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d314073f-a512-48a3-9906-13ebb83be742 | d314073f-a512-48a3-9906-13ebb83be742 | d314073f-a512-48a3-9906-13ebb83be742 | human | null | null | none | books | Conan: Scourge of the Bloody Coast | null | Conan, under his piratical alias of Amra, continues to develop a pirate empire in the Vilayet Sea. Operating from the rebuilt city of Djafur, located on one of the islands in the Aetolian chain, Conan plays King Yildiz's Turanian empire against the Hyrkanians. Joining forces with the necromancer Crotalis, Conan and his pirates participate in looting the lost city of Sarpedon. But Crotalis turns on the pirates, forcing Conan to run his ship ashore, where Conan is captured by Hyrkanians but later released after he proves his worth as a warrior. In return for his release, Conan agrees to support the Hyrkanians in their naval invasion of Turan. Crotalis also offers his services to the Hyrkanians, leading to another rogues' alliance with Conan. Using a magical wind summoned by the necromancer, the Hyrkanian fleet moves to attack the Turanians. After a lengthly naval battle leads to a stalemate, Crotalis re-animates the bodies of all the pirates' former victims, forcing Conan to battle the undead and Turanians. But before Crotalis claims final victory, he is burned alive; the battle leads both nations' navies in weakened states, and Conan's Red Brotherhood becomes the strongest fleet on the Vilayet. |
d2618de2-1c4d-46b3-b72b-cab284752ce2 | d2618de2-1c4d-46b3-b72b-cab284752ce2 | d2618de2-1c4d-46b3-b72b-cab284752ce2 | human | null | null | none | books | The Habitation of the Blessed | null | The novel, a reimagining of the legend of Prester John, begins with the accidental discovery by a missionary monk, Brother Hiob of Luzerne, of a curious village containing a tree whose branches bear books instead of fruit. He plucks three of them, and within them finds three different perspectives on the life of Prester John in the magical land of Pentexore - one by the man himself, one by his Blemmye wife Hagia, and one by a Panotii woman named Imtithal, storyteller and nurse to the royal family. The narrative of the book shifts back and forth between the three texts, interspersed with the reflections of Brother Hiob as he struggles both to transcribe them before the book-fruits rot away and to contend with the vast differences between the stories he finds there and the idealized vision of the legendary king he had previously held. |
51c47c9c-72f8-4b34-a652-87417806e7da | 51c47c9c-72f8-4b34-a652-87417806e7da | 51c47c9c-72f8-4b34-a652-87417806e7da | human | null | null | none | books | Prince Serebrenni | null | Knyaz (Prince) Nikita Serebryanni is on his way to Moscow. In Medvedevka village his small armed unit of servants clashes with the oprichnik Khomyak’s gang. There and then the Prince learns that bloodshed and lawlessness here were inspired by Tsar Ioann's new policies, known as oprichnina. Another plotline involves Yelena Morozova, the wife of Medvedevka landlord whom the Prince helped out; she turns out to be his own loved one of the old times, who had to marry the old man in order to thwart another vile oprichnik, Vyazemsky, with his unwanted passes. Further on his way, Serebrenni helps out the outlaw named Persten (the latter would repay the Prince later by leading him out of Grozny’s jail) and encounters the terrible Tsar himself. Appalled by Godunov's cynicism (who suggests that the two should join forces in the anti-Grozny alliance) and torn apart between his righteous hatred towards the Tsar with his corrupt oprichnicks, and his own oath of allegiance, Serebrenni, all kinds of adventures behind, chooses to go to war, to fight for his country (not its amoral ruler), and die the death of a noble man. |
fb2696ec-6dc1-48de-8945-695eece2e1bf | fb2696ec-6dc1-48de-8945-695eece2e1bf | fb2696ec-6dc1-48de-8945-695eece2e1bf | human | null | null | none | books | Layar Terkembang | null | Tuti and Maria, daughters of Raden Wiriatmadja, go to the fish market where they meet Yusuf, a medical student from Martapura, South Sumatra. After he escorts them home, he realizes that he has fallen for Maria. The following day, he meets the sisters while on his way to school and goes out on the town with them. He and Maria become closer and closer, while Tuti busies herself with reading and attending congresses on women's rights. A few months later, Yusuf returns early from his holidays to be with Maria; however, not long afterwards she falls ill and is diagnosed with malaria. Tuti begins feeling the need to be loved, remembering Supomo who had once proposed to her; after Supomo's younger brother comes to demand an answer, she says no. Maria's condition grows steadily worse and the doctors change their diagnosis to tuberculosis. As she lies dying in hospital, Tuti and Yusuf go to visit her cousins in Sindanglaya, where Tuti notes that one need not live in the city in order to be useful to one's country. Upon their return to Maria's bedside, Maria requests that they marry each other. After Tuti and Yusuf, who have been growing closer, agree, Maria dies. |
fab59280-10b1-406c-9c11-7d0cd52e6312 | fab59280-10b1-406c-9c11-7d0cd52e6312 | fab59280-10b1-406c-9c11-7d0cd52e6312 | human | null | null | none | books | Le Dernier Homme | null | The story is told by a spirit to a young man who comes upon its cave while traveling in Syria. The protagonist, Omegarus, is the son of the King of Europe and the last child born there in a far future in which the earth is becoming sterile and the human ability to reproduce is fading. He sees a vision of Syderia, the last fertile woman. She lives in Brazil, so he travels there in an airship. After various adventures there, including meeting Ormus, the Spirit of Earth, who urges them to begin a rebirth of the human race, the pair return to Europe. There they meet Adam, the first man, who has been condemned by God to watch all the damned among his descendants enter Hell, and who is now charged with persuading Omegarus and Syderia not to prolong the life of humanity, which God has determined must now end. He succeeds in having Omegarus leave Syderia, who then dies. Ormus, who cannot survive without humanity, despairs, and the world begins to end and the graves of all the dead to open. |
addee367-698d-46da-ad94-c5d13f00763b | addee367-698d-46da-ad94-c5d13f00763b | addee367-698d-46da-ad94-c5d13f00763b | human | null | null | none | books | Dragongirl | null | Until nearly the end of Dragonheart, Fiona had been a very young Weyrwoman in the past, during a long episode of time travel. Essentially, she had led a large group of young dragons and young dragonriders with the primary purpose simply to survive and to mature in the relative safety of the past. That worked, and so they gained time, or adult man- and dragonpower, for the Pernese to handle the current crisis. Upon return from the past, Fiona is no longer Weyrwoman, but she has that experience, and the proven love and loyalty of many who had traveled with her. Early in Dragongirl, the entire force of centrally located Telgar Weyr is lost to a sudden disaster — all its mature dragons and dragonriders, about 300 pairs. That leaves only the support population, with almost no adult men, and some of the young, retired, or sick. Fiona's group of recent travelers is transferred to Telgar, among others, and she is Weyrwoman again. Following the plague that had decimated the dragons, and the loss of an entire Weyr, the remaining dragons are overstretched, and the limited numbers lead to even further casualties. The novel follows Fiona, now as Weyrwoman of Telgar, as the dragonriders come to realize that there are no longer enough dragons to protect the planet for the whole Pass. |
f4ffc0d1-5c07-45df-8de8-c887f39918a6 | f4ffc0d1-5c07-45df-8de8-c887f39918a6 | f4ffc0d1-5c07-45df-8de8-c887f39918a6 | human | null | null | none | books | Sex and Religion | null | The book is a detailed guide to the ways in which faiths have sought to repress or celebrate as well as codify almost every kind of sexual relationship and act. It examines how various religions define sex, how they look at various forms of celibacy, masturbation, heterosexuality, homosexuality, interracial sex, sex between gods and humans and between gods, ritual sex, the religiously perceived consequence of sex, and how various faiths prioritize or downgrade various rules in connection with other rules. As practically all forms of sex, or lack of it, are at the same time both prohibited and condoned in some religious tradition, it is impossible to identify a natural connection between sex and religion, beyond that each and every religion insists on their view on sex being the eternal answer. |
6ff7f4ea-fc37-4d3b-8575-7367f24cc397 | 6ff7f4ea-fc37-4d3b-8575-7367f24cc397 | 6ff7f4ea-fc37-4d3b-8575-7367f24cc397 | human | null | null | none | books | Acacia: The Sacred Band | null | Acacia: The Sacred Band follows the Akaran siblings as they each deal with a different theater in the coming war with the Auldek, invaders from the Other Lands that are marching across the north pole and down into Acacia. Queen Corinn has worked an act of magic, resurrecting a character from an earlier book to aid her. The person she has brought back, however, doesn't wish to be molded to her needs. Mena Akaran has gone north with the small army sent out to have first contact with the invaders. The novel chronicles the brutal, Arctic campaign fought on the ice and in the skies above it. Dariel Akaran, still in the Other Lands (Ushen Brae) finds himself dealing with the turmoil of the Auldek's having abandoned their slaves, the Quota children that have been a feature of all three books. There are also a host of minor characters. Rialus Neptos is dragged along with the Auldek as they invade his homeland. Kelis returns to Acacia, having retrieved Aliver Akaran's daughter, Shen. Barad the Lesser continues to struggle with the spell Corinn has trapped him with. Also, there is another invasion to deal with. The Santoth sorcerers have found a way to break their long exile, to dire consequences. All of the major plot threads are resolved in this volume. This series is notable for the complexity of Durham's imagined world, one in which political, economic, mythological and morally ambiguous forces all influence the fates of the ethnically and culturally diverse population. |
