Lee''s novel centers on Wang Chi-yang, a 63-year-old man who fled China to avoid the communists. The wealthy refugee lives in a house in Chinatown with his two sons. His sister-in-law, Madam Tang, who takes citizenship classes, is a regular visitor and urges Wang to adopt Western ways. While his sons and sister-in-law are integrating into American culture, Wang stubbornly resists assimilation and speaks only two words of English, "Yes" and "No". Wang also has a severe cough, which he does not wish to have cured, feeling that it gives him authority in his household. Wang''s elder son, Wang Ta, woos Linda Tung, but on learning that she has many men in her life, drops her; he later learns she is a nightclub dancer. Linda''s friend, seamstress Helen Chao, who has been unable to find a man despite the shortage of eligible women in Chinatown, gets Ta drunk and seduces him. On awakening in her bed, he agrees to an affair, but eventually abandons her, and she commits suicide. Impatient at Ta''s inability to find a wife, Wang arranges for a picture bride for his son. However, before the picture bride arrives, Ta meets a young woman, May Li, who with her father has recently come to San Francisco. The two support themselves by singing depressing flower drum songs on the street. Ta invites the two into the Wang household, with his father''s approval, and he and May Li fall in love. He vows to marry her after she is falsely accused by the household servants of stealing a clock, though his father forbids it. Wang struggles to understand the conflicts that have torn his household apart; his hostility toward assimilation is isolating him from his family. In the end, taking his son''s advice, Wang decides not to go to the herbalist to seek a remedy for his cough, but walks to a Chinese-run Western clinic, symbolizing that he is beginning to accept American culture.

The Flower Drum Song

Moon Over Manifest tells the stories of two independent youths who find themselves living—almost by accident—in the small Kansas town of Manifest in two different eras. The two parallel storylines overlap extensively, and both discuss themes of belonging and of feeling an outsider in a community of outsiders. The primary story, a first-person account of Abilene Tucker''s adventures living with an old friend of her father''s in Manifest in 1936, revolves around a chance encounter with Miss Sadie, Manifest''s mysterious Hungarian diviner. Spending the summer working off a debt to Miss Sadie, Abilene finds herself pulled into the story of a boy, known only as Jinx, who train-hops his way to Manifest in 1917 and assimilates into a community divided along cleavages of ethnic origin and economic class. Miss Sadie''s unpredictable recounting of Jinx''s story coincides with Abilene''s discovery of a box of letters and mementos which play conspicuous roles in Jinx''s adventures. Abilene, along with her new friends Ruthanne and Lettie, sets out on an extensive mission to unmask a spy (known by the codename "The Rattler") mentioned in one of the letters, Abilene all the while hoping that their search will uncover clues about the enigmatic character of her father and Abilene''s perceived abandonment. When the present-day spy mission and Miss Sadie''s narrative begin to overlap, Abilene uncovers truths about Manifest that change not only her conception of the town and its people, but of her familial history and, ultimately, her own desires for independence and security. The second storyline, Miss Sadie''s third-person recounting of Jinx''s arrival in Manifest in 1917, is supplemented by newspaper clippings and letters from the era found by Abilene. Jinx arrives in Manifest in October 1917 and immediately befriends young local Ned Gillen, adopted son of the Manifest hardware store owner of ambiguous ethnic origin. As their relationship develops, Ned helps Jinx feel welcome in Manifest while Jinx helps Ned learn the skills the former has garnered from a life on the road. Once Ned goes off to war, however, Jinx''s relationship with the citizens of Manifest changes forever, as he is forced to prove his worth as an outsider without the assistance of an inside friend. This storyline focuses heavily on the role of immigration in mining towns such as Manifest; as the story progresses, Jinx finds himself helping the miners regain their dignity and escape the clutches of the avaricious mine-owners. Historical events mentioned in the book include Prohibition, coal mining, orphan trains, World War One, Spanish Influenza, and immigration.

