Think begins as a critique of the decline of critical thinking in America. LeGault briefly mentions Blink as the height of this irrationality, but moves on to other failures in government, schools, media, and industry. LeGault offers several examples of irrationality and mediocrity throughout the book: * Poor decision-making at General Motors and the decline of the American auto industry. * The politically correct reaction to remarks by Lawrence Summers, regarding gender differences. * The failures of affirmative action to close the achievement gap. * Sensationalist journalism, and the decline of newspaper readership. * Over-emphasis on stress relief in marketing and media. * The banning of DDT by the Environmental Protection Agency, in reaction to the book Silent Spring. * The rise of relativism, as described by Allan Bloom in his book, Closing of the American Mind. Much of the book deals with examples of failures or anomalies in American achievements. LeGault often attributes these shortcomings to a growing attitude or influential group. On page 93, he describes the problem of over-medicating children with Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: In view of LeGault''s description of the problem, he closes the book by offering solutions. Specifically, he calls for higher standards, especially among parents and schools.

Think

The story takes place partly in London and partly in Australia. It is set in 1950. Jennifer Morton, a young girl from Leicester but living in London, witnesses the death of her grandmother, the widow of a retired Indian civil servant. Her pension has ceased and she has literally starved to death, despite apparent prosperity. Before she dies, she leaves Jennifer a small sum of money sent by a niece in Australia, and asks that Jennifer use the money to visit Jane and Jack Dorman who own a prosperous sheep station in Merrijig Victoria. She does so. Jennifer finds herself falling in love with the new, relatively unspoiled country, though she continues to worry about her parents. She also meets Carl Zlinter, a ''New Australian''; a Czech refugee who is working at the nearby lumber camp of a timber company as a condition of his free passage to Australia. A medical doctor qualified to practise in Czechoslovakia, he is not qualified to practise in Australia and only looks after First Aid at the lumber camp. But when an accident badly injures two of the workers and no doctor, nurse or medical facilities are available, he is faced with the choice of either watching the workers die or operating on them; he chooses to operate, and Jennifer assists him. The two operations are successful, but one man later gets drunk and dies. Zlinter is initially in potentially serious trouble over the unlicensed operations and death, but he is cleared of responsibility. Jennifer helps Zlinter to trace the history of a man of the same name who lived and died in the district many years before, during a gold rush, and they find the site of his house. Back in England, Jennifer''s mother dies and she is forced to return, but she is now restless and dissatisfied. Zlinter turns up in Leicester; he has found gold dust that the earlier Zlinder earned as a bullock driver and hid beneath a stone. He has used the money from illegally selling the gold to travel to England to ask Jennifer to marry him, and to re-qualify as a medical practitioner.

The Far Country

Blu''s Hanging is a novel which introduces the very distressed life of the Ogata family. After suffering through the death of their mother, Eleanor, Ivah, Blu, and Maisie struggle to deal with life and the issues that ensue as a result of their loss. Their father, Poppy, struggles to parent them, barely making ends meet and not knowing how to care for his children after losing his wife. Ivah is left to fulfill the maternal role to her two younger siblings and is held to unrealistic expectations by her father. Even though Eleanor has died, her presence among the family remains. This has both positive and negative effects on the family. The Ogata''s struggle to move on, specifically Poppy, who cannot come to grips with her death. He constantly speaks of Eleanor, with frequent references to Moon River. He becomes hardened and cold to his children as he struggles to grieve. The children are also deeply affected by Eleanor''s seemingly constant presence within the family. As they still look to her for guidance and support in dealing with their issues, they are able to rely on her when in pain yet battle with being able to move on. Because of the fractured state their family is in, their wounded unit is easily torn apart by outer societal influences. Due to the lack of parenting, each child struggles to cope in unique ways. They are treated harshly by Poppy and are neglected of any true care or concern. As he is depressed himself, he turns to drugs bringing the family to a more desperate state, economically and emotionally. Certain events begin to unfold and proper judgment on behalf of the children is not used. They find themselves teetering with very dangerous situations to which Eleanor would''ve never approved of. As a result, Uncle Paulo, a neighbor of the family, rapes Blu, weakening the already fragile state of the Ogatas. Poppy, left feeling beside himself, blames Ivah for her abandonment of her younger siblings as she attempted to cross her first stepping stone to independence (i.e. going away to school). As the children have no real support system, and they are constantly combated with troublesome circumstances including racial angst and violence, they are left to feel like orphans as their place in society seems to diminish even further. Ultimately; Ivah, Blu and Maisie, who are still very attached to the presence of Eleanor, are able somewhat move on through the letting go of their dog, Ka-san. Poppy, still unable to cope with the loss of his wife, leaves as well. Although the children are conclusively alone, it seems as a small glimmer of hope in allowing them to reform as individuals.

