Although the plot of the story is modelled on the classic ratiocination stories of Doyle, there are two separate mysteries in the book, only one of which the Holmes character is able to solve by the end. The story opens with the description of a chance encounter between the old man and the young boy Linus Steinman, who, we find out moments later, is a German-Jewish refugee staying with a local Anglican priest and his family. Because the parrot sitting on the boy''s shoulder is in the habit of rattling off German numbers in no obvious order — "zwei eins sieben fünf vier sieben drei" ("two one seven five four seven three") — the old man quickly deduces the boy''s reason for being in England. After we are introduced to the priest, his wife, son and two lodgers sitting at dinner, we find out that the numbers may have some significance. One lodger speculates that the numbers are a military code of some kind and seeks to crack it. The other lodger, a Mr. Shane, from the British foreign office, pretends at dinner not to even notice the bird, which the family and Linus call Bruno. But because everyone else around the table is intensely interested in it, Shane''s behavior only heightens their suspicions. After Mr. Shane is found murdered the next morning and the parrot Bruno has gone missing, the local inspector, Michael Bellows, recruits the old man to help solve the mystery. The old man, his interest piqued by the boy''s strange attachment to his bird, agrees only to find the parrot — "If we should encounter the actual murderer along the way, well, then it will be so much the better for you," he says (ending chapter 3). Although the Holmes character succeeds in that endeavor, neither he nor anyone else in the book discovers what the true meaning of the numbers are, though there are clear implications of a solution. One hint, given by the author Chabon, is that the numbers are often recited in the presence of trains, and indeed, the parrot calls it "the train song". Another hint, revealed in the book''s penultimate chapter, which is told from the perspective of Bruno, is that the boy and his parrot used to visit an Obergruppenführer while still in Germany, where it is implied he learned the song. But the biggest hint of all is the book''s title and the boy''s dumbness. Added to that, neither the parrot nor the boy ever voice the German numeral "null".

The Final Solution

Vonnegut uses the premise of a timequake (or repetition of actions) in which there is no free will. The idea of determinism is explored—as it is in many of his previous works—to assert that people really have no free will. Kilgore Trout serves again as the main character, who the author declares as having died in 2001, at Xanadu retreat in Rhode Island. Vonnegut explains in the beginning of the book that he was not satisfied with the original version of Timequake he wrote (or Timequake One). Taking parts of Timequake One and combining it with personal thoughts and anecdotes produced the finished product, so-called Timequake Two. Many of the anecdotes deal with Vonnegut''s family, the death of loved ones, and people''s last words. The plot, while centered on Trout, is also a sort of ramble in which Vonnegut goes off on complete tangents to the plot and comes back dozens of pages later: the Timequake has thrust citizens of the year 2001 back in time to 1991 to repeat every action they undertook during that time. Most of the small stories in the book expound on the depression and sadness wrought by watching oneself make bad choices: people watch their parents die again, drive drunk or cause accidents that severely injure others. At the end of the timequake, when people resume control, they are depressed and gripped by ennui. Kilgore Trout is the only one not affected by the apathy, and thus helps revive others by telling them, "You were sick, but now you''re well, and there''s work to do." In the conclusion of this book, Vonnegut (who has inserted himself into the text, something he also did in Breakfast of Champions and, to a lesser degree, in Slaughterhouse-Five) meets other authors for a celebration of Trout. The celebration, described as a "clambake," is heavily foreshadowed throughout the novel''s previous chapters.

Timequake

An eccentric millionaire, Cadmus Cole, visits the newly-founded offices of Ellery Queen, Confidential Investigations, in a rare incidence of disembarkment from his yacht. The investigation company is actually the brainchild and sole responsibility of his partner, "Beau" Rummell, an established private eye. The eccentric Mr. Cole pays $15,000 as a retainer to hire Ellery Queen for an investigation—the details of which he refuses to divulge, saying only "You''ll know when the time comes." Upon his departure, he leaves behind a well-chewed fountain pen with which he''s signed the retainer cheque. Almost immediately, Ellery''s appendix bursts, and Cadmus Cole is reported dead and buried at sea. Rummell, in the guise of Ellery Queen, begins to investigate both the circumstances of Cole''s death and his heirs; he soon meets two beautiful young women and the case becomes complicated by romance and the appearance of a claimant under the will. When the claimant is murdered, and Rummell married to one of the beauties, the real Ellery Queen must take a hand and solve the case, using the vital clue of the chewed fountain pen.