Moon Over Manifest

Anaxandra is the daughter of Chrysaor, a chieftain who rules of an uncharted island. When Nicander, king of the island Siphnos, comes to demand a tribute, he takes Anaxandra to be his daughter Callisto’s playmate. Unable to return home, she comes to love the small island of Siphnos and lives there for six years with Nicander''s family. When pirates attack the island, Nicander and his family are killed while Anaxandra survives by scaring off the pirates by pretending to be Medusa. Found by Menelaus, king of Sparta, Anaxandra assumes the identity of Princess Callisto, believing that Menelaus will otherwise abandon her to her doom. Brought into Menelaus''s household in Sparta, all the members of his family welcome her, except Menelaus’s beautiful wife, Helen. Suspicious of "Callisto," Helen''s animosity towards Anaxandra places her in greater danger than ever. When Menelaus leaves for Crete to repay its king for slaves, Paris, a prince of Troy arrives to plunder Sparta''s treasury and takes an eager Helen away with him. To save Helen''s daughter Hermione from leaving, Anaxandra takes her place and soon becomes the sole protector of Helen''s infant son, Pleisthenes. Upon arriving in Troy, Anaxandra is exposed again by Helen, who will stop at nothing to make Anaxandra suffer and neglects her own son in favour of her new life as the bride of Paris. Helen is quickly beloved by all of Troy, save Paris''s sister Cassandra who has foreseen that Helen will destroy the city but is cursed so her prophecies will never be believed. In spite of her suffering, Anaxandra befriends Andromache, the bride of Prince Hector, and Cassandra. When Menelaus learns that Paris has stolen Helen and the treasures of Sparta, he calls upon his brother Agamemnon and all of Helen''s former suitors who have sworn to defend his honour and to declare war upon Troy. As Helen revels in the war that will occur for her sake, Anaxandra finds herself falling in love with Euneus, the neutral king of Lemnos who is a friend of Hector. Torn between her love of Troy and her loyalty to Menelaus, Anaxandra must find a way to rescue Pleisthenes and return the young prince to his father before Troy is destroyed.

Goddess of Yesterday

The book starts with Grubbs fighting a demon alongside Beranabus and Kernel in the Demonata universe. After subduing and torturing the demon they are fighting, they question it about the Shadow, but learn nothing. Later, they meet up with Shark, Meera, Bec and Dervish. They discover that the Lambs were responsible for the attack on the Grady''s home in Carcery Vale and it is decided that Grubbs should go after them to find out more. Shark assembles a team of soldiers he names the "Dirty Dozen". One of them is Timas Brauss, a computer expert, who finds the Lamb''s Headquarters. Upon their arrival, they find a man named Antoine Horwitzer in charge, in place of the missing Prae Athim. Antoine explains that Prae stole around six to seven hundred werewolves from their breeding facility. They learn, through Timas'' efforts, that Prae took all the werewolves to "Wolf Island" and Antoine accompanies them there. On the island, they find Prae a prisoner. It emerges that Antoine and Juni Swan were behind the assault. Juni Swan arrives shortly after and they are attacked. They manage to flee and attempt to escape on the helicopter they arrived in but it is destroyed. They try to escape the released werewolves through a window but are attacked before they can open one. Shark is left behind in the subsequent fight. Grubbs, Meera, Prae and Timas try to escape by sea since the werewolves cannot swim but ultimately find themselves surrounded. Grubbs becomes a werewolf and kills the leader of the pack, replacing him and assuming control of the werewolves. He makes the wolves go back to attack Juni. Grubbs fights Juni but is eventually overpowered. Just as he is about to be killed, Juni has a vision. She says that Grubbs is tapping into great magic and that the world is being destroyed, informing him "the demons will not destroy the world, Grubbs Grady - you will." With that, she leaves. Grubbs later finds Antoine trying to escape by boat. Grubbs agrees not to kill Antoine if he calls his Lambs off their attack and has them escort Bec and Dervish to safety. Once this is done, Antoine asks Grubbs to keep his end of the bargain. Grubbs confirms he would not kill Antoine, "but that doesn''t mean the pack won''t". Antoine is savagely killed. On the way back to the docks, they see a man lying on his back in a boat, this is revealed to be a severely injured Shark, who fought and killed the werewolves he was left to fight with. When Grubbs gets back home, he finds Dervish has decided to stay and die instead of going to the Demonata world. A window opens and Grubbs, Bec, Dervish, and Kirilli prepare to fight.

