The story is set in Peru of the 1950. Through the alternation of two narrators, the novel presents a story of Saul Zuratas, a man who decides to leave his past identity behind and go native in one of the indigenous tribes of Peru. Unlike the ethnographers and linguists who explore the aborigine tribes for professional or rational reasons, Saul’s motive is intimate and emotional. But his noble intention becomes questionable when the reader gradually finds out that the hero could not leave behind the western dominant discourses on which his entire life had been built. This novel deals with the problem that not only persists in Peru, but also in many other counties of Latin America: the coexistence of the modern society which is prepared to participate in the cultural, economical and political life of the Global World, and of the indigenous population, which is viewed by modern societies as archaic and primitive (Mario). The plot develops an extended argument of two sides of what to do with Peru''s native Amazonian populations. One side argues that tribes should be left alone to live as they have for millennia, leaving them full access and use of their ancient lands. The other side posits that such ancient ways cannot survive the exploitation of economic interests. In order to save them, natives must be protected by modern intervention of missionaries and government agencies. Through the book, each character seeks ways to protect these groups. Odd chapters are narrated by Mario Vargas Llosa, both a character and the author of the text. These chapters are set in San Marcos University, the radio station where Mario is employed, and several pubs around the city. Even number chapters are narrated by Saúl Zaratas as the Storyteller for the Machiguenga and are devoted entirely to telling the history of the tribe and its methods of survival. Those chapters are set throughout the Amazon as the Storyteller travels from one group to another. The two characters meet only in the odd chapters from time to time, debating politics, university life, and occasionally the rights of the native tribes to either exist as they have or be saved by modernization. In the end, Mario (the character) creates a commentary for public television to shed light on the plight of the Machiguenga, with the hope of convincing himself that the tribe is in better shape for the interventions of modern civilization imposed upon them. Saúl, for his part, fully integrates into the tribe, donning his western ways and incorporating himself fulling as a historian and communication link for the disparate members across the Amazon.

The Storyteller

American Marine Biologist Zachary Wallace went on an expedition into the Sargasso Sea to witness giant squids. While there, the sonar picked up a reading that the military had named the Bloop. As the bloops closed in, the three passengers aboard the submarine witnessed the giant squid mercilessly get torn apart by a number of unidentified creatures. The submarine''s acrylic bubble suffered severe damage as Zachary, Hank, and the pilot quickly race to the surface. Before reaching the research boat, their submarine''s bubble pops, allowing the unforgiving Atlantic to flood in killing the pilot and drowning Wallace as he pushed Hank to safety. Miraculously, Wallace survived, and sadly, after returning to South Florida to take his position at Florida Atlantic University, he finds out that David blamed him for the destruction of the sub and the death of their pilot. Fired from the university, Zachary''s life goes downhill, spending all of his savings on drinks and in nightclubs. Weeks after, he receives word that his biological father is on trial for murder. His father, Angus Wallace, lives in a village on the shores of Loch Ness in Scotland. Zachary has not seen his father since his mother divorced him and moved back to the United States seventeen years ago. However, he agrees to go visit Angus when his half brother says he is needed in the trial. Zachary reconnects with some old friends back home and prepares to help his father. However, this is complicated by the fact that during the trial, Angus testifies that he is not guilty of the murder and that he actually witnessed the victim being attacked by the Loch Ness Monster. The British Tabloids go berserk and soon the Loch is full of boats and crews searching for Nessie. Desperate to salvage his academic reputation, Zachary must discover the truth among his friends, family, the mysterious Black Knights (a branch of the Knights Templar) and other secrets.

