The Animorphs plan to have a lazy summer, with several Animorphs attending a pool party and Rachel going to a gymnastics camp. However, before she can leave for the camp, Rachel - in her eagle morph - takes a cruise through the air and, seeing Ax, attempts to say hello but is mobbed by smaller birds, who cause her to crash and lose consciousness. When she awakens, she has demorphed to human but has amnesia. Meanwhile, Jake and Cassie are attending the pool party. Because Marco was not invited, he decides to take Ax along. The two of them morph into mice and crash the party. After they are done terrorizing the guests, they run into the basement to demorph. However, when they demorph, they are attacked by a massive flying monster, known as a Veleek (yeerk word for "pet"). It destroys the house before abruptly dissolving into dust and leaving. The Animorphs regroup and discover that Rachel never made it to the gymnastics camp. Jake, Marco, and Tobias head into the forest to look for her. As Jake and Marco morph to wolves, the Veleek begins to chase after them, and they realize that the Veleek is drawn by the energy generated through morphing. Moments before they are about to collapse from exhaustion, the Veleek flies away. Rachel has been captured by a crazy ex-Controller, who locks her in a wooden shack and sets fire to it. Rachel inadvertently morphs into a grizzly bear to escape, and is then attacked by the Veleek. The two begin to fight, until Ax encounters them mid-combat. He begins to morph and the Veleek captures him and returns to the Blade ship, delivering Ax to Visser Three. Rachel demorphs and makes her way into town, where she hides out in an empty house. When police surround the house and tell her to come out, she morphs into an elephant and breaks through the side of the house. Meanwhile, Jake, Marco and Cassie notice the Veleek floating through the air as dust, and steal Cassie''s father''s truck in order to chase after it. They attempt to play a game of "keepaway", by continually morphing to distract the Veleek, but their plan does not succeed. The truck crashes into Rachel''s elephant form, restoring her memory but drawing the Veleek to all four Animorphs. The Veleek attempts to capture Rachel, but cannot lift her. Jake and Marco continue on in the truck, but crash it again, and Marco is captured by the Veleek. Marco and Ax, now prisoners of Visser Three, are on board the Blade Ship. Ax morphs into a flea and hides on the Visser''s body. He slightly demorphs and remorphs to attract the Veleek''s attention. The Veleek begins to attack Visser Three, causing Visser Three to order the water turned on. In the confusion, Ax and Marco escape from the Blade ship, morphing into birds moments before they hit the ground. From this event, the Animorphs realize that the Veleek does not like water. The next day, Cassie develops a plan: the Animorphs head out to sea, where Cassie finds and acquires a humpback whale. She morphs into a cockroach, and Tobias flies her as high up as he can. While the remaining Animorphs morph and demorph dolphins to keep the Veleek distracted, Cassie demorphs and then morphs into the whale, all the time falling back to the sea. The Veleek attempts to capture her but cannot carry the whale''s weight, and it is dragged into the sea and drowns.

