The narrator describes the character "The Great Mahlke" from their youth together through to Mahlke''s disappearance near the end of the Second World War. Much of the action of the story is on a half-submerged sunken minesweeper of the Polish Navy, on which the narrator, Mahlke, and their friends meet each summer. Mahlke explores the shipwreck by diving through a hatch, and with his ever-present screwdriver salvages various items (information plaques, objects left behind by the crew, and even a gramophone) to sell or collect for himself. Over the course of the novella Mahlke steals an Iron Cross from a visiting U-boat captain, and is expelled from school. He joins a Panzer division and himself receives an Iron Cross thanks to his successes in battle. Returning to the school from which he was expelled, however, the principal forbids him from making a speech to the students, on the grounds of his former disgrace. The narrative in the story is often fairly incoherent. For instance, the timeline of the narration is often treated flexibly, moving from the narrator''s perspective to different points within his memory of the events. There is also disunity about whether Mahlke is addressed in the second- or third-person, with Grass sometimes changing the form of address within a single sentence, possibly indicating the narrator''s inability to remove his own emotions and feelings of guilt from an objective account of Mahlke. Mahlke, with the help of the narrator, returns to the shipwreck. Mahlke''s main reason for entering the war in the first place was to make a speech at his school afterwards. Since he is denied that wish, Mahlke deserts his post, seeing no other reason to fight. Desertion implies treason and in consequence death. Pilenz, whose relationship to Mahlke becomes increasingly ambivalent, takes advantage of the situation and pressures an unwell Mahlke to dive into the wreck once more to hide, aware that Mahlke might not survive the dive. Pilenz never sees Mahlke again.

Cat and Mouse

Dreaming of freedom from a life of brute servitude, hard labor, and debt to a tyrannical landlord, Papa Santuzzu and his wife, Adriana, push their beloved children to immigrate to La Merica, the Land of Opportunity. In his "wild and giddy imagination," Papa Santuzzu ardently believes in the ease of attaining the American Dream, the promise of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" for all, and rests assured that his children will thrive in this great nation of abundance. Following the painful, yet exuberant, process of the Santuzzu children''s displacement from their homeland and relocation in Papa Santuzzu''s conceived lush "faraway garden," Ardizzone''s novel re-imagines the meaning of such a journey, where every obvious gain entails some unforeseen sacrifice. A loving tribute to Sicilian American culture, In the Garden of Papa Santuzzu resounds with the traditional folklore and songs of Sicily, implanting within our hearts a vibrant and compassionate perspective of the struggles, joys, and proliferation of diasporic communities in modern America. In their earnest exodus to America, the Santuzzu children arduously clear away the weeds and briars in what seems a vast and rugged wilderness, managing to cultivate their own unknown, yet nonetheless beautiful, version of their Papa''s paradisiacal vision—building, at last, a home-away-from home.

