Throughout the novel Isherwood is a character of extremes. At times he pursues physical pleasure, relentlessly devoting himself to all kinds of debauchery. Yet he also interrupts these binges with discipline, by learning German or regularly meditating. Somehow, his abandon never leads to personal disaster. The second section of the novel contains a scene that figuratively illustrates Isherwood''s life as recounted in "Down..." Isherwood is visiting an island where a crew of inane Greeks blast rock for the foundations of a mansion. He observes that: Despite all their experience, they seem to have no idea how much dynamite they should use. It is always too little or too much. We become completely indifferent to their yells of warning, followed by an absurd little firecracker pop. And then, just when you''re least expecting it, there will be a stunning explosion which shakes the whole island and sends big rocks spinning through the air... A couple of times things have been smashed, but no one has been hurt, so far. So it is with Isherwood. Despite his experience, he never seems to know how to live his life. He often makes mistakes, such as his neglect of Mr. Lancaster, Waldemar, Dee-Ann, and Paul. But somehow he becomes wealthy, works at his leisure, and even avoids fighting in World War II. The reader is led to believe that no one has been hurt, so far.

Down There on a Visit

Oliver Russell, a man with a desire for power, is fated to rise to the highest office, that of President of the United States. Leslie Stewart, his betrayed fiancée, is a woman dedicated to the single purpose of bringing Oliver Russell to ruin. After amassing her own media empire and marshaling all her forces against him, she stands poised to destroy Russell on the eve of his most dazzling triumph. Thinking only of preventing Oliver from winning the Presidency for a second term, little does she know that she is about to fall into her own trap. When Oliver returns from Paris married to Jan, Leslie vows to avenge him. However she keeps her thoughts concealed. This makes Todd Davis, Jan''s father, introduce her to one of his friends, who owns a newspaper. A brief introduction followed by marriage sees Leslie manage her husband''s empire. With his falling health and subsequent death, Leslie becomes the sole owner of his properties. In spite of all the other businesses, Leslie takes an immense liking for the media empire, with which she intends to destroy Oliver. During this part, Dana Evans, who stars in Sheldon''s other novel "Sky is Falling," appears as an inquisitive reporter who adopts a boy from war torn Sarajevo. In the meantime, Oliver becomes the president, but during his first term there occur a series of deaths, all due to toxicity of Liquid Ecstasy, a dangerous aphrodisiac that Leslie connects to him. When she is convinced it is Oliver who is behind these murders, she goes on to publish the news of his arrest before it is confirmed. Dana Evans then unmasks the real culprit, while the president reveals a shocking secret. The book ends with the proposal of a peace pact, brokered by President Russell, among the Arab nations, while Leslie is left wondering if she has gone a bit too far.

The Best Laid Plans

The story opens with the revelation that Seattle, Washington is being plagued by a string of murders, which Edward suspects is caused by a new vampire that is unable to control its thirst for human blood. As Edward and Bella apply to colleges, Bella explains to Edward her desire to see her friend, Jacob Black, a werewolf. Although Edward fears for her safety, Bella insists that neither Jacob nor his wolf pack would ever harm her, and she begins visiting him occasionally. On one of these visits, Jacob tells Bella that he is in love with her, and wants her to choose him instead of Edward, but Bella says she just sees him as a friend. Meanwhile, Alice Cullen has a vision that Victoria, a vampire who is hunting Bella for revenge, has returned to Forks. A few days later, Edward proposes to Bella and, despite harboring an aversion to marriage, she accepts. Bella and the Cullens soon realize that the Seattle murders are being committed by an "army" of newborn vampires, controlled by Victoria. The Cullens join forces with the wolf pack to combat this threat. As everyone else prepares for battle, Edward, Bella and Jacob camp in the mountains, hidden during the battle, where they are later joined by Seth Clearwater, a young wolf pack member, to wait out the fight. In the morning, Jacob becomes upset when he overhears Edward and Bella discussing their engagement and threatens to join the fight and get himself killed. Bella stops Jacob by kissing him, and she comes to realize that she is in love with him as well. During the battle, Victoria tracks Edward''s scent to Bella''s forest hiding place, and Edward is forced to fight. Edward manages to kill Victoria and her vampire army is destroyed. Afterwards, Bella explains to Jacob that while she loves him, her love for Edward is greater.

