1970: Waldo Monk is black, 65, a widower and two months from retirement from Roundly''s Pool and Billiard factory in Indiana. Saifon is a Lao-American girl who arrived in the USA under mysterious circumstances when she was a child. She pretty much hates everyone, and for good reason. It''s Waldo''s unenviable task to train her up to take over his job. He can''t stand her and she shows little aptitude for the ball business. But over his final months, they come to an understanding, maybe even a fondness for each other. Two disasters in Waldo''s life turn all his plans upside down. Somehow, he and his dead wife, Aretha end up adopting Saifon. Against Saifon''s wishes, her new dad follows her to Southeast Asia as a minder. While trying to solve the mystery of Saifon''s past, they become entangled in the confusion of the region: the Air America bombing, the Lao Socialist movement, the CIA, the Thai Communists, and a network of smuggling war profiteers. With the help of a CIA agent, they set about breaking down the network of traffickers still smuggling war orphans out of Laos. During this exciting period, Saifon takes a job as a cabaret singer in a whorehouse, and Waldo manages to get himself shot, and kidnapped. By drawing on his factory experience, he''s able to steer the kidnappers in a more profitable direction. Saifon traces the traffickers through to Bangkok. Even though it seems they''ve cornered them, everything comes down to a high profile court case, and Saifon lying her head off to give the bad guys what''s coming to them. At the airport before the journey back to the States, both Saifon and Waldo realize they have nothing to go back for. So they return to Laos, and stay there. Saifon makes an effort to regain some semblance of Lao-ness, and Waldo works part time at the Air America Commissary in Udon. Their lives are finally content and they seem to have discovered some purpose. But then, in 1975, the American troops pull out of Vietnam and Socialist forces take over in Laos. Waldo suddenly becomes the enemy. All they''ve worked for is about to crumble. But they''re shocked to discover that contacts they''d made earlier weren''t all they seemed. One of them, a quiet guy Waldo used to play pool with, turns out to be Souphanouvong, the Red Prince, and Laos'' first communist president. So with the blessing of the party, Waldo and Saifon settle in the south of Laos and run a home for kids. And there they stay until Waldo, now in his nineties, decides it''s time to go home and be with Aretha. The story is written from the perspective of an undisclosed person who got to know the pair later in their lives. With a basic grasp of English, this narrator describes their story in colloquial spoken American.

Pool and its Role in Asian Communism

The story is set around the life of Taylor Lily Markham, the 17-year-old leader of the boarding school on the Jellicoe Road (country NSW/ACT). Taylor was abandoned at the 7/11 on the Jellicoe Road by her mother when she was 11, and her only recollection of her father is a brief memory of standing on her father''s shoulders, which were revealed to be Jude''s shoulders later in the story. The only adult influence in her life is her mentor/guardian Hannah, who lives in the unfinished house by the river, and writes stories about five kids who lived there in the 1980s and who has suddenly vanished into thin air at a time when Taylor really needs her. To top all of Taylor’s problems off, there is a territory war going on between the boarders, the Townies (kids from the Jellicoe Town) and the Cadets (Sydney boys who come for a six-week training exercise every year to Jellicoe). The leader of the cadets this year happens to be the very boy who Taylor ran away with when she was 14 in search of her mother. The one who betrayed her trust and she never wants to see again. Running parallel to Taylor''s story is the story that Hannah writes, about the five kids in the 1980s. As Hannah has not yet complied it, the story is shown in pieces throughout the novel.

