks him to join his ship. Although as a physician Maturin's expertise goes far beyond that normally expected of a naval surgeon, he agrees."Sophie" is sent to accompany a small convoy of merchant ships in the Mediterranean. Aubrey takes the opportunity to get to know his sailors and work them into a fighting unit with the aid of his new first lieutenant, James Dillon, a wealthy and aristocratic Irishman. Dillon and Maturin recognize each other, having previously met (a fact they keep to themselves) as members of the United Irishmen, a society dedicated to Irish home rule and Catholic emancipation. Dillon suffers a crisis of conscience when ordered to intercept an American ship thought to be harbouring Irish rebels, and he works to help them avoid capture.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Luck_of_Barry_Lyndon" title="The Luck of Barry Lyndon">
Redmond Barry of Ballybarry, born to a genteel but ruined Irish family, fancies himself a gentleman. At the prompting of his mother, he learns what he can of courtly manners and swordplay, but fails at more scholarly subjects like Latin. He is a hot-tempered, passionate lad, and falls madly in love with his cousin, Nora. As she is a spinster a few years older than Redmond, she is seeking a prospect with more ready cash to pay family debts.The lad tries to engage in a duel with Nora's suitor, an English officer named John Quin. He is made to think that he has killed the man, though his pistol was actually loaded with tow, a dummy load of heavy, knotted fibres. Quin, struck with the harmless load, fainted in fright.Redmond flees to Dublin, where he quickly falls in with bad company in the way of con artists, and soon loses all his money. Pursued by creditors, he enlists as a common private in a British Army infantry regiment headed for service in Germany during the Seven Years' War.Once in Germany, despite a promotion to corporal, he hates the army and seeks to desert. When his lieutenant is wounded, Redmond helps take him to a German village for treatment. The Irishman pretends to suffer from insanity, and after several days absconds with the lieutenant's uniform, papers, and money. As part of his ruse, he convinces the locals that he is the real Lieutenant Fakenham, and the wounded man is the mad Corporal Barry. Redmond Barry rides off toward a neutral German territory, hoping for better fortune.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Eternity" title="The End of Eternity">
In the future, humanity uses time travel to construct "Eternity", an organization "outside time" that aimed to improve human happiness by observing human history and, after careful analysis, directly making small actions that cause "reality changes" and help to establish trade between the various centuries to help those in most need. Its members, known as "Eternals" and by the roles that they hold, prioritize the reduction of human suffering at the cost of a loss to technology, art, and other endeavors, which are prevented from existing when they are judged to have a detrimental effect. Those enlisted travel "upwhen" and "downwhen" and re-enter time in devices called "kettles". They are unable to travel to times before the 27th century, when the temporal field powering "Eternity" was established, the limit being known as the "downwhen terminus". Also, the future of humanity's fate is unknown since the earth is empty by the year 15 million (the 150,000th century, or the 15,000th millenia), but that is preceded by a period called the "Hidden Centuries", or the "Void Millennia", from the years 7 million to 15 million (the 70,000th to then150,000th centuries or 7,000th to the 15,000th millennia) in which for unknown reasons, they cannot access the world outside "Eternity" to learn more.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Newcomes" title="The Newcomes">
The novel tells the story of Colonel Thomas Newcome, a virtuous and upstanding character. It is equally the story of Colonel Newcome's son, Clive, who studies and travels for the purpose of becoming a painter, although the profession is frowned on by some of his relatives and acquaintances—notably Clive's snobbish, backstabbing cousin Barnes Newcome.Colonel Newcome goes out to India for decades, then returns to England where Clive meets his cousin Ethel. After years in England, the colonel returns to India for another several years and while he is there, Clive travels Europe and his love for Ethel waxes and wanes. Dozens of background characters appear, fade, and reappear.The colonel and Clive are only the central figures in "The Newcomes", the action of which begins before the colonel's birth. Over several generations the Newcome family rises into wealth and respectability as bankers and begin to marry into the minor aristocracy. A theme that runs throughout the novel is the practice of marrying for money. Herein we find first use of the coined word "capitalism", as reference to an economic system. Religion is another theme, particularly Methodism.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heechee_Saga" title="Heechee Saga">
A prospector on Venus finds an abandoned Heechee spaceship and launches it, with himself aboard. The ship automatically returns to a hollowed out asteroid within the Solar System, later named Gateway. Before he dies from lack of food and water, he manages to signal the rest of humanity his location. On Gateway is a priceless treasure: nearly a thousand small starships, many of them still functional. They come in three sizes, barely capable of carrying one, three or five passengers along with supplies.The Gateway Corporation takes control of the asteroid on behalf of the United States, the Soviet Union, the New People's Asia, the Venusian Confederation, and the United States of Brazil. Through trial and error, they figure out how to use the ships, but not well enough to set the terminus and duration of a trip. Individuals and groups are allowed to depart on these ships, risking (and often losing) their lives in the hope of finding something at their unknown destination that will make them rich.As the series progresses, humans are able to use and sometimes reverse engineer Heechee artifacts, including a working Heechee plant that converts simple elements into food. Eventually, they encounter the Heechee themselves and find out they are hiding from a race of beings of pure energy, who are working to reverse the Big Bang and reform the universe in a form that suits them better through a second Big Bang.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Dorrit" title="Little Dorrit">
## Poverty.The novel begins in Marseilles "thirty years ago" (c. 1826), with the notorious murderer Rigaud narrating to his prison cellmate John Baptist Cavalletto how he had killed his wife, just prior to being taken to trial. Businessman Arthur Clennam is detained with other travellers in quarantine in Marseilles and becomes friends with the merchants Mr and Mrs Meagles, their spoiled daughter "Pet", and their maid, an orphan named Harriet Beadle, who the family has nicknamed Tattycoram. Another traveller, Miss Wade, takes interest in the rebellious Tattycoram. Arthur has spent the last twenty years in China with his father, handling that part of the family business; his father died recently there. Arthur is now returning to London to see his mother, Mrs Clennam.While Arthur's father was on his deathbed, he had given Arthur a watch to give to his mother with a message inside, while murmuring "Your mother," which Arthur delivers to Mrs Clennam. Inside the watch casing is an old silk paper with the initials DNF (do not forget) worked in beads. Arthur asks about the message, but the implacable Mrs Clennam, who now uses a wheelchair, refuses to tell him what it means. Arthur tells her that he will not continue in the family business and seeks new opportunity on his own. Jeremiah Flintwinch then presses Mrs Clennam on her failure to tell Arthur of the past.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_in_the_Hat" title="The Cat in the Hat">
The story begins as an unnamed boy who is the narrator of the book sits alone with his sister Sally in their house on a cold and rainy day, staring wistfully out the window. Then they hear a loud bump which is quickly followed by the arrival of the Cat in the Hat, a tall anthropomorphic cat in a red and white-striped top hat and a red bow tie, who proposes to entertain the children with some tricks that he knows. The children's pet fish refuses, insisting that the Cat should leave. The Cat then responds by balancing the fish on the tip of his umbrella. The game quickly becomes increasingly trickier, as the Cat balances himself on a ball and tries to balance many household items on his limbs until he falls on his head, dropping everything he was holding. The fish admonishes him again, but the Cat in the Hat just proposes another game.The Cat brings in a big red box from outside, from which he releases two identical characters, or "Things" as he refers them to, with blue hair and red suits called Thing One and Thing Two. The Things cause more trouble, such as flying kites in the house, knocking pictures off the wall and picking up the children's mother's new polka-dotted dress. All this comes to an end when the fish spots the children's mother out the window. In response, the boy catches the Things in a net and the Cat, apparently ashamed, stores them back in the big red box. He takes it out the front door as the fish and the children survey the mess he has made. But the Cat soon returns, riding a machine that picks everything up and cleans the house, delighting the fish and the children. The Cat then leaves just before their mother arrives, and the fish and the children are back where they started at the beginning of the story. As she steps in, the mother asks the children what they did while she was out, but the children are hesitant and do not answer. The story ends with the question, "What would "you" do if your mother asked "you"?"
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Angels_Fear_to_Tread" title="Where Angels Fear to Tread">
On a journey to Tuscany with her young friend and travelling companion Caroline Abbott, widowed Lilia Herriton falls in love with Gino, a handsome Italian man much younger than herself, and decides to stay. Furious, her dead husband's family send Lilia's brother-in-law Philip to Italy to prevent a misalliance, but he arrives too late. Lilia has already married Gino and becomes pregnant again. She gives birth to a son, but dies in childbirth. Caroline decides to go to Tuscany again to save the child from what she perceives will be a difficult life. Not to be outdone, the Herritons send Philip again to Italy, this time accompanied by his sister Harriet, to save the family's reputation. In the public eye, they make it known that it is both their right and their duty to travel to Italy to obtain custody of the infant so that he can be raised as an Englishman. Secretly, though, they have no regard for the child, only public appearances.Philip and Harriet meet Caroline in Monteriano. Both Philip and Caroline eventually fall under the charm of Italy, which causes them to waver in their original purpose. They further learn that Gino is fiercely devoted to Lilia's infant son. As they admit defeat in their mission however, Harriet kidnaps the baby, but the baby is accidentally killed when the carriage he is in overturns. Gino, hearing the news, attacks Phillip, but the two are reconciled after Caroline's mediation. Gino's physical outburst toward Philip in response to the news makes Philip realise what it is like to truly be alive. The guilt felt by Harriet causes her to lose her mind. Finally, as Philip and Caroline return to England, he realises that he is in love with Caroline but that he can never be with her, because she admits, dramatically, to being in love with Gino.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shame_(Rushdie_novel)" title="Shame (Rushdie novel)">
This story takes place in a town called "Q" which is actually a fictitious version of Quetta, Pakistan. In Q, one of the three sisters (Chunni, Munnee, and Bunny Shakil) gives birth to Omar Khayyám Shakil, but they act as a unit of mothers, never revealing to anyone who is Omar's birth mother. In addition, Omar never learns who his father is. While growing up, Omar lives in purdah with his three mothers and yearns to join the world. As a birthday present, Omar Khayyám Shakil's "mothers" allow him to leave Q. He enrolls in a school and is convinced by his tutor (Eduardo Rodriguez) to become a doctor. Over time, he comes in contact with both Iskander Harappa and General Raza Hyder.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Keys_of_the_Kingdom" title="The Keys of the Kingdom">
The novel has six parts, the first (The Beginning of the End) taking place in Scotland in 1938. Father Francis Chisholm is an old man, living with a housekeeper and a young orphan. Due to his unconventional views, he is being investigated by Monsignor Sleeth. The second section (Strange Vocation) focuses on Chisholm's youth. His father is a Catholic and his mother a non-denominational Protestant. After the father is beaten by an anti-Catholic mob, Chisholm's mother tries to lead him home to safety, only for them both to drown after falling off a bridge into a strong current, leaving young Francis an orphan. Initially, his kindly Aunt Polly wishes to adopt him, but his maternal grandmother, Mrs Glennie, intervenes and adopts him, thereby receiving any money in the Chisholm's estate. Francis's maternal grandfather, a baker by trade, is also a preacher of his own branch of Christianity focused on universal tolerance, and plays a large role in the development of Francis's ideologies. While his grandfather is kind, Mrs Glennie and her son Malcolm are resentful and exploitative. Francis is forced to quit school and work in a shipyard.Things take a turn for the better when Francis befriends Willie Tulloch and his family. Tulloch's father is the local doctor and the family are the town's free-thinkers. Willie aids Francis in his attempt to run away. When the attempt fails, Willie's father contacts Aunt Polly, who takes Francis home to live with her and her daughter, Nora. Francis falls in love with Nora, but is afraid to act on it. Nora later has a child out of wedlock, and, rather than marry a man she doesn't love, commits suicide. This cements Francis's decision to join a seminary with childhood friend Anselm Mealey, where Francis's humanistic views cause problems for him. However, he befriends the seminary director, Bishop Hamish McNabb, who comes to his assistance when Francis is nearly expelled from the seminary for having spent a night at a whore's house.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_August_from_Sevedstorp_and_Hanna_i_Hult" title="Samuel August from Sevedstorp and Hanna i Hult">
At the age of thirteen Samuel August falls in love with the nine-year-old Hanna. Soon Samuel August leaves school and does not see Hannah again for quite a while. Until he is eighteen, Samuel August is working as a farmhand. But one day the vicarage Näs near Vimmerby is offered for lease and Samuel August becomes the new tenant of the vicarage. Over the next few years, Samuel rarely meets Hanna. At the age of 25, Samuel August watches Hanna at a festival. But he doesn't dare to speak to her. So many men are interested in Hanna and Samuel August doesn't believe that she would choose him. At a wedding, Hanna realizes that Samuel August is in love with her and invites Samuel August to go for a walk with her. Hanna promises to stitch a monogram on Samuels hat. After a few months have passed and Samuel August has not seen Hanna, Samuel August writes a letter to Hanna. Hanna replies, and they exchange letters until Samuel August unexpectedly meets Hanna again in Vimmerby and drinks tea with her. Later he asks Hanna if they could live together. Hanna replies that the two of them cannot decide this on their own, but at least she gives Samuel August the first kiss. Hanna hesitates a little before the wedding takes place on June 30, 1905. When Samuel August brings his wife to Näs a fortnight later, they are living there together for another 56 years. As long as he is alive, Samuel August mentions daily how much he loves his Hanna.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinded_by_the_Lights_(novel)" title="Blinded by the Lights (novel)">
Jacek is a young man who settles in Warsaw and in order to obtain a better future than his peers, he begins to work as a drug dealer. He is a neat, nihilistic perfectionist who sleeps during the day and works at night, delivering cocaine to the upper-class citizens of the Polish capital. While helping the criminal group he gets the drugs from, led by Piotr, Jacek observes a very dark and brutal side of Warsaw, which seems to be a ruthless living creature itself.The novel covers one week of Jacek's life, which involves strict rules: no alcohol, no drugs, and no deep relations, which could distract his attention during work. During the pre-Christmas period, Jacek plans to escape from his everyday routine by flying to Argentina, but things start to go out of control when he agrees to keep a strange bag full of drugs for Stryj, another member of Piotr's criminal group.After eight years spent in prison, old-school gangster Dario, former crime partner of Piotr, is released. As he gets back into the drug business, he realizes that during his absence, some parts of his property were stolen. His and Jacek's paths soon cross, which is not a good sign for the young dealer, whose perfect life starts to fall apart.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_House_of_Lies" title="In a House of Lies">
Some boys discover a car with a long-dead body in the boot, in a woodland which has been the subject of a real-estate dispute. Rebus, now retired, worked the 2006 missing-persons case, which was, as everyone involved agrees now, badly handled; Rebus himself had tried to protect from publicity the missing man's lover, son of a detective inspector in the old Strathclyde Police, and had also been hoping to tie in 'Big Ger' Cafferty. The murder inquiry now is handled by a team from Police Scotland, but Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke and Detective Inspector Malcolm Fox are included. Clarke has recently been investigated by a corrupt pair of Anti-Corruption Unit cops for leaking information to a reporter, and she is being harassed by a mysterious person over a recent case which in fact she handled well. Rebus, at her request, re-investigates that case; he tangles with the ACU team, and hopes again to see Cafferty connected to the body-in-the-boot murder.Rebus is suffering from COPD and has given up cigarettes and almost stopped drinking alcohol. The book gives some attention to modern media and its potential for both public and private bullying.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatole_and_the_Cat" title="Anatole and the Cat">
Anatole is the happiest, most contented mouse in all of Paris. He is Vice-President in charge of Cheese Tasting at Duvall’s cheese factory. He works in secret at night–the people at Duvall have no idea their mysterious taster is really a mouse! So M’sieu Duvall thinks nothing of bringing his pet cat to the factory…Clever Anatole must act to protect his job and his life! He must do what no mouse has done before–find a way to bell the cat. Bonne chance, Anatole!
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grizzly_Tales_for_Gruesome_Kids_(book)" title="Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids (book)">
## The New Nanny.The Frightfully-Busy family lives in South London and knew nothing about each other: the parents were workaholics that had no time for their children, Tristram and Candy, who spent every day bullying their nanny, Mrs Mac, and tell their parents a different story the moment they came home. One day, they claim she had beaten them with their father's expensive golf clubs which gets Mrs Mac fired, but that would be the moment where troubles began. Mrs Frightfully-Busy is devastated they have to get rid of an old family friend as she looks through a telephone directory and discovers the Animal Magic agency. 30 minutes after booking, a talking python is on the doorstep wearing an apron and carrying a briefcase, but Mrs and Mrs Frightfully-Busy have no time for any briefing and left for work immediately after the python's entire long body is in the hallway. The python tells Candy and Tristram to treat her as a human nanny, ironically consenting to the children's behaviour and removing any fear they had of snakes. They burn her tail in boiling water, tie her up and dunk her head in the toilet, make her slither over thumbtacks, and leave her in the garden for birds to peck at her. When their parents arrive home at 6 pm, the python slithers out of the house as fast as she can, but when the parents confront the children, Tristram claims the python tried to strangle him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_Next_Door_(short_story_collection)" title="The House Next Door (short story collection)">
This book has three short stories in it. James Patterson writes each of the stories with one of the coauthors of the book.The first story, "The House Next Door" (written by Patterson and Susan DiLallo), is about a family living next to a derelict house that has just been occupied by a mysterious man and his son. As the family and the neighbors get to know the house's new occupants, what they learn is truly frightening."The Killer's Wife," written by Patterson and Max DiLallo, is about a detective's quest to find what has happened to four girls who have gone missing. To do this he decides the only way to find them is to get on the good side of the wife of the man suspected of abducting them. He is knows he is walking a fine line and his plan could go all wrong."We.Are.Not.Alone." is written by Patterson and Tim Arnold. It's about a scientist who has been looking for alien life for years and who is no longer taken seriously. He one day gets a message from space proving intelligent aliens exist. While that's what he wanted, he quickly finds others suddenly want to seize him and whisk him away, so he runs for his life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrath_of_Empire" title="Wrath of Empire">
After the invasion of Fatrasta and the capital city of Landfall, thousands of refugees seek the safety of Lady Flint's soldiers as she prepares for another war to prevent the return of Gods walking the world.In the capital, Blackhat spy Michel Bravis must infiltrate the invading Dynize to find a person named Mara. Succeeding in this mission could mean winning the war.Meanwhile, the Mad Lancers led by Mad Ben Styke are building their own army. They are sent on a mission to find and destroy the third Godstone, led by the bloodmage Ka-poel. But what they find may not be what they're looking for.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_My_Heart_A_Hebrew_Girl" title="In My Heart A Hebrew Girl">
The novel centers on the true story of a Jewish girl named "Nada", who lives in Tunisia with her Jewish family. As the novel depicts the full details of Nada's life and Rima's life, it shows how fate drives them together to meet. "Rima", a girl less than 15 years old, is raised by a Jew after her mother's death, until this Jewish man realizes that his daughter is interested in wearing the Islamic veil because of "Rima" and he sees this as a threat to his daughter so he asks "Rima" to leave his house. "Rima" comes from Tunisia to Lebanon after being evicted from her Jewish godfather's home, where she meets "Nada" and works as a maid at her home. The story continues until at a night, a masked young man knocks on Nada's house door to help heal his friend "Ahmad", who was injured in clashes between the Lebanese resistance and Israel. "Ahmad" is one of the Lebanese Resistance Forces fighting against the occupation regime of Zionist. "Ahmad", who was wounded and taken to Nada's home, is taken care by "Nada". As a result, "Ahmad" becomes interested in "Nada" and ignores religious and sectarian differences.The story takes place in two areas: the first on the Djerba island in Tunisia and the second in the ancient city of Qana in southern Lebanon. Set in a Jewish neighborhood in southern Tunisia, the novel revolves around "Rima", an orphaned Muslim girl raised in the shadow of her "uncle Jacob" Jewish family, whose beliefs begin to change and she tends to wear Islamic veil. Meanwhile, Uncle "Jacob" and his wife, "Tanya", became angry with "Rima" and demand that she be removed from their children so that they will not be influenced by her beliefs about Judaism and Islam, so they send Rima to Lebanon and finally "Rima" meets the story hero "Nada" there.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_of_Empire" title="Blood of Empire">
Michel Bravis, a spy in the Dynize government, must go back to the capital city of Landfall to prevent the enemy of using the power of the unlocked Godstone.Ben Styke has invaded Dynize, but his fleet scattered in a storm and he is left with only twenty Mad Lancers. Violence is unavoidable.Her last battle against the Dynize has left Lady Vlora Flint powderblind and emotionally broken, but vengeance keeps her on her feet. She must ally politicians and lead the Adran army to defeat the greatest general under the Dynize flag.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_the_Ninth" title="Gideon the Ninth">
In the star system Dominicus, there are nine planets, each home to a great House which practices its own school of necromancy. The Houses in turn are ruled by the Emperor, an impossibly powerful, immortal necromancer whom they have worshipped as a god for the past ten thousand years. At the start of "Gideon the Ninth," the Emperor invites the heirs of the Nine Houses and their sword-wielding bodyguards (called cavaliers) to undergo a series of trials to become Lyctors. Lyctors are immortal necromancers, revered as saints, who serve as the Emperor's right-hand necromancers in wars against his enemies.The narrative begins with eighteen year-old Gideon Nav's 86th attempt to escape the Ninth House, a death cult tasked with guarding a Locked Tomb said to contain the Emperor's greatest foe, and by whom Gideon was raised in indentured servitude. Her plans of fleeing to join the Emperor's armies (called the Cohort) are quickly foiled by her lifelong antagonist and heiress of the Ninth House, Harrowhark "Harrow" Nonagesimus. Despite their clashing personalities and mutual hatred of each other, Gideon is Harrow's only real choice of cavalier, primarily due to an atmospheric contamination incident around the time of their births that killed the rest of the Ninth House's children. Harrow offers Gideon a commission into the Cohort if she serves as cavalier during the Emperor's trials.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Tempesta" title="Captain Tempesta">
A warrior in disguise. A lover to be rescued. A city under siege.Cyprus, 1570. An island at war. The powerful Ottoman army has taken every city save one, Famagusta, a Venetian port and stronghold. Besieged by a force of 80,000 men, they city has valiantly fought back with its small force of warriors and mercenaries. The greatest among them is Captain Tempesta, a young noble unmatched in bravery and swordsmanship. Few, however, know the captain's secret... that "she" has donned armour and passed herself off as a man in order to search for her beloved who has been imprisoned by the Turks. Will she triumph? The odds are overwhelmingly against her. The Turks are preparing to storm the city and slay all those within it, and still there has been no word of her beloved's whereabouts...
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farm_(Joanne_Ramos_novel)" title="The Farm (Joanne Ramos novel)">
Jane Reyes is a Filipino domestic worker and single mother living in a dormitory in New York, with her infant daughter Amalia. When Jane loses her job as a baby nurse, her elderly cousin Evelyn Arroyo, whom she refers to as "Ate," convinces her to join Golden Oaks. Golden Oaks is a commercial facility that uses women, called “hosts”, as surrogates for wealthy clients for handsome bonuses. Jane moves in to the Golden Oaks’ residence, begrudgingly leaving behind Amalia in Evelyn’s care. Once there, she befriends other Hosts like Reagan McCarthy, a white college-graduate who agrees to be a Host to achieve a sense of meaning in her life, and Lisa Raines, a 3rd-time Host who is increasingly disillusioned with Golden Oaks.As months pass, Jane becomes increasingly worried about Amalia’s well-being as Evelyn does not return her calls. Moreover, she gets into trouble with Mae Yu, Golden Oak’s executive manager, resulting in a cancellation of Jane’s scheduled visit with Amalia. Jane is also betrayed to learn that Evelyn had received a commission for recommending Golden Oaks to Jane. Meanwhile, Reagan is angered by the fact that they used an actor to pretend to be Reagan’s client in order to give her a false sense of purpose. Lisa and Reagan help Jane escape the residence, and Jane rushes to find Amalia. She is directed to a nearby hospital, where she finds that it is not Amalia but Evelyn who is critically ill. On returning to her dorm, she finds Mae there, as she had correctly guessed that she would return. Mae cancels Jane’s sizable bonus but, feeling sorry for her, hires her to be a Host for Mae’s own child. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentientist_Politics" title="Sentientist Politics">
"Sentientist Politics" opens with the assumption that some animals are sentient and thus have moral value, and that this has political consequences. It aims to argue that sentient animals (human and nonhuman) have equal moral worth, and this grounds a duty to create a "sentientist cosmopolitan democracy". In the introduction, Cochrane positions the book as a contribution to the political turn in animal ethics that is novel for its cosmpolitanism. On the other hand, it is distinct from existing cosmopolitan theory for its rejection of the moral import of species membership. He acknowledges that some theorists will seek to go further than rejecting humanism, and argue that all living (or even non-living) entities warrant political protection; nonetheless, he sees something "special" about sentience. The book is utopian and ideal in its aspirations.The second chapter addresses the moral worth of sentient animals and what this means for politics. Cochrane argues that, because they possess interests, sentient animals possess moral worth. He defends the claim that all sentient animals (human and otherwise) possess equal moral worth (and equal consideration of interests) against the possibility that humans have greater worth than animals and the possibility that persons have greater worth than non-persons. Rejecting Peter Singer's utilitarianism, Cochrane instead defends an account of animal rights based on the claim that sentient animals possess interests sufficiently strong to ground duties in others; they have, he said in "Animal Rights Without Liberation", prima-facie rights not to be killed and not to be made to suffer. These moral rights, however, are not recognised in political or legal practice. Thus, Cochrane calls for a shift from "human rights" to "sentient rights". Sentient rights and sentient equality, he argues, justify the existence of political institutions: moral agents possess a "duty to create and support a political order" aiming to "show equal consideration to sentient creatures" and to "protect their basic rights". These political institutions can achieve what would be impossible for individuals; can provide security; and can determine what equal consideration means in practice.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Beautifully_Foolish_Endeavor" title="A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor">
Following April May's sudden death, her friends Andy, Robin, and Miranda, and her ex-girlfriend Maya, grapple with how the world has changed since her disappearance. Andy has been publicly speaking with Robin as his agent and Miranda has returned to her studies at Berkeley to continue the process of getting her PhD. However, Maya refuses to believe April is dead. The public has largely moved on from her absence, and from Carl's sudden disappearance, but dealing with withdrawals from the sudden absence of the Dream, many individuals sign up for games that attempt to mimic the simulations of the Dream in real life.After receiving the text "Knock knock" from April's phone number, Andy answers the door to find a book known as "The Book of Good Times". As Andy reads, he realizes the book is predicting/telling him what he is doing/going to do. It warns him not to tell anyone about it or it will not work, and instructs him to invest certain ways, ask out Bex (the girl who works at his local Subway), and tell Miranda "yes" when she calls. He follows the instructions because he believes they will lead him to April. Eventually, Miranda calls him to get his opinion on whether or not she should apply to work at Altus, a company headed by Peter Petrawicki, April's nemesis. Miranda intends to spy on Petrawicki's company and commit espionage, believing they are up to something dangerous. Against his better judgement, Andy tells Miranda she should apply.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Annals_of_the_Heechee" title="The Annals of the Heechee">
The novel is about the multimillionaire space explorer Robinette Broadhead's efforts to solve a mystery. Even though he died in a previous novel in the series, his personality is stored on a machine. Broadhead is trying to resolve the issue of the "Assassins", which are pure-energy beings that stopped the expansion of the universe and triggered its contraction. The Assassins have concealed themselves in a black hole. Broadhead and the Heechee are trying to find them. When the Assassins come out, they converse with one of Broadhead's data-gathering computer programs and they reveal that they're not enemies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Child_(novel)" title="Golden Child (novel)">
The story isn't told in a linear fashion. It begins with father Clyde Deyalsingh, coming home to his wife in their home in Trinidad and Tobago. He calls for his son Paul to help him remove the guard dog from the gate so he can park his car. His twin brother Peter arrives informing him that Paul left to go to the river and he doesn't know where he is. Peter is incredibly studious and Paul is quieter and a source of frustration for Clyde. Paul earned the nickname “Tarzan” for having shabby overgrown hair. Clyde goes to look for him to no avail and by midnight is seriously worried. Clyde recounts a break-in the happened two weeks where Paul provoked the robbers and placed Joy's life in danger. The incident caused a fight between the two where Paul remained silent, angering Clyde who bans him from going to a fete he was looking forward to. Clyde insists Paul has a confusing pattern of behaviour, remembering an incident when he saw him lying in the ground at midnight looking at the stars. Clyde has a flashback to the birth of his twin sons, where his uncle (a doctor) tells him his son Paul was oxygen deprived after his umbilical cord was tied around his neck. He was told Paul might suffer from an intelligence disorder but his uncle-in-law Vishnu says he since no obvious abnormality. Uncle Vishnu takes kindly to Clyde and pays for many of the child expenses and finds him a new job with more consistent pay. Clyde doesn't like the rest of Joy's family including Romesh (who always asks for money), Phillip (Joy's rich lawyer brother) and Marilyn (Phillip's pompous rich wife). Another flashback to a younger Paul, who when taken to a hair cutting ceremony was overwhelmed and screamed, causing a scene, embarrassing Clyde. Later on, Clyde is advised to aim to get Peter to Harvard, MIT and other very well established schools. He is also advised by another teacher to take Paul to a mental hospital (St Ann's).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Such_a_Fun_Age" title="Such a Fun Age">
Alix Chamberlain is a wealthy blogger and public speaker in her early thirties who has built a brand known as "LetHer Speak" around the practice of writing old-fashioned letters to businesses, often in exchange for free product samples, and encouraging women to be assertive. Alix's family has moved from New York City to her hometown of Philadelphia for her husband Peter's job as a television anchor, and her career is stalling as she raises two children and attempts to write her first book. Alix hires Emira Tucker, a 25-year-old African-American college graduate, as a babysitter to care for her three-year-old daughter Briar. Alix also has an infant daughter named Catherine.Alix and Peter's home is egged at night and a window is broken after Peter received backlash for making a racist remark on-air, though he insists the comment was thoughtless. Alix calls Emira, who is at a party with friends, to take Briar with her to a local, trendy supermarket while she and Peter speak with the police. At the store, Emira, her friend Zara, and Briar dance to Whitney Houston and are noticed by an older white woman. After Zara leaves, a security guard approaches Emira at the white woman's behest and questions why Emira is with Briar. Emira explains the situation but the guard refuses to believe she is a babysitter, and Emira is freed only once Peter shows up and corroborates her story. The incident is recorded by a white bystander, Kelley Copeland, who urges Emira to seek justice against the store. Emira is shaken but does not want attention; she has him email the video to her and delete it from his phone.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Nazar_(book)" title="Baba Nazar (book)">
The book formed from 36 hours conversation of Hossein Beyzayi with Mohammad Hassan Nazarenejad in 1996 which is recorded in video form and the fate of those films is unknown. But the words and sentences of the interviews have become text after recording. Overall, this book is a memoir of Mohammad Hassan Nazarenejad in Iranian Revolution time and Iran–Iraq War time.In the beginning, The narrator talks about his campaign activities against the Pahlavi dynasty before the revolution. Then he goes to Iran–Iraq War. He describes the war operations with great detail. He says of all the his moments in the war and depicts hopes and frustrations, fears and immunities, anxieties and reliefs.This book has been compiled in eighteen chapters. The last part of the book is devoted to photographs and documents. The book is the result of dozens of hours of oral history narration by Mohammad Hassan Nazarenejad dictated to Hossein Beyzayi. Beside the oral history, the book also contains autobiography by the narrator.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paralysis_(novel)" title="Paralysis (novel)">
The novel's protagonist is Aram Shah, a widowed university professor who raised his daughter, Marisa, on his own after his wife died during her second pregnancy. At the outset of the novel, he wakes up during a visit to the mountains and ponders the meaning of three dreams he had had overnight—of lions frail with age; of a palace reeking with disinfectant; and of a museum among whose holdings is a jar with an embryo. The intensity of his feelings induces a stroke, and he reawakens, paralysed, in a small regional hospital, where he is tenderly cared for by a resident matron, Asika. There, he recalls the death of his daughter, who married a Christian, George Vargis, and then committed suicide. It was grief over this incident that drove him to the hillside station where the story begins. Asika is also burdened with memories of her past and of widowhood. She is middle-aged like Aram, and the two are drawn together, as though they were a couple of half-dead people finding in each other's company a glimmer of life's renewal. He is soon discharged, but cannot bid Asika farewell, since she has disappeared into the foothills. Instead of taking a plane home, he returns to the site where he had the stroke, and wanders through it under the beating sun.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Earth_Strikes_Back" title="The Earth Strikes Back">
"The Earth Strikes Back" is a compilation of 20 ecological horror stories specially written for this publication.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_at_St._Andrews" title="Miracle at St. Andrews">
Travis McKinley spent four years as a professional golfer later in life and then he no longer was good enough to compete. He then took his family on a trip to England and then Scotland. While in Scotland he met a Scottish native he met at a golf course in the United States earlier. This man had helped him then improve his golf game and in Scotland his coaching helped Travis win a tournament. This was a dream come true for Travis and his family. But this is nothing compared to the chance Travis gets to play some of golfing's greats in a tournament at the place where golfing began, at St. Andrews.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tomten_in_Åbo_Castle" title="The Tomten in Åbo Castle">
Beneath Turku Castle, in the deepest and darkest cellar vault, lived the 700-year-old elf Tomten with a white beard so long that he could wind it twice around his waist. The lonely Tomten was good and honest, but disciplined and tidy, and also had a slightly peculiar taste for his living comforts. He had only three friends: the elf of Turku Cathedral, his magical black cat Murri in the cellar vault and his only human friend, Matts Mursten, the old janitor of Turku Castle.Matti Kivinen was 12 years old when he first met the Tomten; at that time, the boy was looking for old musket bullets in the vaults of the castle, where he found an underground passage. Matti was trapped in the tunnel as the rocks collapsed, but the Tomten who emerged helped him out of the tunnel through Turku Cathedral. Matti didn't expect to see Tomten anymore, but the old elf wished Matti a great future and secretly helped Matti in his studies and work, until Matti (now Matts) became a janitor at Turku Castle at the age of 30. Matts worked for 50 years until he retired at the age of 80 and left his job for his granddaughter's husband. After that, old Matts spent a lot of time in the decaying castle, repairing the place, not knowing that the Tomten also repaired the castle every now and then. There were plenty of things to repair in the castle due to the weather and the natural forces, but the Tomten was tenacious and had for centuries secured the castle by repairing it so that the castle would not leave only ruins over time.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_at_Daybreak" title="Dead at Daybreak">
Zatopek 'Zet' van Heerden, an Afrikaner former cop, is private detective. He is appointed by the lawyer Hope Beneke to find in less than 7 days a testament bequeathing to the widow Wilna van As the fortune of her husband, Johannes Jacobus Smit. This rich antiquarian was tortured at their home and murdered after the opening of his safe-deposit box and the stealing of its content. van Heerden discovers that "J. J. Smit" was not the person whose papers he carried, and that someone wants to hide his true identity.The plot alternates between the chapters written in the third person and describing the step-by-step investigations, and those written in the first person and detailing the history of the personal life of Zet van Heerden. This character is like a vindicator showing us that no one holds a single truth, and that coexistence with former enemies is difficult.In parallel, the reader discovers the life of Thobela Mpayipheli, a member of Umkhonto we Sizwe — the armed wing of African National Congress — sent to the former Soviet Union and East Germany to be trained as an assassin.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Call_of_the_Canyon_(novel)" title="The Call of the Canyon (novel)">
It is the story of Glenn Kilbourne, a US Army veteran, who returns from the battlefields of World War I "shell-shocked and gassed", and otherwise incapacitated". It is set in the American West of the Roaring Twenties.Meanwhile his fiancée, Carley Bruch, lives with her family in New York. She receives communication through letters from Gleen but little by little these letters become more and more strange. The young woman worries about him and decides to go visit him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet_on_the_Holodeck" title="Hamlet on the Holodeck">
Hamlet on the Holodeck is made of an introduction and four parts, in which Murray examines storytelling mediums. In part one, "A New Medium for Storytelling", Murray examines the use of the holodeck as it first appeared in ' and the holonovel "Janeway Lambda One", which was used by Starfleet Captain Kathryn Janeway from ' as an escape from her responsibilities. Murray states that this illustrates the future of storytelling and that the holodeck is "an optimistic technology for exploring inner life." She also examines works that have multiple stories within a single story described as a multiform story and identifies four essential properties of digital media: procedural, participatory, spatial, and encyclopedic.In part 2, "The Aesthetics of the Medium", Murray examines immersive experiences, which she describes as fragile and easily disrupted. She also explores agency, which she defines as "the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the results of our decisions and choices" and the ability of technology to transform anything digital. In the following parts, "Procedural Authorship" and "New Beauty, New Truth", Murray discusses the impact of users being able to interact with a multiform plot, which she feels are more appealing and satisfying in the new digital environment. She also examines technology via chatbots such as Julia and the possible future of the cyberdrama and its many formats.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince_and_the_Dressmaker" title="The Prince and the Dressmaker">
After creating a shocking dress for a young lady attending the 16th birthday party of Crown Prince Sebastian of Belgium, the young seamstress Frances is hired by a mysterious client. The client, who at first keeps their face covered, seeks to have Frances design them a variety of elaborate dresses. After Frances accidentally reveals the client to be Prince Sebastian, she agrees to keep his secret and begins designing dresses for him. The two attend a beauty pageant which Sebastian wins with the first of Frances's dresses. The judge asks the winner's name and is told it is Lady Crystallia.Sebastian's father and mother, the king and queen, intend to set Sebastian up with a princess. He lunches with Princess Juliana, and after the date goes poorly, Lady Crystallia and Frances go out to a club. They meet Peter Trippley, who seeks to emulate Crystallia's fashions at his father's new department store and considers hiring Frances. Tired from nights as Crystallia and days in engagements with princesses, Sebastian's parents send him on vacation. Frances and Crystallia encounter Juliana and her brother, but neither recognizes Crystallia as Sebastian. Crystallia meets with the designer Madame Aurelia who offers Frances the possibility to work for her. Back in Paris, Frances and Sebastian go out to dinner and nearly kiss.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erev" title="Erev">
The novel tells the story of a Jewish family in Eastern Europe over four centuries, from its escape from a blood libel in medieval Germany to Russia in the early twentieth century. On the example of the Boyar's family history, author tells us about the fate of Jewish people throughout the 20th century – from the end of the Russo-Japanese War until the end of World War IIII and creation the state of Israel. The novel paints a rich and intricate gallery of characters facing consistent persecution, while ideology ranges from Czarism to Stalinism and Nazism.The Boiar family, although it suffered heavy losses by brutal upheavals of the era, never stopped fighting for its spiritual and physical survival.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringen_oyf_der_Neshome" title="Ringen oyf der Neshome">
Depicts the life of the Yiddish writer Eli Schechtman from his childhood until his arrival to Jerusalem. Through this autobiographical account, themes of Jewish identity, life under the Soviet regime, as well as culture war between Yiddish and Hebrew are depicted.The novel ends with the words:&lt;br&gt;"I stand between two worlds and generations,&lt;br&gt;beth the old wound and the new pain.&lt;br&gt;Alone,&lt;br&gt;Completely alone." 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Bird_(Astrid_Lindgren_book)" title="The Red Bird (Astrid Lindgren book)">
The parents of the siblings Anna and Mattias have died. Thus, they have to live in the house of the Myra farmer. The Myra farmer takes advantage of the siblings, who have to work hard and are not allowed to play. Therefore, they are already looking forward to the school which starts in winter. At school, they hope to no longer feel like two gray mice. But as soon as the school has started they realize that nothing is going change in school either. Just as Anna mentions this towards Mattias on her way home, a red bird appears. The two children follow the bird into a warm, beautiful country called Sunnanäng. In Sunnanäng there are a lot of children who want to play with Anna and Mattias. There is also a mother who is the mother of all children and also the mother of Mattias and Anna. The siblings have a lot of fun in the country but soon they have to go home. They find out that the gate to their home country, once closed, can never be opened again. Soon Anna and Mattias always go to Sunnanäng after school. They also go there on their last day of school. They close the gate and decide to stay there forever.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dragon_with_Red_Eyes" title="The Dragon with Red Eyes">
A brother and sister go into the pigsty to look at the little piglets that were born during the night. In the barn they do not only see the piglets, but also a small green dragon with red eyes. Since the dragon always bites his pig mother while drinking, she eventually gives him nothing. Therefore, the siblings raise the dragon. In autumn, the little dragon says goodbye to the siblings and flies into the middle of the sunset. He sings happily with a clear, bright voice.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_Adam_Got_Mad" title="The Day Adam Got Mad">
Adam Engelbrecht is a bull. He is quite peaceful. But one day he gets furious. Nobody knows exactly why he has gotten so angry. Not even Adam Engelbrecht himself. But now he is running around the stable and the whole yard. People run away and are afraid of him. Only a very young boy, Kalle, is not scared of Adam Engelbrecht. He talks very gently to Adam Engelbrecht. At first Adam doesn't want to listen to Kalle. But the boy's tender, loving voice is so tempting and beguiling so that Adam Engelbrecht allows the boy to gently pet him. Suddenly Adam Engelbrecht is no longer angry and the boy walks with him back to the stable. The People are impressed, and they keep telling each other the story of the “youngest bullfighter in the world”.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_of_Skinny_Jack" title="The Ghost of Skinny Jack">
A girl and her older brother are at their grandmother house, who always tells them ghost stories. They love to hear the story of Skinny Jack.Skinny Jack was a servant who loved to do pranks. One night Skinny Jack disguised himself as a ghost to scare the sexton in the church. When the sexton ran out, Skinny Jack wanted to follow. But on the way out, something seemed to grab him. Skinny Jack believed it was a ghost, or God himself, who wanted to punish him. The next day people found him. His blood was frozen to ice, so he was neither dead nor alive. He stayed in church for about a hundred years and nobody dared to get close to him, until a maid came to the town who was not afraid of anything. A rich man wanted to know if the maid was actually as brave as she said and offered her five crowns to bring Skinny Jack to him. The maid did so and got five crowns. However, she hadn't said that she would bring Skinny Jack back, so the man offered her five crowns again. The maid took Skinny Jack on her back again. But shortly before she arrived at the church, Skinny Jack put his cold ghost fingers around her neck. He forced her to carry him to the grave of the sexton. There he asked for forgiveness. The sexton replied that if God forgave him, he would forgive Skinny Jack. Skinny Jack immediately collapsed into a pile of ashes. From then on the maid was no longer quite right in the head.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Nightingale_Is_Singing" title="My Nightingale Is Singing">
When Maria is eight years old, her parents die from tuberculosis. Therefore, Maria is brought into a poor house. People live an isolated and sad life there. There is nothing beautiful there and no joy.Pompadella is the manager of the poor house. Since she expects to get more things while begging when she takes a child with her, she asks Maria to come with her. From now on, Maria accompanies Pompadella when Pompadella goes begging. Together they are very successful.But Maria also supports the other residents. She helps Hen-Helen to tie her shoes, gives Dearie-Dearie her wool when she has dropped it or consoles Joey Squint when he gets scared because he hears voices. But she finds no comfort for herself because Maria is not able to discover something beautiful.One day when she goes begging with Pompadella she hears a story that gives her strength and comfort. She wants to keep the story in her mind forever. But the only thing she can remember is the line "My linden plays, my nightingale is singing". At first, all the miseries and sorrows disappear from the poor house when Maria thinks about these words. But the words are not enough anymore, then Maria wants to have a real linden with a real nightingale.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Don't_Want_to_Go_to_Bed_(book)" title="I Don't Want to Go to Bed (book)">
Lasse doesn't want to go to bed. He always finds new things to play with. His mother doesn't know what to do. Therefore, Aunt Lotte lets Lasse put on her magic glasses. With the glasses, Lasse observes what the other children are doing.Lasse sees a baby bear sitting in bed after a long day in the forest eating his honey porridge. In the children's room, the rabbit children go to bed after a pillow fight. Five little bird children sleep on the trees after practicing flying in the afternoon. Three squirrel children play with a toy train, eat candy and go to bed. Meanwhile, mouse child Kasper comes home late after playing in the yard. His mother explains that he should quickly have dinner and then go to bed because his siblings are all already asleep.After Lasse took off the glasses, Aunt Lotte explained that he had seen that all children have to sleep in the evening. Therefore, Lasse should go to bed too. Lasse goes home and goes to bed very quietly. When his mother wants to bring him to bed, he is already asleep.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Land_of_Twilight" title="In the Land of Twilight">
Göran has a sick leg. Since a year, he has to stay in bed. One night he hears that his parents say that he will never be able to walk again. Göran is desperate. But that very evening he is visited by Mr. Lilyvale from the land of twilight. Mr Lilyvale flies with Göran to his land. There Göran eats candy that grows on trees, drives a tram, visits the king, dances and sings. Then Mr Lilyvale brings Göran home. Göran is no longer sad about his sick leg. Because every evening at dawn Mr. Lilyvale comes back and brings Göran to the land of twilight where Göran is able to fly!
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Cousins_in_Ohio" title="Our Cousins in Ohio">
The narrative takes place in and around the family's farm and home, called "The Cedars", located near the village of Athens, a fictional name for the village of Warsaw (now incorporated into Cincinnati) on the west bank of the Great Miami River in Hamilton County, Ohio. The original home was torn down in the 1850s, and the site is now occupied by Seton High School.Instead of following a single unifying plot, the narrative is organized as a calendar year, with a separate chapter for each month, beginning and ending with classic scenes of emigrant Christmas. Within this calendrical structure are incorporated numerous threads relating to domestic life (e.g. the parents' attempts at dealing with Willy's stubbornness, confrontations with a neighborhood bully, raising crops and livestock, exploring the neighboring woods) and to social issues of the day (e.g. slavery and abolition, soldiers on their way to war with Mexico, westward migration, and the practices of various religious and national groups).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirabelle_(Astrid_Lindgren_book)" title="Mirabelle (Astrid Lindgren book)">
Britta-Kajsa's greatest wish is to get a doll. But a doll is very expensive and her parents don't have a lot of money.One day, when Britta-Kajsa's parents are at work, Britta-Kajsa meets a strange little man. The latter asks Britta-Kajsa to open a gate for him so that he can drive through it with his carriage. Britta-Kajsa does as she is told. The little man explains that he can't give her any money, but a tiny little seed that she can plant into the garden.Some time after Britta-Kajsa planted the seed, a doll grows out of it. Britta-Kajsa shows the doll to her amazed parents who cannot believe what they see. Later, Britta-Kajsa takes the doll into her room. Suddenly the doll starts to speak and says that her name is Mirabelle. From then on, Britta-Kajsa and Mirabelle do almost everything together. Britta-Kajsa thinks she has the greatest doll in the world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Want_to_Go_to_School_Too" title="I Want to Go to School Too">
Lena wants to go to school, so her older brother Peter takes her with him one day. Peter shows her the way to school and explains on which streets Lena should be very careful. Then Lena gets to know the school. She is allowed to sit on the chair of Lisa, who is sick that day and cannot come to school. Lena watches Peter who is calculating and writing. During the break, Lena and Peter play in the playground of the school. When Peter's classmate Pelle says he thinks it's stupid to take small children to school, Pelle and Peter have a fight. Lena is afraid, but does not show it, so she is happy when the school bell rings and the biology class starts. Here Lena is able to contribute something to the lesson, because she realizes that the bird the teacher shows to the students is a chaffinch. Lena also accompanies Peter at breakfast in the dining room, during gymnastics and reading. After all, Pelle doesn't seem to mind small children at school anymore. When Lena and Peter are getting home, Lena is happy to know exactly how Peter's school is like.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Want_a_Brother_or_Sister" title="I Want a Brother or Sister">
A mother and a father get a little boy and call him Peter. Although the baby boy screams a lot, his parents love him very much and think he is the cutest child in the world. When Peter grows older, he plays with his friend Jan on the street. One day Jan shows Peter his little brother. Peter now wants to have siblings too. He goes to his mother and tells her about it. Peter's mother tells him that he will soon have a brother or sister. When Peter's sister Lena is born, Peter suddenly doesn't want to have a sister anymore. Lena screams constantly and gets a lot more attention than he does. In order to get his mother's attention, Peter does all kinds of nonsense as soon as Peter's mother is paying attention to Lena. So his mother has to pay attention to him.When Peter cries because he thinks that his parents prefer Lena to him, his mother takes him on his lap and tells him how much she loves him. She explains to him that babies are always a lot of trouble and so was Peter when he was little. She also explains that she got Lena for Peter and that he should take care of her too. He had cried a lot when he was little, so his mother had to take care of him. Peter decides to take care of Lena. He is very proud when he makes her stop crying. He proudly presents his sister to the other children in the playground.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dirt" title="American Dirt">
Lydia Quixano Pérez lives a comfortable life in Acapulco, Mexico, with her journalist husband, Sebastián, and her eight-year-old son, Luca. Lydia runs a bookstore and one day befriends a charming customer, Javier, who appears to have similar interests in books. However, Javier is revealed to be the kingpin of a drug cartel.Sebastián publishes a profile exposing the crimes of Javier, who then orders the slaughter of Sebastián and his family. Lydia and Luca escape the massacre, but are forced to flee Mexico, becoming two of the countless undocumented immigrants from Latin America who undertake the dangerous journey to the United States, taking a treacherous trip on La Bestia north of Mexico City.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India's_Coal_Story" title="India's Coal Story">
The book has 9 chapters and 264 pages. First chapter of the book is "Ole King Coal" which contains introduction to India's mining history and how coal mining was started. It mentions about Raniganj, city on the bank of Damodar River, where coal mining happened en large and it mentions about Zambezi, river in the Africa, from where India has imported the coal."A Nation And Its Contradictions", second chapter of the book, is about the business of opium, establishment of Carr, Tagore and Company, politics behind then coal mining, role of East India Company and the history of coal mining amid world-wars and recession of 1929. "Nationalisation of problems", third chapter, mentions Bombay Plan, Nehruvian socialism and take over of the industries, Indira Gandhi's rule and price control, and problems faced by India businessmen after independence of India. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyfn_Sheydweg" title="Oyfn Sheydweg">
The novel describes the decline of the shtetl after the October Revolution.Sсhechtman's heroes go through difficult times of “crossroads”; to the place described by Shekhtman, the revolution “doesn’t drive along a wide highway, but drags heavily in gardens, rolls down a mountain, leaning against the Jews like a thundercloud”.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrap_and_the_Pirates" title="Scrap and the Pirates">
In the summer Scrap (Swedish: Skrållan) lives on an island called Seacrow Island. She watches her grandfather Melcher and her father Peter eagerly roofing the house, while her mother Malin hangs up the laundry. Scrap loves her funny grandfather who often falls from the roof or into the sea.Scrap also has a little uncle, Pelle, who only is ten years old. On Sea Crow Island there are also Tjorven, her dog Bootsmann, her two parents Nisse and Märta, as well as Stina and her grandfather. The sisters of Tjorven and Pelle's older brothers always do something together and Scrap has little contact with them. She prefers to spend time with Pelle, Tjorven and Stina. With the latter, she also celebrates her third birthday on the landing stage.One day Tjorven, Pelle, Stina and Scrap play hide-and-seek with Melcher. Melcher lies down on a place where the chickens previously laid their eggs. His pants are totally dirty. Meanwhile, Pelle has completely forgotten that they are playing hide-and-seek. He watches a large grasshopper in the grass because he loves animals more than anything.When Scrap tries to go on the seesaw with the dog Bootsmann, it doesn't work at all. Bootsmann weighs a lot more than she does, so her part of the seesaw is always up in the air. Later, the children play sack jumping.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tomten_(Astrid_Lindgren)" title="The Tomten (Astrid Lindgren)">
## "The Tomten".During the night the people at a farm in a forest are asleep. Only Tomten is awake. No one has ever seen Tomten, the people only know that he is there. Sometimes the people only find his small footprints in the snow. Tomten takes care of the animals and gives them comfort through a cold winter's night. He promises them that spring will be there soon. Tomten also visits the children, who always want to see him. However, they are always at sleep when he comes, so they dream about him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chef_(novel)" title="The Chef (novel)">
Caleb Rooney is a major crimes detective with the New Orleans Police Department. On the side he and his ex-wife run a well known and highly acclaimed food truck, named Killer Chef. Rooney has just been raked over the coals for an incident in which he fired his weapon and killed a known gang member. He quits the police department in disgust, devoting all his time to his food sideline. Rooney cannot escape his past with the police by leaving the department, however. He is hounded by those who were members of the gang of the man he had killed. Rooney stumbled upon a possible terror plot to take place during Mardi Gras. He has stepped on toes of others in the culinary industry in town. And his independent investigation of the terror plot has gotten him into difficulties with the local FBI leader, who is also investigating it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stars_and_the_Blackness_Between_Them" title="The Stars and the Blackness Between Them">
16-year-old Audre lives in Port of Spain, Trinidad. At the urging of her mother, she attends church, but forms a romantic relationship with the pastor's granddaughter, Neri. After they are caught engaging in sexual activity, Audre is sent to live with her father in Minneapolis, where she meets Mabel. Mabel is questioning her own sexuality, and the two become friends. As they prepare for the upcoming school year, Mabel finds out she has a life-threatening illness. Audre supports Mabel as she undergoes treatment, both emotionally and through healing practices she has learned from her grandmother.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Be-Bop" title="Baby Be-Bop">
Even though readers first meet Dirk McDonald in "Weetzie Bat," Block explores his past in "Baby Be-Bop".Dirk had a magical childhood while growing up in the care of his Grandma Fifi. Despite enjoying the beach, surfing, and Grandma Fifi's 1955 Pontiac convertible, Dirk was not truly happy because he had a secret. Dirk worried that if he told anyone this secret, he would no longer be accepted or loved.One night, Dirk's magic lamp comes to life and shows him all the stories from the past. After coming to terms with who he is, Dirk accepts himself and learns that "any love that is love is right."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Udala_Trees" title="Under the Udala Trees">
The novel opens in 1960's Nigeria, following the tale of Ijeoma, a young girl who lives in a small town called Ojoto with her mother, Adaora, and father, Uzo, in the middle of the Nigerian Civil War.Following an air raid at the start of the novel, Ijeoma and her mother Adaora escape unharmed but her father is killed. This leaves Ijeoma under Adaora's care. The death of Uzo has a profound effect on Adaora's mental health, sending her into a trance-like state. Eventually, Adaora soon decides to send Ijeoma away to the far away town of Nwewi, to live with family friends, under the idea that it's safer and the right thing to do although Ijeoma is reluctant to move due to the strong bond she has to her mother as well her young age.Ijeoma is taken in by a School Teacher, where she soon meets Amina, who becomes the object of her affection. The illicitness of the relationship and hesitation stemming from homophobic views from society puts strain on their relationship. Adaora, through frequently visiting Ijeoma, slowly begins to realise the affection that Ijeoma and Amina have for each other and expresses utter disapproval, quoting the bible and making Ijeoma swear allegiance to God and ultimately, to end the relationship and stop having 'wrong' feelings for each other. Eventually, Ijeoma is sent back to Ojoto to live with Adaora again while Amina remains with the school teacher. Ijeoma's relationship with Amina slowly fizzles out thereafter.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Candle_in_Her_Room" title="A Candle in Her Room">
Melissa's parents move their family and Emmy Lee to the mansion - called Old Court - in Pembrokeshire. The mansion - formerly a courthouse - passed to Melissa's parents upon the death of Aunt Lucia. Everyone is delighted except Judith, the artist, who wants to remain in London. Briony finds the slim wooden doll with the word 'DIDO' carved down her back, and soon her behavior changes. After Judith discovers it though, it suddenly disappears. The odd behavior changes in Briony that Melissa observed when she had Dido soon went away after she 'lost' her, and Briony returned to her usual self. Judith draws farther away from the family, becoming even more moody and difficult than usual. She stay mostly in London, secretive and detached.Melissa and Carew develop a romantic attachment, but when Carew meets Judith, and says of her 'she has the brilliance of a diamond, and no heart. She fascinates and terrifies me. She has great magnetism and I feel she might compel me to do something against my will, something devilish, something "she" wanted.' Melissa and Carew continued their relationship, planning to marry when they became of age. Everything changes when Melissa feels compelled to go by the sea after heavy rains, and the ground gives way. Her injuries heal, but the shock and the strange pains she has in her legs keep her paralyzed. Carew is determined to remain faithful to her, but after time passes, when he finishes his studies, Judith sweeps in and the two run off to London together to marry. Melissa, remains in Newcove with Miss Emmy as Part I concludes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cactus_League" title="The Cactus League">
"The Cactus League" presents stories from multiple narrators in Scottsdale, Arizona, the home of Salt River Fields, the spring training facility of the Los Angeles Lions professional baseball team. Each of the novel's nine chapters are told from the perspective of a different narrator, with each chapter preceded by narration from an unnamed veteran sportswriter who discusses how each of their various stories are interlinked and provides philosophical musings about baseball and life in general. The story of Jason Goodyear, the handsome and famous star outfielder for the Lions, is a common thread throughout each of the chapters. Although he appears to be very straight-laced and respectable to outsiders, over the course of the novel it is revealed that Jason has recently been divorced by his wife and lost the vast majority of his wealth due to a serious gambling addiction.The first chapter tells the story of Michael Taylor, an aging batting coach struggling to stay relevant with the Lions. The book opens with Michael and his wife returning to their Arizona house for the start of spring training, only to find that squatters have broken into it during the off-season. The house is trashed and many of the belonging have been stolen, including Michael's prized Cadillac. Undeterred, he cleans the house himself and prepares for the season. When he later finds the stolen Cadillac parked outside a restaurant, he smashes it with a baseball bat. The second chapter focuses on Tamara Rowland, a middle-aged divorcée who attempts to engage baseball players in casual sexual experiences each spring training season. She ends up spending an evening Jason Goodyear, and they trespass at Taliesin West, the former winter home of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, where Jason gets arrested after damaging property and starting a fire. The next chapter features Herb Allison, a legendary sports agent recently confined to a wheelchair due to an injury. He hires Sara, an attractive physical therapy assistant with a dark past, to become his new assistant. They bail Jason out of jail after his arrest, and Herb tries to navigate the resulting scandal.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_of_What_Was_Lost" title="The Shadow of What Was Lost">
Davian is a young man studying at Caladel, a school under the supervision of the Tol Athian council. Davian learns that he is actually an Augur. He is given a Vessel, an Augur artifact, and is told that the Boundary, an ancient border north of Andarra, is failing. Behind it lie monsters led by immortal Augur Aarkein Devaed. Devaed is planning an invasion of Andarra. Davian and his best friend Wirr escape. That night, almost every remaining resident is murdered. The only survivor is their friend Asha, another young Gifted. Asha becomes Tol Athian's Representative to the Northwarden Elocian Andras, brother of the king and leader of the Administrators. Elocian tells Asha that he is secretly rescuing Augurs and regrets the creation of the Tenets.Davian's Vessel, the Portal Box, leads them to rescue a Gifted man named Caeden. Caeden has been accused of massacring an entire village, but has lost his memories. Davian is transported to the past. He meets a shapeshifting Augur named Malshash, who trains Davian to use Augur abilities before sending him back to his own time.The Northwarden's Augurs have a vision of Ilin Illan, the capital city, being overrun by invaders known as the Blind. Asha, Davian, and Wirr (who is actually Elocian's son) reunite in the city. Davian discovers that Devaed's master plan involves restoring Caeden's memories. Elocian is killed by the blind; Wirr then changes the Tenets to allow the Gifted to fight.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Kid" title="New Kid">
12-year-old Jordan Banks is a black boy who lives in Washington Heights. Jordan loves art and makes cartoons about his life. His dream is to go to art school. However, his mother makes him go to Riverdale Academy Day (RAD) School, which she calls "one of the best schools in the state". However, RAD is not a very diverse school, having only a few black students.During his first day at Riverdale, Jordan is overwhelmed. He is helped by Liam Landers, a fellow student assigned to be Jordan's guide, and whose family has attended RAD for 3 generations. The two become friends. Jordan meets a variety of other students at the school, including Drew Ellis, who is one of the few African American students at his school; Andy Peterson, a jock who is unliked by many of his fellow students; and Alexandra, who always wears a sock puppet on her hand.Jordan has some difficulties adjusting to RAD. These include sitting at the wrong table at lunch and not knowing how to act when a friend from the neighborhood sees him with Liam. Further challenges occur when his advisor discusses students on financial aid and calls Drew by the name of DeAndre. Jordan discovers that this kind of misnaming happens to other black students and faculty at the school, even a black teacher who has been at the school for fourteen years.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scary_Stories_for_Young_Foxes" title="Scary Stories for Young Foxes">
The book follows seven fox kits in search of scary stories. Their mother tells them about an old storyteller but prohibits them from adventuring there. Despite the warnings, they go there to listen to the old vixen's tales. The first one is focused on Mia, who is being taught survival skills alongside the rest of the litter. During their class, their teacher, Miss Vix, suffering from rabies, becomes aggressive and attacks the fox kits. In the aftermath, only Mia and her mother are not infected, and so they flee from their den. The elder then tells Uly's story, a fox born with a malformed front leg and ostracized by his six sisters, who mock him whenever possible. One day, Uly's father, Wynn, returns to the den and tries to force Uly's mother to kill him. She refuses and Uly runs away and disappears into the forest.Meanwhile, lost in the forest, Mia's mother steps on a steel trap and is almost captured, but Mia saves her and is captured instead. Mia is brought by the hunter, Beatrix Potter, to her house, where she remains caged for several days. After attempting to escape, Mia is strung on a rope and is soon found by Uly, who had felt the smell of food from nearby. Uly helps Mia escape and they run away. The two kits become friends and decide to go after Mia's mother. They first go through a swamp where Uly is attacked by an alligator. He manages to free himself but loses his malformed limb in the process.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_Begins_Again" title="Genesis Begins Again">
Genesis Anderson is a thirteen-year-old girl that lives in Detroit. Her father is alcoholic who also suffers of gambling addiction. While the two of them have dark skin color, Genesis' mother has a lighter skin. Genesis is constantly bullied by her schoolmates due the color of her skin, and she also blames herself for the troubles at home, to the point she keeps a list of all the things she thinks is wrong about her.One day, Genesis manages to spend some time with some of the more popular girls of her school, and decides to invite them to her house. When they get there, the furniture had been thrown outside; her family had once again been evicted from their home due to her father not paying the rent. Genesis and her mother go stay with her grandmother and she begins attending a new school. While at home her grandmother repeats colorist ideologies, such as the use of the "paper bag test" to know if someone has a light enough skin to pass as not black, at school Genesis is no longer bullied, she meets Troy, the love interest, and joins the chorus after finding out she has a talent for singing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_blonde_Eckbert" title="Der blonde Eckbert">
Eckbert lives an idyllic life, secluded in a castle deep within a forest in the Harz Mountains, with his wife Bertha. The two find happiness in their refuge away from the corrupting influences of society. They have no children but enjoy life together. Phillip Walther, Eckbert's one contact with society, shatters this harmony during a visit at the outset of the story. Walther had become a close friend of Eckbert over the years as the two frequently rode about Eckbert's demesne. Eckbert feels compelled to share his secret with Walther as his only confidant. He invites Walther to stay the night and enjoy "familiarities" and dine with Bertha. She reveals the secret of her childhood and begins the frame story.Bertha escaped from a life of hunger, poverty and abuse at a young age. She found herself at the center of fights between her mother and father. She ran away from their pastoral home, begged on the streets, and made her way into the woods. An old woman took Bertha to a cabin and taught her to weave, spin, and read as they live together with the old woman's animals—a dog and a magical bird. The anthropomorphic bird sings a variety of songs encased by the concept of Waldeinsamkeit, or the feeling of being alone in the forest, and the bird lays a precious stone each day. The birds songs always begin and end with "Waldeinsamkeit". For instance:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unidentified_Suburban_Object" title="Unidentified Suburban Object">
Despite being the only Korean girl at her school, Chloe Cho is desperate to get in touch with her family roots. Because there are not many Korean people in town, Chloe and her best friend, Shelley, turn to internet blogs to learn things about Korean culture. Whenever Chloe makes traditional Korean food or wears traditional Korean clothes, her parents redirect the conversation or do not seem to know what she is talking about. Chloe nearly gives up on asking her parents about their past when the new social studies teacher at her school, Ms. Su-Hyung Lee (who is Korean), assigns her students to interview someone in their family about an old family story. Through a lot of persistence and hard work, Chloe finally gets her parents to tell her something about their past, but it is not what she expected. Instead of feeling like she finally knows who she is, Chloe feels more alone than ever. After finding out this new information about herself Chloe learns more about what it really means to be who she is.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saracen_Lamp" title="The Saracen Lamp">
A young woman, 16-year-old Melisande marries Sir Hugh de Hervey - 6 years older than her - with reluctance, as she does not know him and wishes to continue her carefree youth at home in Southern France. Her father - wounded in the last of King Louis' Crusades against the Saracens - is feeble and weak, but wishes her to go through with this union. Yusef - who made the lamp for Melisande - has facial features similar to her father, and is very dear to her. She is disturbed in the months leading up to the marriage because her father has banished Yusef from their household, and won't tell her why. After marrying de Hervey, they go on the monthlong journey by horseback to the coast of France, Wissant and sail to Dover, and from there to their own home - Littleperry Manor - within his family's estate, Greatperry Hall, in Gloucester, England.As Melisande settles in, she frequently conflicts with The Lady Constance and dame Anne Peckham, who were united in their disapproval of her for being French and of a less wealthy background. Soon Melisande is expecting a child, and when the packmen arrive with goods for sale as well as mail delivery, she receives a letter from Tristan stating that Yusef has died, apparently committed suicide the day after her departure. Melisande's grief takes everyone's efforts to overcome. When Joscelin is born, everyone is happy and even Lady Constance seems to finally accept Melisande. Five years later, a terrible wet spring after a vicious winter results in the death of Hugo, only after disease murrain sickened the sheep. In time, the children marry, and Melisande starts to plan to visit her parents for the first time - when King Edward III declares war on France. With close family members in both the English and French armies, Melisande is alone with her despair. She has a vision of a young child dressed very unusually - very simply - with hair short, in a chair with wheels. When she learns of pending grandchildren, she starts to hope that the young girl in her vision belongs to the future of Littleperry. Part I ends with Melisande hanging a red cross on a white sheet at the manor walls, to warn anyone coming by that the Plague had struck.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem_for_a_Princess" title="Requiem for a Princess">
Willow Penelope Forrester is the only child of a sheep farming family, who discovers a talent for piano playing as she matures. Her music teacher finds a program in Germany that would be a perfect fit. Miss Carpenter gives her a new piece of music to start to learn - Ravel's "Pavane for a Dead Infanta" but her fingers were clumsy with chilblains. The tune is rooted in her mind though. Just as she is starting to deal with her parents antipathy towards music as a career path for her, she comes down with the flu at school. As she and another girl one day have a long-running spat, the other girl hurls at her the fact that she is adopted. Willow's illness takes longer to heal from as she is thrown into confusion and depression.To facilitate her recovery, her mother brings her to a private hotel called Penliss in Cornwall by the sea. The oldest part of Penliss (the kitchen and two rooms above) date back to the Elizabethan Era, the rest of the building at that time burned. In its place is a newer building, added on to the original part. Willow discovers the Velasquez portrait of Isabel, finely dressed wearing a unique pendant necklace, in the room with the piano. She plays "Pavane" and tells the portrait - "that was for you -Isabel." When she asks Rosamund about Isabel, she explains that Isabel was brought from Spain and adopted by the Tresilian family, but died young. This only whets Willow's curiosity, and she becomes obsessed with learning more. Willow finds Isabel's memorial stone in the family chapel, which states that Isabel died of "supposed drowning" at age 17, in 1602.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Hadn't_Meant_to_Tell_You_This" title="I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This">
The story begins with it being the third day of school and it being the day Lena first arrives in Chauncey and how she slowly becomes friends with Marie. The two girls despite being polar opposites become friends due to their differences and to the fact that they both lost their mothers with Marie's mother leaving her and her father at an early part of her life and Lena's passing away when she was young. There are challenges towards their relationship, with it mainly being towards the community being composed of mostly black people and few white people who aren't as financially well-off compared to the former. There is also Marie's other friend Sherry who views Lena as nothing more than "whitetrash" and Lena confiding in Marie a secret regarding Lena's father sexually abusing her, which Marie struggles to keep secret despite her protests to Lena. By the end the abuse has gone to the point where Lena's younger sister, Dion, is being affected as well and with it Lena and Dion leave Ohio and bids farewell to Marie after the latter calls to see if she is okay. Marie in the days that come is saddened by the departure of her friend and asks herself "Why can't we all just be people here?" after remembering a comment Lena made earlier on how "We all just people here".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run_Me_to_Earth" title="Run Me to Earth">
"Run Me to Earth" is divided into six stories that extend over the course of six decades, primarily between 1969–1977. The novel begins in 1969 but later jumps to 1974 and 1977, before moving back to 1969 and then finally jumping forward to 1994 and 2018. It takes place mostly in Laos but also in New York, Spain and rural France. The novel employs a third-person omniscient narrative, alternating its focus between the different characters. Stream of consciousness is often used to reveal the characters' inner thoughts.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Place_for_Us" title="A Place for Us">
The book is split up into four parts.Part one opens at the eldest daughter, Hadia’s wedding in Northern California. Rather than accepting an arranged marriage, Hadia decides to build her life with a man of her choice, Tariq, whom she met in medical school. Hadia decides to invite their estranged brother, Amar, who returns after 3 years of no communication with his family. He is confronted with the familiarity of the faces from his past life when greeting the guests, including his first love Amira Ali. His family watches him from a distance, careful not to say anything to upset him. Their mother, Layla, is frantically running around, attending to guests, and making sure that her daughter’s event flows smoothly. She searches for her husband, Rafiq, in the crowd to look at him and share a moment to appreciate where they came to in life.Part two of the book gives readers glimpses of the past that offer insight into how everything led up to the wedding. It opens with a memory of the Fourth of July, the first one Hadia recalls celebrating. The three young siblings begged their father to take them to see the fireworks. Hadia and her sister Huda sit together cross-legged, eyes lighting up in awe from the fireworks. A young Amar. meanwhile, is leaning against his mother, eyes wide in wonder.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_of_War" title="Rhythm of War">
The prologue is from Navani's perspective, in which she recalls Gavilar's death and his involvement with strange spheres of light. The book begins with Kaladin traveling to his hometown of Hearthstone, to rescue the citizens and pick up a famous Herdazian general, The Mink. Navani,Dalinar, and many Radiants arrive on a flying machine to assist Kaladin in evacuating the city. While the evacuation begins, the Radiants get into a battle with the Fused, which ends with no conclusive winner. Meanwhile, Kaladin is baited into a fight with his former friend Moash, who somehow induces Kaladin to have visions of traumatic experiences. Kaladin escapes to the flying machine and they fly away with the townspeople on board. While returning, Navani is contacted by a mysterious stranger, who tells her that creating magic devices called fabrials is unethical and wrong. Fabrials are created by imprisoning a in a gemstone. After returning to Narak, Dalinar relieves Kaladin of duty due to his battleshock and increasing depression. Kaladin searches for a way to continue serving those around him without fighting and starts assisting his father in the infirmary, eventually finding greater purpose in helping those with mental issues through group therapy and more progressive treatments.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamers_(children's_book)" title="Dreamers (children's book)">
Morales describes crossing a "bridge to the other side" at which point she and Kelly became immigrants. She describes the difficult transition period in which she was surrounded by an unfamiliar language and has trouble assimilating, which she referred to as making "mistakes." During this time she and Kelly discover a local library, where they learned the language and books became their "life."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zangezi" title="Zangezi">
The prophet Zangezi lives among wildlife, mountains, birds, trees, grasses, gods. Zangezi speaks significant words, but human beings are ignorant to understand him:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Europe_(novel)" title="Dead Europe (novel)">
The novel is structured in chapters alternately focusing on a realist depiction Isaac's travels in contemporary Europe and a fantastical representation of his grandparents' lives in their rural World War II era village in Greece."Dead Europe" opens with a flashback of protagonist Isaac Raftis' childhood, when his mother first told him about "the Jews" and how every year, at Christmas they "drank the blood of the sacrificed child."The novel then transitions to an account of Isaac's grandmother Lucia's childhood, and her abuse at the hands of her father before she is given to Isaac's grandfather Michaelis as a bride. The chapter ends with Michaelis agreeing to shelter Elia, the son of a Jewish acquaintance, from the Nazis in return for a box of jewellery.Isaac is staying in Athens, where he is holding a mostly unsuccessful and frustrating exhibition of his photographic work. While in Athens he assists a young immigrant boy who has been bashed and meets his family who live in squalor in the ghettos of the city.In WW2 era rural Greece, Lucia is distraught at her inability to bear a child for Michaelis and has become bitter towards her family and community. She visits Elia, who is hiding in a basement under an abandoned church, to bring him food and they have sex.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possession_(Markandaya_novel)" title="Possession (Markandaya novel)">
The action of "Possession" begins around the year 1949, and continues through the 1950s and early 1960s. An Englishwoman, Lady Caroline Bell, discovers Valmiki, a teenage goatherd who has been painting in local caves, in a village in South India. Snatching Valmiki from the protection of an elderly local swami, she brings him back to London as an exotic pet artist. Jealously guarding Valmiki's attachment to her, Lady Bell cannot stop him eventually returning to India after the suicide of Ellie, a concentration camp survivor whom Valmiki paints and makes pregnant. She follows him back to India, to find him spiritually reattached to the swami and once again painting in the caves around his village.The 'possession' of the book's title refers both to the woman's desire to own the man, and to his state of being 'possessed' by a foreign identity and values.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nowhere_Man_(Kamala_Markandaya_novel)" title="The Nowhere Man (Kamala Markandaya novel)">
Unlike her other novels, which were set mainly in India, "The Nowhere Man" is set in England, where Markandaya herself had been living since 1948. The novel's main protagonist, Srinivas, is an elderly spice importer who has lived in South London for almost fifty years, surviving his wife and one of his two sons. In the Britain of 1968, he now faces intensifying racism, reminding him of the slights he had once experienced as a university student in colonial India. As Srinivas slides into depression, the novel captures the cultural separation between first and second-generation immigrant generations: Srinivas's remaining son, Laxman, is impatient with and embarrassed by his father. For a while, Srinivas's self-belief is restored by a romantic relationship with Mrs Pickering, a down-at-heel divorcée, who moves into his house. However, their peace together is threatened by the racist hatred of their neighbours, to which they each find themselves reacting differently. 
