Ricky Bianca needs to know why his father committed suicide when he was a child on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, his father at the time was fighting the Mafia from controlling the funeral industry. The Mafia sent a friend to deliver a letter on that holy night and after reading the letter, he blew his brains out. The letter was never found and no one but the head Don, Salvatore Biganti, knows what it contained. When Ricky heard the blast, he ran to his father''s aid only to see him on the floor bleeding profusely from his temple. He knelt in a pool of blood and held his father''s head, unsuccessfully trying to stop the bleeding. Subsequently, Ricky has no recollection of the event but suffers from wild nightmarish hallucinations. His mother soon thereafter died in an upstate sanitarium of severe depressive catatonia. His aunt in Connecticut raises him and after twenty years he decides to return to New York as a Funeral Director, back to the industry that holds the secret. His Psychology Professor friend at college advised him to get the answers his mind so desperately needs, before his hallucinogenic demons devour him. His innocence is lost as this cryptic industry leads him through a maze of deceit, greed and evil. Subsequently, he gets caught in an intricate spider’s web of organized crime, secret cults and unspeakable atrocities. The truth is, the known is worse than the unknown and it sends him spiraling down into a hell of fiendish demons and worse nightmares.

The Dons of Necropolis

By 1965, the United States and Canada have been at war with the Soviet Union and the Chinese People''s Republic for three years. Both sides'' atomic weapons are ineffective as anti-aircraft missiles shoot down any bombers or guided missiles, so ground forces have done most of the fighting. The Communist nations&mdash;whose armies greatly outnumber the North Americans&mdash;conquered Western Europe, invaded South America, and are moving to Texas. All American males are required to either perform agricultural work to feed the armed forces or be drafted into military service. Food, electricity, and gasoline are rationed, and New York City is reportedly under martial law. Billy Justin, a 37 years-old commercial artist and Korean War veteran, is working as a dairy farmer in Chiunga Center, New York when the radio announces that Soviet and Chinese forces have overrun the Canadian-American line at El Paso, Texas. The last American naval forces were destroyed three months earlier but the news had been kept secret. The Communist armies destroy in Los Alamos, New Mexico the incomplete Yankee Doodle, a satellite capable of dropping hydrogen bombs from orbit that are impossible to shoot down. The President surrenders to the Communists, who over the next several months divide the United States at the Mississippi River, and together form the North American People''s Democratic Republic. Other than a military garrison, a formal disarmament, searches for fissionable material, and the establishment of production quotas for food, the surrender of the United States leaves Chiunga Center largely untouched. The Soviets kill the Communist fifth column members who had secretly aided the invasion to prevent them from organizing against the new government, but are otherwise relatively peaceful and amenable to the black market. A paraplegic comes to Justin''s farm asking for work; he is General Hollerith, a veteran of the previous war. He and Justin join a conspiracy to finish the real satellite, a manned space station buried in Chiunga County that the United States had been building for 15 years. It requires parts and engineering knowledge to launch. MVD troops arrive, shoot the corrupt Soviet soldiers, and are much more cruel. They capture, to Justin''s knowledge, all of the conspirators but himself and the general. Justin deduces that the contacts he needs to make are in Washington, Pennsylvania. With a traveling preacher, Sparhawk, Justin walks the hundreds of miles from Chiunga Center to Washington, benefiting from the Democratic Republic''s policy of respecting the Americans'' freedom of religion. At Washington Justin receives instructions from the nationwide resistance movement for an attack planned for Christmas Eve on Chiunga Center to liberate the satellite. Despite the Soviets'' arrest and torture of a local farmer, they are ignorant of what "Christmas Eve", a mild oath they have heard sworn by various citizens, means until the battle begins. Coordinated by Hollerith, bridges around the area are blown up and nearby arsenals are sabotaged. The townspeople, many of whom are veterans, battle the Soviets as the space station launches. Hollerith''s forces triumph, and the Americans transmit an ultimatum to the Soviets and Chinese: The satellite is armed and will destroy Moscow and Peiping in 24 hours if occupation soldiers do not leave American soil and free all prisoners of war. Hollerith offers Justin important positions in the new government and society, but he refuses them and kneels in prayer with Sparhawk, fearing the fulfillment of mutual assured destruction.

