Thirteen-year-old Alan Dingwall wakes up from a light coma after drowning in a creek. Although he is not suffering from amnesia, Alan cannot seem to remember what exactly happened the day that he drowned. The reader is then taken back into time as Alan tries to recall his memories. Alan is mowing the lawn, despite the fact that he hates doing it. He laments the fact that he does not have the courage to stand up to the bullies of class 7L, the Cougars. When mowing the lawn, something flies up Alan''s nose, which causes him to freak out. When Alan finally calms down, he discovers that an alien, whose name is Norbert, is living in his nose. As the book progresses, Alan and Norbert develop a friendship. Norbert''s arrival does change things for Alan though. Norbert talks to Alan''s crush, Miranda, and even livens up an entire science class. However, Norbert also draws some unwanted attention from the bullies during a soccer game between the Cougars and the Commodores. In the middle of a constellation presentation, Alan accidentally runs into the Cougars in the boys'' washroom. Feeling humiliated after being mocked at the soccer game, the Cougars and Alan get into a fight. We are then taken to the day of Alan''s accident. He suspects that he is being followed by one of the bullies, most likely Prudence. At this point in the story, Alan''s memory gets foggy and unclear, and we are take back into the present. Alan is back at the hospital in Toronto. He is visited by two people: Miranda and, surprisingly, Prudence. Prudence tells Alan what happened the other day - how he tripped over a collie dog and how Prudence had a change of heart after rescuing him out of the water. She apologizes to Alan for the way that she treated him, and promises that the rest of the Cougars will stop bullying, with the exception of Mary and Gary. Following the aftermath of the accident, Alan is treated like a hero when he returns to school. As Mary and Gary try to intimidate Alan, Norbert flies out of his spaceship, scaring them both. The next time that Alan switches on the TV, he flips to a channel that is showing a country music special. k.d. lang is performing and is clearly bothered by an insect. The microphone screeches loudly, and even though she tries to continue, she is distracted. As the song ends, k.d. lang blows her nose in a handkerchief...

The Nose From Jupiter

The Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories follow the lives of two larcenous but likable rogues as they adventure across the fantasy world of Nehwon. The pieces in Swords Against Death follow the duo as they shake the dust of Lankhmar from their feet in the wake of the deaths their of their first loves, only to find their resolution never to return pointless ("The Circle Curse"). There follow a miscellaneous series of adventures from their wanderings, including a quest for treasure in a dwelling with unique defenses ("The Jewels in the Forest"), a return bout with the Thieves'' Guild they hold responsible for their ladies'' deaths ("Thieves'' House"), an ensorcelled journey to a far-away land ("The Bleak Shore"), an encounter with a beast-haunted stranger ("The Howling Tower"), a dangerous visit to the Nehwonian equivalent of Atlantis ("The Sunken Land"), a conflict with a murderous priesthood ("The Seven Black Priests"), a magical plague afflicting Lankhmar ("Claws from the Night"), a final parting with their deceased loves in the Shadowland ("The Price of Pain-Ease"), and an investigation of a mysterious shop that is other than it seems ""Bazaar of the Bizarre").