f9acbc6a-2152-4773-af55-f500dc592e10 | f9acbc6a-2152-4773-af55-f500dc592e10 | f9acbc6a-2152-4773-af55-f500dc592e10 | human | null | null | none | books | Matadana | null | The novel starts in a village Rangapura near Tumkur in Karnataka. It uses the Tumkur dialect of Kannada language. Its about Doctor Shivappa, medical graduate from Mysore Medical College, who is keen to help society and his village people. Shivappa gains immense popularity among the people across the villages. The story revolves around the politically influential people who uses Shivappa in the upcoming election for their benefit. * Dr.Shivappa * RangaLakshmi (Shivappa's Love interest) * Ramalingappa Gowdru * S R Saadaravalli * Minister Naagaravalli/ Appaji * Prakasha Kumara Saadaravalli * Putta Tammaiah * Kallamma (Shivappa's Mother) * Puttakka (Shivappa's elder sister) * Sannaiah (Shivappa's brother-in-law) |
c5ca4a26-7ada-4172-a707-d60be4c052e3 | c5ca4a26-7ada-4172-a707-d60be4c052e3 | c5ca4a26-7ada-4172-a707-d60be4c052e3 | human | null | null | none | books | Woman in the Mists | null | Dian Fossey worked in the United States in a children's hospital until she decided to become a field anthropologist in Africa. Mowat says this decision illustrates the strength of character that made her famous and that may also have led to her death. In 1960 she gained an interview with Louis Leakey, the famous anthropologist, who encouraged her to study the mountain gorillas of Central Africa at first hand. She accepted this advice against the wishes of her friends and family. At first, it seemed that she was following the path defined by Jane Goodall, and would become a successful scientist. However, she soon became passionately interested in the cause of preserving the mountain gorillas. An outspoken woman, she made no attempt to disguise her hatred and contempt for poachers and hunters. In December 1986 she was murdered in her African camp. Although the book does not delve into the subject in depth, Mowat speculates that a disgruntled poacher may have been hired to kill her by people opposed to her crusade to preserve the gorillas. |
c57cfc41-214b-4f6f-9464-08f26fbd8650 | c57cfc41-214b-4f6f-9464-08f26fbd8650 | c57cfc41-214b-4f6f-9464-08f26fbd8650 | human | null | null | none | books | The Moth | null | The story is a first-person narrative of a Latina granddaughter reminiscing about her relationship between her family, most especially her grandmother, when she was a teenaged girl. She speaks about the indifference she felt among her sisters because she was not “pretty or nice” and could not “do the girl things they could do”. She was constantly in trouble, saying she was “used to the whippings” and spent her time watching over her grandmother since her grandmother always watched over her. Throughout the story, the grandmother becomes more and more ill, while the narrator becomes more and more responsible. When the cancer finally kills the grandmother, the granddaughter continues to take care of her, undressing her and cleansing her in the tub, as she holds her and rocks her back and forth saying “there, there abuelita”. At this point the moths are released from the grandmother; the moths which the grandmother told the narrator “lay within the soul and slowly eat the spirit up.” The narrator cries and sobs in the tub with her grandmother until her sadness transformed into relief. |
4389c8eb-4876-4d8d-99e6-c6a767f5084b | 4389c8eb-4876-4d8d-99e6-c6a767f5084b | 4389c8eb-4876-4d8d-99e6-c6a767f5084b | human | null | null | none | books | The Lady With the X-Ray Eyes | null | Mimi Trompeeva is a young woman who suffers from severe strabismus. She decides to treat her condition by visiting a "beautification institute" headed by Chezario Galfone, a brilliant surgeon capable of turning "even the most disgusting freak into an angel". He manages to cure her crossed eyes, but also gives her the ability to see through materials, including inside people's bodies. However, Mimi does not use her new gift for good - instead, she begins to seek the physically perfect male, without regard for intellect or talent. The story follows Mimi's evolution into a slave of her own looks and social environment - a hollow person whose feelings of love are a mere infatuation with the trends of the modern era. |
9a735c5b-0755-48c9-846e-2f9ab25945a5 | 9a735c5b-0755-48c9-846e-2f9ab25945a5 | 9a735c5b-0755-48c9-846e-2f9ab25945a5 | human | null | null | none | books | The Emperor of Portugallia | null | The novel takes place in 1860 or 1870 in Lagerlöf's native Värmland and is about the tenant farmer Jan in Skrolycka and his daughter Glory Goldie Sunnycastle. He loves his daughter more than anything else, but after she moves to Stockholm at age 17 and becomes wealthy and well-known, she stops sending letters home. The father sinks into a dream world where he imagines she has become a noble empress of "Portugallia", and he thus also a great Emperor himself. His whole life is dominated by thoughts of her return, and what then will happen. In his role as Emperor residing in the poor countryside, he can challenge the area's social hierarchies: wearing his imperial regalia, he sits at the front of the church, takes place at the head table at parties and tries to socialize with local landlords. |
21652859-6934-407b-b33b-a359650cba72 | 21652859-6934-407b-b33b-a359650cba72 | 21652859-6934-407b-b33b-a359650cba72 | human | null | null | none | books | After the Fire, A Still Small Voice | null | The story is set in Queensland on the East Coast of Australia and concerns two men from different generations, as described in the blurb on the back cover of the 2010 Vintage edition :- *Frank is trying to escape his troubled past by running away to his family’s beach shack. As he struggles to make friends with his neighbours and their precocious young daughter Sal, he discovers the community has fresh wounds of its own. A girl is missing, and when Sal too disappears, suspicion falls on Frank. *Decades earlier, Leon tries to hold together his family’s cake shop as their suburban life crumbles in the aftermath of the Korean War. When war breaks out again, Leon must go from sculpting sugar figurines to killing young men as a conscript in the Vietnam War. |
ac7db9d2-9660-407a-b0aa-450c5d60b10f | ac7db9d2-9660-407a-b0aa-450c5d60b10f | ac7db9d2-9660-407a-b0aa-450c5d60b10f | human | null | null | none | books | Children of Paranoia | null | Since the age of eighteen, Joseph has been assassinating people on behalf of a cause that he believes in but doesn’t fully understand. The War is ageless, hidden in the shadows, governed by a rigid set of rules, and fought by two distinct sides — one good, one evil. The only unknown is which side is which. Soldiers in the War hide in plain sight, their deeds disguised as accidents or random acts of violence amidst an unsuspecting population ignorant of the brutality that is always inches away. Killing people is the only life Joseph has ever known, and he’s one of the best at it. But when a job goes wrong and he’s sent away to complete a punishingly dangerous assignment, Joseph meets a girl named Maria, and for the first time in his life his singleminded, bloody purpose fades away. Before Maria, Joseph’s only responsibility was dealing death to the anonymous targets fingered by his superiors. Now he must run from the people who have fought by his side to save what he loves most in this world. |
6226ee46-da66-4c4c-aaf3-94f46ac201c1 | 6226ee46-da66-4c4c-aaf3-94f46ac201c1 | 6226ee46-da66-4c4c-aaf3-94f46ac201c1 | human | null | null | none | books | In Search of My Father | null | In 1944, Drexler and his family were taken by The Gestapo to a labor camp in Sereď. The family was separated a few months later when Drexler and his mother were sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Drexler never saw his father, Eugen again. The family had evidence that Eugen died on May 3, 1945 in a death certificate, but knew no details. They soon immigrated to Australia. In the mid 1990s, Drexler was presenting his story to Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation. It was during this recounting of events that Drexler realized he wanted to research and discover what happened to his father. His research took him throughout Europe, where he discovered that Eugen was killed in the Bay of Lübeck only a couple days before Germany surrendered. |
fb2d6de8-244b-4294-9627-65dc4e88ab4e | fb2d6de8-244b-4294-9627-65dc4e88ab4e | fb2d6de8-244b-4294-9627-65dc4e88ab4e | human | null | null | none | books | Bro | null | The protagonist is a young boy named Alexander growing up with a well off family in the Ukraine. Around 1918 when he turned 10 the Russian civil war forced him and his family to leave their home in hopes of trying to escape to Warsaw but they were hit by artillery fire and killed his father, brother, and uncle. The protagonist ends up living with an aunt in Moscow and attending college there. His aunt ends up being arrested at which point the protagonist abandons the apartment they were living in and has already dropped out of college. The protagonist decides to go on a expedition to find the Tungus meteorite which happened to strike earth the same day he was born. During this expedition the protagonist abandons the group and makes a spiritual connection with the meteorite which he describes as "Ice". The Ice tells the protagonist that he is a member of the brotherhood of the light, his name is Bro,and he must go out into the world and find the rest of 23,000 members.The brotherhood of the light created the universe but made one mistake which was earth. People and animals are disrupting the universe and the 23,000 want to come together to destroy the earth and restore order to the universe. The protagonist immediately sets out to accomplish this goal. |