Not This August

Jacquie Stuart has just turned 32 and she wants to do a major rewrite on her life. Her salary at a snarky film magazine barely covers her mortgage, her bratty sister has staked permanent claim to her couch, her best friend is in an obscenely happy marriage, and the only guy who really gets her is gay. Worst of all, she keeps falling for broke, self-involved commitment-phobes. In a moment of brilliance (and financial desperation) Jacquie takes a break from celebrity interviews to pitch a wild idea to an editor at a glossy women’s magazine: What would happen if she answered “Roommate Wanted” ads as a ploy to meet men? She would have intimate access to countless single guys. And as a potential roommate, she could unearth all the insights that usually stay buried on a first date: what books he reads, whether he cleans the bathroom sink, whose picture adorns his nightstand. Why, it’s untapped man market genius! And so it is that Jacquie embarks on a hunt designed to find way more than a place to hang her fabulous wardrobe. After colorful near-misses that bring her into the slums of the East Village, the brownstones of Brooklyn, and the dingier digs of the Upper East Side, Jacquie thinks she''s finally found her dream guy and stuns her friends by moving out of her beloved apartment—and into his. Complications ensue that force her to question the shaky foundations of the bed she has made for herself. Jacquie’s been looking for love in other people’s homes all over town, but could the key to her happiness lie under her own roof?

Room For Love

Sarah Zoltanne is an extra ordinary girl. Her widowed mother, Rosemary, decides to move to Pinecrest because of Ted Thompson. When Sarah starts school as the new pupil, she makes no friends. Eric Garrett convinces Sarah to play a fortune teller at the fortune telling booth. He says it is to benefit the prom and she would be perfect because she is new and almost no one knows her. Sarah accidentally agrees while having a strange vision at home. At the carnival, Kyra feeds her information on the customers coming in. Sarah uses an old paperweight that belonged to her departed parternal grandmother as her crystal ball. The night is going well until Sarah does a reading for an abundantly contoured but likeable boy named Charlie Gorman. When reading for him, she sees a vision in the paperweight of Charlie falling down a flight of stairs. Sarah quickly closes down the booth and leaves. She becomes friends with Charlie, and discovers that he believes in reincarnation and past lives. Sarah starts writing a history paper about the Salem Witch Trials, and begins having dreams and visions in which she is participating in the trials. Charlie tells her he thinks that everyone in the town participated in the trials, and they are back together to finish something. Meanwhile, Eric convinces her to start doing readings as a business, but things start going down hill when Sarah makes the popular cheerleaders angry and keeps seeing visions about people. The cheerleaders become convinced that Sarah is a witch. Sarah receives threats, such as a sketch of a gallows and a dead crow in her locker. In desperation, she goes to the principal, and then Ted and her mother. Neither party does anything to help her. Later, Ted forces Sarah to go to a party with Kyra. Eric comes by to pick up Sarah for the party, but she has changed her mind about it. Eric persuades her to come out and apologize to Kyra, but she is forced into the car and brought to the party. Eric and the others take Sarah to Garrote Hill, in the middle of Pine Crest, where many drunk students are waiting. The students begin acting strangely and calling the place Gallows Hill, the place in Salem, Massachusetts where the witches of the trials were hanged. They try to hang Sarah, but Charlie intervenes, and the students suddenly relive their past lives in Salem before attacking Charlie. Sarah almost ends up getting hanged until Ted saves her. Sarah and Rosemary decide to move back to California, and Sarah realizes that in a past life, she was Betty Parris, the young girl who brought about the Salem Witch Trials. She leaves Charlie with a night of passion, and gives him the paperweight. It was once cloudy, but now it is ''clear and transparent as window glass''.

