The Lisbons are a Catholic family living in Grosse Pointe, Michigan in the 1970s. The father, Ronald, is a math teacher at a private school and the mother is a homemaker. The family has five daughters: 13-year-old Cecilia, 14-year-old Lux, 15-year-old Bonnie, 16-year-old Mary, and 17-year-old Therese. Their lives change dramatically within one summer when Cecilia, a stoic and astute girl described as an "outsider", attempts suicide by cutting her wrists. A few weeks later, the girls throw a chaperoned party, during which Cecilia jumps from their second story window and dies, impaled by a fence post. The cause of Cecilia''s suicide and its after-effects on the family are popular subjects of neighborhood gossip. The mystique of the Lisbon girls operates also for the neighborhood boys, the narrators of the novel. Lux begins a romance with local heartthrob Trip Fontaine. Trip negotiates with the overprotective Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon to take Lux to a homecoming dance, on the condition that he finds dates for the other three girls. After having sex with Trip on the high school football field after the dance, Lux misses her curfew. Consequently, the Lisbons become recluses. Mrs. Lisbon pulls all the girls out of school, believing that it would help the girls recover. Mr. Lisbon officially takes a leave of absence. Their house falls into a deeper state of disrepair and none of them leave the house. A strange smell coming from the house permeates the neighborhood. From a safe distance, all the people in the neighborhood watch the Lisbons'' lives deteriorate, but no one can summon up the courage to intervene. During this time, the Lisbons become increasingly fascinating to the neighborhood in general and the narrator boys in particular. The boys call the Lisbon girls and communicate by playing records over the telephone for the girls. Finally, the girls send a message to the boys to come to the house. Shortly after the boys arrive, three of the sisters kill themselves: Bonnie hangs herself, Therese overdoses on sleeping pills, and Lux dies of carbon monoxide poisoning. Mary attempts suicide by putting her head in the oven, but fails. Mary continues to live for another month before successfully ending her life by taking sleeping pills. Newspaper writer Linda Perl notes that that mass suicide comes a year after Cecilia''s first attempt. After the suicide "free-for-all," Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon leave the neighborhood. The house is sold to a young couple from the Boston area and most of the Lisbons'' personal effects are either thrown out or sold in a garage sale. The narrators scavenge through the trash to collect much of the "evidence" they mention.

The Virgin Suicides

*Chapter I — Before MCMXIV &nbsp; Memories of the nursery &ndash; realisation of class, you could look up: ::But what of us in our small villa row ::Who gazed into the Burdett-Coutts estate? ::I knew we were a lower lesser world … and, socially and geographically, down ::Glad that I did not live in Gospel Oak. *Chapter II — The Dawn of Guilt &nbsp; The author prefers poetry to his father''s fascinating world of trade. *Chapter III — Highgate &nbsp; His love for Miss Peggy Purey-Cust and trouble with rivals. *Chapter IV — Cornwall in Childhood Evocative sounds and smells of childhood holidays in Cornwall. *Chapter V — Private School To the Dragon School in Oxford, a new interest in churches. *Chapter VI — London John''s father is doing well, they have moved to Chelsea, "the slummy end"; but he preferred leafy Hampstead. *Chapter VII — Marlborough After a depressing start, the discovery of literature, nature and the Wiltshire Downs. *Chapter VIII — Cornwall in Adolescence Adolescent family troubles — an independent exploration of Cornwall. *Chapter IX — The Opening World Up to Magdalen College, Oxford, influences, failing at divinity.

Summoned by Bells

The plot follows a character named Matthew Towns, a college student in his junior year at the University of Manhattan studying to be an obstetrician. Early on in the novel, Towns is told that not only is he barred from pursuing his career aspirations; he is not allowed to finish his academic studies. His status as a black American does enough to disqualify him from transcendence into the public world of medicine and from gaining access to caring for white female patients. Towns is devastated until he makes the acquaintance of Princess Kautilya of Bwodpur, India, a beautiful black woman who reassures Towns of the importance of the history of black people in the world and the importance of their presence and impact of their beauty worldwide. The Princess takes him from his dreary world revolving around a stark color line between races and walks him through a vibrant world of prominent world leaders of color as well as those with negative impacts on the progress of blacks in America – evident by Du Bois’ illustration of Marcus Garvey through his character Perigua. Their relationship is culminated when they bear a child who by birthright is the Maharajah of Bwodpur, a direct connection to royalty which Matthew Towns had never dreamed achievable for a black American man.

