In the 1920s, Asakusa was to Tokyo what Montmartre had been to 1890s Paris, Alexanderplatz was to 1920s Berlin and Times Square was to be to 1940s New York. The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa describes the decadent allure of this entertainment district, where beggars and teenage prostitutes mixed with revue dancers and famous authors. Originally serialized in a Tokyo daily newspaper Tokyo Asahi between 20 December 1929 and February 16, 1930, this vibrant novel uses unorthodox, kinetic literary techniques to reflect the raw energy of Asakusa, seen through the eyes of a wandering narrator and the cast of mostly female juvenile delinquents who show him their way of life. The original newspaper serialization was incomplete. The remaining sections was published concurrently in two literary journals, Reconstruction (Kaizō, volume 12, number 9) and New Currents (Shinchō, volume 27, number 9). Markedly different from Kawabata''s later work, The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa was influenced much by Western modernism. The annotated edition of this novel, translated by Alisa Freedman, includes the original illustrations by Ota Saburo and a foreword and an afterword by Donald Richie.

The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa

The play tells the story of the revenge of a woman betrayed by her husband. All of the action of the play is at Corinth, where Jason has brought Medea after the adventures of the Golden Fleece. He has now left her in order to marry Glauce, the daughter of King Creon. (Glauce is also known in Latin works as Creusa — see Seneca the Younger''s Medea and Propertius 2.16.30. This King Creon is not to be confused with King Creon of Thebes.) The play opens with Medea grieving over her loss and with her elderly nurse fearing what she might do to herself or her children. Creon, also fearing what Medea might do, arrives determined to send Medea into exile. Medea pleads for one day''s delay, and Creon begrudgingly acquiesces. In the next scene Jason arrives to confront her and explain himself. He believes he could not pass up the opportunity to marry a royal princess, as Medea is only a barbarian woman, but hopes to someday join the two families and keep Medea as his mistress. Medea, and the chorus of Corinthian women, do not believe him. She reminds him that she left her own people for him ("I am the mother of your children. Whither can I fly, since all Greece hates the barbarian?"), and that she saved him and slew the dragon. Jason promises to support her after his new marriage, but Medea spurns him: "Marry the maid if thou wilt; perchance full soon thou mayst rue thy nuptials." Next Medea is visited by Aegeus, King of Athens; he is aggrieved by his lack of children, and does not understand the oracle that was supposed to give him guidance. Medea begs him to protect her, in return for her helping his wife conceive a child. Aegeus does not know what Medea is going to do in Corinth, but promises to give her refuge in any case, provided she can escape to Athens. Medea then returns to her plotting how she may kill Creon and Glauce. She decides to poison some golden robes (a family heirloom and gift from the sun god), in hopes that the bride will not be able to resist wearing them, and consequently be poisoned. Medea resolves to kill her own children as well, not because the children have done anything wrong, but because she feels it is the best way to hurt Jason. She calls for Jason once more, falsely apologizes to him, and sends the poisoned robes with her children as the gift-bearers. :Forgive what I said in anger! I will yield to the decree, and only beg one favor, that my children may stay. They shall take to the princess a costly robe and a golden crown, and pray for her protection. The request is granted and the gifts are accepted. Offstage, while Medea ponders her actions, Glauce is killed by the poisoned dress, and Creon is also killed by the poison while attempting to save her. These events are related by a messenger. :Alas! The bride had died in horrible agony; for no sooner had she put on Medea''s gifts than a devouring poison consumed her limbs as with fire, and in his endeavor to save his daughter the old father died too. Medea is pleased with her revenge thus far, but resolves to carry it further: to utterly destroy Jason''s plans for a new family, she will kill her own sons. She rushes offstage with a knife to kill her children. As the chorus laments her decision, the children are heard screaming. Jason rushes to the scene to punish her for the murder of Glauce and learns that his children too have been killed. Medea then appears above the stage in the chariot of the sun god Helios; this was probably accomplished using the mechane device usually reserved for the appearance of a god or goddess. She confronts Jason, reveling in his pain at being unable to ever hold his children again: :"I do not leave my children''s bodies with thee; I take them with me that I may bury them in Hera''s precinct. And for thee, who didst me all that evil, I prophesy an evil doom." She escapes to Athens with the bodies. The chorus is left contemplating the will of Zeus in Medea''s actions: :Manifold are thy shapings, Providence! :Many a hopeless matter gods arrange. :What we expected never came to pass, :What we did not expect the gods brought to bear; :So have things gone, this whole experience through!

