Orrie is finally going to tie the knot. He''s engaged to marry Jill Hardy, a stewardess. But for months, Orrie''s also been keeping company with Isabel Kerr, an ex-showgirl. Orrie has some time available because Jill works international flights. Isabel has time available because she no longer performs: rather, she occupies a plush apartment that''s paid for by another gentleman friend who visits her just two or three times a week. Isabel objects to Orrie''s marriage plans. She has taken some of his personal and professional belongings and stashed them in her apartment. Isabel threatens to show them to Jill and thus quash the marriage. So, Orrie asks Archie to get into Isabel''s apartment, find his possessions, and get them back. When Archie does enter the apartment, he finds not Orrie''s belongings but Isabel''s body. Archie withdraws to meet with Orrie, but otherwise keeps the news to himself. Isabel''s sister Stella later discovers the body. The police find Orrie''s possessions in the apartment and arrest him on suspicion of murder. In a meeting to consider whether Orrie is guilty, Wolfe, Archie, and Fred are all unsure, but Saul — via some convoluted reasoning — concludes that he is innocent, and Wolfe undertakes to demonstrate it. Wolfe must determine who knew about Isabel''s apartment. Orrie has given Archie some names — Avery Ballou, who pays the bills, Stella Fleming and her husband Barry, and a nightclub singer named Julie Jaquette. Archie visits Stella and Barry, and learns that Stella is frantic to keep a lid on the nature of her sister''s living arrangements. Stella''s concern for Isabel''s reputation is such that she tries to claw Archie''s face when he refers to Isabel as a "doxy." Archie corrals a reluctant Ballou, and Wolfe coerces his cooperation by threatening disclosure of his relationship with Isabel. It turns out that Ballou has already been subjected to blackmail, by someone named Milton Thales. Ballou thinks that Thales is really Orrie, but Wolfe deduces Thales'' true identity and assumes that he is Isabel''s murderer. Wolfe sends Saul to bring Julie Jaquette. When she dances into Wolfe''s office, Miss Jaquette puts on a performance, first singing and then demanding to see Wolfe''s orchids. She displays a cynicism regarding human behavior that Wolfe regards as similar to his own. Julie agrees to act as bait for the murderer and is nearly killed herself. For her protection, she is moved into the brownstone, where she helps Wolfe and Archie force Thales'' hand after Wolfe offers $50,000 cash for her assistance.

Death of a Doxy

John Dolittle, MD, is a respected physician and quiet bachelor living with his spinster sister in the small English village of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. His love of animals grows over the years and his household menagerie eventually scares off his human clientele, leading to loss of wealth. But after learning the secret of speaking to all animals from his parrot Polynesia, he takes up veterinary practice. His fortunes rise and fall again after a crocodile takes up residence, but his fame in the animal kingdom spreads throughout the world. He is conscripted into voyaging to Africa to cure a monkey epidemic just as he faces bankruptcy. He has to borrow supplies and a ship, and sails with a crew of his favourite animals, but is shipwrecked upon arriving to Africa. On the way to the monkey kingdom, his band is arrested by the king of Jolliginki, a victim of European exploitation who wants no white men traveling his country. The band barely escapes by ruse, but makes it to the monkey kingdom where things are dire indeed as a result of the raging epidemic. He vaccinates the well monkeys and nurses the sick back to health. In appreciation, the monkeys find a pushmi-pullyu, a shy two-headed gazelle-unicorn cross, whose rarity may bring Dr. Dolittle money back home. On the return trip, they again are captured in Jolliginki. This time they escape with the help of Prince Bumpo, who gives them a ship in exchange for Dolittle''s bleaching Bumpo''s face white, his greatest desire being to act as a European fairy-tale prince. Dolittle''s crew then have a couple of run-ins with pirates, leading to Dolittle''s winning a pirate ship loaded with treasures and rescuing a boy whose uncle was abandoned on a rock island. After reuniting the two, Dolittle finally makes it home and tours with the pushmi-pullyu in a circus until he makes enough money to retire to his beloved home in Puddleby.

