The building seems to give its well-established tenants all the conveniences and commodities that modern life has to offer: swimming pools, its own school, a supermarket, high-speed elevators. But at the same time, the building seems to be designed to isolate the occupants from the larger world outside, allowing for the possibility to create their own closed environment. Life in the high-rise begins to degenerate quickly, as minor power failures and petty annoyances over neighbours escalate into an orgy of violence. The high-rise occupants divide themselves into the classic three groups of Western society: the lower, middle, and upper class, but here the terms are literal, as the lower class are those living on the lowest floors of the building, the middle class in the centre, and the upper class at the most luxurious apartments on the upper floors. Soon, skirmishes are being fought throughout the building, as floors try to claim elevators and hold them for their own, groups gather to defend their rights to the swimming pools, and party-goers attack "enemy floors" to raid and vandalize them. It does not take long for the occupants of entire building to abandon all social restraints, and give in to their most primal urges. The tenants completely shut out the outside world, content with their new life in the high-rise; people abandon their work and family and stay indoors permanently, losing their sense of time. Even as hunger starts to set in, many of the characters in the novel still seem to be enjoying themselves, as the building allows them a chance to break free from the social restrictions of modern society and toy with their own dark urges and desires. And as bodies begin to pile up and the commodities of the high-rise break down, no one considers alerting the authorities. The tenants of the high-rise abandon all notions of moral and social etiquette, as their environment gives way to a hunter/gatherer culture, where humans gather together in small clans, claim food sources from where they can (including the many dogs in the building, and eventually even the other tenants), and every stranger is met with extreme violence. As he did in Concrete Island and Crash, Ballard here offers a vision of how modern life in an urban landscape and the advances of technology could warp the human psyche in hitherto unexplored ways.

High Rise

Adam is an eleven-year-old who wants to become like his father, Roger, and to do so he tries to be the best minstrel in England. Beginning of the story, Adam and his friend Perkin are in St. Alban''s monastery, where they go to an old lady''s house to visit Adam''s dog, Nick. They quickly return to their home at the monastery and go to the roadside to find Roger is coming back from his long journey as a knight''s minstrel. Roger tells Adam that he is going to London to follow in the knight''s train. Adam is allowed to come, but he must hurry because the knight leaves the next day. While on the road, Adam meets Margery, the daughter of the knight, in a beautiful carriage. Soon after, following a night of feasting and partying, Roger tells Adam he lost his warhorse, Bayard, in a bet with another minstrel. One night, while Roger and Adam are sleeping, Bayard trades Nick to another minstrel, Jankin. Adam worries that Jankin will mistreat Nick. When Adam and Roger discover Nick is gone, they chase Jankin across England. When Adam sees Jankin in a crowded marketplace, he pursues him and is separated from Roger. Adam makes friends and eventually finds Nick with Perkin. Roger, Adam and Nick are eventually reunited in Oxford. Adam is offered a place at Oxford college, but decides to be a minstrel, like his father.