In the Garden of Papa Santuzzu

The Genocides describes the genocide of humans by aliens who seed Earth with enormous crop plants. The Plants are massive and rapidly out-compete terrestrial flora, forming a monoculture. They appear unwholesome to the native fauna, and starvation seems inevitable. The novel opens with a small rural community struggling for survival on the border of Lake Superior. Urban society appears to have collapsed by this point. The community, lead by Anderson and his family, eke out an existence by siphoning sap from the Plants to irrigate their corn crop. Anderson is a conservative and religious man, harsh and uncompromising. His focus on survival has kept the community alive long after many have died. His rules include the harsh treatment of outsiders who are routinely killed unless they are of use to the community. Newcomers arrive bringing with them news of spherical machines that are incinerating every trace of humanity left on Earth, including burning the abandoned cities and remaining survivors. Most of the newcomers are killed and, the novel implies, ground into sausage meat and consumed. The two remaining have useful skills: Alice is a nurse and the Jeremiah a mining engineer. Jeremiah vows a personal revenge on Anderson and his family, but begins by ingratiating himself in the community. Jeremiah courts Anderson''s thirteen-year-old daughter, Blossom. He befriends Anderson''s educated son, Buddy. During the harsh winter, the spherical machines come to incinerate the community. Jeremiah sees his revenge coming to fruition. Those who survive the initial conflagration flee into a cave. There they discover the Plants'' roots are hollow and form a massive and interlocking underground network. Jeremiah suggests they go deeper, pointing out that they will be able to escape the winter underground. They discover the "fruit" of the plants is housed in the root system: a nutritious pulp the community begins to consume. Anderson, who lost his wife Lady when fleeing, is weakened. When he is bitten by a rat, gangrene sets in and he declines quickly. His final words to his brutish son, Neil, are to let Jeremiah take over leading the community and to allow Jeremiah to marry Blossom. Neil is angered by these words, and murders Anderson. The nurse Alice sees the signs of murder on Anderson, but Neil murders her before she can share her revelation. The community breaks up. Jeremiah goes in search of Blossom, planning to kill her when he finds her and commit his ultimate revenge. When he does find her, he experiences a change of heart and falls in love. They try to return, but find Neil has sabotaged their escape and his own. In the dark they cannot find their way back. Neil, Jeremiah, Blossom and Buddy struggle underground. Neil is overcome and abandoned in the dark. When the few survivors return to the diminishing group, they find machines have come to harvest the Plants'' crop. Without the pulp to live on, the survivors return to the surface. On the surface it is spring, and a new crop of Plants have been sown by the mysterious aliens. The malnourished group has no chance of survival, and the novel closes on the Jeremiah and Blossom leaving the few other survivors to travel into the wilderness. The pair, starving and mismatched in age, are portrayed as a distorted mirror image of the biblical Adam and Eve and herald the end of humanity instead of the beginning.

The Genocides

The novel revolves around the legend of Atlantis, mentioned as an ancient city or continent which was drowned by the sea due to divine intervention. The novel is narrated by Headley who first writes a letter to his friend Sir John Talbot. On his subsequent rescue, he completes his story giving details on his escape and how they fought off possibly the greatest danger to humanity, the Devil himself. The novel begins with preparations for the dive, off the coast of Africa. Prof. Maracot claims to have located the deepest trench in the Atlantic and is vehement that he shall go down in the specially prepared submersible actually a bathysphere along with Headley and Scanlan. On reaching the edge of the trench, a description of the undersea world is presented. The team comes face to face with a giant crustacean who cuts off their line and hurls them down into the trench. Down in the trench, the team is rescued by the Atlanteans who are the last survivors of the land that was Atlantis. Although the description of Atlantis may not sound quite futuristic and may seem fantastic, the fact that the novel was written in 1929 should be taken into account. One device in particular is often made use of. This is a thought projector which visualizes the thoughts of a person for others to see. This helps the team and the Atlanteans to communicate. Descriptions of work habits, culture and various sea creatures are provided. The Atlanteans forage for their food from the sea bed and their slaves, Greeks who are the descendants of the original slaves of the kingdom of Atlantis work in undersea mines. This is made possible thanks to an exceptionally strong and light transparent material which is fashioned into helmets to enable people to work underwater. The team eventually uses the levity of these spheres to escape to the surface. Headley elopes with the daughter of Manda, leader of the Atlanteans. In the later part of the novel, Headley describes the encounter with the Lord of the Dark Face, a supernatural being who led the Atlanteans to their doom and was the cause of untold miseries to humanity ever since. This being is likened to the Phoenician god Baal who was demonized by later religions and cultures. The being is defeated by Prof. Maracot who becomes possessed by the spirit of Warda, the man who managed to convince a handful of Atlanteans to prepare for the worst and thus built an Ark which saved them from the cataclysm which destroyed their land.

