The plot is initially the banal daily routine of a rich woman taking her son to piano lessons, and conversing with a working class man in a café, drinking wine all the way, then reaches a scandal at a dinner party in chapter 7, followed by a denouement in the final chapter. The story concerns the life of a woman, Anne Desbaresdes, and her varying relationships with her child, the piano teacher Mademoiselle Giraud and Chauvin. Chauvin is a working-class man who is currently unemployed and whiles away his time in a café near the apartment where Anne Desbaresdes'' child takes piano lessons with Madame Giraud. After the fatal shooting of a woman in the café by her lover, Anne and Chauvin imagine the relationship between the lovers and try to reason why it occurred. Anne frequently returns to the café, before returning to her comfortable home, the last house on the Boulevard de la Mer, which itself represents the social divide between the working- and middle-classes. In the climactic 7th chapter, she returns home late and drunk to a dinner party, then causes a scandal (and is subsequently ill, vomiting) whose consequences are seen in the final 8th chapter.

Moderato Cantabile

Adrian Mole is 39 and a quarter. Unable to afford the mortgage on his riverside apartment, he has been forced to move into a semi-detached converted pigsty next door to his parents, George and Pauline. His ravishing wife Daisy loathes the countryside, longs for Dean Street and has yet to buy a pair of Wellingtons; they are both aware the passion has gone out of their marriage, but neither knows how to reignite the flame. To cap it all off, Adrian is leaving his bed numerous times a night to go to the lavatory and has other alarming symptoms, leading him to suspect prostate trouble. Meanwhile, his mother thinks that an appearance on the Jeremy Kyle show might solve the mystery of her daughter''s paternity. Adrian also discovers that the assumption that he is George and Pauline''s offspring might be a fallacy. To add to his misery,he is already impaired further with his prostate trouble. As Adrian''s worries multiply, a phone call to his old flame Dr Pandora Braithwaite ignites memories of a shared passion and makes him wonder - is she the only one who can save him now?

Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years

Set in 1920s England, the book is written as if a travel memoir by a young Scotsman who had been invalided away from the Western Front, "Donald Cameron", whose father''s will forces him to reside in England. There he writes for a series of London newspapers, before being commissioned by a Welshman to write a book about the English from the view of a foreigner. Taking to the country and provincial cities, Donald spends his time doing research for a book on the English by consorting with journalists and minor poets, attending a country house weekend, serving as private secretary to a Member of Parliament, attending the League of Nations, and playing village cricket. The village cricket match is the most celebrated episode in the novel, and a reason cited for its enduring appeal. An important character is Mr Hodge; a caricature of Sir John Squire (poet and editor of the London Mercury) while the cricket team described in the book’s most famous chapter is a representation of Sir John’s Cricket Club – the Invalids - which survives today. The book ends in the ancient city of Winchester, where MacDonnell had gone to school.

England, Their England

Bouton befriended sportswriter Leonard Shecter during his time with the Yankees. Shecter approached him with the idea of writing and publishing a season-long diary. Bouton, who had taken some notes during the season after having a similar idea, readily agreed. Bouton chronicled the season—the turning point year in which Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, the Woodstock Festival was held, and the year of the Miracle Mets. In so doing, Bouton provided a frank, insider''s look at professional sports teams. The book''s context was the Seattle Pilots'' only operating season, though Bouton was traded to Houston late in the year. Ball Four described a side of baseball that was previously unseen by writing about the obscene jokes and the drunken tomcatting of the players and about the routine drug use, including by Bouton himself. Bouton wrote with candor about the anxiety he felt over his pitching and his role on the team. Bouton detailed his unsatisfactory relationships with teammates and management alike, his sparring sessions with Pilots manager Joe Schultz and pitching coach Sal Maglie, and the lies and minor cheating that has gone on in sports seemingly from time immemorial. Ball Four revealed publicly for the first time the degree of womanizing prevalent in the major leagues (including "beaver shooting," the ogling of women anywhere, including rooftops or from under the stands). Bouton also disclosed how rampant amphetamine or "greenies" usage was among players. Also revealed was the heavy drinking of Yankee legend Mickey Mantle, which had previously been kept almost entirely out of the press.

