The 17-year-old Wu-Lin is traveling from the fishing village of Florence to Cronenberg to have a strange jewel appraised. No less than three people try to steal it from her: the young commoner Toto, an old artist named Professor Krolock, and the grotesque Gilligan, an obscenely overweight gangland boss in a custom exo-skeleton. He has Wu-Lin killed, but her dying request of D is that he bring the gem back to her older sister Su-In in their village on the north sea. Gilligan is determined to have the gem. He dispatches five mysterious individuals with the promise that the one who brings it to him will get all he possesses. This group consists of such colorful characters as Shin the Puppetman, King Egbert, Undiscernible Twin, and Reminiscence Samon. Also tailing D from Cronenberg is handsome Glen, a warrior and "seeker of knowledge" who wants to kill the Vampire Hunter because he''s the only thing he has ever feared. Everyone arrives in Florence just as its short, week-long summer is about to begin. Millennia ago, the area had been a resort for the Nobility until the day, about 1000 years ago, when a traveler in black arrived and punished the cruel vampire residents. Only Baron Meinster refused to leave, and the traveler threw him into the sea. Now, for the past few years, the village''s summer has been marred by vampire attacks -- "Meinster''s Revenge." Su-In hired D because something particularly distressing is going on here. Though the whole world knows that the Nobility have difficulty with rain or flowing water, the vampire in Florence seems to be coming from the sea. As the plot thickens, the five mercenaries hired by Gilligan resort to betraying each other and using dirty tactics to subdue D. Glen is able to dominate Simon into a love-hate-love relationship which leads to him becoming a noble, a desperate act following a near death at the hands of a jealous King Egbert. Throughout the second half of the story, the bead is lost and claimed by numerous characters, finally falling into the hands of Dr. Krolock himself. The Doctor is able to crack the secret of the jewel and obtains Nobility like status, but is easily felled by D''s blade. Everything comes to a head when Glen is finally defeated by D and Meinster''s abilities are revealed. Four summers ago, Su-in met a man who she fell in love with, but when he tried to make her commit a terrible deed, she killed him. His body was dumped into the sea, where it became the vessel for the defeated Noble, this resulted in "Meinster" having no recollection of his ''true'' self. In the end, D prevails and Su-in returns to her happy life as a teacher for the village''s children, with help from her friend Dwight and a reformed Toto. The latter of which who claims to have seen the Hunter smile before departing. In the close of the story, Samon confronts D. Wounded and near death, she is promptly defeated by the Vampire Hunter known as D.

Vampire Hunter D: Mysterious Journey to the North Sea

Beautiful young Pauline Hannum, daughter of the late Major Hannum and a performer with his circus, enters The Magic Shop run by The Great Merlini and is suspiciously willing to pay much more than the going price for immediate delivery of a "Headless Lady" illusion. Merlini and his writer friend Ross Harte decide to investigate, drawn by Merlini''s love of circuses. They soon learn that Major Hannum''s death was probably a murder, and that the killer seems to have unfinished, and deadly, business that involves a real headless lady whose head has disappeared. Merlini, Harte and a new associate, detective writer Stuart Towne, soon learn a number of interesting background facts about goings-on at the circus—including why it''s bad luck for the circus orchestra to play Suppé''s Light Cavalry March, what the mummified body of John Wilkes Booth is composed of, and how to create fingerprints that have no loops or whorls. Merlini must use his magic skills to escape from an "escape-proof" jail, assemble the suspects, and identify the murderer in a surprising final scene.