The Andalite''s Gift

Unlike most Jeeves and Wooster stories, which only occasional refer to events in the real world, Ring for Jeeves is explicitly set in post-World War II England, where social changes have forced some of those who were formerly members of the idle rich to dispense with their servants and seek employment. Although Bertie Wooster has not yet been reduced to such measures, he has enrolled, prior to the start of the story, in a school that teaches the upper classes how to fend for themselves. In his absence, Jeeves has offered his services to William Egerton Bamfylde Ossingham Belfry, the Earl of Rowcester, who is in poor fortune. The story (in the UK edition) opens with a chance encounter in a pub between the wealthy widow Rosalinda Spottsworth and the white hunter Captain Biggar. The two had met previously on a hunting expedition when Mr Spottsworth was killed. Mrs Spottsworth is on her way to meet the Earl of Rowcester at the invitation of his sister Lady Monica, with the intention of buying Rowcester Abbey. Captain Biggar is in pursuit of a dishonest bookie - he had placed a £5 bet on two horses at high odds and won £3,000, only to discover that the bookie had absconded. At Rowcester Abbey, Monica has arrived with her husband Sir Roderick to assist in the sale of the Abbey, and they are both surprised to find that the Earl is in better fortunes than they had last heard and now able even to afford servants. They are further surprised when they receive two phone calls; the first an anonymous inquiry regarding the Earl''s car licence plate number, and the second from the police. When the Earl arrives (in his bookie disguise) he laments having ignored Jeeves'' advice to lay off Captain Biggar''s bet, and is shocked to find his sister and brother-in-law have come to visit. When told of the plan to sell, he is overjoyed, but thrown when it turns out that he had previously romanced Mrs Spottsworth (under her previous married name), and further thrown when Captain Biggar arrives and is invited to stay. After initial threats from Captain Biggar, he, the Earl and Jeeves hatch a plan to steal a pendant belonging to Mrs Spottsworth, intending to pawn it, and to place the proceeds on an outsider bet at the Derby; Captain Biggar requires the money to feel worthy of proposing to Mrs Spottsworth, bound by a code which frowns on gold digging. Though initial attempts to acquire the pendant serve only to alienate the Earl''s fiancée, Jill Wyvern, and the sale of the house, which would have yielded deposit enough to recompense the Captain, are thwarted by the tactlessness of Sir Roderick; Jeeves comes up with a successful plan, which exploits Mrs Spottsworth''s fascination in the supernatural. On the day of the Derby the theft of the pendant is discovered and the police called. Jill''s father, the Chief Constable, having heard of Jill''s suspicions goes to the Abbey intending to horse whip the Earl. Although still angry, Jill warns Jeeves who in turn explains to her the goings-on she had misinterpreted as an affair. The Captain is suspected of the theft because of his absence, and hopes are dashed when the Captain''s racing tip comes second in a photo finish. But everything turns out for the best after the Captain returns, having failed to pawn the pendant. He professes his love and explains his code, which Mrs Spottsworth laughs off with the news that one of his friends, to whom he felt bound under this code, had married a richer woman. Jeeves steps in while announcing the engagement, with the suggestion that Mrs Spottsworth ship the house, brick by brick, to America and in doing so secures the sale. The tale ends with Jeeves handing in his notice, as Bertie Wooster has been expelled from the school for cheating.

Ring for Jeeves

The greater part of the story is told by a boy named Octavian, who grew up with his mother Cassiopeia, an African princess, in a house full of philosophers and scientists in colonial Boston. Under the watchful eyes of Mr. Gitney, also known as 03-01, Octavian has received a classical education as well as a musical education which has made him into an extremely skilled violinist. Octavian eventually comes to understand the price of his powdered wigs and education: he is not only the "property" of Mr. Gitney, but he is also being used as an experiment to test whether the African race is inferior to the European race. In time, Cassiopeia angers the scientists'' benefactor and the Society loses its monetary support. The two are forced to go under the new watchful eye of Richard Sharpe, who cuts Octavian off from his books. It is later revealed that Richard Sharpe works for a group of colonial businessmen, who now fund the house where Octavian is held. These businessmen own slaves, and it is strongly implied that Sharpe is attempting to bias the experiment with Octavian in order to prove that Africans are inferior. He does this by stopping most of Octavian''s education and making him work in the house. When the political unrest that would later spur the American Revolution begins to seep into the Gitney household, Gitney decides to move into the countryside outside of Boston, and then hold a Pox Party. Each attendee is infected with the pox, with the hope that under this controlled circumstance they will have only benign cases. Gitney also wants to both weaken and quarantine his slaves when he begins to hear talk of a slave revolt. Cassiopeia, however, is killed by the pox, and after her death is dissected by the scientists in the house. Octavian discovers what the scientists are doing and in his anger flees the house, and ends up in the Colonial Army. Octavian''s military adventures are narrated mostly in epistolary form by Private Evidence Goring in letters to his sister Fruition. Octavian is eventually recaptured, and back at the Gitney house he is kept chained and completely alone. When Sharpe and Gitney, as well as his former classics teacher Dr. Trefusis, eventually decide to speak with him, Octavian is furious to discover that, with many of their funds coming from plantation owners in Virginia, they are counting on Octavian to fail, and to prove the "inferiority" of the African race.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Volume 1: The Pox Party