Ball Four

Benjamin is born with the physical appearance of a 70-year-old man, already able to speak. His father Roger invites neighborhood boys to play with him and orders him to play with children''s toys, but Benjamin only obeys to please his father. At five, Benjamin is sent to kindergarten but is quickly withdrawn after he repeatedly falls asleep during child activities. When Benjamin turns 12, the Button family realizes that he is aging backward. At the age of 18, Benjamin enrolls in Yale College but having run out of hair dye on the day of registration, is sent home by officials, who think he is a 50-year-old lunatic. In 1880, Benjamin is 20, his father gives him a control of Roger Button & Co. Wholesale Hardware. He meets Hildegarde Moncrief, a daughter of General Moncrief, and falls in love with her at the first sight. Hildegarde mistakes Benjamin for a 50-year old younger brother of Roger Button, and without realizing the fact of Benjamin''s abnormality, the two get married six months later. Years later, Benjamin''s business has been a great success, but his family life hasn''t been well for him. Benjamin starts to get tired of Hildegarde because she''s a nagging woman that is no longer beautiful as before. His family life is so boring that he joins the Spanish-American War in 1898. He had a great success in the military, ranked up to lieutenant colonel, and rewarded with a medal. He then quits the military because his company requires his care. In 1910, Benjamin turns over control of his company to his son, Roscoe, and enrolls at Harvard University, having the appearance of a twenty-year-old. His first year at Harvard is a great success, and he is dominant in American football, notably obtaining revenge against Yale for his earlier unpleasant experience. However, by the time Benjamin reaches his last 2 years, he is a weak sixteen-year-old, unable to play football and barely able to cope with the academic load. After graduation, Benjamin returns home, only to learn his wife has moved to Italy. He lives with Roscoe, who treats him very sternly, making Benjamin call him "Uncle" in front of his house guests. As the years progress, Benjamin turns from a moody teenager into a young child. Eventually Roscoe has a child that later attends kindergarten with Benjamin. After kindergarten, Benjamin slowly begins to lose memory of his earlier life. His memory fades away to the point where he cannot remember anything except his nurse. Then everything fades to darkness.

Benjamin Button

This book takes place in a fictitious European nation known as Padukgrad, where a government arises following the rise of a philosophy known as "Ekwilism," which discourages the idea of anyone being different from anyone else, and promotes the state as the prominent good in society. The story begins with the protagonist, Adam Krug, had just lost his wife to an unsuccessful surgery. He is quickly asked to sign and deliver a speech to the leader of the new government by the head of the university and his colleagues, but he refuses. This government is led by a man named Paduk and his "Party of the Average Man." As it happens, the world-renowned philosopher Adam Krug was in his youth a classmate of Paduk, at which period he had bullied him and referred to him disparagingly as "the Toad." Paduk arrests many of the people close to Krug and those against his Ekiwilist philosophy, and attempts to get the influential Professor Krug to promote the state philosophy to help stomp out dissent and increase his personal prestige. He makes a series of offers to Krug, but Krug continues to refuse outright. Finally, Paduk has Krug''s young son David taken for ransom as Krug was arrested. Immediately, Krug capitulates and is prepared to promote the Ekiwilist philosophy, and is promised David''s safe return. However, when David is to be returned to him, Krug is horrified to find that the child he is presented is not his son. There has been a mix-up, and David has been sent to an orphanage that doubles as a violent prisoner rehabilitation clinic where he was tortured and killed when he was offered as a "release" to the prisoners. Paduk makes an offer to allow Krug to personally kill those responsible, but he swears at the officials and is locked in a large prison cell. Another offer is made to Krug to free 24 opponents of Ekwilism, including many of his friends, in exchange for doing so. He accepts in complete lucidity, then, as the author feels pity, a beam of light comes down and strikes him insane leading him to charge Paduk.