The Story of Doctor Dolittle

Humanity has spread across the galaxy, and the outer colony "Harvest" is one of the most remote. Although Harvest itself is only one-third the size of Earth, its fertile surface serves as the breadbasket for the other colonies. The United Nations Space Command Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) notices strange disappearances of human ships around Harvest, and assumes that Insurrectionists are attacking the vessels. The ONI pulls Staff Sergeants Avery Johnson and Nolan Byrne from the frontlines of the civil war to raise a militia to protect Harvest. Meanwhile, it is revealed that the disappearances are due to an alien Kig-Yar vessel intercepting the ships in their search for relics left by the Forerunners, an ancient race sacred to the Kig-Yar and other members of the Covenant. Members of the vessel are shocked to discover that their instruments indicates hundreds of thousands of Forerunner relics on the planet of Harvest. A Covenant Unggoy Deacon named Dadab is alarmed when he realizes the Kig-Yar shipmistress intends to steal a portion of the relics for herself, starting with relics leaving the planet on a human cargo ship. The ship is actually a trap set by the humans, with Johnson and Byrne onboard. Johnson and Byrne kill several of the Covenant boarding party when they enter the cargo ship, which is later destroyed by a methane explosion. Dadab and his Huragok friend, Lighter than Some, escape the blast and are picked up by a Covenant ship crewed by Jiralhanae. These agents, led by their chieftain Maccabeus, have been ordered to confirm the presence of the relics; despite the reservations of his nephew, Tartarus, Maccabeus agrees to parley with the humans on Harvest. In the midst of the meeting in Harvest''s gardens, the Covenant begin a firefight and the peace talks are shattered. On the Covenant holy city of High Charity, two San ''Shyuum, the Minister of Fortitude and the Vice-Minister of Tranquility, plot to take the place of the three Prophet Hierarchs currently leading the Covenant. They visit the old, supposedly senile Philologist for blessings and advice, seeking a third San ''Shyuum to help them usurp the throne. As Tranquility and Fortitude are meeting with the Philologist, the "Oracle", a Forerunner A.I. named Mendicant Bias, suddenly awakens from eons of dormancy. Mendicant Bias informs the San ''Shyuum that the "Forerunner artifacts" found at Harvest are actually the A.I.''s "makers", living Forerunners—meaning that the humans themselves are the descendants of the Covenant''s gods, and that all the Covenant''s writings are false. The Minister of Fortitude realizes that the truth must never be revealed, as this revelation would tear the Covenant apart. Instead, Fortitude, Tranquility, and the Philologist plot to quickly take the throne so they can exterminate the "reclaimers". Back on Harvest, Johnson and his squad of militia are heavily out-manned and out-gunned. Maccabeus is ordered to "glass" the planet from space, but disobeys and launches a ground assault in an effort to recover the "relics". The human militia tries to keep the aliens busy while evacuating the civilians from the planet; this requires Johnson and his team to board an orbital platform controlled by Dadab and his troops. Tartarus challenges Maccabeus for control of the Jiralhanae pack, killing his uncle and becoming the next leader. Lighter than Some is killed by Tartarus'' troops, and Dadab goes off to kill those he believes are responsible. As his weapon only has one more shot left, Dadab searches for Tartarus, who is fighting Johnson. Dadab destroys Tartarus'' shield, and the enraged Brute kills the deacon. Wallace Jenkins, a young militia member that had lost his family in the battle, attempts to finish Tartarus off, but the alien escapes. The human civilians and survivors of Harvest successfully evacuate the planet on hundreds of freighters, while on High Charity, the Minister of Fortitude, Tranquility, and The Philologist become the new Prophet Hierarchs. They take the names Truth, Regret, and Mercy, declaring a new age for the Covenant has begun, and that the humans must be annihilated for their crimes.

