The narrative follows the course of a man''s life from his schoolboy days to his adulthood. The son of a north German merchant and an Italian artist, Tonio inherited qualities from both sides of his family. As a child, he experiences conflicting feelings for the bourgeois people around him. He feels both superior to them in his insights and envious of their innocent vitality. This conflict continues into Tonio''s adulthood, when he becomes a famous writer living in southern Germany. "To be an artist," he comes to believe, "one has to die to everyday life." These issues are only partially resolved when Tonio travels north to visit his hometown. While there, Tonio is mistaken for an escaped criminal, thereby reinforcing his inner suspicion that the artist must be an outsider relative to "respectable" society. As Erich Heller &ndash;who knew Thomas Mann personally&ndash; observed, Tonio Kröger’s theme is that of the "artist as an exile from reality" (with Goethe’s Torquato Tasso (1790) and Grillparzer’s Sappho (1818) for company). Yet it was also Erich Heller who, earlier, in his own youth, had diagnosed the main theme of Tonio Kröger to be the infatuation and entanglements of a passionate heart, destined to give shape to, intellectualize, its feelings in artistic terms.

Tonio Kröger

The novel begins with Stephanie being stalked by Carmen Manoso, a woman claiming to be the wife of Ranger, a fellow bounty hunter with whom Stephanie has occasionally been intimate. Ranger is out of town on ''bad business'' when Stephanie learns that his daughter has been kidnapped. Ranger is the prime suspect. As the story progresses, Stephanie learns that Carmen is actually married to a man named Edward Scrog who is attempting to steal Ranger''s identity, even going so far as to kidnap Ranger''s daughter Julie for his own. After Scrog kills Carmen he kidnaps Stephanie to complete his "family" and start a new life. However, he needs money, so Stephanie convinces him to try to find one of her FTA''s (wanted for armed robbery) and steal his money. To prevent Stephanie from escaping, Scrog constructs a bomb and tapes it to her. As they try to negotiate for the money, Stephanie''s old nemesis Joyce Barnhart turns up to capture the FTA herself. In the struggle that ensues, Scrog gets shot in the foot and Stephanie manages to rip the bomb off before Scrog stun-guns her. When Stephanie wakes up, her boyfriend Joe Morelli is there. Joyce caught the FTA, as he ran over the bomb after Stephanie tossed it in the road and it exploded. Together Stephanie and Morelli return to the trailer where she and Julie were being kept, but find it empty. Stephanie returns to her apartment, where she finds Scrog. He stun-guns her once more, then ties her to a chair. Julie is there too, drugged and on the couch. Scrog''s plan is to kill Ranger when he arrives. Ranger opens the door with his hands up and Scrog shoots him. Julie attacks Scrog, the drugs having worn off, and shoots him. The police, paramedics and Morelli come in. Ranger is rushed to the hospital. On the way there Stephanie finally tells Morelli that she loves him, but leaves out the fact that she loves Ranger, too.

Twelve Sharp

What begin in this novel as two separate tales eventually twist together into one, centered around the efforts of a LA Sheriff''s Deputy to capture a brutal sex murderer while serving, somewhat reluctantly, as a decoy for a set-up to expose communists in Hollywood. This young deputy, Danny Upshaw, finds himself on a ride that will force him to confront secrets he has kept his whole life, even from himself. Two other major characters, disgraced former cop, Turner "Buzz" Meeks, now working for both Howard Hughes and Mickey Cohen, and ambitious LAPD lieutenant Malcolm "Mal" Considine, involved in a child custody case, try with varying success to do the right things in an environment of deception, paranoia and brutality. The story begins on New Year''s Eve, as 1949 turns to 1950, and creates a vivid portrait of Los Angeles during that era, from the bebop emanating from the jazz clubs on Central Avenue to the labor union battles facing the Hollywood studios. The entire story takes place in the aftermath of the notorious Sleepy Lagoon murder case and the resultant Zoot Suit Riots, an event that roiled LA for years. While the novel mocks opportunistic Red-baiting as a scam to oust organized labor that benefited political careers and the fortunes of movie studio executives and mobsters, Ellroy is no easier on the film colony''s communists and fellow travelers, many of whom he depicts as decadent hypocrites, easily compromised into "naming names" in an effort to hide their own dirty secrets. As with most of Ellroy''s fiction, he liberally employs the brutal slang of the times. Gays are "fruits," "homos," "nances"; blacks are "boogies" and "jigs" and their neighborhoods are all Niggertown. The Big Nowhere is, in fact, a feast of vernacular, and Ellroy is brilliant at capturing the nuances of dialogue that denote class, race, and mindset.