On the Jellicoe Road

On a future Earth (c.2080 CE) overwhelmed with severe difficulties related to overpopulation, a portal is discovered that leads to a parallel world. Jim Briskin, campaigning to be the first Negro president of the United States, believes that the new "alter-Earth" could be colonized and become a home for the seventy million people that are being kept in cryopreservation. Known as bibs, these are people - mostly non-caucasians - who decided to be "put to sleep" until a time when the overpopulation problem is solved. Briskin is a social conservative, who does not support the Golden Doors of Bliss orbital brothel, and opposes widespread abortion access. There are two dominant US political parties, the "Republican Liberals" and the "States Rights Conservative Democrats" who run CLEAN, a racist frontgroup that opposes Briskin''s candidacy, although higher-income white American voters support him. Terraforming becomes a pivotal election issue, until a warp drive malfunction in a "''scuttler" tube results in the discovery of an apparently uninhabited alternate world, an ''alter-Earth'' where homo sapiens either never evolved or lost in competition with other early hominids. In this case, the point of divergence appears to have occurred between one to two million years ago, as homo erectus, also known as sinanthropus/pithecanthropus or Peking Man, is the dominant species. In reference to the latter designation, the explorers refer to the indigenous hominids of this world as "Pekes." There is a hasty initial colonization attempt. The minimum time period necessary for all of the tens of millions of "bibs" to emigrate is estimated to be twenty years. In order to cut this down to 5 years the rift is temporarily closed so a new power supply can be installed which will theoretically quadruple the width of the rift. When this action is completed, however, it is discovered that one hundred years has elapsed in the parallel world. During this time the conjoined twin businessman George Walt, who had run the Golden Doors of Bliss satellite brothel, had emigrated into the parallel world during initial colonization and set himself up as a "wind god". He spent those hundred years teaching and filling in technological gaps in the Peke''s world as well as learning many new ideas from them. He also apparently assisted in sabotaging the colonization effort, as it would not exactly be in his own best interest were word to leak out that he was merely a mutated homo sapiens. After all the decades-consuming preparations have been completed, however, George Walt eventually sets a trap so that whenever the rift eventually re-opens, the "Pekes" can power it from their side and keep it from closing. This procedure allows the Pekes to begin an invasion of Earth, but they abruptly depart en masse when it is finally revealed, as George Walt originally feared, that their wind god is actually just a wind bag; that is to say, he''s just another lying, deceiving, untrustworthy member of the species homo sapiens. The colonization attempt from Earth is thereby aborted, and Briskin, being newly elected, is left at the story''s end to deal with the consequences during his next two presidential terms.

The Crack in Space

The protagonist Yang Guo is the orphaned son of the first novel''s antagonist Yang Kang. He is raised briefly by the couple Guo Jing and Huang Rong he is sent to the Quanzhen Sect for better guidance in moral values and orthodox martial arts. In Quanzhen, Yang Guo is often picked on and bullied by his fellow students and his master Zhao Zhijing is biased against him. Yang Guo flees and ventures unknowingly into the nearby Tomb of the Living Dead, where the Ancient Tomb Sect is housed. He is saved by Xiaolongnü, a mysterious maiden of unknown origin, and becomes her apprentice. They live together in the tomb for many years until Yang Guo grows up. After being attacked by Li Mochou, they leave the tomb and stay on the mountain. Xiaolongnü develops romantic feelings for Yang Guo and after a while, he too falls in love with her. However, their romance is forbidden by doctrines of the Confucianist society of that time. Throughout the story, their love meets with several tests, such as the misunderstandings that threaten to tear them apart and the encounter with Gongsun Zhi. Finally, after their reunion and marriage, Xiaolongnü leaves Yang Guo again, owing to her belief she cannot recover from a fatal poison, and promises to meet him again sixteen years later. While Yang Guo is wandering the jianghu alone, he meets several formidable martial artists and a giant condor. His adventures gradually mould him into a courageous pugilist, whose prowess matches the Greats of his age. Yang Guo serves his nation by helping the Han Chinese of Song defeat the Mongol invaders. At the end of the novel, he is reunited with Xiaolongnü and they are recognised as heroes of their time.

The Return of the Condor Heroes

Will Carden, the novel''s protagonist, is fifteen years old at the start of the story. His family has "come down" in the world: though his late father had once owned a steel mill, Will and his mother and siblings now survive by growing vegetables on a two-acre plot of land. Will is popular with the local children, especially with the five Williams siblings who live in the big house in the town of Bingham. Of the five, Mary Louise is the beauty; her twelve-year-old sister Annabel is plain in comparison, with red hair and freckles and a "pug nose." Their father owns the steel mill that succeeded the Carden mill as the town''s leading employer; their mother, the snobbish Mrs. Williams, wounds Will by telling her children to avoid the lowly "vegetable boy." Will, however, is a lad of fine character; he is encouraged by the local physician, Dr. Meigs, who joins the Carden family in a mushroom-growing business that relieves their poverty. Will saves Annabel''s life when she falls through a frozen pond while ice-skating. Annabel and Will grow close as Annabel blossoms into young womanhood; Meigs encourages her steel-magnate father to acknowledge and encourage the boy. Meigs and Williams also become suspicious of Ezra Jordan, the man who manages Williams''s mill and boards with the Cardens. Jordan was crucial in the Carden family''s history; the doctor and steel-man realize that all knowledge of the death of Will''s father has filtered through Jordan. Upon investigation, they learn that Jordan has cheated both Williams and the Cardens, by appropriating a valuable steel-making process developed by the elder Carden. It turns out that Mr. Carden is alive and well in Britain, where he has made his fortune. Jordan has worked a double fraud: he deceived the Cardens in Bingham into believing that their husband and father had died in a shipwreck &mdash; and he also tricked Carden in England into thinking that his family had perished in an epidemic. Jordan maintained his lodging with the family precisely to intercept any possible communications that would reveal his nefarious scheme. Once all of the facts are revealed, the Carden family is united in prosperity once more. Will and Annabel look forward to marriage and the prospect of a happy union. ---- Annabel was included in the sixth and final issue of the annual Oz-story Magazine in 2000, with the illustrations of both Hall and Nuyttens.

