Every day from Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve, each family''s scout elf watches over the children and then at night, once everyone goes to bed, the elf flies back to the North Pole to report back to Santa about what activities, good and bad, took place throughout the day. Before the family wakes up each morning, the scout elf flies back from the North Pole and hides. By hiding in a new spot each morning around the house, the scout elf and the family play an on-going game of hide and seek. The Elf on the Shelf explains that elves get their magic by being named. In the back of each book, families have an opportunity to write their elf''s name and the date that they adopted it. Once the elf is named, the scout elf receives its special Christmas magic which allows it to fly to and from the North Pole. However, the magic might go if touched, so the rule for The Elf on the Shelf states: "There''s only one rule that you have to follow so I will come back and be here tomorrow: Please do not touch me. My magic might go, and Santa won''t hear all I''ve seen or I know." Although families aren''t supposed to touch their scout elf, they can talk to it and tell it all their Christmas wishes so it can report back to Santa accurately.

The Elf on the Shelf

Pella Marsh is the only daughter and eldest child in a family that is leaving behind New York, in a near-future where the Earth has sustained severe damage from climate change. Before they can leave, Caitlin, Pella''s mother, dies of a brain tumour, leaving Clement, her ineffectual father, to try to care for Pella and her brothers, Raymond and David. After twenty months of cryogenic suspended animation, the Marshs reach the Planet of the Archbuilders. This oceanless planet is inhabited by an advanced alien species known only as the Archbuilders, who are hermaphrodites. They built the complex and beautiful arch-like structures that dominate the terrain, terraformed their planet to provide a controlled climate, and used bioengineering to create several varieties of readily grown "potatoes" for a constant food supply. The Archbuilders themselves are furry and scaled creatures, with frond-like tentacles. There are also small, nearly invisible animals called "household deer," which inhabit most every corner of the region without much obvious impact. Despite their apparent lack of high technology, the Archbuilders are skilled communicators, and have twenty thousand indigenous languages on their world. They also rarely give birth, implying considerable longevity. Like the other colonists, Pella is instructed to take acclimatisation pills, ostensibly to ward off indigenous Archbuilder viruses, but, because of her father''s new plans for the humans in living with the world, she does not take them -- much to the chagrin of the enigmatic resident Efram Nugent. After some time, rather like Ethan Edwards and Debbie in The Searchers (1956), Efram and Pella develop a love/hate relationship as she resists his misanthropic and speciesist attitudes toward both his fellow colonists and the Archbuilders. After she has decided to stop acclimatisation, she discovers that she has a rapport with the Archbuilders, and becomes increasingly influenced by their culture, civilisation and ecology, "going native". Her brother David and fellow child Morris Grant are similarly affected, as is the infant Melissa Richmond-Concorse. The four of them discover that one side-effect of adaptation to their new environment allows them to inhabit the bodies of the household deer temporarily. Ultimately, other colonists either leave the planet (like the Kincaids, after a mistaken child sexual abuse incident); die, like Efram Nugent (shot); or become similarly absorbed by Archbuilder culture. The latter are transformed into semi-nomads who dwell in the ruins of their former houses, as apparent entropy consumes their abortive colony - like Pella, David, Morris, Raymond and Doug. As for the Archbuilders, Truth Renowned dies in the fire that destroys Hugh Merrow''s abandoned house and art studio, and Hiding Kneel is injured after Efram imprisons it in a shed. However, their community survives as a cohesive group, belying human perceptions of their alleged weakness and ''decay'' of their civilisation and culture.

Girl in Landscape

The narrator of the story, a somewhat naive American admirer of English novelist Mark Ambient, visits the writer at his home in Surrey. The narrator is very enthusiastic about Ambient''s work, especially his latest novel Beltraffio. He meets Ambient''s beautiful but chilly wife, his sickly seven-year-old son Dolcino, and his strange sister Gwendolyn. He also learns that Ambient''s wife strongly dislikes her husband''s novels and considers them corrupt and pagan. Dolcino eventually becomes much more ill. In order to "protect" him from what she sees as the baleful influence of his father, Ambient''s wife withholds the boy''s medicine. Dolcino dies, and the details of his mother''s conduct are told to the narrator by Gwendolyn. The mother, grief-stricken over her role in Dolcino''s final illness, dies herself after a few months. In a grimly ironic note to conclude the story, the narrator says Ambient later revealed that his wife had become partially reconciled to his novels and even read Beltraffio in the weeks before her death.

