Comprising two distinct but interrelated plots, the narrative runs back and forth between the two, taking up each plotline in alternating chapters. The odd chapters tell the 15-year-old Kafka''s story as he runs away from his father''s house to escape an Oedipal curse and to embark upon a quest to find his mother and sister. After a series of adventures, he finds shelter in a quiet, private library in Takamatsu, run by the distant and aloof Miss Saeki and the intelligent and more welcoming Oshima. There he spends his days reading the unabridged Richard Francis Burton translation of A Thousand and One Nights and the collected works of Natsume Sōseki until the police begin inquiring after him in connection with a brutal murder. The even chapters tell Nakata''s story. Due to his uncanny abilities, he has found part-time work in his old age as a finder of lost cats (a clear reference to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle). The case of one particular lost cat puts him on a path that ultimately takes him far away from his home, ending up on the road for the first time in his life. He befriends a truck driver named Hoshino, who takes him on as a passenger in his truck and soon becomes very attached to the old man. Nakata and Kafka are on a collision course throughout the novel, but their convergence takes place as much on a metaphysical plane as it does in reality and, in fact, that can be said of the novel itself. Due to the Oedipal theme running through much of the novel, Kafka on the Shore has been called a modern Greek tragedy.

Kafka on the Shore

Sapphire, Conor, and their mum have moved to St Pirans with Roger, leaving behind their cottage by the sea, where their dad disappeared two years ago. Conor has adapted to this new life, but Sapphire cannot. She is withdrawn and restless, and her only relief is Ingo. She goes there more frequently, even without Conor, who has given up going, and prefers his life in the air. A new couple are living in their old house. The woman is on crutches has the look of Ingo on her face but does not know of the world beneath the sea. Sapphire rescues her when she finds the lady down by the sea, not sure why she is there. One evening Sapphire takes her beloved dog Sadie for a walk along the sea, but the call of Ingo is too strong, so she leaves Sadie up on the pavement and dives in. Faro is there. She only stays a minute but when she goes back to Sadie her dog seems shaken and ill. Sapphire''s mum says not to worry: the dog will be fine. Sapphire skips school and takes her dog to see granny Carne, a magical old lady. She phones home from granny Carne''s and tells her mum she''s staying over and won''t be back till morning. That night, Sapphire goes back to the cove, where she sees her father. He tells her that the tide knot is loose, but he can''t stay long and leaves shortly after. The next day her dog is healed but Sapphire is in trouble with her mum. Soon after, Conor and Sapphire go back to Ingo to find out more about her father. They swim in a rogue current. Whilst Faro rescues Conor, Sapphire is carried into the deep. She wakes up in blackness, but a whale helps her back to Ingo. There Sapphire and Conor see in a mirror-like thing a mer woman with a mer baby. The woman smiles at someone in the corner of the mirror – their father smiling lovingly at the woman and the baby. Feeling replaced and sad, they are about to leave when they learn of the tide knot, a stone that controls the tides that is becoming loose. Shortly, after they return, the tide knot loosens and nearly the entire town floods. As the houses are swallowed up by the flood water, Sapphire''s mum is ill. Sapphire, her mum and her friend Rainbow go up to the attic. Sapphire jumps out of the window into the sea where she meets Conor and Faro. Sapphire is slammed against a wall and her leg begins to bleed. Conor calls Elvira, a healer. Elvira heals Sapphire and together the four help Saldowr, the wisest of the mer and the keeper of the tide knot, to put the broken pieces back together to restore the tide knot. Saldowr is weak but they manage to do it with Conor''s power of reading the stone. The flood slowly recedes. Conor and Sapphire return to the rescue centre where they are re-united with their mother. At the end of the book, Sapphire is delighted that they are going back to their old cottage by the sea.