The Big Nowhere

On the surface the plot follows the story of a penniless, starving author called Geoffrey Tempest. So poor that he is behind on his rent and can barely afford light in his room, he receives three letters. The first is from a friend in Australia who has made his fortune and offers to introduce him to a good friend who might be able to lift him from poverty. The second is a note from a solicitor detailing that he has inherited a fortune from a deceased relative, the third is a letter of introduction from a foreign aristocrat called Lucio, who befriends him and proceeds to be his guide in how to best use his new found wealth. Tempest remains blissfully unaware throughout the novel, despite warnings from people he meets, that Lucio is the Earthly incarnation of the Devil. Over the course of the book, his wealth leads to misery. Eventually, when confronted with the true nature of his companion, he renounces evil and returns to society penniless but content with the chance to purify his soul. Although the plot follows Tempest''s fall from grace and redemption, he is in many regards a secondary character to Lucio. Both the title of the work and much of its philosophical content relate to the supreme yearning within Satan to achieve salvation. The book''s main contribution to Faustian literature is the introduction of the concept that above all other people it is Satan who most truly believes in the Gospel — and yet he is forbidden to ever partake of it.

The Sorrows of Satan

The story starts with Centurion Eric von Shrakenberg in a cargo airplane with his airborne unit and the embedded American correspondent William Dreiser, on their way to their drop point, where they will jump and parasail into Nazi-controlled Georgia. The Nazis have been much more successful than in our history, since the Soviets had to divert resources to defend their southern border against the Domination of the Draka. As a result, the Nazis managed to overrun European Russia. The Soviet Union has been pushed back and only controls territories east of the Ural Mountains. However, the Germans are seriously overstretched, and vulnerable to a strong attack. During the travel to their drop zone, Eric thinks back on his past and his relationship with his father, and his most recent visit home to see his family. This was the first visit in several years, his exile was due to his arranging the escape of his serf daughter to America. Eric''s bravery in the earlier Draka conquest of Italy led to his former "mistake" being forgiven. Eric''s "Century" ends up being seriously under-supplied because the gliders with the artillery went into a canyon. The engineers are frantically building a rubble ramp, but the heavy weapons won''t be available for the battle. The story details how Eric''s single infantry company takes and holds a small village strategically located on the crucial Ossetian Military Highway over the Caucasus Mountains. The balance of the First Airborne Legion is the plug which is holding four German divisions from escaping the trap they are in on the south side of the mountains. Eric''s unit is tasked with holding the highway and village against repeated attacks by Felix Hoth''s Waffen-SS armored regiment, which is fighting to clear the highway so the German divisions can escape. Eric''s company manages to hold out long enough for the Draka to crush the four divisions, cross the mountains, and relieve his unit. Holding this highway and village is the critical act of the invasion of Russia. This lets the Draka''s essentially undamaged and superior armored and mechanized units to penetrate into the plains of Southern Russia, where they can bring to battle and destroy the overstretched and exhausted German forces. It also leads to Eric being awarded the Domination''s highest medal of valor, the aurora, "for saving 10,000 Citizen lives," and which makes him immune to Security Directorate reprisals for his "treasonous utterances" or for his earlier "indiscretion." The actions of Century A is the pivotal event at the beginning of the invasion of Russia that allows the Domination to eventually win the Eurasian War.

Marching Through Georgia

The events of the novel are a "game" between the Discworld gods Fate and The Lady (Luck) with the Discworld as their game board. At the end, the Lady says "I never play to win but I do play not to lose", and shows the gods Rincewind confronted by Australian-aborigine-type warriors. After Eric. The Patrician of Ankh-Morpork is sent a letter from the Agatean Empire on the Counterweight Continent commanding him to "send us the Great Wizzard", the spelling on the hat of Rincewind. The Hex brings Rincewind, and exchanges him in the Aurient Agatean Empire with a live cannon. As usual, The Luggage follows, but having returned to the land of his wood and construction, feels free to seek a mate and reproduce, re-appearing at the end. On the Counterweight Continent, Rincewind joins a previous companion Cohen the Barbarian who intends to steal the country with six other aged heroes, The Silver Horde. Child rebels have been inspired by "What I did on My Holidays", written by Twoflower, his companion in The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic. The villainous Vizier Hong leads one of the five families — Hong, Tang, Fang, Sung, and McSweeney, and secretly funds the revolution which is only good for putting up polite posters, and sets them up to take the blame after killing the Emperor. When captured with two young rebel girls, Rincewind discovers Twoflower in the next cell, missing father to the girls, and tries to convince them to stay safe in the cells while he scouts, that is, runs as far away as possible. Meanwhile, the Cohen Horde infiltrate the Forbidden city via underground sewers, take the empty throne, but are called out to face the besieging army. Back in the University, Hex is calculating the spell to bring Rincewind back, but the butterfly of Luck drops a small glob of honey, distracting an ant, altering the calculation. Rincewind falls into a mysterious cave, filled with terracotta statues, the original, legendary Red Army of the first Emperor. In magic armour, he leads the terracotta army against the five family armies, winning mostly by accident. Cohen returns to Hunghung victorious, and re-proclaims himself Emperor. Just as Twoflower challenges Hong for the death of his wife, the Unseen University returns the lit cannon, that kills Hong and Horde''s "Teach" Ronald Saveloy, who tried to civilize the barbarians with alternative vocabulary for swear words and polite behavior, but finally agreed to fight alongside and rides off with a Valkyrie. Rincewind is transported to "XXXX", an unexplored continent and another adventure.

