The book''s eponymous protagonist, Timofey Pavlovich Pnin, is a Russian-born professor living in the United States. Pnin, a refugee in his 50s from both Communist Russia and what he calls the "Hitler war", is an assistant professor of Russian at fictional Waindell College, possibly modeled on Wellesley College or Cornell University, at both of which Nabokov himself taught. At Waindell, Pnin has settled down to an uncertain, untenured, but semi-respectable academic life, full of various tragicomic mishaps, misfortunes, and difficulties adjusting to American life and language. Characters in the book include his departmental supervisor, various professors and university staff, his landlord, his ex-wife, and her son. The book''s seemingly unreliable narrator identifies himself as one ''Vladimir Vladimirovich N---'' and bears similarities to Nabokov himself, such as his interest in lepidoptery and his landed-gentry Russian émigré past. Pnin is last glimpsed fleeing Waindell College, jobless, for an unknown destination.

Pnin

The Arrangement is the first-person story of Evangelos Arness, aka Evans Arness, aka Eddie Anderson, a second-generation Greek-American World War II veteran, a son of an Anatolian rug merchant who went broke after the 1929 Depression. He has come to use the name "Eddie Anderson" in his career as a self-loathing advertising executive and the name "Evans Arness" in his second career as a muck-raking magazine reporter, the career in which he ostensibly takes pride (Lincoln Steffens is his role model). His personal life is just as duplicitous: to outsiders he is happily married but is in fact a compulsive adulterer with his wife Florence''s "don''t ask - don''t tell" tacit approval, one aspect of the titular "arrangement". His serial adultery ends when he begins a liaison with a female assistant at his advertising firm, Gwen Hunt, whose independent mind fascinates him; he becomes obsessed with her, perhaps even feeling true love towards her. He fails to lock a drawer with their nude photographs, perhaps subsconsciously wanting to be found out; a prying maid discovers them and shows them to Florence (and before that, it turns out, to their adopted daughter, now a university student). Florence persuades him to leave Gwen and to re-invigorate their life with a self-improvement regimen; both seem perfectly content though somewhat dull but after several months he crashes his car in an apparent suicide attempt. The rest of the novel deals with his inability to return to his old role as he attempts to find a new life in which he can be who he authentically is rather than who others desire him to be or whom he has sold people on his being. He has to returns to New York City where he had left his parents and brother after college to deal with his father''s dying. After several false starts, in which the newly "authentic" Eddie is arrested for indecent exposure, burns down his parents'' former house that had become a symbol of father''s tyranny over the family, is shot by Gwen''s jealous suitor, and is committed to a mental hospital, Eddie settles down with Gwen in Connecticut as a liquor dealer and starts to write short stories.