The Dragon''s Teeth

Kathy Sellers is the daughter of lower middle-class parents, living in Los Angeles, California. Her mother Helen is on her fourth marriage to Mike, an unemployed man who uses his back as an excuse to avoid work, and living with them are Kathy''s 16-year-old twin sisters, Mona and Dona. After a sexual encounter with her 18-year-old boyfriend Guy, Kathy learns she is pregnant. She is sent to live at St. Anne''s, a home for unwed mothers until her delivery, which happens not long after her fifteenth birthday. After he initially reacts with outrage, she does extract a promise from Guy (who enters the Army) that he will send for her once he gets settled. Despite her regular series of letters to Guy in the military, he doesn''t reciprocate. Thus, that day never comes for Kathy. She gives birth to a baby boy whom she names John. She initially decides to give John up for adoption, but changes her mind and tells Miss Ambrose, her social worker, that she wants to try to raise her baby on her own, after Helen tells her she and the family will help raise him. She is given an allotment of food stamps and welfare money, which Helen decides to use as a vehicle to move the family into a larger apartment. Within a few short months, Kathy begins to mature as a mother, wanting more for her child, and knowing that living with her parents and sisters isn''t going to make that possible. She begins to explore options of moving into a place of her own, which doesn''t sit well with Mike and Helen, who depend on her welfare money to pay for the bigger apartment. She makes friends with Linda and Sue, two other girls in a teen mother program to move into a rented house with their children in a middle-class family-type neighborhood. She also makes friends with her neighbor Jane, a married woman about ten years her senior with a house, her fireman husband Allen, and their young daughter Wendy. Kathy sees Jane''s family as perfect and wants to aspire to that level, but isn''t sure how. However, Kathy''s dreams of sharing responsibilities with her roommates as a collective effort to rise above their circumstances are quashed when Linda throws a party with booze found in a baby bottle. After a near-violent confrontation, Kathy learns that her roommates (mostly Linda) are only interested in having a place of their own so they can continue their reckless behavior. Feeling trapped again, with her illusion of cooperative motherhood shattered, Kathy begins having second thoughts about her role as a mother. Following the earlier confrontation, Kathy takes her now-four-month-old son outside in their backyard and sees Allen, Jane and Wendy in their own backyard, enjoying their time as a family. Kathy decides that despite her best efforts, she ultimately has to do right by John. She calls Miss Ambrose and tells her that she''s reconsidered her decision to have John put up for adoption. Most people close to Kathy condemn her decision, but she finds a friend in Jane, who offers to help her on her road to building a better life for herself if she promises to keep in touch. Kathy happily agrees. Miss Ambrose tracks down Guy in the Army and gets his permission to allow the adoption. He apologizes to Kathy through Miss Ambrose for running out on her. At the end of the story, Kathy appears to get cold feet about the adoption, but it is implied that she goes through with it.