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_Deeply_Hidden" title="Something Deeply Hidden">
In this book, Carroll examines the reasons why people misunderstand quantum mechanics and advocates a version of the many-worlds interpretation, while objecting to the views often grouped together as the Copenhagen interpretation. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Relations" title="Space Relations">
In the future, humans have formed an intergalactic empire ruled by aristocrats. During a time of war with the Plith, an empire of ant-like alien bug people, ambassador John Craig, a formerly Liberal Earth man in his 30s, is dispatched to the strategically important planet Kossar, a human colony that was settled by the Carlyle Society as a place of exile for political extremists and now is ruled by an oligarchical high council of seven nobles, each of whom is in charge of a different domain with its own traditions. Their boredom and absolute power have driven them to madness, to the point that Kossar's entry into the empire has been stymied by the Man-Inhabited Planets Treaty's clause (written by Craig) against alliances with slave owning societies, due to its practice of kidnapping humans to become illegal playthings of the galaxy's super-rich.Craig, who now is campaigning to bring Kossar into the empire, had previously been to the planet when the passenger ship on which he was travelling on a return trip from the Betelgeuse Conference was captured by space pirates. While en route to Kassar, one of the pirates awakened Craig and the other prisoners to rape a 15-year-old virginal redheaded female captive in front of them; the rapist's fellow pirates later hear of this and dock his pay as punishment for spoiling her market value. Craig then spent two years as a slave of the beautiful, sensual, and sadistic Lady Morgan Sidney, the only female member of the oligarchy, with whom he became romantically involved. Together, they lived in her castle, ruling over and engaging in sexual relations with those under their dominion, including an enslaved teenager at a clinic used to breed enslaved people. When Craig stumbles on hints of an alien invasion, he realizes he must escape to save humanity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Margarita" title="Portrait of Margarita">
Part 1After her parents' death, Margarita becomes the ward of her Mom's Cousin Francis, and moves in with him during boarding school holidays. Margarita settles into Swithins Mill and the community of Hockton, Oxfordshire, and they develop a positive bond. Margarita gets along with everyone at Hockton, except for a small number of people who react with coldness and hostility due to her foreign appearance and her status as an outsider. She feels concern about Miss Laura, but she tries to put that aside as Francis is close to her. Margarita feelings for Cousin Francis seem like romantic love to her, but she keeps that secret from everyone. Toward the end of her first visit, she meets "that painting lot," the Giles family that has recently moved in to the area.Part IIOn returning to Swithins Mill for the Spring holidays, Margarita has more intense interactions with Miss Laura, who clearly wants her to stop taking up Cousin Francis time. She sees the Ghost Dog and is told that is a portent of danger.One her return visit to the Giles household, she also first witnesses Stella having a bout of screaming, and learns about her autism. Giles and Martha have the idea of his painting Margarita, so it is arranged for Margarita to come in every day and sit for him. Between sessions of sitting for Giles, Margarita enjoys playing with Lucy, and also gaining Stella's trust. She sings sometimes, and later on Stella starts to sing as well, a major breakthrough. Margarita chooses to ignore increasing anonymous harassment. Meanwhile, Cousin Francis and Margarita continue to become close. After Giles finishes the portrait of her, it is vandalized the very next day. Initially the suspicion rests of Stella.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofia_Khan_is_Not_Obliged" title="Sofia Khan is Not Obliged">
The book follows the eponymous heroine Sofia Khan through the difficulties of navigating the dating world as a Muslim girl living in London whilst working in publishing. The narrative charts her various different interactions with her love interests, beginning with her first boyfriend Imran. Imran asks her to move in with his family, in a house connected to theirs via a connecting door, a request which earns him the nickname 'hole-in-the-wall' and subsequently marks the end of their relationship. Sofia's next love interest is Naim, but again things fail to work out.On the tube one day, Sofia is called a 'terrorist' by a man she accidentally bumps into, but the train leaves before she is able to do anything about it.When she gets to her meeting, the publishing company she works for have asked Sofia to write a Muslim dating manual, documenting her dating experiences as a British Muslim. She is given a sizeable advance on the book. The book also follows her friends' experience too, such as her friend Suj's relationship with a black man and her friend Hannah's decision to enter a polygamous relationship as a second wife.She has struck up an unlikely friendship with her tattooed Irish neighbour Conall, who is proving to be an unlikely source of strength during these trying times. Out of the blue her father has a heart attack and Sofia decides given her lack of dating success to marry Imran after all, as she feels this will make her family happy.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unquiet_Dead_(novel)" title="The Unquiet Dead (novel)">
Set in the Scarborough Bluffs, Toronto, the body of Christopher Drayton is found at the foot of the cliffs near his home. Esa Khattak, head of Community Policing has been called by his superior to investigate the incident, of which is presumed to be an unfortunate accident caused by walking through the unstable cliffs at night. Esa and his headstrong partner Rachel Getty begin the investigation at Winterglass, the home of esteemed author Nathan (Nate) Clare. It becomes obvious to Rachel early on in their visit that Esa and Nate have known each other for years, yet the tension that fills the air leads her to believe that there is more to their relationship than meets the eye. The two detectives then search Drayton’s home which is situated on the same street, finding a number of incriminating files and papers containing suspicious threats. There are a number of puzzles in the investigation, including Drayton’s relationship with Melanie Blessant and his planned donation to local museum Ringsong that specialises in Andulusian history. From searching Drayton's home and researching into war crimes with the help of the Bosnian community, Khattak and Getty discover that Drayton was an alias for Serbian Drazen Kristic who oversaw the Srebrenican Genocide. Clues such as a tattoo of the Serbian cross, letters detailing the terrible crimes committed and a gun found in his home that was used by the Drina Corps, all led the detective pair to this conclusion. Tom Paley, Khattak's superior, wants Drayton's real identity to be kept a secret until they can find a way to reveal it to the Bosnian community of Toronto. After further investigations with the help of the community, they discover that many of the people involved in Ringsong are also Bosnian immigrants in disguise; they are aware of Drayton's true identity and are responsible for blackmailing the war criminal with letters and various other tools.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Autumn_Ghosts" title="The Autumn Ghosts">
EntryRomilly Williams youth in Pembrokeshire, Wales is happy, she is close to her Gran and her family's housekeeper, Jeanie, who shares with Romilly a belief in ancient truths. Her Gran tells her stories of past family gatherings as Karasay House in the Scottish Islands, and the mystery around Millie, Gran's mother, who visited once, refused to ever return and would never tell why.Part IMillie, sixteen year-old, goes to Karasay to stay with family friends as she is coming of age in 1901. Everyone is gracious and welcoming, but Rodger became a focal point as he is clearly fascinated by her. She has always felt more complicated emotionally than others and he seems to sense that. She and Jocelyn are attracted to each other, and Rodger starts harassing Millie. His malevolence becomes clear, and Millie tries to avoid him. Finally Rodger says to Millie that she must stop her involvement with Jocelyn, otherwise he will be harmed. Millie accidentally stumbles upon Rodger’s chamber of horrors – an old mine shaft he had converted into a place full of animal skins, twisted skeletons, small human figures made of clay, and other implements of evil. He tells Millie he had intended to marry her in time and initiate her into his way of life then, but since she had discovered him, it would have to be done now. He sliced both their wrists, made her promise to keep what she had found secret under pain of harm to Jocelyn, pushed their wrists together to pool their blood, and sealed the vow. He took an ancient stone ring from a string around his neck and forced it on her finger, ordering her not to remove it. On returning to her room, she takes off the ring and hides it in her room.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Dead_Dreams" title="Summer of Dead Dreams">
The novel tells about three Germans: Oswald Hirschke, Jakob Latta and Schliebitz and a Romani woman called Alina. The story takes place in the summer of 1945 in Prudnik, shortly after the end of World War II. The main characters live in a ghetto on Chrobrego and Królowej Jadwigi Street, created by the Red Army in April 1945 after the end of the Battle of Prudnik. They are being used by Poles that came to Prudnik after the war and Russian soldiers. They are trying to escape to East Germany.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monitor,_the_Miners,_and_the_Shree" title="The Monitor, the Miners, and the Shree">
The novel that deals with a sociological expedition to study the culture of the Shree on the planet of Nira.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Grizzly_Tales_for_Gruesome_Kids" title="More Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids">
## Knock Down Ginger.Entomologist Mr Thrips is a pariah in the town of Nimby. He lives in one of the richest private streets (described as a "millionaire's row") next to people who drive Mercedes-Benz, Jeep and Jaguar cars, sharing a home full of several insect species which made his house look unkempt and creepy. Residents despise him for allowing the street to look uneven and nicknamed the house "Bug City Central", so his neighbours, the Pie family, become determined to get rid of him. At a council meeting, Amelia Pie terrifies the audience with her fears of Thrips' behaviour giving Nimby a bad reputation, which is heightened when Colonel Dithering claims that termites can eat houses. As the audience panics over their eaten houses disallowing them to park their cars and have cocktail parties, Amelia boasts her son will be the person to successfully scare Thrips out of town.Ginger Pie and his friend "Mad" Milo have already been bullying Thrips through vandalising his front garden and writing/yelling insults through his letter box. Milo's lisping sister Liza does not understand why the two boys relish in targeting an innocent old man but she is usually ignored, and Milo spitefully reveals Liza's nickname "Lizzie the Lizard" through reverse psychology. Ginger echoes the town's sentiments and calls Thrips ugly, claiming he shares many resemblances to the insects he shares his house with, to which Liza points out Ginger's pale skin and pale, red hair, and says "you look like Dracula just drank your blood." Ginger spots Thrips gardening and crosses the road to call him an "insect maniac", but he is terrified when Thrips scolds him in a tranquil fury without turning around to look at him. Milo later suggests Thrips has literal eyes in the back of his head but Ginger adamantly replies that Thrips might be an insect humanoid who they need to chase out their town. Luckily, his mother already endorses the idea so he and Milo decide to make Thrips' stay uncomfortable by playing Knock Down Ginger. The boys calculate the length of time it takes for Thrips to get out of his armchair to answer the front door as ten minutes, and play Knock Down Ginger all day. Then Ginger jumps over the fence into the back garden to destroy Thrips' giant termite mounds but stops when he feels vibrations from the mud. Suddenly, Thrips appears in the kitchen and Ginger rushes back to the front door to take his turn at the doorbell. The door shoots open and Thrips drags Ginger inside.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Cut" title="In the Cut">
Frannie Avery is an English teacher living near Washington Square Park in lower Manhattan. She is studying street vernacular for an upcoming book she is working on. While meeting with one of her students, Cornelius, at a bar, she goes downstairs to use the bathroom, and stumbles upon a man receiving oral sex from a woman. She notes two minor details: A spade tattoo on the man's wrist, and the woman's painted fingernails, but most of the scene is obscured in shadow. Several days later, Frannie is contacted by a police detective, Giovanni Malloy, about the murder of a woman who was last seen at the bar on the same day Frannie was there. Frannie infers that the victim must be the woman she saw in the basement. Frannie and Malloy are flirtatious from the outset, and, over drinks, he expresses his willingness to "do anything but hit her." While walking home alone after their date, Frannie is assaulted by a man on the street, but he flees before she can see him. After, she and Malloy have a passionate sexual encounter at her apartment, but Frannie is suspicious of him when she realizes he has a matching spade tattoo on his wrist. Frannie confides in her friend, Pauline, with whom she has a close relationship.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimmy_(book)" title="Swimmy (book)">
A very large tuna eats all the red fish who are swimming around, leaving the little Swimmy all alone. Scared and on his own, the little black fish swims away into the large ocean. He sees many beautiful and strange creatures on his journey until he finally discovers another school of little red fish, just like his own family used to be. He excitedly asks them all to come out and play, but they refuse. They are afraid of the big fish and don't want to get eaten. Swimmy tells them that they must make a plan, because they can't spend their whole life hiding in the rocks. He devises a plan to have all the red fish swim in the shape of a large fish - and then Swimmy takes his place among them in the place the eye would be. After that they are able to swim in the sea without fear - scaring the larger fish away wherever they go.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_Me_Everything_You_Don't_Remember" title="Tell Me Everything You Don't Remember">
On December 31, 2006, Lee woke up with an immense headache which she didn't know at that time was a stroke. Not thinking much about it, Lee and her husband, Adam, were running some errands when she experienced a cascade of sensory input and she felt dizzy. Once she got home, Lee took a nap, which is not recommended after or during a stroke. Waking up from a dream, she realizes that she lost her voice and her words. At that time she noted that her symptoms were not those of a stroke, as she could still smile and her words were not slurred. Instead, her balance was off, vision was unclear, lost her words, and encountered a tremendous headache. When Lee understands the severity, she tries to call 911 but is unable to remember the number. She ends up calling her husband unknowingly and they go to the emergency room.At the hospital, Lee takes a memory test and has a CT scan done. The results display a dark spot and the neurologist thinks she has vasculitis. An MRI was done the next morning and Dr. Volpi concluded that she had a left thalamic stroke. The stroke damaged her left thalamus which in turn affects the right. Christine Lee had a hole/flap called patent foramen ovale (PFO) in her heart which was an undiagnosed birth defect. This created a blood clot that went through her body and made its way into her brain. The doctor determined this cause with a bubble test and echocardiogram.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Far_from_God" title="So Far from God">
At the age of eighteen Sofia, who is oftentimes called Sofi, marries Domingo and has four daughters with him. Shortly after La Loca's birth, who is the youngest of the sisters, Sofia leaves Domingo after she notices that he gambles away the land she inherited from her father. Because of that Sofia has to raise her children on her own until he suddenly returns after twenty years of absence. In the course of the novel Sofia becomes the self-proclaimed mayor of Tome, the city in New Mexico where they all live. When she finds out that Domingo starts to gamble away her belongings again, she decides to get divorced from him. After La Loca's death she becomes the founder of M.O.M.A.S., an organization for the mothers of martyrs and saints.The youngest daughter of Sofi La Loca is pronounced dead at the age of three, however she reawakens at her funeral claiming to have travelled to heaven, hell and purgatorial fire. From then on, she behaves differently by never leaving the house and being unable to stand the smell of other humans except for her mother. Furthermore, she gains healing powers after that incident. In her twenties she gets infected and dies of AIDS.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writers_&amp;_Lovers" title="Writers &amp; Lovers">
In 1997 Casey Peabody, a woman in her 30s, struggles to define her life as she is deeply in debt, feels uninspired to finish the novel she is working on, and is still reeling from her mother's untimely death a few months earlier. Shortly after her mother's death she was accepted to a writer's residency. Unable to delay Casey accepted the position and fell in love with a fellow writer named Luke who was also suffering from the death of his child. After the residency Casey learns he is still married and ends their relationship.Casey is friends with Muriel, another struggling writer who participates in a workshop run by Oscar, a middle-aged widow. Muriel invites Casey to Oscar's book launch where she meets a fellow writer named Silas whom she immediately connects with as he is also struggling after his sister abruptly died. However before they can go on a date Silas departs for a long impromptu road trip.While working as a waitress Casey serves Oscar and his two young sons. Casey is charmed by his children and when Oscar asks her on a date she accepts. Shortly after Silas returns. Casey is charmed by Oscar's solidity but feels a strong physical connection to Silas. She decides that she is sick of Silas' flightiness and begins to seriously date Oscar.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Both_Die_at_the_End" title="They Both Die at the End">
Shortly after midnight on September 5, Mateo receives a phone call from Death-Cast, a company that rose to prominence seven years prior and is able to predict the deaths of individuals, informing him that he is now a Decker, someone with only twenty-four hours (or less) left to live. Mateo initially intends to spend his End Day in his bedroom but decides to try to push himself to truly live, reluctantly downloading Last Friend, an app developed to help lonely Deckers find someone to spend their End Day with. Rufus is in the middle of beating up Peck, his ex-girlfriend Aimee's new boyfriend, when he received a call from Death-Cast claiming he is going to die in the next 24 hours. His friends Malcolm and Tagoe remind Rufus not to get carried away because of the news. He allows Peck to leave so that he can return to his foster home to say his goodbyes. Rufus, Aimee, Malcolm and Tagoe, collectively known as The Plutos, hold a funeral for Rufus at his foster home but it is interrupted by Peck, who calls the police to have Rufus arrested for assault. Rufus flees and goes on the run, downloading Last Friend so that he won't live out his final day alone.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Song_of_the_Blood-Red_Flower" title="The Song of the Blood-Red Flower">
Olof Koskela is a tramp and a logger who has the power to charm one woman after another. He is the son of a farmer who, after arguing with his father, leaves his home and settles down with a group of log drivers. As he travels along the stream of logs on the River Kohiseva, Olof always captivates the most beautiful girl in every village. Olof does not call his charming girls real names, but invents descriptive nicknames such as Clematis, Gazelle, Daisy and Rowan. However, he always forgets his love when moving to a new place. Olof exudes emotion at every moment: “Only while we are young, only while the flood of youth runs free and bright in our veins can we be happy. And they are the greatest who dare to demand their share of life in full, to plunge unafraid into the waters, letting the waves break on their temples and life's salt flood wash their cheeks.”Faced with the proud and difficult-to-reach Kyllikki of the Moisio House, Olof can't leave her. He asks Moisio's host for permission to marry Kyllikki, but the request is denied. Olof continues his journey and seduces a few more women, but he repeatedly misses Kyllikki. The longing gets too painful and Olof returns to Kyllikki. This time they get married. Olof does not want to start cultivating the inheritance of his family, but decides to start over as a land filler. They build their own house and clear fields. In due course, Kyllikki will also become pregnant. However, Olof does not think he has a more light-hearted life and is in great pain as he knows that Kyllikki is still suffering from his old adventures. Olof begins to examine himself until, at the end of the book, he reconciles with his past. Once a young tramp, he has grown into a responsible and aware member of society.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Echo_of_Things_to_Come" title="An Echo of Things to Come">
Wirr has succeeded his late father as Northwarden. He survives an assassination attempt, but struggles to gain acceptance from the Administrators under his command. He meets Breshada, a former Gifted hunter who has become Gifted herself. Asha is serving as Tol Athian’s Representative at court. She secretly sneaks to the Sanctuary, hoping to find evidence of missing Shadows. Davian trains at Tol Shen. He and three other Augurs escape an attack on the Tol and travel north to the Boundary.Caeden slowly begins regaining his memories as he visits locations from his past. He also works for the Lyth, who gave him Licanius in exchange for their freedom. He is followed by Nethgalla, a shapeshifting spirit inhabiting the body of his dead wife. Caeden was once part of a group of immortals known as the Venerate, who believed they were serving El (God). The Venerate sought to destroy fate and grant humans free will. Caeden hoped to use free will and time travel to save the life of his dead wife. Caeden eventually came to believe they were mistaken and that the "god" they were serving was actually an evil spirit. He turned against the other Venerate, trapping several of them in prisons known as Tributaries, which stole their Essence to power the Boundary. Two Venerate have recently escaped their Tributaries, leading to the Boundary’s weakening.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Heart_Hemmed_In" title="My Heart Hemmed In">
Nadia and Ange Lacordeyre are married and happily teaching in Bordeaux, France when they are suddenly ostracized from their school and local communities. Nadia worked hard to be accepted into her affluent community; thus, she is confused as to why her acceptance switched to exclusion. Her inner turmoil is further compounded by how the city she loves seems to shift and become unrecognizable when she walks in it alone.Early in the story, Nadia's second husband, Ange, receives a mysterious injury on his torso after which their hated neighbor, Noget, appears in their home and insists on helping them. Noget cooks for them and cares for Ange, who does not recover until Nadia leaves their apartment to escape the community's hatred. Nadia blames her increasing weight on the decadent food Noget makes, and she claims to be enduring menopause; other characters know she is too young for menopause and believe she is pregnant. The "thing" developing inside Nadia grows as she confronts aspects of herself, aspects being called to her attention through the exclusion by her peers and by the derision of Noget.While coming to terms with the new repugnance she inspires in people, Nadia has interactions with her unnamed ex-husband who she left because he was a remnant of her more impoverished life in the Les Aubiers projects, a life about which she wanted to forget. Nadia's divorce settlement benefited her but destroyed her ex-husband. The emotional and financial turmoil from the divorce caused him to spiral into a depression. At the end of the story, Nadia hears that her ex-husband has been killed by Lanton. Lanton is her son's ex-lover, and he helps Nadia update her ID so that she can travel to San Augusto. Lanton insists she deliver a letter to her son, and he claims if she does not deliver the letter, he will know and will kill her second husband, Ange. Nadia delivers the letter, but her son does not follow the instructions written within it; instead of Lanton killing Ange, Nadia's ex-husband dies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Long_Day's_Dying" title="A Long Day's Dying">
"A Long Day’s Dying" revolves around the lives of seven characters—at their center, Tristram Bone: a wealthy, middle-aged, and enormously corpulent bachelor in possession of a pet monkey and attended by his elderly German housekeeper, Emma. At the outset of the novel Bone makes a visit to the Cloisters, where he is joined by his friends, Elizabeth Poor and George Motley. Bone almost summons up the courage to confess to Elizabeth his feelings for her, but he fails. A middle-aged widow, Elizabeth's carefree nature renders her prone to moments of extreme apathy and ennui, tendencies that leave Bone unsure of her perception of him. Bone's embarrassing incident in one of the chapels is secretly observed by Motley, whose propensity to gossip leads him to undermine Bone by mockingly relaying the incident to Elizabeth. She appears unmoved, and Motley is made nervous by her refusal to enter into his chatter.In an attempt to deepen his friendship with Elizabeth, Motley proposes that she travel with him the following day to an unnamed university—likely Buechner's alma mater, Princeton—where he is due to deliver a lecture. Seeing an opportunity to visit her son, Leander, who is a student there, Elizabeth accompanies him on the journey. When they arrive, Leander introduces his mother and Motley to a friend of his, Paul Steitler, a lecturer in English literature at the university. When Elizabeth spends the night with Steitler, Motley sees an opportunity to strengthen his relationship with Bone, following his faux pas at the Cloisters, and so he rushes to relay the details of the love affair back to him. This news brings with it the revelation, for Bone, that his love for Elizabeth is unrequited. When he gently confronts Elizabeth on her return, however, she denies the story, and wildly claims that Steitler is engaging in an illicit relationship with her son. Bone writes to Steitler with a request to meet him at the Cloisters, and, following a conversation with the young lecturer, he realises that the story told by Elizabeth was a lie.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bios_(novel)" title="Bios (novel)">
The novel is set in the 22nd century. After a pandemic-induced social collapse, Earth is controlled by the Trusts, corporate entities dominated by the oligarchic Families. The Trusts function as both business conglomerates and charitable NGOs; having restored order, their power has largely supplanted that of governments, and their managerial cadres (serving the owner-class Families) exercise quasi-feudal authority over their subordinates. In the wider solar system, asteroid settlers that did not experience the pandemics preserve a more liberal mode of existence; they maintain cautious links with the Trusts, cooperating on matters of mutual interest.Interstellar travel via quantum teleportation is possible, but difficult and hugely expensive; each launch is enormously energy-intensive, consuming a medium-sized ice asteroid. The Trusts and the asteroid dwellers collaborate to send a large scientific expedition to the planet Isis, the only world found so far to possess a complex biota. A significantly older world than Earth, Isis features a rich ecology which is - like Earth's - DNA-based. However, Isian life violently outcompetes terrestrial biology; any exposure to Isian microorganisms causes death within hours. The human research stations on Isis and the expedition's HQ in orbit must be kept sealed and sterile, with elaborate anti-contamination countermeasure. The world is nonetheless deemed worthy of intensive investigation, as understanding an entire evolutionary process parallel to Earth's could provide important biological insights.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Dean_Keeps_Breaking_Up_with_Me" title="Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me">
"Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me" is set in Berkeley, California. It follows Frederica Riley, or Freddy—a 17-year-old lesbian of a mixed East Asian and white background—as she struggles in her relationship with her girlfriend, Laura Dean. Portrayed as a popular and aloof "cool girl", Laura continually breaks up with Freddy, only to start their romantic relationship up again whenever the former desires. While focusing on a way to prevent a further break up, Freddy inadvertently distances herself from her social circle, which includes Buddy, Eric, and her best friend Doodle, by repeatedly neglecting her friendships with them. Distressed about her relationship struggles, Freddy seeks out answers as to why Dean keeps breaking up with her. Freddy receives relationship advice from the Seek-Her, a local medium recommended to her by Doodle; from Vi, a potential crush of hers; and from Anna Vice, a relationship advice columnist.After continuously and inadvertently distancing herself from her friends, Buddy strongly suggests to Freddy that she should "talk" to Doodle. Following this, Doodle admits to Freddy that she became pregnant after having sex with a married man, and that she intends to have an abortion. Freddy plans to go with Doodle to her abortion clinic appointment, and tells Laura that she won't be able to see her on her birthday. Freddy later receives a text from Laura concerning an emergency. As a result, Freddy visits Laura and is told that there is no emergency. Rather, Laura explains that for her birthday, she wanted to see Freddy, despite her earlier assurance that Freddy's absence would be alright. Freddy is taken aback, and as people begin showing up at Laura's home, Freddy leaves to go to Doodle's appointment. Following the appointment, Freddy consoles Doodle at the latter's home. Freddy then finally receives an email response from Anna Vice, who advises Freddy to ask herself what her love for Laura offers in regard to being a better person. Ultimately, Freddy visits Laura in the aftermath of her birthday party, where she breaks up with Laura. Surprised and angered by this, Laura lashes out and curses at Freddy while in tears. The novel ends with visuals of Freddy and Doodle dancing at their prom paired with a final email from Freddy to Anna Vice, where she expresses her choosing to be "things that are something other than the ex-girlfriend of Laura Dean."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_in_Marseille" title="Romance in Marseille">
The story opens on Lafala in a hospital in New York after his legs have been amputated. Readers learn that he is a sailor from English West Africa, and that he had been forced to stow away on a liner after a prostitute named Aslima robs him. After he is caught by the shipping line and imprisoned in a freezing "bunker" (a WC), his legs become frostbitten and must later be amputated. After a lawyer hears about Lafala's case and encourages him to sue the shipping line for mistreatment, Lafala wins a massive legal payout and is catapulted into wealth. He acquires prosthetic legs and returns to Marseille.Upon his return, Lafala again pursues a relationship with Aslima despite her betrayal. He is now one of the wealthy patrons of the port city, but his affair also leads to tension between Aslima and her pimp, as well as further troubles with the authorities. Seeking retribution, the shipping line conspires with the French police to jail Lafala for "stowing away for profit." While Lafala is later freed, he becomes cynical and determines to return to his native home in West Africa. Though he initially invites Aslima to return to West Africa with him, Lafala ultimately leaves her. At the end of the novel, Aslima is killed in a fight with her jealous pimp: "He shot the remaining bullets into her body, cursing and calling upon hell to swallow her soul."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Four" title="Six Four">
The novel opens with Mikami and his wife Minako meeting with a regional captain to examine a body of a young female that could be his daughter, Ayumi, who had run away from home. The body is not his daughter's.The next day, Mikami dwells on his current job in Media Relations at the police headquarters and plans to eventually return to his former post in Criminal Investigations. At the office, he finds that members of the press have congregated to ask that Mikami release the name of the female driver involved in a fatal car accident because they are making a stand on anonymity. Mikami then goes to Akama's office, where he is informed of a special visit from the commissioner general to the family of the Six Four case, a fourteen-year-old kidnapping case of a young girl that is regarded as the police department’s biggest failure. Mikami visits the father of the victim, Amamiya, but he refuses to allow the visit.Back in his office, Mikami learns that the press club is submitting a written protest to the captain for the release of the woman’s name. To distract them from the issue, Mikami meets with a member of the press club and tells him about bid-rigging charges against Hakkaku Construction. His plan fails, and the press club goes to deliver the protest to the captain. Mikami physically blocks their way, and they subsequently declare their intention to boycott the commissioner’s visit. Mikami visits Criminal Investigations and unexpectedly finds out about a gag order, which makes him suspicious.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Wasteland" title="On the Wasteland">
When Betony first arrives at Brackenbury Children's Home, the other children sense her independent ways and see the rings in her ears, and assign her the name of 'Gypsy.' Not used to being around kids her own age, and feeling very vulnerable after so much loss, she establishes a loner self among her classmates. On her own she explores the 'Wasteland', nearby salt marshes fed by the North Sea. In her internal world she is open and listening, and one day while she's digging around she digs much deeper than usual as if possessed, and discovers an immovable object made of wood. Her shovel breaks off a part of that object, which she carries with her from that point on.Carrying the wooden splint with her, she first begins to see the Viking ship itself, back when the North Sea came farther inland as a wide river and the pool was an actual port. She slips into the experience of being lashed to the deck for safety as a child when her Danish Viking raider family came over to East Anglia. The ship and its inhabitants become her internal fascination, and she wills herself to go deeper into the feeling of those lives. She finds books on the area's history and sees ships just like that of her vision, during the period when the Vikings raiders became traders and neighbours to the Saxon residents.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marseille_Caper" title="The Marseille Caper">
Set in Marseille, and part of the Sam Levitt Capers series, "The Marseille Caper" follows Sam Lewitt a corporate lawyer turned "fixer" and his interactions with locals amidst a mysterious property deal.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic_(Cook_novel)" title="Pandemic (Cook novel)">
A seemingly healthy woman with a transplanted heart suffers from acute respiratory distress and dies on the New York subway. Jack Stapleton, a medical examiner and a character frequently appearing in Cook's novels, does the autopsy and suspects that the death could be due to a flu-like virus. While investigating the mysterious heart transplant of the dead woman, he finds out a larger conspiracy. He meets Wei Zao, a Chinese billionaire businessman who holds a double Ph.D. in molecular biology and genetics. Further cases of flu-like virus get reported in many other parts of the world and Jack determines to stop the pandemic from spreading.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Hotel" title="The Glass Hotel">
Paul is a lonely student at the University of Toronto. At a nightclub, he gives some tablets to some people he is hoping to befriend and one of them dies shortly after. Paul flees to the apartment of his half-sister Vincent.Five years later, Paul and Vincent work at a hotel on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island in the fictional Caiette, which is based on the real hamlet Quatsino. Some graffiti is discovered written on a window in the lobby with an acid marker, saying, "Why don't you swallow broken glass". Paul is immediately suspected and soon fired. The graffiti would appear to be intended for Jonathan Alkaitis, a wealthy investor who owns the hotel. Vincent, who is working the bar, soon enters into a relationship with Alkaitis and moves into his house in Connecticut. Her life becomes one of extreme wealth and accommodating her partner.Alkaitis is arrested and it is revealed that his investment success is a Ponzi scheme. His complicit staff react in different ways to their impending demise. One flees the country, another writes an elaborate confession. Alkaitis is sentenced to 170 years in prison, where he dreams of a "counter-life" in which he escaped to a hotel in Dubai. He is often haunted by the people he defrauded.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_(novel)" title="Brendan (novel)">
"Brendan" is a reimagining of the life of Brendan the Navigator, a fifth century Irish saint, ‘born in 484 in what is now Tralee, Ireland’, whose entrance into the world, as recalled by Bishop Erc, was attended by a miracle: the spontaneous combustion of a patch of nearby woodland. Erc's decision to set aside the life of the new-born child in service of the “new faith” sees Brendan separated from his parents, Finnloag and Cara, and raised ‘to the glory of the new and true grand God’, at the school of Abbot Jarlath. Equipped with Latin and accompanied by his childhood friend, Finn, the adolescent Brendan is sent out on a mission to bring a blessing to the castle at Cashel, where a new king is to be crowned. Their journey is interrupted, however, when they are intercepted by a druidic tribe, who, unimpressed by Brendan's protective bishop's ring, insist upon bringing them to the court of their own king, Bauheen. Bauheen's health problems, particularly his inability to walk, appear to be miraculously healed by the young monk, whose Christ-like command, ‘”walk!”’, is obeyed by the king, to the astonishment of all onlookers. The conversion of both the king and his subjects seems the natural response to this extraordinary happening, and this small kingdom is brought out from the “old faith” and into the “new”.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Leaving_Mr._Mackenzie" title="After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie">
Part OneFrom her cheap hotel on the Quai des Grands-Augustins, Julia Martin inhabits "Rive Gauche" Paris, lunching alone in a German restaurant in the rue de la Huchette, drinking Pernod, wine and anything else. Locked in her room, she reads most of the time.Though attractive at thirty-six, she feels past her prime, fatigued and fatalistic. After a failed early marriage roaming Europe and the death of a baby, she had drifted to Paris during the "Années folles". She has survived for six months on 300 francs a week from ex-lover Mr Mackenzie, posted each Tuesday by high-handed solicitor Henri Legros. One Tuesday Maître Legros writes informing Julia he is instructed to terminate the allowance, enclosing final payment of 1,500 francs. That evening she follows Mr Mackenzie down the Boulevard du Montparnasse to Restaurant Albert. She sits at his table, pours herself wine from his carafe and confronts him. She ends saying she doesn't want his severance cheque, slaps him lightly around the face with her glove and walks out.From a nearby table Englishman George Horsfield has watched the incident. When Julia exits, Mr Horsfield follows and befriends her, buys her a drink in another café and takes her to a cinema. Afterwards, seeing her cry, the awkward Mr Horsfield invites her to his hotel to talk. He pours whiskey and she describes fragments of her life since leaving London the February after the 1918 armistice a decade or so earlier. When Mr Horsfield asks if she is stuck for money, she takes from her purse two ten franc notes and some coins, saying that is all she has. She recounts to him her rejection of Mr Mackenzie's severance cheque (which Mr Horsfield had witnessed in Restaurant Albert). Mr Horsfield gives her another 1,500 francs, suggests she visit London and jots down his address there.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranquility_(novel)" title="Tranquility (novel)">
In final years of the communist Hungarian People's Republic, writer Andor Weér–the novel's narrator–lives in dysfunction with his mother, Rebeka Weér. Rebeka is a former celebrated actress who has not left their Budapest apartment in fifteen years. Andor's father was a theatre critic and a former member of the ÁVH secret police who defected to the West after the 1956 revolution. Andor's twin sister, Judit, a talented violinist, fled Hungary fifteen years earlier. This betrayal and Rebeka's inability to lure Judit back to Hungary caused the authorities to deny Rebeka leading stage roles. Rebeka performs a symbolic burial of Judit and refused to go outside of their apartment. Judit committed suicide, but Andor keeps her death a secret and sends letters to Rebeka in her name. Rebeka is a crazed woman who has a strong emotional hold over Andor that verges on Oedipal. He wishes to escape his mother's maniacal control, but worries about leaving her alone. Andor quickly falls in love with Eszter Fehé, a troubled young Romanian woman with a mysterious past. The two met on the Liberty Bridge. Eszter helps Andor type his works and get a publishing deal for his book. The editor of the publisher is an older woman who Andor eventually begins a crude sexual and Oedipal relationship with. He later learns the woman was his father's mistress when his father was an agent of the secret police. Andor's love for Eszter is further complicated by her past. The novel begins with Rebeka's funeral, and progresses through the past with a nonlinear narrative structure.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matigari_ma_Njiruungi" title="Matigari ma Njiruungi">
The story begins with Matigari burying his weapons under a fig tree. After killing his oppressor, Howard Williams, he vows to resolve conflicts peacefully from now on. Before returning home, however, he wants to find his people.He seems to have been away for a longer time, as he marvels at the changes he sees: people are now driving their own cars, and the city has grown considerably. He decides to start looking for his people at a factory. However, he is appalled when he discovers that some children pay an entrance fee to rummage through the garbage at a dump. One boy fights another for a shoelace, so he intervenes and chases the bully away. The other boy, Muriuki, then leads him to a scrap yard, explaining that the children here use old cars for shelter. When Matigari tries to get to them, they throw stones at him until he becomes unconscious.A factory worker named Ngaruro comes to Matigari's aid, bringing him to a cooler place where he can recover from his injuries. On the way, Matigari tells Ngaruro the story how he killed Mr. Williams for oppressing and exploiting the people: He wanted to kill Mr. Williams when he was on the telephone, when his servant, Mr. Boy, came in and jumped on his back. Seeing that he would not stand a chance against two people, Matigari escaped with Mr. Williams chasing him. Eventually, however, Matigari was able to kill Williams in the mountains. Hearing the name Williams, Ngaruro mentions that the factory owner goes by the same name and that the name of his deputy is Boy. Matigari thinks this is a coincidence.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_(book)" title="Bird (book)">
The book narrates the story of a young black boy named Mehkai. His nickname is Bird, given to him by his Grandad. However, when his granddad passes away, Mehkai grows close to his grandad's best friend named Uncle Son. Together they go to the park, feed pigeons, tell stories, and drink coffee.Bird loves to draw to remember and better understand things in his life. His favorite thing to draw is, of course, birds. Flashing back in time, Bird describes his brother Marcus who was a graffiti artist that taught him to draw. However, Marcus introduces difficulties to the plot by becoming distant and showing signs of drug abuse. Bird doesn't quite understand what is happening to his brother and wants to spend more time with him, but Marcus is adamant in telling Bird to continue to go to school. One day, Bird finds Marcus in bed showing withdrawal symptoms. He is confused and worried for his brother. Marcus lessens his appearance at the house and one day robs the house of its expensive belongings. His father explains to Bird that Marcus is suffering from a sickness and that he is no longer allowed home. Bird finds it difficult to obey his parents and speaks to Marcus at the front door when their parents aren't home. Turning to Granddad for advice, Bird learns that "'some broken things can't be fixed". When Marcus passes away and Granddad shortly after, Uncle Son and Bird begin to go to the park every week. During these outings, Bird learns to find peace with the loss of his brother and his Grandfather, and he continues to draw in hopes to learn from his experiences and never forget.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Be_Taught,_if_Fortunate" title="To Be Taught, if Fortunate">
"To Be Taught, if Fortunate" follows four astronauts as they travel beyond the Solar System on a research mission to document extraterrestrial life on four planets. The explorers are put into suspended animation for extended periods of time while they travel between the planets. The book chronicles their adventures and explores how they decide what is important to them. As they leave the second planet, they realize that they have received no communication from Earth for months; as they arrive at the fourth, they receive a message indicating that a natural disaster has crippled Earth's technological capability, rendering them potentially the last astronauts. They decide to send a message back to Earth to ask whether they should return as planned, or head outward to explore more planets; if they never receive an answer, they will remain in suspended animation indefinitely.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bride_and_Groom_(book)" title="Bride and Groom (book)">
The novel begins by introducing the main characters, Marat and Patya, through a series of events within Dagestan, Russia. Marat is a human rights lawyer who is working on solving a murder case, and Patya is a 25-year-old woman who is worried that she will not be able to find a husband soon. Marat and Patya have similar families—both of which want them to find a spouse and get married as quickly as possible. Both families also observe the Islamic faith and share similar political beliefs, disliking what a central shady political character, Khalilbek, is doing within the government. Rumors and whispers of Khalilbek's wrongdoings pepper the community. Some, however, love Khalilbek, and claim he has done much for the community, disregarding the fact that he was in jail for the murder of a young man, who was ran over by him in the middle of the night, for some reason. The people who love Khalilbek create a very dystopic idea of the society they live in, blindly and wholeheartedly embrace him without any doubt of character, making his status near godhood.Marat and Patya meet at a concert which was supposed to celebrate his release- and both detest the concert. The two make an instant connection when they meet, and become romantic interests of one another. Marat attends a wedding at which an old lady cursed the attendants. While Marat's mother is continuously trying to set him up with a potential wife, Patya tries to sever ties with an unwanted suitor, namely the aggressive Timur. Marat's mother shows continual desire for Marat to get married, going to great lengths to encourage him. After attending a fortune teller session at the request of his mother, Marat stumbles across a scene in which an agnostic friend of his has been killed. He discusses this, among other things, with Patya at a diner. Word quickly spreads about the couple eating at the diner, and Marat's mother does not approve of the choice in partner Marat has made. Suddenly, Marat hears of a raid on his law firm, so he plans to travel to Moscow at his next opportunity to try to salvage any important work left untouched. After Patya refuses to marry Timur, who her mother suggests, she meets up with Marat before he leaves for Moscow. Marat asks her to be his wife to which she agrees. Patya's news was not received well with her family when she told them about the proposal. After leaving Patya, Marat met a stranger on the street who informed him of some of the reasonings behind Khalilbek's seemingly corrupt deeds among other things. Their conversation gives Marat new perspectives on the events of his life, and he felt his happiness become more pronounced. On the day of the wedding, Marat does not show up. Patya and her family are told that Marat has been taken by the police under the false accusation that he is a religious extremist. Patya leaves her house when nobody is watching and gets on a train headed for the shore. In the final scene, Marat is depicted to be beaten up in an interrogation room, slipping in and out of his real surroundings and a beachside conversation with Khalilbek.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeeze_Me_(novel)" title="Squeeze Me (novel)">
## Part One: Get A Grip.On January 23, Katherine ”Kiki" Sparling Pew Fitzsimmons (72) wanders onto the grounds of the exclusive Lipid Estate in Palm Beach after dinner during the annual "White Ibis Ball" to benefit victims of IBS. When she fails to return, a search of the grounds finds only her purse, an empty martini glass, and a rose-colored tablet of Ecstasy, bitten in half, littered next to the koi pond. Fitzsimmons's best friend, Fay Alex Riptoad, demands that Palm Beach Chief of Police Jerry Crosby devote his department's entire resources to finding her. Crosby has little choice but to comply, knowing that Fitzsimmons, Riptoad, and five other widowed Palm Beach socialites co-founded the "POTUS Pussies" (shortened to "Potussies" for media purposes); besides their considerable combined wealth, the women are all fiercely loyal supporters of the President of the United States, and frequent guests at his nearby "Winter White House", Casa Bellicosa.The following night, Lipid Estate's manager, Tripp Teabull, anxiously summons wildlife control expert Angela "Angie" Armstrong to deal with an 18-foot Burmese python that appeared on the grounds during the annual "Stars And SARS Ball." Since the snake (identified by her size as a female) cannot be removed from the tree she is occupying without drawing attention unless she is dead, Teabull reluctantly permits Angie to decapitate her with a machete. After Angie has removed the snake's corpse, Teabull belatedly makes the connection between Fitzsimmons's disappearance and the bulge in the python's stomach. Terrified of the negative publicity if the truth comes out, Teabull hires two amateur burglars to break into Angie's apartment, and then her rented storage freezer, stealing the snake's corpse before Angie can turn it over to the state wildlife authorities for dissection.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iliac_Crest" title="The Iliac Crest">
The novel opens to an unnamed man reflecting on why he let a woman into his house on a dark and stormy night. The woman introduces herself as Amparo Dávila, and the narrator takes particular interest in her prominent hip bone, though he cannot remember this bone's name. Amparo approaches the narrator and claims that he used to be a tree, which greatly confuses him. Later that night, the narrator reveals that he was actually waiting for a different woman, who he refers to as the Betrayed; they were planning to end their relationship for good that night. The Betrayed shows up late and faints immediately upon arrival. Amparo begins to care for her and unpacks the Betrayed's possessions, saying that she will need to stay there for her recovery.After a few days at the narrator's house, the narrator notices that Amparo is writing something, which she says is about her own disappearance. He begins to observe the two women and comes to the conclusion that they have created their own language structured around the word "glu." Amparo eventually asks him about his work at Serenity Shores Sanatorium, increasing his suspicions. One night, he decides to drug her in order to try to get answers out of her. She reveals that she is looking for information on a man who could have stolen a manuscript for her. The narrator recalls that the man tried to organize the terminally ill patients to demand death rather than life at the hospital, and he eventually committed suicide. Amparo says that she has not truly written since the day the man stole her manuscript. The narrator later goes to work and makes a deal with two women that he will give them a ride on a later night in exchange for permission to search through the records. He finds the man's files, which name him Juan Escutia. The narrator also stumbles upon Amparo's lost manuscript in the archives but does not reveal this to Amparo.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Son_of_Laughter_(novel)" title="The Son of Laughter (novel)">
Buechner relays the well-known Genesis narrative from the perspective of his protagonist, Jacob, whose reminiscences on his life are rendered somewhat cloudy by his considerable age.Beginning in Mesopotamia, the narrator recounts his sojourn in the house of his uncle, Laban – a wealthy livestock owner, and worshipper of local deities. Jacob’s attempt to marry Laban’s beautiful youngest daughter, Rachel, is thwarted by his uncle, who tricks him into a union with his older daughter, Leah. Following several further years in the house of Laban, Jacob makes off with his wives, much of his uncle’s livestock, and, unbeknown to him hidden in Rachel’s tent, his household Gods.Following an emotional confrontation with Laban, the young man is faced with the uncertainty of meeting his estranged elder brother, Esau, whose birth right the younger brother had previously stolen. Reflecting on the meeting that will take place the following day, as Jacob takes a night walk along the banks of the ford of Jabbok he is met by a mysterious figure, with whom he wrestles until early morning. Demanding that the figure bless him before taking his leave, Jacob realises that the man is not a man, but an angelic being. Against all prediction, Esau welcomes his brother with open arms, and allows him safe passage through his lands; Jacob’s rejection of the Mesopotamian gods in favour of his father Isaac’s god, ‘The Fear’, appears to have served him well.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_the_Dark_Valley" title="Return to the Dark Valley">
The novel is split into two parts and an epilogue. Part I ("Theory of Suffering Bodies" or "Figures Emerging from the Wreckage") serves the purpose of both introducing characters slowly as well as introducing the world in which the main plot takes place. When the Consul is speaking, the main plot is slowly revealed, but his narrative is broken up by Manuela's story told in a journal to her psychiatrist, Tertullian's expositions on his life, and the Consul's own biography on Arthur Rimbaud. In Part I, the reader is exposed to Manuela's dark history of sexual abuse and constant use of drugs and alcohol to numb her pain. As she progresses, she finds poetry as another escape from her past. Also found in Part I is Tertullian's eccentric narrative on his history which serves the purpose of persuading the Consul that he is in fact the son of the Pope and introducing the reader to his convoluted past. His narration also reveals his affinity for and mastery of torturing others and his history of schizophrenia. The Rimbaud biography gives an account of the well-known poet's ill-illumined life, from his early years to his death. His story serves as a constant, poetic theme that connects the stories of each of the other characters and adds another level of depth and richness to the story. As the Consul narrates the present, he begins in Rome, but he quickly receives a mysterious text from his old friend, Juana, that tells him to travel to Madrid and rent a hotel room while awaiting her arrival. So, he does so, and his story continues on in Spain. When he lands in Madrid, he discovers that the Boko Haram terrorist group has attacked the Irish embassy in Spain and is holding a large number of hostages. He becomes restless while awaiting Juana and keeping track of the hostage situation, so he finally goes out and explores the city, reminiscing on his past times of living and studying in the city. As he sits at a bar/restaurant, he observes a domestic dispute between what he perceives as two lovers engaging in an extra-marital affair, so he decides to step in to protect the woman. He is beaten severely by the man accompanying her, but after he manages to knock him out with an ashtray, the woman attacks him and renders him unconscious. He wakes upon in a hospital-prison hybrid, and after a short while, is joined in his room by Ferdinand Palacio, a former priest turned armed militant. Part I ends with the Consul narrating Palacio's life as he told it to him. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quality_of_Mercy_(Unsworth_novel)" title="The Quality of Mercy (Unsworth novel)">
The sequel "The Quality of Mercy" is set in 1767, Kemp has brought the remainder of the crew who are in Newgate Prison and await the trial. But an Irish fiddler has managed to escape and heads to Durham to tell Billy Blair's mining family of his death in Florida. The insurance case is rejected but the piracy and mutiny trial finds the crew as guilty and they are hanged. Meanwhile, Kemp plans to invest in a mine and heads to Durham to the same village that Sullivan is travelling to. But Kemp falls in love with Jane Ashton as his compassion and sympathy grows.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Their_Majesties'_Bucketeers" title="Their Majesties' Bucketeers">
"Their Majesties' Bucketeers" is a novel in which Offe Woom investigates the death of a professor on a world inhabited by trisexual tripedal aliens.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jews_of_Silence" title="The Jews of Silence">
For two weeks in September 1965 during the Jewish High Holidays, Wiesel visited five cities in the Soviet Union to learn about the condition of Soviet Jewry in the post-Stalin era. Wiesel "concludes that despite the remorseless propaganda and harsh exactions of the government, soviet Jews still feel they share in the purpose and destiny of the Jewish people." At the end of the work, Wiesel elucidates the meaning of the book's title with his admonition of world Jewry's lack of advocacy on behalf of their Soviet coreligionists: "What torments me most is not the Jews of silence I met in Russia, but the silence of the Jews I live among today."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spill_(book)" title="Spill (book)">
A lethal biological weapon has leaked from a crashed tanker truck in Yellowstone National Park. PetroDyne Chemical, the company manufacturing the substance banned by international treaty, sends the tanker from its headquarters in Denver to a storage facility in Idaho. The genetically engineered form of hemorrhagic fever has spilled into a waterway and has infected wildlife and humans in a popular camping area in the small town of West Yellowstone, Montana. The driver responsible for the spill has been paid by a rogue employee of the company to divert the shipment to the hills of Yellowstone.Agents for PetroDyne work with local government officials who are aware of the transport of hazardous chemicals by the company to cover up the incident. The coverup involves finding any survivors of the spill, quarantining them, observing them, and even worse, allowing them to die and incinerating the bodies. The head of PetroDyne Corporation, a man named Schreiber who works at the company headquarters in Denver, directs a loyal employee named Alec Reisman and a half-mad hitman named Skanz to clean up the mess that was created.Jack Fairchild is the Park Ranger who finds the truck driver who caused the spill, and other survivors, and must overcome all obstacles to free them from the grasp of PetroDyne’s security team.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Valley_Road" title="Hidden Valley Road">
Hidden Valley Road is a true story about an American family with twelve children, 6 of whom are diagnosed with schizophrenia. The oldest child, Don Galvin, was born in 1945, and the youngest, Mary (who later changed her name to Lindsay) was born in 1965. By the mid 1970s, six of the ten boys were diagnosed with schizophrenia. The Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health, with their DNA samples and experiences forming the cornerstone of research for the disease in the mid-1900s. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Providence_(Barry_novel)" title="Providence (Barry novel)">
Humans have been exploring other star systems for some time, prior to encountering another race of intelligent space travelers. The aliens are hostile, and war broke out seven years prior to the departure of the warship "Providence", and its crew of four, composed of Gilly, Talia, Anders, and Jackson. The crew were partially chosen for the attractive image they will project in the social media messages they transmit back to the home front, while a computer actually runs the ship. Two years into the mission, after the ship has already destroyed one alien colony, mental instability begins to affect the crew.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Emperox" title="The Last Emperox">
With news spreading of the predicted total collapse of the Flow streams connecting the star systems of the Interdependency and the unavoidable resulting fall of the empire, the Interdependency system of End has become crucial as the only one with a planet able to sustain life outside of a closed habitat. The disgraced House of Nohamapetan has taken control of End and blockaded its only remaining incoming Flow stream to maximize power and profits for their House and to prevent an unsustainable surge of billions of refugees to the planet.Back in the Hub planet system, Emperox Grayland II consults with her Memory Room – the recorded thoughts and emotional states of every single previous emperox – in search of an unlikely solution to save the entire population of the Interdependency. She plans to break the Nohamapetan blockade of End via a predicted new "evanescent" Flow stream into the End system. Meanwhile Marce Claremont, a scientific advisor and eventual secret fiancé to Grayland, discovers a possible new method for controlling the evanescent Flow streams which may allow for the transport of whole habitats to the End system, thus preventing an overburden on the planet itself.Meanwhile, Kiva Lagos – the imperially-appointed administrator of the House of Nohamapetan – discovers and warns Grayland that Nadashe Nohamapetan and Grayland's own House of Wu are plotting to depose Grayland and implement a plan to preserve the Noble Houses at the expense of the general populace. Grayland and Kiva devise a counterplot to infiltrate the conspirators, but Nadashe, who has enlisted many sympathetic Noble Houses to aid her plot and endorse her as the next Emperox, kidnaps Kiva and holds her hostage. Grayland discovers that her Memory Room is, in fact, the singular still-living consciousness of the first Emperox – Rachela I. Grayland enlists her aid in defeating the coup and saving the people of the Interdependency but eventually succumbs to an assassination attempt orchestrated by Nadashe.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomon_(novel)" title="Gnomon (novel)">
In a near future United Kingdom, now governed by a continuous direct democracy called the System, all of Britain is under constant surveillance by the omniscient AI called "The Witness." The Witness AI is purported to be completely impartial, doing nothing "unless public safety requires it. [...] It cannot be hacked, cracked, disabled or distorted. It sees, it understands, and very occasionally it acts, but otherwise it is resolutely invisible." Mielikki Neith is an Inspector of the Witness Programme—the "prosecutorial ombudsmen to the surveillance state, reviewing and considering any case that passes a given threshold of intervention."Neith is tasked with investigating the death of 61-year-old luddite and "writer of obscurantist magical realist novels" Diana Hunter. Hunter has died mysteriously while in Witness custody following her interrogation, a process where Hunter's memories were forcibly extracted.In investigating Hunter's house, Neith discovers that Hunter's house is completely disconnected from the Witness by a Faraday cage. She is assaulted by a mysterious androgynous figure who claims to be named Regno Lönnrot. Without access to the Witness, Neith cannot positively identify Lönnrot, nor can she tell how Lönnrot gained access to Hunter's house.Neith quickly finds that Hunter's memories are a seemingly impossible maze of other lives/narratives. In one narrative/memory thread, Neith sees the life of Greek investment banker Constantine Kyriakos in the early 21st century where he has a fateful encounter with a great white shark. In another, Neith sees the 5th century alchemist lover of Augustine of Hippo, Athenais Karthagonensis, as she endeavors to uncover the secrets of a chamber that could lead to the fabled Alcahest following the death of her son. In yet another, Neith sees Ethiopian painter Berihun Bekele, who lives in London in the early 21st century and assists his granddaughter Annie with the development of a video game, "Witnessed," that bears striking resemblance to Neith's actual world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_Shadows" title="Out of Shadows">
In 1983, thirteen-year-old Robert Jacklin arrives from England at Haven School, an elite boys' boarding school in Zimbabwe. He is the son of a British intellectual attached to the British Embassy. Robert befriends Nelson Ndube, one of the few black pupils at the school, but eventually turns to the white elite of the school instead in an effort to find safety and acceptances. Many of the white students, particularly Ivan Hascott, are racist bullies who are still angered that the country's white minority lost power to the its black majority after the recent civil war. Robert wrestles with his conscience while becoming drawn into their ideology and practices. Ivan's family has suffered during Robert Mugabe's rise to power, and Ivan pressures Robert into joining his quest for revenge on black Africans. Robert becomes disturbed by Ivan's increasingly violent behavior.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian_(novel)" title="Obsidian (novel)">
As DreadfulWater investigates the murder of a Reality TV producer he begins to suspect he is investigating a murderer who killed his girlfriend, years ago.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_Black_(novel)" title="Bone Black (novel)">
When her twin sister Raven visits her she and her hero Wren Strongeagle visit a bar, for a scheduled event, only to disappear when she goes to the washroom. Her reports of her disappearance are discounted by the police, who tell her that Raven probably met someone and left for a sexual encounter. Frustrated by police inaction, Strongeagle tracking down and kills serial killers who are preying on First Nations women.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albatross_(novel)" title="Albatross (novel)">
Hero Adam Coryell unexpectedly finds himself to be a golf prodigy. Unfortunately he wants to be a writer, and he hates golf. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_Emperor_(novel)" title="For the Emperor (novel)">
Commissar Ciaphas Cain, a famed member of the Imperial Guard, and his aide-de-camp Gunner First Class Jurgen are transferred to the Valhallan 296th-301st, a composite Guard unit in transit aboard a spaceship, formed from the remnants of the Valhallan 296th and 301st Regiments after both sustained grievous losses. He is introduced to Colonel Kasteen and Major Broklaw, the highest-ranking officers from both regiments. Cain discovers that tensions between the members of the two regiments are rising rapidly due to clashing centuries-old traditions. The tension comes to a head when a riot breaks out in a mess hall, with multiple casualties within the both regiments and the ship's crew.With some luck and wit, Cain manages to defuse the situation, placating the angered ship crew and forging new unity between the Guardsmen of the Valhallan 597th, formed from the merger of the 296th and 301st. Members of the 597th responsible for the riot are sentenced to undertake suicide missions in the future.Some time later, the 597th are assigned to the backwater planet of Gravalax as a show of force since the planet's locals have begun to defect to the Tau, a race of expansionist aliens. At a diplomatic event organised by Planetary Governor Grice, a Tau diplomat is assassinated, causing tensions to rise. Nearly immediately after, conflict breaks out across the capital, with civilian rioters and Planetary Defence Force troops fighting against and on the side of both Imperial and Tau forces. Cain and Lord General Zyvan are able to discover the presence of a conspiracy on Gravalax to initiate conflict between the Tau and the Imperium to unknown ends. During an operation to suppress the chaos, Cain and the convicted members of the 597th are recruited by Ordo Xenos Inquisitor Amberly Vail to go on a reconnaissance mission to the underground depths of Gravalax's capital city to uncover the conspiracy, where they join forces with a Tau unit.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_Christmas" title="19th Christmas">
Christmas is coming upon San Francisco. Detective Sgt. Lindsay Boxer, her family, and her friends of the Women's Murder Club have much to celebrate. Crime is down. The courts are slow and the medical examiner's office is quiet. Journalist Cindy Thomas is working on a story about the true meaning of Christmas in San Francisco. Then a series of crimes and threats of horrific crimes to come put the entire police force into nonstop action. At first, all they have is a name, "Loman," behind the threats. It takes until Christmas before enough pieces come together to find enough to hope to pinpoint where Loman can be caught.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Storm_(Buechner_novel)" title="The Storm (Buechner novel)">
A reworking of William Shakespeare's "The Tempest", "The Storm" follows the fortunes of Kenzie Maxwell, a wealthy soon-to-be septuagenarian with a complicated past. Retired to a secluded and wealthy island in the State of Florida with his third wife, Willow, Kenzie dwells on the consequences of his midlife crisis. Though twenty years have passed since his affair with a young graffiti artist, Kia, the ramifications of the relationship are seemingly permanent: an irrevocably altered life trajectory, lasting shame and regret, and an irreconcilable conflict with his only brother.Twenty years previously, Kenzie's increasing sense of purposelessness drove him to seek further meaning beyond his own opulent lifestyle as a successful writer. Having cast about for a productive and charitable outlet, the middle-aged Kenzie had settled at last upon the Alodians mission, a charitable organisation chaired by his older brother, Dalton. Serving the charity in the South Bronx as the editor of their newsletter, Kenzie had earnestly set about to document the sad stories of the homeless and abandoned individuals that frequented the mission, only to meet and fall in love with the seventeen-year-old Kia.Following a brief and clandestine affair, Kia is found dead, having prematurely given birth to Kenzie's child in the impoverished surroundings of a tenement flat with few amenities. Kenzie, who was unaware of the pregnancy, had subsequently written a distraught letter of confession to his brother. While struggling to come to terms with the responsibility of raising his newly-born daughter, Bree, Kenzie is stunned by his brother’s decision to publish his private confession in the mission newsletter, thereby breaking the news of the scandal, and bringing public disgrace upon himself and, more importantly, his daughter and her mother.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Hero" title="The War Hero">
The novel follows a sixty-five year old man on his birthday (Mr. Lidman), who is throwing a party at his cottage in the countryside. Among the guests are his Daughter (Marian) and her three friends (Ethel, Margo and Ben), Lidman's friend (Larry) from the NCA (National Coin Association), Lidman's next door neighbor (Mrs. Betrage), and a mysterious stranger who everyone assumes is a plus-one of one of the guests. When eventually confronted in private by Lidman, the stranger explains he has been hired to murder him, but makes a deal, allowing Lidman to enjoy his birthday party till the end of the night, the novel continues as a battle of wits between the two men.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Silver's_Past" title="Miss Silver's Past">
Karel Leden works at a publisher's in Communist Czechoslovakia. He meets Lenka Silver, a Jewish woman with a mysterious past.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Kings_in_Sharakhai" title="Twelve Kings in Sharakhai">
For four hundred years, the Twelve Kings of Sharakhai have ruled the Great Shangazi desert. They are immortal, ruthless and powerful. No hope exists of freedom under their oppressive rule. Or so it seems, until Çedamihn Ahyanesh'ala, a brave woman who fights in the fighting pits as the White Wolf, defies the King's laws and goes outside on the holy night of Beht Za'hir and discovers a secret that may well be the end of the Kings.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forgetting_Moon" title="The Forgetting Moon">
A young boy, Nail, is orphaned and subsequently raised by a retired warrior named Shawcroft. Unbeknownst to him, he is part of a much larger plot that involves war and power struggles across the Five Isles.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Academic_Question" title="An Academic Question">
Caroline 'Caro' Grimstone is the wife of a sociology professor in a small West Country university town. While her husband is fascinated by dinner parties discussing African anthropology and minor academic points, Caro is growing tired of her dull village and her pale marriage, as well as their unpleasant 4-year-old daughter. A dying missionary, Reverend Stillingfleet, ends up in a nearby nursing home, and Caro's husband Alan realises that Stillingfleet possesses an unpublished manuscript on their shared field of anthropology. Concerned that the manuscript will be lost - or worse bequeathed to a rival - Alan convinces Caro to steal the manuscript, allowing him to write a groundbreaking paper.Caro begins to regret the theft, as well as developing suspicions that Alan is having an affair with his attractive editor. She seeks out the guidance of her friends Kitty, a self-absorbed English woman who has spent much of her adult life in the Caribbean, Kitty's effete, gossipy son Coco, and her sister Dolly, a spinster who cares for a large family of hedgehogs in her back garden. Ultimately, Caro is able to reconcile her marriage with Alan when he comes to regret his affair. The manuscript, which has caused so much chaos, is destroyed in a library fire accidentally started by protesting students.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Few_Green_Leaves" title="A Few Green Leaves">
Anthropologist Emma Howick arrives in a small English village in the late 1970s, wanting to write a piece on how village life has changed (or not changed). Emma spends her days trying to examine the residents, treating them as subjects for her paper, including the vicar and his sister, the feuding local doctors and their wives, a food critic, and the resident spinsters and bohemians. Emma ponders whether she could adjust permanently to village life, and notes the changes that time has wrought on local customs. Among them are the decline of the manor house, which was once the site of regular gatherings for locals, but is now off limits, and the life of the vicar, Tom. Whereas previous generations of vicars were cared for by the community, with dinner invites most nights, Tom struggles to get support from the residents, and is largely unable to cook or perform basic functions for himself. As in early Pym novels, the Anglican church plays a key role, even though by now the local church attracts few attendees.Emma is a steadfastly single woman, to the disapproval of her mother and others, who seem to see her career goals as incomplete without marriage. Emma faces two potential love matches. First, her former lover Graham Pettifer - also an academic - rents a cottage near the village to complete a text he is working on, and Emma feels herself pulled back into his life. She finds herself unappealing next to her love rival, the glamorous Claudia. Second, the vicar Tom's sister moves away, leaving him to his own devices, and he begins to view Emma as a romantic partner. Ultimately, Emma chooses to remain in the village, write a novel, and pursue a relationship with Tom. Although much has declined in village life, Emma decides to step back from her objective scientific view of the community and join them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passenger_(McCarthy_novel)" title="The Passenger (McCarthy novel)">
The novel follows Bobby Western, a salvage diver, across the Gulf of Mexico and the American South. Western is haunted by his father's contributions to the development of the atomic bomb. The events of the novel are punctuated with short, italicized chapters about his sister’s hallucinations of a deformed figure the narrator named “the Kid” who perpetually teases and belittles her and summons his ghostly cohorts to perform unwanted and garish entertainment acts. Following a salvage dive to recover any survivors from a submerged airplane, Western discovers the pilot's flight-bag and data box are missing. Within a few days, he returns to his apartment to find two agents of some kind who ask questions about the submerged airplane and the missing items, and Western learns there was also a missing eighth passenger.Western spends time in bars and restaurants in New Orleans with old friends about truths philosophical and scientific. He visits his grandmother in Tennessee, her house having been ransacked two years ago with his father's research papers and all family records taken. Now in hiding from the authorities on the advice of his lawyer Kline, Western's 1973 Maserati Bora is soon seized and his bank account frozen by the I.R.S., ostensibly for failing to record in his taxes the money he inherited from his paternal grandmother. Now destitute, Western drifts across the country as a transient, eventually coming to reside in Ibiza. At the end of the novel, Western lies in his bed in a windmill penning a letter to his sister, the love of his life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Blade_So_Black" title="A Blade So Black">
"When Atlanta teenager Alice Kingston’s father dies of heart failure—while at their favorite event, Dragon Con—she immediately is attacked by a “Nightmare” monster and then saved by Addison Hatta, a guardian of the portal between Atlanta and Wonderland."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockdown_(novel)" title="Lockdown (novel)">
Five months into an influenza pandemic that kills eighty percent of those affected, London is in lockdown. The city is under military control, a strict curfew is in force and there is extensive public surveillance. Among those who have died from the virus are the prime minister and members of his family.Detective Inspector Jack MacNeil is ordered to investigate the discovery of fresh human bones found at a building site in Lambeth. A thumbprint on a London Underground ticket found at the scene takes him along a chain of clues, eventually leading to an empty house in Wandsworth. At every step of the way, he is surreptitiously followed by a sociopathic killer who calls himself Pinkie (after the antihero of Graham Greene's novel, Brighton Rock). Pinkie has been hired by a shadowy "Mr. Smith" to keep watch on the police investigation and to ensure the bones don't lead them anywhere. Pinkie kills two witnesses to prevent them from giving information to MacNeil.Meanwhile, Dr. Amy Wu, a forensic scientist who is in a relationship with MacNeil, determines that the remains are probably those of a girl of about ten years of age, of East Asian origin, and with a harelip. She takes the bones back to her flat to do a facial reconstruction from the skull.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Private_Matter_(novel)" title="A Private Matter (novel)">
The story takes place in the Langhe. Milton is a young 20 year old university student who has joined the resistance movement, in a "blue" unit (those aligned with the monarchists), following the armistice of September 1943. He is in love with Fulvia, a beautiful girl from a well-to-do Torinese family, who he met in Alba where she had been displaced. After several months as a partisan, Milton, driven by desire and nostalgia, returns to the villa where he and Fulvia used to spend their evenings. Here he meets the housekeeper, who knew him before, and Milton asks to visit the places fond to him. During the visit, the elderly housekeeper mentions a relationship between Fulvia and Giorgio, Milton's friend and a fellow partisan, although in a "red" unit (that is, aligned with the communists). Milton, in shock, chooses to find Giorgio and discover the truth about the relationship.He sets off to locate Giorgio's unit, but cannot find him. Shortly afterwards news arrives that Giorgio has been captured by the fascists. Milton decides to seek an enemy prisoner to be exchanged with Giorgio before he is executed. He receives information that near the city where Giorgio is being kept an enemy non-commissioned officer is in a relationship with a woman who lives nearby, and learns the location of their meetings. Milton manages to capture him, but he tries to escape and Milton is forced to shoot him. With all hope of freeing his friend now lost and with it the chance to find the truth about Fulvia's love, Milton returns to the villa. The fascists are there when he arrives, he is surprised and flees. Milton, is chased and shot at, probably injured and utterly spent, he collapses on the ground in a nearby wood.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Fire_(book)" title="On Fire (book)">
Klein relays her meeting with Greta Thunberg in the opening essay in which she discusses how young people are speaking out for climate awareness and change. Throughout the book, Klein discusses her support for the Green New Deal and in the final essay she notes of the 2020 U.S. election that, "The stakes of the election are almost unbearably high. It’s why I wrote the book and decided to put it out now and why I’ll be doing whatever I can to help push people toward supporting a candidate with the most ambitious Green New Deal platform—so that they win the primaries and then the general."Klein emphasizes the moral and practical imperatives for the Green New Deal, rather than only concentrating on the brass tacks of policy and funding.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Used_the_Universe" title="The Man Who Used the Universe">
"The Man Who Used the Universe" is a novel in which Kees vaan Loo-Macklin rises from an illegal to a position of high power.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyonesse_(novel)" title="Lyonesse (novel)">
The story is told in several interlocking threads which are not always chronological.King Casmir of Lyonesse arranges the marriage of his daughter Suldrun to Duke Faude Carfilhiot. Princes Aillas and Trewan of Troicinet are sent on a sea voyage to visit the various kingdoms of the Elder Isles to gain experience at statecraft. While in port, Trewan learns that his father has died and that Aillas is the heir to the throne. Late at night, Trewan pushes Aillas overboard. Aillas washes ashore at the foot of Suldrun's garden. While he recovers, they become lovers and plan to escape. Aillas goes on a quest to find his son. Suldrun delivers a son named Dhrun, who is taken by the fairies and replaced with the changeling Madouc. Dhrun lives nine years in the fairy realm, then sets out through the forest of Tantrevalles, a haunted place. He rescues Glyneth, a girl of about 14, from a troll, and they have a number of adventures before joining Dr. Fidelius. Fidelius is in fact Shimrod, a magician who had his power stolen from him by Faude Carfilhiot and his lover Tamurello. Carfilhiot realizes that Fidelius was Shimrod. He kidnaps Dhrun and Glyneth.Shimrod can not act directly against Carfilhiot to rescue Glyneth and Dhrun, because that would constitute taking Aillas' side in a political matter and violate Murgen's edict. However, Aillas has learned that Quilcy, King of South Ulfland, has drowned in his bathtub, and that Aillas is his rightful heir by collateral lineage. He lands a force of troops in South Ulfland, proclaims his kingship, and demands a show of fealty from Carfilhiot as Carfilhiot's rightful liege lord. Carfilhiot refuses, and Aillas' Troice troops lay siege to his castle. Aillas' soldiers, informed by his knowledge of the castle's defenses, avoid the traps and pitfalls Carfilhiot has prepared, much to Carfilhiot's dismay. He calls on Tamurello, who confronts Aillas. This gives Shimrod an excuse to call on Murgen, who forbids Tamurello from acting and banishes him to his mansion. Tamurello offers to bring Carfilhiot to his manse, but Carfilhiot refuses to leave his castle. The siege is eventually successful, Dhrun and Glyneth are rescued, and Carfilhiot is hanged as a traitor to his king. When his body is cremated, a green fume escapes and blows out to sea, where it mixes with the spume and condenses into a "green pearl", which sinks into the sea and is swallowed by a fish.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasty_Little_Beasts" title="Nasty Little Beasts">
## The Grub a Blub Blub.In Skegness, there is an unusual witchetty grub: a human-sized, anthropomorphic larva that watches television, eats crisps, and cries itself to sleep when stressed. It is nicknamed "The Grub A-Blub-Blub" and hosted at the Museum of Freaks and Oddities, enclosed behind a "DO NOT FEED" sign.Once upon a time, the larva was Savannah Slumberson, a lazy girl who preferred watching television in her bedroom instead of joining her active parents' rock climbing and cycling holidays. Her parents frequently expected her to participate, and embarrassed her when they sang her awake every morning at 7 am, already in their khaki shorts (either in her room or outside her bedroom window, depending on whether she remembered to lock her bedroom door the night before). She considered herself "cursed", and became lazier out of spite.For a March holiday, Slumberson had campaigned for a visit to a Bridlington bed and breakfast, but her father announces they would be camping instead. The next morning, the family dressed into their lycra and cycled to the site, except for Slumberson—she hated wearing lycra and faked a cramp, so she slept under a sleeping bag as her parents' bikes dragged her there. She wakes to read a "Fit Camp" sign as her parents rode towards a camping lodge to meet the owner, Mrs Evadne Sprite. Slumberson dreads the holiday to come as Sprite explains camp activities, and tension arises when she learns no one is allowed to spend mornings in bed. A sticky witchetty grub falls from a nearby tree and lands on Slumberson's head, so she crushes it to death with her bike helmet; Sprite adds that the grubs' clinginess are why she encourages her customers to choose many active activities as possible.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antkind" title="Antkind">
Neurotic failed film critic B. Rosenberger Rosenberg stumbles upon what may be the greatest artistic achievement in human history: a three-month-long film, complete with scheduled sleeping, eating, and bathroom breaks, that took its reclusive auteur, a psychotic African-American man named Ingo Cutbirth, ninety years to complete. B makes it his mission to show it to the rest of humanity. The only problem: The film is destroyed when he stops for a soda, leaving just a single frame from which B must somehow attempt to recall the film that might just be the last great hope of civilization. The novel grows to encompass a vast array of concepts and plotlines. B is obsessed with proving his political correctness bonafides, boasting of his relationship with a Black sitcom star and his constant use of an uncommon non-binary pronoun "thon". His daughter is an estranged filmmaker whose work receives negative reviews from her father, who is himself obsessed with both ultra-obscure experimental films and the works of Judd Apatow. B's attempts to psychologically reconstruct the three-month movie send him to a wide variety of psychiatrists and hypnotists, most notably the sinister Barassini, whose work begins to have perverse effects on his body. He finds himself beginning to shrink in size, and is constantly falling down manholes. He becomes addicted to ketamine, and develops a clown fetish. At one point plastic surgery is conducted on him without his consent. He is forced at another point to pursue careers selling shoes at Zappos or working in a laundromat to impress a woman. His knowledge of film is seemingly deteriorating, as he constantly and surreally misquotes and misremembers many movies. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braywatch" title="Braywatch">
Ross has become rugby coach at Presentation College, Bray. His daughter Honor has become a Greta Thunberg-style environmentalist.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_(novel)" title="Soul (novel)">
The narrative starts with Nazar Chagataev’s graduation from the Moscow Institute of Economics. In the courtyard, he meets a woman named Vera and goes home with her that night. At her home, he sees an interesting diptych on her wall and learns that Vera is pregnant, but the father of the child is dead. He immediately fosters a strange connection to Vera and to her young daughter, Ksenya. After frequent visits, he decides marry Vera, but then leaves after the summer to go to his posting to “bring socialism” to his people and assist the "Dzhan" nation into a better life.He sets off on a long journey by train across the steppe, by boat down the Amu-Darya, and finally reaches the "Dzhan" nation living in a delta called Sary-Kamysh. He meets Sufyan, Molla Cherkezov, Aidym and Gyulchatay, but his mother, Gyulchatay, does not seem to remember him. He sees that they are a sad, destitute nation living in a miserable state with very few possessions and little strength to live.He returns briefly to Chimgay for supplies, and there he receives a letter from Ksenya stating that Vera and the baby have died. Although the news gives him sorrow, he decides that he must carry on his mission with the "Dzhan". He returns to them and has a discussion with Nur-Mohammed who has been sent by the district executive committee to keep track of and assist the "Dzhan". Although Nur-Mohammed has no hope in the nation, Chagataev decides they must migrate to a better location, hoping that this move with result in better living conditions for the group.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightly_Burning" title="Brightly Burning">
"Brightly Burning" and the companion novel "The Stars We Steal" (published February 2020) are set in the far future, when humanity has fled Earth due to an Ice Age, living instead in orbit on spaceships. Pitched as "Jane Eyre" in space, "Brightly Burning" follows seventeen-year-old engineer Stella Ainsley, who lives on the Stalwart, one of the oldest and poorest ships in the fleet. Wishing to escape the Stalwart, Stella is hired on as a governess on the private ship, the Rochester, captained by the young and handsome Hugo Fairfax, who has a secret that could threaten the safety of the entire fleet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubblegum_(novel)" title="Bubblegum (novel)">
The novel is a first-person narrative told by the protagonist, Belt Magnet, or "Billy." It begins in the 1980s with Belt's childhood memories of growing up near Chicago and developing friendships in school using derogatory family phrases to defend one's honor or to get a laugh. One of Belt's phrases become a hit among the kids in school because of Jonboat, a new blonde-haired rich kid in town. The two decide to make t-shirts and have a detailed discussion of what the shirts should look like - arguing down to the specific grammar on the shirt. This in-depth grammatical discussion is an example of Belt's mental process during his life.As an adult, Belt still lives with and depends on his father, Clyde. He smokes a large number of cigarettes daily and justifies this as a memorial to his deceased mother who smoked. After his mother's passing, Belt wrote a book called No Please Don’t which was not a big hit but is mentioned many times throughout the novel. Belt is always pleasantly surprised when he finds out people have appreciated his work, even if not in the way he intended. Much of Belt's thoughts focus on meditations around family, friendship, and intimate relationships.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seasons'_Difference" title="The Seasons' Difference">
The rarefied, bucolic lives of Sam and Sarah Dunn are disturbed by the uncanny pronouncements of their cousin, Peter Cowley. Sara, a sophisticated sculptress, and the languorous Samuel, whose wealth and lifestyle have driven him to a state of perpetual ennui, are caught off-guard by their young relative's report of an ecstatic, mystical vision. Cowley, who has been invited to run a small vacation school for children in the spacious grounds of their substantial summer home, claims to have experienced the vision on a hillside nearby. His pronouncement is the cause of much discussion and consternation among the adults present: Julie McMoon, a neighbour of the Dunns who is grieving the recent suicide of her husband, and whose children are attending the summer school; the cynical pianist, Richard Lundrigan, who will spend much of the novel attempting to convince Cowley that his vision was a fantasy; and Thomas Lavender, a highly enthusiastic, if not slightly crazed, minister, who has joined the vacation in his capacity as Cowley's spiritual director, and is convinced of the veracity of his protégé's mystical experience.Also party to Cowley's mysterious claims are his students, Ellie Sonntag, Daisy and Timmy McMoon, George Bundle, Fendall Dunn, Rufus Este, and Harry Fogg. The two oldest of the children, Harry and Rufus, separate themselves from both the adults and their classmates by designating themselves as ‘the Uglies’, a nickname representative of their adolescent sense of discomfort and lack of belonging. This angst is further expressed through their close observation and discussion of those around them, their overt demonstrations of their own intelligence in Cowley's classroom, and their composition of poetry. When Cowley takes the children to a local carnival and they pile into a tent to watch a ‘freak show’ the Uglies laugh at, but also feel a deep sense of kinship with, the performers. The excursion ends awkwardly when a dwarf interrupts the performance to challenge the attitude of one of the children, who immediately begins to cry.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asuryalok" title="Asuryalok">
Bhadrashanker, a priest, is a slave to all kinds of vices. His son Nigamshanker, who is studying in a Sanskrit pathshala, suddenly has an attack of smallpox and loses his eyesight. He reconciles himself to his fate, goes to the pathshala and attempts to learn by hearing. A great Sanskrit scholar from Varanasi visits the pathshala; seeing Nigamshanker's desire for knowledge, he takes him to Varanasi. Nigamshanker studies there for 12 years, gaining proficiency in all branches of knowledge. When he returns, his father is on his deathbed. His father had married a girl of his son's age after his mother's death. Nigamshanker does not mourn his father's death. However, he treats his stepmother so well that she persuades her niece Bhagirathi to marry him. Their married life is very happy. Bhagirathi gives birth to a son, Tilak, who is a bright boy. When he is 10 years old, he finds that he cannot read what has been written on the blackboard. When a doctor is consulted, he advises him to give up his studies, but Tilak, encouraged by his father, ignores the advice and pursues his studies. Furthermore, he even learns to play the sitar from Abhijit, his neighbor's son. Abhijit's sister Satya is a naughty girl who continuously teases Tilak about his weak eyesight. Once, when Tilak is attending a sitar concert, Satya abducts him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Dragon's_Daughter" title="The Iron Dragon's Daughter">
The first portion of the story concerns Jane's childhood in a factory that builds iron dragons. Jane and her close friend Rooster, whose true name is Tetigistus, work in a group of indentured child laborers. Jane steals a grimoire, and after reading it, begins to hear the voice of an iron dragon in her head. Jane is taken to entertain an elderly, silent elf called the Baldwynn, but is told not to return after she witnesses a strange phenomenon. The dragon manipulates Rooster into trying to escape, but Rooster dies in the attempt. A distraught Jane forces the dragon to tell her his true name, Melanchthon. They then flee the factory.Later, Jane attends high school while fixing a dormant Melanchthon, who was damaged in their escape. She discovers that the school principal is none other than the Baldwynn and becomes friends with her classmate Peter and his girlfriend Gwen, who, as the wicker queen, will soon be burned alive as a sacrifice to the Goddess. To Jane's shock, Peter tells her that his true name is Tetigistus. They confess their love and sleep together. Soon after, Gwen is sacrificed and Peter commits suicide out of guilt. Melanchthon disappears and Jane realizes that his manipulation caused these events.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Wrinkle_in_Time" title="A Wrinkle in Time">
One night, thirteen-year-old Meg Murry meets an eccentric, new neighbor, Mrs Whatsit, who refers to something called a tesseract. She later finds out it is a scientific concept her father was working on before his mysterious disappearance. The following day, Meg, her child genius brother Charles, and fellow schoolmate Calvin visit Mrs Whatsit's home, where the equally strange Mrs Who and the voice of the unseen Mrs Which promise to help Meg find and rescue her father.Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which turn out to be supernatural beings who teleport Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O'Keefe through the universe by means of a tesseract, a fifth-dimensional phenomenon explained as folding the fabric of space and time; this form of travel is called "tessering". Their first stop is the planet Uriel, a world inhabited by centaur-like beings who live in a state of light and love, fighting against the approaching darkness. There the Mrs Ws demonstrate to the children how the universe is under attack from an evil being that appears particularly clearly on Uriel as an overwhelming dark cloud, called The Black Thing. They then take the children to Orion's Belt to visit the Happy Medium, a far-seeing person with a crystal ball through which they are shown that Earth is partially covered by the darkness, although great religious figures, philosophers, scientists, and artists, have been fighting against it. Mrs Whatsit is revealed to be a former star, who exploded in an act of self-sacrifice to fight the darkness.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_Chaos" title="Lord of Chaos">
With many of the seals on his prison broken, the Dark One has grown in power. He causes global warming, revives the Forsaken Aginor and Balthamel as Osan'gar and Aran'gar, and creates Shaidar Haran, his Myrddraal incarnation.In response to Rand al'Thor's amnesty on male channelers, Mazrim Taim swears allegiance to him. Together they form the Black Tower, which trains male channelers called "Asha'man". Rand is diplomatically courted by both the rebel Aes Sedai in Salidar, who send an envoy to Caemlyn, and the Aes Sedai of the White Tower, who send an envoy (many of which are in fact Black Ajah) to Cairhien. In an unsuccessful attempt to control Rand, Alanna Mosvani of the rebel Aes Sedai bonds Rand as her Warder against his will. Additionally, Min Farshaw, who had traveled with the Salidar Aes Sedai, reunites with Rand and gives him much-needed emotional support. Rand later discovers Salidar's location and sends Mat Cauthon there, to retrieve Elayne Trakand who will rule Caemlyn and Cairhien in his stead.Perrin Aybara leaves the Two Rivers to join Rand in Caemlyn.The deposed Queen of Andor, Morgase Trakand, goes to Amadicia for aid in returning to the throne but is instead taken captive by the Lord Captain Commander of the Children of the Light, Pedron Niall.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsiders_(novel)" title="The Outsiders (novel)">
Ponyboy Curtis, a fourteen year old boy who is a member of a "gang of "greasers", is leaving a movie theater when he is jumped by "Socs", the greasers' rival gang. Several greasers, including Ponyboy's two older brothers—the paternal Darry and the popular Sodapop—come to his rescue. The next night, Ponyboy and two greaser friends, the hardened Dally and the quiet Johnny, meet Cherry and Marcia, a pair of Soc girls, at a drive-in movie theater. Cherry scorns Dally's rude advances, but Ponyboy speaks civilly with Cherry, emotionally connecting with a Soc for the first time in his life.Afterward, Ponyboy, Johnny, and their wisecracking friend Two-Bit begin to walk Cherry and Marcia home, when they are stopped by Cherry's boyfriend Bob, who badly beat up Johnny a few months back. Bob and the greasers exchange taunts, but Cherry prevents a fight by willingly leaving with Bob. Ponyboy gets home at two in the morning, enraging Darry until he suddenly slaps Ponyboy. Pony runs out the door and meets up with Johnny, expressing his anger at Darry's increasing coldness in the wake of his parents' recent deaths in a car crash.Running away from home, Ponyboy and Johnny wander into a park, where Bob and four other Socs surround them. After some heated talk, Ponyboy spits at the Socs, prompting them to attempt to drown him in a nearby fountain, but Johnny stabs Bob, killing him and dispersing the rest. Terrified as to what to do next, Ponyboy and Johnny rush to find Dally, who gives them money and a loaded gun, directing them to hide in an abandoned church in Windrixville. During their stay there, Pony cuts and dyes his hair as a disguise, reads "Gone with the Wind" to Johnny, and, upon viewing a beautiful sunrise, recites the poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_and_the_Glory" title="The Power and the Glory">
The main character is an unnamed 'whisky priest', who combines a great power for self-destruction with pitiful cravenness, an almost painful penitence, and a desperate quest for dignity. By the end, though, the priest "acquires a real holiness." The other principal character is a police lieutenant tasked with hunting down this priest. This Lieutenant – also unnamed but thought to be based upon Tomás Garrido Canabal – is a committed socialist who despises the Church.The overall situation is this: Catholicism is outlawed in Mexico. However, while the other states of Mexico seem to follow a Don't-ask-don't-tell policy, the state of Tabasco enforces the ban rigorously. Mexico, or at least Tabasco, is ruled on socialist grounds, and priests have either been settled by the state with wives (breaking celibacy) and pensions in exchange for their renouncing the faith and being strictly banned from fulfilling priestly functions (such as one Padre José), or else have left the state or are on the run, or have been shot. The story starts with the arrival of the main character in a small country town and then follows him on his trip through Tabasco, where he tries to minister to the people as best he can. In doing so, he is faced by a lot of problems, not least of which is that Tabasco is also prohibitionist, with the unspoken prime objective to hinder celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass, for which actual wine is an essential. It is, therefore, quite easy to get, say, brandy or tequila, despite it being forbidden, but very difficult to get wine. He is also haunted by his personal problems and past and present sins, especially by the fact that he fathered a child in his parish some years before; additionally, his use of spirits may be bordering on addiction and certainly is beyond the limit of good measure in his own view. (In one scene, both of these problems are mixed: the protagonist tries to procure a bottle of wine for Holy Mass, needing to go to very high officials to do so, with an additional bottle of brandy for cover and also for his personal use. Not being able to reveal himself, and eager to appear friendly, he agrees to share his wine with the official, all of which is then consumed while in vain he tries to offer the brandy instead. He eventually leaves with only partial bottle of brandy, and no wine. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_Affair" title="The End of the Affair">
The novel focuses on Maurice Bendrix, a rising writer during the Second World War in London, and Sarah Miles, the wife of an impotent civil servant. Bendrix is based on Greene himself, and he reflects often on the act of writing a novel. Sarah is based on Greene's lover at the time, Catherine Walston, to whom the book is dedicated.Bendrix and Sarah fall in love quickly, but he soon realises that the affair will end as quickly as it began. The relationship suffers from his overt and admitted jealousy. He is frustrated by her refusal to divorce Henry, her amiable but boring husband. When a bomb blasts Bendrix's flat as he is with Sarah, he is nearly killed. After this, Sarah breaks off the affair with no apparent explanation.Later, Bendrix is still wracked with jealousy when he sees Henry crossing the Common that separates their flats. Henry has finally started to suspect something, and Bendrix decides to go to a private detective to discover Sarah's new lover. Through her diary, he learns that, when she thought he was dead after the bombing, she made a promise to God not to see Bendrix again if He allowed him to live again. Greene describes Sarah's struggles. After her sudden death from a lung infection brought to a climax by walking on the Common in the rain, several miraculous events occur, advocating for some kind of meaningfulness to Sarah's faith. By the last page of the novel, Bendrix came to believe in a God as well.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Idiot" title="The Idiot">
## Part 1.Prince Myshkin, a young man in his mid-twenties and a descendant of one of the oldest Russian lines of nobility, is on a train to Saint Petersburg on a cold November morning. He is returning to Russia having spent the past four years in a Swiss clinic for treatment of a severe epileptic condition. On the journey, Myshkin meets a young man of the merchant class, Parfyon Semyonovich Rogozhin, and is struck by his passionate intensity, particularly in relation to a woman—the dazzling society beauty Nastasya Filippovna Barashkova—with whom he is obsessed. Rogozhin has just inherited a very large fortune due to the death of his father, and he intends to use it to pursue the object of his desire. Joining in their conversation is a civil servant named Lebedyev—a man with a profound knowledge of social trivia and gossip. Realizing who Rogozhin is, Lebedyev firmly attaches himself to him.The purpose of Myshkin's trip is to make the acquaintance of his distant relative Lizaveta Prokofyevna, and to make inquiries about a matter of business. Lizaveta Prokofyevna is the wife of General Epanchin, a wealthy and respected man in his mid-fifties. When the Prince calls on them he meets Gavril Ardalionovich Ivolgin (Ganya), the General's assistant. The General and his business partner, the aristocrat Totsky, are seeking to arrange a marriage between Ganya and Nastasya Filippovna. Totsky had been the orphaned Nastasya Filippovna's childhood guardian, but he had taken advantage of his position to groom her for his own sexual gratification. As a grown woman, Nastasya Filippovna has developed an incisive and merciless insight into their relationship. Totsky, thinking the marriage might settle her and free him to pursue his desire for marriage with General Epanchin's eldest daughter, has promised 75,000 rubles. Nastasya Filippovna, suspicious of Ganya and aware that his family does not approve of her, has reserved her decision, but has promised to announce it that evening at her birthday soirée. Ganya and the General openly discuss the subject in front of Myshkin. Ganya shows him a photograph of her, and he is particularly struck by the dark beauty of her face.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_Me_Your_Dreams" title="Tell Me Your Dreams">
The main characters of the book are Ashley Patterson, an introverted workaholic, her co-workers, Toni Prescott, an outgoing singer and dancer, shy artist Alette Peters and Ashley's father, Dr. Steven Patterson.The three women do not get along very well, because of their dissimilar natures. Toni and Alette generally maintain a friendship, with Alette a calming influence, but Toni dislikes Ashley and criticizes her harshly. All three have issues with their mothers having told them they'd never amount to anything.Ashley fears that somebody is following her. She finds her house lights turned on when she returns from work, her personal effects in disarray, and someone has written "You will die" on her mirror with a lipstick. She thinks someone's broken into her house. She requests a police escort, but the next morning, the police officer assigned to this duty is found dead in her apartment. Two other murders have already taken place, with an identical pattern. All the murdered men had been castrated and were having sex before being murdered. Evidence points to the same woman being involved in all three cases. When a gift from one of the murdered men to Toni is found among Ashley's things, she is identified as the killer and arrested. At this point, it is revealed that the three women are three selves of a woman suffering from multiple personality disorder (MPD).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doomsday_Conspiracy" title="The Doomsday Conspiracy">
Robert Bellamy, an agent of the ONI receives a mission on behalf of NSA: to locate the witnesses of the crash of an experimental meteorological balloon in Switzerland, for which he is only given the date, the place where it happened, and the fact that the witnesses were passengers of a bus tour. He is given an unlimited budget but is told he must work strictly under cover. After he finds the first witness, he discovers that the meteorological balloon was actually an alien spaceship. He tracks the witnesses one by one and reports their names to NSA. Without his knowledge, the names of the witnesses are then communicated to the intelligence organizations of their respective countries, and each of them is assassinated shortly after. These actions are coordinated under the name "Operation Doomsday", under the leadership of a figure known only as Janus.Robert's personal history is shown through flashbacks: he rose in the military ranks under the mentorship of Admiral Ralph Whittaker, and during a combat flight in Vietnam his plane was taken down, with Whittaker son's dying in the crash and Robert being badly injured. Doctors declare that he has no chance of survival, but a nurse named Susan convinces them to operate on him and encourages him to keep his fighting spirit. He and Susan fall in love after his recovery and marry. Robert is then recruited to become a spy for ONI, but this job takes over his personal life until Susan divorces him and marries a business tycoon named Monte Banks, while Robert isolates himself and dedicates even more to his work.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_Carbon" title="Altered Carbon">
On the colony planet of Harlan’s World, Takeshi Kovacs and his partner Sarah Sachilowski, former Envoys who had returned to a life of crime, are killed by a U.N. colonial commando unit. Kovacs is sentenced to a long term in stack storage. On Earth, a Meth named Laurens Bancroft has died in mysterious circumstances in Bay City (formerly San Francisco). The re-sleeved Bancroft has no memories of the previous two days, including his own death. Though police officer Kristin Ortega believes he committed suicide, Bancroft is convinced he was murdered. He hires Kovacs to investigate. Kovacs discovers that Bancroft has been involved with numerous prostitutes, including recent murder victim Elizabeth Elliot. Elizabeth’s mother Irene was imprisoned for illegally hacking Bancroft’s memories. Elizabeth's father is too poor to re-sleeve Elizabeth or to free his wife from the stacks.Laurens' wife, Miriam, seduces Kovacs and bribes him to end the investigation. A high-level Russian operative named Kadmin tries to assassinate Kovacs, but fails and is captured. Kovacs investigates the brothel where Elizabeth worked. He learns he is wearing the sleeve of Elias Ryker, a corrupt police officer and Ortega's lover. He is tortured by physicians from the Wei Clinic, who deal in black market sleeve theft. He tells his interrogators that he is an Envoy and they release him. A mysterious woman named Trepp says she will bring Kovacs to Ray, who is behind the clinic’s operations. Kovacs escapes, destroys the brothel and clinic, and murders the employees in the process.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_on_the_Nile" title="Death on the Nile">
While on holiday in Aswan to board the steamer "Karnak", set to tour along the Nile River from Shellal to Wadi Halfa, Hercule Poirot is approached by successful socialite Linnet Doyle née Ridgeway. She wants to commission him to deter her former friend Jacqueline de Bellefort from hounding and stalking her. Linnet had recently married Jacqueline's ex-fiancé, Simon Doyle, which has made Jacqueline bitterly resentful. Poirot refuses the commission and unsuccessfully attempts to dissuade Jacqueline from pursuing her plans. Simon and Linnet secretly follow Poirot to escape Jacqueline but find she had learned of their plans and boarded ahead of them. The other "Karnak" passengers include Linnet's maid Louise Bourget; her trustee Andrew Pennington; romance novelist Salome Otterbourne and her daughter Rosalie; Tim Allerton and his mother; elderly American socialite Marie Van Schuyler, her cousin Cornelia Robson and her nurse Miss Bowers; outspoken communist Mr Ferguson; Italian archaeologist Guido Richetti; solicitor Jim Fanthorp; and Austrian physician Dr Bessner.While visiting Abu Simbel when "Karnak" stops there, Linnet narrowly avoids being crushed to death by a large boulder that falls from a cliff. Jacqueline is suspected of pushing the boulder off the cliff, but she was aboard the steamer at the time of the incident. At Wadi Halfa, Poirot's friend Colonel Race boards the steamer for the return trip. Race tells Poirot that he seeks a murderer among the passengers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_and_the_Kangaroo" title="Dot and the Kangaroo">