Gallows Hill

The Chronicle recounts the following incidents : At the request of Saint James who appears to him in dream, Charlemagne embarks on four wars to wrest Spain from the Saracens. In the first war, he takes his army to Santiago de Compostela and conquers all of Spain. A second war is brought on to battle the African king Agolant who, briefly, reconquers the country. (During this war, several miracles occur, including flowers sprouting from the lances of the knights.) A third war has Argolant invading south-western France and sieging the city of Agen, but he is forced to retreat to Pamplona. In the fourth war, Charlemagne''s great army sieges Pampeluna. After the death of Argolant, Charlemagne''s troops pursue the Saracens through Spain. In a story modeled on David and Goliath, Roland battles the Saracen giant Ferracutus, who is holding the city of Nájera. They fight for two days, taking truces to rest at night, but during the second night the courteous Roland places a stone beneath the head of the giant as a pillow, and upon waking the giant reveals to Roland that he is only vulnerable in one spot: his navel. In the subsequent battle, Roland''s sword finds the spot and the giant is killed. Once the last Saracen leaders are defeated, Charlemagne invests Santiago de Compostela with considerable powers and begins the return to France. The chronicle then tells The Song of Roland material: at Roncevaux Pass, Charlemagne''s rearguard, which includes Roland, is ambushed by the troops of brothers Marsile and Baligant, kings of Zaragoza, who have bought off the traitor Ganelon. Roland kills Marsile, but is mortally wounded and blows his horn to recall Charlemagne''s army. After routing the Saracens, Charlemagne oversees the trial and execution of Ganelon, and the heroes'' bodies are brought back to France. Charlemagne invests Basilique Saint-Denis with considerable prerogatives and dies. The chronicle ends with several appendices, including the purported discovery of Turpin''s tomb by Pope Calixtus II and Callixtus'' call to crusade.

Historia Caroli Magni

18-year-old Annabel Hope Jayquith is both beautiful and famous in her world of wealth and prestige. Daughter to billionaire Hollings Jayquith and the deceased artist Eleanor Hope Jayquith, as well as niece to the famous television news anchor Theodora Jayquith, Annabel is fighting internal demons of loneliness and self-doubt. While at a charity event in Manhattan, she meets and falls in love with 22-year-old Daniel Madison Ransom. Daniel is the son of Senator Madison Ransom who was assassinated for trying to reveal a corrupt industry. Along with his mother, the insane Catherine Ransom, Daniel wants to reveal to the world the real killer, whom they believe is Hollings Jayquith himself. Meanwhile, Theodora Jayquith’s illegitimate 18-year-old daughter Jade O’Keefe has discovered the identity of her real mother after the death of her foster parents, and is now on her way to Manhattan to confront her mother and gain the fortune she feels she has been denied. In another strand of the plot, a young man who goes by the name Alex arrives in Connecticut seeking to avenge the murder of his brother. Annabel and Daniel meet again at their mutual friends Venice Pierce and Michael Theil’s wedding in Litchfield, Connecticut. He''s a groomsman, she''s a bridesmaid, and it seems to be a night of romance. Then Daniel reveals what he and his mother want to do, expose Hollings on his sister’s own show. Annabel, too shocked to speak, flees to her home to comfort herself. However, her solace is invaded by the entrance of Jade, who has used her likeness to Theodora to charm Hollings. After a kidnapping and rescue, it develops that Annabel''s father is innocent of the murder, and the story ends happily.