Medea

Colin "CD" Dobson, lives a humdrum life at a critical point in history. The environment is being destroyed by a series of ''avalanches'' - sudden upsets in the Earth''s ecosystem, causing widespread destruction. The Stark conspiracy is a cabal of the world''s richest and most influential men, who have long been aware that the planet''s ecosystem is approaching total collapse. For decades they have been launching unmanned spacecraft loaded with supplies into orbit around the Earth and the Moon. Seeking to save their own lives and leave everyone else to suffer from ''total toxic overload'', they secretly build a fleet of spacecraft with the intention colonizing the Moon. Using crude intimidation, they purchase land from Aboriginals in Western Australia to use as a launch site. They sell their stocks and commodities to raise cash, dumping the assets at the same time and in high volumes to engineer a worldwide stockmarket crash and lower the price of the resources they need. They buy the Moon from the United States government, along with the hardware to reach it. Six vessels are designed to travel to the Moon, three of which will carry humans, with room for 250 humans on each. The vessels are named ''Star Arks'', referencing the Biblical story of Noah''s Ark. The Star Arks contain human and animal embryos in suspended animation, as well as resources needed for life support. The Star Arks are prepared under the cover story that the consortium is building a desert resort. CD and his friends form a group called ''EcoAction''. Each of them have their own reason for fighting the consortium, with the collective goal of trying to protect the environment. They take action against the consortium''s activities, and in the process uncover the conspiracy. They infiltrate the launch site and wreak havoc. CD and one of the conspirators, Sly Moorcock, compete for the affections of Rachel, who eventually joins the conspiracy as Sly''s intended partner. EcoAction try to warn the rest of the world about the plan, but they are not taken seriously. The cabal kill many of those who have investigated or uncovered the conspiracy. Rachel turns on Sly at the last minute so she can sabotage the launch, but he overpowers and tries to abduct her. She escapes and rejoins the surviving members of EcoAction. The Stark Conspiracy blast off, but find that their existence is frustrating and lonely. Sly Moorcock eventually commits suicide. The narrative ends with an admonishment for the world''s consumers over their inaction on environmental issues in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Stark

The Castle of Otranto tells the story of Manfred, lord of the castle, and his family. The book begins on the wedding-day of his sickly son Conrad and princess Isabella. Shortly before the wedding, however, Conrad is crushed to death by a gigantic helmet that falls on him from above. This inexplicable event is particularly ominous in light of an ancient prophecy "[T]hat the castle and lordship of Otranto should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it". Manfred, terrified that Conrad''s death signals the beginning of the end for his line, resolves to avert destruction by marrying Isabella himself while divorcing his current wife Hippolita, whom he feels has failed to bear him a proper heir. However, as Manfred attempts to marry Isabella, she escapes to a church with the aid of a peasant named Theodore. Manfred orders Theodore''s death while talking to the friar Jerome, who ensured Isabella''s safety in the church. When Theodore removes his shirt to be killed, Jerome recognizes a marking below his shoulder and identifies Theodore as his own son. Jerome begs for his son''s life, but Manfred says Jerome must either give up the princess or his son''s life. They are interrupted by a trumpet and the entrance of knights from another kingdom who want to deliver Isabella. This leads the knights and Manfred to race to find Isabella. Theodore, having been locked in a tower by Manfred, is freed by Manfred''s daughter Matilda. He races to the underground church and finds Isabella. He hides her in a cave and blocks it to protect her from Manfred and ends up fighting one of the mysterious knights. Theodore badly wounds the knight, who turns out to be Isabella''s father, Frederic. With that, they all go up to the castle to work things out. Frederic falls in love with Matilda and he and Manfred begin to make a deal about marrying each other''s daughters. Manfred, suspecting that Isabella is meeting Theodore in a tryst in the church, takes a knife into the church, where Matilda is meeting Theodore. Thinking his own daughter is Isabella, he stabs her. Theodore is then revealed to be the true prince of Otranto and Matilda dies, leaving Manfred to repent. Theodore becomes king and eventually marries Isabella because she is the only one who can understand his true sorrow.

