Picnic at Hanging Rock centers around a trip by a party of girls from Appleyard College, a fictitious upper class private boarding school, who travel to Hanging Rock in the Mount Macedon area, Victoria, for a picnic on Valentine''s Day 1900. The excursion ends in tragedy when three of the girls, and later one of their teachers, mysteriously vanish while climbing the rock. No reason for their disappearance is ever given, and one of the missing girls who is later found has no memory of what has happened to her companions. A fourth girl who also climbed the rock with the group is of little help in solving the mystery, having returned in hysterics for reasons she cannot explain. The disappearances provoke much local concern and international sensation with sexual molestation, abduction and murder being high on the list of possible outcomes. Several organized searches of the picnic grounds and the area surrounding the rock itself turn up nothing. Meanwhile the students, teachers and staff of the college, as well as members of the community, grapple with the riddle-like events. A young man on a private search locates one of the missing girls, but is himself found in an unexplained daze – yet another victim of the rock. Concerned parents begin withdrawing their daughters from the formerly prestigious college and several of the staff, including the headmistress, either resign or meet with tragic ends. We are told that both the College, and the Woodend Police Station where records of the investigation were kept, are destroyed by fire shortly afterwards. The unsolvable mystery of the disappearances was arguably the key to the success of both the book and the subsequent film. This aroused enough lasting public interest that in 1980 a book of hypothetical solutions (by Yvonne Rousseau) was published, called The Murders at Hanging Rock. In fact, Lindsay''s original draft included a final chapter in which the mystery was resolved. At her editor''s suggestion, Lindsay removed it prior to publication. Chapter Eighteen, as it is known, was published posthumously in 1987 as The Secret of Hanging Rock by Angus & Robertson Publishing. The novel is written in the form of a true story, and even begins and ends with a pseudo-historical prologue and epilogue, adding to the overall feeling of mystery. However, while the geological feature, Hanging Rock, and the several towns mentioned are actual places near Mount Macedon, the story is not completely true. Lindsay had done little to dispel the myth that the story is based on truth, in many interviews either refusing to confirm it was entirely fiction, or hinting that parts of the book were fictitious, and others were not. Valentine''s Day, 14 February 1900 was a Wednesday, not a Saturday as depicted in the story. All attempts by enthusiastic readers to find historical evidence of the event, characters, or even Appleyard College, have proved fruitless. Appleyard College was to some extent based on Clyde Girls'' Grammar School at East St Kilda, Melbourne, which Joan Lindsay attended as a day-girl while in her teens. Incidentally, in 1919 this school was transferred to the town of Woodend, Victoria, about 8&nbsp;km southwest of Hanging Rock. The book suggests that the fictional site of Appleyard College, given its eastward view of Mount Macedon on the Bendigo-Melbourne Road, might have been on the western side of Calder Highway/Black Forest Drive (C792), about 2–4&nbsp;km south of Woodend. A far more detailed synopsis of the story is given in the main entry for the film version.

Picnic at Hanging Rock

The first section, titled "Spring" and told in first person, chronicles the entanglement of Columbia University student Adam Walker with French political science professor Rudolf Born, who meet in New York City in the spring of 1967 and who form an alliance to publish a literary magazine. Their friendship splinters as a result of a tense love triangle with Born''s girlfriend Margot and as a result of a late night mugging that ends in violence. The second section, "Summer" describes the events in Adam''s life later that summer in New York sharing an apartment with his older sister, Gwyn. This section of the story is told in second person. Adam''s story of the summer of 1967 is also framed by his having sent his manuscript, written in 2007, to a new character, James, who we are told is a famous author. In the framing story, James tells us how he receives the manuscript from a dying Adam and they arrange to meet. In the third section, "Fall" we learn that Adam, in 2007, has died before he and James could meet, and has completed only notes of the third and final section of his memoir of 1967. James fleshes out the notes Adam has left in a third person account. "Fall" tells the story of Adam''s trip to Paris, where he encounters Born and Margot, as well as other friends of Born''s, a woman named Hélène and her daughter Cécile. Adam inserts himself into the lives of these women and contrives a scheme to atone for guilt he carries stemming from his actions following the mugging in New York. At the close of this section James contacts Gwyn, and it is revealed that James has changed every name and setting in the book in order to protect the identity of the author, "Adam." The final section takes place in 2007. James has been told by Gwyn that the major events of the second section of the book are entirely made-up, and James wonders whether any of the purported memoir is true. In searching for corroboration, James tracks down Cécile, now a distinguished literary scholar. She concludes the story by describing in her diary how she, in 2007, has a final strange contact with Rudolf Born, at his remote island home in the Caribbean.

