The story opens with a dinner party, attended by seven of the characters from Baum''s inaugural book. Present are the famous foursome, Dorothy Gale, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion, along with the Wizard, Jellia, and the Soldier with the Green Whiskers. (Baum named the latter personage Omby Amby, but Thompson re-christened him Wantowin Battles.) The dinner is hosted by the Wizard, preparatory to his introduction of his newest invention. After a long session of reminiscence that fills the first chapter, the Wizard takes his guests to a glass-domed building that contains two gleaming silver aircraft, the newly-created ozoplanes. The Wizard has named them the "Ozpril" and the "Oztober." The guests enthusiastically pile into the craft to inspect them. The Soldier with the Green Whiskers ate twenty-nine pickles at dinner, and is suddenly overcome by a violent cramp. He slams into the control panel of the Oztober, depressing the up, south, fast, spin, spiral, zig, zag, slow, and circle buttons simultaneously. The Oztober zooms off into the sky, headed for parts unknown, with the Soldier, the Tin Man, and Jellia on board. The Wizard, startled and appalled, takes the Ozpril in pursuit and in search of the Oztober, accompanied by Dorothy, Lion, and Scarecrow. Enduring a chaotic flight, the resourceful Tin Man eventually gets the ozoplane under control; he decides to teach himself to fly the craft, and then return to the Emerald City. In the dawn of the new day, he sights an unknown country in the sky, and lands the plane there. He enthusiastically but undiplomatically claims the place for Ozma as a colony of the Land of Oz. The country, however, has a name, and inhabitants, and a touchy, egotistical, and aggressive ruler: Stratovania is the domain of King Strutoovious the Seventh. (He calls himself "Strut of the Strat" for short.) This king quickly decides to turn the tables and conquer Ozma and Oz. He holds the new arrivals prisoner &mdash; though his hostility is somewhat mollified by his affection for Jellia; he likes her smooth brown hair, so different from the upstanding "electric hair" of the Stratovanians. Strat impulsively names Jellia his "starina" &mdash; a pun on "czarina." (Similar puns flow thick and fast: the new starina is addressed as "your Skyness" and "your Stratjesty.") Despite his affection for Jellia, Stratoovious assembles his army of Blowmen and forces the Tin Man to pilot the ozoplane back to the Emerald City. The other Ozites, left behind, try to find a way to counter this threatened invasion of Oz. Jellia tries to use her influence as starina &mdash; but faces the opposition of Strut''s existing queen, Kabebe. Jellia and Wantowin are in danger on being thrown off the edge of Stratovania, when the Wizard and company arrive in the second ozoplane. But the plane is blown up by the Blowmen, and the Ozites have to leap off the edge of the skyland to save themselves. The Wizard uses the magic in his "kit-bag" (it has green eyes and emits feline yowls) to cushion their fall. The Ozites land at Red Top Mountain in the Quadling Country. The place''s rightful ruler, Princess Azarine, has escaped the clutches of the usurper Bustado (an even worse villain than Strut) who captures the Ozites. This villain sends the Wizard in search of Azarine, and holds the rest of the party hostage. Yet the hostages escape, and meet up with the Wizard, Azarine, and her protectors, the great stag Shagomar and his wife Dear Deer. The group reaches the palace of Glinda, though the sorceress is absent with Ozma; the Wizard is able to use Glinda''s magic to combat the Stratovanian invasion. Strut and his forces reach the Emerald City; the residents flee or hide. Strut tries to obtain Ozma''s Magic Belt from her safe, but is frustrated; the Wizard has united with Ozma and Glinda to rescue the Belt, the most powerful magical talisman of Oz. Once in possession of the Belt, Ozma sends Strut''s army home and ends his bid for conquest. She turns the usurper Bustado into a red squirrel, so that Azarine can resume her rightful place after enjoying an Emerald City vacation. Thompson gives her protagonists some odd adversaries, including sky creatures called spikers that are something like iridescent octopuses, and a large fierce bugbear that is half insect and half bear in form. And she indulges in extravagant nonsensical tech talk, as with the Wizard''s "elutherated altitude pills" and Glinda''s "triple-edged, zentomatic transporter." She also misuses the word "entomophagous" to mean insect-like; it actually means something that eats insects.

Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz

The story takes place in Cedarville, while ''The Man with the Plan'' Griffin Bing is having a hard time adjusting to his school''s new atmosphere, which is more like a strict boot camp than a middle school. His new football fanatic Principal, Dr. Egan, does not like Griffin, due to his past. To make matters worse, somebody has stolen the priceless Superbowl ring that was in the school''s showcase, with Griffin''s retainer that he recently lost left in its place. For once, the Man with the plan DOESN''T have a Plan. Things only go from bad to worse when Griffin is accused of stealing it by Egan, and Griffin is sent to a state school for juvenile delinquents. Griffin realizes he has been framed by somebody and calculates a list of suspects: * Dr. Egan, (dubbed Dr. Evil) the principal who hates Griffin and could gain the ring as a football collectors item, as he loves the sport. * Celia White, A nosy reporter who is digging up dirt on Griffin. She often twists his words, and she will do anything to make him look guilty, possibly to gain a promotion. * Darren Vader, A burly boy who annoys Griffin. He could steal the ring after finding Griffin''s retainer in order to gain profit. His motive for framing Griffin would be to distract the police from him. * Tony Bartholomew, A boy who claims he is the rightful owner of the ring. Griffin tries to get the suspects through a metal detector at the courthouse after sending them an anonymous e-mail stating that a buyer was interested in purchasing a valuable possession that "recently" came to them. Griffin unfortunately discovers that Dr. Egan is the only suspect left. Logan, Griffin''s friend and amateur actor, agrees to get to know Egan''s daughter so he can search the house and find the ring, getting him off the hook. The plan fails when they discover Egan does not have the ring. Griffin is tried and placed under house arrest, where his friends meet him via video chat and formulate a final plan to clear their friend''s name. Savannah, the animal lover of the group, finds that a type of mouse that is attracted to shiny objects may have found Griffin''s lost retainer and swapped it out with the ring. Melissa, the computer whiz, hacks into Griffin''s house arrest system that allows him to leave the house without the alarm coming off while his parents are out. At the school during its play, Hail Caesar!, Griffin leads Egan to the mouse''s nest and clears his name. He is then raced home and resets his house arrest anklet as his parents arrive. Egan, who got Griffin home in time, clears up matters and apologizes to Griffin, saying that he was wrong to judge him. Also, Celia White shows up in an attempt to get a story on him. Before she can twist the words, however, Egan makes her stop and makes sure she won''t be doing it again. After this, Griffin asks the court if it will take a truly good-hearted friend out of the state school, so he can have a chance at life. They accept and it is implied that life will be better for Griffin and his friends.