Halo: Contact Harvest

It is a future history, set from 1994 to 2194. It tells the story, with chapters at 50-year intervals, of the exploration of the solar system, with space stations in Earth orbit, then moon bases, and landings on Mars in 2094, Venus in 2144, and the asteroids. This is told through the Troon family, several members of which play an important part in the exploration of space, since they all feel "the outward urge", the desire to travel further into space. They all "hear the thin gnat-voices cry, star to faint star across the sky", a quote from The Jolly Company by Rupert Brooke. In 1994 "Ticker" Troon is killed foiling a Soviet missile attack on a British space station, and is later awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. In 2044 a major nuclear war between the USSR and the West wipes out most of the Northern Hemisphere. Inhabitants of the Southern Hemisphere - virtually the only survivors of humanity - call it "The Great Northern War", the far earlier war of the same name seeming very minor in comparison. Only after hundreds of years, with radioactivity going down, do expeditions from the south start carefully exploring and preparing to re-colonise the ravaged northern hemisphere. Brazil is left as the main world power, which then claims that "Space is a province of Brazil". However Australia eventually emerges as a serious rival. Consequently, English and Portuguese become contenders for the position of the major world-wide (eventually, Solar System wide) language. Eventually, space explorers break away from the tutelage of both earthbound powers and establish themselves as a major third power, called simply "Space"; the Troon Family plays a major role in this as in many other events.

The Outward Urge

The Beloved Returns is the story of one of Goethe''s old romantic interests, a real historical figure by the name of Charlotte Kestner, who has come to Weimar to see him again after more than 40 years of separation. Goethe had romanced Charlotte when they were young, but she had already been engaged (and then married) to another man whom she truly loved. Ultimately, the romance ended unconsummated; afterwards, Goethe wrote a fictional depiction of these events, with some artistic changes, and published it under the title The Sorrows of Young Werther—a (still) famous/infamous German book, which brought early renown to Goethe. The real Charlotte became inadvertently and unwillingly famous, and remained so for the rest of her life to a certain degree. Her return in some ways is due to her need to settle the "wrongs" done to her by Goethe in his creation of Werther; one of the underlying motifs in the story is the question of what sacrifices both a "genius" and the people around him/her must make to promote his/her creations, and whether or not Goethe (as the resident genius of Weimar) is too demanding of his supporters. Most of the novel is written as dialogues between Charlotte and the other residents of Weimar, who give their own opinions on the issue of Goethe''s genius. Only in the last third of the book, starting with the internal monologue in the seventh chapter, the reader is finally directly confronted with Goethe and what he himself thinks of the entire affair. "Lotte in Weimar" also echoes in subtle ways Mann''s and the world''s concerns with German military aggression and social oppression.

Lotte in Weimar: The Beloved Returns

The novel tells the story of Pat, a student during her second gap year and a source of some worry to her parents, who is accepted as a new tenant at 44 Scotland Street in Edinburgh''s New Town, and her various roommates and neighbours. She falls in love with her narcissistic flatmate Bruce, meets the intriguing and opinionated anthropologist Domenica MacDonald and her friend Angus, and works at an art gallery for Matthew, who was given the gallery as a sinecure position by his wealthy father. While working at the gallery Pat points out to Matthew (who knows almost nothing about art) that one of their paintings looks as if it could be a work of Samuel Peploe. After the gallery is broken into Matthew asks Pat to store the painting at their flat until they can check whether it''s a genuine Peploe, however Bruce gives the painting to a raffle run by the South Edinburgh Conservative Association. Matthew and Pat eventually track it down to the novelist Ian Rankin who gives it back to them. The other major storyline is that of five-year-old Bertie, who is controlled by his pretentious and intellectual mother Irene - he has Grade Six on the saxophone, speaks fluent Italian, and is extremely knowledgeable about various subjects. After he is expelled from his nursery school Irene sends him to psychotherapy with Dr Fairbairn, who constantly misinterprets Bertie''s simple wish to be a normal five-year-old boy on Oedipal and Freudian lines. Smith followed the original serial novel with another series set in Edinburgh, The Sunday Philosophy Club Series. The story of the characters in 44 Scotland Street is continued in his serialized novel Espresso Tales.

