Set between the late 19th century and present-day, the graphic novel Logicomix is based on the story of the so-called "foundational quest" in mathematics. Logicomix intertwines the philosophical struggles with the characters'' own personal turmoil. These are in turn played out just upstage of the momentous historical events of the era and the ideological battles which gave rise to them. The narrator of the story is Bertrand Russell, who stands as an icon of many of these themes: a deeply sensitive and introspective man, Russell was not just a philosopher and pacifist, he was also one of the prominent figures in the foundational quest. Russell''s life story, depicted by Logicomix, is itself a journey through the goals and struggles, and triumph and tragedy shared by many great thinkers of the 20th century: Georg Cantor, Ludwig Wittgenstein, G. E. Moore, Alfred North Whitehead, David Hilbert, Gottlob Frege, Henri Poincaré, Kurt Gödel, and Alan Turing. A parallel tale, set in present-day Athens, records the creators’ disagreement on the meaning of the story, thus setting in relief the foundational quest as a quintessentially modern adventure. It is on the one hand a tragedy of the hubris of rationalism, which descends inextricably on madness, and on the other an origin myth of the computer.

Logicomix

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

The history of the comic follows ours, until one night during the winter of 1943, when a number of bright lights appeared over Nazi-occupied Europe. Intentionally or otherwise, the slaughter of the death camps has somehow been used to summon the Aesir, Norse gods. Quickly allying themselves with the gods, the Nazis are able to push aside their mortal foes. The extended war has an amazing effect on human technology - by the fifties, the American military has a manned spy satellite. The trickster, Loki, works against his fellow Aesir. On the night they arrived, Loki used his magic to whisk hundreds of thousands of death camp internees to safety in Persia. Loki reveals the secret of how the Aesir were brought into being, the Nazis used death camps to fuel necromancy on a never before seen scale to summon them, but he makes sure to tell this only to a OSS Captain sent on a suicide mission, knowing fully well that he would never have the chance to let anyone else know the truth. Before, the American government had assumed the Aesir were alien invaders. (This is a reversal of roles from the The Mighty Thor series of Marvel Comics, which partially inspired Brin, and where Loki is the unquestioned villain). As the Nazis continue to conquer the world, with the help of their Japanese allies (and their Shinto gods), necromancy spreads in use throughout the globe. As a result of "Asian faith and African desperation... and all the madness of the tropics", the multiple gods of the developing world are given form through human sacrifice, band together and fight the Aesir (who have to keep to colder regions). As the Tropicals advance, they burn the Arabian oilfields, leading to global warming. With the potential of the Aesir creating a nuclear winter to counter the global warming, the remaining free Americans must race against time to prevent the gods from destroying the world as Loki schemes to fulfill the Ragnarok prophecy.

The Life Eaters

The novel is the story of Jamie Towfeek, a teenager living in Sydney''s western suburbs. Jamie wants to be the real thing. From the roots of her dyed blonde hair... There are a lot of things Jamie hates about her life: her dark hair, her dad''s Stone Age Charter of Curfew Rights, her real name - Jamilah Towfeek. For the past three years, Jamie has hidden her Lebanese/Muslim background from everyone at school. It''s only with her email friend John that she can really be herself. But now life is getting more complicated. The most popular boy in school is interested in her, but there''s no way he would be if he knew the truth. Then there''s Timothy the school loner, who for some reason Jamie just can''t stop thinking about. As for John, he seems to have a pretty big secret of his own. To top it all off, Jamie''s school formal is coming up. And her band at her Muslim school is performing at the formal. The only way she''ll be allowed to attend is by revealing her true identity. But who is she ... Jamie or Jamilah? Various other stories also happen in this book. Her older sister Shereen is a human rights and anti-war protester, and their father wants her to settle down. She gets closer to her friend Amy, and tries to find the reason why she has suddenly become more secretive to her. She is the first person she tells that she is a Muslim and at the end, the two become best friends, and leave their other friend, Liz behind with the other discriminatory students at school.

