The novel consists of three parts: "The Beginning," "Middle" and "The End." Each part contains four separate narrations, one focusing on each member of the Smart family: Eve, the mother, Michael, her husband, Astrid (12) and Magnus (17), two children of Eve’s from a previous marriage (to Adam Berenski). Opening and closing the novel, and between each part, we have four sections of first-person narration from ‘Alhambra’ – who we can assume is Amber, the Smarts'' uninvited house-guest. The novel opens with Alhambra telling us of her conception in ‘the town’s only cinema’. We then come to “The Beginning”, which consists of a third-person narration focused first on Astrid, then Magnus, then Michael, then finally Eve. Through each character we obtain a different view of how Amber came into their lives, and who they believed her to be, when she arrived unannounced and uninvited at their Norfolk holiday home, claiming her car had broken down. Through “The Beginning”, we learn of Astrid’s obsession with video-taping her life, seemingly as proof it existed; of Magnus’ involvement in a school prank which resulted in the suicide of one of his classmates; of Michael’s affairs with his students (he is a university lecturer); and of Eve’s writer’s block. The second first-person narration we have from Alhambra is altogether different to the first – here we are not offered her history, but rather a history of 20th century cinema – a past which she seems to adopt as her own, as if she were each of the characters in those films. “The Middle” deals, again, with each of the family members’ experiences of Amber: she throws Astrid’s camera off a bridge into the road, she seduces Magnus, and reveals flaws in Eve and Michael’s relationship. “The Middle” ends with Eve throwing Amber out of their holiday home. The third first-person narration from Alhambra follows, which is much the same as the second. We then have “The End”, which takes us to the Smart home once they return from holiday. The house has been emptied of all possessions – we must assume, as the family do, by Amber – leaving nothing but the answering machine, which contains messages forcing Magnus, Michael and Eve to face up to their past. Magnus and Astrid seem freed and excited by the experience of losing their possessions, their past – Michael also seems to find some redemption. Eve, however, runs away from the family, embarking on a round-the-world tour – eventually ending up in America, where she goes in search of her old family home. “The End” ends, ominously, with Eve seeming to take up Amber’s mantle, arriving at someone’s house as an uninvited guest. The book then finishes with a short section from Alhambra, reinforcing her connection to the cinema.

The Accidental

Petruchio''s stormy marriage to Katherine ended with her death. Petruchio is now married to Maria, who is even more resistant to domination than Katherine initially had been. Petruchio''s tactics and manipulations are no longer effective, and Maria has some resourceful tricks of her own. Maria refuses to consummate their marriage till Petruchio changes his ways; she bands together with other women in abstension from sex with their husbands. The women barricade themselves with provisions in the upper floor of Maria''s house, to the displeased surprise of their husbands below. In Act Three Maria settles in to pursue a career of scholarship and horsemanship at Petruchio''s country estate, but the peace is again broken when Maria once more refuses to perform her conjugal duties and imposes further demands on her husband. Petruchio resolves to play ill in an attempt to awaken his wife''s pity. His ruse fails totally when Maria catches on: in an extremely effective and humorous scene has Petruchio walled up in his house on the pretext that he has caught the plague. Petruchio finally fights his way out, but in Act Four he discovers that his wife has "gone mad"—she has begun to dress like a common whore (in a perfect counterpart to Petruchio''s entrance in fantastic attire in the earlier play) and is busy flirting with his friends. When Petruchio announces that he has had enough of marriage and is abandoning Maria for foreign travel, she encourages him to depart on the pretext that his journeys may broaden his vision and turn him into a better human being. Almost totally defeated as Act Five opens, Petruchio tries one final stratagem in an attempt to awaken some spark of compassion in Maria. He decides to play dead, and in one of the Elizabethan theater''s celebrated scenes he is borne onstage in a coffin before his wife and friends. Maria is indeed moved to tears, but they are inspired, as she tells us in a famous speech, not by his person but by his "unmanly, wretched, foolish life......how far below a man, how far from reason" Petruchio has remained. This last salvo of abuse brings Petruchio back from the dead: he sits up in his coffin, prompting in Maria a state of final bafflement if not total respect. The two pledge that they will start life anew together amidst the richly comic and ironic mood that ends the play. In the play''s subplot, Livia joins in the protest of the married women, though her primary motive is to avoid an arranged marriage with the old and unpleasant Moroso and marry her own choice of husband. Both Maria and Livia succeed in attaining their wishes by the play''s end. Finding a proto-feminist play in Fletcher''s canon has surprised more than a few readers and commentators. Fletcher''s attitudes, as expressed in his oeuvre as a whole, are standard for his era, and show little resembling egalitarianism. Critics have debated whether and to what degree Fletcher''s play shows any actual sympathy with women and with greater equality between the genders. The play may have been simply an opportunistic attempt to score a success with the audience on an always-controversial topic. Fletcher''s play shows influence from the Lysistrata of Aristophanes. After more than two centuries of absence from the stage, The Woman''s Prize was revived by the Royal Shakespeare Company in early 2004; their production ran from 15 January to 6 March that year.