The Headless Lady

Charity Girl revolves around the character of the wealthy, athletic Viscount Ashley Desford and his mission to save “charity girl” Charity Steane from a life with her uncaring relatives. The novel also takes up the Viscount’s friendship with Henrietta Silverdale, his neighbor and childhood friend. The narrative opens on a conversation between the Viscount and his father, the Earl of Wroxton. Wroxton asks Desford to look into the affairs of his younger brother Simon. Wroxton fears that Simon has fallen into bad company and will destroy his reputation. Desford declines to interfere in Simon''s doings, saying that the last person Simon is likely to listen to is his older brother. In the same conversation, Wroxton also reproaches Desford for having failed to marry Henrietta nine years ago. Desford protests that, while he loves Henrietta as a sister, there is no passion between them and that she cared to marry him as little as he cared to marry her. Later in the novel, it emerges that, at that time, Henrietta had begged Desford not to propose marriage to her, even though it was the wish of both their families. When Desford learns that Henrietta is wooed by the wealthy Mr. Cary Nethercott, he visits her and meets the man, whom Desford pronounces appropriate but immensely dull. Later, at a party, Desford meets Charity Steane, who prefers to be called “Cherry.” She is almost nineteen years old, but is basically being used as an unpaid servant by the aunt and cousins with whom she has lived since her father abandoned her and failed to pay the bill at her boarding school. Desford later encounters Charity running away from home and, against his better judgment and the morals of the 19th century that say a man can easily compromise a young unattended woman by being on the road with her, he takes her to her grandfather’s house in London . However, upon arriving in London, it’s apparent that Cherry’s grandfather, Lord Nettlecombe, has left his London home for the season. So Desford takes Cherry to stay with Henrietta and her mother. The plot thickens. When Desford finally tracks Nettlecombe to Bath, Desford finds that the old man has recently married his housekeeper, as a matter of economy. He also shows no interest whatever in his granddaughter''s plight and resents the implication that she is in any way his responsibility. Wilfred Steane, Cherry’s father, then shows up after an absence of many years, hoping to blackmail Desford into marrying Cherry on the grounds that he has compromised her reputation. Desford is vigorously defended by his younger brother, Simon, who pretends that Desford is engaged to Henrietta. Cary Nethercott, who had previously shown so much interest in Henrietta, resolves Cherry’s problems by proposing marriage and being accepted. On the last page of the novel, Desford tells Henrietta that he has always loved her and will not break off the engagement that his brother invented for them. Henrietta admits she loves him in return and they become engaged for real. Simon, though, has the last words in the novel: "But if you should get into any more scrapes, Des, just send me word, and I''ll post straight back to rescue you!"

Charity Girl

The story centers on the relationship between Mrs Kitty Warren, a brothel owner, described by the author as "on the whole, a genial and fairly presentable old blackguard of a woman" and her daughter, Vivie. The play also focuses on Mrs. Warren''s handsome young friends Mr. Praed and George Crofts, and the local reverend, Samuel Gardner, who becomes the catalyst of the play by revealing Mrs. Warren''s profession. The play focuses on the social hypocrisy and relationships of the characters, who are all middle class other than Sir George Crofts. Vivie Warren is a modern and highly educated lady of the late Victorian period, distinguishing herself at the Acturial Mathematics Tripos at the university. Vivie, Mrs. Warren''s (the name was adopted by Mrs. Warren to hide her true identity and to give the impression that she is married) daughter, meets Praed, her mother''s friend and through their conversation it is revealed that Mrs. Warren and Vivie do not have a close relationship. Within the same Act Mrs Warren returns to her home after time away bringing with her two friends, Mr. Praed, an architect, and George Crofts, a man close to Mrs. Warren''s old profession and sexual relations. Both are bachelors. Vivie is shown to have a romantic relationship with Frank Gardner, whose father, the Reverend Samuel Gardner also joins into the group. His fleeting mention of Mrs. Warren''s past and and their reactions to meeting each other make it clear that he was familiar with her when she was a prostitute, even though it is not explicitly said. Mrs. Warren explains her impoverished past and decision to be a prostitute at last to her daughter, but hides the fact that she is still in the business. Vivie, is horrified to discover from Crofts (who is attracted to her despite being old enough to be her father) that her mother''s fortune was made managing high-class brothels. The reconciliation of Mrs. Warren and Vivie ends at this point as Vivie flees from these revelations to Honoria Fraser''s chambers to become independent of her mother''s wealth, which provided for her before. At a last confrontation when Praed and Frank are finally knowledegable of the truth and when there is a last appeal and calculative manipulation by Mrs. Warren, the play ends with Mrs. Warren deciding to leave her daughter.