Set in Glendale, California, in the 1930s, the book is the story of middle-class housewife Mildred Pierce''s attempts to maintain her family''s social position during the Great Depression. Mildred separates from her unfaithful, unemployed husband and sets out to support herself and her children. After a difficult search she finds a job as a waitress, but she worries that it is beneath her middle-class station. More than that, she worries that her ambitious and increasingly pretentious elder daughter, Veda, will think her new job demeaning. Mildred encounters both success and failure as she opens three successful restaurants, operates a pie-selling business and copes with the death of her younger daughter, Ray. Veda enjoys her mother''s newfound financial success but increasingly turns ungrateful, demanding more and more from her hard-working mother while openly condemning her and anyone who must work for a living. When Mildred discovers her daughter''s plot to blackmail a wealthy family with a fake pregnancy, she kicks her out of their house. Veda, who has been training to become an opera singer, goes on to a great deal of fame as Mildred convinces her new boyfriend Monty (a young man who, like Mildred, lost his family''s wealth at the start of the Great Depression) to help reconcile them. Unfortunately for Mildred, this means buying Monty''s family estate and using her earnings to pay for Veda''s extravagances. Mildred and Monty marry, but things go sour for her: Wally, her partner in the restaurant business, has discovered that her living like a rich person has dramatically affected the company''s profits. He threatens a coup to force her out of the company. This causes her to confess to her ex-husband Bert that she has been embezzling money from her company in order to buy Veda''s love. Needing some of Veda''s money to balance the books - and fearing that Wally might target the girl''s assets if they are exposed - Mildred goes to her house to confront her. She finds Veda in bed with her stepfather. Monty explains to Mildred that he''s leaving her for Veda, who gloats that they''ve been planning this all along. Mildred snaps, brutally attacking and apparently strangling her daughter, who now appears incapable of singing and loses her singing contract. Weeks pass as Mildred moves to Reno, Nevada to establish residency in order to get a speedy divorce from Monty. Bert moves out to visit her. Mildred ultimately is forced to resign from her business empire, leaving it to Ida, a former company assistant. Bert and Mildred, upon the finalization of her divorce, remarry. They are shocked when Veda shows up with several dozen reporters to "reconcile" with her mother (a move designed to defuse the negative publicity of her sleeping with her stepfather). Mildred accepts, but several months later, Veda reveals that her voice has healed and announces that she is moving to New York City with Monty. Veda''s apparent loss of her voice was only a ploy so that she could renege on her existing singing contract and then be free to establish a more lucrative singing contract with another company. As she leaves the house, a broken Mildred agrees to say "to hell" with the monstrous Veda and to "get stinko" (drunk) with Bert.

Mildred Pierce

The novel is set in a distant future when humans are part of an interstellar civilization called the ConSentiency composed of many species. One, the Taprisiots, provide instant mind-to-mind communication between two sentient minds anywhere in the universe, and the Caleban provide jump-doors which allow instantaneous travel between any two points in the universe. This is the glue that holds the far-flung ConSentiency together. Unfortunately, one consequence of jump-door technology is the possibility that large numbers of unsuspecting sentients can be diverted to destinations unknown for nefarious purposes. A government saboteur attempts to expose one such plot. Jorj X. McKie is a Saboteur Extraordinary, one of the principals of the Bureau of Sabotage, and the only human admitted to practice law before the Gowachin bar as a legum (lawyer). While meditating in a park in BuSab headquarters McKie is mentally contacted by the Caleban Fannie Mae, a female member of a species of unparalleled power from another dimension whose visible manifestation in this universe is the star Thyone in the Pleiades cluster Generations ago, a secret, unauthorized experiment by the Gowachins was carried out with the help of a contract with the Calebans. They isolated the planet Dosadi behind an impenetrable barrier called "The God Wall". On the planet were placed humans and Gowachin, with an odd mix of modern and old technology. The planet itself is massively poisonous except for a narrow valley, containing the city "Chu", into which nearly 89 million humans and Gowachin are crowded under terrible conditions. It is ruled by a dictator, many other forms of government having been tried previously, but without the ability to remove such things as the DemoPol, a computer system used to manipulate populaces without their consent or knowledge. The culture of ordinary day to day power in Dosadi is very violent. Among other tools, addictive psychotropes are used for handling power among hierarchies in organisations. Senior Liator Keila Jedrik starts a war that will change Dosadi forever. Jorj travels to Dosadi and escapes with Keila after engaging in ego sharing. This gives them the ability to swap bodies and thus by using a hole in the contract sealing Dosadi they can escape via jump gate. Once free, by legal manoeuvring the Dosadi population is unleashed upon the ConSentiency for good or ill, whilst the people who set the project in motion try to deal with the consequences, having sent McKie there hoping a solution more in their interest could be found.