Wolf Island

The story begins when a female bard named Bravura comes to the village to teach the children. She has been hired by the women of the village who think that Cacofonix, the current teacher of the village, is giving the children a poor education. Upon hearing this, Cacofonix leaves the village. When Bravura arrives, the women are stunned by her singing and the men laugh at it (the only difference between Bravura''s singing and Cacofonix''s is that when Bravura sings it does not rain). Bravura is insulted and wonders how the women put up with them. The next day Bravura asks Impedimenta about this, and tells her not to let her husband boss her around. Impedimenta then tells Vitalstatistix that since she is the chief''s wife, she has as much power as he does. They both lose their tempers and Impedimenta hits Vitalstatistix. He then leaves the village, joining Cacofonix in the forest. Impedimenta is then made chief by majority vote (all the women vote for Impedimenta, but the men do not dare vote or even speak up against their wives). Meanwhile, Julius Caesar has another plan to take over the village of indomitable Gauls. His special agent for the task, Manlius Claphamomnibus, swears to bring the "secret weapon" over the ocean discreetly. Back at the village, the "woman dominance" has caught on to every family, basically destroying the village. Asterix, troubled by all of this from the start, is met by Bravura who tells him that if both of them settle down together they could become chiefs of the village. Asterix accuses her of coming to the village to do just that and loses his temper. Bravura picks Asterix up and kisses him, and Asterix hits her out of reflex, though he feels shame and regret immediately after. Asterix is brought before the new chief for breaking their laws by striking a woman, and is given temporary exile. Getafix objects to this, but Bravura argues with him, getting him angry and causing the druid to leave the village also. And not only does Obelix join them, but every other village man as well. The men actually have a good time in the forest, drinking beer and eating wild boar. Claphamomnibus''s ship lands at Gaul, and he unleashes the secret weapon: female legionaries (strongly resembling amazons). Claphamomnibus''s reasoning for the forming of this strange unit is that because of the Gaul warriors'' code of chivalry, they cannot fight women and thus could be easily defeated. Asterix, while scouting the Romans, learns of the arrival of Claphamomnibus and his female legionnaries and is sent as an ambassador to warn the village women of the threat (they worriedly send clothes to their husbands via Asterix and Obelix, in case it gets cold at night in the forest). Bravura tries to meet the women as an ambassador, claiming that since they are all women, they are sisters. The Roman sentry pounds her and Claphamomnibus insults her. Asterix watches it all; he also sees her slapping Clapharmomnibus which gives the Gaul hero a new perspective about the lady bard. Asterix approaches Bravura with a plan to get rid of this new problem. Part of his plan is to have Cacofonix sing songs in the forest, causing it to rain and scaring off all animals such as rabbits and snakes (and in one scene even a dragon). This scares the female Roman scout parties, causing them to retreat many times. (Humorously Asterix'' departure to talk to Bravura was misinterpreted by the men, who by their passed comments assumed he was proposing marriage.) The rest of the plan involves the women of the village setting up a mall with the latest styles and accessories from Lutetia, and thus when the Roman women arrive to attack the supposedly undefended village they immediately become absorbed in shopping. In the meantime, the men of the village take out the fortified camps filled with male legionaries; Obelix is even allowed to destroy one of the camps single-handedly, as acknowledgment that he has not been much involved with the storyline until that point. Finally, Cacofonix sings once again as the Roman women leave the village with their shopping, and the terrified women (along with the dragon) flee Gaul on their ship with Claphamomnibus left behind. The story ends with the Gauls in a good mood, and there seems to be a good mood in Rome as well, for Julius Caesar is the laughing stock of his nation for having had to hire women to defeat the Gauls, and, on top of this, it is again a failure. Bravura and Asterix settle their original angst and develop a regard for one other.