The Loch

The Rogue continues from the events of the Ambassadors Mission. The Ambassadors Mission ended with Lorkin being confined to the Sanctuary (The Traitors'' mountainous hidden city), and been given the job of assisting healing the inhabitants as the Sachakan magic users don''t know healing magic, though Lorkin is doing this willingly. Ambassador to Sachaka Dannyl is no longer looking for Lorkin and has resumed his duties as Ambassador while awaiting for a new assistant. Sonea has exposed a rogue magician from Igra, with help from Cery and Regin. Though through reading the rogue''s mind they have discovered that the Thief Skellin is also a magic user though he is unaware of Black Magic, this Thief is also responsible for the murders that have been plaguing the Thieves and the man directly responsible for importing and selling the drug Roet that is an attempt to gain a measure of control of citizens of Imardin from all the classes, low, high and magician. Living among the Sachakan rebels, Lorkin does his best to learn about them and their unique magic. But the Traitors are reluctant to trade their knowledge for the Healing they so desperately want, and while he assumes they fear revealing their existence to the world, there are hints they have bigger plans. Sonea searches for the rogue, knowing that Cery cannot avoid assassination forever, but the rogue''s influence over the city''s underworld is far greater than she feared. His only weakness is the loss of his mother, now locked away in the Lookout. In Sachaka, Dannyl has lost the respect of the Sachakan elite for letting Lorkin join the Traitors. The Ashaki''s attention has shifted, instead, to the new Elyne Ambassador, a man Dannyl knows all too well. And in the University, two female novices are about to remind the Guild that sometimes their greatest enemy is found within.

The Rogue

The story begins with Bertie finding himself with pink spots about the thorax, so he flies off to E. Jimpson Murgatroyd (the sombre bird of Harley Street who despotted Tipton Plimsoll in Full Moon). After getting mixed with Orlo Porter fleeing from a policeman and a crowd, Bertie is sentenced by the doc to a quiet life in the country. Thus Bertie goes to Maiden Eggesford in Somerset, with its two leading men, Jimmy Briscoe and Pop Cook, their respective horses, Simla and Potato Chip, and their dark rivalry. Aunt Dahlia, a friend of Jimmy Briscoe, has bet on Simla only to find that it isn''t a snitch. Bertie is annoyed to see old enemy Major Plank in residence with Vanessa Cook and her Pop Cook, who takes an instant dislike to Bertie when he is found tickling a passing cat which is a favorite of his horse Potato Chip. Things get hot when Aunt Dahlia gets a neighbourhood poacher to steal the cat in the hope to impede his horse friend, embroiling Bertie in the to-do. Meanwhile, after a rift between Vanessa and Orlo Porter, the girl decides to plight her troth to the blighted Bertie, whose Code is to never refuse a girl asking for marriage. How Bertie is saved from the Charybdis of marrying Vanessa and being torn with bare hands by Orlo and the Scylla of being whipped by Pop Cook, without compromising his position with Aunt Dahlia, is solely due to the quick thinking of Jeeves.

Aunts Aren''t Gentlemen

Carol, a female college student, is in the office of her professor, John. She expresses frustration that she does not understand the material in his class, despite having read the assigned books and attending his lectures. Of particular concern is a book written by John himself, wherein he questions the modern insistence that everyone participate in higher education, referring to it as "systematic hazing." While talking with Carol, he is often interrupted by the phone ringing. John is about to be granted tenure, along with a handsome raise. Anticipating this, he is to about to close on a new house, but his wife repeatedly calls with last-minute issues, demanding that he meet her at the home as soon as possible. After initially appearing insensitive, John eventually decides to help Carol, telling her that he "likes her" and that he also felt similar frustrations as a student. He takes the blame for her not understanding what he is talking about and agrees to give her an "A" if she''ll return to his office several more times to discuss the material. At one heated point in the discussion he goes to put his hand on her shoulder to comfort her, but she violently shakes it off. Finally, Carol has warmed to John and is on the verge of divulging a secret when the phone rings again and John''s wife tells him that the realtor problems were all a scheme to get him back to the house for a surprise reception in his honor. He departs for home immediately. Carol is back in John''s office, but more poised than before. John''s tenure is threatened because Carol has filed a formal complaint with the committee, accusing him of being sexist and pornographic. His hand on her shoulder is described as sexual harassment. John hopes to resolve the matter privately with Carol so that the complaint may be withdrawn from the tenure committee. He tries to understand how his actions could have offended her so and attempts to convince her that he was only trying to help her without any ulterior motive. Carol will not hear any of his pleas and gets ready to leave. As she does, John stands in front of the door and grabs hold of her. Carol screams for help. John has been dismissed and is packing up his office. He has not been home, staying at a hotel for two days trying to work out in his head what has happened. He has asked Carol to speak to him once more and she has obliged. Carol is even more forceful to name her instructor''s flaws. She finds it hypocritical that a college professor could question the very system that offers him employment and gives him an academic platform to expound his views. She also makes references to "her group", which she is speaking for and which seems to be working to oust teachers like John. In passing, John mentions that he has not been home recently. Carol reveals that if he had, he would have learned that her charges against him now amount to attempted rape. She then says she would be willing to drop her charges if John would agree to her group''s list of books to be removed from the university, which includes his own. With this, John decides to take a stand. He is willing to sacrifice his career to stand up to her assault on academic freedom. He angrily tells her to leave his office as his phone rings again. It is his wife, whom he calls "baby." Carol tells him not to refer his wife that way, causing John to snap. He savagely beats her and holds a chair above his head as she cowers on the floor. The play ends with Carol cryptically saying, "That''s right."

