The Duke of Parma, Foscari, has been plying his marriage suit to the Duchess of Mantua &mdash; but he suddenly disappears from her court. The Duchess announces that she intends to select a husband from her own courtiers. Egged on by her new favorite Giotto and her lady in waiting Laura, each lord flatters himself that he is the favored candidate. Depazzi practices his eloquence with rehearsed speeches, while Volterre prides himself on his command of foreign languages. Contarini, a married man, actually tries to convince his wife to kill herself to leave him single again; when she naturally declines, he attempts to bribe Giotto into committing adultery with her so that a divorce can result. The misogynistic Orseolo portrays himself as a great lover; the elderly Comachio joins his compatriots in making a fool of himself. In the end, the Duchess gently mocks and reproves her eccentric courtiers, and announces that she will marry Giotto &mdash; who turns out to be the Duke of Parma in disguise.

The Humorous Courtier

Frensic and Futtle is a small and successful literary agency. But following a successful court case by a woman who claimed to have been libeled by one of their authors, the agency rapidly loses business. One day, a manuscript for a book called Pause O Men for the Virgin arrives at the agency, together with a note from the author''s solicitor, saying that the author wishes to remain anonymous and that the agency has carte blanche on how it deals with the book. The book turns out to deal with the love affair between an 80-year old woman and a 17-year old youth. The populist American publisher Hutchmeyer agrees to sign a deal to publish the book in the United States for $2 million, providing the author carries out a promotional tour of the country. Sonia and Frensic decide to use aspiring but unpublished author Peter Piper to stand in for the anonymous author. But when Piper receives a proof copy of Pause from the publisher by mistake, it takes a certain amount of persuasion and arm-twisting from Sonia Futtle to convince Piper to travel to America.

The Great Pursuit

The Sahara is being flooded to create a new sea when the protagonist of the novel, Mark Sunnet, crashes his private rocket plane into an island of what is currently little more than a large lake. He soon finds himself and his female companion sucked into an underground cavern where they are promptly captured by mysterious pygmies. The diet of little people is centred around large fungi; the captives speculate that stories which reached the surface of the little people and their giant mushrooms may have led to the myth of gnomes. Sunnet finds that a tiered community has evolved in the underground caverns - the pygmies inhabiting a large underground collection of natural and artificial caverns and tunnels, and the captured humans in a deliberately isolated subsection of the caverns. He is also surprised to learn that family life exists in the caverns - "natives", children of captured humans who were born and have lived all their lives in the caverns exist, and are generally happy with their life, and have no wish to escape. Most of the captured humans do wish to escape, and two different methods are being tried. Both are tunnels, one going up at an angle, to try and break through to the surface, and another on a level, hoping to intersect a pygmy tunnel or cavern, from where they will be able to make their way to the surface. The pygmies are distressed, and it is Sunnet''s arrival that reveals why to the captives - the pygmies fear their environment will be flooded and destroyed by the newly formed Saharan Sea. Their fear is well founded, and the waters break through into the pygmy caverns, eventually flooding the entire ecosystem. Sunnet and a handful of others survive, and finish the story being sunburned after years of subterranean life, and establishing a new company based on primitive - but unique - technology they rescued from the caverns.

