The Facts of Death starts off with several deaths from mysterious diseases. We first find Bond in Cyprus where a number of British troops have been discovered murdered, under mysterious circumstances. Bond gets too close for comfort for the group behind the actions and is attacked, but rescued by a fiery Greek female agent, Niki Mirakos. Bond then returns to Britain. He is invited to attend a dinner party being held by his former boss, Sir Miles Meservey. His current boss and her boyfriend are in attendance. After the party M''s boyfriend is murdered. She then tells Bond that all of the killings are connected because near all the bodies there were statues of Greek deities and numbers counting the victims of the horrible killing spree. Bond is sent to Greece and partnered with his current love interest Niki Mirakos. They both seem to be suspicious of an internationally known mathematic cult called the Decada. The head of the group is Greek mathematician, Konstantine Romanos. Bond goes to a Greek casino that is about two hours away from Athens and battles Romanos in a game of bacaraat. He defeats Romanos and catches the attention of a pretty Greek woman named Hera Volopoulos, who is also a card carrying member of the Decada. Bond chats with and later beds Hera. He then is drugged by her after they have made love. She takes him to Konstantine who talks to Bond and tells Hera to kill him. Bond manages to escape Hera''s evil clutches. He then manages to figure out Konstantine''s plan, to start a major war between Greece and Turkey. Bond figures out where the hideout is and gets there just in time to witness Hera murder Konstantine. She leaves Bond to stop a nuclear missile that will be fired from Greece into Turkey. Bond then figures out Hera''s plan, to profit from worldwide murder through a new virus. Bond, with assistance from the Greek military, boards a helicopter and prepares for battle with Hera. He kills her and stops the missile. Locations where the book takes place include: * Los Angeles * Tokyo * Austin, Texas * Cyprus * London * Greece

The Facts of Death

The House at Riverton tells the story of Grace Bradley, 98, who was a maid at Riverton Manor during the 1920s. For years Grace has hidden a terrible secret. Now a film is being made about a famous incident at Riverton when a well-known poet, Robbie Hunter, shot himself. Grace is contacted by the director, Ursula, as the only surviving person from that night. Grace''s memories are stirred up and she decides to make a tape for her grandson, Marcus, sharing her secret with him. As a young girl, Grace is sent to work at Riverton. She first meets the grandchildren of Riverton, David, Hannah and Emmeline, when they come to stay at Riverton. She immediately feels a connection with them, Hannah in particular. It is later revealed that Grace is a half-sibling to the children. Grace suspects Hannah knows this, but even after Grace deduces her parentage, she does not say anything to Hannah. It is one of many secrets in the novel. One Christmas, David brings home a school friend, Robbie Hunter. Eleven year-old Emmeline is infatuated, but 15 year-old Hannah is less impressed. Nearly ten years later, after David has been killed in WWI, Robbie finds Hannah to return a book she had given her brother. Hannah is living in London and unhappily married to an older businessman; Robbie provides a glimpse of the life she wanted to have. They fall in love and begin an affair. Emmeline, who has grown into a beautiful woman and one of the Bright Young People, prefers London society and often stays with Hannah. She provides Robbie and Hannah the excuse they need to see each other, as Robbie ostensibly calls on Emmeline but is really slipping notes to Hannah with the locations and times for them to meet. Robbie is suffering shell-shock from the War and is deeply in love with Hannah. He wants them to run away and begin new lives together. She assists in planning their escape to appease him, but does not believe they can elope, and is further convinced when her husband announces his plans to relocate them back to Riverton. To celebrate the revival of Riverton, Hannah and her husband plan an extravagant midsummer gala. During the party Grace goes to her room and finds two letters from Hannah. The one addressed to her is in shorthand, which Hannah mistakenly believes Grace can read. It is another of the unspoken secrets of the novel. Grace opens the second letter addressed to Emmeline; it is a suicide note saying that Hannah will have drowned herself in the lake by the time the letter is read. Grace rushes to find Emmeline, and takes her down to the lake to see if they can stop Hannah. Emmeline has been drinking a lot and is wearing a friend''s dinner jacket. At the lake they see Hannah who passes it off as a game when questioned. As Grace and Emmeline are about to head back to the house, Robbie emerges from the newly built summerhouse, carrying a suitcase. For a moment Emmeline thinks he has come to see her until Hannah explains that they are in love and are going to run away together. Emmeline becomes very jealous, pulls a handgun from the jacket pocket and threatens to shoot herself. Hannah wrestles the gun from her. Fireworks are going off all around them and each loud bang affects Robbie further, taking him back to his time in the trenches. He shouts at Hannah to shoot Emmeline before she ruins their plans. As both Emmeline and Robbie are rushing to her, at the last minute Hannah shoots Robbie to save her sister. Hearing people coming, Emmeline takes control, tells Grace to take Hannah''s bags up to the house quickly and announces that Robbie has shot himself. The police find no suspicious circumstances and Emmeline returns to London where she continues to enjoy the high life until she is killed in a car accident. Hannah is depressed and distant. One day she asks Grace if she can really read shorthand, knowing the answer before Grace confirms that she can''t. Hannah realises she is pregnant, despite previous failures to conceive with her husband. There are complications during the birth and she dies. The baby, Florence, has Robbie''s eyes, confirming her parentage to Hannah''s husband and his family. Baby Florence is sent to live with Hannah''s aunt in America. Some years later Grace learns what was in the shorthand letter from Hannah. It explained that she and Robbie were planning to run away together, but in order to do this she must fake her death hence the suicide note left for Emmeline. Grace was to give the letter to Emmeline after the party to give them chance to get away. Hannah was planning to send for Emmeline once they got themselves settled somewhere. Grace has carried this guilt throughout her life. Having finally told the truth via the tapes to her grandson, she is able to die in peace.