28b08968-99cb-47dd-af01-98d84780c72a | 28b08968-99cb-47dd-af01-98d84780c72a | 28b08968-99cb-47dd-af01-98d84780c72a | human | null | null | none | books | The Cathedral Clergy | null | Priest Savely Tuberozov, a spiritual leader of a small Russian Orthodox Christian community (sobor) in a provincial town of Stargorod, who firmly believes in his spiritual and social mission, but not in making compromises of any kind, comes into conflict with his church bosses and the local authorities. His seniors expect him to "eradicate raskol" (schism), and expect him to report to them on dissenters, he refuses to comply and criticizes instead the destruction of the old believers' church as barbarism. As the Governor comes to town, he comes up with a speech complaining of local masters exploiting peasants, making them work on Sundays and religious holidays; describes devastation local rural areas were being submerged into. The Governor doesn't want to listen, and protopope Tuberozov, reprimanded for such an audacity, gets demoted in rank. His mission ends after he summons the whole of the local authority figures to a moleben and makes a sermon which sounds more like a political speech, promising dires to leaders who treat their people in an inhuman way. Tuberozov gets fired, goes through numerous humiliations, falls ill and dies. |
047655aa-c733-4de8-a455-9ed9b65237c2 | 047655aa-c733-4de8-a455-9ed9b65237c2 | 047655aa-c733-4de8-a455-9ed9b65237c2 | human | null | null | none | books | Between Shades of Gray | null | Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and filthy train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions. Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously-and at great risk-documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. |
ff5b7796-46df-47cc-9b90-8a1efdca7180 | ff5b7796-46df-47cc-9b90-8a1efdca7180 | ff5b7796-46df-47cc-9b90-8a1efdca7180 | human | null | null | none | books | The Queue | null | A man is waiting in a seemingly endless line, but for what? The Queue begins with a cacophony of voices and the protagonist, Vadim, encountering a lady named Lena. As the day progresses the queue-goers realize that they have no choice but to come back the next day to finally receive their items. A woman comes along handing out numbers so that the next day there will be limited chaos. Vadim and Lena end up spending the night in the park on benches along with other members of the queue. And again the same process begins all over again; people sharing their speculations of what’s being sold, others trying to figure out the rate that the line is moving, and the occasional break from waiting in the queue to get food or drink—essentially waiting in other queues. After this ensues yet another roll-call emphasizing just how many people are waiting for unknown objects. Finally after two days of waiting it appears that the end of the line is in site, but suddenly it begins pouring and Vadim seeks shelter. He is taken into an apartment owned by a lady named Lyuda. After a simple meal and an intelligent discussion, the two of them make love and fall asleep. The next morning Lyuda reveals that she works at the store everyone is queued up for, and that his days of waiting were in vain. |
24cb6844-2093-447d-898b-c541426580f7 | 24cb6844-2093-447d-898b-c541426580f7 | 24cb6844-2093-447d-898b-c541426580f7 | human | null | null | none | books | M. Butterfly | null | The play was inspired by Giacomo Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly. The first act introduces the main character, Rene Gallimard, who is a civil servant attached to the French embassy in China. He falls in love with a beautiful Chinese opera diva, Song Liling, who is actually a man masquerading as a woman. In traditional Beijing opera, females were banned from the stage; all female roles (dan) were played by males. Act two begins with Song coming to France and resuming his affair with Gallimard. They stay together for 20 years until the truth is revealed, and Gallimard is convicted of treason and imprisoned. Unable to face the fact that his "perfect woman" is actually a man, that has been posing as a woman for 20 years to be able to spy, he retreats deep within himself and his memories. The action of the play is depicted as his disordered, distorted recollection of the events surrounding their affair. The third act portrays Gallimard committing seppuku (also known as harakiri, ritual Japanese suicide through self-disembowelment) while Song watches and smokes a cigarette. |
1703ec5b-9e42-4300-8f04-485a025e2092 | 1703ec5b-9e42-4300-8f04-485a025e2092 | 1703ec5b-9e42-4300-8f04-485a025e2092 | human | null | null | none | books | Half a Team | null | The book is the sixth in Hardcastle's series about a Junior football League and features recurring characters Nick Abel- Smith (United! 1973, Away from Home 1974) and Lester Rowan (Away from Home). The book follows the story of Abel-Smith and fellow young footballer Steve Sewell as they attempt to overcome the humiliation of being dropped from their respective teams ahead of a five-a-side tournament. Joining forces they create a new team, The Swifts, and, after overcoming a series of obstacles, including getting Steve from Manchester back to their home town without his parent's knowledge, enter the tournament and finally get the opportunity to take on their former teammates and prove their worth. |
96cb00eb-d364-44be-b48e-3dca82689bb1 | 96cb00eb-d364-44be-b48e-3dca82689bb1 | 96cb00eb-d364-44be-b48e-3dca82689bb1 | human | null | null | none | books | Walking Into the Night | null | For twenty years Christian Benediktsson has led a quiet life as the butler to William Randolph Hearst, the greatest newspaper magnate in the world. His days are filled with the rituals of Hearst’s life and the demands of running a grand household. But in his most private thoughts and memories, he relives another life: once a husband and father in Iceland, he abandoned his family for an actress in New York, where his affair ended in death and financial ruin. Retreating from his previous existence, he ended up at Hearst’s castle in California. No one else knows the secret of the man he once was—husband, father, businessman, lover—and, ultimately, even he will choose to forget that this person ever existed. |
a51d54b3-741d-4244-9f6c-82e0e19eb244 | a51d54b3-741d-4244-9f6c-82e0e19eb244 | a51d54b3-741d-4244-9f6c-82e0e19eb244 | human | null | null | none | books | Goshawk Squadron | null | Goshawk Squadron follows a front-line squadron of British pilots late in the war. The commanding officer is Stanley Woolley, a cold, cruel and sour taskmaster, training the squadron with brutality. The years of war and slaughter had hardened Woolley into a humorless cynic. Woolley especially hates the delusions that replacements have about air combat being gallant and chivalrous. Woolley keeps no emotional attachments, even to his girlfriend Margery, a nurse in the Hospital Corps. The Germans launch their final massive offensive, which leads to a relentless bloodbath. The squadron gets decimated in the endless grind of combat. When Margery's field station gets bombed, she is erroneously reported dead. Realizing how much he did love her, this shatters Woolley, who is incredibly relieved when she appears unharmed. However, Woolley's unemotional focus is stripped away by this close call. Distracted by the thought of Margery and the life they could have together, Woolley is killed leading the next combat patrol. |
702373c7-a779-4884-ad8b-d12cf73f0616 | 702373c7-a779-4884-ad8b-d12cf73f0616 | 702373c7-a779-4884-ad8b-d12cf73f0616 | human | null | null | none | books | Restoration | null | A sweeping story of love tested by the terrors and tragedies of war set in the gorgeous hills of Tuscany in the 1940s. Having grown up in an exclusive circle of British ex-pats in Florence in the 1920s, Alice shocks everyone when she marries Claudio, the son of a minor landowner, and moves to San Martino, a crumbling villa in Tuscany. Settling into their new paradise, husband and wife begin to build their future, restoring San Martino and giving birth to a son. But as time passes, Alice grows lonely, a restlessness that leads her into a heady social swirl of wartime Rome and a reckless affair that will have devastating consequences. While she spends time with her lover in Rome, Alice’s young son falls ill and dies, widening the emotional chasm between her and her husband—and leaving her vulnerable to the machinations of a nefarious art dealer who ensnares her in a dangerous and deadly scheme. Returning to San Martino, Alice yearns for forgiveness. But before she can begin to make amends, Claudio disappears, and the encroaching fighting threatens to destroy everything they have built. Caught between loyalists and resisters, cruel German forces and desperate Allied troops, Alice valiantly struggles to survive, hoping the life and love she lost can one day be restored. |
610cdaf8-078c-4ae3-8211-efb31dd08ac2 | 610cdaf8-078c-4ae3-8211-efb31dd08ac2 | 610cdaf8-078c-4ae3-8211-efb31dd08ac2 | human | null | null | none | books | Conqueror | null | A warrior who would rule a fifth of the world with strength and wisdom. A scholar who conquered an empire larger than those of Alexander or Caesar. A brother who betrayed his own to protect a nation. From a wise scholar to one of history's most powerful warriors, Conqueror tells the story of Kublai Khan - an extraordinary man who should be remembered alongside Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte as one of the greatest leaders the world has ever known. It should have been a golden age, with an empire to dwarf the lands won by the mighty Genghis Khan. Instead, the vast Mongol nation is slowly losing ground, swallowed whole by their most ancient enemy. A new generation has arisen, yet the long shadow of the Great Khan still hangs over them all … Kublai dreams of an empire stretching from sea to sea. But to see it built, this scholar must first learn the art of war. He must take his nation’s warriors to the ends of the known world. And when he is weary, when he is wounded, he must face his own brothers in bloody civil war. |
