Mary "Molly" Jemison lives with her family on a Pennsylvania farm, until one morning she is taken captive by Indians who raid her home, separate her from her family, and take her and two other captives to the French Fort Duquesne. There she is bought by two Seneca Indian sisters: Shining Star, who is kind and beautiful, and Squirrel Woman, who is stern and cross. They adopt her as their Indian sister to replace their brother who died in Pennsylvania. They call her "Corn Tassel" because her soft yellow hair reminds them of corn in full tassel. There, she learns to be an Indian women, to bear her pain silently, to speak Seneca, to work for food, and learns the place of an Indian woman. She befriends a young hunter, Little Turtle, and wise old Grandfather Shagbark, who are both kind to him and only want her to be happy. At the end of the book she has the choice to go home with an English captain and get all the training she would have had as a white girl or to stay living as an Indian. She chooses to stay with them, earning the name "Little woman of great courage."

Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison

Not long after Tarzan claims his hereditary title of Lord Greystoke and marries Jane, their infant son, Jack, is kidnapped in London by his old Russian enemies, Nikolas Rokoff and Alexis Paulvitch. Following an anonymous call about the whereabouts of Jack, Tarzan himself falls into Rokoff''s trap and is imprisoned aboard a ship carrying Jack. Jane, fearing Tarzan was entering a trap, follows him and also finds herself in Rokoff''s clutches aboard the ship. Rokoff sets sail to Africa, eventually exiling Tarzan on an island near the African coast and telling Tarzan that Jack will be left with a cannibal tribe and raised as one of their own. Using his jungle skill and primal intelligence, Tarzan wins the help of Sheeta, the vicious panther, a tribe of great apes led by the intelligent Akut, and the native warrior Mugambi. With their aid, Tarzan reaches the mainland, kills Rokoff, and tracks down his wife and son. Paulvitch, the other villain, is presumed dead, but manages to escape into the jungle.

The Beasts of Tarzan

Abdulrahman Zeitoun is a Muslim who grew up in Syria. After a few years of apprenticeship in the Syrian port city of Jableh, Zeitoun spent twenty years working at sea as a muscleman, engineer and fisherman. During this time he traveled the world and eventually settled in the United States in 1988. There he met his wife, Kathy — a native of Baton Rouge who had converted to Islam — with whom he founded their business, Zeitoun Painting Contractors, LLC. In late August, 2005, as Hurricane Katrina approached the city, Kathy and their four children left New Orleans for Baton Rouge. Zeitoun stayed behind to watch over their home, ongoing job sites and rental properties. Once the storm made landfall, their neighborhood (although miles from the nearest levees) was flooded up to the second floor of most houses. Zeitoun began to explore the city in a secondhand canoe, distributing what supplies he had, ferrying neighbors to higher ground, checking on his tenants, and caring for abandoned dogs. On September 14, Zeitoun and three companions were arrested at one of Zeitoun''s rental houses by a mixed group of National Guardsmen, local police and police from out-of-state. Although the men were not immediately charged with any crimes, they were detained in a makeshift jail in a Greyhound bus station for three days time before being transferred to Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in nearby St. Gabriel, Louisiana. Zeitoun was held at Hunt for 20 more days without having stood trial. During that time he was refused medical attention and the use of a phone to alert his family of his predicament. People often say hurricanes are one of the most destructive forces on the planet. They destroy poverty and devastate lives. However, there is another powerful and destructive force that can be equally frightening—intolerance. “Zeitoun”, written by Dave Eggers, tells the story of Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Syrian-American business owner who chose to ride out Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in order to watch over his home and business. What happened to Zeitoun in prison is a shameful experience that occurred when two destructive forces, Katrina and racism, collided with catastrophic results. The book says that when Zeitoun asked the guards to call Kathy, he was rejected. And when Kathy knew Zeitoun was in prison and the guards didn’t allow her to visit him. This worried Zeitoun’s brother “A Syrian in an American prison in 2005—this was not be trifled with. Abdulrahman had to be seen. He had to be freed immediately. The justice system should have allowed Zeitoun his phone call from the start, but he wrongly was never given one. Post 9/11 was an unfair time for people from the middle east. They were discriminated against and suspected for almost anything anywhere. The justice system would treat them unfairly like Zeitoun. Kathy was outraged she couldn''t be told the location of the jail, but once she got the press involved they told her right away. However, they didn''t allow her or anyone else testifying in the defense of Zeitoun in the court hearing. Innocent people can be thrown in jail. Moreover, the book also says that when Zeitoun was released, he and Kathy pursued information on the reasoning behind his arrest and the jail he stayed at. The government worried that "terrorists might target evacuation routes, creating ''mass panic'' and ''loss of public confidence in the government''" That is to say, after 9/11, it seemed like the government, or at least George Bush''s top priority, was terrorism. There are terrorists out there, but that doesn''t mean government should put all of their resources toward finding them.