Framed

*Darren Shan *The Saga of Darren Shan Darren, Harkat, and Mr. Crepsley (Vancha going back to Vampire Mountain to inform the other Princes and Generals of their encounter with the Vampaneze Lord) go to Mr. Crepsley''s hometown once again to investigate if Vampaneze had set up territories there. But soon after their arrival Darren is discovered by the police and forced to attend school. He has trouble with most of his subjects as he only has a middle school education, but luckily (or perhaps unluckily?) his English teacher is Debbie, his old girlfriend from his first visit to this city. Mr. Crepsley has to go back to Vampire Mountain again for Paris Skyle''s funeral, leaving Darren and Harkat to continue the investigations alone. One night on his way back to the hotel room the three are staying in, Darren encounters a Vampaneze with hooks for hands and a mask wrapped around his face. The Vampaneze attacks, but Darren is saved by his old friend Steve. Steve joins Darren for the hunt of the Vampaneze, claiming he''s changed his ways and now understands who the real enemy is and dropped his desire for vengeance against Darren and Mr.Crepsley long ago. Darren later reveals himself as a vampire to Debbie, and after a long explanation and a day''s contemplating she joins Darren and Steve for the fight. Mr. Crepsley comes back and helps Darren pursue the Vampaneze, but understandably doesn''t trust Steve. Darren does convince him, however, that Steve will be a big help for them and lets him come with them. Vancha also joins them again a few days later. They chase the hooked Vampaneze to the sewers at night, but the Vampaneze led them to a trap. Darren and his team are soon surrounded and the Vampaneze Lord make his second appearance. Darren tries to kill him, but is stopped by Steve, who shows his true side as being a half-vampaneze and betraying Darren and his friends. The hooked Vampaneze is also revealed to be RV (Previously known as Reggie Veggie, but now claims it stands for Righteous Vampaneze). A fight begins between the Hunters and the Vampaneze. Vancha charges through the Vampets, scattering them and Mr. Crepsley follows, slicing with his nails to bring down many Vampaneze. Darren soon beats Steve and is about to finish him off, but RV uses Debbie as a hostage. RV, Gannen Harst, and the Lord soon leave with the threat that they will kill Debbie if they are followed. Darren and Vancha take a Vampet and Steve as their hostage and are given a warning by Gannen to leave the tunnels immediately or he''ll send Vampaneze to finish them off.

Allies of the Night

The main character is a one-hundred-year-old woman, Roseanne McNulty, who now resides in the Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital. Having been a patient for some fifty years or more, Roseanne decides to write an autobiography. She calls it "Roseanne''s testimony of herself" and charts her life and that of her parents, living in Sligo at the turn of the 20th Century. She keeps her story hidden under the loose floorboard in her room, unsure as yet if she wants it to be found. The second narrative is the "commonplace book" of the current chief Psychiatrist of the hospital, Dr Grene. The hospital now faces imminent demolition. He must decide who of his patients are to be transferred, and who must be released into the community. He is particularly concerned about Roseanne, and begins tentatively to attempt to discover her history. It soon becomes apparent that both Roseanne and Dr Grene have differing stories as to her incarceration and her early life, but what is consistent in both narratives is that Roseanne fell victim to the religious and political upheavals in Ireland in the 1920s – 1930s.

The Secret Scripture

Art crime has received relatively little scholarly attention. And yet it involves a multi-billion dollar legitimate industry, with a conservatively-estimated $6 billion annual criminal profit. (US Department of Justice website) Information and scholarly analysis of art crime is critical to the wide variety of fields involved in the art trade and art preservation, from museums to academia, from auction houses to galleries, from insurance to art law, from policing to security. Since the Second World War, art crime has evolved from a relatively innocuous crime, into the third highest-grossing annual criminal trade worldwide, run primarily by organized crime syndicates, and therefore funding their other enterprises, from the drug and arms trades to terrorism. It is no longer merely the art that is at stake. The book is an interdisciplinary essay collection on the study of art crime, and its effect on all aspects of the art world. Essayists discuss art crime subcategories, including vandalism, iconoclasm, forgery, fraud, peace-time theft, war looting, archaeological looting, smuggling, submarine looting, and ransom. The contributors conclude their analyses with specific practical suggestions to implement in the future.