Unwed Mother

In Southern California, shortly after the Mexican-American War, a Scots-Native American orphan girl, Ramona, is raised by Señora Gonzaga Moreno, the sister of Ramona''s deceased foster mother. Señora Moreno has raised Ramona as part of the family, giving her every luxury, but only because Ramona''s foster mother had requested it as her dying wish. Because of Ramona''s Native American heritage, Moreno does not love her. That love is reserved for her only child, Felipe Moreno, whom she adores. Señora Moreno considers herself a Mexican, although California has recently been taken over by the United States. She hates the Americans, who have cut up her huge rancho after disputing her claim to it. Señora Moreno delays the sheep shearing, a major event on the rancho, awaiting the arrival of a group of Indians from Temecula whom she always hires for that work. She is also awaiting a priest, Father Salvierderra, from Santa Barbara. She arranges for the priest so that the Indian workers can worship and make confession in her chapel, rather than leaving the rancho. Ramona falls in love with Alessandro, a young Indian sheepherder and the son of Pablo Assis, the chief of the tribe. Señora Moreno is outraged, because although Ramona is half-Indian, the Señora does not want her to marry an Indian. Ramona realizes that Señora Moreno has never loved her and she and Alessandro elope. Alessandro and Ramona have a daughter, and travel around Southern California trying to find a place to settle. In the aftermath of the war, Alessandro''s tribe was driven off their land, marking the beginning of European-American settlement in California. They endure misery and hardship, for the Americans who buy their land also demand their houses and their farm tools. Greedy Americans drive them off from several homesteads, and they cannot find a permanent community that is not threatened by encroachment of United States settlers. They finally move up into the San Bernardino Mountains. Alessandro slowly loses his mind, due to the constant humiliation. He loves Ramona fiercely, and regrets having taken her away from relative comfort in return for "bootless" wandering. Their daughter "Eyes of the Sky" dies because a white doctor would not go to their homestead to treat her. They have another daughter, named Ramona, but Alessandro still suffers. One day he rides off with the horse of an American, who follows him and shoots him, although he knew that Alessandro was mentally unbalanced. Ramona was missing from the rancho for two years. Felipe Moreno finds the widowed Ramona and they marry. He has always loved her and finds her more beautiful than ever. Felipe had considered Alessandro a friend, and both he and Ramona are determined to leave California because of the Americans. They settle in Mexico, where they have many children. Ramona believes her passion is spent, but she is good to Felipe, who adores her. The most beautiful of their children is Ramona, Alessandro''s daughter.

Ramona

The play comprises three acts: In Act I a poor but aristocratic young doctor named Harry Trench and his friend William Cokane are vacationing at Remagen on the Rhine. There, they encounter fellow travelers: Mr Sartorious, a self-made businessman, and his daughter Blanche. Harry and Blanche fall in love and become engaged. Act II opens with everyone back at home in London: Sartorius, is talking to Mr Lickcheese, whom he employs as a rent-collector, reveals himself to be a slumlord. He discharges Lickcheese for dealing too leniently with tenants. Trench and Cokane arrive to visit, but when Trench discovers that Sartorius makes his money by renting slum housing to the poor, he is disgusted and refuses to allow Blanche to accept money from her father after they are married and insists they must live on Harry''s small income. They break up over this, after a bitter argument. Sartorius reveals that Trench''s income depends on interest from mortgaged tenements and, therefore, is as dirty as the money made by Sartorious, but the lovers do not reconcile: Blanche utterly rejects Harry because of her wounded feelings. In Act III, Trench, Cokane and Lickcheese return to Sartorius'' house to plan a shady business venture (Trench, disillusioned and coarsened by knowing his income is tainted by its source, no longer takes the moral high-ground). In the final scene, notable for its erotic tension, Harry and Blanche reunite. =In performance= http://www.shawfest.com/Home/About-The-Shaw/History Shaw Festival, 2003 On 3 July 2011, a radio adaptation directed by Martin Jarvis was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 starring Ian McKellen as Sartorius, Charles Dance as William Cokane, Honeysuckle Weeks as Blanche, Dan Stevens as Harry Trench and Tim Pigott-Smith as Lickcheese.

Widowers'' Houses

When Israel Potter leaves his plough to fight in the American Revolution, he''s immediately thrown into the Battle of Bunker Hill, where he receives multiple wounds. However, this does not deter him, and after hearing a rousing speech by General George Washington, he volunteers for further duty, this time at sea, where more ill fortune awaits him. Israel is captured by the British Navy and taken to England. Yet, he makes his escape, and this triggers a series of extraordinary events and meetings with remarkable people. Along the way, Israel encounters King George III, who takes a liking to the Yankee rebel and shelters him in Kew Gardens; Benjamin Franklin, who presses Israel into service as a spy; John Paul Jones, who invites Israel to join his crew aboard The Ranger; and Ethan Allen, whom Israel attempts to free from a British prison. Throughout these adventures, Israel Potter acquits himself bravely, but his patriotic valor does not bring him any closer to his dream of returning to America. After the war, Israel finds himself in London, where he descends into poverty. Finally, fifty years after he left his plough, he makes his way back to his beloved Berkshires. However, few things remain the same. Soon, Israel fades out of being, his name out of memory, and he dies on the same day the oldest oak on his native lands is blown down.

