The plot starts in Naples, Italy in the 18th century, in the church Santa Maria del Pianto, where an Englishman is speaking with an Italian friar. The Englishman notices a man in a shadowy area of the church, who is an assassin, according to the friar. When the Englishman asks the friar to recall the story of why this assassin is protected in the church, the friar relates that he will send him a textual story to his hotel written by a student of Padua, and the two retire from the church and go their separate ways. The Englishman reads the story in his hotel room as follows: It is 1758 in the church of San Lorenzo in Naples where Vincentio di Vivaldi sees the beautiful Ellena di Rosalba with her aunt, Signora Bianchi. Vivaldi is struck with her beauty, and intends to court her, with the hopes that they will end up married. When Vivaldi’s mother, the Marchesa, hears about his love for Ellena, she hires her confessor, Father Schedoni, to kidnap Ellena to prevent the marriage, with a promise that she will help him obtain a higher position in his monastery. As Vivaldi continues to attend to Signora Bianchi at Villa Altieri, he is consistently approached by a monk, who seems to be an apparition, warning him to stay away from the villa and Ellena. Each time he encounters the strange monk, Vivaldi tries to follow him, with the help of both his friend Bonarmo and his faithful servant Paulo. Vivaldi is positive that the monk is Father Schedoni, and is determined to discover why his desired marriage to Ellena is forbidden. After being promised the hand of Ellena by Signora Bianchi before her mysterious death, Vivaldi learns that Ellena has been kidnapped, and he immediately assumes it is by the hand of the Marchesa and Schedoni. Vivaldi finds that his beloved has been sent to the convent of San Stefano, under the care of the cruel Lady Abbess, and he and his servant travel to retrieve her. In the convent, Ellena is befriended by a lovely, but melancholy nun, Sister Olivia, who helps her to escape from the convent into the care of Vivaldi. While riding towards Naples after the escape, Vivaldi presses Ellena for an immediate marriage, and she finally consents. Right before they are to take their vows, the Inquisition comes and arrests Vivaldi, Ellena and Paulo on what they believe to be false charges. Vivaldi and Paulo are taken to the Holy Office of the Inquisition to be questioned and put to trial. Ellena, however, is sent by Schedoni and the Marchesa to a lone house on the seaside, inhabited only by the villain Spalatro, to be murdered. Schedoni comes to the house to assassinate Ellena personally, but discovers that she is his daughter. Schedoni has a change of heart, and decides to take Ellena personally back to Naples and put her in a safer place. While on their journey, they once again encounter Spalatro, who is wounded in a scuffle and left behind. Schedoni and Ellena finally arrive in Naples, where Schedoni places Ellena in the convent of Santa Maria del Pianto until Vivaldi can be recovered. Schedoni converses with the Marchesa, keeping secret that he intends to marry her son and his daughter, but does communicate that Ellena comes from a rich lineage, so a marriage would not be disgraceful. Meanwhile, in the prison of the Inquisition, the mysterious monk that had previously forewarned Vivaldi, now known to be Nicola di Zampari, appeared and narrated to him the guilty crimes committed by Father Schedoni before he became a monk, and asked him to summon Schedoni and Father Ansaldo to the prison to confirm the crimes. Both appear in front of the tribunal members, and Schedoni is accused of murdering his brother and wife. Schedoni is summoned to death, and tells Vivaldi where Ellena is being held before he is escorted to a prison confinement. Vivaldi is also escorted back to his prison cell, with the knowledge that the charges against him will be dropped, thanks to Nicola. Back at the convent, Ellena distinguish a voice all too familiar, and sees her dearly loved Sister Olivia in the convent yard. While the two speak of what has become of them since they first parted, Ellena’s servant Beatrice appears to tell of the death of the wicked Marchesa. Beatrice and Olivia recognize each other, and elate Ellena with the news that Olivia is her mother. Ellena also becomes familiar with the fact that she is not Schedoni’s daughter, but his niece. Since they are of the same lineage, Ellena is still from a noble family, which would allow her to marry Vivaldi. The ending of the novel is a happy one; Vivaldi and Paulo get released from the prison of the Inquisition, Ellena is reunited with her mother, and Vivaldi and Ellena are joined in marriage, and all the villains have died.

