In this section, Elsa leaves her family home after breaking with her widowed father when he becomes remarried to Elsa''s best friend. She moves to North Dakota where she meets Bo Mason, who runs an illegal saloon or blind pig. Despite being disturbed by Bo''s sometimes violent behavior, Elsa strikes up a romantic relationship with him. Against her father''s advice, she becomes engaged to Bo. The second section describes the Masons'' failed attempts to run a hotel, as well as the early childhood of their sons Chester and Bruce. Bo''s relationship with Bruce becomes increasingly abusive, especially around issues of toilet training. After an especially strong outburst of violence against Bruce, Bo abandons his family. In this section Bo has begun to establish a relatively stable life for himself running a bunkhouse in Saskatchewan. In the meantime, Elsa moves back in with her father after her son Chester gets in trouble for engaging in sexual play with a girl in the orphanage he attends. After returning home, Elsa considers getting a divorce and marrying a former suitor, but eventually she accepts Bo''s offer of reconciliation. This short section of the book is told from the perspective of Bruce and addresses an idyllic summer spent at the family''s homestead. This section will later be important as a memory as the adult Bruce reflects back on his life. Also, in this section Bruce the child begins to regain memories of the abuses he suffered in infancy. This section is set against the historical backdrop of the 1918 flu epidemic. Down on his luck, Bo realizes that because of the flu epidemic he stands to make a small fortune if he begins bootlegging whisky to Canada, due to the perceived medicinal benefits of alcohol. While Bo is away in the United States purchasing whisky, the flu epidemic hits his home town and eventually Chester is forced to guard the family homestead himself while all the other family members are sick. The sixth section is set during the Prohibition Era. Bo has supported his family for several years by bootlegging, but eventually the family decides to leave the small Canadian town they live in on the Canada/Montana border after Bo is arrested for bootlegging on the same day his son, Chester, is arrested for arson. The seventh section of the book takes place in Salt Lake City, Utah. Chester Mason is about to graduate from high school. His parents attempt to steer him away from his romance with an older girl, Laura, and into a promising career as a baseball player. However, when the Masons'' house is raided by the police, Chester quits his baseball job and elopes with Laura. During this section Bruce''s study at law school is interrupted when he learns that his brother, Chester, has died. In addition, his mother''s cancer is worsening, and eventually Bruce returns to his family for his mother''s sake. This section deals with the death of Elsa Mason from cancer, and the subsequent rift that develops between Bo and Bruce Mason, during which Bruce considers murdering his father. This final section is told first from the perspective of Bo Mason, who is now an aging widower in Salt Lake City, oppressed by frequent feelings of self-hatred. Eventually Bo kills himself after murdering a former lover. The end of the section deals with Bruce''s attempts to look back on the tumultuous history of his family and trying to come to terms with his role as the sole survivor.