Israel Potter

Imrhein, who has had her face and voice cured but not her memory, has not completed her mission yet. Maeve One eye, the carlin who cured her, gets Imrhein a new identity: Lady Rohain Tarrenys of the Sorrow Isles. Imrhein/Rohain, under cover of night to escape mysterious watchers, heads to Caermelor. After unloading her information with the Duke of Roxburgh, getting assigned a maid, Viviana, and enduring a strenuous dinner with the cruel, jealous Dianella, Rohain heads on a Dainnen frigate to the treasure cache Waterstair where her friend Sianadh was killed. There the plunderers are captured and the treasure is given to the royalty. Rohain is the rewarded with 80 guineas,the Crown estate Arcune, and the title of Baroness. At Court she asks after Thorn, a Dainnen ranger and the love of her life. Rohain also gets a proposal from the Royal Bard and reveals in a drunken state to Dianella that she is Talith, a rare race. While she is at Arcune with the Duchess of Roxburgh and her 7 children, Rohain discovers Sianadh is alive and in prison. After she manages to persuade the Jailer to let him have some free time, Sianadh advises her to go to Isse tower, where she enslaved, and find answers to her past. At first, she refuse to go, unwilling to leave Sianadh, but after Dianella informs her that she and her uncle Sargoth know she''s an imposter, Rohain gives her wealth to Dianella and heads to Isse. There, she asks Ustorix, a young lord there, to perform a feat she once saw two servants do: jump on sildron bars which he does to atone for rash behavior. After Rohain discovered from Pod by using threats where she was found, she sets off for Huntingtowers, a place of unseelie residence. However, the owner of Huntingtowers, leads an attack on Isse Tower, which the King Emperor and the Dainnen stop. Unwilling to beg for Sianadhs'' life in her ragged state, Rohain remembers words from the Royal Bard and steps onto the balcony. There, she is reunited with Thorn, who recognizes her instantly and asks her to marry him. When messengers call Thorn "Your Imperial Majesty" Rohain realizes Thorn is King Emperor James XVI. The next day he explains everything to Rohain. Then they leave for Caermelor with Caitri, a kind servant who helped Rohain when she was a slave, and Dain Pennyrigg, after Rohain saves Pod from Thorn''s wrath. Rohain befriends Prince Edward, visits Dianella, prepared for execution, who tries to intoxicate and drag away Rohain, and gets Sianadh spared. Then Thorn is forced to go to Namarre, and despite her pleas to go with him, sends Rohain, Roxburgh''s wife, the Bard, and Prince Edward to the royal sanctuary, Tamhania/Tavaal. There, Rohain meets a woman who looks familiar to her. After an Unseelie decoy where 3 birds go to the peak of the Volcano, Rohain realizes the woman is Silken Janet''s mother. When the unseelie birds activate the Volcano, Tavaal is evacuated. Only Rohain, Viviana and Caitri survive the island''s destruction(so does the local wizard but he leaves with a sea girl). The girls shelter in a house which seems familiar to Rohain. She sends the others to Isse tower while she continues her journey to Huntingtowers, but they follow her. In the wilderness, she renames herself Tahquil, meaning ''warrior''. When they get to Huntingtowers, Imrhein/Rohain/Tahquil trips, twists to avoid paradox ivy, which caused her suffering in the last book, and discovers a bracelet her father once gave her. This triggers her memory, and she remembers her name, Ashalind, her childhood and how she lost her memory. She also remembers her original quest, to find the exiled Faeren High King Angavar and his entourage and inform him of the whereabouts of the last gate between the Faeren world and Erith, without tipping off his evil brother Morragan, who is also exiled. CHARACTERS Imrhein/Lady Rohain Tarrenys-the heroine of the Bitterbynde Trilogy, formerly mute and deformed. Dianella-the main antagonist of the story, attempts to remove Rohain from the Royal Court. Thomas- a protaginist, Finvarnen duke, a Dainnan commander, Rohain''s first suitor. Viviana Wellesly-Rohain part blind, faithful maid. Caitri L.-The liitle girl who was nice to Rohain when she was a slave, one of Rohains compainions. Thorn-The King-Emperor who posed as a Dainnan Ranger/Knight and won Rohains heart. Ustorix-Future lord of Isse Tower Tamlain Conmor-Duke of Roxburg, Commander in Chief of the Dainnan