The House at Riverton

After the death of his girlfriend, Sith, Guy Salvatore can no longer make sense of his own world. He has hallucinations of monsters that besiege him with requests and threaten his life wherever he goes. He is completely unsure if these manifestations are real or are born in his mind. As the line between reality and insanity is blurred Guy comes across a man who calls himself Satan and claims holds the answers to all of Guy’s worries. Satan restores Guy''s hope promising Sith is still alive, but the two Gods that oversee existence let her be ripped from her world by unknown forces. She is now drifting through dimensional planes known as “Dream Worlds.” Satan pleads Guy to use his power to leave his world’s plane, search for Sith, and seek retribution from the Gods that caused the ordeal. The chapter takes place in the present day in the town of Salem. Things start off with our main character, Guy, waking up and going to school after seeing a massive "hallucination" come out of his bathroom mirror and ask for floss. At school he is only reminded of the lose of his girlfriend and leaves. After a night of more strange creatures, he struggles to sleep and finally does so only to meet with a woman calling herself "sickness" in his dream. She turns into a hideous creature, kissing Guy and holding him in her clutches. Guy wakes up started and upset. We are then taken to the entrance of Heaven, the domain of the character Good God. Her character comes in hoping to get back into her office in, but has lost her key to the door to Heaven. She calls for the aid of her friend and fellow god Evil God, second in command to Good God and ruler of hell. Together they go look for the key in the last place she was, a graveyard in Guys town. At the same time this is happening, Guy has gone to the graveyard and is mourning the lose of his girlfriend. When the God''s show up, he is able to see them, which shouldn''t be possible for normal human beings. Upon seeing Good God, Guy locks eyes with her, but the gods disappear. Guy grows more frustrated with the series of events taking place around him, and as he expresses his anger, a man claiming to be Satan appears suddenly. He claims Guy''s girlfriend is alive and that he can still find her in another dimension. Initially Guy shrugs the man off as one of his hallucinations, but as his hallucinations become more vivid and physically threatening,he begins to question our perception of reality and his own sanity. The second chapter opens in an area called "The Door Nexus" which is described as being between you, the devil and the deep blue sea". Good God and Evil God come through a door, Evil God yelling about the Fact that guy saw them. Good God says they can simply look Guy up, and go into the Limbo dimension. There they run into Limbo God, third in command and keeper of Limbo, who goes with them to go eat before looking up Guy. Meanwhile Guy is in math class, where Mortia, the girlfriend of Andrew who is Guys best friend, is hitting on guy. He yells at her drawing the attention of the teacher, but begins to see horrific things in class while his teacher is talking to him. His teacher is able to snap him out of this situation by yelling at him to go to the principals office. In the real of Heaven, the gods are investigating Guy Salvatore and why such strange events keep taking place around him. They find nothing abnormal about him, but his ability to see the God says otherwise, leaving the Gods feeling apprehensive about Guy.