The Maracot Deep

In the Philippines, Chua explains, the Chinese Filipino is 1% of the population but controls 60% of the economy, with the result being envy and bitterness on the part of the majority against the Chinese minority—in other words, an ethnic conflict. Similarly, in Indonesia the Chinese Indonesians are 3% of the population but control 70% of the economy. There is a similar pattern in other Southeast Asia nations. According to Chua, examples of what she calls ethnic market-dominant minorities include overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia; whites in Latin America; Jews in Russia; Croats in the former Yugoslavia; and Ibos, Kikuyus, Tutsis, Indians and Lebanese, among others, in Africa. In her book, Chua discusses different reasons for the market dominance of different groups. Some groups achieve market dominance because of colonial oppression or apartheid. In other cases, it may be due to the culture and family networks of these groups. For many groups there is no clear single explanation. Americans can also be seen as a global market-dominant minority, in particularly when combined with using military might and flaunting political domination, cause resentment. She believes that democratization can increase ethnic conflicts when an ethnic minority is disproportionately wealthy. "When free market democracy is pursued in the presence of a market-dominant minority, the almost invariable result is backlash. This backlash typically takes one of three forms. The first is a backlash against markets, targeting the market-dominant minority''s wealth. The second is a backlash against democracy by forces favorable to the market-dominant minority. The third is violence, sometimes genocidal, directed against the market-dominant minority itself.". Also, "overnight democracy will empower the poor, indigenous majority. What happens is that under those circumstances, democracy doesn''t do what we expect it to do – that is, reinforce markets. [Instead,] democracy leads to the emergence of manipulative politicians and demagogues who find that the best way to get votes is by scapegoating the minorities." She writes, "Ballot boxes brought Hitler to power in Germany, Mugabe to power in Zimbabwe, Milosevic to power in Serbia -- and could well bring the likes of Osama bin Laden to power in Saudi Arabia." Chua states that she is a "big fan of trying to promote markets and democracy globally," but that it should be accompanied by attempts to "redistribute the wealth, whether it''s property title and giving poor people property, land reform .... Redistributive mechanisms are tough to have if you have so much corruption."

World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability

After accidentally acquiring a stray puppy from a kidnapped litter of Tibetan temple dogs, Harry Dresden accepts a job from his White Court acquaintance, Thomas Raith, to investigate a series of deaths on a pornography film set led by director Arturo Genosa. After an entropy curse arrives and almost kills two more people, Lara Raith, another White Court vampire, appears as a replacement actress, discovers Dresden''s presence, and soon decides to kill both Harry and Thomas for being involved. However, a surprise Black Court attack forces a truce between them and they flee to the Raith''s Chicago mansion for safety. There, Dresden learns that Thomas is his half-brother and escapes an assassination attempt by Lord Raith, Thomas'' and Lara''s father. Soon after, Dresden finds a pattern to the curses and prepares a counterattack, but one of Genosa''s ex-wives prevents him from saving the next target and frames him for the woman''s death. He escapes and works out that all of Genosa''s ex-wives are behind the curse, with Lord Raith supporting them. Before the next curse can be unleashed against him, Dresden calls upon Murphy to help him stop Lord Raith and maneuvers Lara to save them all from her father. At the same time, Harry has discovered a newly-established nest of Black Court vampires, led by a very old and dangerous vampire named Mavra. To wipe out the nest before it becomes entrenched, he enlists the help of his friend Karrin Murphy, the mercenary Jared Kincaid, and his mentor Ebenezar McCoy, but discovers that Kincaid and McCoy have already met. Despite almost getting blown up and burned to death, the crew successfully battle Mavra, destroy the nest, and rescue the children that had been taken as hostages. At the end, Thomas saves Harry by paying Kincaid''s fee using his entire savings.

Blood Rites

Aminata Diallo, an 11-year-old child, is taken from her village in West Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea in a coffle — a string of slaves. Eventually, she arrives in South Carolina where she begins a new life as a slave. Due to circumstantial events in her life, Aminata develops certain advantages other slaves do not: she possesses the skills of a midwife and learns how to read and write. Years later, she finds freedom, serving the British in the American Revolutionary War and having her name entered in the historic "Book of Negroes." This book, an actual historical document, is an archive of freed Loyalist slaves who requested permission to leave the United States in order to resettle in Nova Scotia, only to discover that this new place becomes one that is also oppressive and unyielding. Aminata eventually returns to Sierra Leone, passing ships carrying thousands of slaves bound for America, but eventually finds herself crossing the ocean one more time to England to present the account of her life so that it may abolish the slave trade.