The Woman''s Prize

Trafford Sewell, the novel''s protagonist, sets off for work on a rare "Fizzy Coff" (a day he must be physically present in his office; like most people he usually telecommutes) and, in the short distance he has to travel, he is confronted by the numerous maudlin "tributes" to dead "kiddies", massive overcrowding, and oppressive heat that are typical of his world. His "Confessor", Bailey, confronts him about his lateness in posting an explicit video of Caitlin Happymeal (Trafford''s daughter) being born on the "WorldTube". Trafford''s given excuse is forgetfulness, rather than the illegal desire for privacy that is his true reason. A "Fizzy Coff" colleague, Cassius, begins to take an interest in Trafford and invites him to lunch at an "old-fashioned" falafel restaurant. There he tells Trafford that he is a "Vaccinator" who belongs to the "Humanist" group. This group believes in reason and science, opposing the Temple''s message of blind faith. Having already lost an earlier child to a "plague" as all epidemics are called, Trafford tries to find a way to get Caitlin Happymeal vaccinated. Trafford''s wife, Chantorria, is a devout Temple member and is against the idea. Trafford ignores her wishes and secretly vaccinates Caitlin against measles, mumps and tetanus. Vaccination is banned under the "Wembley Laws" as interference in "God''s will" and as a result, half of all children born die of preventable diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella and tetanus. When a measles epidemic comes to London, thousands of children die, including all the children in the Trafford''s apartment building, but Caitlin Happymeal survives. Chantorria is aware of the fact that Catilin Happymeal has been vaccinated, but rather than accepting this cause and effect, she sees Caitlin Happymeal''s survival as God''s will. The Sewells become stars in their parish and Chantorria becomes the centre of attention, which she relishes. She gradually becomes convinced that she is one of God''s chosen few and begins an affair with Confessor Bailey. During this time, Trafford has fallen in love with Sandra Dee, another "Fizzy Coff" colleague. He has been "Goog''ing" her and discovers that the videos that she "tubes" are not of her and her blog entries have been lifted wholesale from other people''s blogs. This fascinates Trafford as he sees a kindred spirit in her: someone else who values privacy in a world where everything is made public. Trafford introduces Sandra Dee to the books that Cassius has lent him from the Humanist group''s library. The relationship between the pair develops. The Sewells'' world is then shattered by the death of Caitlin Happymeal due to a cholera epidemic, a disease against which she was not vaccinated. Chantorria becomes angry, telling Trafford that Caitlin''s death is a punishment from God for his heresy in having her vaccinated at all. They are rejected by their community and arrested by the Temple and are tortured into implicating others. Chantorria accepts the torture as her "just punishment". As Trafford finally breaks and implicates Cassius, the Inquisitor tells him that they already knew everything, the torture was simply to test his endurance. In his cell, Trafford is visited by Sandra Dee, who turns out to be an undercover police officer, and the reason that the Temple knows all about the Humanists. She tries to recruit Trafford. He refuses and he and Chantorria are taken to the stake to be burned as heretics. On his personal PC, Trafford has set up an email bomb (containing a précis of the Theory of Evolution) which he tricks Sandra Dee into releasing under the pretense that it contains a love-letter from him to her. When being tied to the stake, Trafford notices a girl waving an Ev Love ("evolve" backwards) banner, showing that she received the e-mail. He goes to his death in hope of a better world, reasoning that a society which promotes ignorance over knowledge and values mediocrity will inevitably die out and "evolve" into one that values knowledge and excellence.