Blu''s Hanging

Falco arrives home in Rome with Helena Justina and Julia Junilla Laeitana, his new baby daughter, and barely have time to settle in before being subjected to a welcome-home party. Falco and Petronius sneak out for a drink in a nearby street next to a fountain, which is not working. When a worker turns up to clean it, it is revealed that a severed hand had blocked the aqueduct. Falco and Petro start to investigate, but their case is stolen by Anacrites. Petro puts up a sign proclaiming that awards are to be given on the discovery of any body parts. Falco talks to his brother-in-law and is told that severed body parts have been discovered in the rivers and aqueducts for several years, usually after festivals. When he''s told that Petro put up the sign he runs back to his old apartment (where Petro now lives after being kicked out by his wife) as a slave hands over a new hand to Petro. Petro takes down the sign. Anacrites, who is rather annoyed at being muscled out of his stolen case, sends four men to beat up Falco and Petro. They defeat the bruisers easily and trail them back to Anacrites. Soon afterwards, Julius Frontinus finds and gives over a new hand. It looks the same as the other hands but this one has a wedding ring with two names inscribed (Asinia and Caius). They track down Caius Cicurrus, the widower of Asinia. He is innocent and is greatly grieving for his lost wife. Petro''s wife dumped him after he took up with Balbina Milvia from Time to Depart. Milvia''s husband Florius sends men to beat up Falco and Petro. Falco, with the help of his trainer Glaucus and Glaucus''s trainees, beats off his attackers but Petro has no such help and is heavily injured. Milvia comes to Falco asking him to help her, as she fears that her mother, who has vanished, has been taken by the killer. Falco finds Cornella Flaccida at a new apartment. He goes out to the country but finds no suspects. After continuous reconnaissance he has two problems: First, Claudia Rufina, the heiress from A Dying Light In Corduba and the new fiancee to Helena''s brother Aelianus, has vanished, and second, a slave called Thurius has been identified as the murderer. Falco goes out to rescue Claudia and apprehend Thurius. He captures Thurius and finds his lair and his victim. He finds that it''s not Claudia, it''s Milvia''s mother, who vanished again. Unlike Claudia, however, no one liked her enough to send out a search party. Claudia is later found to have eloped with Helena''s other brother Justinus, an act that has disastrous consequences. The book ends with Falco telling Petro his wife went out with another man, and later receiving a visit from Anacrites.

Three Hands in the Fountain

Henry Skrimshander begins the novel as a 17 year-old playing on his Legion baseball team in Lankton, South Dakota. Although physically short and not muscular, Henry has an unusual gift for fielding, and excels at the demanding position of shortstop. After playing a game against a team from Chicago, Westish College student Mike Schwartz sees Henry play and recruits him to attend Westish and improve the baseball team. By the time of his junior year, Henry is excelling as a player (especially on defense) and is drawing significant attention from Major League Baseball scouts. Westish College is a small liberal arts college located in northeastern Wisconsin on the shore of Lake Michigan. The school has a particular attachment to author Herman Melville, ever since a Westish student named Guert Affenlight discovered that Melville had visited Westish as part of a lecturing tour in the 1880s. The school re-branded itself around the Melville visit, erecting a statue of the author and renaming its sports teams as the Harpooners. After publishing a well-received book and spending many years as a professor at Harvard, Affenlight returns to his alma mater as president of the college. His estranged daughter Pella comes to live with him during Henry''s junior year, after leaving her architect husband and life in San Francisco. Much of the novel focuses around members of the Westish baseball team, during their best season in the history of the college. As Henry approaches the NCAA record for most consecutive errorless games by a shortstop (held by his baseball hero, Aparicio Rodriguez), a throw of his goes awry and hits his roommate, right fielder Owen Dunne, who is sitting in the dugout at the time. Owen is hospitalized by the injury, an incident which shakes Henry''s confidence deeply. His fielding quickly deteriorates to the point where he can no longer complete a simple throw to first base. Examples in the novel of Major League players with similar situations are Steve Blass, Chuck Knoblauch, and Rick Ankiel. Off the baseball field, the novel explores the relationships between several pairs of people. This includes romantic relationships between Mike Schwartz and Pella Affenlight, as well as one between Owen Dunne and Guert Affenlight. The mentor-student relationship between Schwartz and Henry also comes to the forefront, as each examines their hopes for the future and the extent to which it rests on their baseball ability.