The Book of Negroes

Bambi is a roe deer fawn born in a thicket to a young doe in late spring one year. Over the course of the summer, his mother teaches him about the various inhabitants of the forest and the ways deer live. When she feels he is old enough, she takes him to the meadow which he learns is both a wonderful but also dangerous place as it leaves the deer exposed and in the open. After some initial fear over his mother''s caution, Bambi enjoys the experience. On a subsequent trip, Bambi meets his Aunt Ena, and her twin fawns Faline and Gobo. They quickly become friends and share what they have learned about the forest. While they are playing, they encounter princes, male deer, for the first time. After the stags leave, the fawns learn that those were their fathers, but that the fathers rarely stay with or speak to the females and young. As Bambi grows older, his mother begins to leave him alone. While searching for her one day, Bambi has his first encounter with "He"—the animal''s term for humans—which terrifies him. The man raises a firearm and aims at him; Bambi flees at top speed, joined by his mother. After he is scolded by a stag for crying for his mother, Bambi gets used to being alone at times. He later learns the stag is called the old Prince, the oldest and largest stag in the forest who is known for his cunning and aloof nature. During the winter, Bambi meets Marena, a young doe, Nettla, an old doe who no longer bears young, and two princes Ronno and Karus. Mid-winter, hunters enter the forest, killing many animals including Bambi''s mother. Gobo also disappears and is presumed dead. After this, the novel skips ahead a year, noting that Bambi was cared for by Nettla, and that when he got his first set of antlers he was abused and harassed by the other males. It is summer and Bambi is now sporting his second set of antlers. He is reunited with Faline. After he battles and defeats first Karus then Ronno, Bambi and Faline express their love for one another. They spend a great deal of time together. During this time, the old Prince saves Bambi''s life when he nearly runs towards a hunter imitating a doe''s call. This teaches the young buck to be cautious about blindly rushing toward any deer''s call. During the summer, Gobo returns to the forest having been raised by a man who found him collapsed in the snow during the hunt where Bambi''s mother was killed. While his mother and Marena welcome him and celebrate him as a "friend" of man, the old Prince and Bambi pity him. Marena becomes his mate, but several weeks later Gobo is killed when he approaches a hunter in the meadow, falsely believing the halter he wore would keep him safe from all men. As Bambi continues to age, he begins spending most of his time alone, including avoiding Faline though he still loves her in a melancholy way. Several times he meets with the old Prince who teaches him about snares, shows him how to free another animal from one, and encourages him not to use trails to avoid the traps of men. When Bambi is later shot by a hunter, the Prince shows him how to walk in circles to confuse the man and his dogs until the bleeding stops, then takes him to a safe place to recover. They remain together until Bambi is strong enough to leave the safe haven again. When Bambi has grown gray and is "old", the old Prince shows him that man is not all powerful by showing him the dead body of a man who was shot and killed by another man. When Bambi confirms that he now understands that "He" is not all powerful, and that there is "Another" over all creatures, the stag tells him that he has always loved him and calls him "my son" before leaving to die. At the end of the novel, Bambi meets with twin fawns who are calling for their mother and he scolds them for not being able to stay alone. After leaving them, he thinks to himself that the girl fawn reminded him of Faline, and that the male was promising and that Bambi hoped to meet him again when he was grown.

