At the beginning of the novel, Italian lawyer Guido Guerrieri splits from his wife and somewhat loses track of his life. He moves into a flat where he knows no one, drinks a bit, and generally doesn''t take very good care of himself. Then he gets involved in a controversial trial. Abdou Thiam, a Senegalese immigrant who sells fake handbags on the beaches of Bari has been accused of the kidnap and murder of a young Italian boy. A witness claims he saw him in the area, though Thiam, who has been seen several times in the company of the boy, denies it. When searched, Thiam is found to have possession of a photograph of the boy, though he claims they were good friends, and that the boy gave it to him. Thiam is arrested for the crime and bound over for trial. A friend of Thiam approaches Guido Guerrieri and asks him if he will represent the African, and he accepts. Initially Guido wants to opt for the shortened procedure, whereby the prosecution evidence is shown only to a judge, with no questioning or trial. The result will be a certain conviction, though a reduced sentence for opting for the abbreviated, less time-consuming procedure. Thiam protests his innocence, and initially gives up hope, before a suicide attempt in his cell. A short or long sentence, either will be the end of him for the crime of killing a child. So, Guido is open to the possibility of the longer process, with witnesses and a jury. The sentence will be permanent, but there is at least a chance of acquittal, even though it is very slim. Thiam agrees, and the trial begins. it:Testimone inconsapevole pl:Świadek mimo woli (powieść)

Involuntary Witness

Firebird is the third daughter of the Queen of Naetai and a military pilot. Because she is a wastling, an unwanted heir to the throne, she is considered expendable. Leading her tagwing fighter group of wastlings on a suicide mission as part of a venture to capture a Federate world outpost, she is captured by Federate colonel Brennen Caldwell, a telepathic intelligence officer seeking to capture an enemy fighter for interrogation. She attempts honorable suicide by poison for her failure, but Caldwell thwarts her medically. Under telepathic duress, her military and political knowledge is used by Caldwell to save the Federate outpost. Firebird begins to see the dishonorable tactics of her mother''s government for what they are. Caldwell, in addition to being the most powerful Ehretan telepath of his generation, is the most senior telepath in a government that mistrusts them for their abilities. In addition to the government''s mistrust of his people, Caldwell is questioned by his own people for his deep connection with Firebird. In her, he sensed a strong possibility of connaturality, a deep personality congruity that is essential for telepaths to have a successful relationship in marriage. Among his people there is a strong belief that, as the strongest telepath among them he should not marry outside his people, diluting the genes that allow their telepathy. Caldwell rejects his people''s attitudes towards non Ehretans and continues his growing friendship with his prisoner, offering life and a future to one who believed herself as good as dead. Following Netaia''s failure on Veroh, the queen is forced to honerable suicide and Firebird''s sister Carradee ascends the throne. Caldwell is assigned to Naetai as the Federate representative and brings Firebird with him. While Carradee favors a conciliatory posture with the Federacy, their other sister, Phoena, secretly plots the overthrow of Federate occupation along with members of the nobility, by secretly building an ecological weapon of great power. After several political and military dangers are overcome by Caldwell and Firebird, they ignore his orders and carry out a special ops mission to destroy Phoena''s research lab. Once all is settled, Firebird and Caldwell accept their relationship (over the continued objection) of his people and become engaged. Firebird is a military pilot assigned to a risky venture to capture a Federate world outpost. Because she is a wastling, she is considered expendable. Leading her tagwing fighter group, she is captured by Federate colonel Brennen Caldwell, a telepath who senses something special about her. She attempts honorable suicide by poison for her failure, but Caldwell thwarts her medically. Under duress, her military knowledge is used by Caldwell to save the Federate outpost. Firebird begins to see the dishonorable tactics of her people for what they are. Caldwell, in addition to being the most powerful Ehretan telepath of his generation, is also heir to religious prophecies among his people, and the most senior telepath in a government that mistrusts them for their abilities. Caldwell is promoted to general for his victory in the Veroh battle, as well as his diplomacy with the captured Firebird. In her, he sensed a strong possibility of connaturality, a deep personality congruity that is essential for telepaths to be married. As he has strong convictions against marrying outside his faith, and being barred from proselytizing, much of the book revolves around Caldwell trying to bridge the gap to Firebird by demonstrating the goodness of his spirit to her, offering life and hope to one who believed herself as good as dead. Following Netaia''s failure on Veroh, Firebird''s sister Carradee ascends the throne after their mother is forced to honorable suicide. She favors a conciliatory posture with the Federacy. Their other sister, Phoena, secretly plots the overthrow of Federate occupation along with members of the nobility, by secretly building an ecological weapon of great power. After several political and military dangers are overcome by Caldwell and Firebird, they ignore his orders and carry out a special ops mission to destroy Phoena''s research lab. During the climactic battle, when Caldwell has been incapacitated and his telepathic powers are not available, Firebird casts her faith to the Great Speaker who sung the universe into existence, and strengthened by this, overcomes great odds to successfully neutralize the weapon. The religious differences thus settled, the story ends with Caldwell proposing pair bonding (marriage) to Firebird.