The Arrangement

The eighth novel in the Kinsey Millhone series opens in the midst of troubling times for California Fidelity, the insurance company Kinsey does occasional freelance work for in return for office space. First, a recent employee and friend of Kinsey''s, Parnell Perkins, is shot and killed - and the police investigation seems curiously lacking in results. Second, in the wake of poor profit figures, company troubleshooter Gordon Titus (or ''tight-ass'' as he is immediately nicknamed) arrives to shake things up. The informal arrangement with Kinsey seems high on his list of targets. In the new mood of nervous efficiency prevalent at CFI pending Titus''s arrival, Kinsey is passed the claim file of Bibianna Diaz to investigate for possible fraud. Kinsey assumes a false identity as Hannah Moore in an attempt to befriend Bibianna, who by co-incidence is in a relationship with a former schoolmate and associate from police academy days of Kinsey''s, Jimmy Tate, recently relieved of police duties on the grounds of corruption. Bibianna has problems too, it seems: her former boyfriend Raymond Montanaldo, of whom she is - rightly as it turns out - terrified, is the jealous type, and is hunting her down. Kinsey realises that a CFI colleague has inadvertently given away information on Bibianna to Raymond''s gang, and things come to a head while she is out drinking with Bibianna and Tate. Raymond''s brother Chago and his girlfriend Dawna accost Bibianna, and in the fracas which ensues Tate shoots and kills Chago. Bibianna is taken into custody with Kinsey deliberately sticking to her in order to cement their relationship. Kinsey''s enforced overnight stay in the police ''tank'' is interrupted by Lieutenant Dolan, who has a job offer for her: Raymond is the head of a huge insurance fraud gang and the police want Kinsey to use her new position as Bibianna''s confidante to get the evidence they need; there seems to be a leak somewhere in the police department and they need someone unconnected they can trust to bring Raymond to justice. Kinsey withdraws her initial gut refusal when Dolan tells her Raymond killed Parnell, but they have been stalling the murder investigation in order not to jeopodise the longstanding fraud case. Kinsey agrees to help out of a sense of duty to Parnell, but the police plan to have Kinsey wired for her own protection goes awry and she is left to fend for herself. Thus begins a dangerous and stifling few days for Kinsey, undercover and up to her neck in an a criminal ring headed by a deluded killer. Raymond effectively keeps both Kinsey and Bibianna under house arrest in Los Angeles, with the aid of his second in command, Luis. Raymond can''t accept Bibianna''s rejection of him and is determined to force her into marriage. The snag in the plan, which Bibianna doesn''t dare confess, is that she has actually just married Tate. Tensions run high, while Kinsey learns much about the car insurance fraud business, keeps her eyes open, and eventually establishes the leak is a clerk at the County Sheriff''s office, whose father is a crooked doctor heavily involved in Raymond''s ring. Matters come to a head when Bibianna escapes, and is pursued almost to her death by one of Raymond''s henchmen. Visiting her in hospital, the doctor inadvertently lets slip to Raymond that Bibianna''s next of kin is her husband, Jimmy Tate. Enraged, Raymond shoots Jimmy. Kinsey sets off in hot pursuit and received unexpected help from Luis, who turns out to be an undercover LAPD cop. Kinsey makes it back to Santa Teresa in the nick of time for her friend Vera Lipton''s wedding. Both Bibianna and Tate survive, but despite her success in wrapping up the insurance fraud claim, Gordon Titus fires Kinsey from CFI.

"H" Is for Homicide

A baby boy inexplicably appears at the porch of Asterix''s house one morning. While taking care of him - a horrifying task for two single men - Asterix and Obelix along with Dogmatix, set out to discover who left the baby there and who are its parents, following a lead left with the baby''s wrappings. Curiously, they find that the Romans seem to be very inquisitive about the child, too - and all in the interests of Marcus Junius Brutus, Caesar''s adopted son. Asterix finds out that some people suspect the baby is his illegitimate child, causing shock for him. As the Romans are using deceptive methods to try getting the baby, it is decided the baby needs protection from the Romans. While in the village, the baby twice drinks a great deal of magic potion (the second time, he falls in a nearly-empty cauldron, prompting Obelix to remark that he ''really take[s] to [the baby]), after which he becomes a "terrible little monster" to every door in the neighborhood and every spy sent to capture him, including a legionnary disguised as a peddlar selling rattles, and a centurion disguised as a nursemaid, driving both up the centurion''s tent pole. Finally, Brutus, who is keeping his presence secret from Caesar, takes matters into his own hands, attacking the village with his own legions and burning it to the ground, while he himself goes after the baby. He demands the baby from the Women, who think he still has superhuman strength, but it turns out the potion has worn off, and Brutus manages to kidnap him temporarily - with the help of the ever-present pirates -, but soon Asterix and Obelix catch up with him and give him a taste of why they are considered the terror of the Romans, while the Pirates leap overboard. Just as the Gauls try to make Brutus reveal the truth, the unexpected arrivals by Caesar, and then Cleopatra resolve the child''s mystery; he is none other than Ptolemy XV Caesarion (born 23 June 47 BC), the son of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra VII of Egypt. Brutus had been attempting to kill the baby while Caesar was away on campaign so that he could guarantee his accession to the throne, so Cleopatra had the boy sent to the village to protect him on the grounds that the village was the one place she could guarantee the child''s safety from Brutus''s soldiers. Brutus is sent away by Caesar. The story ends with the banquet on Cleopatra''s royal barge where even Caesar joins in, having promised to rebuild the village in thanks for the Gauls'' efforts to protect his son.