Zeitoun

Lowry introduced Matty in Messenger; he is an energetic and impatient individual who is undergoing an awkward transition into adulthood as the story begins. Matty lives with Seer, an "unseeing" man who the people of the Village rescued years before. Matty is desperate for his new name to be "Messenger," which he feels is what he is best as being himself. Many of the people in Village are like Seer: cast out from their old communities and sometimes seriously injured by a Jamison, Kira''s mentor & protector from Gathering Blue.They have made themselves new homes in Village. Most of the Villagers are reasonably altruistic, and they are never lacking those to help a Villager overcome some disability. Matty is from a community wherein people only know what the community tells them, and where those who do not fit the norm are usually put to death. Outside the safe boundaries of Village is Forest, a foreboding realm which most of the Villagers fear. In spite of the lack of dangerous beasts, Forest itself is animated. It is capable of delivering "Warnings" in the form of injuries caused by such things as sharp twigs, stinging insects, or poisonous plants, all of which attack with deliberate intent. If the person warned enters the forest again, it will kill them. Matty, whom Forest seems to favor, has gone through Forest many times without incident. Consequently, he has become Village''s messenger, carrying word to the other communities scattered throughout the region. At one point, Jonas (called "Leader" in this book) says that he received a barge full of books from the community, and that the community has changed. Very early in the book, discord appears in Village. People who trade at a gathering called Trade Mart change from compassionate and generous to angry and impatient. The temperament of the Villagers changes, and they decide to close their borders, no longer permitting the displaced and unwanted of other communities to enter. Seer, in the wake of this sudden change, decides to send Matty to travel through the Forest to retrieve his daughter, Kira, who lives in a town several days away. The journey soon becomes gravely perilous, as the Forest begins to attempt to entangle Kira and Matty. Leader''s ability of remote viewing, which the book often refers to as "seeing beyond", allows him to sense the danger. He enters the forest to save them, only to be captured himself. Kira, who has the ability to weave prophecy-like patterns in thread and cloth, uses her gift to contact Leader, who tells her to have Matty use his gift to save them. This gift is a special ability which Matty possesses but hardly understands, which makes him mad, resulting in a fury; a power of healing, which causes wholeness from the inside out. Matty puts his hands to the ground and manages to restore the integrity of Forest and people alike, at the expense of his own life. Leader names Matty the Healer. Near the end is a quotation of poetry, derived from To An Athlete Dying Young: "Today, the road all runners come/Shoulder-high we bring you home/And set you at your threshold down/Townsman of a stiller town." This is spoken by the Village''s schoolteacher, known as Mentor. On a side note, in the previous book, Gathering Blue, when Matty was a child known as Matt, the nursing of his dog Branch back to health could be a possible foreshadowing of Matty''s healing powers.