The Art of Fielding

Martin Kurtz, an Israeli spymaster, recruits Charlie, a radical left-wing English actress,as part of an elaborate scheme to discover the whereabouts of Khalil, a Palestinian terrorist. Charlie''s case officer is Joseph. Salim is abducted, interrogated, and killed by Kurtz''s unit. Joseph impersonates Salim and travels through Europe with Charlie in order to make Khalil believe that Charlie and Salim are lovers, the goal being that, when Khalil discovers the affair and contacts Charlie, the Israelis will be able to track him down. Khalil does contact Charlie through intermediaries, and she travels to a Palestine refugee camps in Lebanon to be trained as a bomber. She becomes more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, and the schizophrenic lifestyle she is forced to live brings her close to collapse. Finally, Charlie is sent on a mission to pretend to place a bomb at a lecture given by an Israeli moderate whose peace proposals are not to Khalil''s liking. She carries out the mission under the Israelis''s supervision. As a result, Khalil is killed, and Charlie''s mission comes to an end. She subsequently has a mental breakdown caused by the strain of her mission and her own internal contradictions. Whereupon, Joseph comes to her aid: "locked together, they set off awkwardly along the pavement, though the town was strange to them." Charlie''s motives for helping the Israelis when she is in fact an anti-Zionist are indicative of why the authors'' novels are so well loved. The novels are less about character and other literary concerns, than they are primers about the life of a spy that the author lived prior to becoming a novelist. By having Charlie fall in love with the Israeli Mossad agent, "Joseph," and the terrorist, "Michel," the reader is forced to see the similarities between the methods of both the intelligence services of the world, and those of the world''s terrorists. The most common and most interesting method for accessing one another''s secrets, is the "honeytrap," in which an attractive member of the opposite sex lures a target. As the characters of the Mossad say, in the book, "tether the goat to attract the lion." The similarity of methodology results in the fascinating inner turmoil of both the Charlie, and her beloved Joseph. Readers, too, are forced to consider the ethics of both the terrorist and the intelligence officer. The result is a wonderful ride on the rivers of conscience.

The Little Drummer Girl

At the top of Mount Munch, lives a group of people known as the Hyups. One of their numbers, a Munchkin named Bini Aru, discovered a method of transforming people and objects by merely saying the word "Pyrzqxgl". After Princess Ozma decreed that no one could practice magic in Oz except for Glinda the Good Witch and the Wizard of Oz, Bini wrote down the directions for pronouncing "Pyrzqxgl" and hid them in his magical laboratory. When Bini and his wife are at a fair one day, their son Kiki Aru, who thirsts for adventure, finds the directions and afterwards transforms himself into a hawk and visits various countries outside the land of Oz. When he alights in the land of Ev, Kiki Aru learns that he needs money to pay for a night''s lodging (versus Oz, where money is not used at all) and changes himself into a magpie to steal a gold piece from an old man. A sparrow confronts the then-human Kiki Aru with knowledge of the theft, and Kiki says that he did not know what it was like to be wicked before, he is glad that he is now. This conversation is overheard by Ruggedo, the Nome who was exiled to the Earth''s surface in Tik-Tok of Oz, and he sees through Kiki Aru''s power a chance to get revenge on the people of Oz. Kiki changes himself and Ruggedo into birds and they fly over the Deadly Desert into the Land of Oz. They enter Oz as animals to escape detection by Glinda and to recruit an army of conquest from the country''s wild animal population. When they first appear in the Forest of Gugu in the Gillikin Country, Kiki changes himself and Ruggedo into Li-Mon-Eags (fictional creatures with the heads of lions, the bodies of monkeys, and the wings of eagles as well as having the tails of donkeys) and lies that they''ve seen the people of the Emerald City plan to enslave the animal inhabitants of the Forest. Ruggedo claims that they the Li-Mon-Eags will transform the animals into humans and march on the Emerald City and transform its inhabitants into animals, driving them into the forest. Ruggedo proves their power (for Kiki''s the only one who knows "Pyrzqxgl") by having Kiki transform one of the leopard king Gugu''s advisors, Loo the unicorn, into a man and back again. Gugu offers to meet with the leaders of the other animal tribes to decide on this matter of invasion. Dorothy and the Wizard arrive with the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger in the Forest of Gugu during this council of war with a request for monkeys to train in time for Ozma''s upcoming birthday party. Ruggedo recognizes his old enemies and inspires Kiki to begin transforming people and animals left and right &mdash; including Ruggedo, whom Kiki turns against by transforming him into a goose, a transformation that the Nomes most fears because as a goose he might lay an egg. The Wizard, whom Kiki transformed into a fox, follows the Li-Mon-Eag with his magic bag, the transformed Kiki, deep into the forest where he begins transforming monkeys into giant human soldiers. However, Kiki makes them so big that they cannot move through the trees. The Wizard, however, heard how to correctly pronounce "Pyrzqxgl" and first stops Kiki and Ruggedo by transforming them into a walnut and a hickory nut. Then the Wizard resumes his rightful form and changes Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger, and Gugu back to their forms, and he agrees to change the soldiers back into monkeys. The Wizard recruits several of the grateful monkeys and shrinks them down to bring back to the Emerald City and train. On arriving there, Dorothy and the Wizard are dispatched to a magic island where Cap''n Bill and Trot went to get a magic flower for Ozma''s birthday. However, the island itself causes anything living that touches it to take root there, and that is how the sailor and his friend are found when Dorothy and the Wizard arrive. The Wizard uses "Pyrzqxgl" to change Cap''n Bill and Trot into honeybees which narrowly avoid being eaten by the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger. When they are human again, Cap''n Bill retrieves the flower by strapping a wood plank onto his good leg, walks with that and his wooden leg onto the island, and retrieves the flower. Back at the Emerald City, Ozma and her friends celebrate her birthday (though without quite the pomp and fanfare from The Road to Oz) and then decide how to deal with the evil magicians transformed into nuts. The Wizard uses "Pyrzqxgl" to change them back to Kiki Aru and Ruggedo and make them thirsty enough to drink the Water of Oblivion, which will make them forget all that they have ever known. The now-blank slate Kiki Aru and Ruggedo will live in the Emerald City and learn to be good and kind.