Adam of the Road

A rainy day in Philadelphia means no baseball; Peter Brown, the child protagonist introduced by Thompson in The Gnome King of Oz, mopes in his attic. He finds the sacks that were full of gold when he brought them back from his previous Oz adventure; and one of those sacks contains an odd gold coin. Toying with the coin and thinking of Oz, he wishes himself back in the magic land &mdash; and suddenly finds himself in the front yard of Jack Pumpkinhead. The sensible thing for Peter to do is to head for the Emerald City; and Jack is ready to act as his guide. This is perhaps not the best arrangement &mdash; and the two quickly get lost in the Quadling Country, where they blunder into Chimneyville and Scare City. By chance, Peter finds that his empty sack will consume objects and creatures that are scooped into its open mouth. The two also happen to obtain the magic dinner bell of Jinnicky the Red Jinn, which supplies Peter with needed provisions. The travelers adopt a third member for their party when they meet the doggerel-spouting Snif the Iffin (he''s a griffin who has lost his "gr-"). The three then encounter the unfortunate Belfaygor, the Baron of Bourne. He has been accidentally cursed with a rapidly-growing beard that he must constantly snip away. Even worse, his fiancée, the princess Shirley Sunshine, has been kidnapped by the local villain, Mogodore the Mighty, the Baron of Baffleburg. Boy, baron, iffin and pumpkinhead set out to remedy this situation, and quickly become enwrapped in complexities involving a Forbidden Flagon and a talkative and abusive Sauce Box. When Mogodore sets out to conquer Oz and actually succeeds in seizing the Emerald City, the travelers have to mount a desperate rescue effort. Eventually Jack, with help from the Red Jinn (here introduced for the first time; his name, Jinnicky, is not revealed until later books), manages to save the day: with the Forbidden Flagon, he reduces Mogodore and his thousand warriors to little beings "no bigger than brownies." The miniaturized aggressors are confined to their homeland, also miniaturized. Snif the Iffin recovers his lost "gr-." Order in Oz is restored, with a great celebratory banquet before Peter is sent home, with thanks, once again.

Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz

Battle Royale takes place in 1997 in an alternate timeline—Japan is a member region of a totalitarian state known as the . Under the guise of a "study trip", a group of students from in the fictional town of Shiroiwa, in Kagawa Prefecture, are gassed on a bus. They awaken in the Okishima Island School on Okishima, an isolated, evacuated island southwest of Shodoshima (modeled after the island of Ogijima). They learn that they have been placed in an event called the Program. Officially a military research project, it is a means of terrorizing the population, of creating such paranoia as to make organized insurgency impossible. The first Program was held in 1947. Fifty third-year junior high school classes are selected (prior to 1950, forty-seven classes were selected) annually to participate in the Program for research purposes. The students from a single class are isolated and are required to fight the other members of their class to the death. The Program ends when only one student remains, with that student being declared the winner and receiving a government funded pension. Their movements are tracked by metal collars, which contain tracking and listening devices; if any student should attempt to escape the Program, or enter declared forbidden zones (which are randomly selected at the hours of 12 and 6, both a.m. and p.m.), a bomb will be detonated in the collar, killing the wearer. If no one dies within any 24-hour period, all collars will be detonated simultaneously and there will be no winner. After being briefed about the Program, the students are issued survival packs that include a map, compass, food and water, and a random weapon or other item, which may be anything from a gun to a paper fan. During the briefing, two students (Fumiyo Fujiyoshi and Yoshitoki Kuninobu) anger the supervisor, Kinpatsu Sakamochi, who kills both. As the students are released onto the island, they each react differently to their predicament; beautiful delinquent Mitsuko Souma murders those who stand in her way using deception, Hiroki Sugimura attempts to find his best friend and his secret love, Kazuo Kiriyama attempts to win the game by any means necessary (stemming from his lack of ability to feel human emotion due to a partial lobotomy caused by a car crash while in utero) and Shinji Mimura makes an attempt to escape with his best friend, class clown Yutaka Seto. In the end, four students remain: protagonist Shuya Nanahara, Noriko Nakagawa (the crush of Shuya''s best friend), Shogo Kawada—a survivor of a previous instance of the Program—and antagonist Kazuo Kiriyama. Following a car chase and shoot-out between Kazuo and the main characters, Noriko kills Kazuo by shooting him, but to absolve the quiet and naturally good-natured Noriko of any guilt, Shogo then shoots Kazuo, claims he is in fact responsible for Kazuo''s death, and then takes his two partners to a hill. After telling Shuya and Noriko that he will kill them, Shogo shoots in the air twice, faking their deaths for the microphones planted on the collars. He then dismantles the collars using information he had previously hacked into the government servers to obtain. Shogo boards the winner''s ship, as do Shuya and Noriko, covertly, a short while later. On the ship, Shogo kills Sakamochi and a soldier, while Shuya kills the other soldiers on board. Shogo tells Shuya how to escape, succumbs to his wound from the battle with Kiriyama and dies. The two remaining students return to the mainland and attempt to travel to find a clinic belonging to a friend of Shogo''s father. From there, they make plans to escape to the U.S., facing an uncertain future as they run from the authorities who have spotted them as they try to board a train.

