The story is set in Eskibahçe, a small fictional village in southwestern coastal Anatolia during the 1900s, spanning World War I and the era of Turkish nationalism. The Battle of Gallipoli takes place halfway through the novel. Although fiction, the setting of Eskibahçe is based upon Kayaköy (Greek: Levissi Λεβισσι) village near Fethiye, the ruins of which still exist today. Once a thriving Greek village, this town of over one thousand houses, two churches, fourteen chapels, and two schools, was completely deserted in 1923 when the Greek inhabitants living there, along with a vast number of Greeks living throughout Turkey were deported to Greece through a massive government mandated population exchange between the two countries following the Turkish war of independence. Historically, Turks and Greeks had lived together in this region for centuries, the Turks as farmers in the Kaya valley and the Greeks living on the hillside dealing in crafts and trades. A Greek presence in this region goes back for centuries. Since then, the village of Kayakoy, as it is called in Turkish, or Karmylassos, as it was called in Greek, which had been continually inhabited since at least the 13th century, has stood empty and crumbling, with only the breeze from the mountains and mist from the sea blowing through its empty houses and streets. Attempts by the Turkish government to get Turks deported from Greece to inhabit the village failed, and eventually, in the 1950s, the roofs of all the houses were removed. Some of its characters are also present in the author''s earlier novel Captain Corelli''s Mandolin. The book includes a vivid and detailed description of the horrors of life in the trenches during World War I.

Birds Without Wings

Flora, Ruby, Olivia and Nikki are expecting new neighbors to move into Row House number 2, formerly occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Willet. The girls are very much exited to hear that the Hamiltons, the new neighbors, have two children. One of them is Willow and the other is her younger brother, Cole. Willow seems to be a perfect person for the group of friends. But there is a big problem - Willow doesn''t seem to want to be friends. But Flora thinks she has a secret and doesn''t want to reveal it. This particular secret is obviously related to the erratic and senseless behavior of Mrs. Hamilton, Willow''s mother. There are also other things going on in Camden Falls, the little town in Massachusetts. Nikki and a friend at the animal shelter are making a dog parade. Money collected on the parade goes for abandoned dogs. Meanwhile, there''s a mystery at Aunt Allie''s house. Ruby and Flora had found a closet full of baby''s clothes at their aunt''s abode. Since Allie hadn''t yet married, let alone had a baby, the sisters grow suspicious. The next time, Ruby visits her aunt for a sleepover. She does her part snooping and finds a photograph with an attractive young man, but leaves it as Aunt Allie had caught Detective Ruby in the act. And Olivia also gets a boyfriend. Ruby and her friends Lacey and Hilary are going trick-or-treating. They can''t decide what to wear! Flora, Min and Gigi had tailored costumes for the trio - the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. But then the three girls had changed their minds so often that they ended up wearing costumes as ''Still Life'' which was Ruby''s idea. Ruby, Lacey and Hilary made these costumes: a bunch of grapes, a banana and a pear. Even though they had very little confidence in these costumes, it turned out to be a big success.

