The novel focuses on the McDonald family, who live a hand-to-mouth existence following their abandonment by paterfamilias, the feckless Rory McDonald. Into their lives comes Brendan Courtney O’Brien, scion of a wealthy Irish family, who has fallen in love with the eldest of the McDonald children, Erika. Despite his background, Brendan has even less money than the McDonalds. As the black sheep of his family, he has lived a peripatetic life and scrapes a living buying and selling on the black market. Through Brendan''s eyes we meet a succession of apparently aimless losers who hang around the decrepit hair-dressing salon which is the McDonald''s only source of income. Erika''s younger brother, Jimmy, is something of a rebel, always getting into trouble. Eventually, his desperate mother sends him to a boarding school from which he escapes at the first opportunity. He wanders the byroads of rural Ireland before being recaptured. Soon, Brendan and Erika''s wedding takes place, followed by a reception in McDonald''s salon. As Brendan surveys the guests, all relatives or friends of his new bride, he imagines how his own estranged family would see them. Brendan and Erika set up home in a boarding house run by a malicious old landlady. In a bid to escape the grinding poverty in which they languish, the young couple join a travelling circus. Erika becomes a fortune-teller and Brendan sells small bottles of perfume to which he has added astrological predictions. Meanwhile, young Jimmy has run away again and, serendipitously, ends up in the same circus in which his sister and brother-in-law are working. The three meet just as Jimmy is about to receive retribution from a hot-dog man whose wares he has stolen. Brendan rescues him and all three return to Dublin. Erika''s mother has sold the hairdressing salon and is about to leave for England with her younger son. Brendan and Erika decide to join her, with Jimmy in tow. The novel ends just as their ship is leaving the dockside. However, one of the party is missing. Jimmy has decided to stay in Ireland and, as the ship sails out into Dublin Bay, he watches from the pier before turning to find his own destiny somewhere in "the far hills".

The Far Hills

The novel focuses on Maurice Bendrix, a rising writer during World War II in London, and Sarah Miles, the wife of an impotent civil servant. Bendrix is loosely based on Greene himself, and he reflects often on the act of writing a novel. Sarah is based loosely on Greene''s mistress at the time, Catherine Walston, to whom the book is dedicated. Bendrix and Sarah fall in love quickly, but he soon realizes that the affair will end as quickly as it began. The relationship suffers from his overt and admitted jealousy. He is frustrated by her refusal to divorce Henry, her amiable but boring husband. When a bomb blasts Bendrix''s flat as he is with Sarah, he is nearly killed. After this, Sarah breaks off the affair with no apparent explanation. Later, Bendrix is still wracked with jealousy when he sees Henry crossing the Common that separates their flats. Henry has finally started to suspect something, and Bendrix decides to go to a private detective to discover Sarah''s new lover. Through her diary, he learns that, when she thought he was dead after the bombing, she made a promise to God not to see Bendrix again if He allowed him to live again. Greene describes Sarah''s struggles. After her sudden death from a lung infection brought to a climax by walking on the Common in the rain, several miraculous events occur, advocating for some kind of meaningfulness to Sarah''s faith. By the last page of the novel, Bendrix may have come to believe in a God as well, though not to love Him. The End of the Affair is the fourth and last of Greene''s explicitly Catholic novels.

The End of the Affair

The beginning of the book describes Cole''s background, and that of every member of the band. He also briefly describes the atmosphere of 1960s London. He claims that he always wanted to be in the music business, and that at one point he began to play the drums but did not pursue this path. He recounts his experience as tour manager for The Who and his venture into other aspects of the 1960s London scene, including the mod subculture. The book documents Cole''s personal experiences as tour manager for one of the biggest bands of all time. It also shows how the constant pressure of touring and recording was beginning to take a toll on the band''s members, even as early as 1969. Cole reveals that he developed close and personal friendships with each of the band members, and recounts the devastating impact that the death of John Bonham had on him. He also discusses the substance abuse problems which he developed in the 1970s, and which ultimately led to him being fired by Led Zeppelin''s manager, Peter Grant, after the Knebworth Festival in 1979. The book also describes his life immediately after Led Zeppelin''s downfall. At the time of their collapse he was trying to shed his heroin addiction in Italy when he was falsely accused of terrorism for involvement in the 1980 Bologna railway station bombing. Whilst imprisoned he underwent forced detox from heroin. Sleepless nights, constant sweat, diarrhea, and pain were some things he experienced while he was in the custody of the Italian police. When released, Cole was no longer addicted to heroin but he had no money as he had spent it all on drugs prior to his incarceration, and he could no longer rely on a steady income from an involvement with Led Zeppelin. He said that for the first time since before he became a tour manager he had to work on the scaffolds.

