Stoddard’s novel traces the education and development of a young female in American middle-class society. The protagonist, Cassandra Morgeson, is educated by a series of journeys she makes throughout her youth and early adulthood. Each new setting represents a different stage in her intellectual development. Cassandra is born in Surrey, a small New England town. Surrey is quiet and isolated, granting a young woman little intellectual stimulation. Cassandra escapes the boredom of domestic life through stories of adventure and exploration. Surrey instills in Cassandra a restlessness that drives her quest for knowledge and experience. At the age of thirteen, Cassandra’s parents send her to live with her grandfather in Barmouth. Excessively religious, Grandfather Warren takes it upon himself to put Cassandra in her place. She is both intellectually and emotionally starved in Barmouth. Her life becomes narrowed down to home, school and church. In school, all the students dress alike and wear their hair in the same fashion. She learns an important lesson in conformity (peer pressure). When Cassandra turns eighteen she is invited to stay with some cousins in Rosville. Rosville offers her a glimpse of city life. She attends numerous balls, whist parties and shopping sprees in Boston. She also falls in love with her cousin Charles. Charles’s dark sensuality and power awakens Cassandra’s sexuality, which is an integral part in her self-discovery. Cassandra quickly finds herself caught up in a passionate, adulterous love affair. Their affair is cut short in a tragic accident that costs Charles his life. Cassandra escapes with a scar across her face, which remains with her as a constant reminder of the affair. Cassandra then travels to Belem, a city of wealth and nobility. She stays in the home of her friend, Ben Somers. In Belem she is forced to confront the social injustice of class. Here she falls for Ben’s brother, Desmond. Desmond sees into Cassandra’s heart through the scar on her face. He finds in Cassandra a reason to reform himself and conquer his alcoholism. He promises himself to her and then goes off to Spain to cure his addiction. Upon her return to Surrey, Cassandra discovers that her mother has died. As the eldest and most capable daughter, the role of lady of the house is passed down to her. She becomes responsible for managing the household and taking care of her younger sister, Veronica. Cassandra resents her inherited role and envisions the rest of her days spent in monotony and misery. Her sister, Veronica, marries the wealthy but alcoholic Ben Somers. Two years after they are married, Ben dies of alcoholism, leaving Veronica to look after their child who “…never cries, never moves, except when it is moved” (252). Some critics see this child as a physical representation of how Veronica’s search for independence and autonomy has been stunted by her marriage. In the close of the novel “her eyes go no more in quest of something beyond” (252). Cassandra marries the newly-reformed Desmond. Her quest for self-definition does not end with marriage though. Cassandra narrates the closing pages of the novel from her desk. She is in the process of writing her life story. Writing allows Cassandra to take an active role in defining herself. Her novel helps her to assert her autonomy and achieve her goal of self-possession.