The Lady of the Sorrows

This book is an outgrowth of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Eldred v. Ashcroft, which Lessig lost. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution says, "The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Several times in the past century, congress has extended the copyright law in several ways. One way was to extend the term "on the installment plan". Another was to broaden the scope to include not only copying but creating "derivative works". This latter broadening is so ambiguous that it provides a foundation for massive abuse of power by companies holding large copyright portfolios. For example, the Recording Industry Association of America sued a freshman at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) for $10,000,000 for improving a search engine used only inside RPI. Lessig cites another example where Fox demanded $10,000 for the rights to use a 4.5 second video clip with The Simpsons playing on a television in a corner of a scene in a documentary. Anyone producing a collage of video clips can potentially be similarly sued on the grounds the collage is a "derivative work" of something copyrighted or that the collage contains a shot that is copyrighted. Lessig argues that this substantially limits the growth of creative arts and culture, in violation of the US Constitution; the Supreme Court ruled that Congress has the constitutional authority to properly balance competing interests on cases like this. In the preface of Free Culture, Lessig compares this book with a previous book of his, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, which propounded that software has the effect of law. Free Culture''s message is different, Lessig writes, because it is "about the consequence of the Internet to a part of our tradition that is much more fundamental, and, as hard as this is for a geek-wanna-be to admit, much more important." (pg. xiv) Professor Lessig analyzes the tension that exists between the concepts of piracy and property in the intellectual property realm in the context of what he calls the present "depressingly compromised process of making law" that has been captured in most nations by multinational corporations that are interested in the accumulation of capital and not the free exchange of ideas. The book also chronicles his prosecution of Eldred and his attempt to develop the Eldred Act, also known as the Public Domain Enhancement Act or the Copyright Deregulation Act. Lessig concludes his book by suggesting that as society evolves into an information society there is a choice to be made to decide if that society is to be free or feudal in nature. In his afterword he suggests that free software pioneer Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation model of making content available is not against the capitalist approach that has allowed such corporate models as Westlaw and LexisNexis to have subscribers to pay for materials that are essentially in the public domain but with underlying licenses like those created by his organization Creative Commons. He also argues for the creation of shorter renewable periods of copyright and a limitation on derivative rights, such as limiting a publisher''s ability to stop the publication of copies of an author''s book on the internet for non-commercial purposes or create a compulsory licensing scheme to ensure that creators obtain direct royalties for their works based upon their usage statistics and some kind of taxation scheme such as suggested by professor William Fisher of Harvard Law School http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/tfisher/PTKChapter6.pdf that is similar to a longstanding proposal of Richard Stallman.

Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity

Flashman''s expulsion from Rugby for drunkenness leads him to join the Army for what he hopes will be a sinecure. He joins the 11th Regiment of Light Dragoons commanded by Lord Cardigan whom he toadies in his best style. After an affair with a fellow officer''s lover, he is forced to fight a duel but wins after promising a large sum of money to the pistol loader to give his opponent a blank load in his gun. He does not kill his opponent but instead delopes and accidentally shoots the top off a bottle thirty yards away, an action that gives him instant fame and the respect of the Duke of Wellington. However, once it was found out what they were fighting over, Flashman is stationed in Scotland. He is quartered with the Morrison family, and soon enough he takes advantage of one of the daughters, Elspeth. After a forced marriage, Flashman is required to resign the Hussars due to marrying below his station. He is given another option, to make his reputation in India. By showing off his language and riding skills in India, Flashman is assigned to the worst frontier of the British Empire at that time, Afghanistan. His adventures include the retreat from Kabul, Last Stand at Gandamak and the Siege of Jalalabad, in the First Anglo-Afghan War. Despite being captured, tortured, and escaping death numerous times, and hiding and shirking his duty as much as possible, he comes through it all alive and with a hero''s reputation&nbsp;... although his triumph is tempered when he realises his wife might have been unfaithful while he was away.