The Secret People

The book opens with Meyer Landsman, an alcoholic homicide detective with the Sitka police department, examining the murder of a man in the hotel where Landsman lives. Beside the corpse lies an open cardboard chess board with an unfinished game set up on it. Landsman calls his partner, half-Tlingit, half-Jew Berko Shemets, to help him investigate further. Upon filing a report on the murder at police headquarters, Landsman and Berko discover that Landsman''s ex-wife Bina has been promoted to commanding officer of their unit. Landsman and Berko discover that the victim was Mendel Shpilman, the son of the Verbover rebbe, Sitka’s most powerful organized crime boss. Mendel was believed by many to be the Tzadik ha-Dor, the potential messiah, born once in every generation. As Meyer continues to investigate Mendel''s murder, he discovers that the supposed "chosen one" had taken a flight with Naomi, Landsman''s deceased sister. He follows Naomi''s trail to a mysterious set of buildings with an unknown purpose, set up in Tlingit territory by Jews. Landsman flies there to investigate; he is knocked out and thrown in a cell, whose walls have graffiti in Naomi''s handwriting. The naked and injured Landsman, after a crazed escape attempt, is rescued by a local Tlingit police chief, Willie Dick, who reunites him with Berko. They discover that the mysterious complex is home to a paramilitary group who plan to build a new Temple in Jerusalem. This involves destroying the Dome of the Rock. The American government, led by an evangelical Christian Zionist, has provided support. As Landsman and Berko follow up on this lead, a news report reveals that the Dome has been bombed. American agents apprehend the detectives and offer them permission to stay in Sitka after the reversion if they agree to keep quiet about the plot they have uncovered. Landsman says that he will and is released. Landsman reunites with Bina, frustrated by his failure with the Shpilman case. He keeps going over the chess board in his head, and suddenly realizes that it''s not an unfinished game but a puzzle, and that he had seen the same position from the perspective of the other player in Berko''s father, Hertz Shemetz''s house. Landsman and Bina track down Hertz, and he confesses to killing Mendel at Mendel''s own request. Landsman contacts an American newsman with the story. The book ends with Bina and Landsman reunited and ready to face their future wherever they may land in the Diaspora. The book contains a great deal of comic relief. The creative and playful use of the Yiddish language (for example, cops call a gun a "sholem" – literally a "peace") is an ongoing feature. The juxtaposition of the culture of the shtetl (the Jewish village of eastern Europe) on the Alaskan landscape is also playful and amusing.

The Yiddish Policemen''s Union: A Novel

The novel begins as life is seemingly returning to normal for the Jarretts of Lake Forest, Illinois, in September 1975. It is slightly more than a year since their elder son "Buck" was killed when a sudden storm came up while he and their other son Conrad were sailing on Lake Michigan. Six months later, a severely depressed Conrad attempted suicide by slashing his wrists with a razor in the bathroom. His parents committed him to a psychiatric hospital from which he has only recently returned after eight months of treatment. He is attending school and trying to resume his life, but knows he still has unresolved issues, particularly with his mother, Beth, who has never really recovered from Buck''s death and keeps an almost maniacally perfect household and family. His father Calvin, a successful tax attorney, gently leans on him to make appointments to see a local psychiatrist, Dr. Tyrone Berger. Initially resistant, he slowly starts to respond to Dr. Berger and comes to terms with the root cause of his depression, his identity crisis and survivor''s guilt over having survived when Buck did not. Also helping is a relationship with a new girlfriend, Jeannine Pratt. Calvin sees Dr. Berger as the events of the recent past have caused him to begin to doubt many things he once took for granted, leading to a midlife crisis. This leads to strain in his marriage as he finds Beth increasingly cold and distant, while she in turn believes he is overly concerned about Conrad to the point of being manipulated. Finally the friction becomes enough that Beth decides to leave him at the novel''s climax. Father and son, however, have closed the gap between them.

Ordinary People

Widow Adela Gereth tells the sensitive and tasteful Fleda Vetch that she''s afraid her son Owen will marry the coarse Mona Brigstock. Owen soon becomes engaged to Mona and wants to take over Poynton, the family home filled with Mrs. Gereth''s carefully collected furniture and other art objects. He would like Fleda to help get his mother to leave the house with a minimum of fuss. Mrs. Gereth moves to Dicks, the smaller family house. Fleda visits the house and is unhappy that Mrs. Gereth has furnished it with the best pieces from Poynton. Owen says that Mona is angry with the "theft" of the valuable heirlooms. Meanwhile, Owen is becoming more attracted to Fleda instead of the crude Mona and eventually declares his love for her. Fleda insists that he honor his engagement to Mona unless she breaks it off. Mrs. Gereth finally returns the fine furniture to Poynton. After a few days Owen and Mona are reported to be married, and they go abroad. Fleda gets a letter from Owen asking her to select any one piece from Poynton as hers to keep. Fleda goes to Poynton but finds it completely consumed by fire.