Blind Faith

The world is controlled by the US/UN, a sort of semi-benign meta-dictatorship which doesn''t rule directly so much as enforce a series of basic laws on a vast number of microstates. Many of the microstates are in a near-constant state of low-intensity warfare. Among the laws enforced on them is a prohibition on certain directions of research, such as intelligence augmentation or artificial intelligence; precisely what is prohibited is of course secret, and as violation of the prohibitions will result in the swift and efficient death of everyone directly involved, scientific research is a dangerous proposition at best. The main characters - a trotskyist mercenary, a libertarian teenager from a fundamentalist microstate, and an idealistic scientist - find themselves caught up at the center of a global revolution against the US/UN. The revolution was planned, and partially automated using financial software, in order to break out when a certain set of conditions were reached. The stakes are raised at the end of the book, when it is revealed that the autonomous financial software has evolved into an intelligent form, which might cause the paranoid US/UN to make a ''clean break'' with the earth, knocking the planet back to the stone age with the orbital defense lasers.

The Star Fraction

Dossouye is a fix-up novel created from the short stories "Agbewe''s Sword", "Gimmile''s Songs", "Shiminege’s Mask", "Marwe’s Forest", and "Obenga’s Drum", the last previously unpublished. Dossouye herself is a woman warrior inspired by the real-life female warriors of the West African Kingdom of Dahomey. Her first stories appeared in Jessica Amanda Salmonson''s Amazons! and Marion Zimmer Bradley''s Sword and Sorceress, two anthologies designed to increase the number and recognition of female heroes in sword and sorcery fiction. Orphaned at a young age, Dossouye becomes a soldier in the women’s army of the kingdom of Abomey. In a war against the rival kingdom of Abanti, Dossouye saves her people from certain destruction; but a cruel twist of fate compels her to go into exile. Mounted on her might war-bull, Gbo, Dossouye enters the vast rainforest beyond the borders of her homeland, seeking a place to call her own. The forest is where Dossouye will either find a new purpose in life... or find her life cut short by the many menaces she encounters.