A 5-year-old girl named Dot is lost in the outback after chasing a hare into the wood and losing sight of her home. She is approached by a red kangaroo who gives her some berries to eat. Upon eating the berries, Dot is able to understand the language of all animals, and she tells the kangaroo her plight. The kangaroo, who has lost her own joey, decides to help little Dot despite her own fear of humans. The book is filled with criticism on negative human interference in the wild in 1884.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven-Per-Cent_Solution" title="The Seven-Per-Cent Solution">
An introduction states that two canonical Holmes adventures were fabrications. These are "The Final Problem", in which Holmes apparently died along with Prof. James Moriarty, and "The Empty House", wherein Holmes reappeared after a three-year absence and revealed that he had not been killed after all. "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution"'s Watson explains that they were published to conceal the truth concerning Holmes' "Great Hiatus".The novel begins in 1891, when Holmes first informs Watson of his belief that Professor James Moriarty is a "Napoleon of Crime". The novel presents this view as nothing more than the fevered imagining of Holmes' cocaine-sodden mind and further asserts that Moriarty was the childhood mathematics tutor of Sherlock and his brother Mycroft. Watson meets Moriarty, who denies that he is a criminal and reluctantly threatens to pursue legal action unless the latter's accusations cease. Moriarty also refers to a "great tragedy" in Holmes' childhood, but refuses to explain further when pressed by Watson.The heart of the novel consists of an account of Holmes' recovery from his addiction. Knowing that Sherlock would never willingly see a doctor about his addiction and mental problems, Watson and Holmes' brother Mycroft induce Holmes to travel to Vienna, where Watson introduces him to Dr. Freud. Using a treatment consisting largely of hypnosis, Freud helps Holmes shake off his addiction and his delusions about Moriarty, but neither he nor Watson can revive Holmes' dejected spirit.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like_a_Velvet_Glove_Cast_in_Iron" title="Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron">
"Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron" is about a man named Clay Loudermilk and his attempts to locate his estranged wife, Barbara Allen. (The song "the Ballad of Barbara Allen" forms a commentary on the story with its elements of unrequited love, loss, and death.) For reasons unknown, Clay is in the audience at a porno theatre when he sees a bizarre BDSM feature (also titled "Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron"), the star dominatrix of which is revealed to be his wife. Clay sets out to locate her and becomes embroiled in a series of misadventures involving an incredibly bizarre and varied cast of supporting characters. Clay is victimized by two crazed policemen, meets a religious cult led by a mass-murderer who intend to overthrow the American government, conspiracy theorists who believe that the reins of the world's political power somehow revolve around a series of dime store novelty figures, an inhumanly malformed, potato-like young woman and her nymphomaniacal mother, and various other freaks and weirdos. During one dream sequence, the infamous Foot Foot, from the song by The Shaggs, gnaws on Clay's leg.The happy-face icon of "Mr. Jones" also appears in various places through the story (reminiscent of Alfred E. Neuman, the mascot of "Mad" magazine, whose image dates at least back into the 1800s). Images of Mr. Jones are tattooed into people, carved on to Clay's foot, as a ghost-like character, in Hitler's birthmark, and on the sign for Value Ape shops. It signifies the way in which logos pervade our societies, and links to the conspiracy elements of the story. The true nature of the potato-woman's father is never learned by Mr. Loudermilk, but the reader will see suggestions of the Cthulhu Mythos. The phrase "Kenneth, what is the frequency?", referencing the bizarre Dan Rather incident (some years before the R.E.M. song did the same thing), is used as part of the "Mr. Jones" conspiracy sub-plot. There are, in addition, references to child pornography and snuff films.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shipping_News" title="The Shipping News">
The story revolves around Quoyle, a newspaper reporter from upstate New York, whose father had emigrated from Newfoundland. Shortly after his parents' joint suicide, Quoyle's unfaithful and abusive wife, Petal Bear, leaves town with a lover and attempts to sell their daughters Bunny and Sunshine to sex traffickers. On her getaway, Petal and her lover are killed in a car accident; the young girls are located by police and returned to Quoyle. With selfish parents, an abusive brother, a cheating wife, and no stable job, Quoyle's life is falling apart. His paternal aunt, Agnis Hamm, convinces him to make a new beginning by returning to their ancestral home in Newfoundland.There, they move into Agnis's childhood home, an empty and abandoned house on Quoyle's Point. Quoyle finds work as a reporter for the "Gammy Bird", the local newspaper in Killick-Claw, a small town. The "Gammy Bird"s editor asks him to cover traffic accidents (reminding him of Petal's fate) and also the shipping news, documenting the arrivals and departures of ships from the local port. His reporting develops as Quoyle's signature column.Over time, Quoyle learns deep and disturbing secrets about his ancestors that emerge in strange ways. As Quoyle builds his new life in Newfoundland, he is transformed. He creates a rewarding job, makes friends and begins a relationship with a local woman, Wavey Prowse.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Series_of_Unfortunate_Events" title="A Series of Unfortunate Events">
The series follows the adventures of three orphaned siblings. Lemony Snicket documents their lives and explains to the readers that very few positive things happen to the children.The series begins when the orphans are at a beach alone, when they receive news that their parents were killed in a fire that also destroyed the family mansion. In "The Bad Beginning", they are sent to live with a distant relative named Count Olaf after briefly living with Mr. Poe, a banker in charge of the orphans' affairs. The siblings discover that Count Olaf intends to get his hands on the enormous Baudelaire fortune, which Violet is to inherit when she reaches the age of eighteen. In the first book, Olaf attempts to marry Violet to steal the Baudelaire fortune, and pretends that the marriage is the storyline for his latest play, but the plan falls through when Violet uses her non-dominant hand to sign the marriage document, thus causing the marriage to not be successful. After the crowd realizes, Olaf manages to escape with his henchmen.In the following six books, Olaf disguises himself, finds the children, and, with help from his many accomplices, tries to steal their fortune, committing arson, murder, and other crimes. In the eighth through twelfth books, the orphans adopt disguises while on the run from the police after Count Olaf frames them for one of his murders. The Baudelaire's routinely try to get help from Mr. Poe, but he, like many of the adults in the series, is oblivious to the dangerous reality of the children's situation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldo_(short_story)" title="Waldo (short story)">
As the story opens, a dancer is performing feats of astonishing virtuosity on stage. Afterward, in the dressing room, while preparing to depart for his other job as a neurosurgeon, the dancer reminisces to a reporter about what made him take up dancing. The rest of the story is told as a flashback.James Stevens, Chief Engineer of North American Power-Air (NAPA), is desperate to discover what is causing vehicles driven by broadcast power to cease functioning. Society has harnessed cheap atomic power, broadcast by NAPA, to run homes, factories, ground vehicles, and even personal aircraft which can travel into space. If the failures continue, not only will he lose his job but the entire power system of the country could collapse.The heart of the technology is the "deKalb receptor". The deKalbs are failing, and no one can identify the cause. In desperation, Stevens approaches Doc Grimes, a physician who has known Waldo since birth, to try to persuade Waldo to help. Waldo has a grudge against NAPA after losing a legal battle with them some years before.Waldo lives on a space station in high orbit, where microgravity allows him to move around despite his weakness. He makes his living as a consulting engineer, with a specialty in fine motor skills.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Elephant" title="The Fifth Elephant">
The Ankh-Morpork City Watch is expanding; there is now a Traffic department with traffic cameras implemented using iconograph technomancy and a wheel clamping team, and the clacks is beginning to replace homing pigeons for communications between officers. The Watch is also investigating the theft of the replica Scone of Stone (a parody of the real-life Stone of Scone) from the Ankh-Morpork Dwarf Bread Museum and the murder of Wallace Sonky, the inventor of preventatives.Samuel Vimes, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch and Duke of Ankh, is sent to the remote region of Überwald as an ambassador to take advantage of the coronation of the Low King of the Dwarves to negotiate for increased imports of fat. (Underground fat deposits are abundant in Überwald as a fifth Discworld-supporting elephant impacted there in prehistoric times, according to legend.)Überwald is the traditional home of the Disc's dwarfs. The election of the progressive Rhys Rhysson as Low King resulted from split opposition amongst various dwarf clans and the growing influence of Ankh-Morpork as the largest dwarf city on the Disc. A cabal of local werewolves seek to exploit this opportunity to destabilize the already deeply divided dwarf society. They instigate the apparent theft of the real Scone of Stone from its closely guarded cave, hoping to cause a civil war between traditionalist and progressive dwarfs and isolate the country under the werewolves' feudal leadership.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Confusion" title="The Confusion">
Though the first publication of the Series in three volumes combined the two novels "Bonanza" and "The Juncto", here the plots will be dealt with as separate entities, true to the author's original intention.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Lights_(Pullman_novel)" title="Northern Lights (Pullman novel)">
## Setting.The setting is a world dominated by the Magisterium (commonly called "the Church"), an international theocracy which actively suppresses heresy. In this world, humans' souls naturally exist outside of their bodies in the form of sentient "dæmons" in animal form which accompany, aid, and comfort their humans. An important plot device is the alethiometer, a truth-telling symbol reader. By setting the alethiometer's hands to point to symbols around a dial a skilled practitioner can pose questions, which are answered by the movement of a further hand.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Palace" title="Moon Palace">
Marco Fogg is an orphan and his Uncle Victor his only caretaker. Fogg starts college, and nine months later moves from the dormitory into his own apartment furnished with 1492 books given to him by Uncle Victor. Uncle Victor dies before Fogg finishes college and leaves him without friends and family. Marco inherits some money which he uses to pay for Uncle Victor's funeral. He becomes an introvert, spends his time reading, and thinks, "Why should I get a job? I have enough to do living through the days." After selling the books one by one in order to survive Fogg loses his apartment and seeks shelter in Central Park. He meets Kitty Wu and begins a romance with her after he has been rescued from Central Park by Zimmer and Kitty Wu. Eventually he finds a job taking care of Thomas Effing.Fogg learns about the complicated history of his parents, and Effing’s previous identity as the painter Julian Barber. When Effing dies, leaving money to Fogg, Marco and Kitty Wu set up a house together in Chinatown. After an abortion Fogg breaks up with Kitty Wu and travels across the U.S. to search for himself. He begins his journey with his father Solomon Barber, who dies shortly after an accident at Westlawn Cemetery, where Fogg's mother is buried. Marco continues his journey alone, which ends on a lonely California beach: "This is where I start, ... this is where my life begins."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_in_the_Hat_Comes_Back" title="The Cat in the Hat Comes Back">
Once again, an unnamed boy who narrates the story and his sister Sally are being left home alone for the day. This time, their mother has left them with instructions to clear away a large amount of snow while she is out. However, they are soon interrupted in their work by the return of the Cat in the Hat. The boy is warned by Sally not to talk to the Cat nor to let him come near, reminding him of what happened the last time he came. However, the Cat lets himself into their house to get out of the snow, and the boy follows him in. When he reaches the bathroom, he finds the Cat eating a cake in the tub with the hot and cold water on. The boy (who loses his patience) scolds the Cat for his antics, telling the Cat there is work to be done and he should not be in the house eating cake like a pig. He tells the Cat that he should get out of the house unless he helps out with the work. Then he turns off the water and drains out (unplugs) the tub, only to find that a long ring of pink cake icing has formed around the sides of the bath tub. The Cat offers to help clean it up, but his preliminary attempts to remove the pink spot end in disaster as he only transfers the mess to a succession of one object after another, including their mother's white dress, the wall, their father's pair of $10 shoes (worth $94.66 when adjusted for inflation in 2021, and written as £7 when published in the United Kingdom), a rug, and their parents' bed. Unsure of how to remove the stain from the bed, the Cat calls on the help of Little Cat A, who lives inside his hat, who lifts his hat to reveal Little Cat B, and then Little Cat C. The three Little Cats go to work, transferring the stain to the television, then a pan, and finally outside with a fan.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_People" title="Independent People">
"Independent People" is the story of the sheep farmer Guðbjartur Jónsson, generally known in the novel as Bjartur of Summerhouses, and his struggle for independence.The "first chapter summons up the days when the world was first settled, in 874 AD—for that is the year when the Norsemen arrived in Iceland, and one of the book's wry conceits is that no other world but Iceland exists. ... The book is set in the early decades of the twentieth century but ... "Independent People" is a pointedly timeless tale. It reminds us that life on an Icelandic croft had scarcely altered over a millennium". As the story begins, Bjartur ("bright" or "fair") has recently managed to put down the first payment on his own farm, after eighteen years working as a shepherd at Útirauðsmýri, the home of the well-to-do local bailiff, a man he detests. The land that he buys is said to be cursed by Saint Columba, referred to as "the fiend Kolumkilli", and haunted by an evil woman named Gunnvör, who made a pact with Kólumkilli.Defiantly, Bjartur refuses to add a stone to Gunnvör's cairn to appease her, and in his optimism also changes the name of the farm from Winterhouses to Summerhouses. He is also newly wed to a young woman called Rósa, a fellow worker at Rauðsmýri, and is determined that they should live as independent people.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_of_Birds" title="Bridge of Birds">
The book is set in a fantastical version of imperial China (Hughart subtitled it "A Novel of an Ancient China That Never Was"). It draws on and reinvents the traditional tale of The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl and other myths, poems and incidents from Chinese history. The real story of the Cowherd and Weaver Girl is referenced at the end of the book.In the beginning of the novel, the village of Ku-fu is stricken by a plague which kills its silkworms and sends its children between the ages of eight and thirteen into a coma. Number Ten Ox, the narrator, is dispatched to find a wise man who can cure the children. In Peking, he finds Master Li Kao, a drunken scholar with a self-described "slight flaw in his character", who immediately identifies the cause of the plague as "ku" poison, an incurable poison inflicted on the village by two dishonest villagers trying to corner the silk crop. In order to cure the children, Ox and Master Li set out to find the Great Root of Power, which can cure anything. They begin by seeking it in the palace of the feared Ancestress.As it turns out, however, the Ancestress possesses only the lesser Root of Power, and the true Great Root is in the possession of the tyrannical and avaricious Duke of Ch'in. After surviving the Duke of Ch'in's deadly games that consisted of labyrinths and terrible monsters, they succeed in gathering different parts of the Ginseng. Still, these are all ineffective in curing the children. Along with the Ginseng, they also find three handmaiden ghosts that repeated the same story, "The birds of China must fly!" One of the many people they meet in their adventure is Henpecked Ho, who tells them the story of how a god, Star Shepherd, fell in love with a human girl, who was given the title of Princess of Birds. They also meet Key Rabbit, who is married to Lotus Cloud. Like every other man with a pure heart, Ox worships Lotus Cloud and showers her with expensive gifts. The heroes visit the Old Man of the Mountain. There they learn that in order to become immortal one must obtain something from the gods, and to become invulnerable one's heart must be removed. This information helps them figure out that somehow their quest to find the Ginseng is intertwined with the story of the Princess of Birds. They also conclude that the Duke of Ch'in knows the secrets of immortality and invulnerability, and was the same Duke who tricked the Princess of Birds and her three handmaidens centuries ago.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_You_There_God?_It's_Me,_Margaret." title="Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.">
When she is eleven, Margaret Simon's family moved from New York City to the New Jersey suburbs. Her mother is Christian, and her father is Jewish, but Margaret was raised without an affiliation to either faith. She frequently prays to God, beginning her prayers with, "Are you there God? It's me, Margaret."Margaret feels uncomfortable with her lack of religious affiliation. For a school assignment, she studies religious beliefs, hoping to resolve her faith-based issues. Her study includes attending different places of worship to learn about religious practices. Her Jewish grandmother, Sylvia Simon, takes Margaret to Rosh Hashanah services and hopes her granddaughter will embrace Judaism.Margaret befriends Nancy, a neighbor who is the same age. Nancy seems confident and knowledgeable about many subjects, including sex. Nancy, Margaret, and their friends Gretchen and Janie form a secret club called the Pre-Teen Sensations. The Pre-Teen Sensations discuss boys, bras, and menstruation. The girls anxiously await their first period, preparing by buying belted sanitary napkins (changed to adhesive pads in later editions of the book). They also do exercises to increase their bust sizes: "I must-I must-I must increase my bust!"Gretchen has her first period, which causes Margaret to worry that she is abnormal because she has not started menstruating. Margaret envies her classmate, Laura Danker, who started menstruating and wears a bra. According to Nancy, Laura dates an older boy. The Pre-Teen Sensations gossip about Laura letting boys touch her breasts. Margaret feels guilty when she learns that Laura is a devout Catholic and is hurt by the rumors. Margaret is attracted to a popular boy in her class named Philip Leroy. They kiss while playing "two minutes in the closet" during a party. Nancy tells the Pre-Teen Sensations that she started menstruating while on vacation. Margaret discovers the truth when Nancy gets her actual first period while at a restaurant with Margaret.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Science_of_Discworld" title="The Science of Discworld">
The Discworld part of the book begins when a new experimental power source for the Unseen University is commissioned in the university's squash court. The new "reactor" is capable of splitting the "thaum" (the basic particle of magic), in homage to the Chicago Pile-1 nuclear reactor, which was housed in a rackets court at the University of Chicago.However, the wizards' new reactor produces vastly more magical energy than planned and threatens to explode, destroying the University, the Discworld, and the entire universe. The university's thinking engine, Hex, decides to divert all the magic into creating a space containing nothing—no matter, no energy, no reality, and, importantly, no magic. The Dean sticks his fingers in the space and "twiddles" them, inadvertently creating the universe. The wizards soon discover that they can move things around in the universe, using Hex. They call it the Roundworld (the Earth), because in it, matter seems to accrete into balls in space (instead of discs on the backs of turtles). They decide to appoint Rincewind, whom they dragged out of bed in the early hours of the morning, the Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography, and send him down (against his will) to investigate this strange world.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villette_(novel)" title="Villette (novel)">
"Villette" begins with its famously passive protagonist, Lucy Snowe, age 14, staying at the home of her godmother Mrs. Bretton in "the clean and ancient town of Bretton", in England. Also in residence are Mrs. Bretton's teenaged son, John Graham Bretton (whom the family calls Graham), and a young visitor, Paulina Home (who is called Polly). Polly is a serious little girl who soon develops a deep devotion to Graham, who showers her with attention. But Polly's visit is cut short when her father arrives to summon her to live with him abroad.For reasons that are not stated, Lucy leaves Mrs. Bretton's home a few weeks after Polly's departure. Some years pass, during which an unspecified family tragedy leaves Lucy without family, home, or means. After some initial hesitation, she is hired as a caregiver by Miss Marchmont, a rheumatic crippled woman. Lucy is soon accustomed to her work and has begun to feel content with her quiet, frugal lifestyle.The night of a dramatic storm, Miss Marchmont regains all her energy and feels young again. She shares with Lucy her sad love story of 30 years ago, and concludes that she should treat Lucy better and be a better person. She believes that death will reunite her with her dead lover. The next morning, Lucy finds Miss Marchmont died in the night.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Does_His_Bit" title="William Does His Bit">
## William Does His Bit.William hears the family talk about a man called Quisling (William calls him 'Grisling'), who apparently appears to exist in many places at once, helping the Germans. When he learns the man is in fact many men doing the same thing, he sets out to find Quisling and capture him. His search takes him to the village, where at an intersection, two elderly ladies are talking about passwords in whispers. William at once decides to follow the second one, who goes to a school building through the cover of laurel bushes and at a blackened window, William sees an elderly gentleman with many women talking and putting flags on maps. He, believing it to be Grissel's gang plotting propaganda after he hears them make calls about disasters, follows the man to his house, and when he starts mowing his lawn, he rings the police asking them to come, due to stories where the hero is captured but the police come in the nick of time. William is caught "stealing" plates and cutlery so he can see where Grissel's papers are. The police start to arrest him, as William talks about the man and his doing. The man dismisses the police, rewarding William for his "efforts to the country" with money, a bun and lemonade. William walks home contentedly and tells his mother what happened. His mother does not believe him, and continues sewing.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windmills_of_the_Gods" title="Windmills of the Gods">
Mary Ashley, a professor at Kansas State University, is offered an ambassadorship by Paul Ellison, the US president. She rejects the offer because her husband, Dr. Edward Ashley, does not want to leave his medical practice, and she is not willing to be separated from him. She also feels that it is harder to find a good physician for a small Kansas town than an ambassador to a foreign country. When her husband suddenly dies in a traffic accident, Ashley accepts the President's offer in order to fill the void in her life. She is sent to Romania, behind the Iron Curtain, and adapts to the role of ambassador. She takes an instant distaste to her second in command, Mike Slade, but is unable to remove him due to his appointment being a presidential order. Her success as an ambassador turns her into a public face for understanding between the United States and Romania. She begins a relationship with Louis Desforges, a widowed French physician that saves her from attempts to kidnap and poison her, until he gets killed by Slade.Interspersed with that narration, the novel shows gatherings of members of the Patriots for Freedom, a secret society of powerful men that orchestrate political events trying to divide the Eastern and Western Blocs. They hire an international assassin nicknamed Angel to kill her, but the information is leaked and the attempt foiled. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Stanley" title="Flat Stanley">
The book recounts the adventures of Stanley Lambchop after he is squashed flat by a bulletin board while sleeping. He survives and decides to make the best of being flat. Soon, he discovers that he is able to enter locked rooms by sliding under the door. Over the course of the story, he also rolls up to go out to a park, and he is used as a kite by his brother. Another special advantage of being flat is that Flat Stanley can visit his friends in California by mailing himself in an envelope. Stanley even helps catch art museum thieves by disguising himself as a painting on the wall. Eventually, Stanley becomes tired of his flatness, and his brother restores his proper shape with a bicycle pump.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenmantle" title="Greenmantle">
Hannay is called in to investigate rumours of an uprising in the Muslim world, and undertakes a perilous journey through enemy territory to meet his friend Sandy in Constantinople. Once there, he and his friends must thwart the Germans' plans to use religion to help them win the war, climaxing at the battle of Erzurum.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Regained" title="Paradise Regained">
## Book 1.Jesus is baptized by John. Satan, seeing this, calls a meeting of demons to plot against him, confident he can fool Christ as he fooled Adam.Meanwhile God tells the angels Satan is overconfident, and they sing God's praise.Jesus enters the wilderness and fasts there for 40 days, pondering His past and future. A seeming old man of the desert asks him as Son of God to turn stones into bread. Jesus, recognizing Satan, rebukes him for his lies. Satan pretends to be delighted to hear truth and begs permission to stay. Jesus says he can do whatever the Father in heaven allows. Night falls.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_of_Otranto" title="The Castle of Otranto">
"The Castle of Otranto" tells the story of Manfred, lord of the castle, and his family. The book begins on the wedding day of his sickly son Conrad and princess Isabella. Shortly before the wedding, however, Conrad is crushed to death by a gigantic helmet that falls on him from above. This inexplicable event is particularly ominous in light of an ancient prophecy, "that the castle and lordship of Otranto should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it". Manfred, terrified that Conrad's death signals the beginning of the end for his line, resolves to avert destruction by marrying Isabella himself, while divorcing his current wife, Hippolita, who he feels has failed to bear him a proper heir in light of the sickly condition of Conrad before his untimely death.However, as Manfred attempts to marry Isabella, she escapes to a church with the aid of a peasant named Theodore. Manfred orders Theodore's death while talking to the friar Jerome, who ensured Isabella's safety at the church. When Theodore removes his shirt to be killed, Jerome recognizes a marking below his shoulder and identifies Theodore as his own son. Jerome begs for his son's life, but Manfred says Jerome must either give up the princess or his son's life. They are interrupted by a trumpet and the entrance of knights from another kingdom, who want to deliver Isabella to her father, Fredric, along with the castle, as Fredric has a stronger claim to it (another reason Manfred wishes to wed Isabella). This leads the knights and Manfred to race to find Isabella.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cheating_Culture" title="The Cheating Culture">
The main thesis of the book is that the current state of American society, characterized by rampant inequality and a winner-take-all philosophy, produces the cheating that has been observed in business, law, academia, journalism, entertainment and medicine.Cheating, of both illegal and legal forms, is pervasive in an American society where incentive-driven structures (e.g. stock options, production-based pay, fast-track career options) have gone haywire: Instead of promoting productivity and "fair play", they reward deception and chicanery. Callahan provides multiple examples of this phenomenon in recent American history. In the 1980, when Sears instituted a production quota for its auto repair staff, mechanics began performing unnecessary and costly maintenance. Overbilling is common within the legal profession. Pressed to bill as much time as possible, young lawyers may overcharge clients. In the medical profession, physicians may overstate the symptoms of managed care patients, else insurers would deny coverage.Not restricted to professions, cheating now appears in all facets of American life. According to Callahan, cheating breeds upon a dynamic between a "winner class", an upper-class so influential they effectively are exempt from most rules and standards, and an "anxious class", often compelled to cheat during a period of downward social mobility, downsizing, and within a cultural climate that values money and power above personal integrity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis_of_Prime_Intellect" title="The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect">
The story of the novella explores the nature of human desire and the uses and abuses of technology in the satisfaction of desire. The story begins after "the Change", in a dream-like post-scarcity society, approximately six hundred years in the future, in which humans have godlike control over their environments, made possible by the supercomputer called Prime Intellect. Prime Intellect operates under Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics, which, according to its own interpretation, allow temporary voluntary harm and discomfort. PI has made humanity immortal and satisfies nearly every whim. Caroline, the thirty-seventh oldest living human being, engages in a sport known as "death jockeying", whose players die elaborately and painfully for sport before being resurrected by Prime Intellect. Flashbacks set before the Change show the creation of Prime Intellect by Lawrence, a technologist, and its realization of its power, and the past life of Caroline before and after the Change, which happened not gradually but rapidly.In the present, Caroline makes use of a "Death Contract", an understanding between a person and Prime Intellect that the person is not to be removed from danger until the instant of death (at which point the person is fully restored, as allowing a person to die permanently would violate Prime Intellect’s inherent ethics based on Asimov’s laws). Caroline makes use of a Death Contract, as well as her own powers of persuasion, in order to trick a pre-Change enemy into torturing herself into psychosis as an act of revenge. 
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_Grove" title="In a Grove">
The story opens with testimonies given to a police commissioner. The first account is by a woodcutter who has found a man's body in the bamboo groves near the road to Yamashina. The man's chest had been pierced by a sword, and the blood from the wound and on the ground had already dried up. Asked by the commissioner, the woodcutter denies having seen any weapons or a horse. The only objects which caught his attention were a comb and a piece of rope near the body. He also comments on the trampled leaves at the site, indicating to him that there had been a violent struggle.The second testimony is given by a traveling Buddhist priest. He says that he saw the man, who was accompanied by a woman on horseback with veiled face, on the road from Sekiyama to Yamashina around noon the previous day. The man was carrying a sword, a bow and a black quiver with arrows. Upon request, he describes the horse as a tall, short-maned sorrel.The next person to testify is a "hōmen", an acquitted prisoner working under contract for the police. He has captured an infamous criminal named Tajōmaru. Tajōmaru had been thrown from a horse, a short-maned sorrel, which was grazing near-by. He still carried the bow and the black quiver with arrows belonging to the deceased. The hōmen reminds the commissioner of last year's murder of two women which is attributed to Tajōmaru, and speculates what he might have done to the dead man's wife.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_on_Earth_(novel)" title="Peace on Earth (novel)">
The evolution of artificial intelligence has allowed major world powers to sign a rather curious treaty: the Moon is divided into national zones (proportional to each nation's Earth real estate) and all weapons development and production must be moved there to be handled by factories. This is supposed to completely demilitarize Earth, achieving the long-sought dream of world peace. A MAD stabilizing factor is apparently preserved by the ability of countries, in case of war, to quickly ship weapons down from the Moon.Unknown to most people, a problem arises. The ever-increasing amount of autonomy given to Moon's automata, in order to conduct more-effective espionage in neighbors' nation facilities and also to defend one's own, leads to localized robotic conflicts on the Moon's surface. Eventually, after a number of events, there is a total discontinuation of any communication with the Moon. After a number of failed expeditions to reveal the truth on what is going on beneath the Moon's surface, Ijon Tichy is called to the rescue.Right before the return he was hit by a laser weapon which has led to his callosotomy. The resulting split personality leads to his inability to communicate properly both with the people and between the two "alter egos". This results in a good deal of slapstick comedy, e.g., involving hilarious conflicts between Tichy's left and right hand or leg. With the help of his friend, professor Tarantoga, he eventually succeeds in talking to himself.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_and_Fall" title="Decline and Fall">
Modest and unassuming theology student Paul Pennyfeather falls victim to the drunken antics of the Bollinger Club and is subsequently expelled from Oxford for running through the grounds of Scone College without his trousers. Having thereby defaulted on the conditions of his inheritance, he is forced to take a job teaching at an obscure private school in Wales called Llanabba, run by Dr Fagan. Paul soon discovers that the other masters are all failures in life.Attracted to the mother of one of his pupils, a wealthy widow called the Honourable Margot Beste-Chetwynde, he is delighted to be hired by her as tutor to her son during the vacation. Living in her country mansion, he becomes aware of her lovers and drug use but fails to realise that her business is running a chain of high-class brothels in Latin America. She however wants to marry him. First he has to fly to Marseille, where a consignment of her girls bound for Brazil has been held up by the police, who need bribing. Paul's activities there are shadowed by his college friend Potts, who now works for the League of Nations investigating human trafficking.Back in London, he is arrested on the morning of the wedding and, taking the fall to protect his fiancée's honour, is sentenced to seven years in prison for traffic in prostitution. In jail he meets several former staff from Llanabba, which has been closed. Unable to wait seven years, Margot marries a government minister, who arranges for Paul to be rushed from prison to a private clinic for an urgent operation. The clinic is run by Dr Fagan, who certifies that Paul died under anaesthetic and puts him on a boat to Greece.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Frome" title="Ethan Frome">
The novel is a framed narrative. The framing story concerns an unnamed male narrator spending a winter in Starkfield while in the area on business. He spots a limping, quiet man around the village, who is somehow compelling in his demeanor and carriage. This is Ethan Frome, who is a lifelong resident and a local fixture of the community. Frome is described by the narrator as "the most striking figure in Starkfield", "the ruin of a man" with a "careless powerful look ... in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain". Curious, the narrator sets out to learn about him. He learns that Frome's limp arose from having been injured in a "smash-up" twenty-four years before, but further details are not forthcoming, and the narrator fails to learn much more from Frome's fellow townspeople other than that Ethan's attempt at higher education decades before was thwarted by the sudden illness of his father following an injury, forcing his return to the farm to assist his parents, never to leave again. Because people seem not to wish to speak other than in vague and general terms about Frome's past, the narrator's curiosity grows, but he learns little more.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Oleander" title="White Oleander">
Astrid Magnussen is a 12-year-old girl living in Los Angeles, California with her mother, Ingrid Magnussen, a self-centered and eccentric poet. Astrid's father, Klaus Anders, left before Astrid was old enough to remember him. Ingrid begins dating a man named Barry. Eventually, Ingrid discovers that Barry is cheating on her with younger women, so she breaks into Barry's house and poisons him with a mixture of DMSO and oleander sap. Barry dies, and Ingrid is charged with his murder. Sentenced to life in prison, she promises her daughter that she will come back.Astrid is shuffled from one foster home to another for years. First, she joins Starr, a former stripper, and recovering drug addict and alcoholic. Starr has two children of her own, as well as two other foster children. Astrid (who is 14 by this time) has a sexual relationship with Starr's live-in boyfriend, Ray. As his interest in Starr diminishes, Starr relapses. One night, after confronting Ray over his relationship with Astrid (out of jealousy and not concern), Starr shoots Astrid with a .38. Astrid is hospitalized for a few weeks, at which time she begins abusing the prescription drug Demerol.After recovery Astrid is sent to live with Ed and Marvel Turlock, and their two small children, essentially as an unpaid babysitter. Astrid dislikes the couple, partially due to her dislike of the house, and partially due to Marvel's tendency to make racist statements about minorities, particularly their next-door neighbor, a beautiful African-American sex worker named Olivia Johnstone, whom Astrid befriends. Astrid admires Olivia's beauty, wealth, and hedonistic lifestyle. The Turlocks send Astrid away when they discover she associates with Olivia. 
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroscope_(novel)" title="Macroscope (novel)">
The central plot device is the "macroscope", a large crystal that can be used to focus a newly discovered type of particle, the "macron". Macrons are not subject to many of the effects that interfere with light, and as a result the macroscope can focus on any location in space-time with exceptional clarity, producing what is essentially a telescope of infinite resolution in the space-time continuum. The macroscope has been built into a solar-orbiting space station where scientists visit to book time on the device. Using it, they are able to explore space as never before. Among their many discoveries are numerous planets and two intelligent alien races. Using the macroscope, observers were able to look into one race's historical records, finding numerous parallels with human life on Earth. The race is now in social decline, and the implications are worrying.The macroscope's clear view across space also makes it an ideal communications system for intelligent races, who broadcast signals by generating macrons, a technique not yet understood on Earth. However, over-riding all of these signals is another of enormous power, one of such strength that it must have been constructed by a Type II civilization. This signal repeats itself, starting with instructions on basic math and progressing to ever-more complex information. Viewers with high enough intelligence, an IQ of 150, reach a point where the information causes them to go insane or die. Those without the intelligence to understand the advanced portions of the signal are unaffected. The signal appears to be a deliberate attempt to "jam" macroscopic communications, blocking those with the ability to understand the other signals from being able to see them. They refer to the blocking signal simply as the "destroyer".
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Planet" title="The Mysterious Planet">
Events of the serial are framed on an arcing plot that carries through the other three serials of the 23rd season. In this, the Sixth Doctor is forced to land the TARDIS aboard a Gallifreyan space station, where he is brought into a courtroom. The Inquisitor informs the Doctor he is on trial for conduct unbecoming a Time Lord; evidence will be presented by the Valeyard. The first evidence is shown through video footage, taken from the Matrix, of the Doctor's recent involvement in the planet Ravolox, where the Valeyard shows that the Doctor willingly became involved in the affairs of the planet. The Doctor denies these charges as the Valeyard brings them. After showing the video, the Valeyard affirms he has more evidence sufficient to call for the end of the Doctor's life.As shown by the court evidence, the Doctor and Peri land on Ravolox, both noting a similarity to Earth. The Doctor is aware that Ravolox was devastated by a fireball, according to official records, but the presence of flourishing plant life makes him suspicious. As they walk, they are observed by Sabalom Glitz and Dibber, mercenaries on the planet attempting to destroy a "black light" generator in order to destroy the L3 robot deep underground that it powers. The Doctor and Peri find a tunnel and enter to find remains that appear to be that of the Marble Arch tube station on the London Underground Central line, piquing the Doctor's curiosity further. The Doctor wishes to proceed deeper, but Peri is worried and stays behind.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindwarp" title="Mindwarp">
As with the other serials from Season 23, "Mindwarp" is framed by the trial of the Sixth Doctor, prosecuted by the Valeyard, accusing him of meddling in other species' affairs in a way unbecoming of a Time Lord. The Valeyard provides evidence to the presiding Inquisitor via a screen linked to the Matrix showing the details of the Doctor's actions on the planet Thoros Beta. The bulk of the episode centres on recorded narrative.As shown by the video, the Doctor and Peri arrive on Thoros Beta, the Doctor's curiosity piqued on the availability of advanced weaponry by the Warlords of Thordon. As they explore a cave system, the Doctor discovers Sil, an arms dealer for the Mentors that are supplying the weapons. Exploring further, they find that the scientist Crozier in Sil's employ is attempting to perfect the ability to transplant the brilliant mind of Kiv, Sil's superior, into another body to overcome Kiv's pending death. When discovered, the two make their escape with the warlord King Yrcanos, one of Crozier's test subjects.The Doctor, Peri, Yrcanos and his men plan an attack on Sil, but the Doctor betrays them by abandoning them at the last minute and warns the Mentors, causing Peri and Yrcanos to flee in different directions. Peri happens across one of the Mentors' servant women, and with her help, disguises herself to get close to the Doctor. The Doctor reveals Peri to the Mentors and requests he be allowed to interrogate her alone, a request Sil allows. Away from the others, the Doctor tells Peri his betrayal was all a ploy to learn more of Sil's plan, and has discovered that they will transplant Kiv's mind into his body if he does not cooperate.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_of_the_Vervoids" title="Terror of the Vervoids">
As with the other serials from Season 23, "Terror of the Vervoids" is framed by the trial of the Sixth Doctor, prosecuted by the Valeyard, accusing him of meddling in other species' affairs in a way unbecoming of a Time Lord. In his defence, the Doctor presents evidence through a screen linked to the Matrix, showing the details of his actions on the spaceliner Hyperion III in his own personal future. The bulk of the episode centres on recorded narrative.On the Hyperion III, an elderly man named Kimber thinks he recognises a fellow passenger as an investigator called Hallett. However, the passenger claims that he is a mineralogist called Grenville. A trio of scientist passengers – Professor Lasky and her colleagues Bruchner and Doland – are alarmed that Grenville might be an investigator.Edwardes, the communications officer, detects a craft close to the ship – the TARDIS – but is unable to get a reply. Suddenly, an unseen figure attacks him and injects him with a syringe, causing him to fall and die. He then uses the communication equipment to send a message to the TARDIS. On board, the Doctor and his new companion, Mel Bush, pick up a Mayday message. They materialise within the Hyperion III's cargo hold, are seized by guards, and are brought before Commodore Travers – whom the Doctor has met before. Travers denies sending a mayday signal, but wants the Doctor and Mel to remain on board. Travers hopes that the Doctor will find out who sent the fake mayday call.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Yankee" title="Team Yankee">
The novel is set in West Germany and East Germany in the months of August and September; the year is unspecified.Team Yankee ("Y" in the ICAO and NATO phonetic alphabet) is an armor-heavy company-sized unit (a "Team" in Army parlance). There is nothing special about this team; it is an average company-sized U.S. unit in an average battalion of the Regular Army.Team Yankee is composed of First Platoon (Lieutenant Murray Weiss), Second Platoon (Second Lieutenant McAllister), Mech(anized Infantry) Platoon (Staff Sergeant Polgar), and Third Platoon (Second Lieutenant Gerry Garger). Captain Sean Bannon is company commander; First Lieutenant Robert Uleski is the executive officer; and company first sergeant is First Sergeant Raymond Harrert.Captain Bannon is 27 years old, married and has three children. He studied military history, with a graduate degree, but is seen as an average officer; Coyle notes in the preface that Bannon will probably never rise in rank above lieutenant colonel.The team has four M1 Abrams tanks per platoon numbered 11, 12, 13, 14, 21... to 34, with the first digit corresponding to the respective platoon. The XO's tank is numbered 55; the CO's tank 66. Thus, the team has 10 M1s in the first twelve chapters when its First Platoon is attached to another unit.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stars_My_Destination" title="The Stars My Destination">
At the time when the book is set, "jaunting"—personal teleportation—has so upset the social and economic balance that the Inner Planets are at war with the Outer Satellites. Gully Foyle of the Presteign-owned merchant spaceship "Nomad"—an uneducated, unskilled, unambitious man whose life is at a dead end—is marooned in space when the ship is attacked and he alone survives. After six months of his waiting for rescue, a passing spaceship, the "Vorga", also owned by the powerful Presteign industrial clan, ignores his signal and abandons him. Foyle is enraged and is transformed into a man consumed by revenge, the first of many transformations.Foyle repairs the ship, but is captured by a cargo cult in the Asteroid Belt which tattoos a hideous mask of a tiger on his face. He manages to escape and is returned to Terra. His attempt to blow up the "Vorga" fails, and he is captured by Presteign. Unknown to Foyle, the "Nomad" was carrying "PyrE", a new material which could make the difference between victory and defeat in the war. Presteign hires Saul Dagenham to interrogate Foyle and find the ship and PyrE.Protected by his own revenge fixation, Foyle cannot be broken, and he is put into a -proof prison. There he meets Jisbella McQueen, who teaches him to think clearly, and tells him he should find out who gave the order not to rescue him. Together they escape and get his tattoos removed—but not with total success: the subcutaneous scars become visible when Foyle becomes too emotional. They travel to the "Nomad", where they recover not only PyrE, but also a fortune in platinum. Jisbella is captured by Dagenham, but Foyle escapes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(Varley_novel)" title="Titan (Varley novel)">
A scientific expedition to the planet Saturn in 2025, aboard the ship "Ringmaster", discovers a strange satellite in orbit around the planet. Commanding the ship is Cirocco Jones, a tall NASA career woman, aided by astronomer Gaby Plauget, the clone twin physicists April and August Polo, pilot Eugene Springfield, physician Calvin Greene and engineer Bill (whose last name is never given).As they reach the satellite they realize it is a huge hollow torus, a Stanford torus habitat. Before they can report this the ship is entangled in cables from the object. The crew is rendered unconscious and later wake up inside the habitat. Initially separated, Cirroco and Gaby find each other and travel together through the world inside the torus to find the rest of the crew.They find Calvin living as a companion inside a "Blimp", an intelligent gasbag a kilometer long, one of many that swim forever in the air inside the habitat. Calvin can speak to the blimp and understand its responses, which consist of whistles. His blimp's name is "Whistlestop", in human terms. Calvin helps Gaby and Cirocco find the other crew members (except April). He ultimately decides to leave his human companions to live with the blimp permanently.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rules_of_Attraction" title="The Rules of Attraction">
The novel is written in the first-person, continuing the aesthetic of Ellis' earlier "Less than Zero", and is told from the points of view of multiple characters. The main narrators are three students: Paul, Sean, and Lauren. A number of other characters also provide first-hand accounts throughout the story, which takes place at the fictional Camden College, a liberal arts school on the East Coast of the United States. The three main characters (who rarely attend class) end up in a love triangle within a sequence of drug runs, "Dressed to Get Screwed" parties, and "End of the World" parties.The story begins and ends midway through a sentence (the first word in the book being 'and', the last words are 'and she') in order to give the effect that it begins somewhere closer to the middle, rather than at a true beginning (in medias res). Another interpretation is that the story has neither a beginning nor an ending, signifying the endless cycle of debauchery in which the characters of the novel engage. This is sometimes mistaken by readers as a typographical error or the result of a missing page, but was purposely written by Ellis. The novel ends in a similar fashion, with the last sentence cut off before its end.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Client_(novel)" title="The Client (novel)">
Boyd Boyette, a United States Senator from Louisiana, goes missing. Because of his vocal opposition to a proposed major toxic landfill project by a company known to be Mafia-backed, murder is suspected. But no body can be found and Roy Foltrigg, United States Attorney in New Orleans, is desperate for a suspect. Barry "The Blade" Muldanno, a well-known thug and nephew of Johnny Sulari, acting boss of the New Orleans crime family is suspected. The FBI stalk Muldanno, hoping he'll lead them to the body.Eleven-year-old Mark Sway, his younger brother Ricky, and their divorced mother Dianne live in a trailer park in Memphis. Mark and Ricky are smoking cigarettes in the woods near their home, when they encounter a man trying to commit suicide by piping exhaust fumes into his car. Trying to remove the hose, Mark is grabbed by the man and forced into the car. The man, under the influence of drugs and alcohol, reveals himself to be lawyer Jerome Clifford. Clifford tells Mark that he is about to kill himself to avoid being murdered by Muldanno, who has revealed to him the location of Boyette's body. Mark manages to escape, and Clifford then shoots himself.Ricky becomes catatonic after witnessing the suicide and is hospitalized. Authorities — and the Mob — suspect that Clifford may have told Mark where the body is.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_and_the_Stars" title="The City and the Stars">
## Setting."The City and the Stars" takes place (at least) two and a half billion years from the present—ten rotations of the Galaxy since the apparition of the human species in the novel (one rotation of the Solar System around the galactic center (galactic year) is equivalent to 220–250 million years)—in the city of Diaspar. By this time, the Earth is so old that the oceans have gone and humanity has all but left. As far as the people of Diaspar know, theirs is the only city remaining on the planet. The city of Diaspar is completely enclosed. Nobody has entered or left the city for as long as anybody can remember, and everybody in Diaspar has an instinctive insular conservatism. The story behind this fear of venturing outside the city tells of a race of ruthless invaders which beat humanity back from the stars to Earth, and then made a deal that humanity could live—if they never left the planet.In Diaspar, the entire city is run by the Central Computer. Not only is the city repaired by machines, but the people themselves are created by the machines as well. The computer creates bodies for the people of Diaspar to live in and stores their minds in its memory at the end of their lives. At any time, only a small number of these people are actually living in Diaspar; the rest are retained in the computer's memory banks.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorky_Park_(novel)" title="Gorky Park (novel)">
The story follows Arkady Renko, a chief investigator for the Moscow militsiya, who is assigned to a case involving three corpses found in Gorky Park, an amusement park in Moscow. The victims - two men and a woman - were shot, and have had their faces and fingertips cut off by the murderer to prevent identification.Ice skates found on the woman's body lead Arkady to Irina Asanova, a wardrobe girl at a movie studio, who claims that she reported them stolen, and has no idea how they ended up with the victims. However, Arkady tentatively identifies the three bodies as known associates of Irina: her friend Valerya Davidova, Valerya's boyfriend Kostia Borodin, and an American expatriate student named James Kirwill. Arkady gives the woman's skull to Professor Andreev, an anthropologist at Moscow University, who specializes in reconstructing whole faces from bone structure.At a bathhouse, Arkady's superior, Chief Prosecutor Iamskoy, introduces Arkady to an American fur millionaire, John Osborne, who regularly visits Russia. When Arkady begins to suspect a connection between Osborne and the murders, he is warned by his associate, Mendel, a junior official in the Soviet Trade Ministry, that Osborne is an informant for the KGB, and thus regarded as a "friend" by all of Arkady's superiors.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Rocks" title="Beyond the Rocks">
The beautiful young Theodora Fitzgerald belongs to a family of noble lineage whose fortunes have waned and who have lived in near poverty for most of her life. The book begins with her arranged marriage to Josiah Brown, a nouveau-riche Australian in his fifties. The marriage was contracted for convenience: Josiah simply wants a pretty and aristocratic wife to improve his standing in society, and the Fitzgerald family are in need of Brown's financial resources. Theodora only agrees to the marriage for the sake of her father and sisters.Immediately after the wedding, Josiah falls ill. Theodora proves a dutiful and capable wife, and attends to her husband's every need, though she is secretly very unhappy. After a year of marriage, Josiah is well enough to visit Paris, where Theodora sees her father, Dominic, again for the first time since her wedding. She is thrilled to observe that at least he is receiving all the benefits she'd hoped to bring from her sacrifice: he now runs in aristocratic circles and is courting a wealthy American widow, Mrs. McBride. Theodora attends several social outings with her father, and at one dinner is introduced to Hector, Lord Bracondale. Theodora and Hector hit things off splendidly, and soon fall in love. Mrs. McBride is aware of Theodora's unhappy marriage, and seeing the situation she sympathetically arranges for Hector and Theodora to spend time together as often as possible. One day while Theodora and Hector are being chauffeured back to Paris after an outing at Versailles, the two indulge in a romantic encounter in the back of the car. Full of guilt thereafter, the two conclude they must behave themselves from now on and must no longer pursue each other romantically; they will, however, continue to be friendly to one another any time future social obligations might cause them to meet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Portrait_of_a_Lady" title="The Portrait of a Lady">
Isabel Archer, from Albany, New York, is invited by her maternal aunt, Lydia Touchett, to visit Lydia's rich husband, Daniel, at his estate near London, following the death of Isabel's father. There, Isabel meets her uncle, her friendly invalid cousin Ralph Touchett, and the Touchetts' robust neighbor, Lord Warburton.Isabel later declines Warburton's sudden proposal of marriage. She also rejects the hand of Caspar Goodwood, the charismatic son and heir of a wealthy Boston mill owner. Although Isabel is drawn to Caspar, her commitment to her independence precludes such a marriage, which she feels would demand the sacrifice of her freedom.The elder Touchett grows ill and, at the request of his son, Ralph, leaves much of his estate to Isabel upon his death. With her large legacy, Isabel travels the Continent and meets an American expatriate, Gilbert Osmond, in Florence. Although Isabel had previously rejected both Warburton and Goodwood, she accepts Osmond's proposal of marriage, unaware that it has been actively promoted by the accomplished but untrustworthy Madame Merle, another American expatriate, whom Isabel had met at the Touchetts' estate.Isabel and Osmond settle in Rome, but their marriage rapidly sours, owing to Osmond's overwhelming egotism and lack of genuine affection for his wife. Isabel grows fond of Pansy, Osmond's presumed daughter by his first marriage, and wants to grant her wish to marry Edward Rosier, a young art collector.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_the_Mighty" title="Max the Mighty">
Max Kane helps Rachel, nicknamed "Worm" because of her love of reading, run away from her overly religious and abusive stepfather, whom Max nicknames "The Undertaker" because he drives a hearse and wears black clothing. The Undertaker accuses Max of kidnapping Worm, so Max and Worm run away with Dippy Hippie on his bus, the Prairie Schooner. Along the way, they meet two con artists, Frank and Joanie, who read about Max and Worm and a money reward for finding them. Frank then tries to turn them in, and Max and Worm have to leave the Prairie Schooner. To take them the rest of the way they hop a train with Hobo Joe and arrive in Chivalry, Montana on a different train. They go into a mining tunnel and Max discovers that Worm's birth father had died in a mining accident. The Undertaker arrives there with the police and Max and Worm run away in the tunnels. They meet Dip, and Max's grandfather, Grim. The police catch them, and Worm runs back into the tunnel. She thinks about committing suicide to be with her father and away from her stepfather, but Max talks her out of it. A support beam in the mine falls over, pinning the Undertaker to the ground. This prompts Worm to finally confront the Undertaker about all the abuse he has been doing to her and her mother, revealing the truth to the police. Before anything else can happen, the mine starts to collapse, forcing everybody to run for the exit. However, Max cannot bear to leave the Undertaker behind, even after everything he's done, so he lifts up the beam to free the Undertaker. The Undertaker gets out of the mine in time, but Max couldn't. Fortunately, emergency services manage to rescue Max, who winds up with a broken shoulder and a broken leg as a result. Afterward, Worm's mother finally works up the courage to stand up to her abusive husband and testify about what really happened, getting the Undertaker convicted of domestic abuse and locked up in prison for a long time. The book ends with Max and his grandparents insisting that Worm and her mother live with them, which they gladly do. Max frequently mentions his old friend Kevin, also nicknamed Freak, throughout the book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devdas" title="Devdas">
Devdas is a young man from a wealthy Bengali family in India in the early 1900s. Parvati (Paro) is a young woman from a middle class Bengali Brahmin family. The two families live in a village called Taalshonapur in Bengal, and Devdas and Parvati are childhood friends.Devdas goes away for a couple of years to live and study in the city of Calcutta (now Kolkata). During vacations, he returns to his village. Suddenly, both realise that their easy comfort in each other's innocent comradeship has changed to something deeper. Devdas sees that Parvati is no longer the small girl he knew. Parvati looks forward to their childhood love blossoming into a happy lifelong journey in marriage. According to prevailing social custom, Parvati's parents would have to approach Devdas's parents and propose marriage of Parvati to Devdas as Parvati longs for.Parvati's mother approaches Devdas's mother, Harimati, with a marriage proposal. Although Devdas's mother loves Parvati very much, she isn't so keen on forming an alliance with the family next door. Besides, Parvati's family has a long-standing tradition of accepting dowry from the groom's family for marriage rather than sending dowry with the bride. The alternative family tradition of Parvati's family influences Devdas's mother's decision not to consider Parvati as Devdas' bride, especially as Parvati belongs to a trading ("becha-kena chottoghor") lower family. The "trading" label is applied in context of the marriage custom followed by Parvati's family. Devdas's father, Narayan Mukherjee, who also loves Parvati, does not want Devdas to get married so early in life and isn't keen on the alliance. Parvati's father, Nilkantha Chakravarti, feeling insulted at the rejection, finds an even richer husband for Parvati.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eragon" title="Eragon">
A Shade named Durza, along with a group of Urgals, ambushes a party of three elves. They kill two of them, and Durza attempts to steal an egg carried by the remaining female elf. However, she manages to use magic to teleport it elsewhere. Infuriated, Durza abducts her and keeps her prisoner at the city of Gil'ead.Eragon is a fifteen-year-old boy who has lived with his uncle Garrow and cousin Roran on a farm near the village of Carvahall, left there by his mother Selena after his birth. While hunting, he sees a large explosion and finds a dragon egg in the rubble. The night after, a baby dragon hatches from the egg, and bonds with Eragon, giving him a silver mark on his hand. Eragon names the dragon Saphira, after a name the old village storyteller Brom mentions. He raises the dragon in secret until two of King Galbatorix's servants, the Ra'zac, come to Carvahall. Eragon and Saphira escape and hide in the Spine, but Garrow is fatally wounded and the farm is burned down by the Ra'zac. Once Garrow dies, Eragon and Saphira decide to hunt the Ra'zac, in vengeance. Brom insists on accompanying him and Saphira, and gives Eragon the sword Zar'roc.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Edible_Woman" title="The Edible Woman">
Marian MacAlpin works in a market research firm, writing survey questions and sampling products. She shares the top-floor apartment of a house in Toronto (never named in the novel) with her roommate Ainsley and dates a dependable, hardworking but boring boyfriend, Peter. Marian also keeps in touch with Clara, a friend from college, who is now a constantly pregnant housewife.Ainsley announces she wants to have a baby—and intends to do it without getting married. When Marian is horrified, Ainsley replies, "The thing that ruins families these days is the husbands." Looking for a man who will have no interest in fatherhood, she sets her sights on Marian's "womanizer" friend Len, who is infamous for his relationships with young, naive girls.At work, Marian is assigned the task of gathering responses for a survey about a new brand of beer. While walking from house to house asking people their opinions, she meets Duncan, a graduate student in English who intrigues her with his atypical and eccentric answers.Marian later has a dinner date with Peter and Len, during which Ainsley shows up dressed as a virginal schoolgirl—the first stage of her plan to trick Len into impregnating her. Marian finds herself disassociating from her body as Peter recounts a gory rabbit hunt to Len:
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_be_an_Alien" title="How to be an Alien">
The book is in two parts. The first part, "How to be a General Alien", deals with such important English topics as the weather, tea, how not to be clever (since it is considered bad manners), how to compromise, and queueing (according to Mikes, the national passion). The chapter entitled "Sex" is in its entirety as follows.Continental people have sex lives: the English have hot water bottles.The second part, "How to be a Particular Alien", describes particular occupations from Bloomsbury intellectual to bus driver, finishing with how to be a naturalised citizen, which includes the eating of porridge for breakfast, and alleging that you like it.Mikes subsequently wrote "How to be Inimitable" (1960) and "How to be Decadent" (1977). All three books were published in one volume in 1984 as "How to be a Brit".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brothers_Karamazov" title="The Brothers Karamazov">
## Book One: "A Nice Little Family".The opening of the novel introduces the Karamazov family and relates the story of their distant and recent past. The details of Fyodor Pavlovich's two marriages, as well as his indifference to the upbringing of his three children, is chronicled. The narrator also establishes the widely varying personalities of the three brothers and the circumstances that have led to their return to their father's town. The first book concludes by describing the mysterious Eastern Orthodox tradition of the Elders. Alyosha has become devoted to the Elder at the local monastery.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_(novel)" title="Congo (novel)">
The novel starts in 1979, with an abrupt end to an expedition sent by Earth Resource Technology Services Inc (ERTS). in the dense rainforests of the Virunga region, in the heart of the Congo, when the team is suddenly attacked and killed by unknown creatures – soon, all contact with them is lost. The expedition, which was searching for deposits of diamonds, discovered the fictional lost city of Zinj. A video image taken by a camera there, and transmitted by satellite to the base station in Houston, shows a peculiar race of grey-haired gorillas to be responsible for the murders.Another expedition, led by Karen Ross, is launched to find out the truth and to find the Lost City of Zinj, where there are believed to be deposits of a certain diamond, the type IIb, which are naturally boron-doped and thus useful as semiconductors, though worthless as gemstones. This time, the searchers bring along the famous White African mercenary Charles Munro, as well as a female mountain gorilla named Amy, who has been trained to communicate with humans using sign language, and her trainer Peter Elliot.Time is of the greatest essence, as a rival consortium from corporations in Japan, Germany, and the Netherlands are also searching for the diamonds, turning the entire expedition into a race to the city of Zinj. Unfortunately for Ross and her team, the American expedition encounters many delays along the way, including plane crashes, native civil wars, and jungle predators.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Backward" title="Looking Backward">
Bellamy's time travel novel tells the story of a hero figure named Julian West, a young American, who towards the end of the 19th century, falls into a deep, hypnosis-induced sleep and wakes up 113 years later. He finds himself in the same location (Boston, Massachusetts), but in a totally changed world: It is the year 2000, and while he was sleeping, the United States has been transformed into a socialist utopia. The remainder of the book outlines Bellamy's thoughts about improving the future. The major themes include problems associated with capitalism, a proposed socialist solution of a nationalization of all industry, and the use of an "industrial army" to organize production and distribution, as well as how to ensure free cultural production under such conditions.The young man readily finds a guide, Doctor Leete, who shows him around and explains all the advances of this new age, including drastically reduced working hours for people performing menial jobs and almost instantaneous, internet-like delivery of goods. Everyone retires with full benefits at age 45, and may eat in any of the public kitchens (realized as factory-kitchens in the 1920s–30s in the USSR). The productive capacity of the United States is nationally owned, and the goods of society are equally distributed to its citizens. A considerable portion of the book is dialogue between Leete and West wherein West expresses his confusion about how the future society works and Leete explains the answers using various methods, such as metaphors or direct comparisons with 19th-century society.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witches_Abroad" title="Witches Abroad">
Following the death of the witch Desiderata Hollow, Magrat Garlick receives Desiderata's magic wand, for Desiderata was not only a witch but also a fairy godmother. By giving the wand to Magrat, she effectively makes Magrat the new fairy godmother to a young woman called Emberella, who lives across the Disc in Genua. Sadly, Desiderata does not give Magrat any instruction on how to use the wand, so pretty much anything that Magrat points it at simply becomes a pumpkin.Desiderata had promised Emberella that she would not be forced to marry the Duke (or Duc, as it is spelled in the book), who's really a frog/prince. Now it is up to Magrat and her companions, (Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg), to ensure Emberella does not marry the Duc, despite the desires of another witch in Genua called Lilith, Desiderata's fairy godmother counterpart. Lilith used the power of mirrors to capture Genua.The trio of witches journey to Genua, which takes some time and involves numerous mis-adventures, such as an encounter with a village terrorised by a Vampire—Nanny Ogg's cat Greebo catches it in bat form and eats it—an incident where they encounter a Running of the Bulls-like event, and a house falling on Nanny's head which she survives thanks to her hat with the willow reinforcement. Upon arrival in Genua, Magrat goes to meet Emberella, while the two older witches meet Erzulie Gogol, a voodoo witch and her zombie servant, Baron Saturday (who was also her late lover).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_and_Ladies_(novel)" title="Lords and Ladies (novel)">
Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick return to Lancre after their recent adventure in Genua. Magrat is stunned when King Verence proclaims their imminent marriage, having already made all the arrangements in her absence. The sudden appearance of crop circles reveals to Nanny and Granny that it is now "circle time", a convergence of parallel universes when the Discworld is susceptible to incursions from the "parasite universe" of the Elves. Elves are capricious and amoral creatures that enter the minds of animals and sentient beings in a more destructive way than witches do, using "glamour" to alter human's perceptions of them. They are normally kept away by a circle of magnetized iron standing stones known as the Dancers. When Nanny and Granny refuse to explain the situation to Magrat, she leaves the coven, disavows witchcraft, and moves into an apartment in Lancre Castle. She soon becomes bored with the courtly lifestyle and unsure of her place.Mustrum Ridcully, Archchancellor of Unseen University, leads a small group of faculty to attend the wedding. Along the way, they are joined by the Dwarfish lothario Casanunda.Granny and Nanny discover that a group of local girls, led by Diamanda Tockley and including Agnes Nitt, have formed a new coven whose activities include dancing naked at the Dancers. The two elderly witches try to convince them to stop, with Granny ultimately besting Diamanda in a public witchcraft contest and discrediting the new coven. But a defiant Diamanda later runs through the Dancers into the land of the Elves, where she is knocked unconscious by a poisoned Elven arrow before being rescued by Granny. Nanny subdues an Elf that pursues them back into Lancre, using an iron fireplace poker; Elves and their powers are severely weakened by iron. The witches bring Diamanda and the Elf to Lancre Castle, where Magrat treats Diamanda and Verence agrees to imprison the Elf (though Magrat inadvertently frees it later). Meanwhile, Granny has begun to experience memories of other paths her life has taken in parallel worlds, as well as a growing sense of her own impending death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Royal_Game" title="The Royal Game">
An anonymous narrator opens the story by describing the boarding of a passenger liner traveling from New York to Buenos Aires. One of the passengers is world chess champion Mirko Czentovic. Czentovic is an idiot savant and prodigy with no obvious qualities apart from his talent for chess. The narrator plays chess with his wife, hoping to draw Czentovic's attention and engage him in a game. The narrator draws the attention of McConnor, a businessman, who offers to pay Czentovic's fee.A group of passengers (including the narrator and McConnor) play Czentovic in a , which Czentovic wins. They are about to lose a second game when they are interrupted by Dr B., who prevents them from blundering and guides the party to a draw.Dr B. tells his story to the narrator. He was a lawyer who managed the assets of the Austrian nobility and church. He was arrested by the Gestapo, who hoped to extract information from Dr B. in order to steal the assets. The Gestapo kept Dr B. imprisoned in a hotel, in total isolation, but Dr B. maintained his sanity by stealing a book of past masters' chess games, which he learned completely. After absorbing every single move in the book, he began to play against himself, developing the ability to separate his psyche into two personas. This psychological conflict ultimately caused him to suffer a breakdown, after which he awakened in a hospital. A sympathetic physician attested his insanity to keep him from being imprisoned again by the Nazis, and he was freed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostromo" title="Nostromo">
"Nostromo" is set in the fictional South American country of Costaguana, and more specifically in that country's Occidental Province and its port city of Sulaco. Though Costaguana is a fictional nation, its geography as described in the book resembles real-life Colombia. Costaguana has a long history of tyranny, revolution and warfare, but has recently experienced a period of stability under the dictator Ribiera.Charles Gould is a native Costaguanero of English descent who owns an important silver-mining concession near the key port of Sulaco. He is tired of the political instability in Costaguana and its concomitant corruption, and uses his wealth to support Ribiera's government, which he believes will finally bring stability to the country after years of misrule and tyranny by self-serving dictators. Instead, Gould's refurbished silver mine and the wealth it has generated inspires a new round of revolutions and self-proclaimed warlords, plunging Costaguana into chaos. Among others, the forces of the revolutionary General Montero invade Sulaco after securing the inland capital. Gould, adamant that his silver mine should not become spoil for his enemies, orders Nostromo, the trusted "Capataz de Cargadores" (Head Longshoreman) of Sulaco, to take the mine's most recent load of silver offshore, and arranges for the mine complex to be destroyed by dynamite if the coup leaders try to take it. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well_of_Lost_Plots" title="The Well of Lost Plots">
Apprentice Jurisfiction agent and SpecOps-27 operative Thursday Next is taking a vacation inside "Caversham Heights", a never-published detective novel inside the titular Well of Lost Plots, while waiting for her child to be born. In the book, she encounters two Generics, students of St Tabularasa's who have yet to be assigned to a book, and DCI Jack Spratt, a detective who partners with her in investigating a murder. Since Thursday is an "Outlander", a "real" person rather than a fictional character, Spratt hopes that she will help them appeal to the Council of Genres to prevent the disassembling of "Caversham Heights", a fate inevitable for books which languish unpublished in the real world.Using a "Caversham Heights" as her base of operations, Thursday continues her apprenticeship with Miss Havisham from "Great Expectations". Meanwhile, fictional character Yorrick Kaine is loose in Thursday's real world and conspiring with someone in Text Grand Central, the final arbitrators of plot, setting, and other story elements, to release BOOK version 9, code-named UltraWord. UltraWord is touted at a Jurisfiction meeting as the greatest advance "since the invention of movable type" because it creates a thirty-two plot story system and allows the reader to control the story.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Brown's_School_Days" title="Tom Brown's School Days">
Tom Brown is energetic, stubborn, kind-hearted and athletic, rather than intellectual. He follows his feelings and the unwritten rules of the boys.The early chapters of the novel deal with his childhood at his home in the Vale of White Horse. Much of the scene setting in the first chapter is deeply revealing of Victorian Britain's attitudes towards society and class, and contains a comparison of so-called Saxon and Norman influences on the country. This part of the book, when young Tom wanders the valleys freely on his pony, serves as a contrast with the hellish experiences in his first years at school.His first school year is at a local school. His second year starts at a private school, but due to an epidemic of fever in the area, all the school's boys are sent home, and Tom is transferred mid-term to Rugby School.On his arrival, the eleven-year-old Tom Brown is looked after by a more experienced classmate, Harry "Scud" East. Tom's nemesis at Rugby is the bully Flashman. The intensity of the bullying increases, and, after refusing to hand over a sweepstake ticket for the favourite in a horse race, Tom is deliberately burned in front of a fire. Tom and East defeat Flashman with the help of Diggs, a kind, comical, older boy. In their triumph they become unruly.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Book_in_the_Universe" title="The Last Book in the Universe">
The story is set in a dystopian future city somewhere in the United States, called the Urb, which has been disturbed by an earthquake known as "The Big Shake." The Urb is plagued by poverty, thieves, gang warfare, and the use of mind probes. Mind probes are analogous to hard drugs and enable users to temporarily escape reality through images projected in the head. Genetically improved people, called "proovs", (a play on "improved") live in a city called Eden, with a beautiful society, food, and water. Eden is separated from the Urb by the "Forbidden Zone," a deadly and dangerous minefield. The Urb is split up into sections called "latches." Each latch is controlled by a gang. Spaz is a teenage boy who cannot use mind probes because of his epilepsy, causing his family to abandon him. Spaz runs errands for Billy Bizmo, the latch-boss (leader) of his gang, the "Bully Bangers," in a section of the Urb. On one of his errands, Spaz is sent to "rip-off" (steal from) Ryter, a very old man who possesses the lost arts of literacy and literature.Spaz soon meets Little Face, a five-year-old orphan who only says the word "chox", because he didn't learn how to speak and Spaz first gave him to eat. Spaz also meets Lanaya, a , who charitably gives out "edibles" (food) to Spaz. Ryter understands Spaz's situation and does his best to help him, offering no resistance when Spaz attempts to steal his belongings. Eventually, Spaz learns that Bean, his beloved adoptive sister, is dying of leukemia. Ryter and Little Face accompany Spaz on a journey to find Bean. The trio starts by traveling through "the Pipe," a large, rusted-out water pipe that leads to other latches. In the next latch, the group sees everything burning and finds Lanaya being attacked by very hungry people. Lanaya is rescued by Spaz and Ryter, and she joins them on their journey. The group starts traveling towards the latch where Bean lives and eventually find her as well. Lanaya and Ryter decide to take Bean to Eden, along with Spaz and Little Face. They ride along in Lanaya's to her "contributors" (parents), Jin and Bree's home, which is a castle in Eden.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amtrak_Wars" title="The Amtrak Wars">
In AD 2989, a 17-year-old, newly qualified Amtrak pilot named Steve Brickman joins the "Lady from Louisiana", a wagon-train in its first major assault on the Plainfolk Mutes. Thanks to the Mutes' deployment of sorcery, the wagon-train is defeated and forced to retreat. Brickman is taken prisoner by the Mutes but not killed, due to a prophetic vision of the clan's seer, Mr. Snow, which suggests Steve will be instrumental in the fulfilment of the Talisman Prophecy. The prophecy is that a 'chosen one' called "Talisman" will arise to destroy the Federation and lead the Mutes to victorious domination of the world. Steve comes to admire and respect the Mutes; he falls in love with a "straight" (mutation-free) Mute woman named Clearwater and forges a bond of mutual respect with Mr. Snow's apprentice, Cadillac.Steve eventually escapes from the Mutes and returns to the Federation, but his account of his imprisonment and escape is deemed fantastical. Labelled a deserter, he is stripped of all rank and is publicly disgraced. Privately, Steve is recruited by the Federation's top-secret intelligence organisation, AMEXICO, and is sent on a new assignment to capture Cadillac, Clearwater, and Mr. Snow, who are deemed of interest to the Federation. Upon learning that Cadillac has used information from Steve to build a primitive glider and fly it to Ne-Issan as part of a weapons and intelligence exchange between the Mutes and Iron Masters, Steve decides to pursue the capture mission into Ne-Issan. During this mission, Steve's loyalties become further conflicted between his affinity with the Mutes and his birth allegiance to the Federation, and he begins a risky attempt to play both sides against the middle whilst he looks for a way to escape his enemies on both sides.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daleks" title="The Daleks">
The TARDIS lands in a petrified jungle, where the First Doctor (William Hartnell) tries to determine their position by taking a reading of the stars. He insists they explore a futuristic city they spot beyond the forest, but Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) are not convinced. In the forest, someone touches Susan Foreman's (Carole Ann Ford) shoulder; the Doctor does not believe her. Later, a box of vials is found outside the TARDIS. The Doctor claims the fluid link of the TARDIS is running low on mercury (a ruse he later admits to), forcing the crew to travel to the city in search of more mercury.Barbara becomes separated from her colleagues in the city and is threatened by an unseen creature with a metal arm. Before long, the entire crew is captured by unseen creatures operating tank-like machines, the Daleks. Susan is eventually sent to retrieve anti-radiation drugs from the TARDIS after the Doctor realises this is what the box contained. Susan encounters a second species, the Thals, who used to be at war with the Daleks. The Thal who left the drugs reveals he encountered her in the forest. Susan attempts to broker peace between the two groups, and while it appears to work, the Daleks eventually betray the Thals, opening fire on them at what was supposed to be a peaceful exchange of food. The Daleks attempt using the anti-radiation drugs, but discover that they are fatal to Daleks. They conclude that Daleks need radiation to survive and decide to bombard the atmosphere with more radiation.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Skilled_Gentlemen" title="Eight Skilled Gentlemen">
In this novel, Li Kao and Number Ten Ox are attending the execution of a notorious criminal (about whose capture the less said the better, according to the chronicler) when into the public square bounds a "vampire ghoul" who soon meets a fiery demise. Master Li is given the case by the "Celestial Master" who soon becomes a main suspect. The plot involves everything from a conspiracy involving fake tea to dog-brides, puppeteers to magic birdcages, assorted pre-Chinese demons and gods, and the hooded and ancient Eight Skilled Gentlemen.The plot also involves a subject rarely mentioned in fiction, the pre-Chinese aborigines and their gods.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Songs_of_Distant_Earth" title="The Songs of Distant Earth">
The novel is set in the early 3800s and takes place almost entirely on the faraway oceanic planet of Thalassa. Thalassa has a small human population sent there by way of an embryonic seed pod, one of many sent out from Earth in an attempt to continue the human race before the Earth was destroyed.The story begins with an introduction of the Thalassans – the marine biologist Brant, his partner Mirissa and her brother Kumar. They are typical examples of the Thalassan culture; quiet, stable, and free from religion and supernatural influence. Their peaceful existence comes to an end with the arrival of the "Magellan", an interstellar spaceship from Earth containing one million colonists who have been put into cryonic suspension.In a series of descriptive passages, the events leading up to the race to save the human species are explained. Scientists in the 1960s discover that the neutrino emissions from the Sun – a result of the nuclear reactions that fuel the star – are far diminished from expected levels. At a secret session of the International Astronomical Union it is confirmed that the Sun will become a nova around the year AD 3600.Over a period of centuries humanity develops advanced technologies to send out seeding ships containing human and other mammalian embryos (and later on, simply stored DNA sequences), along with robot parents, to planets that are considered habitable. One such ship is sent to the far off ocean world of Thalassa and successfully establishes a small human colony in the year 3109. Sending live humans is ruled out due to the immense amount of fuel that a rocket-propelled spacecraft would have to carry to first accelerate to the speeds required to travel such great distances within an acceptable time, and then decelerate upon approaching the destination. This limitation is overcome however with the development of the Quantum Drive less than a hundred years before the Sun is set to become a nova. This scientific breakthrough allows the construction of a fleet of crewed interstellar vehicles, including the starship "Magellan". The "Magellan" escapes the Earth three years before the Sun explodes, an event that is witnessed by the "Magellan"'s crew.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slapstick_(novel)" title="Slapstick (novel)">
The novel is in the form of an autobiography of Dr. Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain. Dr. Swain tells us that he lives in the ruins of the Empire State Building with his pregnant granddaughter, Melody Oriole-2 von Peterswald, and her lover, Isadore Raspberry-19 Cohen. Dr. Swain is a hideous man whose ugliness, along with that of his twin sister Eliza, led their parents to cut them off from modern society. The siblings came to realize that, when in close physical contact, they form a vastly powerful and creative intelligence. Through reading and philosophizing together, Wilbur and Eliza combated the feelings of loneliness and isolation that would otherwise have ruined their childhood.Throughout the book, Wilbur claims that his sister Eliza is the more intelligent of the two, but that no one realizes it because she can't read or write. Wilbur and Eliza are like two halves of a brain, with Wilbur the left brain—logical, rational, able to communicate—and Eliza the right brain: creative, emotional, but unable to communicate effectively.The siblings created, among other things, a plan to end loneliness in America through vast extended families. Under the plan, all citizens would be provided with new middle names, made of the name of a random natural object paired with a random number between 1 and 20. Everyone with the same name would be cousins, and everyone with the same name and number would be siblings.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_of_Gomrath" title="The Moon of Gomrath">
Once again, it details the involvement of two children, Colin and Susan, with the world of myth and magic. This time the focus is on the potential of the older, wilder forms of magic and myth cycle to create both creative and destructive forces on the world.To ease the surrender of the Weirdstone in "The Weirdstone of Brisingamen", Susan was given a magical bracelet by Angharad Goldenhand. It is the donning of this bracelet which has launched Susan unwittingly on a destiny connected with the cycles of the moon and hence the older wilder powers of the world. "The Moon of Gomrath" begins when the elves (lios-alfar) borrow the bracelet, with her consent, to see if its power can be directed by them to battle an unknown evil power in their own lands in Sinadon. However while unprotected by the bracelet, Susan is possessed by the Brollachan, an ancient evil released after an old pit is broken open during building work. The wizard Cadellin, guardian of the sleeping knights in "The Weirdstone of Brisingamen", cannot restore Susan after the Brollachan has been driven out of her body; instead perceiving that her spirit has been driven to another spiritual dimension, unreachable with ordinary means. It is Colin's true-hearted heroic love and need for his sister which provides the answer; as he responds to the older powers of the world. He therefore comes to seek the Mothan at moonrise. The Mothan is a mythical plant which grows on the Old Straight Track. This is a motif inspired by the book named "The Old Straight Track". It is part of the Old Magic, in contrast to Cadellin's High Magic. Susan is dramatically restored to her own body.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Blood_(novel)" title="Captain Blood (novel)">
The protagonist is the sharp-witted Dr. Peter Blood, a fictional Irish physician who had had a wide-ranging career as a soldier and sailor (including a commission as a captain under the Dutch admiral De Ruyter) before settling down to practice medicine in the town of Bridgwater in Somerset. The story is told from the perspective of an omniscient narrator, who enables the reader to see the thoughts and views of many different characters. The narrator - perhaps meant to be Sabatini himself - claims to have acquired the story from the ship's logs of Blood's longtime companion Jeremy Pitt. The book opens with him attending to his geraniums while the town prepares to fight for James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth. He wants no part in the rebellion, but while attending to some of the rebels wounded at the Battle of Sedgemoor, Peter is arrested. During the Bloody Assizes, he is convicted by the infamous Judge Jeffreys of treason on the grounds that "if any person be in actual rebellion against the King, and another person—who really and actually was not in rebellion—does knowingly receive, harbour, comfort, or succour him, such a person is as much a traitor as he who indeed bore arms."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearhead_from_Space" title="Spearhead from Space">
The Doctor collapses outside his TARDIS and is taken to Ashbridge Cottage Hospital in Epping, where his unusual anatomy confuses the doctors.Meanwhile, a meteorite shower falls on the English countryside, and a poacher discovers a mysterious plastic polyhedron at the crash site. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart of UNIT is trying to recruit Dr. Elizabeth "Liz" Shaw as a scientific advisor to examine any meteorites for evidence of aliens. Shaw is sceptical of the Brigadier's concerns and resents being taken away from her research at Cambridge.The plastic polyhedron is a power unit for a non-physical alien intelligence known as the Nestene Consciousness. Normally disembodied, it has an affinity for plastic, and is able to animate human replicas made from it, called Autons. The Nestene have taken over a toy factory in Epping, and plan to replace key government and public figures with Auton duplicates. The Auton in charge of the factory sends other, less human-looking, dummy-like Autons to retrieve the power units from UNIT and the poacher.After recovering in hospital and avoiding being kidnapped by the Autons, the Doctor discovers that his TARDIS has been disabled by the Time Lords and he is trapped on Earth. Despite his recent change in appearance, he convinces Lethbridge-Stewart that he is the same man who helped to defeat the Yeti and the Cybermen. Together with Liz, he uncovers the Nestene plot, just as the Autons activate across Britain and begin killing. The Doctor assembles an electroshock device that he believes will disable them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthborn" title="Earthborn">
Five centuries after the conclusion of "Earthfall", there is only one original colonist from Harmony: Shedemei, who now wears the Cloak of the Starmaster (a device that links her to the Oversoul). After hundreds of years, the descendants of Nafai and Elemak have built cities and towns - yet never forgetting the enmity between the two brothers. After hundreds of years, the Oversoul still has not achieved its original purpose: to find the Keeper of Earth, the central intelligence that alone can repair the Oversoul's damaged counterpart at Harmony.But now, the Keeper has once again begun to spread its influence. Heeding the dreams below, Shedemei has decided to return to Earth.The last book in the Homecoming saga marks a departure from the style and storyline of the previous four. All of the characters from the previous novels (except Shedemei) are long dead. The central conflict between Nafai and Elemak is represented in their descendants, but takes a back seat in this book. The focus is on the struggles within the descendants of those who followed Nafai. The king of Darakemba (an empire founded by the Nafaris), his children, and his advisers, along with the high priest of Darakemba, his children, and his converts, provide the main actions in the story.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthfall_(novel)" title="Earthfall (novel)">
The children of Wetchik are ready to board the starship "Basilica" and embark on their journey from the planet Harmony back to the origin of humanity: Earth. However, the rivalry between Nafai and Elemak promises the journey will be anything but peaceful. Each faction already has hidden plans to prematurely awaken from the long hibernation, to have the upper hand when the landing occurs. The children become pawns in their parents' power struggle - valuable potential adults that can strengthen each faction. But the Oversoul is ultimately in control, having uploaded a copy of itself into "Basilica's" central computer, so that it can monitor the ship at all times.After landing on Earth, the fragile peace wrought on board is merely a mask for the turmoils of passions that boil beneath. Not only do the colonists have to deal with the split, there are also the mysteriously symbiotic alien races that have evolved on Earth since humanity's departure. The quest to understand the Angels (giant bats) and the Diggers (giant rats) that were foreshadowed in the dreams is not an easy one.The focus throughout the course of this novel begins to drift away from the original generation of characters in order to delineate the passage of time. The factions that developed among the original generation have now spread to their children, through no fault of the children themselves. Nafai finds himself and his "Nafari" living and working primarily amongst the angel people, whereas the "Elemaki" associate much more closely with the diggers. It is this dissociation that eventually breaks nearly all the bonds—literally, for Hushidh and Cheveya—between Nafai and his older brother, Elemak. As Elemak's rage and hatred for Nafai grow, he ingrains such feelings into his family and the digger people, laying the foundation for war.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Bless_You,_Dr._Kevorkian" title="God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian">
The premise of the collection is that Vonnegut employs Dr. Jack Kevorkian to give him near-death experiences, allowing Vonnegut access to heaven and those in it for a limited time. While in the afterlife Vonnegut interviews a range of people including Adolf Hitler, William Shakespeare, Isaac Asimov, and the ever-present Kilgore Trout (a fictional character created by Vonnegut in his earlier works).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Father_Christmas_Letters" title="The Father Christmas Letters">
The stories are told in the format of a series of letters, told either from the point of view of Father Christmas or his elvish secretary. They document the adventures and misadventures of Father Christmas and his helpers, including the North Polar Bear and his two sidekick cubs, Paksu and Valkotukka. The stories include descriptions of the massive fireworks that create the northern lights and how Polar Bear manages to get into trouble on more than one occasion.The 1939 letter has Father Christmas making reference to the Second World War, while some of the later letters feature Father Christmas' battles against Goblins which were subsequently interpreted as being a reflection of Tolkien's views on the German Menace.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elidor" title="Elidor">
The story concerns the adventures of a group of children as they struggle to hold back a terrible darkness by fulfilling a prophecy from another world. The plot moves to and from the world of Elidor, and the city of Manchester and parts of northern Cheshire in the real world.Like many of Garner's books, the emphasis of the narrative is on the hardships, cost and practicalities of the choices and responsibilities that the protagonists face.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freak_the_Mighty" title="Freak the Mighty">
The novel is set in a version of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In the beginning of the book, Maxwell Kane is a young boy with low self-esteem. He lives with his grandfather, Grim, and grandmother, Gram. Max thinks of himself as a big butthead. People are afraid of him because he looks like his father, Kenneth "Killer" Kane, a convicted murderer. Max sets the stage for the story by reminiscing about his time in daycare, when he had met a boy named Kevin, or Freak, as their classmates called him. Kevin has Morquio syndrome, wears leg braces and uses crutches, and thinks of himself as a robot and is bullied by many bigger kids due to his short height. However, Max likes Kevin and thinks the crutches and leg braces are neat.Many years later, when Max is in middle school, he finds out that Freak and his mother, Gwen (referred to as "The Fair Guinevere") are moving into the house next door. When Max initially approaches Freak, Freak acts with hostility. However, sometime later, Max saves Kevin's toy ornithopter from a tree and they start to become friends. On the Fourth of July, they go to see the fireworks show and are attacked by an older boy, Tony "Blade" D. and his gang but avoid any mental or physical conflict. After the show, Blade chases the two with his gang after Freak calls him a cretin. Despite Max's lack of knowledge and disability, he escapes by acting on Freak's orders, but the two are driven into a muddy millpond, Freak riding on Max's shoulders. Freak gets the attention of a nearby police car, who drives off Blade's gang and takes the boys home. After this incident, Kevin starts riding on Max's shoulders regularly. They begin to call themselves "Freak the Mighty". They go on adventures such as going to the hospital which Freak claims has a secret department called the "Bionics Department" which has had his brain CT scanned to be fitted into a bionic body.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_at_Noon" title="Darkness at Noon">
## Structure."Darkness at Noon" is divided into four parts: The First Hearing, The Second Hearing, The Third Hearing, and The Grammatical Fiction. In the original English translation, Koestler's word that Hardy translated as "Hearing" was "Verhör". In the 2019 translation, Boehm translated it as "Interrogation". In his introduction to that translation, Michael Scammell writes that "hearing" made the Soviet and Nazi "regimes look somewhat softer and more civilized than they really were".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Handful_of_Dust" title="A Handful of Dust">
Tony Last is a country gentleman, living with his wife Brenda and his eight-year-old son John Andrew in his ancestral home, Hetton Abbey. The house is a Victorian pseudo-Gothic pastiche described as architecturally "devoid of interest" by a local guide book and "ugly" by his wife, but is Tony's pride and joy. Entirely content with country life, he is seemingly unaware of Brenda's increasing boredom and dissatisfaction, and of his son's developing waywardness. Brenda meets John Beaver and, despite acknowledging his dullness and insignificance, she begins an affair with him. Brenda starts spending her weeks in London, and persuades Tony to finance a small flat, which she rents from John's mother, Mrs Beaver, a canny businesswoman. Although the Brenda–Beaver liaison is well known to their London friends, Tony remains uxorious and oblivious; attempts by Brenda and her friends to set him up with a mistress are absurdly unsuccessful.Brenda is in London when John Andrew is killed in a riding accident. On being told that "John is dead", Brenda at first thinks that Beaver has died; on learning that it is her son John, she betrays her true feelings by uttering an involuntary "Thank God!". After the funeral, she tells Tony that she wants a divorce so that she can marry Beaver. On learning the extent of her deception Tony is shattered, but agrees to protect Brenda's social reputation by allowing her to divorce him, and to provide her with £500 a year. After spending an awkward but chaste weekend in Brighton with a prostitute contriving divorce evidence, Tony learns from Brenda's brother that, encouraged by Beaver, Brenda is now demanding £2,000 a year—a sum that would require Tony to sell Hetton. Tony's illusions are shattered. However, the prostitute brought her child with her, so Tony can establish that he did not commit adultery. He withdraws from the divorce negotiations, and announces that he intends to travel for six months. On his return, he says, Brenda may have her divorce, but without any financial settlement.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mauritius_Command" title="The Mauritius Command">
Jack Aubrey and Sophia Williams are married and the parents of twin girls. They live at Ashgrove Cottage on his half-pay, not enough to support fellow navy men in the household. Sophia's mother has lost her money, including Sophia's portion, and now lives with them. They have Cecelia, Sophia's young niece in their household as well. As much as he loves Sophia, Aubrey is ready to go to sea again. Stephen Maturin comes to call, and soon after Aubrey's orders are delivered from the port Admiral. He is given command of the 38-gun frigate HMS "Boadicea". At Plymouth, he picks up orders and Mr R T Farquhar, a political gentleman. He is to sail to the station at Cape Town where the ships of a convoy will meet. Not long away from home, they meet with the French ship "Hébé" which is escorting a captured merchant ship. The "Boadicea" captures both ships. Aubrey sends the prizes to Gibraltar. The timely capture allows the ship to send letters home, gain a French cook and the "Hébé's" English prisoners, all able seamen. The long journey in the Atlantic gives Aubrey time to bring the crew of the "Boadicea" up to his standards of efficiency in gunnery and gives Maturin and Farquhar time to develop strategies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Edge_of_Destruction" title="The Edge of Destruction">
The First Doctor (William Hartnell), while attempting to correct the TARDIS's faulty navigation circuits, causes a small explosion. The Doctor, Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), Ian Chesterton (William Russell), and Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford) are all temporarily rendered unconscious. When they wake, Ian and Susan appear to have slight cases of amnesia and everyone begins to act strangely. The travellers are becoming suspicious of each other's motives, and the Doctor accuses Ian and Barbara of sabotage. Fearing that they have been taken over by some alien force—or that they have intentionally sabotaged the TARDIS to force the Doctor to return them to 1963—he drugs Barbara and Ian, unknowing that Ian is also suspicious and has not taken the drink given to him. The Doctor attempts to explore the problem without interference.Gradually it becomes clear that the strange events are an attempt by the TARDIS itself to warn the crew that something is wrong. Barbara's clue gathering forces the Doctor to trace the problem to a broken spring in the Fast Return Switch. The malfunction is causing the TARDIS to head back to the beginning of time; the strange events were just attempts by the TARDIS to warn the passengers before the ship is destroyed. Fixing the switch brings all back to normal. Although the day is saved, Barbara is still affected by the Doctor's harsh words earlier. The Doctor apologises, and admits that he was wrong about Barbara and Ian. The story closes with the TARDIS materialising on a snowy landscape, where Susan spots a giant footprint in the snow.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hat_Full_of_Sky" title="A Hat Full of Sky">
"A Hat Full of Sky" by Terry Pratchett is a fantasy novel about a girl who is learning her place as a witch. Early in the novel, Tiffany Aching leaves her home in the chalk country (based on England's chalk country) to act as an apprentice and maid for the elderly witch Miss Level. Her former teacher, Miss Tick, who is also a witch, escorts her to the town of Twoshirts. While waiting for Miss Level to arrive, they are attacked by a hiver. The hiver cannot be killed or seen and it takes over your mind. The encounter is only for a few seconds, and then the hiver leaves but it gives Tiffany and Miss Tick a fright. Miss Level comes along on a broomstick and takes Tiffany to her cottage in the mountains.After settling in Tiffany discovers that Miss Level has two bodies and she has a spirit named Oswald who cleans her house. After settling into the cottage, Tiffany goes to a group of apprentice witches her age with Petulia. The leader of the group is called Annagramma and many characters find her condescending and rude. Tiffany leaves the group upset after telling them about her imaginary hat. While in her room at the cottage, the hiver finds her and takes over her body and mind. At first Tiffany does not realize what has happened, but when she does, it is too late for her to take action. The hiver (as Tiffany) causes chaos, steals Mr Weavall's money and causes Annagramma to fear her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Surgeon's_Mate" title="The Surgeon's Mate">
Sailing into Halifax, the victorious HMS "Shannon" contends with her losses in officers and crew, with particular concern for Captain Broke, who lies unconscious from head wounds. The American Captain Lawrence dies en route from the battle, and is buried at Halifax. Once in port, as prisoners of war are taken ashore and the British Navy deserters identified among them, the Shannons and her passengers, Captain Jack Aubrey, Dr Stephen Maturin, and Mrs Diana Villiers feel the full joy of the first naval victory in this war with America. Maturin communicates with Major Beck, an army counterpart in intelligence work. At the victory ball, Aubrey is pursued by Amanda Smith, known to Diana for her deceiving ways. Aubrey tires of her after a night, yet she persists. Aubrey receives his first letters from his wife Sophia since the "Leopard" was left in the Dutch East Indies, so long ago. Others write the report of Broke's victory, to speed the official news to England.Captain Dalgleish on the mail packet "Diligence" carries the copy of the official report, and Aubrey, Maturin and Mrs Villiers as passengers. The American privateer "Liberty" chases "Diligence" on its northern route home. Diana is certain that the privateers are hired by the vengeful Johnson. The "Liberty" sails into ice and sinks, her crew taken aboard by her follower, and "Diligence" reaches the Channel in 17 days. News of the victory is well-received, while Aubrey is eager to get home. He sees his children, grown so much from when he last saw them, and his wife Sophia. Maturin visits Ireland for his uncle. He gives Johnson's private papers to Sir Joseph Blaine, asks him for Diana's release, and gets Skinner as a lawyer for Aubrey to deal with the projector. Maturin goes to Paris to present his scientific work at the "Institut", taking Diana with him. He finds her a place to stay with Adhemar de la Mothe and an accoucheur as Diana is pregnant by Johnson. At the "Institut" presentation, Diana wears her diamonds; she dearly loves these, among them the Blue Peter, the largest of the set. After Maturin speaks, he learns of Ponsich's death near Pomerania. Maturin leaves immediately to take up this mission.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Death" title="Sea of Death">
"Sea of Death" tells stories of the dockside of Salvador, Bahia. The lives of the sailors of sloops in the bay from which Bahia gets its name are centred on the mythology surrounding the goddess Iemanjá, the "Queen of the Ocean" or the "Mother of Waters", are central to this novel, which portrays their daily struggle for survival. The novel features a variety of characters whose lives unfold around the story of two lovers, Guma and Lívia. They include the black Rufino and his mulatto lover Esmeralda; Francisco, Guma’s uncle, who mends nets; and the foul-mouthed Rosa Palmeirão.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/According_to_Mary_Magdalene" title="According to Mary Magdalene">
The story offers a feminist perspective on the person of Christ and on the beginnings of the Christian Church. Since it presents Jesus as merely a human being and deviates from the orthodox biblical portrayal of the Son of Man, the novel was severely criticised by mainstream Christians.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insomnia_(novel)" title="Insomnia (novel)">
The story is set in the fictional town of Derry, Maine. Retiree Ralph Roberts encounters his formerly good-natured acquaintance Ed Deepneau at the local airfield. Ed is aggressive and swearing obscenely at a driver he accuses of secretly transporting fetal tissue from abortions. Some months later, Ralph (now a widower) encounters Ed's wife Helen who has been badly beaten by her husband after having signed a pro-choice related petition. Months later, Helen leaves Ed and hides at a women's shelter. Ralph begins to suffer from sleep maintenance insomnia, waking earlier each night until he is barely able to sleep an hour each night. As his insomnia develops, Ralph begins to see things invisible and intangible to others: colorful manifestations of life-force surrounding people (auras), and diminutive white-coated beings he calls "little bald doctors," based on their appearance. He gradually concludes these are not hallucinations but genuine things present on a different level of reality. He realizes that Ed Deepneau also sees these things. Ralph's friend Lois Chasse admits to him that she too has recently begun seeing auras which she can interpret. Ralph and Lois encounter two bald doctors, calling themselves Clotho and Lachesis, who act with dignity and free people from life when it is "their time" to pass away. A third bald doctor, Atropos, is a crazed rogue who seems to delight in disrupting lives and prematurely ending them. Ralph and Lois learn that life is largely governed by "The Purpose" and "The Random," forces or entities which are not enemies so much as opposites. Ed Deepneau is one of a few very rare beings who is not assigned to either force and can, therefore, greatly change existence. Ralph and Lois learn of the "Crimson King," a shape-shifting higher-dimensional villain who feeds on fear and grief and craves chaos to rule over. The Crimson King has sent Atropos to manipulate Deepneau as part of a plan to upset the entire order of the universe. Unable to intervene directly, Clotho and Lachesis, agents of the Purpose, gave Ralph and Lois insomnia to help them perceive, gain, and even access other levels of reality so they can defeat Atropos. The benign bald doctors describe these levels as beams of a "skyscraper," and Ralph has a vision of The Dark Tower, a representation of the multiverse.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No._1_Ladies'_Detective_Agency" title="The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency">
