The novel opens with the country of Ferelden occupied by the neighbouring Orlesian Empire. Queen Moira, who sought to expel the Orlesians has been murdered by traitor nobles, but her son Maric has escaped. While attempting to flee the assassins who killed his mother, Maric encounters Loghain, who is part of a band of Fereldan outlaws. Having no real alternatives, Maric joins up with them. However Maric is not able to stay at the outlaw camp long, as an Orlesian army looking for Maric attacks. Yet, Loghain is able to lead Maric to safety by taking him to the Korcari Wilds, a region avoided by most due to its danger. Here they meet the mysterious Witch of the Wilds, who enables them to pass through the Wilds safely. She provides this help on the condition that Maric makes her a promise. What this promise unknown. She also warns Maric that Loghain will betray him if he keeps him close, and warns Maric a Blight will one day come to Ferelden. After escaping the Wilds, Maric and Loghain are led to the remaining rebel army by Maric''s betrothed, Rowan Guerrin, just in time to defeat an Orlesian army about to attack them using Loghain''s aptitude for strategy. The next few years see Maric, Loghain and Rowan become close friends as they strengthen the rebel army until it is in a position to take Gwaren, a Fereldan town. Katriel, an elf woman who claims to be a messenger, warns them of an impending attack on Gwaren and they are able to repel it. After this, Katriel and Maric begin a relationship. However, Katriel is a spy for Meghren, the Orlesian King of Ferelden. She provides Maric with false information that convinces him to attack the town of West Hill. This attack results in massive loss of life for the rebel army, and Maric, Loghain and Rowan being separated from the remainder of the army. Regretting her deception and developing real feelings for Maric, Katriel leads Maric, Loghain and Rowan to the Deep Roads, a series of underground tunnels, in order to return to Gwaren. After facing the dangers of the Deep Roads, including giant spiders and darkspawn, and escaping in the company of a dwarven warband, whom Maric convinces to join the rebellion. Once they return to Gwaren, they find the remnants of the rebel army and once again secure the town. By this time, Loghain and Rowan have formed a romantic bond (in part due to Maric abandoning Rowan for Katriel), but Loghain has also discovered Katriel’s betrayal and reveals it to Maric, omitting that Katriel had reneged on her orders out of love for Maric. After discovering her actions, Maric kills Katriel in blind rage, only to discover later that Katriel had been loyal out of love for him; Loghain wished to impress on Maric the importance of a king doing what has to be done, opposed to what he wants to do. Following her death, Loghain encourages Rowan to become Maric’s wife and queen, for Maric and Ferelden’s benefit. She agrees and with increased momentum and growing outrage at the continuing cruelty of the Orlesians, there is now widespread support for Maric and the rebel cause. Victory is all but assured for the rebels. Maric also exacts justice on the traitor nobles who murdered his mother, luring them to a meeting under the pretense of a truce, then killing them for their crimes, before Loghain and Rowan break the back of Meghren''s armies at the Battle of River Dane, ensuring Meghren''s downfall and the eventual defeat of the occupation. The novel closes with Mother Ailis, who once lived within the outlaw camp, telling Maric and Rowan’s son Cailan stories of his father; after three more years of war, Denerim fell to the rebels after a long siege, Meghren was executed for his crimes and Maric is crowned as king. Ailis tells that Maric has become a popular king, Loghain has become a powerful lord and has married and had a daughter, and that Rowan has died after a long illness. After relating this, Ailis hobbles after Cailan, who has run off into the distance.

Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne

The novel begins with the main character, Lupe Gomez, as a young and overall naive girl, who lives with her mother, Doña Guadalupe and her other sisters and brother in a ramada in the "Rain of Gold" valley. The family makes a living by selling breakfast to the local miners and washing their clothes. There is a group of colorful miners and most of them have problems with drinking and gambling. The village suffers repeated raids by various factions of the Mexican Revolution and ultimately the brazen Doña Guadalupe manages to protect her daughters and son without incident. Eventually Lupe encounters a man she simply calls "my colonel", a charismatic and romantic figure that Lupe seemingly falls in love with. For much of the beginning of the first chapter of the story she compares the things she enjoys in life to the Colonel, unaware of the fact that he is married to another woman and is nearly two decades older than she is. Swayed by the religious devotion of the Gomez family, the Colonel has them look after his young wife, Socorro who is pregnant with a child. While away on an escort mission of mined gold the Colonel is attacked and killed, Subsequently the rebel fighters who slay him return to the box canyon and dominate the residents. They are a suspicious group and accuse Lupe''s brother Victoriano of stealing gold from the mine and they try to hang him as an example to others. He is saved by his mother who hands him a gun after she told the rebels that she was giving him his last prayer, but before Victoriano is able to escape, he shoots and kills La Liebre, the leader, who was attempting to kill Guadalupe. Afterwards, La Liebre''s second in command orders Guadalupe to be hanged, but is stopped by the town''s people gathering in a mob to stop them. Shortly after the violence the towns people start to leave the city en masse to escape the violence of the Mexican revolution.

Rain of Gold

For years, mild mannered lawyer Walter Stackhouse has suffered as a result of his neurotic, unstable wife Clara, whose constant alienation of all his friends, coupled with her penchant for overly dramatic gestures, has slowly driven him to hate her. After he becomes infatuated with the sweet and sensuous music teacher Ellie Briess, Clara jealously attempts suicide via an overdose, forcing him into her arms once again. However, he eventually stands his ground and demands a divorce. When Clara subsequently turns up dead, having fallen off a cliff during a bus trip to see her dying mother, Walter finds himself blundering around in the dark as the official investigation ensues. He admits that he stalked her bus in his car, whilst daydreaming about the possibility of killing her at the first stop, just as Melchior J. Kimmel, a 40-year-old bookshop manager, murdered his own domineering partner Helen, an unsolved crime that Walter had read of in the paper and grown fascinated by. Both men soon encounter the formidable, possibly psychotic Lieutenant Lawrence Corby, a police officer with savage ambition who is convinced of their guilt and believes that they are somehow in cahoots with one another. He soon begins encroaching on his suspects'' lives, sowing the seeds of doubt into the minds of those they care for and even ferociously assaulting Kimmel.

The Blunderer

Sergey Aleksandrovich (Сергей Александрович), the narrator, is summoned from Saint Petersburg to the estate of his uncle, Colonel Yegor Ilich Rostanev (Егор Ильич Ростанев), and finds that a middle-aged charlatan named Foma Fomich Opiskin (Фома Фомич Опискин) has swindled the nobles around him into believing that he is virtuous despite behavior that is passive aggressive, selfish, and spiteful. Foma obliges the servants to learn French, and gets furious when they are caught dancing the kamarinskaya. Uncle Yegor asks Serguey to marry the poor young girl Nastasha. It turns out Uncle Yegor is in love with her himself, but Foma wants him to marry the wealthy but mentally retarded Tatyana Ivanova instead. This Tatyana has several other suitors, including Mizinchikov, who confides in Sergey about his plans to elope with her. The next morning Tatyana has eloped, not with Mizinchikov but by Obnoskin, who acted under the influence of his mother. After a pursuit Tatyana returns voluntarily. At Stepantchikovo Foma Fomitsj is furious because Uncle Yegor has been caught red-handed during a date in the garden with Nastasha. Foma leaves, but falls into a ditch. The inhabitants beg him to come back. A general reconciliation follows after Foma, manipulating as ever, gives his blessing to a marriage between Uncle Yegor and Nastasha.

The Village of Stepanchikovo

The novel is narrated by Grace Strasser-Mendana, an American expatriate who married into one of the three or four families that dominate Boca Grande politics, the Mendanas. Grace was trained as an anthropologist under Claude Lévi-Strauss, and later took up the amateur study of biochemistry, both attempts to find clear-cut, scientific answers to the mysteries of human behavior. Both attempts fail: Grace remains uncomprehending and cut off from the people around her, and in the final line of the novel she admits, "I have not been the witness I wanted to be." But Grace is not the novel''s central character. That is Charlotte Douglas, another American woman sojourning in Boca Grande, although her family ties are elsewhere. Charlotte''s beloved daughter Marin has run off with a group of Marxist radicals and taken part in an absurd act of terrorism, and in the wake of her daughter''s disappearance, Charlotte''s marriage to a crusading Berkeley lawyer (not Marin''s father), has fallen apart. A limited signed edition of this book was issued by Franklin library.