Dossouye

As the play begins, Valentine is preparing to leave Verona for Milan so as to broaden his horizons. He begs his best friend, Proteus, to come with him, but Proteus is in love with Julia, and refuses to leave. Disappointed, Valentine bids Proteus farewell and goes on alone. Meanwhile, Julia is discussing Proteus with her maid, Lucetta, who tells Julia that she thinks Proteus is fond of her. Julia, however, acts coyly, embarrassed to admit that she likes him. Lucetta then produces a letter; she will not say who gave it to her, but teases Julia that it was Valentine''s servant, Speed, who brought it from Proteus. Julia, still unwilling to reveal her love in front of Lucetta, angrily tears up the letter. She sends Lucetta away, but then, realising her own rashness, she picks up the fragments of letter and kisses them, trying to piece them back together. Meanwhile, Proteus'' father has decided that Proteus should travel to Milan and join Valentine. He orders that Proteus must leave the next day, prompting a tearful farewell with Julia, to whom Proteus swears eternal love. The two exchange rings and vows and Proteus promises to return as soon as he can. In Milan, Proteus finds Valentine in love with the Duke''s daughter Silvia. Despite Julia''s love, Proteus falls instantly in love with Silvia and vows to win her. Unaware of Proteus'' feelings, Valentine tells him that the Duke wants Silvia to marry the foppish but wealthy Thurio, against her wishes. Because the Duke suspects that his daughter and Valentine are in love, he locks her nightly in a tower, to which he keeps the only key. However, Valentine tells Proteus that he plans to free her by means of a corded ladder, and together, they will elope. Proteus immediately informs the Duke, who subsequently captures and banishes Valentine. While wandering outside Milan, Valentine runs afoul of a band of outlaws, who claim they are also exiled gentlemen. Valentine lies, saying he was banished for killing a man in a fair fight, and the outlaws elect him their leader. Meanwhile, in Verona, Julia decides to join her lover in Milan. She convinces Lucetta to dress her in boy''s clothes and help her fix her hair so she will not be harmed on the journey. Once in Milan, Julia quickly discovers Proteus'' love for Silvia, watching him attempt to serenade her. She contrives to become his page – a youth named Sebastian – until she can decide upon a course of action. Proteus sends Sebastian to Silvia with a gift of the same ring that Julia gave to him before he left Verona, but Julia discovers that Silvia scorns Proteus'' affections and is disgusted that he would forget about his love back home, i.e. Julia herself. Silvia deeply mourns the loss of Valentine, whom Proteus has told her is rumoured dead. Not persuaded of Valentine''s death, Silvia determines to flee the city with the help of Eglamour, a former suitor to Julia. They escape into the forest but when they are confronted by the outlaws, Eglamour flees and Silvia is taken captive. The outlaws head to their leader (Valentine), but on the way, they encounter Proteus and Julia (still disguised as Sebastian). Proteus rescues Silvia, and then pursues her deeper into the forest. Secretly observed by Valentine, Proteus attempts to persuade Silvia that he loves her, but she rejects his advances. Furious and mad with desire, Proteus insinuates that he will rape her ("I''ll force thee yield to my desire"). At this point, Valentine intervenes and denounces Proteus. Horrified at what has happened, Proteus vows that the hate Valentine feels for him is nothing compared to the hate he feels for himself. Convinced that Proteus'' repentance is genuine, Valentine forgives him and seems to offer Silvia to him. At this point, overwhelmed, Julia faints, revealing her true identity. Upon seeing her, Proteus suddenly remembers his love for her and vows fidelity to her once again. The Duke and Thurio arrive, and Thurio claims Silvia as his. Valentine then warns Thurio that if he makes one move toward her, he will kill him. Terrified, Thurio renounces Silvia. The Duke, impressed by Valentine''s actions, approves his and Silvia''s love, and consents to their marriage. The two couples are happily united, and the Duke pardons the outlaws, telling them they may return to Milan.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Cam Renton has been an apprentice seaman for a year when he arrives at Liverpool to join the crew of the Langdale, a cargo ship heading for Barbados and the Spanish Main. He is working towards becoming an officer and someday captain of his own ship. Because he is dissatisfied with the progress of his training, he asks the Chief Mate for assignment to one of the night watches rather than to routine day-work. The mate gives him short shrift, and during the outward voyage the two are at odds. Rankling under a sense of injustice, Cam devises a scheme to make the mate think he is haunted by a whistling poltergeist. However, he soon realizes this is childish and futile. When they reach the Venezuela, Cam takes a rare opportunity to go ashore at Boca del Sol, a fictional seaport. He and his bunkmate Rusty find themselves in the local prison after a misunderstanding. Cam executes a daring escape, but Captain Carey already has the matter well in hand, and he tells Cam a few home truths showing him that he is getting an excellent training in seamanship, thanks to the mate. Afterward Cam starts to work and study in earnest, and his knowledge of navigation and semaphore are put to use when he becomes part of a skeleton crew aboard a salvaged derelict.