Bend Sinister

The story opens by introducing three destitute beggars in the port of Papeete on Tahiti. They are Herrick, a failed English businessman; Davis, an American sea captain disgraced by the loss of his last ship; and Huish, a dishonest Cockney of various employments. One day an off-course schooner carrying a cargo of champagne from San Francisco to Sydney arrives in port, its officers having been killed by smallpox. With no-one else willing to risk infection, the U.S. consul employs Davis to take over the ship for the remainder of its voyage. He carries the other two men along with a plan to steal the ship and navigate it to Peru, where they will sell the cargo and vessel and disappear with the money. Once at sea, Davis and Huish start drinking the cargo and spend almost all of their time intoxicated. Herrick, whose conscience is severely troubled by the plan but feels he has no other way to escape poverty, is left alone to manage the ship and three native crew members, despite having no seafaring experience. However, several days later the would-be thieves discover they have themselves been victims of a fraud: most of the cargo is not champagne but merely bottles of water. Evidently the shipper and the previous captain had intended to sink the ship deliberately and claim the full value of the "champagne" on insurance. Even worse, the now-sober Captain Davis discovers that due to his rushed preparations for departure, and his drunken wastage, the ship is not carrying enough food to reach Peru, or anywhere else except the port they started from, where they would surely be imprisoned for their actions. Just then they sight an unknown island, where they discover an upper-class Englishman named Attwater. Attwater, a devout Christian, has been harvesting pearls here for many years with the help of a several dozen native workers, all except four of whom have recently also died of smallpox. The three men hatch a new plan to kill Attwater and take his pearls, but Herrick''s guilt-stricken demeanour and Huish''s drunken ramblings soon betray them. Attwater and his servants force them back onto the ship at gunpoint. Unable to live with himself, Herrick jumps overboard and tries to drown himself. Failing even in this, he swims to the shore and throws himself on Attwater''s mercy. The next day, Huish proposes a final plan which shocks even the unscrupulous Davis: they will go to meet Attwater under a flag of truce, and Huish will disable him by throwing acid in his face. However, Attwater is suspicious, realises what is going on, and shoots Huish dead. He appears to be about to kill Davis as well, but forgives him, saying "go, and sin no more". A short epilogue set two weeks later shows the surviving men preparing to leave the island as Attwater''s own ship approaches. Davis is now repentant and fervently religious to an almost crazed degree, and urges the atheist Herrick to join him in his faith.

The Ebb-Tide

The book starts with Jack McEvoy, a crime reporter for the Rocky Mountain News ("Death is my beat"), relating how the news of his brother Sean''s suicide was broken to him. Sean was a homicide detective with the Denver Police, who was found dead in his car in a remote parking lot. A one-sentence suicide note was found in the car with him, and it seemed impossible that someone else could have killed him. McEvoy, though, is reluctant to accept that his brother had succumbed to depression resulting from his investigations, even though the last one was particularly brutal: Theresa Lofton, a young college student, who was found in a park in two pieces. After much investigation on his own, including retracing his brother''s investigation into the Lofton case, Jack concludes that his brother''s death was simply made to look like a suicide by a serial killer. By focusing on homicide detectives who committed suicide in a similar fashion and left a one-sentence note quoting the works of Edgar Allan Poe (as Sean''s did), Jack finds three clear matches to his brother''s death. When the FBI finally realizes that he is on to something and attempts to block him from further access, he is able to trade his knowledge of the other deaths (one of which the FBI had not uncovered) for a role with the FBI investigative team headed by Robert Backus, the son of a famous agent within the bureau who has been overshadowed by his father''s legend. Assigned the duty of handling him is agent Rachel Walling, one of Backus'' main proteges, and the two of them become personally involved. The FBI nicknames the serial killer "The Poet" due to his use of Poe''s lines with the victims. As the case focuses on an Internet network of pedophiles and one in particular (William Gladden), McEvoy is taken along on the operation to arrest Gladden, who is suspicious of the set-up and kills the FBI agent trying to arrest him, Gordon Thorson (Walling''s ex-husband). McEvoy ends up killing Gladden himself while being held hostage. However, Gladden''s comments about his brother''s death lead McEvoy to believe that Gladden was not the killer, even though the case has been officially closed. He then finds evidence that the killings had a connection to the FBI and identifies a phone call to the FBI from Thorson''s room that he links to a "boasting" fax sent to the bureau by The Poet. Since McEvoy knew that Walling had sent Thorson on a fake errand to buy condoms during the time the fax was sent, he suspects Walling of being The Poet and of posting to the pedophile network under the name "Eidolon", another Poe reference. He then learns that Walling''s father, a cop, had committed suicide when she was a teenager ... and had been suspected by the investigating officers of molesting Rachel over a period of time. Since pedophiles tend to have been abused as children, McEvoy becomes worried enough to tell Backus of his suspicions. Backus tells McEvoy that they''ll set a trap for Walling and then takes him to a remote location—where Backus drugs McEvoy into nonresistance. He admits that he himself is both Eidolon and The Poet, because the room mistakenly billed to Thorson was actually the one in which he stayed. He admits to all of the deaths and to his setup of Gladden as the "fall guy" for the murders. As Backus prepares to sodomize and then kill McEvoy, Walling (who was suspicious because of messages that she had received from both men) shows up and eventually saves McEvoy''s life by knocking Backus out the window and down a long hill. Later the police find a body, however it is left open if this is Backus. Meanwhile, as the facts of the case become known, Walling''s judgment is called into question due to her personal relationship with McEvoy and her professional relationship with Backus. A tabloid publishes a photo of McEvoy and Walling together. However, because McEvoy suspected her, Walling ends their relationship and takes a leave to Italy. McEvoy then takes a leave from his paper to write a book about the events, although Walling explains to him that the book will forever taint the FBI because of Backus.