The God Machine

Peony is set in the 1850s in the city of K''aifeng, in the province of Honan, which was historically a center for Chinese Jews. The novel follows Peony, a Chinese bondmaid of the prominent Jewish family of Ezra ben Israel, and shows through her eyes how the Jewish community was regarded in K''aifeng at a time when most of the Jews had come to think of themselves as Chinese. The novel contains a hidden love and shows the importance of duty along with the challenges of life. This novel is one that follows the guidelines of Buck''s work. The setting is China, religion is involved, and there is an interracial couple (David and Kueilan). A prefatory note before the title page tells the reader of the assimilation of the Jews of K''aifeng. "Today even the memory of their origin is gone. They are Chinese." Not all the 1st editions have the same cover design; some have a light blue binding with the title centered in a 3"x 1.5" simple gold imprint on dark blue background, the sun shining on a field, with the title at the top and the author''s name at the bottom. Much more is known today (2010) than in Buck''s lifetime about the K''aifeng Jews. nl:Pioenroos (roman)

Peony

The story is set in Hungary and the scene is laid in a village close to the Maros. The sharp, cracked sound of the Elevation bell breaks the silence of the summer morning. The good Pater Bonifacius is saying Mass: he, at any rate, is astir and busy with his day’s work and obligations. Surely it is strange that at so late an hour in mid-September, with the maize waiting to be gathered in, the population of Marosfalva should be still absent from the fields! Hej ! But, stranger, what would you ? Such a day is-this Fourteenth of September. What ? You did not know it? The Fourteenth of September, the ugliest, blackest, most God forsaken day in the whole year! What kind of a stranger are you if you do not know that On this hideous day all the finest lads in the village are taken away to be made into soldiers by the abominable Government? Three years! Why, the lad is a mere child when he goes-one-and-twenty on his last birthday, bless him! still wanting a mother’s care of his stomach, and a father’s heavy stick across his back from time to time to keep him from too much love-making. Three years ! When he comes brick he is a man and has notions of his own. Three years! What are the chances he comes back at all? Bosnia! Where in the world is that? My God, how they hate it! They must go through with it, though they hate it all-every moment. They hate to be packed into railway carriages like so many dried heads of maize in a barn... and the rude alien sergeant with his ''Vorwarts!'' and ''Marsch!'' and ''Rechts!'' and ''Links!'' I ask you in the name of the Holy Virgin what kind of gibberish is that? On this particular fourteenth of September it is Andor&#39;s turn due to go. On the eve preceding it, at the village merrymaking, as the whole population spends its last happy hours trying to forget the hideous evets that will occur in the morning, he tokens himself to Elsa the village beauty. It is Elsa and Andor that everyone is watching. He is tall and broad-shouldered with the supple limbs of a young stag, and the mad irresponsible movements of a young colt. The young couple dread the next day, which comes all too soon. They are at the station now, the last bell has sounded. For each lad only one girl, and there she is at the foot of the carriage steps, a corner of her ribbon, or handkerchief or cotton petticoat stuffed into her mouth to prevent herself from bursting into sobs. The pain and loss of conscription. It is some time since Andor was conscripted but there has been no news of him so Elsa is forced to betroth herself to the wealthy and sinister Béla, after being placed in the terrible alternative of either being faithless to Andor or disobedient to her mother. It is characteristic of Hungarian society at the time that of the two options available the latter seemed by far the more heinous. On the eve of Elsa&#39;s wedding Andor suddenly reappears, and is indirectly concerned in the assassination of Béla which takes place the same night. The story begins and ends with festival mingled with tragedy.