Firebird

The series revolves around Seregil, a spy, and Alec, his apprentice and soon-to-be partner. The series takes place in a fictional country, Skala, described similarly to medieval Europe. Seregil stumbles into the rescue of Alec, a poor, orphaned hunter. After hiring Alec to guide him through the Northern Lands, Seregil notes Alec’s quick learning ability and fast hands, and offers him a job as his apprentice. Alec, though wary of Seregil at first due to a distressing amount of secrecy and suspicion that he’s becoming a thief or spy, accepts the offer. They fall into a mystery that involves the fast deterioration of Seregil’s mind and sanity, and Alec must find a way to save his new teacher and friend. Alec manages to deliver Seregil into the hands of Nysander, a wizard of Skala, but the mystery seems to only deepen. At the same time, a traitorous plot against the Queen seems to be unfolding, and Seregil must solve it quickly; before he is found guilty of treason himself. The seemingly harmless wooden disc that nearly caused Seregil’s death and loss of sanity in Luck in the Shadows is revealed to be part of a broken, evil, helm belonging to the ‘Eater of Death’, a forsaken god named Seriamaius. A plan to retrieve all the pieces of the helm is attempted by a Plenimarine, Mardus, who wishes to use it to conquer Skala and Mycena and rule over the three lands. A prophecy long foretold takes place, and Seregil has to kill his mentor, Nysander, in order to destroy the helm. In the last paragraphs of the book, Seregil and Alec admit their feelings for one another. Seregil and Alec are sent to Aurënen, Seregil’s homeland, with Princess Klia, in a Skalan delegation to ask for open ports, warriors and supplies in the deepening war between Skala and Plenimar, but the attempted murder of the Princess means trouble. Seregil and Alec must unravel the mystery before all chance of a treaty is ruined. At the same time, Seregil must readjust himself to the country he was exiled from more than thirty years previously. A collection of short stories including the story of how Seregil, Nysander, and Micum all meet. Seregil and Alec are kidnapped by Zengati slavetraders, and bought by a Plenimarine alchemist. Using Alec’s unique blood as a half-northerner, half-hâzadriëlfaie, the alchemist intends to create a creature called a rhekaro, who appears to be a young child, and yet is most definitely not human at all. Seregil eventually helps Alec and Sebrahn escape, coming to terms with his own past as he reunites with an old lover and enemy. Having escaped death and slavery in Plenimar, Seregil and Alec want nothing more than to go back to their nightrunning life in Rhíminee. Instead they find themselves saddled with Sebrahn, a strange, alchemically created creature - the prophesied "child of no woman." It''s moon-white skin and frightening powers make it a danger to all whom Seregil and Alec come into contact with, leaving them no choice but to learn more about Sebrahn''s true nature. But what then? With the help of old friends and Seregil''s clan, the pair sets out to discover the truth about this living homunculus - a journey that can lead only to danger... or death. For Seregil''s old nemesis Ulan í Sathil of Virèsse and Alec''s own long-lost kin (Hâzadrielfaie) are after them, intent on possessing both Sebrahn and Alec. On the run and hunted, Alec and his friends must fight against time to accomplish their most personal mission ever. More than the dissolute noblemen they appear to be, Alec and Seregil are skillful spies, dedicated to serving queen and country. But when they stumble across evidence of a plot pitting Queen Phoria against Princess Klia, the two Nightrunners will find their loyalties torn as never before. Even at the best of times, the royal court at Rhíminee is a serpents'' nest of intrigue, but with the war against Plenimar going badly, treason simmers just below the surface. And that''s not all that poses a threat: A mysterious plague is spreading through the crowded streets of the city, striking young and old alike. Now, as panic mounts and the body count rises, hidden secrets emerge. And as Seregil and Alec are about to learn, conspiracies and plagues have one thing in common: The cure can be as deadly as the disease.