Forbidden

At the zoo, Rachel and Cassie witness a boy fall into the crocodile pit. Rachel jumps into the pit to rescue him. Out of sight, she acquires and morphs a crocodile, carrying the boy to safety. At a meeting later in the barn, the Animorphs focus on their latest news: Jeremy McCole, a teen heart-throb, has become a new spokesman for The Sharing. The Animorphs fear this could make many join The Sharing, and decide to stop it from happening. That night, Rachel suddenly finds herself morphing involuntarily a crocodile, directly into a fly without returning to human form, a violation of morphing ''rules'', and then an elephant. She meets up with her father and has him get her on the Barry and Cindy Sue Show, which McCole will be on. Rachel tells Cassie what really happened, but tells her not to tell Jake, and Cassie agrees. The next day the Animorphs spy on McCole''s yacht to find Visser Three there. McCole tells the Visser he wants to become a Controller. Rachel suddenly finds herself involuntarily morphing into various animals, the last being a crocodile. Visser Three is alerted and morphs. The Visser is thwarted when Rachel bites him. Back at the barn, Ax diagnoses Rachel''s condition. She is allergic to crocodile DNA, explaining her involuntary morphing, happening when emotionally stressed or excited. Ax tells her she needs to expel a live crocodile, a process known as hereth illint. Jake pulls Rachel off the mission until she undergoes the process. She lies to him the next day, pretending that it occurred overnight. The next day Rachel is scheduled to be on the show. At the show, the hereth illint begins. Cassie rushes her to the bathroom, and Rachel ''burps'' the crocodile. As it attacks her, she morphs a bear and Cassie morphs a squirrel. The crocodile runs onto the stage with Rachel and Cassie, causing commotion. Ax kills the crocodile and Rachel steps on McCole''s Yeerk. The mission to stop McCole is a success, as he had retreated to Uzbekistan.

The Reaction

The setting of the book is Gordon High School in 1969. Even though this book has changed some names, etc., it still has the same meaning. The plot of the book revolves around a history teacher Mr. Ben Ross, his high school students, and an experiment he conducts in an attempt to teach them about how it may have been living in Nazi Germany. Unsatisfied with his own inability to answer his students'' earnest questions of how and why, Mr Ross initiates the experiment in hopes that it answers the question of why the Germans allowed Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party to rise to power, acting in a manner inconsistent with their own pre-existing moral values. At Gordon High School, history teacher Ben Ross is teaching his class about World War II and the Holocaust. His students are upset by the footage of concentration camps and question why the German people allowed this to happen, insisting they wouldn''t be so easily duped. Ben Ross considers this and plans an experiment: the next day, he starts to indoctrinate the class using the slogan STRENGTH THROUGH DISCIPLINE. The class reacts well to this, embracing the sense of empowerment it gives them, and they continue their newly disciplined behavior into a second day of class, surprising Ross. He decides to take the experiment further and create a group, The Wave, adding two more slogans --STRENGTH THROUGH COMMUNITY and STRENGTH THROUGH ACTION - which leads to further rules of conduct and an organizational structure. Laurie, a student in Mr. Ross'' class, starts to think that The Wave is having too much of an impact. Laurie receives a letter for the paper detailing how members try to recruit others with bullying. That weekend, the football team is unable to win against Clarkstown, as their newfound drive does not compensate for a lack of proper training and planning. David is confused by this turn of events, while Laurie and her staff on The Grapevine plan a special issue of the paper devoted exclusively to The Wave and the negative impact it has had on the school. While some thank her, especially the teachers and the principal, others do not. Laurie''s boyfriend David, who has been in The Wave since the beginning, tries to get her to stop bad-mouthing The Wave. He eventually shoves her to the ground and this makes him realize how dangerous The Wave really is. Now united in the belief that The Wave must be stopped, Laurie and David go to the home of the Rosses in order to convince Ben Ross to terminate the program. He tells them he will do exactly that, but that they must trust his moves the next day. He calls a Wave meeting in the auditorium and requests that only Wave members be present. They gather in a similar fashion to the Nazi rallies, even equipped with banners and armbands emblazoned with the Wave. Ben tells The Wave members that they are only one in many schools across the nation that is involved in the Wave, and that they are about to see the leader of the whole organization and that he is going to speak to all of them on television to create a National Wave Party for Youths. Everyone is shocked when Mr. Ross projects the image of Adolf Hitler. He explains that there is no leader, and that there is no National Wave Party. If there were a leader, it would be the man on the projection screen. He explains how their obedience led them to act like Nazis. The shocked students drop all their Wave-branded trinkets and items, and slowly leave the room. As Ben turns to leave, the one person who really flourished in the Wave, Robert, is standing alone, upset that The Wave ended. During The Wave, he was finally accepted as an equal, no one picked on him, he had friends, but his new-found social status is now worthless without The Wave. Mr. Ross tries to cheer him up by commenting on his tie and suit, and they walk out together to grab "a bite to eat".