44 Scotland Street

Martin Seymour is an Australian news correspondent in Iran covering the 2012 Iranian parliamentary elections. The elections turn out to be a sham as many of the opposition candidates are banned, but Martin remains in Iran to cover the post election protests. Unrest escalates and the authorities are forced to hold free elections. Nasim Golestani is an Iranian computer scientist living in exile in the United States following the execution of her father by VEVAK, the Iranian secret police. She works at MIT on the Human Connectome Project (HCP), which is attempting to produce a neural map of the human brain. She develops computer software that simulates Zebra Finch song production by using thousands of finch brain scans. But when Congress turns down funding for the project, Nasim returns to Iran to help rebuild her country. The story moves to a democratized Iran in 2027. Martin lives in Tehran with Mahnoosh, an Iranian political activist he married, and their six-year-old son, Javeed. Nasim heads a company in Tehran that has developed Zendegi-ye Behtar, an online multi-player virtual reality (VR) gaming platform. Zendegi uses cloud computing to run its operations across several countries. But Zendegi has to compete with several other VR providers, and Nasim looks for something new to add to Zendegi to give it an edge. Nasim learns that HCP finally took off in the US and has published its first draft brain map based on thousands of brain scans of human organ donors. She discovers that her contributions were not used by the project – HCP''s goals were aimed at helping neurologists diagnose pathologies, whereas her goal was to simulate the brain. Nasim decides to continue what she had started on HCP using the project''s publically available brain scans. Her goal is to improve the realism of Zendegi''s proxies, computer-generated people that flesh-out the VR''s landscape. She takes this a step further and starts taking MRI brain scans of living people. Nasim''s first breakthrough comes with Virtual Azimi, a proxy she creates by scanning Ashkan Azimi, Iran''s national football team captain, to record his motor skills while he replays games in his head. Virtual Azimi enables football fans to play games with Azimi''s proxy, and it is a huge success, boosting Zendegi''s popularity. Javeed loves Zendegi and Martin often takes him to local gaming booths where together they participate in role-playing games. One day Mahnoosh is killed in a car accident, and Martin has to raise Javeed on his own. Then Martin discovers he has terminal cancer, and concerned that Javeed will grow up without a father, he contacts Nasim and asks her to create a Virtual Martin that Javeed can communicate with in Zendegi. Nasim conducts MRI scans on Martin while prompting him with images and memories. But Zendegi comes under fire from religious fanatics. Iranian clerics denounce Virtual Azimi as "an afront to God and human dignity". It is also criticized by the Cis-Humanist League (CHL), a human rights group who object to enslaved proxies, saying that "it''s unethical to create conscious software that lacks the ability to control its own destiny". Nasim continues developing Virtual Martin in secret. While she knows that Virtual Azimi has no consciousnesses, she''s not sure what Martin''s proxy is turning into. Meanwhile Martin''s health is deteriorating and she sets up a VR session for him to evaluate the current state of his proxy. Martin enters Zendegi using Javeed''s avatar, making Virtual Martin think he is taking to his son, but the proxy overreacts to Javeed''s (Martin''s) behaviour and this upsets Martin. After Martin dies, Nasim has second thoughts about what she is doing. The Virtual Martin she has created from fragments of Martin''s brain is far from human. She releases that CHL are right: to upload a complete person into VR to achieve immortality is a noble goal, but "to squeeze some abridged, mutilated person through the first available aperture [i]s not". :"If you want to make it human, make it whole." — Zendegis closing statement.