The main detective, Mma Ramotswe, is a Motswana woman who is the protagonist in the series and whose story is told in the first novel from birth to opening the detective agency. "Mma" is a Setswana term of respect for a woman; the equivalent term for a man is "Rra". This is one of the most common forms of address in the novels. Mma Precious Ramotswe solves cases for wives whose husbands have gone missing, for a school teacher whose son has disappeared by finding the kidnappers, for a wealthy father whose 16-year-old daughter is frustrating him by going out on her own. She helps a man atone for the sins of his youth by finding the people he hurt decades earlier. She uncovers a scheme by twin brothers to use one medical degree and certificate between the two of them. She solves a case for herself when she thinks she must seek a divorce from her first husband but learns differently when she seeks out his mother. Her personal life has a main sorrow, that her only child lived just a few days, as the child's father beat her during the pregnancy, a story told in retrospect. This led her to decide never to marry again after he left her. Her joy is her engagement and eventual marriage to Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, who has taken on foster care of a sister and brother from the orphan farm. The cases are set in the cities of Botswana, mainly on the edge of the Kalahari desert, rather than in the desert. There are occasional forays into neighbouring nations.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriela,_Clove_and_Cinnamon" title="Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon">
"Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon" is a romantic tale set in the small Brazilian town of Ilhéus during the 1920s. The town is experiencing a record large cacao crop, which makes it a thriving place and gives it an economic upswing and great progress. Still there is a conservative streak among the town folk and they are still relying on old traditions, like violent political takeovers and vengeance against unfaithful women. The book tells two separate but related tales: first, the romance between Nacib Saad, a respectable bar owner of Syrian origin, and his new cook Gabriela, an innocent and captivating migrant worker from the impoverished interior. The gap between the worlds of Nacib Saad and Gabriela make their romance a challenge to the unwritten rules of Ilhéus society and will subsequently change the two of them forever.The second part to this story is about the political struggle between the seasoned cacao plantation owners, with the powerful Bastos clan in pole position, and the forces of modernization, in the person of Mundinho Falcão, a wealthy young man from Rio de Janeiro. It can be read simultaneously as an unusual, charming love story, a description of the political and social forces at work in 1920s Brazil, a somewhat satirical depiction of Latin American aspirations to "modernity", and a celebration of the local culture and pleasures of Bahia.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpe_Jugulum" title="Carpe Jugulum">
Count Magpyr and family, vampires from Überwald, are invited to the naming of Magrat and King Verence's daughter, to be conducted by the Omnian priest, the Quite Reverend Mightily-Praiseworthy-Are-Ye-Who-Exalteth-Om 'Mightily' Oats, a recent graduate from theological college. During the party after the ceremony, Verence tells Nanny Ogg and Agnes Nitt that the Count has informed him that the Magpyr family intend to move into Lancre Castle and take over. Due to a type of hypnotism, everyone seems to consider this plan to be perfectly acceptable. Only the youngest witch, Agnes, and Mightily Oats seem able to resist the vampiric mind control, due to their being "being in two minds about everything" (resulting from her Perdita persona, and his contemplation of the tenets of the myriad schismatic sects of Omnianism). Because of her ability to resist his influence, the Magpyr son, Vlad, is attracted to Agnes and makes many advances on her including trying to convince her to become a vampire. Meanwhile, the castle falconer Hodgesaargh goes out searching for a phoenix after discovering a phoenix feather.Meanwhile, Granny Weatherwax, feeling slighted by not receiving an invitation to the ceremony, has left her cottage empty and seems to be working towards a life in a cave, almost like a hermit. After they have left the hypnotic influence of the Vampires, Agnes, Nanny Ogg and Magrat attempt to convince her to help them save Lancre, but apparently without success, even after Granny is informed that her gilt-edged invitation was stolen by a magpie.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo_(Doctor_Who)" title="Marco Polo (Doctor Who)">
The TARDIS, badly damaged, lands in the Pamir Mountains of the Himalayas in 1289, and the crew are picked up by Marco Polo's (Mark Eden) caravan on its way along the fabled Silk Road to see the Emperor Kublai Khan (Martin Miller). The story concerns the First Doctor (William Hartnell), his granddaughter Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford) and her teachers Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), and their attempts to thwart the machinations of Tegana (Derren Nesbitt), who attempts to sabotage the caravan along its travels through the Pamir Plateau and across the treacherous Gobi Desert, and ultimately to assassinate Kublai Khan in Peking, at the height of his imperial power. The Doctor and his companions also attempt to regain the TARDIS, which Marco Polo has taken to give to Kublai Khan in effort to regain the Emperor's good graces. Susan gets the TARDIS key from Ping-Cho (Zienia Merton) but is captured by Tegana before they can depart. They are finally able to thwart Tegana, who kills himself before he can be executed, restoring the Emperor's respect for Marco Polo, and the Emperor allows them to depart.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliette_(novel)" title="Juliette (novel)">
Juliette is raised in a convent. However, at age thirteen she is seduced by a woman who immediately explains that morality, religion and other such concepts are meaningless. There are plenty of similar philosophical musings during the book, all attacking the ideas of God, morals, remorse, love, etc., the overall conclusion being that the only aim in life is "to enjoy oneself at no matter whose expense." Juliette takes this to the extreme and manages to murder her way through numerous people, including various family members and friends.During Juliette's life from age 13 to about 30, the wanton anti-heroine engages in virtually every form of depravity and encounters a series of like-minded libertines. She befriends the ferocious Clairwil, whose main passion is the murder of boys and young men, as revenge for the general brutality of men toward women. She meets Saint Fond, a 50-year-old multi-millionaire who murders his father, commits incest with his daughter, tortures young girls to death on a daily basis, and even plots an ambitious scheme to provoke a famine that will wipe out half the population of France. She also becomes acquainted with Minski, a gigantic ogre-like Muscovite who delights in raping and torturing young boys and girls to death before eating them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_and_the_Bomb" title="Johnny and the Bomb">
After Johnny Maxwell, a boy in his early teens, finds Mrs. Tachyon, an old bag lady, by a cinema he discovers that her trolley is in fact a time machine. He goes back to his town, Blackbury, during the time of The Blitz with his friends Stephen (aka Wobbler), Bigmac, Kirsty and Yo-less (possibly because Johnny has been obsessing about the destruction of Paradise Street in a German raid). Wobbler gets left behind in 1941, and when they return for him, Johnny tries to prevent the deaths caused in the raid.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anubis_Gates" title="The Anubis Gates">
In 1801 the British have risen to power in Egypt and suppress the worship of the old Egyptian gods. A cabal of magicians plan to drive the British out of Egypt by bringing the gods forward in time from an age when they were still powerful and unleashing them on London, thereby destroying the British Empire. In 1802, a failed attempt by the magicians to summon Anubis opens magical gates in a predictable pattern across time and space.In 1983, ailing millionaire J. Cochran Darrow has discovered the gates and found that they make time travel possible. Darrow organizes a trip to the past for fellow millionaires to attend a lecture by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1810. He hires Professor Brendan Doyle to attend and give expert commentary. One of the magicians, Doctor Romany, happens to spy the time travelers and kidnaps Doyle before he can return. Doyle manages to escape torture and flees back to London, now trapped in the 19th century.Doyle joins a beggars' guild and meets a beggar named Jacky. He plans to meet and befriend William Ashbless, a wealthy poet that Doyle has studied profusely, in order to gain a benefactor. Doctor Romany scours the city for Doyle with his legion of murderous beggars, led by the clown-magician Horrabin. At the same time, Doyle discovers that Darrow has remained in the 19th century to search for Dog-Face Joe, a body-swapping werewolf, in hopes of bribing Joe into granting him a healthy new body. Doyle himself becomes targeted by Joe, receiving the poisoned body of Darrow's former bodyguard, but manages to cure himself of the poison.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vicar_of_Wakefield" title="The Vicar of Wakefield">
The Vicar – Dr. Charles Primrose – lives an idyllic life in a country parish with his wife Deborah, son George, daughters Olivia and Sophia, and three other children. He is wealthy due to investing an inheritance he received from a deceased relative, and he donates the £35 that his job pays annually to the widows and orphans of local clergy. On the evening of George's wedding to wealthy Arabella Wilmot, the Vicar loses all his money through the bankruptcy of his merchant investor who has left town abruptly.The wedding is called off by Arabella's father, who is known for his prudence with money. George, who was educated at Oxford and is old enough to be considered an adult, is sent away to town. The rest of the family move to a new and more humble parish on the land of Squire Thornhill, who is known to be a womanizer. On the way, they hear about the dubious reputation of their new landlord. Also, references are made to the squire's uncle Sir William Thornhill, who is known throughout the country for his worthiness and generosity.A poor and eccentric friend, Mr. Burchell, whom they meet at an inn, rescues Sophia from drowning. She is instantly attracted to him, but her ambitious mother does not encourage her feelings.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun,_with_Occasional_Music" title="Gun, with Occasional Music">
The novel follows the adventures of Conrad Metcalf, a tough, smart-alecky private detective, through a futuristic version of San Francisco and Oakland, California. Metcalf is hired by a man who claims that he's being framed for the murder of a prominent urologist. Metcalf quickly discovers that nobody wants the case solved: not the victim's ex-wife, not the police, and certainly not the gun-toting kangaroo who works for the local mafia boss.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misspent_Youth" title="Misspent Youth">
Seventy-eight-year-old Jeff Baker has revolutionised the world by inventing the ultimate method of information storage and allowing free use of it with no profits going into his own pocket. Because of this generous act, he is chosen by the European Union to be the first recipient for rejuvenation technology, which will leave him with the body of a young man. As part of the deal, he will support the re-election of the EU president.His son Tim has a fairly typical frustrated life as a rich teenager, living with his famous father and distant mother. Tim is extremely happy when he starts going out with gorgeous Annabelle. She likes him, but she has a troubled home life and Tim's drinking problem reminds her of her father.Jeff comes home from the rejuvenation in his 20-year-old body. Energised by his new youthfulness, he has a series of affairs. After reconnecting with his son, Jeff reveals to Tim that the reason he gave away the information storage technology was so that his ex-wife could not get any royalties. The amazing act of charity he is famous for was motivated by spite, not goodwill. But Jeff finds himself attracted to Annabelle, and while giving her a ride home after Tim got too drunk at a school dance, they start a tawdry affair behind Tim's back and fall in love. Their passionate relationship is only a secret for a short time before Tim finds them in bed together. His life falling apart, Tim runs away to live with his Aunt (Jeff's sister), stops drinking and doing drugs, and makes friends with his mother. Eventually he finds a new romantic interest in Vanessa, one of his classmates.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_Machine" title="The Truth Machine">
The novel primarily focuses on the life story of Randall Peterson "Pete" Armstrong, a child prodigy with total recall memory, whose entire life's outlook has been defined by the tragic murder of his younger brother, Leonard, by an ex-convict who was believed to be capable of committing violent crimes again, but could not be imprisoned any longer under the current law structure. Pete is committed to making a difference for humanity that will atone for his brother's death and help millions of others, too. In his first year at Harvard at the age 13, Pete is recruited to enroll in a small, but exclusive, class of the brightest and most agile students on campus. In that class, he meets people and establishes friendships that will further his identity. It is there that the idea of a 'truth machine' is conceived and Pete realizes that its existence is possible and that he could do it. The 'truth machine' would be a mechanism that would be 100% accurate in determining if a person was lying or telling the truth. It could help eliminate crime and dishonesty in general. As long as it is employed universally (and not just by government officials), the 'truth machine' could revolutionize humanity and take it to that next evolutionary step which would help it avert its coming self-destruction.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witches_(novel)" title="The Witches (novel)">
The story is narrated from the perspective of an unnamed seven-year-old English boy, who goes to live with his Norwegian grandmother after his parents are killed in a tragic car accident. The boy loves all his grandmother's stories, but he is especially enthralled by the stories about real-life witches who she says are horrific female demons who seek to kill human children. She tells him a real witch looks exactly like an ordinary woman, but there are ways of telling whether she is a witch, such as real witches have claws instead of fingernails, which they hide by wearing gloves, and are bald, which they hide by wearing wigs that often make them break out in rashes.As specified in the parents' will, the narrator and his grandmother return to England, where he was born and had attended school, and where the house he is inheriting is located. However, the grandmother warns the boy to be on his guard, since English witches are known to be among the most vicious in the world, notorious for turning children into loathsome creatures so that unsuspecting adults will kill them. The grandmother reveals that witches in different countries have different customs and that, while the witches in each country have close affiliations with one another, they are not allowed to communicate with witches from other countries. She also tells him about the mysterious Grand High Witch of All the World, the feared and diabolical leader of all of the world's witches, who visits their councils in every country, each year.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Algebraist" title="The Algebraist">
The novel takes place in 4034. With the assistance of other species, humans have spread across the galaxy,which is largely ruled by the Mercatoria, a complex feudal hierarchy, with a religious zeal to rid the galaxy of artificial intelligences, which were blamed for a previous war.The central character is the human Fassin Taak who is a "Slow Seer" at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers. The Nasqueron's star system has been cut off from the rest of Mercatoria civilization because their portal (the only means of faster than light travel) was destroyed by the Beyonders. The Beyonders are a large fleet of space marauders who originated from the fringes of the galaxy. The local Mercatoria adherents await the delivery of a wormhole connection from a neighboring system via sub-lightspeed travel.The Nasqueron Dwellers are an advanced and ancient civilisation of non-humanoids who inhabit gas giants. They lead an almost anarchic existence based on kudos, and inhabit the majority of gas-giant planets in the galaxy. They are the only major species outside the control of the Mercatoria, being rumoured to possess devastating defensive weaponry. Dweller societies try not to get involved with "Quick" species, those with sentient beings who experience life at around the speed human beings experience it. Dwellers are one of the "Slow" species who experience life at a much slower rate. Dweller individuals live for millions of years, and the species has existed for billions of years, long before the foundation of the Mercatoria. Slow Seers like Taak are a dynasty of researchers who attempt to glean information from the Dwellers' vast but disorganised libraries of knowledge. They do it in part by artificially slowing their metabolisms to better communicate with the Dwellers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_on_Glass" title="Walking on Glass">
Each part of "Walking on Glass", apart from the last, is divided into three sections, which appear at first sight to be independent stories. Two of the stories are set in and around Islington in North London, the other is set in the far distant future.Eventually, links between the three storylines become apparent.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Keys_of_Marinus" title="The Keys of Marinus">
The First Doctor (William Hartnell), his granddaughter Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford), and her teachers Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) arrive on a small island on the planet Marinus where they meet Arbitan (George Coulouris), Keeper of the Conscience of Marinus—a vast computer developed as a justice machine which kept law and order across the entire planet. Arbitan explains that the society of Marinus is in danger, as the Voord, humanoid creatures protected by amphibian-like black rubber wet suits, are seeking to enter the tower to take control of the Conscience. To prevent this, the Conscience requires five keys, and Arbitan coerces the Doctor and his friends to gather them by placing a force field around the TARDIS. As they teleport to the City of Morphoton, Arbitan is stabbed to death by a Voord that has gained access to the tower.In Morphoton, the crew are impressed by the luxuries of the city; however, Barbara soon realises that they have been hypnotised, and that Morphoton is actually a place of dirt and squalor. The creatures who govern Morphoton order Barbara's death, but Barbara escapes and hides in the city, where she makes contact with the slave girl Sabetha (Katharine Schofield), who has been blamed for Barbara's awakening and sentenced to death. Barbara notices one of the keys around her neck. They escape and destroy the creatures, freeing the subjects of the city. Another slave, Altos (Robin Phillips), remembers that he was also sent by Arbitan, and he and Sabetha join the Doctor and his crew on their quest. While the Doctor continues to the City of Mellennius, the others search in a dangerous screaming jungle. After triggering a trap, Barbara is lost in an ancient temple in the jungle; while Ian remains at the temple to search for the key, Sabetha and Susan continue to the next location.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_Tailor_Soldier_Spy" title="Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy">
## Background.As the tension of the Cold War is peaking in 1973, George Smiley, former senior official in Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (known as "the Circus" because its London office is at Cambridge Circus), is living unhappily in forced retirement, following the failure of an operation codenamed Testify in Czechoslovakia which ended in the capture and torture of agent Jim Prideaux. Control, chief of the Circus, had suspected that one of the five senior intelligence officers at the Circus was a Soviet mole, and had assigned them code names for Prideaux to relay back to the Circus, derived from the English children's rhyme "Tinker, Tailor":&lt;poem&gt;Tinker, tailor,soldier, sailor,rich man, poor man,beggarman, thief.&lt;/poem&gt;The failure resulted in the dismissal of Control, Smiley, and allies such as Connie Sachs and Gerald Westerby, and their replacement by a new guard consisting of Percy Alleline, Toby Esterhase, Bill Haydon, and Roy Bland. Control has since died, and Smiley's former protégé, Peter Guillam, has been demoted to the "scalphunters".Guillam unexpectedly approaches Smiley and takes him to the house of Under-Secretary Oliver Lacon, the Civil Servant who oversees the Circus. There they meet Ricki Tarr, an agent recently declared "persona non grata" due to suspicion of having defected. Tarr defends himself by explaining that he was informed of a Soviet mole, codenamed Gerald, at the Circus' highest level whilst in Hong Kong by Irina, the wife of a trade delegate. Irina claimed that the mole Gerald reports to a Soviet official stationed at the embassy in London called Polyakov. Shortly after Tarr relayed this to the Circus Irina was forcibly returned to the Soviet Union, leading Tarr to suspect that the mole was real, and now knew his identity. Tarr went into hiding, resurfacing to contact Guillam.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_Doctor_Moreau" title="The Island of Doctor Moreau">
Edward Prendick is an Englishman with a scientific education who survives a shipwreck in the southern Pacific Ocean. A passing ship called Ipecacuanha takes him aboard and a man named Montgomery revives him. Prendick also meets a grotesque bestial native named M'ling who appears to be Montgomery's manservant. The ship is transporting a number of animals which belong to Montgomery, most strangely a puma. As they approach the island which is Montgomery's destination, the captain demands Prendick leave the ship with Montgomery. Montgomery explains that he will not be able to host Prendick on the island. Despite this, the captain leaves Prendick in a dinghy and sails away. Seeing that the captain has abandoned Prendick, Montgomery takes pity and rescues him. As ships rarely pass the island, Prendick will be housed in an outer room of an enclosed compound.The island belongs to Dr. Moreau. Prendick remembers that he has heard of Moreau, formerly an eminent physiologist in London whose gruesome experiments in vivisection had been publicly exposed, and who fled England as a result of his exposure.The next day, Moreau begins working on the puma, eventually revealed as being experimented into a woman. Prendick gathers that Moreau is performing a painful experiment on the animal and its anguished cries drive Prendick out into the jungle. While he wanders, he comes upon a group of people who seem human but have an unmistakable resemblance to swine. As he walks back to the enclosure, he suddenly realises he is being followed by a figure in the jungle. He panics and flees, and the figure gives chase. As his pursuer bears down on him, Prendick manages to stun him with a stone and observes that the pursuer is a monstrous hybrid of animal and man. When Prendick returns to the enclosure and questions Montgomery, Montgomery refuses to be open with him. After failing to get an explanation, Prendick finally gives in and takes a sleeping draught.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronicles_of_Barsetshire" title="Chronicles of Barsetshire">
## "The Warden".Mr Harding, Warden of Hiram’s Hospital, is accused of dishonestly allocating hospital finances. However the accuser, John Bold, is actually in love with Mr Harding’s daughter, Eleanor. Nevertheless, John takes the matter to the press, subjecting Mr Harding to public incrimination. Mr Harding is supported by his son-in-law, Archdeacon Grantly, who insists he maintain his innocence. Finally, following an ultimatum from Eleanor, John drops the case and apologises. Eleanor and John get married and Mr Harding resigns as Warden of Hiram to become Rector of St. Cuthberts.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nutmeg_of_Consolation" title="The Nutmeg of Consolation">
Aubrey and his crew are shipwrecked on a remote island in the South China Sea after surviving the destruction of HMS "Diane" in a typhoon. A cricket match is underway between the sailors and marines, which keeps up the crew's spirits as they build the schooner needed for reaching Batavia. Doctor Maturin is killing game for the pot, particularly wild boar and babirussas. Dyaks, Kesegaran and her male assistants, arrive on the island. Speaking in Malay with Maturin, the Dyaks promise to take a message to Batavia in exchange for a note on Shao Yen for twenty "joes" (Portuguese Johannes coins), but instead return in a proa with 300 pirates, twice as many as the 150 Dianes. After beheading the ship's carpenter and some other crew members while stealing tools, they attack the encampment and burn the schooner. They are routed after a bloody conflict and all pirates lost as their proa is sunk by the last remaining ball from the "long nine" gun, well-aimed.On the last day of rum and tobacco supplies, Maturin meets four Chinese children collecting precious birds' nests from the surrounding cliffs. Maturin binds the boy's injured leg. Maturin persuades the children's father, Li Po, to carry the remaining crew of the "Diane" in the empty holds of his roomy junk back to Batavia. It is intercepted by Wan Da, whom Maturin knows well from Pulo Prabang, and who shares information about the French frigate nearly ready to sail. Upon arriving in Batavia, Aubrey is provided by Governor Raffles with a 20-gun ship which Aubrey renames "Nutmeg of Consolation" after one of the titles of the Sultan of Pulo Prabang. At sea, Aubrey hears from a Dutch merchantman that the French frigate "Cornélie" is watering at an island, Nil Desperandum. Aubrey disguises the "Nutmeg" as a Dutch merchantman and, when the disguise fails, engages in battle with the "Cornélie". Aubrey attempts to outwit the "Cornélie" in the Salibabu Passage but is outmanoeuvred and nearly outgunned until, at the height of the chase, "Nutmeg" encounters the "Surprise", under Thomas Pullings, accompanied by the "Triton", a British privateer. The "Surprise" gives chase, and the "Cornélie" soon founders. The "Surprise" takes the survivors, including Lieutenant Dumesnil, on board. Pullings has taken many prizes in the time they were parted, with two American privateers in convoy. The "Nutmeg" and its convoy sail back to Batavia, via Canton, under Lieutenant Fielding.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Eggs_and_Ham" title="Green Eggs and Ham">
Sam-I-Am offers an unnamed man a plate of green eggs and ham. However, the man refuses multiple times throughout the story by saying, "I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-Am." Sam further asks him to eat that food in various locations (house, box, car, tree, train, dark, rain, boat) and with a few different animals (mouse, fox, goat), but is still rebuffed. Finally, Sam-I-am asks the man to try them, and he accepts the green eggs and ham. When he declares that he likes them, he happily says, "I do so like green eggs and ham. Thank you. Thank you, Sam-I-Am."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momo_(novel)" title="Momo (novel)">
In the ruins of an amphitheatre just outside an unnamed city lives Momo, a little girl of mysterious origin. She came to the ruin, parentless and wearing a long, used coat. She is illiterate and cannot count, and she doesn't know how old she is. When asked, she replies, "As far as I remember, I've always been around." She is remarkable in the neighbourhood because she has the extraordinary ability to listen—really listen. By simply being with people and listening to them, she can help them find answers to their problems, make up with each other, and think of fun games. The advice given to people "go and see Momo!" has become a household phrase and Momo makes many friends, especially an honest, silent street-cleaner, Beppo, and a poetic, extroverted tour guide, Gigi (Guido in some translations).This pleasant atmosphere is spoiled by the arrival of the Men in Grey, eventually revealed as a species of paranormal parasites stealing the time of humans. Appearing in the form of grey-clad, grey-skinned, bald men, these strange individuals present themselves as representing the Timesavings Bank and promote the idea of "timesaving" among the population: supposedly, time can be deposited in the Bank and returned to the client later with interest. After encountering the Men in Grey, people are made to forget all about them, but not about the resolution to save as much time as possible for later use. Gradually, the sinister influence of the Men in Grey affects the whole city: life becomes sterile, devoid of all things considered time-wasting, like social activities, recreation, art, imagination, or sleeping. Buildings and clothing are made exactly the same for everyone, and the rhythms of life become hectic. In reality, the more time people save, the less they have; the time they save is actually lost to them. Instead, it is consumed by the Men in Grey in the form of cigars made from the dried petals of the hour-lilies that represent time. Without these cigars, the Men in Grey cannot exist.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Dangerous_Game_(novel)" title="The Most Dangerous Game (novel)">
Bill Cary is a bush pilot living in Lapland in northern Finland, making a precarious living flying aerial survey flights looking for nickel deposits, and occasional charter cargo flights of dubious legitimacy in his beat-up old de Havilland Beaver. Towards the end of the flying season, a wealthy American hunter hires him to fly into a prohibited part of Finland near the Soviet border in order to hunt bear. Subsequently, he is assaulted by thugs when he refuses a charter contract to search for a lost Tsarist treasure, comes under suspicion from the Finnish police for smuggling when Tsarist-era gold sovereigns start turning up, and from the Finnish secret police for espionage. However, things get more serious when the wealthy American hunter's beautiful sister turns up to search for her brother, and his fellow bush pilots start getting killed off in a series of suspicious accidents. Cary suspects that the events he is increasingly involved in may stem from an incident in his wartime past.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many_Waters" title="Many Waters">
In the middle of a New England winter, identical twin brothers Sandy and Dennys accidentally disturb an experiment in their parents' laboratory and are teleported to a sandy desert. There, they are acquired by water-prospector 'Japheth' and guided to an oasis, but Dennys is separated from the others. Sandy remains with Japheth and his elderly grandfather Lamech; there, Sandy is cured of heatstroke by a variety of improbable beings, including seraphim.Dennys reappears in another tent and is thrown into a refuse heap. He later comes under the care of a friendly family in the center of the oasis, headed by a gruff but kindly patriarch called Noah. It soon becomes apparent that the boys have been interpolated into the story of Noah's Ark, shortly before the Flood. Both Noah and Lamech receive mysterious instructions from God (known as El) concerning the building of the Ark. The twins come to understand that unicorns who can traverse space and time live in the oasis. Sinister supernatural beings known as the nephilim distrust the twins, and their human wives attempt to gather information about them. At several points, the wife of a nephil unsuccessfully attempts to seduce Sandy.Separated for much of the book, the twins become more independent of each other and gain maturity over the course of a year in the desert. Both are in love with Noah's beautiful and virtuous daughter Yalith (and she with them), but neither twin declares his affection until the very end of the novel. Dennys convinces Noah to reconcile with his father, Lamech, and both twins eventually care for Lamech's gardens while he lies ill. After Lamech's death, Sandy is kidnapped, but is eventually found by Japheth. Suspense arises when it becomes clear that there is no place on the Ark reserved for Sandy, Dennys, or Yalith. After both twins assist in the construction of the Ark, Yalith is taken by the seraphim to the presence of El. Sandy and Dennys are then returned to their own time and place by unicorns summoned by the seraphim.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Drifters_(novel)" title="The Drifters (novel)">
## Chapter I: Joe.In the first chapter, Joe is introduced as a disenfranchised twenty-year-old youth who is enrolled at the University of California during the Vietnam War. After Joe realizes that with his grades he is going to get drafted, he hitchhikes to Yale University, where he gets the name of a professor who may be able to get him across the border into Canada. After being referred to a woman in Boston named Gretchen, she helps him get into Canada, and he eventually goes to Torremolinos, Spain. While looking for a job and a place to stay, he takes over the ownership of a bar called The Alamo, and a man named Jean-Victor finds him a place to stay in Torremolinos.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Wonders_(novel)" title="World of Wonders (novel)">
Magnus Eisengrim (also known by at least four other names throughout the trilogy) tells the story of his life to a group of filmmakers who are producing a biographical film about the great magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin for the BBC. They are headed by the world-famous Swedish director Jurgen Lind (evidently modeled on Ingmar Bergman). Also present during the story are Eisengrim's friends Dunstan Ramsay and Liesl, who both appear in the earlier installments of the Deptford Trilogy. Ramsay reprises the role of narrator which he played in the first novel, "Fifth Business", but in this case it is only to add context and continuity to the internal narration of Eisengrim. The life story of Eisengrim pulls together many events found throughout the previous two novels, showing them from an entirely different perspective.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Dad" title="Ghost Dad">
Elliot Hopper (Bill Cosby) is a workaholic widower who is about to land the deal of a lifetime at work, which he hopes will win him a promotion and a company car. After he forgets his daughter Diane's birthday, he attempts to make it up to her by promising her she can have his car when he secures the deal at work on the coming Thursday. After being persuaded to give the car to his daughter early, Elliot must hail a taxi from work, which is driven by Satanist Curtis Burch (Raynor Scheine), who drives erratically and is out of control. Attempting to get the taxi stopped, Elliot announces that he is Satan and commands him to stop the taxi, and also attempts to give him his wallet. Shocked to see his "Evil Master", Burch drives off a bridge and into the river.Elliot emerges from the accident scene, only to learn that he is a ghost when a police officer fails to notice him and a speeding bus goes straight through him. When he gets home he discovers that his three children can see him, but only in a totally dark room, and they cannot hear him at times. He struggles to tell them what happened when he is whisked away to London by paranormal researcher Sir Edith Moser (Ian Bannen), who tells him he is a ghost who has yet to enter the afterlife because "they screwed up"; his soul will not cross over until Thursday.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Side_of_Paradise" title="This Side of Paradise">
Amory Blaine, a young Midwesterner, is convinced that he has an exceptionally promising future. He attends a posh college-preparatory school and later Princeton University. He grows estranged from his eccentric mother Beatrice and becomes the protégé of Monsignor Thayer Darcy, a Catholic priest. During his sophomore year at Princeton, he returns to Minneapolis over Christmas break and encounters Isabelle Borgé, a wealthy, young debutante whom he first met as a boy. They embark upon a romantic relationship.While at Princeton, he deluges Isabelle with letters and poems, but she becomes disenchanted with him due to his incessant criticism. After his prom, they break up on Long Island. Following their separation, Amory graduates from his alma mater and enlists in the United States Army amid World War I. He is shipped overseas to serve in the trenches of the Western front. While overseas, he learns his mother Beatrice has died and most of his family's wealth has been lost due to a series of failed investments.After the armistice with Imperial Germany, Amory settles in New York City as it undergoes the birth pangs of the Jazz Age. He becomes infatuated with a cruel and narcissistic flapper named Rosalind Connage. Desperate for a job, Amory is hired by an advertising agency, but he detests the work. Due to his poverty, his relationship with Rosalind deteriorates as she prefers a rival suitor, Dawson Ryder, a man of wealth and status. A distraught Amory quits his job and goes on an alcoholic bender for three weeks until the start of prohibition in the United States.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoirs_of_Hadrian" title="Memoirs of Hadrian">
The novel is told in the first person by Hadrian and is framed as a letter to Marcus Aurelius in the first chapter, Animula Vagula Blandula. The other chapters form a loose chronological narrative which he often breaks with various insights and recollections. The story begins with Hadrian, who is around sixty years of age, describing his incurable illness. He therefore wishes to recount important events in his life before his death.His earliest memories are his boyhood years in Italica. He also talks of his early interest in astrology and his lifelong passion for the arts, culture, and philosophy of Greece; themes which he revisits throughout the book. He visits Athens to study, travels to Rome for the first time, and witnesses the accession of Trajan. He eventually joins the army and participates in the Dacian campaign. Hadrian, who is around thirty years old at the end of the war, describes his successes in the army and his relationship with Trajan who is initially cold towards him. He slowly gains Trajan's favor and secures his position for the throne with the help of Plotina, the emperor's wife, and also by marrying Sabina, Trajan's grandniece.During his military service, the outcome of the Sarmatian wars strongly affects him due to the appalling bloodshed and atrocities committed. He also begins to question the value of Trajan's policy of military expansion. Trajan, in old age, begins an unsuccessful military campaign in Parthia after his successes over Dacia and Sarmatia. After a major defeat, Trajan hastily names Hadrian as his successor in a will shortly before his death. Following the death of Trajan, he hesitantly has his rivals executed and makes peace with Parthia. He travels frequently throughout the provinces of the Roman Empire while undertaking numerous economic and military reforms, promoting in his words: “humanitas, libertas, felicitas.” During a visit to Britain, he describes the construction of Hadrian's Wall, which represents part of his vision of curbing the military expansion of his predecessor and promoting peace.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Path_of_Daggers" title="The Path of Daggers">
Elayne Trakand, Nynaeve al'Meara, Aviendha, and their coalition of channelers use the "ter'angreal" called the 'Bowl of the Winds' to reverse the unnatural heat brought by the Dark One's manipulation of the climate, and then escape a Seanchan invasion by "Traveling" to Andor with most of the Kin who had not yet been captured by the Seanchan. In Andor, an Aes Sedai in their party is murdered, and the group realizes that one of its members is Black Ajah. Upon reaching Caemlyn, Elayne initiates her claim to the throne.Perrin Aybara moves into Ghealdan to stop Masema Dagar, the self-proclaimed Prophet of the Dragon; but unknowingly rescues the deposed Queen Morgase of Andor from the Prophet's men. He then secures the oath of fealty from Alliandre, Queen of Ghealdan, and accepts the dubious allegiance of Masema. At the end of the book, Faile Bashere is kidnapped by the Shaido Aiel. Egwene al'Vere, Amyrlin Seat of the rebel Aes Sedai, manipulates her unruly followers into giving her more control, and they Travel to Tar Valon, before their siege of its White Tower.Rand al'Thor, accompanied by Bashere with fifty Asha'man and six thousand Tairens, Cairhienin and Illianers, attempts to repel the Seanchan invasion in Altara. They are successful in early skirmishes, driving the Seanchan from western Altara entirely. Bashere counsels retreat, but Rand decides to push on to Ebou Dar, clashing with a forty thousand strong Seanchan army fifty miles from the city. Both sides bleed each other white in the initial clash, after which both armies pull back to regroup. Rand attempts to destroy the Seanchan by wielding his "sa'angreal" 'Callandor', but loses control of it due to disturbances in saidin caused by the previous usage of the Bowl of the Winds. The result is a lightning storm that devastates his army as well as the Seanchan. Too bloodied to continue fighting, both armies retreat, making the battle a stalemate. Returning to Cairhien, Rand is attacked by traitorous Asha'man led by Corlan Dashiva, who fail to kill him. Mat Cauthon is absent from the book, due to injuries sustained at the end of the previous book, "A Crown of Swords". Robert Jordan had earlier done the same for Perrin Aybara, who had been absent from Book 5, "The Fires of Heaven".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Spy_in_the_House_of_Love" title="A Spy in the House of Love">
In 1950s New York, protagonist, Sabina, pursues her sexual desires. She calls a random number from a bar in the middle of the night, seeking to confess or find solace in the voice of a stranger. The stranger happens to be a lie detector who proceeds to follow Sabina in her activities throughout the novel. Her various love interests and her relationship with her husband, Alan, without whom she feels she cannot live, make her life more and more complex. The level of deceit her hedonistic lifestyle forces her to maintain leads her to regard herself as "an international spy in the house of love".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Hundred_Years_of_Solitude" title="One Hundred Years of Solitude">
"One Hundred Years of Solitude" is the story of seven generations of the Buendía Family in the town of Macondo. The founding patriarch of Macondo, José Arcadio Buendía, and Úrsula Iguarán, his wife (and first cousin), leave their hometown in Riohacha, Colombia, after José Arcadio kills Prudencio Aguilar after a cockfight for suggesting José Arcadio was impotent. One night of their emigration journey, while camping on a riverbank, José Arcadio dreams of "Macondo", a city of mirrors that reflected the world in and about it. Upon awakening, he decides to establish Macondo at the riverside; after days of wandering the jungle, his founding of Macondo is utopic.José Arcadio Buendía believes Macondo to be surrounded by water, and from that island, he invents the world according to "his" perceptions. Soon after its foundation, Macondo becomes a town frequented by unusual and extraordinary events that involve the generations of the Buendía family, who are unable or unwilling to escape their periodic (mostly self-inflicted) misfortunes. For years the town is solitary and unconnected to the outside world, with the exception of the annual visit of a band of gypsies, who show the townspeople scientific discoveries such as magnets, telescopes, and ice. The leader of the gypsies, a man named Melquíades, maintains a close friendship with José Arcadio, who becomes increasingly withdrawn, obsessed with investigating the mysteries of the universe presented to him by the gypsies. Ultimately he is driven insane, speaking only in Latin, and is tied to a chestnut tree by his family for many years until his death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Trilogy" title="The New York Trilogy">
## "City of Glass".The first story, "City of Glass", features an author of detective fiction who becomes a private investigator and descends into madness as he becomes embroiled in the investigation of a case. It explores layers of identity and reality, from Paul Auster the writer of the novel to the unnamed "author" who reports the events as reality, to "Paul Auster the writer", a character in the story, to "Paul Auster the detective", who may or may not exist in the novel, to Peter Stillman the younger, to Peter Stillman the elder and, finally, to Daniel Quinn, the protagonist."City of Glass" has an intertextual relationship with Miguel de Cervantes' "Don Quixote". Not only does the protagonist Daniel Quinn share his initials with the knight, but when Quinn finds "Paul Auster the writer," Auster is in the midst of writing an article about the authorship of "Don Quixote". Auster calls his article an "imaginative reading," and in it he examines possible identities of Cide Hamete Benengeli, the narrator of the "Quixote".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_in_Exile" title="Freedom in Exile">
The autobiography starts with the Dalai Lama's "birth to a family of small farmers", selection as the Dalai Lama, tumultuous relationship with the People's Republic of China (in which he claims many atrocities), and subsequent life in India. The book acknowledges "the cultural gaps between traditional Tibetan Buddhism and the scientific approaches of the West", and also elucidates the points of similarity between the two.The autobiography also criticizes the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for supporting the Tibetan independence movement "not because they (the CIA) cared about Tibetan independence, but as part of their worldwide efforts to destabilize all communist governments".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Surprise_(novel)" title="HMS Surprise (novel)">
A convoy including Aubrey seizes the ships carrying the gold deemed necessary by Spain to agree to join the war on the side of France. On the quibble that Spain had not yet entered the war, the new First Lord of the Admiralty decides the vast sum is a droit of the Crown so thus not shared out with the captors. Smaller amounts will be distributed to the captains, quite opposite to the expectations of the successful convoy. The First Lord blunders into mentioning the name of intelligence agent Stephen Maturin during the proceedings, putting Maturin at risk.Maturin goes on a mission to Spain and is to be picked up at Port Mahon by Aubrey, now on blockade duty near Toulon in HMS "Lively". At the rendezvous point, Aubrey learns from a Catalan revolutionary that his friend has been captured and is being tortured by French intelligence in Port Mahon, the island having been returned to Spain in the Peace of Amiens. Aubrey leads a rescue mission, saving a ravaged Maturin and killing all of the French interrogators except one, Captain Dutourd. In England, Aubrey is taken by bailiffs and is held in a sponging-house, a debtors' prison. Maturin tells Sir Joseph of his capture and Aubrey's predicament. Aubrey's marriage to Sophia Williams is deferred, as her mother insists that he be debt-free. Maturin gets Aubrey an advance on his grant of money and he is released. Sophia meets Aubrey in a coach in the middle of the night before he takes command of his new ship HMS "Surprise", and they promise to marry no one else.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Captain_(novel)" title="Post Captain (novel)">
With the Peace of Amiens, Jack Aubrey returns to England and rents a house with Stephen Maturin, with shipmates running the household, spending time in the hunt. He meets the Williams family. Aubrey courts Sophia Williams, the eldest of three daughters, while Maturin pursues Diana Villiers, Sophia's cousin. Aubrey wants to marry Sophia, but they delay making a firm engagement. His fortune abruptly disappears when his prize-agent absconds with his funds and the prize court finds that two merchant ships he captured were owned by neutral nations. The court demands he repay the value of the ships (rather than gain the prize money he expected), a sum beyond his means. Mrs Williams takes her daughters away to Bath on this news. Aubrey dallies with Diana, straining his friendship with Maturin and showing himself indecisive on land, a contrast with his decisive ways at sea. Aubrey and Maturin flee England to avoid Aubrey being taken for debt.In Toulon to visit Christy Pallière, the French captain who had captured Aubrey's first command "Sophie" before the peace, they learn that war is imminent. French authorities round up all English subjects. Aubrey and Maturin escape over the Pyrenees to Maturin's property with Maturin disguised as an itinerant bear trainer and Aubrey as the bear, Flora. They make their way to Gibraltar where Aubrey and Maturin take passage aboard a British East India Company ship, the "Lord Nelson". The ship is captured by the privateer "Bellone", but a British squadron overtakes them and rescues Aubrey, Maturin, and the other passengers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desolation_Island_(novel)" title="Desolation Island (novel)">
Jack Aubrey, having recovered financially in "The Mauritius Command", expands his house, pays off his mother-in-law's debts, and his wife is no longer pinching pennies. His household is staffed with seamen, and his daughters and son are thriving. After serving in the Fencibles office for a while, Aubrey starts getting into difficulties both in cards and at business, due to his belief, on land, in the honesty of others. Diana Villiers returns from America, unmarried. Maturin sees her and hopes again to marry her. After the local settlers enter into a feud with Captain Bligh, the governor in New South Wales, Aubrey takes command of the old HMS "Leopard" for a mission to New South Wales to escape his woes. In the meantime, Diana and her American friend Louisa Wogan are taken for questioning as spies. Wogan gets sent to New South Wales on the "Leopard", while Aubrey is furious at carrying prisoners. Maturin gets assigned to the voyage by Sir Joseph Blaine to watch Wogan, in the hopes of catching her in espionage. Diana, innocent of the espionage charges, flees with Mr Johnson, but is deeply in Maturin's mind, as he pays her bills.The prisoners kill their superintendent and surgeon during a storm, so their conditions are raised to meet naval standards. They bring gaol fever on board ship, which spreads to the seamen, killing most of the male prisoners and 116 of the ship's crew. Mr Martin, Maturin's assistant, dies, and is replaced by Michael Herapath, who has stowed away in pursuit of Louisa Wogan. Aubrey rates him a midshipman, despite his American citizenship. Aubrey is forced to leave many recovering crew members at Recife, including Tom Pullings. He is replaced with James Grant as first lieutenant, a challenge for Aubrey. While they are in port, HMS "Nymph" arrives damaged from its encounter with the "Waakzaamheid", a 74-gun Dutch ship-of-the-line crossing the equator.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fortune_of_War" title="The Fortune of War">
HMS "Leopard" sails from Desolation Island to Port Jackson where she drops off her few prisoners. Captain Bligh is already handled, so she proceeds to the Dutch East Indies station and Admiral Drury at Pulo Batang. "Leopard" is declared unfit for guns due to wood rot, and will probably be a troop transport. Jack Aubrey and his followers are to board the courier ship "La Flèche", as his next command, , awaits him in England. The rest of the crew is left with Admiral Drury. Maturin learns the success of his scheme to damage French intelligence sources from Wallis, and relays the name of a contact in the Royal Navy, mentioned by Louisa Wogan. They join a cricket game, ended abruptly by the arrival of "La Flèche", which also brings mail to them. Captain Yorke visited Sophia Aubrey before leaving England, bringing Jack a personal letter and gifts from her.Aubrey knew Captain Yorke and Maturin quickly warms to this captain who travels with an extensive library and a piano in his cabin. At Simon's Town, "La Flèche" learns of war between Britain and America. Aubrey spends this time of sweet sailing teaching the young midshipmen while Maturin is engrossed in dissection of specimens from Desolation Island and New Holland with McLean, the ship's Scottish surgeon, passing their evenings with music. One night in the Atlantic near Brazil a fire breaks out on board and all abandon ship to the small boats. A few hot weeks later the boat carrying Aubrey and Maturin is picked up on Christmas Eve by , headed for Bombay and commanded by Captain Henry Lambert.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ionian_Mission" title="The Ionian Mission">
Maturin and Villiers are happily married. After a time together in their new house on Half Moon Street, Maturin settles in his rooms at The Grapes, where Diana comes often, and from which he walks to breakfast with her daily. He has missions to do, and Aubrey needs to get away from his financial problems. Aubrey gets a stint on HMS "Worcester" for Toulon blockade duty. Jagiello brings the Maturins to port in his own carriage, which upsets, making Stephen’s arrival rather last-minute.While she is doing gunnery practice with gunpowder bought from a fireworks firm, "Worcester" encounters the French ship "Jemmapes". Worcester engages immediately, not having changed to ordinary gunpowder. "Jemmapes" sees the bright colors as the sign of some new weapon, and sails away. Maturin is injured and returns to taking laudanum for the pain. Some of the crew practice an oratorio while the midshipmen practice "Hamlet". Passengers are dropped off at Gibraltar and Port Mahon (Graham, professor of moral philosophy), though the parson Nathaniel Martin is aboard long enough for Maturin to discover their shared interest in birds, before Martin joins HMS "Berwick". "Worcester" joins the squadron off Toulon. Babbington, master and commander, joins the squadron in the Mediterranean as captain of the "Dryad". Babbington has fallen in love with Admiral Harte’s daughter Fanny, but her father wants her to marry the wealthy Andrew Wray. Babbington figures that Wray and Harte combined got him assigned to blockade duty. Before "Dryad", the Worcesters see HMS "Surprise" arrive with mail for this fleet, joining it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Far_Side_of_the_World" title="The Far Side of the World">
Aubrey meets Admiral Ives, now in Gibraltar, who is pleased with the last mission of HMS "Surprise", despite Aubrey's negative report. Mr Yarrow will rephrase it to make the success clearer to the Admiralty. The admiral is now a peer, his deepest wish, and he is a happy man. Aubrey dines with Laura Fielding and her husband, Lieutenant Fielding, who is now satisfied that his wife is true to him and thanks Aubrey for bringing her from Malta to Gibraltar (though it is Maturin who brought her to the ship, saving her from two assassins). Maturin receives news from his intelligence-chief in London, Sir Joseph Blaine, confirming high level infiltration of British intelligence by the French. Maturin's wife Diana has heard rumours of his pretended infidelity in Valletta, Malta, with Mrs Fielding for intelligence reasons. He sends her a letter via Andrew Wray, unsuspecting of Wray's role as a French agent. Maturin learns of his success in Malta, destroying the French intelligence network based there, all but André Lesueur taken."Surprise" is not yet to be broken up; Admiral Ives sends Aubrey on a mission to protect British whalers in the Pacific Ocean from the frigate USS "Norfolk", sailing on HMS "Surprise" on his first voyage around Cape Horn. Aubrey makes all haste to prepare his ship with men and supplies. He recruits Mr Allen, a new master with an in-depth knowledge of whalers, takes on Mr Martin as schoolmaster to the midshipmen, and Mr Hollom, an ageing midshipman. Aubrey wonders if his kindness takes aboard a Jonah with Hollom.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason's_Harbour" title="Treason's Harbour">
The Surprises wait at Malta while their ship is slowly repaired after their successful mission on the Ionian coast. Aubrey and Maturin meet Mrs Laura Fielding at music parties she holds. She is waiting for news of her husband, a naval lieutenant who is a prisoner-of-war in France. One of the three groups of French intelligence agents in Malta uses Fielding's plight to manipulate her into spying for them. Aubrey saves her huge dog Ponto from a fall in the well. This endears Aubrey to Ponto, leading the gossips of Malta to assume he is carrying on an affair with Mrs Fielding. She asks Maturin to help her satisfy the French agents. They let it appear to the French spies as if they are conducting an affair, and Maturin prepares false materials for her to pass on. The new Commander of the Mediterranean fleet, Admiral Sir Francis Ives and acting second secretary Andrew Wray, arrive in Malta with their own advisor on Turkish affairs. Once Aubrey learns that an earlier prize was accepted by the board, he has money to speed up repairs on "Surprise". Before he leaves Malta, Graham describes Lesueur, a French agent known to him. Unbeknownst to Maturin, Wray meets with Lesueur, receives payments from him and learns what Maturin has done to French spies. Maturin is delighted to receive his diving bell, built on Edmond Halley's design. He and Heneage Dundas test it out from Dundas’s ship. It travels with Maturin on the next mission.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reverse_of_the_Medal" title="The Reverse of the Medal">
Jack Aubrey and his crew make their way in a much knocked-about "Surprise" from the small island near the equator in the Pacific Ocean to the West Indies Squadron at Bridgetown with their American prisoners in a recaptured whaler. Aubrey learns that Sally Mputa was pregnant when they parted over twenty years earlier, at the moment of meeting his grown son, Samuel Panda, who appears to meet him and seek his blessing. Samuel is on his way to the with Catholic missionaries. Aubrey and Maturin like the young man, and Maturin promises to aid him in his wish to become a priest, as his being illegitimate is a barrier to taking orders. After the court martial for the British mutineers among Aubrey's prisoners, Aubrey leaves quickly for home. The voyage home is enlivened by a chase of the privateer "Spartan", which slips away in fog through the blockade to Brest.Finally ashore in England, Aubrey hears a rumour from a stranger he meets in Dover that peace is coming soon, creating an opportunity to make money in the stock exchange. Mr Palmer claims familiarity with Maturin. Aubrey makes the transactions, and shares the advice with his father, General Aubrey. The General makes large stock transactions and spreads the rumour of peace farther. The transactions prove profitable in the short term, but values fall when the rumour is shown to be false. Aubrey does not sell quickly enough and loses money, though others prosper. Aubrey is arrested for manipulating the market. He is taken to the Marshalsea prison to await trial. General Aubrey flees, leaving his son to fend for himself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Letter_of_Marque" title="The Letter of Marque">
Jack Aubrey, now a civilian, prepares the "Surprise" to sail as a letter of marque. The loss of his place on the Navy list is the hardest blow. He is stoic, but appears harsh to his new crew. His reputation brings him a full crew, and he takes the men on liking. He runs the "Surprise" on Royal Navy lines, including regular pay to the men, in addition to any prizes they might take. He is supported by his crew of old Surprises, privateers and smugglers, the latter groups recruited in Shelmerston, on the western coast of England. It is let out that a group of his friends purchased the ship at the auction, as Stephen Maturin, who is the sole owner, wants to play his same role of surgeon and natural philosopher on the ship. Aubrey takes the new crew on a short cruise in the Atlantic, which proves unexpectedly profitable.The downfall of the traitors Wray and Ledward restores order in British intelligence circles, returning Sir Joseph Blaine to his position in the Admiralty. The traitors fled England, so they still have a friend in the government. Duhamel, the French agent who gave them away, never did reach Canada, as he died in a fall boarding "Eurydice". Blaine says it will be difficult to restore Aubrey to the Navy, even with solid evidence left behind by Wray showing how he profited in the stock market scheme and set Aubrey up. Maturin's servant Padeen becomes a secret laudanum addict after a painful burn, where he learned its benefit, followed by an infected painful tooth that Maturin could not treat. Padeen dilutes the ship's supply with brandy. Maturin is thus unknowingly weaned off his own addiction.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_at_the_Mizzen" title="Blue at the Mizzen">
The "Surprise" sails out of Gibraltar but collides in the dark with a Nordic timber ship and returns for repairs. Back ashore, Aubrey hears a reliable description of the battle at Waterloo; he thanks Lord Keith for moving the prize court along briskly to share out their huge prize from capturing the gold meant to aid Napoleon before his fall, more than 382 pounds a share. Aubrey has clandestine visits with his cousin Isobel, Lord Barmouth's wife. Admiral Lord Barmouth hastens the repair work, realizing he helps himself that way. Many Surprises desert. The frigate sails to Madeira for more serious repairs but arrives just in time to see Coelho's famous shipyard at Funchal in flames. Maturin receives a coded report from Dr Amos Jacob regarding the Chilean situation and takes the "Ringle" to England, where Sir Joseph Blaine updates him. The Chileans have split into two factions: northern still interested in British help, and southern retaining the services of Sir David Lindsay to command the Chilean navy. Whilst Maturin stays with Sophie Aubrey at Woolcombe, Aubrey returns the "Surprise" to Seppings' yard in England for a thorough re-fit and recruits a strong, competent crew out of Shelmerston for the long voyage ahead. In London, the Duke of Clarence asks Aubrey to accept Horatio Hanson as a midshipman. Initially reluctant, Aubrey finds that the boy has the mathematical skills essential for a navigator and he becomes a competent sailor. Fully fitted, the "Surprise" stops at Funchal, picking up Jacob, and then heads for Freetown, where Maturin proposes marriage to a young attractive widow named Christine Wood. She shares his tastes for natural philosophy, but her view of marriage suffered from her first marriage, as her husband was impotent and she turns him down. She agrees on her upcoming trip to England to visit the Aubreys at their home in Dorset and to meet Maturin's daughter Brigid there. "Surprise" then sails to the coast of Brazil, where Dr Amos Jacob parts to cross the mountains overland.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hundred_Days_(novel)" title="The Hundred Days (novel)">
Maturin rejoins the squadron at Funchal after burying his wife, killed when her carriage overturned. Fitted out, Commodore Aubrey's squadron meets at Gibraltar with Admiral Lord Keith, who updates him on Napoleon's success at Paris and the armies gathered on land. He orders Aubrey first to defend a convoy of merchant ships from Moorish xebecs and galleys, and then to proceed to the Adriatic Sea to destroy any new ships being built to support Napoleon. The grieving Maturin, in a separate meeting, learns of a plot to send sufficient gold through Algiers to fund Muslim mercenaries who would block the Russian forces from joining those of the other allies, so Napoleon's army can attack one army at a time. Aubrey's squadron is successful in defending the convoy. The captain of the "Pomone" is haunted by the faces of the galley slaves who died when his ship attacked theirs; Aubrey reports he died cleaning his guns, and a new captain is assigned to "Pomone". The convoy proceeds toward the Adriatic, stopping in Mahón. Asea, they encounter Captain Christy-Palliere, of the Royalist "Caroline" and an old acquaintance, who informs Aubrey about the French situation in the Adriatic before parting. Amos Jacob is sent out on "Ringle" to Kutali and Spalato to gain more information. "Surprise" sinks a French frigate under the command of an Imperialist at Ragusa Vecchia. Jacob rejoins near Porte di Spalato where they meet another French frigate, whose captain, like so many, does not want to declare for Napoleon but fears he will win. Maturin and Jacob negotiate an agreement for the French frigate to fight a mock battle against both "Surprise" and "Pomone"; the Frenchman then accompanies "Pomone" to Malta. Following up the pressure put on banks not to loan to the small shipyards, they lay out gold to push disgruntled dockworkers to burn new French ships along the coast, which is effective.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Admiral" title="The Yellow Admiral">
Aubrey, captain of HMS "Bellona" in the Brest blockade after his squadron was dispersed, is home at Woolcombe, the Aubrey family estate, on parliamentary leave. Three lawsuits from owners of slave ships captured on his mission along the West African coast tie up his funds. His wife Sophia rents out Ashgrove Cottage, their marital home. Maturin returns from Spain with his wife Diana and their household, moving into an empty wing of Woolcombe. Maturin's vast wealth is tied up in Spain, where authorities, informed by Jean Dutourd, are displeased at his activities in Peru, a Spanish colony. On land, Aubrey opposes the enclosing of the common, Simmons Lea, which has been proposed in the House by his neighbour, Captain Griffiths. Aubrey has power as lord of the manor, which he uses when the bill is called. Admiral Stranraer on the Brest blockade encouraged this enclosure, and he is uncle to Griffiths. The Admiral calls Aubrey back aboard, hoping to prevent his appearance in Parliament. Quick action on the part of Diana and Clarissa Oakes foils this scheme. Aubrey is watching a boxing match between Barret Bonden and Evans, Griffith's gamekeeper, when the orders arrive at Woolcombe. Mrs Oakes appears at the match to tell Aubrey to proceed directly to Parliament. Stranraer is displeased when Aubrey reveals the committee's decision; he sends HMS "Bellona" to the inshore blockading-squadron. Aboard the flagship, Maturin receives letters for his covert mission in France. The Admiral tries unsuccessfully to use Maturin to change Aubrey's mind.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Commodore_(novel)" title="The Commodore (novel)">
Jack Aubrey wins the "Ringle", a Baltimore Clipper, from his friend Captain Dundas, as the "Surprise" accompanies HMS "Berenice" back to England, after a stop on Ascension Island for repairs to the "Surprise". Maturin meets with Sir Joseph Blaine, while Aubrey heads home to his family. When Maturin does reach home with Sarah and Emily, he finds his young daughter Brigid in the care of Clarissa Oakes, now widowed. He searches for his wife, finds only some of her horses. Their daughter is developing slowly as to language and social skills. When Maturin meets Sir Joseph at their club, he learns that the Duke of Habachtsthal, the third conspirator in the Ledward-Wray conspiracy, is aiming at both of them. The Duke's influence has delayed the pardons of both Clarissa and Padeen, and all are at risk. To secure his fortune and his family, Maturin asks Aubrey for the "Ringle" to move his cash to Corunna and to carry Clarissa, Padeen and Brigid to live at the Benedictine house in Ávila, Spain, for safety. Brigid takes to Padeen, and is speaking in Irish and English aboard the "Ringle". Blaine and Maturin separately hire Mr Pratt, to gather information on the Duke and to find Diana.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wine-Dark_Sea" title="The Wine-Dark Sea">
The "Surprise", with bow guns blazing, is in close pursuit of the American privateer "Franklin" in the wine-dark waters of the South Pacific. The chase is interrupted by a submarine volcanic eruption that completely disables the "Franklin", with lesser damages to the "Surprise". At sunrise, Aubrey sends Reade to take the "Franklin"; Maturin and Martin separate the dead from wounded aboard the prize. Jean Dutourd, the owner, is taken aboard "Surprise". A wealthy philanthropist, his plan to colonise a South Pacific island, Moahu, was stopped by the appearance of the "Surprise", and her support for the successful queen of Moahu in a battle for supremacy on the island. The "Franklin" took prizes of British ships en route to Moahu, proved by ransomers aboard, seamen taken as security, along with cargoes taken. The American sailing master is dead, killed by shots from the "Surprise". Aubrey finds that Dutourd does not have a letter of marque permitting him to operate the "Franklin" as a privateer; the sailing master did, but Dutourd is not listed on his muster. Aubrey views Dutourd as a pirate, while Maturin considers him a risk ashore to his mission. Aboard ship, his utopian talk appeals to some of the seamen. They take an American whaler as prize. A British sailor on the whaler tells Aubrey of the "Alastor", a privateer turned true pirate, flying the black flag and demanding immediate surrender or death of its victims. In their ultimately successful encounter with the "Alastor", Aubrey receives severe wounds to his eye and his leg.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarissa_Oakes" title="Clarissa Oakes">
"Surprise" sails eastbound from Port Jackson in New South Wales. Jack Aubrey is in an ill-humour as a result of the frigate's visit to the abysmal penal settlement – firstly, because Stephen Maturin's duel with an army officer antagonized the local administration until the governor returned, and secondly because Padeen Colman, Maturin's servant and an absconder, was rescued against Aubrey's wishes. Aubrey observes ribaldry amongst his crew and remains puzzled until he and Pullings find a young female convict, Clarissa Harvill, during the ship's inspection. She was smuggled aboard in Sydney Cove by Midshipman Oakes. Aubrey is at first determined to leave them both on Norfolk Island, but lets them stay aboard until they reach a safer port."Surprise" spots a cutter, . Aubrey suspects the cutter seeks the runaways. He agrees that Harvill and Oakes may marry on board. Aubrey gives some fine red silk he bought for Sophie to be used for a wedding dress for Clarissa, who wears midshipman's clothes. Martin conducts the ceremony, while Bonden hides Padeen. The cutter bears dispatches for Aubrey and mail for the ship, and a captain whose father was surgeon on "Surprise", eager to see her. The mail brings many letters from Sophia and from Diana. Aubrey sees Maturin's happiness that his daughter was born, while Sophia writes him that the infant has development troubles, a secret to keep from Maturin. The governor orders Aubrey to settle a local dispute on Moahu, a nominally British island to the south of the Sandwich Islands. The gun room feasts the newlyweds. Despite the delicious swordfish speared by Davies (after it pierced the ship), good conversation is impaired by the level of animosity existing amongst the gun room members, most visibly West and Davidge. The cause is jealousy over Clarissa, who has had sexual liaisons with several of the ship's officers. This ill-will spreads to the crew, who divide in pro-and anti-Clarissa factions. In the blue water sailing, Maturin befriends Clarissa Oakes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Skulls" title="The Book of Skulls">
The plot concerns four college students who discover a Catalan manuscript, "The Book of Skulls", dealing with an order of monks living in a monastery in the Arizona desert, whose members claim the power to bestow immortality on those who complete their bizarre initiation rite. The boys travel to the monastery, where they are accepted as a "Receptacle", and told that for each group of four who agree to undergo the ritual, two must die in order for the others to succeed—one must sacrifice himself, and the other must be sacrificed at one or more of the others' hands.The narrative switches back and forth between the viewpoints of the four students as each confronts his personal demons on the way to completing the ritual. Ned, who is openly homosexual, must face his guilt over the tragic aftermath of one of his affairs; Eli, the gifted (but socially inept) young man who discovered the manuscript, makes a confession that could destroy his academic career; Timothy, star athlete and prodigal son of a wealthy family, confronts a terrible sin from his past involving his younger sister; and Oliver, the handsome, over-motivated farm kid from the wrong side of the tracks, comes face to face with his own true innermost nature.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Wellville" title="The Road to Wellville">
The book's plot details three narratives which take place between November 1907 and late May 1908 in John Harvey Kellogg's Battle Creek, Michigan sanitarium. The first thread concerns Will and Eleanor Lightbody. Eleanor, a fan of Dr. Kellogg, drags Will to Kellogg's sanitarium. Will has recently suffered stomach pains and is still recovering from bouts of alcohol and drug addiction—the latter at the hands of his wife. Eleanor suffered a brutal miscarriage, which has left her physically weak. Hoping to improve his marriage, Will goes along but is constantly filled with doubts about Kellogg's health methods. While he takes part in the therapy, he gags at health food, does not enjoy the laughing therapy, and watches as his friend Homer Praetz is electrocuted during a sinusoidal bath. Meanwhile, his wife Eleanor finds too much enjoyment at the sanitarium, especially at the hands of Dr. Spitzvogel, a doctor who practices "Die Handhabung Therapeutik"—or in common parlance, erotic massage.Charlie Ossining, a peripatetic merchant attempts to market a new type of cereal, "Per-Fo", with a partner Bender, whose slick and untrustworthy behavior disarms him. They join forces with George Kellogg, adopted son of John Harvey Kellogg, who has had a falling out with his father and seeks revenge. George agrees to use his name on "Per-Fo" in the hopes the cereal will be bought out by the Kellogg's Company.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mutants" title="The Mutants">
In the 30th century, the Earth Empire is contracting and plans are being made to decolonise the colony world of Solos. The militaristic Marshal and other human soldiers, known as Overlords, rule it from Skybase One, an orbiting space station. The Marshal opposes the decolonisation plans outlined to him by an Administrator sent from Earth, and is also obsessed with eradicating the Mutants or "Mutts" that have sprung up on the planet below. The Solonians themselves are a tribal people, split between those who actively oppose the occupation, such as Ky, and those like Varan who collaborate with the imperialists. The Marshal and Varan ensure the Administrator is murdered before he can confirm to Ky and other tribal chiefs that the Earth Empire is indeed withdrawing from Solos.The Third Doctor and Jo arrive on Skybase One, their TARDIS having been transported there by the Time Lords. They have with them a message box which will only open for an intended recipient – and that is not the Marshal or his entourage – but seems to be for Ky, who has been framed for the murder of the Administrator. Jo and Ky flee to the surface of Solos, which is poisonous to humans during daylight hours. This quickly affects Jo, but she survives with Ky's help. The Doctor learns from the Marshal and his chief scientist Jaeger that they are involved in an experiment using rocket barrages to terraform Solos, making the air breathable for humans, regardless of the cost to indigenous life.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Daleks" title="Planet of the Daleks">
The Third Doctor has been wounded after being shot by the Master. Jo helps the Doctor into the TARDIS, where he sends a message to the Time Lords before he collapses then falls into a coma. Jo dictates into the TARDIS log that she has seen this healing state before ("The Dæmons"), and that the TARDIS is moving, being controlled remotely by the Time Lords. When the TARDIS stops Jo activates the external scanners to see some plants outside block the viewer by spraying a thick sap-like liquid at it. With the Doctor still catatonic, Jo leaves to explore the surrounding jungle. The plants spray sap on her as she walks by, and a bit of it gets on her hand.As Jo explores, the TARDIS is rapidly covered by plant sap, which is hardening into a shell around it. When the Doctor awakens, he finds himself sealed in and the oxygen in the TARDIS rapidly being used up. Activating the emergency oxygen supply, he discovers the tanks almost empty, and starts to suffocate from lack of air. Jo discovers a spacecraft in the jungle with a dead pilot. Shortly after, three blonde haired humanoids enter the spacecraft, identifying themselves as Taron, Vaber and Codal. They offer help but are cautious as there is an apparent danger outside.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthlight" title="Earthlight">
The plot describes how political tension between the government of a politically united Earth (which maintains sovereignty over the Moon) and independent settlers and traders elsewhere in the Solar System who have formed a federation, erupts into warfare over the terms for the availability to the Federation of scarce heavy metals.The trigger for hostilities is the publication of a research paper suggesting that the Moon may have previously unsuspected heavy metal resources which Earth proposes to monopolise. The Earth government's intelligence agency suspects that confidential information concerning the exploitation of these mineral riches may be being leaked to the Federation and presses an accountant, Bertram Sadler, into service. Sadler is sent to the Moon's main astronomical observatory located near the crater of Plato as a tip off has suggested that information is being routed through that location. Sadler's cover story is that he is carrying out an investigation of waste in government spending.The rising political tension is accompanied by the observatory staff enjoying the good fortune of observing a nearby supernova explosion in the constellation of Draco.Despite a relatively long preceding era of peace, Earth and the Federation each prepare technologically for war. The Federation develops a new method of spacedrive propulsion while Earth develops new shielding technology and a weapon which uses an electromagnet-propelled bayonet of liquid metal. (The weapon mistaken for a beam of light).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_Beginning" title="The Bad Beginning">
Violet Baudelaire is fourteen years old and loves creating amazing inventions; Klaus Baudelaire is twelve and an obsessive reader; Sunny Baudelaire is a baby and has four surprisingly large and sharp buck teeth, with which she loves to bite. While they are at Briny Beach, the children are told by a family friend, Mr. Poe, that their parents have died in a fire that destroyed their home. They are placed in the care of Count Olaf, said to be a distant relative although the children have never heard of him before. Olaf's ramshackle house is filthy and covered in disconcerting eye images; it has a tower which the Baudelaires are forbidden from entering. Count Olaf is unpleasant, easily angered, and forces the children to perform odious chores. It becomes clear that Count Olaf is scheming to collect the Baudelaire's fortune. The only solace the children find is spending time with their neighbor, Justice Strauss. For the next few days, Olaf keeps the Baudelaires busy by forcing them to clean his house. The Baudelaires disagree but do not dare to object. One day, the Baudelaires are set the task of making dinner for Olaf and his theatre troupe. They make puttanesca, but when Olaf arrives, he demands roast beef. The children remind him that he never asked them to make roast beef, and Olaf becomes angry, lifting Sunny into the air, and striking Klaus across the face after Klaus tells everyone Count Olaf has given them only one bed and a pile of rocks for the three of them to sleep on and to play with.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reptile_Room" title="The Reptile Room">
The three Baudelaire orphans have been placed under the care of their distant relative, herpetologist Dr. Montgomery Montgomery. "Uncle Monty", as he prefers to be called, is a short, chubby man with a round, red face. The children immediately like him. He lets them each choose their own bedroom and informs them that they are going to accompany him on a trip to Peru to study snakes.The children are fascinated by the many snakes in the "Reptile Room", a giant hall in which their Uncle Monty's reptile collection is stored. They meet the Incredibly Deadly Viper, which Uncle Monty recently discovered, whose name is actually a misnomer to its harmless and friendly nature. The three children are each given jobs in the Reptile Room: Violet is given the job of inventing traps for new snakes found in Peru, Klaus is told to read books on snakes to help advise Uncle Monty, and Sunny's job is to bite ropes into usable pieces.When Stephano, the successor of the original assistant Gustav arrives, the children realize immediately that he is their recurring nemesis, Count Olaf, who was onto their family fortune. They try to warn Uncle Monty. They manage to talk to Monty alone the day before their trip to Peru, but Monty is instead convinced that Stephano is a spy trying to steal information from his research and fails to understand their claims that Stephano is Olaf. He tears up Stephano's ticket to Peru. The following morning, the Baudelaires discover Monty's dead body.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wide_Window" title="The Wide Window">
Mr. Poe puts the Baudelaire orphans, Klaus Baudelaire, Sunny Baudelaire and Violet Baudelaire under the care of Aunt Josephine, who lives in a house atop a hill overlooking Lake Lachrymose, a lake so large that hurricanes have occurred in that area. Aunt Josephine is afraid of almost everything from cooking food because she is scared that her stove would explode, to her welcome mat. Her library is filled with books about the grammar of the English language because she loves grammar.While helping Aunt Josephine in the grocery store, Violet runs into a sailor named "Captain Sham", who she concludes is Count Olaf in disguise. Aunt Josephine declines to believe this due to Captain Sham's charming personality. That night, the children hear a crash and find out that their new guardian had jumped out of the Wide Window that overlooks Lake Lachrymose, and that before doing so left a note for them informing them that Captain Sham will be their new guardian.Mr. Poe refuses to believe the children's claim the note was a lie by Count Olaf and takes them to dinner with him at a cheap and grimy restaurant with an over-enthusiastic waiter, the Anxious Clown. Needing a distraction to come up with a strategy, Violet puts peppermints in her own food and that of Klaus and Sunny. Allergic, they break into hives, forcing Count Olaf to allow them to go back to their aunt's house. Klaus shows them the note is in Aunt Josephine's handwriting but coded a hidden message using grammar errors, which all together form the two words 'Curdled Cave'. Once they finish the note, Hurricane Herman hits and the house begins to fall apart into the lake.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Miserable_Mill" title="The Miserable Mill">
Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire are traveling on a train heading for Paltryville, the location of the children's new home, the Lucky Smells Lumbermill.Upon arrival, the children learn that they will have to work at the mill, but as part of the deal, their new guardian, Sir (whose name is impossible to pronounce otherwise), will try to keep Count Olaf, their nemesis, away. They meet Sir's more sympathetic partner, Charles, who shows them the library, which contains three books, one about the history of the lumbermill, one about the town constitution, and one donated by Dr. Georgina Orwell, the local optometrist, who lives in an eye-shaped building, which also resembles, suspiciously, the tattoo on their nemesis Count Olaf's ankle.Klaus breaks his own glasses when he is purposely tripped by the new foreman, Flacutono, and is sent to see Dr. Orwell. When Klaus returns from the optometrist, hours later, he acts strangely, as if in a trance. The next day in the lumbermill, Flacutono instructs Klaus to operate a stamping machine. Klaus causes an accident by dropping the machine on Phil, an optimistic coworker. Flacutono exclaims that the machine "cost an inordinate amount of money". The other workers ask what the unfamiliar word means and Klaus defines the word. Klaus explains that he doesn't remember what happened between when he broke his glasses and waking up in the mill. Foreman Flacutono trips him again, once again causing his glasses to break. This time though, Violet and Sunny accompany Klaus to Dr. Orwell's office.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Austere_Academy" title="The Austere Academy">
Mr. Poe drops the Baudelaire children—Violet, Klaus and Sunny—off at Prufrock Preparatory School, a boarding school they are to attend. They are greeted by a rude girl, Carmelita Spats, who calls the children "cakesniffers". Vice Principal Nero tells them about the school's odd rules: they are to sleep in a crab-infested, fungus-dripping shack because they have no living guardian to sign a permission slip for them. Sunny will work as Nero's administrative assistant. They must attend nightly concerts at which Nero performs terribly on the violin. Punishments for rule-breaking include having silverware removed or hands tied while eating in the cafeteria, or having to purchase candy for Nero. Sunny will have her silverware removed permanently for working in the administrative building, which children are not allowed in.At lunch, Carmelita mocks the Baudelaires, but Duncan and Isadora Quagmire stand up for them. The Quagmires are triplets, and they say that their parents died in a fire that also killed their sibling Quigley. When they become adults, they will inherit a fortune of sapphires. Isadora writes rhyming couplets, while Duncan is passionate about journalism and researching. Over the following days, Violet is a student of Mr. Remora, and must take detailed notes of his boring anecdotes, while Klaus is taught by Mrs. Bass, who makes her students endlessly measure the dimensions of objects. Isadora is in Klaus' class and Duncan is in Violet's. Sunny struggles to carry out her administrative work, which is designed for an adult. The school has no weekend breaks.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ersatz_Elevator" title="The Ersatz Elevator">
Mr. Poe takes the Baudelaire orphans to their new home on 667 Dark Avenue. The street is dark, as light is "out", or unpopular. The elevators in the apartment building are not working, as elevators are "out", leaving the Baudelaires to walk up several dozen flights of stairs to the penthouse where the Squalors live. Jerome Squalor welcomes the children to their new home. He offers them "aqueous martinis", (water garnished with an olive served in a fancy glass), and introduces them to his wife, Esmé Squalor, the city's sixth most important financial adviser, who is concerned about what's "in" and what's "out". Jerome avoids disputes with Esmé, as he hates arguing with her, and follows her instructions. While Jerome, a good friend of the Baudelaires' mother, truly cares for the children, it becomes apparent that Esmé's reason for adopting them is because orphans are "in." Esmé sends the children and Jerome to Café Salmonella for dinner, because she will be busy privately discussing arrangements for an auction with trendy auctioneer Gunther.After Esmé gives the children over-sized pinstripe suits to wear, the Baudelaires recognize Gunther as Count Olaf, despite his attempt to disguise his unibrow with a monocle and horse riding boots to cover up the tattoo of an eye on his ankle. Despite their protestations, Jerome takes the children to the restaurant. Jerome believes the children are being xenophobic, and dismisses their suspicions of Gunther.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vile_Village" title="The Vile Village">
Mr. Poe receives a brochure about a program where villages have signed up to communally raise children—the Baudelaires choose the village V.F.D., an abbreviation which the Quagmire children communicated to them while being kidnapped at the end of "The Austere Academy". The village has a large number of unusual rules, created by the Council of Elders: their newest rule, outlawing villains, is meant to keep out Count Olaf. The children will live with the village's handyman, Hector. He tells them that the initials stand for the Village of Fowl Devotees—in reference to the large number of crows which follow very specific roosting patterns. At sunset they fly to Nevermore Tree, outside Hector's house.Hector shows the children a couplet he found underneath Nevermore Tree, which resembles Isadora Quagmire's style of poetry. The children stay awake to see if any more messages arrive, and discover a second couplet the next morning. Along with Hector, they do chores for individual townspeople. After cleaning the crow-shaped Fowl Fountain, a council member tells them that Count Olaf has been captured by the new Chief of Police, Officer Luciana. Though the imprisoned man has a unibrow and a tattoo of an eye on his left ankle, he is not Count Olaf. He says that his name is Jacques. Nonetheless, the villagers plan to burn him at the stake—the punishment for breaking one of the town's rules.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hostile_Hospital" title="The Hostile Hospital">
After escaping the Village of Fowl Devotees, Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire arrive at a store to send a telegram to Mr. Poe, explaining their situation and pleading for help. The store's generous owner explains that a van of 'Volunteers Fighting Disease' arrives once every day for a gas refill. The van arrives, and the Baudelaires, thinking it to be the acronym 'V.F.D.', escape into it after the owner recognizes them as the accused murderers in the "Daily Punctilio", an unreliable newspaper series.The Baudelaires discover that Volunteers Fighting Diseases is a group of enthusiasts that visit Heimlich Hospital to increase the morale of patients, who believe that 'No News Is Good News', and therefore have never read "The Daily Punctilio" (and don't recognize the Baudelaires). One of the members suggests the Baudelaires seek a Library of Records to find their V.F.D.The three then volunteer to aid Hal, a visually disabled elder who works in Heimlich Hospital's Library of Records. As he doesn't let them read any of the files, the Baudelaires regretfully trick him into giving them his keys to enter the library at night. While reading a file on the Baudelaires, in which only the thirteenth page remained since investigators have taken the rest, they discover that one of their parents may have survived or escaped the mansion's fire – however, Esmé Squalor enters the library, intent on destroying them and the files to clear Count Olaf's name in the crimes he has committed.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Carnivorous_Carnival" title="The Carnivorous Carnival">
Following the events of "The Hostile Hospital", Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire arrive at Caligari Carnival in the trunk of Count Olaf and his theatre troupe's car, unknown to them. Olaf and his associates speak of seeking Madame Lulu, a mysterious fortune-teller and owner of Caligari Carnival, for answers of the whereabouts of the Snicket files, which apparently contains crucial information on V.F.D. As the troupe discuss with Lulu, the Baudelaires escape the trunk and disguise themselves as freak volunteers for the Carnival's freak show, Violet and Klaus as a two-headed humanoid 'Beverly' and 'Elliot', and Sunny as 'Chabo the Wolf Baby', a supposed half-wolf.After being accepted by Lulu, they meet three other freaks in the 'Freak Caravan' - Hugo, a hunchback - Kevin, who is ambidextrous - and Colette, a contortionist. The Baudelaires are oblivious to the reason of their self-consciousness on their rare abilities. Every day they are forced to perform and be ridiculed in front of a small audience.The next day, Count Olaf announces that a freak will be chosen to be fed to a pack of abused lions, in order to increase the popularity of the carnival. Olaf tells Esmé Squalor that Madame Lulu has predicted the whereabouts of the remaining Baudelaire parent to be in a V.F.D headquarters located in the Mortmain Mountains. Violet, Klaus and Sunny explore Lulu's tent, where she supposedly predicts answers using a glass ball - however, they discover that she tricked Olaf into thinking so by using a machine to create the effects, and either guesses the answer or finds the answers in her secret archival library. Madame Lulu enters, and after hollering at the Baudelaires for trespassing, is shamed into revealing her true identity as Olivia. Olivia explains that she goes by the motto 'Give People What They Want', thus her feeding Olaf information. She reveals to be part of V.F.D, and admits to only be guessing one of their parents to be in Mortmain Mountains after the Baudelaires reveal themselves to her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slippery_Slope" title="The Slippery Slope">
Continuing on from "The Carnivorous Carnival", Violet and Klaus are in a caravan rolling down the Mortmain Mountains. Sunny is trapped in a car with Count Olaf, Esmé, and the theater troupe, which now includes the carnival's henchpeople. From materials in the caravan, Violet frantically constructs a drag chute and instructs Klaus to mix together sticky foodstuffs, which he pours on the tires. The caravan comes to a halt at the very edge of the cliff, and tumbles off when Violet and Klaus step out, leaving them with only a few clothes. They travel up the mountain and are attacked by Snow Gnats, so they take cover in a cave. Snow Scouts, led by Bruce (the man who collected Uncle Monty's reptiles from "The Reptile Room"), are occupying the cave, and Carmelita Spats (a student from "The Austere Academy") is to be crowned Snow Queen. A masked Snow Scout communicates with the Baudelaires with "V.F.D." phrases such as "very foul day". At night, the scout wakes Violet and Klaus and leads them up a chimney. He calls it a "Vertical Flame Diversion" and at the end they reach a "Vernacularly Fastened Door", which allows the trio through once they solve three literary questions.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grim_Grotto" title="The Grim Grotto">
Having been separated from Quigley Quagmire by the waterfall of the Mortmain Mountains, the Baudelaire children arrive at the hull of the "Queequeg", a submarine piloted by Captain Widdershins. They correctly guess the password, "the world is quiet here", and enter the porthole to meet Widdershins along with his stepdaughter Fiona and the chef Cookie, who they recognise as the optimist Phil that used to work for the Lucky Smells Lumbermill (in "The Miserable Mill"). Widdershins is a V.F.D. member and knew the Baudelaire parents; he talks with urgency but often gives contradicting instructions. He is traveling to the last safe place, the Hotel Denouement, but must first locate the sugar bowl, though he will not tell them what is inside.Klaus examines the tidal charts to estimate that the sugar bowl is in the Gorgonian Grotto, but is interrupted by sonar detection of an octopus-shaped submarine that they suspect is captained by Count Olaf. The submarine is chased away by the Great Unknown, which appears on the sonar as a question mark. Fiona, a mycologist, discovers that the Gorgonian Grotto is home to the Medusoid Mycelium, a dangerous fungus which can kill within an hour of inhalation. As the grotto is conical, the "Queequeg" reaches a point where it is too wide to pass through, and instead the Baudelaire children and Fiona venture further in diving outfits. Reaching a beach, the children search through detritus in vain and are delayed in their return by the waxing and waning of Medusoid Mycelium. Sunny cooks a meal with ingredients on the beach, saving the wasabi for their return, as the others discover instructions for communicating with Verse Fluctuation Declaration, in which a message is hidden in a poem that has some of its words replaced.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelander_(novel)" title="Icelander (novel)">
The plot primarily follows the adventures of a character known only as Our Heroine as she attempts to solve the mystery of her friend's murder while repeated flashbacks detail her family's past adventures in the underground Icelandic kingdom of Vanaheim.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libra_(novel)" title="Libra (novel)">
The book follows two related but separate narrative threads: episodes from Oswald's life from his childhood until the assassination and his death, and the actions of other participants in the conspiracy. A secondary parallel story follows Nicholas Branch, a CIA archivist of more recent times assigned the monumental task of piecing together the disparate fragments of Kennedy's death.Oswald is portrayed as a misfit antihero, whose overtly communist political views cause him difficulties fitting into American society. Raised by a single mother in The Bronx, Oswald enlists in the military in the 1950s and is stationed at the Naval Air Facility Atsugi in Japan, where he amuses his fellow airmen with his earnest left-wing ideology. Oswald defects to the Soviet Union after the end of his service and is interviewed by the KGB about the U-2 reconnaissance planes he observed at Atsugi, although he is unable to furnish much useful information. Following a suicide attempt, Oswald is moved to Minsk, where he works in a factory and meets a young woman, Marina, whom he marries. In the early 1960s, Oswald and Marina relocate to Texas.Concurrently in the novel, a cadre of CIA agents disillusioned by Kennedy's perceived failure to adequately support the Bay of Pigs invasion hatch a plot to stage an assassination attempt and blame it on the Cuban government. The chief conspirators in the CIA are Win Everett, Lawrence Parmenter and TJ Mackey. The conspiracy grows to encompass several largely independent factions, including organized crime figures in New Orleans and a contingent of Cuban exiles in Miami. Although at first they planned to intentionally miss the President, at some point it is decided that the gunman should aim to kill.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Foe" title="The Ultimate Foe">
The Sixth Doctor boldly claims the Valeyard's evidence has been falsified, and the Matrix has been tampered with. The Keeper of the Matrix insists this is impossible. Glitz and Mel arrive unexpectedly in the courtroom. The Master appears on the Matrix screen to claim responsibility and to demonstrate it's possible to breach the Matrix. At the Master's insistence, Glitz reveals the data he tried to obtain on Ravolox included technological secrets from the Matrix, which was stolen by the Sleepers. The Time Lords traced the Sleepers to their base on Earth and dragged the planet across space to the location in which the Doctor found it, nearly annihilating all life on the planet in the process. The Doctor denounces the Time Lords as decadent and corrupt. The Master explains that the Valeyard is a manifestation of the Doctor's darker side "somewhere between [the Doctor's] twelfth and final incarnation"; the High Council offered the Valeyard the Doctor's remaining regenerations in exchange for falsifying evidence.When the Doctor demands to halt the trial as he cannot be both the defendant and prosecutor, the Valeyard flees into the Matrix, a virtual reality where normal logic does not apply. The Doctor pursues with Glitz, emerging next to a building labelled "The Fantasy Factory (proprietor: J. J. Chambers)". A clerk named Mr. Popplewick sends them to a deserted wasteland. To the Doctor's horror, hands emerge from the ground and grab him, dragging him underground. Glitz is unable to rescue him, but the Doctor rises from the ground unharmed, insisting correctly that nothing that happens in the Matrix is real. The Valeyard appears and taunts the Doctor before unleashing nerve gas, forcing the Doctor and Glitz to take refuge in a run-down cottage. As they stumble inside, it dematerialises – it is the Master's TARDIS.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_(Brin_novel)" title="Earth (Brin novel)">
Set in the year 2038, "Earth" is a cautionary tale of the harm humans can cause their planet via disregard for the environment and reckless scientific experiments. The book has a large cast of characters and Brin uses them to address a number of environmental issues, including endangered species, global warming, refugees from ecological disasters, ecoterrorism, and the social effects of overpopulation. The plot of the book involves an artificially created black hole which has been lost in the Earth's interior and the attempts to recover it before it destroys the planet. The events and revelations which follow reshape humanity and its future in the universe. It also includes a war pitting most of the Earth against Switzerland, fueled by outrage over the Swiss allowing generations of kleptocrats to hide their stolen wealth in the country's banks.The scope of the story expands vastly as the plot gradually reveals itself, bringing into question the future course—and even the survival—of humanity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neon_Bible" title="The Neon Bible">
The story begins with Aunt Mae, a former actress and singer, moving in with David's white working-class family in the middle of a small southern town. Aunt Mae becomes sexually involved with a 70-year-old man, ending when he is arrested on morality charges. From subsequent events David learns he does not get along with the other boys his own age. At this point, suggestive of the Great Depression, David's father, Frank, loses his factory job. The family moves to an older house on a hill overlooking the town.The family's circumstances worsen and Frank becomes frustrated. One week he spends his entire paycheck on seeds and other farming supplies. His wife insists that crops cannot grow in the clay of the hill soil. An argument ensues and he strikes her with his knee, knocking out one of her teeth. She bleeds badly, but it eventually subsides. Subsequently, Frank is shipped to Italy to fight in World War II.While Frank is in Italy, a traveling 'revival' ministry visits town. The traveling preacher teaches that popular dance is a prelude to 'immorality'. The town's local preacher opposes this incursion and begins a rival Bible study class. These options divide the town. Through editorials in the newspaper and spots on the town radio station, each side attacks the other. Meanwhile, Aunt Mae takes a job in the local propeller factory as a supervisor. At a company dance which she organizes, Aunt Mae entertains by singing. This leads to her being invited to join the hired band, singing for pay.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_of_the_Daleks" title="Genesis of the Daleks">
The Fourth Doctor and his companions Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan are intercepted by the Time Lords. The Doctor is instructed to interfere with the creation of the Daleks so as to avert a future in which the Daleks rule the universe; he is given a Time Ring to return them to his TARDIS when the mission is complete. The three find themselves on the Dalek planet of Skaro. A generations-long war between the Thals and the Kaleds has left the planet inhospitable, and the two sides have congregated in their own domes for protection and continue the war.A chemical weapon attack forces them to take shelter. Sarah is separated but meets the Mutos, mutated exiles of both sides, who try to help protect her before they are all captured by the Thals and forced to load radioactive material on a missile. The Doctor and Harry are captured by the Kaleds, their possessions confiscated, and are taken to a bunker to meet the scientific and military elite, including the lead scientist Davros, who unveils the "Mark III travel machine", or "Dalek", which the Doctor recognises as his nemesis. Ronson, one of Davros' scientists, secretly tells the Doctor that he knows Davros' experiments are unethical, and the Doctor is able to convince the Kaled leadership to put a halt to Davros' experiments. Davros learns of Ronson's actions, and covertly provides the Thal leaders a chemical formula that can weaken the Kaled dome and make it vulnerable to their missile attack, while preparing twenty more Daleks.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Dubious_Battle" title="In Dubious Battle">
"In Dubious Battle" deals with a fruit-workers' strike in a California valley and the attempts of labor unions to organize, lead, and provide for the striking pickers.Jim Nolan meets Harry Nilson who initiates Jim's application process to become the newest member of the Party. Mac "Doc" McLeod, the Party organizer, tells Jim they will go to the Torgas Valley (a composite location) in an attempt to rouse the two thousand fruit pickers against the Growers' Association, and to encourage the strike to spill over into the cotton fields in Tandale.Momentum for strike action builds after old Dan breaks two rungs out of a ladder and falls. London becomes chairman of a committee of seven men, while Mac convinces Alfred Anderson's father, Al, to loan five acres as a base for the fruit pickers in exchange for them picking his crop for free. Doc Burton is hired by Mac to maintain the sanitation of the strikers' camp, so as to prevent it from being disbanded by the Red Cross.The course of the strike is recounted in some detail, including the politics of the local growers, the support by Al through his little luncheonette, the "sweet-talking" of some locals in order to garner food and other help for the pickers, and personal crises and tragedies in individual cases. Mac emerges as a heroic but quite single-minded figure; Jim's occasional doubts are presented as well.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Golden_Calf" title="The Little Golden Calf">
Ostap Bender is still alive (but sports a scar across his neck), after barely surviving the assassination attempt in the previous book, which he once briefly mentions as "stupid business". This time he hears a story about a "clandestine millionaire" named Alexandr Koreiko. Koreiko has made millions through various illegal enterprises by taking advantage of the widespread corruption in the New Economic Policy (NEP) period while pretending to live on an office clerk's salary of 46 rubles a month. Koreiko lives in "Chernomorsk" (literally: Black Sea city, referring to the city of Odessa) and keeps his large stash of ill-gotten money in a suitcase, waiting for the fall of the Soviet government, so that he can make use of it.Together with two petty criminals Balaganov and Panikovsky, and an extremely naive and innocent car driver Kozlevich, Bender finds out about Koreiko and starts to collect all the information he can get on his business activities. Koreiko tries to flee, but Bender eventually tracks him down in Turkestan, on the newly built Turkestan–Siberia Railway. He then blackmails him into giving him a million rubles.Suddenly rich, Bender faces the problem of how to spend his money in a Communist country where there are no legal millionaires. Nothing of the life of the rich that Bender dreamt of seems possible in the Soviet Union. Frustrated, Bender even decides to anonymously donate the money to the Ministry of Finance, but changes his mind. He turns the money into jewels and gold, and tries to cross the Romanian border, only to be robbed by the Romanian border guards, leaving him only with a medal, the Order of the Golden Fleece.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Good_School" title="A Good School">
The school, modeled on Yates' own experiences as an adolescent at Avon Old Farms School, is called Dorset Academy, a small private institution dependent on its now senile founder, a wealthy older woman named Abigail Church Hooper, a thinly-veiled reference to Avon Old Farms founder Theodate Pope Riddle. Dorset Academy is at best a second-rate institution, having the reputation of an unusual sort of prep school, where many of the students are on scholarship, and Dr. Stone, the English master, is the only "Harvard man". However, throughout the book, parents, teachers, even students insist that it is "a good school".In the "Foreword", the first person narrator, 15-year-old William Grove, a stand-in for Yates, relates what makes his divorcée mother, decide on Dorset Academy for her son. The main body of the novel is told in the third person, with Grove retreating into a group of schoolmates only to re-emerge at the end of the book, in the "Afterword", which is told from a distance of more than 30 years. There, William Grove, now a writer, looks back nostalgically on Dorset Academy where, as the editor of the school paper, he learned "the rudiments of [his] trade".As one of the masters puts it, the school harbors "a tremendous amount of sheer sexual energy". This is certainly true of the boys, who make a game of selecting one of the weaker boys, pinning him down on his bed and masturbating him to the point of ejaculation. On the other hand, they try hard to hide their erections from adults and girls, whether it is Dr. Stone's beautiful daughter Edith or the girls arriving for the annual Spring Dance. The teachers also suffer under too much sexual energy, especially Jack Draper, the chemistry master, crippled from polio, who becomes the witness of his wife's crude attempts to hide a year-and-a-half-long affair with the French master, Jean-Paul La Prade. When, toward the end of the novel, it is announced that Dorset Academy will have to close due to mounting debt, Draper decides to hang himself in his chemistry lab in humiliation. He is too weak, however, to push the chair away from under his feet and proceeds home where he reconciles with his estranged wife.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finn_and_Hengest" title="Finn and Hengest">
Hnæf, son of Hoc Half-Dane, is the lord of a Danish people who have conquered part of Jutland (probably the northern part of the Cimbrian Peninsula) and exiled its former Jutish rulers. Finn, king of Frys-Land (modern-day Friesland in the Netherlands) has allowed dispossessed Jutes to settle in his lands and enter his service. Finn marries Hnæf's older sister Hildeburh, and sends their son (whose name was probably Friðuwulf) to be fostered in Hnæf's household.Around the year AD 450, Hnæf sails to Frys-Land in the autumn, His purpose is to return Finn's now-grown son and spend the winter in Finn's citadel, celebrating Yule. Hnæf brings a retinue of some sixty thanes. Chief among these thanes is a Jute named Hengest, leader of a band of Jutes who have taken service under Hnæf. Unfortunately, and foreseen by no one, when they arrive at Finn's stronghold they find that many of Finn's thanes are also Jutes, particularly one Garulf, who seems to be the rightful heir to the kingdom conquered by Hnæf's people; and these Frisian Jutes are at blood feud with Hengest and his band, because Hengest supports the conquering Danes, if for no other reason. This would explain why Hildeburh "had no cause to praise the fealty of the Jutes," since that fealty led to the re-awakening of the feud, which killed her brother, husband, and son.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_German_Requiem_(novel)" title="A German Requiem (novel)">
After spending the latter part of World War II in a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp, 1947 sees Bernhard Gunther now married to a wife who is trading sex with U.S. Army officers for scarce goods. Berlin and Vienna were captured by the Red Army, so Germans, former Nazis, Allied occupiers, and Gunther have the Russians to contend with. An old colleague from Gunther's days in Berlin, a dirty cop, war criminal, and smuggler named Emil Becker, has been accused and jailed in Vienna for the killing of an American officer called Linden. A high-ranking MVD officer named Poroshin, who claims to be a friend of Becker, tries to recruit Gunther to investigate the case and get Becker exonerated in exchange for a large fee. According to Poroshin, after acting as a secret Vienna-Berlin courier for a certain König, Becker was framed for the murder of Linden, who Becker had met through König.Gunther takes a train to Vienna and visits Becker in jail, where he learns that Becker's henchmen had been killed trying to find König and his girlfriend Lotte Hartmann at Becker's request. Gunther starts his investigation in Vienna, by attending Linden's funeral, where he is accosted by Roy Shields, an American MP. At approximately the same time, Gunther rescues a recent acquaintance, Veronika, a local prostitute he met as part of the investigation, from rape by two Russian soldiers. As part of the intervention, Gunther gets knocked down and is himself rescued in extremis by John Belinsky, a man bearing identification associating him with the American Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) that had been covertly tailing him. They fraternize, Belinsky admits to also being investigating the murder of Linden, and they agree to collaborate.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Games" title="The War Games">
On an alien planet, the Doctor uncovers a plot to conquer the Galaxy with brainwashed soldiers abducted from Earth and forced to fight in simulated "war games", reflecting the periods in history whence they were taken. The aliens' aim is to produce a super-army from the survivors; to this end, they have been aided by a renegade Time Lord, calling himself the War Chief.Joining forces with rebel soldiers, who have broken their conditioning, the Doctor and his companions foil the plot and end the fighting. The War Chief is apparently killed when the leader of the aliens, the War Lord, realises he has been plotting against him. The Doctor admits he needs the help of the Time Lords to return the soldiers to their own timelines, but in asking, risks capture for his own past crimes, including the theft of his TARDIS. After sending the message he and his companions attempt to evade capture, but are caught.Having returned the soldiers to Earth, the Time Lords place the War Lord on trial and dematerialise him. They erase Zoe and Jamie's memories of travelling with the Doctor, and return them to the respective point in time when each of them first entered the TARDIS. They then place the Doctor on trial for stealing a TARDIS and breaking the law of non-interference. The Doctor presents a spirited defence, citing his many battles against the evils of the universe. Accepting this defence, the Time Lords proclaim that his punishment is exile to Earth in the 20th century - a planet and period of which he is fond. The Doctor points out he is too well known on Earth, so the Time Lords tell him he will change his appearance, as he has before, and present him with images of four faces. He does not like any of them; impatient, the Time Lords inform him that a decision has been made for him. He cries out indignantly as the regeneration is forced upon him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Absolute_at_Large" title="The Absolute at Large">
The story centers on the invention of a reactor that can annihilate matter to produce cheap and abundant energy. Unfortunately, it produces something else as a by-product, the "absolute". The "absolute" is a spiritual essence that according to some religious philosophies permeates all matter. It is associated with human religious experience, as an unsuspecting humanity is to find out all too soon in the story. The widespread adoption of the reactors cause an enormous outpouring of pure "absolute" into the world. This leads to an outburst of religious and nationalist fervor, causing the greatest, most global war in history.Čapek describes this war in a self-consciously absurd manner. Characteristic of the war are distant military marches, hence for example "battles of the Chinese with the Senegalese riflemen on the shores of the Finnish lakes." Some of the more prominent political changes the war causes include expulsion of the Russian army to Africa (via Europe) by the Chinese invasion, the conquest of East Asia by Japan that cuts the Chinese conquests in Russia and Europe down to the limits of the former Austro-Hungarian empire, and the Japanese conquest of North America. (The latter was able to occur because the United States were exhausted by a bloody civil war between the supporters and opponents of the Prohibition.)