Battle Royale

In the foreword, the author states his purpose for writing this book. As he clearly states, this is not a history book, nor is it a historical accusation. The author states that his book is a story about war, based on a personal experience. The book is divided into three parts. The first section, "The Splendid Little War", describes Lieutenant Philip Caputo''s personal reasons for joining the USMC, the training that followed, and his eventual arrival to Vietnam. Lt. Caputo was a member of the 9th Expeditionary Brigade of the USMC, the first American regular troops unit sent to take part in the Vietnam War. He arrived on March 8, 1965, and his early experiences reminded him of the colonial wars portrayed by Rudyard Kipling. The 9th Expeditionary Brigade was deployed to Da Nang, formerly Tourane, on a "merely defensive" condition, primarily to set a perimeter around an airstrip that ensured arrival and departure of military goods and personnel. The first skirmishes against the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong made it clear to Lt. Caputo and his comrades that their earlier impression about Vietnam war as small and unimportant are all wrong. In the second part of the book, "The Officers in Charge of the Dead", Lt. Caputo is reassigned from his rifle company to a desk job documenting casualties. His new position in the Joint Staff of the brigade was a change that did not suit him, because he was proud of his rifle company duties and had a certain desire to return to basic infantry command. This distance from the Main Line of Resistance gave Lt. Caputo a different perspective of the conflict. Lt. Caputo described senior officers as being more worried about trivial matters than strategy. For example: movies being played in the open at night, risking potentially devastating mortar attacks. Lt. Caputo also witnessed enemy corpses being treasured as hunting trophies, and shown off to generals. He also describes American corpses carrying evidence of Viet Cong torture. In the third part, "In Death''s Grey Land," Lt. Caputo is reassigned to a rifle company. He describes the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong as fierce and skilled fighters and as having earned the grudging respect of American soldiers. Lt. Caputo describes his fellow Marines as having stopped wishing for epic, World War II-style battles; they had learned to detect boobytraps, to counter-snipe, and to comb the jungle in search of enemy bunkers and their rations. Lt. Caputo took part in these operations, until troops under his command miscarried orders and shot two suspects deliberately. Lt. Caputo assumed full responsibility for the incident and faced a court-martial. Eventually, he was relieved of his command and the charges were dropped. Lt. Caputo was then reassigned to a training camp in North Carolina and eventually received an honorable discharge from the service. In the Epilogue, almost ten years after the end of his tour of duty, Philip Caputo returned to Vietnam as a war journalist for a newspaper. Old memories of his war experiences and his comrades flood his mind as he witnesses the fall of Saigon to the troops of North Vietnam. Caputo left Vietnam on April 29, 1975. A postscript published in 1996 details some of the anxieties Caputo experienced while writing the memoir, and the difficulties he had handling his fame and notoriety after its publication.