The Tide Knot

The novel is about Will Freeman, a 36-year-old bachelor, and Marcus, an introverted, bullied 12-year-old who lives alone with his suicidal mother, Fiona. Will, who has never had to work thanks to the royalties from his father''s hit Christmas song, "Santa''s Super Sleigh," has a lot of spare time, which he spends smoking, watching TV, listening to albums and looking for temporary female companionship. After a pleasant relationship with a single mother, Angie, Will comes up with the idea of attending a single parents group as a new way to pick up women. For this purpose, he invents a two-year-old son called Ned. It is through one of these single parents meetings that he comes to know Marcus. Although their relationship is initially somewhat strained, they finally succeed in striking up a true friendship. Will helps Marcus to fit into the modern world, taking him shopping, buying him shoes and introducing him to the music of Nirvana. Marcus and Will''s friendship blooms as the story progresses, even after Marcus and Fiona discover Will''s lie about having a child. Marcus is "adopted" by Ellie McRae, a tough, moody 15-year-old girl, who is constantly in trouble at school because she insists on wearing a Kurt Cobain jumper. He also spends some time with his dad Clive, who visits Marcus and Fiona for Christmas together with his new girlfriend Lindsey and her mother. Meanwhile Will starts going out with a single mother named Rachel, whose son Alistair is about the same age as Marcus. In the end, Marcus comes out of his shell and learns to stand up for himself. Will, meanwhile, finally grows up and ends up wanting to marry Rachel. Therefore, both Will and Marcus have started to live appropriately for their age groups. The action is set in 1993 and 1994 in London. The title is a reference to the song "About a Girl" by Nirvana, a band that is featured in the book, and Patti Smith''s tribute to Kurt Cobain, "About a Boy".

About a Boy

Michael "Beau" Geste is the protagonist. The main narrator (among others), by contrast, is his younger brother John. The three Geste brothers of Brandon Abbas are used as a metaphor for the British upper class values of a time gone by, and "the decent thing to do" is, in fact, the leitmotif of the novel. The Geste brothers are orphans and have been brought up by their aunt. The rest of Beau''s band are mainly Isobel and Claudia (only daughter of Lady Patricia, and in a way, also reason enough for Michael to join the French Foreign Legion), and Lady Patricia''s relative Augustus. When a precious jewel known as the "Blue Water" goes missing, suspicion falls on the young people, and Beau leaves Britain to join the Foreign Legion (la Légion étrangère), followed by his brothers, Digby (his twin) and John. There, after some adventure and separation from Digby, the sadistic Sergeant Lejaune gets command of the little garrison at Fort Zinderneuf in French North Africa, and only an attack by Tuaregs prevents a mutiny and mass desertion (of course the Geste brothers and a few loyals are against the plot). Throughout the book and adventures, Beau''s behaviour is true to France and the Legion, and he dies at his post. At Brandon Abbas, the last survivor of the three brothers, John, is welcomed by their aunt and his fiancée Isobel, and the reason for the jewel theft is revealed to have been a matter of honour, and to have been the only "decent thing" possible.