Zendegi

The action revolves around a few characters brought together by a Hollywood millionaire, Jo Stoyte. Each character represents a different attitude toward life. Stoyte, in his sixties and conscious of his mortality, finds himself in deep contemplation of life. Enlightenment eludes him, though, as he is ruled by his fears and cravings. Stoyte hires Dr Obispo and his assistant Peter to research the secrets to long life in carp, crocodiles, and parrots. Jeremy, an English archivist and literature expert, is brought in to archive a rare collection of books. Jeremy''s presence highlights Stoyte''s shallow attitude toward the precious works of art that he affords himself. Other characters are Virginia, Stoyte''s young mistress; and Mr Propter, a professor who lives on a neighboring estate. Mr Propter believes: ... every individual is called on to display not only unsleeping good will but also unsleeping intelligence. And this is not all. For, if individuality is not absolute, if personalities are illusory figments of a self-will disastrously blind to the reality of a more-than-personal consciousness, of which it is the limitation and denial, then all of every human being''s efforts must be directed, in the last resort, to the actualization of that more-than-personal consciousness. So that even intelligence is not sufficient as an adjunct to good will; there must also be the recollection which seeks to transform and transcend intelligence. This is essentially Huxley&#39;s own position. Though other characters achieve conventional success, even happiness, only Mr Propter does so without upsetting anyone or creating evil. Dr Obispo places great faith in science and medicine as saviours of humankind. He sees everyone as a stepping stone to science, the greater good, and thus only derives happiness at others&#39; expense. According to Propter&#39;s philosophy, he is trapped in ego-based &#34;human&#34; behaviour that prevents him from reaching enlightenment. Obispo seduces Virginia in a characteristically egotistical way. She is unable to resist him despite her loyalty to Stoyte. When she is found out by Stoyte, he wants to kill Obispo but accidentally kills Peter (whose thoughts and morals had slowly started to expand under Propter&#39;s tutelage) instead. Obispo covers up the act for money and continued research support. This takes him, along with Virginia and Stoyte, to Europe, where they find an immortal human, the Fifth Earl of Gonister, still alive at 200, who now resembles an ape. Stoyte cannot grasp that transcendence or goodness should be one&#39;s ultimate goal, rather than prevention of death, and expresses his wish to undergo treatment so that he too will live forever.

After Many a Summer

The story is set in rural Shropshire shortly after the Napoleonic Wars. It is narrated by the central character, Prue Sarn, whose life is blighted by having a harelip. Only the weaver, Kester Woodseaves, perceives the beauty of her character, but Prue cannot believe herself worthy of him. Her brother Gideon is overridingly ambitious to attain wealth and power, regardless of who suffers while he does so. Gideon is set to wed his sweetheart Jancis, but he incurs the wrath of her father, the cruel and scheming self-proclaimed wizard Beguildy. An act of vengeance by Beguildy makes Gideon reject Jancis and tragedy overwhelms them both. Prue is wrongly accused of murder and set upon by a mob, but Kester defies them and carries Prue away to the happiness she believed she could never possess because of her harelip. The title of the story is from John Milton''s Paradise Lost: :Let none admire :That riches grow in Hell; that Soyle may best :Deserve the precious bane. It refers to the love of money, which, as Prue records, blights love and destroys life.

Precious Bane

Hairstyles of the Damned is told by a typical protagonist, Brian Oswald. Brian Oswald is an average high school outcast. He has trouble coping with his identity and fights to find it throughout the novel. Even though Brian is an outcast at his Catholic school, he still manages to find friends in a mix of misfits. Gretchen is a tough, punk girls who makes Brian mixed tapes. Brian envies Gretchen because she does whatever she wants. "She did the things I wish I could do but didn''t have the guts to" (Meno 15). He is infatuated with her, but she is interested in losers. Brian’s other friends include Rod, an African American nerd who had the largest record collection of anyone Brian knew. Mike is a burn out whose long hair was more popular than he was at school. Brian''s family was a bit dysfunctional. His father begins sleeping in the basement and when Brian questions his father, he plays it off like it is no big deal. Joe Meno captures the meaning of adolescence and all that goes along with it such as awkwardness, finding your identity, first crushes, puberty, and the constant power struggle between parents and teens. There is a common theme throughout the novel that ties Brian''s identity all together and that is music. Brian switches his choice of music throughout the story. He starts off liking Gretchen’s punk music, then to Rod''s Chet Baker Albums, to Mike''s Pink Floyd tapes. Brian changes who he is, depending of the music he is listening to. He is so worried about fitting in instead of having his own voice and accepting who he is. Brian does grow and develop over the course of the novel; his identity develops as well does his outlook on life. By the end of the novel Brian realizes it is okay to just be yourself.