A Rumor of War

A slack-off, fun-loving, basketball prodigy, Stanford Wong is ready for summer. He''s going to spend every day at the park with his best friends (Stretch, Gus, Tico and Digger) and he''s going to basketball camp where he''ll learn from the pros. But his English teacher, the horrible Mr. Glick, presents him with some bad news: he got an F on his last book report on Holes and failed English class. Now Stanford must trade basketball camp for summer school - and as if this weren''t bad enough, his mom hired a tutor for him: his arch-enemy Millicent Min. A child genius, Millicent Min is a senior in high school at age eleven, not to mention a world-class jerk. She hates Stanford as much as he hates her. Stanford''s situation deteriorates as his father continues to distance himself from home, his grandmother becomes senile and moves to a dead retirement home, Millicent tortures him in their study sessions, and his lie to his friends becomes harder and harder to cover up - because he''s told them that he passed English with flying colors. Life improves slightly when the beautiful new girl, Emily Ebers, takes an immediate liking to Stanford (the feeling is mutual) but Emily is Millicent Min''s one and only friend. Apparently, though, Millicent doesn''t want Emily to know of her sky-high IQ, because Emily is under the impression that Millicent is not only home schooled, but tutored by Stanford. Stanford goes along with this lie because he believes that Emily will never like him if she knows he is stupid. In a strange way, Millicent and Stanford form a tentative friendship; they are bound by their affection for Emily, and in the process, the two become closer as well. Soon, everything falls apart: Emily inadvertently discovers Stanford and Millicent''s secret. She shuns them both, not because of their varying intelligence levels, but because they lied to her. A classmate and basketball player, Digger Ronster, knows what Stanford really got on his book report, and blackmails Stanford into purposely losing whenever they play basketball with the other guys. Stanford descends into depression because all of his lies have fallen through. He is saved, though, when Emily forgives him. Also, Stanford doesn''t have any more trouble with his friends because even though they know that Stanford lied about his English grade, they forgive him, too. Digger leaves Stanford alone after realizing that his blackmail no longer works. Millicent and Stanford make up after getting in a fight over Emily. Emily kisses Stanford on the cheek and the two start dating. At the end of the story, Stanford''s father reveals that he has been working so incredibly hard all the time because he was hoping for a promotion - which his boss granted him. However, the promotion required a relocation to New York. Stanford protests angrily, but his father tells him that he didn''t take the job. He says that he just recently realized how distant he became from his family, and that wants to reconnect with them. Now that he had rejected the promotion, he says, he would probably have a lot more free time on his hands to spend with Stanford. The book ends with Stanford thinking, "I have so much to tell my dad." Later that night, he falls asleep wearing Alan Scott BK620s, what he always wanted the whole summer.

Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time

The story begins with Mark Harrison, a 13-year old survival enthusiast, hiking through the mountainous Magruder Missile Range when he is struck by a mysterious blue beam of light. He wakes up in a strange world that he believes is an alien world with many similarities to Earth. He uses his survival skills to live off the land and, while exploring the forest, he discovers a camp of some short human-like creatures with webbed feet and dark, olive-colored skin, though he finds them too warlike to interact with. He also hears a creature called the howling thing. Soon after, he is enslaved by the Tsook, a metal-weapon wielding race. Over the next three months, he learns their language and develops feelings for Megaan, the chief''s daughter. When, after escaping, he returns to warn the tribe about an impending attack, he is granted freedom and official entry into their tribe. Mark then discovers that, despite his misconceptions earlier, this world is actually just Earth in the future. Megaan''s brother gives Mark a shard of a Coca-Cola bottle and the Merkon (leader of The Transall) reveals the events between Mark''s time and this future, also revealing that he too was sent there by the beam of light. Apparently, a strange highly contagious form of the Ebola virus wiped out most of the human race. Those remaining used nuclear weapons on each other, forcing civilization to start over. After severely wounding the Merkon in a swordfight, Mark asks Megaan to marry him. However, the Merkon''s son has sworn revenge and Mark flees the village to protect them. He leads the Merkon''s army to the jungle, away from his new home. Once in the jungle, Mark systematically kills the army but forgets about a scouting party that attacks him. Mark hides behind a boulder for protection and suddenly the boulder is struck by lightning and sends off a charge which brings Mark into his normal time. Twenty years later, Mark has become a scientist working tirelessly to find a cure for the Ebola virus.