The Spoils of Poynton

The book begins with a now familiar scene of the indomitable Gauls'' village. Asterix and Obelix are setting off for a wild boar hunt when they pass a beautiful blond young lady by the name of Panacea who has been picking mushrooms. She has returned to the village after studying in Condatum. Obelix immediately falls in love. After a few scenes of Obelix embarrassing himself, Panacea receives word that her fiancé Tragicomix has been conscripted into the Roman army and shipped to North Africa. Asterix and Obelix promise Panacea that they will return Tragicomix to her, even though it breaks Obelix''s heart. Asterix and Obelix head for Condatum where they learn that Tragicomix has already left for Massilia, the Mediterranean port from which the soldiers depart. They then decide to enlist in the Roman army and end up training with Hemispheric, a Goth; Selectivemploymentax, a Briton; Gastronomix, a Belgian; Neveratalos, a Greek; and Ptenisnet, an Egyptian tourist who spends the entire book believing himself to be in a holiday camp. After completing training (which is rather relaxing for the conscripts while very stressful for the Centurions), the newly formed unit sets off as reinforcements to Caesar who is fighting a losing campaign against a rival Roman faction headed by Caecilius Metellus Scipio in alliance with Afranius and King Juba I of Numidia. Asterix and Obelix soon find out that Tragicomix has gone missing in action after a skirmish. Asterix and Obelix desert and set out to search for him, raiding Scipio''s camp and successfully rescuing the young man. However, due to their actions Caesar and Scipio each believes that the other is attacking and they both prepare for battle, with Scipio''s forces off-balance thanks to Asterix and Obelix''s initial attack while while Caesar''s forces had time to prepare as they started organising themselves after the Gauls deserted in the belief that they were spies. In the confusion that follows, Caesar achieves a great victory (the historical Battle of Thapsus, 6 February 46 BC). The Gauls are cornered by Caesar after the battle is over and they have recovered their usual clothes, but are released and sent home for the service they provided in helping him win the battle. Panacea is reunited with Tragicomix and everybody is overjoyed. In gratitude, Panacea kisses both Asterix and Obelix. Obelix faints, and Asterix spends the customary banquet sitting on a tree, hopelessly in love as well.