The Big Rock Candy Mountain

The story is told by Max Morden, a self-aware, retired art historian attempting to reconcile himself to the deaths of those whom he loved as a child and as an adult. The novel is written as a reflective journal; the setting always in flux, wholly dependent upon the topic or theme Max feels to write about. Despite the constant fluctuations, Max returns to three settings: his childhood memories of the Graces&mdash;a wealthy middle-class family living in a rented cottage home, the "Cedars"&mdash;during the summer holidays; the months leading up to the death of his wife, Anna; and his present stay at the Cedars cottage home in Ballyless&mdash;where he has retreated since Anna''s death. These three settings are heavily diced and impromptly jumbled together for the novel''s entire duration. Max''s final days with Anna were awkward; Max does not know how to act with his soon-to-be-dead wife. Scenes of Anna''s dying days are more full of commentary than with actual details, as are most of the novel''s settings. It''s through these commentaries that we learn of Max''s choice to return to the cottage of his childhood memories (after Anna''s death), confirming that a room would be available for residence during a visit with his adult daughter, Claire. We learn of the Cedars'' current house-maid, Miss Vavasour, and her other tenant: a retired army Colonel, often described as a background character (even during his important role in the denouement). The Colonel is also seen, at the beginning of Max''s stay, to have a crush on Miss Vavasour; Max suspects Miss Vavasour had entertained the Colonel''s slight infatuation prior to Max''s own arrival. Despite the actual present day setting of the novel (everything is written by Max, after Anna''s death, while he stays in the Cedars home), the underlying motivation to Max''s redaction of memories, the single setting which ties the novel together, are Max''s childhood memories. With Max''s unreliable, unorganised and omitted iteration of events, we gradually learn the names of the Graces: Chloe, the wild daughter; Myles, the mute brother; Connie, the mother; Carlos, the father; and finally the twins'' nursemaid, Rose. After brief encounters, and fruitless moments of curiosity, Max becomes infatuated with Connie Grace upon first sight; seeing her lounging at the beach launches him to acquaint Chloe and Myles in, what Max stipulates to have been a conscious effort to get inside the Cedars, hence, closer to Mrs. Grace. He succeeds. Later, Max recounts being invited on a picnic&mdash;for what reasons or what specific time during the summer is never explicitly stated&mdash;where Max, in awe, catches an unkempt glance at her pelvic area. This day of "illicit invitation" climaxes when Max is pulled to the ground, and snuggled closely with Connie and Rose in a game of hide-and-seek. The latter half of his summer memories (the relation of Max''s memories in the second part of the novel), however, revolve around Max''s awkward relationship with Chloe: a girl with a spastic personality and blunt demeanor whom Max describes as one who "[does] not play, on her own or otherwise". Chloe is shown as a volatile character: flagrantly kissing Max in a Cinema, rough-housing with her brother Myles, and what was hinted as hypersexuality earlier, is quite possibly confirmed as hypersexuality in the book''s final moments. We soon learn that Chloe and Myles like to tease Rose, who is young and timid enough to feel bullied. Max, another day, climbs a tree in the yard of the Ceders house, and soon spots Rose crying not too far from him. Mrs. Grace soon emerges, comforting Rose. Max overhears (rather, Max remembers overhearing) key words from their conversation: "love him" and "Mr. Grace". Assuming this to mean Rose and Mr. Grace are having an affair, he tells Chloe and Myles. The ending of the book entwines the exact moment of Anna''s death with Chloe and Myles drowning in the sea itself as Max and Rose look on. Max, done with his childhood memories, offers a final memory of a near-death episode while he was inebriated. The Colonel does not physically save Max, rather finds him knocked unconscious by a rock (from a drunken stumble). His daughter scolds him at the hospital, assumingly being told he nearly killed himself, and tells him to come home with her. It is revealed at this point that Miss Vavasour is Rose herself and she was in love with Mrs. Grace. Max finishes with a redaction of himself standing in the sea after Anna''s death (an allegory is made between crashing waves and tumultuous periods of his life). We are to assume that he will leave the Cedars'' home to be cared for by his daughter, Claire.

The Sea

Francis Petrel, recently released from an asylum faces his own inner demons as he recounts his memories of a murderer in the asylum during his time there. The story tells itself in two parallel parts: one of the stories is during his time in the asylum, all a memory slowly bringing itself back to life; the other story takes place after he is released, and he feels compelled to author a book on the events surrounding that murder. He has no paper, so he writes his story on the wall and is constantly challenged with tedious interruptions. At the same time, he forgoes his medication, and the tension of continuing with his work becomes threatened by his struggle with his own madness. It is currently being turned into a movie and it was supposed to be filmed from November 26th, 2007 until approximately January 20th, 2008 at Fairfield State Hospital in Newtown, Connecticut. Filming has not yet taken place due to personal issues of Jonathan Rhys Meyers, the films star, according to an article in the Newtown Beehttp://www.newtownbee.com/. Trivia: Descriptions in the text suggest that the central hospital, "Western State Hospital", is actually modeled on the Northampton State Hospital, which operated in Northampton, MA from 1856 - 1996.