Stairway to Heaven: Led Zeppelin Uncensored

An eight-man construction crew is building an airstrip and related facilities on a small pacific island during the course of World War II. They uncover and break open an ancient stone "temple." This releases an ancient being composed of pure energy, leftover from a war involving sentient machines in a long-lost civilization, which "possesses" a bulldozer being used by the construction crew. The being''s purpose was to take over the "enemy''s" machines and attack them. When released from the ancient stone temple that contained it, it believes that the bulldozer (called "Daisy Etta" by the workers in the island, a mispronunciation of De-Siete (D7, in Spanish) is important to its intentions, possesses it, and it begins killing the workers. Ultimately, two of the three surviving workers—one goes insane—manage to destroy the bulldozer and (presumably) the creature. While trying to write a report on what happened, the two sane workers are despairing of anyone believing them. Then, bombs fall from the sky, blasting the whole area below them, including the places the killdozer damaged and the graves of their fellow workers. One worker tears up the report he was writing and throws it in the air, thrilled that an explanation is now available -- enemy action in wartime.

Killdozer

In the seventh book of this series, not long into his years as a Prince, Darren is once again visited by Desmond Tiny (the creator of vampires and Little People). He explains that the three hunters must find and hunt down the Vampaneze Lord if they have any hopes to win the war. He announces that two of them are Darren and Mr. Crepsley, but the third one they must find on their way. The hunters are told by Mr. Tiny that they will cross paths with the Lord of the Vampaneze four times throughout their quest, and have only those four chances to destroy him. They leave and go to Lady Evanna for help as they were instructed by Mr.Tiny. On the way they meet with Vancha March, another Vampire Prince and the last hunter. Vancha''s skin is a dark shade of red, due to his constant battle with the sun (he thinks that the sun, like any other enemy of the creatures of the night, can be defeated) and does not like to use weapons, using his bare hands instead. Though, he does use the shurikens that are strapped to his belt when necessary. He prefers to wear only clothes made from animals, and doesn''t care for having many manners. He claims to be a ladies man, though Darren perceives him as someone whom all women dislike. The three get to Evanna''s house, and she lets them stay with her for a few days so they can discuss what Mr.Tiny said and where they should go next. Leaving Lady Evanna''s house, they set their sites back towards the Cirque Du Freak, following Darren''s gut feeling as a Vampire Prince and the main hunter. While they are staying there, Darren notices Lady Evanna leaving the Cirque one night and follows her to a nearby forest. He witnesses Lady Evanna meeting with a group of Vampaneze and fears the worst. Darren gets the others, and they prepare an attack. After launching what seemed to be a successful strike on the group of Vampaneze, two of them get away. One being Vancha''s brother, and the other being a servant of the Vampaneze. Vancha lets them get away after realizing that one is his brother. However, little to their knowledge, the servant was actually a disguise and it turned out to be the Lord of the Vampaneze! After a few more nights at the Cirque to once again come up with a strategy, they set off to once more try to encounter the Lord and destroy him to end the War of the Scars. Preview the Book. fa:شکارچیان غروب

