:The first chapter of this novel is a short story titled "The Stoker". The story describes the bizarre wanderings of a sixteen-year-old European emigrant named Karl Roßmann in the United States, who was forced to go to New York to escape the scandal of his seduction by a housemaid. As the ship arrives in USA, he becomes friends with a stoker who is about to be dismissed from his job. Karl identifies with the stoker and decides to help him; together they go to see the captain of the ship. In a surreal turn of events, Karl''s uncle, Senator Jacob, is in a meeting with the captain. Karl does not know that Senator Jacob is his uncle, but Mr. Jacob recognizes him and takes him away from the stoker. Karl stays with his uncle for some time but is later abandoned by him after making a visit to his uncle''s friend without his uncle''s full approval. Wandering aimlessly, he becomes friends with two drifters named Robinson and Delamarche. They promise to find him a job, but Karl departs from them on bad terms after he''s offered a job by a manageress at Hotel Occidental. He works there as a lift-boy but is fired one day after Robinson shows up drunk at his work asking him for money. Robinson, in turn, gets injured after fighting with some of the lift-boys. Being dismissed, Karl leaves the hotel with Robinson to Delamarche''s place. Once there, a police officer tries to chase him, but he gets away after Delamarche saves him. Delamarche now works for a wealthy, and quite obese lady named Brunelda. She wants to take in Karl as her servant. Karl refuses, but Delamarche physically forces him to stay. He decides to stay but looks for a good opportunity to escape. One day he sees an advertisement for the Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, which is looking for employees. The theatre promises to find employment for everyone and Karl is taken in by this. Karl applies for a job and gets engaged as a "technical worker". He is then sent to Oklahoma by train and is welcomed by the vastness of the valleys.

Amerika

When "Alice" (parenthesized since that is not her real name) was ten years old, she went on a field trip with her class to an aquarium. While she was there, she got into a fight with her friends because she wouldn''t share the lip gloss that she had received from her parents on her birthday. Due to this fight, her friends wander off, leaving her alone. She then loses her class and is approached by a man. He says that her class has gone to see a movie and that he will take her there. He gives her a hat and tells her to tuck her hair into it, and then leads her out of the zoo. He tells her that the lady at the front thought she was his son. He laughs, and then abducts the young girl. This book takes place five years after "Alice''s" abduction. She is now 15, and is still living with Ray, her abductor. They now portray father and daughter, though they have no connections to anyone in the outside world. During this time, he has deprived her of food, hoping that this will keep her frozen in her childlike body, has tried to dress her in childlike clothing, and has raped her daily since the day he kidnapped her.She now refers to herself as the "Living Dead Girl." She is numb on the inside and is looking forward to the day when Ray will finally kill her like he did with the "Other Alice." The "Other Alice" is the girl that he had abducted before our present-day Alice. He had kept her until she was fifteen and had outgrown her childlike body. He then killed her and dumped her body, where it was later found, but he had never been suspected with her abduction or murder. It is implied that the First Alice tried to commit suicide with a razor while taking a shower alone (this is the reason the second Alice is not allowed to take showers by herself.) Alice now hopes for death, rather than for escape. Since the day he had taken her, he had threatened that if she ever ran from him, or made one false move, he would kill her parents. She has been brainwashed with his fear and says "I could run, but he would find me. He would take me back to 623 Daisy Lane and make everyone who lives there pay. He would make everyone there pay even if he didn''t find me. I belong to him. I''m his little girl. All I have to do is be good" (p.&nbsp;34). So she "stays in line" even though she is left at their apartment alone all day while he is at work, and even goes to get waxes done by herself. So she sees no hope in ever returning to her home, and now wishes for death. However, Ray has other plans in mind. He tells Alice he wants her to find him "A New Alice." At first, Alice hopes that if she does, he will then free her, or at least finally take her life, but instead Ray tells her that she will train the new Alice to his liking. So Alice takes trips down to the park where Ray had taken her once before and watches the young girls that play there. She writes down in a little notebook the different girls, what they do, and what they look like. She returns to Ray and he asks her to tell him all about these little girls. On one of her trips there, she meets Lucy, a young girl who likes to swing. After Lucy tells Alice that she doesn''t like her, Alice decides in anger that Lucy will be the one to replace her. Alice then meets Lucy''s older brother, Jake, a troubled teenager who "pops pills." Alice returns to his car and performs a sexual act to try to get some information from him about Lucy. She finds out a little information about the girls hobbies and schedule. Before she leaves, she also meets a police officer who has a feeling that Alice is in trouble. However, Alice knows that Police only cause her trouble with Ray, so she refuses to call for help. When Ray accuses Alice of lying to him about the Lucy''s where abouts Alice becomes confused as Jake told her that she would be at swimming. In the end, after being punished for Lucy not being at the park, Alice returns later at six at night and finds Lucy standing in the park. She tries to tell her to run, but Ray appears and grasps Lucy by the arm. Alice collects her remaining life in her hollow body and shouts for Lucy to run. Ray gets so angry he tries to strangle and tear the flesh out of Alice, but is shot twice by Jake. Alice says with the final words of the book being "I Am Free".