The Madman''s Tale

The book is both an adventure story and a satire on the scientific dispute over Creationism. It is set on the planet Kforri, where descendants of space travelers from Earth have reverted to a pre-technological society. The truth of their origin has faded into legend, and as a result the story of the space voyage and the scientific theory of evolution have become competing accounts of the genesis of humanity. In an ironic reversal, the Religionists hold that man evolved from the native animals of Kforri, while skeptics against the received dogma, known as the Anti-Evolutionists, are more open to the spaceflight theory. Schoolteacher Marko Prokopiu, has been found guilty of teaching the Anti-Evolutionist heresy, as established by the Holy Syncretic Church, but escapes from prison. He embarks on a quest to discover the truth by finding the Great Fetish, said to contain the real story. A parallel motivation is to recover his wife Petronela, who has run off with his friend Chet Mongami during his imprisonment. Marko joins a caravan and falls in with the philosopher Doctor Halran, a professor who is experimenting with a new hot air balloon. The two are launched in the balloon and land by accident on the Island of Mnaen, populated only by female ''witches'' who guard The Great Fetish. This is revealed to be a collection of documents with microscopically-reduced writing. Escaping from the witches, who follow the worship of the cult of Einstein, they attend a great philosophical convention. Using an experimental microscope being demonstrated at the convention, the documents reveal information about the origins of Kforri, validating the truth of the anti-evolutionists. They further show that Kforri gained its name from that given by the discovering expedition (K40 became Kforri), and that the expedition members disagreed and dispersed. They eventually formed nations with cultures and languages derived from their native ones. The name of the Island of Mnaen, for instance, was based on the earthly Manhattan. Using the documents, the inhabitants of Kforri rapidly advance their technology. They eventually hope to build spaceships to travel back to Earth.

The Great Fetish

Spenser is approached by a beautiful blonde widow who wants him to find the identity of the murderer of her late husband. He agrees, but this case will take him away from Boston to Arizona and the resort town of Potshot. Questioning all of the victim''s acquaintances yields little information. However, the couple had just recently moved from Los Angeles, so Spenser heads there to talk to their old neighbors. His visit there is very fruitful, but raises as many questions as it answers. Returning to Potshot, Spenser follows-up on what he found out from old neighbors in LA. Meanwhile, he is investigating a band of thugs that live on the outskirts of town in an area called "The Dell". Everyone is convinced that they killed the victim, and had publicly threatened him. "The Dell" gang is led by a man who calls himself The Preacher. He organized the gang from a ragtag group of drunks and junkies. Now, with leadership, they are bullying the townspeople and extorting protection money from local businesses. After a public confrontation with the gang, the town''s leaders ask Spenser if he can rid the town of the menace. They agree to pay a healthy sum for the service, so Spenser forms a small private band of mercenaries composed of several associates, most of them criminals or people with criminal backgrounds. But he hires them for their shooting skills, which will be needed for the coming battle. The further Spenser digs, however, he finds that all is not what it seems in Potshot and the killing of the widow''s husband may just be the tip of the iceberg of a much larger conspiracy.

Potshot

During World War II, at a secret Nazi submarine base, containers crafted entirely from looted wartime gold were hidden away. The treasure was not the solid-gold chests, but the cargo they carried - an artifact so lethal that whoever possessed "Pandora''s Boxes" held the power to unleash hell upon earth.... In the unforgiving wastes of Greenland, geologist Philip Mercer uncovers a long - abandoned U.S. Army base buried under the ice - and a long-dead body still hot with radiation. Before Mercer and his colleague, the seductive Dr. Anika Klein, can investigate further, a flash fire engulfs the base, and they are ordered to evacuate. But their plane is forced to land when a bomb is discovered on board, and they must seek shelter from the murderous weather in a hidden ice cavern. That''s where they learn the startling truth. A powerful German corporation has launched an operation to destroy evidence of its Nazi past. But one of the corporate mercenaries knows what''s inside the Pandora boxes, and he plans to hold the entire world hostage - unless Mercer can find a way to stop him....