Eclipse

The story examines religion through the eyes of Alex, a Christian political activist who is corrupted by Margrethe, a Danish Norse cruise ship hostess &mdash; and who loves every minute of it. Enduring a shipwreck, an earthquake, and a series of world-changes brought about by Loki (with Jehovah''s permission), Alex and Marga work their way from Mexico back to Kansas as dishwasher and waitress. Whenever they manage to make some stake, an inconveniently timed change into a new alternate reality throws them off their stride (once, the money they earned is left behind in another reality; in another case, the paper money earned in a Mexico which is an empire is worthless in another Mexico which is a republic). These repeated misfortunes, clearly effected by some malevolent entity, make the hero identify with the Biblical Job. On the way they unknowingly enjoy the Texas hospitality of Satan himself, but as they near their destination they are separated by the Rapture &mdash; Margrethe worships Odin, and pagans do not go to Heaven. Finding that the reward for his faith, eternity as promised in the Revelation, is worthless without her, Alex''s journey through timeless space in search of his lost lady takes him to Hell and beyond. Heinlein''s vivid depiction of a Heaven ruled by snotty angels and a Hell where everyone has a wonderful, or at least productive, time &mdash; with Mary Magdalene shuttling breezily between both places &mdash; is a satire on American evangelical Christianity. It owes much to Mark Twain''s Captain Stormfield''s Visit to Heaven. The novel is linked to Heinlein''s short story, "They", by the term, "the Glaroon", and to his earlier novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by referring to the Moon colonies "Luna City" and "Tycho Under".

Job: A Comedy of Justice

After a childhood of poverty and petty crime in the slums of London, William Thornhill is sentenced to death for stealing wood, however, in 1806 his sentence is changed to transportation to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and children in tow, he arrives in a harsh land that feels at first like a death sentence. However, there is a way for the convicts to buy freedom and start afresh. Away from the infant township of Sydney, up the Hawkesbury River, Thornhill encounters men who have tried to do just that: Blackwood, who is attempting to reconcile himself with the place and its people, and Smasher Sullivan, whose fear of this alien world turns into brutal depravity towards it. As Thornhill and his family stake their claim on a patch of ground by the river, the battle lines between old and new inhabitants are drawn. The early life of William Thornhill is one of poverty, depredation and criminality, which is also seen in Charles Dickens. The early settlements are described passionately by the author. Though Thornhill is a loving husband and a good father, his interactions with Indigenous inhabitants are villainous. Thornhill dreams of a life of dignity and entitlement, manifested in his desire to own land. After befriending Blackwood under his employ, Thornhill finds a patch of land he believes will meet his needs, but alas, his past comes back to haunt him. His interactions with the Aboriginal people progress from fearful first encounters to (after careful observation) appreciation. The desire for him to own the land contrasts with his wife wanting to return to England. The clash is one between a group of people desperate for land and another for whom the concept of ownership is bewildering.

The Secret River

Two parents who are completely unprepared for parenthood bring home their newborn baby. The two cannot seem to name the baby. John thinks the baby is a boy, but Helen says the doctors said they could decide later. When the baby cries, the two cannot quite decide what to do. To their rescue comes Nanny – who enters their apartment as if by magic, and is full of abrupt shifts of mood, first cooing at the baby soothingly, then screaming at it. In subsequent scenes, John and Nanny have an affair, Helen takes baby and leaves, only to come back a moment later rain-soaked and unhappy. By the time the baby is a toddler, Daisy has finally been named. At this age Daisy has a penchant for running in front of buses and for lying, depressed, in piles of laundry. The audience hears an alarming essay Daisy has written in school, and the principal, the terrifying Miss Willoughby, is oblivious to the essay’s cry for help, and instead gleefully awards it an "A" for style. Years later, Daisy enters dressed as a girl, but obviously a young man. The audience follows his years of therapy, where he alternates between feelings of depression and anger, and is unable to complete his freshman essay on Gulliver’s Travels despite having been in college for five years. In a scene reminiscent of the beginning of the play, Daisy (who has since chosen a new name) and his young bride fondly regard their own baby, determined not to repeat their parents'' calamitous mistakes.