Messenger

Many years into the future, a last-ditch attempt to save humanity was created, a project known as Ship, an AI containing DNA of different Earth flora and fauna and sent into space to find a new planet. Also created are a group of children using genes from the leaders of the project, all raised by Ship, and of whom Zoheret is the main character. Now in their teens, the Zoheret and the others are subjected to their last test, a competition within the Ship''s Hollow, a simulated Earth-like environment. The teens are moved into the Hollow, and told to live there so that they can gain the skills they will need to live and survive on their new planet. Very quickly, Ho and Manuel, two troublemakers, split off from the rest. Zoheret and the others are left make a farming community, with Zoheret''s friend and roommate Lillka as the group''s leader. All goes well until it is discovered that Ho''s group has started to steal some of the main settlement''s supplies. This upsets a great many of the main settlement''s members, and they go out to find the smaller group''s home base. The vengeful group ends up burning down the cabins of the other community. Angry and confused, Zoheret and her friend, Bonnie (accused of cooperating with Ho and Manuel''s group) set off to plead with the Ship; however, Ship is unwilling to let them out of the Hollow. They finally get Ship to let them get food to take back to their settlement. Zoheret develops a relationship with Dmitri, another teen, while Lillka is slowly replaced as leader by another boy, Tonio. Things for the small community are made much worse when they awake to find their fields incinerated by Ho''s group. The settlement leaves to hunt down Ho and Manuel''s group, while Zoheret and Bonnie, still concerned over Ship''s odd behavior, lead a small group back to Ship. Instead, they stumble across an older man, Aleksandr, who introduces himself as Dmitri''s older brother, a remnant of Ship''s previous attempt at the Project. He takes Zoheret and the others in her group out into Ship''s corridors and introduces them to the other six members of his group, including Zoheret''s own older brother, Yusef. They explain that Ship had created them years ago when it had found two planets suitable for life. However, neither turned out adequate (the first having a poisonous atmosphere, the second inhabited by intelligent life), and the group was given two options: live their lives out in the Hollow, without reproducing, or go into cryostasis. Most of the group goes into cryostasis and are now in the process of being revived. Armed with this knowledge, the younger group go back to their settlement and are immediately captured by Ho. Threatening her friends, he sends Zoheret over to get supplies. Upon reaching the settlement, Zoheret is treated to another shock: another group of adults have been revived. These are the leaders of the project, having put themselves secretly into cryostasis, and who have now taken over the settlement and shut down the Ship''s systems. A war between the two groups start, forcing Zoheret to unite her community with Ho and Manuel''s and to ally with the Aleksandr and his own group. Though the younger group eventually wins, after having turned Ship''s systems back on, there are losses on both sides, with Zoheret losing an arm when her own genetic mother shoots her. They settle on Ship''s new planet, the adults placed in cryostasis, having learned many lessons. Zoheret becomes the group''s leader and Ship leaves, setting off to find a new planet to do the Project on.

Earthseed

It''s Prom time at Beverly Hills High! Ben Birnbaum is back from Princeton University for the summer but also visiting is a friend of his family''s. Maddy, a girl who''s a junior in high school who has just had Gastric bypass surgery is staying with the Birnbaum''s, and to Anna Percy''s disdain, has quite the (newly) curvy figure. Adam discovers a shocking secret about Cammie''s mom, one that will shake both her and her friend, Sam. Prom this year is being given by two B-List wannabes, Jasmine-Jazz and Ophelia-Fee. Sam tries to enter a film contest anonymously, and her subject for her documentary is the girls. She ends up helping much more than she intended, including securing the "Collusseum" where her father is shooting a remake of Ben Hur. Parker agrees to go with Sam to the Prom, in place of her sexy boyfriend Eduardo who can''t make it because of a family engagement. They end up making out and unfortunately for Samantha she doesn''t realize Eduardo''s watching after he has come to show how much he cares for her and appreciates all Sam did for Prom. Anna explains to Ben that he should get off his horse and that she doesn''t need saving. He says he loves her because she doesn''t need saving. Between most of the couples in the A-List, on prom night, they are the only two that end the night without any problems.

Some Like It Hot

No Deals, Mr. Bond begins with a mission in the Baltic Sea dubbed "Seahawk", which involves James Bond stealthily extracting two women that have completed an assignment in East Germany. After accomplishing his mission, the book continues 5 years later with Bond being called in by M to learn more background into what those women were doing there before being extracted. Their mission, dubbed Cream Cake, was a honey trap that involved getting close to top Soviet personnel as a means to not only spy for the British Secret Service, but to secure the defection of 2 highly ranking Soviet officers, an act that the Soviets occasionally performed against countries of the West. Involving 4 women and a man, the operation was considered a complete debacle that ended with the members being found out. After being extracted and given new identities, however, two of the women were discovered to be gruesomely murdered. Bond is subsequently sent by M, "off the record", to find the remaining members of Cream Cake before they suffer the same fate. During the adventure, Bond believes that Colonel Maxim Smolin, the primary target during operation Cream Cake, is systematically killing off the former members of the Cream Cake operation and leaving a signature of having their tongues removed. This, however, is not the case, and, in actuality, Smolin is a turncoat now working with the British Secret Service. Instead, the former members, in addition to Smolin and another Soviet turncoat, Captain Dietrich, are being targeted by General Chernov, an agent of a department formerly known as SMERSH. The situation is further complicated after M gets a message to Bond warning him that one of the surviving Cream Cake members is a double and that he wants Chernov brought in alive.