The Dosadi Experiment

Nanny Pendergast, the middle-aged Scottish woman who is the driving force behind "El Mico", may not be the typical criminal mastermind. Nevertheless, she and her two young charges, Jeremy and Dominic Silk, have made El Mico the most potent underworld force in North Africa, filling the void left when Modesty Blaise disbanded The Network. El Mico has just achieved its greatest triumph, the clandestine theft of an object of immense value. And El Mico has also suffered its greatest setback; Bernard Martel, one of their top lieutenants, has double-crossed them and stolen the object. Modesty happens to be present when an El Mico assassin tries to kill Bernard Martel, and both Modesty and Willie Garvin are present when Jeremy Silk succeeds in killing him at Modesty''s house in Tangier. For Modesty and Willie this signals the start of two parallel quests: To find "the object" and to rescue the beautiful young Tracy Martel, Bernard''s wife, who is being held captive as a harem girl in the isolated palace called Xanadu, high in the Atlas Mountains. First Modesty figures out where Bernard Martel has hidden "the object", and she and Willie retrieve it. But then Modesty and Willie are captured by El Mico and find themselves imprisoned in Xanadu. All they have to do now to rescue Tracy Martel is to survive several coliseum-style fights to the death and escape from captivity and free Tracy from the harem and steal a jeep and flee down a slow twisting mountain road with a helicopter full of armed men in hot pursuit.

The Xanadu Talisman

Ellery Queen and his father are driving through a mountainous area of the United States on vacation when they are forced by a forest fire to seek shelter in a private home on the top of a mountain. The home soon becomes impossible to escape due to the fire. Dr. Xavier''s aerie is host to an unusual assortment of characters, including his family and guests, a pair of teenage boys who are "Siamese" or conjoined xiphopagous twins, the doctor''s assistant "Bones", who keeps burying mysterious parcels in the grounds, and another refugee who insists that his name is "Mr. Smith". As the fire creeps towards the top of the mountain, first the doctor and then his brother are murdered. Each victim is found clutching half a playing card, and half of a jack of diamonds seems to indicate that one - but only one - of the Siamese twins is the murderer. The limited circle of suspects includes a kleptomaniac who steals only rings, and a blackmailer. Ellery and his father investigate the murders and battle the fire at the same time. He performs an extended feat of deduction about the handedness of the murderer based upon the torn playing cards. The solution to the crimes is revealed in a dramatic finish when the flames reach the top of the mountain.

The Siamese Twin Mystery

The disappearance of Dr. Larry Pettifer from his teaching position at Bath University shouldn''t have concerned a great many people, especially a retired Treasury boffin like Tim Cranmer. But when Detective Inspector Bryant and Sergeant Luck of the Bath Police call upon Cranmer at his Somerset manor house and vineyard late on a Sunday evening, Cranmer finds himself facing repercussions from his secret and not-too-distant past. Pettifer, the reader eventually learns, was a British Secret Intelligence Service operative during the Cold War and Cranmer was his handler for some twenty years. The Cold War is over, the Berlin Wall has come down and SIS has put Cranmer and his agent Pettifer out to pasture. Pettifer turns to teaching at Bath University and Cranmer is content to settle at Honeybrook, his inherited estate in Somerset, growing wine and making love to his beautiful young mistress Emma. Not content with staying cloistered in Bath, Larry begins paying visits to Honeybrook and soon becomes a permanent fixture in their lives. At least, that is, until both Larry and Emma disappear. Panicked by his encounter with the Bath Police, Cranmer contacts his former employers and is summoned to London where he learns that, not only has Larry disappeared, he''s absconded with some ₤37 million milked from the Russian Government with the help of a former Soviet spy. Cranmer finds himself suspected as Larry''s accomplice by the Bath Police—and, later, by "The Office," or SIS—and decides to track down his protégé and his former mistress. But why would a quixotic intellectual like Larry, a man who had no interest in money, suddenly wish to steal ₤37 million from the Russians? To solve this mystery, Cranmer begins calling on old contacts from Oxford to the arms trade to find out what his former agent and his purloined mistress have been up to in their disappearance. He also visits his secret archive of Office files, stashed away in the abandoned church of St. James the Less, bequeathed to him by the same Uncle Bob who left him Honeybrook. As he peruses his cache of documents, he begins to uncover the plot between Larry and Konstantin Checheyev, the former Soviet handler of Larry (the latter one pretended to work for Soviets during the Cold War). Checheyev, it seems, is not Russian but Ingush, a native of the high Caucasus and begrudged of the Russians who have displaced him and his people from their rightful homes. The Ingush are primed for an uprising against their Russian oppressors and Larry''s the man to arm them. Cranmer begins his journey, first to an arms dealer in Macclesfield, England, whom he finds murdered along with his assistants by an Ossetian group called "The Forest;" then to find Emma, who has sought shelter in Paris; then to Russia to track down his former Soviet contacts in hopes of finding Larry; then to Ingushetia to find his friend and try to save him - from the Russians, the Ossetians and from himself.