A Bride of the Plains

The narrator suggests writing an article on Neil Paraday; his new editor agrees. The former spends a week with Neil and writes the article whilst there, alongside reading Paraday''s latest book. His editor rejects the article however; he decides to write an article for another newspaper, but it goes unnoticed. Neil Paraday gets excited about writing another book, despite the fact that he doesn''t seem successful still. However the narrator comes across a praiseful review in The Empire. Mr Morrow, a journalist suddenly interested in writing about Neil Paraday''s life now that he is successful, comes round and ends up scaring the writer; the narrator manages to see him off. He tells Mr Morrow all there is to know about Paraday is in his work; the journalist is not amused. Later, he publishes an article on Neil''s house in the Tatler. Embracing his fame, Paraday takes to going to London luncheons with women. The narrator meets Miss Hurter, an American admirer of the writer''s, in his house. As the writer is again busy with Mrs Wimbush, he explains to the girl that the best thing she can do is not to bother Paraday and only admire him from afar, so as not to interfere with his writings. Nevertheless, he keeps her autograph album to show it to him. Later, he meets with her to read passages from Paraday; once while they are at the opera he points Paraday out to her. The narrator is annoyed with Mrs Wimbush for inviting Paraday to a party at Prestidge. Subsequently, he quotes from a letter sent to Miss Hunter while he was at the party. In this mise en abyme, he describes the way the other guests have not read Paraday''s works; worse still, Lady Augusta confesses to having mislaid the text is expected to read out the next day - there is no extra copy. Paraday falls gravely ill; the guests, enhanced by the Princess, are merry since the party seems to be a success. Dora Forbes joins them - later to become Mrs Wimbrush''s next ''henpecked'' writer. The party is called off on doctors order; the Princess lets him pass away in one of her houses. Before his death, Paraday had asked the narrator to publish an unfinished text by him. Although the one lost by Lady Augusta has not been found again, the narrator and Miss Hunter shall keep Paraday''s memory alive through their dedication to his texts.

The Death of the Lion

Natani alternates between the present and the past, a reflection of the protagonist’s life as he converses with a stranger. A love story between the protagonist, Fouad, and his first love, Zahra, it is romantic with hints of comedy and dramatic undertones simultaneously. The novel spans one night in a hotel lobby in Paris, France, and it is interlaced with flashbacks from Fouad''s adolescence in Qom, Iran. A native of Iran, Fouad lives in London and is in Paris to meet his girlfriend. Prior to her arrival, he becomes transfixed by an elegant woman who enters the hotel lobby. Her appearance reminds him of Zahra, and what it felt like to fall in love. Fouad''s girlfriend arrives, and they have dinner, and later, Fouad finds himself restless and unable to sleep. He returns to the lobby only to find the woman he saw earlier. He begins talking to her about his life growing up as the son of an ayatollah in the restrictive religious society of Iran. The narrative continues to alternate between their conversation and his flashbacks until the following morning. Fouad offers that one’s hometown is not where one lives, but where one "gives birth". This is how Paris and Qom, in Fouad’s mind, stand isolated on two opposite sides of the world.