ae3a0ad6-8d75-4b27-ad0a-5117e89be270 | ae3a0ad6-8d75-4b27-ad0a-5117e89be270 | ae3a0ad6-8d75-4b27-ad0a-5117e89be270 | human | null | null | none | books | Touched: The Jerry Sandusky Story | null | The book tracks Sandusky's life from his youth in Washington, Pennsylvania, his adoption of six children, at least one of whom he allegedly molested, and taking in six foster children, his years as a player and coach at Penn State, and his work with the Second Mile charitable organization. According to one review of the book, "Sandusky writes equally of his time in and out of football. Most of his time away from the game is devoted to his family and his charitable foundation, the Second Mile, which serves underprivileged children. Interesting anecdotes from all aspects of his life are neatly packaged with the help of Kip Richeal, a 1987 Penn State graduate and former equipment manager for the football team." |
5782c25b-3788-4ef2-bd1e-d848f43306f4 | 5782c25b-3788-4ef2-bd1e-d848f43306f4 | 5782c25b-3788-4ef2-bd1e-d848f43306f4 | human | null | null | none | books | Rubber | null | The story traces the rise and fall of the Peruvattar family, rubber plantation owners based in the Kanyakumari Nanjil district in Tamil Nadu. The story begins in the present and moves back briefly to trace the early life of the family patriarch Ponnu Peruvattar. Ponnu begins life as a forest laborer and slowly grows to acquire the entire forest and converts it into a rubber plantation through hard work and ruthless means. Rubber, which is alien to the Nanjil land, provides wealth, power and social position to the Peruvattar dynasty, but also corrupts it from within. Ponnu's equally ruthless son Chelliah tries to expand the empire; Chelliah's wife Thirese exhibits all the trappings of the "nouveau riche" - Chelliah worships her despite her infidelity. The last two of Chelliah and Thirese's five children are still with the family - Francis, the grandfather's favourite, is a wastrel; Livy goes to college but lacks morals and compassion. The ailing patriarch Ponnu spends his last days contemplating whether his life was worth anything at all. Chelliah faces financial ruin as he dabbles in exports, and he desperately wants his father to die soon so that he could sell the family home and assets. Dependent on the spiteful family for even minor needs and consumed by guilt and self-pity, Ponnu Peruvattar begs his assistant Kunhi for poison. He is visited by his old friend, the simple and noble Kandan Kaani, a tribal that had roamed the forest land with him in his youth. The novel ends with the passing away of the patriarch and the salvation of family scion Francis. |
fb80c12a-2de7-4ca0-9a2f-d2e26e7517ee | fb80c12a-2de7-4ca0-9a2f-d2e26e7517ee | fb80c12a-2de7-4ca0-9a2f-d2e26e7517ee | human | null | null | none | books | Brothers in Arms | null | Shortly after the Dagoola IV escape detailed in the novella "Borders of Infinity", Miles and some of his Dendarii mercenaries arrive on Earth, fleeing Cetagandan retribution and desperate to repair the damage suffered by their ships. Miles visits the Barrayaran Embassy so the Dendarii can be paid for their last mission. There he finds his cousin Ivan Vorpatril working for the distinctly hostile Captain Duv Galeni, who turns out to be a Komarran related to one of the alleged victims of Miles' father. Miles is reassigned to the Embassy as Third Military Attaché, under Galeni's command. Further complicating matters, Miles discovers he has a clone, created and trained as an assassin by Komarran diehards determined to free their planet. The assassination plot is foiled. Miles allows his clone to escape; by Betan law, the clone is his brother, and Miles is well aware his formidable mother would be greatly displeased if he got rid of his troublesome new sibling. According to Barrayaran tradition, his brother would be named Mark Pierre Vorkosigan. In exchange for "Mark" helping Miles fool the Cetagandans, who are beginning to suspect that Naismith and Vorkosigan are the same person, the psychologically scarred Mark is let go with a considerable sum of money and the invitation to claim his Barrayaran heritage, if he wants to—or dares. |
1a1aa3fc-c581-4fee-ae96-f708242ac538 | 1a1aa3fc-c581-4fee-ae96-f708242ac538 | 1a1aa3fc-c581-4fee-ae96-f708242ac538 | human | null | null | none | books | The Gallows Bird | null | Patrik (police officer) and Erica (writer) have reconnected, had a child and are moving headlong into matrimony. Problems sidelined when a chaotic alcohol-fuelled party ends with the death of an unpopular contestant on a reality TV show. A woman is found dead, apparently the victim of a car crash: the first in a spate of seemingly inexplicable accidents in Tanumshede. The car reeks of alcohol and the assumption is that it is a drink drive accident. It becomes clear there's a serial assassin in the vicinity. As cameras shadow the stars' every move, relations with the locals are strained to breaking point. A piece of evidence reveals that a pair of seemingly disparate homicides are linked, a pattern emerges of similar homicides spread over many years- in different regions of Sweden; slowly Patrick realises that these cases are more closely linked than he realises.Patrick also has his own ephemera to contend with: a wedding to arrange, and Erica′s sister Anna -- he′s experiencing stress. |
62249cf7-e4a7-4807-a566-3305ba50e4dc | 62249cf7-e4a7-4807-a566-3305ba50e4dc | 62249cf7-e4a7-4807-a566-3305ba50e4dc | human | null | null | none | books | The Hidden Child | null | This is regarded as one of the more plot driven novels in the series-with more emphasis on the story. Erika wants to write a 'great-book' so Patrik goes on paternity leave to look after the baby whilst this occurs; then unexplained things start to happen: an elderly neighbour is found dead – not just that, but he has been dead for some time. What's more, this guy knew Erika's late mother. Erica consults a local historian of World War 2, however, shortly after her visit, he is brutally murdered and it becomes clear that the past is still very much a part of some people's lives. The plot focuses on the discovery of a child's blood spattered vest plus other memorabilia. Who would murder so cold-bloodedly to bury secrets so ancient? By way of a side-theme Melberg adopts a stray mutt finding that this leads to a meeting with another pooch owner who happens to be the mater of his new detective, Paul Morales; this provides a counterpoint to the increasingly sordid facts being unearthed in the search for the murderer. |
3d42a443-ef26-4abc-a1a7-9820b0ae2dca | 3d42a443-ef26-4abc-a1a7-9820b0ae2dca | 3d42a443-ef26-4abc-a1a7-9820b0ae2dca | human | null | null | none | books | The End of Liberalism | null | In this book Lowi proposes that classic liberalism and capitalism have died as a public philosophy and have been replaced by interest group liberalism. Lowi goes on to explore the flaws and consequences of interest group liberalism. Lowi argues that the government has grown too large due to Congress assuming power and delegating authority to administrative agencies rather than coming up with a solution to problems within congress. He suggests that American politics has become controlled by interest groups in which politicians associate. Lowi contends that, because of this, the United States has entered into what he calls “The Second Republic.” He then suggests that interest group liberalism needs to be replaced by a juridical democracy in order to restore the rule of law. |
af93dcba-d23c-4ce1-9097-87db6f541e9d | af93dcba-d23c-4ce1-9097-87db6f541e9d | af93dcba-d23c-4ce1-9097-87db6f541e9d | human | null | null | none | books | Durgeshnandini | null | The story is set in the backdrop of Pathan-Mughal conflicts that took place in south-western region of modern-day Indian state of Paschimbanga (West Bengal) during the reign of Akbar. Jagat Singh, a General of Mughal army and son of Raja Man Singh met Tilottama, daughter of Birendra Singha, a feudal lord of south-western Bengal in Mandaran (in modern-day Hooghly district, Paschimbanga) and they fell in love with each other. While they were preparing for a marriage ceremony, Katlu Khan, a rebel Pathan leader attacked Mandaran. Birendra Singha died in the battle and Jagat Singh was imprisoned along with Birendra’s widow Bimala and their daughter Tilottama. Katlu Khan’s daughter Ayesha saved Tilottama from her father’s lust, but Ayesha herself fell in love with Jagat Singh. Later, Bimala revenged her husband’s death by stabbing Katlu Khan. In the meantime, Man Singh signed a pact with the Pathans and they set Jagat Singh free. But Ayesha’s lover Osman challenged Jagat Singh in a duel which Jagat Singh won. Realising that Jagat Singh who was a Hindu prince would never marry a Muslim woman, Ayesha gave up hope for him, but she eventually helped Tilottama to get married to Jagat Singh. |
7d578405-9ae3-41dc-92c3-3ed6caf4e199 | 7d578405-9ae3-41dc-92c3-3ed6caf4e199 | 7d578405-9ae3-41dc-92c3-3ed6caf4e199 | human | null | null | none | books | All Hell Let Loose | null | All Hell Let Loose covers the entire span of World War II, following the military developments of the war but focusing on the reactions and experiences of different individuals (both uniformed and civilian). Reviews refer to the book as an "everyman's story" made up of accounts from those with lesser roles in the conflict; "ranging from ship's cooks to wireless operators, farmers and housewives to typists and black marketeers." The book addresses several "triumphalist" aspects of written war history by focusing on the "misery, heroism and endurance" of individual accounts. Hastings concludes that whilst the Nazis fought individual battles well, their overall war effort showed "stunning incompetence". |