The Morgesons

Jonathan Andrew Manley, nicknamed Jam, is a boy from Ohio, the son of a biologist. At the start of the story, he is building a "collapsible kite" from plans he found in a popular magazine. Rather than cutting the pieces of his wooden frame to match the plans, however, he scales up the kite to match the size of his wood, yielding an extra-large result. The size of the thing inspires him to try to fly on it; he attaches a shipping crate, and gathers up three of his father''s experimental animals (two guinea pigs and a white lab rat). A strong gust of wind lifts kite, crate, and passengers into the sky; Jam is on his way to Oz. Kite and crate thump down the next day, in the purple landscape of the Gillikin Country. Jam is amazed to find that his animals can now talk; the guinea pigs call themselves Pinny and Gig, while the white rat introduces himself as Percy. Jam meets some of the inhabitants, who inform him of local conditions. This remote valley of Oz is dominated by a wrathful giant, fifty feet tall, called Terp the Terrible, who enslaves the common people to work in his vineyards and his jam-making factory. Terp captures Jam, and is struck by his name; the giant threatens to spread the boy on his breakfast muffins the next day, and eat him. Terp imprisons the boy and his animals in the highest tower of his castle. The courtyard of Terp''s castle contains a magic muffin tree, guarded by a fierce monster (it has an elephant''s body, alligator''s tail, and two heads, a nocturnal owl and a diurnal wolf). In the night, Percy is able to help Jam and friends escape the tower, with the aid of a handy grapevine. Jam and his pets flee, though Percy doubles back to steal one of the magic muffins. On the Gillikin plains, Jam and friends are menaced by the Equinots, hostile centaurs; Percy frightens away the Equinots when he eats some of the magic muffin, and grows to ten times his normal size. A local farmer and his wife provide shelter for the night; Pinny and Gig, who have little taste for adventure, decide to stay at the farm as pets of the farmer''s children. Another kite flight takes Jam and Percy to the tin castle of the Emperor of the Winkies, the Tin Woodman. There, the party is soon joined by Dorothy Gale, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and the Hungry Tiger. After hearing Jam''s tale, the assembled party decide to defeat Terp and free the oppressed Gillikins. Their path from the Winkie Country to the Gillikin lands leads through a wilderness; a commotion in the jungle brings them a new friend, the Leopard with the Changeable Spots. They enter Bookville, where a hostile King and court condemn them to be pressed into books. (The animated books resemble the playing cards in Alice''s Adventures in Wonderland. The idea of changing size by eating a food also links the two works.) Percy gnaws the travelers a way out of their bookshelf prison during the night. Another disagreeable adventure awaits them in Icetown; to escape an igloo prison, the Scarecrow volunteers his stuffing as kindling for a fire. (The Scarecrow made a similar sacrifice to placate the Hip-po-gy-raf in The Tin Woodman of Oz.) The travelers, with a re-stuffed Scarecrow, eventually reach the Gillikin Country and the Hidden Valley. Percy''s shrinking-and-growing experiences with the magic muffin have made them realize that Terp needs a steady supply of muffins to maintain his giant stature. Jam and company, with local collaboration, lure Terp away from his castle, and hypnotize the guardian beast into harmlessness; The Tin Man chops down the magic tree, killing it. Terp is trapped in the smokestack of the jam factory until he shrinks to his normal size. The party travel to the Emerald City, where Jam is welcomed as a hero; after a celebratory banquet, Ozma and the Wizard send the boy home to Ohio once more. Percy remains in Oz, and convinces the Wizard to enchant him into his large size permanently. ---- Cosgrove originally intended to have Jam travel to Oz by rocket, but the publishers informed her that that had already been done in The Yellow Knight of Oz. Cosgrove''s original opening was published posthumously in an issue of Oz-story Magazine. She later gave an account of how she wrote and revised Hidden Valley and worked with the personnel at Reilly & Lee. Her article appeared in The Baum Bugle, and was later included as an Afterword in the 1991 edition of Hidden Valley. Cogrove began work on a second Oz book soon after finishing the first; but Reilly & Lee declined it, due to low sales for Oz books in the 1950s. The work would finally appear in print forty years later.