Asterix the Legionary

A restrained, precise man, Brande has an elevated sense of his own importance, believing his qualities have been overlooked in a series of postings around Europe which have failed to result in promotion. His other abiding resentment is the failure of his marriage to his wife Marion, who left him when his dispassionate and obsessively controlling nature overwhelmed her. Brande’s paranoid need to be loved and respected are focused on his hobby, a manuscript on Malbranche, a French philosopher, and on his nine year old son Nicholas. Nicholas is a delicate child who has been reduced to a state of invalidism by his father’s overprotective and restrictive regime. At San Jorge, the Brandes take a villa for which a couple, Garcia and his wife Magdalena have been engaged to act as butler/chauffeur and cook/housekeeper. Nicholas takes an instinctive dislike to Garcia, fearing his dead fish eyes and his tendency to appear unannounced, but Brande sees the man’s obsequious servility as recognition of his own superior qualities. At Nicholas’s suggestion, a gardener, the 19 year old José, is hired to tend the neglected garden. José’s amiable and ingenuous nature, despite his poverty and the responsibility of providing for his family members, soon attract Nicholas’s curiosity and the pair strike up a friendship. Nicholas helps José in the garden and his health improves. However, Garcia informs Brande of their friendship and, intensely jealous of Nicholas’s affection, Brande forbids the boy to speak to the gardener again. He has no justifiable cause to dismiss José, so he sets out to punish him and break his spirit by ordering him to build a rockery from boulders. Nicholas, however, realises that he only promised not to speak to José, and this does not preclude writing and exchanging secret notes with each other. Brande then receives a letter summoning him to Madrid and informing him that his predecessor at San Jorge who was promoted to First Consul, has suffered a stroke. Elated and assuming that he will be appointed to the vacant post, Brande hurries to Madrid. José takes advantage of Brande’s absence to take Nicholas by train into the mountains on a fishing trip. Their enforced silence is broken and the day is the idyllic highlight of Nicholas’s life so far. Yet when Nicholas returns it is to find a drunken Garcia wielding a knife and abusing Magdalena. He spends a terrified night in his room and, when José learns of it the following day, rather than leave the defenceless boy alone for another night, takes him home with him. A distraught Brande returns early from Madrid. He had merely been summoned to Madrid to temporarily fill the vacancy until a permanent appointment could be made and, upon telling his superior that he expected to be appointed permanently, is effectively laughed at and told he has no hope. He refused the temporary posting and writes to summon his friend and psychiatrist Eugene Halevy. On returning to his villa, he finds Nicholas missing and Garcia informs him Nicholas has spent the night with José. He further shows Brande a scrap of Nicholas’s correspondence to José saying how much he loves to spend time with José. When Nicholas returns, Garcia and Magdalena deny his version of events and he is confined to his room where Professor Halevy ‘examines’ him, intent upon reading something sinister into his relationship with José. Garcia then informs Brande that he is missing sums of money and suggests Brande checks his jewellery, all of which has gone. A pair of Brande’s cufflinks are found in the lining of José’s jacket and he is arrested. José is to be sent for trial in Barcelona and Nicholas learns from his grandfather that he will attempt to escape from the train and hide in the old mill where they went fishing. Nicholas sets off to meet him, while his father accompanies José and the police to act as witness in the trial. He has received a letter from the employment agency stating that Garcia is very likely to be a criminal the police are looking for, but he decides to do nothing about it until after José’s trial. On the train, José makes his escape attempt, but Brande, anticipating his action, catches his sleeve, spoiling his jump so that José falls onto the track and is killed. In a violent storm, Brande then has to find the missing Nicholas. Seven months later, Brande is posted to Stockholm but his relationship with Nicholas is irretrievably broken. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Nicholas told Brande that he hated him. He asked for his mother’s photo and her address and has been writing to her. In Stockholm, Nicholas informs his father that he wishes to go and live with her in America. fr:Le Jardinier espagnol pt:The Spanish Gardener

The Spanish Gardener

Dr. Flake Fountain is approached by the military to develop an antidote to a virus they have created, which is known as the "Pied Piper" virus, due to its relation to a mirth- and dance-inducing virus which supposedly caused the phenomenon the Pied Piper story was based on (see also St. John''s Dance), which leaves its victims alive and unharmed, but destroys the brain''s capacity for symbolic reasoning. This leaves victims unable to use language, including speech and writing to communicate. However, before Dr. Fountain can complete his antidote, the virus is released and everyone else on Earth, as far as he knows, is infected with it. He holes up in the house of his friends Blip (a fellow college professor) and Sophia, two organic hippie types. Since the house is a self-sufficient geodesic dome, he is protected from the virus and has electricity, and it is revealed that the book is his journal, where he is recording everything that has happened and is happening. Each chapter also begins with a selection from the "Book o'' Billets-Doux" ("love letters" in French), which he found in the dome and is apparently an extended conversation between Blip and Sophia which they wrote, eventually while succumbing to the virus. In time Flake discovers that the people "afflicted" with the virus can apparently communicate, and he surmises that they connect on a deeper level without the hindrance of a language and its capacity to obscure the truth. They work together and seem happy, even Edenic. Because of this, once he has finished the book, he exposes himself to the virus, becoming unable to continue it and leaving the reader to wonder exactly what happened to him.