The Italian

The premise involves the married men of the fictional town of Stepford, Connecticut, and their fawning, submissive, impossibly beautiful wives. The protagonist is Joanna Eberhart, a talented photographer newly arrived from New York City with her husband and children, eager to start a new life. As time goes on, she becomes increasingly disturbed by the zombie-like, submissive Stepford wives, especially when she sees her once independent-minded friends&nbsp;&ndash; fellow new arrivals to Stepford&nbsp;&ndash; turn into mindless, docile housewives overnight. Her husband, who seems to be spending more and more time at meetings of the local men''s association, mocks her fears. As the story progresses, Joanna becomes convinced that the wives of Stepford are being poisoned or brainwashed into submission by the men''s club. She visits the library and reads up on the pasts of Stepford''s wives, finding out that some of the women were once feminist activists and very successful professionals, while the leader of the men''s club is a former Disney engineer and others are artists and scientists, capable of creating lifelike robots. Her friend Bobbie helps her investigate, going so far as to write to the EPA to inquire about possible environmental toxins in Stepford. However, eventually, Bobbie is also transformed into a docile housewife and has no interest in her previous activities. At the end of the novel, Joanna decides to flee Stepford, but when she gets home she finds that her children have been taken. She asks her husband to let her leave, but he takes her car keys. She manages to escape from the house on foot, and several of the men''s club members track her down. They corner her in the woods and she accuses them of creating robots out of the town''s women. The men deny the accusation, and ask Joanna if she would believe them if she saw one of the other women bleed. Joanna agrees to this, and they take her to Bobbie''s house. Bobbie''s husband and son are upstairs, with loud rock music playing&nbsp;&ndash; as if to cover screams. The scene ends as Bobbie brandishes a knife at her former friend. In the story''s epilogue, Joanna has become another Stepford wife gliding through the local supermarket, and has given up her career as a photographer, while Ruthanne (a new resident in Stepford) appears poised to become the conspiracy''s next victim.

The Stepford Wives

A homeless man calling himself "Mister" enters the offices of the Washington DC law firm Drake & Sweeney and takes many of the lawyers hostage. Although he is eventually shot by a police sniper and the hostages freed, one of the hostages, an antitrust lawyer named Michael Brock, is concerned by what he has learned and feels compelled to investigate further. He finds his way to the 14th Street Legal Clinic, where he meets Mordecai Green, an advocate for the homeless, who asks him to help one night at a homeless shelter. As Brock''s investigation deepens, he finds that his own employer was complicit in an illegal eviction, which eventually resulted in the death of a young homeless family. He takes a confidential file, intending to copy it, but is quickly suspected of its theft. Shocked by what he has found, Brock leaves his firm to take a poorly-paid position with the 14th Street Legal Clinic, which works to protect the rights of the homeless. This leads to his wife divorcing him. He admits one of his clients, Ruby, to a therapy class for drug-addicted women, and in the process meets Megan, the Brock''s love interest. As Drake & Sweeney comes after Brock with theft and malpractice allegations, the Clinic launches a lawsuit against the law firm and its business partners. Terrified of the certain bad publicity, the matter is settled by mediation and the clinic receives a large payout to be shared with the victims of the eviction. Drake & Sweeney''s head partner, deeply troubled by the events, offers to make pro bono staff available to assist the work of the Clinic in fighting for the rights of homeless people. The book ends with Brock taking a short vacation with Megan and Ruby, and them reflecting on their lives.

The Street Lawyer

Three students of an Austrian boarding school, Reiting, Beineberg and Törless, catch their classmate Basini stealing money from one of the three and decide to punish him themselves instead of turning him in to the school authorities. They start abusing him, first physically and then psychologically and sexually, while also blackmailing him by threatening to denounce him. Their abusive treatment of Basini becomes openly sexual and increasingly sadistic; nevertheless, he endures all the torture even when, after being deprived of any dignity, he is discredited by the entire class. Törless''s moral and sexual confusion leads him to join Beineberg''s and Reiting''s degradation of Basini; he is both sexually attracted to Basini and Beineberg and repelled by them. He observes and takes part in the torture and rape of Basini while telling himself that he is trying to understand the gap between his rational self and his obscure irrational self; he is a disturbed and despairing observer of his own states of consciousness. Basini, being homosexual, is somewhat complicit in the abuse, as he apparently enjoys the sexual part of Beineberg and Reiting''s "experiments". Beinberg and Reiting compensate for their own shame about their attraction to Basini by debasing him. Basini professes love for Törless and Törless comes to reciprocate somewhat, but ultimately is repelled by Basini''s unwillingness to stand up for himself. This disgust with Basini''s passivity ultimately leads him to almost off handedly stand up to Beineberg and Reiting. When the torment becomes unbearable, Törless covertly advises Basini to turn himself in to the headmaster as a way out of the situation. An investigation starts, but the only party to be found guilty is Basini. (In this respect the novel adheres to the "rules" for stories about bullying at school: the victim has to take the blame and the bullies go unpunished.) Törless makes a strange existential speech to the school authorities about the gap between the rational and irrational ("but that after all, things just happen"), which puzzles the authorities more than anything else. They decide he is of too refined an intellect for the institute, and suggest to his parents that he be privately educated, a conclusion that he comes to on his own. Other subplots include Törless''s experience with the local prostitute Božena, his encounter with his mathematics teacher, and his analysis of his parents'' attitudes toward the world.