Living Dead Girl

Dr. Conway must deal with an unconscious patient, classification ELPH, who may be a cannibal or a demigod, or both. It came from the "other galaxy", and the species is well known, almost infamous, to the Ians, who are also from another galaxy. It is extremely long-lived, and regularly takes complete rejuvenation treatments, including the brain and memory, to keep itself young. By doing this, it is practically immortal. It, although unconscious, appeared to have the ability to negate the most powerful drugs and resist surgery to cure its skin condition. This later turned out to be the work of the entity''s "doctor", who is an intelligent, organized collection of microscopic, virus-type cells. Once Doctor Conway realizes this, he uses a wooden stake to make the ELPH''s doctor focus itself in one small location, at which time it is removed from the ELPH, informed regarding the physiology-problems of its patient, and put back in. The patient, whose name is Lonvellin, quickly makes a full recovery, and it leaves to do what it does best: bona fide missions that involve taking backwards planetary cultures and pulling them up "by their bootstraps". His particular mission, this time, is to cure a diseased planet called Etla, and he recruits Dr. Conway and the "Monitor Corps" to help him. When The Empire that controls the Planet of Etla misinterprets Lonvellin''s efforts as an Act of War, the Empire declares war on the Sector General space hospital. Conway helps organise the evacuation of most of the station''s staff and patients, and following the death or injury of more senior staff, becomes the most senior surviving physician. After a brutal series of attacks, and with the hospital on the brink of defeat, a group of Federation and Empire soldiers convince Conway to help in a mutiny against the Federation commander Dermod. The Empire soldiers had been told that the Federation had attacked Etla, rather than trying to help it, but seeing the way all casualties were treated equally on the station, and in particular witnessing Conway breaking down after failing to save the life of an alien Empire soldier, convinced them that they had been lied to.

Star Surgeon

Dark Prince introduces the Carpathians, a powerful and ancient race. They have many gifts, including the ability to shape-shift, and extended life spans, living well over many years. Though they feed on human blood, they don''t kill their human prey, and for the most part live among them without detection. Despite their gifts, the Carpathians are on the edge of extinction. There have been few children born to them in the past few centuries, those that have been born are all male and often die in the first year. It has been more than 500 years since a female has been born. Without females, many of the males are turning, becoming vampires, the monsters of human legend. After 200 years, a male Carpathian loses the ability to feel emotions and see in color. These will only return to him when he finds his lifemate, the other half of his soul. Mikhail Dubrinsky, Prince of the Carpathians, has worked tirelessly for centuries to discover why so many of their children die in the first years. However, his efforts have come to no avail. It is at this time, when he is on the brink of despair and self-destruction that he meets a beautiful human psychic, Raven Whitney. Raven is a strong telepath, and has worked with the police to capture four serial killers. But her gift has come with a price: a life of isolation, and pain whenever she uses her gift. When he meets her, he is shocked and amazed when he suddenly is able to see colors in her presence; he realizes that she is his lifemate. Despite his joy, there is doubt in his mind. No human woman has ever been a lifemate to a Carpathian. All human females who were converted had become deranged creatures, feeding on children and had to be destroyed. But he knows she is the only woman for him, the other half of his soul. He is determined to live as a human with her and to die when she does. However, this is not to be. Raven is attacked by fanatics, and he is forced to convert her to save her life. Her survival brings new hope to him and his people, for if one psychic human female can be a lifemate, surely there are others.