Annabel

The novel is set on year 2016 Earth, with several interstellar ships being launched by the US and the EU in the hopes of finding habitable worlds to alleviate the overpopulation of Earth, only to find that while inhabitable worlds exists aplenty, they are all taken by a Commonwealth of alien races. This device allows the author to explain why his colonists are sent to the one world available, devoid of any life form because of its unexplainable lack of metals. Zahn describes briefly the conflicts between the military and civilian parts of the Astra expedition, the latter further divided between scientists and colonists, then introduces the main device of the novel - the planet itself somehow absorbs the metal, leading to equipment literally vanishing into the ground. Soon after the disappearance, what was thought to be a dormant volcano launches into orbit a cable of an unknown material, which turns out to be superconductive, of great tensile strength and with the ability to atomically bond with anything it touches. From this fact the author derives the novel''s title: Astra is actually the "Spinneret" of this cable. What once was a resource-less dirtball soon becomes the most popular factory in the galaxy, with several alien races, the UN and the United States all jockeying for rights to the cable, with the colonists stuck in between. Looming over this tableau lies the question of who the Spinners were - or are, why they disappeared, and what they could have used such huge amounts of cable for. In the epilogue, an Astra expedition on a newly recovered Spinner craft discovers the Spinner world - englobed in a Dyson sphere of Cable material, designed to project the same spectrum of a red giant. The scientists conclude that the Spinners, involved in a war with some other than extinct race, had decided to disguise their home star in the unsuccessful attempt not to be found and destroyed. The Spinners'' world becomes the new Earth population outlet, with the proceedings of Cable sales bootstrapping its economy. The alien races depicted by Timothy Zahn are the ctencri, shrewd merchants not unlike Star Trek''s Ferengi; the rooshrike with their warrior code of honour; the m''zarch, a foolhardy race bent on war for war''s sake, reminiscent of Klingons; the pom, a marine race resembling dolphins; the orspham; and the whissst, a race whose whole culture is based upon humour and practical jokes.

Spinneret

Life is a memoir covering Keith Richards''s life, starting with his childhood in Dartford, Kent, through to his success with the Rolling Stones and his current life in Connecticut. His interest in music was triggered by his mother, Doris, who played records by Sarah Vaughan, Billy Eckstine and Louis Armstrong, and his maternal grandfather, Augustus Theodore Dupree, a former big band player, who encouraged him to take up the guitar. In his teens he met up with Mick Jagger, who he had known in primary school, and discovered that they both shared a love of blues music. In the early 1960s Richards moved into a London flat, shared with Jagger and Brian Jones. Together with Bill Wyman, Ian Stewart and Charlie Watts, the Rolling Stones were founded in 1962, playing gigs at Ealing Jazz Club and the Crawdaddy Club. The book chronicles Richards''s career with the Stones since 1962, following their rise from playing small club gigs to stadium concerts, Richards''s drug habits, his arrests and convictions. His relationships with a number of women, including Anita Pallenberg, Marianne Faithfull, Ronnie Spector and Patti Hansen, whom he married in 1983, are covered in detail. The often difficult partnership between Richards and Jagger is referred to throughout the work and coverage of this has caused much media interest. Throughout the work, much attention is given to Richards'' love of music, his style of playing and chord construction. His non-Stones projects, such as the X-Pensive Winos and recording with the Wingless Angels in Jamaica, as well as collaborations with Chuck Berry and Gram Parsons amongst others are covered in some detail.