Art and Crime

Using language with elements of the medieval tales which were his models, Morris tells the story of Ralph of Upmeads, the fourth and youngest son of a minor king, who sets out, contrary to his parents'' wishes, to find knightly adventure and seek the Well at the World''s End, a magic well which will confer a near-immortality and strengthened destiny on those who drink from it. The well lies at the edge of the sea beyond a wall of mountains called "The Wall of the World" by those on the near side of them but "The Wall of Strife" by the more peaceful and egalitarian people who live on the seaward side. Ralph meets a mysterious lady who has drunk from the well, and they become lovers. Together and separately, they face many foes and dangers including brigands, slave traders, unscrupulous rulers and treacherous fellow travellers. The lady is killed, but with the help of Ursula, another maiden whom Ralph meets upon the way, and the Sage of Sweveham, an ancient hermit who has also drunk of the well, Ralph eventually attains the Well, after many more adventures. The outward journey takes more than a year. Returning from the well, Ralph, Ursula and the Sage find that some of the poor oppressed folk they had helped on the way to the well have righted grave wrongs, increased prosperity and reduced the level of strife in the city-state kingdoms along the way. The wayfarers must now decide whether they can settle down to a righteous but stodgy life at Ralph''s home kingdom now that they have learned so much and become near-immortal, or are called to further heroism in the wider world.

The Well at the World''s End

The story takes place in 2048, 51 years after scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory develop "the ultimate weapon", a force field generating device they term a Bobbler. The bureaucracy running the Laboratory use it to enforce an end to conventional warfare (triggering a brief war in the process), calling themselves the Peace Authority. The Bobbler creates a perfectly spherical, impenetrable, and persistent shield around or through anything, and is used to contain nuclear weapons, people, and occasionally entire cities or governments, separating them from the rest of the world (and presumably killing everyone inside by eventual suffocation and lack of sunlight). In an effort to retain their monopoly on this weapon, they make technological progress illegal, and their power and fear of rebellion corrupts them. In this world, governments are weak, where they are permitted at all; the Peace Authority is the true bearer of power and becomes a worldwide government. A group of rebels, the Tinkers, develop technology clandestinely far beyond what the Authority has (while limited to riding horseback and other Authority-mandated anachronisms), but still has no defense against the bobble. One of the original inventors of the bobble is part of the resistance, and he develops a more advanced version of the bobbler which does not require the huge electrical power sources available only to the Peace Authority. It is discovered by the Tinkers (and much later by the Peace Authority) that the bobbles are actually not force fields, but stasis fields; within which time has stopped. So not only are the contents perfectly preserved, but they open spontaneously after a certain time period. The Tinkers use their knowledge and the Peacers'' ignorance of this effect to their advantage (bobbling themselves for short time periods, for instance), and with the help of a young thief (and mathematical genius), they lead a rebellion to try to bobble the power generators of the Peace Authority and thus neutralize its primary weapon.

The Peace War

The book starts with a funeral. The atmosphere is not, as one would assume, oppressive, but rather buoyant. When the coffin is carried to the graveyard, Helen remarks that her mother is still, even after her death, making her presence felt. As her mother had had a row with the priest when choosing the grave years ago, he keeps casting Helen and her brother distrustful looks throughout the funeral. From the very beginning of the book it is clear that Dorothy Glovers must have been a nasty woman. A woman who did not treat her children with love and affection, but ruled them and deprived them of life’s pleasures. Only Louise, her youngest daughter, had had the strength to escape from her dominant influence. When the ceremony of burying is held at the grave and the priest is giving his sermon, Helen thinks: „Eternal life is an appalling idea, especially in mother’s case.“ Slowly but steadily, Helen and Edward get used to their mother’s absence and they start to slightly change their lives. Helen feels much freer than before her mother''s death and falls in love with Giles Carnaby, their lawyer. She becomes more confident and starts to perceive life differently. Nevertheless, Dorothy, Helen''s and Edward''s mother still, even after her death, makes her presence felt. At one point, Helen finds love-letters that a former boyfriend of hers had written to her in one of her mother''s old cloaks. Her mother had never given these letters to her and therefore had caused the separation of Helen and her boyfriend. Helen is upset, but has to come to terms with it – she cannot confront her mother anymore. Edwards is a biology teacher. His mother’s does not change much about his life - he remains as reclusive as he had been before his mother''s death. He spends most of his leisure time in the wood that is part of the estate he and Helen live at. There he tends plants and watches birds. In the course of the book he turns out to be homosexual. Helen helps Howard through what seems to be a life crisis. By doing so she feels strong. Helen and Edward live modestly. They only buy what they absolutely need; their lifestyle is rather old-fashioned. This is in complete contrast to the life their sister Luise and her husband Tom lead, who every once in a while drop in at Helen and Howard''s place. Luise and Tom live an urban life in London, their problems are those typical of people that live in big cities: lack of time and psycho-somatic illnesses. Helen and Howard, by contrast, lead a calm, monotonous and rather rural life. Throughout the book it seems as though Helen and Giles Carnaby, the lawyer, will end up in a happy relationship. This does not happen, as in one of the last chapters Gilbert tells Helen that he does not want to see her anymore.