Pandora''s Curse

Molly is trying to fit in her new life as the daughter of a billionaire (Primo Cell), but things aren''t going so well. This is mainly because her mother is depressed about losing her 11 years of her life to hypnotism. She walks around the property miserable and all she does is sulk. Molly tries to help her but is soon subjected to the mystery of her missing pug. While looking she is hypnotised and taken to another time. She is taken to India in 1870, and taken to a fine red fort. Her escort, Zackya, is getting more and more nervous as they approach the main room. Then she has the displeasure of meeting the Maharaja of Waqt, a fat scally man, who wishes to kill her to stop her from wrecking the plans made in the last two books, since the Maharaja is the mastermind who hypnotized Cornelius Logan in the first place to hypnotize Lucy and Primo Cell. Taken back into the 1870s, Molly makes a new friend named Ojas who helps her, Rocky, and Forest defeat the mad Maharaja and save time as we know it. The Maharaja kidnaps a baby Molly, three-year old Molly, six-year old Molly, and 10-year old Molly by time traveling. It reveals her Uncle Cornelius was actually hypnotized as a young boy by the Maharaja and that Molly has a twin brother. es:Molly Moon viaja a través del tiempo sv:Molly Moons hypnotiska tidsresa

Molly Moon''s Hypnotic Time-Travel Adventure

Delisle had already been to China in Nanjing. He is deployed to Shenzhen as part of an outsourcing project, where he will spend three months in the Great Wall Hotel. Unlike in Hong Kong, there are not many bilingual Chinese so he has language problems during his stay, including with the interpreters at work. Often he has to recourse to drawing or pointing to communicate. Among his experiences of life in Shenzhen include a visit to a Chinese dentist to cure a toothache, but after seeing the unhygienic conditions of the clinic, he is relieved to find out it is just a case of mesialization. Since the main leisure activity in Shenzhen is shopping, Delisle tries to read books, works for L''Association''s Lapin magazine, and buys Chinese artbooks (drawings by children, Wang Chi Yun, Hu Buo Zhong). He realizes that the Spirou that he liked as a child is no longer funny. An allegory he applies to the Chinese rural exodus is the Divine Comedy with the Chinese countryside as the Inferno, the USA as the Paradiso and the big Chinese cities, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong as intermediate rings. He finds a copy of Théodore Poussin. His Chinese-speaking acquaintances bring him to try Chinese food. He finds Canton and Hong Kong more interesting than Shenzhen. The only tourist attraction he visits in the new city is the World Windows, since his Chinese friends are not interested in Splendid China. He spends a Christmas dinner with a Chinese animator who, while a fan of Rembrandt has only a black-and-white photo of Bathsheba at Her Bath. There is less political commentary than in his later Pyongyang comic.

Shenzhen

The novel''s protagonist, Dexter Morgan, works for the Miami-Metro Police Department as a forensic blood spatter pattern analyst. In his spare time, Dexter is a serial killer who kills murderers, rapists and other undesirables he believes have escaped justice. Dexter''s murders are directed by an inner voice he refers to as the "Dark Passenger", who keeps prodding Dexter to kill something. Once he has done so, the voice is satisfied for a while, but always comes back. Flashbacks reveal that his foster father, a police detective named Harry Morgan, recognized early on that Dexter was a violent sociopath with an innate need to kill, and taught him how to kill people who have gotten away with murder as a way to channel his homicidal urges in a "positive" direction. Harry also taught the boy to be a careful, meticulous killer, to leave no clues, and to be absolutely sure his victims are guilty before killing them. Dexter calls these rules "the code of Harry." Dexter manages his double life reasonably well for years, but his idyll is disturbed when he becomes involved in the investigation of a series of killings of prostitutes. As the "Tamiami Slasher" rampages through the city, he begins sending messages to Dexter, who finds the series of terrifying crimes engrossing and fascinating. Meanwhile, his adoptive sister Deborah sees the case as her ticket out of the Vice unit and into Homicide. Dexter is torn between helping her catch the killer and a desire to sit back and admire the artistry and skill of a fellow killer''s work.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter

The protagonist and narrator is Lucy, a self-confessed tomboy that is considered one of the guys with her masculine haircut and attitude. She gets on well with her father but is frequently separated from him for months on end when he works in Canada. Her relationship with her mother is easy-going provided she keeps the house tidy. Her mother''s lenience even allows her daughter to drive her car, even when she is too young to apply for a license. As Lucy turns 14, she becomes more in tune with her sexuality and her family dynamics. She develops a type of friends with benefits relationship with her best friend Kenny. She also ditches her toyboy image, embraces make-up and grows out her hair. She begins to realise that her parents marriage is not as solid as she had imagined. She realises that her father''s extended stays abroad are not typical of other fathers. Furthermore she realises that her mother does not pine for her father as much as she does herself. In fact, her allegiance to her father is tested when she discovers her mother is enjoying a romance with a colleague. She pro-actively seeks sexual satisfaction after she is left with a void when Kenny has to move away. She also begins to realise that there is more to her father''s extended stays in Canada than she had previously imagined.