Flashman

Orleanna Price narrates the introductory chapter in five of the novel''s seven sections. The narrative then alternates among the four daughters, with a slight preference for the voice of the most outspoken one, Leah. The four girls increasingly mature, as each adapts differently to African village life, to the misogyny of their father Nathan, and the political turmoil that overtakes The Congo in the 1960s. Since the Congolese villagers are seen through the eyes of the growing daughters, the view changes. At first, they appear as ridiculous savages. But as the girls mature, the villagers become fully fleshed-out human beings, immersed in a complex and sophisticated culture. Nathan''s lack of responsiveness to this culture wears out his family''s welcome, but he refuses to leave. Only after a series of misfortunes&mdash;culminating in the death of one of the daughters&mdash;do the women leave Nathan Price to his folly. The survivors take different paths into their futures, the novel ending at the time of Mobutu Sese Seko''s death in the 1990s. Rachel, the eldest, marries Axelroot at seventeen, and after two more marriages is the owner of a luxury hotel close to what is now Brazzaville. Leah marries Anatole, has a large family of four boys, and remains in the impoverished Congo. Adah returns to the United States with their mother Orleanna, attending college and later, medical school. She undergoes a lengthy experimental treatment that restores full use of her legs and she begins to speak. Orleanna herself returns to spending life on the Georgian coast, enjoying Adah''s occasional visits.

The Poisonwood Bible

Cugel is easily persuaded by the merchant Fianosther to attempt the burglary of the manse of Iucounu the Laughing Magician. Trapped and caught, he agrees that in exchange for his freedom he will undertake the recovery of a small hemisphere of violet glass, an Eye of the Overworld, to match one already in the wizard''s possession. A small sentient alien entity of barbs and hooks, named Firx, is attached to his liver to encourage his "unremitting loyalty, zeal and singleness of purpose," and Iucounu uses a spell to transport Cugel via flying demon to the remote Land of Cutz. There, Cugel finds two villages, one occupied by wearers of the violet lenses, the other by peasants who work on behalf of the lens-wearers, in hopes of being promoted to their ranks. The lenses cause their wearers to see, not their squalid surroundings, but the Overworld, a vastly superior version of reality where a hut is a palace, gruel is a magnificent feast, etc. — "seeing the world through rose-colored glasses" on a grand scale. Cugel gains an Eye by trickery, and escapes from Cutz. He then undertakes an arduous trek back to Iucounu, cursing the magician the entire way; this forms the principal part of the book. After many pitfalls, setbacks, and harrowing escapes, including the eviction of Firx from his system, Cugel returns to Iucounu''s manse, where he finds the wizard''s volition has been captured by a twin to Firx. Cugel manages to extirpate the alien, subdue the magician, and enjoy the easy life in the manse, until he tries to banish Iucounu and Fianosther (who himself has come to pilfer from Cugel) with the same spell that the magician had used on him. But Cugel''s tongue slips in uttering the incantation, and the flying demon seizes him instead, delivering him to the same spot as before. Author Michael Shea wrote an authorized sequel, A Quest for Simbilis (DAW Books, NY, 1974). Vance''s own Cugel sequel was published as Cugel''s Saga in 1983.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Final Solution

By Michael Chabon

Timequake

By Kurt Vonnegut

The Dragon's Teeth

By Frederic Dannay

Unwed Mother

By Gloria D. Miklowitz

Ramona

By Helen Hunt Jackson

Widowers' Houses

By George Bernard Shaw

Israel Potter

By Herman Melville

The Lady of the Sorrows

By Cecilia Dart-Thornton

Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity

By Lawrence Lessig

Flashman

By George MacDonald Fraser

The Poisonwood Bible

By Barbara Kingsolver

The Eyes of the Overworld

By Jack Vance