The Castle of Otranto

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.

My French Whore

The novel starts with Melanie stealing her mother''s wedding dress and venturing out in the night into her family''s property. However, on her way home, she realizes she forgot the door key and is forced to climb up a tree to get back into her room, destroying the dress in the process. The next morning, Melanie learns of the unexpected deaths of her parents in a plane crash over the Grand Canyon, and she and her two siblings - Victoria and Jonathon - are moved to South London, to the care of her tyrannical uncle Philip, a bullish and eccentric maker of life-sized puppets and fantastical old fashioned toys. There, she meets her mute aunt Margaret, who is mistreated by and terrified of her husband and only converses through notes. She also meets Margaret''s younger brothers Francie, a fiddler, and the rakish Finn. At first, Uncle Philip ignores Melanie and her siblings as they are introduced to his bizarre puppet shows and she is made to work selling toys in the toyshop. Meanwhile, Finn and Melanie grow closer until he takes her to a park, the remnants of the National Exhibition of 1852. There, after seeing a worn, fallen statue of Queen Victoria and walking across a chess board (only on the white squares), Finn kisses Melanie. She feels intruded by the gesture, imagining it only romantic as an observer from far away. This kiss, however, ignites Melanie''s conflicted feelings of attraction towards Finn. After the kiss, at another puppet show, Finn fails to control his puppet perfectly and is thrown to the floor by Uncle Philip, who obviously despises him. Satisfied that Finn shall never be adept at working the puppets, Uncle Philip devises a new plan, drafting Melanie to perform with the puppets. Philip assigns Finn to assist Melanie in honing her acting skills for the future show. During this time, Melanie notices a difference in Finn''s behavior. Whereas before he had been subtly rebellious, he now seems depleted of all resistance and resigned to Philip''s control. Finn also becomes incredibly physically dirty. However, Finn''s opposition returns when he refuses to make love to Melanie, as he considers this to be a fulfillment of Philip''s machinations. Soon the day of the long awaited puppet show arrives. Melanie arrives on stage in a white dress. Philip has arranged for Melanie to play Leda being raped by Jove in the guise of a monstrous swan. The play, however, is not successful, as Melanie struggles to beat off the swan. As she scrambles to escape the swan, Finn calls for the end of the show. Philip comes to Melanie and slaps her, not satisfied with her performance. After the show, Uncle Philip travels with Jonathon, leaving the rest of the family alone at the house. Finn decides to destroy Philip''s puppet swan, burying it in the park next to the fallen Queen Victoria. He returns home and crawls into bed with Melanie. She comforts him and arrives at the realization that they will someday marry and have children, leading a poor, constrained life together. Finn reaches a sort of epiphany when he decides to wash and not to tolerate Uncle Philip''s hegemony anymore, a coup which is exemplified when Finn sits in Uncle Philip''s seat at the dinner table. After a somewhat drunken evening, Melanie learns that Margaret and Francie have been having an incestuous relationship. Suddenly Uncle Philip returns, discovering the infidelity of his wife and the rebellion of his household. In a tremendous rage, he sets the house on fire. Margaret finally speaks as she urges Finn and Melanie to escape. They do so just in time, to land at the outside of the house and watch the floors of the house collapse in fire. They realize now that their old world is destroyed and, for better or worse, all they have left is each other.