Ten Things I Hate About Me

The book begins a few months after the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States, with John Wells, an undercover CIA agent, in the middle of a battle in Afghanistan. Wells has been undercover with Al Qaeda for many years, fighting in Chechnya, Afghanistan and Pakistan. During the battle he and his crew of Al-Qaeda members are on a hillside where a group of United States Marines are stationed. The small Al-Qaeda band is planning to attack the Marines to help with a bigger battle that is raging below, and Wells decides to take out the terrorists himself so he can send a message to his CIA contact via the Marines: "No prior knowledge of 9/11. Say hi to Heather for me." Meanwhile, back in the United States, Jennifer Exley, his CIA handler, visits a prisoner of war being held on a Navy ship to try to get information on Wells, who has been incommunicado for two years. Al Qaeda detonates two truck bombs in LA, killing hundreds of people. John Wells is returned to the USA on a mission from Al Qaeda where he reconnects with the CIA. However due to the length of his absence he is accused of being “un-faithful” because he did not warn the US about Al Qaeda attacks. The accuser, Vinny Duto forces John to take a polygraph test. He proves himself to be innocent. Wells is put in a CIA safe house in Washington, DC but escapes in order to continue his Al Qaeda mission. He heads to Atlanta and spends several months hiding out before being given the task of killing a retired US Army general. After completing this task, and secretly killing his two fellow Al Qaeda members, he is given the task of collecting something from Canada. While in Canada, he meets with a Al-Qaeda member to collect a suitcase, really a scientist who has been working to grow the plague bacteria. Wells returns with the suitcase but has secretly been infected with the plague by the scientist. Wells then learns that Al Qaeda used the LA bombings as a distraction from an impending, much larger attack; several other Al Qaeda members have infected themselves with the plague and plan to spread it throughout the population, creating a pandemic within the United States. Wells, with the help of Exley, is able to kill the infected terrorists and take out their leader, Khadri, thwarting their plans.

The Faithful Spy

Alberich is a Captain of the army in Karse, the youngest person to receive this promotion. He has flashes of Foresight and one day gets a vision of bandits invading a village while grooming his horse, a gift from the priesthood upon his promotion. He musters his men and is able to save the village. After, a Red-robe priest of the god Vkandis proclaims that Alberich has a "witch-power" and therefore is condemned to death. He is locked in a barn and the barn is set afire. However, the horse given to him after his promotion rescues him and turns out to be a Companion named Kantor who Chooses Alberich. Alberich is unwillingly taken to Valdemar, where he recovers from his injuries. When he recovers, he is informed by King''s Own Talamir that he is now a Herald Trainee. Alberich had been taught that Heralds were demons along with their "Hellhorses" - the Companions. Alberich now has to deal with this fact, as well as the realization that he no longer can return to Karse. A priest of Vkandis and his acolyte are able to help Alberich accept matters in Valdemar as they had fled from Karse as well. Alberich settles into life at the Collegium as the Weaponmaster''s Second. Alberich is later made the bodyguard of Princess Selenay and accompanies her when she does her circuit training at the courts in the city. Karse and Valdemar have been at war for generations, and Karse hired a nation of mercenaries not tied to the Mercenary Guild to fight on their behalf. Alberich helps Valdemar fight what are later known as the Tedrel Wars. Alberich uses his connections in the Karsite military to acquire intelligence on the Tedrel Mercenaries as the battles go on season after season. In a dramatic final battle, Valdemaran forces fight the entire nation of Tedrel mercenaries. When all seems lost, King Sendar, Selenay''s father, rushes into battle and is killed. King''s Own Talamar loses his Companion, Taver, as well and another King''s Own Companion named Rolan arrives to pull him out of his grief. Selenay becomes queen, and a funeral procession is arranged for Sendar to return to the captiol city of Haven. Upon his return, Alberich is made full Weaponmaster, the old one deciding to retire, and he finally settles into his new life in Valdemar.