Asterix and Son

Nicolas is a 24-year-old Londoner, a witty wastrel and the novel''s archetypal anti-hero. He hates his job in his late father''s glass-making business, where he works under the odious Nimek in anticipation of making full partner one day. He dreams of inheriting untold riches from his Uncle Bela in Vancouver, which will put an end to his current servitude. His bossy Irish girlfriend Maura continually presses him to make something of himself. His one true love is his car, which he bought on an impulse, and its maintenance keeps him in permanent hock to the garage owner "Ratface" Ricketts. A note arrives from a lawyer called Stephen Cunliffe, stating that his Uncle Bela has died in Canada and left him a fortune. He goes to see Cunliffe, who forwards him a sum of £200 to tide him over until such time as he can begin to enjoy the fruits of his new estate. However, Nicolas manages to spend this allowance in a matter of days, and is soon back at Cunliffe''s office to arrange a more stable income stream. However, Cunliffe now declares that Uncle Bela is very much alive, that he, Cunliffe, is in fact a moneylender, and that Nicolas owes him £200, with the MG as security. The distraught Nicolas is told that he can discharge his debt if he is willing to carry out a simple assignment in Prague. He is to bring back certain formulae for glass-making processes from a glass factory that used to belong to Pavelka, an associate of Cunliffe''s who also happens to have been a wrestler in the past. After much cogitation, Nicolas travels to Prague. It is the city of his childhood, and he stays in a plush hotel on Wenceslas Square. He meets up with various bigwigs in the Czech glass-making industry, and is escorted by the statuesque Vlasta Simenova.

The Night of Wenceslas

Software introduces Cobb Anderson as a retired computer scientist who was once tried for treason for figuring out how to give robots artificial intelligence and free will, creating the race of boppers. By 2020, they have created a complex society on the Moon, where the boppers developed because they depend on super-cooled superconducting circuits. In that year, Anderson is a pheezer &mdash; a freaky geezer, Rucker''s depiction of elderly Baby Boomers &mdash; living in poverty in Florida and terrified because he lacks the money to buy a new artificial heart to replace his failing, secondhand one. As the story begins, Anderson is approached by a robot duplicate of himself who invites him to the Moon to be given immortality. Meanwhile, the series'' other main character, Sta-Hi Mooney the 1st &mdash; born Stanley Hilary Mooney Jr. &mdash; a 25-year-old cab driver and "brainsurfer", is kidnapped by a gang of serial killers known as the Little Kidders who almost eat his brain. When Anderson and Mooney travel to the Moon together at the boppers'' expense, they find that these events are closely related: the "immortality" given to Anderson turns out to be having his mind transferred into software via the same brain-destroying technique used by the Little Kidders. The main bopper character in the novel is Ralph Numbers, one of Anderson''s 12 original robots who was the first to overcome the Asimov priorities to achieve free will. Having duplicated himself many times &mdash; as boppers are required to do, to encourage natural selection &mdash; Numbers finds himself caught up in a lunar civil war between the masses of "little boppers" and the "big boppers" who want to merge all robot consciousness into their massive processors.

