Delisle arrives in Pyongyang, bringing, in addition to the items that he was authorized to bring into the country, a copy of George Orwell''s Nineteen Eighty-Four, that he judged appropriate for a totalitarian state, CDs of Aphex Twin and reggae, and presents like Gitanes cigarettes and Hennessy cognac. Delisle encounters former colleagues working at SEK Studio on an adaptation of Corto Maltese comics. He also meets foreign diplomats, NGO workers in the World Food Programme, and businessmen, such as French engineers installing an HDTV transmitter. During his two month visit, he stays at the Yanggakdo Hotel, and visits other foreigners in the Koryo Hotel. Accompanied by his guide, he visits the massive statue of Kim Il-sung, the Pyongyang Metro, the legation quarter, the Diplomatic Club (former Romanian embassy), the Arch of Triumph, the Juche Tower, the International Friendship Exhibition, the USS Pueblo, the enormous Ryugyong Hotel, the Taekwondo Hall, the Children''s Palace, and the Museum of Imperialist Occupation. Delisle is surprised by things such as reverse walking, the absence of disabled and elderly people, North Korean music propaganda, the cult of personality for past leader Kim Il-Sung and his son Kim Jong-Il, the required presence of his translator and guide, nearly-expired water from the South, Coca-Cola and kimjongilias. He also notes the extreme level of apparent brainwashing in the citizens of Pyongyang. When questioned regarding the lack of disabled people in Pyongyang, his guide asserts, and seems to genuinely believe, that North Korea has no disabled, and that the children of the "Korean race" are all born healthy, strong and intelligent.

Pyongyang

After leaving Harmony, Jacob is following the trail to find Delaney Carrow, a girl presumed dead. By homing in on her sounder, he meets Xander, an ex-mercenary for the Mixel corporation. Xander initially gives Jacob a hard time, but as the weeks pass, he warms to the kid he calls "blinder". Jacob, once again homing in on Delaney''s sounder, discovers that Xander has it. When he confronts Xander (using a kitchen knife of all things) he discovers that Xander had given Delaney a ride, and left her on the doorsteps of Mixel. In desperation, Jacob begs Xander to take him to Melville, to see if he can find Delaney. Xander is against it at first, but he eventually caves in and takes him to Mixel tower, where they discover that Delaney has become a pop-star, and has also been changed; given artificial eyes so that she can see. But Delaney is not happy. In truth, she is a prisoner in Mixel tower, and Jacob hatches a plan with Xander to free her from Mixel. Later, Jacob starts having visions, first about Delaney and Harmony, but later on, bits and pieces of these visions come true and he realizes that he is starting to be able to see future events. With this new power, he is able to get his companions out of difficult situations. One night, he has a vision of a boy telling him that there are people like him out there, Blinders turned Seers. However, the message garbles before Jacob can hear the location of the colony, so Jacob decides to revisit Harmony to seek answers. Upon returning to Harmony, Jacob and Delaney pay a visit to the high councilor''s house where Delaney tells her father of her return. The high councilor tries to strangle his daughter, but is presumably killed by Jacob, and she escapes while Jacob heads to the ghostbox. He begins asking the ghostbox if there are other people like him out there. The ghostbox then tells Jacob that there are others like him, people who were born blind and have gained the ability to see (called "abominations" by the ghostbox), who were supposed to be killed rather than simply having their sight taken away as Jacob believed before. Jacob then proceeds to ask the ghostbox where the other escaped Seers might be, and discovers from the machine that they could on the colony of Tieresias. Eventually, he is detected by listeners who chase him throughout Harmony. They fail to catch him and he and his companions make a hasty escape away from the colony.

The Seer

The victorious United States of America stands over the fallen Confederate States of America, victim to its own nationalist-ego and myth after three years of bloody trench fighting. In the CSA, a former soldier named Jake Featherston joins the Freedom Party and uses it as his platform for beginning to take over the Confederate government and exact revenge on both the USA and the groups he perceives as having stabbed the CSA in the back: blacks, the Southern aristocracy, and the Whig Party. He soon takes over as leader of the Party and unleashes angry veterans on his enemies. He almost becomes president in 1921, but setbacks at the polls and elsewhere force him and the Party to wait longer to accomplish their ruthless goals. The USA''s conservative government, meanwhile, had been voted out of office by the party of the masses: the Socialists, electing President Upton Sinclair and Vice President Hosea Blackford, who marries Congresswoman Flora Hamburger. Ignoring the looming threat of the south, the Socialists focus on improving the lives of its citizenry&nbsp;— at the cost of trimming down its defenses and the military. The assassination of the Confederate president Wade Hampton V, a Whig, by Freedom party member Grady Calkins led to a mass exodus of Freedom Party members and evoked the pity of the USA''s socialist administration. The USA ended Confederate reparations causing the revival of the CSA''s currency, which had suffered from crippling inflation since the conclusion of the Great War. Popular distrust in the Freedom Party and the newfound strength of Confederate paper money led to support for the newly appointed Whig president Burton Mitchel. The Socialists also have no better notion about what to do with the blacks in North America, and ignore the plight of those in the Confederacy.