The Author of Beltraffio

The story begins in 1996 on the day that Kamila graduates with her teaching certificate, and the day the Taliban first arrive in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan and home to the Sidiqi family. Inspired by the sharia law of Islam, it would become the doctrine of the Taliban to completely isolate women from society. Women were not permitted to work, attend school, or even leave the house without a male relative, or mahram. Kamila’s father and brothers do not escape persecution either, and are soon forced to flee the city. Unable to teach and desperate to support her family, Kamila masters the art of dressmaking and passes on the skills to her younger sisters. In order to find work for the budding business, Kamila frequently makes the dangerous trek to the market and meets with the owners of local dress shops. Soon the business is growing, and Kamila sees an opportunity to help other women in her community. With the help of her sisters, she opens a tailoring school in their home to teach women how to sew and to give them work once they completed their training. At a time of almost insurmountable poverty, she is able to employ nearly one hundred of her friends and neighbors, all the while escaping the scrutiny of the Taliban.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana

Nick Dormer wants to pursue a career in painting instead of his family''s traditional role in British politics. This upsets his family and particularly his lady friend, Julia Dallow, a beautiful but demanding woman deeply involved in political campaigns. But Nick''s old Oxford friend Gabriel Nash encourages him to follow his desire to become an artist. Despite his misgivings Nick goes through an election campaign and wins a seat in Parliament. He proposes marriage to Julia but they agree to wait. Meanwhile, Nick''s cousin Peter Sherringham, a rising young man in the British diplomatic service, encounters a young actress, Miriam Rooth, in Paris. He falls in love with Miriam, who shows great energy but is a woefully raw talent. Peter introduces Miriam to French acting coach Madame Carre, and Miriam begins to improve her acting technique greatly. Nick at last tires completely of politics and resigns from Parliament. He thus loses a large bequest from his political patron, Mr. Carteret. Nick becomes a full-time painter, and when Miriam comes to London in search of theatrical success, she sits to Nick for her portrait as "the tragic muse." Julia finds the two together in the studio. Although nothing improper is going on, Julia suddenly and bitterly realizes that Nick is dedicated to art and will never return to politics. Miriam eventually triumphs as an actress, especially as Juliet. Peter proposes marriage to her, but she refuses and instead marries Basil Dashwood, her business manager. Peter accepts a diplomatic assignment in Central America. He returns to London on leave and becomes engaged to Biddy Dormer, Nick''s sister. The novel ends with a suggestion that Nick and Julia may eventually marry, after all.

The Tragic Muse

Writer Jay Mackintosh is suffering from writer''s block. Having reached his artistic zenith with the award-winning ''Jackapple Joe'', a novel published 10 years ago, he has failed to duplicate his earlier success, and now writes second-rate science-fiction novels under a pseudonym. He lives in in London with his ambitious girlfriend, Kerry, and teaches creative writing to vapid young students whilst living on his dwindling reputation. Jackapple Joe, Jay''s only bestseller, was a nostalgic retelling of Jay''s childhood summers in the Yorkshire town of Kirby Monckton. It is a coming-of-age story, describing how Jay was befriended, following his parents'' divorce, by an eccentric old man called Joseph Cox, a gardener, poet and everyday magician, with whom he was to forge a unique relationship. Blackberry Wine acquaints readers with Joe through flashbacks as, now aged 37 and feeling increasingly unfullfilled, Jay revisits his childhood haunts and discovers a box of Joe''s "Specials", bottles of home-made wine that may hold the key to Joe''s unexplained disappearance. Under the influence of this magical home-brew, Jay finds himself behaving in a more and more erratic way. He buys a house he has never seen in the French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes and moves there, ostensibly to write, but in reality to escape from Kerry, the pressures of fame and the expectations of his public. The estate, Joe''s bottles of homemade wine ("The Specials") and vivid memories of Joe that gradually become more than simply memories, inspire Jay to write again for the first time in a decade, and to rediscover what truly matters to him. He begins to write a new book about Lansquenet and its inhabitants, whilst secretly observing his neighbour, the reclusive Marise d''Api, whose land borders his own. This fiercely independent woman lives alone with her deaf daughter, and although she resists all Jay''s attempts to get to know her, he becomes increasingly fascinated by her. After weeks of inspired writing, rewarding hard work in his gardens and revisiting the past through Joe''s "Specials", Jay comes to feel that the life he is building for himself is more important than writing the great follow-up novel and that self-fulfillment is more alluring to him now than fame and notoriety. He finally gains Marise''s confidence following a crisis at her farm, and learns the terrible secret that she has been so desperate to conceal. However, just as Jay is about to accept that he is falling in love with Marise, his ex-girlfriend Kerry arrives in Lansquenet, having gained access to Jay''s whereabouts and the first pages of his new book. Determinided to ''redeem'' him (and recognizing the book''s potential) she prepares for a massive publicity stunt, revealing Jay''s whereabouts to the press. This would re-launch Jay''s flagging career; it would also mean that Lansquenet would suffer a damaging influx of tourists that might change the place forever. Jay is torn between his ambition and his growing realization that he has managed to recapture in Lansquenet the simplicity and magic of his life with Joe, and that he cannot bear to lose it a second time. To put a stop to Kerry''s machinations, Jay burns the sole manuscript of his book and, finally at peace with himself, prepares to begin a new life with Marise.