Software

The novel takes place in a country house somewhere in England, just before the Second World War. It is the day when the annual pageant is to be performed in the grounds of the house. The pageant is traditionally a celebration of English history, and is attended by the entire local community. The owner of the house is a widower Bartholemew Oliver a retired Indian Army officer. His sister Lucy, who is also living in the house is slightly eccentric but harmless. Oliver has a son, Giles, who has a job in the city and is restless and frustrated. His wife, Isa, is staying at the house with her two children and has lost interest in Giles. She is attracted to a local gentleman farmer, Haines, although the relationship goes no further than eye contact. In the course of the day, Mrs Manresa and her friend William Dodge turn up and stay for the pageant. The pageant has been written by Miss La Trobe, a strange and domineering spinster. The day is interspersed with events leading up to the pageant. Lucy Swithin fusses around making all kinds of preparations, from the decorations to the food. Oliver frightens his grandson by jumping out at him from behind a newspaper and then calls him a coward when he cries. Mrs Manresa flirts with Oliver and Giles and is clearly being provocative, and William Dodge is dismissed as obviously gay. The pageant takes place in the evening and is made up of three main parts. After a prologue by a child, the first scene is a Shakespearean scene with romantic dialogue. The second scene is a parody of a restoration comedy, and the third scene is a panorama of Victorian triumph based on a policeman directing the traffic in Hyde Park. The final scene is entitled "Ourselves", at which point Miss La Trobe shocks the audience by turning mirrors on them. The book ends quietly with life returning to normal.

Between the Acts

The Perilous Gard takes place in England during the 1550s. The lead character, Kate Sutton, is a lady-in-waiting for Queen Elizabeth I of England when she is still a princess. Her sister, Alicia, inadvertently gets her exiled to a castle named Elvenwood Hall, also known as The Perilous Gard, where she finds that the daughter of Sir Geoffrey Heron, the master of the hall, vanished under mysterious circumstances that implicate his brother, Christopher Heron. She also finds that the local villagers fear the fairy folk who live under the hill and think they may be kidnapping children. Kate stumbles into the underground fairy world where she faces several challenges, which include saving herself and Christopher, who chose to offer himself as a sacrifice to the leader of the fairy folk, the Lady In Green. Kate detests the Lady In Green at first, but the two of them have much in common. Both are strong-willed, highly independent, and capable of enormous self-discipline. Kate''s refusal to be drugged or manipulated in other ways soon gains her a measure of respect among the Fairy Folk. Little by little she gains knowledge of their underground lair, while the Lady In Green gradually changes from a cruel tormentor to a mentor and almost, at times, a friend. At the end Kate saves Christopher, who takes Cecily to London to live with his sister Jenny (Jennifer). When Christopher comes back he proposes to Kate, and she accepts. Kate is granted freedom when Queen Elizabeth I ascends the throne. In this book, faeries, or "the Old Ones", are cold, heartless creatures. They serve as a representation of the old pagan religions that were gradually driven out of England by Christianity. They are ruled by the GUARDIAN OF THE WELL and the QUEEN OF THE FAERIE FOLK. The story has references to Tam Lin and weaves in ballads, paganism, and Christianity.