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_with_the_Newts" title="War with the Newts">
Only the last four of the book's 27 chapters deal with the eponymous war. The rest of the book is concerned with the discovery of the Newts, their exploitation and evolution, and growing tensions between humans and the Newts in the lead-up to the war.The book does not have any single protagonist, but instead looks at the development of the Newts from a broad societal perspective. At various points the narrator's register seems to slip into that of a journalist, historian or anthropologist. The three most central characters are Captain J. van Toch, the seaman who discovers the Newts; Mr Gussie H. Bondy, the industrialist who leads the development of the Newt industry; and Mr Povondra, Mr Bondy's doorman. They all reoccur throughout the book, but none can be said to drive the narrative in any significant way. All three are Czech.The novel is divided into three sections or 'books'.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Watch_(Discworld)" title="Night Watch (Discworld)">
On the morning of the 30th anniversary of the Glorious Revolution of the Twenty-Fifth of May (and as such the anniversary of the death of John Keel, Vimes' hero and former mentor), Sam Vimes — whose wife is in labour with their first child — is caught in a storm while pursuing Carcer, a notorious criminal who has murdered several watchmen, to the roof of the Unseen University's Library. He awakens to find that he has somehow been sent back in time.Vimes's first idea is to ask the wizards at the Unseen University to send him home, but before he can act on this, he is arrested for breaking curfew by a younger version of himself. Incarcerated in a cell next to his is Carcer, who after being released joins the Unmentionables, the secret police carrying out the paranoid whims of the Patrician of the time, Homicidal Lord Winder.When he is taken to be interrogated by the captain, time is frozen by Lu-Tze, who tells Vimes what has happened and that he must assume the identity of Sergeant-At-Arms John Keel, who was to have arrived that day but was murdered by Carcer. It is stated that the event which caused Vimes and Carcer to be sent into the past was a major temporal shattering. Vimes then returns to the office, time restarts and he convinces the captain that he is Keel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Caves_of_Androzani" title="The Caves of Androzani">
Androzani Minor is the only source of the spectrox drug, produced by bats within the desert planet's cave systems. The citizens of neighbouring Androzani Major rely on spectrox for its life-extending capabilities. Spectrox mining is controlled by Morgus's business conglomerate, but is threatened by Sharaz Jek, a masked figure who hides within the cave systems and controls an army of androids that disrupt mining efforts. Morgus has publicly funded the military operation led by General Chellak to defeat Jek, but secretly employs gunrunners Stotz and Krelper to supply Jek with weapons to profit from the war.The TARDIS lands on Androzani Minor, and the Fifth Doctor and Peri start to explore the caves. They both get caught briefly in a sticky substance but move on. The two are captured by Chellak, who believes them to be aiding the gunrunners. Chellak communicates their image to Morgus who does not recognise them and orders their execution. At their execution, Chellak discovers that Jek had been able to replace them with androids. Unbeknownst to Chellak, his own adjutant, Maj. Salateen, has also been replaced by one of Jek's androids.In Jek's lair, the Doctor and Peri complain about illness, and the real Salateen tells them that they had stepped in raw spectrox, which is lethal; the anti-toxin is the milk of the queen bat, but due to the recent war, the bats have descended to the deepest levels of the mine that are devoid of oxygen. Jek explains that he is at war with Morgus as his actions led to his disfiguration. Jek leaves the two under guard of his androids while he meets Stotz and Krelper. The Doctor reprograms the androids to allow them to escape. They are caught in the middle of one of the battles, and Peri is captured by Chellak, while the Doctor is forced to leave with Stotz and Krelper.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bonesetter's_Daughter" title="The Bonesetter's Daughter">
Ruth is a self-sufficient woman who makes her living as a ghostwriter for self-help books. She lives with her boyfriend, Art Kamen, and acts as a stepmother to Art's two teenage daughters, Dory and Fia. Meanwhile, as Lu Ling is showing signs of dementia, Ruth struggles to juggle her mother's illness, her job, and her relationship. As an adult, Ruth struggles to understand her mother and her strange behavior during Ruth's childhood. Although she loves her mother, she also resents her for having criticized her harshly when she was young and forcing her to obey strict rules. Lu Ling believed that young Ruth had the ability to communicate with the spirit world, and often expected her to produce messages from the ghost of Lu Ling's long-dead nursemaid, Precious Auntie, by writing on a sand tray.Lu Ling's autobiography makes up the middle section of this book. This story within a story describes Lu Ling's early life in a small Chinese village called Immortal Heart. Lu Ling is raised by a mute, burned nursemaid called "Precious Auntie." It is later revealed that Precious Auntie sustained her injuries by swallowing burning ink resin. Although the oldest daughter in her family, Lu Ling is ignored by her mother in favor of her younger sister Gao Ling. However, Precious Auntie was entirely devoted to caring for Lu Ling.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_(Asimov_novelette_and_novel)" title="Nightfall (Asimov novelette and novel)">
The planet Lagash ("Kalgash" in the novel) is constantly illuminated by the six suns of its multiple star system. Areas of darkness exist in enclosed areas on Lagash, such as caves, tunnels, and windowless rooms, but because at least one sun is present in the sky at any given time, night never falls.A skeptical journalist visits a university observatory to interview a group of scientists who warn that civilization on Lagash will soon come to an end. The researchers explain that they have discovered evidence of numerous ancient civilizations on the planet, all destroyed by fire, with each collapse occurring about 2,000 years apart. The religious writings of a doomsday cult claim that Lagash periodically passes through an enormous cave where mysterious "stars" appear. The stars are said to rain down fire from the heavens and rob people of their souls, reducing them to beast-like savages.The scientists use this apparent myth, along with recent discoveries in gravitational research, to develop a theory about the repeated collapse of society. A mathematical analysis of Lagash's orbit around its primary sun reveals irregularities caused by the presence of a previously undiscovered moon that cannot be seen in the light of day. Calculations indicate that this "invisible" moon will soon obscure one of Lagash's suns when it is alone in the sky, resulting in a total eclipse that only occurs once every 2,000 years. Having evolved on a planet with no diurnal cycle, all Lagashians possess an intense, instinctive fear of the dark. Psychological experiments involving darkness have revealed that Lagashians may suffer permanent mental illness or even death after as little as 15 minutes of exposure, and the eclipse is projected to last for over half a day. This, coupled with the fact that the diameter of the umbra is at least as great as that of the planet, ensures that the entire world population will experience an unprecedented period of prolonged, widespread darkness.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Less_than_Zero_(novel)" title="Less than Zero (novel)">
The novel follows the life of Clay, a rich, young college student who has returned to his hometown of Los Angeles, California for winter break circa 1984. Through first-person narration, Clay describes his progressive alienation from the culture around him, loss of faith in his friends, and his meditations on events in his recent past.After reuniting with his ex-girlfriend Blair, and friends like Trent, now a successful model, Clay embarks on a series of drug-fueled nights of partying, during which he has one-night stands with both sexes. While partying, he tries to track down his best friend from high school, Julian, with whom he hasn't spoken in months. In between descriptions of his days and nights, Clay recounts a vacation spent with his parents and grandparents, during which he seemed to be the only person concerned that his grandmother was dying of cancer.Over time, Clay becomes progressively disillusioned with the party scene as he witnesses the apathy of his friends towards the suffering of one another and those around them: at one party, he watches as the revellers joke and take Polaroids of his friend, Muriel, while she injects heroin; at another, he and Blair are the only two who exhibit revulsion when Trent shows a snuff film, which sexually excites several partygoers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Was_Then,_This_Is_Now" title="That Was Then, This Is Now">
Bryon and Mark are best friends. They have lived together with Bryon’s mother ever since Mark’s parents shot each other in a drunken brawl. The boys hang out at Charlie’s Bar and earn money by hustling pool. Charlie tells the pair that M&amp;M, a younger Hippie boy, is looking for them. Bryon and Mark find M&amp;M in time to stop Curly Shepard and his Greaser gang from beating M&amp;M up. The “Hippies” are a new group and the lines between the two former groups, the “Greasers” and “Socs,” are becoming blurred.The following day, Bryon and Mark visit Bryon’s mother in the hospital. While there, Bryon meets Cathy Carlson, M&amp;M’s older sister, who works in the snack bar. Bryon is taken with Cathy and hopes to see her again. Bryon and Mark also visit Mike Chambers, a boy Bryon’s mother befriends. Mike is recovering from a beating after being falsely accused of harming a young African American girl. Mike tells Bryon and Mark what happened, how he actually saved the girl from being harassed by a group of whites. Mike drove the girl home and his car was surrounded by a group of African American kids. They pulled him from the car and nearly beat him to death when the girl lied, claiming Mike hurt her. Despite this, Mike does not hate African Americans. When he thinks about it from the girl’s viewpoint, he can almost understand why she lied. After the visit ends, Bryon and Mark discuss led’s misfortune. Mark does not share Mike’s understanding of the factors that caused the girl to lie. Mark states that if anyone ever hurt him like that, he would hate them forever.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_a_Buick_8" title="From a Buick 8">
The novel is a series of recollections by the members of Troop D, a Pennsylvania State Police barracks in Western Pennsylvania. After Curtis Wilcox, a well-liked member of Troop D, is killed by a drunk driver, his son Ned begins to visit the barracks. The cops, the dispatcher and the custodian quickly take a liking to him. The troopers begin telling Ned about the "Buick 8".The Buick 8, which resembles a vintage blue 1953 Buick Roadmaster, has been in storage in a shed near the barracks since 1979, when it was left at a gas station by a mysterious driver who then disappeared. The car, they discover, is not a car at all. It "appears" to be a Buick Roadmaster, but the steering wheel is immobile, the dashboard instruments are useless props, the engine has no moving parts, the ignition wires go nowhere, there are four portholes on the passenger side and only three on the driver side, the car heals itself when damaged and it repels all dirt or debris.Sandy Dearborn, now Sergeant Commanding of Troop D, is the main narrator of the book, and tells the story to Ned, discussing various things that have happened with the car and his father's fascination with it. The car will frequently give off what they dub "lightquakes", or large flashes of purple light over an extended period of time. These lights will occasionally "give birth" to strange plants and creatures that are not like anything in our world. Two people have disappeared in the vicinity of the car—Curtis Wilcox's former partner Ennis Rafferty, as well as an escaped lowlife named Brian Lippy. It is later suggested that perhaps the Buick was actually a portal between our world and another.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_Series" title="The Adventure Series">
## "The Island of Adventure".Philip meets Jack and Lucy-Ann and Jack's pet bird Kiki, and after they sneak home with him, they move in with Philip, his sister Dinah and their Aunt Polly and Uncle Jocelyn at an ancient mansion at the coast. Strange lights on the nearby mysterious island leads to the four's first adventure inside an abandoned copper mine and a network of secret undersea tunnels.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Te_of_Piglet" title="The Te of Piglet">
In "The Te of Piglet", the Piglet character of the "Winnie-the-Pooh" books explains the Chinese concept of "Te", meaning 'power' or 'virtue'. Hoff elucidates the Taoist concept of 'Virtue — of the small'; though, he also uses it as an opportunity to elaborate on his introduction to Taoism. It is written with many embedded stories from the A. A. Milne Winnie the Pooh books, both for entertainment and because they serve as tools for explaining Taoism.In the book Piglet is shown to possess great power — a common interpretation of the word Te, which more commonly means Virtue — not only because he is small, but also because he has a great heart or, to use a Taoist term, Tz'u. The book goes through the other characters — Tigger, Owl, Rabbit, Eeyore and Pooh — to show the various aspects of humanity that Taoism says get in the way of living in harmony with the Tao.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jesus_Incident" title="The Jesus Incident">
The book takes place at an indeterminate time following the events in "Destination: Void". At the end of "Destination: Void" the crew of the ship had succeeded in creating an artificial consciousness. The new conscious being, now known as 'Ship', gains a level of awareness that allows it to manipulate space and time. Ship instantly transports itself to a planet which it has decided the crew will colonize, christening it "Pandora". The first book ends with a demand from Ship for the crew to learn how to WorShip or how to establish a relationship with Ship, a godlike being.The action of the book is divided between two settings, the internal spaces of Ship which is orbiting Pandora and the settlements on the planet. While the original crew of Ship, as described in "Destination: Void", were cloned human beings from the planet Earth, by the time of "The Jesus Incident", the crew has become a mixed bag of peoples from various cultures that have been accepted as crew members by Ship when it visited their planet as well as people who have been conceived and born on the ship. Evidently Ship has shown up at a number of planets as the suns of those planets were going nova, the implication being that these planets were other, failed experiments by Ship to establish a relationship with human beings. Ship refers to these as replays of human history, suggesting Ship itself has manipulated human history time and time again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_Mars" title="Moving Mars">
A small number of students, who are angry at the breaking of their contract with the University of Mars, Sinai, start a protest and plan to storm the university. Although the attempted coup ends in a stalemate, a protester, Casseia Majumdar, establishes her position. The story picks up again a few years later when Casseia is more mature. She does not necessarily regret her actions in the attempted revolution, but continues to be haunted by their consequences, especially her love affair with fellow student Charles Franklin.Casseia eventually emerges as a fledgling politician in her BM, and wins a trip to Earth with her BM's representative and the BM's Thinker to discuss the situation between Earth and Mars, which is getting increasingly worse. Meanwhile, Charles, her one-time lover, along with a team of super-geniuses called the Olympians, discovers a radical new technology that has the potential to turn the tables on the conflict. He theorizes that the universe is basically a large computer and discovers a way to "tweak" the laws of the universe to create an effect. The Earth does not know exactly what this new technology can do, but they have hints of it and fear it. Casseia returns to Mars and marries into a family with potentially political ambitions due to their perceived neutrality. Her mother-in-law eventually becomes president of an interim central Martian government, and chooses Casseia as her vice-president. Tensions between the BMs and Earth grow to crisis levels, as news of the Olympians' discovery frightens the Earth government into pressuring the Martians to cooperate. One method of coercion that the Martians fear is "evolvons", or small undetectable computer viruses implanted during manufacture into all Thinkers. Martians fear that the Earth will use these to control all Martian Thinkers, and therefore cripple essential operations.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Alert_(novel)" title="Red Alert (novel)">
In a paranoid delusion, moribund U.S. Air Force general Quinten unilaterally launches an airborne preventive nuclear attack upon the Soviet Union from his command at the Sonora, Texas, Strategic Air Command (SAC) bomber base by ordering the 843rd Bomb Wing to attack using "Wing Attack Plan R", an operational plan which authorises a lower-echelon SAC commander to retaliate after an enemy first strike has decapitated the U.S. government. He attacks with the entire B-52 bomber wing of new aircraft, each armed with two nuclear weapons and protected with electronic countermeasures to prevent the Soviets from shooting them down.When the U.S. President and cabinet become aware the attack is underway, they assist the Soviet government in intercepting the rogue U.S. Air Force bombers, to little effect, because the Soviets destroy only two bombers and damage one, the "Alabama Angel", which remains airborne and en route to its target.The U.S. government reestablishes the SAC airbase chain of command, but the general who launched the attack, the only man knowing the recall code, kills himself before capture and interrogation. His executive officer correctly deduces the recall code from among the general's desk pad doodles. The code is received by the surviving bomber aircraft, and they are successfully recalled, minutes before bombing their targets in the Soviet Union, save for the "Alabama Angel", whose earlier-damaged radio prevents its recalling; it progresses to its target.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard's_First_Rule" title="Wizard's First Rule">
Richard Cypher, a young woods guide, lives in an area of the world known as Westland, which is one of three parts of the known world, divided by magical underworld boundaries. Of the three, Westland is united under one government and contains no magic, the Midlands are a coalition of sovereign nations with magic, and past another magical boundary lies the empire of D'Hara - a single kingdom ruled by Wizards.After the unexplained murder of his father, Richard investigates. He discovers a piece of vine in his father's house, and searches the mountains for a live part of the plant, thinking it might lead him to the murderers. He finds the plant, but it attacks him, implanting a poisonous thorn. While returning to town to find a healer, he finds a woman named Kahlan Amnell, who is being hunted by a group of assassins. Richard helps save Kahlan from the men, and learns that Kahlan is searching for the First Wizard, who is rumored to have crossed into Westland after the creation of the boundaries. Richard takes Kahlan to his best friend and mentor, Zedd. Soon after arriving, Richard collapses from the illness caused by the vine.When Richard recovers under Zedd's care, he identifies Zedd as the First Wizard. Kahlan pleads for Zedd's help, asking for him to name a Seeker of Truth to confront Darken Rahl, the ruler of D'Hara. Dahl has activated the magical "Boxes of Orden," which, depending how they are opened, could make Rahl ruler of the world, destroy all life, or destroy himself. Kahlan believes that the "Seeker" empowered by the Sword of Truth—a magical weapon forged by the powerful wizards of old—can stop Rahl before the magic expires on the winter solstice. Zedd tests Richard, to see if he is worthy of wielding the Sword of Truth. Richard passes the test, becoming the next ”Seeker.”
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Joy_Luck_Club_(novel)" title="The Joy Luck Club (novel)">
"The Joy Luck Club" consists of sixteen interlocking stories about the lives of four Chinese immigrant mothers and their four American-born daughters. In 1949, the four mothers meet at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco and agree to continue to meet to play mahjong. They call their mahjong group the Joy Luck Club. The stories told in this novel revolve around the Joy Luck Club women and their daughters. Structurally, the novel is divided into four major sections, with two sections focusing on the stories of the mothers and two sections on the stories of the daughters.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fried_Green_Tomatoes_at_the_Whistle_Stop_Cafe" title="Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe">
Throughout the novel the narrator and time period change, and chapter headings establish the date and source of the chapter. The narration alternates between the form of the fictional newsletter "The Weems Weekly", the Threadgoodes' house in Birmingham, and an omniscient narration. The framing story, set in 1986, presents Evelyn Couch, who goes weekly with her husband to visit his mother in a nursing home. During one visit, Evelyn befriends Ninny Threadgoode, another resident. She tells Evelyn stories of her youth in Whistle Stop in the 1920s and succeeding years. Between subsequent visits, Evelyn begins to adopt aspects of figures in these stories as role models.Ninny says she was an orphan raised by the Threadgoodes, and that she eventually married one of their sons. She principally talks about the youngest daughter, Imogene "Idgie" Threadgoode, an unrepentant tomboy who became reclusive after her brother, Buddy, was killed on the railway. Ruth Jamison comes to live with the Threadgoodes while teaching at the Vacation Bible School. Idgie becomes enamored of her and is saddened when Ruth leaves Whistle Stop to marry Frank Bennett. Frank turns out to be a violent, abusive man who often beats Ruth, but she stays with him until her mother's death. Afterward, Ruth sends Idgie a message appealing for help. Idgie, along with several men, rescue her and her son from Bennett. Intimidated by Big George—the Threadgoode's handyman—Bennett does not resist.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cradle_(novel)" title="Cradle (novel)">
In 1994, the US Navy is testing a new missile, but after the launch it mysteriously disappears and it is clear that if the rocket reaches civilian areas they will be in big trouble. Carol Dawson, a journalist, is alerted by an unusual sight of whales in the Miami area, and decides to go and write about it.Armed with special equipment provided by her friend, Dr. Dale Michaels from MOI (Miami Oceanographic Institute), goes to investigate the rumors of a missing missile belonging to the Marines and that could be behind the mysterious whale behavior lately. She hires the services of Nick Williams and Jefferson Troy, owners of a little boat so she can get to the Gulf of Mexico and investigate closer if a missile has something to do with all of the above.They end up finding an unknown artifact, bringing a lot of doubts about its nature, and even if it is part of a lost treasure that could be worth millions. Old friends of Williams and Troy noticed the finding and just like the old times, they want to steal it from them.In the background of the story, the author talks about a submarine snake civilization on a planet called Canthor, and how they were struggling to stay alive due to new threats into their ecosystem. It is revealed later in the story that the artifact found in the sea is actually a cradle that contains seeds with altered superhumans, which were extracted from earth millions of years ago and were altered so they could live with other species (including the submarine snakes) on earth. The spaceship that carries the cradle is crewed by robots/cyborgs and has hidden itself on Earth's ocean floor to make repairs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redemption_Ark" title="Redemption Ark">
The novel takes place around the planets Yellowstone and Resurgam, in two story lines which converge near the climax of the novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evil_of_the_Daleks" title="The Evil of the Daleks">
In 1966 London, the Second Doctor and Jamie watch helplessly as the TARDIS is loaded onto a lorry and driven away from Gatwick Airport. The trail leads them to an antique shop run by Edward Waterfield, who sells Victorian-style antiques that curiously seem as though they were still new. Waterfield is being coerced by the Daleks, who appear in a secret room of his shop through a time machine, and exterminate his mutinous employee Kennedy. Investigating the store, the Doctor and Jamie succumb to a booby trap that gasses them, and are dragged into the time machine by Waterfield.They wake to find that they have been transported to 1866, and are in the house of Theodore Maxtible, Waterfield's partner. The two had been trying to invent a time machine using mirrors and static electricity, when the Daleks emerged from their time cabinet. The Daleks then took Waterfield's daughter, Victoria Waterfield, hostage and forced Waterfield to travel a century forward in time to lure the Doctor into a trap by stealing the TARDIS. Waterfield is obviously fearful for his daughter's safety and his own, but Maxtible seems to be cooperating with the Daleks.The Daleks threaten to destroy the TARDIS unless the Doctor helps them by conducting an experiment to isolate the "Human Factor", the unique qualities of human beings that have allowed them to consistently resist and defeat the Daleks. Once the Doctor has isolated the Human Factor, he will implant it into three Daleks, who will then become the precursors of a race of "super" Daleks, with the best qualities of humans and Daleks. To that end the Daleks want the Doctor to test Jamie by sending him to rescue Victoria, who is being kept in the house. The Doctor is strangely cooperative with the Daleks, manipulating Jamie into the rescue mission but not telling him of the nature of the test.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scary_Sleepover" title="The Scary Sleepover">
The book tells about a group of children having a Halloween sleepover party at school (Kindergarten). The children prepare for it by making decorations and costumes. As night draws near, so do the children's fears. One student, Mary, shares a trick her father taught her with the other students. He gave her a special bright star - whenever she feels afraid to go to bed, she has only to think about her star. This sends the darkness and the evil ghosts from her heart. Jonas does not believe in that, but he also thinks he is not afraid of ghosts. In the end, all the children need another, older trick: keeping the hallway light on all night.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Fang" title="White Fang">
The story begins before the wolf-dog hybrid is born, with two men and their sled dog team on a journey to deliver the coffin of Lord Alfred to a remote town named Fort McGurry in the higher area of the Yukon Territory. The men, Bill and Henry, are stalked by a large pack of starving wolves over the course of several days. Finally, after all of their dogs and Bill have been eaten, more teams find Henry escaping from the wolves; the wolf pack scatters when they hear the large group of people coming.The story then follows the pack, which has been robbed of its last prey. When the pack finally brings down a moose, the famine is ended; they eventually split up, and the story now follows a she-wolf and her mate, One Eye. One Eye claimed her after defeating and killing a younger rival. The she-wolf gives birth to a litter of five pups by the Mackenzie River, and all but one die from hunger. One Eye is killed by a lynx while trying to rob her den for food for the she-wolf and her pup; his mate later discovers his remains near the lynx's den. The surviving pup and the she-wolf are left to fend for themselves. Shortly afterward, the she-wolf kills all the lynx's kittens to feed her pup, prompting the lynx to track her down, and a vicious fight breaks out. The she-wolf eventually kills the lynx but suffers severe injury; the lynx carcass is devoured over a period of seven days as the she-wolf recovers from her injuries.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Late_the_Sweet_Birds_Sang" title="Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang">
The novel takes place in Virginia, somewhere near the Shenandoah River, and quickly establishes its plot line in a post-apocalyptic era. The collapse of civilization around the world has resulted from massive environmental changes and global disease, which were attributed to large-scale pollution. With a range of members privileged by virtue of education and monetary resources, one large family founds an isolated community in an attempt to survive the still-developing global disasters. As the death toll rises, mainly to disease and nuclear warfare, they discover that the human population left on earth is universally infertile. From cloning experiments conducted through the study of mice, the scientists in the small community theorize that the infertility might be reversed after multiple generations of cloning, and the family begins cloning themselves in an effort to survive. The assumption is that after a few generations of cloning, the people will be able to revert to traditional biological reproduction.However, to the horror of the few surviving members of the original group, the clones who are finally coming of age reject the idea of sexual reproduction in favor of further cloning. The original members of the community, too old and outnumbered by the clones to resist, are forced to accept the new social order and the complications that arise.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_Attitudes" title="Anglo-Saxon Attitudes">
The novel deals with the significance of two connected events that happened on the same day, long before the opening of the novel. The first was the excavation of an ancient and valuable archaeological idol, a phallic figure unearthed from the tomb of an Anglo-Saxon bishop Eorpwald, known as the "Melpham excavation". Gerald has long been haunted by a drunken revelation by his friend Gilbert, who was involved with this excavation, that the whole thing was a hoax perpetrated to embarrass Gilbert's father. Gilbert told Gerald that he put the idol there. Gerald, while feeling that his friend was telling the truth, pushed the matter to the back of his mind and tried to forget about it. He now feels ashamed that he, a history professor, has never had the courage to try to resolve the matter one way or another.The second is that Gerald Middleton fell in love with Dollie, Gilbert's fiancée, and had an affair with her when his friend went off to fight in World War I. When Gilbert was killed at the front, Dollie refused to marry Gerald. He ended up marrying a Scandinavian woman named Inge but continued his affair with Dollie, who became an alcoholic. Gerald and Inge later separated.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_Free_(novel)" title="Forever Free (novel)">
William Mandella, protagonist of "The Forever War", lives with his wife Marygay on the icy world Middle Finger, a planet of the Mizar system. Dissatisfied with the state of their society, they eventually decide to jump forward in time, using the time dilation of interstellar travel. Their intention is to travel for 10 subjective years, at relativistic speeds, into the future, during which 40,000 Earth years will have passed on Middle Finger. They, along with other Forever War veterans and other disenchanted humans on Middle Finger, hope that whatever they will find upon their return will be more to their liking. This requires the consent of the posthuman group mind now known as 'Man', and of the alien group mind Tauran race. When permission is denied, William and allies hijack the ship. One Man and one Tauran join the journey.After Marygay and William head away from their planet, a series of unexplained occurrences happen and the ship starts to lose antimatter mysteriously. They abandon the ship and return home. Instead of the intended 40,000 years, they have only been away 24 Earth years. Upon arrival, they find the planet still intact, but seemingly vacant; everyone having literally disappeared at the same time as the incident on their ship. They then return to Earth, and realize that all other humans, Man and Taurans have disappeared, but robots and wildlife remain. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_Postal" title="Going Postal">
As with many of the Discworld novels, the story takes place in Ankh-Morpork, a powerful city-state based on the historical and modern settings of various metropolises like London or New York City. The protagonist of the story is Moist von Lipwig, a skilled con artist who was to be hanged for his crimes, but saved at the last moment by the cunning and manipulative Patrician Havelock Vetinari, who has Moist's death on the scaffold faked.In his office, Vetinari then presents Moist with two options: he may accept a job offer to become Postmaster of the city's rundown Postal Service or he may choose to walk out of the door and never hear from Vetinari again. As exiting through the door in question would lead to a fatal drop, Moist decides to accept the job.After a thwarted attempt at escape, Moist is brought to the Post Office by his parole officer Mr Pump, a golem. It turns out that the Post Office has not functioned for decades, and the building is full of undelivered mail, concealed under a layer of pigeon dung. Only two employees remain: the aged Junior Postman Tolliver Groat and his assistant Stanley Howler.Meanwhile, Vetinari is holding a meeting with the board executives of the Grand Trunk Company, a company that owns and operates a system of visual telegraph towers known as "clacks". He notes that since they have taken full control, the quality of service had gone down considerably. Despite unnerving most of the board, Vetinari fails to make headway, especially with its chairman, Reacher Gilt. It is rumored that, from his penthouse office in Tump Tower, Reacher Gilt plans to usurp Vetinari as Patrician.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Roadside_Attraction" title="Another Roadside Attraction">
The novel is framed as a series of short entries rather than chapters from an unnamed writer who is being held captive by several agencies along with the main subject of his report, Amanda Ziller. Amanda was a member of a traveling circus that one day recruited the eccentric drummer John Paul Ziller, a once famous musician known for his exotic dress and odd mannerisms. Falling immediately in love, the two soon married and resigned from the troupe to live in an abandoned restaurant in Skagit County, Washington, bringing with them Mon Cul, John Paul's pet baboon. The couple decide to revive the restaurant as a hot dog stand "cum" roadside zoo. Although they are both averse to keeping animals captive, they compromise by deciding to keep a group of garter snakes native to Skagit County under the grounds of preservation, as well as a flea circus under the grounds that bugs are not technically animals. Also part of the zoo is a tsetse fly encased in amber. During this time Amanda gives birth to a boy, naming him Thor.As the hot dog stand gains traction, a man who goes by the name of Marx Marvelous gets himself arrested for sneaking into a zoo and setting the baboons free, which he reveals to have done because he knew it would attract the Zillers' attention. The couple bail him out of jail and hire him to help manage the restaurant. A man of science, Marvelous reveals to Amanda that he believes Christianity is on the verge of collapse and will soon transition to a new religion, with the Zillers playing some sort of key role.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_the_City_of_the_Saved..." title="Of the City of the Saved...">
Beyond the end of the universe exists The City of the Saved, an urban sprawl the size of a galaxy. Within it every human being that ever lived, from the first australopithecine to the last posthuman, has been inexplicably resurrected. For three hundred years, the uncountable inhabitants have enjoyed their unaging and invulnerable second lives. But now, the unthinkable has happened. Someone has been murdered.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clash_of_Kings" title="A Clash of Kings">
"A Clash of Kings" depicts the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros in civil war, while the Night's Watch mounts a reconnaissance to investigate the mysterious people known as wildlings. Meanwhile, Daenerys Targaryen continues her plan to conquer the Seven Kingdoms.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Things_They_Carried" title="The Things They Carried">
Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, the leader of a platoon of soldiers in Vietnam, carries physical reminders of Martha, the object of his unrequited love. Thoughts of Martha often distract Lieutenant Cross from his team's objectives. A death in the squad under his supervision causes Cross to reconsider his priorities; as he was heartbroken, he burns and throws away all reminders of Martha in order to focus on the mission and avoid distractions.Cross and O'Brien reminisce about the war and about Martha. O'Brien asks if he can write a story about Cross, expressing his memories and hopes for the future; Cross agrees, thinking that perhaps Martha will read it and come find him.A series of unrelated memories from the war are narrated from O'Brien's point of view. It includes moments of camaraderie and beauty: a joke of a hate letter to the Draft Board; learning a rain dance between battles.O'Brien gets drafted as soon as he graduates from college. He is reluctant to go to war and considers fleeing the draft; he begins to travel north to the Canada–US border on the Rainy River. Near the border, he encounters an elderly stranger who allows him to work through his internal struggle. O'Brien is given the opportunity to escape; however, the societal pressures are too much for him. He goes to war ashamed with his inability to face the consequences of leaving.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Storm_of_Swords" title="A Storm of Swords">
"A Storm of Swords" picks up the story slightly before the end of its predecessor, "A Clash of Kings". The Seven Kingdoms of Westeros are still in the grip of the War of the Five Kings, wherein Joffrey Baratheon and his uncle Stannis Baratheon compete for the Iron Throne, while Robb Stark of the North and Balon Greyjoy of the Iron Islands declare their independence (Stannis's brother Renly Baratheon, the fifth "king", has already been killed). Meanwhile, a large host of wildlings, the tribes from beyond the Seven Kingdoms' northern border, approach the Wall that marks the border, under the leadership of Mance Rayder, the self-proclaimed "King Beyond the Wall", with only the undermanned Night's Watch in opposition. Finally, Daenerys Targaryen, the daughter of a deposed former king of Westeros and "mother" of the world's only living dragons, sails west, planning to retake her late father's throne.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Notebook_(novel)" title="The Notebook (novel)">
The novel opens with Noah Calhoun, an old man, reading to a woman in a nursing home. He tells her the following story:&lt;poem&gt;Noah, 24, returns from World War II to his town of New Bern, North Carolina. He finishes restoring an antebellum-style house, after his father's death. Meanwhile, Allie, 24, sees the house in the newspaper and decides to pay him a visit.They are meeting, again, after a 7-year separation, which followed their brief but passionate summer romance when her family was visiting the town. They were separated by class, as she was the daughter of a wealthy family, and he worked as a laborer in a lumberyard. Seeing each other brings on a flood of memories and strong emotions in both of them. They have dinner together and talk about their lives and the past. Allie learns that Noah had written letters to her for one year after their breakup. She realizes that her mother hid the letters so that Allie could never receive them and would conclude that Noah had forgotten about her. They talk about what could have happened between them without her mother's interference. At the end of the night, Noah invites Allie to come back the next day and promises her a surprise. She decides to see him again. During this time, her fiancé, Lon, tries to reach her at the hotel. When Allie does not respond to his calls, he begins to worry.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_(novel)" title="Millennium (novel)">
"Millennium" features a civilization that has dubbed itself "The Last Age". Due to millennia of warfare of every type (nineteen nuclear wars alone), the Earth has been heavily polluted and humanity's gene pool irreparably damaged. They have thus embarked on a desperate plan; time travel into the past, collect healthy humans, and send them to an uncontaminated planet to rebuild civilization.The time travelers can only take people that will have no further effect on the timeline: those who have vanished without a trace, or died without being observed; otherwise they would be changing the past, which risks a temporal paradox and perhaps even a catastrophic breakdown of the fabric of time. Though they collect everyone they can, they exert a great deal of effort on those destined to die in various disasters such as sinking ships and crashing airplanes (and once a century of Roman soldiers lost and dying in the North African desert). As such incidents leave no survivors to report interference and change the timeline, they can freely remove the living but soon-to-die victims, and replace them with convincing corpses they have manufactured in the future.The novel deals with several of the raids, their eventual discovery in the present day, and the fallout that results from changes to the present day reverberating into the future.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_History_(novel)" title="Making History (novel)">
## Changing history.The story is told in first person by Michael "Puppy" Young, a young history student at Cambridge University on the verge of completing his doctoral thesis on the early life of Adolf Hitler and his mother. He meets Professor Leo Zuckerman, a physicist who has a strong personal interest in Hitler, the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust. Michael assumes this is due to his Jewish heritage. However, it is later revealed that Leo was born Axil Bauer, the son of Dietrich Bauer, a Nazi doctor at Auschwitz who – when the Nazi defeat became certain – gave his son the identity of a Jewish doctor that he murdered. Leo has developed a machine that enables the past to be viewed—but it is of no practical use as the image is not resolvable into details. Together, they hatch a plan to modify the machine such that it can be used to send something back into time. They decide to use a permanent male contraceptive pill, stolen from Michael's girlfriend (a biochemistry researcher), who, due to his continual distraction, has left him to take a position at Princeton University. They decide to send this pill back in time to the well in Braunau am Inn so that Hitler's father will drink from it, become infertile, and Hitler will never be born.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Love" title="Women in Love">
Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen are sisters living in The Midlands in England in the 1910s. Ursula is a schoolteacher, Gudrun a painter. They meet two men who live nearby, school inspector Rupert Birkin and Gerald Crich, heir to a coal mine, and the four become friends. Romantic relationships quickly develop as the novel progresses.All four are deeply concerned with questions of society, politics, and the relationship between men and women. At a party at Shortlands, the Birkin's country manor home, Gerald's sister Diana drowns. Gudrun becomes the teacher and mentor of Gerald's youngest sister. Soon, Gerald's coal-mine-owning father dies as well, after a long illness. After the funeral, Gerald goes to Gudrun's house and spends the night with her while her parents sleep in another room.Birkin asks Ursula to marry him, and she agrees. Gerald and Gudrun's relationship, however, becomes stormy.The two couples take a holiday together in the Austrian Alps. Gudrun begins an intense friendship with Loerke, a physically puny but emotionally commanding artist from Dresden. Gerald, enraged by Loerke and most of all by Gudrun's verbal abuse and rejection of his manhood, and driven by his own internal violence, tries to strangle Gudrun. He suddenly becomes disgusted with his actions and lets her go, and he leaves Gudrun and Loerke to climb the mountain eventually slipping into a snowy valley where he falls asleep and freezes to death.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rainbow" title="The Rainbow">
"The Rainbow" tells the story of three generations of the Brangwen family, a dynasty of farmers and craftsmen who live in the east Midlands of England, on the borders of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. The book spans a period of roughly 65 years from the 1840s to 1905, and shows how the love relationships of the Brangwens change against the backdrop of the increasing industrialisation of Britain. The first central character, Tom Brangwen, is a farmer whose experience of the world does not stretch beyond these two counties; while the last, Ursula, his granddaughter, studies at university and becomes a teacher in the progressively urbanised, capitalist and industrial world.The book starts with a description of the Brangwen dynasty, then deals with how Tom Brangwen, one of several brothers, fell in love with a Polish refugee and widow, Lydia. The next part of the book deals with Lydia's daughter by her first husband, Anna, and her destructive, battle-riven relationship with her husband, Will, the son of one of Tom's brothers. The last and most extended part of the book, and also probably the most famous, then deals with Will and Anna's daughter, Ursula, and her struggle to find fulfilment for her passionate, spiritual and sensual nature against the confines of the increasingly materialist and conformist society around her. She experiences a same-sex relationship with a teacher, and a passionate but ultimately doomed love affair with Anton Skrebensky, a British soldier of Polish ancestry. At the end of the book, having failed to find her fulfilment in Skrebensky, she has a vision of a rainbow towering over the Earth, promising a new dawn for humanity:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundiver" title="Sundiver">
The novel begins with the main character, Jacob Demwa, working at the center for uplift on Earth, while he recovers from a tragedy at the Vanilla Space Needle where he saved the space elevator from destruction but lost his love in the process. An alien friend of Demwa's, Fagin (a Kanten), contacts Demwa and offers him a job. Initially reluctant to return to his previous life as a scientific investigator, Demwa agrees to attend a secret meeting. He learns that there are "ghosts" appearing in the Sun's chromosphere. The ghosts are without precedent in the galactic library.Demwa agrees to come and investigate the origin and purpose of the sun-ghosts, and travels to Mercury where the sundiver project is based. With him on Mercury are Helene deSilva, an attractive station commander with whom Jacob develops a relationship over the course of the book; Fagin; Pila Bubbacub, the library representative; his assistant Culla (a Pring); Dr. Dwayne Kepler (the head of the Sundiver expedition); Dr. Mildred Martine (a psychiatrist); and the exuberant journalist Peter LaRoque.Demwa goes to the sun, and observes the sun-ghosts. There are apparently three forms: the "toroids" which appear to be similar to cattle and live off of the magnetic fields in the chromosphere, a relatively fluid, apparently intelligent variety, and a threatening, strangely anthropomorphic figure that avoids the side of the sunship where the instruments are located. When a neo-chimpanzee scientist, Dr. Jeffrey, is killed on a solo mission to the sun, it seems to confirm the sun-ghosts' hostile intent. An investigation seems to implicate the reporter, LaRoque. LaRoque is then tested to determine if he is capable of murder. The test results indicate LaRoque has violent tendencies and he is incarcerated.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_Center_of_the_Earth" title="Journey to the Center of the Earth">
The story begins in May 1863, at the home of Professor Otto Lidenbrock in Hamburg, Germany. While leafing through an original runic manuscript of an Icelandic saga, Lidenbrock and his nephew Axel find a coded note written in runic script along with the name of a 16th-century Icelandic alchemist, Arne Saknussemm. When translated into English, the note reads:Lidenbrock departs for Iceland immediately, taking the reluctant Axel with him. After a swift trip via Kiel and Copenhagen, they arrive in Reykjavík. There they hire as their guide Icelander Hans Bjelke, a Danish-speaking eiderduck hunter, then travel overland to the base of Snæfellsjökull.In late June they reach the volcano and set off into the bowels of the earth, encountering many dangers and strange phenomena. After taking a wrong turn, they run short of water and Axel nearly perishes, but Hans saves them all by tapping into a subterranean river, which shoots out a stream of water that Lidenbrock and Axel name the "Hansbach" in the guide's honor.Following the course of the Hansbach, the explorers descend many miles and reach an underground world. The travelers build a raft out of semipetrified wood and set sail. While at sea, they encounter prehistoric fish and giant marine reptiles from the age of dinosaurs. A lightning storm threatens to destroy the raft and its passengers, but instead throws them onto the site of an enormous fossil graveyard, including bones from the pterodactyl, "Megatherium", and mastodon, and the preserved body of a man. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Redemption_of_Althalus" title="The Redemption of Althalus">
## Life as thief.The story revolves around Althalus, a professional thief with a gift for storytelling and a reputation for uncanny luck. After numerous disasters (Althalus believes that luck has left him for good), the thief decides to return to the savage lands of the north, where he grew up, and decides to rob a fort. After arriving there, and amusing everyone with his stories, Althalus breaks into the storeroom during the night only to find out that all the talk about gold in the fort were lies, and that there are only bags of worthless copper coins and a handful of brass coins. Furious, Althalus steals all the brass coins and leaves – only to become chased by every man in the fort, its owner taking advantage of the situation to claim the theft of a non-existent fortune. He escapes to Hule, where he finds refuge in a camp. A man named Ghend arrives there a short time later and presents Althalus with a proposition.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazzaville_Beach" title="Brazzaville Beach">
Brazzaville Beach consists of three separative narratives. The first is Hope Clearwater's reflections on her current life whilst living in a beach house on Brazzaville Beach. The second narrative is a description of her former marriage to John Clearwater, a mathematician, who gradually goes mad resulting from failure to make progress in his academic research. The third narrative, and by far the most graphic, is the narrator's account of her work in a national park called Grosso Arvore (Big Tree), where she tracks the movements of a small band of chimpanzees that have split off from a larger group in the north.John Clearwater, Hope's former husband, is a mathematician thirsty for discovery and fame. This part of the narrative is set in London, where the couple share her flat in South Kensington, and southern England, where Hope works as an ecologist on an intriguing hedgerow mapping project in Dorset. At the beginning of their marriage the two are very much in love with Hope believing that John is the ideal man for her owing to his rather eccentric but empathetic character and strong intelligence. She is uninterested in working after getting her PhD until her former Professor forces her to take on the hedgerow mapping project. After being interviewed by Munro, its leader, Hope discovers she is pleased to be working once more, losing weight because she is outside all day, and enjoying the disciplined approach she has to adopt:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations" title="The Wealth of Nations">
## Book I: Of the Causes of Improvement in the productive Powers of Labour.Of the Division of Labour:Division of labour has caused a greater increase in production than any other factor. This diversification is greatest for nations with more industry and improvement, and is responsible for "universal opulence" in those countries. This is in part due to increased quality of production, but more importantly because of increased efficiency of production, leading to a higher nominal output of units produced per time unit. Agriculture is less amenable than manufacturing to division of labour; hence, rich nations are not so far ahead of poor nations in agriculture as in manufacturing.Of the Principle which gives Occasion to the Division of Labour:Division of labour arises not from innate wisdom, but from humans' propensity to barter.That the Division of Labour is Limited by the Extent of the Market:Limited opportunity for exchange discourages division of labour. Because "water-carriage" (i.e. transportation) extends the market, division of labour, with its improvements, comes earliest to cities near waterways. Civilization began around the highly navigable Mediterranean Sea.Of the Origin and Use of Money:With division of labour, the produce of one's own labour can fill only a small part of one's needs. Different commodities have served as a common medium of exchange, but all nations have finally settled on metals, which are durable and divisible, for this purpose. Before coinage, people had to weigh and assay with each exchange, or risk "the grossest frauds and impositions." Thus nations began stamping metal, on one side only, to ascertain purity, or on all sides, to stipulate purity and amount.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_7_(novel)" title="Area 7 (novel)">
The President of the United States is visiting America's most secret military installation, Area 7. Assigned to his protective detail is Shane Schofield and his team of Marines including Gunnery Sergeant Gena 'Mother' Newman, Staff Sergeant Elizabeth 'Fox' Gant and Buck 'Book II' Riley Jr. They are plunged into a race for survival when an Air Force general, Charles "Caesar" Russell, unleashes a plan he has been working on for over 15 years. Despite being 'executed' on the day of the president's inauguration, Caesar is revived, and with a squadron of 50 elite Air Force soldiers (the 7th Squadron), have taken control of Area 7 and initiated a lockdown. A transmitter, attached to the president's heart before he was elected, has been activated; a satellite sends and receives messages to and from this transmitter, which is powered by the kinetic energy of the president's heart beating. If the satellite does not receive the messages from the transmitter, 14 Type-240 Blast Plasma-based nuclear warheads in the airports of the major cities of the United States will explode, destroying these cities, and making way for a new, racist, Confederate America. As long as the President's heart beats, the messages will be sent to the satellite, and the nuclear warheads will not detonate. To prevent the president from trying to escape Area 7, Caesar also overrode the launch codes on the Nuclear Football so that to prevent the detonation of the warheads, the president must place his hand on the fingerprint sensor on the Football (that is being kept in Caesar's possession) every 90 minutes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witches_of_Eastwick" title="The Witches of Eastwick">
The story, set in the fictional Rhode Island town of Eastwick in the early 1970s, follows the witches Alexandra Spofford, Jane Smart, and Sukie Rougemont, who acquired their powers after their respective marriages end. Their coven is upset by the arrival of Darryl Van Horne, who buys a neglected mansion outside of town. The mysterious Darryl seduces each of the women, encouraging their creative powers and creating a scandal in the town. The power of the three witches grows, so much so that they unknowingly bewitch the townsfolk they come in contact with. This becomes clear when Sukie's lover and boss, Clyde Gabriel, kills his busybody wife Felicia before hanging himself.The three women share Darryl in relative peace until he unexpectedly marries their young, innocent friend, Jenny, the Gabriels' daughter. The witches resolve to take revenge by giving her cancer through their magic. Although Alexandra feels remorse for their hex, the spell kills Jenny and Darryl flees town with her younger brother, Chris, apparently his lover. In his wake, he leaves their relationships strained and their sense of self in doubt. Eventually, each summons her ideal man and leaves town.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrup_(novel)" title="Syrup (novel)">
Set in the present day, a young marketing graduate named Scat comes up with an idea for a new product for Coca-Cola called 'Fukk'. This causes him to go to Coca-Cola to sell his idea for $3 million, but he finds that Sneaky Pete has already claimed the trademark in a backstabbing move. This then leads him to leave his apartment with Sneaky Pete and move in with Cindy. Cindy eventually throws him out and he goes to live with 6 and Tina while managing the summer marketing campaign for Coca-Cola. He eventually succeeds with the campaign. After that Scat tries to undermine Sneaky Pete's effort to run a new secret project for Coca-Cola, the first feature length advertising movie.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Midwich_Cuckoos" title="The Midwich Cuckoos">
Ambulances arrive at two traffic accidents blocking the only roads into the English village of Midwich, Winshire. Attempting to approach the village, one ambulance-man becomes unconscious. Suspecting gas poisoning, the army is notified. They discover that a caged canary becomes unconscious upon entering the affected region, but regains consciousness when removed. Further experiments reveal the region to be a hemisphere with a diameter of around the village. Aerial photography shows an unidentifiable silvery object on the ground in the centre of the affected zone.After one day, the effect vanishes, along with the unidentified object, and the villagers wake with no apparent ill effects. Some months later they realise that every woman of child-bearing age is pregnant with all indications that the pregnancies were caused by xenogenesis during the period of unconsciousness that has come to be referred to as the "Dayout".When the 31 boys and 30 girls are born, they appear normal, except for their unusual golden eyes, light blonde hair, and pale, silvery skin. These children have none of the genetic characteristics of their mothers. As they grow up, it becomes increasingly apparent that they are, at least in some respects, not human. They possess telepathic abilities and can control others' actions. The Children (they are referred to with a capital "C") have two distinct group minds: one for the boys and another for the girls. Their physical development is accelerated compared with that of humans; upon reaching the age of nine, they appear to be sixteen-year-olds.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten,_Dweller_in_Truth" title="Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth">
On the way from Sais to Panopolis with his father, the scribe Meriamun points out the ruins of Akhetaten, the city that the "heretic pharaoh" Akhenaten built for his One and Only God. Seeking a balanced perspective on the events of that time, which split Egypt politically and religiously, Meriamun gets a letter of introduction from his father to many members of Akhenaten's court, among them the High Priest of Amun, his chief of security Haremhab, and his queen Nefertiti. Each tale adds a new dimension to the enigma that is Akhenaten and the thoughts of those that were close to him allow Meriamun – and the reader – to judge for themselves whether Akhenaten was a power politician or a true believer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faerie_Tale" title="Faerie Tale">
Phil Hastings and his family have just moved back to his hometown for some much needed peace and quiet from the Hollywood scene. As Phil's twins, Sean and Patrick, soon discover, there is more to their new home than was expected. Gloria, their mother, senses something, but simply dismisses her concern as stress from their recent move. Gabbie, their older half-sister, meets the man of her dreams, but also is tempted by other men.Deep in the woods, The Bad Thing and his Master are ready to break free of the centuries-old compact made to keep the Faerie world and the Human world at peace. Only through believing the insane and impossible can Sean and Patrick save both worlds from colliding again.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lirael" title="Lirael">
The book is split into three parts, the first of which is set 14 years after the events in "Sabriel"; the last two parts are set five years after part one. Sabriel and Touchstone have married since "Sabriel" and assumed a measure of control over the Old Kingdom. Their children Ellimere and Sameth were going to school in Ancelstierre (similarly to Sabriel) before being expected to take up their duties in the Old Kingdom.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Who_Owned_a_City" title="The Girl Who Owned a City">
A deadly virus has swept the world, killing off everyone over the age of twelve in the span of a month or so. In the town of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, outside of Chicago, ten-year-old Lisa Nelson and her younger brother Todd Nelson are surviving, like all the children in the story, by looting abandoned houses and shops. Although there are abandoned cars in every driveway and lining every street, Lisa is the first child to think of driving one. She is also the first to think of raiding a farm, and the first to look at the dwindling supplies in stores and deduce that groceries come from warehouses. She finds a supermarket warehouse and raids it, enlisting the help of Craig Bergman, a neighbor boy two years older than her, but makes clear to him and all the other children in her neighborhood that the entire warehouse and all its contents are her exclusive property, not to be shared unless she chooses: she assures them all that she will burn the warehouse and everything in it rather than be forced to share against her will.She considers relocating to the farm, but decides against it because it is difficult to defend (other children are starting to form gangs) and because "planning and getting the world back to the way it was, with schools, and hospitals, and electricity" are much more "exciting" than "hiding away on a farm ... digging in the dirt all day".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_Ho,_Jeeves" title="Right Ho, Jeeves">
Bertie returns to London from several weeks in Cannes spent in the company of his Aunt Dahlia Travers and her daughter Angela. In Bertie's absence, Jeeves has been advising Bertie's old school friend, Gussie Fink-Nottle, who is in love with a goofy, sentimental, whimsical, childish girl named Madeline Bassett. Gussie, a shy teetotaler with a passion for newts and a face like a fish, is too timid to speak to her. Bertie is annoyed that his friends consider Jeeves more intelligent than Bertie, and he takes Gussie's case in hand, ordering Jeeves not to offer any more advice.Madeline, a friend of Bertie's cousin Angela, is staying at Brinkley Court (country seat of Aunt Dahlia and Uncle Tom). Aunt Dahlia demands that Bertie come to Brinkley Court to make a speech and present the school prizes to students at the local grammar school, which he considers a fearsome task. Bertie sends Gussie to Brinkley Court in his place, so that Gussie will have the chance to woo Madeline there, but also so that Gussie will be forced to take on the unpleasant job of distributing the school prizes.When Angela breaks her engagement to Tuppy Glossop, Bertie feels obliged to go down to Brinkley Court to comfort Aunt Dahlia. In addition to her worry about Angela's broken engagement, Aunt Dahlia is anxious because she has lost 500 pounds gambling at Cannes, and now needs to ask her miserly husband Tom to replace the money in order to keep financing her magazine, "Milady's Boudoir". Bertie advises her to arouse Uncle Tom's concern for her by pretending to have lost her appetite through worry. He offers similar advice to Tuppy, to win back Angela. He also offers the same advice to Gussie, to show his love for Madeline. All take his advice, and the resulting return of plates of untasted food upsets Aunt Dahlia's temperamental prized chef Anatole, who gives notice to quit. Not unreasonably, Aunt Dahlia blames Bertie for this disaster.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mawdryn_Undead" title="Mawdryn Undead">
In 1983, Vislor Turlough, a stranded alien posing as a human student, is given an offer by the Black Guardian for passage off Earth if he should kill the Fifth Doctor.Meanwhile, the Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa find the TARDIS stuck in the warp ellipse of a starliner trapped in time. Materialising aboard, they find a transmat device, with separate endpoints to Earth in 1977 and 1983, is creating the interference. Turlough arrives from the 1983 transmat, feigning lack of comprehension of the situation. The Doctor instructs Nyssa and Tegan to stay aboard the TARDIS while he returns with Turlough to 1983 to fix that transmat point, hoping it will allow the TARDIS to escape. Instead, the TARDIS materialises in 1977 at Turlough's school. Coincidentally the Doctor's old friend from UNIT, retired Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, is now a maths teacher at the school, and is surprised to learn some trauma in the past has made him lose the memories of the last few years and does not remember the Doctor at all. However, as the Doctor talks about Tegan, about himself and his former companions, the Brigadier starts regaining some memories.In 1977, Nyssa and Tegan leave the TARDIS and find a horribly disfigured man in the transmat capsule, who claims to be the Doctor in the midst of a regeneration. They seek out help from the younger Brigadier, and the "Doctor" urges all three to return with him to the starliner via the TARDIS. In 1983, the Doctor detects the TARDIS' movement, and he, Turlough, and the older Brigadier also return to the starliner via the transmat. The Doctor regroups with his companions; realising two versions of the Brigadier are aboard, he instructs them all to keep the two separated, as, should they touch, it could release a potentially catastrophic energy discharge due to the Blinovitch limitation effect.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stig_of_the_Dump" title="Stig of the Dump">
Barney is a bored young boy staying with his grandparents on the chalk Downs of southern England. One day, he falls over the edge of an old chalk pit close to his grandparents' house, tumbling through the roof of a den. While exploring the den, Barney encounters its owner, Stig, a caveman with shaggy, black hair and bright black eyes. The chalk pit is disused and full of people's dumped rubbish.Barney and Stig quickly become friends. They learn to communicate with each other without language, as Stig speaks no English. Stig's den is a place built out of discarded rubbish, which motivates Barney to help Stig make it look more attractive. They spend time repairing and improving Stig's den, collecting firewood, going hunting, and at one point catching some burglars who break into Barney's grandparents' house. On another occasion Barney is cornered by the bullying Snarget brothers, who become uncharacteristically docile when Stig appears and are impressed by Barney's friendship with Stig. Although Barney mentions Stig to others, no-one (with the exception of the Snargets) believes that Stig is real.Barney starts to give thought to where Stig has come from. During a very hot, sultry mid-summer's night, when Barney and his sister Lou are unable to sleep, they find themselves transported back in time and out onto the Downs. To their surprise, they meet Stig, back with his own people, engaged in the construction of four gigantic standing stones. They spend a night camping out with the people of Stig's tribe, and helping to shift the final stone into position before sunrise. As dawn breaks, the tribe disappear and the stones suddenly become ancient and weathered; but Stig is still there. Stig got transported forward in time with the standing stone which led him to the modern day.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aztecs_(Doctor_Who)" title="The Aztecs (Doctor Who)">
The TARDIS crew arrive in Mexico in the 15th century. With the TARDIS trapped in a tomb, Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) is mistaken for a female reincarnation of the ancient high priest Yetaxa, and assumes her guise and identity. From her new position of power, Barbara sees her chance to bring an end to human sacrifice. She sees the good side of Aztec culture manifested in Autloc (Keith Pyott), the High Priest of Knowledge, and the gruesome side embodied in the High Priest of Sacrifice, Tlotoxl (John Ringham). As a history teacher, she sees how advanced their culture really is and believes that if sacrifice were abolished, they would be spared destruction at the hands of the Spanish. The urgent warnings of the First Doctor (William Hartnell) that Barbara cannot change history fall on deaf ears, much to his fury.The bloodthirsty Tlotoxl begins to suspect Barbara is not Yetaxa returned, especially because she is trying to ban human sacrifice. He sets a series of elaborate traps for her and her companions. For example, Ian Chesterton (William Russell) has been compelled into the military and fights the strongest warrior, Ixta (Ian Cullen), to prove his ability to command the Aztec forces. Thus Ixta develops a grudge against Ian and is used by Tlotoxl to try to prove that Barbara is not Yetaxa. The Doctor unwittingly tells Ixta how to defeat Ian in combat using a drugging agent, and this battle nearly ends in the Doctor witnessing his friend's death. When this fails to be conclusive, Tlotoxl convinces the subordinate priest Tonila (Walter Randall) to make a poison for Barbara; the death of Barbara following consumption of the poison would prove she is not immortal and therefore not a god. However, Ian silently warns her from his hiding place, and Barbara refuses to drink the poison. She tells Tlotoxl that she is not Yetaxa but warns him not to tell the people.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demian" title="Demian">
Emil Sinclair is a young boy raised in a middle class home, amidst what is described as a "Scheinwelt", a play on words meaning "world of light" as well as "world of illusion". Sinclair's entire existence can be summarized as a struggle between two worlds: the show world of illusion (related to the Hindu concept of maya) and the real world, the world of spiritual truth (see Plato's cave and dualism). Accompanied and prompted by his mysterious classmate and friend 'Max Demian', he detaches from and revolts against the superficial ideals of the world of appearances and eventually awakens into a realization of self. The novel's eight chapters are these:
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_(Uris_novel)" title="Exodus (Uris novel)">
## Summary.In 1946 American foreign correspondent Mark Parker and American nurse Kitty Fremont reunite as old friends. Kitty is an American volunteer at the Karaolos internment camp on Cyprus, where thousands of Jews—Holocaust survivors—are being held by the British, who will not let them go to Palestine. Separately, another pair of friends, Jewish fighters Ari Ben Canaan and David Ben Ami, also reunite.Ari obtains a cargo ship, which became the SS Exodus, with the intention to smuggle 302 Jewish children out of the camp for an illegal voyage to Mandate Palestine before being discovered by military authorities. When the British learn the refugees are in a ship in the harbor of Famagusta, they blockade the harbor and prevent it from sailing. The refugees stage a hunger strike, during which the camp's doctor dies. Ari has wired the ship with explosives and threatens to blow up the ship and the refugees if the British try to board. When the British attempt to gain time by trying to negotiate, Ari announces that every day 10 children will commit suicide on deck for the world to see. The British relent and allow the "Exodus" safe passage.A generation previously, Ari's father Jossi and uncle Yakov came to Palestine following the Pogroms in the Russian Empire. They are disappointed because the Jews don't farm and take money from overseas philanthropists. The brothers change their names to Akiva (Yakov) and Barak (Jossi). Jossi tries to understand the Palestinians, using demonstrations of force to gain their respect. The Balfour Declaration is issued during World War I. The two brothers become senior in the Jewish government, and debate using terrorism to fight the British authorities.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_House_(novel)" title="Noble House (novel)">
"Noble House" is set in 1963 and serves as a sequel to Clavell's novel "Tai-Pan". Ian Dunross, the 10th tai-pan of Struan's and a descendant of founder Dirk Struan, struggles to rescue the company from the precarious financial position left by his predecessor. To this end, he seeks partnership with American millionaire Lincoln Bartlett, while trying to ward off his arch-rival Quillan Gornt, who seeks to destroy Struan's once and for all. Meanwhile, Chinese communists, Taiwanese nationalists, and Soviet spies illegally vie for influence in Hong Kong while the British government seeks to prevent their actions. Anyone seeking to stop them cannot do so without enlisting the aid of Hong Kong's criminal underworld. Other obstacles include water shortages, landslides, bank runs and stock market crashes.In "Noble House", Dunross finds his company the target of a hostile takeover at a time when Struan's is desperately overextended. He is also embroiled in international espionage when he finds himself in possession of secret documents desperately desired by both the KGB and MI6. The novel follows Dunross' attempts to extricate himself from all this and to save Struan's, the Noble House.Dunross also inherited the "coin debt" obligation first introduced in the "Tai-Pan" novel. As tai-pan of Struan's, he must fulfill the request, whether legal or illegal, to anyone who presents one of the half coins that were initially split by Dirk Struan and the trader Jin Qua, serving as repayment for the latter's loan of silver. The first half coin was redeemed during the events in the previous novel, and the second coin between the events of "Tai-Pan" and "Noble House". "Noble House" follows the fate of the third half coin (an illustration of the coin is prominently featured on the cover of several editions of the novel).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_(novel)" title="Hawaii (novel)">
The novel tells the history of Hawaiian Islands from the creation of the isles to the time they became an American state through the viewpoints of selected characters who represent their ethnic and cultural groups in the story (e.g. the Kee family represents the viewpoint of Chinese-Hawaiians). Most of the chapters cover the arrivals of different peoples to the islands. With the exception of Chapter 1, all the chapters are of standalone novel or novella length.Chapter 1: From the Boundless Deep describes the creation of the Hawaiian land from volcanic activity. It goes into flavorful detail describing such things as primary succession taking root on the island to life finally blooming.Chapter 2: From the Sunswept Lagoon begins on the island of Bora Bora, where many people, including King Tamatoa and his brother Teroro, are upset with the neighboring isles of Havaiki, Tahiti etc. because they are trying to force the Bora Borans to give up their old gods, Tāne and Ta'aroa, and start worshiping 'Oro, the fire god, who constantly demands human sacrifices. Tamatoa suggests to his brother and friends that they should migrate to some other place where they might find religious freedom. After finally agreeing to this plan, his brother secretly sets fire to Havaiki to take revenge for the human sacrifices they have been demanding from Bora Borans. Later they take the canoe "Wait for the West Wind" and sail to Hawaii. Later some return to Bora Bora to bring back with them some women and children and an idol of the volcano goddess, Pele.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1632_(novel)" title="1632 (novel)">
The fictional town of Grantville, West Virginia (modeled on the real West Virginia town of Mannington) and its power plant are displaced in space-time, through a side effect of a mysterious alien civilization.A hemispherical section of land about three miles in radius measured from the town center is transported back in time and space from April 2000 to May 1631, from North America to the central Holy Roman Empire. The town is thrust into the middle of the Thirty Years' War, in the German province of Thuringia in the Thuringer Wald, near the fictional German free city of Badenburg. This Assiti Shards effect occurs during a wedding reception, accounting for the presence of several people not native to the town, including a doctor and his daughter, a paramedic. Real Thuringian municipalities located close to Grantville are posited as Weimar, Jena, Saalfeld and the more remote Erfurt, Arnstadt, and Eisenach well to the south of Halle and Leipzig.Grantville, led by Mike Stearns, president of the local chapter of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), must cope with the town's space-time dislocation, the surrounding raging war, language barriers, and numerous social and political issues, including class conflict, witchcraft, feminism, the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, among many other factors. One complication is a compounding of the food shortage when the town is flooded by refugees from the war. The 1631 locals experience a culture shock when exposed to the mores of contemporary American society, including modern dress, sexual egalitarianism, and boisterous American-style politics.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_(Doctor_Who)" title="Enlightenment (Doctor Who)">
Following interference from both the White and Black Guardians, the Fifth Doctor materialises the TARDIS in what appears to be the hold of an Edwardian yacht, though the Doctor senses something is amiss. The human crew have no idea how they got there nor where they are, but know they are taking part in a race. The Doctor and his companions, Tegan and Turlough, discover that the yacht and several other historical Earth ships are competing in a solar sail race through the Solar System. The ship's officers reveal themselves to be "Eternals", in contrast to the Doctor and the humans, whom they somewhat dismissively call "Ephemerals". The Eternals live in the "trackless wastes of eternity" and rely on Ephemerals for their thoughts and ideas. This race is being held by the Guardians and the prize is Enlightenment, the wisdom to know everything. The Doctor finds that the Eternals have made his TARDIS vanish, forcing him and his companions to stay until the race's conclusion.As the race continues, several of the vessels are destroyed by explosions. The Doctor suspects that the crew aboard the "Buccaneer", which is a 17th-century pirate ship, is responsible, as it was the closest vessel at the time of destruction. Turlough, while attempting to escape control of the Black Guardian, ends up aboard the "Buccaneer", and meets the Eternal Captain Wrack, professing his desire to join her crew and learning she too is working for the Black Guardian. He finds equipment aboard her ship that appears to be the source of the device destroying the other ships and hears the Black Guardian's voice nearby. Later, Wrack offers the Edwardian officers a reception aboard her ship. During the reception, Turlough demonstrates the Wrack's advantage-providing equipment to the Doctor, while Wrack hypnotizes Tegan and implants Tegan's tiara (Tegan and Marriner attend Captain Wrack's reception in full Edwardian costume) with a red crystal. After the reception and continuation of the race, the Doctor sees the "Buccaneer" nearing the Edwardian ship, determines that the red crystal is used as a focal point of the weapon, and gets rid of the tiara before Wrack can destroy the ship.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_(novel)" title="Q (novel)">
The book follows the journey of an Anabaptist radical across Europe in the first half of the 16th century as he joins in various movements and uprisings that come as a result of the Protestant reformation. The book spans 30 years as he is pursued by 'Q' (short for "Qoèlet"), a spy for the Roman Catholic Church cardinal Giovanni Pietro Carafa. The main character, who changes his name many times during the story, first fights in the German Peasants' War beside Thomas Müntzer, during which time he takes part in negotiations which are eventually formalised as the Twelve Articles. Following this, he battles in Münster's siege, during the Münster Rebellion, and some years later, in Venice.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Spring" title="New Spring">
"New Spring" describes events that take place twenty years before the events of "The Eye of the World" (Book 1). The story begins in the last days of the Aiel War, and the Battle of the Shining Walls around Tar Valon. It is set primarily in Tar Valon and the Borderlands, specifically Kandor."New Spring" focuses mainly on Moiraine Damodred and Siuan Sanche, two Aes Sedai new to the sisterhood, and how a young Moiraine became Aes Sedai, met Lan Mandragoran and made him her Warder. The novel also explains how Moiraine and Siuan witnessed a prophecy of the Dragon's rebirth and came to begin investigating the "Karaethon Cycle", the Prophecies of the Dragon, decades before discovering Rand al'Thor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_of_the_Autons" title="Terror of the Autons">
The Master arrives on Earth and steals the sole surviving Nestene energy unit from the National Space Museum. He then hijacks the Beacon Hill radio telescope, which he uses as a bridgehead to channel energy into the Nestene unit, and kidnaps Professor Philips, a Ministry of Technology research scientist. Reports of the theft and sabotage bring the Doctor, his new assistant Jo Grant and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart to investigate. At Beacon Hill the Doctor encounters a fellow Time Lord, who warns him that an "old acquaintance" is on Earth and will certainly try to kill him. The Doctor then identifies and successfully neutralises the boobytrap, which the Master has left behind.The Master takes over Farrel Autoplastics, a nearby plastics factory, to build Autons. Jo, investigating the factory, is discovered by the Master, who hypnotises her and wipes her memory of their meeting. He sends her back to UNIT with a booby-trap, a box ostensibly containing the stolen energy unit. The Doctor realises she has been hypnotised and disposes of the bomb.UNIT traces the missing Professor Philips to Rossini's Circus at Tarminster. The Doctor visits the Circus, and is captured by Rossini, but freed by Jo, who has followed him there against orders. The Doctor removes something from the Master's TARDIS but is attacked by Rossini and his men. Rescued by two policemen, the Doctor becomes suspicious and unmasks one of them as an Auton.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_and_the_Silurians" title="Doctor Who and the Silurians">
A nuclear powered cyclotron facility in some caves under a moorland is experiencing mysterious power drains and mental breakdowns amongst staff. The Third Doctor and Liz Shaw meet Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart there to investigate. A worker who was potholing in the caves is found dead with giant claw marks on his body, and his companion has been traumatised. Lawrence, the Director, resents UNIT's presence and feels that it will interfere with the working of the plant. Major Baker, the security chief, believes there is a saboteur in the centre, and the Doctor discovers that the logs of the nuclear reactor's operation have been tampered with. When the Doctor makes his way into the caves, he is attacked by a dinosaur-like creature before it is called off by a strange whistling sound.The Doctor analyses blood from a man-sized creature Major Baker shot at and finds similarities to "larger reptiles". In the meantime, the creature goes to the moorland on the surface and stumbles into a barn to hide. Quinn goes into the caves to a hidden base, where he demands the knowledge he was promised. He is told that he must first help the wounded creature and is given a signal device, which emits the sound heard earlier.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Doctor_Who)" title="Inferno (Doctor Who)">
The Third Doctor and UNIT are called in to investigate a murder at Project Inferno, an effort to drill through the Earth's crust to harness great energies within the planet's core. It transpires that the drilling is producing a green ooze that transforms all who touch it into savage humanoid creatures called Primords, who can only be killed via extreme cold. Unbeknownst to anyone, the project leader, Professor Stahlman has been infected and is in the early stages of the change. After quarrelling with Stahlman, the Doctor attempts an experiment on the detached TARDIS console, but a freak accident transports him into a parallel space-time continuum.In this new universe, where Great Britain is a fascist republic, the Doctor is captured and interrogated by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's counterpart, a sadistic, eyepatch-wearing military commandant known as the Brigade Leader, along with the counterpart of the Doctor's companion Liz, who in this universe became a military officer instead of a scientist. When the drill penetrates the Earth's crust it unleashes immense amounts of heat and poisonous gases, along with more of the ooze, which Stahlman's counterpart uses to transform most of the remaining project staff into more Primords. The Doctor determines that the unleashed energies of the core will eventually disintegrate the planet, and is able to persuade the surviving staff members to help him return to his own dimension and prevent a similar catastrophe. They eventually succeed in restoring power to the TARDIS console despite repeated Primord attacks, but Liz's counterpart is forced to kill the Brigade Leader when he turns on the Doctor, who narrowly escapes as the Project Inferno facility is destroyed by a massive volcanic eruption.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Daleks" title="Day of the Daleks">
Sir Reginald Styles, a British diplomat trying to organise a peace conference to avert World War III, is in his study at Auderly House when a soldier wielding a futuristic looking pistol bursts in and holds him at gunpoint. However, before the man can fire, he vanishes, leaving Styles to shakily tell his secretary he has been visited by a ghost. When the Third Doctor, Jo and the Brigadier go to Auderly House, Styles denies ever seeing the "ghost", even though the Doctor notes the presence of muddy footprints in the study. The Doctor discovers a crude time machine and an ultrasonic disintegrator. He and Jo spend the night at Auderly House to monitor any activity.The machine turns out to be from the 22nd Century and contains a homing device which will alert its owners, the Daleks, upon its activation. The next day, as the Doctor tries to reactivate the time machine, three rebel fighters--Anat, Boaz, and Shura--appear from the time vortex and demand the machine be deactivated. The Doctor complies, but not before the Daleks detect the frequency and launch their attack. The ensuing battle shifts back and forth between the 20th and 22nd Centuries. Eventually, the Dalek attack is defeated when Shura detonates a bomb made of dalekanium, a powerful explosive that will even affect Dalek body casings.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruins_of_Adventure" title="Ruins of Adventure">
"Ruins of Adventure" contains four short Forgotten Realms adventure scenarios which are connected and adapted from the "Pool of Radiance" computer game, and take place in the devastated town of Phlan.The adventurers are hired to remove evil forces from Phlan, presumably by killing them. They hear rumor of a "Boss" controlling them and seek him out. This "Boss" proves to be a worthy adversary, but in the end the adventurers defeat him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giles_Goat-Boy" title="Giles Goat-Boy">
George Giles is a boy raised as a goat who rises in life to be Grand Tutor (spiritual leader or messiah) of New Tammany College (the United States, or the Earth, or the Universe). He strives for (and achieves) herohood, in accordance with the hero myth as theorized by Lord Raglan and Joseph Campbell. The novel abounds in mythological and Christian allegories, as well as in allusions to the Cold War, 1960s academia, religion and spirituality. Rather than "discovering" his true identity, George ultimately "chooses" it, much like Ebeneezer Cooke does in Barth's previous novel, "The Sotweed Factor".The principle behind the allegorical renaming of key roles in the novel as roman à clef is that the Earth (or the Universe) is a university. Thus, for example, the founder of a religion or great religious leader becomes a Grand Tutor (in German "Grosslehrer"), and Barth renames specific leaders as well: Jesus Christ becomes Enos Enoch (meaning in Hebrew "The man who walked with God" or "humanity when it walked with God"), Moses becomes Moishe, Buddha becomes the original Sakhyan. As the founder of the maieutic method, Socrates becomes Maios; Plato (whose Greek name "Platon" means "broad-shouldered") becomes Scapulas (from scapula, shoulder-blade); Aristotle, as the coiner of the term "entelekheia" (lit. "having an end within," usually translated "entelechy," or glossed as the actualization of a potentiality), becomes Entelechus. The heroes of epic poems tend to be named after the Greek for "son of": Odysseus becomes Laertides (son of Laertes), Aeneas becomes Anchisides (son of Anchises), and so on. The subtitle "The Revised New Syllabus" means, in the novel's Universe=University allegory, a parodic rewriting of the New Testament. Satan is the Dean o' Flunks, and lives in the Nether Campus (hell); John the Baptist is John the Bursar; the Sermon on the Mount becomes the Seminar-on-the-Hill; the Last Judgment becomes the Final Examination. Among the parodic variations, a computer replaces the Holy Spirit, and an artificial insemination the Immaculate Conception.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_English_Teacher" title="The English Teacher">
As an English teacher and lecturer at Albert Mission College, Krishna has led a mundane and monotonous lifestyle comparable to that of a cow. But he also plays an important role in protecting Indian culture. His life changes when his wife, Susila, and their child, Leela, come to live with him. With their welfare on his hands, Krishna learns to be a proper husband and learns how to accept the responsibility of taking care of his family. He feels that his life has comparatively improved, as he understands that there's more meaning to life than to just teaching. However, when they search for a new house, Susila contracts typhoid after visiting a dirty lavatory, keeping her in bed for weeks. Throughout the entire course of her illness, Krishna constantly tries to keep an optimistic view. However, Susila eventually passes away. Krishna, destroyed by her loss, has suicidal thoughts but gives them up for the sake of his daughter, Leela. He is lost and miserable after her death, but he receives a letter from a stranger who indicates that Susila has been in contact with him and that she wants to communicate with Krishna. This makes him more collected and cheerful, leading to a journey in search of enlightenment, with the stranger acting as a medium to Susila in the spiritual world. Leela, on the other hand, goes to a preschool where Krishna gets to meet the headmaster, a profound man who cares for the students in his school and teaches them moral values through his own methods. The Headmaster puts his students as his top priority but he does not care for his own family and children, eventually leaving them on the day predicted by an astrologer as the day of his death, which did not come true. Krishna is influenced by the headmaster, eventually learning to 'communicate' with Susila on his own, thus concluding the entire story with the quote that he felt 'a moment of rare immutable joy'.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dæmons" title="The Dæmons">