Swords Against Death

The tale begins with three feline siblings &ndash; Mittens, Tom Kitten, and Moppet &ndash; tumbling about the doorstep and playing in the dust. Their mother, Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit, expects "fine company" for tea so she fetches the children indoors to wash and dress them before her friends arrive. Tom is "very naughty" and scratches his mother while she grooms him. Tabitha dresses Moppet and Mittens in clean pinafores and tuckers, and Tom in "all sorts of elegant uncomfortable clothes" taken from a chest of drawers. Tom is fat and bursts several buttons, but his mother sews them back on again. Tabitha turns her kittens into the garden to keep them out of the way while she makes hot buttered toast for the party. She tells them to keep their frocks clean, then returns to her work. Moppet and Mittens soon have their pinafores smeared with grass stains. They climb upon the garden wall and lose some of their clothing in the ascent. Tom has a more difficult time gaining the top of the wall "breaking the ferns, and shedding buttons right and left". He is dishevelled when he reaches the top of the wall, and loses his hat, but his sisters try to pull him together. The rest of his buttons burst. Three Puddle-ducks come marching along the road &ndash; "pit pat paddle pat! pit pat waddle pat!" Jemima Puddle-duck and Rebeccah put on some of the dropped clothing. The kittens lose the rest of their clothing descending the wall. Moppet invites Mr. Drake Puddle-duck to help dress Tom. He picks up various articles of Tom''s clothing and "he put[s] them on himself!" The three ducks set off up the road just as Tabitha approaches and discovers her three children with no clothes on. She pulls them off the wall, "smacks" them, and takes them back to the house. "My friends will arrive in a minute, and you are not fit to be seen; I am affronted!" she says. Tabitha sends her kittens upstairs, and tells her guests the kittens are in bed with the measles. However, "the dignity and repose of the tea party" is disturbed by the "very extraordinary noises overhead" as the playful kittens romp in a bedroom. An illustration depicts the bedroom in complete disorder and Tom in his mother''s bonnet. The author interrupts to promise the reader she will make a larger book about Tom some day. In the last pages, the Puddle-ducks have lost the kittens'' clothing in a pond, and they have been looking for them ever since.

The Tale of Tom Kitten

This story begins at the exact time that Dragon''s Egg (its predecessor) ended, picking up the plot perfectly. As the human scientists in the orbiting ship Dragon Slayer prepare to leave, the Cheela on the star below continue their rapid advance. Starquake centers around two crises. The first is when the human ship is damaged, and the Cheela must repair the ship before tidal forces kill the humans aboard. Then a catastrophic Starquake strikes. Cheela explorers in space survive but have lost the technology to land back on the surface of their world. All Cheela on the surface perish except for four individuals. All succeeding generations of surface Cheela are descended from these four individuals. For a while, the surface Cheela struggle to keep the rudiments of civilization, but eventually a barbarian conqueror arises. The Cheela in space and their human friends watch helplessly as a new dark age ensues. The second half of the story tells the heroic tale of how the space-bound Cheela, with a little help from the humans, eventually are able to land again on the surface, defeat the barbarian tyrant, and start to rebuild Cheela civilization. The first edition cover shown here vividly and accurately depicts the climactic final battle for the surface as described in the novel.

Starquake

Belinda is a young lady who lives with her aunt, Mrs. Stanhope. Being unwed, Belinda is sent to live with Lady Delacour, whom Belinda considers fascinating and charming. Lady Delacour believes herself to be dying of breast cancer. She hides her emotional distress caused by her impending death and poor relationships with her family from Belinda through wit and charm. The first half of the novel is concerned with the blooming friendship between Belinda and Lady Delacour, which is broken by Lady Delacour''s fear that Belinda plans to marry Lord Delacour, expressed in the line, "I see...that she [Belinda] who I thought had the noblest of souls has the meanest! I see that she is incapable of feeling." Belinda subsequently moves to the home of the Percival family, the embodiment of the ideal family. Once Lady Delacour seeks treatment for her illness, Belinda returns to support her. Upon her visit to the doctor, Lady Delacour discovers her disease is not terminal and reconciles herself with Belinda. She eventually makes a full recovery from her illness.