Passing On

The novel is essentially the story of Gervaise Macquart, who was featured briefly in the first novel in the series, La Fortune des Rougon, running away to Paris with her shiftless lover Lantier to work as a washerwoman in a hot, busy laundry in one of the seedier areas of the city. L''Assommoir begins with Gervaise and her two young sons being abandoned by Lantier, who takes off for parts unknown; she later takes up with Coupeau, a teetotal roofing engineer, and they are married in one of the great set-pieces of Zola''s fiction; the account of the wedding party''s chaotic trip to the Louvre is perhaps the novelist''s most famous passage. Through a combination of happy circumstances Gervaise is able to raise enough money to open her own laundry, and the couple''s happiness appears to be complete with the birth of a daughter, Anna, nicknamed Nana (the protagonist of Zola''s later novel of the same title). The second half of the novel deals with the downward trajectory of Gervaise''s life from this happy high point. Coupeau is injured in a fall from the roof of a new hospital he is working on, and during his lengthy and painful convalescence he takes to drink. Only a few chapters pass before Coupeau is a vindictive alcoholic, with no intention of trying to find more work; Gervaise struggles to keep her home together, but her excessive pride leads her to a number of embarrassing failures and before long everything is going downhill. The home is further disrupted by the return of Lantier, warmly welcomed by Coupeau—by this point losing interest in both Gervaise and life itself, and becoming seriously ill—and the ensuing chaos and financial strain is too much for Gervaise, who loses her laundry-shop and is sucked into debt. She decides to join Coupeau in the drinking and soon slides into heavy alcoholism too, prompting Nana—already suffering from the chaotic life at home and getting into trouble on a daily basis—to run away to Paris for good. The novel continues in this unhappy vein until the end.

Assomoir

Victim: The Other Side of Murder retells the events of the Hi-Fi Murders. On April 22, 1974, Dale Selby Pierre and William Andrews entered the Hi-Fi Shop in Ogden, Utah, as Keith Roberts waited outside the shop in a car. Pierre, Andrews, and Roberts were all United States Air Force airmen stationed at Hill Air Force Base, just south of Ogden. During an armed robbery of the shop, Pierre and Andrews took five people hostage, killed three of them, and left the two who survived with horrific injuries. Meanwhile, Roberts had assisted Pierre and Andrews in the robbery of the shop''s expensive stereo and electronics equipment. The three murder victims were Stanley Walker (age 20), Michelle Ansley (age 19), and Carol Naisbitt (age 52). The two surviving victims were Cortney Naisbitt (age 16) and Orren Walker (age 43). Stanley Walker and Ansley were employees of the Hi-Fi Shop who were working at the time of the armed robbery. While the robbery was in progress, it was inadvertently interrupted on three separate occasions, with each occasion ensnaring an additional victim into the crime. On the first occasion, Cortney Naisbitt entered the shop in order to speak briefly with Stanley Walker. Sometime later, when Stanley Walker did not return home as expected, his father Orren Walker went to the Hi-Fi Shop to look for him. Similarly, Cortney Naisbitt''s mother Carol Naisbitt later arrived at the shop to look for her son, who also had not returned home at the expected time. Each of the five victims was taken hostage, bound, forced to drink Drano, and later shot in the head. In addition, Ansley was raped by Pierre. Victim: The Other Side of Murder focuses particularly on Cortney Naisbitt and the Naisbitt family. In the aftermath of the brutal crime, the Naisbitt family struggled not only with the death of murdered victim Carol, but also with the physical and psychological recovery of surviving victim Cortney. This book was viewed by many as a pioneering work, because it was one of the first true crime books that focused on the victims of a violent crime rather than on the perpetrators.