5b703bcc-1ca2-4c1f-9204-507d7d8666c6 | 5b703bcc-1ca2-4c1f-9204-507d7d8666c6 | 5b703bcc-1ca2-4c1f-9204-507d7d8666c6 | human | null | null | none | books | The Future of Us | null | Josh and Emma are about to discover themselves--fifteen years in the future. It's 1996, and Josh and Emma have been neighbors their whole lives. They've been best friends almost as long--at least, up until last November, when everything changed. Things have been awkward ever since then, but when Josh's family gets a free AOL CD-ROM in the mail, his mom makes him bring it over so that Emma can install it on her new computer. When they sign on, they're automatically logged onto Facebook . . . but Facebook hasn't been invented yet. Josh and Emma are looking at themselves fifteen years in the future. Their spouses, careers, homes, and status updates--it's all there. And every time they refresh their pages, their futures change. As they grapple with the ups and downs of their future, they're forced to confront what they're doing right--and wrong--in the present. |
f9dd1508-a09e-4f8a-9c91-b4b8d0451c82 | f9dd1508-a09e-4f8a-9c91-b4b8d0451c82 | f9dd1508-a09e-4f8a-9c91-b4b8d0451c82 | human | null | null | none | books | Leaving the Atocha Station | null | The first-person narrator of the novel, Adam Gordon, is an early 20s American poet participating in a prestigious fellowship in Madrid circa 2004. The stated goal of his fellowship is long narrative poem highlighting literature's role in the Spanish Civil War. Gordon, however, spends his time reading Tolstoy, smoking spliffs, and observing himself observing his surroundings. Leaving the Atocha Station can be read as a Künstlerroman. However, Lerner has said: The protagonist doesn't unequivocally undergo a dramatic transformation, for instance, but rather the question of "transformation" is left open, and people seem to have strong and distinct senses about whether the narrator has grown or remained the same, whether this is a sort of coming of age story or whether it charts a year in the life of a sociopath. |
60125200-77ac-482d-9a33-e90305fe7596 | 60125200-77ac-482d-9a33-e90305fe7596 | 60125200-77ac-482d-9a33-e90305fe7596 | human | null | null | none | books | No Way Out | null | The novel tells the story of young and naïve European Socialist Vasily (Wilhelm) Rainer who comes to Russia to somehow apply his rootless, artificial ideas to the local reality. The action takes place in houses of state officials and merchants, in literary circles of Moscow and Saint Petersburgh, in editorial rooms, Polish revolutionaries’ headquarters. Among those surrounding Rainer are some honest people (like Liza Bakhareva, another character who’s been shown by Leskov with great sympathy), but in general the 'nyhilist' community is being portrayed in the novel as a bunch of amoral crooks for whom high ideals serve as mere means to their own ends; such characters (Arapov, Beloyartsev, Zavulonov, Krasin) the author treated with open disgust. |
1a1e8879-48f8-42a3-abb3-07d7379d3367 | 1a1e8879-48f8-42a3-abb3-07d7379d3367 | 1a1e8879-48f8-42a3-abb3-07d7379d3367 | human | null | null | none | books | Umr-e-Lahaasil Ka Haasil | null | Haider Qureshi's poetry is basically on the theme of love and affection but his some nazms are on different topics, as like on corrent issues of the globe, history and mythologies. Qureshi has also written heart touching Mahiyas, a form of the Urdu poetry. In prose, the second part of the book, Qureshi expresses his emotions, views and feelings. His work of prose and poetry is based on the universe, human being, God, soul and cultures. In his short stories, he speaks about the oil-driven wars imposed by western world and rich and poor. He has also written his impressions in his autobiography. Qureshi's literary work one can easily admire and praise. Qureshi has expressed and recalled, in many poems, articles and short stories, his memories of old days in Pakistan. He has also written his views about poets and writers like Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Dr Wazir Agha, Mirza Adeeb, Ghulam Jeelani Asghar and Azra Asghar. |
0211b091-8bac-4481-a103-e5d36762cd4c | 0211b091-8bac-4481-a103-e5d36762cd4c | 0211b091-8bac-4481-a103-e5d36762cd4c | human | null | null | none | books | Quest for Lost Heroes | null | The Drenai fortress of Dros Delnoch has fallen and blood hungry Nadir hordes sweep across the land, bringing desolation and despair. But, with the Nadir triumphant, slavers seize a young girl in the tiny realm of Gothir and a peasant boy sets off on a quest that will shake the world. To rescue her, Kiall must cross the savage steppes and journey through the Halls of Hell, facing ferocious beasts, deadly warriors and demons of the dark. But the boy is not alone. With him are the legendary heroes of Bel-Azar: Chareos the Blademaster, Beltzer the Axeman and the bowmen Finn and Maggrig. And one among them hides a secret that could free the world of Nadir domination. For he is the Nadir Bane, the hope of the Drenai. He is the Earl of Bronze. |
2ffc6fb0-2042-4a25-a2a5-24cac3481bd7 | 2ffc6fb0-2042-4a25-a2a5-24cac3481bd7 | 2ffc6fb0-2042-4a25-a2a5-24cac3481bd7 | human | null | null | none | books | Death Comes to Pemberley | null | The novel begins in October, 1803, six years after the events in Pride and Prejudice which resulted in the marriage of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy and Miss. Elizabeth Bennet. The Prologue and Book One introduce the main characters, summarize the histories of the Bennet and Darcy families, and introduce a murder. The remainder of the novel is about the mystery and its solution. The novel is a pastiche in the style of Jane Austen, as James acknowledges in her Author's Note. The book is divided into sections: Author's Note; Prologue; six Books; Epilogue. : Author's Note : Prologue : Book One: The Day Before the Ball : Book Two: The Body in the Woodland : Book Three: Police at Pemberley : Book Four: The Inquest : Book Five: The Trial : Book Six: Gracechurch Street : Epilogue |
40eca5f4-b643-4c8d-a199-a55f0ddb948e | 40eca5f4-b643-4c8d-a199-a55f0ddb948e | 40eca5f4-b643-4c8d-a199-a55f0ddb948e | human | null | null | none | books | Shuttlecock | null | The story concerns Prentis, senior clerk in the 'dead crimes' department of the police archives in London, who is becoming increasingly frustrated and confused by the work he is being given by his enigmatic boss Quinn; he discovers crucial files are missing and suspects they are being deliberately withheld by Quinn. At home, Prentis is alienated from his wife and children and is obsessed about uncovering the truth about the wartime exploits of his father, who was a spy (codenamed 'Shuttlecock') behind enemy lines. His father published his memoirs but is now the inmate of a mental hospital following a breakdown in which he lost the ability to speak. As the story unfolds, Prentis suspects there may be links between Quinn's behaviour and his father's breakdown. |
93791afd-e673-4ce0-9ee9-33736e4a7cbe | 93791afd-e673-4ce0-9ee9-33736e4a7cbe | 93791afd-e673-4ce0-9ee9-33736e4a7cbe | human | null | null | none | books | Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children | null | Jacob Portman, a 16 year old boy, goes to Wales to find out the truth of his grandfather's past after he was murdered by what Jacob thought was a make-believe creature. When he arrives, he meets Emma, a "strikingly pretty" girl who can control fire. She takes him to meet Miss Peregrine in a time loop set back in the 1940s. Jacob enjoys hanging out with the other peculiar children, such as Millard, who is invisible, and Bronwyn, who has incredible strength. Then Jacob is told some mysterious stories of strange killings in the pub he's staying at, and warns the peculiar children. When they tell Jacob he is the only one who can see the "hollows" or "hollowgasts", the monsters that killed Jacob's grandfather, Jacob knows he is the only hope they have for safety. Jacob and some of the peculiar children encounter a hollow which Jacob kills. Upon return to the Miss Peregrine's home, they find that Miss Peregrine has been kidnapped. The children rescue Miss Peregrine but she is in bird form and cannot change back to human form. At the end of the book, the peculiar children look for another time loop they can stay in because their current one has been destroyed. |
fc8d7843-76b3-40e3-a7a3-011984b03003 | fc8d7843-76b3-40e3-a7a3-011984b03003 | fc8d7843-76b3-40e3-a7a3-011984b03003 | human | null | null | none | books | The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery | null | The Fiery Trial chronicles how Lincoln's position on slavery changed during his life, as he witnessed slavery in his early life, growing up in Kentucky and Indiana. He occasionally dealt with issues of slavery in his law practice in Illinois. The book also discusses Lincoln's position on slavery in the context of his political career. Lincoln was a moderate, attempting to bridge the gap between the Radical Republicans and conservative Democrats, including those in the slave-holding states, who he hoped would choose preserving the Union over steadfastly defending slavery. However, Lincoln eventually abandoned his moderate stance on slavery when he determined that to win the American Civil War, he needed to act to end slavery. |
b347a4a7-f384-437b-a326-f782422d3909 | b347a4a7-f384-437b-a326-f782422d3909 | b347a4a7-f384-437b-a326-f782422d3909 | human | null | null | none | books | Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science | null | The following is a list of major topics in the book's chapters. #Reinventing Discovery #Online Tools Make Us Smarter #:Kasparov versus the World, The Wisdom of Crowds, various online collaborative projects #Restructuring Expert Attention #:InnoCentive, collective intelligence, Paul Seabright's economic theory, online chat #Patterns of Online Collaboration #:History of Linux, Open Architecture Network, Wikipedia, MathWorks' computer programming contest #The Limits and the Potential of Collective Intelligence #:communication in small groups, particularly as studied by Stasser and Titus; praxis of science; a discussion of communication among scientists #All the World's Knowledge #:Don R. Swanson and Literature-based discovery, predicting influenza with Google searches, Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Allen Institute for Brain Science, Ocean Observatories Initiative, Human Genome Project, Google Translate #Democratizing Science #:Galaxy Zoo, Foldit, citizen science, eBird, open access, arXiv, PLoS #The Challenge of Doing Science in the Open #:Complexity Zoo, academic publishing #The Open Science Imperative #:Open science, academic journal publishing reform, SPIRES :appendix - The problem solved by the Polymath Project |