Blackberry Wine

The introduction, with instructions that the Dungeon Master read it aloud to the players, outlines that there is a treasure in the Yatil Mountains south of the Greyhawk realm of Perrenland. The player characters must investigate rumors of a lost treasure that scores of adventurers have perished attempting to find. The players must first traverse a wilderness area with 20 numbered encounters before arriving at the caverns. The encounters have names such as "Border Patrol" (encounter 1) and "Hill Giants" (encounter 10). After the wilderness are two lettered encounters: the "Gnome Vale", which includes a map for their lair, and "The Craggy Dells", where humans and orcs are capturing hippogriffs to sell. Next, the player characters reach the caverns. They consist of the "Lesser Caverns" with 22 encounters, and the "Greater Caverns" with 20 encounters, each with its own map. The lesser caverns include encounters such as "Stinking Cave" (encounter 5) which contains four trolls and "Underground Lake" (encounter 14). The greater caverns include encounters such as "Uneven-Floored Cavern" (encounter 5) where the player characters face an umber hulk and "Canyon of Centaurs" (encounter 9). The 20th and final encounter is titled "The Inner Sphere". Here, a "woman sleeps on an alabaster slab." She is "armored from toe to neck in gold chased plate mail." The woman is actually Drelzna, a fighter/vampire and the daughter of Iggwilv. After defeating Drelzna, the players are rewarded with treasure, and the adventure ends.

Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth

The novel opens in early 1945. Peter Marlowe, a young British RAF Flight Lieutenant, has been a P.O.W. since 1942. Marlowe comes to the attention of the "King", an American corporal who has become the most successful trader and black marketeer in Changi, when the King sees him conversing in Malay. Marlowe''s language skill, intelligence, honesty, and winning personality cause the King to befriend him and attempt to involve him in black market deals. This, in turn, brings Marlowe to the attention of Robin Grey, a British officer and Provost Marshal of the camp, who has developed a Javert-like obsession with the King and hopes to arrest him for violating camp regulations. Grey is attempting to maintain strict military discipline among the prisoners and sees the King as the antithesis of everything he believes. Despite being only an enlisted man and without distinction in civilian life, the King has become a major power in the enclosed society of the P.O.W. camp through his charisma and intelligence. Trading with Korean guards, local Malay villagers, and other prisoners for food, clothing, information, and what few luxuries are available, the King keeps himself and his fellow American prisoners alive. Even senior officers come to him for help in selling their valuables to buy extra food, and other officers are secretly on his payroll. Grey, the son of a working-class family, follows the rules for their own sake using his position as Provost Marshal to gain a status otherwise unavailable to him in British society. Marlowe is initially put off by the King''s perspective and behavior, which are at odds with the British upper class ideals he has been taught. He turns down a lucrative business partnership with the King because "Marlowes aren''t tradesmen. It just isn''t done, old boy." But Marlowe soon understands that the King is not the thief and con artist that Grey would have him believe. Rather, the King asks for the best of each man and rewards him accordingly, irrespective of class or position. Through the experiences of Marlowe, the King and other characters, the novel offers a vivid, often disturbing portrayal of men brought to the edge of survival by a brutal environment. The P.O.W.''s are given nothing by the Japanese other than filthy huts to live in and the bare minimum of food needed to prevent starvation. Officers from various parts of Britain''s Asian empire, accustomed to having native servants provide them with freshly laundered uniforms daily, are reduced to wearing rags and homemade shoes. For most, the chief concern is obtaining enough food to stay alive from day to day and avoiding disease or injury, since almost no medical care is available. Some are degraded and come close to losing their humanity, while others display courage and compassion beyond anything one would expect. Some literally steal food out the mouths of their comrades, while others give away what they have or take terrible risks to help their friends.