The Magic Toyshop

Morrison''s protagonist, Macon "Milkman" Dead III, derives his nickname from the fact that he was breastfed during childhood (Macon''s age can be inferred as he was wearing pants with elastic instead of a diaper, and that he later forgets the event, suggesting he was still rather young). Milkman''s father''s employee, Freddie, happens to see him through the window being breastfed by his mother. He quickly gains a reputation for being a "Momma''s boy" in direct contrast to his (future) best friend, Guitar, who is motherless and fatherless. Milkman has two sisters, "First Corinthians" and "Magdelene called Lena." The daughters of the family are named by putting a pin in the Bible, while the eldest son is named after his father. The first Macon Dead''s name was the result of an administrative error when Milkman''s grandfather had to register subsequent to the end of slavery. Milkman''s mother (Ruth Foster Dead) is the daughter of the town''s only black doctor; she makes her husband feel inadequate, and it is clear she idolized her father, Doctor Foster, to the point of obsession. After her father dies, her husband claims to have found her in bed with the dead body, sucking his fingers. Ruth later tells Milkman that she was kneeling at her father''s bedside kissing the only part of him that remained unaffected by the illness from which he died. These conflicting stories expose the problems between his parents and show Milkman that "truth" is difficult or impossible to obtain. Macon (Jr.) is often violently aggressive towards Ruth because he believes that she was involved sexually with her father and loved her father more than her own husband. On one occasion, Milkman punches his father after he strikes Milkman''s mother, exposing the growing rift between father and son. In contrast, Macon Dead Jr.''s sister, Pilate, is seen as nurturing—an Earth Mother character. Born without a navel, she is a somewhat mystical character. It is strongly implied that she is Divine—a female Christ-in spite of her name. Macon (Jr.) has not spoken to his sister for years and does not think highly of her. She, like Macon, has had to fend for herself from an early age after their father''s murder, but she has dealt with her past in a different way than Macon, who has embraced money as the way to show his love for his father. Pilate has a daughter, Reba, and a granddaughter named Hagar. Hagar falls desperately and obsessively in love with Milkman, and is unable to cope with his rejection, attempting to kill him at least six times. Hagar is not the only character who attempts to kill Milkman. Guitar, Milkman''s erstwhile best friend, tries to kill Milkman more than once after incorrectly suspecting that Milkman has cheated him out of hidden gold, a fortune he planned to use to help his Seven Days group fund their revenge killings in response to killings of blacks. Searching for the gold near the old family farm in Pennsylvania, Milkman stops at the rotting Butler Mansion, former home of the people who killed his ancestor to claim the farm. Here he meets Circe, an almost supernaturally old ex-slave of the Butlers. She tells Milkman of his family history and this leads him to the town of Shalimar. There he learns his great-grandfather Solomon was said to have escaped slavery by flying back to Africa, leaving behind twenty-one children and his wife Ryna, who goes crazy with loss. Returning home, he learns that Hagar has died of a broken heart. He accompanies Pilate back to Shalimar, where she is accidentally shot and killed by Guitar, who had intended to kill Milkman. At the end of the novel, Milkman leaps towards Guitar. This leap is ambiguous, it is not explicitly stated that either or both is killed. However it brings the novel full circle from the suicidal "flight" of Robert Smith, the insurance agent, to Milkman''s "flight" in which he learns to fly like Pilate.