Invisible

When Patsy Callaghan''s father discovers that her mother, Maeve, neglects her, he stops goig to sea. John Callagan buys a horse and cart and sets up as a carrier at Liverpool Docks. Patsy loves going out on the carrier with her father and Billy Grant, the boy that helps him. When one day John Callaghan is killed in an accident, and Maeave goes out again drinking binges, Billy, who is deeply in love with Patsy, helps her continue the business. Patsy falls in love with Bruno Alvarez a handsome fairground showman, and believes he is going to marry her and will travel to Spain together. When Patsy brings him to meet Maeve, he stays for the night and the next morning, Patsy finds Bruno and Maeve in bed together. Billy comforts her and tries to calm her down, until they end up making love. But when Maeve finds out that Patsy is pregnant, she throws her out of the house. Patsy hides in the stables and Billy takes care of the baby, Liam, when he is born. While she is hiding in the stables, Billy has an accident and is crippled. Unable to find Bruno, Patsy lives with Billy''s family. As Liam gets older, Patsy starts working as a nurse. When Liam develops tuberculosis, Patsy decides to find Bruno and discovers that he and her mother went off together. Eventually, Liam dies and Patsy is once more depressed. Billy comforts her again, and she realises how much she loves him. They decide to open a new business on their own and get married.

Patsy of Paradise Place

The story begins with the Japanese army’s defeat of the China forces occupying Hong Kong on 25 December, 1941. Nicholas is an eleven-year old boy whose parents have both suddenly disappeared in the chaos of war breaking out. As the Chinese come to do a home to home search, three loyal family servants, Tang, his wife Ah Mee, and the gardener Ah Kwan take Nicholas and they escape to Kowloon as Hong Kong Island is no longer safe. Upon reaching the shore of Kowloon, Tang and Ah Mee disguise Nicholas as a Chinese boy and the trip continues to Tang''s home village, the village of Sek Wan. Nicholas passes the years of the war here with Tang and his family. He is given the Chinese name Wing Ming. During this time, many events happen. Nicholas makes a dangerous journey back to Kowloon to get quinine cure to the malaria Tang has contracted. He also helps the Communist partiasn army – The East River Column Fighters- to translate instructions for using heavy explosives. Nicholas joins the partisan army on a mission to Kowloon where they blow up a railway bridge and weaken the position of the Japanese army. Yet his most dangerous job would have been to deliver a medicine into the prison of war camps (POW camps). Taking news or items to prison camps is nicknamed "playing music on the bamboo radio". Nicholas does more than expected by entering the camp itself because the person who he was supposed to pass the medicine to had the fever. Exhausted and worried, Nicholas narrowly escapes the clutches of the Japanese with the help of the prisoners and finally reaches the safety of Sek Wan village. As the war comes to an end, Nicholas returns to his home on Hong Kong Island, and when he returned, everything is ruined, his home is badly damaged. As he walks through the house he finds his mother. Nicholas does not recognise her, she seems much older and exhausted, but he knows it is his mother. It is nearly four years since he was last at home. At first he introduces himself as Wing Ming, then he remembers that he is Nicholas Holford.

Music on the Bamboo Radio

The year 3000 is approaching, and life continues as normal for most people. A few, however, are aware that the Protocol (the rules that determine how magic may be used) of the past thousand years is breaking down. Shandie is battling the Caliph in Zark, and gains himself a new Signifier when Ylo saves the banner from falling. While they follow Imperial decrees and take the war to the elves, King Rap in Krasnegar receives a warning from the gods that he will lose one of his children. Knowing that this has to do with the upcoming millennium, he sets out for Hub, the capital of the Impire, to speak with his friend the Imperor. Thaïle, a Gifted pixie in mysterious Thume, stands Death Watch over a neighbor, and receives her first Word of power. This earns her interest from the College, and Jain arrives at her parents’ house to talk to Thaïle. He informs her she will be going to the College next year, and there is nothing she can do about it. After suffering defeat from summoned dragons at Nefer Moor, the Legion retreats back to Qoble. Shandie and his inner circle decide to head to Hub to speak with the Imperor. Instead of traveling conventionally, they race to Hub to beat the message of their coming. On the way, a cloaked Pixie visits them and tells them of a preflecting pool at Wold Hall (putting your left foot in the pool shows you what you need, your right foot shows you what to avoid). They detour to visit it, and each person''s vision guides their actions afterwards. Thaïle, despondent over not being allowed to meet a man and have her own Place, meets Leéb. They fall in love and find a Place far from home. Thaïle hopes that the College won’t find her or care about her, but the College catches up with her just as her child is born. They spirit Thaïle away to the College and the Keeper. Shandie and company arrive in Hub, and find the Imperor a deranged, drooling husk of his former self. Shandie immediately seizes administrative control, and plans on how to meet with the faun he saw in the pool (who turns out to be Rap). Ylo’s vision was a lovely women naked amid daffodils, and the woman turns out to be Princess Eshiala. When the Imperor finally falls into a coma and dies, preparations are made for the upcoming coronation of Shandie. During practice, the Warlock Raspnex appears and tells the procession to crown Shandie immediately. Ylo takes charge and completes the ceremony just as the four warlocks’ thrones are destroyed by magic. The group meets for a council of war, and go to Dr. Sagorn’s house (the vision seen by Sir Acopulo). Rap has just arrived and meets the group at the doctor’s house. As they try to puzzle out what is going on, Raspnex shows up and tells them that the evil sorcerer Zinixo is taking over all of the sorcerers in the world, and plans to take over all of Pandemia. After a short discussion, the house is attacked, and Raspnex uses magic to whisk the group away to safety.