No Deals, Mr. Bond

Adrian Mole is 39 and a quarter. Unable to afford the mortgage on his riverside apartment, he has been forced to move into a semi-detached converted pigsty next door to his parents, George and Pauline. His ravishing wife Daisy loathes the countryside, longs for Dean Street and has yet to buy a pair of Wellingtons; they are both aware the passion has gone out of their marriage, but neither knows how to reignite the flame. To cap it all off, Adrian is leaving his bed numerous times a night to go to the lavatory and has other alarming symptoms, leading him to suspect prostate trouble. Meanwhile, his mother thinks that an appearance on the Jeremy Kyle show might solve the mystery of her daughter''s paternity. Adrian also discovers that the assumption that he is George and Pauline''s offspring might be a fallacy. To add to his misery,he is already impaired further with his prostate trouble. As Adrian''s worries multiply, a phone call to his old flame Dr Pandora Braithwaite ignites memories of a shared passion and makes him wonder - is she the only one who can save him now?

Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years

Djinn twins, John and Philippa Gaunt, are off on another trip around the world in book four of the bestselling Children of the Lamp series. It''s a race against time as the twins attempt to save their mother, Layla Gaunt from her destiny of being Blue Djinn of Babylon, save their father, Edward Gaunt, from an aging curse brought from a binding their mother Layla put on their father to make sure the twins were home with him, and museums worldwide from unexplained robberies and bizarre hauntings. As John and Philippa and their friends travel across the globe on their rescue mission, they notice that something very strange is happening: An evil force has woken the terracotta warriors created by an ancient Chinese emperor, and a spell has been cast possessing the soldiers with wicked spirits. Now, the very fate of the world hangs in the balance. It''s up to the twins to solve the mysterious robberies, stop the terracotta warriors, rescue their parents, and save the world before it''s too late.

The Day of the Djinn Warrior

When legendary Australian war photographer Mike Langford goes missing in Khmer Rouge Cambodia in 1976, childhood friend Ray inherits his taped diaries. Using these, his own memories, and the recollections and records of others, Ray attempts to reconstruct Langford''s life, to understand how he became a myth and why he went back into Cambodia. Eventually this will lead Ray to Thailand, to the Cambodian border and the truth about Langford''s fate. Though different parts of Highways to a War are told from different perspectives, the overall result is a coherent narrative and a portrait of a life. It begins with Langford''s childhood on a Tasmanian farm, his "novitiate" in Singapore, where he nearly starves before finding work, and his early experiences in Vietnam, in Saigon and in the Mekong Delta with the ARVN, the South Vietnamese army. The story then jumps from Saigon in 1966 to Phnom Penh in 1973. Among other dramatic episodes, Langford is captured by North Vietnamese troops and witnesses the fall of Saigon. The story is tense and gripping, but the centre remains Langford''s development: he is a tough man, a survivor, but he is also an idealist and, when he loses his objectivity and becomes involved with the Free Khmer, his fate has a tragic inevitability to it. Its unity comes from its focus on Langford, but Highways to a War has plenty of other memorable characters. His fellow photographers and correspondents are a fascinatingly idiosyncratic bunch. And Langford''s romantic idealisation of women makes them a key part of his life: in Australia, the daughter of a poor fruit-picking family and then the wife of his mentor, in Saigon an older French-Vietnamese woman, and in Phnom Penh the Cambodian woman whose fate becomes tied up with Langford''s. Highways to a War also offers a vivid perspective on the course of the Second Indochina War. This, however, is implicit: Koch makes no attempt to write a history of that war (and readers without any background knowledge may find parts of the novel confusing), or to take sides in the debates over that history, and it is through personal stories and personal tragedies that he sheds light on the broader tragedies.