Song of Solomon

Twenty years have passed since Darth Bane, reigning Dark Lord of the Sith, demolished the ancient order devoted to the dark side and reinvented it as a circle of two: one Master to wield the power and pass on the wisdom, and one apprentice to learn, challenge, and ultimately usurp the Dark Lord in a duel to the death. But Bane''s acolyte, Zannah, has yet to engage her Master in mortal combat and prove herself a worthy successor. Determined that the Sith dream of galactic domination will not die with him, Bane vows to learn the secret of a forgotten Dark Lord that will assure the Sith''s immortality–and his own. A perfect opportunity arises when a Jedi emissary is assassinated on the troubled mining planet Doan, giving Bane an excuse to dispatch his apprentice on a fact-finding mission–while he himself sets out in secret to capture the ancient holocron of Darth Andeddu and its precious knowledge. But Zannah is no fool. She knows that her ruthless Master has begun to doubt her, and she senses that he is hiding something crucial to her future. If she is going to claim the power she craves, she must take action now. While Bane storms the remote stronghold of a fanatical Sith cult, Zannah prepares for her Master''s downfall by choosing an apprentice of her own: a rogue Jedi cunning and cold-blooded enough to embrace the Sith way and to stand beside her when she at last wrests from Bane the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith. But Zannah is not the only one with the desire and power to destroy Darth Bane. Princess Serra of the Doan royal family is haunted by memories of the monstrous Sith soldier who murdered her father and tortured her when she was a child. Bent on retribution, she hires a merciless assassin to find her tormentor—and bring him back alive to taste her wrath. Only a Sith who has taken down her own Master can become Dark Lord of the Sith. So when Bane suddenly vanishes, Zannah must find him—possibly even rescue him—before she can kill him. And so she pursues her quarry from the grim depths of a ravaged world on the brink of catastrophe to the barren reaches of a desert outpost, where the future of the dark side''s most powerful disciples will be decided, once and for all, by the final, fatal stroke of a lightsaber.

Star Wars: Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil

The dashing Simon Templar is hired by a friend in the book publishing trade to protect one of his stars, a secretive recluse named Amos Klein who writes a popular (and lucrative) series of adventure novels about a manly and suave spy. When he arrives at Klein''s house in the country, he hears a woman''s screams and several gunshots. Rushing to the rescue, he finds a woman tied up and gripping a revolver behind her back. After untying her, he finds out that she is "Amos Klein", a woman who adopted a male nom de plume to increase sales of her novels. She explains that she has to be able to do everything her character in the novels does and that she was just doing some research. The pair are soon kidnapped by a group of people who claim to be members of S.W.O.R.D., the evil organization from Amos Klein''s novels. Their leader, "Warlock", the mastermind of the group, believes that Simon Templar must be the Amos Klein he is looking for and that the woman must be his secretary. They then find out what the group of madmen want: for Amos Klein to write the plot of their next grandiose heist.

The Saint and the Fiction Makers

Soldier X takes place during the World War II. The main character of the book is a 16-year-old German boy named Erik Brandt. Although Erik lives in Germany, he is also half-Russian and speaks Russian very fluently, and he is often used as an interpreter for the German army, questioning Russian prisoners of war. Erik shows discontent at being a part of Hitler''s Nazi army during World War 2, but he is forced to fight alongside young boys and older veterans alike in terrible conditions. Erik learns to accept several of his German allies as friends, and soon heads into his first battle after living in muddy trenches. After receiving a quick weapons training one day, Erik''s platoon is attacked by Russian forces. During the battle, Erik is knocked out. When he awakens, Erik finds that most, if not all, of his friends are now dead, and that the Russians have taken the position from the Germans. Finding a dead Russian soldier nearby, he changes from his German uniform into a Russian army uniform. Since he is wounded, he is then taken to a Russian hospital, mistaken for a Russian due to his understanding of that language. There he meets a nurse, Tamara, who takes care of some of the injured soldiers - including Erik - and would later develop strong feelings for her. After becoming accustomed to hospital life and even volunteering to work around the hospital, Erik quickly makes new friends of his own: injured Russian men like Nikolai and, of course, Tamara and most of the nurses. Erik bonds with Tamara more so when he learns that her brother had died in a battle in the war. Tamara learns of Erik''s German origins when Erik accidentally uses profanity in German after burning himself with hot water. Surprisingly, Tamara keeps this a secret, but keeps to herself more often than usual, seeming more quiet and reserved. As this daily routine carries on and Erik meets more and more injured soldiers, Erik especially bonds with one Russian soldier who, due to injuries sustained, would lose both of his legs and be sent back to his family without being able to walk. One day, the hospital is evacuated because of an impending wave of destruction in the of advancing German troops and artillery shellings. Erik escapes with Tamara and flees from any sightings of conflicts. Walking from city to city and looking for food wherever possible, Erik and Tamara travel together and once again reinforce their bond with each other. Their love reaches an epiphany when they kiss each other and proclaim their love for one another after being housed by a kind lady who had lost her son to the war. Eventually, Erik and Tamara are both injured by Allied soldiers. Ordered to cease fire by their commanding officer, the group of Allied, apparently American, soldiers notices that Erik and Tamara are but teenagers and send them to a hospital. Erik awakens to find that he is scarred in a gruesome manner from surgeries, and that he has lost an arm due to a gunshot wound. Tamara walks away with fewer and far less urgent injuries. Despite the grouchy and melancholy mood Erik first shows due to his injuries, he and Tamara make up as the story comes to an end. As time passed,the couple then traveled to the United States and still happily live there today with their children.