Exile''s Honor

Ganesh and Vasanth visit a town for legal purpose involving settling down property inheritance issue. They meet a man KumaraVyasan, guardian of an innocent, amateur girl heir named Leena. According to the will the property cannot be divided, sold and it can be inherited only by the direct heirs at their eighteen years of age while close relatives are supposed to be guardians. While discussing, Ganesh and Vasanth are told that the legal heir girl has committed a murder by becoming a blood sucking vampire and he has concealed the victim''s body by burying it two years ago. They were also told that there is a belief at the town that, a spirit which occurs once in two years will kill people. Ganesh not willing to accept that fact, searches for a valid explanation. He along with Vasanth visits the farm at night where they see an illusion in grey color resembling the girl Leena and some voices pointing to some names. Also many mysterious things happen at the farm house which terrorise both of them. Ganesh wanted to believe that there is no ghost but circumstanaces make him to slowly believe while Vasanth started to believe the fact of Spirit. KumaraVyasan was sure that Leena commits murders by the influence of spirit. Ganesh doubts Kumaravyasan that the incident are tricks mastered by him to eliminate Leena with motivations that he can be the heir if in case Leena dies without having children. Many murders occur during the course of investigation where Kumaravyasan is also one among victim.Circumstances point Leena to be killer but her innocence confuses Ganesh. Meanwhile all assumptions of science are collapsed and Ganesh starts to believe that the real explanation of all the incidents is the Spirit. What happens then? Does the spirit kills by taking revenge? Is spirit real or an illusion? Subsequent part of the story moves with the answers to these questions.

Kolaiyuthir Kalam

Rhapsody travels with Ashe to deliver a dragon''s claw, long ago hidden among the treasures of Ylorc, for fear of the dragon''s wreaking vengeance upon those who would keep her claw from her. On the journey, Ashe and Rhapsody develop a degree of comfort with one another, punctuated by arguments. Upon their arrival, Rhapsody finds the dragon surprisingly friendly, and she stays for several days before departing. Meanwhile, in the halls of Ylorc, Grunthor and Achmed discover a hidden tunnel, leading to the Loritorium: the unfinished masterpiece of Ylorc''s builder, centuries past. To their surprise, Gruthor and Achmed are confronted by a Dhracian as they investigate: one of the last of a near-legendary race, to which Achmed owes half his heritage. The Dhracian, who calls herself the Grandmother, instructs Achmed and Grunthor to return with Rhapsody. Rhapsody, after leaving the dragon''s cave, travels to Tyrian, the forest home to the Lirin, so that she can meet and train with the former bearer of her elemental blade, Daystar Clarion. While in training, she sees a horrific vision of the world engulfed in blood after the death of the Patriarch, leader of one of the two major human religions. Rhapsody journeys to Sepulvarta, home of the Patriarch, and successfully defends the Patriarch against an attack by a F''Dor demon and his minion, the Rakshas. She then travels back to Ylorc, where Grunthor and Achmed lead her to the Grandmother. The Grandmother tells them of the Dhracian colony that had lived in the mountains of Ylorc for centuries, destroyed by the same saboteur who murdered the inhabitants of the Loritorium. She also shows them the treasure the Dhracian colony was founded to protect: the sleeping Child of Earth, whose second rib can be used as a key to open the Vault of the Underworld imprisoning most of the F''Dor. The Child of Earth''s sleep is restless, rocked with prophetic nightmares, but Rhapsody is unable to help. After finally figuring out Ashe''s secret, Rhapsody summons Ashe to her underground home in Ylorc with a carefully crafted song. Once he arrives, Rhapsody explains her realizations: Ashe is Gwydion, long believed dead after he failed in an attack on the F''Dor and had part of his soul torn out in the process. Gwydion was secretly resurrected by the power of the star which once adorned Daystar Clarion''s hilt, however, awakening his dragon side in the process, and had wandered the land in secrecy for the decades following the attack. The lost piece of his soul was used to create the Rakshas, which wreaked havoc with Ashe''s appearance. Ashe and Rhapsody become lovers, causing Jo (Rhapsody''s adopted sister) no end of jealousy. The Rakshas uses this to trick Jo - pretending to be Ashe, he has sex with her, bringing her partially under the control of the F''Dor in the process. In an attempt to reclaim the stolen piece of Ashe''s soul, Rhapsody sets out with Grunthor and Achmed to destroy the Rakshas. The demonically-influenced Jo nearly kills Achmed at the end of the battle, forcing Rhapsody to kill her to save Achmed, and subsequently battle to save her soul from the clutching vine of the F''Dor. Some days later, Ashe and Rhapsody meet again for a night of revelations. Ashe locks the memory of the night in a pearl, expecting the only thing said to be of his father, Llauron, concocted to use Rhapsody in a bid for power. In the course of the discussion, Ashe and Rhapsody learn to their surprise that they are (respectively) Sam and Emily, who loved one another one and a half millennia ago (It''s complicated.) They get married, but Rhapsody agrees that she will have to forget it all so that Llauron''s selfish plot can succeed. Then a tree root that the Rakshas corrupted attacks the Child of Earth, attempting to seize it (and thereby gain the key to the Underworld), but Grunthor, forewarned by a dream, manages to get Rhapsody and Achmed into position soon enough to avert the threat. Then they realize that the Rakshas conceived children with demon-tainted blood, who Rhapsody resolves to rescue.