Oleanna

The main story of He, She and It is situated in North America in the near future of the year 2059. At that time, the economic and political power is held by few multis -- huge multi-national enterprises with their own social hierarchy that have produced an affluent society. The main part of the population, however, lives in the glop outside of the multis'' enclaves within an environment that has mainly been destroyed. Here, the life is dominated by poverty, gangs and the law of the stronger man. An exception from this are the so called free towns that are able to sell their technologies to the multis but remain autonomous. Communication is handled via a network which allows the participants to project themselves into Cyberspace. When the protagonist Shira loses custody of her son Ari to her ex-husband Josh, she returns from her multi Yakamura-Stichen (Y-S) to her hometown Tikva (Hope in Hebrew) - a Jewish freetown. There, she starts working on the socialization of the cyborg Yod (the tenth letter in Hebrew and a symbol for God in Kabbalah), who has been created illegally by Avram to protect the city. Yod is the tenth cyborg (a robot with human appearance and programmed human characteristics) in a row of previously failed experiments whose programming has partially been completed by Malkah, Shira''s grandmother. While Shira and Yod build up a (sexual) relationship, Shira''s childhood sweetheart Gadi, Avram''s son, also comes back to Tikva. Gadi returns due to his banishment for sleeping with a young girl. When Malkah is working on a chimeara (security software) to protect the city from online attack, she is attacked by Y-S. Yod, however, is able to prevent the attack. Eventually, Y-S invites Shira to a new hearing concerning the custody of her son. Shira is accompanied by Yod, her mother Riva, and Nili, a biotechnologically enhanced woman from a nuclear-devastated Palestine, when the situation escalates. The Y-S delegation and Riva die in the fight. Thereupon Shira, Malkah and Yod decide to infiltrate the Y-S network base. They manage to get hold of personnel files revealing a conspiracy against Shira and Tikva. As next step, Shira and Yod are accompanied by Nili and Gadi into the Glop. Here, they get in contact with an organized underground group in which they discover Riva still alive and participating in resistance activities. From the Glop they travel into the Y-S enclave in Nebraska to kidnap Ari. There, Josh is killed by Yod. Back to Tikva, Shira''s family spends some quiet time until Y-S invites them to a further meeting in the net. Y-S demands that Yod be handed over, for Y-S to acquire its technology. Avram agrees to the deal with the hope of creating another cyborg. So, Yod agrees to destroy him/itself when sent to the enclave. However, Yod made sure that his own explosion would cause a synchronous explosion in Avram''s lab. As Avram dies in this accident and all his notes are destroyed the creation of a further cyborg becomes impossible. Finally, Malkah leaves Tikva with Nili to visit to a secret town in post-nuclear holocaust Israel and to profit from the possible biotechnological enhancements. Shira is integrated into Tikva''s society further. When she discovers copies of the notes concerning Yod, she initially plans on recreating Yod; ultimately she respects Yod''s wishes and destroys them. The main plot is interwoven with a story Malkah tells Yod that deals with Rabbi Judah Loew who Malkah depicts as her ancestor living in the ghetto of Prague around 1600. To protect the Jewish community from the Christian mob, Loew uses the knowledge of Kabbalah to create the golem Joseph from clay. His granddaughter Chava, a very educated woman, teaches Joseph to read and to write. Joseph successfully protects the ghetto and begins to think of himself as human and makes a plea for his right to a human existence. However, when the pogrom climate calms down, Loew returns Joseph to clay. The two stories are mutually illuminating, both asking what it means to be human both from the perspective of the man-made life and that of those who love the artificial lives.