Soldier X

The voyage to find the lost magic takes the companions to the continent of Parkasia. Here, they are split up, and Walker, despite all his plans and his enormous power, finds himself caught and trapped by an unseen force, a supercomputer built by the ancient humans. Antrax was created to store data and information from its time and it is given a duty, an order to protect the information that it holds. However, when the Great War broke out, the last of its creators returned, and gave Antrax its final task: protect the information at all costs, no matter what the price. Antrax then began to build its own arsenal of defence mechanisms: lasers and Creepers. Above Castledown, the crew of the Jerle Shannara find themselves besieged by evil forces, and the Ilse Witch confronts the Druid''s protégé, Bek Ohmsford, who claims that she is actually Grianne Ohmsford, and that he is the brother she last saw as an infant - now a young man who carries the Sword of Shannara and wields the magic of the wishsong. Meanwhile, Walker realises that the ''magic'' they have been searching for is actually the science of the Old World, stored on Antrax, which could be used to rebuild society with new technology. But there is no practical way to access this information, so Walker chooses to destroy the power-hungry computer, which is quickly becoming a danger to the whole world. However, he is mortally wounded in the process. He dies soon after. It is believed that Antrax was in fact initially known as Oronyx Experimental and appears in The Elves of Cintra.

Antrax

In the fall of 1940, the Nazis are at the height of their power - France is occupied, Britain is enduring the Blitz and is under constant threat of invasion, America is neutral, and Russia is in an uneasy alliance with Germany. In this dark time, Stephen Metcalfe is living the high life in occupied Paris. The younger son of a prominent American family, Metcalfe is a handsome young man who is a notable guest at all the best parties, has been romantically linked to the elite''s most desirable women, and is in great demand in the upper echelons of Paris society. He is also a minor asset in the U.S.''s secret intelligence forces in Europe, cavalierly playing the Great Game like so many socially connected young men before him. However, what has been largely an amusing game becomes deadly serious - the spy network he was a part of is suddenly dismantled in the midst of war-torn Europe and he is left without a contactractual orders, or a contingency plan. With no one else in place, it falls to Metcalfe to instigate a bold plan that may be the only hope for the quickly dwindling remains of the free world. Using his family''s connections and relying on his own devices, he travels to wartime Moscow to find and possibly betray a former lover - a fiery ballerina whose own loyalties are in question - in a delicate dance that could destroy all he loves and honors. With his opponents closing in on him and the war itself rapidly approaching an irreversible crisis point, Stephen Metcalfe faces both a difficult task and an impossible decision, where success will have unimaginable consequences far into the future and failure is unthinkable.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa

By Yasunari Kawabata

Medea

By Euripides

Stark

By Ben Elton

The Castle of Otranto

By Judy Blume

My French Whore

By Gene Wilder

The Magic Toyshop

By Angela Carter

Song of Solomon

By Toni Morrison

Star Wars: Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil

By Drew Karpyshyn

The Saint and the Fiction Makers

By Leslie Charteris

Soldier X

By Don L. Wulffson

Antrax

By Terry Brooks

The Tristan Betrayal

By Robert Ludlum