Interesting Times

The Eighth Doctor accompanied by Fitz Kreiner and Trix MacMillan, overthrows the tyrant Mondova on an alien world, prevents a time travelling alien from interfering in Ancient Roman history and stops a Dalek (never named as such, but heavily implied) invasion of Mars. Against this backdrop, Fitz and Trix have begun a relationship and decide to leave the TARDIS. The Doctor returns to Earth in 2005, materialising at the grave of Sam Jones. When the Doctor claims not to remember his former companion, Fitz becomes angry and leaves with Trix. As the pair attempt to readjust to normal life, it is revealed that Trix has been secretly passing information gain on their travels to another former companion Anji Kapoor who has used the information to manipulate the stock market and thus built up a considerable fortune. The Doctor discovers that another Time Lord, Marnal, had also survived the destruction of Gallifrey and has been living for the past hundred years as a human science-fiction writer (whose books are actually the history of the Time Lords and their homeworld). Marnal, who also claims to be the original owner of the Doctor''s TARDIS, blames the Doctor for the cataclysm, and takes him and the TARDIS captive while the insectoid alien Vore invade the Earth. The Vore attack leaves millions dead or missing, including Fitz who apparently dies trying to save Trix. After a cold fusion explosion guts the interior of the TARDIS, the Doctor discovers that K-9 Mark II has been aboard ever since Gallifrey''s destruction, hidden behind a false wall, with orders from Lady President Romana of Gallifrey to kill him. However, K-9 pauses once it scans the Doctor''s mind and discovers the reason why the Doctor had lost his memory. It transpires that, just prior to destroying Gallifrey, the Doctor (with the help of his former companion Compassion) had downloaded the entire contents of the Gallifreyan Matrix — the massive computer network containing the mental traces of every Time Lord living and dead, more than 140,000 Time Lords — into his brain, with his own memories suppressed to make room for the data. Gallifrey had not actually been erased from history, but an event horizon in relative time prevented anyone from Gallifrey''s past from travelling beyond Gallifrey''s destruction, and vice versa. Both the planet and the Time Lords could be restored, along with the Doctor''s memory, if a sufficiently sophisticated computer could be found to reconstruct them. Before that could be done, however, the problem of the Vore must be dealt with. Marnal is wounded while fighting the Vore, and being on his last regeneration, he dies. The Doctor tells him that he is his hero, and Marnal dies in peace, confident that the Time Lords will be reborn. The Doctor reveals that the Vore have not actually killed their victims, but sprayed them with a chemical that makes them invisible to humans; Fitz is still alive and the Doctor brings him back for Trix, claiming he brought the dead back to life on his first day on the job. The Doctor, Fitz, Trix and his allies travel to Africa with a Royal Navy Battle Group to confront the threat of the Vore. The novel and the Eighth Doctor Adventures end uncertainly, as the Doctor leaps into the very heart of the Vore hive.