Asterix and the Secret Weapon

Among the asteroids at the edge of the mysterious Great Void, where the universe is still in formation, Valérian and Laureline along with a Schniarfeur living weapon are working as travelling salesmen, hawking their wares from a battered old space truck, frequently harassed by the local police force who take their orders from the Triumvirate of Rubanis. At one of their stops they befriend a young girl, Ky-Gaï, who has lost her job after the spacesuit factory in which she worked closed down. Laureline takes Ky-Gaï on as an assistant. When some of their merchandise is stolen by the Limboz, creatures from the Great Void who have lost their planet, Valérian and Laureline give chase. Catching the Limboz, Valérian agrees to let them go only if they''ll give them information about the location of the Earth which Valérian and Laureline believe is located somewhere in the Great Void. Acting on the information given by the Limboz, Valérian and Laureline make for Port Abyss, the only free port at the edge of the Great Void. There they meet Singh''a Rough''a, a space captain who is mounting a voyage of exploration into the Great Void. Singh''a Rough''a takes an interest in the spacesuits that Laureline is selling; she needs them for her expedition crew. However, while Laureline and Singh''a Rough''a are negotiating, the police, acting under the orders of the Triumvirate of Rubanis, arrive and arrest Valérian and the Schniarfeur. While Valérian and Schniarfeur languish in prison, Laureline and Ky-Gaï return to Ky-Gaï''s old factory; they have the notion of re-opening it so that they can make the spacesuits to fulfill Singh''a Rough''a''s order. As they go to work, Laureline confesses to Ky-Gaï that she and Valérian are only posing as merchants – in reality they are trying to find the location of Earth. At the prison, Valérian gets talking to one of his fellow prisoners who tells him of an encounter he had with a mysterious stone that appeared to be alive. This tallies with what the Limboz had earlier told Valérian and Laureline. Bribing one of the guards, Valérian and Schniarfeur make their escape and rendezvous with Laureline and Ky-Gaï, who are bringing the finished spacesuits to Singh''a Rough''a. Laureline realises that the Great Void is too dangerous a place to bring Ky-Gaï; Valérian gives her the Schniarfeur, who has been studying business administration, as a present and the two decide to re-open the spacesuit factory as a business together. In the Great Void, the Triumvirate of Rubanis meet with one of the giant sentient stones, the Wolochs. The Wolochs tell the Triumvirate that Valérian and Laureline have escaped and that they are not happy about Singh''a Rough''a''s expedition. Evading the police, Valérian and Laureline reach Singh''a Rough''a''s ship, impressing her sufficiently that she allows them to join her crew. As the ship departs Port Abyss for the Great Void, Valérian and Laureline ponder whether they will find their lost Earth.

At the Edge of the Great Void

A series of bizarre incidents sweep across Sweden: a man dies in front of an ATM, two young women slaughter an elderly taxi driver, a murder is committed aboard a Baltic Sea ferry, and a sub-station engineer makes a gruesome discovery while investigating the cause of a nationwide power cut. As Wallander investigates, he uncovers a sinister plan to bring the Western world to its knees. The major background theme around which the action takes place is the dilemma of the Western economic system versus poverty. The criminal mastermind is a persuasive and talented IT specialist who plans to right the wrongs of the world by "deleting" vast quantities of money from multinational banks'' accounts system, so bringing on a credit and financial panic. The criminals believe their intended cybercrime is justified; for them the "big picture" involves the sacrifice of the banking system in order to wipe out third world debt. At a crucial moment Wallander unwittingly manages to persuade a key accomplice that, ethically, there is in fact no "big picture," that instead we just have lives that are fragile but also "miraculous". That this major issue of our times should feature in a detective novel shows that it is not merely about detection, yet Wallander''s answer just repeats the very old idea of caring for one''s proximate neighbours in the here and now.

Firewall

It is the surreal story of two boys, Hashi and Kiku, who were both abandoned by their mothers during infancy and locked in coin lockers at a Tokyo train station in the summer of 1972. Both boys become wards of the Cherryfield Orphanage in Yokohama, where the tough and athletic Kiku comes to the defense of the slight, and often picked on, Hashi. They are adopted by foster parents, the Kuwayamas (the wife is Zainichi Korean) who live on an island off Kyushu. At the age of 16 both find themselves in a diseased urban wasteland in Tokyo named Toxitown. Hashi, whose voice has deep effects on those who hear it, becomes a bisexual rock star, employed by an eccentric producer named D. Kiku becomes a pole vaulter and with his girlfriend Anemone, a model who has converted her condo into a swamp for her crocodile, searches for a substance named DATURA in order to take his revenge upon the city of Tokyo and destroy it. Along the way, however, in a search for Hashi''s real mother, Hashi and D come upon a woman who turns out to be Kiku''s... with grave consequences for them all.

Coin Locker Babies

Action takes place in Leningrad, USSR, apparently in the 1970s. The protagonist, Dmitry Alekseyevich Malyanov (Дмитрий Алексеевич Малянов) is an astrophysicist who, while officially on vacation, continues to work on his thesis, "The Interaction of Stars with Diffused Galactic Matter". Just as he begins to realize that he is on the verge of a revolutionary discovery worthy of a Nobel Prize, his life becomes plagued by strange events. First, Malyanov is visited unexpectedly by an attractive woman claiming to be his wife''s classmate and food and wine arrive for them mysteriously and already paid for. Then his neighbor dies of an apparent suicide and Malyanov becomes the murder suspect. Approaching the problem with a scientific mindset, Malyanov suspects that his discovery is in the way of someone (or something) intent on preventing the completion of his work. The same idea occurs to his friends and acquaintances, who find themselves in a similar impasse — some powerful, mysterious, and very selective force impedes their work in fields ranging from biology to mathematical linguistics. An explanation is proposed by Malyanov''s friend and neighbor, the mathematician Vecherovsky (Вечеровский). He posits that the mysterious force is the Universe''s reaction to the mankind''s scientific pursuit, which threatens to destroy the very fabric of the universe in some distant future. Vecherovsky proposes to treat this universal resistance to scientific progress as a natural phenomenon which can and should be investigated and even harnessed by Science. As the novel concludes, the other scientists, including Malyanov, have been forced to abandon their research, and Vecherovsky remains alone to battle the universe and continue their work. Aleksandr Sokurov''s movie The Days of the Eclipse is loosely based on the novel.