Highways to a War

Xu Fugui, son of a local rich man, is a compulsive gambler. After he gambles away the entire family fortune, his father dies with grief and indignation. The Chinese civil war is occurring at the time, and Fugui is forced to join the army. By the time he finally returns home two years later, he finds his mother has died of a stroke, and his daughter has become mute and lost most of her hearing from a fever. Years later, Fugui''s only son dies after a blood transfusion. The daughter finally grows up and finds a husband. They are a happy couple until she dies from dystocia. Soon after that, Fugui''s wife dies of osteoporosis, and his son in law dies in a construction accident. Eventually, even Fugui’s last relative, his grandson Kugen (renamed Mantou in the 1994 movie adaptation), chokes to death while eating beans. In the end, Fugui buys an old ox to accompany him. It seems that in the world absolutely nothing is left for him, but he does not give up, he believes there is still hope, that just like they say, things would get better. The novel includes first-hand descriptions of some of the less successful aspects of Collectivist policy, such as communal agriculture and the attempt to build a village-based steel industry. A film based on the book was released in 1994, after numerous discussions between film director Zhang Yimou and the novelist author Yu Hua upon the proper film adaptation, keeping the plot within the frame of Yu Hua''s artistic vision. Despite being less grim than the novel, the movie was banned in China, and director Zhang Yimou was banned from film-making for two years.

To Live

The novel is narrated by Alexias, a noble Athenian youth, who becomes a noted beauty in the city and a champion runner. The novel suggests that young male Athenians were treated almost like modern debutantes and wooed by older men seeking to be their lovers; in fact, in a memorable passage, Alexias'' father, Myron, himself a former beauty and champion athlete, writes to his son before leaving Athens for the Sicilian Expedition. The father imparts to the son the traits he should seek in a lover – qualities like honor, loyalty and courage. However, the father also warns the son not to become involved with women as he is much too young. (See Athenian pederasty.) The book implies that Myron had been Alcibiades'' lover when the latter was a teenager, and felt that the way that Alcibiades turned out was at partly Myron''s fault at least, as it was his responsibility as a lover to teach his eromenos virtue. As an Ephebe (adolescent male), Alexias falls in love with Lysis, a man in his 20s – a champion pankratiast and a student of Socrates. The novel follows their the relationship through the Peloponnesian War, the surrender of Athens, the establishment of the Thirty Tyrants rule over Athens, the democratic rebellion of Thrasybulus and shortly after. The story ends with first hints of the eventual trial of Socrates for teaching blasphemy and sowing social disorder. From the beginning of the novel, Socrates figures prominently; both Alexis and Lysis become his students in their youth. Also characterized in the novel are Plato and several figures from his Dialogues who were Socrates'' students, including Xenophon. Another historical figure who figures in the story, albeit mostly off-stage, is Alcibiades, the Athenian general who flees Athens on a charge of sacrilege and functions as a military adviser to Sparta until he is recalled by a resurgent democracy in Athens. Alexis and Lysis serve under Alcibiades'' command until his carelessness leads the fleet to disaster and he once again goes into exile. In the course of the novel, Lysis falls in love with and marries a woman who sees Alexias favorably and encourages the continuation of her husband''s relationship with him. Not long after this, Athens is defeated by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War. Alexias'' father is murdered under the Spartan-installed tyranny, and he and Lysis go into exile in Thebes joining Thrasybulus when he leads the next democratic revolt. Lysis is killed in the battle between the Long Walls running from the port of Piraeus to Athens (the Battle of Munychia). Shortly after the victory, Alexias takes Lysis'' widow under his protection, marries her and continues his family line. The book ends with the postscript that this story (incomplete and long-forgotten) has been found by Alexias'' grandson (also named Alexias), a commander of Athenian cavalry in the service of Alexander the Great.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison

By Lois Lenski

The Beasts of Tarzan

By Edgar Rice Burroughs

Zeitoun

By Dave Eggers

Messenger

By Lois Lowry

Earthseed

No Author Listed

Some Like It Hot

By Zoey Dean

No Deals, Mr. Bond

By John Gardner

Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years

By Sue Townsend

The Day of the Djinn Warrior

By Philip Kerr

Highways to a War

By Christopher Koch

To Live

By Yu Hua

The Last of the Wine

By Mary Renault