Life

The novel contains two central characters, both fourteen years of age: the first, Aurora Thorpe (rabbit queen), has been forced by her overprotective mother and stepfather to attend the prestigious St Dymphna''s Non-Denominational Ladies'' College. The second, also attending St Dymphna''s, is Web Richardson (rabbit king), an outcast from a single parent family. Aurora and Web share a prickly connection, despite Aurora''s reluctance to be associated with the terribly unpopular Web. In an abruptly unfamiliar environment, and under the pressure of family and social expectations, Aurora becomes increasingly concerned with losing weight as a means of achieving the acceptance of her peers and living up to her own rigorous standards. Meanwhile, Web endures life without a mother, having only the scant guidance of her timid father, overbearing aunt, bitter grandfather and volatile older sister to rely on. Web desperately tries to stop Aurora from "disappearing", at the same time struggling with her mother''s absence and the need for a friend. There are many references throughout the book to suggest that the school "St Dymphna''s" is in fact the selective Mac.Robertson Girls'' High School in Melbourne. This is the school that the author attended.

Killing Aurora

The plot occurs in Damascus, 1840. Aslan is a 15 years old religious, Jewish teen, one of the outwardly pampered sons of the Farhi family. Additionally, he is gay. Behind closed doors, he is abused and beaten by his siblings, mother and father; at school the other kids make fun of him, especially when he and Moussa, another delicate lad, are caught holding hands. The outcome of this tender incident speaks volumes about the power of Aslan''s father in the community: when this news gets out, Moussa simply vanishes. But there''s even more going on behind the Farhi household doors. When his father is away, Aslan''s mother dresses her son in her clothes, shoes and make-up - and these are their most (and maybe the only) intimate moments together. At any other time, she sides against him with the rest of the family. Miserable, Aslan grasps at anything he can to put himself out of his misery, including trying to become fatally infected when there''s an outbreak of the plague. When his father marries him off at the age of 15 to a rabbi''s daughter, things go from bad to worse as Aslan is unable to consummate the marriage. His solution involved succumbing to passions of his own, a tremulous step that takes him down a secretive road of pleasure mixed with fear. As he becomes bolder in his forays to explore and enjoy the forbidden nightlife of the city, Aslan becomes enamoured with a young woman singer, Umm-Jihan, and catches the eye of Father Tommaso, an Italian monk. Aslan''s meeting and further interaction with the monk spur on the plot, when the monk has a heart attack and dies, while Aslan''s secret makes him hide the body. That leads to a blood libel against the Jews, blaming them, with no evidence, for the murder of the monk, in a vicious trial with grim results. Aslan observes his family''s long-standing feud with a rival merchant family, and the blaming of all the community because of his secret and of his being in the closet. One of the memorable things he says is: "why is it that men cannot love one another more, instead of beating and striking, oppressing and debasing, despoiling and destroying?" Ultimately, his attempts to assert himself to his father prove terrible and tragic.

Death of a Monk

The Diamond Girls is about 4 girls (later 5) called Martine, Jude, Rochelle and Dixie. Their mother, Sue, is heavily pregnant with her 5th child and believes it is a boy since she reads tarot cards and peers into a crystal ball. They live in a 3-bedroom apartment in the North Block in Bletchworth which was their best flat ever. Sue decides to move to a proper house on the Planet Estate. Judging the pictures, Sue and the kids think it''s a great house but when they arrive, it''s the opposite. As they move, they hire Dixie''s dad''s friend Bruce to help move the furniture. However, the day they move in, Sue goes into labour. Bruce and Martine go with Sue to the hospital and the others are left alone. Dixie then explores the garden and meets a shy girl called Mary who has been abused by her mother. When the girls need candles, they go to Mary''s house and Dixie hears Mary''s mother slapping her. Sue comes home a day later with Sundance, a baby boy. However, when Dixie changes Sundance''s nappy, she sees that Sundance is a girl. She keeps this secret to herself and confronts Sue about him. Sue begs Dixie to keep it a secret so she does. Meanwhile, Rochelle gets a boyfriend who is quite a few years older than her. Jude then learns kung fu from Bruce and Martine, unable to cope with the house and moving, runs back to her boyfriend after Sue finding out that Martine''s pregnant.When Dixie is playing with Mary, Mary tells Dixie that her mother threw her teddy out. Dixie offers to lend her toy budgie for the night but then regrets it. Dixie later goes to Mary''s house to get him back and ends up getting badly injured when Mary jumps out of the window, after Dixie told her to jump off the garden wall. Martine comes back after breaking up with her boyfriend because his mother and him kept badmouthing the Diamonds, despite her pregnancy. After Dixie woke up in hospital with both legs broken, she saw lots of people with a sickly scent, and is informed that Mary''s mother is getting help and Mary is staying with other relatives. Sue then tells everyone that Sundance is a girl, not a boy.