He, She and It

Translated into several languages, most editions of Pedagogy of the Oppressed contain at least one introduction/foreword, a preface, and four chapters. The first chapter explores how oppression has been justified and how it is overcome through a mutual process between the "oppressor" and the "oppressed" (oppressors-oppressed distinction). Examining how the balance of power between the colonizer and the colonized remains relatively stable, Freire admits that the powerless in society can be frightened of freedom. He writes, "Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal located outside of man; nor is it an idea which becomes myth. It is rather the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion". (47) According to Freire, freedom will be the result of praxis — informed action — when a balance between theory and practice is achieved. The second chapter examines the "banking" approach to education — a metaphor used by Freire that suggests students are considered empty bank accounts that should remain open to deposits made by the teacher. Freire rejects the "banking" approach, claiming it results in the dehumanization of both the students and the teachers. In addition, he argues the banking approach stimulates oppressive attitudes and practices in society. Instead, Freire advocates for a more world-mediated, mutual approach to education that considers people incomplete. According to Freire, this "authentic" approach to education must allow people to be aware of their incompleteness and strive to be more fully human. This attempt to use education as a means of consciously shaping the person and the society is called conscientization, a term first coined by Freire in this book. The third chapter developed the use of the term limit-situation with regards to dimensions of human praxis. This is in line with the Alvaro Viera Pinto''s use of the word/idea in his "Consciencia Realidad Nacional" which Freire contends is "using the concept without the pessimistic character originally found in Jaspers" (Note 15, Chapter 3) in reference to Karl Jaspers''s notion of ''Grenzsituationen''. The last chapter proposes dialogics as an instrument to free the colonized, through the use of cooperation, unity, organization and cultural synthesis (overcoming problems in society to liberate human beings). This is in contrast to antidialogics which use conquest, manipulation, cultural invasion, and the concept of divide and rule. Freire suggests that populist dialogue is a necessity to revolution; that impeding dialogue dehumanizes and supports the status quo. This is but one example of the dichotomies Freire identifies in the book. Others include the student-teacher dichotomy and the colonizer-colonized dichotomy.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

In 1940s Mexico, an ex-minister, Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon, has been locked out of his church after characterizing the Occidental image of God as a "senile delinquent", during one of his sermons. Shannon is not de-frocked, but institutionalized for a "nervous breakdown". Some time after his release, Rev. Shannon obtains employment as a tour guide for a second-rate travel agency. Shortly before the opening of the play, Shannon is accused of having committed statutory rape of a sixteen-year old girl, named Charlotte Goodall, who is accompanying his current group of tourists. As the curtain rises, Shannon is arriving with a group of women at a cheap hotel on the coast of Mexico that had been managed by his friends Fred and Maxine Faulk. The former has recently died, and Maxine Faulk has assumed sole responsibility for managing the establishment. Struggling emotionally, Shannon tries to manage his tour party, who have turned against him for entering into sexual relations with the minor, and Maxine, who is interested in him for purely carnal reasons. Adding to this chaotic scenario, a spinster Hannah Jelkes appears with her moribund grandfather, Nonno, who, despite his failing, is composing his last poem. Jelkes, who scrapes by as traveling painter and sketch artist, is soon at Maxine''s mercy. Shannon, who wields considerable influence over Maxine, offers Hannah Jelkes shelter for the night. The play''s main axis is the development of the deeply human bond between Hannah Jelkes and Lawrence Shannon. Like the iguana, captured and tied to a pole by the Mexicans in the play, Hannah and they have come to the end of their rope. This metaphor is intensified when Shannon tears at his golden cross on his neck, lacerating himself, as if to free himself from its constraints. Minor characters in the play include: a) a group of German tourists whose Nazi marching songs paradoxically lighten the heavier themes of the play , but suggest the horrors of World War II , b) the Mexican "boys" Maxine employs to help run the hotel who ignore her laconic commands, and c) Judith Fellowes, the "butch" vocal teacher charged with Charlotte''s care during the trip. Fellowes is one of William''s few overtly lesbian characters.