Just a Couple of Days

Timothy Meeker is a young man who lives in the town of Redding, Connecticut around the time the American Revolution begins. Tim does not exactly care about politics, but his father, Eliphalet ("Life"), is a loyalist to Great Britain, much like the rest of the town. His entire family welcomes his brave and high-strung teenage brother, Sam, when he returns from Yale. However, his father is outraged when he learns that Sam has joined the Continental Army to fight against the British. Unlike Tim, Sam is not afraid to voice his opinions, and this causes him to eventually be forced out from the family tavern (their home and business). After this, Sam steals his father''s Brown Bess to use as a weapon during battles. Sam leaves Redding to fight, and things become harder, gradually separating the family. Sam occasionally returns, although when this happens, Tim is the only one who talks with him. In one instance, Tim delivers a "business letter" to New York for a "moderate" neighbor named Mr. Heron, against his father''s wishes, since he does not trust Heron. Betsy Read, Tim and Sam''s friend, opens the letter, only to find it is a "test note" that says: If you receive this message, then the messenger is reliable, meaning that the future letters will be spy reports on soldiers. Tim throws away the note. Meanwhile, prices of food and drinks go up and the redcoats even show up in Redding to take weapons and fight the few Patriots there. After seeing the bloody battle, in which one of Tim''s friends, an innocent slave named Ned, is decapitated, and another friend, an innocent child named Jerry Stanford, is captured by the British, Tim begins to have stronger feelings about the Patriots. While on a trip with his father to sell beef to loyalists in New York, they are stopped by a band of cowboys who presumably abduct him. Tim goes home, and the next year finds his father has died on a prison ship due to an outbreak of cholera. After this, Tim''s mother, Susannah, begins to drink heavily. Sam returns, only to reveal he has been framed for stealing cattle and he is going to be executed by his own army in a warning to soldiers who may do the same thing if faced by extreme hunger. The story then cuts to 1826, where Tim reveals he has survived the Revolution, and that he has written the entire story to tell what life was like in the war. He expresses his condolences about Sam, and then reveals he has a happy life.