Keeping Secrets

"National Velvet" is the story of a 14-year-old girl named Velvet Brown, who rides her horse to victory in the Grand National steeplechase. The horse which Velvet trains and rides in the Grand National is named The Piebald, because it is piebald colour. The novel focuses on the ability of ordinary persons, particularly women, to accomplish great things. Velvet is a teenager in the late 1920s, living in a small English coastal village in Sussex, dreaming of one day owning many horses. She is a high-strung, nervous child with a delicate stomach. Her mother is a wise, taciturn woman who was once famous for swimming the English Channel; her father is a butcher. Her best friend is her father''s assistant, Mi (Michael) Taylor, whose father – as Mrs. Brown''s swimming coach – helped her cross the channel. Mi formerly worked in stables and is familiar with the horse racing world. One day they both watch The Pie jump over a five-foot-high cobbled fence to get out of a field. Mi says, in passing, that "a horse like that''d win the National". Velvet becomes obsessed with winning the horse in an upcoming raffle and riding him to greatness. In addition to inheriting several horses from one of her father''s customers, a man who left them to her in his will, Velvet actually does win her dream horse. After riding him in a local gymkhana, she and Mi become serious about entering the Grand National steeplechase at Aintree racecourse and train the Piebald accordingly. Mi uses his connections to the horse training/racing world and obtains a fake clearance document for Velvet in the name of James Tasky, a Russian jockey. Velvet wins, but slides off after the winning-post due to exhaustion, and her sex is discovered in the first-aid station. The racing world is both dismayed and fascinated by a young girl''s winning its toughest race. Velvet and The Pie become instant celebrities, with Velvet and her family nearly drowning in notoriety (echoing her mother''s unsought fame after swimming the English Channel), complete with merchandising. Velvet strongly objects to the publicity, saying The Piebald is a creature of glory who shouldn''t be cheapened in tabloid trash and newsreels. She insists that she did not win the race, the horse did, and she simply wanted to see him go down in history. The National Hunt Committee finds no evidence of fraud, exonerates all involved, and Velvet and her family return to their ordinary lives; or rather, Velvet goes on "to her next adventures", for clearly she is a person to whom great things happen. The novel was made into a more or less faithful, highly successful film version in 1944, starring twelve-year-old Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney, with Donald Crisp, Anne Revere and a young Angela Lansbury. In 2008 the film was voted the ninth best American film in the sports genre. From 1960 to 1962, there was a half-hour B&W American television series, with Lori Martin, Ann Doran and James McCallion. In this version her horse was named King. This aired on NBC for 54 episodes. A 1978 film sequel, International Velvet, was made starring Tatum O''Neal as Sarah Brown, a young orphaned American teenager living in England with her aunt Velvet Brown (Nanette Newman) after Sarah''s parents die in a car accident. Sarah and Velvet purchase the descendant of The Pie after Sarah earns the money by working for Velvet''s boyfriend John. They name him Arizona Pie after Sarah''s home state. Working with Arizona Pie, Sarah is selected to represent Britain in the equine Three-Day Olympic Event. While working with the horse with trainer Capt Johnson (Anthony Hopkins), she falls for an American competitor, Scott Saunders (Jeffrey Byron). Though distracted by him, she wins the event. Later, after getting engaged to Scott, Sarah returns to England and presents the medal to her aunt Velvet as a keepsake and introduces her and John to Scott.

National Velvet

Major Palfrey is off to war. He warns his two daughters, Dinah and Dorinda, that while he is away they must behave themselves: "When there is wind on the moon, you must be very careful how you behave. Because if it is an ill wind and you behave badly, it will blow straight into your heart, and then you will behave badly for a long time to come." And so it proves: before long the girls are drinking a potion provided by the local witch and turning into kangaroos, getting stuck in the zoo, and staging an escape along with their new friends, a golden puma and a silver falcon. Their appetite for naughtiness and cleverness whetted, Dinah and Dorinda turn their attention to freeing their dancing master, Casimir Corvo, from jail. And then comes their greatest adventure: Count Hulagu Bloot, the tyrant of Bombardy – who loves torturing people and eating peppermint creams – has captured their father and imprisoned him in the dungeons of Bloot''s castle. The two girls, together with their puma friend and their beloved dancing teacher, smuggle themselves from England to Bombardy in a room made of furniture hidden inside a huge removal van and stage a dramatic rescue.

The Wind on the Moon

The plot centers on Gang, a gang of four boys who play War, led by "the Best Father". All boys envy Andrew for having such a nice dad, while Paul''s father is considered "the worst father", a reputation he was never able to shake off, after having told off Andrew''s father for neglecting an accident that involved Matthew falling out of a tree. However, their revenge on Paul''s father has to make way quickly for a much more serious operation. When Matthew dies of meningitis, and Andrew''s father mentions the fact that Matthew''s grandparents did not take him to the doctor''s in time, the three boys decide to take revenge on them, blaming them for the death of their gang member. Matthew''s grandparents, who became substitute parents for him and his sister Miranda, when their parents died in a car crash, are touched by the boys'' helpful attitude towards them, and welcome them in their home, not knowing that they''re the worst enemy they''ll ever know. By then, Andrew, Paul and Peter have started calling them "the Dinosaurs", and their only goal is to "have them extinct by Christmas". A horrific battle ensues, and while Andrew and Paul start fighting for the leadership of Gang, things get out of control.