A Book of Common Prayer

The Tragedy tells the story of Mariam, a member of the Hasmonean dynasty and the second wife of Herod the Great, king of Palestine 39-4 B.C. When the play opens, in 29 B.C., Herod is thought dead at the hand of Octavian (later Caesar Augustus), and Mariam faces her ambivalent feelings about her husband; Herod had loved her, but had also murdered her grandfather and brother. In Act IV, however, Herod returns, dispelling the false report of his death. Herod''s immoral and "villain" sister Salome I falsely convinces Herod his wife has been unfaithful in his absence which results in him ordering Mariam''s execution. Though Mariam is the title character and the play''s moral center, her part in the play amounts to only about 10% of the whole; Cary uses a set of secondary characters to provide a multi-vocal portrayal of Herod''s court and Jewish society under his tyranny. The Chorus, in its representation of the patriarchal ideals of femininity, offers an opportunity to interrogate these values, in accordance with the political impetus of the closet drama. The ending of the play is consistent with the tyranny of both its fictional Herod and the actual historical figure: six characters die, including Mariam. The play also explores the themes of divorce and female agency through the characters of both Mariam and Salome. The play has been edited and published in several modern editions, and has acquired a large and growing body of critical and scholarly commentary.

The Tragedy of Mariam

When full-time legal secretary Dawn Annandale notices an advertisement in a magazine which states that attractive girls can earn up to £300 per night by engaging in escort work, her curiosity is piqued. At first, she thinks that the work would be in dissonance to her own life which consists of having six children between the ages of two and twelve, having a nice home in Kent and a husband, Paul. The struggle to maintain a privileged middle class existence led to Dawn''s realisation that herself and her husband ''were very probably guilty of trying to live a champagne lifestyle on an orange juice budget.'' The author''s account of her subsequent actions attempt to explain to the reader that she was motivated by her fervent desire to give to her children a happy and stable beginning in life. From the start of Dawn''s marriage, Paul leaves the running of the house and the sorting of finances to Dawn. He assures Dawn that he is happy for her to do what she thinks is best for the family. When she enrols her first child at a private primary school, she feels that this sets a precedent for her other children to be educated up to the same standards. Financial matters are further complicated by the additional costs of after-school clubs, school uniforms and music lessons. Her impecunious situation prompts her to make an appointment with Jimmy, a man in charge of the escort operation. Jimmy comments that Dawn is very different from his other girls. This adds to Dawn''s anxiety because she worries that she will not experience financial success. When Jimmy asks her the reasons as to why she is seeking to pursue this form of work, Dawn replies honestly that she is motivated by the fact that she has ''six kids to feed and educate and a mountain of debts to pay.'' When Dawn sees her first client, she introduces herself as Elizabeth. Although she is overwhelmed by trepidation, uncertaintly and anxiety during her experience, her fears soon dissipate when she visits subsequent clients. Many of the men she sees are exceptionally protective of her in that they give Dawn/ Elizabeth advice on the best means by which to conduct herself so that she can decrease the chances of finding herself in a dangerous situation. She is also struck by how many of her clients are lonely men who feel ignored by their wives. many of her clients request her on multiple occasions because of her ability to engage in intellectual conversations. When it dawns upon the author how lucrative her newfound position is, she leaves her job as a legal secretary and works as a full-time escort. She joins a new agency and becomes acquainted with Trish runs the switchboard. Elizabeth becomes more adept in her role and her confidence increases. When she rings a local radio station which asks listeners to provide an account of what they are doing late at night, Elizabeth reveals the activities in which she has been engaged. She is happy and pleased at the amount of public support she receives. Her comfort level becomes challenged when one of her male friends discovers the double life that she has been leading.