Baby With the Bathwater

Each chapter begins with a quote from Hans Christian Andersen''s, "The Steadfast Tin Soldier." The novel consists of several tales all interlinked around a fictional Captain Lord Henry Baltimore who leads a night attack on a battlefield during World War I, and the men who know him. His entire squad is killed by enemy fire and Baltimore himself is wounded in the leg and left for dead, he awakes some hours later to see giant bat creatures feeding on his dead men. When one attempts to feed off him, he slashes at it with his bayonet and scars its face hideously. The giant creature in return wounds him and infests his leg with such terrible gangrene that when he is later brought to hospital, it is amputated, leaving him with a jointed wooden leg. Unknowingly, Lord Baltimore struck a powerful vampire who is so angered by Baltimore''s permanent blinding of his right eye that he causes a "plague" in warring Europe. People think this to be a sickness which spreads quickly across countries, but in truth it is vampirism. Baltimore returns home from war haunted by his encounter on the field, yet happy to be home early on account of his leg. But upon arrival, he discovers his parents and sister have succumbed to the plague - only his wife Elowen survived. The plot turns to three of Baltimores'' companions who have helped in the past - battlefield surgeon Doctor Lemuel Rose, gentlemen trader Thomas Childress Jr., and sea captain Demetrius Aischros. They have all been called to meet at an inn with Baltimore, and while they wait for him, each tells two tales: how they met Baltimore and why they believe his tale of the vampire encounter to be true. The Doctor treated his leg, Childress grew up on his island home and Aischros shipped him home after the war. From their tales of Baltimore and the supernatural it becomes apparent that Baltimore has become a man bent on a mission to kill the "Red King vampire" (also known as Haigus), who infested his family and then murdered his beloved wife. He travels to kill the lesser vampires in hope of reaching the Red King, and has called his three friends forth in hope of their aid.

Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire

Dann''s major historical novel depicts a version of the Renaissance in which Leonardo da Vinci actually constructs a number of his inventions, such as a flying machine, whose designs are well-known from his surviving sketches. He later employs some of his military inventions during a battle in the Middle East, while in the service of a Syrian general - events which Dann projects into a year of da Vinci''s life about which little is known. The novel also presents a detailed imagining of the life and character of the inventor and painter during this period, and includes his encounters with other historical characters residing in Florence including Machiavelli and Botticelli. The title refers to an ancient system of memory recall, or Mnemonics, in which a building, such as a cathedral, is constructed in the mind as a container for imagined objects - which are deliberately connected to particular memories. The building can later be mentally navigated to re-encounter those objects and retrieve the memories with which they are associated. Da Vinci''s memory cathedral functions in the narrative as a device through which he reviews his experiences as death approaches.

The Memory Cathedral

Jack is a highly educated high school teacher at a private school for girls in New England. When Jack is falsely accused of having an inappropriate relationship with one of his students, he pleads guilty to a lesser charge and is sentenced to eight months in prison. Jack''s mother, a crusader for women''s rights, running an improvised "halfway house" for prostitutes refuses to believe his claims of innocence and abandons him. After serving his sentence, Jack wants to have a fresh start, which he finds when he wanders into a diner in Salem Falls, New Hampshire. Without revealing the details of his past, he is hired on as a dishwasher, assisting the owner in the kitchen. He begins a romantic relationship with Addie Peabody, the woman who co-owns and operates the diner with her father and is mourning the death of her young daughter, Chloe, from bacterial meningitis at ten years old. Under New Hampshire law, Jack is required to register with the local police department as a convicted sex offender. As this is a matter of public record, soon the entire town becomes aware of his past. Addie Peabody does not change her attitude towards Jack. The novel also revolves around local teenage girls who experiment with Wicca: manipulative, disturbed Gillian, daughter of Amos Duncan the most prominent businessman in Salem Falls; Chelsea (in whom Jordan McAfee''s son, Thomas, takes an active interest); Whitney and Meg take an interest in Jack. Although he does his best to stay away from them, one night he accidentally stumbles upon them in the woods while they are celebrating the Wiccan holiday of Beltane. Because of his past and the prevailing attitude in Salem Falls that Jack should not be there, he is quickly accused of sexually assaulting Gillian. Due to his intoxicated state at the time, Jack is unable to recall where he was that night. Jack is defended by Jordan McAfee and assisted by Selena Damascus. Throughout the trial, Jordan manages to cast reasonable doubt on Gillian''s testimony. Meg, however, confides in Addie that she remembers Jack touching her in a sexual manner. Addie believes her because she thinks that "no woman would lie about something like that", and takes Meg to report the incident to policeman Charlie, who is Meg''s father. Clues begin to unravel that Gillian has been lying about the assault. Sources tell that she and her clique were taking drugs on the night of Beltane that cause hallucinations. The initial blood screening when Gillian was given a rape exam showed no evidence of drugs in her system. Jordan does not believe this and hires a private toxicologist to run tests on the blood samples, which reveal extreme amounts of a hallucinogen. It is also discovered through her previous psychiatric records that Gillian was known for being a compulsive liar as a child after the death of her mother. Chelsea gets an attack of conscience, though, and mails "The Book of Shadows" (a witch''s handbook, and proof that they are part of a witch''s coven) to Thomas, who takes it to Jordan. Jordan then uses it against Gillian, who claims she "didn''t want to be labeled a slut". Jack is pronounced not guilty. After the trial, Meg reveals to Charlie that Gillian convinced them to make it all up, as a game, to see if they could ruin his life because Gillian was attracted to Jack and he turned her down. Her reports of Jack having touched her inappropriately are revealed through flashback to have been accidental contact with her breast while saving her from a fall. Charlie reluctantly agrees to protect her. It is revealed that Addie, too, was gang-raped at sixteen by Charlie and Amos, so therefore Addie never knew the true identity of Chloe''s father. Charlie apologises and Addie appears to accept this. Jack offers to move with Addie to New York, to reconcile with his mother. She agrees. Jordan and Selena - who have been battling their mutual attraction - get together. It is revealed that Chelsea and Thomas conspired - via witchcraft - to do so. The final twist is saved for the final paragraph, when it is revealed that Amos has been raping and otherwise sexually abusing his daughter, Gillian, since she was young, and as the novel ends, seems to continue doing so. It then seems likely that the semen found on her thigh is his, not Jack''s.