74f41f4a-512d-484a-b761-474785c0b8df | 74f41f4a-512d-484a-b761-474785c0b8df | 74f41f4a-512d-484a-b761-474785c0b8df | human | null | null | none | books | She Lover of Death | null | A naive young woman, Masha Mironova, travels from provincial Russia to Moscow, where she changes her name to Columbine and joins the Lovers of Death, a small group of bohemian poets, each of them eagerly waiting their turn to die a romantic fin de siècle death by suicide. Once one member dies, their replacement is found by the leader of the group, the Doge. Another newcomer to the society appears to be a Japanese prince, although this turns out to be Erast Fandorin acting undercover. Fandorin is not the only person to have connected the suicides and the group: a newspaper reporter, Zhemailo, has also done so and he also dies a mysterious death. Fandorin uncovers that many of the suicides are murders, all committed by the Doge: in the process of his investigation Columbine also falls in love with Fandorin and becomes his mistress. |
055197a6-fb7e-459f-9b5d-19c11ef89a8f | 055197a6-fb7e-459f-9b5d-19c11ef89a8f | 055197a6-fb7e-459f-9b5d-19c11ef89a8f | human | null | null | none | books | The Summer Birds | null | Charlotte and Emma Makepeace are children living with their grandfather, Elijah, in a country house in the South Downs in southern England. Named Aviary Hall, the house is decorated with stuffed birds and images of birds. On the way to their small English village school, they meet and befriend a mysterious boy who tells them that he is able to teach them to fly. Over the following days and weeks, the boy teaches Charlotte to fly, and then the other children at the school learn this ability. The boy remains invisible to the adults, with the exception of the schoolteacher, Miss Hallibutt, who herself, as a child, had wished that she could fly. The boy tells her that he is unable to teach her to fly: he can only teach children. The children spend an idyllic summer flying above their village and the downs. As summer draws to an end, the boy offers to take the children on a journey, and the children prepare to go with the boy. Charlotte realises that the boy is not telling them the whole truth, and forces the boy to admit the truth. The boy reveals that while he wants to take them back to his country where the can fly forever, and be children forever, without adult responsibilities, the cost of following him is that they will never be able to return to their homes and their loved ones. The children decide that this indeed is too high a price to pay, and all decline to travel with the boy, with the exception of one girl, who has neither parents, nor a happy life to return to. The children return to their homes and prepare to begin a new term at school. |
b66deb91-9e43-4734-bae2-f677654c3fd0 | b66deb91-9e43-4734-bae2-f677654c3fd0 | b66deb91-9e43-4734-bae2-f677654c3fd0 | human | null | null | none | books | The Millionaire's Wife | null | Twenty years after George Kogan's murder, in July 2010, his estranged wife Barbara admitted to hiring a hit man to have her husband gunned down. She was sentenced to 12 to 36 years in prison. The son of Holocaust survivors, 49-year-old George Kogan grew up in Puerto Rico before relocating to New York City, where he enjoyed success as an antiques and art dealer—until one morning in 1990 when George was approached on the street by an unidentified gunman and was killed in cold blood. Just before the shooting, George had been on the way to his girlfriends’s apartment. Mary-Louise Hawkins was 29 years old and had once worked as George’s publicist. But after they became lovers, George’s estranged wife, Barbara, was consumed with bitterness. As she and George hashed out a divorce, Barbara fueled her anger into greed—especially after a judge turned down her request for $5,000 a week in alimony. Barbara, who stood to collect $4.3 million in life insurance, was immediately suspected in George’s death. But it would take authorities nearly 20 years to uncover a link between her lawyer, Manuel Martinez, who was convicted of hiring a hitman to kill George. In 2008, Martinez was convicted in the murder of George, and in 2010, Barbara pleaded guilty to grand larceny, conspiracy to commit murder, and murder in the first degree. |
01809b30-5c54-4bc2-ba46-842e2be08b8c | 01809b30-5c54-4bc2-ba46-842e2be08b8c | 01809b30-5c54-4bc2-ba46-842e2be08b8c | human | null | null | none | books | Nine Inches | null | The four-year-old son of Jack Caramac, a shock jock radio broadcaster and old friend of Dan Starkey, is kidnapped for one hour and returned unharmed. Starkey, now a self-styled "upmarket private eye", is hired to investigate the kidnapping and ascertain who might have been behind it – a significant task given the number of people offended by Caramac's illustration of the crime and corruption prevalent throughout Belfast. Starkey's investigations lead him to the Miller brothers, officially the Chiefs of Staff for the Ulster Volunteer Force, although viewed by Starkey as merely a group of Shankill Road thugs intent on pedalling drugs across Belfast. The Millers have been attempting to evict a widow named Jean Murray from her house and Starkey intervenes, hoping his knowledge of their drug operation would dissuade any repercussions. Starkey's interference leads to the Murray's house being burnt down with Jean still inside. |
a334ee41-89a1-4a66-9c8b-d9d305805e7f | a334ee41-89a1-4a66-9c8b-d9d305805e7f | a334ee41-89a1-4a66-9c8b-d9d305805e7f | human | null | null | none | books | The Life | null | The Life traces the life story of Dennis Keith, now obese, mentally unwell and living in retirement village with his mother. A young would-be biographer arrives one day and begins to teases out his past. The story is told in different strands, one being reflections by Dennis (often in a variety of styles – first person, then third person) and also present day conversations with the biographer. Dennis is a poor gold coast kid who is mysteriously found and adopted by his mother "Mo" Keith. Dennis and his stepbrother Rod become obsessed with surfing at an earlier age. They prove to be talented and daring surfers and soon develop a reputation. They start entering competitions and eventually enter the nascent pro circuit all the while descending into heavy drug use. Dennis stumbles into an intermittent relationship with a singer Lisa Exmire. Lisa is found murdered and eventually charges are laid. Dennis drug use escalates and he drops out of the pro circuit. The novel concludes by revealing the truth about Dennis's family, the murder and biographer. |
0746394c-0136-44c6-9b5f-9be7f8af17d0 | 0746394c-0136-44c6-9b5f-9be7f8af17d0 | 0746394c-0136-44c6-9b5f-9be7f8af17d0 | human | null | null | none | books | The Wanderers | null | Richie Gennaro is the 17-year-old leader of the Wanderers, an Italo-American youth gang in the Bronx in 1962. His girlfriend is Denise Rizzo. Richie’s friends in the Wanderers are Joey Capra, Buddy Borsalino, Eugene Caputo and Perry LaGuardia. At the beginning of the book a broad range of events and characters describe the zeitgeist. In addition to the protagonists many characters appear only once. At first “gang-business” is on focus: rivalry with other gangs in the neighborhood who come from different cultural and/or ethnical backgrounds. This rivalry is determined by prejudice and machismo. But there is also competition in terms of sports such as football and bowling. And above all it’s about being cool and to have sex for the first time. But it’s a cumbersome road. Toward the end of the book the events focus more and more on the protagonists and their problems and challenges of growing up – every one in his own way. Eugene joins the marines after watching, without interfering, his girlfriend, Nina, being raped. Perry’s father had died several years ago. Now his mother dies and suddenly he is on his own. Living with his aunt in Trenton, New Jersey, becomes unbearable for him, so he decides to go to Boston and sail to sea. After the situation escalates Joey flees from his violent father and joins Perry. And Buddy impregnates his girlfriend, Despie, on their very first date and has to face the challenges of a 17-year-old husband and father. The serious side of life is catching up, the gang is falling apart and Richie is staying behind. |
7628e66e-aabb-4a07-a921-cc95f811c76d | 7628e66e-aabb-4a07-a921-cc95f811c76d | 7628e66e-aabb-4a07-a921-cc95f811c76d | human | null | null | none | books | My French Whore | null | Set towards the end of WWI, in 1918, it tells the story of a shy young railway employee and amateur actor from Milwaukee, named Paul Peachy. Having realised that his wife no longer loves him, Paul enlists as a private in the U.S. Army and boards ship for the trenches of France. Peachy finds temporary solace in friendship amid horrors of war, but is soon captured by the enemy Germans in No Man's Land. His only chance of survival is to impersonate one of the enemy's most famous spies (as a child of immigrants, he is a fluent German speaker). As the urbane and accomplished spy Harry Stroller, Peachy is feted as a hero by the German top brass and gains access to a previously unimagined world of sumptuous living. But his new role also reveals inner reserves of courage and ingenuity he never knew he possessed, as the mounting suspicions of his German hosts force Peachy into ever more outrageous deceptions. In this atmosphere of smoke and mirrors, Paul Peachy falls in love with Annie, a beautiful French courtesan, who seems to see through his artful disguise. The ending is a surprise of twists and clever plotting. |