My Brother Sam Is Dead

Soon after Kaede and Takeo''s marriage, messengers arrive at Terayama from his Uncles with a threat, and the head of Ichiro, his old teacher. The Otori army lies in wait to ambush him, so Takeo leads them over the mountains, and across the river near Kibi, with the assistance of a bridge made by Jo-an and some outcasts. After a minor skirmish with some bandits, they lead the army to Maruyama, the domain that Lady Maruyama left to Kaede. Lady Maruyama''s son-in-law, Iida Nariaki, a cousin to Iida Sadamu, has marched in to Maruyama just ahead of them, but Iida''s army gets caught between the Maruyama and Takeo''s armies, and are defeated. Meanwhile Shizuka and Kondo Kiichi arrive at the hidden Muto village, and are reunited with her uncle, Kenji, and her two sons. She fears the consequences that will come from Kaede''s rash marriage. From Kenji she learns of the Kikuta''s belief in the existence of records on the tribe compiled by Shigeru before his death. They decide to send Kondo to Arai, to gauge his reaction to Kaede''s marriage, and his feeling towards his sons by Shizuka. Kenji also tells her how his daughter Yuki was recently married to Akio, but was forced to take her life after her son by Takeo was born. The child will remain with the Kikuta, who have their own plans concerning the boy and Takeo''s futures. In Maruyama, they start restoring the land and estates. Takeo is threatened by the local Tribe members, so using Shigeru''s records, he has them rounded up and the adults executed. His mind turns to Hagi, and he concocts a plan to invade it by sea. He travels to Oshima island to meet his childhood friend Terada Fumio, whose family have now become pirates, to seek an alliance. Kaede wants to accompany him, but he tells her to stay. On the way he meets Ryoma, an illegitimate son of his Uncle, Masahiro. He makes an agreement with Fumio''s father, but his return is delayed by typhoons, and he almost drowns in a storm. Despite Sugita''s objections, Kaede rides to Shirakawa with Hiroshi, and finds that Shoji, the Shirakawa retainer, had given up her sisters to Fujiwara, and returned her hostage to his family. Shocked, she hides the records on the Tribe at the nearby Shrine, and rides to demand her sisters return. Fujiwara abducts her, and only Hiroshi escapes to later bring the news to Maruyama. Fujiwara declares her marriage to Takeo to be illegal, and he forces her to marry him. Their marriage is celibate: he is not interested in her as a woman, but as a treasure, to be locked away. Takeo returns and hears the news of Kaede''s abduction. His army marches towards Shirakawa, but discovers not only Fujiwara''s army, but Arai''s. They retreat to the coast as Maruyama surrenders to Arai''s men, hoping for Fumio to come by boat, but the weather delays him. Takeo submits to Arai, but rather than killing him, they enter into an alliance against the Otori lords (Shigeru''s uncles), but to dispel rumors about him being one of the hidden, Takeo is forced to kill the outcast Jo-an. Kenji, turned against the Kikuta because of the murder of his daughter, comes to Takeo and brings a truce, and an alliance on behalf of the Tribe, save the Kikuta. Before they leave, Fumio demonstrates to Takeo the use of a firearm, an invention obtained from the white barbarians. Arai''s army marches north, and Takeo sails around the coast to Hagi. With Kenji and Taku, Arai and Shizuka''s younger son, they sneak into the castle, and kill the lords and their families. When Arai''s army arrives, he betrays Takeo. Fumio shoots Arai dead with the firearm, and at that moment a huge earthquake rocks the entire three countries. It destroys Arai''s army, and in Shirakawa it destroys Fujiwara and his household in an example of Deus ex machina. The Kikuta master, Kotaro, sneaks into Takeo''s house to assassinate him, as he did to his father years before. With Kenji and Taku''s help, they defeat him, but Takeo loses 2 fingers, and goes into a delirium from the poisoned blade that cut him. After he recovers, and despite the onset of winter, he rushes south to find what happened to Kaede. They come to the shrine to find Kaede, Shizuka, and her new husband Dr Ishida alive, with the tribal records safe. But Kaede''s hair is shorn, terrible burns marring her neck. As it starts to snow, Takeo prays the spring would bring healing to his land.

Brilliance of the Moon

The story begins with Bernard, a laicised Catholic priest, escorting his unwilling father Jack to Hawaii at the request of his aunt Ursula, who is dying of cancer. On the day after arrival, Jack is hit by a car and sent to hospital. Bernard spends much time travelling between Jack''s bedside and Ursula''s nursing home, and through this, gets the opportunity to discover their past. Ursula, always portrayed as the selfish black sheep, had been sexually abused as a child by her oldest brother Sean, who was venerated as a hero by the family for his death in the war. Ursula explains to Bernard that the experience ruined her marriage and her life. She wants Jack''s apology for Jack knew of the abuse but kept silent. In the midst of this, Bernard strikes up a tentative relationship with Yolande Miller, the driver of the car that hit his father. Bernard''s gradual sexual awakening parallels Ursula''s struggle with her illness. The narrative switches between third-person prose, Bernard''s diary, a long letter from Bernard to Yolande, and postcards and notes sent from Hawaii by various characters encountered by Bernard and Jack on the plane journey from England, concluding with a letter from Yolande to Bernard. fr:Nouvelles du paradis

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Humorous Courtier

No Author Listed

The Great Pursuit

By Tom Sharpe

The Secret People

By John Wyndham

The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel

By Michael Chabon

Ordinary People

By Judith Guest

The Spoils of Poynton

By Henry James

Asterix the Legionary

No Author Listed

The Spanish Gardener

By A. J. Cronin

Just a Couple of Days

No Author Listed

My Brother Sam Is Dead

By Christopher Collier

Brilliance of the Moon

By Gillian Rubinstein

Paradise News

By David Lodge