Natani

The novel opens with Strieber''s account of a nuclear attack on New York City in October 1988. He is on a bus when he experiences the initial blast. Strieber also witnesses the flooding of the subway system due to a tsunami that was triggered by a nuclear detonation at sea. Strieber makes his way to his son''s school, where he is reunited with his family and shelters there. During this period, Strieber survives an attack of radiation sickness. Upon his recovery, he and his family leave New York for San Antonio which they soon discover was destroyed as well. They eventually settle in Dallas, where he becomes a news reporter for the Dallas Times Herald. Five years later, Strieber and Kunetka decide to document the effects of Warday on the United States. They travel through devastated southeastern and southwestern Texas, then the newly formed nation-state of Aztlan in the former American Southwest, and conduct interviews with the Aztlanian foreign minister and citizens. From Aztlan, they sneak into California which was unattacked and became a self-governing, authoritarian, police state. In Los Angeles, they conduct interviews while trying to evade the omnipresent police. They go to San Francisco where they reunite with an old friend of Streiber''s, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and are ultimately captured, arrested, and sentenced to years of hard labor and imprisonment. While en route to prison they escape, and flee California by train. By train, they travel and conduct interviews across the Midwest, taking refuge whenever highly radioactive duststorms&mdash;caused by dustbowl conditions as a result of the nuclear bombings of the Dakotas&mdash;happen. After visiting Chicago, they continue east into Pennsylvania and into what remains of New York City, where Strieber, overcome with emotion and at great personal risk to himself, visits what remains of a very dangerous Manhattan to visit his old apartment. The book ends with Strieber and Kunetka back in Texas facing an uncertain future.

Warday

Sevastopol is a response to photographs of war, from the earliest days of photography to the television broadcasts of our times. We see, in passing, the Crimean War of 1854, the American Civil War, World War I, World War II, Vietnam and tragedies of unnamed wars today. Some of the photographers are famous — Mathew Brady, Ansel Adams; many are not; most are anonymous. One photographer, Kevin Carter, who snapped a picture of a starving child with a vulture waiting in the background — committed suicide. For each photograph, the poet, William Allen, allows himself a 100-word response. We look at the photograph on the left page, form our own impressions and then compare them with what the poet felt and expressed on the right page. In this way, one by one, we are led on a tour through sombre moments of history, yet at the same time come in touch with our private psychological and political mappings of life at risk. The power of word and image together makes Sevastopol an unusual and moving poetic experience, linking us with those who did not escape the horrors and misery of man''s most grisly occupation.

Sevastopol: On Photographs of War

As the novel begins, Wedge Antilles has gathered together a group of pilots to choose from to recreate the legendary Rogue Squadron, as a dual X-wing and commando squadron. Although Wedge is allowed to pick most of his squad, his superiors in the Rebel Alliance force him to choose certain pilots, in the hope of causing some neutral planets to join the Alliance. Wedge is able to convince Admiral Ackbar to allow him to choose his own executive officer, Tycho Celchu, who was a member of the original Rogue Squadron, but had been accused of being an Imperial spy after a solo-mission to Imperial Center left him as their prisoner. Although Tycho escaped, and was trusted by Wedge, his superiors weren''t convinced of his loyalties, and Tycho was not allowed to fly an X-wing, wouldn''t be able to command any weapons in battle, and would be under guard when not training with the Rogues. With Rogue Squadron complete, they begin training, and soon Corran Horn stands out above the rest. Though initially mysterious to his squadron-mates and very boastful, he is rebuked by Wedge, but is made a lieutenant and put in charge of the third flight of three other X-wings when Rogue Squadron is activated months before training was finished. On the way to their new base on Talasea, the squadron is pulled out of hyperspace by an Imperial Interdictor Cruiser, a capital ship which creates a gravity well to prevent hyperspace travel. Although surprised, the squadron survives their first battle, and save the Pulsar Skate, a smuggler''s ship, captained by Mirax Terrik, that had been attacked by the cruiser. After a few more attacks by the Rogues, Kirtan Loor, an Imperial intelligence agent, realizes that they must be stopped. After being called into Imperial Center by Ysanne Isard, the Director of Imperial Intelligence, and told that Corran Horn, a man he worked with in the Corellian Security Force, was still alive, Isard gives him the mission to destroy Rogue Squadron. Although the Rogues always used multiple hyperspace jumps to hide their locations, Loor, a genius with a photographic memory, determines where they are based. Against his suggestion to send in a larger force, the admiral in charge of the sector covertly sends in only two squads of stormtroopers to kill the Rogues in their sleep. Even though six sentries are killed, the squadron has its first pilot loss, and multiple pilots are seriously injured, they survive and relocate to a new base to plan their next attack. The Alliance command then plans a large-scale attack on Borleias. Although their intelligence suggests that it would be an easy target, and could be captured and used as a step toward Imperial Center, it is actually a trap set up by General Evir Derricote. Although the planetary shields are taken down and the rebels begin to land attack shuttles, multiple squadrons of TIE fighters attack, the shield is reinforced, and planet-side defenses attack. Multiple ships are lost, including five of Rogues'' X-wings. Only two of their pilots are killed, the rest able to eject safely. Although the mission is considered a failure, Corran, with the aid of one of the commandos, is able to plan a new attack on Borleias that would prevent an ambush by capital ships. With only six Rogues being the only air support for the first four hours of the mission, and a group of commandos on the ground, the battle is a success. Although Corran doesn''t have enough fuel to escape and the rest of the squadron thinking him dead, he is rescued by the Pulsar Skate, and no Rogue is lost in the mission. Borleias is taken, and the Alliance takes a step toward liberating Coruscant. As the novel ends, Ysanne Isard reveals to Loor the existence of an unnamed spy in Rogue Squadron.