Beau Geste

Sometime between 1958 and 1962, Leo Runcible, a Liberal Jew, is working in the real estate field. On learning that Walt Dombrosio, Leo''s neighbor, has had a Black visitor to his house in a "lily-white" suburb of Marin County, California, potential purchasers interrogate Runcible about the matter and ultimately incur his wrath over their narrow-minded bigotry. He thereby fails to close the deal and forfeits their friendship and a precious commission as well. But according to Leo''s tortured logic it is Walt who''s at fault for this unforeseen little debacle. So in retaliation Runcible opportunistically reports Dombrosio''s later episode of drunk driving, leading to the loss of the latter''s motor vehicle operator''s license for a period of six months. Walt''s wife Sherry then drives him to and from work every day, eventually landing a job working alongside her husband. Walt, however, being as he is an insecure, misogynistic, manipulating headcase, quits his own position over this incident and continues to fume over it as the weeks and months roll by. He eventually humiliates and manhandles his wife in front of their neighbors as a prelude to forcefully impregnating her with an unwanted child which she unsuccessfully threatens to abort. At the same time, Runcible has found what he believes to be Neanderthal remains in Carquinez, Marin County, and envisages rising property prices due to incipient archaeological interest and the avalanche of media coverage that naturally follows. As it turns out, however, Dombrosio is the culprit who modified and planted the modern human remains there to begin with. They are a legacy of the local ''chuppers'' who developed facial, cranial and spinal deformations as a supposed result of the pollution of the local water supply. The novel ends with Walt Dombrosio, by far the most despicable character of the novel, essentially coming out on top. He discusses his flirtation with bankruptcy, via his purchase of the local substandard water company, with the local grammar school teacher, and he makes himself out as quite the unflinching hero in the process. There is also an extended scene, dovetailing almost imperceptibly into this conversation, in which Dombrosio visualizes his little family several years later after Sherry has presumably given birth to a malformed baby boy due to the possible teratogenic properties of the local water supply.

The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike

Many would call Ralph Waldo Emerson’s writing “metaphorical”, and that is just what this essay is. “Nature”, is centered on the theme of, nonetheless, nature, in which Emerson lays out a problem that he attempts to solve throughout the essay; a problem in which he believes man doesn’t fully accept nature’s beauty and all that it has to offer. Emerson wrote in "Nature," "All is fair in love and war." According to Emerson, people are distracted by the world around them; nature gives back to man, but man doesn’t reciprocate the favor. Emerson culminates his ideas, breaking down his essay into eight sections- Nature, Commodity, Beauty, Language, Discipline, Idealism, Spirit, and Prospects, all of which give a different light on nature and man''s relationship. Nature is perfectly suitable for man, but according to Emerson, man must take himself away from society’s flaws and distractions, and create “wholeness” with nature. Emerson believes that solitude is the only way man can fully adhere to what nature has to offer. Reflecting upon this idea of solitude, and man''s search for it, Emerson states, “To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars” {reflist}. Clearly, man must allow nature to “take him away”, society can destroy mans wholeness. Nature and man must create a reciprocal relationship, “Nature, in its ministry to man, is only the material, but is also the process and the result. All the parts incessantly work into each other’s hands for the profit of man. The wind sows the seed; the sun evaporates the sea; the wind blows the vapor to the field; the ice, on the other side of the planet, condenses rain on this; the rain feeds the plant; the plant feeds the animal; and thus the endless circulations of the divine charity nourish man” {reflist}, as Jefferson says, nature and man need each other to be beneficial. This relationship that Emerson depicts is somewhat spiritual; man must recognize the spirit of nature, and accept it as the Universal Being. “Nature is not fixed but fluid. Spirit alters, moulds, makes it. The immobility or bruteness of nature, is the absence of spirit; to pure spirit, it is fluid, it is volatile, it is obedient” {reflist}. Emerson explains that nature is not “fixed or fluid”; to a pure spirit, nature is everything. Although highly metaphorical, “Nature” creates such a different perspective towards one view of nature. Emerson abstractly speaks to every man; metaphorically creating common ground.

Nature

The story follows the lives of twelve people who lived in the same area of England over a period of 6000 years, and how their lives link to one another''s. The opening chapter, "Hob''s Hog", proves challenging for many readers, as the first-person narrative voice is used as Moore attempts to render the language and thoughts of a character from around 4000 BC (similar in fashion, though used in a more immersive manner than Russell Hoban''s post-apocalyptic characters in Riddley Walker). Each chapter carries the reader forward in time, but circles around the centre of Northampton, drawing in historical events and touchstones, before finally segueing into metafictional narrative in the closing chapter, as the author himself comments directly upon the previous chapter''s ambiguous closing line, before relating a personal (possibly fictional) anecdote about Northampton which relates a personal experience of local myth, and features an appearance by his daughter and son-in-law, the writers Leah Moore and John Reppion. Throughout, the image of the fire sparks resonates between the tales, while Moore finds a different voice for each character - though most are inherently duplicitous in some manner, leading to a further commentary on the disparity between myth and reality, and which is more likely to endure over time.