The Transall Saga

The book takes place in the second part of the 1850s and is a story of a young orphan girl; Marjorie, who on the way to the next orphanage meets a nice and concerned Judge Gray. He keeps the girl for a while at his place, where she befriends with his teenage son; Reggie. Unfortunately, Marjorie finally gets to the orphanage, but eventually does not stay there long, since a wealthy family adopts her. The family has just lost their own little girl and has a teenage son, who becomes highly jealous of his new sister. His unpleasant behaviour results in Marjorie''s accident and consequently, missing. The girl loses her memory and an old begger finds her and looks after her. She turns out to have her own business in it, though. When the girl recovers, she is taken for beg by the begger because people more willingly give money to children. One day, the couple meets a young woman who takes Marjorie from the begger and adopts her. Six years later, Marjorie goes to a Southern farm, where she is a teacher for two little children. There, she meets a young soldier ...

Marjorie''s Quest

This novel tells the story of Mags, an enslaved child working alongside other enslaved orphans in the bowels of a gemstone mine. The mine owner, Cole Peters, treats the children with casual brutality, an Mags, orphaned in his early childhood, has known no other life all the way up until the mysterious white horse stampedes into his life. This of course, is Dallen, his Companion, who assists Mags by bringing in another Herald to free him and the children. Their freedom comes on the heels of the arrest of Cole Peters, and Mags is flung into the fray of Haven as a Heraldic Trainee, with no notion of life outside of abject slavery. This, of course, left its scars, and Mags has both no idea of how to function in "normal" society, and no notion of why he so often winds up on the wrong end of trouble. His heavy accent and "stupidity" about such normal things leads to the King''s Own taking him under his wing as a spy protégé, however, Mags lives in perpetual fear of the bad old days. This fear isn''t unjustified, for it seems all of the Heralds are experiencing their own tumultuous changes, as they slowly abandon the old system of apprenticeships which Vanyel learned in, for one of a collegiate style such as what Herald Talia and Herald Elspeth experienced in the time of Arrows of the Queen. This switch is due to a sudden surge in the numbers of people Chosen, and the accompanying tremendous burdening of the Heraldic, Bardic, and Healer Collegium resources. The crowding is so intense, that Mags is forced to take a room in the Companion''s stable. This, on top of his painful social ineptness, sets the stage for a confrontation between Mags and his detractors. Mags, who used to sleep in worse conditions, does not mind being out in the stables, and remains unaware of why so many others do. However, one Herald accuses him of bringing all manner of illicit goods into the room because of his lodging, and nearly attacks him before the Compainions intervene. Because of Mags''s upbringing he has few friends so he literally does not understand many things most people in the Collegium find to be the utmost of importance, however with Dallen''s help he finds two true friends, Lena, a Bardic Trainee, and Bear, a Healer Trainee. All while this is happening, Mags is trained by the Kings Own in the art of spying, and is assigned to keep an eye on two ''dignitaries'' and their retinue of bodyguards and underlings who are visiting and causing trouble. He is also visiting the Guard Archives, in an attempt to find out how he ended up orphaned and enslaved in the first place. There is a suspicion that Mags'' parents may have been bandits themselves, a prospect that leaves Mags troubled and desperate to find the actual Guard reports. There, he discovers that Bear has been kidnapped by the supposed dignitaries, and is being kept hostage with a mad man. The dignitaries have been digging through the guard archives, and there they attack Bear who was doing the same thing for personal reasons. Mags ends up rescuing Bear and dispatching the guards

Foundation

An ordinary snapshot causes a mother’s world to unravel in an instant. After picking up her two young children from school, Grace Lawson looks through a newly developed set of photographs. She finds an odd one in the pack: a mysterious picture from perhaps twenty years ago, showing four strangers she can’t identify. But there is one face she recognizes—that of her husband, from before she knew him. When her husband sees the photo that night, he leaves their home and drives off without explanation. She doesn’t know where he’s going, or why he’s leaving. Or if he’s ever coming back. Nor does she realize how dangerous the search for him will be. Because there are others interested in both her husband’s past and that photo, including Eric Wu: a fierce, silent killer who will not be stopped from finding his quarry, no matter who or what stands in his way. Her world turned upside down, filled with doubts about her herself and marriage, Grace must confront the dark corners of her own tragic past she struggles to learn the truth, find her husband, and save her family. he:דיו חיוור pl:Tylko jedno spojrzenie zh:死亡印記