The Night of the Iguana

Shortly after the end of World War II, Ruth Mendenberg is released from a death camp in Buchenwald, one of Hitler’s concentration camps,Ruth returns to her hometown in Poland and is quick to learn that both her home and her family are gone. Only being 15 years old, she has lost faith, and lives with the guilt of being the only one surviving from her family. She is received by a young man named Saul from Eretz Israel, who encourages recently liberated Jews travel towards relative freedom in Mandate Palestine along with other Jewish refugees. She is housed along with other recently liberated Jews, which include men and women of all ages. Although Ruth believes there is no hope, but agrees to travel with the refugees. The house is attacked by an angry mob after a child accuses some of the refugees of kidnapping and murdering some of the children in the village. She is forced to hide, until the soldiers quiet the mob, and shortly after is forced to flee, along with 20 children. It is her job to lead them safely through Czechoslovakia, Austria, Italy, and then to Mandate Palestine.

After the War

Precipitated by separate personal tragedies, two families flee their rural livings to share a "great continent of a house", Cloudstreet, in the Perth suburb of West Leederville. The two families are contrasts to each other; the Lambs find meaning in industry and in God’s grace; the Pickles, in luck. The Lambs’ God is a maker of miracles; the Pickles’ God is the ‘Shifty Shadow’ of fate. Though initially resistant to each other, their search and journey for meaning in life concludes with the uniting of the two families with many characters citing this as the most important aspect of their lives. As a novel, Cloudstreet is tightly structured, opening and ending with a shared celebratory family picnic - a joyous occasion which, ironically, is also the scene of Fish’s long sought-after death or return to the water. The novel is narrated effectively by flashback "in the seconds it takes to die" by Fish Lamb, or the ''spiritual'' omniscient Fish Lamb, free of his restricting retarded state. As such the novel gives a voice to social minorities, the Australian working class and the disabled. (However, its treatment of Fish Lamb as somebody incomplete in his physical existence may also be interpreted as demeaning towards the intellectually disabled, depending on the reading position adopted.)