Hairstyles of the Damned

There are two interwoven themes in the novel. The first is the cost of justice. Destroying the race that attempted to destroy humanity (and, it is later revealed, other races) appears to be a simple matter of retaliation. The Killers, when they are discovered, have formidable philosophical defenses in addition to their vast technological resources. They have created hundreds of sentient races, interlocked in a culture of breathtaking complexity and beauty. The representatives of this cooperative of races claim to not be aware of the Killers'' true nature. The combined population of these races number into the trillions, all quite possibly innocents who must be murdered if the Law is to be carried out and the Killers destroyed. The human and non-human characters in the book wrestle with this question of whether enacting the Law at such a cost is just, and the moral qualms nearly tear the crew apart in conflict. Author Charles Stross has an alternate interpretation: "If you take Anvil of Stars at face value, it looks like a childish revenge fantasy. But Bear is a subtle writer, and when you start peeling away the layers you find that a very unpleasant tragedy (in the classical sense of the term) nestling inside a much more ambiguous story." Additionally, Bear explores the complementary theme of the moral compromises required to take and wield power. The children create a libertarian society aboard ship, with few rules and regulations. However, as the pressures of enacting the Law (doing the Job, as they call it) escalate, voluntary cooperation begins to break down. The leaders face the decision between allowing their crew continued freedom, which would result in the disintegration of the ship and abandonment of their purpose, or abandoning their libertarian ideals. Hans, the leader at the time, begins to take increasingly autocratic measures to coerce unity. Bear does not take an explicit moral stance in the novel. Hans initiates the destruction of the system, innocents and all, without consulting with the crew. He is presented as dictatorial, ruthless, and possibly complicit in murder. After completion of the Job, he is overthrown during a violent confrontation between his supporters and Martin Gordon, son of Arthur Gordon in Forge of God, a former leader who was a focal point of dissent. Eventually, a third leader, Ariel, is chosen in place of Hans. It is revealed once the system is destroyed that the Killers were in fact still in the system, and had continued to manufacture fleets of self-replicating machines to destroy alien races. However, while the Killers were destroyed and justice served, trillions of what were likely innocents had to die to accomplish this. Bear leaves the human crew torn between relief that their work is complete and their guilt that they were little better than those they had come to destroy. The book is notable for how well it conveys the alienness and colossal scale of the alien home system, as well as the scope and morality of the final battle. The novel also contains a very original gestalt alien race referred to by the humans as ''Brothers'', composed of non-sentient worm-like creatures (Cords) that join to form sentient individuals (Braids). The Brothers form a temporary alliance with the human crew, and the similarities and vast differences between the two races is one of the main elements of the novel''s second half.

Anvil of Stars

Set on an island in the South Pacific where the American Army under General Cummings is trying to drive out the Japanese, The Naked and the Dead focuses on a single reconnaissance platoon. The novel is split between alternating chapters depicting ongoing action on the island and retrospective chapters focusing on a particular character''s personality and past. The Naked and the Dead contains several combat scenes and a great deal of description of Army protocol, as well as detailed descriptions of the many trials and agonies of the enlisted man. The novel deals with the difficulties of the campaign, the danger posed by the Japanese, the conflict between officers and regulars, each man''s own internal conflicts and fears, and the aggression between squad members. Everyone, from the General down, has character flaws, and there are few depictions of lasting happy family life or of good male-female relations. Later in the book, a former general''s aide, Hearn, becomes the Lieutenant of the squad, to the ire of Croft, the ruthless Sergeant previously in command, who withholds information from Lieutenant Hearn, leading to Hearn''s death in combat. The novel questions the competence and motives of high-ranking officers, as well as the integrity of each of the many men depicted. The men suffer physical hardship and even casualties, but there is little mourning or kindness. There is no mercy shown to the Japanese. Occasionally, individual soldiers show sparks of sensitivity or thoughtfulness. The Naked and the Dead was Mailer''s first published novel and is still his top ranked novel by sales; it established his reputation as a novelist and brought international recognition.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

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Death of a Doxy

By Rex Stout

The Story of Doctor Dolittle

By Hugh Lofting

Halo: Contact Harvest

No Author Listed

The Outward Urge

By John Wyndham

Lotte in Weimar: The Beloved Returns

By Thomas Mann

44 Scotland Street

By Alexander McCall Smith

Zendegi

By Greg Egan

After Many a Summer

By Aldous Huxley

Precious Bane

No Author Listed

Hairstyles of the Damned

By Joe Meno

Anvil of Stars

By Greg Bear

The Naked and the Dead

By Norman Mailer