Dark Princess

After John Carter''s arrival, a boat of Green Martians on the River Iss are ambushed by the previously unknown Plant Men. The lone survivor is his friend Tars Tarkas, the Jeddak of Thark, who has taken the pilgrimage to the Valley Dor to find Carter. Having saved their own lives, Carter and Tars Tarkas discover that the Therns, a white-skinned race of self-proclaimed gods, have for eons deceived the Barsoomians elsewhere by disseminating that the pilgrimage to the Valley Dor is a journey to paradise. Most arrivals are killed by the beasts of Valley, and the survivors enslaved by Therns. Carter and Tars Tarkas rescue Thuvia, a slave girl, and attempt to escape, capitalizing on the confusion caused by an attack by the Black Pirates of Barsoom upon the Therns. During the attack, Tars Tarkas and Thuvia hijack a Black Pirate flier, while Carter fights his way aboard another, killing all but one of the Pirates, and rescuing a captive Thern princess. From the captured Pirate Xodar, Carter learns that the Black Pirates, called the "First Born", also think of themselves as gods, and accordingly prey upon the Therns; and additionally identifies the captive Thern as Phaidor, daughter of the "Holy Hekkador" (high priest) of the Therns. When their flier is recaptured by the First Born and taken to their realm of Omean, Carter is taken before Issus, the self-proclaimed goddess of Barsoom, who dictates the Therns through secret communications which they mistake for divine revelation. Issus takes Phaidor as a handmaiden for one Martian year; whereas Carter is imprisoned, with Xodar as his slave as punishment for being defeated by Carter. Thereafter Carter treats him with honor, and thus gains his friendship. In prison, they encounter a young man later identified as Carter''s son Carthoris, with whom Carter is taken to a series of games wherein the previous year''s handmaidens are eaten by Issus and her nobles. Carter leads a revolt of the prisoners, killing many of the First Born; and upon the suppression of their revolt, he and Carthoris escape via underground tunnels, and give themselves to guards unacquainted with the revolt to be returned to their prison. Upon hearing of the revolt, Xodar rejects Issus’ divinity and joins the others in escape. Upon later abandoning their aircraft, they encounter Thuvia, who describes the capture of Tars Tarkas by the green warriors of Warhoon (a clan rival to his own). Carter goes to rescue Tars Tarkas, but is discovered by his enemies. After a chase, Thuvia is sent on alone mounted while the men attempt a stand against the Warhoons. They are rescued by the Heliumetic navy; but do not find Thuvia. Commanding one of the warships is Carter’s friend Kantos Kan; but the fleet is commanded by Zat Arras, a Jed (chieftain) of the hostile client state of Zodanga, and Carter is suspected of returning from Valley Dor, which is punishable by death. Tardos Mors, the Jeddak of Helium, and Mors Kajak, the Jed of Hastor (the grandfather and father, respectively, of Dejah Thoris, and thus Carter’s in-laws) are absent from Helium, having led fleets in search of Carthoris. Later, Carter discovers that Dejah Thoris may have taken the pilgrimage to the Valley Dor to find him. Upon returning to Helium, Carter is tried for heresy by the Zodangans; but the people of Helium do not tolerate this, and Carter is held prisoner for 365 days until his son frees him. Thereafter he goes to rescue Dejah Thoris; but is kidnapped by the Zodangans. Carter refuses Zat Arras’ offer of freedom in exchange for endorsing Zat Arras as Jeddak of Helium, and is imprisoned. After half a (Barsoomian) year, Carter escapes, and embarks to Omean, with secretly raised troop levies, ships, and soldiers lent by Tars Tarkas. Near Omean Carter is challenged first by the Therns; secondly by Zat Arras; and lastly by the First Born, whereupon Carter causes the Therns and First Born to fight one another, and the Heliumetic crews of the Zodangan fleet mutiny in support of Carter. Thereafter the Heliumites and Tharks defeat the First Born, and Issus herself is killed; but Dejah Thoris, Thuvia, and Phaidor are imprisoned in the Temple of the Sun, of whose rooms each opens only once per year. Immediately before their room closes, Phaidor attempts to kill Dejah Thoris, and her success or failure are left unknown. The story is thence continued in the third book of Burroughs’ Martian series, The Warlord of Mars.