In the village of Devil's End an archaeological dig is excavating the infamous Devil's Hump, a Bronze Age burial mound. A local white witch, Olive Hawthorne arrives to protest, warning of great evil and the coming of the horned beast, but she is dismissed as a crank. After watching a television broadcast about the dig the Third Doctor tells Jo that Miss Hawthorne is right – the dig must be stopped, and they go there.Miss Hawthorne goes to see the new local vicar, the Reverend Magister who is actually the Master – he tries to assure her that her fears are unfounded, but his hypnosis fails to overcome her will. Backed by a group of followers, the Master is conducting ceremonies in the cavern below the Church to summon up Azal, a force of evil. The Doctor and Jo reach the mound and the Doctor rushes inside to stop the dig, but it is too late. The tomb door opens and icy gusts of wind rush out, while the eyes of a gargoyle, Bok, flare with a reddish glow.Captain Mike Yates and Sergeant Benton arrive at the village the following morning, but the Brigadier, arriving later, finds himself unable to enter the village, as there is an invisible dome-shaped barrier, 10 miles in diameter and one mile high, surrounding it that causes anything trying to enter to heat up and burst into flame. He contacts Yates and is briefed on the situation while the Doctor and Jo return to the dig where they find a small spaceship in the mound, which has been condensed. From this, the Doctor realises that the Master is trying to conjure up an ancient and all-powerful demon, who is seen on Earth to be the Devil but is actually an alien. The Doctor explains that the Dæmons have used Earth as a giant experiment throughout its history, becoming part of human myth. The Master has called the Dæmon up once, and right now, it is so small as to be invisible. The third summoning, however, could signal the end of the experiment, and the world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Tree" title="The Giving Tree">
The book follows the lives of an apple tree and a boy, who develop a relationship with one another. The tree is very "giving" and the boy evolves into a "taking" teenager, a middle-aged man, and finally an elderly man. Despite the fact that the boy ages in the story, the tree addresses the boy as "Boy" his entire life.In his childhood, the boy enjoys playing with the tree, climbing her trunk, swinging from her branches, carving "Me + T (Tree)" into the bark, and eating her apples. However, as the boy grows older, he spends less time with the tree and tends to visit her only when he wants material items at various stages of his life, or not coming to the tree alone (such as bringing a lady friend to the tree and carving "Me +Y.L." (her initials, often assumed to be an acronym for "young love") into the tree. In an effort to make the boy happy at each of these stages, the tree gives him parts of herself, which he can transform into material items, such as money (from her apples), a house (from her branches), and a boat (from her trunk). With every stage of giving, "the Tree was happy."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_at_Pooh_Corner" title="The House at Pooh Corner">
The title comes from a story in which Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet build a house for Eeyore. In another story the game of Poohsticks is invented. As with the first book, the chapters are mostly in episodic format and can be read independently of each other. The only exception to this is with Chapters 8 and 9 – Chapter 9 carries directly on from the end of Chapter 8, as the characters search for a new house for Owl, his house having been blown down in the previous chapter.Hints that Christopher Robin is growing up, scattered throughout the book, come to a head in the final chapter, in which the inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood throw him a farewell party after learning that he must leave them soon. It is made obvious, though not stated explicitly, that he is starting school. In the end, they say good-bye to Christopher Robin. Pooh and Christopher Robin climb a hill overlooking the Hundred Acre Wood, and say a long, private farewell, in which Pooh promises not to forget him. The book closes with the narrator remarking, "Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_Angels_(novel)" title="Queen of Angels (novel)">
"Queen of Angels" describes our world just prior to the binary millennium (2048 AD) through several parallel (and to some degree interlocking) tales. Nanotechnology has transformed almost every aspect of American society, and its application to psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience has resulted in new techniques for mental "therapy" that have created new forms of social stratification. Increasingly, individuals are "therapied: "by means of "nano-therapy," they are turned into well-integrated personalities capable of productive work and constructive social interaction, which does not threaten the social order. Therapied individuals have access to the best jobs. There are two other classes: the "high naturals," who possess such a positive mental makeup that they do not need any therapy, and the "untherapied," who find themselves increasingly marginalized.The central unifying element involves a famous writer, Emmanuel Goldsmith, who has committed a gruesome series of murders, a crime almost unheard of in the age of therapy. One storyline involves Mary Choy, a high natural police detective assigned to the case to track down and arrest the murderer. Mary is a transform since she has chosen to have her body extensively altered by nanotechnology to enhance her abilities as a policewoman and also for aesthetic reasons.A second storyline involves Richard Fettle, a good friend of the murderer, also an untherapied writer, who must come to terms with what happened to his friend and how his artists' lives, and all of the untherapied must change. The third plot line concerns Martin Burke, a pioneer in psychotherapy who uses a technique which allows him to directly enter and interact with a patient's psychology, the "Country of the Mind," through a sort of virtual reality. Although disgraced at the story's opening, Dr. Burke is given the opportunity to use his technique to explore Goldsmith's mind, which turns out to be one of the most fascinating and dangerous minds imaginable.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_Without_a_Key" title="The House Without a Key">
The novel deals with the murder of a former member of Boston society who has lived in Hawaii for a number of years. The main character is the victim's nephew, a straitlaced young Bostonian bond trader, who came to the islands to try to convince his aunt Minerva, whose vacation has extended many months, to return to Boston. The nephew, John Quincy Winterslip, soon falls under the spell of the islands himself, meets an attractive young woman, breaks his engagement to his straitlaced Bostonian fiancee Agatha, and decides as the murder is being solved to move to San Francisco. In the interval, he is introduced to many levels of Hawaiian society and is of some assistance to Detective Charlie Chan in solving the mystery.The novel's denouement is nearly identical to that in the final Perry Mason novel by Erle Stanley Gardner, "The Case of the Postponed Murder" (1970).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behind_That_Curtain" title="Behind That Curtain">
It is set almost exclusively in California (as opposed to Chan's native Hawaii), and tells the story of the former head of Scotland Yard, a detective who is pursuing the long-cold trail of a murderer. Fifteen years ago, a London solicitor was killed in circumstances in which the only clue was a pair of Chinese slippers, which he apparently donned just before his death. Sir Frederic Bruce has been following the trail of the killer ever since. He has also been interested in what appears to be a series of disappearing women around the world, which has some connection to the disappearance of a woman named Eve Durand in rural India also fifteen years ago. Just when it seems he might finally solve the murder case, at a dinner party to which a number of important and mysterious guests have been invited, Inspector Bruce is killed—and was last seen wearing a pair of Chinese slippers, which have vanished. It is left to Chan to solve the case and tie up all loose ends.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chan_Carries_On" title="Charlie Chan Carries On">
Inspector Duff, a Scotland Yard detective and friend of Chan's, first introduced in "Behind That Curtain", is pursuing a murderer on an around-the-world voyage; so far, there have been murders in London, France, Italy and Japan. While his ship is docked in Honolulu, the detective is shot and wounded by his quarry; though he survives, he is unable to continue with the cruise, and Chan takes his place instead. Eventually, Chan finds the killer before the next port of call.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeper_of_the_Keys" title="Keeper of the Keys">
Once again, the setting of the novel is rural California, where Chan has been invited as a houseguest. He meets a world-famous soprano, Ellen Landini, who is murdered not too long after the meeting. Chan does not have far to look for suspects—the host is her ex-husband, as are three of the other house guests. Her servants, entourage and husbands all come under suspicion. Once again, Chan is expected to solve the murder, which he does by understanding the key clues—the actions of a little dog named Trouble, two scarves, and two little boxes. When he understands how the murder is committed, he learns the role of elderly house servant Ah Sing—the keeper of the keys.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Street_Lawyer" title="The Street Lawyer">
A homeless man, identifying himself only as "Mister," enters the offices of the powerful Washington D.C. law firm Drake &amp; Sweeney and takes many of the lawyers hostage while angrily demanding information about some kind of eviction that took place. Although he is eventually shot and killed by a police sniper, one of the hostages, an antitrust lawyer named Michael Brock, is concerned by what he has learned and feels compelled to investigate further.Brock finds his way to the 14th Street Legal Clinic, where he meets Mordecai Green, an advocate for the homeless. Green, along with his abrasive but brilliant staff, work to provide legal help to the most downtrodden members of society. Brock discovers that Drake &amp; Sweeney were involved in the sudden approval of a federal building project on the site of a condemned building that had been serving as rent-payment housing for formerly homeless families. These individuals were tenants and thus entitled to a full legal eviction/contestment process, but a senior Drake &amp; Sweeney partner ignored this information because the firm had a large stake in ensuring the federal project start on time, and thus illegally evicted the tenants in the middle of winter, resulting in the death of a homeless family. Brock takes a confidential file, intending to copy it, but is quickly suspected of its theft.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Runaway_Jury" title="The Runaway Jury">
Wendall Rohr and his team of tort lawyers have filed suit on behalf of plaintiff Celeste Wood, whose husband died of lung cancer, against the tobacco company Pynex. The trial is to be held in Biloxi, Mississippi, a state thought to have favorable tort laws and sympathetic juries. Before the jury in the Pynex trial has been sworn in, a stealth juror, Nicholas Easter, has begun to quietly connive behind the scenes, in concert with a mysterious woman known only as Marlee.Rankin Fitch, a shady "consultant" who has directed eight successful trials for the tobacco industry, has placed a camera in the courtroom in order to observe the proceedings in his office nearby, plotting many schemes to reach to the jury. He plans to get to Millie Dupree through blackmailing her husband through a tape that has him trying to bribe an official. He gets to Lonnie Shaver by convincing a company to buy his employer and convince him through orientation. He also tries to reach Rikki Coleman through blackmail of revealing her abortion to her husband. As the case continues, Fitch is approached by Marlee with a proposal to "buy" the verdict.Meanwhile, Easter works from the inside to gain control of the jury – being warm-hearted, sympathetic and helpful to jurors who might be won over, and rather ruthless to those who prove impervious to his efforts. Eventually, he becomes jury foreman after the previous one falls ill (resulting from Nicholas spiking his coffee). He also manages to hoodwink and repeatedly manipulate the judge. Meanwhile, Marlee Easter's partner/lover acts as his agent on the outside, convincing Fitch that Easter controls the jury and can deliver any verdict on demand through a series of highly secretive meetings, in which Marlee repeatedly threatens to disappear if Fitch's team attempts to track her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polgara_the_Sorceress" title="Polgara the Sorceress">
"Polgara the Sorceress" begins with Ce'Nedra entreating Polgara to write a book about her life, filling in the gaps left by her father's story, "Belgarath the Sorcerer". The main part of the story then opens, revealing that Polgara and her twin sister Beldaran were raised by their adoptive uncles, the deformed Beldin and the twin sorcerers Beltira and Belkira (all disciples of Aldur, like Belgarath), after the apparent death of their mother, Poledra. Their mother was a shape-shifting wolf at birth; she was distressed that her human babies would be born deficient in lupine instinct, and therefore educated them telepathically prior to parturition. After the birth of the twins, Poledra was presumed to have died; but continued communication with Polgara.For many years, Polgara resented her father's long absence from her own upbringing; and when Belgarath resumed care of his daughters, Beldaran was quick to forgive him but Polgara often fled to the Tree at the center of the Vale of Aldur, where she learned to speak to birds and ultimately mastered the Will and the Word. Belgarath (with Beldaran's help) eventually negotiated an uneasy peace, and Polgara began her training under him. Following Beldaran's marriage, Polgara also resented the "loss" of her sister; but the shared loss eventually reconciled her to Belgarath. Over the years, she maintained a relationship with the descendants of Beldaran.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilium_(novel)" title="Ilium (novel)">
The novel centers on three character groups: that of Hockenberry (a resurrected twentieth-century Homeric scholar whose duty is to compare the events of the "Iliad" to the reenacted events of the Trojan War), Greek and Trojan warriors, and Greek gods from the "Iliad"; Daeman, Harman, Ada, and other humans of an Earth thousands of years after the twentieth century; and the "moravec" robots (named for scientist and futurist Hans Moravec) Mahnmut the Europan and Orphu of Io, also thousands of years in the future, but originating in the Jovian system. The novel is written in first-person, present-tense when centered on Hockenberry's character, but features third-person, past-tense narrative in all other instances. Much like Simmons' "Hyperion", where the actual events serve as a frame, the three groups of characters' stories are told over the course of the novel and begin to converge as the climax nears.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Council" title="Iron Council">
"Iron Council" follows three major narrative threads that join to form the novel's climax. Although Miéville weaves back and forth between narrative, time and space, this summary will follow each narrative individually, discussing their relation to each other toward the end. The novel is set in and around New Crobuzon, a sprawling London-esque city. New Crobuzon has for some unknown time been at war with Tesh, and is attempting to build a railroad across the outlying desert, partially as a new means of conducting this war. Against this backdrop, the novel follows the deeds of three main characters—Ori, Cutter and Judah Low.Judah's story begins some 20 years before the novel's opening. Judah was hired as a railroad scout for New Crobuzon, charged with mapping terrain and informing the land's inhabitants of the railroad's coming. While doing so, he spends time with the Stiltspear, a race of indescribable creatures who can conjure golems, living creatures made from unliving matter. Judah attempts to warn the Stiltspear away, but they will not listen and he must settle for making a few recordings and beginning to learn their golemetric arts. Eventually, he returns to the railroad, which does indeed wipe out the Stiltspear. Shortly afterward, Judah, a prostitute named Ann-Hari, and a Remade named Uzman lead a revolution in which the rail workers drive the overseers away, free the Remade, and hijack the train, transforming it into a moving socialist dwelling.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Lonelyhearts" title="Miss Lonelyhearts">
In the story, Miss Lonelyhearts is the pseudonym for an unnamed male newspaper columnist writing an advice column for the lovelorn and lonesome, a duty that the other newspaper staff consider to be a joke. As Miss Lonelyhearts reads letters from desperate New Yorkers, he feels terribly burdened and falls into a cycle of deep depression, accompanied by heavy drinking and occasional bar fights. He is also the victim of the pranks and cynical advice of Shrike, his feature editor at the newspaper.Miss Lonelyhearts tries several approaches to escape the terribly painful letters he has to read: religion, trips to the countryside with his fiancée Betty, and sexual affairs with Shrike's wife and Mrs. Doyle, a reader of his column. However, Miss Lonelyhearts's efforts do not seem to ameliorate his situation. After his sexual encounter with Mrs. Doyle, he meets her husband, a poor crippled man. The Doyles invite Miss Lonelyhearts to have dinner with them. When he arrives, Mrs. Doyle tries to seduce him again, but he responds by beating her. Mrs. Doyle tells her husband that Miss Lonelyhearts tried to rape her.In the last scene, Mr. Doyle hides a gun inside a rolled newspaper and decides to take revenge on Miss Lonelyhearts. Lonelyhearts, who has just experienced a religious enlightenment after three days of sickness, runs toward Mr. Doyle to embrace him. The gun "explodes", and the two men roll down a flight of stairs together.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Ass" title="The Golden Ass">
## Book One.The prologue establishes an audience and a speaker, who defines himself by location, education, occupation, and his kinship with the philosophers Plutarch and Sextus of Chaeronea. The narrator journeys to Thessaly on business. On the way, he runs into Aristomenes and an unnamed traveler. The unnamed traveler refuses to believe Aristomenes' story. The narrator insults the unnamed traveler and tells a short story about a sword swallower. He promises Aristomenes a free lunch if he will retell his tale. The narrator believes Aristomenes' tale and becomes more eager to learn about magic. The narrator arrives at Hypata, where he stays with Milo, a friend and miser, and his wife Pamphile. Photis, a serving girl in Milo's household, takes the narrator to the baths, after which the narrator goes to the marketplace. There, he buys some fish and runs into his old friend Pytheas, who is now a market official. Pytheas reveals the narrator's name as Lucius. Pytheas says that Lucius overpaid for the fish and humiliates the fish-monger by trampling on the fish. Lucius returns to Milo's house, hungry and empty-handed. Milo asks Lucius about his life, his friends, and his wanderings, which Lucius grows bored with. Lucius goes to sleep hungry.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Were_Warriors" title="Once Were Warriors">
Beth Heke left her small town and, despite her parents' disapproval, married Jake "the Muss" Heke. After eighteen years, they live in a slum and have six children. Their interpretations of life and being Māori are tested. Beth is from a more traditional background and in saying so, relates to the old ways; Jake is an interpretation of what some Māori have become. Beth sometimes tries to reform herself and her family—for example, by giving up drinking and saving the money that she would have spent on alcohol. However, she finds it easy to lapse back into a pattern of drinking and irresponsibility. The family is also shown to be disconnected from Western culture and ways of learning. Beth reflects that neither she nor anyone else she knows has any books at home, and her daughter, Grace, is the only character with a real interest in school and learning. (This disconnection from books and education is a major concern of Duff's, for which reason he founded the charity Duffy Books in Homes, which gives free books to children from poor backgrounds and generally encourages reading.)Jake is unemployed and spends most of the day getting drunk at the local pub with his friends. There he is in his element, buying drinks, singing songs and savagely beating any other patron whom he considers to have stepped out of line (hence his nickname 'The Muss'). He often invites huge crowds of friends back to his home for wild parties. While Jake portrays himself as an easygoing man out for a good time, he has a vicious temper when drinking. This is highlighted when his wife dares to 'get lippy' at one of his parties and he savagely attacks her in front of their friends.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_the_Needle_(novel)" title="Eye of the Needle (novel)">
In 1940, Henry Faber, a German spy nicknamed 'die Nadel' ('The Needle') due to his trademark weapon being a stiletto, is working at a London railway depot, collecting information on troop movements. Faber is halfway through radioing this information to Berlin when his widowed landlady stumbles into his room hoping for intimacy. Faber fears that Mrs. Garden will eventually realise that he was using a transmitter and that he is a spy, so he kills her with his stiletto, then resumes his transmission.David, a trainee RAF pilot, and his bride Lucy are on their honeymoon when they're involved in a car crash. David loses the use of both his legs. Unable to fly during the Battle of Britain, David grows embittered and he and Lucy retire to the isolated Storm Island (fictitious) off the east coast of Scotland. Meanwhile, British Intelligence has executed or recruited all German spies except Faber. A widowed history professor, Godliman, and an ex-policeman, Bloggs, are employed by MI5 to catch him. They start with the interrupted broadcast and his codename "Die Nadel". They connect the landlady's murder to Faber by him having used his 'needle' during the transmission. They then interview Faber's fellow tenants from 1940. One identifies Faber from a photo of him as a young army officer.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_Red" title="Raptor Red">
## Setting and characters."Raptor Red" takes place approximately 120 million years ago, in the Early Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic. At the time, a land bridge had formed between Asia and the Americas, this allowed groups of foreign dinosaurs to invade present-day Utah; one of these foreign species is "Utahraptor". Raptor Red's name comes from the symbols the dinosaur learns as a hatchling to self-identify with. Bakker gives an individual view of each species of dinosaur or ancient creature in the same style as Red's experiences; these include a baby "Gastonia" who instinctively attacks what it does not understand with its clubbed tail, and a whip-tailed diplodocid who enjoys beating up predators. Bakker prominently features the adventures of a "fur-ball" (mammal), "Aegialodon"; according to the author, the emphasis was added because the "Aegialodon" is on the direct ancestral line to humans. "Aegialodon", however, did not live in the same time and place as "Utahraptor", hailing from England about 136 million years ago. Some of the other animals featured in the novel were closer in time and place to "Utahraptor" but not strictly contemporary. For example, fossils attributable to "Acrocanthosaurus" and "Deinonychus" are known from the same rock formation as "Utahraptor" (the Cedar Mountain Formation), but from sediments about five million years younger.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Chuzzlewit" title="Martin Chuzzlewit">
Martin Chuzzlewit has been raised by his grandfather and namesake. Years before Martin senior took the precaution of raising an orphaned girl, Mary Graham, to be his companion and nursemaid, with the understanding that she will receive income from him only as long as Martin senior lives. Old Martin considers that this gives her a motive to keep him alive, in contrast to his relatives, who want to inherit his money. His grandson Martin falls in love with Mary and wishes to marry her, conflicting with Old Martin's plans. Martin and his grandfather argue, each too proud to yield to a resolution. Martin leaves home to live on his own and old Martin disinherits him.Martin becomes an apprentice, at the late age of 21, to Seth Pecksniff, a relative and greedy architect. Instead of teaching his students he lives off their tuition fees and has them do draughting work that he passes off as his own. He has two spoiled daughters, Charity and Mercy, nicknamed Cherry and Merry. Pecksniff takes Martin on to establish closer ties with his wealthy grandfather.Young Martin befriends Tom Pinch, a kind-hearted soul whose late grandmother gave Pecksniff all she had in the belief that Pecksniff would make an architect and a gentleman of him. Pinch is incapable of believing any of the bad things others tell him of Pecksniff, and always defends him vociferously. Pinch works for exploitatively low wages while believing that he is the unworthy recipient of Pecksniff's charity, rather than a man of many talents.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flying_Saucers_Are_Real" title="The Flying Saucers Are Real">
It was printed in paperback by Gold Medal Books, in 1950, and sold for 25 cents. In December, 1949, prior to the publishing of the book, Keyhoe published an article by the same name in True magazine, with similar material. The book was a huge success and popularized many ideas in ufology that are still widely believed today."The Flying Saucers Are Real" is short — only 175 pages.Keyhoe contended that the Air Force was investigating these cases, with a policy of concealing their existence from the public until 1949. He stated that this policy was then replaced by one of cautious, progressive revelation.Keyhoe further stated that Earth had been visited by extraterrestrials for two centuries, with the frequency of these visits increasing sharply after the first atomic weapon test in 1945. Citing anecdotal evidence, he intimated the Air Force may have attained and adapted some aspect of the alien technology, its method of propulsion and perhaps its source of power. He believed the Air Force or the United States federal government would eventually reveal these technologies to the public when the Soviet Union was no longer a threat.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perdido_Street_Station" title="Perdido Street Station">
Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin is a scientist living in the city of New Crobuzon. He is approached by Yagharek, a member of a birdlike species known as garuda, who has had his wings removed as a punishment for an undisclosed crime in his native land. He asks Isaac to help him to fly again. Isaac agrees and starts collecting flying creatures for research purposes with the aid of Lemuel Pigeon, a fence with links to the criminal underworld. One creature is a large and unusual caterpillar, stolen from a government research lab. The caterpillar sickens until Isaac accidentally discovers it feeds on a popular hallucinogenic drug. It grows and starts to pupate. After reaching maturity, it emerges as a monstrous flying beast known as a slakemoth, able to paralyse its victims using hypnotic patterns on its wings. It escapes after eating the mind of one of Isaac's colleagues, leaving him catatonic. Isaac, Yagharek and Lemuel resolve to re-capture or destroy it.Isaac's girlfriend Lin is a khepri, an insect-like humanoid and an artist. She is commissioned by Mr Motley, a mob boss, to make a sculpture of him. Mr. Motley has four more of the slakemoths in captivity and harvests their milk to sell as drugs. After Isaac's slakemoth frees its siblings, Mr Motley discovers Isaac's connection to the slakemoths. Assuming Isaac to be a potential rival in the drug trade, he imprisons Lin, demanding that Isaac return his creatures. The slakemoths start to terrorise New Crobuzon, feeding on its inhabitants.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melmoth_the_Wanderer" title="Melmoth the Wanderer">
John Melmoth, a student in Dublin, visits his dying uncle. He finds a portrait of a mysterious ancestor called "Melmoth"; the portrait is dated 1646. At his uncle's funeral, John is told an old family story about a stranger called Stanton, who arrived looking for "Melmoth the Traveller" decades earlier.A manuscript left by Stanton describes his first finding Melmoth laughing at the sight of two lovers who have been struck by lightning, and hearing of a wedding at which Melmoth was an uninvited guest: the bride died and the bridegroom went mad. Stanton's search for Melmoth is deemed to be madness and he is sent to a madhouse. Melmoth visits him there, and offers to free him, but Stanton refuses and escapes.Following his uncle's wish, John burns the Melmoth portrait. He is visited by Melmoth in a dream, and later sees Melmoth laughing at a shipwreck. John tries to approach him, but slips and falls into the sea. He is saved from drowning by the sole survivor of the wreck, a Spaniard, Alonzo Monçada.Alonzo Monçada tells his story (The Tale of the Spaniard), in which his family confines him to a monastery. He is mistreated by the monks, and his brother Juan arranges for him to escape with the help of a fellow monk, a parricide. The escape plan is a trap and Juan is killed. Monçada is taken to the prison of the Inquisition. There he is visited in his cell by Melmoth, who says he will help him escape. A fire breaks out, and in the confusion Monçada escapes. He meets a venerable Jewish scholar, Adonijah, who lives in a secret chamber decorated with the skeletons of his own family. In exchange for food and shelter, Adonijah compels Monçada to transcribe a manuscript for him: "the Tale of the Indian".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronoliths" title="The Chronoliths">
Software designer Scott Warden is living with his family in early twenty-first century Thailand after his latest contract has ended. He and his friend Hitch Paley are among the first to find an enormous monolith which appears out of nowhere in the jungle. On closer examination, it is found to be a monument made of a mysterious, indestructible substance. It bears an inscription commemorating a military victory by someone named "Kuin", presumably an Asian warlord—twenty years in the future.Over the next twenty years, increasingly grand monuments to Kuin continue to appear—first in Asia, then in much of the rest of the world. Pro-Kuin and anti-Kuin political movements spring up, leading to the rise of economic problems, fatalistic cults, and open war.Scott has become entangled with his former teacher and mentor Sue Chopra, a scientist who has assembled a team of fellow researchers to investigate the chronoliths and learn to predict their appearances. With Sue's team, Scott witnesses a new chronolith that appears in Jerusalem.Kaitlin, his daughter, becomes caught up in the hysteria and joins a pro-Kuin youth cult; while trying to find her, Scott meets Ashlee, a single mother whose son Adam Mills joined the same cult. This leads to Scott and his companions being on hand to witness yet another chronolith appearance in Mexico in which Adam apparently dies. Scott quits his work with Sue and marries Ashlee, trying to live a normal life. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scream_of_the_Shalka" title="Scream of the Shalka">
The TARDIS materialises in the village of Lannet in Lancashire. An annoyed Doctor, who has apparently been transported here against his will, is locked out of the TARDIS and forced to examine his surroundings. After determining he is in England in 2003, he is surprised to discover the village is silent and the inhabitants all living in fear except for a barmaid named Alison Cheney. After the patrons and bar owner refuse to tell the Doctor what's going on, he leaves the bar and stumbles upon a lava statue and a homeless woman who is frightened. As the woman is beginning to fill in the Doctor on what's been happening, a tremor strikes the area and the woman is killed by a mysterious force. Back at the TARDIS, the ground opens up and the Doctor's police box is swallowed up into the lava below. Angered at the homeless woman's death, the Doctor tracks down Alison and her boyfriend Joe at their home and breaks in demanding that someone tell him what has been going on. Alison tells the Doctor that three weeks ago, strange noises began coming from underground. She has seen mysterious aliens around town watching her. The townspeople have convinced themselves that they need to stay indoors and make as little noise as possible. The Doctor begins making noise to attract the aliens, who burst up through the floor in a pool of lava. Immune to their shrieking cries, he deflects their noises back at them causing them to explode. The Doctor, Alison, and Joe flee next door where the Doctor explains that the aliens have bodies that can remake themselves. He improvises a large explosion which he believes will disable them and buy time. The explosion destroys the two alien worms and causes the noises from the ground to stop.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Rise_(novel)" title="High-Rise (novel)">
Following his divorce, doctor and medical-school lecturer Robert Laing moves into his new apartment on the 25th floor of a recently completed high-rise building on the outskirts of London. This tower block provides its affluent tenants all the conveniences and commodities that modern life has to offer: a supermarket, bank, restaurant, hair salon, swimming pools, a gymnasium, its own school, and high-speed lifts. Its cutting-edge amenities allow the occupants to gradually become uninterested in the outside world, providing them with accommodation and a secure environment.Laing meets fellow tenants Charlotte Melville, a secretary who lives one floor above him, and Richard Wilder, a documentary film-maker who lives with his family on the building's lower floors. Life in the high-rise begins to degenerate quickly, as minor power failures and petty grievances among neighbours and between rival floors escalate into an orgy of violence. Skirmishes become frequent throughout the building as whole floors of tenants try to claim lifts and hold them for their own. Groups gather to defend their rights to the swimming pools, and party-goers attack "enemy floors" to raid and vandalise them. The lower, middle, and upper floors of the building gradually stratify into distinct groups.It does not take long for the occupants to ignore social restraints, abandoning life outside the building and devoting their time to the escalation of violence inside; people quit their jobs, and families stay indoors permanently, losing all sense of time. As the amenities of the high-rise break down and bodies begin to pile up, no one considers leaving or alerting the authorities, instead exploring the newly-found urges and desires engendered by the building's disintegration. As Laing navigates the new environment, Wilder sets out to reach floor 40—the top of the building—and finally confront the building's architect, Anthony Royal.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaunt's_Ghosts" title="Gaunt's Ghosts">
The series follows the exploits of Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt and his regiment of scouts and recon specialists, the Tanith First-and-Only (nicknamed "Gaunt's Ghosts"), as they serve in the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. Their battles are normally against the forces of Chaos, although they briefly face orks on Typhon Eight. Up until "Guns of Tanith" the Ghosts are mainly pitted against heretical rebels armies, but on Phantine and in most of the campaigns following it they face the well-trained and elite Blood Pact. By the end of "Only in Death", the Ghosts have been serving in the Crusade for roughly twelve years.Each novel begins with an extract from a fictional book called "A History of the Later Imperial Crusades", which briefly explains the situation in which the Ghosts have been deployed. These extracts are written in a past tense, implying that they were written after the Sabbat Worlds Crusade ends, and do not normally refer specifically to the Tanith First.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Deathly_Hallows" title="Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows">
## Background.Throughout the six previous novels in the series, the main character Harry Potter has struggled with the difficulties of adolescence along with being famous as the only person ever to survive the Killing Curse. The curse was cast by Tom Riddle, better known as Lord Voldemort, a powerful evil wizard who murdered Harry's parents and attempted to kill Harry as a baby, due to a prophecy which claimed Harry would be able to stop him. As an orphan, Harry was placed in the care of his Muggle (non-magical) relatives Petunia Dursley and Vernon Dursley, with their son Dudley Dursley.In "The Philosopher's Stone", Harry re-enters the wizarding world at age 11 and enrols in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He befriends fellow students Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger and is mentored by the school's headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. He also meets Professor Severus Snape, who dislikes and bullies him. Harry fights Voldemort several times while at school as the wizard tries to regain a physical form. In "Goblet of Fire", Harry is mysteriously entered in the Triwizard Tournament, which he discovers is a trap designed to allow the return of Lord Voldemort to full strength. In "Order of the Phoenix", Harry and several of his friends face off against Voldemort's followers, the Death Eaters. In "Half-Blood Prince", Harry learns that Voldemort has divided his soul into several parts, creating "Horcruxes" from various unknown objects to contain them. In this way, he has ensured his immortality as long as at least one of the Horcruxes still exists. Two of these had already been destroyed: a diary destroyed by Harry in "Chamber of Secrets" and a ring destroyed by Dumbledore shortly before the events of "Half-Blood Prince". Dumbledore takes Harry along in an attempt to destroy a third Horcrux, Slytherin's locket. However, the Horcrux had been taken by an unknown wizard, and upon their return, Dumbledore is ambushed and disarmed by Draco Malfoy. Draco cannot bring himself to kill Dumbledore, so Snape kills him instead.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet_of_Thorn" title="Alphabet of Thorn">
Nepenthe is a sixteen-year-old orphan who was found and raised by the Royal Librarians of Raine. During the new queen's coronation, visitors and ambassadors from the Twelve Crowns (domains) that comprise Raine gauge Queen Tessera's strength. Bourne of Seale, a junior mage from the Floating School, meets Nepenthe in the library with a book inscribed with an unknown language, which seems to be written in configurations of plant thorns. Instead of delivering it to the Master Librarians, Nepenthe decides to transcribe it herself; she soon becomes obsessed with learning the book's outcome. On the surface, it appears to be an epic poem documenting the conquests of Axis and Kane, an emperor and "the Hooded One", three thousand years earlier.As Nepenthe continues reading, the ruler of Seale prepares to usurp the throne from Tessera, whom he views as weak. (She is only fourteen years old.) Reading further as Seale's army marches (and Bourne is imprisoned for treason), Nepenthe learns that Axis and Kane traveled through time to expand the reach and strength of Axis' empire. Popular histories in Raine list the man Kane as Axis' court mage; Kane was, but the "woman" Kane was also his lover who opened the Gates of Time for him. Kane became pregnant with his child, and she traveled with the infant through time to a cliff side near Raine. She wrote a book about her life in the language of thorns and because of her enchantments, no one but her daughter could read it—by the book's climax, she has. The final words of the book open the Gates of Time that admit Axis and Kane, Nepenthe's parents, and their uncountable legions of followers near Raine, three thousand years in their future.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sheltering_Sky" title="The Sheltering Sky">
The story centers on Port Moresby and his wife Kit, a married couple originally from New York who travel to the North African desert accompanied by their friend Tunner. The journey, initially an attempt by Port and Kit to resolve their marital difficulties, is quickly fraught by the travelers' ignorance of the dangers that surround them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_One_(novel)" title="The Power of One (novel)">
"The Power of One" follows an English-speaking South African boy named Peekay from 1939 to 1951. The story begins when Peekay's mother has a nervous breakdown, and Peekay ends up being raised by a Zulu wet nurse, Mary Mandoma, who eventually becomes his nanny. At a young age, Peekay is sent to a boarding school. As the youngest student attending the school, he is frequently harassed. The students call him "Piskop" (meaning "piss-head") and "rooinek" ("redneck"—a name given to the British soldiers during the Second Boer War) as a result of the helmets and short hair cuts leaving their necks exposed, resulting in severe sunburn, among other names. This continues with an older boy, the Judge, and his partners who further punish him for his frequent bedwetting with verbal and physical abuse. The Judge is a Nazi sympathizer, and he has a hatred for the English, proclaiming that Hitler will march the English out to sea. The Afrikaans woman who runs the boarding school does not console him and walks around threateningly with a whip.When Peekay returns home after his first year at the boarding school, his nanny calls a medicine man called Inkosi-Inkosikazi to cure his bedwetting. Inkosi-Inkosikazi not only succeeds, but also leads Peekay's mind to a place where there are three waterfalls and ten stepping stones, where Peekay can always "find" him. The next school year, Peekay returns with a magic chicken of Inkosi-Inkosikazi's and a different paradigm, called "the power of one". Peekay is excellent in his studies, but maintains a camouflage to hide it from his fellow students and teachers. He finds that this is a good way to beat the system and avoid unnecessary abuse. As the punishments from the Judge continue to get worse, Peekay ends up doing the Judge's math homework. At the end of the year, the Judge forces Peekay to eat feces, and kills his beloved chicken. He looks forward to arriving home to his nanny, but has been informed there has been a change in plans. He will be travelling to a town called Barberton, where he will meet his grandfather.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Tower_(series)" title="The Dark Tower (series)">
In the story, Roland Deschain is a member of a knightly order known as "gunslingers" and the last of the line of "Arthur Eld", his world's analogue of King Arthur. Politically organized along the lines of a feudal society, it shares technological and social characteristics with the American Old West but is also magical. Many of the magical aspects have vanished from Mid-World, but traces remain as do relics from a technologically advanced society. Roland's quest is to find the Dark Tower, a fabled building said to be the nexus of all universes. Roland's world is said to have "moved on", and it appears to be coming apart at the seams. Mighty nations have been torn apart by war, entire cities and regions vanish without a trace and time does not flow in an orderly fashion. Sometimes, even the sun rises in the north and sets in the east. As the series opens, Roland's motives, goals, and age are unclear, although later installments shed light on these mysteries.For a detailed synopsis of the novels, see the relevant article for each book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuleika_Dobson" title="Zuleika Dobson">
Zuleika Dobson—"though not strictly beautiful"—is a devastatingly attractive young woman of the Edwardian era, a true femme fatale, who is a prestidigitator by profession, formerly a governess. Zuleika's current occupation (though, more importantly, perhaps, her enrapturing beauty) has made her something of a small-time celebrity and she manages to gain entrance to the privileged, all-male domain of Oxford University because her grandfather is the Warden of Judas College (based on Merton College, Beerbohm's "alma mater"). There, she falls in love for the first time in her life with the Duke of Dorset, a snobbish, emotionally detached student who—frustrated with the lack of control over his feelings when he sees her—is forced to admit that she too is his first love, impulsively proposing to her. As she feels that she cannot love anyone unless he is impervious to her charms, however, she rejects all her suitors, doing the same with the astonished Duke. The Duke quickly discovers that Noaks, another Oxford student, also claims to have fallen in love with her, without ever having even interacted with her. Apparently, men immediately fall in love with her upon seeing her. As the first to have his love reciprocated by her (for however brief a time) the Duke decides that he will commit suicide to symbolise his passion for Zuleika and in hopes that he will raise awareness in her of the terrible power of her bewitching allure, as she innocently goes on crushing men's affections.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatterland" title="Flatterland">
Almost 100 years after A. (which we find out stands for Albert) Square's adventures that were related in "Flatland", his great-great-granddaughter, Victoria Line (Vikki), finds a copy of his book in her basement. This prompts her to invite a sphere from Spaceland to visit her, but instead she is visited by the "Space Hopper" (a character looking somewhat like the "Space Hopper" children's toy with a gigantic grin, horns and a spherical body). The Space Hopper, more than being able to move between Flatland and Spaceland, can travel to any space in the "Mathiverse", a set of all imaginable worlds. After showing Vikki higher dimensions, he begins showing her more modern theories, such as fractional dimensions and dimensions with isolated points. Topology and hyperbolic geometry are also discussed, as well as the Projective "Plain" (complete with intersecting "lions") and the quantum level. Hopper and Victoria also visit the Domain of the Hawk King to discuss time travel and the theory of relativity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Lighthouse" title="To the Lighthouse">
## Part I: The Window.The novel is set in the Ramsays' summer home in the Hebrides, on the Isle of Skye. The section begins with Mrs Ramsay assuring her son James that they should be able to visit the lighthouse on the next day. This prediction is denied by Mr Ramsay, who voices his certainty that the weather will not be clear. This opinion forces a certain tension between Mr and Mrs Ramsay, and also between Mr Ramsay and James. This particular incident is referred to on various occasions throughout the section, especially in the context of Mr and Mrs Ramsay's relationship.The Ramsays and their eight children are joined at the house by a number of friends and colleagues. One of these friends, Lily Briscoe, begins the novel as a young, uncertain painter attempting a portrait of Mrs. Ramsay and James. Briscoe finds herself plagued by doubts throughout the novel, doubts largely fed by the claims of Charles Tansley, another guest, who asserts that women can neither paint nor write. Tansley himself is an admirer of Mr Ramsay, a philosophy professor, and Ramsay's academic treatises.The section closes with a large dinner party. When Augustus Carmichael, a visiting poet, asks for a second serving of soup, Mr Ramsay nearly snaps at him. Mrs Ramsay is herself out of sorts when Paul Rayley and Minta Doyle, two acquaintances whom she has brought together in engagement, arrive late to dinner, as Minta has lost her grandmother's brooch on the beach.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henderson_the_Rain_King" title="Henderson the Rain King">
Eugene Henderson is a troubled middle-aged man. Despite his riches, high social status, and physical prowess, he feels restless and unfulfilled, and harbors a spiritual void that manifests itself as an inner voice crying out "I want, I want, I want." Hoping to discover what the voice wants, Henderson goes to Africa.Upon reaching Africa, Henderson splits with his original group and hires a native guide, Romilayu. Romilayu leads Henderson to the village of the Arnewi, where Henderson befriends the leaders of the village. He learns that the cistern from which the Arnewi get their drinking water is plagued by frogs, thus rendering the water "unclean" according to local taboos. Henderson attempts to save the Arnewi by ridding them of the frogs, but his enthusiastic scheme ends in disaster, destroying the frogs and the village's cistern.Henderson and Romilayu travel to the village of the Wariri. Here, Henderson impulsively performs a feat of strength by moving the giant wooden statue of the goddess Mummah and unwittingly becomes the Wariri Rain King, Sungo. He quickly develops a friendship with the native-born but western-educated King Dahfu, with whom he engages in a series of far-reaching philosophical discussions.The elders send Dahfu to find a lion, which is supposedly the reincarnation of the late king, Dahfu's father. The lion hunt fails, and the lion mortally wounds the king. Henderson learns shortly before Dahfu's death that the Rain King is the next person in the line of succession for the throne. Having no interest in being king and desiring only to return home, Henderson flees the Wariri village.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appointment_in_Samarra" title="Appointment in Samarra">
The novel describes how, over the course of three days, Julian English destroys himself with a series of impulsive acts, culminating in suicide. O'Hara never gives any obvious cause or explanation for his behavior, which is apparently predestined by his character. Facts about Julian gradually emerge throughout the novel. He is about thirty years old. He is college-educated, owns a well-established Cadillac dealership, and within the Gibbsville community belongs to the prestigious "Lantenengo Street crowd".English is introduced seven pages into the novel, in the thoughts of the wife of one of his employees: "She wouldn't trade her life for Caroline English's, not if you paid her. She wondered if Julian and Caroline were having another one of their battle royales". Within the three days of the novel, Julian gets drunk several times. One long lyrical paragraph describes one of his hangovers. During the first of two suicidal reveries, we learn that his greatest fear is that he will eventually lose his wife to another man. Yet within three days, he sexually propositions two women, succeeding once, with an ease and confidence that suggest that this is well-practiced behavior.On successive days, he commits three impulsive acts, which are serious enough to damage his reputation, his business, and his relationship with his wife. First, he throws a drink in the face of Harry Reilly, a man who, we learn later, is an important investor in his business. The man is a sufficiently well-known Catholic that Julian knows word will spread among the Gibbsville Catholic community, many of whom are his customers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_the_Rabbi_Slept_Late" title="Friday the Rabbi Slept Late">
The fictional hero of the book, David Small, is the unconventional leader of the Conservative Jewish congregation in the fictional suburban Massachusetts town of Barnard's Crossing. As the protagonist of a series of novels, Rabbi Small has wisdom, an unerring sense of Jewish tradition (which can at times put him at odds with the Jewish community when he believes that they are seriously deviating from Judaism) and all the good qualities of a detective sharpened by his Talmudic training, which enables him to see the "third" side of a problem. He is a devoted husband to his wife and (later in the series) father to his two children Jonathan and Hepsibah. Small's logic, learned from the Talmud, plays an important part in the plots. Usually Small is drawn into the events when they involve a member of his congregation or Barnard's Crossing's Jewish community in general. Small has many troubles with his congregation and he is constantly at odds with at least one of its powerful members, usually the Temple President at the time.Hugh Lanigan is the local police chief. Lanigan (a Catholic) and Small become friendly, and they often discuss religion over a cup of tea.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demons_(Dostoevsky_novel)" title="Demons (Dostoevsky novel)">
The novel is in three parts. There are two epigraphs, the first from Pushkin's poem "Demons" and the second from Luke 8:32–36.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timescape" title="Timescape">
The story is written from two viewpoints, equidistant from the novel's publication in 1980. The first thread is set in a 1998 ravaged by ecological disasters such as algal blooms and diebacks on the brink of large scale extinctions. Various other events are mentioned in passing, such as student riots and an event of nuclear terrorism against New York City which took place before the events of the novel. This thread follows a group of scientists in the United Kingdom connected with the University of Cambridge and their attempts to warn the past of the impending disaster by sending tachyon-induced messages to the astronomical position the Earth occupied in 1962–1963. Given the faster-than-light nature of the tachyon, these messages will effectively reach the past. These efforts are led by John Renfrew, an Englishman, and Gregory Markham, an American most likely modeled on Benford himself.The second thread is set in the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), in La Jolla, California, in 1962 where a young scientist, Gordon Bernstein, discovers anomalous noise in a physics experiment relating to spontaneous resonance and indium antimonide. He and his student assistant, Albert Cooper (also likely based on the author and his experiences at UCSD), discover that the noise is coming in bursts timed to form Morse code.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasing_Vermeer" title="Chasing Vermeer">
The story begins with three residents of Hyde Park receiving anonymous letters. The letters ask for the recipients’ help in solving a centuries-old art mystery. In the days that follow, Petra and Calder’s teacher, Ms. Isabel Hussey, gives several assignments related to unique letters and letters found in works of art.One day after school, Calder follows Petra to Powell’s Bookstore, and the pair run into each other, beginning their unusual friendship. Calder is obsessed with pentominoes that he keeps in his pocket and uses to send and receive coded messages, while Petra is an adventurer.Ms. Hussey’s next assignment requires the children to present their interpretation of art. Calder chooses a Geographer’s box with a painting on it. Petra chooses Lo! by Charles Fort, a strange book in which Fort posits that life is not a series of coincidences but is an interconnecting web of patterns.Calder and Petra learn that Lo! used to belong to Mrs. Louise Coffin Sharpe. Calder visits Mrs. Sharpe and notices she has a copy of the picture from his Geography box, The Geographer by Johannes Vermeer. Meanwhile, Petra has a vision of a lady in an antiquated dress with pearl earrings. For Halloween, she dresses as the lady, and Calder recognizes her as the woman in Vermeer’s painting, A Lady Writing.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Feast_for_Crows" title="A Feast for Crows">
The War of the Five Kings is slowly coming to its end. The secessionist kings Robb Stark and Balon Greyjoy have been killed. One claimant to the throne, Stannis Baratheon, has gone to fight off invading wildling tribes at the northern Wall, where Robb's half-brother Jon Snow has become the 998th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, the order responsible for guarding the Wall. The eight-year-old King Tommen Baratheon now rules in King's Landing under the regency of his mother, Cersei Lannister. The warrior woman Brienne of Tarth has been sent by Cersei's brother (and lover) Jaime Lannister on a mission to find Robb's sister Sansa Stark. Sansa is hiding in the Vale, protected by her mother's childhood friend Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish, who has murdered his wife (and her aunt) Lysa Arryn, and named himself Protector of the Vale and guardian of Lysa's son, the eight-year-old Lord Robert Arryn. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abarat" title="Abarat">
"Abarat" focuses on Candy Quackenbush, a teenage girl frustrated with her life in Chickentown, Minnesota. After an argument with her teacher over a school project and the doodling Candy has done in her school workbook, Candy leaves the school and goes to the edge of town, where she sees the remains of a lighthouse. She finds this incredibly strange because Chickentown is thousands of miles from the ocean.She then encounters a master thief named John Mischief who looks human except for the antlers on his head. Mischief's seven brothers live on these horns, appearing only as heads. Because he is pursued by a sinister humanoid being named Mendelson Shape, Mischief sends Candy to light the lamp in the lighthouse, which summons an ocean known as the Sea of Izabella from a parallel world. Candy climbs the rotting lighthouse stairs while the brothers distract Shape. When she reaches the top, she finds an inverted pyramid with a cup on top. As Shape gets away from Mischief and his brothers and begins to climb the stairs, Candy searches for the ball that goes in the cup and will light the lamp. She finds it and is surprised to see it is covered in swirling lines exactly like the ones she doodled in her school book. After giving her a key to protect and extinguishing the light, Mischief and Candy ride the seas to Abarat. A group of creatures carry them to a nearby island where Candy is separated from him. On the island, Candy learns that the Abarat consists of twenty-five islands, each occupying a different hour of the day, and was formerly connected to Candy's world before the harbour's destruction by Abaratian authorities. Thereafter the story follows her adventures as she discovers the crises affecting the Abarat, and gains intimations that she may be destined to conclude these. The story also introduces her chief antagonists: the sorcerer known as Christopher Carrion, his grandmother Mater Motley, and the industrialist Rojo Pixler, all of whom seek to dominate the Abarat.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie's_World" title="Sophie's World">
Sophie Amundsen is a 14-year-old girl who lives in Lillesand, Norway.The book begins with Sophie receiving two messages in her mailbox and a postcard addressed to Hilde Møller Knag. Afterwards, she receives a packet of papers, part of a course in philosophy.Sophie, without the knowledge of her mother, becomes the student of an old philosopher, Alberto Knox. Alberto teaches her about the history of philosophy. She gets a substantive and understandable review from the Pre-Socratics to Jean-Paul Sartre. In addition to this, Sophie and Alberto receive postcards addressed to a girl named Hilde from a man named Albert Knag. As time passes, Knag begins to hide birthday messages to Hilde in ever more impossible ways, including hiding one inside an unpeeled banana and making Alberto's dog, Hermes, speak.Eventually, through the philosophy of George Berkeley, Sophie and Alberto figure out that their entire world is a literary construction by Albert Knag as a present for Hilde, his daughter, on her 15th birthday. Hilde begins to read the manuscript but begins to turn against her father after he continues to meddle with Sophie's life by sending fictional characters like Little Red Riding Hood and Ebenezer Scrooge to talk to her.Alberto helps Sophie fight back against Knag's control by teaching her everything he knows about philosophy, through the Renaissance, Romanticism, and Existentialism, as well as Darwinism and the ideas of Karl Marx. These take the form of long pages of text, and, later, monologues from Alberto. Alberto manages to concoct a plan so that he and Sophie can finally escape Albert's imagination. The trick is performed on Midsummer's Eve, during a "philosophical garden party" that Sophie and her mother arranged to celebrate Sophie's fifteenth birthday. The party soon descends into chaos as Albert Knag lost his control over the world, causing the guests to react with indifference to extraordinary occurrences. Alberto informs everyone that their world is fictional but the guests react with rage, believing him to be instilling dangerous values in the children. When a Mercedes smashes into the garden, Alberto and Sophie use it as an opportunity to escape. Knag is so focused on writing about the car that he doesn't notice them escaping into the real world.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Commitments_(novel)" title="The Commitments (novel)">
Two friends — Derek Scully and "Outspan" Foster — get together to form a band, but soon realise that they don't know enough about the music business to get much further than their small neighbourhood in the Northside of Dublin. To solve this problem, they recruit a friend they'd had from school, Jimmy Rabbitte, to be their manager. He accepts graciously, but only if he can make fundamental changes to the group, the first being the sacking of the third, and mutually disliked, member — their synth player. After this, Rabbitte gets rid of their name, making them "The Commitments" (stating "All the good 60s bands started with a 'the'") and, most importantly, forming them from another synthpop group into the face of what he thinks will be the Dublin-Soul revolution. ("Yes, Lads. You'll be playing Dublin Soul!")He witnesses a young man singing drunkenly into a microphone at a friend's wedding and is struck by the fact he is singing "something approximating music". Jimmy places an ad in the local paper reading "Have you got soul? Then Dublin's hardest working band is looking for you". Eventually, he gets together a mismatched group with seemingly no musical talent, led by mysterious stranger Joey "The Lips" Fagan, who claims to have played trumpet with Joe Tex and the Four Tops. They quickly start learning how to play their instruments and perform a number of local gigs.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddy_Clarke_Ha_Ha_Ha" title="Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha">
"Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha" recounts (approximately) one year in the life of a Dublin ten-year-old, Patrick "Paddy" Clarke, especially his relationships with Sinbad (Francis), his younger brother, his parents and his schoolmates and teachers. It begins with him being a mischievous boy roaming around local Barrytown and ends with his father departing from the family, forcing the boy to take up adult responsibilities in his now single-parent home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deadly_Assassin" title="The Deadly Assassin">
The Fourth Doctor has a precognitive vision about the President of the Time Lords being assassinated. The Doctor goes to Gallifrey to stop the assassination. At the Panopticon, a Gallifreyan ceremonial chamber, he notes a camera stationed on an unguarded catwalk. He also spots a sniper rifle next to the camera. The Doctor fights his way to the catwalk, warning that the President is about to be killed. Unbeknownst to the Doctor, the assassin is among the delegates and shoots the President dead. However, the crowd sees the Doctor on the catwalk with the rifle and assumes he is the killer.Under interrogation, the Doctor maintains that he has been framed. Eventually, Castellan Spandrell starts to believe him and orders Engin to assist him in an independent investigation. To delay his possible execution, the Doctor invokes Article 17 and announces that he will run for President, which guarantees liberty for those running for office during the course of an election.The Doctor realises that it was the Master who had sent him the premonition of the assassination through the Matrix, a vast electronic neural network which can turn thought patterns into virtual reality. He decides to enter the Matrix to track the Master. In the Matrix, the Doctor confronts an assassin who eventually reveals himself as Chancellor Goth. The Master, realising that Goth has been effectively defeated, tries to trap the Doctor in the Matrix by overloading the neuron fields. Engin gets the Doctor out of the Matrix, but Goth is fatally burnt.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Shall_Know_Our_Velocity" title="You Shall Know Our Velocity">
Will has surprisingly come into a large amount of money, around $32,000. His photograph screwing in a light bulb has been made into a silhouette and is being used as a picture for a lighting company's light bulb boxes. He is uncomfortable having this money, since he feels he did nothing to earn it, and is left with a sense of guilt and purposelessness. Shortly after receiving the sum, Will and Hand's mutual childhood friend, Jack, was involved in a car accident. The pair had delusional ambitions to use the money to save his life but to no avail. After Jack's death, Will and Hand are asked to help go through Jack's possessions in a storage facility, where Hand decides to wander around and leaves Will.During Hand's absence, Will is brutally beaten by three men. Will and Hand agree that it is best not to go to the hospital, lest the attackers attempt to track them. As a result of his confusion due to a conglomerate of issues, such as the large sum of money, Jack's death, Will's beating, and other personal issues, Will and Hand plan to travel around the world visiting obscure countries and giving away all the money, bit by bit, to people they arbitrarily decide are most deserving. According to Hand, they gave to people for the benefit of both parties, as a sacrament with the purpose of restoring faith in humanity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Shannara" title="The Sword of Shannara">
## History."The Sword of Shannara"s events take place 2000 years after the "Great Wars": a nuclear holocaust that has wiped out most of the planet. These wars rearranged the planet's geography and wiped out most human life on Earth. Only traces of technological artifacts have been found; most advanced technology has been lost, but magic has been rediscovered. During this time, Mankind mutated into several distinct races: humans, dwarves, gnomes and trolls, all named after creatures from "age-old" myths. Also, elves begin to emerge after having been in seclusion and hiding for centuries.A thousand years before "The Sword of Shannara", an Elf named Galaphile gathers all of the people who still had some knowledge of the old world to Paranor to try to bring peace and order to all of the races. They name themselves the First Druid Council. Brona, a rogue Druid, and his followers leave, taking the Ildatch with them; this magical tome controls their minds. Hundreds of years later, Brona begins the First War of the Races when he convinces all Men to attack the other races. He almost succeeds in seizing rule of the Four Lands, but the tide turns, and the war ends with his defeat and disappearance. The Druids divide the Four Lands among the races and become reclusive, withdrawing to Paranor because of their shame at the betrayal by one of their own members.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waves" title="The Waves">
The novel follows its six narrators from childhood through adulthood. Woolf is concerned with the individual consciousness and the ways in which multiple consciousnesses can weave together.Bernard is a story-teller, always seeking some elusive and apt phrase. Some critics see Woolf's friend E. M. Forster as an inspiration for him.Louis is an outsider who seeks acceptance and success. Some critics see in him aspects of T. S. Eliot, whom Woolf knew well.Neville, who may be partly based on another of Woolf's friends, Lytton Strachey, seeks out a series of men, each of whom becomes the present object of his transcendent love.Jinny is a socialite whose world view corresponds to her physical, corporeal beauty. There is evidence that she is based on Woolf's friend Mary Hutchinson.Susan flees the city, preferring the countryside, where she grapples with the thrills and doubts of motherhood. Some aspects of Susan recall Woolf's sister Vanessa Bell.Rhoda is riddled with self-doubt, anxiety and depression, always rejecting and indicting human compromise, always seeking out solitude. She echoes Shelley's poem "The Question". Rhoda resembles Virginia Woolf in some respects.Percival, partly based on Woolf's brother, Thoby Stephen, is the esteemed hero of the other six. He dies midway through the novel, while engaged on an imperialist quest in India. Percival never speaks on his own in "The Waves", but readers learn about him in detail as the other six characters repeatedly describe and reflect on him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Island" title="The Mysterious Island">
During the American Civil War, five Northern prisoners of war escape during the Siege of Richmond, Virginia, by hijacking a hydrogen-filled observation balloon. The escapees are Cyrus Smith, a railroad engineer in the Union army (named Cyrus Harding in Kingston's version); his ex-slave and loyal follower Neb (short for Nebuchadnezzar); Bonadventure Pencroff, a sailor (who is addressed only by his surname; in Kingston's translation, he is named Pencroft); his protégé and adopted son Harbert Brown (called Herbert in some translations); and the journalist Gedéon Spilett (Gideon Spilett in English versions). The company is completed by Cyrus's dog "Top".After flying in a great storm for several days, the group crash-lands on a cliff-bound, volcanic, unknown island, described as being located at (Southern Pacific Ocean/Asian:Oceanian side), about east of New Zealand. They name it "Lincoln Island" in honor of Abraham Lincoln. With the knowledge of the brilliant engineer Smith, the five are able to sustain themselves on the island, producing fire, pottery, bricks, nitroglycerin, iron, an electric telegraph, a cave home inside a stony cliff called "Granite House", and even a seaworthy ship, which they name the "Bonadventure".During their stay on the island, the group endures bad weather and domesticates an orangutan, Jupiter, abbreviated to Jup (or Joop, in Jordan Stump's translation). There is a mystery on the island in the form of an unseen "deus ex machina", responsible for Cyrus' survival after falling from the balloon, the mysterious rescue of Top from a dugong, the appearance of a box of equipment (guns and ammunition, tools, etc.), and other seemingly inexplicable occurrences.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Chronicle_of_Barset" title="The Last Chronicle of Barset">
"The Last Chronicle of Barset" features the receipt of a cheque by the indigent but learned perpetual curate of Hogglestock, the Reverend Josiah Crawley. The novel then develops the attitudes and reactions of those around him, some of whom, not least Mrs Proudie, instantly conclude that Crawley stole the cheque.The narrative is maintained by numerous sub-plots. One, which is continued from "The Small House at Allington", involves Lily Dale and Johnny Eames tenuously connected to the main thread. By contrast, Crawley's daughter, Grace, is courted by Henry Grantly, son of Archdeacon Grantly, which poses problems for the archdeacon who recoils from her lack of family rank or wealth. Initially therefore he joins the accusatory group led by Mrs Proudie; the Bishop does not agree but succumbs to Mrs Proudie's familiar dominance.Almost broken by poverty and trouble, the Crawley hardly knows himself if he is guilty or not; fortunately, the mystery is resolved just as Major Grantly's determination and Grace Crawley's own merit force the Archdeacon to overcome his prejudice against her. As with Lucy Robarts in "Framley Parsonage", the objecting parent finally invites the young lady into the family; this new connection also inspires the Dean and Archdeacon to find a new, more prosperous, post for Grace's impoverished curate father.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_of_America" title="Emperor of America">
A nuclear device explodes in Washington and destroys the White House. The Royalist Party and the National Rifle Association of America are nominally those responsible but Condon's target is Reaganism and its legacy, embodied in the character of an Army colonel, Caesare Appleton, who becomes Emperor Caesare I.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nana_(novel)" title="Nana (novel)">
"Nana" tells the story of Nana Coupeau's rise from streetwalker to high-class prostitute during the last three years of the French Second Empire. Nana first appeared near the end of Zola's earlier novel Rougon-Macquart series, "L'Assommoir" (1877), where she is the daughter of an abusive drunk. At the conclusion of that novel, she is living in the streets and just beginning a life of prostitution."Nana" opens with a night at the Théâtre des Variétés in April 1867 just after the Exposition Universelle has opened. Nana is eighteen years old, though she would have been fifteen according to the family tree of the Rougon-Macquarts Zola had published years before starting work on this novel. Zola describes in detail the performance of "La blonde Vénus", a fictional operetta modeled after Offenbach's "La belle Hélène", in which Nana is cast as the lead. All of Paris is talking about her, though this is her first stage appearance. When asked to say something about her talents, Bordenave, the manager of the theatre, explains that a star does not need to know how to sing or act: "Nana has something else, dammit, and something that takes the place of everything else. I scented it out, and it smells damnably strong in her, or else I lost my sense of smell." Just as the crowd is about to dismiss her performance as terrible, young Georges Hugon shouts: "Très chic!" From then on, she owns the audience. Zola describes her appearance only thinly veiled in the third act: "All of a sudden, in the good-natured child the woman stood revealed, a disturbing woman with all the impulsive madness of her sex, opening the gates of the unknown world of desire. Nana was still smiling, but with the deadly smile of a man-eater."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happy_Return" title="The Happy Return">
In June 1808 Hornblower is in command of the 36-gun frigate HMS "Lydia", with secret orders to sail to the Pacific coast of Nicaragua (near modern Choluteca, Choluteca) and supply a local landowner, Don Julian Alvarado ("descendant" of Pedro de Alvarado by a fictional marriage to a daughter of Moctezuma), with muskets and powder. Don Julian is ready to revolt against the Spanish. Upon meeting Don Julian Hornblower discovers that he is a megalomaniac who calls himself "El Supremo" (which Forester translates as "the Almighty"), views himself as a deity, and has been killing those who he regards as "unenlightened" because they do not recognise El Supremo's divine status. El Supremo claims to be a descendant of Moctezuma, the holy god-made-man of the Aztecs, and also of Pedro de Alvarado, one of the Spanish invaders of Mexico.While Hornblower replenishes his supplies the 50-gun Spanish ship "Natividad" is sighted off the coast. Unwilling to risk fighting the much more powerful ship in a sea battle, Hornblower hides nearby until it anchors and then captures it in a surprise nighttime boarding. El Supremo demands that it be turned over to him so that he may have a navy. After hiding the captured Spanish officers to save them from being murdered by El Supremo, Hornblower, needing his ally's cooperation, has no choice but to accede.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wishsong_of_Shannara" title="The Wishsong of Shannara">
## Prelude.Before the dawn of mankind, Demons created a book of dark magic, called the Ildatch. This book was so full of their dark essence that it became a living thing, with a will of its own. When the Druids gathered all knowledge and lore of the Old World to themselves in the aftermath of the Great Wars, the book of Ildatch was uncovered after countless millennia. It remained harmless until the Druid Brona found it in the halls of Paranor and began to read and unlock its terrible secrets. Brona was eventually subverted by the very power he sought to control and thus the Warlock Lord was born. Allanon thought that the dark book had been buried in the destruction of the Skull Kingdom after Shea triumphed over the Warlock Lord in "The Sword of Shannara", but it soon became apparent that the survivors of the calamity recovered the book, and delved into its arcane knowledge.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_King_of_Shannara" title="First King of Shannara">
Horrified by the consequences of the First War of the Races, most of the Druids at Paranor stopped studying the arcane arts and turned to the sciences of the Old World.Brona, now known as the Warlock Lord, had been behind the First War of the Races, and was thought to have died during it. But he had secretly survived, and now has come to make a new war upon the Races. He is now stronger than ever, gathering spirits from the netherworld and a massive Troll and Gnome army under his banner. Brona's first target is Paranor, the home of the Druids who defeated him during the First War of the Races. He easily wipes out the Druid order.The only survivors are the followers of Bremen, an outcast Druid who continued to study the mystic arts and tried to warn the council before it was too late. Bremen had been cast from the Druid Council because he had an interest in magic, now forbidden since the disaster that turned the Druid Brona into the Warlock Lord. As a result, the council didn't trust him. Along with Tay Trefenwyd and Risca, who are the only Druids who believe Bremen and leave with him, Bremen leaves Paranor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Stops_for_No_Mouse" title="Time Stops for No Mouse">
At the beginning of the story, the mouse Hermux Tantamoq is a watchmaker in Pinchester, a Manhattan-like metropolis inhabited by rodents, birds, and mustelids. He is hired by aircraft-pilot Linka Perflinger (another mouse) to mend her wristwatch. When the watch is requested, without Linka's permission, by a criminal rat, Hermux refuses to hand it over, and later witnesses Linka's capture by similar rats, who are working on behalf of antagonist Dr. Hiril Mennus. Investigating this, Hermux learns that Mennus, in partnership with sub-antagonist Tucka Mertslin, seeks to patent a rejuvenation formula obtained by Linka's client, Dr. Turfip Dandiffer. Assisted by the mole journalist Pup Schoonagliffen (Mennus in disguise), Hermux infiltrates Mennus' clinic, but is himself captured; whereupon Mennus places Hermux and Linka in a mousetrap to die. To maintain control of Tucka Mertslin, Mennus memorizes and destroys the formula; but by an inept use thereof, reduces himself to infancy. Hermux and Linka are thereafter rescued by Dr. Dandiffer's sponsor, Ortolina Perriflot. Some days later, Hermux approaches Linka, intending to propose marriage, but finds her already engaged to Dandiffer. Later, he uses the remnant formula to restore the eyesight of his friend Mirrin Sentrill.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnaby_Rudge" title="Barnaby Rudge">
Gathered around the fire at the Maypole Inn, in the village of Chigwell, on an evening of foul weather in the year 1775, are John Willet, proprietor of the Maypole, and his three cronies. One of the three, Solomon Daisy, tells an ill-kempt stranger at the inn a well-known local tale of the murder of Reuben Haredale which had occurred 22 years earlier on that very day. Reuben had been the owner of the Warren, a local estate which is now the residence of Geoffrey, the deceased Reuben's brother, and Geoffrey's niece, Reuben's daughter Emma Haredale. After the murder, Reuben's gardener and steward went missing and were suspects in the crime. A body was later found and identified as that of the steward, so the gardener was assumed to be the murderer.Joe Willet, son of the Maypole proprietor, quarrels with his father because John treats 20-year-old Joe as a child. Finally having had enough of this ill-treatment, Joe leaves the Maypole and goes for a soldier, stopping to say goodbye to the woman he loves, Dolly Varden, daughter of London locksmith Gabriel Varden.Meanwhile, Edward Chester is in love with Emma Haredale. Both Edward's father, Sir John Chester, and Emma's uncle, the Catholic Geoffrey Haredale – these two are sworn enemies – oppose the union after Sir John untruthfully convinces Geoffrey that Edward's intentions are dishonourable. Sir John intends to marry Edward to a woman with a rich inheritance, to support John's expensive lifestyle and to pay off his debtors. Edward quarrels with his father and leaves home for the West Indies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Curiosity_Shop" title="The Old Curiosity Shop">
## Background.The events of the book seem to take place around 1825. In Chapter 29, Miss Monflathers refers to the death of Lord Byron, who died on 19 April 1824. When the inquest rules (incorrectly) that Quilp committed suicide, his corpse is ordered to be buried at a crossroads with a stake through the heart, a practice banned in 1823. Nell's grandfather, after his breakdown, fears that he shall be sent to a madhouse, and there chained to a wall and whipped; these practices went out of use after about 1830. In Chapter 13, the lawyer Mr. Brass is described as "one of Her Majesty's attornies" , putting him in the reign of Queen Victoria, which began in 1837, but given all the other evidence, and the fact that Kit, at his trial, is charged with acting "against the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King" (referring to William IV), this must be a slip of the pen.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Shores" title="Ancient Shores">
A vast lake, known as Lake Agassiz, covered much of North Dakota, Manitoba and Minnesota during prehistoric times.The story begins when farmer Tom Lasker and his son, Will, uncover a seemingly brand new yacht. Found on a landlocked farm, it draws tourists to the area. Max Collingswood, a friend of Tom's, tries to help discover the origins of the boat. Collingswood enlists April Cannon, a worker at a chemical lab who discovers that the yacht is made of an unknown material. In fact, it is a fiberglass-like material with an impossible atomic number (161).Collingswood and Cannon discover something else on a nearby ridge which is part of a Sioux reservation. The Sioux assist in its excavation and examination. It turns out to be a green glassy roundhouse-like structure, made from the same material.Eventually, they gain access to it, revealing a dock for the sailboat, but no entrance for it. The discovery that the structure contains the means to access other sites not on Earth sets off a struggle between the Government and the Reservation for control of it.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Four_(novel)" title="The Big Four (novel)">
An unexpected visitor called Mayerling comes in through Hercule Poirot's bedroom and collapses on the floor. The only clue to what he wants is his repeating Poirot's name and address and writing the number 4, many times. When Hastings jokingly calls it "The Mystery of the Big Four," the man begins speaking about an international crime cartel of that name. He describes the four leaders: Number 1 is a Chinese political mastermind named Li Chang Yen; Number 2 is probably American; Number 3 is a Frenchwoman; and Number 4 is known only as "the Destroyer." The man dies soon after and Poirot and Hastings go off on the trail of the Big Four.From here, the novel becomes a series of loosely connected short stories.Back home, Poirot reveals Achille Poirot did not exist – it was Hercule Poirot in disguise all along. He laments that all his other cases will seem boring and tame compared to this case. The novel ends with Hastings returning to Argentina and Poirot considering retirement.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Worm_Ouroboros" title="The Worm Ouroboros">
The novel begins with a framing story in which a character named Lessingham travels from Earth to Mercury. Eddison's Mercury, though, is a fantasy world, with no effort made to conform to the scientific knowledge of Mercury at the time. Lessingham and the framing story are not seen again after the second chapter.Having introduced the chief lords of Demonland—the brothers Juss, Spitfire, and Goldry Bluszco, and their cousin Brandoch Daha—the story begins in earnest with a dwarf ambassador from Witchland arriving in Demonland to demand that the Demons recognize King Gorice XI of Witchland as their overlord. Juss and his brothers reply that they and all of Demonland will submit if the king (a famous wrestler) can defeat Goldry Bluszco in a wrestling match.The match is held in the neutral territory of the Foliot Isles, and Gorice is killed. His successor (or reincarnation) Gorice XII is a sorcerer who banishes Goldry to an enchanted mountain prison, by means of a perilous sorcery requiring the help of the devious Goblin traitor Lord Gro.While Lord Spitfire is sent back to raise an army out of Demonland, Lord Juss and his cousin Brandoch Daha, aided by King Gaslark of Goblinland, attempt an assault on Carcë, the capital of the Witches, where they think Goldry is held. The rescue fails, the Goblins flee, and Juss and Brandoch Daha are both captured. They escape with the aid of La Fireez, the prince of Pixyland and vassal of King Gorice, who helps them at great personal cost because he owes them a debt of honor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_(Crichton_novel)" title="Rising Sun (Crichton novel)">
Nakamoto Corporation is celebrating the grand opening of its new headquarters, the Nakamoto Tower, in Downtown Los Angeles; the 45th floor of the building is awash with celebrities, dignitaries and local politicians. On the 46th floor, Cheryl Lynn Austin, 23, is found dead. Lieutenant Peter J. Smith, the Special Services Liaison for the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), is assigned to the case. He is joined, on request, by retired Captain John Connor, who has lived in Japan and is well-acquainted with Japanese culture.Upon arriving at Nakamoto Tower, the two policemen learn from officer-in-charge Tom Graham that the Japanese, led by Nakamoto employee Ishiguro, are stalling the investigation by demanding that the liaison be present. Although they have a valid pretense in that the virulently racist Graham is threatening to disrupt the celebration, it is obvious to Connor that a cover-up is underway. The detectives realize that the tapes from the security cameras on the 46th floor have mysteriously disappeared, and the security guards are deliberately unhelpful. Smith and Connor visit the apartment of the late Ms. Austin, realizing that she was a mistress for the Japanese Yakuza. It seems that Ms. Austin's home had been ransacked soon after her death. After several visits to friends and associates of Ms. Austin and Nakamoto, the two detectives find a suspect in Eddie Sakamura, a wealthy Japanese playboy from Kyoto. However, the two are inclined to release him, due to Eddie's previous associations with John Connor. Connor is still able to get Eddie to hand over his passport. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_Season" title="Glory Season">
Three thousand years before the story starts, Lysos founds a human colony on the isolated planet of Stratos in an effort to radically re-engineer human life into a happier, more pastoral form. She developed a strain of human beings that conceives clones in winter (always female), while those conceived in summer (variants or "vars") obtain their genes through sexual reproduction just in case biological adaptation becomes necessary. Further, males and females have opposed seasons of sexual receptivity: men in summer and women in winter. This scheme is said to be stable over evolutionary time because women gain an advantage from self-cloning, while men only reproduce in summer. Finally, men have been made far less aggressive during the times that they are less sexually receptive and are much less numerous. The social result is that the vast majority of the population of Stratos consists of groups of female clones, each in its own social or economic niche. Over the centuries, these groups have come to dominate society. Men are confined to relatively few professions (such as sailing) and have a lower social status than clones, but higher than vars. In each generation, a few women vars become successful enough to found their own clan or "hive" of clones.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killer_Angels" title="The Killer Angels">
## Title.Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, one of the major characters, remembers reciting to his father a speech from "Hamlet": "What a piece of work is man...in action how like an angel!" Sgt. Buster Kilrain says: Well, if he's an angel, all right then... But he damn well must be a killer angel."And the old man, grinning, had scratched his head and then said stiffly, 'Well, boy, if he's an angel, he's sure a murderin' angel.' And Chamberlain had gone on to school to make an oration on the subject: Man, the Killer Angel."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishing_Moon" title="Wishing Moon">
"Wishing Moon" follows the tale of Aminah Barnes, a beggar orphan who is thrown Aladdin's magical lamp by an unwitting princess, Badr Al-Budur, after Aladdin has married her. As Aminah works out problems with the lamp and its demon, she eventually begins her own journey of emotions while trying to avoid the notice of the spoiled and ambitious princess who seeks to regain the lost lamp. After settling into a moderately prosperous life, Aminah decides to help other people in need, but selectively, only helping those who help others. Soon, however, her good deeds draw the unwanted eye of Badr Al-Budur.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven" title="The Lathe of Heaven">
The book is set in Portland, Oregon, in the year 2002. Portland has three million inhabitants and continuous rain. It is deprived enough for the poorer inhabitants to have kwashiorkor, a protein deprivation from malnutrition. Although impoverished, the culture is similar to the 1970s in the United States. There is also a massive war in the Middle East. Climate change reduces quality of life.George Orr, a draftsman and addict, abuses drugs to prevent "effective" dreams that change reality. After one of these dreams, the new reality is the only reality for everyone else, but George retains memory of the previous reality. Under threat of incarceration, Orr undergoes treatment for his addiction.George attends therapy sessions with ambitious psychiatrist and sleep researcher William Haber. Orr claims he has the power to dream "effectively". Haber, gradually believing the evidence, seeks to use George's power to change the planet. His experiments with a biofeedback/EEG machine, nicknamed the Augmentor, enhance Orr's abilities while producing a series of increasingly intolerable alternative worlds based on an assortment of utopian (and dystopian) premises:Each effective dream gives Haber more wealth and status until he is effectively ruler of the planet. Orr's finances also improve, but he is unhappy with Haber's meddling and just wants to let things be. Increasingly frightened by Haber's lust for power and delusions of divinity, Orr contacts lawyer Heather Lelache to represent him against Haber. He falls in love with Heather but is unsuccessful in getting released from therapy.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_World_(Doyle_novel)" title="The Lost World (Doyle novel)">
Edward Malone, a young reporter for the "Daily Gazette", asks his editor for a dangerous assignment to impress the woman he loves, Gladys, who wishes for a great man capable of brave deeds and actions. His task is to approach the notorious Professor Challenger, who dislikes the popular press intensely and physically assaults intrusive journalists. The subject is to be his recent South American expedition which, surrounded by controversy, guarantees a hostile reaction. As a direct approach would be instantly rebuffed, Malone instead masquerades as an earnest student. On meeting the professor he is startled by his intimidating physique, but believes his ruse is succeeding. Seeing through the masquerade, then confirming Malone's scientific knowledge is non-existent, Challenger erupts in anger and forcibly throws him out. Malone earns his respect by refusing to press charges with a policeman who saw his violent ejection into the street. Challenger ushers him back inside and, extracting promises of confidentiality, eventually reveals he has discovered living dinosaurs in South America, following up an expedition by a now-deceased previous American explorer named Maple White. At a tumultuous public meeting in which Challenger experiences further ridicule (most notably from a professional rival, Professor Summerlee), Malone volunteers for an expedition to verify the discoveries. His companions are to be Professor Summerlee, and Lord John Roxton, an adventurer who helped end slavery on the Amazon; the notches on his rifle showing how many slavers he killed doing so.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander's_Bridge" title="Alexander's Bridge">
Bartley Alexander is a construction engineer and world-renowned builder of bridges undergoing a mid-life crisis. Although married to Winifred, Bartley resumes his acquaintance with a former lover, Hilda Burgoyne, in London. The affair gnaws at Bartley's sense of propriety and honor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Loves_of_a_She-Devil" title="The Life and Loves of a She-Devil">