The Nightrunner Series and The Tamír Triad

Kristien, the narrator, is a white academic who goes back to South Africa to visit her grandmother after an attack by black youths on the old lady which leaves her tied to bed. Before she dies, she wishes to tell Kristien the story of their Afrikaner family, a task which grandmother and granddaughter find very important. Memories of Kristiens past in London show that her life has been aimless until now; she has been passive towards things that happen to her, simply fulfilling the need to be away from South Africa and her parents (who had, during their lifetime, supported apartheid). Giving up her self-imposed exile is, at first, a resignation to Kristien, but gradually she learns that the country of her birth is changing towards the better. The first democratic elections are close, and through meetings with black and white people and the stories her grandmother tells her about their family''s origins, which show almost only the female side of events and go back to a black foremother, Kristien learns to see South Africa as her home country. In the night before the elections, Kristiens sister kills her children, her violent, racist husband and herself to escape a life she can no longer bear to live. In the same night, the grandmother dies from the aftermath of the attack. Nevertheless, Kristien is optimistic about her future in South Africa. The family farm goes to the family of the black domestic worker.

Imaginings of Sand

The Seven Storey Mountain is an autobiography which reflects on the life of Thomas Merton and his quest for his faith in God leading to his conversion to Roman Catholicism at age 23. Subsequently he left behind a promising literary career and resigned as a teacher of English literature at St. Bonaventure College in Olean, New York, and entered The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in rural Kentucky on December 10, 1941, a moment which he described in the book: "...So Brother Matthew locked the gate behind me, and I was enclosed in the four walls of my new freedom." Later, Dom Frederic Dunne, the abbot at the abbey, who had received him as novice, suggested that Merton write out his life story, which he reluctantly began, but once he did, it started "pouring out". Soon he was filling up his journals with the work which led to the book which TIME later ascribed for having, "...redefined the image of monasticism and made the concept of saintliness accessible to moderns." In Merton''s journals, the first entry mentioning the project is dated March 1, 1946, but many scholars suspect he started writing it earlier than that because the draft (more than 600 pages) reached Naomi Burton Stone by October 21, 1946. In late 1946, the partly approved text of The Seven Storey Mountain was sent to Naomi Burton, his agent at Curtis Brown literary agency, who then forwarded it to the noted book editor, Robert Giroux at Harcourt Brace publishers. Giroux read it overnight, and the next day phoned Naomi with an offer, who accepted it on the monastery''s behalf. With Merton having taken a vow of poverty, all the royalties were to go to the abbey community. Though soon a trouble arose, when an elderly censor from another abbey objected to Merton''s colloquial prose style, which he found inappropriate for a monk. Merton appealed (in French) to the Abbot General in France, who concluded that an author''s style was a personal matter, and subsequently the local censor also reversed his opinion, paving way for book''s publication. Edward Rice, a close friend of Merton''s since their college days together at Columbia, suggests a different story behind the censorship issues. Rice believes the censor''s comments did have an effect on the book. The censors were not primary concerned with Merton''s prose style, but rather the content of his thoughts in the autobiography. It was "too frank" for the public to handle. What was published was a "castrated" version of the original manuscript. At the time Rice published his opinion, he was unable to provide any proof, however, since then early drafts of the autobiography have surfaced and prove that parts of the manuscript were either deleted or changed. In the introduction to the 50th anniversary copy of the autobiography, Giroux acknowledges these changes and provides the original first paragraph of Merton''s autobiography. Originally, it began "When a man is conceived, when a human nature comes into being as an individual, concrete, subsisting thing, a life, a person, then God''s image is minted into the world. A free, vital, self-moving entity, a spirit informing flesh, a complex of energies ready to be set into fruitful motion begins to flame with love, without which no spirit can exist..." The published autobiography begins with "On the last day of January 1915, under the sign of the Water Bearer, in a year of a great war, and down in the shadow of some French Mountains on the borders of Spain, I came into the world." In the summer of 1948, advance proofs were sent to Evelyn Waugh, Clare Boothe Luce, Graham Greene and Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. All responded with compliments and quotations which were used on the book jacket and in some advertisements and the first printing run was increased from 5,000 to 12,500. Thus the book was out in October 1948 and by December it had sold 31,028 copies was declared a bestseller by TIME. The New York Times, however, initially refused to put it on the weekly Best Sellers list, on the grounds that it was "a religious book". In response, Harcourt Brace placed a large advertisement in the New York Times calling attention to the newspaper''s decision. The following week, The Seven Storey Mountain appeared in the bestseller''s list, where it remained for almost a year.