The Confusions of Young Törless

The book begins with the Conservative leadership contest of 1963, following the resignation of Harold Macmillan, which turned into a fight between Iain Macleod, the modernizing chairman of the party, and the Earl of Home, the aristocratic dark horse. Home won, disclaimed his peerage, became Sir Alec Douglas-Home, and was elected to the House of Commons at a hastily-arranged by-election. Wheatcroft depicts this contest as a clash between supporters of "the virtues of an hereditary governing class" and those of "worth proved by ability". Next comes a history of the Tory party from its 17th-century beginnings at the time of the Restoration, followed by an account of the Douglas-Home, Harold Wilson and Edward Heath years and Britain''s trials and tribulations of the 1970s, culminating in the election of Margaret Thatcher''s first government in 1979. Within a few years, while holding onto power, the Conservative Party began to split and to fall apart. Wheatcroft seeks to explain this decline, offering factors long discussed by commentators: internal splits over Britain''s place in Europe, political sleaze and a fundamental lack of ideology, and a growing desire in the country for change after eighteen years of Conservative rule, coinciding with Tony Blair''s "brilliant cynical sincerity".

The Strange Death of Tory England

Charles Raymond is a smuggler and he is very content and mildly successful with what he does for a living. Based in Mexico, Charles uses his exceptional skill as a snake handler to his advantage by "exporting" snakes out of Mexico under the guise of medical research—their venom is used by drug companies and universities for research. But the snakes are simply a ruse to hide the identity of the real cargo—rare Mexican artifacts. Charles is good at what he does and his skills don''t stop at smuggling. Upon a suspicious chance reunion with Richard Pierce—a long-lost acquaintance of Charles'' from his school days—Raymond is enlisted to use his other talents as a bodyguard to help Richard stay alive until such time as he can acquire the rest of his deceased father''s fortune, which has been held in trust by Richard''s promiscuous widowed stepmother. Charles isn''t a fan of Richard''s brash womanizing ways, but agrees to help because the money is good. Only he finds out that Richards isn''t the easiest guy to protect, and often he is his own enemy when it comes to self-preservation. After a series of thwarted sketchy attempts at Richard''s life, Charles begins to smell a rat. The further he probes into the situation, the more confused he gets. Things aren''t what they seem. The bad guys aren''t really the bad guys, or so it seems and the good guys are no better. Who wants whom killed? Who is protecting whom? In the end it may be Charles who is the target.

The Venom Business

The story takes place at the castellated abbey of the "happy and dauntless and sagacious" Prince Prospero. Prospero and one thousand other nobles have taken refuge in this walled abbey to escape the Red Death, a terrible plague with gruesome symptoms that has swept over the land. Victims feel overcome by convulsive agony and sweat blood. The plague is said to kill within half an hour. Prospero and his court are presented as indifferent to the sufferings of the population at large, intending to await the end of the plague in luxury and safety behind the walls of their secure refuge, having welded the doors shut. One night, Prospero holds a masquerade ball to entertain his guests in seven colored rooms of the abbey. Six of the rooms are each decorated and illuminated in a specific color: Blue, purple, green, orange, white, and violet. The last room is decorated in black and is illuminated by a scarlet light- "a deep blood color": because of this chilling pair of colors, very few guests are brave enough to venture into the seventh room. The same room is also the location of a large ebony clock that ominously clangs at each hour, upon which everyone stops talking or dancing and the orchestra stops playing. Once the chiming stops, everyone acts like nothing happened and continue on with the masquerade. At the chiming of midnight, the revelers and Prospero notice one figure in a dark, blood-splattered robe resembling a funeral shroud, with an extremely realistic mask resembling a stiffened cadaver, and with the traits of the Red Death, which all at the ball have been desperate to escape. Gravely insulted, Prospero demands to know the identity of the mysterious guest so that they can hang him. When nobody (out of fear) dares to approach the figure, instead letting him pass through the seven chambers, the Prince pursues him with a drawn dagger until he is cornered in the seventh room, the black room with the scarlet-tinted windows. When the figure turns to face him, the Prince lets out a sharp cry and falls dead. The enraged and terrified revelers surge into the black room and forcibly remove the mask and robe, only to find to their horror that there is no solid form underneath either. Only now do they realize (too late) that the figure is actually the Red Death itself, and all of the guests contract and succumb to the disease. The final line of the story sums up: "And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."