Voice of the Fire

The Named begins with a foreshadowing that portrays the protagonist: Ethan, witnessing his own sister''s death by Marduke, an evil minion to the evil Goddess: ''Chaos'' who is also the leader of the ''Order of Chaos'' (an organization that opposes the Guard). The story continues when Ethan is 16. He goes to school in Angel Falls and is aware of his powers, and is relatively good at controlling them. The story switches point of views and Isabel comes into play. She is a long-time acquaintance with Ethan because of his standing friendship with her brother Matt. Unfortunately, Matt and Ethan''s friendship grew apart because of their common interest in Rochelle. However, Rochelle doesn''t come truly into play until later in the story. Ethan is training under the power of Arkarian, a coordinator of the Guard. He has the power of agelessness and remains 18. He has blue hair and violet eyes, but only because of this power. Arkarian is also a truthseer (can read the minds of others) and has his wings, which allows him to teleport to anywhere by thinking of it. Isabel becomes aware of her powers one day while getting ready for school. She has the power to heal. Arkarian tells Ethan that he has been given an apprentice: Isabelle, whom he must train in the following three weeks. This is to be ready for the final battle between the Order and the Guard but Ethan now Isabel knows of this in this moment in time. Isabel was in love with Ethan when they were young. She would follow him and her brother around just to be with them. She grew attached to the outdoors and was very strong for being a girl. This feature alone helped Ethan train her. At first, Isabel was weary about Ethan and couldn''t trust what he was saying, but she grew to it and soon was a very strong member of the Guard and one of the named. The Named, are the group of nine who are said to fight the evil goddess in the final battle. The nine who may or may not appear in this book, are Arkarian, Ethan, Isabel, Matt, Neriah, Rochelle, Jimmy, Shaun, and Mr. Carter. Ethan and Isabel go on their first mission back in time to make sure King Richard actually became king. The only way to get back in time is to go through the citadel (a palace with many rooms that appeal to the people who show up in them). They can only get to the Citadel through their sleep, and only their souls go, their body remains behind while they sleep. Isabel is close to dying at one point in the book. Only her soul-mate can save her. Her soul-mate had to call her name to get her soul back to her body. Ethan tried but failed. Isabel couldn''t hear him. Then Arkarian called her name. Isabel heard him. When she awoke she thought it was Ethan that had saved her. Arkarian said that Isabel can never know that he is her soul-mate.