Bambi, A Life in the Woods

Colonel John Patterson is to build a bridge in East Africa (later Kenya). While he is working on this, two man-eating lions show up. They will stop at nothing for a bite of human flesh and the first attempts to stalk, capture or keep them out of the camp fail. They attack the camp hospital and kill a patient. Even after the hospital is moved, one lion penetrates the thick, thorn fence called a boma built to protect it and drags the water carrier away to his death. In the course of hunting these lions, Patterson encounters a red spitting cobra, a rhinoceros, a hippopotamus, a pack of wild dogs, a wildebeest that faked dying, and a herd of zebra, of which he captured six. He also shoots a new type of antelope, T. Oryx Pattersonianus. Eventually, the first lion is defeated by baiting it with a tethered goat while Patterson keeps watch from an elevated stand – though for a few tense moments Patterson himself becomes the hunted. Patterson and Mahina hunt the second lion on the plains. When they find and shoot it, the lion charges them and it takes repeated shots to bring it down. The lions are not the only challenge to completing the bridge project. Tensions between native workers and Sikhs brought in from British East India to work on the project (coolies) threaten to stop the project. At one point, Patterson meets a danger far greater than the lions – a fierce flood. It wipes out the supply bridges and wraps iron girders around tree trunks like wire. Uprooted tree trunks act like battering rams trying to annihilate the bridge. But the well-built bridge stays intact. This challenge proves that the year spent working on the bridge has not been wasted. After Patterson completes the bridge, he learns that a lion has been trying to destroy the train station. When he goes to see, he finds big bloodstains where the lion was trying to slash the roof. There were 3 men in one compartment and an uncertain number of coolies in another. Two of the men had been sleeping on the floor when the lion gained entrance. The lion was on one of the men while trying to attack another. The third man, in an effort to get to the other section, which the coolies had been holding shut with their turbans, leapt on to the lion’s back, and tried desperately to get through. The coolies opened the door just wide enough for him to get through, and then tied it shut again. As for the other men, one got carried off and eaten by the lion, while the other man lay very still, probably saving his own life. Hearing this, Patterson decides to go after this lion, eventually finding it and slaughtering it. Another close encounter with a lion occurs when a lion is aboard a gharri, a means of transportation in Kenya similar to a small trolley. Another time, on the way back to the train station, Patterson converses with a friend who has never shot a lion. A couple of hundred yards away, Patterson points out a pair of lions and encourages the friend to shoot them. One runs off at the first shot, but he successfully bags the other lion. The end of the book includes a photo of the lion that the friend captured. When the time comes for Patterson to leave, some of the coolies and the natives want to go with him. However, Patterson knows that they do not have the immune defense system to combat the diseases outside of Africa. So he politely says no and leaves Africa for some years. (He later returns to Africa, but this part of his life is not recorded in this book.)

The Man-eaters of Tsavo

Blindness is the story of an unexplained mass epidemic of blindness afflicting nearly everyone in an unnamed city, and the social breakdown that swiftly follows. The novel follows the misfortunes of a handful of characters who are among the first to be stricken and centers on "the doctor''s wife," her husband, several of his patients, and assorted others, thrown together by chance. This group bands together in a family-like unit to survive by their wits and by the unexplained good fortune that the doctor’s wife has escaped the blindness. The sudden onset and unexplained origin and nature of the blindness cause widespread panic, and the social order rapidly unravels as the government attempts to contain the apparent contagion and keep order via increasingly repressive and inept measures. The first part of the novel follows the experiences of the central characters in the filthy, overcrowded asylum where they and other blind people have been quarantined. Hygiene, living conditions, and morale degrade horrifically in a very short period, mirroring the society outside. Anxiety over the availability of food, caused by delivery irregularities, acts to undermine solidarity; and lack of organization prevents the internees from fairly distributing food or chores. Soldiers assigned to guard the asylum and look after the well-being of the internees become increasingly antipathetic as one soldier after another becomes infected. The military refuse to allow in basic medicines, so that a simple infection becomes deadly. Fearing a break out, soldiers shoot down a crowd of internees waiting upon food delivery. Conditions degenerate further, as an armed clique gains control over food deliveries, subjugating their fellow internees and exposing them to rape and deprivation. Faced with starvation, internees do battle and burn down the asylum, only to find that the army has abandoned the asylum, after which the protagonists join the throngs of nearly helpless blind people outside who wander the devastated city and fight one another to survive. The story then follows the doctor''s wife, her husband, and their impromptu “family” as they attempt to survive outside, cared for largely by the doctor’s wife, who still sees (though she must hide this fact at first). The breakdown of society is near total. Law and order, social services, government, schools, etc., no longer function. Families have been separated and cannot find each other. People squat in abandoned buildings and scrounge for food; violence, disease, and despair threaten to overwhelm human coping. The doctor and his wife and their new “family” eventually make a permanent home and are establishing a new order to their lives when the blindness lifts from the city en masse just as suddenly and inexplicably as it struck.