Rogue Squadron

After the death of the Earl of Spenborough all are shocked when they discover that the late Earl has appointed Ivo Barrasford, Marquis of Rotherham, and formerly engaged to Lady Serena Carlow to be Serena''s guardian. Though Lady Serena may rage against it, there is no way out and therefore Serena moves to Bath with her stepmother where she meets up with her old love from six years past. They rekindle their romance and become engaged. Rotherham, when he hears of the engagement, proposes to a girl who is only after his title. When he sees his ward and her chosen, he realizes that they had all made a mistake and tries to make his betrothed cry off. However, when he had thought he had succeeded, Serena stepped in and ruined all his plans. A row between guardian and ward ensued with Rotherham storming off to make sure that his engagement over. Eventually he reveals to Serena that he loves her and she admits that she loves him too. Her betrothed enters just as she is in Rotherham''s arms, but is not bothered as he has by now fallen in love with Serena''s stepmother. The story ends happily with everyone ending up with people suited to them.

Bath Tangle

Arnold Hodgkiss, a jewel thief who has come to London to steal the Crown Jewels, is dreamily casing the Tower of London when a strange man approaches him and says "The crown is large." Hodgkiss, nonplussed, replies "And very heavy", unwittingly giving the correct countersign. The man, a spy, thrusts a parcel at Hodgkiss and disappears. Hodgkiss keeps the parcel, hoping to turn it in some way to his advantage. Soon afterward, Jerry Cornell receives a new assignment: he is to discover the whereabouts of plans for "Project Glass," which have been stolen. Although the thief has been caught, the plans are still missing, and are believed to be in the hands of a fiendish Chinese agent named Kung Fu Tzu. Meanwhile, Kung is hopping mad because he never actually got the plans; they were given to Hodgkiss by mistake. The comedy of errors intensifies as Cornell tracks Kung, who in turn follows Hodgkiss, who eludes Kung but finds trouble aplenty when he tries to steal a brooch from a stall on Portobello Road.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Facts of Death

By Raymond Benson

The House at Riverton

By Kate Morton

The God Machine

No Author Listed

Peony

By Pearl S. Buck

A Bride of the Plains

By Baroness Emma Orczy

The Death of the Lion

By Henry James

Natani

No Author Listed

Warday

By Whitley Strieber

Sevastopol: On Photographs of War

No Author Listed

Rogue Squadron

By Michael A. Stackpole

Bath Tangle

By Georgette Heyer

The Chinese Agent

By Michael Moorcock