Dark Prince

The novel opens on the day when over seven hundred Men of the Boar from many islands gather together, summoned by the chief Nectan. Nectan puts forth the proposal that the warriors should no longer fight the Roman raiders, but retreat when they approach, as the tribe''s very existence is threatened by their losses. The Chief Druid strongly opposes the idea, saying they must continue to fight; he declares it a matter of faith, and therefore his domain, directly challenging Nectan''s leadership. Coll is convinced that his idea of a high circular drystone stronghold, designed to be impregnable, is a third way. He has been developing the idea, drawing plans and building models, since he was five, when a Roman raider killed his father, abducted his mother and shattered Coll''s leg, crippling him. However, none of the elders will listen to him. Taran arrives, introducing himself as a member of the tribe who was seized for a slave when he was twelve, and recently escaped by killing his master. He is welcomed, but it soon appears that he has a desire for power, seeking first to ingratiate himself with the chief''s daughter, and then plotting with the Druids and the chiefs of the Raven and the Deer. Coll''s brother Bran, who lives with the Druids, is torn between the two camps. The struggle between Nectan and Domnall for mastery of the tribe culminates in Domnall choosing Nectan''s daughter Fand for a human sacrifice. Coll, who loves Fand, takes the advice of Bran on how to stop the sacrifice, believing that he will die in her place. In fact it is Bran who dies, fulfilling the prophecy made about him when he was a baby, and devastating Domnall who loved him like a son. In the wake of these events, Coll is given leave to build his Stronghold. The whole tribe works long and hard to build the 8-storey structure, and it is ready just before the first raid of the summer. The warriors prepare to defend it while the other tribespeople go into hiding. The first assault is repulsed, though Domnall is downed while shouting curses in Latin at the Romans. Taran, who also knows Latin, takes his place, but though pretending to curse, actually advises the Romans to make a second attack overland. When Taran''s treachery is exposed, Coll devises a plan to trap the Romans which is extremely successful. His Stronghold is vindicated and plans are made to build more, all over the islands.

The Stronghold

The book begins with a quote from Melissa Etheridge, saying: "The story you are about to read is the story of a light-bringer....Salman Ahmad inspires me to reach always for the greatest heights and never to fear....Know that his story is a part of our history." The book tells a life story of Pakistan-born Salman Ahmad, who pioneered &#34;Sufi rock&#34; by marrying his teenage love of Led Zeppelin&#39;s sinuously behemoth riffs to the ecstatic vocal acrobatics of the millennia-old qawwali style of singing common to Pakistan, fronts Junoon (&#34;passion&#34;), the most revered rock band in all of South Asia for the past two decades. Facing down angry mullahs and oppressive dictators who wanted all music to be banned from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Salman Ahmad rocketed to the top of the music charts, bringing Westernstyle rock and pop to Pakistani teenagers for the first time. His band Junoon became the &#39;U2 of Asia&#39;, a sufi rock group that broke boundaries and sold a record number of albums. But Ahmad&#39;s story began in New York, where he spend his high school years rocking out in Tappan, New York. That dream seemed destined to die when his family returned to Pakistan and Ahmad was forced to follow the strictures of a newly religious. After finishing medical school he devotes his life to peace, love, and power chords as the first true Muslim rock star. &#34;Mine was a sort of Sex Pistols situation in reverse,&#34; he writes. &#34;I wanted to unite and heal the divisions in the Third World,&#34; not &#34;punch conservative British nationalism and the First World Order in the gut.&#34; It didn&#39;t hurt that the process included random encounters with Mick Jagger, Bono, and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who later named Ahmad UNAIDS Goodwill ambassador. Today, Ahmad continues to play music and is also a UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador, traveling the world as a spokesperson and using the lessons he learned as a musical pioneer to help heal the wounds between East and West; lessons he shares in this illuminating memoir.

Rock & Roll Jihad: A Muslim Rock Star''s Revolution

The story is set in rural Shropshire shortly after the Napoleonic Wars. It is narrated by the central character, Prue Sarn, whose life is blighted by having a harelip. Only the weaver, Kester Woodseaves, perceives the beauty of her character, but Prue cannot believe herself worthy of him. Her brother Gideon is overridingly ambitious to attain wealth and power, regardless of who suffers while he does so. Gideon is set to wed his sweetheart Jancis, but he incurs the wrath of her father, the cruel and scheming self-proclaimed wizard Beguildy. An act of vengeance by Beguildy makes Gideon reject Jancis and tragedy overwhelms them both. Prue is wrongly accused of murder and set upon by a mob, but Kester defies them and carries Prue away to the happiness she believed she could never possess because of her harelip. The title of the story is from John Milton''s Paradise Lost: :Let none admire :That riches grow in Hell; that Soyle may best :Deserve the precious bane. It refers to the love of money, which, as Prue records, blights love and destroys life.