The Named

Marcus Attilius Primus arrives in the Bay of Naples from Rome to take charge as aquarius (hydraulic engineer) of the Aqua Augusta, the aqueduct that supplies water to the many towns in a region encompassing the Bay of Naples and Mount Vesuvius. The nine important towns are, in sequential order, Pompeii, Nola, Acerrae, Atella, Naples, Puteoli, Cumae, Baiae, and Misenum. Attilius'' predecessor as aquarius, Exomnius, has mysteriously vanished as the springs that flow through the aqueduct begin to fail, lowering the supply of water available to the region''s reservoir, the Piscina Mirabilis in Misenum. Then, dramatically, the flow of water stops entirely. Attilius concludes that the aqueduct must be blocked somewhere close to Mount Vesuvius, since reports claim a shut down of the system just before Nola, meaning that towns from there through Naples and Misenum are without any water supply. With aid from Pliny the Elder, whose fleet is docked at Misenum, Attilius assembles an expedition to travel to Pompeii, the only town not connected to the water grid, and then on to the blocked section of the Aqua Augusta. While Attilius'' expedition is there, the aquarius himself becomes embroiled as part of a plot of the former slave and land speculator Numerius Popidius Ampliatus. Ampliatus is planning on offering a cheap water supply to Pompeii, which Exomnius, the previous aquarius, had helped him do while stealing from the imperial treasury. Attilius'' questions and studies make Ampliatus suspicious of what Pliny the Elder and his nephew later discover—thousands of Roman sesterces at the bottom of the reservoir that should have gone to Rome and which Attilius'' predecessor had intended to retrieve once he''d emptied the reservoir. Ampliatus'' daughter Corelia gets Attilius the proof he needs from her father''s written records when he is performing repairs to a collapsed section of tunnel in the region around Mount Vesuvius. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius on August 24 overwhelms Pompeii, Oplontis, and Herculaneum. Attilius risks his life and comes back to Pompeii to find Corelia. Attilius and Corelia dig their way through the aqueduct tunnel, which the springs are beginning to fill—which carries a high risk of drowning. Ampliatus is killed when he refuses to evacuate the city, and Pliny dies from the effects of fumes on a corpulent body when he tries to evacuate the citizens. At the end of the book Attilius and Corelia enter the aqueduct just as the waters are coming back to full flow. The last sentence of the novel reports a local legend that a man and woman had emerged from the aqueduct after the eruption—implying that Attilius and Corelia likely survived the trip up the aqueduct. The incident of Ampliatus feeding a slave to his eels is based on the actual historical case of Vedius Pollio.

Pompeii

After an argument with his sister in Beijing''s Forbidden City, Dan Cahill is kidnapped by Ian and Natalie Kabra. He is dumped in Jonah Wizard''s lollipop factory where Jonah treats him nicely and gives out his own suite, taking him to a concert, and letting him fly first class. Meanwhile, Amy Cahill and Nellie are searching for him, and head to Alistair Oh to get help in finding Dan. Alistair translates a Chinese newspaper saying that Jonah is going to the Great Wall of China. However, Jonah cancels his flight to the Great Wall, knowing that Amy and Nellie are going there; he then goes to a Wushu City, where Dan takes Wushu lessons. Later, while Dan explores a tunnel he finds lab equipment from Gideon Cahill''s lab and a picture of Madeleine Cahill that belonged to the notorious Anne Bonny. The Wizards get a mysterious message that gives coordinates saying to go to a specific spot at the Terra Cotta Warrior''s resting place. Meanwhile, Amy and Nellie look for Dan at the Great Wall and find a secret door. Nellie picks the lock and they come into a room. After Amy''s Feng Shui style organizing, a light shines in showing Mt. Everest. While they were searching the Great Wall, Jonah and Dan checked out the Warriors. Jonah meant to send Dan in alone in case it was a trap, and it was. They were put in jail. Jonah''s Dad gets them out and Jonah decides to quit the hunt. Cora Wizard, his mother, is disgusted and slaps Jonah telling Dan that they have discovered his branch is Janus. Dan tells them he is a Madrigal and leaves the shocked Wizards. After he leaves, he sees the Holts climbing Mt. Everest on television. Grace had stored an advanced helicopter, the A-Star, in rural China and told Amy and Dan about it knowing they would need it in the future eventually. Dan, knowing the location of the A-Star, travels to it. When Amy and Nellie get the A-Star ready, Dan meets up with them. Dan and Amy head up to Mt. Everest in the A-Star where they found a serum embedded in Mt. Everest. They lose the serum when Ian falls off the edge of a cliff. He hangs on to the edge and Amy saves him letting the serum plunge miles below, with Amy knowing that they already had another form of the clue with them- the piece of silk. Amy then explains that the serum was silk in its liquid form. After Amy finds the inscription indicating it was Anne Bonny''s, they then head to the Caribbean to search for their next clue that Anne Bonny may have left there. The secret message throughout the book was "Madrigals are behind everything. They lay out the path, the others will walk. The end is coming." This code is circled throughout the book. The code on the cover, the message of animal codes on the emperor''s crown, reads "Tenzing knew too." The crown also has the words "Because it''s there", which is one of the quotes by a person in the book.