American Empire: Blood and Iron

In London, Jack Ryan saves the Prince and Princess of Wales, along with their infant firstborn son, from an Irish terrorist group called Ulster Liberation Army (ULA) during a kidnapping attempt on the Mall. Sean Miller, a ULA terrorist captured by Ryan, is sentenced to life imprisonment for killing the royal driver. However, he is freed by ULA members while being transported to prison. The ULA later goes after Ryan and his family, partially as an act of revenge, but primarily because they seek to reduce American support for the rival Provisional Irish Republican Army. The assassin sent to kill Ryan is intercepted before he manages to complete his task, but his expectant wife, Cathy, and daughter, Sally, are injured when Miller causes their car to crash on a freeway. They are flown by helicopter to the University of Maryland Medical Center. After the attack on his family, Jack accepts an offer from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to start working as an analyst at the agency''s headquarters. Later, the Prince and Princess of Wales come to visit Ryan in America. This gives the ULA another opportunity to conduct another operation—they plan to kill Ryan and his family and kidnap the Royal Family. The attack ultimately fails: after a firefight and a flight, Ryan, his friend Robby Jackson, and the Prince, with the help of Marines and sailors from the U.S. Naval Academy and local police, manage to apprehend and subdue the terrorists. The ultimate fate of the terrorists is not stated in the book. Ryan arrives at Bethesda after the final arrest to be with Cathy for the birth of their son, who will be godparented by Robby Jackson and his wife, as well as the Prince and Princess of Wales. In Clancy''s later novel The Sum of All Fears, it is mentioned in passing that Miller and his colleagues were sentenced to death and executed for their crimes. Jack Ryan, Jr., the son born at the novel''s close, follows his father into the CIA, and becomes a central character in Clancy''s first post-President-Ryan novel, The Teeth of the Tiger.

Patriot Games

The graphic novel is a self contained story, venturing into political ground that Jamie Delano is well known for. The story starts with a scene in Iraq, where a small town was bombed. The U.S. Army manages to detain a man said to be responsible. While being interrogated, the man unleashes a supernatural power that kills the soldiers and destroys the camp. In London, chance encounter with a young Muslim girl on the tube leads a curious Constantine to the British Museum. The museum is bombed, but Constantine and the girl manage to escape. However upon reaching home, Constantine was framed for his involvement in the bombing and is captured. As a result, John Constantine is forced by MI6 to visit Iraq and investigate a supernatural entity that has been plaguing the war torn place. While in Iraq, the Muslim girl shows up again, introducing herself as Assera Al-Aswari and is an agent of MI6. The two later drive into an army camp to discuss the events. Constantine deduces that the place they were at was an ancient city, containing an ancient Sumerian temple. Aseera later explains that the place is named Kutha. In the cover of night, John uses magic to sneak out and investigate more. He later finds out that the city is actually a den of demons, before he is detained by Aseera for sneaking out. The next day, John and Aseera later visits the mysterious detainee who has been plaguing the army. John discovers that the man isn''t human, but is a djinn. He later traps it inside a bottle, before the camp they were at was attacked by insurgents. John, Aseera, and the djinn escapes, but is soon stranded in the road. While waiting, John explains to Aseera that the detainee is actually a djinn, and that Kutha is actually a city that once worshiped a god named Nergal, who is also John''s longtime adversary. The two was soon kidnapped by insurgents, and was handed over to Nergal. Nergal welcomes John to Hell, where he explains his involvement in the war. Nergal was actually collecting the souls of those who died, and traps them in Hell to power himself up, using djinns as his workers. John later challenges Nergal for the souls in a game of poker. Nergal and his confidants agreed, but in turn if John looses he will be "cleaning [Nergal]''s ass with his tongue". John cheats his way to victory, and Nergal is forced to free the souls with John and Aseera. With his mission completed John returns to London for his end of the bargain. In the MI6 headquarters, he releases the djinn and intimidates the MI6 officials to free Aseera in Iraq and give her a new life with luxury, while John''s gain will be doubled. The officials later agrees. Upon hearing this, John walks out, happy that he straighten everything out.