Hunters of the Dusk

The action mainly takes place in western France, and in Paris, and to a lesser extent at sea off the Channel Islands, where Hugo latterly lived. The year is 1793. In Brittany during the Royalist insurrection of the Chouannerie, a troop of “Blues” (soldiers of the French Republic) encounter Michelle Fléchard, a peasant woman, and her three young children, who are fleeing from the conflict. She explains that her husband and parents have been killed. The troop’s commander, Sergeant Radoub, convinces them to look after the family. Meanwhile, at sea, a group of Royalist “Whites” are planning to land the Marquis de Lantenac, a Breton aristocrat whose leadership could transform the fortunes of the rebellion. Their corvette is spotted by ships of the Republic. Lantenac slips away in a boat with one supporter, and the corvette distracts the Republican ships by provoking a battle it cannot win. The corvette is destroyed, but Lantenac lands safely in Brittany. Lantenac is hunted by the Blues, but is protected by a local beggar, to whom he gave alms in the past. He meets up with his supporters, and they immediately launch an attack on the Blues. Part of the troop with the family is captured. Lantenac orders them all to be shot, including Michelle. He takes the children with him as hostages. The beggar finds the bodies, and discovers that Michelle is still alive. He nurses her back to health. Lantenac’s ruthless methods have turned the revolt into a major threat to the Republic. In Paris, Danton, Robespierre and Marat argue about the threat, while also sniping at each other. They promulgate a decree that all rebels and anyone who helps them will be executed. Cimourdain, a committed revolutionary and former priest, is deputed to carry out their orders in Brittany. He is also told to keep an eye on Gauvain, the commander of the Republican troops there, who is related to Lantenac and thought to be too lenient to rebels. Unknown to the revolutionary leaders, Cimourdain was Gauvain’s childhood tutor, and thinks of him as a son. Lantenac has taken control of Dol-de-Bretagne, in order to secure a landing place for British troops to be sent to support the Royalists. Gauvain launches a surprise attack and uses deception to dislodge and disperse them. Forced to retreat, Lantenac is constantly kept from the coast by Gauvain. With British troops unavailable his supporters melt away. Eventually he and a last few fanatical followers are trapped in his castle. Meanwhile Michelle has recovered and goes in search of her children. She wanders aimlessly, but eventually hears that they are being held hostage in Lantenac’s castle. At the castle Sergeant Radoub, fighting with the besiegers, spots the children. He persuades Gauvain to let him lead an assault. He manages to break through the defences and kill several rebels, but Lantenac and a few survivors escape through a secret passage after setting fire to the building. As the fire takes hold, Michelle arrives, and sees that her children are trapped. Her hysterical cries of despair are heard by Lantenac. Struck with guilt, he returns through the passage to the castle and rescues the children, helped by Radoub. He then gives himself up. Gauvain knows that Cimourdain will guillotine Lantenac after a military trial. He visits him in prison, where Lantenac expresses his uncompromising conservative vision of society ordered by hierarchy, deference and duty. Gauvain insists that humane values transcend tradition. To prove it, he allows Lantenac to escape and then gives himself up to the tribunal that was convened to try him. Gauvain is tried for treason. The tribunal comprises Cimourdain, Radoub and Gauvain’s deputy, Guéchamp. Radoub votes to acquit, but the others vote to condemn Gauvain to be executed. Visited by Cimourdain in prison, Gauvain outlines his own libertarian vision of a future society with minimal government, no taxes, technological progress and sexual equality. The following morning he is executed by guillotine. At the same moment, Cimourdain shoots himself.

Ninety-Three

The book picks up where the first one, Rowan of Rin (novel), ended. Rowan and the Travelers tells the story about how the tribe of the Travelers mysteriously showed up in the town of Rin. After their even more mysterious departure, a sleeping sickness appears, the Travelers is immediately mistaken, and Rowan and a couple other heroes and people of Rin, takes a trip over the sea to seek and find the answer. A terrible trip to the horrific Pit of Unrin. Here they find out that the sickness originally descends from a dangerous kind of fruit called Mountain-berries brought down from the Mountain next to Rin. Its juice lulls people drinking it, into a deep and heavy sleep. It turns out that the berries are the smaller and infantile form of big trees growing beneath the Mountain itself. After Rowan gets the sickness, causing others to dislike him, he was prevented to destroy the Mountain-berries, and in that way saving his hometown, and then the same would happen to the town as with the Valley of Gold, a large and beautiful settlement overrun and flowing with the berries, destroyed by their older adult forms. Rowan must save the town with the help of a potion made of slip-daisy roots.