The Hidden Valley of Oz

Colin Singleton is an anagram-loving seventeen year old boy who has become depressed because though he has maintained his status of a child prodigy, he has not yet become a “genius.” He wishes to accomplish this goal by having a Eureka moment. As well as not being the genius he hopes to be, his girlfriend, Katherine 19 (over the span of his life, Colin has dated nineteen girls named Katherine, all spelled in that manner), recently dumped him. In these relationships, Colin remembers only the Katherine dumping him. After graduating from high school, and before college, Colin''s best and only friend convinces him to go on a road trip with him to take his mind off the breakup. The friend is Hassan Harbish, a funny, lazy, Judge Judy-obsessed Muslim. After driving for a while, they come across the alleged resting place of the body of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. There, they meet Lindsey Lee Wells, a “paramedic in training.” She is the tour guide for those seeing the tomb of the Archduke. After a short time, Colin and Hassan find themselves employed by Hollis, Lindsey’s mother and the woman running a local factory that currently produces tampon strings. They live with their employer and her daughter in a rural town called Gutshot, Tennessee. As time passes, Colin finds himself becoming attracted to Lindsey, though matters are somewhat complicated by her on-again, off-again boyfriend Colin (he and Hassan call him TOC, "the other Colin"). Our Colin, the prodigy, attempts to become a genius by having his Eureka moment. He chases this goal through his theorem, which is meant to determine the curve of any relationship based on several factors of the personalities of the two people in a relationship. It would predict the future of any two people. His theorem eventually works for all but one of his past relationships with a Katherine. But it is later discovered by Colin that he had dumped this Katherine (Katherine the Third), rather than the other way around. The graphs all make perfect sense at this juncture. As Colin’s story is revealed to the reader, we find that K-19 was also the first of the Katherines, “Katherine the Great.” While the backstories of Colin’s life play out, Hassan gets a girlfriend, Katrina, a friend of Lindsey’s. The relationship is cut short when Colin and Hassan find her having sex with TOC in the graveyard where the Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s corpse is. A fight between TOC and all of the surrounding acquaintances begins when Lindsey finds out that he’s been cheating on her. While recovering from a kick to the groin, Colin anagrams the Archduke''s name to dull the pain, and discovers that it is actually Lindsey''s great-grandfather, named Fred N. Dinzanafar, that is buried in the tomb. Colin finds Lindsey at her secret hideout in a cave that she had shown him previously, where he tells her the story of every Katherine he ever loved. Lindsey tells him that she feels so self-centered, claiming that she does not feel sad but instead slightly relieved by TOC''s affair. They then confess their love for each other. But when Colin applies the Theorem to him and Lindsey, it calculates that she will dump him in four days. Lindsey then slips a note under his door, four days later, stating that she cannot be his girlfriend because she is in love with Hassan. But she leaves a P.S. stating that she is joking. Colin realizes that his theorem cannot predict the future of a relationship. It can only shed light on why a relationship failed. Despite this, Colin is content not “mattering”. Hassan also states that he is applying for two college classes, which Colin has been trying to convince him to do throughout the book. The story ends with the trio driving to a nearby Wendy''s, with Lindsey saying they could just "keep going and not stop." Colin takes her advice, as a transcendental and ecstatic feeling of "connection" with Lindsey, Hassan, and everyone not in the car surges through him. He has finally found peace and happiness via connection with other people, rather than from the pursuit of distinguishing himself from everyone, feeling "non-unique in the very best way possible."

An Abundance of Katherines

Piers Anthony has stated that the book is set as a murder mystery. It has, typical for Xanth books, many puns. Readers also get a better understanding of the nature of Ida''s moons. Air Apparent includes a character known as a Debra who is a 13-year-old girl who is constantly pressured to take off her bra. To De-Bra so to speak. She is based on a real girl. Debra Kawaguchi was a huge fan of the Xanth series and after her death in 2004, her father wrote Piers and asked him to include Debra in his cast of characters. After Piers explained to Debra''s father that the only way he could think to include Debra in the book was through the De-Bra-ing pun, Mr. Kawaguchi agreed that Debra would have been delighted to be a character in Xanth and would have loved the pun. Piers mentions Mr. Kawaguchi in the author notes as the inspiration for Debra. Debra is depicted on the front cover of the hardback book as a flying centaur. Review "The Xanth books constitute Anthony''s longest and most successful series . . . . They are intended to be kind-spirited, fun reading, a series of wondrous beasts and beings, and most of all, an endless succession of outrageous puns"--Lee Killough, Wichita Eagle

Air Apparent

The play tells the story of Vittori, admiral to Cesario, prince of Naples. Both Vittori and Cesario are competitors for the hand of Cassandra; on her account Cesario breaks off his intended marriage with Rosinda, princess of Sicily. In response to this insult, the Sicilians attack Naples. Cesario sends Vittori to command his fleet in defense, hoping his admiral will be killed – but Vittori is, as his name suggests, victorious. The Admiral, however, finds that the city gates are closed to him on his return, and that his prince is conspiring against him. Vittori flees with his father and Cassandra; but the father, Alphonso, is captured by the Neapolitans, while Vittori and Cassandra are shipwrecked and captured by the Sicilian forces. The King of Sicily, preparing to lay siege Naples, offers to spare Cassandra''s life if Vittori joins his forces; and Vittori agrees. Yet he learns that his father will be beheaded if he keeps to his bargain with the King; the choice between the lives of his father and his love is a typical tragicomic dilemma. Cesario, however, is drawn to the Sicilian camp by a letter from Cassandra, and there he too is captured. The Sicilian princess Rosinda counters by surrendering to the Neapolitans, which forces the arrangement of a peace treaty. Vittori and Cassandra marry, as do Cesario and Rosinda. The play''s mandatory comic subplot features Rosinda''s cowardly servant Pazzorello.