The Gods of Mars

The Space Between Us takes place in present-day India and centers on two women: Serabai (Sera) Dubash, an upper-middle-class, Parsi widow, and her domestic servant of more than twenty years, Bhima. Now sixty-five years old, illiterate Bhima lives in the slums of Mumbai with her pregnant, unwed granddaughter, the seventeen-year-old Maya, whose college tuition is paid for by Sera. Through flashbacks, Bhima remembers her husband, who, after a work-related accident caused him to lose three fingers, became an alcoholic and abandoned her, taking their son Amit with him. She also remembers her daughter Pooja, who married, but died of AIDS together with her husband, leaving Maya an orphan at a young age. Since the sudden death of her physically abusive husband three years ago, Sera has cared for her disabled mother-in-law, who had insisted on isolating her from the family when Sera was menstruating. Sera also tends to her pregnant daughter Dinaz, and pays for Maya''s abortion. A while later, Maya reluctantly tells Bhima that Dinaz''s husband Viraf impregnated her and told her to keep it a secret so that she could continue her education and Bhima could keep her job. Angered, Bhima confronts Viraf, and he later accuses her of stealing from the cupboard. Sera dismisses her, unable to listen to Bhima''s hints about Viraf''s actions towards Maya. Bhima leaves, and recalling a balloon seller whom she had admired, buys worth of balloons and goes to the seaside. She resolves to deal with tomorrow.

The Space Between Us

Lullaby is the story of Carl Streator, a newspaper reporter who has been assigned to write articles on a series of cases of sudden infant death syndrome, from which his own child had died. Streator discovers that his wife and child had died immediately after he read them a "culling song", or African chant, from a book entitled Poems and Rhymes Around the World. As Streator learns, the culling song has the power to kill anyone it is spoken to. Because of the stress of his life, it became unusually powerful, allowing him to kill by only thinking the poem. During his investigations into other SIDS cases for his article, he finds that a copy of the book was at the scene of each death. In every case, the book was open to a page that contained the "culling song". Streator unintentionally memorizes the deadly poem and he semi-voluntarily becomes a serial killer (killing, for example, annoying radio hosts and people who elbow into an elevator when he is late for work). He then turns to Helen Hoover Boyle, a real estate agent who has also found the culling song in the same book and knows of its destructive power. While she is unable to help him stop using the culling song, she is willing to help him stop anyone else from being able to use it again. The two of them decide to go on a road trip across the country to find all remaining copies of the book and remove and destroy the page containing the song. They are joined by Helen''s assistant, Mona Sabbat, and Mona''s boyfriend, an eco-terrorist named Oyster. Streator now must not only deal with the dangers of the culling song, but with the risk of it falling into the hands of Oyster, who may want to use it for sinister purposes. In addition to tracking down and destroying any copy of Poems and Rhymes Around the World, the foursome hope to find a "grimoire", a hypothesized spellbook that is the source of the culling spell. Streator wants to destroy it while the others in his group want to learn what other spells it contains—partly in the hope that there is a spell to resurrect the dead. Mona eventually figures out that the datebook Helen had been carrying throughout the trip is the grimoire they had been looking for, written in invisible ink. Helen had acquired it years earlier in the estate of the publisher of Poems and Rhymes Around the World whom she had killed with the culling spell. In the end, the grimoire is used and misused until Helen''s body ends up dead with her mind in a police sergeant''s body. This connection is made in the final chapters and concludes with the present; Streator and Helen (in the police sergeant''s body) are together, searching for Mona and Oyster who have the entirety of the grimoire with the exception of the "culling song".