The Masque of the Red Death

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

Cassel Sharpe comes from a family of workers who are part of one of the major crime families. He is the youngest son with a mother in prison for making millionaires fall in love with her, a dead father, and two older brothers who work for the nephew and current heir of one the biggest crime families in the area. Cassel''s friend Lila was the daughter of the crime lord and other possible heir, but had been killed by Cassel when they were fourteen, though he can''t remember why he did it. Cassel is the only one in his family not to have an ability. Now seventeen, Cassel finds himself sleepwalking up on the roof at his prep school, dreaming of a white cat and nearly dies getting back down. This gets him kicked out of school and the dorms until he can get a doctor''s note saying it won''t happen again, which he plans to get using a con, getting stationary and the doctor''s signature from a nearby office. His simple plan to get back into school and turn life back to normal is complicated by his brothers, who keep acting strangely around him. Cassel overhears enough of their conversations to make him suspicious that he''s being manipulated, and he goes to a fortune teller to get stone amulets to protect himself from memory alteration, which he cuts into his skin. Further investigation leads Cassel to discover that his brothers have been keeping a white cat just like the one from his dreams, but that it''s free now and has been following him around. He rescues it from the pound, certain for some reason that it''s Lila, and that he hadn''t killed her like he thought, but been manipulated by a memory worker, though he doesn''t know who. Shortly after, he discovers that one of the rocks under his skin has broken, and his second oldest brother is the memory worker. He also figures out that he is a worker after all, but his brothers have been keeping it from him to ''protect'' him. Cassel is a transformation worker, and has been changing people into everyday objects as murder and body disposal for his brothers as contract killers, then forgetting about it afterward. With this discovery, Cassel changes the white cat back into Lila, and the two plan to reunite her with her father and allow her to take back her place as heir by revealing a plan Anton has of killing her father and running the family himself. It succeeds, and things go mostly back to normal for Cassel despite his new-found ability. Lila still originally hates him for what he did, but when he arrives home from school a week later, she is waiting for him, having forgiven him. They start to make out as Cassel has always dreamed, when they are interrupted by a phone call from his mother, who has gotten out of jail and wants to tell him of her surprise: that she met Lila in New York and used her ability to make her fall madly in love with Cassel. He demands she undo it, but his mother claims she cannot, and Cassel realizes that he was a mark himself, gullible enough to believe that Lila would forgive him and love him so easily.

White Cat

At the beginning of the book, Marcus Luttrell describes his childhood and his training to prepare for the Navy SEALs with Billy Shelton. After joining the U.S. Navy and completing SEAL training, Luttrell describes his posting in Afghanistan, in the Hindu Kush mountains of the Kunar province. With him are the rest of SEAL Team 10, except Shane E. Patton, for whom Danny Dietz was substituted. Their mission, Operation Red Wings, was to stake outside a village and capture or kill a leading Taliban member thought to be allied with Osama Bin Laden. One night in June 2005, while hiding out, the team encountered three Afghanistan shepherds, including a boy. The team debated sparing or killing the three shepherds but after a vote, Luttrell had to make the decision. To uphold the Rules of engagement, Luttrell let the shepherds go. About an hour later, the four SEALs were surrounded by more than a hundred Taliban warriors. The two parties engaged, the odds drastically against the SEALs, all of which died saving Luttrell. The New York Times sums up the story: "Mr. Luttrell was the only one of four men on the mission to survive after a violent clash with dozens of Taliban fighters. Eight members of the SEALs and eight Army special operations soldiers who came by helicopter to rescue the original four were shot down, and all aboard were killed. Mr. Luttrell was then rescued by a group of Afghan Pashtun villagers who harbored him in their homes for several days, protecting him from the Taliban and ultimately helping him to safety." The theme of hospitality as understood by the Pashtun culture is a central theme to the plot and attempts to validate the release of the shepherds.