Salem Falls

Nicholas Halloway is a 34-year-old Manhattan securities analyst who writes a narrative memoir (presumably this book) of his life starting on the day of an accident which renders him invisible. He recounts his involvement in a romantic affair with Anne Epstein, a woman who has taken interest in his aptitude for business and is a reporter for the Times. He escorts her to MicroMagnetics where scientists are holding a press conference for research on the magnetic containment of a nuclear process. While there, Nick sees a group of Marxist student protesters who demonstrate nuclear catastrophe by attempting to explode a cat. To get everyone away from the MicroMagnetics presentation, they cut off power to the laboratory where nuclear equipment is operating. The control computers lose function and in a flash of eerie light, everything in a fifty-foot radius becomes invisible, including Nick. Nick later wakes up in astonishment concluding that his limbs were blown off, that he became a ghost, and finally that he became invisible. Military personnel quickly set up fences and camps around the site and they soon discover Nick''s presence. They lose his trust by bringing a net and he overhears that they plan to give him to scientists and enlist him for military espionage, while disregarding his personal liberty for national security. He decides to loot miscellaneous invisible items, shoot the leg and waist of a captor, and set fire to the building in the process of escaping. He goes back to his apartment and discovers that food becomes invisible after being digested over a long time. He can remain invisible for the rest of his life and must surmount obstacles of invisibility that wouldn''t affect a visible person, for instance, driving, working, sheltering, etc. While avoiding government agents, he arranges a fake paper identity and authorizes funds to make himself a millionaire while ending up in the care of Alice Monroe, a red-blonde woman in her late twenties.

Memoirs of an Invisible Man

Ekaterina is an exiled Svanetian princess who arrives in America. There, she gets a job teaching an introductory mycology class at a university. Meanwhile, she rents a room from a woman, Loretta, who lives there with her twelve year old son, Kenny, who immediately takes a precocious liking to her. She befriends the 12-year-old boy called Kenny who reminds her of two young pubertal boys she had relationships with in Russia, Islamber and Dzhordzha. Harington describes the attractive boy as a faunlet, a male counterpart to Vladimir Nabokov''s nymphet in Lolita. After two months, the 27-year-old Ekaterina seduces Kenny and they have sex. During the course of their sexual relationship, Kenny, already a juvenile delinquent, steals contraceptives to avoid pregnancy. When Kenny confesses his sexual relationship with Ekaterina after being caught stealing car parts, his mother forces Ekaterina to leave. She settles in town called Stick Around where she befriends a woman named Sharon, who indirectly introduces her to a boy named Jason. Later, she engages Jason on his twelfth birthday by giving him an all-over massage in the bath while baby-sitting him. With the help of a novelist and improbable creative writing teacher named Ingraham, Ekaterina matures as a writer, eventually publishing not only a successful autobiography, Louder, Engram! (invoking Nabokov''s revised autobiography, Speak, Memory), but also several works of fiction, one of which, a novel called Georgie Boy, becomes a bestseller, allowing her to move from "Stick Around," this novel''s disguise for Stay More, the primal setting for all of Harington''s novels except his first, The Cherry Pit, to a hotel in Arcaty, the novel''s counterpart to the real Arkansas Ozarks town of Eureka Springs. In Arcaty, she meets young Travis Coe, another twelve-year-old boy, who moves into her luxurious penthouse apartment as her houseboy. After getting the lice out of his hair, Ekaterina invites Travis into her bed – just twelve days after they meet. Travis turns out to be a considerably more complex presence than his new employer has anticipated, and the relationship does not last. Ekaterina discovers that Travis was not a virgin and kicks him out, becoming obsessed with how he lost his virginity. Travis does go on to star in Hollywood''s screen adaptation of Georgie Boy. Ekaterina also benefits by turning her investigation of the girl to whom Travis lost his virginity into a series of short stories that propel her fame further by being published in Playboy magazine. Ekaterina''s relationships with pubescent boys constitute only one facet of this character''s ingeniously layered life-story. Donald Harington’s writing is sometimes described as magic realism, but that term hardly begins to suggest the narrative pyrotechnics of Ekaterina, which the author has aptly described as not so much a tribute to Nabokov''s Lolita as an apotheosis of it.