The Magic of Oz

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

The book tells the story of Julian West, a young American who, towards the end of the 19th century, falls into a deep, hypnosis-induced sleep and wakes up one hundred and thirteen years later. He finds himself in the same location (Boston, Massachusetts), but in a totally changed world: It is the year 2000 and, while he was sleeping, the United States has been transformed into a socialist utopia. The remainder of the book outlines Bellamy''s thoughts about improving the future. The major themes include problems associated with capitalism, a proposed socialist solution of a nationalisation of all industry, the use of an "industrial army" to organise production and distribution, as well as how to ensure free cultural production under such conditions. The young man readily finds a guide, Doctor Leete, who shows him around and explains all the advances of this new age; including drastically reduced working hours for people performing menial jobs and almost instantaneous, Internet-like delivery of goods. Everyone retires with full benefits at age 45, and may eat in any of the public kitchens. The productive capacity of America is nationally owned, and the goods of society are equally distributed to its citizens. A considerable portion of the book is dialogue between Leete and West wherein West expresses his confusion about how the future society works and Leete explains the answers using various methods, such as metaphors or direct comparisons with 19th-century society. Although Bellamy''s novel did not discuss technology or the economy in detail, commentators frequently compare Looking Backward with actual economic and technological developments. For example, Julian West is taken to a store which (with its descriptions of cutting out the middleman to cut down on waste in a similar way to the consumers'' cooperatives of his own day based on the Rochdale Principles of 1844) somewhat resembles a modern warehouse club like BJ''s, Costco, or Sam''s Club. He additionally introduces a concept of credit cards in chapters 9, 10, 11, 13, 25, and 26, but these bear no resemblance to the instruments of debt-finance. All citizens receive an equal amount of "credit." Those with more difficult, specialized, dangerous or unpleasant jobs work fewer hours. Bellamy also predicts both sermons and music being available in the home through cable "telephone". Bellamy labeled the philosophy behind the vision "nationalism", and his work inspired the formation of more than 160 Nationalist Clubs to propagate his ideas. Despite the "ethical" character of his socialism (though he was initially loath to use the term "socialism"), Bellamy''s ideas somewhat reflect classical Marxism. In Chapter 19, for example, he has the new legal system explained. Most civil suits have ended in socialism, while crime has become a medical issue. The idea of atavism, then current, is employed to explain crimes not related to inequality (which Bellamy thinks will vanish with socialism). Remaining criminals are medically treated. One professional judge presides, appointing two colleagues to state the prosecution and defense cases. If all do not agree on the verdict, then it must be tried over. Chapter 15 and 16 have an explanation of how free, independent public art and news outlets could be provided in a more libertarian socialist system. In one case Bellamy even writes "the nation is the sole employer and capitalist".