The Wave

In the he killed the mansection of the story, Clay Calvert is a hand on the sheep ranch of Preston Shivley, his stepfather''s father. Without really intending to, Clay helps his stepfather, Wade Shivley, escape from jail, and becomes a fugitive himself. He and a Tunne Indian boy flee into the wilderness where Clay joins up with a horse-trader who has a beautiful young daughter, Luce. In the second section of the story, Clay and Luce are married and living in the sparseley populated coastal regions. There they meet with a group of settlers who are planning a trip to eastern Oregon where they can put down stakes. On the trip east, they meet again with Wade Shively, who is accusing Clay of stealing his horse. Wade Shively is eventually hung for a crime he did not commit, and Clay is free to move on. Shortly after, Luce falls ill and Clay goes for help. When he returns Luce is gone, apparently with her father. In the final section of the story, Clay decides not to pursue Luce, but follows the wheat harvest, and eventually ends up as a hand on a scow on the Columbia River. Clay goes back to the Eastern plains to harvest grass for hay where he once again meets the Tunne Indian boy. He later discovers the Indian boy dead and suspects that he was killed by Luce''s father. He decides then to rejoin the settlers who had moved from the Coast and stays with them until a harsh winter drives them off of their homesteads. On the way back west Clay once again unites with Luce.

Honey in the Horn

Macdonald Hall starts off the year in a fix due to a new dress code, and Bruno, Boots, and the rest of the ensemble soon find out that a new assistant, Walter C. Wizzle, is instituting the new functions. He institutes a dress code, a demerit system, schedules psychological tests for the students, and worst of all, calls the institute in danger of becoming ''a dinosaur'' and starts installing a new software program called Wizzleware (that he wrote himself) to handle all office, school, and teaching functions. The school atmosphere becomes strict and restricted for everyone, including the teachers, staff, and Headmaster Sturgeon. The only person not standing for it is Bruno Walton, who starts up a committee against Wizzle and his functions, and with the gradual help of other students comes up of ways to remove Wizzle from the school. They write a Free Press newspaper, exchange his anticipated printer paper with toilet paper and napkins, and work at night in the gym building a large comic Wizzle balloon. With the help of genius Elmer Drimsdale and a device he created (along with a convincing presentation supporting the "fact" that Wizzle''s guest cottage is along a fault line), they give Wizzle earthquakes at night. But the problems aren''t only at Macdonald Hall - across the road at Scrimmage''s Finishing School for Young Ladies, Ms. Scrimmage hires a new assistant for herself, Ms. Peabody, who is from the Marines. She turns the school into an army camp with her strict physical training exercises and morning calisthenics. Both schools have their share of problems and both have their own number of counter-attacks on the assistants. Eventually, Sturgeon, who loathes Wizzle himself, realizes what his students are doing and orders them to stop the harassment and disband the committee, even while he refuses Wizzle''s advise to have Bruno expelled for his disrespectful behaviour (although the assistant is unaware of the true scope of the boy''s resistance). However, Bruno and Cathy, from Scrimmage''s, joining their forces as The Coalition, get the idea to marry the two assistants off. Through romantic talking and dinners they actually manage to get them married, and the two schools turn back to normal. However, Sturgeon, although pleased at the departure of Wizzle, takes a firm hand at his students'' flouting his prohibition of the resistance. He institutes a new school rule forbidding the formation of any student organizations without the approval and participation of the faculty and creates a new committee to order Bruno and his upper echelon comrades in The Committee to wash dishes for a few months as punishment.