Lullaby

The story is about a little boy who leaves his home with his dog to shop for food items for his mother, and attempts to remember the list of things she wanted him to buy. The original request from his mother is for "six farm eggs, a cake for tea, a pound of pears, and don''t forget the bacon." Along with the dog, he is accompanied on his trip by a butterfly. In order to avoid forgetting items, the boy recites his mother''s list to himself. Throughout his trip to the store, the boy sees items along the way that play tricks with his memory, and items on his list one-by-one become substituted with other goods &ndash; "six farm eggs" initially becomes "six fat legs", then "six clothes pegs". By the end of his trip, the boy has forgotten the initial items requested, and supplants them in his mind with "six clothes pegs, a rake for leaves, a pile of chairs, and don''t forget the bacon." A merchant in a junk shop assists the boy in compiling this odd list. While travelling back to his home, he remembers the original items and corrects his mistakes. However, he still forgets to acquire bacon. The final panel depicts the child carrying a basket and a coin purse, taking his dog attached to a leash, en route, probably to purchase the bacon.

Don''t Forget the Bacon!

Jack and Stephen are at Malta waiting on the repair of the much-battered , Jack''s command. Both men befriend a young pretty lieutenant''s wife, Mrs Fielding, whose husband is a prisoner-of-war in France. French intelligence agents use Lieutenant Fielding''s plight to persuade Mrs Fielding to spy for them. They eventually assign her to find out information from Stephen by making amorous advances towards him. Jack, who is taking Italian lessons from her, rescues her Illyrian mastiff, Ponto, one evening out of a well, but himself falls in. This leads to the rumour that he is sleeping with her. Maturin and Aubrey also meet Andrew Wray again - Second Secretary to the Admiralty, who has been sent to Malta to sort out dockyard corruption. Jack had an unpleasant previous meeting with him at a gambling house in Portsmouth when he indirectly accused Wray of cheating. As Jack formally introduces Captain Pullings to him, Wray tells Pullings he had insisted on Captain Aubrey''s recommendation, adding: '' ... at one time Captain Aubrey seemed to do me an injustice, and by promoting his lieutenant I could, as the sea-phrase goes, the better wipe his eye.'' Jack and the Surprises are dispatched on a secret mission by the new Commander-in-Chief, the highly competent Admiral Ives, to take the Dromedary and capture a Turkish galley laden with French silver in the Red Sea. Unfortunately, the mission has been talked about for many months. The Surprise''s crew has to traverse the Sinai Peninsula and eventually meet the HEI ship Niobe in Suez. Jack takes command and sails her down the Red Sea with a troop of Turkish troops to intercept the galley. They eventually spot it and give chase but Jack notices that the galley is playing a trick on him, using a drag sail to artificially slow their speed, and orders his gunner to sink it. Stephen, who at the beginning of the novel bought a diving bell, is persuaded by moral pressure from the crew and officers to Jack to recover the treasure. After he and Mr Martin bring up the first sealed chest, they find it only contains heavy lead bars and a rude note, Merde a celui qui le lit. They meet a fishing boat and find out that the galley had been rowing up and down the sea for a month, waiting to lure them under the French fortification''s cannon. Their mission a failure, they return on the Niobe to Suez and offload the bitterly disappointed Turkish troops. They have to retrace their steps across the desert but this time their camels are stolen by Bedouin horsemen and they reach Tina almost dead from thirst. Fortunately, the Dromedaries are there to revive them and they return to Malta. Here Jack learns from Admiral Ives that the Surprise is to return to England and be scrapped. Stephen, meanwhile, renews his acquaintance with Mrs Fielding and plants some false information for her to give Leuseur and also thrashes Wray at piquet for high stakes. Jack is given a mission with the re-fitted Surprise to take the Adriatic convoy up the Ionian. While there he meets an old friend, Captain Cotton of the Nymphe, who has just rescued an escaped French prisoner-of-war, Lieutenant Charles Fielding. Fielding, having heard the rumour of Jack''s liaison with his wife, not only refuses his offer to return him to Malta but also requests a "meeting" (a duel). On the return journey Captain Dundas, commanding the massive seventy-four gun Edinburgh, tells Jack of a small French privateer that Jack eventually captures. Unfortunately the chase brings the Surprise in late to port behind Babbington’s sloop, the Dryad, and the news of Lt. Fielding’s escape has already circulated. Stephen overhears a conversation at Mrs Fielding''s house between Lesueur and Boulay, placed high up in the Governor''s staff, to assassinate her but manages to take her aboard the Surprise. Sir Francis Ives instructs Aubrey to sail for Zambra to threaten the Dey of Mascara into not attacking British ships, accompanied by the Pollux returning Admiral Harte back to England (Zambra and Mascara are a fictitious city and state on the Barbary Coast). While the Pollux is exiting the Bay of Zambra, a French squadron consisting of a two-decker eighty gun man-of-war and two frigates with French colours fire on her. The old sixty-four gun Pollux eventually blows up but damages the French newly-built third rate. The two frigates chase the Surprise deep into the bay and nearly cut her off until the heavier frigate runs aground on a reef called The Brothers. Her smaller consort deserts the fight and Jack, on the political advice of Maturin, sets sail for Gibraltar.