Sea Change

When their father dies, Doctor Thomas Thorne and his younger, ne''er-do-well brother Henry are left to fend for themselves. Doctor Thorne begins to establish a medical practice, while Henry seduces Mary Scatcherd, the sister of stonemason Roger Scatcherd. When Scatcherd finds out that Mary has become pregnant, he seeks out Henry and, in the ensuing fight, kills him. While her brother is in prison, Mary gives birth to a girl. A former suitor offers to marry her and emigrate to the United States to start a new life, but refuses to take the baby. Doctor Thorne persuades her to accept the generous offer, promising to raise his niece. He names her Mary Thorne but, wishing neither to have her illegitimacy made public nor to have her associate with the uncouth Roger Scatcherd, he keeps her birth secret. He tells Scatcherd that the baby had died. After his release, Scatcherd rises quickly in the world as a railway project undertaker. In time, his skills make him extremely rich. When he completes a seemingly-impossible important project on time, he is created a baronet for his efforts. Throughout his career, he entrusts his financial affairs to Doctor Thorne. When Thorne becomes the family doctor to the Greshams, he persuades Scatcherd to loan ever growing sums to the head of the family, the local squire, who has troubles managing his finance. Eventually, much of the Gresham estate is put up as collateral. Meanwhile, Mary grows up with the Gresham children and becomes a great favorite with the whole family. As a result, Thorne feels obliged to tell his friend the squire the secret concerning her birth. Mary falls in love with Frank Gresham, the only son and heir of the squire of Greshamsbury and nephew of the Earl and Countess De Courcy, and he with her. However, his parents desperately need him to marry wealth, in order to rescue them from the financial distress resulting from the squire''s expensive and fruitless campaigns for a seat in Parliament. As Mary is penniless and of low birth, such a marriage is frowned upon by his mother Lady Arabella and the De Courcys. His snobbish mother and maternal aunt bearing the aristocratic De Courcy family name wish him to marry a thirty-year-old, eccentric, intelligent if kind-hearted heiress, Martha Dunstable. He reluctantly visits Courcy Castle and they become friends. He foolishly and playfully proposes. She demurs, knowing that he does not love her, and he tells her about his love for Mary. Sir Roger is a chronic drunkard, and Doctor Thorne tries in vain to get him to curtail his drinking. In his will, he stipulates that bulk of his estate go to his odious, dissolute only son Louis Philippe, but leaves Doctor Thorne in control of the inheritance until the heir reaches the age of twenty-five. Should Louis die before then, Scatcherd stipulates that the estate go to his sister Mary''s eldest child. Thorne is forced to divulge Mary''s history, but Scatcherd leaves the will unchanged. Sir Roger eventually dies of his excessive alcoholism, and Sir Louis inherits his vast wealth. The son proves just as much an alcoholic as the father, and his weaker constitution quickly brings him to the same end, before he reaches twenty-five. After consulting with many lawyers, Doctor Thorne confirms that his niece Mary is the heiress, richer than even Miss Dunstable. Unaware of these proceedings, the more-resolute Frank finally persuades his doting father to consent to his marriage to Mary. When all is revealed, everyone is elated, even Frank''s mother and Countess De Courcy, and their wedding becomes a much talked of event after the marriage of Mr Oriel and Beatrice Gresham, Frank''s younger sister and Mary''s best friend.

Doctor Thorne

Abarat focuses on Candy Quackenbush, a teenage girl frustrated with her life in Chickentown, Minnesota. After an argument with her teacher over a school project, Candy leaves the school and goes to the edge of town, where she sees the remains of a lighthouse. She then encounters a master thief named John Mischief, whose brothers live on his horns. Because he is pursued by a sinister creature named Mendelson Shape, Mischief sends Candy to light the lamp in the lighthouse, which summons an ocean known as the Sea of Izabella from a parallel world. After giving her a key to protect and extingushing the light, Mischief and Candy ride the seas to Abarat. A group of creatures carry them to a nearby island where Candy is separated from him. On the island, Candy learns that the Abarat consists of twenty-five islands, each occupying a different hour of the day, and was formerly connected to Candy''s world before the harbor''s destruction by Abaratian authorities. Thereafter the story follows her adventures as she discovers the crises affecting the Abarat, and gains intimations that she may be destined to conclude these. The story also introduces her chief antagonists: the sorcerer known as Christopher Carrion, his grandmother Mater Motley, and the industrialist Rojo Pixler, all of whom seek to dominate the Abarat.