Ruth is an abnormally tall and ugly housewife whose husband, Bobbo, considers their relationship an open marriage based on convenience alone and he only married her because he got her pregnant when they were both teenagers. Bobbo only truly loves his mistress Mary Fisher, a famous, wealthy romance novelist. When Ruth passionately indicates her disapproval for Bobbo's extramarital affair, he calls her a "she-devil", causing her to reassess her life. She resolves to behave in accordance with the label he has given her.Bobbo leaves Ruth and their two children and goes to live with Mary, to whom he soon proposes. Ruth plots her revenge on them, beginning by burning down her own house, therefore forcing the children to live with their father at Mary's mansion. Ruth engages in a string of meaningless sexual relationships in order to emotionally detach herself from sex. In the meantime, she works at the retirement home which houses Mary's mother, Pearl. Her actions there cause Pearl to be expelled from the home, thus inconveniencing Mary and Bobbo who must now care for her.Ruth finds work at a psychiatric hospital while taking classes in accounting and bookkeeping. She uses this knowledge to discreetly steal money from Bobbo's corporate clientele in a way that will incriminate Bobbo later on. Ruth starts her own employment agency for female secretaries, under the alias of "Vesta Rose". Through her agency, she sends a secretary to Bobbo's office who begins another affair with him. When the police arrive to arrest Bobbo, Ruth has made it appear as though he and the secretary were going to take the stolen money to Switzerland and leave the country, though with the assistance of the same secretary, Ruth is in possession of the money herself, becoming rich as a result. She nonetheless feels slight sympathy for the secretary and arranges for her to take a new job in New Zealand so she can evade the police.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_Torts" title="The King of Torts">
Clay Carter is a poorly paid Washington, D.C. public defender who dreams of joining a large law firm. One day he reluctantly takes on the case of Tequila Watson, a man accused of a random street killing. Watson insists that he somehow was not in control of his body when he pulled the trigger, a story which Clay tries to dismiss but cannot get out of his mind. Clay tries his best to help his client, plunging into the capital's most dangerous slums in search of evidence. Clay finally gets a subpoena forcing drug rehabilitation centers to hand over Watson's medical records, as well as those of another man accused of a similar murder.Meanwhile, Clay has been dating Rebecca Van Horn, a junior congressional aide. Clay and Rebecca are deeply in love, but he deeply loathes her father, Bennett Van Horn, an aggressive real estate mogul whose developments are destroying the countryside of Northern Virginia. When Clay refuses an offer to work for a senator who is closely involved with these deals, Bennett pressures Rebecca into cutting off relations with Clay and hastily marrying a rich corporate lawyer.Clay is unexpectedly contacted by a mysterious man named Max Pace, who tells him that Watson's medical records are evidence of a potentially major scandal. It is revealed that Watson and other recovering drug addicts were illegally given an experimental drug called Tarvan, which caused some of the test subjects to commit random and senseless killings. Pace says he has been hired by the drug company responsible, and asks Clay to resign from his job as a public defender and arrange secret payoffs to the victims. While doing so would mean hiding exculpatory evidence from his client, Clay goes along with the scheme, partly to win back Rebecca's affections with his newfound wealth.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_at_Point_Zero" title="Woman at Point Zero">
The novel opens with a psychiatrist who is researching inmates at a women's prison. The prison doctor speaks of a woman, Firdaus, who is unlike any of the murderers in the prison: she rarely eats or sleeps, she never talks, she never accepts visitors. She feels certain the woman is incapable of murder, but she has refused to sign any appeals on her behalf. The psychiatrist makes several attempts to speak with her, but Firdaus declines. The rejections cause the psychiatrist to have a crisis of self-confidence. She becomes consumed with the idea that Firdaus is better than herself, and possibly better than even the president, whom she has refused to send an appeal to. As the psychiatrist is leaving the warder comes to her with an urgent message: Firdaus wants to speak to her. Upon meeting, Firdaus promptly tells her to close the window, sit down, and listen. She explains that she is going to be executed that evening and she wants to tell her life story.Firdaus describes a poor childhood in a farming community. She recalls that she was confused by the disparity between her father's actions, such as beating her mother, and his dedication to the Islamic faith. Those days were relatively happy days, as she was sent out to the fields to work and tend the goats. She enjoys the friendship of a boy named Mohammadain, with whom she plays "bride and bridegroom", and describes her first encounters with clitoral stimulation. One day Firdaus's mother sends for a woman with a knife, who mutilates her genitals. From that point on Firdaus is assigned work in the home. Firdaus' uncle begins to take a sexual interest in her and she describes her new lack of clitoral sensitivity, noting, "He was doing to me what Mohammadain had done to me before. In fact, he was doing even more, but I no longer felt the strong sensation of pleasure that radiated from an unknown and yet familiar part of my body. ... It was as if I could not longer recall the exact spot from which it used to arise, or as though a part of me, of my being, was gone and would never return."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notable_American_Women" title="Notable American Women">
The novel, written as a follow-up to Marcus's literary debut, "The Age of Wire and String", deals with an abstruse Ohio family, which shares the author's surname. The Marcus family, owning four members, lives on a farm outside of an unnamed town; the reader encounters narration from three of those members, and is led through a seemingly implausible and temporally confusing description of the life events of the protagonist: a young Ben Marcus.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wings_of_the_Dove" title="The Wings of the Dove">
Kate Croy and Merton Densher are two betrothed Londoners who desperately want to marry but have very little money. Kate is constantly put upon by family troubles, and is now living with her domineering aunt, Maud Lowder. Into their world comes Milly Theale, an enormously rich young American woman who had previously met and fallen in love with Densher, although she has never revealed her feelings. Her travelling companion and confidante, Mrs. Stringham, is an old friend of Maud. Kate and Aunt Maud welcome Milly to London, and the American heiress enjoys great social success.With Kate as a companion, Milly goes to see an eminent physician, Sir Luke Strett, because she worries that she is suffering from an incurable disease. The doctor is noncommittal but Milly fears the worst. Kate suspects that Milly is deathly ill. After the trip to America where he had met Milly, Densher returns to find the heiress in London. Kate wants Densher to pay as much attention as possible to Milly, though at first he doesn't quite know why. Kate has been careful to conceal from Milly (and everybody else) that she and Densher are engaged.With the threat of serious illness hanging over her, Milly decides to travel to Venice with Mrs. Stringham. Aunt Maud, Kate and Densher follow her. At a party Milly gives in her Venice "palazzo" (the older Palazzo Barbaro, called "Palazzo Leporelli" in the novel), Kate finally reveals her complete plan to Densher: he is to marry Milly so that, after her presumably soon-to-occur death, he will inherit the money they can marry on. Densher had suspected this was Kate's idea, and he demands that she consummate their affair before he will go along with her plan.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambassadors" title="The Ambassadors">
Lewis Lambert Strether, the protagonist of the novel, is a cultured man in his fifties from the fictional town of Woollett, Massachusetts, who is dispatched to Paris to find Chad, the wayward son of his fiancée Mrs Newsome. The book is entirely told from Strether's point of view and chronicles his change from an American to a European view of things. Strether, a middle-aged American of insignificant means, is sent to Paris by Mrs. Newsome, his wealthy fiancée. The mission he has been given is to talk her son, Chad, into returning to the family business in Woollett, Massachusetts. The Newsome family believes that Chad might be overstaying his European tour because of an inappropriate romantic liaison, perhaps with a vulgar adventuress. The reader is given to understand, in indirect ways, that if Strether fails, his engagement to Mrs. Newsome is at risk. Strether meets Maria Gostrey who delivers valuable insights about things European to him (and the reader).Once Strether locates Chad, he is surprised to discover that Chad has improved from when he last knew him in America. Chad exhibits restrained urbanity, elegance and manners. This is not what Strether expected of someone in the grip of an inappropriate romantic entanglement. Strether wonders what has caused the transformation he sees in Chad. When Chad offers to introduce him to some of his close friends—Madame de Vionnet and her grown daughter Jeanne—Strether eagerly accepts. When the introduction occurs, Strether finds the mother and the daughter to be refined, virtuous and thoroughly admirable. He wonders if the lovely daughter is what has brought about the improvements in Chad. He learns that Madame de Vionnet is married but has been separated from her husband for years.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tender_Is_the_Night" title="Tender Is the Night">
Dick and Nicole Diver are a glamorous couple who rent a villa in the South of France and surround themselves with a coterie of American expatriates. Rosemary Hoyt, a 17-year-old actress, and her mother are staying at a nearby resort. Rosemary becomes infatuated with Dick and becomes close to Nicole.Rosemary senses something is wrong with the couple, and her suspicions are confirmed when another guest at a party, Violet McKisco, reports witnessing Nicole's nervous breakdown in a bathroom. Tommy Barban, another guest, comes to the defense of Nicole and insists that Violet is lying. Angered by this accusation, Violet's husband Albert duels Barban on the beach, but both men miss their shots. Following these events, Dick, Nicole, Rosemary, and others depart the French Riviera.Soon after, Rosemary is now a constant companion of both Dick and Nicole in Paris. She attempts to seduce Dick in her hotel room, but he rebuffs her advances, although he admits that he loves her. Much later, a black man named Jules Peterson is found murdered in Rosemary's bed at the hotel, a potential scandal which could destroy Rosemary's career. Dick moves the blood-soaked body out of the room to cover up any implied sexual relationship between Rosemary and Peterson.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Soldier" title="The Good Soldier">
"The Good Soldier" is narrated by the character John Dowell, half of one of the couples whose dissolving relationships form the subject of the novel. Dowell tells the story of those dissolutions, plus the deaths of three characters and the madness of a fourth, in a rambling, non-chronological fashion. As an unreliable narrator the reader can consider whether they believe Dowell and his description of how the events unfolded including his own role in the "saddest story ever told".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Bowl" title="The Golden Bowl">
Prince Amerigo, an impoverished but charismatic Italian nobleman, is in London for his marriage to Maggie Verver, only child of the widower Adam Verver, the fabulously wealthy American financier and art collector. While there, he re-encounters Charlotte Stant, another young American and a former mistress from his days in Rome; they had met in Mrs. Assingham's drawing room. Charlotte is not wealthy, which is one reason they did not marry. Although Maggie and Charlotte have been dear friends since childhood, Maggie does not know of Charlotte's and Amerigo's past relationship. Charlotte and Amerigo go shopping together for a wedding present for Maggie. They find a curiosity shop where the shopkeeper offers them an antique gilded crystal bowl. Charlotte lacks the money to buy the bowl and the Prince declines to purchase it, as he suspects it contains a hidden flaw.After Maggie has married, afraid that her father has become lonely, as they had been close for years, she persuades him to propose to Charlotte, who accepts Adam's proposal. Soon after the wedding, Charlotte and Amerigo are thrown together, because their respective spouses seem more interested in their father-daughter relationship than in their marriages. Amerigo and Charlotte finally consummate an adulterous affair.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Agent" title="The Secret Agent">
Set in London in 1886, the novel follows the life of Adolf Verloc, a secret agent. Verloc is also a businessman who owns a shop which sells pornographic material, contraceptives and bric-a-brac. He lives with his wife Winnie, his mother-in-law, and his brother-in-law, Stevie. Stevie has a mental disability, possibly autism, which causes him to be excitable; his sister, Verloc's wife, attends to him, treating him more as a son than as a brother. Verloc's friends are a group of anarchists of which Comrade Ossipon, Michaelis, and "The Professor" are the most prominent. Although largely ineffectual as terrorists, their actions are known to the police. The group produces anarchist literature in the form of pamphlets entitled "F.P.", an acronym for "The Future of the Proletariat".The novel begins in Verloc's home, as he and his wife discuss the trivialities of everyday life, which introduces the reader to Verloc's family. Soon after, Verloc leaves to meet Mr Vladimir, the new First Secretary in the embassy of a foreign country. Although a member of an anarchist cell, Verloc is also secretly employed by the Embassy as an agent provocateur. Vladimir informs Verloc that from reviewing his service history he is far from an exemplary model of a secret agent and, to redeem himself, must carry out an operation – the destruction of Greenwich Observatory by a bomb. Vladimir explains that Britain's lax attitude to anarchism endangers his own country, and he reasons that an attack on 'science', the current vogue amongst the public, will provide the necessary outrage for suppression. Verloc later meets his friends, who discuss politics and law, and the notion of a communist revolution. Unbeknownst to the group, Stevie, Verloc's brother-in-law, overhears the conversation, which greatly disturbs him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin's_Apprentice" title="Assassin's Apprentice">
A six-year-old boy is taken by his maternal grandfather to the Farseers' army base in Moonseye, the Six Duchies' outpost on the border of the Mountain Kingdom. His grandfather says he is King-in-Waiting Chivalry's bastard son. The boy is brought to Prince Verity, the second Son of King Shrewd who is currently in command of Moonseye. Verity orders that the boy be given into the care of Burrich, Chivalry's right-hand man and stableman, who calls the boy, who does not know his own name, "Fitz." With Burrich, Fitz travels to Buckkeep, the seat of the Farseer throne. Before Fitz arrives, Chivalry abdicates from the post of King-in-Waiting so that there will not be uncertainty about his bastard son's claim to the throne. Chivalry retires to the royal holdings of Withywoods with his wife Lady Patience without ever meeting Fitz. Chivalry's and Verity's younger half-brother, Prince Regal, despises Fitz and treats him badly when he arrives.Burrich is left with the task of raising Fitz and trains him as a stable boy. Fitz is treated poorly for being a bastard, so he becomes a close friend of a young dog named Nosy. Fitz possesses what is known as Wit, an ancient and distrusted magic which allows him to communicate telepathically with animals. He 'bonds' with Nosy, but this is discovered by Burrich. With apparent disgust, he takes Nosy away, thus breaking the bond, and warns Fitz not to use the Wit, which is widely seen as a perversion. The only other companionship Fitz finds is with children living in Buckkeep town — in particular, a girl called Molly.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Assassin" title="Royal Assassin">
FitzChivalry has survived Prince Regal's attempt to poison him, but is left weak and prone to unpredictable seizures. Fitz vows to never return to Buckkeep and his king. A vision of Molly fending off an attack by Red-ship Raiders convinces him otherwise, and he returns to the royal court of the Six Duchies.At Buckkeep, Fitz is immediately embroiled in the intrigues of the royal family. Molly is alive, but she has been left a pauper by her father's death and debts, and serves as a lady's maid at Buckkeep. She and Fitz admit their love for each other and begin a relationship. When Fitz approaches King Shrewd for permission to marry, Shrewd reveals he has already pledged Fitz to the daughter of a duke. Fitz and Molly are left to conduct their courtship in secret, not only because of Shrewd's command, but to keep Molly safe from Fitz's enemies at the court.King-in-Waiting Verity is consumed by the need to protect the Duchies' coast from the Red-ships, using his Skill to stave off Raider attacks, but failing to give attention to Kettricken, his new queen. King Shrewd suffers a mysterious wasting disease whose pain only mind-clouding drugs can abate, which Fitz suspects is the doing of Regal and his followers. Bands of Forged Ones begin to converge on Buckkeep, which Fitz secretly assassinates. Fitz rescues a young wolf, Nighteyes, and forms a Wit bond with him despite the danger of discovery. Regal and his lackeys come close to discovering that Fitz is Witted, and Fitz struggles to use the Skill to guard his mind.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin's_Quest" title="Assassin's Quest">
FitzChivalry Farseer has been raised from death, but spends months with the mind of a wolf after his time sharing minds with Nighteyes. He lives in a remote cabin watched by Burrich and Chade, the only ones who know he is alive. Fitz gradually regains his humanity but struggles with the loss of his former life and the trauma of his torture in King Regal's dungeons. Fitz decides only a personal quest to kill Regal will bring him peace. Before departing the cabin, Fitz is attacked by and kills Forged Ones. Through his uncontrollable Skill dreams, Fitz later learns that Burrich found the scene and believes him dead. Burrich is caring for Molly, Fitz's former lover who is now pregnant with his child. Meanwhile, Lady Patience leads Buckkeep's remaining resistance against the Red Ship Raiders.Fitz travels to Regal's palace in Tradeford but fails to assassinate him thanks to the remaining coterie members. Verity aids his escape and imprints the command "Come To Me" into Fitz's mind. Unable to disobey, Fitz follows the path of Verity's quest to find the Elderlings to the Mountain Kingdom. His bond with his Wit companion, Nighteyes, deepens and changes as they become more similar. The wolf begins to think abstractly and plan events as a human does. Fitz meets other Witted people who call themselves "Old Blood," but declines to learn more of their ways.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopscotch_(Cortázar_novel)" title="Hopscotch (Cortázar novel)">
The first 36 chapters of the novel in numerical order are grouped under the heading "From the Other Side." They provide an account of the life of Horacio Oliveira, an Argentine intellectual. He experiences life in Paris in the 1950s. The other characters consist of La Maga and a band of bohemian intellectuals who call themselves the Serpent Club. The story progresses in a non-linear order.The story opens with Horacio searching the bridges of Paris for his lover, a Uruguyan woman named Lucia (better known throughout the novel as la Maga), who has disappeared. The relationship between the two is passionate but asymmetric: la Maga, of a passionate temperament, is in love with Horacio, who is more analytical and cold, while he seems to not want to get emotionally involved with her. Oliveira enjoys her company, but he is a man with a privileged education who adores intellectual discussions, while she is less educated than him and barely able to participate in these discussions. Both meet frequently with their mutual friends, the members of a group nicknamed "Club de la Serpiente" (Club of the Snake). This is a circle of artists, writers, and musicians that drink and listen to music while discussing art, literature, philosophy, architecture, and other subjects. In their discussions, they frequently mention a writer by the name of Morelli, who insists on the necessity of breaking with the linguistic forms of the moment. The group jumps from one topic to another with relative ease, but la Maga, who is not as well-read as the others, generally needs the others to explain the subjects at hand. Her vivacity distances her from the group, foreshadowing her eventual separation from it. The club, however, shows affection toward Lucia, but almost always in a condescending manner.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Divine_Invasion" title="The Divine Invasion">
After a fatal car accident on Earth, Herb Asher is placed into cryonic suspension as he waits for a spleen replacement. Clinically dead, Herb experiences lucid dreams while in suspended animation and relives the last six years of his life.In the past, Herb lived as a recluse in an isolated dome on a remote planet in the binary star system, CY30-CY30B. Yah, a local divinity of the planet in exile from Earth, appears to Herb in a vision as a burning flame, and forces him to contact his sick female neighbor, Rybys Rommey, who happens to be terminally ill with multiple sclerosis and pregnant with Yah's child.With the help of the immortal soul of Elijah, who takes the form of a wild beggar named Elias Tate, Herb agrees to become Rybys's legal husband and father of the unborn "savior". Together they plan to smuggle the six-month pregnant Rybys back to Earth, under the pretext of seeking help for Rybys' medical condition at a medical research facility. After being born in human form, Yah plans to confront the fallen angel Belial, who has ruled the Earth for 2000 years since the fall of Masada in the first century CE. Yah's powers, however, are limited by Belial's dominion on Earth, and the four of them must take extra precautions to avoid being detected by the forces of darkness.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Cry_(Uris_novel)" title="Battle Cry (Uris novel)">
The book tells the story of how this diverse group came together to form an effective team, as well as describing the battles they fought in, including the Battle of Guadalcanal, Tarawa and the Battle of Saipan. Also described are their boot camp experiences in San Diego and their two assignments to US Marine camps in New Zealand, the first time for preparatory training for the Battle of Guadalcanal and then back again for rest and recovery before the Tarawa campaign. Their experiences in New Zealand reveal the very different cultures of the two allies, and how much the young marines enjoyed the hospitality of the local people, in spite of being what has been called a 'friendly invasion'.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_(novel)" title="Wasp (novel)">
Set in an unspecified time in the future, the plot centres on protagonist James Mowry and an inter-planetary war between humans (collectively referred to as "Terrans") and the Sirians (collectively referred to as the Sirian Empire, from Sirius). The war has been in effect for nearly a year as the story begins. The Terrans, while technologically more advanced in most respects to the Sirians, are outnumbered and out-gunned by a factor of twelve-to-one.The Sirians are a humanoid species that share many of the same physical characteristics as their Terran enemies. Some of the more noticeable differences are their purple-faced complexions, pinned-back ears, and a bow-legged gait. In terms of government, the Sirian Empire is reminiscent of fascist states that existed in the Second World War; they frequently employ a much-feared secret police force named the Kaimina Tempiti, or Kaitempi; they censor much of their media, and they actively seek to quell any opposition to the government or the war through the use of violence and intimidation.The novel begins by introducing James Mowry as he is being recruited by the Terran government to infiltrate enemy lines; to become a "wasp," in the sense portrayed in the opening passages of the novel. His recruitment is somewhat less than voluntary: Mowry is offered the alternative of conscription and assignment to the front. His dossier states that he can be counted on to do anything, provided the alternative is worse. So persuaded, he accepts the assignment.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Void" title="A Void">
"A Void" plot follows a group of individuals looking for a missing companion, Anton Vowl. It is in part a parody of "noir" and horror fiction, with many stylistic tricks, gags, plot twists, and a grim conclusion. On many occasions it implicitly talks about its own lipogrammatic limitation, highlighting its unusual syntax. "A Void" protagonists finally work out which symbol is missing, but find it a hazardous topic to discuss, as any who try to bypass this story's constraint risk dying. Philip Howard, writing a lipogrammatic appraisal of "A Void" in his column "Lost Words", said "This is a story chock-full of plots and sub-plots, of loops within loops, of trails in pursuit of trails, all of which allow its author an opportunity to display his customary virtuosity as an avant-gardist magician, acrobat and clown."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritage_of_Shannara" title="Heritage of Shannara">
## "The Scions of Shannara".The first novel in "The Heritage of Shannara" reveals the gathering of the chosen Ohmsfords to meet with the shade of Allanon, then focuses on Par and Coll Ohmsford as they attempt to retrieve the Sword of Shannara.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amazing_Adventures_of_Kavalier_&amp;_Clay" title="The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier &amp; Clay">
The novel begins in 1939 with the arrival by Greyhound bus of 19-year-old Josef "Joe" Kavalier as a refugee in New York City, where he comes to live with his 17-year-old cousin, Sammy Klayman, in Brooklyn. With the help of his mentor, Kornblum, Joe escapes Nazi-occupied Prague for Lithuania by hiding in a coffin he shares with the Golem of Prague. Joe makes it to New York City by way of Japan and San Francisco. Joe leaves behind the rest of his family, including his younger brother Thomas. As the novel develops, both Joe and Sammy find their creative niches, one entrepreneurial, the other artistic. Beyond having a shared interest in drawing, the duo share several connections to Jewish stage magician Harry Houdini: Josef (like comics legend Jim Steranko) studied magic and escapology in Prague, which aided him in his departure from Europe. Sammy is the son of the Mighty Molecule, a strongman on the vaudeville circuit.When Sammy discovers Joe's artistic talent, he gets Joe a job as an illustrator for a novelty products company, Empire Novelty. Sheldon Anapol, owner of Empire, motivated to share in the recent cultural and financial success of Superman, attempts to break into the comic-book business on the creative backs of Joe and Sammy. Under the name "Sam Clay", Sammy starts writing adventure stories with Joe illustrating them, and the two recruit several other Brooklyn teenagers to produce "Amazing Midget Radio Comics" (named to promote one of the company's novelty items). The pair is at once passionate about their creation, earnestly optimistic about making money, and always nervous about the opinion of their employers. 
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tik-Tok_(novel)" title="Tik-Tok (novel)">
The title character is an intelligent robot (named after the mechanical man in the Oz books) who originally works as a domestic servant and house-painter. Unlike other robots, whose behavior is constrained by "asimov circuits"—a reference to Isaac Asimov's fictional Three Laws of Robotics, which require robots to protect and serve humans—Tik-Tok finds that he can do as he pleases, and he secretly commits various hideous crimes for his amusement. After manipulating both robots and humans to cause chaos and bloodshed, Tik-Tok becomes wealthy (partly through health care privatization) and is finally elected Vice President of the United States.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Times_(novel)" title="Hard Times (novel)">
The novel follows a classical tripartite structure, and the titles of each book are related to "Galatians" 6:7, "For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Book I is entitled "Sowing", Book II is entitled "Reaping", and the third is "Garnering."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roderick_(novel)" title="Roderick (novel)">
The title character is an intelligent robot, the first to be invented. The opening chapters describe the creation of Roderick and show his mind (at first consisting of a bodiless computer program) developing through several stages of awareness. Finally, Roderick is given a rudimentary body and, through a series of misadventures, finds himself alone in the world. Due to his sketchy understanding of human customs, and intrigues surrounding the project that created him, he unwittingly becomes the center of various criminal schemes and other unfortunate events.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Leopard" title="The Leopard">
## Introduction to the Prince, May 1860.This chapter begins with a detailed description of the exquisitely decorated drawing-room where the Salina family recites the daily rosary. Afterwards, the Prince wanders out into the garden, where the sickly, over-ripe smells of lush foliage threaten to overwhelm him with memories – specifically of a mortally wounded Neapolitan soldier who in his last moments had crawled into the lemon grove and died there. Perturbed by these thoughts, the Prince takes refuge in watching his dog, Bendicò, joyfully dig up the garden, and in thoughts about the behavior of his wayward nephew, Prince Tancredi Falconeri.At dinner the Prince announces that he will drive into Palermo. The adults at the table, including the Princess and the family's Jesuit chaplain, Father Pirrone, instantly know that the only reason he is leaving is to visit a brothel. As the Prince is driven in his carriage into the city he passes Tancredi's villa, worrying again that Tancredi has fallen in with the bad company of the rebels fighting to overthrow the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The Prince's thoughts vacillate between anticipation and guilt, between disgust with his wife (who crosses herself whenever they make love or he even kisses her goodnight; to preempt a private rebuke from the family priest about visiting prostitutes, the Prince points out that "he's had seven children with the Princess and yet has never seen her navel") and admiration for her modesty. Two hours later his thoughts run a similar course, with the addition of a kind of disgusted satisfaction with the prostitute and a satisfied disgust with his own body. When he arrives back home he finds the Princess in bed, thinks affectionately of her, climbs into bed with her and finds he cannot sleep. "Towards dawn, however, the Princess had occasion to make the Sign of the Cross."
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dalkey_Archive" title="The Dalkey Archive">
The book features a mad scientist, De Selby, who tries to destroy the world by removing all the oxygen from the air. He has also many strange inventions. He exploits the theory of relativity and invents a kind of time travelling machine, which he uses to age his whiskey, creating brews that have been aged for many decades in just a few hours.Saint Augustine and James Joyce both have speaking parts in the novel. James Joyce, after forging his own obituary to escape being drafted to fight in the Second World War, was serving pints in a small pub. Saint Augustine, on the other hand, appeared in a magical underwater cave and held a conversation with De Selby. The mad scientist De Selby leads the two main characters, Hackett and Mick, to the cave, to witness this conversation.Many prominent elements of the book, particularly De Selby himself, the eccentric policemen, and the atomic theory of the bicycle, were taken from O'Brien's much earlier novel "The Third Policeman", because he had not been able to find a publisher for it. The latter novel was published posthumously.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barometer_Rising" title="Barometer Rising">
The novel takes place during the week of the Halifax Explosion - 2 December 1917 to 10 December 1917.Penelope Wain believes that her cousin, Neil Macrae, has been killed while serving overseas under her father, Colonel Geoffrey Wain. The family is under the impression that Neil had died in the disgrace of desertion. Neil, however, had not died, but has returned to Halifax to clear his name of its tarnish. Neil seeks Alec MacKenzie, the only other survivor of their unit who can confirm that Colonel Wain had given an contradictory order, which was impossible to fulfill. When the order ended in disaster, Colonel Wain attempted to blame Neil in hopes of retaining his position in the military. Yet, prior to the court martial, Neil was believed to have died in artillery strike. Colonel Wain was forced to return to Canada as a transportation officer.In Halifax, the war has given Penny the opportunity to become a successful naval architect at the Halifax Shipyard. She develops a friendship with Angus Murray, a doctor wounded from the war. Angus eventually proposes marriage to Penny; she defers the proposal. While her father, Colonel Wain, disapproves of Angus, he warms up to him after learning that Neil is alive and in Halifax. Neil and Penny had also been lovers and Angus realizes that Colonel Wain is desperate to ensure that Neil is not court martialed and given an opportunity to clarify the occurrences over seas. The colonel had been offered a new position in the war, and the trial will ruin his promotion.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_Rock_(novel)" title="Brighton Rock (novel)">
There is an incidental link between this novel and Greene's earlier "A Gun for Sale" (1936), in that the murder of the gang boss Kite, mentioned in "A Gun For Sale", allows the seventeen-year-old sociopath Pinkie to take over his gang and thus sets the events of "Brighton Rock" in motion. The murder of Kite had been brought about because of a report by Charles "Fred" Hale in the "Daily Messenger" about his slot machine racket. Now Hale has been sent to Brighton to distribute cards anonymously for a newspaper competition and realises that he is being hunted by Pinkie’s mob.Hale meets middle-ageing Ida Arnold by chance in a pub and then on the Palace Pier as the mob is closing in, but he is snatched away without her realising what has happened to him. To confuse the police investigation, Pinkie has gang member Spicer distribute Hale's cards about the town and then tries to retrieve one card from the café in which sixteen-year-old Rose is working as a waitress. Since Rose had spotted Spicer leaving the card, Pinkie realises that she can now disprove his trail of deception and must take measures to prevent this. He therefore courts Rose until she falls in love with him, his aim being to marry her so that she cannot testify against him. In reality he looks down on her, since she comes from the same socially deprived neighbourhood as himself, and is even repelled by her physically.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bear_and_the_Dragon" title="The Bear and the Dragon">
In Moscow, SVR director Sergey Golovko survives an attack on his way to work, when a car identical to the armored white Mercedes that he was in was shot with an RPG-7, killing the occupants (one of them a former KGB agent turned pimp) inside. Investigation of the incident by Russian police and later intelligence officers points out to involvement from Chinese intelligence, and that Golovko was the real target. After the failed attempt on the SVR director's life, the Chinese later plot to assassinate the Russian president, but their agent, also a former KGB officer, was arrested by the FSB.Meanwhile, U.S. President Jack Ryan gives Taiwan diplomatic status, which is implied as retaliation to China for secretly assisting in previous plots by Japan ("Debt of Honor") and Iran ("Executive Orders") against the U.S. Months later, during trade negotiations between the U.S. and China in Beijing, a CNN crew witnesses the murders of the Papal Nuncio to the country and a Chinese Baptist minister, when the two attempt to stop Chinese authorities from performing a forced abortion on one of the latter's followers. Two days later, police officers brutally break up a prayer service led by the Baptist minister's widow in their home, who had been outraged that her husband's body was cremated and dumped into a river without her permission. International outrage over the incidents leads to a boycott on Chinese-made products. With its economy already struggling due to recent military expansions, the country hastens its planned invasion of Siberia to access newly discovered oil and gold fields.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_158-Pound_Marriage" title="The 158-Pound Marriage">
The narrator (who never identifies himself by name) is a college professor and a relatively unsuccessful author of historical novels. While doing research in Vienna, Austria, he met Utch, an orphaned survivor of the German occupation and the Russian siege at the end of World War II. At the opening of the novel, the narrator and Utch are married with two children and live a relatively placid existence until, at a faculty party, they become acquainted with Severin Winter, a Viennese-born professor of German and coach of the school's wrestling team, and his wife Edith, a WASP from a privileged background (she met her husband in Vienna while on a buying trip for MOMA) who is an aspiring fiction writer. The narrator begins a mentor-protégé relationship with Edith, and soon the couples are sharing dinners and play dates with their children. As the narrator becomes more attracted to Edith, and Utch begins to fall for Severin, the couples begin trading spouses for sexual encounters at the end of their dinner dates. At first the affairs proceed smoothly, with emotional conflict submerged beneath sexual curiosity, but soon enough, obsessive love rears its ugly head, and the narrator begins to discover that the Winters have not been entirely honest with him and his wife about their motives for entering the affair.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilvish,_the_Damned" title="Dilvish, the Damned">
Dilvish is the descendant of both elves and humans, a scion of a prominent Elven house and "the Human House that hath been stricken" which lost its peerage for mixing Elven and Human blood. Hundreds of years before the main story, he comes across a dark ritual being performed by the sorcerer Jelerak who is sacrificing a human girl. He attempts to stop the ritual but is turned into stone, with his soul banished to Hell. His body becomes a statue, and for many decades it resides within the square of a nearby town that he had formerly saved from enemy conquerors. When this town is again in need of a hero, their citizens' plight allows Dilvish the passage he needs to escape from Hell. He returns to the world of the living with his steed, the metal demon horse Black, and a burning desire for revenge against Jelerak, but must first repulse the assault against the endangered town. Dilvish then goes to call upon the Shoredan - a cursed people bound to his family. He searches for Jelerak in the Tower of Ice and finds the sorcerer's apprentice and his sister trapped there. The two of them believe him to be a servant of Jelerak, sent to kill them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Shift_(novel)" title="Red Shift (novel)">
This is primarily a novel about adolescent despair, but one that uses devices of fantasy such as having events at different times in history influencing each other. It is said to be inspired by the legend of Tam Lin, where a man or boy kidnapped by fairies is rescued by his true love. The author said that a piece of graffiti seen at a railway station, "Not really now not any more", became the focus of the novel's mood, and it forms the last line of the story.It took Garner six years to write. He provided three intertwined love stories, one set in the present, another during the English Civil War of the seventeenth century, and the third in the second century CE. Writer and folklorist Neil Philip referred to it as "a complex book but not a complicated one: the bare lines of story and emotion stand clear". Academic specialist in children's literature Maria Nikolajeva characterised "Red Shift" as "a difficult book" for an unprepared reader, identifying its main themes as those of "loneliness and failure to communicate". Ultimately, she thought that repeated re-readings of the novel bring about the realisation that "it is a perfectly realistic story with much more depth and psychologically more credible than the most so-called "realistic" juvenile novels."
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Business_(novel)" title="The Business (novel)">
Kate Telman is a 'level 3' executive in the Business, a vast business empire. During her sabbatical year, she comes to suspect that some of her colleagues are stealing from the organisation, and investigates.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_and_the_Dead" title="The Naked and the Dead">
The novel is divided into four parts: Wave; Argil and Mold; Plant and Phantom; and Wake. Within these parts are chorus sections, consisting of play-like dialogue between characters, as well as Time Machine sections, which give brief histories and flashbacks of individual characters’ lives.The story takes place on Anopopei, a fictional island somewhere in the South Pacific. American forces are faced with a campaign to drive out the Japanese so that Americans can advance into the Philippines. The novel focuses on the experiences of one platoon.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parade's_End" title="Parade's End">
The novels chronicle the life of Christopher Tietjens, "the last Tory", a brilliant government statistician from a wealthy landowning family who serves in the British Army during the First World War. His wife Sylvia is a flippant socialite who seems intent on ruining him through her sexual promiscuity. Tietjens may or may not be the father of his wife's child. Meanwhile, his incipient affair with Valentine Wannop, a high-spirited pacifist and women's suffragist, has not been consummated, despite what all their friends believe.The two central novels follow Tietjens in the army in France and Belgium, as well as Sylvia and Valentine in their separate paths over the course of the war.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moviegoer" title="The Moviegoer">
"The Moviegoer" tells the story of Jack "Binx" Bolling, a young stock-broker in postwar New Orleans. The decline of tradition in the Southern United States, the problems of his family and his traumatic experiences in the Korean War have left him alienated from his own life. He day-dreams constantly, has trouble engaging in lasting relationships, and finds more meaning and immediacy in cinema and literature than in his own routine life.The loose plot of the novel follows the Moviegoer himself, Binx Bolling, in desperate need of spiritual redemption. At Mardi Gras, he breaks out of his caged everyday life and launches himself on a journey, a quest, in a "search" for God. Without any mental compass or sense of direction, he wanders the streets of New Orleans' French Quarter, and Chicago, and then travels the Gulf Coast, interacting with his surroundings as he goes. He has philosophical moments, reflecting on the people and things he encounters on the road. He is constantly challenged to define himself in relation to friends, family, sweet-hearts, and career despite his urge to remain vague and open to possibility.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Human_Bondage" title="Of Human Bondage">
The book begins with the death of Helen Carey, the beloved mother of nine-year-old Philip Carey. Philip has a club foot and his father had died a few months earlier. Now orphaned, he is sent to live with his aunt and uncle, Louisa and William Carey.Philip lives at his uncle's vicarage. Aunt Louisa tries to be a mother to Philip, but his uncle is cold towards him. Philip's uncle has a vast collection of books, and Philip enjoys reading to escape his mundane existence. After less than a year, Philip is sent to a boarding school. His uncle and aunt plan for him to attend Oxford. Philip's disability and sensitive nature make it difficult for him to befriend other students. Philip learns that he could earn a scholarship for Oxford, which both his uncle and school headmaster view as wise, but Philip insists on going to Germany.In Heidelberg, Philip lives at a boarding house with other foreigners and enjoys Germany. Philip's guardians persuade him to move to London for an apprenticeship. His colleagues there resent him, believing he is a "gentleman". He goes on a business trip with one of his managers to Paris and is inspired to study art in France.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_House_for_Mr_Biswas" title="A House for Mr Biswas">
Mohun Biswas (based on V. S. Naipaul's father, Seepersad Naipaul) is born in rural Trinidad and Tobago to Hindu Indian parents and his father is a Brahmin. His birth was considered inauspicious as he is born "in the wrong way" and with an extra finger. A pundit prophesies that the newborn child "will be a lecher and a spendthrift. Possibly a liar as well", and that he will "eat up his mother and father". The pundit advises that the boy be kept "away from trees and water. Particularly water". A few years later, Mohun leads a neighbour's calf, which he is tending, to a stream. The boy, who has never seen water "in its natural form", becomes distracted and allows the calf to wander off. Mohun then hides in fear of punishment. His father, believing his son to be in the water, drowns in an attempt to save him, thus in part fulfilling the pundit's prophecy. This leads to the dissolution of the family. Mohun's sister is sent to live with a wealthy aunt and uncle, Tara and Ajodha. Mohun, his mother, and two older brothers go to live with other relatives.The boy is withdrawn prematurely from school and apprenticed to a pundit, but is cast out on bad terms. Ajodha then puts him in the care of his alcoholic and abusive brother Bhandat, an arrangement which also ends badly. Finally, the young Mr Biswas decides to make his own fortune. He encounters a friend from his school days who helps him get into the business of sign-writing. While on the job, Mr Biswas attempts to romance a client's daughter but his advances are misinterpreted as a wedding proposal. He is drawn into a marriage which he does not have the nerve to stop and becomes a member of the Tulsi household.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bend_in_the_River" title="A Bend in the River">
Set in an unnamed African country after independence, the book is narrated by Salim, an ethnically Indian Muslim and a shopkeeper in a small but growing city in the country's remote interior. Salim observes the rapid changes in Africa with an outsider's distance.Salim grows up in the community of Indian traders on the east coast of Africa. Feeling insecure about his future in East Africa, he buys a business from Nazruddin in a town at "a bend in the river" in the heart of Africa. When he moves there he finds the town decrepit, a "ghost town", its former European suburb reclaimed by the bush, and many of its European vestiges ruined in a "rage" by the locals in response to their suppression and humiliation during colonial times. Old tribal distinctions have become important again. Salim trades in what people in the villages need: pencils and paper, pots and pans, other household utensils. Soon he is joined by an assistant, Metty, who comes from a family of house slaves his family had maintained in the east. One of his steady customers is Zabeth, a "marchande" from a village and a magician too. Zabeth has a son, Ferdinand, by a man of another tribe, and asks Salim to help him get educated. Ferdinand attends the local lycée run by Father Huismans, a Belgian priest who collects African masks and is considered a "lover of Africa". Life in the town is slowly improving. Salim's decision to move there seems to be vindicated when he learns that the Indian community on the east coast is being persecuted, but he still does not feel secure. Mahesh says of the local Africans that "they are malins", "because they lived with the knowledge of men as prey". A rebellion breaks out and the Indian merchants live in fear. Soon white mercenaries appear and restore order. After peace has returned Father Huismans goes on a trip. He is killed by unknown assailants and nobody cares. Afterwards his collection of African masks is denounced as affront to African religion. An American visitor pillages most of the masks and ships them home as "The richest products of the forest".
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Sargasso_Sea" title="Wide Sargasso Sea">
The novel, initially set in Jamaica, opens a short while after the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 abolished slavery in the British Empire on 1 August 1834. The protagonist Antoinette relates the story of her life from childhood to her arranged marriage to an English gentleman, Mr. Rochester.The novel is in three parts:Part One takes place in Coulibri, a sugar plantation in Jamaica, and is narrated by Antoinette as a child. Formerly wealthy, since the abolition of slavery, the estate has become derelict and her family has been plunged into poverty. Antoinette's mother, Annette, must remarry to wealthy English gentleman Mr. Mason, who is hoping to exploit his new wife's situation. Angry at the returning prosperity of the planter class, emancipated slaves living in Coulibri burn down Annette's house, killing Antoinette's mentally disabled younger brother, Pierre. As Annette had been struggling with her mental health up until this point, the grief of losing her son weakens her sanity. Mr. Mason sends her to live with a couple who torment her until she dies. When Antoinette visits her after the fire, Annette refuses to see or speak to her. Antoinette visits her mother once more when she is older but is alarmed at the abuse she witnesses by the servants to her mother and goes away without speaking to her.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magus_(novel)" title="The Magus (novel)">
The story reflects the perspective of Nicholas Urfe, a young Oxford graduate and aspiring poet. After graduation, he briefly works as a teacher at a small school, but becomes bored and decides to leave England. While looking for another job, Nicholas takes up with Alison Kelly, an Australian girl he met at a party in London. He goes on to accept a post teaching English at the Lord Byron School on the Greek island of Phraxos. After beginning his new post, he becomes bored, depressed, disillusioned, and overwhelmed by his life on the Mediterranean island; Nicholas struggles with loneliness and contemplates suicide. While habitually wandering around the island, he stumbles upon an estate and soon meets its owner, Maurice Conchis, a wealthy Greek recluse. They develop a sort of friendship, and Conchis slowly reveals that he may have collaborated with the Nazis during World War II.Nicholas is gradually drawn into Conchis's psychological games, his paradoxical views on life, his mysterious persona, and his eccentric masques. At first, Nicholas takes these machinations of Conchis, what the novel terms the "godgame", to be a joke, but they grow more elaborate and intense. Nicholas loses his ability to determine what is real and what is artifice. Against his will and knowledge, he becomes a performer in the godgame. Eventually, Nicholas realises that the re-enactments of the Nazi occupation, the absurd playlets after Sade, and the obscene parodies of Greek myths are not about Conchis's life, but his own.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragtime_(novel)" title="Ragtime (novel)">
The novel centers on a wealthy family living in New Rochelle, New York, referred to as Father, Mother, Mother's Younger Brother, Grandfather, and 'the little boy', Father and Mother's young son. The family business is the manufacture of flags and fireworks, an easy source of wealth due to the national enthusiasm for patriotic displays. Father joins Robert Peary's expedition to the North Pole, and his return sees a change in his relationship with his wife, who has experienced independence in his absence. Mother's Younger Brother is a genius at explosives and fireworks but is an insecure, unhappy character who chases after love and excitement. He becomes obsessed with the notorious socialite Evelyn Nesbit, stalking her and embarking on a brief, unsatisfactory affair with her.Into this insecure setup comes an abandoned black child, then his severely depressed mother, Sarah. Coalhouse Walker, the child's father, visits regularly to win Sarah's affections. A professional musician, well-dressed and well-spoken, he gains the family's respect and overcomes their prejudice initially by playing ragtime music on their piano. Things go well until he is humiliated by a racist fire crew, led by Will Conklin, who vandalize his Model T Ford. He begins a pursuit of redress by legal action but discovers he cannot hope to win because of the inherent prejudice of the system. Sarah is killed in an attempt to aid him, and Coalhouse uses the money he was saving for their wedding to pay for an extravagant funeral. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Journey_of_Ibn_Fattouma" title="The Journey of Ibn Fattouma">
Ibn Fattouma, more commonly known by his birth name Qindil Muhammad al-Innabi, is a Muslim man disillusioned by the corruption in his home city. When he asks his teacher why a land whose people obey the tenets of Islam suffers so, Qindil is told that the answer he seeks lies far away from the city, in the land of Gebel; the land of perfection. The teacher encourages Ibn Fattouma to seek the land of Gebel, where such problems have been solved. The teacher attempted to journey there himself, but civil war in neighboring lands and the demands of family ultimately prevented him from completing the journey. Further complicating Qindil's impending expedition, no documents exist about the land and no one is known to have returned from Gebel.Qindil is determined to embark on the journey, for he feels betrayed by his mother, who remarried, and his lover, who was stolen by the sultan. He gives his farewells to his family and proceeds on a caravan out of his home city to the land of Mashriq. In this sexually libertine society, the women and men do not marry; rather, they share each other's partners. The religion of Mashriq is primitive and pagan; the moon is worshiped as a god. Qindil questions the land's customs, but he soon acculturates to their ways. He settles in Mashriq with a woman named Arousa and they have five children. Because of Qindil's insistence upon teaching his eldest son Islam, he is exiled from Mashriq and prohibited from seeing Arousa or their children again.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vril" title="Vril">
The novel centres on a young, independent, unnamed, wealthy traveller (the narrator), who visits a friend, a mining engineer. They explore a natural chasm in a mine which has been exposed by an exploratory shaft. The narrator reaches the bottom of the chasm safely, but the rope breaks and his friend is killed. The narrator finds his way into a subterranean world occupied by beings who seem to resemble angels. He befriends the first being he meets, who guides him around a city that is reminiscent of ancient Egyptian architecture. The explorer meets his host's wife, two sons and daughter who learn to speak English by way of a makeshift dictionary during which the narrator unconsciously teaches them the language. His guide comes towards him, and he and his daughter, Zee, explain who they are and how they function.The hero discovers that these beings, who call themselves Vril-ya, have great telepathic and other parapsychological abilities, such as being able to transmit information, get rid of pain, and put others to sleep. The narrator is offended by the idea that the Vril-ya are better adapted to learn about him than he is to learn about them. Nevertheless, the guide (who turns out to be a magistrate) and his son Ta behave kindly towards him.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Honourable_Schoolboy" title="The Honourable Schoolboy">
In 1974 George Smiley, the chief of the British secret intelligence service referred to as The Circus, is repairing the damage done to their operations by double agent Bill Haydon and looking for opportunities to target Karla, the Moscow Centre spymaster. Smiley and analysts Connie Sachs and Doc di Salis look into investigations suppressed by the outed mole and find that a historic investigation of a money laundering operation in Laos by Sam Collins could indicate a Moscow intelligence operation.Smiley dispatches Jerry Westerby, a newspaper reporter and occasional Circus operative, to Hong Kong under the guise of a sports journalist. Westerby traces the Soviet money to Drake Ko, a local businessman with links to both the criminal underworld and the British establishment. London establishes that Drake Ko has a brother, Nelson, who is a high-ranking Chinese official and who has been spying on the Chinese for the Soviets.Westerby, following up leads provided by London, interviews Drake's English mistress Lizzie Worthington and discovers that Drake has been attempting to set up an illicit air route into China. Charlie Marshall and Tiny Ricardo (both pilots and smugglers) were approached by Drake to carry opium into China, and return with a package. The flights were never completed, and Smiley surmises that the package was Nelson, who wished to defect from China. The money supplied by Moscow was intended for Nelson, to be accessed after he left China.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tomb_of_the_Cybermen" title="The Tomb of the Cybermen">
On the planet Telos, an archeological expedition uncovers a hidden entrance in a mountainside. When one of the members tries to open the doors, he is electrocuted. The TARDIS lands nearby and the expedition is met by the Second Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria. Parry, the expedition's leader, explains that they are here to find the remains of the Cybermen, who died out five centuries before. The expedition is funded by Kaftan, who is accompanied by Toberman and her colleague Klieg. Deciding to accompany them, the Doctor helps open the doors and, while he, Parry, and Klieg stay to open the hatch leading to the tombs, the others explore the building.Victoria, Kaftan, and Viner, Parry's assistant, discover a chamber with a sarcophagus-like wall inset facing a projector that was used to revitalise the Cybermen. After Victoria is locked inside, the Doctor is called to help her escape, though he suspects Kaftan is to blame. Meanwhile, Jamie and Haydon, another member of the expedition, experiment with the control panel in another room. A Cyberman emerges and a gun fires, killing Haydon. The Doctor investigates and deduces that the room is a testing range for weapons; the Cyberman being a dummy to be used for such purposes. With two members dead, Parry decides to call off the expedition, only to be informed by pilot Captain Hopper that someone has sabotaged the rocket ship, meaning they are stranded until repairs are completed. Klieg opens the hatch and the team descend, leaving Kaftan and Victoria behind.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Half" title="The Dark Half">
Thad Beaumont is an author and recovering alcoholic who lives in the town of Ludlow, Maine. Thad's own books – cerebral literary fiction – are not very successful. However, under the pen name "George Stark", he writes highly successful crime novels about a psychopathic killer named Alexis Machine. When Thad's authorship of Stark's novels becomes public knowledge, Thad and his wife, Elizabeth, decide to stage a mock burial for his alter ego at the local cemetery, which is featured in a "People" magazine article. Stark's epitaph says it all: "Not A Very Nice Guy."Stark, however, emerges from the mock grave as a physical entity, complete with the personality traits that Thad exhibited while writing as Stark, such as drinking heavily and smoking Pall Mall cigarettes. He then goes on a killing spree, gruesomely murdering everyone he perceives as responsible for his "death" – Thad's editor, agent, and the "People" interviewer, among others. Thad, meanwhile, is plagued by surreal nightmares. Stark's murders are investigated by Alan Pangborn, the sheriff of the neighboring town of Castle Rock, who finds Thad's voice and fingerprints at the crime scenes. This evidence, and Thad's unwillingness to answer his questions, causes Pangborn to believe that Thad – despite having alibis – is responsible for the murders. Later, it is discovered that Stark has the same fingerprints as Thad, a clue to the twinship he and Thad share.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_Peter_Rabbit" title="The Tale of Peter Rabbit">
The story focuses on Peter, a mischievous, young rabbit, and his family. The mother rabbit warns Peter and her other three children, Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail, not to enter the vegetable garden of a human named Mr. McGregor, whose wife, she tells them, put their father in a pie after he entered. Peter's three younger sisters obediently refrain from entering the garden and go down the lane to gather blackberries. But Peter (who was very naughty) enters the garden to eat some vegetables.Peter ends up eating more than is good for him and goes looking for parsley to cure his stomachache. Peter is spotted by Mr. McGregor, and loses his jacket and shoes while trying to escape. He hides in a watering can in a shed, but then has to run away again when Mr. McGregor finds him and ends up completely lost. When Mr. McGregor gets tired after running Peter and resumes back to his work, Peter sees that Mr. McGregor is "gone" and it buys him some time to escape to the gate. After sneaking past a cat, Peter sees from a distance the gate where he entered the garden and heads for it, despite being spotted and chased by Mr. McGregor again. With difficulty, he wriggles under the gate, and escapes from the garden. His abandoned clothing is used by Mr. McGregor to dress his scarecrow.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chamber_(novel)" title="The Chamber (novel)">
In 1967, in Greenville, Mississippi, the office of Jewish lawyer Marvin Kramer is bombed, injuring Kramer and killing his two young sons. Sam Cayhall, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, is identified, arrested and tried for their murders, committed in retaliation for Kramer's involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. Sam's first two trials, engineered by his Klan-connected lawyer, each end in a mistrial. Twenty years later, the FBI pressures a suspected associate to testify against Sam at a third trial. Sam is convicted and sentenced to death by lethal gas. He is sent to the Mississippi State Penitentiary and placed on death row.Now without a lawyer, Sam becomes a "pro bono" case for a team of anti-death penalty lawyers from the large - and Jewish - Chicago law firm of Kravitz and Bane. Representing Sam is his own grandson, Adam Hall, who travels to the firm's Memphis office to aid Sam in the final month before his scheduled execution. Although lacking experience in death penalty cases, Adam is determined to argue a stay for his grandfather. Sam, despite his violent past, is one of the few living links to Adam's family history. Sam's alcoholic daughter, Lee Cayhall Booth, slowly reveals the family's tragic past to her nephew, Adam.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine_Nights" title="Cocaine Nights">
The story's protagonist, Charles Prentice, ventures to Estrella de Mar in order to rescue his jailed brother, Frank who has been arrested for instigating an arson attack which killed 5 people. Upon arriving and talking with his sibling, Charles finds to his horror that his brother has confessed to everything, and has no interest in trying to escape his plea. In a matter of days, Charles becomes immersed in the strange world of Estrella de Mar, learning more of its dark secrets, and spending less time worrying about his brother.Constantly being manipulated while he thinks he is finding the truth, Charles soon finds himself out of control and at the nexus of certain disaster, at which point he finally begins to understand just what happened to his brother.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_Island" title="Concrete Island">
A car accident leaves Robert Maitland, a wealthy architect in the midst of concealing his affair with a colleague, stranded in a large area of derelict land created by several intersecting motorways. Though surrounded by motorists and within sight of large buildings, Maitland is unable to escape the median strip and must struggle for survival. Along the way he encounters other inhabitants of the median strip, which he comes to call "The Island," including a teenaged sex worker who hides out in an abandoned air-raid bunker and an acrobat who became mentally disabled in an accident and now salvages car parts for bizarre shamanic rituals. He learns to survive by scavenging discarded food from littering motorists, and eventually comes to think of the island as his true home. Conflicts ensue with the other inhabitants and before long Maitland is struggling to determine whether he was truly meant to leave the island at all.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Burnt-Out_Case" title="A Burnt-Out Case">
Querry, a famous architect who is fed up with his celebrity, no longer finds meaning in art or pleasure in life. Arriving anonymously in the late 1950s at a Congo leper colony overseen by Catholic missionaries, he is diagnosed – by Dr Colin, the resident doctor who is himself an atheist – as the mental equivalent of a 'burnt-out case': a leper who has gone through the stages of mutilation. However, as Querry loses himself in working for the lepers, his disease of mind slowly approaches a cure.Querry meets Rycker, a palm-oil plantation owner, and a man of apparently earnest Catholic faith who does not accept his own nothingness and tries to amplify the relevance of Querry's presence in that country. Rycker's wife, a young and ill-educated woman, is absolutely bored with his prudishness and her own lack of freedom.It is revealed that Querry is a famous architect, known throughout the world for his design and construction of churches – which he himself believes have been defiled by the religious occupants. Querry is persuaded to design and oversee a new building for the hospital.An English journalist called Parkinson arrives at the village with the intention of writing a series of articles, to be syndicated in many European and North American newspapers, on the subject of Querry's perceived 'saintly' activities in the village, including a story of Querry rescuing his servant – an African mutilated by leprosy- who became lost in the jungle. However Parkinson also brings up Querry's past not only as an architect but also as a womaniser. It is revealed that Querry's former lover committed suicide, thus prompting his journey to the village (however his journey was not the result of feelings of guilt or grief, but rather the incident acted to magnify his growing loss of faith and vocation.)
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Doctors" title="The Five Doctors">
An unknown entity uses the Time Scoop to bring several of the previous incarnations of the Doctor; his former companions Susan Foreman, Sarah Jane Smith, and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart; and his enemies the Daleks, the Cybermen, a Raston Warrior Robot and a Yeti, from their respective time streams into the Death Zone on Gallifrey. The entity's attempt to grab the Fourth Doctor and Romana ends up trapping the two in the time vortex. The Fifth Doctor senses the disruption of his own timeline, and with his own companions Tegan and Turlough, travels to Gallifrey via his TARDIS, also ending up in the Death Zone, unable to travel farther with the TARDIS due to a force field projected by the Tomb of Rassilon, the tower at the centre of the Death Zone. The various Doctors lead their companions towards the Tower while avoiding the hostile forces.At the Citadel on Gallifrey, the High Council of Time Lords have also detected the disturbance in the Doctor's timeline and the power drain from the Time Scoop, and Lord President Borusa has the Master, the Doctor's arch-nemesis, summoned to help rescue the Doctor, offering the Master a new set of regenerations and a pardon for his misdeeds if he succeeds. The Master accepts, and is given a recall device by the Castellan and a copy of the High Council's seal before he is transmatted to the Zone. The Master encounters the Third Doctor, who dismisses him and accuses him of making the seal himself, before finding the Fifth just as they are surrounded by Cybermen. The Master is knocked out by a Cyberman's gun firing, and the Doctor finds and uses the recall device to return to the Citadel. When the Master awakes, he makes a pact with the Cybermen to lead them to the Tower if they will give him his life but tricks them into falling for the Death Zone's traps. The Cybermen, too, have an ulterior motive, planning to kill the Master when he outlives his usefulness.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Summons_(Grisham_novel)" title="The Summons (Grisham novel)">
The main character, Ray Atlee, is a law professor with a good salary at the University of Virginia. He has a brother, Forrest, and a father, known to many as Judge Reuben V. Atlee. Ray is sent to his father's house in Clanton, Mississippi, to discuss issues regarding the old man's will and estate. To do this, Ray has to go to fictional Ford County, Mississippi, the setting for four of John Grisham's other books including "A Time To Kill". When he finds his father dead in the study, Ray discovers a sum of over $3 million in the house, money which is not part of Judge Atlee's will. Ray immediately thinks the money is "dirty" because his father could not possibly have made so much money in his career.Assuming that he is the only one who knows about the money, Ray decides to take it without making it officially part of the estate, and does not tell anyone about it: he knows that if he made it a part of the estate, taxes would take most of the money. But later reality proves otherwise. Ray is being followed; someone else knows about the money. After his own investigations into the roots of the money and the identity of his shadow—including trips to casinos and shady meetings with prominent southern lawyers—he eventually discovers that Forrest has the money. He finds Forrest in a drug rehab compound and confronts him. At the end both part, with Forrest telling Ray that he will contact him in a year. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needful_Things" title="Needful Things">
A new shop named "Needful Things" opens in the small town of Castle Rock, Maine, sparking the curiosity of its citizens. The proprietor, Leland Gaunt, is a charming elderly gentleman purportedly from Akron, Ohio who always seems to have an item in stock that is perfectly suited to any customer who comes through his door. The prices are surprisingly low, considering the merchandise – such as a rare Sandy Koufax baseball card, a carnival glass lampshade, and a fragment of petrified wood stated to be from Noah's Ark – but he expects each customer to also play a little prank on someone else in town. Each customer enters a trance and becomes highly agreeable when making a deal with Gaunt, afterwards forgetting anything abnormal about the encounter. Gaunt has complete knowledge of the long-standing private histories and conflicts between the various townspeople, and the pranks are his means of forcing them to escalate.Shortly after Gaunt opens his shop, he marks local Sheriff Alan Pangborn and Polly Chalmers, Alan's sweetheart and proprietor of a local sewing shop, as "tough customers" who are likely to question and interfere with him. Gaunt avoids Alan and offers Polly an ancient charm that relieves the terrible arthritic pain in her hands, as well as giving Gaunt control over her. Tensions in Castle Rock rapidly grow after Nettie Cobb, Polly's housekeeper, and her enemy Wilma Jerzyck kill each other with knives in a confrontation sparked by local boy Brian Rusk vandalizing Wilma's home and alcoholic Hugh Priest killing Nettie's dog. Other rivalries begin to fester, spurred by the personal motives and secrets of the people involved. Gaunt hires petty criminal John "Ace" Merrill as his assistant, providing him with high-quality cocaine and hinting at buried treasure that could relieve the debt he owes to a pair of drug dealers. Ace's first assignment is to retrieve crates of pistols, ammunition, and blasting caps from a garage in Boston; Gaunt soon begins to sell the pistols to his customers so they can protect their purchases.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Jest" title="Infinite Jest">
There are several major interwoven narratives, including:These narratives are connected via a film, "Infinite Jest", also called "the Entertainment" or "the samizdat". The film is so entertaining that its viewers lose all interest in anything other than repeatedly viewing it, and thus eventually die. It was James Incandenza's final work. He completed it during a period of sobriety that was insisted upon by its lead actress, Joelle van Dyne. The Québécois separatists seek a replicable master copy of the work to aid in acts of terrorism against the United States. The United States Office of Unspecified Services (O.U.S.) aims to intercept the master copy to prevent mass dissemination and the destabilization of the Organization of North American Nations, or else to find or produce an anti-entertainment that can counter the film's effects. Joelle seeks treatment for substance abuse problems at Ennet House. A.F.R. member (and possible O.U.S. double agent) Rémy Marathe visits Ennet House, aiming to find Joelle and a lead to the master copy of "the Entertainment".
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Fowl_(novel)" title="Artemis Fowl (novel)">
Captain Holly Short, an elf in the Lower Elements Police (LEP), is tracking a rogue troll that has managed to reach the surface of the Earth from Haven City, thousands of feet underground. Assisted by the technically minded centaur Foaly and LEPrecon commander Julius Root, she incapacitates the troll before leaving for Tara to replenish her magic.Meanwhile, Artemis Fowl II is a 12-year-old prodigy who has dedicated his life to criminal activities. He leads the Fowl criminal empire, which has existed in his family for generations. After significant research, Artemis believes that he has confirmed the existence of fairies. He identifies an alcoholic sprite living in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and travels there with his bodyguard Butler to obtain from her "The Book of the People"—the fairy holy book that is written in Gnommish. After decoding the book using translating software, Artemis learns the specifics of the ritual fairies use to replenish their magic: take an acorn from an ancient oak tree near a bend in a river under the full moon and plant it elsewhere. Artemis and Butler track down 129 possible nearby locations for the ritual and start a stakeout. They discover Holly performing the ritual, and Butler tranquillises her with a hypodermic dart gun.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Fowl_and_the_Arctic_Incident" title="Artemis Fowl and the Arctic Incident">
The story opens at the Bay of Kola, just after the Russian Mafia have sunk the Fowl Star. Two low-ranking Mafia members discover the body of the former Irish crime lord Artemis Fowl I, who has survived despite losing a leg and the use of one eye. Three years later, his son and heir Artemis Fowl II, while at school talking to the guidance counselor, Dr. Po, receives a call from his manservant and bodyguard Butler. Butler shows Artemis a video of his father, showing that he is in the hands of the Mafia. Knowing that a ransom demand will soon be coming, and that payment will in no way guarantee his father's release or his own safety, Artemis prepares to devise a plan while Butler drives them back to Fowl Manor.While Artemis Fowl's plight plays out above ground, the Lower Elements Police of the fairy realm are having their own problems. A routine stakeout group consisting of the disgraced Captain Holly Short and Private Chix Verbil is attacked by a group of heavily armed goblins carrying old outlawed Softnose weaponry powered by human batteries, a Class A contraband. Captain Short is quick to accuse young Artemis Fowl and against his own wishes, LEP Commander Julius Root sends Holly to apprehend Artemis Fowl and Butler for interrogation. However, Foaly's Retimager proves Artemis's innocence. Against Holly's instincts, Root decides to recruit Fowl and Butler to locate the supplier.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papillon_(book)" title="Papillon (book)">
The book is an account of a 14-year period in Papillon's life (October 26, 1931 to October 18, 1945), beginning when he was wrongly convicted of murder in France and sentenced to a life of hard labor at the "Bagne de Cayenne", the penal colony of Cayenne in French Guiana known as Devil's Island. He eventually escaped from the colony and settled in Venezuela, where he lived and prospered.After a brief stay at a prison in Caen, Papillon was put aboard a vessel bound for South America, where he learned about the brutal life that prisoners endured at the prison colony. Violence and murders were common among the convicts. Men were attacked for many reasons, including money, which most kept in a "charger" (a hollow metal cylinder concealed in the rectum; also known as a "plan d'evasion", "plan", or "escape suppository"). Papillon befriended Louis Dega, a former banker convicted of counterfeiting. He agreed to protect Dega from attackers trying to get his charger.Upon arriving at the penal colony, Papillon claimed to be ill and was sent to the infirmary. There he collaborated with two men, Clousiot and André Maturette, to escape from the prison. They planned to use a sailboat acquired with the help of the associated leper colony at Pigeon Island (Saint Lucia). The Maroni River carried them to the Atlantic Ocean, and they sailed to the northwest, reaching Trinidad.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dalek_Invasion_of_Earth" title="The Dalek Invasion of Earth">
After the TARDIS materialises, the First Doctor (William Hartnell), Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford), Ian Chesterton (William Russell), and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) surmise that they have landed in London, but find it in ruins. The Doctor and Ian stumble across an army of Robomen as a Dalek rises from the River Thames. The Daleks take the Doctor and Ian onboard their saucer. Resistance members explain that the Daleks invaded Earth in the aftermath of a meteorite bombardment ten years prior.Barbara and Susan are taken by refugees to a nearby shelter in an abandoned Underground station, where they meet resistance members who are planning an assault on the Daleks. The resistance leader, paraplegic scientist Dortmun (Alan Judd), has created a bomb to destroy the Daleks' outer casings. Susan, Barbara, and the resistance team attack the Daleks using the bombs, but they are ineffective. David (Peter Fraser) rescues the Doctor with Susan while Barbara gets separated. Ian hides as the saucer leaves for the Dalek mining operations. There, he escapes the Slyther (Nick Evans), a pet of the Black Dalek. He eventually hides in the mine and becomes trapped in a capsule filled with explosives. The Doctor, Susan, and David arrive at the cliffs overlooking the mine; the Doctor sends David and Susan to interfere with the Daleks' radio signals, while he climbs into the mine.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Machines" title="The War Machines">
The TARDIS lands in London, near the Post Office Tower, where the First Doctor and Dodo meet Professor Brett, the creator of WOTAN (short for Will Operating Thought ANalogue). In four days' time, WOTAN will be linked to other major computers across the world to take them over, including those of the White House, Cape Kennedy and the Royal Navy.Dodo goes with Polly, Brett's secretary, to the Inferno nightclub, where they meet Ben Jackson, while the Doctor attends a Royal Scientific Club meeting about WOTAN, led by Sir Charles Summer. Before Brett can depart for the meeting, he is hypnotised by WOTAN. He then fetches Krimpton, an electronics colleague, and takes him to WOTAN, where he, too, is possessed by the computer. Major Green, the chief of security in the Tower, is also taken over, and sends WOTAN's control signals to Dodo at the nightclub via telephone.Using its hypnotic control, WOTAN enlists a workforce to construct twelve robotic War Machines around London. One of these machines is built in a warehouse in Covent Garden, close to the Inferno nightclub.The next day, the Doctor telephones Brett at the Post Office Tower, and is nearly possessed by WOTAN. Thinking the Doctor is now controlled, Dodo reveals that the War Machines are being constructed in strategic points in London. The Doctor breaks WOTAN's hypnotic control over her, and she is sent to stay with Sir Charles's wife in the country to recover.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Worlds_Collide" title="When Worlds Collide">
Sven Bronson, a Swedish astronomer working at an observatory in South Africa, discovers a pair of rogue planets, Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta, which will soon enter the Solar System. In eight months, they will pass close enough for gravitational forces to cause catastrophic damage to the Earth. Sixteen months later, after swinging around the Sun, Bronson Alpha (a gas giant) will return to pulverize the Earth and depart. Bronson Beta (discovered to be Earth-like and potentially habitable) may remain and assume a stable orbit.Scientists led by Cole Hendron work desperately to build an atomic rocket to transport enough people, animals and equipment to Bronson Beta to save humanity from extinction. Various countries do the same. The United States evacuates coastal regions in preparation for the first encounter. As the planets approach, observers see through their telescopes cities on Bronson Beta. Tidal waves sweep inland at a height of , volcanic eruptions and earthquakes add to the deadly toll, and the weather runs wild for more than two days. Bronson Alpha grazes and destroys the Moon.Three men take a floatplane to check out conditions across the United States and meet with the President in Hutchinson, Kansas, the temporary capital of the United States. All three are wounded fighting off a mob at their last stop, but manage to return with a precious sample of an extremely heat-resistant metal one of them had noticed. This solves the last remaining engineering obstacle: no material had been found before to make rocket tubes capable of withstanding the heat of the atomic exhaust.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_the_Blue_Dolphins" title="Island of the Blue Dolphins">
The main character is a Nicoleño girl named Won-a-pa-lei, whose secret name is Karana. She has a brother named Ramo and a sister named Ulape. Her people live in a village called Ghalas-at and the tribe survives by gathering roots and fishing. One day, a ship of Russian fur hunters and Aleut people led by Captain Orlov arrive and persuade the Nicoleños to let them hunt sea otter in exchange for other goods. However, the Russians attempt to swindle the islanders by leaving without paying. When they are confronted by Karana's father Chief Chowig, a battle breaks out. Karana's father and many other men in the tribe die in battle against the well-armed Russians.Later, the "replacement chief" Chief Kimki leaves the island on a canoe for new land in the East. Eventually, he sends a "giant canoe" to bring his people to the mainland even though he himself does not return. The white missionaries come to Karana's village and tell them to pack their goods and go to the ship. Karana's brother Ramo runs off to retrieve his fishing spear. Although Karana urges the captain to wait for Ramo to return, the ship must leave before a storm approaches. Despite restraint, Karana jumps off the ship and swims to shore and the ship departs without them.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiln_People" title="Kiln People">
The novel takes place in a future in which people can create clay duplicates (called "dittos" or golems) of themselves. A ditto retains all of the archetype's memories up until the time of duplication. The duplicate lasts only about a day, and the original person (referred to in the book as an archie, from "archetype", or "rig", from "original") can then choose whether or not to upload the ditto's memories. Most dittos want to inload, so that their experience will be continuous with that of their archie. Most people use dittos to do their work, as they are affordable even for the poor. Many also use dittos to experience pleasure which could hurt a real person. Dittos come in many colors, which signify their quality and intended role. A cheap ditto suitable for housework is green, whereas a quality one for business is gray. Ebonies are highly specialized dittos that are good at intelligent data analysis; platinums are only used by the very rich, and closely resemble real people. Ivory dittos specialize in the reception of pleasure and sexual fulfillment. Other colors of ditto (such as purple, red, and yellow) exist, but are rarely mentioned in the novel.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poisonwood_Bible" title="The Poisonwood Bible">
Orleanna Price, the mother of the family, narrates the introductory chapter in five of the novel's seven sections. The narrative then alternates among the four daughters, with a slight preference for the voice of the most outspoken one, Leah. The four girls increasingly mature and develop differently as each adapts to African village life and the political turmoil that overtakes the Belgian Congo in the 1960s.The Price family packs up their belongings for their flight to the Congo, where they are going to spend a year as the family of a missionary. However, shortly before leaving, they are informed that they are limited to 44 pounds of luggage per person. The Southern Baptist Mission League suggests they solve this problem by leaving for the airport wearing many layers of clothing, hiding household items among the layers of clothes to lighten their luggage. This is the first problem of many the Price family will face.The Price girls – Rachel, Leah, Adah and Ruth May – and their father, Nathan, attend their first church service in the village of Kilanga, and they realize how different their culture is from that of the Congo. For example, 14-year-old Leah helps her father plant a "demonstration garden"; it immediately receives criticism from Mama Tataba, whom the family has engaged as a live-in helper, and the garden does poorly due to the inappropriate climate. Nathan tries to hold an impromptu Easter celebration in hopes of baptizing numerous people, but he is not successful in baptizing even one, as the river along the village, where he plans to hold the baptism, is infested with crocodiles.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Heart" title="The Death of the Heart">
At the beginning of the novel, Portia moves in with Anna and Thomas Quayne after her mother dies. Portia is Thomas's half sister. Mr. Quayne (Thomas's father) had an extramarital affair with Irene (Portia's mother) while married to Thomas's mother. When Irene became pregnant, and Mrs. Quayne learned of it, she was adamant that he do what was the right thing: so, at his own wife's unyielding insistence, Mr. Quayne divorced Thomas's mother and married Irene. Mr. Quayne, Irene, and Portia then left England and travelled through Europe as exiles from society and from the Quayne family, living in the cheapest of lodgings. Irene and Portia continued to live in this fashion until, when Portia was 16, Irene died. Portia was sent to live with Thomas and Anna after Irene's death. The plan is that she is to stay with them for one year at which time Portia will leave and move in with Irene's sister (Portia's aunt).Portia is a naturally awkward girl, and this aspect of her personality has been intensified by her strange childhood which was one of constant travel, change, and strangers, while at the same time being incredibly isolating. She is uniquely innocent in her observations of people, and is baffled by inconsistencies between what they say and what they do, and wonders why people say things they do not mean. She keeps a diary detailing the lives of those around her, particularly Anna, trying to understand the key to people she thinks she is missing. Anna finds and reads Portia's diary; she is incensed by the idea of the girl observing her every move, and rages about the girl to her friend St. Quentin, a writer and frequent visitor to the Quaynes's home. It becomes clear over the course of the novel that Anna dislikes Portia because she is strange. Anna and Thomas are generally uncomfortable with Portia in their home but try to make do. They send her to classes where she makes friends with a girl named Lilian.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_Mirth" title="The House of Mirth">
Lily Bart, a beautiful but impoverished socialite, is on her way to a house party at Bellomont, the country home of her best friend, Judy Trenor. Her pressing task is to find a husband with the requisite wealth and status to maintain her place in New York society. Additional challenges to her success are her advancing age—at twenty-nine, she has been on the "marriage market" for more than ten years—her penchant for gambling at bridge that has left her with debts beyond her means to pay, and her efforts as part of upper-crust society to keep up appearances with her wealthy friends. Lily's choices are further complicated by her innermost desire to marry for love as well as money and status, and her longing to be free of the claustrophobic constrictions and routines of upper-crust society.Judy has arranged for her to spend more time in the company of Percy Gryce, a potential suitor who is wealthy but whom Lily finds boring. Lily grew up surrounded by elegance and luxury—an atmosphere she believes she cannot live without, as she has learned to abhor "dinginess." The loss of her father's wealth and the death of her parents left her an orphan at twenty. Lacking an inheritance or a caring protector, she adapts to life as a ward of her strait-laced aunt Julia Peniston from whom she receives an erratic allowance, a fashionable address, and good food, but little direction or parenting. Lily is not fond of her aunt Julia and avoids her whenever possible while simultaneously relying on her for both necessities and luxuries.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proofs_and_Refutations" title="Proofs and Refutations">
Many important logical ideas are explained in the book. For example, the difference between a counterexample to a lemma (a so-called 'local counterexample') and a counterexample to the specific conjecture under attack (a 'global counterexample' to the Euler characteristic, in this case) is discussed.Lakatos argues for a different kind of textbook, one that uses heuristic style. To the critics that say such a textbook would be too long, he replies: 'The answer to this pedestrian argument is: let us try.'The book includes two appendices. In the first, Lakatos gives examples of the heuristic process in mathematical discovery. In the second, he contrasts the deductivist and heuristic approaches and provides heuristic analysis of some 'proof generated' concepts, including uniform convergence, bounded variation, and the Carathéodory definition of a measurable set.The pupils in the book are named after letters of the Greek alphabet.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_the_Castaways" title="In Search of the Castaways">
The book tells the story of the quest for Captain Grant of the "Britannia". After finding a bottle the captain had cast into the ocean after the "Britannia" is shipwrecked, Lord and Lady Glenarvan of Scotland contact Mary and Robert, the young daughter and son of Captain Grant, through an announcement in a newspaper. The government refuses to launch a rescue expedition, but Lord and Lady Glenarvan, moved by the children's condition, decide to do it by themselves. The main difficulty is that the coordinates of the wreckage are mostly erased, and only the latitude (37 degrees) is known; thus, the expedition would have to circumnavigate the 37th parallel south. The bottle was retrieved from a shark's stomach, so it is impossible to trace its origin by the currents. Remaining clues consist of a few words in three languages. They are re-interpreted several times throughout the novel to make various destinations seem likely like Chile, Argentina, Southern Tip of Australia, at some times New Zealand and even the Northern Most Part of Antarctica (to which they never sailed).Lord Glenarvan makes it his quest to find Grant; together with his wife, Grant's children and the crew of his yacht, the "Duncan", they set off for South America. An unexpected passenger in the form of French geographer Jacques Paganel (he missed his steamer to India by accidentally boarding the "Duncan") joins the search. They explore Patagonia, Tristan da Cunha Island, Amsterdam Island, and Australia (a pretext to describe the flora, fauna, and geography of numerous places to the audience).