The Cutting Edge

Chapman''s Byron, a formidable soldier and commander, is marred by one major fault, his overweening pride. He loves to compare himself to the heroes of antiquity&mdash;Hercules, Alexander the Great, Curtius, even Orpheus. His vanity leaves him deeply vulnerable to manipulation by enemies of the King of France, who want to exploit Byron for their own schemes; and Byron allows himself to be drawn in. The King becomes aware of Byron''s treason; yet valuing his past service and his great potential, the King attempts to reform Byron, even sending him to England so that the Marshall can witness firsthand a properly functioning monarchical state. At the end of The Conspiracy, Byron manages to curb his pride and submit to the King. Yet his ego is too great to remain restrained indefinitely; Byron returns to plotting, and in the conclusion of The Tragedy he is apprehended, tried, convicted, and executed. As is usual with Chapman, the two parts of Byron are rich with allusions to classic literature. In addition to those noted above, the French courtier and plotter Picoté uses the rebellion of Catiline as a precedent for Byron''s planned uprising against his king. References to Augustus, Nero, and other ancient figures abound. Later scenes in The Tragedy twice compare Byron''s plotting with the rebellion of the Earl of Essex against Elizabeth in 1601. It has been suggested that the face-slapping scene that caused so much trouble was inspired not by anything in French monarchical history, but by a rumored incident in which Elizabeth struck Essex.

The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron

Set in northern Michigan in the mid-1920s The Torrents of Spring is about two men, World War I veteran Yogi Johnson and writer Scripps O''Neill, both of whom work at a pump factory. The story begins with O''Neill returning home to find that his wife and small daughter have left him. O''Neill befriends a British waitress, Diana, at a "beanery" (diner) and asks her to marry him immediately but soon becomes disenchanted with her. Diana tries to impress her husband by reading books from the lists of The New York Times Book Reviews, but he soon leaves her (as she feared he would) for another waitress, Mandy, who enthralls him with literary (but possibly made up) anecdotes. Johnson, who becomes depressed after a Parisian prostitute leaves him for a British officer, has a period during which he anguishes over the fact that he doesn''t seem to desire any woman at all, even though spring is approaching. Ultimately, he falls in love with a native American woman who enters a restaurant clothed only in moccasins, the wife of one of the two Indians he befriends near the end of the story.

The Torrents of Spring

The novel centers on Lieutenant Tat''yana Levchenko, who decides to decides to join the Soviet Army as a sniper after her husband, Nikolai Grigorovich (who is known as Koyla by "those few friends he had") goes missing in action and her daughter, Masha, is killed by Germans in their hometown of Kiev, Ukraine. After Masha''s death, Tat''yana desires to become a soldier and boards a train filled with recruits. As she and the recruits change into military gear and uniforms on the train, while some make lewd comments at her, Tat''yana is one of the first to acknowledge that she can fire a gun when asked by a political officer. After killing a cow in a farmer''s field, the officer smiles and tells her to "Do the same with the Germans." (page 248) During the Siege of Sevastopol, Tat''yana becomes a Soviet hero when she kills a confirmed 300 Germans, including one called the "King of Death." After being wounded in action (which requires a hysterectomy), Tat''yana is evacuated from the front and while recovering from her injuries is presented with the Gold Star medal, is honored a Hero of the Soviet Union, and receives many letters thank her for her service and bravery. Tat''yana''s fame grows to the point that Elanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States, hears of her actions and invites her to America. While in America, Tat''yana becomes friends with Mrs. Roosevelt, along with her interpreter Captain Jack Taylor (real name Charles Pierce), and becomes an unwilling pawn in the efforts of her handler Vasilyev, who wants Tat''yana to get close to the first lady in the hopes of uncovering President Franklin Roosevelt''s war intentions. Forced to question the motives of her handler and even her translator and must make the decision of whether to remain in the United States or return to the Soviet Union, then she mysteriously disappears. In the book''s epilogue, many decades after her disappearance, an elderly Tat''yana is tracked down by a journalist who revealed her story of her wanting to marry Captain Taylor (who died in a plane crash before the end of the war), learning from him about a Soviet spy network in the United States, a letter from Mrs. Roosevelt after President Roosevelt''s death, a photo of Tat''yana and her family, and the log she recorded her kills in. The novel ends with the journalist, whose name is Elizabeth, revealing that she and her husband adopted a Russian girl named Raisa, who Tat''yana remembered rescuing from the Germans in the sewers of Sevastopol during her time as a sniper, but had no knowledge of what happened to her after the war.