Precious Bane

Painter Claude Lantier advocates painting real subjects in real places, most notably outdoors. This is in stark contrast to the artistic establishment, where artists painted in the studio and concentrated on mythological, historical and religious subjects. His art making is revolutionary and he has a small circle of like-minded friends equally intent on shaking up the art world and challenging the establishment. His best friends are his childhood comrades Pierre Sandoz, novelist and Louis Dubuche, an architect. Like Zola, Sandoz contemplates a series of novels about a family based in science and incorporating modern people and everyday lives. Dubuche is not half as bold as Claude and, although a painter, finds music to be his passion. He chooses a more conventional course, opting for the security of a middle-class life and a bourgeois marriage. Sandoz also pursues marriage - not for love but stability and to better understand what he is writing about. The outcry in the artistic community over the sidelining of new artists in favor of popular, established, traditional artists at the annual Salon of the Académie des Beaux-Arts leads to the creation of a Salon des Refusés for the rejected artists to display their work. No painting gathers more interest or generates more criticism than Claude''s. Entitled Plein Air (Open Air), it depicts a nude female figure in the front center and two female nudes in the background, with a fully dressed man, back to the viewer in the foreground. (Zola deliberately invokes Le déjeuner sur l''herbe by Edouard Manet, which provoked outcries at the actual Salon des Refusés in 1863.) Claude moves to the country to soak up more of the ''Open Air'' atmosphere he revelled in as a child and to create more masterpieces. Accompanying him is Christine Hallegrain, who served as the model for Claude''s nude and they have a son. Claude is unable to paint much and grows more and more depressed. For the sake of his health, Christine convinces him to return to Paris. Claude has three paintings in three years rejected by the Salon before a spectacular view of the Ile de la Cité captures his imagination. He becomes obsessed with this vision and constructs a massive canvas on which to paint his masterpiece. He is unable to project his ideas successfully or combine them into a meaningful whole. He begins adding incongruous elements (like a female nude bather), reworks and repaints until the whole enterprise collapses into disaster, then starts over. His inability to create his masterpiece deepens his depression. The slow breakup of his circle of friends contributes to his decaying mental state, as does the success of one of his confreres, a lesser talent who has co-opted the ''Open Air'' school and made it a critical and financial triumph. Christine, whom he has at last married, watches as the painting — and especially the nude — begins to destroy his soul. When their son dies, Claude is inspired to paint a picture of the dead body that is accepted by the Salon (after considerable politicking). The painting is ridiculed for its subject and its execution and Claude again turns to his huge landscape. Christine watches as he spirals further into obsession and madness. A last-ditch effort to free him from Art in general and from his wished-for masterpiece in particular has an effect but in the end Claude hangs himself from his scaffolding. The only ones of his old friends who attend his funeral are Sandoz and Bongrand, an elder statesman of the artistic community who recognized and helped nurture Claude''s genius.

L''Œuvre

Kidnappers violently take the Secret Service chief M from his house and almost capture James Bond, who is visiting. Intent on rescuing M, Bond follows the clues to Vrakonisi, one of the Aegean Islands. In the process, Bond discovers the complex military-political plans of Colonel Sun of the Chinese People''s Liberation Army. Sun had been sent to sabotage a Middle East détente conference which the Soviet Union is hosting. He intends to attack the conference venue and use M and Bond''s bodies to blame Great Britain for the disaster, leading to a world war. Bond meets Soviet agents in Athens and they realise that not only is a third country behind the kidnap, but that there is a traitor in the organisation. An attack on the Soviet headquarters kills all the agents except Ariadne Alexandrou, a Greek Communist. As he is dying, the Soviet leader encourages Bond and Ariadne to work together to prevent an international incident. Ariadne persuades Litsas, a former WW2 resistance fighter and friend of her late father to help them by telling him about the involvement in the plot of former Nazi, Von Richter. Trying to find M and Colonel Sun, Bond is nearly captured by the Russians, but is saved by Litsas. Finally, Bond finds Sun''s headquarters, but is knocked out by one of Sun''s men; Bond learns that Von Richter will use a mortar to destroy the conference venue and that Bond will be tortured by Sun, before his inevitable demise. Sun tortures him brutally, until one of the girls at the house is ordered by Sun to caress Bond fondly. In the process she cuts one of Bond''s hands free and provides him with a knife. She tells Sun that Bond is dead: when examined Bond stabs Sun. He then frees other captives who help Bond stop Von Richter. However Sun survives the stab wound and kills several of the other escapees. Bond tracks down Sun and kills him in the confrontation. The Soviets thank Bond for saving their conference, offering him a medal for his work, which he politely turns down.