The Emperor''s Code

The novel is about 43 year-old Dr. Ernst Sebastian, a lawyer who works as an Untersuchungsrichter (investigating judge) in the fictional town of Sankt Nikolaus during 1927. One Saturday afternoon a middle-aged man called Franz Adler, who has been arrested for the murder of a prostitute, is brought before him. During the interview&mdash;a preliminary hearing during which the two men are alone in Sebastian''s office&mdash;Sebastian recognizes that Adler is in fact his old classmate, who attended the Gymnasium in Sankt Nikolaus, which was then Austria-Hungary, for two years when they were both 16 and 17. Adler, however, who appears to him fearful and beaten by life, does not seem to recognize the judge, and Sebastian decides to postpone any private talk with Adler till the following Monday. As it happens, that same Saturday night Sebastian attends a class reunion (the Abituriententag of the title) occasioned by the 25th anniversary of his Matura (Class of ''02), a meeting he knows he will regret going to as it will bring back both a plethora of unpleasant memories and a confrontation with the bourgeois self-satisfaction of his former classmates. That night, Sebastian does not go to sleep. Rather, upset by his chance meeting with Adler and the ennervating talk at the class reunion, he sits down at his desk and writes down a confession in shorthand, which on the following morning turns out to be indecipherable to everyone including himself&mdash;except to the reader, who can read Sebastian''s confession as the middle part of the novel). At the age of 16, Sebastian, on the command of his father, the highest-ranking judge in Austria-Hungary, has to leave the prestigious Schottengymnasium in Vienna due to poor grades and is forced to continue his education in the provincial town of Sankt Nikolaus, where he stays with two aunts of his. A mediocre pupil, he tries desperately to attract the attention of his new classmates, who turn out to be very reluctant to accept the new boy into their close-knit community. In the course of one schoolyear, however, Sebastian succeeds in tempting, and eventually seducing, many of his classmates to truancy, stay up late on a regular basis, lie to their teachers and parents, drink excessive amounts of alcohol, and eventually associate with prostitutes. In particular, although he is aware of his mediocre performance at school and also of his own abominable character; Sebastian, rather than repent for his sins, sets out to conquer the intellectual superiority of his classmate Adler, a red-haired Jew who writes dramas and philosophical treatises, though he is only 17. To get rid of his rival once and for all, Sebastian pushes him into forging a document. The truth comes out, and before Adler can be expelled, Sebastian helps him escape to Germany, thus ensuring that his own part in the crime will never be revealed. On the Monday following the class reunion, Adler is again brought before Sebastian. This time the judge does reveal his identity to Adler, but on closer inspection of the file in front of him he finds out that the man''s assertion that he has never gone to school in Sankt Nikolaus is true.

Class Reunion

The groundswell is characterized by several tactics that guide companies into using social technologies strategically and effectively. Businesses should listen to their customers to understand what the market is looking for in their products. In order to do this, a company needs to find out if their customers are using social technologies and how they are using them. Instead of advertising to customers, marketing departments should find creative ways to connect with users about their experience with a product and their feelings about the brand. One common method is participation in social networks. Enthusiastic customers are part of the groundswell, and companies can recognize and appreciate these customers by creating online communities and social platforms where they can connect with the brand and provide reviews. Businesses can harness the support of their own employees by creating internal social applications for them to connect with the brand, also known as enterprise social software.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Kafka on the Shore

By Haruki Murakami

The Tide Knot

By Helen Dunmore

About a Boy

By Nick Hornby

Beau Geste

By P. C. Wren

The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike

By Philip K. Dick

Nature

No Author Listed

Voice of the Fire

By Alan Moore

The Named

By Marianne Curley

Pompeii

By Robert Harris

The Emperor's Code

By Gordon Korman

Class Reunion

By Franz Werfel

Groundswell

No Author Listed