Prophecy: Child of Earth

This Bildungsroman is set in the fictional Argyll town of Gallanach (by its description, reminiscent of Oban but on the north east shore of Loch Crinan), the real village of Lochgair, and in Glasgow where Prentice McHoan lives. Prentice''s uncle Rory has disappeared eight years previous while writing a book called The Crow Road. Prentice becomes obsessed with papers his uncle left behind and sets out to solve the mystery. Along the way he must cope with estrangement from his father, unrequited love, sibling rivalry, and failure at his studies. The estrangement from his father concerns belief in God or an afterlife. Prentice cannot accept a universe without some higher power, some purpose; he can''t believe that people can just cease to exist when they die. His father dogmatically denies the existence of God, universal purpose, and the afterlife. A parallel plot is Prentice''s gradual transition from an adolescent fixation on one young woman to a more mature love for another. Prentice''s efforts to piece together Uncle Rory''s fragmentary notes and the minimal clues surrounding his disappearance mirror his efforts to make sense of the world, love, and life in general. The narrative is also fragmentary, leaping days, months, years, or decades back and forth with little or no warning, so the reader must also piece things together.

The Crow Road

David Fyfe, a high school English teacher, brings Wolfe a problem regarding a contract and inheritance. His brother Bert has just died of pneumonia and left his estate to David, another brother Paul, and their sister Louise Fyfe Tuttle. But under the terms of an agreement with Bert''s business partner, Johnny Arrow, all assets from their uranium mining operation go to Arrow, and the assets represent nearly all of Bert''s five million dollar estate. Paul Fyfe thinks that Arrow might have killed Bert before he could shelter his assets by giving them to his relatives. The family hires Wolfe to determine whether there''s enough evidence of a crime to refer the matter to the police. Twenty years earlier, Bert was charged with the murder of his father. Bert was acquitted, largely on the basis of an alibi provided by Vincent Tuttle, at the time his roommate and later his brother-in-law. After his acquittal Bert broke contact with his family and moved to Canada, where, in partnership with Arrow, he struck it rich in uranium. Having recently returned to New York to re-establish ties with his family, Bert invited them to his hotel suite for dinner, and to a Broadway show. But Bert fell ill with pneumonia and required bed rest and 24-hour nursing care. Paul, a masher, manhandled nurse Anne Goren, who phoned the attending physician to send another nurse. Louise Tuttle volunteered to watch Bert, and Miss Goren left. Then Paul got into a fistfight with Arrow over Miss Goren, who had aroused romantic and protective feelings in Arrow. Arrow beat Paul so badly that he was arrested and spent the night in jail. That night, Bert died, and his doctor certifies that the death was due to pneumonia. Paul now suggests that Arrow might have found a way to substitute something toxic for the morphine that the doctor had left with the nurse. There are several strange aspects to Bert''s death. One is that Bert''s father had died in a similar fashion 20 years earlier – someone had opened the bedroom windows on a snowy winter night as the father lay asleep, also suffering from pneumonia. Louise Tuttle has felt guilty ever since, because she was supposed to be looking after him but had fallen asleep in the next room. Then