5097ed5a-c998-47cf-b766-1398ee7fd63e | 5097ed5a-c998-47cf-b766-1398ee7fd63e | 5097ed5a-c998-47cf-b766-1398ee7fd63e | human | null | null | none | books | The descendants | null | Matthew King was once considered one of the most fortunate men in Hawaii. His missionary ancestors were financially and culturally progressive–one even married a Hawaiian princess, making Matt a royal descendant and one of the state’s largest landowners. Now his luck has changed. His two daughters are out of control: Ten-year-old Scottie is a smart-ass with a desperate need for attention, and seventeen-year-old Alex, a former model, is a recovering drug addict. Matt’s charismatic, thrill-seeking, high-maintenance wife, Joanie, lies in a coma after a boat-racing accident and will soon be taken off life support. The Kings can hardly picture life without her, but as they come to terms with this tragedy, their sadness is mixed with a sense of freedom that shames them–and spurs them into surprising actions. Before honoring Joanie’s living will, Matt must gather her friends and family to say their final goodbyes, a difficult situation made worse by the sudden discovery that there is one person who hasn’t been told: the man with whom Joanie had been having an affair, quite possibly the one man she ever truly loved. Forced to examine what he owes not only to the living but to the dead, Matt takes to the road with his daughters to find his wife’s lover, a memorable journey that leads to both painful revelations and unforeseen humor and growth. |
feef32fc-6353-4d8e-b85f-cb605b3148ae | feef32fc-6353-4d8e-b85f-cb605b3148ae | feef32fc-6353-4d8e-b85f-cb605b3148ae | human | null | null | none | books | Madonna: Like an Icon | null | The biography is divided into three parts. The first part is named Baptism and tells about Madonna's birth in Detroit, Michigan, her early childhood, her time in New York, and her dance degree. It also talks in detail about the release of her first three studio albums—Madonna, Like a Virgin and True Blue—her marriage to actor Sean Penn, and also her foray into films. The middle part, named as Confession, starts from the Like a Prayer era onwards where Madonna has become a global superstar. It continues up to the release of the erotic coffee table book called Sex, and the commercial disappointments that she faced. The third part is called Absolution, and starts with Madonna giving birth to her daughter Lourdes. It continues with the release of Ray of Light in 1998 and subsequent four studio albums, her worldwide concert tours, her marriage to Guy Ritchie and controversies surrounding her adoption from the African country, Malawi. It ends with the release of Madonna's 2008 album, Hard Candy, and the singer reaching the age of fifty. |
6aca88df-5367-430b-9bda-0180afb2a4b0 | 6aca88df-5367-430b-9bda-0180afb2a4b0 | 6aca88df-5367-430b-9bda-0180afb2a4b0 | human | null | null | none | books | City of God | null | City of God is set in a city renowned for its natural beauty. The novel follows the lives of gangsters and petty criminals living in the Favela. The novel is set from the 1960s through to the 1980s. At the beginning the money made by the delinquents is essentially gained through hold-ups. As the years progress into the 70’s, cocaine begins to make a large appearance in the criminals lives, the focus now turns to drugs both dealing and consuming vast amounts. Due to the increase in drug lords money becomes guns and with guns come power and so evolves large conflicts over who has the ultimate control over drug dealing in the Favela, resulting in gang wars. The law does not apply throughout the novel the power is held by the criminals and drug lords who effectively govern the Favela. The police are interested in how well the gangs are doing for their own gain, due to the lack of government involvement and the low wages the police get paid, the police are easily corrupt. |
8d190018-7325-4eec-9912-c3e856aab8a2 | 8d190018-7325-4eec-9912-c3e856aab8a2 | 8d190018-7325-4eec-9912-c3e856aab8a2 | human | null | null | none | books | The Demigod Diaries | null | The Demigod Diaries contains four new stories with character interviews, illustrations of Annabeth Chase, Percy Jackson, Jason Grace, Piper McLean, Leo Valdez and a first ever seen picture of Thalia Grace (it also contains a picture of Hal who is a new character in the first story), puzzles, and a quiz. The four stories include: * Thalia's, Luke's, and Annabeth's adventures before the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series began * A first-person narrative from Percy's viewpoint as he and Annabeth complete a task given by Hermes regarding his staff which happens a month after the end of The Last Olympian and before Percy went missing in The Lost Hero * A story involving Jason, Leo, and Piper during their time spent at Camp Half-Blood between The Lost Hero and The Son of Neptune It also includes a short story by Riordan's son, Haley Riordan, revolving around one of the demigods who fought for Kronos during the Second Titan War and survived the battle in Manhattan. |
e73fb330-091e-401f-99da-c89071a5058f | e73fb330-091e-401f-99da-c89071a5058f | e73fb330-091e-401f-99da-c89071a5058f | human | null | null | none | books | The Last Girl | null | Steponas Daumantas, an elderly poet, walks the streets of Vilnius photographing young women with their babies. He becomes obsessed with one particular woman, Jolanta, and strikes up a friendship with her. Jolanta gives him a manuscript that her husband has written, and Daumantas promises to look at it and possibly show his publisher, but looses it when he gets drunk. As his friendship with the young woman deepens he can no longer hold back the memories that have been bubbling up for years. Svetlana is an ethnic Russian living in poverty in the back streets of Vilnius's Old Town. She does bits of washing for Daumantas and, when she encounters him drunk one night, saves a manuscript he leaves behind. Svetlana struggles to earn some money to send her son to England to work, while trying to survive with her brutal husband Ivan. She befriends a young prostitute, Ruta, and has memories of her own she does not wish to recall. Daumantas grows up in a small village close to Wilno and has early ambitions of being a poet. He falls in love with a local Jewish girl, Rachael. When Rachael rejects him he goes to university in Wilno. Some years later he sees Rachael again on the streets of Wilno with her Jewish husband. In 1939 the Communists invade Poland and hand back Wilno to the Lithuanians. Lithuanian thugs roam the streets; but that is nothing compared to what happens when the Germans invade. As the life is slowly choked from the Jewish population in the Vilna ghetto Rachael makes a desperate demand of Daumantas: take her child and save it. |
b77fec6d-4eca-4c21-8f29-3f6629084b4b | b77fec6d-4eca-4c21-8f29-3f6629084b4b | b77fec6d-4eca-4c21-8f29-3f6629084b4b | human | null | null | none | books | From This Wicked Patch of Dust | null | In the border shantytown of Ysleta, Texas, Mexican immigrants Pilar and Cuauhtemoc Martinez strive to teach their four children to forsake the drugs and gangs of their neighborhood. The family’s hardscrabble origins unite them to survive, but soon the children adapt to their new home, reject their traditional religion and culture, and struggle to remain together as a family. The novel spans four decades. As a young adult, daughter Julieta travels to Central America, becomes disenchanted with Catholicism, and converts to Islam. Youngest son Ismael, always the bookworm, is accepted to Harvard but feels out of place in the Northeast, where he meets and marries a Jewish woman. The other boys--Marcos and Francisco--toil in their father’s old apartment buildings, serving as cheap labor to fuel the family’s rise to the middle class. Over time, Francisco isolates himself in El Paso. Marcos eventually leaves to become a teacher, but then returns, struggling with a deep bitterness about his work and marriage. Through it all, Pilar clings to the idea of her family and tries to hold it together as her husband’s health begins to fail. This backdrop is shaken to its core by the historic events of 2001 in New York City, which send shockwaves through this newly American family. Bitter conflicts erupt between siblings, and the physical and cultural spaces between them threaten to tear them apart. Will their shared history and once-shared dreams be enough to hold together a family from Ysleta, this wicked patch of dust? |
21805489-5a9e-4e05-beb4-e4d6c17f603b | 21805489-5a9e-4e05-beb4-e4d6c17f603b | 21805489-5a9e-4e05-beb4-e4d6c17f603b | human | null | null | none | books | The Democratic Paradox | null | The eponymous paradox of democracy that this collection of essays deals with is the internal conflict within modern democracy that is created by the union of two separate strands of political thought: the tradition of Classical Liberalism and the tradition of Democratic Theory, forming the institution of Liberal Democracy. Mouffe sees Radical Democracy as a means for continuing to sustain the balance between the values of liberalism and democracy. This balance is accomplished through the agonistic practice of valuing and sustaining dissent in the democratic process as a more important goal than consensus. This point is where Radical Democratic theory diverges from both Habermas and Rawls, as it contradicts Habermas's quest for rational consensus and Rawls's project for political liberalism. Mouffe describes the importance of the radical democratic alternative in a 2009 interview, saying that "The aim of a pluralist democracy is to provide the institutions that will allow them to take an agonistic form, in which opponents will treat each other not as enemies to be destroyed, but as adversaries who will fight for the victory of their position while recognising the right of their opponents to fight for theirs. An agonistic democracy requires the availability of a choice between real alternatives." |