Looking Backward

A top secret research facility hidden in the Colorado mountains is the last remaining outpost of the United States Army after its defeat by the PanAsians. The conquerors had absorbed the Soviets after being attacked by them and had then gone on to absorb India as well. The invaders are depicted as ruthless and cruel—for example, they crush an abortive rebellion by killing 150,000 American civilians as punishment. The laboratory is in turmoil as the novel begins. All but six of the personnel have died suddenly, due to unknown forces released by an experiment operating within the newly-discovered magneto-gravitic or electro-gravitic spectra. The surviving scientists soon learn that they can selectively kill people by releasing the internal pressure of their cell membranes, among other things. Using this discovery they construct a race-selective weapon which will kill only Asians. They devise other uses for the awesome forces they have discovered, but how can a handful of men overthrow an occupation force that controls all communications and when it is a crime to print a word in English? Noting that the invaders have allowed the free practice of religion (the better to pacify their slaves), the Americans set up a church of their own and begin acting as "Priests of Mota" (Mota is atom spelled backwards) in order to build a resistance movement—which Major Ardmore, the protagonist of the book, refers to as the Sixth Column (as opposed to a traitorous fifth column).

Sixth Column

In the aftermath of a devastating nuclear war, Americans have come to blame technology for the disaster, and far from seeking to recover what was destroyed, are actively opposed to any such attempt. Religious sects which even before the war opposed modern technology and avoided its use in their daily life have adjusted to the post-apocalypse situation far more easily than anyone else, and feeling themselves vindicated have come to dominate the post-war society. They gained an enormous number of new members, though those families which had been such before the war are honoured and privileged, their special status indicated by slightly different clothing. All the pre-war American cities have been destroyed in the war, and their re-construction is expressly forbidden. The US Constitution has been amended to now disallow the presence of more than a thousand residents or the existence of more than two hundred buildings per square mile anywhere in the United States. Len Colter and his cousin Esau are adolescent members of the New Mennonite community of Piper''s Run. Against their fathers'' wishes, the boys attend a preaching where a trader named Soames is accused and stoned to death for his apparent involvement with a forbidden bastion of technology known as Bartorstown. Though sickened by the stoning and harshly punished by their fathers, Len and Esau are fascinated by the idea of a community that secretly still holds and harnesses the forbidden technologies. Len''s grandmother, a little girl at the time of the destruction, sparks his interest in the technological past with her stories of big, brightly lit cities and little boxes with moving pictures. Despite even harsher punishment after being caught with a simple radio previously stolen from Soames'' wagon, Esau and Len become determined to find their way to the fabled Bartorstown and leave Piper''s Run in search of it.

The Long Tomorrow

Henry has a green pencil with a skull eraser. He discovers that everything he writes or draws with it becomes true! But if he draws good things, a bad thing will unexpectedly happen. He tries to destroy the pencil in many ways, and gives his friend Jack Japes amnesia in the process by tripping him down a hill . He throws it into a rubbish bin, hoping it will never be seen again, but it turns up again in Lost Property. He wedges it under the sports teacher''s Hummer''s wheel, but instead it sticks into it, and the Hummer collides with Mrs Cross'' small green hatchback. He also attempts to crush it in Mr Spade''s compactor, but not knowing how to use it, it blows up and the pencil is left intact. He attempts to draw a picture of the pencil itself disappearing, but because of how wishes don''t always come true in the way people expect, it gets stolen by Clive, who use it to draw a picture of Henry and his friends being crushed under an avalanche. Luckily (or unluckily), they get crushed by an avalanche... of books. The combined weight of the books also crushes the pencil. The characters are saved by the librarian, Mr Shush, who digs them out. The story ends here with the usual paragraph.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Think

No Author Listed

The Far Country

By Nevil Shute

Blu's Hanging

By Lois-Ann Yamanaka

Three Hands in the Fountain

By Lindsey Davis

The Art of Fielding

By Chad Harbach

The Little Drummer Girl

By John le Carré

The Magic of Oz

By L. Frank Baum

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

By Matthew Tobin Anderson

Looking Backward

By Edward Bellamy

Sixth Column

By Robert A. Heinlein

The Long Tomorrow

By Leigh Brackett

Pencil of Doom!

By Andy Griffiths