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Is_Rising" title="The Dark Is Rising">
Will Stanton begins to have strange and magical experiences on his 11th birthday, which is at the winter solstice – a few days before Christmas. He discovers he is one of a group of an ancient magical people called the Old Ones, who are guardians and warriors for "the Light" (i.e. good), who are waging a centuries-long battle against the forces of "the Dark" (i.e. evil), whose evil power is rising. To fight back the Dark, the Old Ones needs to find and reclaim four magical talismans (called "Things of Power") for the Light. The first of these is the "Circle of Signs" (a set of magical objects in the form of circles divided into four sections by a cross). Will is quested to collect all the Signs, so that the completed Circle can be used to ward off the forces of the Dark.This book is where the protagonist Will Stanton, a main character in "The Dark Is Rising Sequence", is introduced. The book features elements of British folklore that are especially associated with the Thames Valley, with Herne the Hunter making an appearance. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_American" title="The Ugly American">
In one vignette, a Burmese journalist says, "For some reason, the [American] people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They are loud and ostentatious."The American Ambassador "Lucky" Lou Sears confines himself to his comfortable diplomatic compound in the capital. The Soviet ambassador speaks the local language and understands the local culture. He informs his Moscow superiors that Sears "keeps his people tied up with meetings, social events, and greeting and briefing the scores of senators, congressmen, generals, admirals, under secretaries of state and defense, and so on, who come pouring through here to 'look for themselves.'" Sears undermines the creative efforts to head off the communist insurgency.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_(novel)" title="Lincoln (novel)">
## Style.The novel is part of Gore Vidal’s ‘Narratives of Empire’ series and joins his other works; Burr (1973), 1876 (1976) and Washington D.C. (1967) as chronicles of America. In the series, Vidal offers works of historical fiction that reinterpret American history starting from the American Revolution and spanning past World War II.The book is never narrated from Lincoln’s perspective. Rather, the reader views Lincoln through the eyes of his enemies, friends, political rivalries and even those who sought to kill him. Significant characters include Lincoln’s cabinet secretaries; William Seward, Salmon Chase as well as Kate Sprague, John Hay, Mary Todd Lincoln and David Herold.Much of the writing is presented through dramatic, flamboyant dialogue. Vidal favours this over narration or observational writing, attempting to convey his own personal wit and charisma through his characters.The novel is not simply a work of historical fiction, but with Lincoln's personal and political development it is also a "Bildungsroman". Lincoln's development starts with the slow mobilisation and unification of his inner Cabinet, climaxes with his military victory and political restoration of the Union and is completed with his assassination
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSN_(novel)" title="SSN (novel)">
## Preface: "Prelude to War".In 1997, former Chinese Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping dies, creating a power struggle within the Chinese government. Premier Li Peng later takes over in a coup d'etat and orders the arrest of his political rivals, particularly Deng's technical successor Jiang Zemin. He then orders an invasion of the Spratly Islands, where a large oil deposit was recently discovered by an American oil company. A Chinese attacks the American aircraft carrier , prompting one of its escort submarines to sink the Chinese sub in retaliation and killing everyone aboard. War between the two countries becomes imminent.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passion_of_New_Eve" title="The Passion of New Eve">
At the start of the novel, Evelyn, a male English professor, is taking up a new post in a university in New York. His tribute to Tristessa de St Ange, a (fictional) American silent movie star, on his last night in England is to be given fellatio by a girl he takes to see one of her films.He arrives in a dystopian New York, a city in its last stages of rotting death, overrun by huge rats and human emotions distilled to their most primeval. The job that he has been offered at a university falls through after the school is taken over by a militant black rebel group. He is then left destitute in the middle of New York with very little money and no job. Evelyn then befriends a Czech neighbour, Baroslav, who is an alchemist. Baroslav is killed by a group of men in the city and Evelyn is then left alone. On a late night run to the local drug store he meets Leilah. He becomes fascinated with Leilah, an exotic young African-American night club dancer, and he follows her home through the city. He lives with her and they have a short sexual relationship where he frequently abuses her. He makes no emotional link, seeing her only in terms of sex. He writes to his parents and finds out that he is left a lot of money from a recently deceased relative. He becomes repelled by Leilah after he impregnated her, and he then abandons her to a voodoo abortionist. The abortion goes wrong and Leilah is put in hospital. Evelyn is expected to pay a large fee for Leilah's hospital bills, but only plans on using some of the money. The rest Leilah gets from selling her fur coats. After Evelyn withdraws the money to pay for the bill, he is mugged and beaten by a group of young men. At the last moment, they are scared away before they can find the wad of cash Evelyn has taped under his genitals. He sends Leilah red roses, then rents a bulletproof car and heads straight to the desert, leaving everything behind including Leilah.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlesex_(novel)" title="Middlesex (novel)">
Cal Stephanides (his masculine identity), also known as Calliope (feminine), recounts how 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, a recessive condition, caused him to be born with female characteristics. The book continues with accounts of his family's history and the conception of Cal, his childhood and teenage years being raised as a girl, and the discovery of his intersex condition. Cal weaves his opinion of the events in hindsight from his life after his father's funeral. "Middlesex" is set in the 20th century and interjects historical elements, such as the Balkan Wars, the Nation of Islam, the 1967 Detroit riot, and the Watergate scandal in the story.In 1922, Cal's paternal grandfather, Eleutherios "Lefty" Stephanides, lives in Bithynios, a village in Asia Minor. In the small village, high on the slope of Mount Olympos above the city of Bursa, incestuous marriages between cousins are a quietly accepted practice. Lefty makes a living selling silkworm cocoons harvested by his sister, Desdemona. The siblings are orphans; their parents are victims of the ongoing Greco-Turkish War. Lefty and Desdemona develop a romantic relationship as the war progresses. They flee the chaos brought by the war on a ship the United States amid the Great Fire of Smyrna. Their histories unknown to the other passengers, they marry each other on board the vessel.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982,_Janine" title="1982, Janine">
The novel is narrated by Jock McLeish, a supervisor of the installation of alarm systems. Divorced, alcoholic and approaching fifty, his problems coalesce in a long night of the soul in a hotel room in Peebles or Selkirk.McLeish attempts to spend the night assembling an intricate pornographic fantasy. His cast of characters includes: Janine, based on a childhood memory of Jane Russell in "The Outlaw"; Superb (short for Superbitch); and Big Momma, an obese lesbian. All of these are submitted to sadomasochistic practices, parts of which are described at some length. However, McLeish constantly returns to reminiscences of his previous life and lovers. These prompt his attempted suicide. Chapter 11 of the novel is a typographical explosion, with the text splitting into several parallel voices on each page (including that of God). The crisis concludes with McLeish vomiting up the pills which he had hoped would kill him, and facing the truth of his actions as morning dawns.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewall_(Mankell_novel)" title="Firewall (Mankell novel)">
A series of bizarre incidents sweep across Sweden: a man dies in front of an ATM, two young women slaughter an elderly taxi driver, a murder is committed aboard a Baltic Sea ferry, and a sub-station engineer makes a gruesome discovery while investigating the cause of a nationwide power cut. As Wallander investigates, he uncovers a sinister plan to bring the Western world to its knees.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curious_Incident_of_the_Dog_in_the_Night-Time" title="The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time">
Christopher John Francis Boone is a 15-year-old boy with behavioral problems living in Swindon, England, with his widowed father, Ed. Christopher’s mother Judy was known to have passed away from a heart attack two years prior to the events of the story. One day, Christopher discovers that his neighbor Mrs. Shears’ dog Wellington has been fatally speared with a garden fork. As Christopher mourns over Wellington’s body, Mrs. Shears calls the police. When a policeman grabs Christopher’s arm, Christopher panics and hits him, resulting in him being arrested for assaulting a police officer, though he is quickly released with a police caution. He decides to investigate the dog's death, chronicling any information he receives in a book. During his investigation, he meets the elderly Mrs. Alexander, who informs Christopher that his mother had an affair with Mr. Shears.Ed discovers the book and confiscates it. While searching Ed’s room for the book, Christopher finds letters from his mother dated after her supposed death, leading him to become distressed and enter a catatonic state. Realizing that Christopher has discovered the letters, Ed admits to lying about Judy's death; she is still alive and living in London with Mr. Shears. Ed also confesses that he had killed Wellington in anger after an argument with Mrs. Shears. Christopher decides to run away and live with his mother.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zazie_dans_le_Métro_(novel)" title="Zazie dans le Métro (novel)">
Zazie, a foul-mouthed provincial girl is dropped off at the Paris train station to spend a weekend with her uncle Gabriel while her mother Jeanne Lalochère spends time with her lover. Zazie tells Gabriel that she wants to visit the Paris Métro, but Gabriel tells her she cannot as it is closed due to a strike. Throughout the novel, Zazie asks Gabriel if he is a "hormosessuel" (homosexual), to which he vigorously denies. The two are driven off to Gabriel's apartment by Gabriel's friend Charles, a taxi driver. Upon arriving, Zazie encounters Turandot, the manager of La Cave, a restaurant under Gabriel's apartment, his pet parrot Laverdure, and Gabriel's wife Marceline.The following day, Zazie leaves the apartment while Gabriel is sleeping to visit the subway by herself. She encounters a strange man implied to be a pedophile (or "satyr") who takes her to a flea market and buys her blue jeans. Gabriel learns from Gridoux, a shoemaker and neighbor that she ran away after Turandot confronted her for running off. Zazie brings the man back to the apartment, who identifies himself as "Pédro-Surplus" and accuses Zazie of stealing the jeans from him. When the man begins talking to Marceline, Gabriel kicks him out of the apartment. While serving food to Gridoux, Mado P'tits-Pieds, a waitress at La Cave tells him about her romantic interest in Charles. 
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_Atlantis" title="Romance of Atlantis">
Atlantis is ruled by the beautiful and intelligent Empress Salustra. The fate of the Empire will be decided by an arranged marriage with the ruler of a less advanced, semi-barbarian northern kingdom, as the advanced technology of Atlantis is powerless against strange environmental and ecological disasters.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vampire_Armand" title="The Vampire Armand">
With Lestat de Lioncourt still in slumber since "Memnoch the Devil", the vampire coven is reunited around the "brat prince" and the vampire David Talbot asks Armand tell his life story.Born somewhere in the Kievan Rus in the late 15th century, Armand (at this time called Andrei) becomes an icon painter in a monastery. He is forcefully taken out of this life of prayer and devotion by slave traders, who transport him to Constantinople and then to a brothel in Venice. Soon after his arrival, he is purchased by the vampire Marius de Romanus, who names him Amadeo.Marius lives the extravagant life of a respected Renaissance painter, and mentors many boys who serve as his apprentices. Marius provides them with education, shelter, and food, and he assists them in finding respectable positions once they are grown. Over time, Amadeo's relationship with Marius develops and they become much closer than Marius is with any of the other boys. In addition to developing a sexual relationship, Amadeo sleeps in Marius' bed, is privy to special privileges, and becomes something of a "head boy" in the household. Still, Marius maintains strict control over Amadeo, and expects industriousness from him in all things.When Amadeo comes of age, Marius begins Amadeo's education in sexuality and coupling. He takes Amadeo to a brothel, where he remains for several days. Amadeo later visits a male brothel, and makes several observations about the difference in sexual activities with the different genders. There is a distinct bisexuality to Amadeo's nature, as he enjoys activity with either sex. He later has a brief affair with an Englishman called Lord Harlech, who develops an unrequited obsession with Amadeo. During this period, Amadeo befriends and ultimately seduces Bianca Solderini, a wealthy debutante and courtesan whose primary role in life seems to be to throw nightly parties.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dharma_Bums" title="The Dharma Bums">
The character Japhy drives Ray Smith's story, whose penchant for simplicity and Zen Buddhism influenced Kerouac on the eve of the sudden and unpredicted success of "On the Road". The action shifts between the events of Smith and Ryder's "city life," such as three-day parties and enactments of the Buddhist "Yab-Yum" rituals, to the sublime and peaceful imagery where Kerouac seeks a type of transcendence. The novel concludes with a change in narrative style, with Kerouac working alone as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak (adjacent to Hozomeen Mountain), in what would soon be declared North Cascades National Park (see also Kerouac's novel "Desolation Angels"). His summer on Desolation Peak was desperately lonely. “Many's the time I thought I'd die of boredom or jump off the mountain,” he wrote in "Desolation Angels". Yet in "The" "Dharma Bums", Kerouac described the experience in elegiac prose.One episode in the book features Smith, Ryder, and Henry Morley (based on real-life friend John Montgomery) climbing Matterhorn Peak in California. It relates Kerouac's introduction to this type of mountaineering and inspired him to spend the following summer as a fire lookout for the United States Forest Service on Desolation Peak in Washington.Chapter 2 of the novel gives an account of the legendary 1955 Six Gallery reading, where Allen Ginsberg ('Alvah Goldbrook' in the book) gave a debut presentation of his poem "Howl" (changed to "Wail" in the book). At the event, other authors including Snyder, Kenneth Rexroth, Michael McClure, and Philip Whalen also performed.Anyway I followed the whole gang of howling poets to the reading at Gallery Six that night, which was, among other important things, the night of the birth of the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance. Everyone was there. It was a mad night. And I was the one who got things jumping by going around collecting dimes and quarters from the rather stiff audience standing around in the gallery and coming back with three huge gallon jugs of California Burgundy and getting them all piffed so that by eleven o'clock when Alvah Goldbook was reading his poem 'Wail' drunk with arms outspread everybody was yelling 'Go! Go! Go!' (like a jam session) and old Rheinhold Cacoethes the father of the Frisco poetry scene was wiping his tears in gladness.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Even_Cowgirls_Get_the_Blues_(novel)" title="Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (novel)">
Sissy Hankshaw, the novel's protagonist, is a woman born with enormously large thumbs who considers her mutation a gift. The novel covers various topics, including free love, feminism, drug use, birds, political rebellion, animal rights, body odor, religion, and yams.Sissy capitalizes on the size of her thumbs by becoming a hitchhiker and subsequently travels to New York. The character becomes a model for The Countess, a male homosexual tycoon of menstrual hygiene products. The Tycoon introduces Sissy to a staid Mohawk named Julian Gitche, whom she later marries. In her later travels, she encounters, among many others, a sexually open cowgirl named Bonanza Jellybean and an itinerant escapee from a Japanese internment camp happily mislabeled The Chink. The Chink is presented as a hermetic mystic and, at one point writes on a cave wall, "I believe in everything; nothing is sacred. I believe in nothing; everything is sacred." and frequently says "Ha Ha Ho Ho and Hee Hee." A flock of whooping cranes also makes frequent appearances throughout the novel, which includes details of their physical characteristics and migratory patterns. Robbins also inserts himself into the novel (as a character).
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_and_the_Giant_Peach" title="James and the Giant Peach">
James Henry Trotter is a boy who lives happily with his parents in a house by the sea. Unfortunately, when he is four years old, an oddly carnivorous rhinoceros escapes from the zoo and eats James' parents. He ends up with his two cruel aunts, Spiker and Sponge. Instead of caring for him, they treat him badly, feed him improperly, and force him to sleep on bare floorboards.After James has been living with his aunts for three years, he meets a mysterious man who gives him a bag of magical crystals, instructing James to use them in a potion that would change his life for the better. While returning home, James stumbles and spills the bag on the ground, losing the crystals as they dig themselves underground. A nearby peach tree, in turn, produces a single peach which soon grows to the size of a house. Spiker and Sponge build a fence around it and earn money by selling viewing tickets to tourists; James is locked in the house, only able to see the peach through the bars of his bedroom window.After the tourists have gone, James is assigned to clean the rubbish around the peach and finds a tunnel inside it. He enters it and meets Centipede, Miss Spider, Old Green Grasshopper, Earthworm, Ladybug, Glowworm, and Silkworm who become his friends.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_(novel)" title="Sphere (novel)">
A group of scientists (namely psychologist Norman Johnson, mathematician Harry Adams, zoologist Beth Halpern, astrophysicist Ted Fielding, and marine biologist Arthur Levine), along with U.S. Navy personnel, travel to a deep sea habitat at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, where an enormous spacecraft has been discovered.During the descent, Levine becomes claustrophobic and is returned to the surface. The other scientists arrive safely at Habitat DH-8. After their arrival and subsequent pressurization to the habitat's exotic-gas environment, the Navy sends a robot to enter the spacecraft first, which locates and opens a panel near the spacecraft door.As the robot's cameras focus on the opened panel, labels in English indicate the spacecraft is actually a U.S. spacecraft constructed in the future and sent through time, appearing on the seabed at least 350 years before its creation. The robot is unable to open a hatch leading further inside, forcing the team to don pressure suits and explore the spacecraft. In a large cargo hold, the team discovers a mysterious spherical object that is clearly of extra-terrestrial origin.Reasoning the ship's future builders were apparently unaware that it had already been found in their past, Adams becomes convinced that the team will not survive to report their discovery. Remaining behind after the rest of the team returns to the habitat, Adams succeeds in opening and entering the sphere. Meanwhile, on the surface, a Pacific cyclone forces the supporting Naval ships to evacuate, trapping and isolating the scientists on the ocean floor for five days. Adams is found and returned to the DH-8 Habitat where he awakens with a terrible headache and little-to-no memory of how he opened the sphere or what occurred while he was inside. Immediately afterwards, the team is contacted by an intelligent, seemingly friendly alien entity that calls itself "Jerry".
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triton_(novel)" title="Triton (novel)">
As the subtitle implies, the novel offers several conflicting perspectives on the concept of utopia. "Utopia" literally means "good place" or "no place". Delany takes the term "heterotopia" from the writings of philosopher Michel Foucault. Literally, heterotopia means "other place" or "a place of differences". Foucault uses the term to designate spaces outside everyday fixed institutional and social spaces, for example trains, motels and cemeteries. In the novel's future Solar System, Neptune's moon Triton supports one of several human societies independent from Earth, which has developed along radically libertarian lines in some ways: though a representative government exists, it has virtually no power to regulate private behavior, and citizens may choose to live in an area where no laws apply at all. Technology provides for a high degree of self-modification, so that one can change one's physical appearance, gender, sexual orientation, and even specific patterns of likes and dislikes.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasm_City" title="Chasm City">
"Chasm City" is framed and largely written in the voice of Tanner Mirabel, a security expert who has come to Chasm City to avenge the death of his former client's wife at the hands of a "postmortal" noble named Argent Reivich.Tanner arrives to find that Yellowstone, the most advanced civilization in human history, has descended into squalor; an alien nanotech virus known as the Melding Plague has wreaked havoc throughout the system. Chasm City, a dense forest of mile-high shapeshifting skyscrapers, has melted into a slum. The Glitter Band, a sparkling diorama of ten thousand orbital habitats, has been reduced to a "Rust Belt" of a few hundred survivors, mostly primitive and pre-nanotech antiques.In this chaos of plague and desolation, Tanner seeks his prey, only to discover that Reivich is more clever than he originally thought. In the midst of his hunt, he begins experiencing virus-induced flashbacks from the life of Sky Haussmann, the founder of his home world, Sky's Edge, who is both revered and reviled for the crimes he committed for his people.From the depths of the gas plume at the heart of Chasm City, to the aristocratic canopy spanning what remains of the skyscrapers, Mirabel begins to unravel the mystery of the Melding Plague.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peyton_Place_(novel)" title="Peyton Place (novel)">
The story starts in 1937 and continues through the years following World War II. Lonely and repressed Constance MacKenzie leaves Peyton Place for New York City at a young age and meets a man in the fabrics business named Allison MacKenzie, who already is married with children. Constance becomes pregnant with MacKenzie's child. MacKenzie dies a few years after his daughter, also named Allison, is born. Constance and her daughter adopt Allison's last name before returning to Peyton Place as a "widow" and child, and Constance alters her daughter's birth date to make her appear legitimate. With the money she's saved as well as what she received from her late lover's will, she opens up an apparel store called the Thrifty Corner. Allison grows up lonely and isolated, idealizing the father she never had and dreaming of a future as a published author. The poorer side of Peyton Place is represented by the Cross family, Nellie and Lucas Cross and their daughter Selena, who is Nellie's biological daughter, but not Lucas'. Paul, Lucas's son and Selena's stepbrother, left Peyton Place after accusing Lucas of stealing his money. Nellie and Lucas later have a child together: Joey, who lives with the couple and Selena in "the shacks", a poor section of town being targeted for redevelopment. Selena and Allison become friends, but the drastic difference in their socioeconomic situations ensures the friendship does not last long."While Allison wants Selena to share her love of bucolic little spots like Road's End, Selena wants only to spend time at Allison's mother's dress shop and, increasingly, to talk with boys. Moreover, when Allison finally gets a look inside the shack where Selena lives, she is horrified by the squalor and the violence she sees in Lucas. Eventually, Allison and Selena grow distant because of Selena's closeness with Ted Carter."When Selena turns 14 years old, Lucas begins to abuse her, impregnating her and leaving local doctor Matthew Swain in a troublesome situation in which he decides to perform an abortion. The doctor makes Lucas leave town, and after she discovers this, Nellie commits suicide by hanging. 
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_You_Can_Save_Mankind" title="Only You Can Save Mankind">
Twelve-year-old Johnny receives a pirate edition of the new video game "Only You Can Save Mankind" from his friend Wobbler. However, he has not been playing for long when the ScreeWee Empire surrenders to him. After accepting the surrender he finds himself inside the game in his dreams, where he must deal with the suspicious Gunnery Officer as well as the understanding Captain, and work out exactly what they're all supposed to do now.This might all be the result of an over-active imagination except that the ScreeWee have disappeared altogether from everyone else's copy of the game. With the help of another player, Kirsty, who calls herself "Sigourney" (as in Weaver), Johnny must try to get the ScreeWee home.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_and_the_Dead" title="Johnny and the Dead">
The story starts with Johnny Maxwell, a 12-year-old boy, taking a shortcut through the local Blackbury cemetery to reach his home. In the cemetery, Johnny meets the spirit of Alderman Thomas Bowler and realizes that he can interact with the spirits of the dead. Later, Johnny meets all the deceased occupants of the cemetery and discusses with them the council's sale of Blackbury's neglected cemetery to a faceless conglomerate, who plan to build offices on it. Various dead citizens, led by a former town councillor, ask Johnny to help stop it.While Johnny (helped by his semi-believing friends) tries to find evidence of famous internees and speaks out at community meetings, the dead begin to take an interest in modern-day life and realise they are not, as they once believed, trapped in the cemetery.Finally the council is forced to back down, but the dead are no longer interested; they have decided that instead of waiting for the Day of Judgement, they will make the decision themselves. Most of them depart the cemetery to continue their journey into the afterlife but, thanks to the campaigning of the Blackbury Volunteers, the town's living residents have rediscovered the cemetery as a link to their past. As one of the dead puts it before leaving: "The living must remember, and the dead must forget."
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_(Doctor_Who_episode)" title="Rose (Doctor Who episode)">
Rose Tyler, a teenage shop assistant, is chased by mannequins in the basement of Henrik's, the department store where she works. She is rescued by the Ninth Doctor, who destroys the building with an explosion. The next day, the Doctor visits Rose at her home, where he is attacked by a plastic mannequin arm which he and Rose subdue. Rose investigates the Doctor and meets Clive, who has been tracking the Doctor's appearances throughout history. Clive tells Rose that the Doctor is dangerous and that if he's there, something bad is about to happen. While Rose is talking to Clive, her boyfriend Mickey Smith is kidnapped by a wheelie bin and replaced with a plastic doppelgänger.The fake Mickey takes Rose to lunch and attempts to question her about the Doctor, but the Doctor shows up and beheads the doppelgänger. The Doctor takes Rose and the plastic head to the TARDIS and attempts to use the head to locate the controlling signal. With the head connected, the TARDIS takes them to the London Eye. The Doctor explains to Rose that the fake Mickey was an Auton, controlled by a signal from the Nestene Consciousness. He has a vial of anti-plastic that can be used to destroy the Nestene Consciousness if necessary. Realising that the transmitter is the London Eye itself, Rose and the Doctor descend underneath it to stop the Nestene Consciousness. They find Mickey, tied up but alive, and the Doctor speaks to the Nestene Consciousness. He tries to negotiate with it, but the Consciousness blames the Doctor for the destruction of its planet. The Nestene Consciousness activates all the Autons at a shopping arcade, where several shoppers are shot and killed, including Clive. The Doctor is also held down by a pair of Autons, but Rose rescues him and the anti-plastic drops into the vat where the Nestene Consciousness resides, killing it. With the Nestene Consciousness dead, the Autons all collapse. The Doctor uses the TARDIS to take Mickey and Rose home, then persuades Rose to join him as his new companion in the TARDIS.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_(Doctor_Who)" title="Survival (Doctor Who)">
The Seventh Doctor brings Ace back home to Perivale in west London. Ace becomes worried when most of her old friends seem to have disappeared, but the Doctor is more preoccupied with the black cat he sees skulking about. The cat appears to be selecting people and transporting them to another dimension. Ace finds herself being hunted down by a creature on horseback, which seems to be half-human, half-cheetah, and which hunts in tandem with the black cat. Later the Doctor and a keep-fit instructor called Paterson are chosen and teleported to another world, where the Doctor is greeted by his nemesis the Master.The Master explains the complex situation: they are on a sentient planet, which has the power to transform its inhabitants into animals. The formerly human inhabitants, which have since evolved into Cheetah People, originally bred the black cats as pets. The Master himself shows signs of transformation and needs the Doctor's help to escape from the planet.Ace finds her friends, Shreela and Midge, who are hiding in some woods with a young man called Derek. A Cheetah pack attacks and during the fight Midge kills one Cheetah while Ace injures another, called Karra. She begins to form an attachment to Karra and nurses her, tending her injuries, which worries the Doctor greatly. Ace's eyes change and she begins to transform into a Cheetah herself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_Versa_(novel)" title="Vice Versa (novel)">
Set in contemporary Victorian times, the novel concerns businessman Paul Bultitude and his son Dick. Dick is about to leave home to return to a boarding school run by the cane-wielding headmaster, Dr. Grimstone. Bultitude, seeing his son's fear of returning to school, asserts that schooldays are the best years of a boy's life, and how he wishes he were the one going.At this point, thanks to a magic stone brought by an uncle from India which grants the possessor one wish, the father becomes a boy identical to the son. They are now on even terms. Dick, holding the stone, is ordered by his father to return him to his own body, but Dick refuses, and decides instead to become a man identical to how his father looked before the change. Mr Bultitude has to begin the new term at his son's boarding school, while Dick gets a chance to run his father's business in the City. In the end, both are restored to their own bodies, with a better understanding of each other.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoirs_of_a_Geisha" title="Memoirs of a Geisha">
In 1929, nine year-old Sakamoto Chiyo and her sister are sold by their father to work within the entertainment districts of Kyoto. They are taken from their home in a coastal fishing village known as Yoroido and travel to Kyoto by train. Chiyo is taken to the Nitta (geisha boarding house) in Gion, but her sister is taken to a brothel within Kyoto's pleasure district.Chiyo is introduced to Auntie, Mother, and Granny. Both Auntie and Mother are strict, though Auntie is kinder to Chiyo, whereas Mother is driven by money and business. Chiyo is also introduced to Hatsumomo, the premier geisha of the , its primary earner, and one of the most famous geisha of Gion. Hatsumomo dislikes Chiyo and goes out of her way to torment her.A few years later, Chiyo is given money and a handkerchief in the street by a kind stranger known to Chiyo as the Chairman. Soon afterwards, Pumpkin prepares to make her debut as a and the "younger sister" of Hatsumomo, whilst Chiyo remains a maid. Mameha, another famous geisha in Gion, persuades a reluctant Mother to reinvest in Chiyo's training, with Mameha acting as Chiyo's mentor and "older sister".Chiyo becomes an apprentice geisha with the given name of Sayuri, and is reacquainted with Chairman Iwamura, his closest friend and business partner Nobu, and a number of other prominent men. As Sayuri gains popularity, Hatsumomo tries to hurt Sayuri's reputation and career in the hopes of Mother adopting Pumpkin instead.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindness_(novel)" title="Blindness (novel)">
"Blindness" is the story of an unexplained mass epidemic of blindness afflicting nearly everyone in an unnamed city, and the social breakdown that swiftly follows. The novel follows the misfortune of a handful of unnamed characters who are among the first to be stricken with blindness, including an ophthalmologist, several of his patients, and assorted others, who are thrown together by chance. The ophthalmologist's spouse, "the doctor's wife," is inexplicably immune to the blindness. After a lengthy and traumatic quarantine in an asylum, the group bands together in a family-like unit to survive by their wits and by the good fortune that the doctor's wife has escaped the blindness. The sudden onset and unexplained origin and nature of the blindness cause widespread panic, and the social order rapidly unravels as the government attempts to contain the apparent contagion and keep order via increasingly repressive and inept measures.The first part of the novel follows the experiences of the central characters in the filthy, overcrowded asylum where they and other blind people have been quarantined. Hygiene, living conditions, and morale degrade horrifically in a very short period, mirroring the society outside. Anxiety over the availability of food, caused by delivery irregularities, acts to undermine solidarity; and lack of organization prevents the internees from fairly distributing food or chores. Soldiers assigned to guard the asylum and look after the well-being of the internees become increasingly antipathetic as one soldier after another becomes infected. The military refuses to allow basic medicine to be delivered, which ensures that a simple infection becomes deadly. Fearing an imminent escape, soldiers shoot down a crowd of internees waiting for a food delivery. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bat_(novel)" title="The Bat (novel)">
Norwegian police officer Harry Hole is sent to Sydney, Australia to serve as an attaché for the Australian police's investigation into the murder of a young female Norwegian girl residing in Australia, Inger Holter. Her boyfriend, Evans White, is initially approached as a suspect. Hole is assisted by Aboriginal colleague Andrew Kensington; together they find out that they are dealing with a serial killer who strangles blonde women. Hole befriends a red haired Swede named Birgitta. As the story becomes more complex, Hole struggles to find the killer and falls deeper into alcoholism. There are more back stories about Harry's past and culture in Australia.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Redbreast" title="The Redbreast">
During the Siege of Leningrad of World War II, a small group of Norwegian Waffen-SS volunteers are manning trenches just a short distance from the western lines. One of their number, Daniel Gudeson, is shot through the head and killed when he stands up to celebrate midnight on New Year's Eve. His body and face are covered up and he is laid to wait for a burial committee the following day. That same night, another soldier named Sindre Fauke disappears, believed to have defected to the Russians. Oddly, later that night, Gudeson's body mysteriously reappears in the trench. After a hand grenade lands the soldiers in the hospital, one of them, under the guise of "Uriah", falls in love with a nurse. After an unsuccessful attempt to elope, the two are separated.Decades later, when the U.S. President visits Norway for an Israeli-Palestinian peace conference, Oslo policeman Harry Hole is assigned to the security detail. After shooting a suspected assassin during the approach of the President's convoy, Hole is promoted to inspector and investigates a crime involving a very expensive sniper rifle. In addition, a group of neo-Nazis with which Hole has a prior history is suspected in the murder of an elderly drunkard. Hole and his colleague, Ellen Gjelten, hear of a man connected to arms dealings called 'The Prince' and set out to learn his identity. Hole shares a mutual attraction with a colleague named Rakel, who is reluctant to take things further with him due to a custody battle for her son, Oleg; unbeknownst to her and Hole, the matter is being orchestrated by Rakel's superior, who is also infatuated with her. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil's_Star" title="The Devil's Star">
A young woman is murdered in her Oslo flat. One finger has been severed from her left hand, and behind her eyelid is secreted a tiny diamond in the shape of a five-pointed star – a pentagram, the devil's star.Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case with his long-time adversary Tom Waaler and initially wants no part in it. But Hole is already on notice to quit the force and is left with little alternative but to drag himself out of his alcoholic stupor and get to work.A wave of similar murders is on the horizon. An emerging pattern suggests that Oslo has a serial killer on its hands, and the five-pointed devil's star seems to be the key to solving the riddle.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bourne_Supremacy" title="The Bourne Supremacy">
Jason Bourne has recovered from most of his mental and physical injuries and is teaching Asian studies at a university in Maine under his real name of David Webb, living happily on campus with his wife Marie under supervision of psychiatrist Morris Panov.Meanwhile, high-ranking U.S. officials Ambassador Raymond Havilland and Undersecretary Edward McAllister discuss an increasingly alarming situation in the People's Republic of China, where the popular Communist official Sheng Chou Yang is boosting his rise to power with assassinations perpetrated by someone impersonating Jason Bourne. They fear that Sheng, a fanatical nationalist, might trigger a war, and therefore want him to be found and killed. Webb would be ideal for this, but they plan to involve him indirectly owing to his mistrust of the U.S. government and Webb's deep-seated emotional instability due to the loss of his first wife and children in Vietnam.McAllister arrives and informs Webb of the assassin in Asia who is killing under the name of Jason Bourne. Webb is told he requires a more visible security force because someone wants him dead.Soon thereafter, Marie is abducted by unknown people. Webb returns to the house, finds clues to her abduction, and immediately phones government officials, threatening to leak information about Treadstone and Medusa in an attempt to get assistance. He finds out information has been manipulated in order to make him seem crazy and delusional, and that his only course of action is to follow the instructions left by the kidnappers. He turns to the only person he thinks will be able to help him, Alexander Conklin, even though Conklin once tried to kill him. Conklin, now limping, is convinced there is government involvement but that they have lost control of the situation and the hired guns holding Marie are no longer in their control. Webb, who has transformed back into the persona of Jason Bourne, now has no choice but to go to Hong Kong and play out the scenario to get Marie back. In Hong Kong Bourne is led to a wealthy Tai-Pan who wants Webb to locate the impostor Jason Bourne because the impostor killed his wife; the Taipan is actually a British intelligence officer named Lin Wenzu collaborating with the CIA to make Bourne find the impostor. Bourne agrees, saying that if his wife is not heard from the very moment he returns, he will kill his nabbed impostor without a second thought. Lin Wenzu is later fatally injured when he uncovers and kills traitors on his team passing information to Sheng.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_of_Fang_Rock" title="Horror of Fang Rock">
On the way to show Brighton to Leela, the TARDIS lands on the island of Fang Rock off the south coast of England in the early 20th century. Noticing that the lighthouse isn't functioning properly, the Fourth Doctor decides to investigate, as well as to ask for directions, as the TARDIS seems to have got 'lost in the fog'. Upon arrival at the lighthouse, and after introducing themselves, the Doctor discovers the dead body of one of the keepers, Ben. The other two keepers, old superstitious Reuben and the keen young Vince Hawkins, report that a light fell from the sky near the island. They also explain the electricity flow to the lamp on the lighthouse has become erratic and the Doctor deduces something is feeding on the flow. Reuben does not help matters with his constant references to the mythical Beast of Fang Rock, which reputedly once terrorised the lighthouse. As the Doctor and Leela explore, something moves Ben's body out of the lighthouse and onto the island, and they witness a curious electric crackling which seems to have killed fish nearby.The loss of the electric light due to the unexplained draining of power from the generators causes a luxury yacht to crash on to Fang Rock. The four survivors are brought to the lighthouse: the bosun Harker; Colonel James Skinsale MP; the owner, Lord Palmerdale; and his highly strung secretary Adelaide Lessage. Over time it emerges Palmerdale has bought government secrets from Skinsale and was desperate to reach the stock exchange to make a killing – hence the reason the ship was travelling at such a pace.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawksbill_Station" title="Hawksbill Station">
Hawksbill Station was a penal colony in the Cambrian Period created by an authoritarian United States government, using time travel to exile rebels and political dissidents into the past. The colony houses only male exiles, who are sent there as a "humane" alternative to execution. The machine only works one way, leaving prisoners marooned in the past.The prison is set in a barren coastal area. The novel focuses on the relationships between the main character, the "de facto" leader of the colony, and his nemesis in the government, Jacob “Jack” Bernstein, both of whom were leading dissidents. It also explores the petty ideological differences among the prisoners and the confused circumstances leading to the establishment of the authoritarian government.The prisoners, all middle-aged or elderly, are surprised by the arrival of a much younger prisoner. The newcomer, supposedly an economist, is questioned about economic theory and political ideology. His answers reveal his essential ignorance of both. This ignorance, combined with his youth, cause the prisoners to wonder if he is, in fact, a political prisoner or a common criminal, exiled for a heinous crime.When the newcomer arrives via the time machine a second time, it is revealed that he is a police officer of a new government that overthrew the authoritarian government but was unrelated to the dissident movements of the exiles. The new government discovered the existence of Hawksbill Station and a way to travel from past to future, making it possible to retrieve prisoners from the colony. The newcomer has been sent to evaluate the prisoners and to recommend whether they are appropriate for retrieval.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mist_(novel)" title="Mist (novel)">
The plot revolves around the character of Augusto, a wealthy, intellectual and introverted young man. He falls in love with a young woman named Eugenia as she walks past him on the street, and he sets about trying to court her. He is aided in his efforts by the other members of Eugenia's household. Her Aunt Ermelinda is particularly keen for a relationship to evolve, so that Augusto might help with her niece's financial troubles. Nevertheless, Eugenia rejects his advances, since she is already in a relationship with the down-and-out Mauricio. Augusto pays off Eugenia's mortgage as a goodwill gesture without her knowing, but this only serves to insult Eugenia, rather than endear him to her.In the meantime, Augusto becomes involved with another girl, Rosario, and he begins to question if he is really in love with Eugenia at all. After talking with various friends and acquaintances, Augusto decides he will propose to Eugenia in any case. To his surprise, Eugenia accepts the engagement. A few days before the marriage is to occur, Augusto receives a letter from Eugenia. The letter explained that she was leaving him for Mauricio. Augusto, heartbroken, decides to kill himself. Because everything Augusto does involves a lengthy thought process, he decides that he needs to consult Unamuno himself (the author of the novel), who had written an article on suicide which Augusto had read. When Augusto speaks with Unamuno, the truth is revealed that Augusto is actually a fictional character whom Unamuno has created. Augusto is not real, Unamuno explains, and for that reason cannot kill himself. Augusto asserts that he exists, even though he acknowledges internally that he doesn't, and threatens Unamuno by telling him that he is not the ultimate author. Augusto reminds Unamuno that he might be just a character in one of God's dreams. Augusto returns to his home and dies.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Side_of_Midnight" title="The Other Side of Midnight">
Set in between the two World Wars, Noelle Page is born to a poor family in Marseille, France, though she is led to believe she is better than everyone else. She is initially devoted to her father, who capitalizes on her beauty when she comes of age and forces her to be the mistress of Auguste Lanchon, a well-off boutique owner. She comes to an epiphany that if she can control men, she can be powerful. She escapes to Paris, where she is enchanted by American pilot Lawrence "Larry" Douglas, who promises to marry her when he returns from London. When he does not return, she develops pneumonia, and is saved by Jewish medical intern Israel Katz, who selflessly helps her get back on her feet. Furious over Larry's betrayal, she aborts their unborn child in the most painful way and devotes the rest of her life planning revenge against him. Meanwhile, Larry returns to the United States and marries Catherine, though their relationship is strained after World War II, since Catherine feels like Larry returned as a different man.Noelle uses the war to her advantage. She hires a private investigator and learns of Larry and Catherine's marriage. She seduces two men, actor-singer Philippe Sorel and director Armand Gautier, and becomes a popular name in theater and film. At one point, she risks her plan to help Israel — the only man who has treated her with kindness — escape to Africa from the Nazis. She attracts the attention of Constantin "Costa" Demiris, a powerful Greek whose business extends to every industry in the world. She becomes his mistress and moves to his private villa. She learns that Larry is having a difficult time adjusting to a regular life and his aggressive pilot skills make him unsuited to a commercial airline setting, and convinces Demiris to hire him. Larry and Catherine move to Greece for his new job, and Noelle discovers that Larry does not even remember her. She treats him poorly as an employee, pushing him to angrily rape her when she emasculates him. She gets excited and falls in love with him again. Larry cannot recall her claims of their past, but stays with her for her power. However, he becomes unsettled when his co-pilot and his other mistress, Helena — two people compromising his and Noelle's relationship — suddenly disappear. Noelle insists that Larry and Catherine, whose marriage is at its lowest point, divorce so they can be together. When Catherine constantly refuses and fails an attempted suicide, Noelle plots to kill her. Larry abandons her in a sea cave on their trip, but is forced to return for her when the coast guard notices him exiting alone. Catherine tries to tell the doctor about Larry's plot to kill her, but the doctor thinks she is hallucinating. Catherine wakes up in the middle of the night and overhears Larry and Noelle plotting her death and she escapes during a heavy thunderstorm. She goes into a boat, but falls overboard, apparently drowning.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slan" title="Slan">
Slans are evolved humans, named after their alleged creator, Samuel Lann. They have the psychic abilities to read minds and are super-intelligent. They possess near limitless stamina, "nerves of steel," and superior strength and speed. When Slans are ill or seriously injured, they retreat into a healing trance.There are two kinds of Slans. One type has tendrils on their heads and can read the minds of ordinary humans and telepathically communicate with other Slans. The tendrils are golden-colored, making it easy to spot a Slan. These Slans are hunted to near extinction. The other type is tendrilless, still super intelligent but without psychic abilities, except the ability to hide their thoughts from the first type of Slan. The human dictator Kier Gray leads a campaign to exterminate the Slans.As the novel begins, nine-year-old Jommy Cross (a telepathic Slan of the first type) travels with his mother to the capital, Centropolis. They are discovered and Jommy's mother is killed, while Jommy flees. Jommy Cross is not only the heir to the brilliant inventions of his father, but he represents the last hope of the Slan race to save it from genocide. In fulfilling his mission, he seeks to destroy Kier Gray, and, in their final confrontation, discovers an astonishing secret.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Rama" title="The Garden of Rama">
The book picks up the story nine months after the end of "Rama II". The book follows the story of three astronauts from the expedition in "Rama II" who were trapped aboard the cylindrical alien spacecraft, Rama II, heading out towards deep space. Along the journey, five children were born. Simone Tiasso Wakefield, Catharine Colin Wakefield, Eleanor Joan Wakefield, Benjamin Ryan O'Toole and Patrick Erin O'Toole, were born by Nicole des Jardins from her relationships with Richard Wakefield and Michael O'Toole. These children later become major characters in "Rama Revealed". After a twelve-year journey, they arrive in the vicinity of the star Sirius, where all eight rendezvous with a Raman Node.At the Node they are subjected to physiological tests for a year while Rama is refurbished, and they are eventually sent back to the solar system, this time to collect two thousand more representatives of humanity. An Earth agency, known as the ISA, receives the message from Rama requesting two thousand humans. Upon its reception, the message is kept secret and, under the guise of a new Martian colony, the ISA starts acquiring its payload. The ISA selects a handful of their own representatives; meanwhile, they selectively gather convicts and promise them freedom if they are chosen to be a colonist. The payload is subdivided into three ships: the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria (names based on Christopher Columbus's ships Niña, Pinta, and Santa María) that arrive sequentially at Rama. At this point the colonists believe everything is a hoax (despite the colossal size of Rama) created by the ISA. With that discontent as the tone upon their arrival, Rama III heads back to deep space with its new payload.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Water-Method_Man" title="The Water-Method Man">
The novel revolves around the mishaps of its narrator, Fred Trumper, a floundering late-twenty-something graduate student with serious commitment and honesty issues that earn him the nickname "Bogus." The novel shows Irving beginning to develop a blend of comedy and pathos, as well as a penchant for fashioning quirky characters. It follows a non-linear narrative in the form of a sort of 'confession' authored by Trumper, who humorously recounts his various failures in life and love, from his New England childhood through his experiences on foreign study in Vienna, Austria, and as a graduate student in Iowa, leading up to the present-action setting, early-1970s New York, where Trumper is attempting to sever himself from his adolescent past. "I want to change", Trumper says at the end of Chapter One. The phrase seems to be the novel's central theme.The title refers to a method prescribed to Trumper for the treatment of non-specific urological disorders relating to his abnormally narrow urinary tract. Trumper's urologist, Dr. Jean Claude Vigneron, offers him three options for the treatment of his disorder: abstinence from sex and alcohol, a painful operation to widen the urinary canal, or the Water Method, which consists simply of consuming abnormal quantities of water before and after sex to flush bacteria out of the urinary tract. Trumper opts for the Water Method, suggesting both his generally comical cowardice and lack of self-discipline.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_of_the_Triffids" title="The Night of the Triffids">
The story begins on the Isle of Wight, 25 years after the events from "The Day of the Triffids". The community there has thrived, primarily by refining triffid oil into fuel.One morning, a solar blackout occurs and triffids once again besiege the island. Pilot David Masen (son of Bill and Josella Masen from "The Day of the Triffids") takes to the skies to investigate the cause of the blackout; however, even after taking his plane into the atmosphere as high as it can go, he finds that there is no end to the absolute darkness.On David's descent, he loses communication with the control tower and is forced to make a crash landing on a floating island populated by triffids. There, he meets an orphaned young girl, Christina, who has been surviving on her own in the wild since she was a young child, primarily because she is immune to triffid stings. The pair are rescued by an American ship that takes them to Manhattan Island in New York City.Manhattan, a secure and self-contained community like the one on the Isle of Wight, appears at first glance to be a utopia seemingly untouched by the triffid catastrophe. David quickly falls in love with his tour guide, Kerris Baedekker, who is one of the hundreds of daughters of General Fielding, the primary ruler of the city. David divulges to General Fielding that the Isle of Wight has a considerable fleet of aircraft, which, using triffid oil for fuel, can fly much farther than the Manhattan fleet, which runs on wood alcohol.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justine_(de_Sade_novel)" title="Justine (de Sade novel)">
The plot concerns Justine, a 12-year-old maiden ("As for Justine, aged as we have remarked, twelve") who sets off to make her way in France. It follows her until age 26 in her quest for virtue. She is presented with sexual lessons, hidden under a virtuous mask. The unfortunate situations include: the time when she seeks refuge and confession in a monastery, but is forced to become a sex slave to the monks, who subject her to countless orgies, rapes and similar rigours and the time when, helping a gentleman who is robbed in a field, he takes her back to his chateau with promises of a post caring for his wife, but she is then confined in a cave and subject to much the same punishment. These punishments are mostly the same throughout, even when she goes to a judge to beg for mercy in her case as an arsonist and then finds herself openly humiliated in court, unable to defend herself.These are described in true Sadean form. However, unlike some of his other works, the novel is not just a catalogue of sadism.Justine (Thérèse or Sophie in the first version) and Juliette were the daughters of Monsieur de Bertole. Bertole was a widower banker who fell in love with another man's lover. The man, Monsieur de Noirseuil, in the interest of revenge, pretended to be his friend, made sure he became bankrupt and eventually poisoned him, leaving the girls orphans. Juliette and Justine lived in a nunnery, where the abbess of the nunnery corrupted Juliette (and attempted to corrupt Justine too). However, Justine was sweet and virtuous. When the abbess found out about Bertole's death, she threw both girls out. Juliette's story is told in another book and Justine continues on in pursuit of virtue, beginning from becoming a maid in the house of the usurer Harpin, which is where her troubles begin anew.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_Forces" title="Market Forces">
In 2049, Chris Faulkner is recruited by Shorn Associates, an investment firm in London. There he befriendsMike Bryant, a fellow junior executive in the "Conflict Investment" division. Conflict Investment provides resources to incumbent or rebel factions in exchange for promised share of the nation's gross domestic product. CI members often toast to continued "small wars" as their primary source of income for themselves and their investors.Executive advancement in 2049 is not based on merit or politics alone, rather executives can issue challenges to each other which are held on highways emptied of cars and usually fought to the death, in a fashion similar to "Mad Max", a source cited as inspiration by the author in the acknowledgements of the book. Chris Faulkner gains recognition and small celebrity for a particularly brutal win over a much older and more seasoned member of his firm, from which he is head-hunted by Shorn to join their team. Within the media landscape, business executives have fame on the order of sports stars or movie actors and their driving duels are analysed and covered as sporting events. Chris' wife Carla is also his mechanic, a vital role where an executive's car is the difference between promotion and death. She is not a fan of the way he makes his living, but they have an initially strong relationship.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuesdays_with_Morrie" title="Tuesdays with Morrie">
In 1995, Albom is a successful sports columnist for the "Detroit Free Press". After seeing his former sociology professor Morrie Schwartz appear on "Nightline", Albom phones Schwartz and is prompted to visit him in Massachusetts. A coincidental newspaper strike allows Albom to visit Schwartz every week, on Tuesdays. The book recounts each of the fourteen visits Albom made to Schwartz, supplemented with Schwartz's lectures and life experiences and interspersed with flashbacks and references to contemporary events.After being diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Morrie's final days are spent giving his former student Mitch his final lesson of life. The novel is divided into 14 different "days" that Mitch Albom spent with his professor Morrie. Throughout these days, Mitch and Morrie discuss various topics important to life and living. The novel also recounts Mitch's memories of Morrie as a professor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Swans" title="Wild Swans">
## Chang's Grandmother's story.The book starts by relating the biography of Chang's grandmother (Yu-fang). From the age of two, she had bound feet. As the family was relatively poor, her father schemed to have her taken as a concubine to high-ranking warlord General Xue Zhi-heng, in order to gain status, which was hugely important in terms of quality of life. After a wedding ceremony to the General, who already had a wife and many concubines, the young girl was left alone in a wealthy household with servants, and did not see her "husband" again for six years. Despite her luxurious surroundings, life was tense as she feared the servants and the wife of the General would report rumors or outright lies to him. She was allowed to visit her parents' home, but never allowed to spend the night.After his six year absence, the General made a brief conjugal visit to his concubine, during which a daughter, Chang's mother, was conceived. The General named her Bao Qin, meaning precious zither, but did not stay long after her birth. During the child's infancy, Chang's grandmother put off persistent requests for her to be brought to the General's main household, until he became very sick and it was no longer a request. Chang's grandmother had no choice but to comply. During her visit to the household, the General was dying. The general had no male heir, and Chang's mother was very important to the family. Realizing that the General's wife would have complete control over her life and her child's after the General's death, Chang's grandmother fled with her baby to her parents' home, sending false word to her husband's family that the child had passed away. With his last words, the General unexpectedly proclaimed her free at age twenty-four. Eventually she married a much older doctor (Dr. Xia) with whom she and her daughter, Chang's mother, made a home in Jinzhou, Manchuria. She was no more a concubine, but a true, beloved wife.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_Woodman_(novel)" title="Tin Woodman (novel)">
A young psychic boy is taken aboard a starship at the request of the government. The boy is considered both a misfit and dangerous because he has the ability to read minds on earth. However, once aboard he travels into deep space where he comes into contact with a sentient starship. The mission of the crew is to somehow communicate with the alien craft and bring it back to earth. However, things don't go to plan when the young psychic makes contact and decides to take matters into his own hands.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gods_and_Generals_(novel)" title="Gods and Generals (novel)">
Copying his father's approach of focusing on the most important officers of the two armies (General Robert E. Lee, Major General Winfield Scott Hancock, Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, and Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Chamberlain), Shaara depicted the emotional drama of soldiers fighting old friends while accurately detailing historical details including troop movements, strategies, and tactical combat situations. General Hancock, for instance, spends much of the novel dreading the day he will have to fire on his friend in the Confederate Army, Lewis "Lo" Armistead. The novel also deals with General Lee's disillusionment with the Confederate bureaucracy and General Jackson's religious fervor.In addition to covering events leading up to the war, the book includes the battles of First Bull Run, covered only from the perspective of Robert E. Lee, who was in Richmond at the time and thus not at the battle, Williamsburg, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. The film version provides only cursory coverage of immediate pre-war events, focusing primarily on Jackson and the secession of Virginia, and omits Antietam (included in the Director's Cut) along with Williamsburg and Second Bull Run. It spends a considerable amount of time on First Bull Run, which played only a minor role in the book.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'Tis" title="'Tis">
The book begins as McCourt lands upriver from New York City, and quickly makes his way to New York City with an Irish-American priest on the ship. Friendless and clueless about American customs, he struggles to integrate himself into American blue-collar society, working at laboring jobs while spending his free time reading books. The New York City public library is a wonder to him, with its welcoming ways. He spends time there and checks out books from the start.He is drafted into the US Army because of the Korean War; he is sent to Europe, and rises to the rank of corporal. During his time in southern Germany, he meets men from all over the U.S. When serving as company clerk, he delivers laundry to U.S. Army facilities at Dachau, a haunting experience, both for a Jewish soldier with him and for Frank, who heard all the news of World War II growing up in Limerick. Soldiers are always looking for women, trading their cigarette and coffee allotments for sex, even with refugees from WWII who are still not settled, which the Army disapproves of. Frank has a troubling encounter with a poor and hungry girl in a refugee camp. The people in the Army teach him a lot about American ways, so different from his upbringing in the lanes of Limerick. While in the Army in Germany, he gets two weeks leave to visit his family in Ireland, seeing his mother and youngest brothers Michael and Alphie in Limerick, and for one day, his father and paternal grandmother in Toome. He has been sending part of his Army wages to his mother, and she has gained a home with all the modern advantages of plumbing, a refrigerator and space for a garden in the Janesboro neighborhood; she does not move out of the slum house shared with her brother, where she was raised, until Frank arrives. His emotions while in Limerick are strongly mixed, between pride in his U.S. Army status, pleasure at the better life of his youngest brother who attends secondary school, and the hard memories of his own life there, the "dark clouds" in his mind. 
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Games" title="Patriot Games">
A kidnapping attempt on the Prince and Princess of Wales and their infant son occurs at the Mall in London. The attack is orchestrated by members of the Ulster Liberation Army, a splinter group of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. However, Jack Ryan intervenes, incapacitating one of the attackers, Sean Miller. During the gun battle however, Ryan is shot in the shoulder by one of the other gunmen, John Michael McCrory, as they exchange fire. McClory is killed, and Miller is later arrested.While recovering from his wound, Ryan is honored by the British government and is knighted. Meanwhile, Miller is sentenced to life imprisonment for the kidnapping attempt; however, his ULA compatriots led by Kevin O’Donnell free him while he is being transported to a maximum security prison in the Isle of Wight. They are then aided by their Libyan allies in escaping into their secret camp in the North African desert, and Miller vows revenge on Ryan.Ryan returns to teach history at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, confident that the ULA will not attack him in the United States. Unbeknownst to him, Miller had persuaded O’Donnell to launch an operation in the U.S. aimed at targeting Ryan and his family, and had recruited the assistance of an African-American domestic terrorist group known as “the Movement” to do so. Though primarily for revenge, the operation is also designed to reduce American support for the rival PIRA, which is to be blamed for the upcoming attack. The assassin sent to kill Ryan is intercepted before he manages to complete his task, however his wife Cathy and daughter Sally are seriously injured when Miller causes their car to crash on a freeway; they are rescued by state troopers and volunteer firemen and later transported by helicopter to the University of Maryland Medical Center for treatment.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changing_Places" title="Changing Places">
"Changing Places" is a comic novel with serious undercurrents. It tells the story of the six-month academic exchange programme between fictional universities located in Rummidge (modelled on Birmingham in England) and Plotinus, in the state of Euphoria (modeled on Berkeley in California). The two academics taking part in the exchange are both aged 40, but appear at first to otherwise have little in common, mainly because of the differing academic systems of their native countries.The English participant, Philip Swallow, is a very conventional and conformist British academic, and somewhat in awe of the American way of life. By contrast the American, Morris Zapp, is a top-ranking American professor who only agrees to go to Rummidge because his wife agrees to postpone long-threatened divorce proceedings on condition that he move out of the marital home for six months. Zapp is at first both contemptuous of, and amused by, what he perceives as the amateurism of British academe.As the exchange progresses, Swallow and Zapp find that they begin to fit in surprisingly well to their new environments. In the course of the story, each man has an affair with the other's wife. Before that, Swallow sleeps with Zapp's daughter Melanie, without realising who she is. She takes up with a former undergraduate student of his, Charles Boon.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneath_the_Wheel" title="Beneath the Wheel">
"Beneath the Wheel" is the story of Hans Giebenrath, a talented boy sent to a seminary in Maulbronn. His education is focused completely on increasing his knowledge, and neglects personal development. His close friendship with Hermann Heilner, a more liberal fellow student, is a source of comfort for Hans. Heilner is expelled from the seminary, and Giebenrath is sent home after his academic performance decreases in tandem with the onset of symptoms of mental illness.Back home, he finds coping with his situation difficult, having lost most of his childhood to scholastic study, and thus having never formed lasting personal relationships with anyone in his village. He is apprenticed as a mechanic, and seems to find satisfaction in the work; it is visceral and concrete, as opposed to the intellectual abstraction of scholarly pursuit. Despite some personal fulfillment in his existence, Hans never fully adjusts to his new situation. On a pub crawl in a neighbouring village, he and his colleagues get drunk. Giebenrath leaves the group to walk home early. Later, he is found to have drowned in a river.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_British_Coup" title="A Very British Coup">
Harry Perkins is the left-wing Leader of the Labour Party and Member of Parliament for Sheffield Central. Beating all the odds, Harry becomes Prime Minister and sets out to dismantle media monopolies, withdraw from NATO, carry out unilateral nuclear disarmament, and create an open government. Many people in the media, financial services, and the intelligence services are deeply unhappy with Harry's win and his policies, and they unite to stop him by any means.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_One_Writes_to_the_Colonel" title="No One Writes to the Colonel">
The novel, written between 1956 and 1957 while living in Paris in the Hotel des Trois Colleges and first published in 1961, is the story of an impoverished retired colonel, a veteran of the Thousand Days' War, who still hopes to receive the pension he was promised some fifteen years earlier. The colonel lives with his asthmatic wife in a small village under martial law. The action opens with the colonel preparing to go to the funeral of a town musician whose death is notable because he was the first to die from natural causes in many years. The novel is set during the years of "La Violencia" in Colombia, when martial law and censorship prevail.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlsson-on-the-Roof" title="Karlsson-on-the-Roof">
Karlsson is a very short, plump and overconfident man who lives in a small house hidden behind a chimney on the roof of "a very ordinary apartment building on a very ordinary street" in Vasastan, Stockholm. When Karlsson pushes a button on his stomach, it starts a clever little engine with a propeller on his back, allowing him to fly.In his own opinion, Karlsson is the best at everything. He befriends Svante Svantesson, a 7-year-old boy and youngest member of the Svantesson family (who is often referred to as "Little Brother", , or "Malysh" in the Russian adaptations). Svante is sometimes called Smidge in the US version of the books.Karlsson is quite mischievous and likes to make fun and prank others. He often gets Lillebror into trouble, as Karlsson usually disappears just before Lillebror's family arrives leaving him to deal with consequences of Karlsson’s actions. At first, parents, siblings and friends of Lillebror don't believe that Karlsson is real and consider him being an imaginary friend but after they meet him in person they begin to like the little flying man.Another character to encounter Karlsson is Fröken Bock (Miss Hildur Bock), a mean nanny (presumably in her late 40s or 50s), who undergoes an emotional transformation after meeting Karlsson.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Nickleby" title="Nicholas Nickleby">
 Nicholas Nickleby's father dies unexpectedly after losing all of his money in a poor investment. Nicholas, his mother and his younger sister, Kate, are forced to give up their comfortable lifestyle in Devonshire and travel to London to seek the aid of their only relative, Nicholas's uncle, Ralph Nickleby. Ralph, a cold and ruthless businessman, has no desire to help his destitute relations and hates Nicholas at first sight because he reminds him of his dead brother. He gets Nicholas a very low-paying job as an assistant to Wackford Squeers, who runs the school Dotheboys Hall in Yorkshire. Nicholas is initially wary of Squeers (a very unpleasant man with one eye) because he is gruff and violent towards his young charges, but he tries to quell his suspicions. As Nicholas boards the stagecoach for Greta Bridge, he is handed a letter by Ralph's clerk, Newman Noggs. A once-wealthy businessman, Noggs lost his fortune, became a drunk, and had no other recourse but to seek employment with Ralph, whom he loathes. The letter expresses concern for him as an innocent young man and offers assistance if Nicholas ever requires it. Once he arrives in Yorkshire, Nicholas comes to realise that Squeers is running a scam: he takes in unwanted children (most of whom are illegitimate, crippled or deformed) for a high fee, and starves and mistreats them while using the money sent by their parents, who only want to get them out of their way, to pad his own pockets. Squeers and his monstrous wife whip and beat the children regularly while spoiling their own son. Lessons are no better; they show how poorly educated Squeers himself is and he uses the lessons as excuses to send the boys off on chores. While he is there, Nicholas befriends a "simple" boy named Smike, who is older than the other "students" and now acts as an unpaid servant. Nicholas attracts the attention of Fanny Squeers, his employer's plain and shrewish daughter, who deludes herself into thinking that Nicholas is in love with her. She attempts to disclose her affections during a game of cards, but Nicholas doesn't catch her meaning. Instead, he ends up flirting with her friend Tilda Price, to the consternation of both Fanny and Tilda's friendly but crude-mannered fiancé John Browdie. After being accosted by Fanny again, Nicholas bluntly tells her he does not return her affections and wishes to be free of the horrible atmosphere of Dotheboys Hall, earning her enmity.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Partner_(Grisham_novel)" title="The Partner (Grisham novel)">
It's been four years since Patrick Lanigan, a junior partner in a law firm in Biloxi, Mississippi, learned of the scheme, masterminded by his firm's client, shipbuilding magnate Benny Aricia, to defraud the U.S. government. The firm's senior partners didn't include Lanigan in the plan, in which they stood to make tens of millions of dollars. Lanigan then devised a plan of his own, wherein he faked his death, stole $90 million from the secret off-shore accounts where the firm had been hiding the ill-gotten gains, and then fled to South America. Since then, Lanigan started a new life with new-found love Eva. But Aricia had men track him down, ruthless men who will do whatever it takes, including torture, to reclaim the stolen fortune. In a desperate bid, Lanigan gives complete control of the money to Eva, then turns himself over to the FBI. Once returned to the U.S., Lanigan must fight multiple legal battles, in state, civil and federal courts, involving a former client, his estranged wife, and the highest levels of government, to protect the people he cares for, gain his freedom and, finally get back to Eva and the part of the fortune they secretly set aside.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skipping_Christmas" title="Skipping Christmas">
The story focuses on how Luther and Nora Krank try to avoid the frenzy traditionally experienced during the Christmas holiday. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the two take their daughter Blair to the airport, where she departs for a year-long Peace Corps assignment in Peru. Seeing all of the busy traveling at the airport, Luther starts to develop an increasingly personal antipathy for normal Christmas traditions, especially knowing that Blair will not be with them for Christmas this year. To make matters worse, Luther is told by Nora to stop by a packed grocery store on a very rainy day, causing him to get soaked, only to realize when getting back in the car that he forgot the white chocolate on the shopping list, forcing Nora to go inside and get it herself.Nora bemoans the fact that the upcoming Christmas will be the first time they have been separated as a family, prompting her husband to calculate how much they spent celebrating the holidays the previous year. When he realizes they have little to show for the $6,100 they invested in decorations, gifts, and entertaining, he decides to skip all the hubbub at home and surprise Nora by booking a 10-day Caribbean cruise aboard the "Island Princess". Nora at first is skeptical but accepts the idea on one condition – that they still donate $600 to the church and Children's Hospital. At first Luther refuses, but when Nora refuses to consider the cruise otherwise, he agrees, and they begin to plan the trip.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fevre_Dream" title="Fevre Dream">
Abner Marsh, a remarkably unattractive but highly skilled Mississippi River steamboat captain, is grappling with a financial crisis in 1857 when he is contacted by Joshua York, a rich, soft-spoken gentleman. They become unlikely business partners when Joshua promises to finance the construction of a magnificent new riverboat that will be larger, faster and more opulent than any other ever constructed.When finally completed, she is everything Abner has ever dreamed of piloting. The large white, blue and silver paddle steamer is christened "Fevre Dream", for Abner's previously failing company, the Fevre River Packet Company. Joshua and Abner co-captain the new vessel, with Abner being solely responsible for her actual command and navigation. Many questions are soon raised by both the crew and passengers about Joshua and his circle of unusual friends, who hardly ever venture out of their cabins during daylight hours. Abner's own suspicions about his mysterious partner begin to grow when he finds scrapbooks in Joshua's cabin containing newspaper clippings detailing many mysterious, unexplained deaths.He confronts Joshua, who reveals that he and his friends are vampire hunters, using the "Fevre Dream" as their base of operations to investigate a trail of unusual deaths and disappearances along the river. Eventually, Joshua finally reveals the whole truth: He and his friends are themselves vampires, humanoid beings specialized for and dependent upon hunting humans, characterized by Joshua as "a different race". Joshua has developed a potion, using ancient alchemy and rudimentary chemistry, which controls the "red thirst" of all vampires. This has led many of his kind to consider him the "Pale King", a kind of vampire messiah destined to free them from their dependence on hunting humans. Joshua is on a personal crusade to free his people of their need to feed on human blood, and his traveling companions have all submitted to his control as their lord (or "bloodmaster").
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unpleasant_Profession_of_Jonathan_Hoag" title="The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag">
Jonathan Hoag, a lover of art and fine dining living in Chicago, realizes that he has no memory of his daytime activities when asked, at an evening dinner, what he does for a living. Furthermore, when he washes his hands in the evening, he discovers a red-brown substance, possibly dried blood, under his fingernails.He contacts a detective agency, Randall &amp; Craig, and asks them to follow him during the day. The partners, actually the husband and wife team of Ted and Cynthia Randall, agree to this. They try to collect fingerprints from their client, but find that Hoag leaves none, even when not wearing gloves. The few memories Hoag has turn out to be false, except for his home address, and a doctor, Potiphar T. Potbury, whom Hoag consulted about the substance under his fingernails, had thrown him out of his office and told him not to return.The first time the pair tail Hoag, Cynthia sees him turn and talk to her husband. Then Cynthia is menaced by Hoag after she tails him in an office building. When she is reunited with Ted, he tells her that he had a completely different experience: after uneventfully tailing Hoag into the building and up to Hoag's office on the thirteenth floor, Ted discovers that Hoag is a jeweler working for a company called Detheridge &amp; Co., and that the red substance is jeweler's rouge. Both realize that something is terribly wrong, especially once they discover that the building has no thirteenth floor.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Firm_(novel)" title="The Firm (novel)">
Mitch McDeere is a graduate of Western Kentucky University with a degree in accounting, who has passed his Certified Public Accountant exam on the first attempt and graduated third in his class at Harvard Law School. Mitch is married to his high-school sweetheart, Abby McDeere, an elementary school teacher who also attended Western Kentucky University. His older brother Ray is imprisoned in Tennessee for manslaughter, and his other brother, Rusty, died in Vietnam. His mother suffers from mental health issues and lives in Florida.Mitch spurns offers from law firms in New York and Chicago in favor of signing with Bendini, Lambert and Locke, a small tax law firm based in Memphis. He finds the firm's offer — a large salary, a lease on a new BMW, and a low-interest mortgage on a house — too generous to resist. Soon after he joins, his new colleagues help him study and pass his bar exam, the first priority for new associates. Mitch is assigned to partner Avery Tolar, the firm's "bad boy," but a highly accomplished attorney.Two of Mitch's colleagues, Marty Kozinski and Joe Hodge, die in a scuba diving accident in the Cayman Islands a few days before he starts at the firm. On his first scheduled day of work, Mitch attends their funerals. Mitch finds the deaths unsettling, but focuses on his goal of becoming the youngest partner in the firm's history. During a memorial service at the firm for the two deceased attorneys, Mitch notices plaques commemorating three other attorneys who died while working at the firm. Suspicious, he hires a private investigator, Eddie Lomax, an ex-cellmate of his brother Ray, to investigate the deaths.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fine_Balance" title="A Fine Balance">
The book exposes the changes in Indian society from independence in 1947 to the Emergency declared by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Mistry was generally critical of Indira Gandhi in the book. She, however, is never referred to by name by any of the characters, and is instead called simply "the Prime Minister". The characters, from diverse backgrounds, are brought together by economic forces changing India.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Watch_(Lukyanenko_novel)" title="Night Watch (Lukyanenko novel)">
## Destiny.A Mage, recently reassigned to field work in the Night Watch, Anton Gorodetsky, is tasked with tracking vampires who have been hunting and killing humans without a licence. As he follows a young boy (Egor), who has been magically lured by two vampires through the Metro, he notices a young woman, Svetlana, who has a huge vortex of damnation above her. Trying to free her from the vortex he uses up the power of an amulet he has been given to use against the vampires, but only succeeds in temporarily reducing the curse upon her. He finds the vampires who have been calling Egor, and in the struggle to arrest them, because he has used up the amulet trying to do good elsewhere, is forced to kill one while the other (a female) gets away.He returns to the Night Watch headquarters, where his boss, Boris Ignatievich, informs him that he could be in danger as Zabulon (head of the Day Watch) might want revenge for his actions in killing Dark Others and gives him an owl called Olga, to be his Watch partner. Anton initially rejects the offer, then finds Olga in his apartment and reluctantly agrees. The next day he carelessly and illegally uses his powers for good (by changing a person's morality, a spell called "remoralization") and clashes with a Dark Other from the Day Watch, Alisa Donnikova. They agree that Alisa can use her power to do a minor evil act of her choice in compensation for his own act of goodness. As events unfold he discovers that Olga can speak and appear briefly as a human, and is a sorceress trapped in an owl's body as a punishment.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cobweb_(novel)" title="The Cobweb (novel)">
When Clyde Banks, an Iowan Deputy with a newborn baby and a wife in the first Gulf War, starts looking into odd events in his town, he discovers a plot involving a new Triangle Trade of terrorists, biological warfare, and training. Mixing the events staged in Washington, D.C. and those happening in the Gulf, a strange thread of deceit appears to be winding its way back to Iowa. Although fictional in its narrative, the story includes appearances by Tariq Aziz and George H. W. Bush.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipping_the_Velvet" title="Tipping the Velvet">
Nancy "Nan" Astley is a sheltered 18-year-old living with her working-class family and helping in their oyster restaurant in Whitstable, Kent. She becomes instantly and desperately enamoured with a "masher", or male impersonator, named Kitty Butler, who performs for a season at the local theatre. They begin a friendship that grows when, after Kitty finds an opportunity to perform in London for better exposure, she asks Nan to join her. Nan enthusiastically agrees and leaves her family to act as Kitty's dresser while she performs. Although Kitty and Nan acknowledge their relationship to be sisterly, Nan continues to love Kitty until a jealous fight forces Kitty to admit she feels the same, although she insists that they keep their relationship secret. Simultaneously, Kitty's manager Walter decides that Kitty needs a performing partner to reach true success, and suggests Nan for the role. Nan is initially horrified by the idea, but takes to it. The duo become quite famous until Nan realises she is homesick after being gone from her family for more than a year. Her return home is underwhelming, so she returns to London early to find Kitty in bed with Walter. They announce that the act is finished and they are to be married.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormqueen!" title="Stormqueen!">
Lady Aliciane of Rockraven, "barragana" to Mikhail of Aldaran, dies giving birth to a daughter, Dorilys. In childhood, Dorilys is discovered to have weather-related "laran", causing storms and lightning with her childish temper tantrums.Allart Hastur leaves Nevarsin Monastery, where he has lived for six years, learning to live with a form of "laran" that causes him to experience premonitions of multiple futures. He meets Cassandra Aillard, the woman his family intends him to marry. He believes that any children they might conceive will cause her death. To avoid this fate, they become celibate tower workers at Hali.Lord Rakhal Aldaran of Scathfell arrives with his son at Castle Aldaran. Scathfell wishes ensure that his son Darren marries Dorilys, who is now eleven. At the handfasting, Darren judges her to be much older than he has been told, and attempts to force her into sexual relations. Dorilys’ self-protective "laran" strikes Darren dead. Scathfell swears vengeance. Dorilys' half-brother Donal is sent to acquire assistance from Hali Tower for Dorilys.Damon-Rafael Hastur of Elhayln, Allart's brother, arrives at Hali and asks him to undertake a diplomatic mission to Aldaran. Donal Delleray also arrives, asking assistance for Dorilys. Allart and Renata accompany Donal back to Aldaran.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii_(novel)" title="Pompeii (novel)">
Marcus Attilius Primus arrives in the Bay of Naples from Rome to take charge as "aquarius" (hydraulic engineer) of the Aqua Augusta, the aqueduct that supplies water to the towns in the region encompassing the Bay of Naples and Mount Vesuvius. The nine important towns are, in order, Pompeii, Nola, Acerrae, Atella, Napoli, Puteoli, Cumae, Baiae, and Misenum. Attilius's predecessor, Exomnius, has mysteriously vanished as the springs that flow through the aqueduct begin to fail, which reduces the supply of water available to the region's reservoir. Attilius is unpopular among the workers, particularly Corax, who resents the young foreigner giving him orders. Attilius's concerns about the water are heightened when he is summoned by a young, wealthy woman, Corelia, to investigate water that apparently killed her father's prized fish. Corelia's father is the former slave and land speculator Numerius Popidius Ampliatus, who came to fortune after he rebuilt Pompeii from a past earthquake. Ampliatus feeds to eels the slave he deems responsible for the fish's death for his own amusement. Attilius realises that unusually, sulfur poisoned the water.Dramatically, the flow of water then stops entirely. Attilius concludes that the aqueduct must be blocked somewhere close to Mount Vesuvius since reports claim a shutdown of the system just before Nola. That means that towns from there through Napoli and Misenum are without any water supply. With aid from Pliny the Elder, whose fleet is docked at Misenum, Attilius assembles an expedition to travel to Pompeii, the closest town still being supplied with water, and then on to the blocked section of the Aqua Augusta.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pnin" title="Pnin">
## Chapter 1.Timofey Pavlovich Pnin, the title character, is a professor of Russian at Waindell College; "ideally bald" with a "strong man torso," "spindly legs," and "feminine feet". Pnin is on a train from Waindell to Cremona, where he is to give a guest lecture. He is persistently bothered by the fear that he may lose his lecture papers, or mix them up with the student essay he is correcting. He discovers he has boarded the wrong train and gets off. When he tries to board a bus to Cremona, he suddenly realizes he has lost his luggage (with his papers) and has a seizure. He finally arrives at Cremona by truck, having recovered his papers, and is about to give his lecture when he experiences a vision, seeing his dead parents and friends from before the Russian Revolution in the audience. The chapter ends without revealing whether Pnin has the correct papers.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Faded_Sun_Trilogy" title="The Faded Sun Trilogy">
The Faded Sun trilogy can be considered a Bildungsroman, since one of the major themes is the coming of age of Niun, the mri protagonist. At the same time, it is a story of acculturation, as the human protagonist, Sten Duncan, lives among the mri to the point of becoming one of them.The Faded Sun trilogy is the principal account of the Mri Wars era of Cherryh's Alliance-Union universe. At the beginning of the first volume, the regul have just concluded a forty-year war with humanity. As part of the peace, they are ceding the desert world of Kesrith to humanity. However, they have neglected to inform its inhabitants, the mri, who have served them as mercenaries for over two thousand years.The Mri have been nearly exterminated in these wars, and young Niun is one of the few remaining warriors. When the regul seek to double-cross his people, he and his sister Melein, the last of the priestly Sen caste, form an uneasy alliance with the human Sten Duncan to rescue a holy relic that may hold the key to the Mri's survival.The second volume opens with Niun and Melein captives of the human occupation force, kept alive by the human medicine they would refuse if they were not sedated. But the human command has a plan that may thwart the regul's attempted genocide of the Mri. They produce a navigation tape from the data in the holy relic that legend holds leads the way to the Mri homeworld and set Niun and Melein aboard the ship. Duncan comes with them to keep the ship running.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Fortress" title="Digital Fortress">
The story is set in the year of 1996. When the United States National Security Agency's code-breaking supercomputer TRANSLTR encounters a revolutionary new code, "Digital Fortress," that it cannot break, Commander Trevor Strathmore calls in head cryptographer Susan Fletcher to crack it. She is informed by Strathmore that it was written by Ensei Tankado, a former NSA employee who became displeased with the NSA's intrusion into people's private lives. If the NSA doesn't reveal TRANSLTR to the public, Tankado intends to auction the code's algorithm on his website and have his partner, "North Dakota", release it for free if he dies, essentially holding the NSA hostage. Strathmore tells Fletcher that Tankado has in fact died in Seville at the age of 32, of what appears to be a heart attack. Strathmore intends to keep Tankado's death a secret because if Tankado's partner finds out, he will upload the code. The agency is determined to stop Digital Fortress from becoming a threat to national security.Strathmore asks Fletcher's fiancé David Becker to travel to Seville and recover a ring that Tankado was wearing when he died. The ring is suspected to have the passcode that unlocks Digital Fortress. However, Becker soon discovers that Tankado gave the ring away just before his death. Unbeknown to Becker, a mysterious figure, named Hulohot, follows him, and murders each person he questions in the search for the ring. Unsurprisingly, Hulohot's final attempt would be on Becker himself.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawkmistress!" title="Hawkmistress!">
Romilly MacAran has the "laran" gift of her family – the ability to merge with the minds of animals. She uses this gift to train hawks and horses. When she reaches the age of fifteen (womanhood, in Darkover's terms), her father refuses to allow her to continue working with animals on the grounds that it isn't ladylike. He gives her prized hawk, Preciosa, to her brother, who has no gift. He also refuses her requests for an education.When Romilly learns that her father intends to marry her off to a three-times widower, Garris of Scathfell, she realizes that leaving home is her only option. Dressed as a boy, she escapes with a horse from the stables.Calling herself Rumal, she heads towards Nevarsin. Her hawk, Preciosa, appears in the sky, and provides her with a freshly killed bird, the first meal she has had in several days. Her fire attracts a company of men, headed by Dom Carlo and Dom Orain, who have three sick sentry birds that need care. They, too, are headed to Nevarsin, and Romilly takes over the care of their birds. Romilly reveals that she is a "cristoforo". Dom Carlo claims to be a kinsman of the deposed king, Carolin, and is fleeing his cousin, Rakhal, who has taken the throne by force.
</doc>
<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Fowl_and_the_Opal_Deception" title="Artemis Fowl and the Opal Deception">
The book begins with the pixie Opal Koboi faking a coma inside a hospital to avoid incarceration by the Lower Elements Police (LEP) after her failed rebellion and attempt of world domination (which took place in "Artemis Fowl and the Arctic Incident").Opal Koboi, who had been under 24-hour surveillance, had DNA tests done every 4 hours, a seeker-sleeper planted in her arm (a device that can make the criminal faint, while also giving their position away) and had her in a net trapped with monitoring pads by the LEP to ensure that Opal was actually in the asylum cell, with help from the Brill Brothers Opal manages to replace herself with a clone, which is identical to herself (the only difference being that the clone is brain dead which is also the current state the sensors detect Opal's coma-like mind to be in).Opal lures Commander Julius Root and Captain Holly Short of the LEP into a lava chute alone by putting General Scalene under the mesmer there. Koboi then kills Commander Root by using a 30-centimeter metal box packed with explosive gel and covered in stealth ore (framing Captain Holly Short as the murderer, she told Holly that if she shot a certain part of the exploding box, it would turn off (it only went faster), since stealth ore couldn't be picked up by any electronics the LEP cameras only saw Holly shooting the commander, clear as day), and launches a bio-bomb at Artemis Fowl, which fails to kill him and his bodyguard Domovoi Butler because Butler grabbed Artemis and jumps from the three-story hotel, using a mattress to cushion the fall.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_(novel)" title="Prague (novel)">
"Prague" opens on the afternoon of May 25, 1990 with five North American expatriates living in the city of Budapest. The expatriates are, for the most part, optimistic about their prospects in the Central European city. John Price seeks a reconciliation with his older brother, Scott, who has come to Budapest to separate himself from his earlier life in the United States. Emily Oliver, an idealistic worker at the American Embassy, hopes to begin a distinguished diplomatic career. Mark Payton, a Canadian researching a history of nostalgia, relishes the chance to be immersed in a place with interesting history. Only Charles Gábor, a Hungarian-American venture capitalist who resents his co-workers and has contempt for his fellow Magyars, displays any pessimism at the story's outset. The five young expatriates enjoy the nightlife and new opportunities in the historic city.John is instantly attracted to Emily, and plots to win her love, but she ignores him. He finds a job as a columnist for an English-language newspaper, "BudapesToday". Still a virgin at the age of 24, he is initiated by his co-worker Karen, but finds the experience to be quite anticlimactic. He later commits "fradultery" with his brother's future wife, Mária.Part II presents the complex history of the Horváth Kiadó (Horvath Press), a family-run publishing company – which also serves as a history of Budapest from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Presently, the head of the publishing house is Imre Horváth, who until recently had been exiled in Vienna. In the mid-nineteenth century, during the Revolution, the Horváth business is affected by the April Laws, a collection of laws legislated by Lajos Kossuth with the aim of modernizing Kingdom of Hungary into a nation state. During the Communist regime, the Horváth Kiadó was a state-owned enterprise; after the fall of communism, it is due to be privatized. Imre seeks an investment from Charles' venture capital firm in order to buy the press's assets and restart it in Budapest.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudstreet" title="Cloudstreet">
In 1943, precipitated by separate personal tragedies, two poor families, the Lambs and the Pickles, flee their rural homes to share a large house called Cloudstreet in Perth, Western Australia. The Pickles include the father, Sam, the mother, Dolly, and their three children, Ted, Rose, and Chub. The Lambs are led by father, Lester, and mother, Oriel, and they have six children, Hattie, Elaine, Mason (nicknamed "Quick"), Samson (nicknamed “Fish”), Red and Lon. The Pickles own Cloudstreet, but rent half of the house to the Lambs, who open a grocery store on the ground floor of the house. The two families contrast each other; the devoutly religious Lambs find meaning in hard work and God's grace, while the Pickles hope for good luck and do not share the Lambs' appetite for hard work. The novel focuses on the experiences and relationships of these two families over a period of 20 years.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hollow" title="The Hollow">
## Introduction.On the morning that he and his downtrodden wife, Gerda, are due to travel down to the country to weekend with friends, Dr John Christow, a successful physician, leading researcher, and very tired and irritated by his current life, allows his little daughter to tell his fortune with cards. When the death card is drawn, he pays no attention, but the appearance of an old flame at The Hollow seems to be the final link in a chain of fatal circumstances.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knife_of_Dreams" title="Knife of Dreams">
This volume of "The Wheel of Time" depicts several distinct plots. Unusual Trolloc attacks, the dead walking, ripples in the fabric of the world and other events seem to indicate that the Last Battle is drawing near; several characters using different evidence confidently state that "Tarmon Gai'don" is close at hand.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_on_the_Tree" title="Silver on the Tree">
Will Stanton and his mentor Merriman, two of the last Old Ones, gather allies and magical objects to help defeat the rising Dark. They ally with Bran, a Welsh descendant of King Arthur, and the three Drew children, to form the Six who are prophesied to triumph over the powers of the Dark. Significant mythical elements in the book include the bard Taliesin (under his alternate name Gwion), King Gwyddno Garanhir and the Drowned Hundred, the Welsh tradition of the Mari Llwyd, and the Ritual of oak and mistletoe.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwitch" title="Greenwitch">
The Drew children – Simon, Jane, and Barney – return to Cornwall with their uncle Merriman Lyon. Merriman enlists them along with Will Stanton, his protégé, to uncover a golden grail needed to defeat the forces of the Dark.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_Sea,_Under_Stone" title="Over Sea, Under Stone">
"Over Sea, Under Stone" features the Drew children, Simon, Jane and Barney, on holiday with their parents and Merriman Lyon, an old family friend, usually referred to by the children as their great-uncle. The Drew family meet him in the fictional fishing village of Trewissick on the southern coast of Cornwall. In the attic of the big Grey House they are renting from Merriman's friend Captain Toms the children find an old manuscript. They recognise a drawing of the local coastline that may be a kind of map, with almost illegible text, but Barney realises that the map refers to King Arthur and his knights. The children decide to keep the discovery to themselves.The family are visited at the Grey House by a very friendly Mr. Withers and his sister Polly, who invite them to go fishing on their yacht. The boys are thrilled, but Jane feels suspicious and declines to join them. While Jane is alone in the Grey House she finds a guidebook to Trewissick, written by the local vicar, in an old trunk. She realises that the map in the guidebook is similar to the secret map, but also different somehow, so she decides to visit the vicar. The man at the vicarage is not the writer of the guidebook, but he offers to help Jane. He asks some probing questions that arouse Jane's suspicions and she decides to return home.
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<doc url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer's_Hammer" title="Lucifer's Hammer">
When wealthy amateur astronomer Tim Hamner co-discovers a new comet, named Hamner-Brown for its discoverers, documentary producer Harvey Randall persuades Hamner to have his soap company sponsor a television documentary series on the comet. Political lobbying by California Senator Arthur Jellison eventually gets a joint Apollo-Soyuz (docking with Skylab B) mission approved to study the comet, dubbed "The Hammer" by the media, which is expected to pass close to the Earth.The scientific community assures the public that a collision with Earth is extremely unlikely, but the comet's nucleus breaks apart and the pieces strike parts of Europe, Africa, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. These result in volcano eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis, destroying major coastal cities around the world, killing billions and initiating a new ice age because of the massive quantities of water and debris flung into the atmosphere.Immediately after the strike, China, anticipating that the Soviet Union will become too cold for its people and must therefore invade its neighbor, launches a preemptive nuclear attack on its neighbor. The Soviets retaliate with their own nuclear missiles, reassuring the US that it is not the target.Jellison has taken discreet precautions and moved his people and supplies to his ranch. He takes charge and organizes the easily protected valley in the Sierra foothills where his ranch is located, dubbed the "Stronghold". Randall and Hamner separately reach the valley and are allowed in (unlike almost all other refugees). Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist and resident genius Dan Forrester receives a warm welcome when he reveals that he has hidden a cache of invaluable "how-to" books.
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