Abarat

The plot of The Last Hurrah focuses on a mayoral election in an unnamed East Coast city. Veteran Irish, Democratic Party politician Frank Skeffington is running for yet another term as Mayor. As a former governor, he is usually called by the honorific title "Governor." While the city is never named, it is frequently assumed to be Boston. Skeffington is assumed to represent Boston mayor and Massachusetts governor James Michael Curley. The story is told in the third person, either by a narrator or by Adam Caulfield, the Mayor''s nephew. Skeffington is a veteran and adept "machine" politician, and probably corrupt as well. The novel portrays him as a flawed great man with many achievements to his credit. At the beginning of the book, Skeffington is 72 and has been giving signs that he might consider retiring from public life at the end of his current term. He surprises many by announcing what he had always intended to do: run for another term as Mayor. The main body of the novel gives a detailed and insightful view of urban politics, tracking Skeffington and his nephew through rounds of campaign appearances and events, thereby showcasing a dying brand of politics and painting a broad picture of political life in general. His opponent, Kevin McCluskey, is a neophyte candidate with a handsome face and good manners, a good World War II record but no political experience, and no real abilities for politics or governing. But McCluskey gets support from a new campaign medium: television advertising. Surprisingly. McClusky defeats Skeffington on election day. One of Adam''s friends explains that the election was "a last hurrah" for the kind of old-style machine politics that Skeffington had mastered. Developments in American public life, including the consequences of the New Deal, have so changed the face of city politics that Skeffington no longer can survive in the new age with younger voters. And prophetically, for the first time, television ads win the day. Immediately after his defeat, Skeffington suffers a massive heart attack with another soon afterward. When he dies, he leaves behind a city in mourning for a pivotal figure in its history, but a city that no longer has room for him or his kind.

The Last Hurrah

In the previous novel, during the early days of World War I, Tarzan discovered that his wife Jane was not killed in a fire set by German troops, but was in fact alive. In this novel two months have gone by and Tarzan is continuing to search for Jane. He has tracked her to a hidden valley called Pal-ul-don, which means "Land of Men." In Pal-ul-don Tarzan finds a real Jurassic Park filled with dinosaurs, notably the savage Triceratops-like Gryfs, which unlike their prehistoric counterparts are carnivorous. The lost valley is also home to two different races of tailed human-looking creatures, the Ho-don (hairless and white skinned) and the Waz-don (hairy and black-skinned). Tarzan befriends Ta-den, a Ho-don warrior, and Om-at, the Waz-don chief of the tribe of Kor-ul-ja. In this new world he becomes a captive but so impresses his captors with his accomplishments and skills that they name him Tarzan-Jad-Guru (Tarzan the Terrible), which is the name of the novel. Jane is also being held captive in Pal-ul-don, having been brought there by her German captor, who has since become dependent on her due to his own lack of jungle survival skills. She becomes a pawn in a religious power struggle that consumes much of the novel. With the aid of his native allies, Tarzan continues to pursue his beloved to rescue her and set things to right, going through an extended series of fights and escapes to do so. In the end success seems beyond even his ability to achieve, until in the final chapter he and Jane are saved by their son Korak, who has been searching for Tarzan just as Tarzan has been searching for Jane.

Tarzan the Terrible

===Into the Blood Se he Master of Past and Presen he Golden Genera ook he Tra eunite ook escue Missio erak haos and Escap ndings and Epilogue=== Exiting the city, Tanis and Laurana meet up with Fizban, Caramon, Tika and Tasslehoff. Fizban then reveals that he is really the god Paladine. Tanis also recognizes him now as the old man at the Inn who first spurred them into action by calling for the guards in Dragons of Autumn Twilight. Fizban tell the heroes that both the good and evil dragons will remain on Ansalon and that balance has been restored between good and evil. Fizban explains to Caramon that the spirit who has helped Raistlin at times (and who Raistiln made a bargain with in the Great Library) is the ancient evil wizard Fistandantilus. But he points out that Raistlin is not being possessed and chose his life and his actions all by himself. The companions separate. Tasslehoff to travel to Kenderhome, Caramon and Tika to travel to Solace and Tanis and Laurana to travel to Kalaman. In the epilogue, Raistlin travels to the Tower of High Sorcery in an abandoned neighborhood in the city of Palanthas, cursed and unoccupied since the end of the Cataclysm. He proclaims himself to be the master of past and present whose coming was foretold, is recognized by the spectral denizens of the tower, and settles into his new home.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Accidental

By Ali Smith

The Woman's Prize

By John Fletcher

Blind Faith

By Ben Elton

The Star Fraction

By Ken MacLeod

Dossouye

By Charles R. Saunders

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

By William Shakespeare

Sea Change

By Richard Armstrong

Doctor Thorne

By Anthony Trollope

Abarat

By Clive Barker

The Last Hurrah

By Edwin O''Connor

Tarzan the Terrible

By Edgar Rice Burroughs

Dragons of Spring Dawning

By Margaret Weis