Mrs. Warren''s Profession

The book starts with the statement about Crusoe''s marriage in England. He bought a little farm in Bedford and had three children: two sons and one daughter. Our hero suffered a distemper and a desire to see "his island." He could talk of nothing else, and one can imagine that no one took his stories seriously, except his wife. She told him, in tears, "I will go with you, but I won''t leave you." But in the middle of this felicity, Providence unhinged him at once, with the loss of his wife. At the beginning of 1693, Crusoe made his nephew the commander of a ship. Around the beginning of January 1694, Crusoe and Friday went on board this ship in the Downs on the 8th, then arrived at Crusoe''s Island via Ireland. They discovered that the English mutineers left on the island by Crusoe a decade earlier had been making trouble, but that when the island fell under attack by cannibals the various parties on the island were forced to work together under truce to meet the threat. Crusoe takes various steps to consolidate leadership on the island and assure the civility of the inhabitants, including leaving a quantity of needed supplies, setting up a sort of rule of law under an honour system and ensuring cohabitating couples are married. He also leaves additional residents with necessary skills. On the way to the mainland once again from Crusoe''s island, the ship is attacked by the cannibals. Friday dies from three arrow shots during an attempt to negotiate, but the crew eventually wins the encounter without further serious casualty. After having buried Friday in the ocean, the same evening they set sail for Brazil. They stayed for a long period there, then went directly over to the Cape of Good Hope. They landed on Madagascar where their nine men were pursued by three hundred natives, because one of his mariners had carried off a young native girl among the trees. The natives hanged this person, so the crew massacred 32 persons and burned the houses of the native town. Crusoe opposed all these, therefore he was marooned, and settled at the Bay of Bengal for a long time. Finally, he bought a ship that later turned out to be stolen. Therefore they went to the river of Cambodia and Cochin-China or the bay of Tonquin, until they came to the latitude of 22 degrees and 30 minutes, and anchored at the island of Formosa (Taiwan). Then they arrived to the coast of China. They visited Nanking near the river of Kilam, and sailed southwards to a port called Quinchang. An old Portuguese pilot suggested them to go to Ningpo by the mouth of a river. This Ningpo was a canal that passed through the heart of that vast empire of China, crossed all the rivers and some hills by the help of sluices and gates, and went up to Peking, being near 270 leagues long. So they did, then it was the beginning of February, in the Old Style calendar, when they set out from Peking. Then they travelled through the following places: Changu, Naum (or Naun, a fortified city), Argun(a) on the Chinese-Russian border (April 13, 1703). Argun was the first town on the Russian border, then they went through Nertzinskoi (Nerchinsk), Plotbus, touched a lake called Schaks Ozer, Jerawena, the river Udda, Yeniseysk, and Tobolsk (from September 1703 to beginning of June 1704). They arrived into Europe around the source of the river Wirtska, south of the river Petrou, to a village called Kermazinskoy near Soloy Kamskoy (Solikamsk). They passed a little river called Kirtza, near Ozomoys (or Gzomoys), came to Veuslima (?) on the river Witzogda (Vychegda), running into the Dwina, then they stayed in Lawrenskoy (July 3–7, 1704; possibly Yarensk, known as Yerenskoy Gorodok at that time). Finally Crusoe arrived at the White Sea port town Arch-Angel (Archangelsk) on August 18, sailed into Hamburg (September 18), and Hague. He arrived at London on 10 January 1705, having been gone from England ten years and nine months.

The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

The novel’s protagonist, the “crap artist” of the title, is Jack Isidore, a socially awkward tire regroover obsessed with amateur scientific inquiry since his teens. He catalogs old science magazines, collects worthless objects, and believes disproved theories, such as the notions that the Earth is hollow or that sunlight has weight. Broke, Jack eventually moves in with his sister’s family in a luxurious farm house in suburban California. On the farm, Jack happily does housework and cares for livestock. He also joins a small apocalyptic religious group, which shares his belief in extra-sensory perception, telepathy and UFOs and believes the world will end on April 23, 1959. However, most of his time is dedicated to a meticulous “scientific journal” of life on the farm, including his sister’s marital difficulties. Jack’s sister, Fay Hume, is a difficult and subtly controlling woman who makes miserable everyone close to her, especially her misogynist husband Charley. Fay has an extramarital affair with a young grad student named Nat Anteil while Charley is in a hospital recovering from a heart attack. After Jack reports this to Charley, the latter plots to kill Fay. Charley kills Fay''s animals and then commits suicide, realising that Fay has led him to do this. However, his will stipulates that Jack will inherit half the house, and Fay must buy her brother out, although Jack has used his half of the money to replace the slaughtered animals. Nat and his wife Gwen divorce, and Nat decides to stay with Fay. When the end of the world doesn''t occur on the predicted date, Jack decides to seek psychiatric assistance.