Call Me Elizabeth: Wife, Mother, Escort

The tract starts with the following rationale of the author''s goals: Shelley made a number of claims in Necessity, including that one''s beliefs are involuntary, and, therefore, that atheists do not choose to be so and should not be persecuted. Towards the end of the pamphlet he writes: "the mind cannot believe in the existence of a God." Shelley signed the pamphlet, Thro'' deficiency of proof, AN ATHEIST, but Shelley himself encouraged readers to offer proofs if they only possess them. Opinion is divided upon the characterization of Shelley''s beliefs, as presented in Necessity. Shelley scholar Carlos Baker states that "the title of his college pamphlet should have been The Necessity of Agnosticism rather than The Necessity of Atheism," while historian David Berman argues that Shelley was an atheist, both because he characterized himself as such, and because "he denies the existence of God in both published works and private letters" during the same period. A revised and expanded version was printed in 1813.

The Necessity of Atheism

In the first book, a wealthy arms manufacturer, Dr Baines, comes to a black magician, Theron Ware. Initially Baines tests Ware''s credentials by asking for two people to be killed, first the Governor of California, Rogan (Reagan was governor at the time of writing) and then a rival physicist. When this accomplished to Baines'' satisfaction Baines reveals his real reason: he wishes to release all the demons from hell for one night to see what might happen. The book includes a lengthy description of the summoning ritual, and a detailed (and as accurate as possible, given the available literature) description of the grotesque figures of the demons as they appear. Tension between white magicians (who appear to have a line of communications with the unfallen host in heaven) and Ware is woven over the terms and conditions of a magical covenant that is designed to provide for observers and limitations. Black Easter ends with Baphomet announcing to the participants that the demons can not be compelled to return to hell: the War is over, and God is dead. The Day After Judgement, which follows in the series, develops and extends the characters from the first book. It suggests that God may not be dead, or that demons may not be inherently self-destructive, as something appears to be restraining the actions of the demons upon Earth. In a lengthy Miltonian speech at the end of the novel, Satan Mekratrig explains that, compared to humans, demons are good, and that if perhaps God has withdrawn Himself, then Satan beyond all others was qualified to take His place and, if anything, would be a more just god. However, the defeat of Satan is complete - He cannot take up this throne, and must hand the burning keys to Man, as this is the most fell of all his fell damnations - He never wanted to be God at all, and so having won all, all has He lost.

Black Easter

Viscount Lynton comes home to find himself the heir to debts after the death of his father. With a mother and two sisters to support, plus no means of restoring his family''s wealth, he is facing disaster. When he visits his soliciter to discuss selling the family home, a marriage of convenience is suggested as an alternative. Though reluctant, Lynton meets with Mr Chawleigh, a common Cit, and with Jenny, his plain and exquisitely shy daughter, and eventually agrees to be married. It is a simple contract; Jenny gains a title and Lynton receives enough money to take care of his family obligations and save his estate. However, he remains in love with Julia Oversley, who is the exact opposite of Jenny. While Julia is ethereally beautiful and elegant, Jenny is plain and dowdy. The marriage is not a very happy one, although Jenny, who has been secretly in love with Lynton for a long time, tries to make his life as comfortable as she can. In turn, Lynton, who is an honorable gentleman, resolves to bury his feelings for Julia and protect his new wife as he launches her into society. His father-in-law, Mr Chawleigh, is well-meaning but lacks the social graces with which Lynton is familiar and thereby makes it difficult for Lynton to forget he is in his debt. The young man often wishes he were free of his obligations to him. A veteran of the Peninsular War (1808–1814), Lynton has followed the exile and return of Napoleon with keen interest. Having read about the forthcoming battle in Belgium, he decides to gamble on the stock exchange. His personal involvement with previous battles lead him to the conviction that Wellington will not lose, so rather than take his father-in-law''s advice to sell his funds he gambles on victory. And, as he had foreseen, shares plummet down, only to soar again at the news of Wellington''s victory at Waterloo (1815). Lynton has made his fortune, and no longer needs his father in law''s financial support. However, Jenny''s pregnancy and confinement have brought the two men to a greater understanding of one another. Rather than insult Chawleigh by paying him back, he suggests that the property titles held by Chawleigh be passed on directly to his newborn grandson. Lynton''s final act of including Chawleigh as one of the newborn''s names, is a mark of respect that delights the older man. In the meantime, Julia has married an older and wealthy suitor, whom she flaunts on a rather nerve-wracking visit to Lynton''s. The latter realizes with a guilty feeling that he will probably be much happier and comfortable with devoted Jenny than he would ever have been with beautiful but self-centered and demanding Julia. The novel ends with a scene intended to illustrate the contentment of married family life with a comfortable and supportive woman whom Lynton realises he genuinely loves, albeit a calmer affection than the youthful passion that characterised his feelings for Julia Oversley.