The Young Admiral

The play, set in a Milan that is, in common Elizabethan fashion, mostly a thinly-disguised London, presents three plots. In the subplot, the Duke of Milan has feigned the death of his daughter Infelice; his goal is to thwart her love affair with Hippolito, the son of an old enemy. This plot follows the standard romantic formula: Hippolito remains constant to the supposedly dead beloved. The two are finally reunited when a doctor who had aided the Duke in the trick repents and informs Hippolito of the truth. He is reunited with and marries her at Bethlem Royal Hospital—the pretense at Italian color having been all but abandoned. The second subplot concerns Candido, a citizen and linen draper. He is recently married, and his new wife is upset: her tongue, she says, "wants that virtue which all women''s tongues have, to anger their husbands." In the play, she perpetrates various schemes to arouse her husband''s ire. At last she manipulates him into wearing an apprentice''s clothes in his own shop. He tolerates an assault without complaint, and she succeeds in having him taken to Bethlem, which he also tolerates calmly. Seeing that he cannot be roused to anger, his suddenly contrite wife hastens to petition the Duke to free him. This plot appears to have been the most popular during the period; it provided the subtitle and running title of many editions before 1635. In the title plot, a prostitute named Bellafront falls in love with Hippolito. Devoted to the memory of his beloved, Hippolito spurns her. Bellafront is motivated to examine her sin, repents, and attempts again to woo Hippolito. He again rejects her. She announces that she is returning to her father in the country; however, in the next act she appears at Bethlem, seemingly insane. Finally, after playing a key role in the reconciliation of the Duke to his daughter and new son-in-law, she drops her madness, which she announces was feigned, and asks to be married to Matheo—a rake who was the first to seduce her. The Duke forces this marriage, and even Matheo assents, albeit rather cavalierly.

The Honest Whore

In 5000 BBY, the Sith Lord Saes Rrogan gathers up a Force-enhancing mineral from a world that his Sith fleet destroyed. On his heels are Jedi Master Relin Druur and his Padawan Drev Hassin. When they attempt to board Rrogan''s ship, the Harbinger, Drev is killed, but Relin makes it aboard, killing and wounding several of Rrogan''s subordinates before confronting the Sith himself. They have a brief duel which both escape severely wounded, and Relin manages to sabotage the hyperdrive core of the Harbinger in order to mess up its trajectory in returning with the rest of the Sith. This throws off the trajectory of the Harbingers sister ship, the Omen, which would have it crash land irreparably on the out-of-place world of Kesh. As for the Harbinger itself, its hyperdrive sabotage drives it more than 5000 years into the future, specifically in 41 ABY. In that time period, Jedi Knight Jaden Korr senses a disturbance in the Force emanating from the Unknown Regions. He travels there and lands on the world of Fhost, where he seeks the help of junk dealers Khedryn Faal and Marr Idi-Shael. They take him to a nameless moon where Jaden had felt the disturbance in the Force. They soon run into the Harbinger that had finally come out of hyperspace after more than 5000 years. They ally with Relin Druur to combat Saes Rrogan''s forces even as those from the past realize in what time they''re now in. Eventually, as Relin gathers the help of Marr to destroy the Harbinger, Jaden teams up with Khedryn to explore the mysterious moon. While all this happens, Jaden is being stalked by Kell Douro, an Anzati who drains people''s lives away, and finds Jaden to be a delicious meal. On the moon, Jaden and Khedryn find a dead and deserted base. The two of them get separated, and Khedryn is nearly killed by Douro. But Douro decides not to quench his appetite with Khedryn, and remains ever-vigilant to consume Jaden''s life. Jaden, meanwhile, finds the source of the dark side in the form of a deranged clone of Jedi Master Kam Solusar. Though Jaden loses most of his fingers in one hand, he kills the clone in combat, but is nearly killed by Douro. Douro, however, is killed himself when Khedryn shoots his brains out at point-blank range with his blaster. Despite the victory against the clone and Douro, Jaden senses through the Force that other deranged clones of other Force-users in the base have managed to escape. This is confirmed when Jaden and Khedryn see a ship fly away from the outside of the base. Aboard the Harbinger, Marr helps Relin with his mission as best he can, then escapes while Relin confronts Saes Rrogan in one final battle. Relin kills Rrogan, and then uses the Force-enhancing minerals around him to completely destroy the Harbinger. With that, Jaden, Khedryn, and Marr all decide to go home.