Ekaterina

The novel follows the life of a young Manchu girl named Orchid Yehonala. The story begins with the death of her father who was once a governor of Wuhu. His death left Orchid, her two siblings and her mother in poverty. His family travel to his birthplace Peking with his coffin for burial. Once in Peking, they move in with a distant uncle and his mentally retarded and opium addicted son Ping (also known as ''Bottle''). Orchid gets a chance to better her life when Emperor Hsien Feng issues a decree stating that he is looking for "future mates". Orchid is eligible because she is Manchu and that her father was the rank of "Blue Bannerman". She is chosen as the Imperial consort of the fourth rank. Her official title is Lady of the Greatest Virtue. There are a total of 7 Imperial consorts, and over 3000 concubines within the Forbidden City. Nuharoo is pronounced Empress, ranking her first out of the 7 Imperial consorts. Once in the Forbidden City, Orchid befriends a eunuch called An-te-hai, who is assigned as her servant along with numerous other eunuchs and maids. A friendship begins to form between the two, and she appoints him as her first attendant. As the months pass, Orchid becomes more desperate. The official duty of an Imperial consort is to sleep with the Emperor and produce male heirs, but Orchid has yet to be summoned. Without completing that duty, an Imperial consort risks being unaknowledged for the remainder of her life. Knowing this, Orchid decides to bribe Chief Eunuch Shim in order to gain Emperor Hsien Feng''s attention. Her tactic works and she soon becomes the Emperor''s favourite consort. During her time as the favourite, Orchid learns more about the current history of China, and the inner workings of the Forbidden City. Later on within the story, Orchid becomes pregnant. She gives birth to the Emperor''s first male heir Tung Chih amidst nationwide celebration. However, after the birth of his son Emperor Hsien Feng begins to lose interest in Orchid. Part of this is due to Nuharoo''s plot to disrupt Orchid''s life. The emperor becomes ill as political situations in China worsen. Foreign powers are beginning to invade China, demanding that the emperor grants them the right to establish trade and port. The weak emperor is unable to defend his empire from the combined strength of the intruding forces and the royal family flees the capital when the enemies approach Peking. Emperor Hsien Feng dies whilst in exile. Nonetheless, Orchid''s life is still in danger from Su Shun (a corrupt official) as the Emperor has not yet named an heir. Later on in the novel Orchid persuades Hsien Feng to name Tung Chih as the new Emperor, with herself and Nuharoo as co-regents. Su Shun is named as the head of the Board of Regents. As Su Shun had previously expected to gain more power from the death of Hsien Feng without Orchid''s interference, tensions between the two increase. Orchid is now granted the title Empress of Holy Kindness Tzu Hsi. Nuharoo becomes the Empress of Great Benevolence Tzu An. Orchid knows that her new position does not guarantee her safety as she is still restricted by the actions of Su Shun. With the assistance of An-te-hai and Prince Kung Orchid manages to successfully arrest and punish Su Shun and his associates, on the grounds that they had tried to organise a coup d''état. The novel ends with the official burial of Emperor Hsien Feng and the hint of a new relationship between Orchid and General Yung Lu.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Down There on a Visit

By Christopher Isherwood

The Best Laid Plans

By Sidney Sheldon

Eclipse

By Stephenie Meyer

Job: A Comedy of Justice

By Robert A. Heinlein

The Secret River

By Kate Grenville

Baby With the Bathwater

By Christopher Durang

Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire

By Mike Mignola

The Memory Cathedral

By Jack Dann

Salem Falls

By Jodi Picoult

Memoirs of an Invisible Man

No Author Listed

Ekaterina

By Donald Harington

Empress Orchid

By Anchee Min