King Rat

Adam Dalgliesh is brought in to investigate the mysterious death of a famous writer on a remote and inaccessible island off the Cornish coast. Combe Island is a discreet retreat operated by a private trust, where the rich and powerful find peace and quiet. Famed novelist Nathan Oliver, who was born on the island and thus is allowed to visit as he wishes, arrives with his daughter, Miranda and his copy-editor, Dennis Tremlett, who, unbeknownst to Oliver, are having an affair. When he discovers them, Oliver reacts with fury and orders them to leave the island the next day. Several people on the island find Oliver an unpleasant guest. The writer is pressuring the manager of the Combe Island Trust, Rupert Maycroft, to allow him to live in a cottage used by the sole remaining member of the family that owned the island for many years. The manager''s secretary, a disgraced Anglican priest named Adrian Boyde, a recovering alcoholic, was tricked into "falling off the wagon" by Oliver, and many people are disgusted with Oliver for his heartless, evil actions. Oliver is also confronted at dinner by a scientist, Dr. Mark Yelland, who believes himself to be the model for an unpleasant character in Oliver''s upcoming book. The reader is introduced to all the residents of the island, including Jago Tamlyn, the boatman, and Daniel Padgett, a handyman who is planning to leave after the recent death of his mother, who also worked on the island. Oliver is angry at Padgett, who dropped a phial of the author''s blood into the sea while taking it to a doctor on the mainland for some medical tests. The next morning, Oliver is discovered hanging from the island''s historic lighthouse. Dalgliesh and his team arrive to investigate. The pathologist, Dr. Edith Glenister, determines Oliver was throttled to death before a rope was tied around his neck and his body thrown over the side of the lighthouse railing. Dalgliesh learns that a visiting dignitary from Germany, Dr. Raimund Speidel, is the son of a German officer who died under tragic circumstances while visiting the island during World War II. He further learns that Nathan Oliver''s father, Saul, and Jago''s grandfather, Tom, played a role in the man''s death. Dr. Speidel was ill before arriving on Combe Island, and Dalgliesh contracts his illness. Just as the two men are diagnosed with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, Dalgliesh discovers that Adrian Boyde has been murdered. Health authorities put the island under quarantine to contain the spread of disease, and all the people on the island are asked by the police to move into Combe House, the main building, to protect them from further attacks. Dalgliesh takes to the sickroom and his colleagues, Kate Miskin and Francis Benton-Smith, are left to work the case. Benton risks his life to climb down a cliff to find the rock used to beat Boyde to death. Surfacing from fever, Dalgleish has a feverish vision that helps him fit the pieces of the puzzle together. Realising that Padgett must have been the murderer, he orders Kate and Francis to search Padgett''s cottage, where they find the phial of Oliver''s blood that he had pretended to lose overboard, a lock of Padgett''s mother''s hair, her and Dan Padgett''s birth certificates, and the destroyed remains of her figurines and a book written by Oliver in which a young girl is seduced by an older man. Oliver was actually Padgett''s father; Padgett wanted the blood for a DNA test to confirm paternity. Padgett killed Oliver in a fit of anger after confronting him in the lighthouse. He killed Adrian Boyde because the priest knew Padgett wasn''t telling the truth about his whereabouts the day Oliver was killed. Before Kate and Francis can arrest Padgett, he takes a young staff member, Millie Tranter, hostage and threatens to throw her from the lighthouse. Kate bravely forces herself through a narrow window so she can unlock the lighthouse door. She and Benton climb to the top, confront Padgett, and Benton convinces him to surrender. Dalgliesh recovers from his illness, and after the break of the investigation and quarantine, he and his lover Emma both overcome their fears about each other''s seeming lack of commitment, and agree to marry. fr:Le Phare (roman)