there''s the matter of the missing ice cream. Paul had brought two quarts of ice cream to Bert''s hotel room and put them in the refrigerator. It went uneaten due to the subsequent events, but somehow it has disappeared. Wolfe sends Archie to see Paul, Louise and Vincent in Mount Kisco to check on the morphine, and while he''s there to investigate the ice cream''s disappearance. Yet another strange aspect is that when Bert''s body was found, there were two hot water bags next to him. The presence of the bags was expected; that they were both empty was not.

Three for the Chair

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

Chowringhee

Armstrong''s central case rests on the confusion between mythos and logos, using these in the technical sense suggested by Johannes Slok. Myth concerns "what was thought to be timeless and constant in our existence...Myth was not concerned with practical matters but with meaning". By contrast "Logos was the rational, pragmatic and scientific thought that enabled men and women to function well in the world". In religion, logos appears in legal systems and practical action. By the eighteenth century, "people in Europe and America began to think that logos was the only means to truth and began to discount mythos as false and superstitious." Armstrong suggests that fundamentalists have turned their mythos into logos using the mindset of the modern scientific age. The first part of the book, "The Old World and the New", compares the progression of the three monotheistic faiths between 1492, when Columbus discovered America, and 1870, when "The Franco-Prussian War had revealed the hideous effects of modern weaponry, and there was a dawning realisation that science might also have a malignant dimension." It traces the way Jews and Muslims modernized during this period. This leads to the modern period described in part two, “Fundamentalism”, when there was a growing adoption of a literalist interpretation of scripture in the United States, which eventually gave rise to The Fundamentals, a series of 12 volumes refuting modern ideas published shortly before and during the World War I, of which 3 million copies were distributed to every pastor, professor and theological student across America by the largesse of oil millionaires. Though this led to a distinctive ideology, it was not till the 1980s that it emerged as a political force. In Judaism, the growth of Zionism was given its biggest boost by the Holocaust which led to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Although many traditional Jews migrated there, the most conservative rejected the secular interpretation of Zionism and it wasn''t until the emergence of Gush Emunim after the Yom Kippur War in 1974 that fundamentalism emerged in Israel as a political force. In Islam, fundamentalism did not emerge until modernization had taken hold, first in Egypt with the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood by Hasan al-Banna. Armstrong traces the development of Sunni fundamentalism under Sayyid Qutb and Shia fundamentalism under Ayatollah Khomeini.

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Logicomix

By Christos Papadimitriou

Precious Bane

No Author Listed

The Life Eaters

By David Brin

Ten Things I Hate About Me

By Randa Abdel-Fattah

The Faithful Spy

By Alex Berenson

Exile's Honor

By Mercedes Lackey

Kolaiyuthir Kalam

No Author Listed

Prophecy: Child of Earth

By Elizabeth Haydon

The Crow Road

By Iain Banks

Three for the Chair

By Rex Stout

Chowringhee

By Mani Shankar Mukherjee

The Battle for God

By Karen Armstrong