The Poet

Born on the voyage to America to his Italian father and French-born mother, Daniel Lavette grows up helping his father on a fishing boat. Tragedy strikes early one morning, however, when Dan wakes early to prepare the boat. The great San Francisco earthquake destroys vast swathes of the city including the small apartment where his parents where sleeping. Following a traumatic three days spent ferrying passengers across the bay to Oakland, he is taken in by friends of his father. The two immigrant families of Italian and Jewish origin use the money earned from the ferrying to start a financial empire and a bank, the Bank of Sonoma. Although Dan Lavette becomes quite rich, he does not stop. He wants to become multimillionaire and has many ideas in mind. He is an entrepreneur and seeks to find his place among the rich businessmen on Nob Hill. He asks for a loan from the larger Seldon Bank in San Francisco, but the owner declines it. During that meeting, Dan meets Jean, the exquisitely beautiful daughter of the owner, and both are smitten with each other. Soon after, they are married, against the will of Jean''s mother, who is very segregationist and looks down on immigrants and those of poor pedigree. Dan Lavette grows increasingly wealthy, but his happiness is short-lived. After they have two children, Jean ceases to love him and grows cold to his advances. Dan hired a Chinese bookkeeper, Feng Wo, to assist him at the start of his business dealings, but only receives an invitation for dinner at Wo’s house after several years. Because Jean shares her mother’s distaste for other ethnicities, Dan attends alone. At the dinner, Dan enjoys the company of Wo’s daughter, May Ling, laughing and feeling more at ease than he had since his first days with Jean. After visiting her a few times at the library where she works, Dan falls in love with May Ling. They engage in an affair and they have a child together. So that she may have all of his energies to herself, May Ling wants him to divorce Jean. Dan broaches the idea to Jean, but is flatly declined as divorce is not something the Seldon family participates in. Even after she discovers the affair and has trysts of her own, she will not divorce him and holds onto the marriage as a ploy for leverage. The empire Dan started with his friend, Mark Levy, of the his fishing boats and Levy’s goods store, continues to grow. The Levy and Lavette Company (later L&L Shipping) get into the business of shipping bulk cargo and profit from assisting the Allied cause during the shipping explosion needed during World War I. Sensing the end of the war, Dan convinces Mark to sell the cargo ships. Doing so before the cargo market collapses, the company greatly profits and uses the money to start to a classy department store. Adding to this, the pair diversify by adding luxury cruise liners and building a hotel on Waikiki Beach. They also begin one of the first airlines of the west coast. Impressed with the raging stock market of the late 1920s, the duo issue shares to list their company on the exchange and begin playing the market on margin. This fiscal bubble soon bursts in the crash of 1929 that begins the Great Depression. Many banks close, including The Bank of Sonoma, started by his lifelong Italian friend with the proceeds of the earthquake ferry service. Unable to honor his deposits due to the bank run, his friend dies a heart attack. His Jewish compatriot and business partner, Levy, also dies soon after hearing of his daughters death. Following this tragic news, Dan grows sullen. When May Ling gives him an ultimatum to divorce Jean or lose her and his son, Dan cannot act and May Ling moves to Los Angeles. As the heir to and subsequent chairwoman of the Seldon Bank, Jean calls the loans that are keep Levy and Lavette afloat. Although Jean offers him a position as head of the remnant of the company, Dan cannot accept her handout and refuses. Jean grants his request for a divorce and he signs away his share of their communal assets. Bereft of all his money and torn inside by the emotional destruction of his world, Dan wanders the streets as a vagabond in search of work and even spends three months in prison after fighting off some muggers. When a former employee and boat owner gives him a meal and a job, Dan returns to his first love as a fisherman. Having finally grown up, Dan rises from the depths of his humiliation to seek out May Ling. Venturing to Los Angeles, he meets May Ling and they are finally married. At the close of the story, Dan and Jean’s daughter visits and begins rekindling a relationship with her father.