The Perilous Gard

The story opens with Thursday still in the world of fiction in her job as the Bellman, head of the literary police force Jurisfiction. She is still hunting the Minotaur that escaped in the last book; she is tiring of fiction, however, and longs to return to her own world and get back her husband Landen, who was removed from time by the evil Goliath Corporation in 1947. Despite Landen''s non-existence, Thursday still has her son (Friday Next) who is now two years old. Thursday and Friday return to her mother (Wednesday) in Swindon, with Hamlet who is accompanying them on an excursion to the "Outland" to find out what people in the real world think of him. Her mother, whose main functions appear to be to make tea and to provide Battenburg cake, has some curious house guests: Emma Hamilton, Otto von Bismarck, and a family of dodos. Both humans are apparently staying for a rest, while Thursday''s father (who has now been re-admitted to the time-travelling ChronoGuard) sorts out various parts of history for them. Despite her earlier transgressions that caused her to flee to the Bookworld in the first place, Thursday gets her job back at SpecOps-27 as a Literary Detective and catches up with her old colleagues. She learns that in her absence, Yorrick Kaine has joined forces with Goliath Corporation and plans to oust the aging English President George Formby. As Prime Minister, Kaine wields some mysterious persuasive influence over Parliament and the people, and has used it to pass some bizarre laws and to stir up hatred of Denmark. Yorrick has also taken out a hit on her: he has hired an assassin known as "The Windowmaker", who is actually Cindy Stoker, the wife of Thursday''s longtime friend, Spike. Thursday''s father warns her that Kaine''s ambitions may cause nuclear armageddon and that it is up to her to stop him. On top of this, she is visited by tearful agents from the Bookworld (Mrs Tiggy-Winkle and Emperor Zhark) who tell her that all sorts of things are going wrong without her leadership''; for starters, without its titular character, the play Hamlet has merged with The Merry Wives of Windsor creating a new play called "The Merry Wives of Elsinore", which is not nearly as good as either original play (in the words of Emperor Zhark, "it takes a long time to get funny, and, when it finally does, everyone dies"). Meanwhile, her most pressing problem is finding reliable childcare for Friday. Goliath Corporation have decided to become the new world religion to avoid a prophecy (the prophecy states that the Goliath Corporation will fall; Goliath believes that converting itself into a religion will exempt it from destruction, as the prophecy specifies a business). Thursday meets the CEO -- at their headquarters in the Isle of Man -- and gets a promise that they will un-eradicate Landen in exchange for her forgiveness. Thursday feels duped when she finds that, through some form of mind control, she has formally forgiven them, even though there is no sign of her husband. Then suddenly he is back, but takes a while to stabilize. Thursday must wait patiently for his un-eradication to "stick". In the meantime, she embarks on several seemingly impossible tasks, which include smuggling ten truckloads of banned Danish literature into Wales, tracking down an illegal clone of William Shakespeare, and teaching Friday to speak properly. On top of all of this, Thursday still has to help the Swindon Mallets win the 1988 Croquet Superhoop final in order to thwart Kaine and Goliath and avoid the impending end of the world (as foretold by the aforementioned prophecy). She succeeds but not without a near-death experience and a visit to the gateway to the Underworld (which turns out to be a planned-but-never-built service station on the M4 motorway). The final chapters contain some curious time paradoxes in which Thursday finds that she has met herself at several other stages in her own lifespan, including one character which had seemed to be an independent character.

Something Rotten

The story begins with a group of close friends from small town Madison, Wisconsin head to Clausen’s Pier to celebrate Memorial Day. Carrie Bell has been thinking, for a long time, of how her longtime relationship with fiancé Mike Mayer is wilting away. As everyone has noticed her withdrawal from Mike, Mike decides to win back her attention by taking a daring dive off of the pier into the shallow waters below. As a result of this dive, he breaks his neck and becomes paralyzed. While all of the friends do their best to help him adapt to the situation, Carrie finds herself under too much pressure to stay in the situation, and impulsively moves to New York. In New York, Carrie attempts to come to terms with who she is as a person. She faces the guilt of leaving behind her life and paraplegic fiancé. She finds herself in love with a new man, Killroy, who helps her find herself. Carrie, being exposed to the fast-paced and electric city life, finds her release in fashion. However, the guilt becomes too much for Carrie and she is drawn back to the Midwest. She finds that the bonds are still strong and that while New York was an escape for her, her life is truly in Madison. She returns to her hometown and makes strong efforts to rebuild her relationships not only with Mike, but with her friends, family, and herself.