Our Game

The lives of several friends are thrown into disarray by the machinations of Julius King. Julius makes a bet with his ex-girlfriend Morgan that he can break up the homosexual couple Axel and Simon; meanwhile, Morgan and her brother-in-law Rupert are conned into embarking on an affair, and Morgan''s nephew Peter is falling in love with her. Julius King, returning from a university job in America, seeks out his old school friends, Rupert Foster and Axel Nillson. His former lover, Morgan Browne, Foster’s sister-in-law, has arrived in England at the same time. Foster’s attempts to keep them apart are thwarted by Morgan Browne, still in love with King and determined to confront him. At the same time, she is avoiding her husband, Tallis Browne, who still loves her. The plot is complicated further when, almost immediately and by accident, Julius King meets Tallis Browne. King is intrigued by his old lover’s husband, a rather nondescript fellow with not much personal presence but considerable moral integrity. King himself is a man of formidable intellect, and he does not suffer anyone gladly. He is irritated by what he sees as self-satisfied and patronizing conduct in his friends, and he sets out, without much concern for the consequences, to put them in compromising situations. Morgan, his love from the past, will not leave him alone, and though he has a quick way of chastening her for her importunities, he determines to include her in his plans. Rupert Foster, rather full of himself since he has just finished his book on the power of good and love in life, is ripe and ready to be fooled, and Morgan, full of the hot air of spurned love and dramatizing her problems for all to see, appears to be just the mate for Rupert, if King can somehow get them together. To make the game more interesting, he takes on the extra task of breaking up the homosexual relationship between Axel Nillson and Simon, Rupert’s brother. Using a mixture of high cunning, sheer criminality, and pinches of blackmail, King tempts his friends into situations which they would never have contemplated and which ultimately result not only in revealing flaws in their characters but also in causing serious harm to Rupert, for which King, a cool, nerveless fellow, takes no responsibility. Everyone learns how ridiculously vulnerable they are, but Axel and Simon escape from King’s labyrinth of “now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t,” strengthened in their love and less inclined to be shamefaced about being homosexual. Whether Morgan Browne learns anything is unclear, and the damage done to the Fosters is gratuitously cruel.

A Fairly Honourable Defeat

Rinaldi tells the story of the Hatfield-McCoy feud in the late 19th century through the eyes of Fanny, a young female member of the McCoy clan. Set against the backdrop of the Civil War, Rinaldi illustrates the fervent code of honor in the mountains of Kentucky and West Virginia as her protagonist struggles to understand the superstition and loyalty fueling the cycle of violence in Tug Valley. In the end, Fanny must choose between her family and her future to escape the feud. When Fanny’s sister, Roseanna, the “purtiest girl in the county,” has an affair with Johnse Hatfield, the slow brewing hatred between the Hatfield and the McCoys erupts. As the families take the law into their own hands through dubious pacts and midnight raids, Fanny follows her sister Roseanna into a nest of secrets. Pregnant and estranged from her lover, Roseanna sews a coffin quilt to preserve the family members so quickly disappearing from Tug Valley. Fanny disapproves of the quilt despite her loyalty to her sister and evolves from innocent bystander to judicious dissenter as the violence escalates. With the help of her mysterious “Yeller Thing,” Fanny learns to overcome the petty hatred plaguing both families.