Star Wars: Crosscurrent

Temple of the Winds picks up shortly after where the last volume, Blood of the Fold, left off. A wizard named Marlin appears in Aydindril announcing his intent to kill Richard Rahl. He is immediately captured and questioned by the Mother Confessor, Kahlan Amnell, and one of Richard''s bodyguards, Cara. Cara uses her Mord''Sith ability to capture Marlin''s gift when he tries to escape, but the link between Cara and Marlin is used against her when Emperor Jagang takes possession of Marlin soon thereafter. A lady named Nadine, whom Richard had known as an herbalist from the Westland, arrives and attempts to heal Cara, but fails. Richard''s half-brother Drefan, a self-proclaimed high priest of a sect of healers, does however succeed in curing Cara. Meanwhile, Zedd and Prelate Annalina continue their search for the unleashed Nathan Rahl. Their search leads them to a run down inn in an unnamed city, where they discover that Nathan misled them into following another man. The man then gives them a message informing them not to follow Nathan but to protect a treasure instead. A Sister of the Dark, who was also following Nathan, ends up getting caught in a snare Zedd intended for the Prophet Rahl. Richard and Berdine continue to work on the translation of the journal of Kolo, a dead wizard found in the depths of the Wizard''s Keep. In the midst of all these activities, a Sister of the Dark travels through Aydindril spreading a magical plague. In a search for a cure, Richard travels to the First Wizard''s Enclave. To save the people of the Midlands from the plague, Kahlan must betray Richard to allow him to enter the Temple of the Winds. In doing so, Richard saves the people of the Midlands, but to return, he pays the price of knowledge, leaving the Temple with something that no vast library of knowledge can ever teach - understanding. Through this, Richard is saved from the life of the eternally condemned. Meanwhile, Nathan rescues a woman named Clarissa from a life of slavery in the Imperial Order. He then builds a relationship with the woman and uses her to obtain items from Jagang that were given under a tentative deal struck between Nathan (acting as Lord Rahl at the time) and the Emperor. When Richard returns, Kahlan learns that she must destroy a book in order to save Richard, so she travels to the Old World in the sliph. Upon her arrival she finds Nathan, Sister Verna, and Warren in a compromised situation, and she immediately spring into action to aid them. Clarissa is killed in the struggle by traitors. With the book, Kahlan returns to Aydindril, but a battle ensues with Drefan, and she is unable to defeat him. Luckily, Richard arrives and disables Drefan by ripping his spine out through his stomach. When Richard rushes to Kahlan''s side, the still-conscious Drefan gets up and prepares to attack him, but is killed by the sliph. Kahlan destroys the book, and Richard is cured of the plague. Now, three of Drefan''s sect come to see Richard. They tell him that Drefan was seriously disturbed, and that he may be a danger to others and himself. When Richard tells them that their high priest is dead, they tell him that Drefan was barely a novice in healing, let alone a high priest. Richard accepts this fact, and decides to remember Drefan in a different way. Richard and Kahlan travel to the land of the Mud People to be wed, where they meet up with Zedd and Ann. Richard and Kahlan are soon thereafter wed and are visited by the witch woman Shota, who once again warns them not to conceive a child.