The Seven Storey Mountain

Billy Bunch is an orphan who has had many foster families, but none of them have worked out. He is currently living with a foster mother in the suburbs of a city. They don''t get on well, and at school Billy is not good at subjects, especially English (he cannot read out loud because he has a stutter). One night, Billy tries to run away, and runs into the nearby abandoned land where there are the ruins of a monastery. There is plentiful wildlife living in this place that everyone calls "The Waste Ground". Billy fathers four orphaned foxes and develops a relationship with a swan, too. However Billy''s secret place is found out and the fox family is gassed by the local council. But one survives Billy decides that his life is becoming a little better - he has found some animal friends and has lost his stutter. He returns to his foster home, but this doesn''t last, and eventually he runs away with one of the young foxes (the other three were gassed by the local council), and goes on many adventures. At the end he lets the swan fly away freely. On these adventures, he meets a man who has a boat and cares for all the birds around the river. The man says that Billy can stay with him on his boat as they are going in the same direction. Eventually, Billy shoots above the foxes head and the fox runs away, never to return. Billy and the man then return to his home, where is adopted by the man and his wife.

Little Foxes

The nuclear war between Nazi Germany and the Race ends with a German surrender after Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the Führer, is killed and replaced by Walter Dornberger. Dornberger agrees to disband the Axis Forces, withdraw German troops from occupied France, and disband the German rocket and nuclear forces. The German withdrawal results in instability in the governments of its allies, such as the British Union of Fascists in Britain, as well as clashes between the Free French Forces and the new government of liberated France, and radioactive drift into the Soviet Union. However, Dornberger secretly begins stockpiling weapons and missile parts, allowing Germany the option to rearm itself in the future. Meanwhile, the nuclear attack on the Race''s colony fleet from Second Contact is finally revealed: it was an American attack, ordered by Earl Warren. When it is revealed, Fleetlord Atvar gives Warren a choice: dismantle the American space program, or allow the Race to nuke Indianapolis for revenge. To the surprise of all, Warren allows the Race to destroy Indianapolis, and then commits suicide, with Vice President Harold Stassen taking over. It is eventually stated that the reason Warren allowed the city to be destroyed over the space program was that the Americans were working on a starship that would allow them to journey to the Race''s homeworld and repay their visit to Earth. During this time, the Race itself undergoes large social unrest, due to the effects of ginger on their females. Drug addiction, the black market, and prostitution all arise from it, along with a reproductive system that is unregulated, much like that of humans.

Colonization: Aftershocks

The story''s protagonist is Jud Elliott III, a failed Harvard history masters student in 2059. Bored with his job as a law clerk, he takes up a position with the Time Service as a Time Courier. After an introductory course, Jud shunts up and down the time line ("up the line" is travel into the past; "down the line" is forward time travel, but only to "now-time," Jud''s present of 2059) as a guide for tourists visiting ancient and medieval Byzantium/Constantinople. Jud''s problems include not only stupid tourists, but also greedy and mentally unstable colleagues who attempt to cause various types of havoc with the past. He is forced to break the rules in order to patch things up without drawing the attention of the Time Patrol. When he meets and falls in love with the ''marvelous transtemporal paradox called Pulcheria'' - his own multi-great grandmother - Jud succumbs to the lure of the past, creates irreparable paradoxes, and faces the inescapable clutches of the Time Patrol. Silverberg''s narrative includes some cleverly worked out details about the problems of time-travel tourism. For example, the number of tourists who over the years wish to witness the Sermon on the Mount has increased the audience at the event from the likely dozens to hundreds and even thousands. Time-tour guides re-visiting the same event must also take care not to scan their surroundings too closely, lest they make eye contact with themselves leading another tour party. Silverberg''s interest in the Byzantine era of Roman history is put to use with a vivid description of Constantinople during the reign of Justinian, and the Nika riots of 532.