Blindness

An elliptical region, including the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts and the United States Coast Guard ship Eagle, is transported by an unknown phenomenon (called "The Event") back in time to the Bronze Age circa 1250s BC (corresponding to the late Heroic Age of the Trojan War). As the truth of what has happened sinks in panic grips the island. Chief of Police Jared Cofflin is given emergency powers and begins organizing the people to help produce food for the island so they can feed themselves. Meanwhile Captain Marian Alston takes the Eagle to Britain, with Ian Arnstein and Doreen Rosenthal as interpreters, where they trade Nantucket made goods with the Iraiina, which translates as "Noble ones", a tribe that has been steadily invading the island, for grain. The Iraiina are just one of the many Sun People Tribes. As a gift the Iraiina chief gives Marian a slave, Swindapa, a captured female "Earth People" warrior. Swindapa is freed and decides to stay with Marian. The Eagle leaves for Nantucket but takes with them Isketerol, a Tartessian merchant who hopes to learn from the Americans. While the people of Nantucket work for their survival, William Walker, a lieutenant on the Eagle, decides that with modern technology he could become a king in this time. With the help of Isketerol and others, Walker convinces some naive environmentalists to steal a ship and kidnap Cofflin''s wife so they can give guns to Native Americans. Meanwhile Walker and Isketerol steal another ship and return to Britain to recruit soldiers for their eventual takeover of Greece. Marian decides to rescue Cofflin''s wife first and saves her after defeating an Olmec army. Time passes as Walker solidifies his control over the Sun People and Nantucket creates a new government and prepares to take down Walker. Marian returns to Britain with a small army and uses Swindapa, who has become her lover, to convince the Earth People to fight with them to defeat Walker. Both sides meet at the Battle of the Downs and though Nantucket and its allies are victorious, Walker manages to escape with his followers to Greece.

Island in the Sea of Time

Father Wolf and Mother Wolf (Raksha), a pair of Indian wolves raising a family of cubs, are furious to learn that Shere Khan the lame tiger is hunting in their part of the jungle because he might kill men and bring human retribution upon the jungle. But when Father Wolf hears something approaching their den it turns out not to be the tiger but a naked baby. Mother Wolf decides to adopt the hairless "man-cub". Her determination is only strengthened by the arrival of Shere Khan who demands the cub for his meal. The wolves drive off the tiger and Raksha names him Mowgli the Frog because of his hairlessness. At the wolf pack''s meeting at Council Rock Baloo the bear speaks for the man-cub and Bagheera the panther buys his life with a freshly killed bull. Baloo and Bagheera undertake the task of educating Mowgli as he grows. Meanwhile Shere Khan plans to take revenge on the wolf pack by persuading the younger wolves to depose their leader Akela. When Mowgli is about 11 or 12 Bagheera tells him of Shere Khan''s plan. Mowgli, being human, is the only creature in the jungle that does not fear fire, so he steals a pot of burning coals from a nearby village in order to use it against Shere Khan. The young wolves prevent Akela from catching his prey, and at that night''s meeting Shere Khan demands that Akela be killed and the man-cub given to him. Mowgli, despite being naked and unprotected, attacks Shere Khan with a burning branch and drives him and his allies away, but realises to his sorrow that he must now leave the pack and return to humanity. As he leaves he vows to return one day and lay Shere Khan''s hide upon the Council Rock. The story of Mowgli''s return to humanity is told in "Tiger! Tiger!" and continued in "Letting in the Jungle".

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Cat and Mouse

By Günter Grass

In the Garden of Papa Santuzzu

No Author Listed

The Genocides

By Thomas M. Disch

The Maracot Deep

By Arthur Conan Doyle

World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability

By Amy Chua

Blood Rites

By Jim Butcher

The Book of Negroes

By Lawrence Hill

Bambi, A Life in the Woods

By Felix Salten

The Man-eaters of Tsavo

By John Henry Patterson

Blindness

By José Saramago

Island in the Sea of Time

By S. M. Stirling

Mowgli's Brothers

By Rudyard Kipling