Definitely Maybe

Christie Malry, being a "simple man", above all longs for sex and money. In order to understand how money works, he takes a job in a London bank. This leads him to enrol in a bookkeeping course, where he learns the double-entry system. Bored by his bank job, he quits and starts work at Tapper''s, a sweet factory. One day, he has the idea to apply the double-entry system to his life. Every aggravation Malry suffers from society—such as being forced to walk along a particular stretch of pavement due to a building''s placement—is revenged by a recompense—in this case, "[scratching] an unsightly line about a yard long into the blackened portland stone facing of the office block" (23–4). Having established this system, and growing progressively angry at society, Malry graduates from minor acts of personal revenge (mostly vandalism) to large-scale terrorism: bombing hoaxes, an actual bombing, and poisoning West London''s drinking water. Shortly before he manages to bomb the House of Commons, he dies of cancer. Christie compares himself to "Guy Fawkes, with the difference that he was caught" and strictly follows a code of twelve principles. The first principle, "I am a cell of one" (89), forbids him from discussing his actions with anyone else, not even with his few friends or with the Shrike, his beloved girlfriend.

Christie Malry''s Own Double-Entry

As its foreword, the book features a poem by Jimmie Durham. The preface is by Winona LaDuke and poems from John Trudell''s Living in Reality appear as preludes to each section. Russell Means'' 1982 platform for president of the Oglala people is included as an appendix. Maps of Indian land claims/treaty areas are included. The book is dedicated "for my mother." The mostly previously published essays collected provide a history of Native American struggle for decolonization provided through the examples of the Haudenosaunee in upstate New York, the Lakotas on the northern Plains, the Lubicon Cree in northern Alberta, and the Navajo and Newe (Western Shoshone) in the upper Sonoran. The case is made that uranium mining, coal stripping, hydropower generation, and water diversion are ecocidal as well as genocidal, and that the ecological damage poses a threat to all North Americans. Churchill also discusses the Native North American diaspora caused by their displacement. : "Not only the people of the land are being destroyed, but, more and more, the land itself. The nature of native resistance to the continued onslaught of the invading industrial culture is shaped accordingly. It is a resistance forged in the crucible of a struggle for survival." —from the introduction

Struggle for the Land

Such a Long Journey takes place in Mumbai, Maharashtra, in the year 1971. The novel''s protagonist is a hard-working bank clerk Gustad Noble, a member of the Parsi community and a devoted family man struggling to keep his wife Dilnavaz, and three children out of poverty. But his family begins to fall apart as his eldest son Sohrab refuses to attend the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology to which he has gained admittance and his youngest daughter, Roshan, falls ill. Other conflicts within the novel involve Gustad''s ongoing interactions with his eccentric neighbours and his relationship with his close friend and co-worker, Dinshawji. Tehmul, a seemingly unimportant and mentally disabled character, is essential in Gustad''s life, as he brings out the tender side of him and represents the innocence of life. A letter that Gustad receives one day from an old friend, Major Bilimoria, slowly draws him into a government deception involving threats, secrecy and large amounts of money. He then, begins the long journey, that sheds new light on all aspects of Gustad''s personal and political life. The novel not only follows Gustad''s life, but also India''s political turmoil under the leadership of Indira Gandhi.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Flower Drum Song

No Author Listed

Moon Over Manifest

By Clare Vanderpool

Goddess of Yesterday

By Caroline B. Cooney

Wolf Island

By Darren Shan

Asterix and the Secret Weapon

No Author Listed

At the Edge of the Great Void

By Pierre Christin

Firewall

By Henning Mankell

Coin Locker Babies

By Ryu Murakami

Definitely Maybe

By Boris Strugatsky

Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry

By B.S. Johnson

Struggle for the Land

No Author Listed

Such a Long Journey

By Rohinton Mistry