Deadkidsongs

The story takes place on Trantor during the reign of Emperor Cleon I. It starts with Hari''s presentation of a paper at a mathematics convention detailing how practical use of psychohistory might theoretically be possible. The Emperor of the Galactic Empire learns of this and wants to use Hari for political gain. After an interview with Hari, however, Cleon concludes that Hari is of no use to the Empire. Hari then meets reporter Chetter Hummin, who convinces him that Cleon''s first minister Eto Demerzel is attempting to capture him, and that it is therefore imperative for Hari to escape and to try to make psychohistory practical. Thus, Hari goes on his "Flight" and is introduced to Dors Venabili by Hummin. Hari and Dors narrowly evade capture at Streeling University, following which the pair move to Mycogen. Hari and Dors are welcomed to Mycogen by Sunmaster Fourteen, the leader of Mycogen. Determined to work out his psychohistory with the knowledge that the Mycogenians supposedly possess, Hari decides to speak to a Mycogenian alone about history. He manages this by convincing Raindrop Forty-three to show him the prized Mycogenian microfarms, a prized source of food for the aristocracy and Mycogenians alike. When Hari inquires about that the peculiar Mycogenian ways might be the product of religious belief, Raindrop Forty-three is offended and says that the Mycogenians have something better: History. Hari inquires into the source of Mycogenian history and Raindrop Forty-three reveals that it is encompassed in "The book". Hari asks for the book but Raindrop Forty-three accepts on the condition that Hari allows her to touch his hair; (hair being expressively forbidden in Mycogenian society). When Hari starts reading the book, he finds it disappointing except for the revealing of what the Mycogenians call their home planet, Aurora. Hari and Dors are almost killed when they try to find what they suspect is a robot in the Mycogenian "temple" until Hummin arrives in the nick of time to save them. The action then shifts to the Dahl sector, where Dors displays her amazing knife fighting skills. While in Dahl they meet a guttersnipe named Raych (whom Hari later adopts as his son), and Yugo Amaryl (who would become Hari''s partner in developing psychohistory). Towards the end of the novel, Hari, Dors, and Raych are kidnapped by agents from Wye, a powerful sector situated at Trantor''s south pole. The finale reveals that "Hummin" is actually Cleon''s first minister Eto Demerzel, who we later learn is in fact the robot R. Daneel Olivaw. By the end of the novel, Hari suspects that Dors is a robot, too. This theme would later be picked up in Forward the Foundation.

Prelude to Foundation

In 2075, teenager Matt Dodson applies to join the prestigious Space Patrol. After a number of physical, mental, and ethical tests, he is accepted as a cadet. He makes friends with fellow recruits William ''Tex'' Jarman, Venus-born Oscar Jensen, and Pierre Armand from Ganymede. His first roommate is Girard Burke, the arrogant son of a wealthy spaceship builder. They are transported to the orbiting school ship PRS James Randolph for further training. Burke eventually either resigns or is asked to leave, and goes into the merchant service, but the remainder do well enough to be assigned to working Patrol ships. Dodson, Jarman and Jensen ship out on the Aes Triplex. Their first real mission is to help search for a missing research vessel, the Pathfinder, in the Asteroid Belt. They find it, but all aboard are dead, the unlucky victims of a fast-moving meteor that punctured the ship when the armored outer airlock door was open. Before the accident, a researcher on the Pathfinder had found evidence that the planet which blew up to form the asteroids was inhabited by an intelligent species, and that the explosion had been artificial. The captain of the Aes Triplex transfers half the crew to the repaired Pathfinder so that they can take the ship and the news of the startling discovery back to Earth quickly. With the remainder (including all three cadets), he continues his patrol. Then, he receives an urgent message to investigate an incident on Venus. He sends Lieutenant Thurlow and the cadets to the planet''s surface. The lander touches down on a sinkhole, barely giving the crew enough time to get out before it disappears in the mud. With Thurlow comatose, injured when the lander fell over, Jensen assumes command. He contacts the sentient usually-friendly Venerians, but the entire party is taken captive. They soon find out why. These particular natives had never seen human beings before, until old classmate Burke showed up in a prospecting ship. He had taken the matriarch of the local clan hostage when she refused to give him permission to exploit a rich deposit of radioactive ores. The locals promptly attacked the ship and killed his crew; Burke managed to send a message for help before being taken prisoner. Jensen skillfully gains the matriarch''s trust and convinces her that they are honorable and civilized, unlike Burke, and the Patrolmen are released. Neither the lander nor Burke''s ship is flightworthy. To their amazement, she takes the stranded humans to the carefully preserved Astarte, the legendary first ship to set out for Venus over a century before and thought to have been lost en route. According to the log, the crew perished from disease. With the help of the natives, the cadets recommission the ship and fly it back to (human) civilization at Venus''s South Pole colony. Dodson is initially disappointed when they are not treated as heroes—but then he realizes that what they accomplished was simply what was expected of Patrolmen.