Rowan and the Travellers

Audre Lorde grows up in Harlem, a child of Black West Indian parents. Legally blind as a child, she learns to read before going to school, thus stoking up wrath in the Nuns/teachers at her Catholic school. The family''s landlord hangs himself for having to rent his flat to Black people; later they take a trip to Washington D.C., where they are refused ice-cream because of segregation laws. After getting her first period at age 15, she makes friends with a small number of non-Black girls, called "The Branded" at Hunter College High School. She is even elected literary editor of the school''s arts magazine - she has started writing poetry. After graduation, she leaves home and shares a flat with friends of Jean''s (one of The Branded). At the same time, she also goes out with Peter, a white boy who jilts her on New Year''s Eve - she is pregnant and decides on an abortion. After some unhappy times at Hunter College, she moves to Stamford, Connecticut, to find work in a factory, where the working conditions prove atrocious. Following her father''s death, she returns to NYC and starts a relationship with Bea, whose heart she ends up breaking when she decides to move to Mexico to get away from McCarthyism. There, she goes to university and works as a secretary in a hospital. In Cuernavaca, she meets a lot of independent women, mostly lesbians; she has a relationship with one of them, Eudora, and works in a library. Back in NYC, Audre explores the lesbian bar scene, moves in with lover Muriel, then another lesbian, Lynn, moves in with them and ends up leaving without warning and with their savings. Finally, Audre begins a relationship with a mother named Afrekete, who decides to leave to tend to her child. The book ends on a homage to Audre''s mother.

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

After the events of Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment, the prior book, the Flock is headed toward Washington, D.C., where they hope to find the answers to their origins. However, after Fang is gravely injured by a flying Eraser and taken to a hospital, the Flock is housed by an FBI agent named Anne on the agreement that she is allowed to examine them "at a distance." The Flock enjoys a rare period of peace, even attending a private school, which is later discovered to have been an insane asylum. Life is good to them for now, as Max sees it, but they happen to be seeing Erasers often and their relationships in the Flock with each other are starting emotions that sometimes spill over and cause fights. Suddenly, though Iggy finds his long lost parents (he later said, "they were the real thing and the real thing wanted to make money off me"). An ordeal at their school in which teachers pull out tasers and chase Max causes the Flock to leave. Angel then suggests that they go to Florida, and for lack of a better plan, Max agrees. Later on, while in Florida, the Flock learns that a multi-national corporation named Itex is plotting to destroy the world, based on what Angel overheard when she was kidnapped back at the School, and is also tracking the Flock''s movements. Earlier, Anne had revealed herself as a member of the lab that created the Flock, and seeks to recapture them. Afterward, Max faces a clone of herself created by Itex, and she is destined to either destroy it or have it kill her. However, when she discovers that Itex created the clone to test how powerful Max is, she decides not to destroy the clone. The clone is referred to simply as "fake Max" or "the other Max".

Maximum Ride: School''s Out Forever

The story centers around Deanna Lambert, a teen troubled by social exile and branding rumors. When she was thirteen, her father caught her and her brother''s friend, seventeen-year-old Tommy Webber, having unprotected sex in the back of Tommy''s Buick. Word gets around by Tommy, and Deanna is named the ''school slut''. Her father becomes distant and cold towards her, never showing any affection after what he witnessed. Three years later, Deanna still lives in her small hometown of Pacifica, California. Her affair with Tommy Webber is still a popular gossip topic and her older brother, Darren, and his girlfriend, Stacy, now live in their basement with their illegitimate child, April. Keeping a fantasy of moving out of the house with Darren and Stacy in her mind and coming to a happy home, Deanna gets a summer job at a ratty pizza parlor, Picasso''s Pizza, while also dealing with inhibited feelings of affection for her best friend, Jason, who is dating her other friend, Lee. As the summer progresses, Deanna''s secret love of Jason deepens. She begins to become more and more envious of Lee, especially of Lee''s happy home and inner peace. One day, Deanna finds that Stacy fled the house,leaving April behind, and does not return. At the same time, she develops a friendship with her boss at Picasso''s, Michael, while working alongside Tommy Webber. One evening, Michael gives Deanna a ride home from work and Deanna''s father grows suspicious of Michael''s motives. Deanna then lashes out at her father for never again trusting her after he caught Deanna and Tommy in the car, which causes her father to temporarily leave. At the end of the story Deanna reconciles with Lee and Jason, Stacy suddenly arrives home ( it is revealed that she left only intending to party before returning to motherhood ), and Deanna decides to truly move on from the affair she had so long ago. Coincidentally, her father also returns to his family and moves on from the past.