Just One Look

In the prologue, Diamond summarizes his methodology in one paragraph: Diamond identifies five factors that contribute to collapse: climate change, hostile neighbors, collapse of essential trading partners, environmental problems, and failure to adapt to environmental issues. He also lists 12 environmental problems facing mankind today. The first eight have historically contributed to the collapse of past societies: #Deforestation and habitat destruction #Soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil fertility losses) #Water management problems #Overhunting #Overfishing #Effects of introduced species on native species #Overpopulation #Increased per-capita impact of people Further, he says four new factors may contribute to the weakening and collapse of present and future societies: #Anthropogenic climate change #Buildup of toxins in the environment #Energy shortages #Full human utilization of the Earth’s photosynthetic capacity Diamond also writes about cultural factors, such as the apparent reluctance of the Greenland Norse to eat fish. The root problem in all but one of Diamond''s factors leading to collapse is overpopulation relative to the practicable (as opposed to the ideal theoretical) carrying capacity of the environment. The one factor not related to overpopulation is the harmful effect of accidentally or intentionally introducing nonnative species to a region. Diamond also states that "it would be absurd to claim that environmental damage must be a major factor in all collapses: the collapse of the Soviet Union is a modern counter-example, and the destruction of Carthage by Rome in 146 BC is an ancient one. It''s obviously true that military or economic factors alone may suffice" (p.&nbsp;15).

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

The story takes place before and leading up to the events in The Invasion. It is narrated by Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, or, as he is later known, Prince Elfangor. It begins with him uploading his memory into the computer before facing Visser Three at the abandoned construction site. The rest of the book is then a flashback of Elfangor''s personal history, beginning with him as an aristh, a warrior in training, and ending with him at the construction site. In 1976, Elfangor and his fellow aristh Arbron (who are aboard the dome ship StarSword) rescue two humans from the Skrit Na: Loren and Hedrick Chapman. They are assigned to return them to Earth under the leadership of a disgraced War-Prince, Alloran-Semitur-Corrass. However, upon realizing the Skrit Na are in possession of the mythical Time Matrix, they are forced to go after it. They find out that the Skrit Na are taking the Time Matrix to the Taxxon home world. Arbron becomes trapped as a Taxxon, and Elfangor becomes responsible for Alloran''s infestation when Sub-Visser 7 tricked him. Eventually, Elfangor, Alloran and the Yeerk controlling him, and the humans fall into a black hole. They are forced to use the Time Matrix to escape, which takes them to a fragmented universe created from Elfangor, Loren, and the Yeerk (now Visser Thirty-Two)''s memories. Elfangor and Loren are able to escape to Earth in Loren''s own time - although she has aged by several years due to the effect of the Time Matrix - where he permanently morphs a human and stays in that form. He marries Loren some time later, but just before she gives birth to Tobias, the Ellimist repairs Elfangor''s "timeline." Elfangor finds himself in the middle of a battle between his old ship and the Yeerks. The Yeerk ship is being commanded by Visser Thirty-Two - now Visser Three. Elfangor rams the Yeerk ship, almost killing himself, and saves his fellow Andalites. After this he is considered a hero.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

High Rise

By J. G. Ballard

Adam of the Road

By Elizabeth Gray Vining

Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz

By Ruth Plumly Thompson

Battle Royale

By Koushun Takami

A Rumor of War

By Philip Caputo

Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time

By Lisa Yee

The Transall Saga

By Gary Paulsen

Marjorie's Quest

By Jeanie Gould

Foundation

No Author Listed

Just One Look

By Harlan Coben

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

By Jared Diamond

The Andalite Chronicles

By K. A. Applegate