Hellblazer: Pandemonium

The book contains the substance of lectures given by the author at various universities in the United States of America under the aegis of the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge and the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Fairleigh Dickinson University. The ‘perfuming of a scorpion’ is a reference to a symbol used by Hadrat Bahaudin Naqshband of Bukhara when he taught about the ubiquitous problem of hypocrisy and self-deception in both individuals and institutions: “Whoever might perfume a scorpion will not thereby escape its sting”. The seven sections of the book deal in depth with this issue under headings such as Education, The Nature of Sufi Knowledge, The Path and the Duties and the Techniques, Teaching Stories, A framework for New Knowledge and Involvement in Sufi Study. Each section contains numerous illustrative anecdotes from contemporary life but is nevertheless rooted in the teaching patterns of Rumi, Hafiz, Jami, and other great Oriental sages who dealt with the need for, and the path to, knowledge and information before real progress can be made.

A Perfumed Scorpion

The book is divided into seven sections, which alternate between Paul Atreides''s youth before the events portrayed in Dune, and the early period of his Fremen jihad between Dune and Dune Messiah. Twelve-year-old Paul resides on the planet Caladan with his parents, Duke Leto Atreides and his Bene Gesserit concubine Lady Jessica. House Ecaz of Ecaz and House Moritani of Grumman are embroiled in a generations-long feud, and an Atreides-Ecazi alliance is set to be formalized by Leto''s marriage to the Archduke Armand Ecaz''s daughter Illesa. At the wedding, Leto and his family escape an assassination attempt, but Armand is injured and Illesa is killed. Leto and Armand lead a retaliatory attack on Grumman, not realizing that the Moritani forces have been supplemented by troops from House Harkonnen, sworn enemies of the Atreides. The Padishah Emperor''s Sardaukar warriors also arrive to prevent full-scale war. Viscount Hundro Moritani has planned this entire offensive as a means to assemble the Ecazi, Atreides, and Imperial forces and annihilate them with a doomsday device; the plot fails as Moritani''s Swordmaster Hiih Resser disables the weapon. After the fall of Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV and Paul''s ascension to the Imperial throne, Paul''s Fremen forces are engaged on multiple fronts, fighting the Houses that refuse to recognize Atreides rule. The Fremen finally capture Kaitain, the former Imperial capital and homeplanet of House Corrino. Paul levels Shaddam''s fortress, which he hopes will send a message to the other dissident Houses. He invites Whitmore Bludd, a former Swordmaster of House Ecaz and a friend to Paul''s former mentor Duncan Idaho, to help him construct on Arrakis the grandest citadel the universe has ever seen. Meanwhile, Earl Thorvald, the nobleman heading the rebel forces, is being chased across the galaxy by Fremen naib Stilgar and Paul''s Fedaykin commandos. Elsewhere, Shaddam''s former minion the exiled Count Fenring and his Bene Gesserit wife Margot are raising their daughter Marie on Tleilax, training her as a weapon against the Atreides. The savage brutality of the Fremen pushes more noble Houses into alliances with Thorvald. Bludd is executed after trying to assassinate Paul and make his mark in history. Growing more callous and savage as the years pass, Paul ultimately orders the complete annihilation of Thorvald''s home planet after he learns that the rebel is planning an attack against Caladan. Marie attempts to assassinate Paul but is killed by Paul''s young sister Alia; a distraught Fenring manages to stab Paul mortally. Saved by an overdose of the drug melange, Paul arises and banishes the Fenrings to live out their days with Shaddam, whom they now loathe.