The Lighthouse

Amanda Pynsent, an impoverished seamstress, has adopted Hyacinth Robinson, the illegitimate son of her old friend Florentine Vivier, a Frenchwoman of less than sterling repute, and an English lord. Florentine had stabbed her lover to death several years ago, and Pinnie (as Miss Pynsent is nicknamed) takes Hyacinth to see her as she lies dying at Millbank prison. Hyacinth eventually learns that the dying woman is his mother and that she murdered his father. Many years pass. Hyacinth, now a young man and a skilled bookbinder, meets revolutionary Paul Muniment and gets involved in radical politics. Hyacinth also has a coarse but lively girlfriend, Millicent Henning, and one night they go to the theater. There Hyacinth meets the radiantly beautiful Princess Casamassima (Christina Light, from James'' earlier novel, Roderick Hudson). The Princess has become a revolutionary herself and now lives apart from her dull husband. Meanwhile, Hyacinth has committed himself to carrying out a terrorist assassination, though the exact time and place have not yet been specified to him. Hyacinth visits the Princess at her country home and tells her about his parents. When he returns to London, Hyacinth finds Pinnie dying. He comforts her in her final days, then travels to France and Italy on his small inheritance. This trip completes Hyacinth''s conversion to a love for the sinful but beautiful world, and away from violent revolution. Still, he does not attempt to escape his vow to carry out the assassination. But when the order comes, he turns the gun on himself instead of its intended victim.

The Princess Casamassima

The novel concerns a doctor who develops a mechanical method of eradicating painful memories from people''s brains so that they can feel good about life again. The protagonist persuades his lover to try the process after she has been seduced by a rival. She is transformed until the protagonist awakes and realizes that he has dreamt of the doctor and his process and that his lover has committed suicide. The book is notable for its vivid description of small-town American life and mores in the period (1880). The ''Process'' mentioned in the title is a plot mechanism to introduce a long discussion of the meaning of guilt. If one loses ones memory of the deed, is one still guilty? If one has changed of time since the deed, is one still guilty? The argument also emphasises the difference between guilt (in the eyes of others) and remorse (one''s own judgement), and suggests that forgiveness can remove guilt but not remorse. (Information in this paragraph based on my recent reading of the book).

Dr. Heidenhoff''s Process

Unlike Twain''s Hank Morgan and some successors, Ford''s Mr. Sorrel makes only a very half-hearted attempt to build modern weaponry and machinery in the Middle Ages. His initial dream of constructing "guns and gas bombs" and making himself "mightier than kings" soon comes to naught. Though he had been a mining engineer in the Twentieth Century, he has no idea how to go about constructing such devices under Fourteenth Century conditions, or even where there are tin deposits. Having later in his career become a publisher does not give him any idea of how to invent printing from scratch and anticipate Gutenberg. He does not know how to make a gun, or in fact anything that would make him useful in the medieval castle community into which he has fallen. Instead, Mr. Sorrel finds that a golden cross which he carries causes him to be mistaken for a Greek miracle-worker - which has many advantages in Medieval society, including enjoying the unlimited hospitality of a castle and having beautiful ladies vying with each other for his love. He also inspires the ladies to take up arms and hold a tournament in competition with their knightly husbands - and being a fair horseman, makes a credible effort at becoming a knight himself. It is the reverse of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur''s Court, but the details of daily life are rendered more feelingly, including the quite earthy and mercenary motivations of many of the Medieval characters (for example, the small-minded power struggles taking place in a nunnery, under a very thin veneer of piety). Cathedrals, so stately and calm to us, turn out to have been crowded, garish, noisy, and commercial. Just as he begins to really enjoy himself as a thoroughly Medieval man, Mr. Sorrel is rather frustratingly thrust back to the 20th Century - a modern man wiser for having been instructed by the people (especially the women) of the past, and having "learned the wisdom of history".

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

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The Elf on the Shelf

No Author Listed

Girl in Landscape

By Jonathan Lethem

The Author of Beltraffio

By Henry James

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana

By Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

The Tragic Muse

By Henry James

Blackberry Wine

By Joanne Harris

Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth

By Gary Gygax

King Rat

By James Clavell

The Lighthouse

By P. D. James

The Princess Casamassima

By Henry James

Dr. Heidenhoff's Process

By Edward Bellamy

Ladies Whose Bright Eyes

By Ford Madox Ford