Up the Line

The protagonist is Tootle, who is a baby locomotive who is attending train school, hoping to grow up to be the Flyer on the New York-Chicago route. His schoolwork involves such tasks as stopping at red flags and pulling a dining car without spilling the soup. Most important, however, is that he must stay on the rails no matter what...Bill his good friend and teacher tells Tootle that trains are not professional unless they get 100 A+ on staying on the rails no mater what. One day when Tootle is practicing the rule a horse challenges him to a race to the river. Tootle goes faster but loses his race lead to the horse when he turns a curve so he gets off the tracks and ties with the horse. In the days that follow Tootle becomes fond of playing in the meadow and not staying on the tracks and Bill quickly discovers what Tootle has been doing. Not wanting to take away the offer of being a flyer Bill decides a plan with the mayor to put Tootle back on the tracks. One day when Tootle is driving the railroad he hops off the tracks to play in the meadow but sees red flags everywhere in the grasses and he is upset due to having to stop at red flags; trains hate nothing more than stopping. Tootle then sees Bill with a green flag over the railings and having learned his lesson gets back on the track and says that playing in the meadow only brings red flags to trains. In response to the lesson learned the town cheers for him and rewards Tootle the flyer of the route to Chicago. In the days that follow when Tootle becomes elderly he teaches some new locomotives some advice including "Stay on the rails no matter what."

Tootle

The book begins in 70 AD in Jerusalem during the siege of the city by the Romans just prior to the destruction of the Second Temple. Abraham, a Jewish scribe, his wife and two sons live in Jerusalem and have survived the siege. On the day when the Romans breach the city walls and set fire to the Second Temple, Abraham and his family successfully escape Jerusalem only to be stopped by a Roman platoon. The Roman soldiers incapacitate Abraham and rape and murder his wife. Abraham and his sons are later freed, but he is forced to surrender his scrolls to a Roman commander. At this point, Abraham begins a scroll that documents his family''s journeys (the so-called "Book of Abraham", around which the story revolves) and lists his sons and their descendants. Each successive generation after Abraham dies adds on to the Book of Abraham, which continues to the point when the original scroll is lost and to the end of the book when Marek Halter''s grandfather dies during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. From Jerusalem, the family moves, over the course of nearly 2000 years, to cities such as Carthage, Hippo, Rome, Toledo, Cordoba, Narbonne, Troyes, Strasbourg, Constantinople, Amsterdam, Lublin, Odessa, and Warsaw. In both the fictional and factual parts of the book, the story coincides with many notable historical events, including the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Islamic conquests, the Inquisition, the Black Plague, the French Revolution, and World War II, as well as telling the story from the point of view of the Jews during the early to late Middle Ages, Renaissance, Industrial Revolution, and the early Twentieth century (i.e., showing the segregation and hardships faced by the Jews after their expulsion from Palestine).