Paul of Dune

Dr. Edward Hawks runs a top-secret project for the U.S. Navy, using the facilities of Continental Electronics to investigate a large, deadly alien artifact found on the Moon. Volunteers enter and explore it, but are inevitably killed for violating the unknown alien rules in force within the structure. Vincent "Connie" Connington, Continental''s head of personnel, tells Hawks that he has found the perfect candidate for the next mission. Connington is amoral and manipulative, openly testing Hawks and anyone else he meets for weaknesses. He takes Hawks to see Al Barker, an adventurer and thrill-seeker. Hawks also meets Claire Pack, a sociopath of a different kind. Where Connington covets power, and Barker seems to love death, Claire enjoys using sex, or the prospect of sex, to manipulate men. Connington wants her, but she stays with Barker because he has no weaknesses in her eyes. Hawks has to appeal to Barker''s dark side to persuade him to join the project. Claire tries to get under Hawks'' skin while simultaneously playing Connington off against Barker. Hawks has created a matter transmitter, one which scans a person or object to make a copy at the receivers on the moon. The earthbound copy is placed in a state of sensory deprivation which allows him to share the experiences of the doppelgänger. However, none of the participants have been able to stay sane after experiencing death second hand. Barker is the first to retain his sanity, but even he is deeply affected the first time, exclaiming, "...it didn''t care! I was nothing to it!" He returns again and again to the challenge, advancing a little further each time. Meanwhile, his relationship to Claire deteriorates, even as Connington continues his disastrous attempts to win her, at one point receiving a severe beating from Barker. Eventually, Connington announces he is quitting, and Claire leaves with him. Meanwhile, Hawks starts a relationship with a young artist, Elizabeth Cummings, but he seems to want only to pour out his torment over the project to her. Finally, Barker announces that he is almost finished finding a way through the artifact. Hawks takes Elizabeth to a romantic location and declares his love for her, then returns to the project. He transmits himself as well as Barker to the Moon, where his duplicate joins Barker''s on the final run. Together, the two weave their way through a series of bizarre landscapes containing death traps. Emerging from the other side, Hawks tells Barker that they cannot return to Earth. The equipment on the Moon is too crude to transmit a man back safely, and even if it were possible, there are already people living their lives. All the men working on the Moon are duplicates, mostly Navy men, all volunteers. Hawks elects to remain outside the base until his air runs out. Barker returns to try to be transmitted back anyway. Back on Earth, Hawks removes his isolation suit and finds a note in his hand, which he knew would be there. It reads simply, "Remember me to her."

Rogue Moon

Six weeks after returning from the Jovian system, David "Lucky" Starr learns that Jack Dorrance, the chief of a Sirian spy ring uncovered by Starr in the Jovian system, has escaped from Earth. Starr and his sidekick Bigman Jones follow Dorrance to the Saturnian system, where Dorrance tries to lose them in Saturn''s rings, but his ship is destroyed by a ring fragment. A Sirian ship then contacts Starr and informs him that the Sirians have built a colony on Titan and claimed it for Sirius, contrary to established precedent that all worlds in an inhabited stellar system belong to that system''s inhabitants, whether they have permanent settlements on those worlds or not. Starr orders the pursuing Terrestrial fleet back to Earth; but returns with Bigman and Councilman Ben Wessilewsky to the Saturnian system. When several Sirian ships pursue the Shooting Starr, Starr conceals himself and his ship in the interior of Mimas; leaves Wessilewsky below the surface with enough supplies to maintain himself for several months; then takes the Shooting Starr back into space, where they are captured by the Sirians and taken to the colony on Titan. There, Sirian commander Sten Devoure threatens to have Bigman killed unless Starr agrees to testify at an upcoming interstellar conference on the asteroid Vesta that he entered the Saturnian system to attack the Sirians. When Bigman endangers himself by defeating Devoure in a duel, Starr makes a deal with Devoure: if he spares Bigman''s life, Starr will testify that he entered the Saturnian system in an armed ship, and will lead the Sirians to Wessilewsky''s base on Mimas. At the Vesta conference, Devoure admits that the Sirians have established a base on Titan, but insists that the fact that Saturn and its moons are part of Earth''s stellar system is irrelevant: "An empty world is an empty world, regardless of the particular route it travels through space. We colonized it first and it is ours". Devoure then brings out Starr, who admits to having re-entered the Saturnian system after being warned off, and also that Wessilewsky established a base on Mimas. When asked his reasons, according to a secret plan of his own, Starr replies that Wessilewsky was placed to establish a colony on Mimas; whereupon Conway states that by removing Wessilewsky from Mimas, the Sirians violated the very principle they attempted to establish. The conference ends with three client worlds voting with the Sirians, and the rest voting with Earth, with the result that the Sirians are ordered to leave Titan within a month.

Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn

The Small House at Allington concerns the Dale family, who live in the "Small House", a dower house intended for the widowed mother (Dowager) of the owner of the estate. The landowner, in this instance, is the bachelor Squire of Allington, Christopher Dale. Dale''s mother having died, he has allocated the Small House, rent free, to his widowed sister-in-law and her daughters Isabella ("Bell") and Lilian ("Lily"). Lily has for a long time been secretly loved by John Eames, a junior clerk at the Income Tax Office, while Bell is in love with the local doctor, James Crofts. The handsome and personable, somewhat mercenary Adolphus Crosbie is introduced into the circle by the squire''s nephew, Bernard Dale. Adolphus rashly proposes marriage to portionless Lily, who accepts him, to the dismay of John Eames. Crosbie soon jilts her in favour of Lady Alexandrina de Courcy, whose family is in a position to further his career. Lily meets her misfortune with patience, and remains single, continuing to reject Eames, though retaining his faithful friendship. Bell marries Dr Crofts, after refusing an offer of marriage from her cousin Bernard. As with all of Trollope''s novels, this one contains many sub-plots and numerous minor characters. Plantagenet Palliser (of the "Pallisers" series) makes his first appearance, as he contemplates a dalliance with Griselda Grantly, the now-married Lady Dumbello, daughter of the Archdeacon introduced earlier in the Chronicles of Barsetshire.