A Civil Contract

Sankar named his novel Chowringhee as the novel is set in Chowringhee, a neighborhood in Calcutta, in the mid-1950s. The narrator, Shankar, an ambitious young man who is previously a secretary of an English barrister, becomes unemployed as the Barrister dies all on a sudden and begins selling wastepaper baskets door to door. As he takes rest in a neighborhood park, reminiscing about his past and fearful of what awaits him in future, a friend of his passes by, who is shocked by Shankar''s descent into poverty. He tells Shankar that he can find him a job at the Shahjahan Hotel, one of the city''s oldest and most venerable hotels, as the hotel manager is one of his clients. Shankar is soon befriended by Sata Bose, the hotel''s chief receptionist, and after a brief stint as a typist, Shankar becomes Bose''s main assistant and close confidant. The manager, Marco Polo, likes him as well, and young Shankar is given more responsibilities by both men. The story of the novel spins around the guests, entertainers, and frequent visitors of the Shahjahan, but several members of the hotel staff get equal importance in Shankar''s narrative. We learn about the seamy underside of the elite of Calcutta, whose greed, shady deals, and shameful behaviors are initially shocking to our naïve young man, but he soons become jaded and disgusted by them. The poverty of working and jobless Calcuttans is vividly portrayed, as those not in the upper echelon are only one stroke of bad luck away from living in the streets or in dilapidated hovels. Love is a central theme, amongst the guests and workers, with often tragic results.

Chowringhee

The title is a reference to Directive 51, the Presidential Directive which claims power to execute procedures for continuity of the federal government in the event of a "catastrophic emergency". In the near future, a variety of groups with diverse aims, but an overlapping desire to end modern technological society (the "Big System") create a nanotech plague ("Daybreak") which both destroys petroleum-based fuels, rubber and plastics and eats away any metal conductors carrying electricity. An open question in the book is whether these groups, and their shared motivations, are coordinated by some conscious actor, or whether they are an emergent property / meme that attained a critical mass. The Daybreak plague strikes, and world governments are helpless to deal with it. Industrial civilization rapidly breaks down, and tens of millions die in the US alone (the global death toll measures in the billions). There is a presidential succession crisis. Just as society in the US seems to start stabilizing, preemplaced pure fusion weapons detonate, destroying Washington DC and Chicago. This is followed by additional pure fusion weapon strikes, which are determined to be weapons that are being created on the moon by nanotech replicators. A shadowy neofeudalist group (the "Castle movement") led by a reactionary billionaire may be inadvertent saviors of society ... or may have some deeper involvement in things.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne

By David Gaider

Rain of Gold

No Author Listed

The Blunderer

By Patricia Highsmith

The Village of Stepanchikovo

By Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A Book of Common Prayer

By Joan Didion

The Tragedy of Mariam

By Elizabeth Tanfield Cary

Call Me Elizabeth: Wife, Mother, Escort

No Author Listed

The Necessity of Atheism

No Author Listed

Black Easter

By James Blish

A Civil Contract

By Georgette Heyer

Chowringhee

By Mani Shankar Mukherjee

Directive 51

By John Barnes