As Cool As I Am

In April 1967, 18-year-old Susanna Kaysen is admitted to McLean Hospital, in Belmont, Massachusetts, after attempting suicide. She denies that it was a suicide attempt to a psychiatrist, who suggests she take time to regroup in McLean, a private mental hospital. Susanna is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and her stay extends to 18 months. Fellow patients Polly, Cynthia, Lisa, Lisa Cody, Georgina and Daisy contribute to Susanna’s experiences at McLean as she describes their personal issues and how they come to cope with the time they must spend in the hospital. Susanna also introduces the reader to particular staff members, including Valerie, Dr. Wick and Mrs. McWeeney. Susanna reflects on the nature of her illness, including difficulty making sense of visual patterns, and suggests that sanity is a falsehood constructed to help the "healthy" feel "normal." She also questions how doctors treat mental illness, and whether they are treating the brain or the mind. During her stay, Susanna undergoes a period of depersonalization, where she bites open the flesh on her hand after she becomes terrified that she has "lost her bones." Also, during a trip to the dentist, Susanna becomes frantic after she wakes from the general anesthesia, when no one will tell her how long she was unconscious, and she fears that she has lost time. After leaving McLean, Susanna mentions that she kept in touch with Georgina and saw Lisa, who was about to board the subway with her son.

Girl, Interrupted

Living in a tiny chocolaterie in Montmartre, Paris, Vianne and her daughters Anouk and Rosette have forsaken magic and adventure for a stable, if unhappy life. Vianne has now become the widow Yanne Charbonneau, mother of ''Annie''. Hiding her magical nature, she feels she is doing the right thing by her daughters, but she herself is dissatisfied: there is friction with Anouk; money is short; there is pressure from her landlord, Thierry le Tresset, to marry him and she no longer has time to make hand-made, quality chocolate, but is forced to sell the ordinary, factory-made kind. Anouk is equally unhappy. She is bullied at school and made to feel like a freak; her mother seems to have changed beyond recognition and she hates living in Paris. She misses Roux, Rosette''s father, with whom Vianne is still in love, but whom she left because of his inability to settle down. The situation seems hopeless and set to deteriorate. And then, on All Hallows'' Eve, Zozie de l''Alba blows into their lives, bringing back magic and enchantment. She seems to be exactly what Vianne herself used to be; a benevolent force, a free spirit, helping people wherever she goes. But Zozie is a thief of identities, maybe even a collector of souls. She has her eye on Vianne''s life, and begins to insinuate herself into the family. She is soon working at the chocolaterie, helping and understanding everyone as Vianne used to do. She helps Anouk to deal with the bullies who torment her at school. The shop begins to prosper under her guidance, much to Thierry''s displeasure. When Roux, Vianne''s former lover, re-appears on the scene, Zozie helps Vianne to decide between a stable life with Thierry and a loving relationship with the man she loves. But as Vianne''s life begins to improve little by little under Zozie''s influence, it becomes clear that all this must come at a terrible price. Finally, Vianne is forced to confront Zozie on her own ground, to reclaim her magic and her identity and to fight back - but is it too late?http://www.joanne-harris.co.uk/v3site/books/lollipop/index.html

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Read - Listen - Learn

The Big Rock Candy Mountain

No Author Listed

The Sea

By John Banville

The Madman's Tale

By John Katzenbach

The Great Fetish

By L. Sprague de Camp

Potshot

By Robert B. Parker

Pandora's Curse

By Jack Du Brul

Molly Moon's Hypnotic Time-Travel Adventure

By Georgia Byng

Shenzhen

By Guy Delisle

Darkly Dreaming Dexter

By Jeff Lindsay

As Cool As I Am

By Fromm, Pete

Girl, Interrupted

By Susanna Kaysen

The Lollipop Shoes

By Joanne Harris