Temple of the Winds

One night on Black Ness, the Hendersons are sitting at home in their but-and-benhouse. There is a heavy storm outside. Then a figure bursts through the door, soaking wet. He is tall, lean and handsome, and calls himself Finn Learson, and he claims to be the only survivor of a shipwreck. The Hendersons trust and help him, except the youngest child, Robbie, his Old Da (grandfather), and his dog Tam, who are suspicious of Finn. Old Da takes an instant dislike to Finn, and Robbie also senses the man is not what he seems. Later that night, when the family have retired to bed, Robbie cannot sleep and hears peculiar noises coming from the main room, where Finn Learson and the dog, Tam, are sleeping. Robbie ventures to peek around the door, and is horrified to see that Tam is crouched low to attack Learson, but Learson gazes deep into the dog''s eyes... sending Tam into a calm sleep. Robbie is appalled but hides what he has seen. Old Da mysteriously dies not long after, but before he does he warns Robbie not to trust Finn. He reminds Robbie of stories of selkies, sea spirits which are seals in the water, but are able to shed their seal skin on dry land, and appear as beautiful seductive humans. Robbie remembers stories about the Great Selkie, the malign ruler of the selkies, who dwells in his sea-palace and seduces golden-haired girls away with him to his home under the sea. Every so often, the Great Selkie returns to find another human bride, as each bride he abducts dies whenever she tries to escape his clutches; he then uses their golden hair to roof his palace. Robbie begins to fear for his elder sister, Elspeth, who is golden-haired, very beautiful and entranced by Finn Learson. Robbie becomes convinced that Finn is the Great Selkie, but his family does not believe him. Elspeth states that she will choose one man, Finn or Nicol,(Nicol, who was her man before Finn Learson came ashore) to marry her on the celebration night of Up Helly Aa. Robbie goes to the schoolmaster, Yarl Corbie, for help. Yarl has been accused of being a wizard. Yarl reveals that Finn is indeed the Great Selkie, that he knew all along, and that Finn will try to tempt Elspeth to join him under the sea, as he did with Yarl''s fiancee many years before. They trap Finn and fight. Yarl uses his magic to morph into a raven, pulling out one of Finn''s eyes. Finn, revealed as the Great Selkie, flees back into the sea in his seal form. He can still hunt fish with his remaining eye, but he can no longer return ashore to tempt girls away with him, as without an eye, he is no longer handsome.

A stranger came ashore

The book is a memoir of Maureen Johnson Smith Long, mother, lover, and eventual wife of Lazarus Long. Maureen is ostensibly recording the events of the book while being held in a future prison, awaiting her uncertain fate, along with Pixel, the eponymous character of The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. Maureen, born on July 4, 1882, recounts her girlhood in Kansas City, young adulthood, discovery that her family is a member of the long-lived Howard Families (whose backstory is revealed in Methuselah''s Children), marriage to Brian Smith, another member of that family, and her life until her accidental "death" in 1982. Maureen lives through, and gives her (sometimes contradictory) viewpoints on many events in other Heinlein stories, most notably the 1917 visit from the future by "Ted Bronson" (in actuality Lazarus Long), told from Long''s point of view in Time Enough for Love, D. D. Harriman''s space program from The Man Who Sold the Moon and the rolling roads from The Roads Must Roll. The adventures of Maureen are a series of sexual ones, starting with Heinlein describing her as a young girl who, having just had her first sexual intercourse, is examined by her father, a doctor, and finds herself desiring him sexually. Her sexual life story then continues featuring various boys, her husband, ministers, other women''s husbands, boyfriends, swinging sessions, and the adult Lazarus Long/Theodore Bronson. Additionally, she continues a lifelong pursuit of her father sexually, encourages her husband to have sexual intercourse with their daughters, and accompanies him when he does; but forbids a son and daughter of hers from continuing an incestuous relationship, primarily for the sister''s reluctance to share the brother with other women. All of these are set against a history lesson of an alternate 20th century in which a variety of social and philosophical commentary is delivered. She is eventually rescued by Lazarus Long and other characters drawn from various novels in the ship "Gay Deceiver" (from The Number of the Beast), and after rescuing her father from certain death in the Battle of Britain, is united with her descendants in a massive group marriage in the settlement of Boondock, on the planet Tertius. Maureen ends her memoir and the Lazarus Long saga with the phrase "And we all lived happily ever after".