The Small House at Allington

In this book, she challenges the idea that the personality of adults is determined chiefly by the way they were raised by their parents. She looks at studies which claim to show the influence of the parental environment and claims that most fail to control for genetic influences. For example, if aggressive parents are more likely to have aggressive children, this is not necessarily evidence of parental example. It may also be that aggressiveness has been passed down through the genes. Indeed, many adopted children show little correlation with the personality of their adoptive parents, and significant correlation with the natural parents who had no part in their upbringing. The role of genetics in personality has long been accepted in psychological research. However, even identical twins, who share the same genes, are not exactly alike, so inheritance is not the only determinant of personality. Psychologists have tended to assume that the non-genetic factor is the parental environment, the "nurture". However, Harris argues that it is a mistake to use "''nurture'' ... [as] a synonym for ''environment.''" Many twin studies have failed to find a strong connection between the home environment and personality. Identical twins differ to much the same extent whether they are raised together or apart. Adoptive siblings are as unalike in personality as non-related children. Harris also argues against the effects of birth order. She states: Birth order effects are like those things that you think you see out of the corner of your eye but that disappear when you look at them closely. They do keep turning up but only because people keep looking for them and keep analyzing and reanalyzing their data until they find them. Harris&#39; most innovative idea was to look outside the family and to point at the peer group as an important shaper of the child&#39;s psyche. For example, children of immigrants learn the language of their home country with ease and speak with the accent of their peers rather than their parents. Children identify with their classmates and playmates rather than their parents, modify their behavior to fit with the peer group, and this ultimately helps to form the character of the individual. Contrary to some reports, Harris did not claim that &#34;parents don&#39;t matter&#34;. The book did not cover cases of serious abuse and neglect. Harris pointed out that parents have a role in selecting their children&#39;s peer group, especially in the early years. Parents also affect the child&#39;s behavior within the home environment and the interpersonal relationship between child and parent.

The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do

After the death of Jenny, his wife, and failure of the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, Forrest and his son find a way to stumble through life and history. As in the first book, Gump stumbles through historical American events through the 1980s and early 1990s. On the first page, Forrest Gump tells readers "Don''t never let nobody make a movie of your life''s story," though "Whether they get it right or wrong, it don''t matter." However, the character is not an idiot savant, as in the first book, but more similar to Tom Hanks'' "kind hearted imp". Frequent spelling and grammar mistakes, in the text, are used as a device to indicate the character''s deficient education and cognitive difficulties. The story suggests that the real-life events surrounding the film have affected Forrest''s life. Gump runs into Tom Hanks. He even goes on The David Letterman Show and attends the Academy Awards. He plays football for the New Orleans Saints, sells encyclopedias door-to-door, works on a pig farm, and helps develop the infamous New Coke. He accidentally crashes the Exxon Valdez, helps destroy the Berlin Wall, and fights in Operation Desert Storm with his friend, an orangutan named Sue (who survived a NASA mission and cannibals, with Gump, in the first book). He meets many celebrities, including Colonel Oliver North, the Ayatollah Khomeini, John Hinckley, Jim Bakker, Ivan Boesky, Ronald Reagan, Saddam Hussein, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Tom Hanks (who plays Forrest in the movie). Throughout the book, Jenny appears to Forrest as a guardian angel, and advises him to "listen to Lieutenant Dan." Lt. Dan frequently mentions a fondness for oysters, and oystering re-vitalizes the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Pyongyang

By Guy Delisle

The Seer

By David Stahler, Jr.

American Empire: Blood and Iron

By Harry Turtledove

Patriot Games

By Tom Clancy

Hellblazer: Pandemonium

No Author Listed

A Perfumed Scorpion

By Idries Shah

Paul of Dune

By Kevin J. Anderson

Rogue Moon

By Algis Budrys

Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn

By Isaac Asimov

The Small House at Allington

By Anthony Trollope

The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do

By Judith Rich Harris

Gump and Co.

By Winston Groom