Cloudstreet

Not so long ago a promising young short story writer, Billy Wiles has not even turned on his PC since his fiancée Barbara fell into a coma several years ago. Leading the life of a recluse who spends his spare time alone at home doing woodwork, he only leaves his secluded house when he goes to work as a bartender. An orphan, he only associates with few people, and he considers them acquaintances rather than friends. Wiles''s life takes a dramatic turn when he finds a piece of paper stuck to his windshield which contains an ultimatum (see book cover, below). He decides not to go to the police and to consult someone he knows who happens to be in the police force instead. Together, although not thoroughly convinced, the two men decide that the note must have been some sick joke. However, on the following day a cruel murder is reported which exactly fits the description given in advance by the alleged joker. Two more notes follow in quick succession, and only when they become increasingly personal does Wiles realize that he has not been chosen at random by the person he comes to think of as "the freak". For example, shortly after receiving a cryptic message saying Are you prepared for your first wound? he is physically assaulted by the mask-wearing killer. When Wiles recovers from the shock and the pain he realizes that the psychopath has driven three large fish hooks under the skin of his forehead. Acts of violence like the one depicted above lead the third person narrator to reflect on the society we live in: "Not long ago in the history of the world, routine daily violence&mdash;excluding the ravages of nations at war&mdash;had been largely personal in nature. Grudges, slights to honor, adultery, disputes over money triggered the murderous impulse. :"In the modern world, more in the postmodern, most of all in the post-postmodern, much violence had become impersonal. Terrorists, street gangs, lone sociopaths, sociopaths in groups and pledged to a utopian vision killed people they did not know, against whom they had no realistic complaint, for the purpose of attracting attention, making a statement, intimidation, or even just for the thrill of it. :"The freak, whether known or unknown to Billy, was a daunting adversary. Judging by all evidence, he was bold but not reckless, psychopathic but self-controlled, clever, ingenious, cunning, with a baroque and Machiavellian mind. :"By contrast, Billy Wiles made his way in the world as plainly and directly as he could. His mind was not baroque. His desires were not complex. He only hoped to live, and lived on guarded hope." (Chapter 14) Although Wiles does check on each of the few acquaintances he has, he cannot at first decide which of them, if any, might be the freak. Eventually he focuses his attention on Steve Zillis, one of his workmates. However, it soon turns out that Zillis has a watertight alibi for the time when some of the crimes were committed, and Wiles ends up none the wiser. Wiles has very clear reasons for not involving the police. Right from the beginning of his nightmarish adventure, he has a hunch that circumstantial evidence, possibly planted by the killer, would turn him into the prime suspect: In the eyes of the police, he would be the perpetrator rather than one of the victims. Also, as more murders are committed, he realizes that he might endanger Barbara&#39;s life. In the end Wiles finds out that the psychopath sees his crimes as a work of art rather than, say, a game (cf. for example Gentlemen & Players). He discovers that the freak is the artist, Valis, and confronts him. After a short discussion, Billy sprays Valis with Mace and shoots him dead. Returning home, Billy mistakenly assumes that he and Barbara are safe; however, when he replays the video camera, he sees Zillis in his house, and realises that Valis and Zillis were working together. He manages to catch up with Zillis before he can kill Barbara, and after driving him out into the country, kills Zillis. The book ends with Billy (now called Bill) caring for Barbara in his own home. At the very end of the book, Barbara&#39;s eyes open and she comments on a flock of Barn Swallows flying past. While her eyes close again, the ending seems promising for her imminent recovery.

Velocity

The Hardy Boys come to France for a vacation. When the brothers spot The Gray Man in Manhattan, they learn about an investigation he is working on regarding a terrorist organization in France. While the Gray Man does not want the brothers involved because they are too young and the case is too dangerous, the Hardys secretly work to get themselves in the center of the investigation and soon they find themselves undercover in France as a couple of gun dealers who are into the punk rock scene, complete with dyed hair and grungy clothes. They get caught up in a company called Renyard and Company, which secretly sells guns and other illegal things to people. They are almost killed in a machine when a lady known as Denise helps them escape. The book has an interesting storyline in which almost everybody is betraying each other - Renyard and Company, Denise and many other people. The Hardy Boys are also captured by the French special police known as the Sûreté. They eventually escape by beating everybody up. Soon when the book is about to end, they are chased by the Chairman of Renyard & Company and his other partners. The people try to kill them but Denise saves them at the right moment. The case is then solved by the Hardy Boys and they return back to USA.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Storyteller

By Mario Vargas Llosa

The Loch

By Steve Alten

The Rogue

By Trudi Canavan

Aunts Aren't Gentlemen

By P. G. Wodehouse

Oleanna

By David Mamet

He, She and It

By Marge Piercy

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

By Paulo Freire

The Night of the Iguana

By Tennessee Williams

After the War

By Carol Matas

Cloudstreet

By Tim Winton

Velocity

By Dean Koontz

Evil, Inc.

By Franklin W. Dixon