Belinda

The Preface recalls Keynes'' use of the phrase animal spirits, which he used to describe the psychological forces that partly explain why the economy doesn''t behave in the manner predicted by classical economics—a system of thought that expects economic actors to behave as unemotional rational beings. The authors assert that the Keynesian Revolution was emasculated as Keynesians progressively relegated the importance of animal spirits to accommodate the views of economists who preferred the simpler classical or neo-classical system. The preface goes on to describe how Keynes'' ideas suggest the economy will function best with a moderately high level of government intervention, which they compare to a happy home where children thrive with parents that are neither too authoritarian (as in a Marxist economy) nor too permissive (as in a neoliberal economy). The authors state that recent research now supports the concept of animal spirits much more robustly than Keynes was able to, and they express the hope that fellow economists can be convinced of this, thus reducing the internecine disputes that prevent their discipline from providing the clear support that politicians need for the aggressive action required to fix the 2008–2009 economic crises. The five key animal spirits are treated here, each assigned their own chapter. Chapter 1 the authors discuss confidence, which they say is the most important animal spirit to know about if one wishes to understand the economy. Chapter 2 is about the desire for fairness, an emotional drive that can cause people to make decisions that aren’t in their economic best interests. Chapter 3 discusses corruption and bad faith, and how growing awareness of these practices can contribute to a recession, in addition to the direct harm the practices cause themselves. Chapter 4 presents evidence that, in contrast to monetarist theory, many people are at least partially under the money illusion, the tendency for people to ignore the effects of inflation. Workers for example will forgo a pay rise even when prices are rising, if they know that their firm is facing challenging conditions—but they are much less willing to accept a pay cut even when prices are falling. Chapter 5 is about the importance of stories in determining behaviour. Such as the repeatedly told story that house prices will always rise, which caused many additional people to invest in housing following the dot com bust of 2000. Here the authors discuss eight important questions about the economy, which they assert can only be satisfactorily answered by a theory that takes animal spirits into account. Each question has its own chapter. Chapter 6 is about why recessions happen. The authors assert that the business cycle can be explained by rising confidence in the upswing eventually leading investors to make rash decisions and ultimately encouraging corruption, until eventually panic appears and confidence evaporates, triggering a recession. There is a discussion about feedback loops between animal spirits and real returns available, which help explain the intensity of both the up and down swing of the cycle. Chapter 7 discusses why animal spirits make central banks a necessity, and there is a post script about how they can intervene to help with the current crises. Chapter 8 tackles the reasons for unemployment, which the authors say is partly due to animal spirits such as concerns for fairness and the money illusion. Chapter 9 is about why there is a trade off between unemployment and inflation. The authors show how effects of animal spirits refutes the monetarist theory that there is a natural rate of employment which it is not desirable to exceed. Chapter 10 is about why people don''t consider the future rationally in their decisions about savings. Chapter 11 presents an explanation for why asset prices and investment flows are so volatile. Chapter 12 discusses why real estate markets go through cycles, with periods of often rapid price increase interspaced by falls. Chapter 13 suggests that animal spirits can be used to explain the persistence of poverty among ethnic minorities, describing how working class minorities have different stories about how the world works and their place in it, compared to working class white people. The authors argue that the effects of animal spirits make a strong case for affirmative action. Chapter 14 is a conclusion where the authors state that the cumulative evidence they have presented in the preceding chapters overwhelming shows that the neo classical view of the economy, which allows little or no role for animal spirits, is unreliable. They state that an effective response to the current economic crises must take into account the effects of animal spirits.

Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism

The story is about a boy named Beric, who is raised amongst the Dumnonii. After coming of age, his status within their culture comes under pressure, shown in a conflict between the acceptance of the village Bard and the condemnation on religious grounds by the village Druid. After a bad harvest is linked to his presence, the superstitious views of the Druid win-out, and Beric is exiled from the tribe. He journeys to Isca Dumnoniorum, where he falls afoul of a Greek slave trader, who tricks Beric and takes him as a slave. He us ultimately purchased by Publius Pio, a Roman Magistrate, and becomes part of Pio''s patrician household on the Viminal Hill. Beric antagonizes Glaucus, son of Publius Pio, embarrassing Glaucus at a dinner celebrating Pio''s election to the office of Aedile. This scene is witnessed by Centurion Justinius, and results in Beric being condemned to work in the salt mines, a certain slow and painful death. Beric makes his escape from Pio''s household, hiding in a disused temple of Sylvan Pan, and making his way north on the Via Flaminia, hoping to walk back to Britain. He is caught in the Roman countryside, condemned as a bandit, and sentenced to live out his life as a galley slave. He works in the Rhenus Fleet, stationed in Colonia Agrippina, living many years on the galley ''Alcestis''. His galley is eventually sent to Britain, surviving a great storm, during which Beric is thrown overboard for dead. Beric washes ashore for the second time in his life, this time to be rescued by the Roman British household of the centurion Justinius, who had returned to his duty station after his leave in Rome. Beric now joins in the work on the Rhee Wall of Romney Marsh, where the Romans led by Justinius are working reclaim land from the sea. The progress of the Rhee Wall and the lives of the workers are threatened by a great storm, during which Beric bonds with his new comrades, and after which he concludes that he has finally found a place and a people where he belongs. Like in many Sutcliff novels, the theme of Outcast revolves around Beric''s struggle to find belonging as he is caught in various degrees of acceptance and descrimination by the various societies through which he travels. Also like in many Sutcliff novels, Outcast strongly features the celtic native hound, with Beric''s progress being paralleled by renouncing his native dog in the beginning of the novel, later adopting a mixed-breed dog near the Roman camp by the Rhee wall, and ultimately having his break-through moment of feeling accepted when the second dog drops her newborn pup on his feet. Richard Kennedy''s cover art is in color, while the illustrations within the novel are black and white charcoal drawings.

Outcast

The story takes place in 1962. Tom Llewyllyn have been working at the BBC for some years. He engages Fielding Gray to do a documentary about Cyprus. Gray, who had his face disfigured on that very island is reluctant but gives in since he hopes to find some facts that will give him some kind of revenge. Llewyllyn is not terribly happy in his marriage with the sloppy and not 100% mentally stable Patricia. Her sister Isobel, on the other side, is very happily married to Gregory Stern. The publisher Stern has lately become very interested in his Jewish heritage and neglects his publishing a bit. When Gray goes by train to Greece he meets Leonard Percival, who warns him to continue the trip on that particular train. A nervous Gray eventually jumps of the train in Yugoslavia right before it crashes off a bridge, killing all aboard. Gray, who is unharmed, is transported to Athens where he meets friend and colleague captain Detterling. Meanwhile, Somerset Lloyd-James and Lord Canteloupe, scared that nasty things about the British engagement on the island will be revealed, are trying to prevent Llewyllyn and Gray from making their documentary. Gray and Detterling also meet the couple Max de Freville and Angela Tuck. De Freville is trying to make a comeback as a gambler and tells some interesting things about Cyprus. Gray has sex with Angela and they discus memories from the summer of 1945. Leonard Percival arrives also and confirms that forces on Cyprus wanted to kill Gray. An important person in this group is Earl Restarick, an American spook working for the CIA. De Freville can, however, prove that this man has been involved in killings on Cyprus since he left a handkerchief near the body of a murdered boy. Gray, after arriving at Cyprus, manages to find the body and the handkerchief. To get more proof against Restarick, Gray wants an interview with the famous guerrilla leader colonel Georgios Grivas. Restarick, who has been following the affair, has his own interview with Angela Tuck and she reveals some of Grays’s weaknesses. Somerset Lloyd-James is trying to drag Tom Llewyllyn down by using Maisie but she refuses, and even tells Llewyllyn about the dodgy business. Restarick sends out the beautiful Greek boy Nicos to catch Gray, and he manages quite well. The somewhat confused Gray takes him for his dead lover Christopher. Nicos manages to keep Gray away from Athens and Grivas and Gray forgets about all his duties. Meanwhile, Tom Llewellyn is fired from the BBC since it turns out that he hasn’t had a National Insurance Card for years and didn’t even know about it. Tom has even lied about the card since he wasn’t that interested in the matter. When Restarick hears about this he recalls Nicos, who unceremoniously dumps the devastated Gray. At that moment Isobel Stern is having a miscarriage in London. Gray stays in Argos and drinks very heavily for a week but Max de Freville, a somewhat decent fellow, sends his friend Harriet Ongley to pick him up and get him in shape. Tom is invited to take up a Namier Fellowship at Lancaster College and accepts - right at the moment when his wife Patricia finds she’s pregnant for the second time. sv:The Judas Boy