The Gallifrey Chronicles

From his base in Tel Aviv, Holocaust survivor Emmanuel Lieber directs a group of Jewish Nazi hunters in search of Adolf Hitler. Lieber believes that the former Führer is still alive and following rumours and hearsay, he tracks Hitler''s movements through South America, until after months of wading through swamps in the Amazon jungle, the search party finds the 90-year-old alive in a clearing. Lieber flies to San Cristóbal where he awaits the group''s return with their captive. But getting the old man out of the swamp alive is more difficult than getting in, and their progress is further hampered by heavy thunderstorms. Meanwhile, broken and incoherent radio messages between Lieber and the search party are intercepted by intelligence agents tracking their progress, and rumours begin to spread across the world of Hitler''s capture. Debates flare up over his impending trial, where it will be held and under whose jurisdiction. Orosso is identified as the nearest airfield to the last known location of the search party, and aircraft begin arriving at the hitherto unknown town. But when the search party''s radio fails and communication with Lieber is lost, they must make a decision: do they sit out the storms and deliver their captive to Lieber later, or do they try Hitler here and now in the jungle before their prize is snatched from them and Israel by the world at large, who they know will be waiting for them? Their decision is the latter, and against Lieber''s advice ("You must not let him speak [...] his tongue is like no other") they prepare for a trial with a judge, prosecution and defence "attorneys" selected from the members of the search party. Teku, a local Indian tracker, who had earlier burst in on their camp, is asked to observe the trial as an independent witness. The attention Hitler is receiving, however, renews his strength, and when the trial begins, he brushes aside his "defence attorney" and begins a long speech in four parts in his own defence: #Firstly, Hitler claims he took his doctrines from the Jews and copied the notion of the master race from the Chosen people and their need to separate themselves from the "unclean". "My racism is a parody of yours, a hungry imitation." #Hitler justifies the Final Solution by maintaining that the Jews'' God, purer than any other, enslaves its subjects, continually demanding more than they can give and "blackmailing" them with ideals that cannot be attained. The "virus of utopia" had to be stopped. #Hitler states that he was not the originator of evil. "[Stalin] had perfected genocide when I was still a nameless scribbler in Munich." Further, Hitler asserts that the number of lives lost due to his actions are dwarfed by various world atrocities, including those in Russia, China, and Africa. #Lastly, Hitler maintains that the Reich begat Israel and suggests that he is the Messiah "whose infamous deeds were allowed by God in order to bring His people home." He closes by asking, "Should you not honour me who have made [...] Zion a reality?" At the end of his speech, Teku is the first to react and jumps up shouting "Proven", only to be drowned out by the appearance of a helicopter over the clearing. *Emmanuel Lieber – Jewish Holocaust survivor and director of the search party to find Hitler; after crawling out of a death pit in Bialka he never took the time to mend and embarked on a life-consuming obsession to bring those responsible for the genocide to justice. *Search party (all Jewish with family ties to the Holocaust, except for John Asher) **Simeon – search party leader and "presiding judge" at Hitler''s trial; he is Lieber''s confidant and torn between leading the party into "unmapped quicksand and green bogs" and turning his back on the "quiet mania of Lieber''s conviction". **Gideon Benasseraf – falls ill and dies before the trial begins; during one of his fever-induced ramblings he suggests that Hitler is Jewish; he had sought out Lieber after being released from a sanatorium and spending three years recuperating in Paris where the care-free living consumed him with guilt. **Elie Barach – Orthodox Jew and "prosecution attorney" at the trial; he is the moral compass of the group, but his convictions are disturbed by Gideon Benasseraf''s fever-induced assertions that Hitler is Jewish and ends up believing that Hitler may be the second Messiah. **Isaac Amsel – an 18-year old boy and witness at the trial; **John Asher – half-Jewish and reluctant "defence attorney" at the trial; *Teku – local Indian tracker and independent witness at the trial; previously the search party''s guide who had abandoned them when they insisted on entering uncharted regions of the jungle, he continued tracking them from a distance before revealing himself. *Adolf Hitler – now 90 years old, the former leader of the Third Reich had not died in the Führerbunker in Berlin, but escaped to South America and hid in the Amazon jungle.

The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.

Leo is 12 years old, imaginative, sympathetic, but often lost in his large family, with his busy parents, older sister, two younger brothers, and large extended family. He has just tried out for the school play, a fantasy about an old man who accepts two lost children into his life and regains some of his childhood magic, and Leo is cast oddly as "the old crone". At the same time, Leo is learning more about his father after finding an old autobiography his father wrote at 13 and has had stashed in his attic along with some tap shoes. Part of the discovery is of the existence of a long-lost aunt. Leo''s friend Ruby, who plays a donkey in the play, also reveals the death of her younger brother. Leo is trying to make sense of losses, life-changes, and regrets as the play and his life lead to mutual revelations. Leo wonders about the mysteries of his life, not least of all, why his father is so sad and what happened to Rosaria, his sister, and why no one mentions her. Leo feels lost in the sea of people that are his family. He dreams of changing the world, or at least getting his family to notice him. Leo''s family is very busy with their own problems, and hardly talk to him besides to tell him to do one chore or another. Near the beginning of the story Leo joins a play called Rumpopo''s Porch.