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10

A little girl named Dorothy Gale lives in the midst of the great Kansas prairies with her Aunt Em, her Uncle Henry and her little dog, Toto. One day, while she is playing with her pet cow Imogene, things are broken up by a fierce whirlwind. Dorothy and Toto take shelter in the farmhouse, which is carried far away into the clouds. Meanwhile in the hamlet of Center Munch, the little Munchkins dance around their maypole not noticing that Dorothy''s house has fallen to earth and killed the Wicked Witch of the East. Dorothy opens the front door and marvels at the strange Land of Oz. The Good Witch of the North awards Dorothy with a magic ring, good for three wishes and can summon the Good Witch of the South at any time. The Good Witch then waves her wand and a pair of beautiful shoes appear on Dorothy''s feet, she tells Dorothy that if she wants to get home, she must ask the Wizard of Oz to help her. After a while, everyone exits and Dorothy is left alone with a Scarecrow, hung on a pole. She wishes she had someone to talk to, and the Scarecrow comes to life. He gets down off his pole and complains that he has no brain. Dorothy suggests that she join him on the road to the Emerald City and he sings "Alas for the Man Without Brains". Dorothy and the Scarecrow come upon the Tin Woodsman, who has rusted playing his piccolo. As it turns out, the Woodman''s real name is Niccolo Chopper. He explains that the Wicked Witch of the West took his heart, so he cannot love Cynthia, who is his girlfriend. He joins the others in the hope of receiving one from the Wizard, and return to Cynthia. The Keeper of the Gates patrols outside the Emerald City. Sir Wiley Gyle enters. He is a mad old inventor who scorns all magic ever since his mother died. After being sent to prison for murdering his wife, the travelers enter the Emerald City. The Wizard gives the Scarecrow a brain and the Tin Woodman a heart. He declares this the greatest of all his achievements and calls for a celebration. The Ball of All Nations is thrown, in which anywhere up to twelve songs are sung by various characters. The Wizard performs a basket trick in which Pastoria is the mark. In the middle of the trick he claims his right to the throne and overthrows the Wizard. A great commotion breaks out, with the Wizard escaping in a hot air balloon. Dorothy, still longing for home, sets off with her companions to the castle of Glinda the Good Witch of the South. End of Act Two. Dorothy and her friends arrive at the palace and are welcomed. There are great celebrations, with Glinda promising to send Dorothy home. The whole cast rushes out from the wings and sings the finale. Romayne Whiteford portrayed Glinda early in the run as well as Doris Mitchell and Ella Gilroy, but the character appears to have been written out in subsequent productions.

The Wizard of Oz

Twenty-three years old Claud Bannister has just failed his exam to be an accountant and is determined to give up his studies and become a writer. He is introduced to Laura Thornby at a concert. Laura is forty-five, single and a notorious meddler. When she hears about Claud''s plans, and learns that he is living with his mother, Laura immediately starts rearranging his life. In no time Claud finds himself installed in a rented loft and making a living by selling antiques from a stall in the market. Laura becomes so interested in Claud''s welfare, and her own, that she even ends up in bed with him. When Laura isn''t visiting Claud in his loft, and he isn''t working in the market, he is busy working on his novel, just as Laura had planned. But even Laura Thornby cannot foresee everything. Her affairs have always been brief and she has always been in total control, but with Claud she begins to lose control. When she sees what Claud has written, she realizes that he has a talent, and that she herself merely is playing second fiddle to his fictional characters.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Italian

By Ann Radcliffe

The Stepford Wives

By Ira Levin

The Street Lawyer

By John Grisham

The Confusions of Young Törless

By Robert Musil

The Strange Death of Tory England

By Geoffrey Wheatcroft

The Venom Business

By Michael Crichton

The Masque of the Red Death

By Edgar Allan Poe

The Life Eaters

By David Brin

White Cat

By Holly Black

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10

By Patrick Robinson

The Wizard of Oz

By Glen MacDonough

Second Fiddle

By Mary Wesley