Confessions of a Crap Artist

A goat named Mei wanders into a barn one night, seeking shelter from a storm. In the barn, the goat meets another refugee. The two can neither see nor smell each other, but nevertheless they huddle together, fending off the cold, and begin to talk. Eventually, they establish a friendship. The two decide to meet later and will recognize each other by using the password "one stormy night". The next day, when they meet, Mei learns that his companion from the night before was a wolf named Gabu. Despite their natural predisposition as enemies, they share a common bond and begin meeting regularly. However, Mei''s flock and Gabu''s pack eventually find out about their relationship and forbid the friendship. Mei and Gabu, hoping to preserve their friendship, cross a river during a storm. They hope to find an "emerald forest" free from persecution. However, Giro, the leader of Gabu''s pack, holds a grudge against goats and views Gabu as a traitor to all wolves. Giro and his pack begin to hunt down the two companions. Gabu and Mei reach the summit of a mountain where they stop and rest, exhausted from fighting their way through a snowstorm. Mei, knowing that Gabu has not eaten in days, offers to sacrifice himself as food. Gabu agrees initially, but soon realizes that no matter how hungry he is, he cannot eat his friend. Gabu hears his pack approaching and faces them, ready to defend his goat friend to the death. As Gabu is about to go face the wolf pack, there is an avalanche. The next morning, Mei digs through the snow blocking the cave and sees the "emerald forest" they had been searching for in the distance. Gabu is missing, but Mei finds him in another cave. Gabu has lost his memory of their friendship and all the events that preceded the avalanche. While waiting for the moon to come out, Gabu taunts Mei that he plans on eating him. Mei, saying that he wouldn''t have minded being eaten by Gabu before, accuses the wolf of not being the Gabu he previously knew. Angrily, Mei shouts that he wishes that he had never met Gabu on "one stormy night". On hearing these words, Gabu''s memory returns, and they happily reunite. In the end, Mei and Gabu both enjoy watching the moon as it rises.

Arashi no Yoru Ni

Charmain Baker has led a respectable, sheltered life. She has spent her days with her nose in a book, never learning how to do even the smallest household chores. When she suddenly ends up looking after the tiny cottage of her ill Great Uncle William she seems happy for the adventure, but the easy task of house-sitting is complicated by the fact that Great-Uncle William is also the Royal Wizard Norland and his magical house bends space and time. Though she is supposed to clean up the mess Great-Uncle William has left the house in, Charmain knows next to nothing about magic, and yet she seems to work it in the most unexpected way. The house''s single door can lead to almost any place - from other rooms like the kitchen, to faraway places like the Royal Palace, and even other time periods. In her first days in the magical house she ends up looking after a magical stray dog named Waif, had an encounter with a horrible lubbock, has to share a roof with a confused young apprentice wizard named Peter, tries to work some spells from her Great Uncle William''s library, and has to deal with a clan of small blue creatures called Kobolds. When Charmain is caught up in an intense royal search to remedy the kingdom''s financial troubles, she encounters Sophie Pendragon, her son Morgan, a beautiful child named Twinkle (who is really Howl in disguise), and their fire demon Calcifer. One of the messes Twinkle gets Charmain into results in Twinkle climbing onto the roof of the Royal Mansion. She is soon involved in curing the kingdom of its ills and rediscovering the long-lost Elfgift.

House of Many Ways

Leonora Eyre, an attractive and elegant, but essentially selfish, middle-aged woman, becomes friendly with antique dealer Humphrey Boyce and his nephew James. Both men are attracted to Leonora, but Leonora prefers the young, good-looking James to the more "suitable" Humphrey. While James is away on a buying trip, Leonora discovers to her annoyance that he has been seeing Phoebe, a girl of his own age. Leonora makes use of Humphrey to humiliate Phoebe, and turns out a sitting tenant in order that James can take up a flat in her own house. She does this in an apparent attempt to control his life. While abroad, the bisexual James has begun a relationship with an American, the amoral Ned, who later follows him to London. Ned prises James out of Leonora''s grasp, only to reject him for another lover. James attempts a reconciliation with Leonora, but she refuses to give him a second opportunity to hurt her, and settles for the admiration of the less attractive Humphrey. As with all Pym''s fiction, the novel contains many literary references, notably to works by Keats, John Milton and Henry James.

The Sweet Dove Died

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

This story begins at the exact time that Dragon''s Egg (its predecessor) ended, picking up the plot perfectly. As the human scientists in the orbiting ship Dragon Slayer prepare to leave, the Cheela on the star below continue their rapid advance. Starquake centers around two crises. The first is when the human ship is damaged, and the Cheela must repair the ship before tidal forces kill the humans aboard. Then a catastrophic Starquake strikes. Cheela explorers in space survive but have lost the technology to land back on the surface of their world. All Cheela on the surface perish except for four individuals. All succeeding generations of surface Cheela are descended from these four individuals. For a while, the surface Cheela struggle to keep the rudiments of civilization, but eventually a barbarian conqueror arises. The Cheela in space and their human friends watch helplessly as a new dark age ensues. The second half of the story tells the heroic tale of how the space-bound Cheela, with a little help from the humans, eventually are able to land again on the surface, defeat the barbarian tyrant, and start to rebuild Cheela civilization. The first edition cover shown here vividly and accurately depicts the climactic final battle for the surface as described in the novel.