Space Cadet

From diary-style notes and personal memories and conversations, the fictive narrator Reverend Busch reconstructs and documents the stepwise fall of his missing friend, the teacher Konrad Zündel. During many summer weeks, the life of the depressive, intellectual, quixotic protagonist is destroyed step by step. In the reader’s eyes, Zündel simply suffers one mishap after another, but for the unstable teacher - that says, he never was happy in his life - these mishaps lead into mania and into the planning and execution of his departure. Konrad Zündel and his wife Magda, whose relationship after five years breaks down because of everyday things, decide to spend their holidays separately. While Magda spends some days with her friend Helen, Konrad decides to visit Greece. But in Italy, he suddenly loses an incisor and travels back to Switzerland per train. While travelling, his wallet gets stolen and he, into the bargain, finds a severed finger on the train closet. This severed finger’s origins and meaning never are explained. In his Swiss flat, the caretaker denotes, Magda did something with another man. Later, this statement turns out to be a lie – but the thought of losing his wife throws Zündel out of his way. He travels to Genua, where he once was sired by a Swiss sick-nurse and an irresponsible globetrotter. In Genua, he is drunken nearly all the time and tries to write down his philosophical – often cynic – gnosis. It is about – like the whole novel – the relation between Konrad and Magda, between man and woman, between womanhood and manhood. The guilty for his departure, due to Magda, who represent the totality of all women, who destroy men with their will to self-actualization. Zündel has two important meetings in Genua: In a bar, he meets Serafin (not only his name reminds angels) a Spanish sailor with an Austrian dialect. The two men are constating a relation between their souls – and leave each other. Not less surreal is the meeting with the French woman Nounou; Zündel spends a night with her, again discovering relation of souls. He leaves her in dawn, before the situation would necessitate hundred knives to separate us. After these two meetings, Zündel wants to fulfil the main goal of his voyage: Getting an illegal handgun. This plan shipwrecks, too. Because of his naivety and gentleman''s style, Zündel is frauded. Afterwards, he travels home. Extremely confused, undernutrited and now heavily addicted to alcohol, he enters the flat, where the distressed Magda has expected his return for days. A normal conversation, that would clear these misunderstandings (e.g. the not existing lover), isn''t possible, because Zündel now is mentally ill. The next morning, the teacher Zündel only gives another two lessons, which turn out to be very strange. Then he breaks down in school, is brought to the hospital and then to mental clinic. The psychiatrists fail in making a diagnosis. Zündel escapes from the clinic to his weekend house in the mountains, where he hides armed and dangerous. The narrator, Busch, is the last person who is able to get close to him, before he departs finally.

Zündels Abgang

The enchanted castle of the title is a country estate in the West Country seen through the eyes of three children, Gerald, James and Kathleen, who discover it while exploring during the school holidays. The lake, groves and marble statues, with white towers and turrets in the distance, make a fairy-tale setting, and then in the middle of the maze in the rose garden they find a sleeping fairy-tale princess. The "princess" tells them that the castle is full of magic, and they almost believe her. She shows them the treasures of the castle, including a ring she says is a ring of invisibility, but when it actually turns her invisible she panics and admits that she is the housekeeper''s niece, Mabel, and was just play-acting. The children soon discover that the ring has other magical powers. The Enchanted Castle was written for both children and adults. It combines descriptions of the imaginative play of children, reminiscent of The Story of the Treasure Seekers, with a magic more muted than in her major fantasies such as The Story of the Amulet.

The Enchanted Castle

The Bone People, published in 1984, is an unusual story of love. The differences are in the way of telling, the subject matter, and the form of love that the story writes on. This is in no way a romance; it is rather filled with violence, fear, and twisted emotions. At the story''s core, however, are three people who struggle very hard to figure out what love is and how to find it. The book is divided into two major sections, the first involving the characters interacting together, and the second half involving their individual travels. In the first half, 7-year-old Simon shows up at the hermit Kerewin’s tower on a gloomy and stormy night. Simon is mute and thus is unable to explain his motives. When Simon’s adoptive father Joe arrives to pick him up in the morning, Kerewin get to know their curious story. Simon was found washed up on the beach years earlier with no memory and very few clues as to his identity. Joe and his wife Hana take in Simon, despite his mysterious background, and attempt to raise him. However, subsequently both Hana and their infant son die of flu, forcing Joe to bring the wild boy Simon up on his own. At the same time Kerewin finds herself developing a relationship with the two the boy and the father, becoming more connected to their live circumstances and stories. Gradually it becomes clear that Simon is a severely traumatised orphan, whose strange behaviours Joe is unable to cope with. Kerewin eventually figures out that, in spite of a constant and intense love between them, Joe is physically abusing Simon. Following a catalyst event, the three are driven violently apart. Simon witnesses a violent death and seeks Kerewin out, but she is angry with him for stealing some of her possessions and will not listen. Simon reacts by kicking in the side of her guitar, a much prized gift from her estranged family, whereupon she yells at him to disappear. After that he goes to the town and breaks a series of shop windows, and when he is returned home by the police, Joe beats him half to death. However, Simon has concealed a piece of glass and stabs his father with it. This results in hospitalisation for both. In the second half of the novel, Joe is being sent to prison for child abuse, Simon is still in the hospital, and Kerewin is seriously and inexplicably ill. Consequently Simon''s wardship is being taken from Joe. Joe finds an old spiritual man dying and through him learns the possible identity of Simon''s father. Simon is sent to a children''s home, and Kerewin deconstructs her tower and leaves with the expectation to be dead within the year. All three have to overcome life-changing happenings, strongly interlaced with Maori mythology and legend. Kerewin adopts Simon, to keep him close to her and Joe, who is out of prison again. Meanwhile Joe is able to contact Kerewin''s family and bring them back for reconciliation. The final scene of the novel depicts the reunion of the three main characters Kerewin, Simon and Joe, who are all celebrating some unnamed occasion back at the beach where Kerewin has rebuilt her home, this time in the shape of a shell with many twists. This house makes Joe laugh as he finds all their family in various states of rest in the shell as he makes his way to the beach. It is not certain that Joe, Kerewin, and Simon will remain together, but they are together on the beach at the end of the book. Caveat: it is not certain that the end of the book is not just a fantasy.