Replay

The novel is set in the London theatres of the 1930s. The book revolves around Josephine Tey, a version of the famous novelist. The story begins with Tey taking the train from Scotland to London in order to attend the final week of performances of her renowned play, Richard of Bordeaux, written under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot. On board, she meets a young woman, Elspeth Simmons, the adopted daughter of hatmakers from Berwick-upon-Tweed. The two strike up a friendship on the journey, as the girl is a fan of Tey''s work, and is on her way to see the play again. Upon arriving in London, the pair separate, as Elspeth has left her bag on the train. Soon after, the girl is found dead, apparently having been stabbed with a hat pin, a crime which seems to have been carefully planned. Here enters Detective Inspector Archie Penrose, an old acquaintance of Tey''s, the best friend of her lover, whom Penrose saw die at the Somme. Clues and circumstance suggest that Tey may have been the intended target, so the narrative follows her and her time at the theatre. There, we are introduced to a world of excitement and intrigue, and more death follows. We meet the leads in the play, Johnny and Lydia; the two are presumably based on the real life leads in the best-selling run, John Gielgud, whose career it, arguably, made, and Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies. The back-stabbing world of casting and performance combines with the classic murder mystery plot.

An Expert in Murder

Squirrel is a stray puppy who lives in a shed behind the summer home of a wealthy family, The Merrions, with her mother, Stream and brother, Bone. When Stream disappears, Squirrel and Bone must set off on their own. The puppies are picked up by highway travelers, but then abandoned and thrown out of a car window while the travelers were at a mall the following day. Squirrel and Bone are injured; Bone is taken away by other shoppers, leaving Squirrel, never to be seen again. Squirrel joins forces with another female stray, Moon, for a short time. Later, after being attacked by stray dogs at a gas station and being with each other for some time, healing each others wounds, the pair are struck by a car, killing Moon instantly and injuring Squirrel. This time, Squirrel is taken to the vet, where she is spayed and her broken leg is treated. She is renamed Daisy and adopted by a family for the summer(Their summer dog). In the autumn, Squirrel is once more abandoned. She continues to wander for years. Then Squirrel, now an old dog, wanders around to an old lady''s house. Then the old woman, whose name is Susan, sees Squirrel and takes her in. At the end of the story, Susan, an old woman, finds Squirrel cold and starving in her backyard, and tries to coax her in. Susan had a dog named Maxie in the past. Squirrel, now an old lady herself, refuses to come over, and Susan has to gain her trust by leaving food out and gradually moving closer each day. When she finally gets Squirrel inside, she decides to keep her and renames Squirrel "Addie". Afterwards, Susan and Squirrel, both old ladies, enjoy the rest of their lives together. They lived happily ever after

A Dog''s Life: The Autobiography of a Stray

In Shaw''s preface "Novels of my Nonage", written in 1901, he disparages his early work, including Cashel Byron''s Profession: "...people will admire [the author] for the feats any fool can achieve, and bear malice against him for boring them with better work." He also resurrects a heavily edited Robert Louis Stevenson quote used to promote the book. The full text of the quote breaks down the story into parts, including one part “blooming gaseous folly”. The novel follows Cashel Byron, a world champion prizefighter, as he tries to woo wealthy aristocrat Lydia Carew without revealing his illegal profession. Lydia is portrayed as a moral and intelligent woman (although "priggish" according to Shaw) and is constantly contrasted with the "ruffian" Cashel. Lydia was advised by her recently deceased father to find a husband with a profession, as opposed to an idle gentleman or an art critic like her father. Cashel’s childhood ends when he runs away from school to Australia and becomes apprentice to an ex-world champion boxer. When Cashel goes to England to secure his world title in that country he meets Lydia at her country manor. After much miscommunication and drawing room comedy, Cashel gives up boxing and succeeds in marrying Lydia. As in his postscript to "Pygmalion" (1912), in which he describes Eliza Doolittle''s future life, Shaw chose to portray the Byron marriage in a realistic manner and narrates how Lydia comes to regard Cashel as "one of the children". According to "Note on Modern Prizefighting" (1901) Shaw intended the fights described in Cashel Byron''s Profession to turn the public away from the sport but the novel is written in such a light-hearted tone this unlikely result never materialized.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Tonio Kröger

By Thomas Mann

Twelve Sharp

By Janet Evanovich

The Big Nowhere

By James Ellroy

The Sorrows of Satan

By Marie Corelli

Marching Through Georgia

By S. M. Stirling

Interesting Times

By Terry Pratchett

The Gallifrey Chronicles

By Lance Parkin

The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.

By George Steiner

Replay

No Author Listed

An Expert in Murder

By Nicola Upson

A Dog's Life: The Autobiography of a Stray

By Ann M. Martin

Cashel Byron's Profession

No Author Listed