8898b83f-fe6c-4d22-a7cb-3990a67e45ee | 8898b83f-fe6c-4d22-a7cb-3990a67e45ee | 8898b83f-fe6c-4d22-a7cb-3990a67e45ee | human | null | null | none | books | Beautiful Creatures | null | Beautiful Creatures is set in fictional Gatlin, South Carolina. The novel is told by protagonist Ethan Wate, who lives with his writer father and housekeeper Amma who is “more like [Ethan’s] grandmother”. The story begins on the first day of Ethan’s sophomore year when he wakes up from a recurring dream he has been having about a girl he does not know. That morning he finds a “creepy—almost hypnotic”, song called "Sixteen Moons" on his iPod and also notices the smell of rosemary and lemon. At school Ethan find out there is a new girl this year, which is surprising because Gatlin “hadn’t had a new girl in school since the 3rd grade”; Macon Melchizedek Ravenwood is the town shut-in and is often compared in the novel to the character Boo Radley from To Kill A Mocking Bird. Ethan later hears Lena playing "Sixteen Moons" in band. When Ethan drives home he almost runs over Lena, who is standing on the road in the middle of the storm looking for someone to help with her broken down car. When Ethan notices she smells like lemon and rosemary he realized that Lena is the girl from his dreams. He soon learns that Lena is a Caster, a person who can use magic, and that on her sixteenth birthday she will be claimed for either Light or Dark. Ethan tries to find a way to save Lena from going Dark and solve the mystery of how he is connected to Lena. At the same time Lena is trying to handle the whole town turning against her: “we don’t take kind to strangers [in Gatlin].” Lena and Ethan discover that they are connected through years of Gatlin and Caster history. |
46e1d593-e06d-4ee4-8c06-b00ce1bf033a | 46e1d593-e06d-4ee4-8c06-b00ce1bf033a | 46e1d593-e06d-4ee4-8c06-b00ce1bf033a | human | null | null | none | books | The Racketeer | null | The book is about a federal judge's murder and an imprisoned lawyer who has inside knowledge on the details of the murder. Given the importance of what they do, and the controversies that often surround them, and the violent people they sometimes confront, it is remarkable that in the history of this country only four active federal judges have been murdered. Judge Raymond Fawcett has just become number five. Who is the Racketeer? And what does he have to do with the judge’s untimely demise? His name, for the moment, is Malcolm Bannister. Job status? Former attorney. Current residence? The Federal Prison Camp near Frostburg, Maryland. On paper, Malcolm’s situation isn’t looking too good these days, but he’s got an ace up his sleeve. He knows who killed Judge Fawcett, and he knows why. The judge’s body was found in his remote lakeside cabin. There was no forced entry, no struggle, just two dead bodies: Judge Fawcett and his young secretary. And one large, state-of-the-art, extremely secure safe, opened and emptied. What was in the safe? The FBI would love to know. And Malcolm Bannister would love to tell them. But everything has a price—especially information as explosive as the sequence of events that led to Judge Fawcett’s death. And the Racketeer wasn’t born yesterday . . . Nothing is as it seems and everything’s fair game in this wickedly clever new novel from John Grisham, the undisputed master of the legal thriller. |
0e16fec0-b58b-4892-b7b1-1a1f61f614f8 | 0e16fec0-b58b-4892-b7b1-1a1f61f614f8 | 0e16fec0-b58b-4892-b7b1-1a1f61f614f8 | human | null | null | none | books | Bring Up the Bodies | null | Bring Up the Bodies begins where the previous novel finished. The King and Master Secretary Thomas Cromwell are the guests of the Seymour family at Wolf Hall. The King shares private moments with Jane Seymour, and begins to fall in love with her. His present queen, Anne Boleyn, has failed to give him a male heir and, as rumours of her infidelity spread, the King seeks a way to be rid of her, and marry the new object of his affections. Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell owe their current high status to each other. They become pitted against each other, as Cromwell seeks to find a legitimate excuse to expel her from the King's court. Cromwell, master politician, uses Anne's fall from grace as a chance to settle scores with old enemies. |
6f9f1bcd-57ed-4834-b271-a01ed808d811 | 6f9f1bcd-57ed-4834-b271-a01ed808d811 | 6f9f1bcd-57ed-4834-b271-a01ed808d811 | human | null | null | none | books | De vierde man | null | The novel is a frame narrative: a writer named Gerard recounts the events that happened years before to his friend, Ronald. The story is as follows. Gerard, after a speaking engagement in the town of V., in the southern Netherlands, has a brief affair with a woman named Christine, with whom he spends the night. After seeing a photograph of her boyfriend, Herman, he becomes infatuated with him. Later, he spends a weekend house-sitting for Christine (during this time he picks up a young man named Laurens and has sex with him in Christine's bed) and opens a little chest reminiscent of a coffin, with a key he recognizes from a dream he had earlier. The box contains documents proving that Christine is three times widowed, and another dream he had comes to mind, in which an old man sang a tune asking who would be the fourth man. He leaves the house in a panic; later he hears that Herman was horribly mutilated after an accident in Christine's car. |
c6ced852-aadb-4b16-ab5c-86d96b703516 | c6ced852-aadb-4b16-ab5c-86d96b703516 | c6ced852-aadb-4b16-ab5c-86d96b703516 | human | null | null | none | books | The Bourne Imperative | null | :For a more detailed background of the main character, see Jason Bourne. The man Jason Bourne fishes out of the freezing sea is near death, half-drowned and bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound. He awakens with no memory of who he is or why he was shot-and Bourne is eerily reminded of his own amnesia. Then Bourne discovers that the Mossad agent named Rebeka is so determined to find this injured man that she has gone off the grid, cut her ties to her agency, and is now being stalked by Mossad's most feared killer. Do the answers to these mysteries lie back in southeast Lebanon, in a secret encampment to which Bourne and Rebeka escaped following a firefight weeks ago? The complex trail links to the mission given to Treadstone directors Peter Marks and Soraya Moore: find the semi-mythic terrorist assassin known as Nicodemo. In the course of Bourne's desperate, deadly search for a secret that will alter the future of the entire world, he will experience both triumph and loss, and his life will never be the same. Now everything turns on the amnesiac. Bourne must learn his identity and purpose before both he and Rebeka are killed. From Stockholm to Washington, D.C., from Mexico City to Beijing, the web of lies and betrayals extends into a worldwide conspiracy of monumental proportions. |
ca3645ee-1e5c-4a38-bc42-ed0aab6c0be5 | ca3645ee-1e5c-4a38-bc42-ed0aab6c0be5 | ca3645ee-1e5c-4a38-bc42-ed0aab6c0be5 | human | null | null | none | books | The Third Lynx | null | The story starts with former government agent, Frank Compton, meeting a young man who drops dead at his feet. Compton finds a ticket to a strange, interstellar train called the Quadrail. During Compton's ride on the Quadrail he falls asleep, and wakes up in the custody of the spiders, the operators of the Quadrail. The Spiders explain to Compton their worries of a weapon of mass destruction, which may be able to bypass their Quadrail security. Compton agrees to help, and is given a pass for the Quadrails and they assign him a traveling companion named Bayta, who has a strange talent for being telepathic in her communication to the Spiders. Frank Compton discovers the power behind the Quadrail system: an ancient civilization called the Chawyn. On the course of his travels on the Quadrail, he learns of the existence of the Modhri: the equally ancient enemy of the Chahwyn. The Modhri has its mind bent on controlling the galaxy. |
f85ec2ab-b2d2-4924-b93e-bf218530f88f | f85ec2ab-b2d2-4924-b93e-bf218530f88f | f85ec2ab-b2d2-4924-b93e-bf218530f88f | human | null | null | none | books | Under Wildwood | null | Prue McKeel, having rescued her brother from the Dowager Governess at the conclusion of the first novel, returns to her normal daily life of school and daydreaming. She finds her mind drifting back to Wildwood as she becomes increasingly bored with her studies. Meanwhile, dark events are transpiring in the Impassable Wilderness. A long, cold winter coupled with political discord fueled by an organization calling itself the "Bicycle Coup" have put Wildwood's residents on edge. Assassins are lurking in the forest's shadows, their intentions and motives unknown, while an industrial tyrant plots to exploit the natural resources of this magical world. With Wildwood once again under threat by dark forces, Prue returns to the Impassable Wilderness and teams up with her friend Curtis to bring unity to a land once again divided by conflict. This time though, they'll have to journey into the mysterious caverns and tunnels beneath the Impassable Wilderness. |
eca9dfc2-b3b3-4353-8a9d-f8c1f92433ae | eca9dfc2-b3b3-4353-8a9d-f8c1f92433ae | eca9dfc2-b3b3-4353-8a9d-f8c1f92433ae | human | null | null | none | books | Transfer of Power | null | The reader first meets Rapp while he is doing a covert operation in Iran and he discovers a possible terrorist attack planned for the nations capital to happen in the near future. Meanwhile in Washington, D.C., Anna Reilly is starting her first day as a White House correspondent for NBC. It also so happens to be the day where the terrorist, using the a secret entrance and take over the White House and hold it hostage. The president, who barley escaped the hostage situation remains trapped in the unfinished bomb shelter. With the vice president using this opportunity as commander in chief to glorify his political career being lenient towards the terrorist demands, Rapp must find a way to fight the terrorist from the inside of the White House. It is here where he saves Anna Reilly from being raped by one of the terrorist and their relationship, which will be seen throughout the later books begins. It comes time that several Navy SEAL's who sneak into the White House and eliminate the terrorist, save the hostages and the president. The leader of the terrorist group manages to escape the White House while detonating the strategically placed explosives. He is later found in South America only to be killed by Rapp. |