The Judas Boy

"National Velvet" is the story of a 14-year-old girl named Velvet Brown, who rides her horse to victory in the Grand National steeplechase. The horse which Velvet trains and rides in the Grand National is named The Piebald, because it is piebald colour. The novel focuses on the ability of ordinary persons, particularly women, to accomplish great things. Velvet is a teenager in the late 1920s, living in a small English coastal village in Sussex, dreaming of one day owning many horses. She is a high-strung, nervous child with a delicate stomach. Her mother is a wise, taciturn woman who was once famous for swimming the English Channel; her father is a butcher. Her best friend is her father''s assistant, Mi (Michael) Taylor, whose father – as Mrs. Brown''s swimming coach – helped her cross the channel. Mi formerly worked in stables and is familiar with the horse racing world. One day they both watch The Pie jump over a five-foot-high cobbled fence to get out of a field. Mi says, in passing, that "a horse like that''d win the National". Velvet becomes obsessed with winning the horse in an upcoming raffle and riding him to greatness. In addition to inheriting several horses from one of her father''s customers, a man who left them to her in his will, Velvet actually does win her dream horse. After riding him in a local gymkhana, she and Mi become serious about entering the Grand National steeplechase at Aintree racecourse and train the Piebald accordingly. Mi uses his connections to the horse training/racing world and obtains a fake clearance document for Velvet in the name of James Tasky, a Russian jockey. Velvet wins, but slides off after the winning-post due to exhaustion, and her sex is discovered in the first-aid station. The racing world is both dismayed and fascinated by a young girl''s winning its toughest race. Velvet and The Pie become instant celebrities, with Velvet and her family nearly drowning in notoriety (echoing her mother''s unsought fame after swimming the English Channel), complete with merchandising. Velvet strongly objects to the publicity, saying The Piebald is a creature of glory who shouldn''t be cheapened in tabloid trash and newsreels. She insists that she did not win the race, the horse did, and she simply wanted to see him go down in history. The National Hunt Committee finds no evidence of fraud, exonerates all involved, and Velvet and her family return to their ordinary lives; or rather, Velvet goes on "to her next adventures", for clearly she is a person to whom great things happen. The novel was made into a more or less faithful, highly successful film version in 1944, starring twelve-year-old Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney, with Donald Crisp, Anne Revere and a young Angela Lansbury. In 2008 the film was voted the ninth best American film in the sports genre. From 1960 to 1962, there was a half-hour B&W American television series, with Lori Martin, Ann Doran and James McCallion. In this version her horse was named King. This aired on NBC for 54 episodes. A 1978 film sequel, International Velvet, was made starring Tatum O''Neal as Sarah Brown, a young orphaned American teenager living in England with her aunt Velvet Brown (Nanette Newman) after Sarah''s parents die in a car accident. Sarah and Velvet purchase the descendant of The Pie after Sarah earns the money by working for Velvet''s boyfriend John. They name him Arizona Pie after Sarah''s home state. Working with Arizona Pie, Sarah is selected to represent Britain in the equine Three-Day Olympic Event. While working with the horse with trainer Capt Johnson (Anthony Hopkins), she falls for an American competitor, Scott Saunders (Jeffrey Byron). Though distracted by him, she wins the event. Later, after getting engaged to Scott, Sarah returns to England and presents the medal to her aunt Velvet as a keepsake and introduces her and John to Scott.