The Book of Abraham

The book begins with the impact of genetic engineering. For 200 years modern humans morphed the genetics of other humans to create genetically-altered creatures. The aquamorphs and aquatics are marine humans with gills instead of lungs. One species - the vacuumorph - has been engineered for life in the vacuum of space. Its skin and eyes carry shields of skin to keep its body stable even without pressure. Civilization eventually collapses, with a few select humans escaping to colonize space. The humans that manufactured these species degrade to simple farmers and following a magnetic reversal, were driven to extinction. Other humans, the Hitek, become almost totally dependent on cybernetic technology. With Magnetic reversal imminent, the Hitek built genetically altered humans to occupy niches: Genetically-altered humans include a temperate woodland species, a prairie species, a jungle species, and a tundra-dwelling species. Since then the genetically-altered humans must face a new phenomenon. They can no longer be genetically tweaked in a lab, so all modifications must naturally evolve. Many new forms resulted from natural selection. Socials, colonial humans with a single reproductive parent, Fishers, otter-like fishing humans, Slothman sloth-like humans, Spiketeeth, saber-toothed predatory humans, and even parasitic humans developed through natural changes. After five million years of uninterrupted evolution, the descendants of modern man that retreated into space returned. Then the world changed dramatically. Earth was xenoformed and covered in vast alien cities. The humans and other life forms in this new Earth must breathe air with low oxygen content. Thus the alien invaders use cyborg-technology to fuse the bodies of the few human species they find useful on the planet with air tanks and respiration systems. Genetic modification also returned and giant building humans and tiny connection humans were bred to aid city construction. Genetically created horse-like men serve as mounts for the invaders. Some engineered human species even became farmed like pigs or cattle. As with all civilization, this new era of man fell apart once again. Eventually the spacefaring humans left, the Earth was left in ruins. With barely any oxygen left in the Earth''s atmosphere, all terrestrial life on the planet perished. At the bottom of the world''s oceans, at the oases that were the underwater hot springs, life continues. In the abyss, was Piscanthropus profundus, a deep-sea descendant of the now-extinct Aquatic evolved. It is implied that Piscathropus profundis would eventually recolonize Earth''s surface.

Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future

The story takes place in Whitby and concerns the evil sorcerer Reverend Obadiah Demurral who is seeking two powerful amulets, called the Keruvim, which he plans to use to control the elements and dominate the world. At the start of the book he purchases the first Keruvim (which takes the form of a golden statuette of a cherub) from an Ethiopian mercenary named Gebra Nubera. He then uses the Keruvim to destroy a ship upon which the next Keruvim is prophesied to arrive, but when he surveys the wreckage he finds nothing. The next day an Ethiopian boy named Raphah arrives searching for the Keruvim. He befriends the main character, an urchin named Thomas and reveals that he is a messenger from God (referred to as Riathamus here), and that Demurral is a Shadowmancer, a sorcerer who can control the dead. Despite not believing in God, Thomas agrees to assist Raphah in regaining the Keruvim because he wants revenge on Demurral for evicting him and his dying mother from their home. They pursue Demurral and the Keruvim with the assistance of Thomas''s tomboy friend Kate and the mysterious smuggler, Jacob Crane. During the story, Thomas, Kate and Jacob Crane, who all for their own individual reasons did not believe in God, do come to believe in him. Eventually it is revealed that, in using the Keruvim, Demurral has unleashed a demonic race called the Glashan who were imprisoned at the dawn of time for rebelling against God. Led by the evil Pyratheon (the Devil), they join forces with Demurral so that they can find the other Keruvim and harness its power to overthrow God and rule the universe. It is eventually revealed that Raphah is the other Keruvim, so Demurral and Pyratheon try to capture him, so that they can kill him and turn him into an Azimuth (a slave spirit) in order to activate the Keruvim''s full power. At the climax of the story Thomas, Kate and Raphah meet an angel referred to as a Seruvim (a play on the word Seraphim) named Raphael, who goes by the alias Abram Rickards. A showdown takes place in Demurral''s church during which Raphah is killed and Pyratheon obtains the Keruvim. He recites the incantation to activate its power and the world is temporarily plunged into night. Pyratheon thinks he has succeeded in stealing the power of God and gloats. However Abram then reveals that while Raphah is dead it has no power and all Pyratheon has done is meddle with time. After Abram restores life to Raphah, the sun rises, Abram is revealed in his true form and Pyratheon and Demurral flee. Abram tells Thomas, Kate and Jacob Crane to take the Keruvim away to another land so they leave aboard Crane''s ship, The Magenta. However, in the closing page of the book it is revealed that they are being stealthily pursued by sea-demons known as Seloth.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Involuntary Witness

By Gianrico Carofiglio

Firebird

No Author Listed

The Nightrunner Series and The Tamír Triad

No Author Listed

Imaginings of Sand

No Author Listed

The Seven Storey Mountain

By Thomas Merton

Little Foxes

No Author Listed

Colonization: Aftershocks

By Harry Turtledove

Up the Line

By Robert Silverberg

Tootle

By Gertrude Crampton

The Book of Abraham

By Marek Halter

Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future

No Author Listed

Shadowmancer

By Graham Taylor