The Immigrants

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

Wren''s War

The novel is set in the fictitious Dutch town of Koopstad. The novel’s ‘hero’, Elias Lossell, becomes deaf and blind from an accident when he is nine years old. The people around him can communicate with him by writing letters with a finger on the palm of his hand. Although communication is possible, mentally he always remains a boy of nine. Thanks to a somewhat thoughtless testament Elias becomes the rightful owner of the firm of Volderdoes Zonen, tea-merchants. His half-brothers, the twins Hendrik and Hubert, manage the firm on his behalf. Elias lives in a house of his own at the outskirts of Koopstad, looked after by his old nurse Johanna, and occupies himself by growing flowers and helping the needy. Hendrik tries to save up as much money as he can to buy out Elias and take over the firm. His spendthrift wife Cornelia does not make it easy for him. While Hubert stays in China to look after the firm’s interests there, Hendrik starts speculating with Elias’s money at the instigation of his brother-in-law Thomas Alers. Hubert returns to Koopstad and gradually learns what his brother has done. He firmly disapproves. This leads to a quarrel between the twins in Elias’s house that escalates into murder. Hubert kills Hendrik. Elias understands what happened. In the last chapter he decides to take the blame of the murder on himself. So the novel has an open end.

God''s Fool

The novel begins in orbit above planet Reach, as humanity fights the Covenant invasion forces. The last line of defense for the planet is an array of magnetic accelerator cannons (MACs) orbiting the planet. The Master Chief sends a team of Spartans to the surface of Reach to protect the MAC''s planet-based power generators. Ultimately, the Covenant are able to destroy the generators and begin glassing the planet, melting its surface to glass. The surviving Spartans flee underground to the hidden headquarters of the Office of Naval Intelligence. There they meet Dr. Halsey who, with help of some of the surviving Spartans, uncovers a strange crystalline shard in a cavern built by the ancient Forerunner. Pursued by the Covenant, the Spartans retrieve the shard and collapse the passage behind them, which saves them from the pursuing Covenant forces, but also traps them deep under the surface of Reach. The book then shifts to events occurring soon after Halo, as the Master Chief and Cortana drift through the ruins of Halo, they discover other survivors including Sergeant Johnson and Corporal Locklear. The group commandeer the Covenant flagship Ascendant Justice and use its slipspace capabilities to return to the Reach system. To prevent the Covenant finding Earth with a tracking device, the humans plan to find a suitably undamaged human ship to take them to Earth. Upon arrival the group receive a radio signal used by the Spartans in their training days. On the surface, they find three Spartans and Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations. The Vice Admiral arms a "Nova thermonuclear mine", a weapon that would destroy the planet. The Master Chief and his newly acquired team of Spartans then proceed to rescue Dr. Halsey and the other Spartans that were trapped under the surface of the planet. Meanwhile Cortana, still aboard Ascendant Justice, learns that the Covenant already know the location of Earth and are preparing an invasion fleet. Seeking the Forerunner shard, the Covenant attack, severely damaging Ascendant Justice, but are temporarily defeated. In order to make repairs, the UNSC forge an alliance with human separatists hidden in an asteroid field. Halsey abducts Spartan Kelly-087 and flees in a stolen ship, leaving Corporal Locklear with instructions to stop the crystal from falling into Covenant hands. Locklear decides to destroy the crystal, inadvertently killing himself, but stopping the Covenant from tracking the crystal''s radioactive emissions and by extension the Ascendant Justice. With the knowledge that the Covenant are en route to Earth, the Master Chief and his fellow Spartans decide to disrupt the invasion force at their rendezvous point. The Spartans successfully infiltrate the Covenant space station, Unyielding Hierophant, set it to self-destruct and escape in a drop-ship. On board the Ascendant Justice, Whitcomb tricks the Covenant fleet into following the ship closer to the Unyielding Heirophant; when the station explodes the entire Covenant armada is destroyed or damaged. Master Chief and the surviving Spartans take the salvaged UNSC ship, "Gettysburg", back to Earth with Sgt. Johnson and Cortana to warn of the approaching invasion. Meanwhile, the Covenant leadership discuss the fate of the "incompetent one," an Elite who allowed Halo to be destroyed and Ascendant Justice to be captured; setting the stage for Halo 2.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Moderato Cantabile

By Marguerite Duras

Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years

By Sue Townsend

England, Their England

By A. G. Macdonell

Ball Four

By Jim Bouton

Benjamin Button

By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Bend Sinister

By Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

The Ebb-Tide

By Robert Louis Stevenson

The Poet

By Michael Connelly

The Immigrants

By Howard Fast

Wren's War

By Sherwood Smith

God's Fool

By Maarten Maartens

Halo: First Strike

By Eric S. Nylund