Starquake

CIA analyst Jack Ryan attends a diplomatic conference in Moscow as part of an American delegation to the Soviet Union. He learns that the CIA’s most highly-placed agent, codenamed "CARDINAL", is none other than Colonel Mikhail Semyonovich Filitov, the personal aide to the Soviet Minister of Defense and a national war hero. Filitov was recruited by GRU colonel and British agent Oleg Penkovskiy, and offered his services to the CIA after the deaths of his wife and two sons; the latter two were killed during their service in the Red Army. As a result, Filitov has been passing political, technical, and military intelligence to the CIA for the past thirty years. The U.S. discovers through "National Technical Means" that the Soviets were working on an ABM defense system based at Dushanbe in Tajikistan. Emilio Ortiz, a CIA liaison, is sent to aid Mujaheddin rebels in the region. One rebel leader, a man known only as "The Archer," is questioned after unwittingly witnessing a test of the Soviets'' ABM system. The Archer determines that the Soviet installation is a threat to him and his people, and tasks his group with attacking and pillaging the facility. In the end, the guerrillas destroy a large amount of Soviet equipment. However, the rebels suffer horrendous losses, including the death of The Archer. Ryan travels to New Mexico to meet with a young SDI researcher, Major Alan Gregory, whom he brings to Washington, D.C., to brief the president. Gregory lives with another scientist, Candi Long, who is working on adaptive optics for use in the development of laser weaponry. A lesbian KGB agent, Bea Taussig&mdash;who has unluckily fallen in love with Long&mdash;describes Gregory and his work to her KGB handler, Tanya Bisyarina. The KGB launches a plan to kidnap and debrief Gregory. Filitov is arrested after his work for the CIA is discovered. However, Ryan concocts a plan to both secure the return of Filitov and arrange the defection of the sitting KGB chairman, Nikolay Borissovich Gerasimov. Gerasimov is angling to take over as General Secretary in the wake of Filitov''s arrest, something Ryan is determined to prevent because of his unyielding anti-American ideology. Ryan schemes to go public with the prior capture of Soviet submarine Red October, banking on the political instability of the Soviet Politburo. He plans for Filitov and Gerasimov to be exfiltrated on the American delegation''s aircraft, while Gerasimov''s family is extracted from Estonia by John Clark onto the submarine USS Dallas. Meanwhile, in New Mexico, three KGB officers kidnap Gregory on Gerasimov''s orders and hold him in a shabby desert safe house, planning to send him to Moscow for debriefing. Their plans are foiled when the FBI sends in the Hostage Rescue Team to retrieve Gregory and return him to Long. Among those killed is Bisyarina. Ryan informs Gerasimov of the failed operation, forcing the enraged chairman to accept Ryan''s defection offer. The flipped Gerasimov fetches Filitov from his confinement. The three make their way to Sheremetyevo Airport, awaiting the departure of the American delegation. Unfortunately, two KGB officers, Klementi Vladimirovich Vatutin and Sergey Nikolayevch Golovko, become aware of their planned departure. As Gerasimov and Filitov escape, Ryan allows himself to be captured by Golovko, banking on his diplomatic status to protect him from harm. Golovko then escorts Ryan to the private dacha of General Secretary Narmonov, where the two men discuss the CIA''s interest in his political position and the CIA''s interference in their internal security. Ryan returns to the United States, where he and several others attend the funeral of Filitov, who had died of heart disease in the months following his CIA debriefing period. Filitov is buried at Camp David, within twenty miles of the Antietam battlefield. A Soviet military attaché attending the funeral questions why Filitov would be buried so close to American soldiers. Ryan, always working to keep the peace, explains to him, "One way or another, we all fight for what we believe in. Doesn''t that give us some common ground?"

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Vampire Hunter D: Mysterious Journey to the North Sea

By Hideyuki Kikuchi

The Headless Lady

By Clayton Rawson

Charity Girl

By Georgette Heyer

Mrs. Warren's Profession

By George Bernard Shaw

The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

By Daniel Defoe

Confessions of a Crap Artist

By Philip K. Dick

Arashi no Yoru Ni

By Yuichi Kimura

House of Many Ways

By Diana Wynne Jones

The Sweet Dove Died

By Barbara Pym

Art and Crime

No Author Listed

Starquake

By Robert Forward

The Cardinal of the Kremlin

By Tom Clancy