To Sail Beyond the Sunset

The novel opens with Brown, wounded and dying, on Resolution Island. The story is then told in flashback. The first part of the story tells of Brown''s birth, as a result of a liaison between his mother, Agatha Brown, and a Royal Navy officer, Lt Cdr Richard Saville-Samarez. It describes his upbringing, with Agatha as a single mother in Edwardian England, and her instilling into him of a sense of duty to the Navy and to his country. As soon as he is old enough, Brown joins the Navy, and on the eve of World War I is serving on the (fictitious) cruiser HMS Charybdis in the Pacific. In the second half of the story Charybdis is sunk by the German cruiser Ziethen on a raiding mission in the central Pacific, and Brown, with 2 or 3 wounded men, is picked up by the raider. As the Ziethen was damaged in the exchange, her captain plans to pull into an isolated Pacific anchorage to try to repair his vessel. In the novel, he chooses (fictitious) Resolution Island, in the Galápagos Islands. The resourceful Brown escapes, steals a rifle and a small amount of ammunition, and makes his way ashore. Her captain having already careened his vessel, the vessel''s main battery could not be brought to bear on Brown, and he was able to pick off exposed crew-members who are trying to repair her punctured hull plates. In Forester''s description Resolution is an impenetrable tangle of scrub and thorn bushes, making it difficult for shore parties to run the hero to ground. Brown is eventually mortally wounded by a lucky German shot. He never learns that his actions delayed the repairs long enough to ensure that the German vessel fails to escape her British pursuers. Ironically, the senior British naval officer of the force which sinks Ziethen and benefits from Brown''s action, is none other than now Captain Saville-Samarez, Brown''s father, although they do not know of each other.

Brown on Resolution

The narrative follows the age-old pattern of separate stories embedded within a primary story, as in the Panchatantra, the Arabian Nights and the Canterbury Tales. Each of the stories is linked to a different piece of furniture in an antique shop, and the question arises as to whether the stories are pure invention ("a pack of lies") or could perhaps be true - and what their being "true" would mean about the narrator. A young man with the unlikely name of MCC Berkshire ("from Reading") follows Ailsa home from the library and talks himself into an unpaid job in her mother''s run-down antique shop - all he asks is somewhere to sleep and books to read. He has a wonderful way of assessing the customers and suiting the provenance he gives the furniture to their interests. Moreover, he seems to adapt himself - his accent, his manner, his personal history - to the story being told, which also seems to be inspired by the book he has just been reading. When chided by Mrs Povey for telling lies, he responds: "''Not lies, madam.... Fiction. That''s the thing to give ''em. That''s the thing everyone wants. Fiction, madam! " Ailsa and Mrs Povey, while grateful to MCC for his help and enjoying his company, often have doubts about him, while Uncle Clive, on a brief visit, is positively hostile. After the Poveys'' financial problems are suddenly solved, literally from the pages of a book, the scene is set for MCC''s departure. In the final chapter Ailsa realizes the shocking truth, while the reader realizes that Ailsa''s reality is another of MCC''s tales.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Morgesons

By Elizabeth Drew Stoddard

The Hidden Valley of Oz

By Rachel Cosgrove Payes

An Abundance of Katherines

By John Green

Air Apparent

By Piers Anthony

The Young Admiral

By James Shirley

The Honest Whore

By Thomas Dekker

Star Wars: Crosscurrent

By Paul S. Kemp

Temple of the Winds

By Terry Goodkind

A stranger came ashore

By Mollie Hunter

To Sail Beyond the Sunset

By Robert A. Heinlein

Brown on Resolution

By C. S. Forester

A Pack of Lies

By Geraldine McCaughrean