Treason''s Harbour

The novel begins with the story of Antar, an employee of the LifeWatch organization, who recounts an encounter with L. Murugan, an employee of LifeWatch who has disappeared in Calcutta. The plot is quite complicated and its timelines are deliberately mixed up. Antar starts to track Murugan’s disappearance in Calcutta many years back. Murugan has asked to be transferred to Calcutta because of his fascination with the life of Sir Ronald Ross. The Calcutta of Ronald Ross is well separated in time from the Calcutta that Murugan visits, but the New York of Antar and the Calcutta of Murugan seem to overlap in time, though it is clearly stated in the novel that they are separated by many years. Through his research into old and lost documents and phone messages, Antar figures out that Murugan had systematically unearthed an underground scientific/mystical movement that could grant eternal life. Loosely described, the process is as follows: the disciples of this movement can transfer their chromosomes into another, and gradually become that person or take over that person. In the novel, Ronald Ross did not discover the mysteries of the malaria parasite; it was a group of underground practitioners of a different, mystical "science," natives of India, who helped to guide Ross to the conclusions for which he is famous. These Indians provided Ross with clues in the belief that in the moment Ross made his discovery, the parasite would change its nature. At this point, a new variant of malaria would emerge and the group''s research using the chromosome-transfer technique would advance even further.

The Calcutta Chromosome

Act 1:In the office of the Minister of War: The minister of war receives Salvator Waltz - " a haggard inventor, a fellow author" - who declares that he controls a new machine of immense destructive power called Telemort or Telethanasia that can blow up cities, mountains, even countries. The minister dismisses him as a nut. Shortly thereafter a mountain in the vista of his windows blows up exactly at the time predicted by Waltz. He is called back and explains to the dubious minister that this was indeed the planned experiment to showcase his weapon; the minister and his advisor are not yet convinced and do not know what to do. Trance (in Russian her name is son, meaning dream), a journalist who becomes Waltz''s assistant suggests to appoint a committee. Annabella appears and indicates that on the mountain lived once an old enchanter and a snow-white gazelle. Act 2: In the Council Hall of the Ministry: A committee of bumbling old generals is in session to decide what to do after more experimental explosion have made it clear that the power of the weapon is enormous. Trance suggests to buy it. Waltz is called and offered money but refuses to sell it. He declares that he has the weapon to create a new world order, war and military and politics become superfluous. Waltz shows his side as a poet when he extols the New Life where he will be the "keeper of the garden key". Annabella, the daughter of a general, objects to the "bad dreams" Waltz has, but Waltz prevails and is welcomed as the new ruler. Act 3: In the office of the Minister of War: Waltz is in charge but bored by the day-to-day drudgery of governing. There was an assassination attempt on him presumably by a foreign agent, and in response he blows up the city of Santa Morgana. He plans to move to the island of Palmera and from time to time check on the affairs of government which should be easy as no country will be able to resist him. He demands luxury and servitude. His dream is becoming a nightmare. A parade of women is shown to him to please him, one of them citing a poem he had written a long time ago, but he wants Annabella. He summons her father who, however, refuses to submit; he will not deliver his daughter to Waltz. Waltz threatens to blow up everything, but Trance now makes it clear: there is no Telemort machine. It all was the imagination of Waltz. Reality now sets in, the real interview of Waltz takes place. The minister rejects him in less than a minute, opens the window, the mountain is still there, and Waltz is taken to the madhouse.