Colonel Sun

As in Star Maker, the book begins with a single human observer staring at the sky and considering the immensity of the cosmos. From that point, however, the similarities end. The narrator of Nebula Maker immediately sees the face of the creator - an ever-shifting mask of constant change, human then alien, demonic then angelic. The narrator watches in wonder as this vision of God creates our universe. The universe is peopled at first by the immense, bizarre lifeforms whose history takes up the rest of the manuscript - the nebulae. Singularly or in clusters, these vast entities come to consciousness and express their passions through a frenzied cosmic dance. Some, however become perverted and fanatical, and war breaks out in the heavens. It is discovered that nebulae can journey to other nebulae if they feed on the dead "flesh" of their fellows, and this development fuels aeons of conflict. The novel then focuses on two individual nebulae, Bright Heart and Fire Bolt, who embody the human types Stapledon was most fascinated by - the saint and the revolutionary. Bright Heart preaches peace, and is martyred for his troubles; Fire Bolt brings about revolution and changes the social order of the cosmos. With Bright Heart dead, and Fire Bolt crumbling into senescence, the remaining nebulae attempt to bring about universal peace and harmony, but a quarrel over how this is to be done once again results in war. The history of the nebulae is thus one of tragedy, and as they dissolve into the stars and planets of our own cosmical time, the narrator wonders at the creator who could author such a complex dance of hope and futility.

Nebula Maker

Danger is the name of the game when the Hardys agree to help their pen pal from Greece, Evangelos Pandropolos, search for a priceless, ancient Greek helmet. Years ago, Evan''s uncle had loaned it to a Hollywood movie company for use in a silent motion picture, The Persian Glory, for a role in the movie, but the helmet was lost after the movie was done. At Hunt College, where Evan, Frank, Joe and Chet Morton are taking a summer course in film-making, the boys are harassed by Leon Saffel whose harassments get more and more vicious. All the while a gang is trying to force Mr. Hardy to give up his investigations of a national crime syndicate and also trying to find the helmet, which after speaking to Evan''s billionaire uncle, may have belonged to King Agamemnon making the helmet even more valuable. The clues that the Hardys unearth keep them on the move-from their college campus to California and finally to Greece. In a sizzling climax, the Hardys, Evan and Chet match wits with their powerful enemies on the island of Corfu.

The Shattered Helmet

The story covers the last few days of term before Christmas for the students of Johann-Sigismund Gymnasium The main characters are Martin, the first student of the class, Jonathan, an orphan who was adopted by a captain, Matz, Uli and Sebastian, students from the Tertia (Year 8). There is a bitter struggle between the students at the Gymnasium and another school, the Realschule. The so-called "Realists" steal their schoolbooks containing their dictations, which the teacher''s son (another classmate) was to carry home to his father. This results in a brawl between two champions of each side - Matz and one Wawerka - and a hard-fought snow-ball fight, both of which the six friends win, although they end reported by a student form the Prima (Year 13) for being late back to school. As a "punishment" they are stripped one afternoon off, to be spent with their amiable house teacher Justus at his office (coffee and cake included) where he tells them a story about his own youth and his struggle with inaccessible wardens from Prima. Other parts of the plot include: the friends playing a drama called the Flying Classroom written by Johnny and the friendship to the "Nonsmoker" (a former doctor who lives in an scrapped non-smoker railway compartment and smokes very much, and works as a pub piano player) and the Nonsmoker''s own friendship to Justus (who are reunited by the boys). When Uli, the smallest boy who is often called a coward, decides at this time to attempt something which will remove his reputation as a coward. His best friend, Matz, has in the past encouraged him, until he sees Uli about to run off a gym ladder using an umbrella as a parachute. Uli crashes and falls unconscious. Justus and the Nonsmoker (who upon this reenters his medical profession as school doctor) allay their fears that he is dead, but that he has a broken leg.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

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Amerika

By Franz Kafka

Living Dead Girl

No Author Listed

Star Surgeon

By James White

Dark Prince

By Christine Feehan

The Stronghold

By Mollie Hunter

Rock & Roll Jihad: A Muslim Rock Star's Revolution

No Author Listed

Precious Bane

No Author Listed

L'Œuvre

By Pierre-Louis Rey

Colonel Sun

By Kingsley Amis

Nebula Maker

By Olaf Stapledon

The Shattered Helmet

By Franklin W. Dixon

The Flying Classroom

By Erich Kästner