The Coffin Quilt

Someone found a piece of a Bug Fighter and the government is going to test it at a laboratory. Unsurprisingly, the Yeerks don''t want it tested. The Animorphs have a battle at an airport. During the fight Cassie ends up unconscious on the belt with all the luggage. When she wakes up, she is in the cargo bay of a plane flying to Sydney, Australia. The plane is attacked by Yeerks looking for the "Andalite bandit" so she jumps out after unsuccessfully attempting to elude them on board. She hides in the sand as a flea until the Yeerks leave. After the Yeerks leave, she demorphs and meets Yami who lives nearby. He takes her to his family. His grandfather cut himself with a piece of a Bug fighter that he was using as a wood carving tool. Cassie morphs to Hork-Bajir and helps amputate his leg. Later, the Blade ship turns up again and Visser Three demands that she come outside. She does and tries to lead the Yeerks away from Yami''s family. A Chee who was aboard the Blade ship turns up and she goes back home.

The Unexpected

The story begins as Flavia, Jonathan, Nubia, and Lupus are playing in the Tyrrhenian sea, Flavia sets out to find Vulcan, who told Pliny of the riddle pointing to great treasure. Eventually, she and her friends solve the riddle, making out the word Asine, Latin for ''jackass''. She tried to find Vulcan from a local blacksmith, and used the codeword ''Asine'', but to little avail. Meanwhile, Aristo gives Miriam a sparrow, the traditional symbol of love. Soon, Flavia finds Vulcan, and tried calling him a jackass while he was drinking water. She finds out Vulcan is a clubfoot orphan, and feels horrible. Vulcan gives Miriam, who is in love, a bracelet. At the forum, a Christian warns everyone of doom and desolation. The children find out that Clio, a girl, had been following them. Her parents, Tascius and Rectina, had adopted her and many other girls, after losing their own son. They all go to the Vulcanalia, but everything goes wrong, and Flavia fails to tell Clio''s parents that Vulcan may be their lost son. Flavia finds out that ''Asine'' is really a codeword for their illegal faith, Christianity. Tascius thinks Vulcan is really Pliny''s son. Soon, the sparrow dies and birds rain from the air. Everyone finds out that Miriam is in love with Flavia''s uncle, Gaius. Everyone is surprised except Nubia, who figured it out earlier. Jonathan''s father, Mordecai, fears that his son''s dreams of Jerusalem, the strange events, and everything going wrong, all point to the fact that the Christian was right, him being one also. They figure that a volcano is going to erupt, and they figure it is Vesuvius. They call over Pliny for a meal, and Flavia figures that Vulcan is really Tascius'' son. Pliny did not know that Vesuvius was a volcano. Mordecai proposes that everyone leave, but his daughter Miriam objects. They warn everyone of the volcano. While Rectina and Clio are in Herculaneum, and everyone else is in Stabia, it erupts. Miriam''s hair is set on fire by the ashes from the volcano, but Mordecai puts it out. They find Gaius half-dead buried under ash, but Ferox, a wolf, saves him. Meanwhile, Moredecai, a doctor, tries to save everyone. Pliny sets out to save Rectina, but fails. Tascius confesses how he had abandoned Vulcan. Lupus warns Pliny of Vulcan in a boat. Pliny dies near Pompeii due to sulphur. Water is scarce, and pyroclastic flows bury cities, but the children survive the volcano.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Andalite's Gift

By K. A. Applegate

Ring for Jeeves

By P. G. Wodehouse

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Volume 1: The Pox Party

By Matthew Tobin Anderson

Mildred Pierce

By James M. Cain

The Dosadi Experiment

By Frank Herbert

The Xanadu Talisman

By Peter O''Donnell

The Siamese Twin Mystery

By Frederic Dannay

Our Game

By John le Carré

A Fairly Honourable Defeat

By Iris Murdoch

The Coffin Quilt

By Ann Rinaldi

The Unexpected

By K. A. Applegate

The Secrets of Vesuvius

By Caroline Lawrence