Story of a Girl

Taking place during World War II, Fireshadow follows two seventeen-year-old boys. Erich Pieters joins the German Wehrmacht to fight for Chancellor Adolf Hitler in 1941, and winds up in an Australian Prisoner of War camp after fighting in North Africa. Half a century later, Vinnie Santiani flees into the remote Australian Bush in an effort to cope with the death of his sister. Despite the fact that they live in different times, the boys'' lives intertwine in the novel with haunting results. A reviewer for Magpies commented that the award-winning book''s "language is exceptional throughout ... while the author''s insights into the emotional lives of the young people are sensitively conveyed." The main character is Erich Pieters who is only 17 years of age. The novel doesn’t provide much of a physical description of him but is does provide a good description of his personality. Erich grew up in a small family of a mother, father and younger sister. His father wasn’t around much when he was younger as he was an army officer who worked for Hitler. When the war started (Erich was only 17 at the time) Erich signed up for the army to the disapproval of his mother and sister but not his father. His father was a very proud man and Erich took after him. Soon after Erich went to war, he was captured and sent to Australia to a prisoner of war camp. As he developed into a man, he became less proud and his personality developed as he tried to overcome his adversity of adapting to such different surroundings and treatment. As Erich aged he became wiser and more caring for those around him. As shown at the end of the novel, Erich is a gentle caring man who as he says “I may be sick, but my eyesight, hearing and memories are as strong as ever!”

Fireshadow

The book begins a few months after the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States, with John Wells, an undercover CIA agent, in the middle of a battle in Afghanistan. Wells has been undercover with Al Qaeda for many years, fighting in Chechnya, Afghanistan and Pakistan. During the battle he and his crew of Al-Qaeda members are on a hillside where a group of United States Marines are stationed. The small Al-Qaeda band is planning to attack the Marines to help with a bigger battle that is raging below, and Wells decides to take out the terrorists himself so he can send a message to his CIA contact via the Marines: "No prior knowledge of 9/11. Say hi to Heather for me." Meanwhile, back in the United States, Jennifer Exley, his CIA handler, visits a prisoner of war being held on a Navy ship to try to get information on Wells, who has been incommunicado for two years. Al Qaeda detonates two truck bombs in LA, killing hundreds of people. John Wells is returned to the USA on a mission from Al Qaeda where he reconnects with the CIA. However due to the length of his absence he is accused of being “un-faithful” because he did not warn the US about Al Qaeda attacks. The accuser, Vinny Duto forces John to take a polygraph test. He proves himself to be innocent. Wells is put in a CIA safe house in Washington, DC but escapes in order to continue his Al Qaeda mission. He heads to Atlanta and spends several months hiding out before being given the task of killing a retired US Army general. After completing this task, and secretly killing his two fellow Al Qaeda members, he is given the task of collecting something from Canada. While in Canada, he meets with a Al-Qaeda member to collect a suitcase, really a scientist who has been working to grow the plague bacteria. Wells returns with the suitcase but has secretly been infected with the plague by the scientist. Wells then learns that Al Qaeda used the LA bombings as a distraction from an impending, much larger attack; several other Al Qaeda members have infected themselves with the plague and plan to spread it throughout the population, creating a pandemic within the United States. Wells, with the help of Exley, is able to kill the infected terrorists and take out their leader, Khadri, thwarting their plans.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Far Hills

By Brian Cleeve

The End of the Affair

By Graham Greene

Stairway to Heaven: Led Zeppelin Uncensored

No Author Listed

Killdozer

By Theodore Sturgeon

Hunters of the Dusk

By Darren Shan

Ninety-Three

By Victor Hugo

Rowan and the Travellers

No Author Listed

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

By Audre Lorde

Maximum Ride: School's Out Forever

By James Patterson

Story of a Girl

By Sara Zarr

Fireshadow

No Author Listed

The Faithful Spy

By Alex Berenson