Beautiful Assassin

The fictional protagonists are a proto-Germanic tribeswoman, Auriane, daughter of a Chattian war leader; and Marcus Arrius Julianus, a Roman senator and imperial advisor whose character and circumstances are loosely based on the Roman philosopher Seneca, as well as another contemporary in the reign of Nero, Stoic philosopher and statesman Helvidius Priscus, a man much praised by his contemporaries for his outspokenness in public life. Rome’s interference in tribal affairs compel Auriane to take the warrior’s oath and lead her father’s retinue after his untimely death. In Rome, Stoic humanist Marcus Julianus reaches the highest pinnacles of government, where he is taken into the confidence of the Emperor Domitian. Through political maneuvering, he strives to check the murderous whims of the increasingly corrupt Emperor Domitian. Auriane is captured in Domitian''s Chattian War and taken to Rome. As Domitian''s reign of terror begins, Julianus orchestrates a plot to assassinate the Emperor; here the author has inserted a fictional character into a gap left by history. The Emperor Domitian, who according to Suetonius, was fond of pitting women against dwarfs in the arena, condemns Auriane to a gladiatorial school. Here Auriane discovers the tribesman who betrayed her people in war. As Julianus’ assassination plot rushes to its conclusion, Auriane must carry out the tribal rite of vengeance in the Colosseum.

The Light Bearer

Emmanuelle, the 19-year-old wife of a French engineer, is flying out to join her husband in Bangkok. While on the plane, she has anonymous sexual encounters with two men, the first time she has cheated on her husband since they were married. She arrives in Bangkok and becomes part of a hedonistic community of western expats. She makes two new friends - Ariane de Saynes, a 30 year-old French countess, and Marie-Anne, a younger girl. Both friendships have a strong homoerotic flavor. Emmanuelle and Marie-Anne begin a series of sexual games in which they take it in turns to masturbate while the other watches. Meanwhile, Ariane makes a series of attempts to seduce Emmanuelle, culminating in a sexual encounter between the two women on a squash court which verges on rape. Afterwards Ariane tries to persuade Emmanuelle to return home with her. Emmanuelle rejects her advances, but immediately regrets doing so. At a tea party hosted by Marie-Anne''s mother, Emmanuelle meets Bee, the sister of a naval attaché at the American Embassy. Emmanuelle is immediately attracted to the slender, red-headed Bee, and when the two women meet later by chance on the streets of Bangkok she takes the opportunity to invite Bee home with her. Emmanuelle seduces her and the two women make love, first in the shower and then in Emmanuelle''s bed. Afterwards Emmanuelle professes her love for Bee, who is taken aback, having never been with another woman before. They agree to meet again, but Bee does not come and Emmanuelle realizes she has no way of contacting her. She is heartbroken and is comforted by her husband. Marie-Anne, meanwhile, believes that Emmanuelle needs to be cured of her need to associate sex with love. She offers to introduce Emmanuelle to a friend, Mario, an Italian nobleman, who can do this. The two meet for the first time at an embassy cocktail party and Emmanuelle agrees to join him for dinner the following night. Emmanuelle thinks that Mario will become her lover, but Ariane dismisses this idea, telling Emmanuelle that Mario is gay. The following evening, Emmanuelle and Mario have dinner at Mario''s house, joined by an Englishman called Quentin. Over dinner, Mario expounds his philosophy of eroticism, which is that true freedom comes only when eroticism is divorced from love. He offers to take Emmanuelle on a trip that will demonstrate this. The three plunge into the back streets of Bangkok. They visit an opium den and then a temple, where Emmanuelle makes two votive offerings; first by masturbating Mario and then by performing oral sex on a boy. Later, having parted company with Quentin, the two return to Mario''s house in a rickshaw pulled by a Thai driver (or sam-lo). During the ride, Emmanuelle demonstrates her new-found freedom by removing her top and then fellating Mario in public. They arrive back at Mario''s house and he tells her that he is going to take her ''through'' the body of the sam-lo. The three make love, the sam-lo penetrating Emmanuelle while Mario penetrates the sam-lo. As the three reach orgasm together, Emmanuelle screams out "I''m in love! I''m in love!"