The Diamond Girls

Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen follows the character of Mary Elizabeth "Lola" Cep as she moves to New Jersey with her family and attempts to become the Queen Bee at Dellwood High. In order to become so she must contend with Carla Santini, who has no intention of vacating her place in school society. Both end up vying for the lead in the school play, with the feud only getting worse after the breakup of Lola''s favorite band. When Carla gets VIP passes to the band''s last concert and the after party, Lola says she and her best friend Ella Gerard are going also. They sneak away to New York, get kicked out of the concert, then find the lead singer drunk and on the side of the road, which eventually leads to them getting to the after party. Lola and Ella return to school the next day, eager to boast to Carla about their antics at the afterparty, but are humiliated when Carla succeeds in convincing everyone else they never attended. Lola goes home, upset, and decides not to perform in the school play. But she changes her mind the night of the play after Ella tells her off, and Lola rushes to school to take on her role as the lead. The book ends with the play as a success and with Lola and Carla in the bathroom fixing up their make up for the after party while they acknowledge each other.

Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

After the Hapans, led by Tenel Ka, decide to leave the Galactic Alliance, Jacen Solo/Darth Caedus devises a plan and kidnaps Allana to force Tenel Ka to continue supporting the government. Meanwhile, a Jedi strike team, led by Jedi Master Kyle Katarn, tries to take on Darth Caedus on Coruscant, but Caedus prevails with the help of some guards, ending with the decapitation of Mithric, a Falleen Jedi. However, the team successfully places a tracking beacon on Caedus. Later, the team of Han, Leia, Jaina, Jag and Zekk slips aboard the Anakin Solo to get information on Dark Jedi Alema Rar, and with it they track her down to Lumiya''s asteroid home and kill her with Jag''s Mandalorian crushgauntlets. Also, Zekk sets Ship free with the use of the dark side of the Force, and Jaina helps him back to the light side afterwards. Jacen also decides to tell Allana that he is her father after she discovered that he kidnapped her rather than legitimately taking care of her. The climax begins with the Jedi interfering in the midst of a battle between the Galactic Alliance and the Confederation over Centerpoint Station in the Corellian system. A Jedi team, led by Kyp Durron with Valin Horn and Jaden Korr, sneaks aboard Centerpoint Station in an attempt to destroy it. The Jedi team rescues Allana from Caedus (using Luke, Ben and Saba Sebatyne as a distraction). Kyp and the others have a code installed set to destroy Centerpoint Station in order to prevent anybody else from using it again. Han, Leia, Luke, Ben, and Saba make it back to the Millennium Falcon, being piloted by Jag and Kyle who rescue them. As they escape, Centerpoint Station explodes due to sabotage, taking with it much of the Corellian Fleets, Commenorian Fleets, and the GA Fifth Fleet. Kyle remarks that the destruction of Centerpoint station left a void in the Force. The story ends with the revelation of Allana''s parentage to Han and Leia. Jaina then hints to Jag that she is going to seek out Boba Fett in order to learn some skills for the final showdown between her and her twin brother. The book was also available in the audiobook and E-Book formats. Abridged Compact Disc Read by Marc Thompson On Sale: November 27, 2007 ISBN 978-0-7393-2400-4 Published by: Random House Audio Abridged Audiobook Download Read by Marc Thompson On Sale: November 27, 2007 ISBN 978-0-7393-5695-1 E-Book On Sale: April 29, 2008 ISBN 978-0-345-51054-9 Published by: LucasBooks

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Pool and its Role in Asian Communism

No Author Listed

On the Jellicoe Road

By Melina Marchetta

The Crack in Space

By Philip K. Dick

The Return of the Condor Heroes

By Louis Cha

Annabel

By L. Frank Baum

Spinneret

By Timothy Zahn

Life

By James Fox

Killing Aurora

By Helen Barnes

Death of a Monk

By Alon Hilu

The Diamond Girls

No Author Listed

Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

By Dyan Sheldon

Fury

By Aaron Allston