The Bone People

In Capital Crimes, Will Lee finds himself in the middle of a tangled web of intrigue and danger, politics and power. Now at the pinnacle of his career, serving as president of the United States, Lee is faced with a most unusual task-that of marshaling federal law enforcement agencies to catch an assassin who is picking off some of the nation''s high-level politicos. When a prominent conservative politician with a shady reputation is expertly killed at his lakeside cabin, authorities can come up with no suspects and even less hard evidence. But then, within days, two other, seemingly isolated deaths-achieved by very different means-are feared linked to the same ruthless murderer. With the help of his CIA director wife, Kate Rule Lee, Will trails the most clever and professional of killers before he can strike again. From a quiet D.C. suburb to the corridors of power to a deserted island hideaway, Will, Kate, and maverick FBI agent Robert Kinney track their man and set a trap with extreme caution and care-and await the most dangerous kind of quarry, a killer with a cause to die for.

Capital Crimes

Set against the backdrop of the days preceding Britain declaring war on Germany, the main character is George Harvey Bone, a lonely borderline alcoholic who suffers from a split personality. He is obsessed with gaining the affections of Netta, a failed actress and one of George''s circle of "friends" with whom he drinks. Netta is repelled by George but, being greedy and manipulative, she and a mutual acquaintance, Peter, shamelessly exploit George''s advances to extract money and drink from him. George suffers from ''dead moods'' in which he is convinced he must kill Netta for the way she treats him. Upon recovering from these interludes, he cannot remember them. However outside these he embarks on several adventures, trying in vain to win Netta''s affections, including a ''romantic'' trip to Brighton which goes horribly wrong (Netta brings Peter and a previously unknown man with whom she has sex in the hotel room next to George''s). Apart from being a source of money and alcohol, Netta''s other reason for continuing to associate with George is because of Johnnie. He is one of George''s long-time friends who works for a theatrical agent, and Netta hopes that through him she will get to meet Eddie Carstairs, a powerful figure in the theatre. However in a final reversal of fortune it is George, not Netta, who ends up attending a party amongst the theatrical great and good whilst Netta is cast aside by Eddie who (unlike George) has immediately seen her for the unpleasant person she is. George suddenly realises what it is like to be surrounded by ''kind'' people who are interested in him as a person rather than what he can provide. This potentially promising turn of events in George''s life is, however, dashed, when he suddenly clicks into a dead mood and resumes his murder plans. He executes his murder of Netta (and also of Peter, whom the narrative describes as a ''fascist'' moments before he is murdered) before escaping to Maidenhead. Throughout the novel, Maidenhead represents for George a semi-mythical new beginning, and representing a picture of traditional Englishness in contrast to the seaminess of Earl''s Court. However, in the closing pages of the novel the stark fallacy of that dream becomes apparent to George. It is the same as everywhere else. Now penniless, he gasses himself in a dingy Maidenhead boarding house.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Birds Without Wings

By Louis de Bernières

Keeping Secrets

No Author Listed

National Velvet

By Enid Bagnold

The Wind on the Moon

By Eric Linklater

Deadkidsongs

By Toby Litt

Prelude to Foundation

By Isaac Asimov

Space Cadet

By Robert A. Heinlein

Zündels Abgang

By Markus Werner

The Enchanted Castle

By E. Nesbit

The Bone People

By Keri Hulme

Capital Crimes

By Stuart Woods

Hangover Square

By Patrick Hamilton