Emmanuelle

As Christmas approaches Detective Inspector Jack Frost is on the trail of a sensitive case with limited time to solve it. Tracy Uphill, an eight year old child, goes missing after attending Sunday school. It turns out her mother is a prostitute who couldn’t meet her because she was with a client. There are many suspects and characters to trouble DI Frost’s mind including; the mother’s client with a false alibi, the vicar with a penchant for pornography and a local psychic who claims she knows where to find the body of the young girl. At the same time other cases also need to be solved as Frost has to investigate attempted break-ins at a local bank and a 30-year-old skeleton with a severed arm. Detective Constable Clive Barnard, the nephew of the Chief Constable, is another problem Frost faces. While many believe that DC Barnard has only got into CID through his family connections and his all-knowing attitude does not help to improve his image, Frost seems to be the only person understanding the young cop and becomes his mentor.

Frost at Christmas

Two good friends, Tonnison and Berreggnog, travel to the remote village of Kraighten in rural Ireland. On the third day of their trip, they stumble upon the ruins of a strangely-shaped house bordering a large lake. They discover the mouldering journal of the Recluse, an unidentified man who recorded his last days in the house before its destruction. The Recluse begins his journal with descriptions of how he acquired the house, along with his daily life with his sister and his faithful dog, Pepper. He confides that he is starting the diary to record the strange experiences and horrors that were occurring in and around the house. The Recluse relates a vision in which he travels to a remote and vast arena, "the plain of silence," surrounded by mountains with representations of mythological beast-gods, demons, and other "bestial horrors" on their slopes. In the center of the plain stands a house almost identical to his own, save that the house in the arena is much larger and appears to be made of a green jade-like substance. Along the way, he sees a huge, menacing humanoid swine-thing. After his vision of the "arena," he becomes fascinated with the pit adjacent to his house (Ireland), and begins to explore it. Shortly after this he is attacked by humanoid pig-like creatures that he names "the swine-things" which appear to have their origin from somewhere in the depths of a great chasm found under the house (accessed through a pit on the other side of the gardens) . The struggle with these creatures lasts for several nights of greater and greater ferocity, yet in the end, the man kills several of the swine things, and apparently drives them off. As he searches for the origin of the Swine-things, the man explores a pit in the gardens were the river ends and flows underground. There he finds a tunnel leading to a great chasm under the house. When rock slides dam the water in the pit, trapping the man, his dog Pepper rescues him. By the time that the two men find the journal, the obstructed water has overflowed the pit to create the lake. The house transports him inter-dimensionally to an unknown place called ''the sea of sleep'' where he briefly reunites with his lost love. A short time later, the man notices that day and night have begun to speed up, eventually blurring into a never-ending dusk. As he watches, his surroundings decay and collapse to dust. The dead world slowly grinds to a halt as the sun goes out after several million millennia. Once the world ends, the man floats through space, seeing angelic, human, and demonic forms passing before his eyes. Later, he finds himself back in his own study on Earth, with everything apparently returned to normalcy—with the one exception of Pepper, who is dead. To make matters worse, the malicious swine-beast from his earlier journeys to the ''arena'' has managed to follow him back to his own dimension. The creature infects the man''s new dog with a luminous fungal disease. Although the man shoots the suffering animal, he also contracts the disease. The manuscript ends with the man locked (from the outside only) in his study as the creature comes through a trap door in the basement, that opened directly over the chasm under the house. Tonnison and Berreggnog search for information on the man and his circumstances. They find that the only knowledge of the house was that it was a place long of evil repute and had mysteriously fallen into the chasm. They leave Kraighten and never return.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Picnic at Hanging Rock

By Joan Lindsay

Invisible

By Paul Auster

Patsy of Paradise Place

By Rosie Harris

Music on the Bamboo Radio

By Martin Booth

The Cutting Edge

By Dave Duncan

The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron

By George Chapman

The Torrents of Spring

By Ernest Hemingway

Beautiful Assassin

No Author Listed

The Light Bearer

By Donna Gillespie

Emmanuelle

No Author Listed

Frost at Christmas

By R. D. Wingfield

The House on the Borderland

By William Hope Hodgson