Victim: The Other Side of Murder

Andreus finally begins the military maneuvers against Meldrith which had been feared in Wren to the Rescue. Lirwani agents launch a covert strike to abduct Tess and assassinate the King and Queen. These events take place while Wren is on vacation in Alat Los. As part of the plot, Tess is drugged via a drink presented to her by one of the agents posing as a stable worker, but the effect does not take full hold until she is in a hidden staircase in the palace, and is rescued by her most loyal servant after reviving in time to witness her parents'' murder. After being evacuated to a building in the hills, Tess raises the alarm to Wren, Tyron, and Conor using the summons rings which they began using after the events of Wren''s Quest. Capitalizing on the disarray inflicted by the toppling of royal order, Andreus moves the full force of his army into Meldrith, over 1 million troops in all. Tess organizes all support she can in order to mount raids against the Lirwani occupation forces, which were not yet evenly spread throughout Meldrith''s lands. Wren and Tyron, having been successfully recalled earlier, are sent to seek the aid of Hawk Rhiscarlan, who is known to have now set himself up in some form of power at the ruins of his ancestral home, directly south of Senna Lirwan.

Wren''s War

The book follows the life of Simonides from the point of view of his older self. As a boy, silent and lacking confidence due to his extreme ugliness, he is brought up with strict discipline by his father, Leoprepes. He finds comfort in the love of his handsome older brother Theasides, and in music. When a travelling singer, Kleobis, visits Keos to perform at a wedding, Simonides begs to be taken on as an apprentice. This, Kleobis does, and they leave together on their travels. Under Kleobis'' tutelage Simonides becomes a talented composer and performer, but remains physically ugly. This proves a severe disadvantage when, after the fall of Kleobis'' native city of Ephesos to the Persians, Kleobis and Simonides attempt to find a patron at the court of Polycrates of Samos. Polycrates is a conoisseur of beauty, in boys as much as in music or art, and Simonides'' appearance is not a recommendation. Kleobis and Simonides find themselves out of fashion at court, and scrabbling for work. Simonides travels back to Keos to enter a music contest, leaving Kleobis behind in Samos nursing a slight illness. He wins the contest, but discovers, on returning, that Kleobis has died. Simonides now finds a patron in Pisistratos, the tyrant of Athens. He becomes a successful musician in that city, and after Pisistratos'' death, his sons Hippias and Hipparchos continue the family''s patronage. Through Hipparchos, Simonides is introduced to the hetaira Lyra, whose lover he becomes. Hipparchos himself is sexually oriented to boys, not women, and Simonides witnesses his eventual downfall, when Hipparchos uses his political power to punish the family of a young boy who rejects his advances, and the boy and his lover retaliate by murdering him. Here Renault draws on the tale of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, also known as the Tyrannicides (τυραννοκτόνους), whose attack against the Peisistratid tyranny made them the iconic personages of the Athenian democracy.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz

By Ruth Plumly Thompson

Framed

By Gordon Korman

Allies of the Night

By Darren Shan

The Secret Scripture

By Sebastian Barry

Art and Crime

No Author Listed

The Well at the World's End

By William Morris

The Peace War

By Vernor Vinge

Passing On

No Author Listed

Assomoir

By Émile Zola

Victim: The Other Side of Murder

By Gary Kinder

Wren's War

By Sherwood Smith

The Praise Singer

By Mary Renault