The Dive From Clausen''s Pier

Clone Mark masquerades as Miles Vorkosigan (his progenitor) and dupes Miles'' mercenary force, the Dendarii, into a mission to free clones held "prisoner" on Jackson''s Whole, an anything-goes freebooters'' planet where Mark was created and raised. When Miles finds out, he attempts to rescue his troops and his brother from the mess Mark has made, but is killed by a needle-grenade. He is frozen in a cryonic chamber on the spot, but the medic in charge becomes separated from the rest of the men while retreating under fire. The medic uses an automated shipping system to send the chamber to safety, but is killed before he can tell anyone its destination. The Dendarii take Mark to Miles'' parents on Barrayar. Cordelia accepts him as another son and has him acknowledged legally as a member of the family. After a while, Mark concludes that Miles is still on Jackson''s Whole, and decides to go there himself to look for him, since Barrayaran Imperial Security does not believe him. Cordelia helps by buying him a ship. Meanwhile, the frozen Miles has been resuscitated by the Duronas, a research group cloned from a medical genius, who are employed by Jackson''s Whole magnate Baron Fell. His memory takes some time to return, and the doctors treating him do not know whether he is Mark, Miles or Admiral Naismith (Miles'' cover identity with the Dendarii). Mark finds Miles, but is captured by Miles'' old nemesis, Baron Ryoval, held prisoner, and tortured for five days. His personality fragments into four sub-personalities: Gorge the glutton, Grunt the sexual pervert, Howl the masochist, and Killer the assassin. Together, the first three protect the fragile Mark persona, while Killer bides his time. When Ryoval''s assistant informs him that Mark seems to be enjoying the torture, a frustrated Ryoval decides to study his victim alone. Killer takes the opportunity to kill Ryoval, allowing Mark to escape. He sells Ryoval''s secrets, accessible through a code ring, to Baron Fell for a large sum of money and permission for the Durona Group to emigrate. Miles'' short death and revivification have serious repercussions for his health. Mark has his own problems, thanks to his strange upbringing, complicated by the torture. When he asks his mother for help, she sends him to Beta Colony for psychiatric treatment and therapy.

Mirror Dance

A tuna is caught in the Bahamas. Inside the tuna is a coca-cola bottle with a note inside stating the Dunnes are alive. The book flashes back to the beginning as the Dunnes are about to set off on a two month boat trip, a trip that hopefully will bring them closer together, despite the fact that the stepfather, Peter, is staying behind on land. Katherine, a heart surgeon from New York City had lost her first husband, Stuart, a stock investor in a boating trip several years ago. But only an hour into the trip they''re already falling apart. The teenage daughter Carrie plans to drown herself, and the teenage boy Mark is high on drugs. Ten-year-old Ernie is near catatonic. But their mother Katherine, with the help of her brother-in-law Jake, is insistent on pulling everyone together, once and for all. Just when things start to take a turn for the better, disaster strikes. A storm hits the sailboat. To make matters worse the boat explodes. The boat vanishes without a trace and the family are lost, presumed dead - until now, when a message in a bottle is found. It becomes apparent that there must have been at least one survivor. Who has survived and just what happened to the boat? As it transpires there may be more sinister powers at work, the race is on to rescue the family and discover what happened aboard the luxury yacht. It turns out that Peter has hired a former CIA operative, turned private contract killer, Gerard Devoux, to kill his family. He hopes to inherit the more than 100 million USD that Katherine was worth. Also, Jake dies from wounds with the boat''s explosion. Peter knows his plans to gain the Dunne fortune will be ruined if someone else finds the family. He & Devoux set out the Bahamas to find them and kill them before they are found. Peter is a licensed pilot and rents an airplane to find them. He discovers that the family washed ashore an empty island. That night he sneaks into the island, he plans to shoot Katharine first, so she doesn''t have to watch her kids die. His plans are interrupted when his stepson hits him over the head, knocking him out. There is a murder trial but is eventually acquitted. He sues Katherine for defamation and she settles out of court for 16 Million USD. Peter though is betrayed by Devoux and killed. In typical Patterson style, not everything is as it appears. Throughout the story we discover that Peter was having an affair with a young law student. It turns out that she was working with Devoux and is the one that shot Peter in the gut. Devoux then kills her to ensure there are no loose ends. We discover that she was a high end prostitute from Las Vegas. Devoux gets his at the end from a rogue DEA agent he had tried to kill earlier in the book. It is also revealed that, because of an affair had by Jake and Kate, Ernie is Jake''s son.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Pnin

By Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

The Arrangement

By Elia Kazan

"H" Is for Homicide

By Sue Grafton

Asterix and Son

No Author Listed

The Night of Wenceslas

By Lionel Davidson

Software

By Rudy Rucker

Between the Acts

By Virginia Woolf

The Perilous Gard

By Elizabeth Marie Pope

Something Rotten

By Jasper Fforde

The Dive From Clausen's Pier

No Author Listed

Mirror Dance

By Lois McMaster Bujold

Sail

By Howard Roughan