The War With Mr. Wizzle

The protagonist of the story is Sommaradvan healer Cha Thrat. She bravely saved a human pilot who crashlanded on her planet, despite a complete lack of knowledge about his physiology. Contact with her species was established by the accident, so knowledge of their social customs is still virtually non-existent. However, she is invited to join the Sector General staff. Cha Thrat innocently wreaks havoc by following her instincts and social customs. First she befriends a hypochondriac Chalder. Next, she is invited to assist at a therapeutic surgery operation to amputate the limb of a Hudlar, which will prolong its life (see Star Healer.) When given the honor of cutting the limb, she obliges - and then deliberately cuts her own arm off as well, in accordance with the custom of her people. Next she saves the untouchable patient Khone (see Star Healer), and then finds a weird parasite species on a derelict spaceship. Due to the chaos she causes, every department in the hospital now refuses to allow her near their patients. O''Mara values her unusual approaches, and decides to add her to his staff.

Code Blue - Emergency

Chapter One: Enemy of God starts off where "The Winter King" left off, with Arthur''s unexpected victory over the combined armies of Powys and Siluria. Both Gorfyddyd, king of Powys, and Gundleus, king of Siluria, are dead. Gorfyddyd''s son, Cuneglas, shares Arthur''s desire for peace and also his dream of an alliance between the British kingdoms that will destroy their common enemies, the Saxons. Derfel is ordered to follow Cuneglas to Caer Sws (Caersws), capital of Powys, where the Edling is to be crowned king. As for the vacant Silurian throne, Arthur tells Derfel of his plan to make Lancelot king and marry him to the princess of Powys, Ceinwyn, thus cementing the alliance between Dumnonia, Powys and Siluria. Derfel does not reveal that he is in love with Ceinwyn, and want her for himself, and goes to Caer Sws, and witnesses Cuneglas'' acclamation. Days later, Arthur arrives with his court, including Guinevere and Lancelot. Derfel watches with frustration Ceinwyn''s betrothal to Lancelot, and her apparent happiness with the marriage. Derfel speaks with Merlin, and Merlin tells him that Arthur wants him to marry Gwenhwyvach, Guinevere''s plain and apathic sister. Merlin asks Derfel to meet him and Nimue late that night on a hilltop, where Merlin has Derfel drink a hallucinogenic potion. Derfel hallucinates about Ceinwyn and sees a dark road and a ghoul, and he describes his vision to Merlin. Merlin tells him the ghoul was Diwrnach, a vicious Irish king of Lleyn, and he also asks Derfel to accompany him on the quest (which also requires the presence of a virgin) for a magical Cauldron, one of the Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain, but Derfel is committed to taking his men to aid Arthur in his campaign to drive the Saxons out of eastern Britain. Merlin gives Derfel a bone, and tells him that all he has to do is break it and his wish will be granted, namely that Ceinwyn will choose him over Lancelot, but warns that if he breaks it, he will be bound to Merlin''s quest.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Dons of Necropolis

No Author Listed

Not This August

By Cyril M. Kornbluth

Room For Love

No Author Listed

Gallows Hill

By Lois Duncan

Historia Caroli Magni

No Author Listed

Forbidden

By Caroline B. Cooney

The Reaction

By K. A. Applegate

The Wave

By Todd Strasser

Honey in the Horn

By H. L. Davis

The War With Mr. Wizzle

By Gordon Korman

Code Blue - Emergency

By James White

Enemy of God

By Bernard Cornwell