National Velvet

In the third installment of the Mysterious Benedict Society series, Reynie, Sticky, Kate, Constance, and various loved ones find themselves holed up in Mr. Benedict''s house, which is teeming with security. The evil Mr. Curtain is at large and hunting for the Whisperer—now in Mr. Benedict''s possession—so he can try again to control minds from afar. When a shady businessman shows up with false records claiming that he is Constance''s father, Mr. Benedict is compelled to use the Whisperer to uncover her short past. Distraught and confused after all is revealed, Constance runs away, with the whole household after her—just the distraction Mr. Curtain and his men need to steal the Whisperer and set his evil plans in motion. Of course, the rest of the Mysterious Benedict Society soon find themselves on his trail.http://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/mysterious-benedict-society-and-prisoners-dilemma Soon, Reynie receives messages telling him a code number. He realizes it is a library code number, and Sticky tells them that that book''s only copy is located in a library. They find Constance and an apparent clue to where the Whisperer is, but it turns out to be a trap. They are captured by Mr. Curtain. Kate makes several aptempts to escape but none prevail. Finally, their various loved ones come to the rescue, particually Milligan, who throws himself at McCracken, leader of Mr. Curtain''s team of "Ten Men". Mr. Curtain and S.Q. escape but S.Q. prevents him out of love. In the end Mr. Curtain is arrested and sent to prison. Milligan retires, Constance is adopted by Mr. Benedict, and the families settle in the second floor of Mr. Benedict''s bedroom (Or in Sticky''s case, across the street. The Whisperer was disabled by Mr. Benedict. His narcolepsy is cured by Constance.

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner''s Dilemma

The book tells two separate but related tales: first, the romance between Nacib Saad, a respectable bar owner of Syrian origin, and Gabriela, an innocent and captivating migrant worker from the impoverished interior. And second, the political struggle between the old guard of Cacao growers, led by the Bastos clan, and the forces of modernization, in the person of Mundinho Falcão, a wealthy young man from Rio de Janeiro. It can be read simultaneously as an unusual, charming love story, a description of the political and social forces at work in 1920s Brazil, a somewhat satirical depiction of Latin American aspirations to "modernity", and a celebration of the local culture and pleasures of Bahia. The book was made into series for Brazilian television in 1960, in 1976 and again in 2012. A feature film of the novel was directed by Bruno Barreto in 1983. The feature version starred Sonia Braga as Gabriela and Marcello Mastroianni as Nacib, and featured original music by Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Gabriela, Cravo e Canela

The story is about Eliza Wharton, the daughter of a clergyman. At the beginning of the novel she has just been released from an unwanted marriage by the death of her betrothed, the Rev. Haly, also a clergyman, whom Eliza nursed during his final days in her own home. After this experience, she decides she wants friendship and independence. After a short period of time living with friends, she is courted by two men. One, Boyer, is a respected but rather boring clergyman, whom all of her friends and her mother recommend she accept in marriage. The other, Sanford, is an aristocratic libertine, who has no intention to marry but determines not to let another man have Eliza. Because of her indecision and her apparent preference for the libertine Sanford, Boyer eventually gives up on her, deciding that she will not make a suitable wife. Sanford also disappears from her life and marries another woman, Nancy, for her fortune. Eliza eventually decides that she really loved Boyer and wants him back. Unfortunately for Eliza, Boyer has already decided to marry Maria Selby, a relation of Boyer''s friend. Sanford later reappears married, but is able to seduce the depressed Eliza. They have a hidden affair for some time until, overcome by guilt and unwilling to face her family and friends, Eliza arranges to escape from her home. Like the real-life Elizabeth Whitman, she dies due to childbirth complications and is buried by strangers. Mrs. Wharton (Eliza''s mother) and all of Eliza''s friends are deeply saddened by her death. Sanford, too, is devastated by her death. In a letter to his friend, Charles Deighton, he expresses his regret at his wretched behavior.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Nose From Jupiter

By Richard Scrimger

Swords Against Death

By Fritz Leiber

The Tale of Tom Kitten

By Beatrix Potter

Starquake

By Robert Forward

Belinda

By Maria Edgeworth

Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism

By Robert J. Shiller

Outcast

By Rosemary Sutcliff

The Judas Boy

No Author Listed

National Velvet

By Enid Bagnold

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma

By Trenton Lee Stewart

Gabriela, Cravo e Canela

By Jorge Amado

Coquette

By Hannah Webster Foster