The Waltz Invention

The story begins shortly before the wedding of Michael Crawford, a doctor. The night before he marries Julia, he inadvertently places his wedding ring in the hand of a statue in a garden. When he goes to retrieve it, he discovers the statue has mysteriously vanished. Despite this mysterious event, the wedding proceeds. Julia''s disturbed twin sister Josephine serves as the maid of honor. The next morning, Crawford awakes to discover Julia''s horribly mutilated corpse next to him in the bed. Knowing he will be suspected of murdering his bride, Crawford flees to London and passes himself off as a medical student. He meets John Keats, who is also studying medicine. One day while visiting the wards they encounter the grief-stricken Josephine, who attempts to shoot Crawford to avenge her sister. A mysterious apparition saves him. Keats does his best to help Crawford understand what has happened. By placing the wedding ring on the statue Crawford unwittingly attracted the attention of one of the nephilim, who now considers herself Crawford''s true wife. The nephilim killed Julia so she could have Crawford for herself. Keats, who has some experience with the nephilim, recommends that Crawford visit the Alps. There is a place high in the mountains where he may be able to free himself from "the stress of her regard". While traveling on the Continent, Crawford is called upon to assist another Englishman who is suffering from a seizure. The man is Percy Shelley, and is accompanied by Lord Byron, John Polidori, and Claire Clarmont. Byron and Shelley are also connected to the nephilim, which they see as both a blessing and a curse. The nephilim can prolong the lives of humans and serve as muses who help to inspire great works of creativity, but they are extremely jealous and will destroy anyone they see as a rival. Crawford and the two poets make their way up the Jungfrau, where it is said one might be able to break the bond with a nephilim. After answering a version of the Riddle of the Sphinx Crawford manages to free himself from his "wife". In doing so he also learns more about the nature of the nephilim. Yet the danger is not over for Crawford, the poets, and their loved ones. The nephilim are still active, and developments in Venice may threaten all humanity. Crawford, Josephine, Shelley, and Byron, all haunted by personal tragedy, must find a way to save themselves and the rest of the world from the nephilim.

The Stress of Her Regard

The novel''s main character, David Selig, is an undistinguished man living in New York City. David was born with a telepathic gift allowing him to read minds. Rather than use his ability for any greater good, however, Selig squanders his power, using it only for his own convenience. At the beginning of the novel, David earns a living by reading the minds of college students so that he can better plagiarize reports and essays on their behalf. As the novel progresses, Selig''s power becomes continually weaker, working sporadically and sometimes not at all, and Selig struggles to maintain his grip on reality as he begins to lose an ability on which he has long since grown dependent. The book contains a number of memorable elements, such as David''s relationship with a fellow telepath he meets as a young adult, or his strained interaction with his estranged younger sister (who has long distrusted him because of his ability), or his obsession, during one section of the novel, with proving that his girlfriend, a woman named Kitty, is also telepathic after he discovers that he can''t read her mind. There''s also an interesting moment where David''s power causes him to vicariously experience his girlfriend''s acid trip, and a bravura sequence in which the adolescent Selig, during a visit to a farm, enters the minds of, variously, a fish swimming in a stream, a hen laying an egg, and a young couple in the midst of passionate sex.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Virgin Suicides

By Jeffrey Eugenides

Summoned by Bells

By John Betjeman

Dark Princess

No Author Listed

The Gods of Mars

By Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Space Between Us

By Thrity Umrigar

Lullaby

By Chuck Palahniuk

Don't Forget the Bacon!

By Pat Hutchins

Treason's Harbour

By Patrick O''Brian

The Calcutta Chromosome

By Amitav Ghosh

The Waltz Invention

By Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

The Stress of Her Regard

By Tim Powers

Dying Inside

By Robert Silverberg