This book is written in three parts. "Book One: The Romantic Egotist"—the novel centers on Amory Blaine, a young Midwesterner who, convinced that he has an exceptionally promising future, attends boarding school and later Princeton University. He leaves behind his eccentric mother Beatrice and befriends a close friend of hers, Monsignor Darcy. While at Princeton he goes back to Minneapolis where he re-encounters Isabelle Borgé, a young lady whom he met as a little boy and starts a romantic relationship with her, but after a few days he becomes disillusioned by her and returns to Princeton. "Interlude"—Following their break-up, Amory is shipped overseas, to serve in the army in World War I. Fitzgerald had been in the army himself, but the war ended while he was still stationed on Long Island. Amory''s experiences in the war are not described, other than to say later in the book that he was a bayonet instructor. "Book Two: The Education of a Personage"—After the war, Amory Blaine falls in love with a New York debutante named Rosalind Connage. Because he is poor, however, this relationship collapses as well; Rosalind decides to marry a wealthy man instead. A devastated Amory is further crushed to learn that his mentor Monsignor Darcy has died. The book ends with Amory''s iconic lament, "I know myself, but that is all."

This Side of Paradise

David Starr, Space Ranger introduces the series'' setting and the main characters. The novel is set around A.D. 7,000 (five thousand years after the first nuclear bomb, as stated at the beginning), when humanity has spread among the worlds of the Solar System as well as planets orbiting other stars. The most powerful organization in the Solar System is the Council of Science, which suppresses threats to the System''s people. Protagonist David Starr is an orphaned biophysicist qualified for membership in the Council of Science, who learns from his guardians Augustus Henree and Hector Conway of some 200 deaths in the last four months, whose victims died while eating produce raised on Mars. Conway and Henree fear that the deaths are part of a conspiracy to frighten the people of Earth; wherefore Starr travels undercover to Mars to discover the deaths'' connection to the Martian Farming Syndicates. On Mars, Starr meets John "Bigman" Jones, a bellicose 5''2" Martian farmboy blacklisted at the Farming Syndicates for seeing something forbidden him. When his former boss Hennes orders Jones out of the Farm Employment Building, Starr intervenes, and gains positions for both himself and Bigman. Later, Hennes has Starr and Bigman stunned. Starr wakes in the farm owned by Hennes'' boss, Mr. Makian, to whom he gives the alias Williams, and states that he came to Mars explain a younger sister''s death of food poisoning; wherefore Makian sends the farm''s agronomist Benson to speak with him. According to Benson, the poisoned food came from several Martian farms, but was exported through Wingrad City, one of three domed human settlements on Mars; whereas Makian and several other farm owners have been offered ridiculously small sums of money for their farms, apparently without connection to the poisonings. Benson suggests also that intelligent native Martians living below the planet''s surface are poisoning the food in order to drive humanity from Mars. Makian offers to let Starr join a survey of the farmlands. Bigman warns him that Hennes will attack him during the survey; but when Starr decides to take part anyway, Bigman joins him. As he enters Martian gravity, Starr loses control of his sand-car, nearly sending it over a crevasse; whereupon Bigman discovers that Starr''s sand-car is missing its weights, and Starr realizes that Griswold deliberately failed to warn him. He then confronts Griswold, who in the struggle falls into the crevasse and dies. The next day, Benson makes Starr his assistant, to keep him from Hennes. When Bigman receives his references from Hennes and takes his leave, Starr asks him to obtain some book-tapes from the library at Wingrad City. Bigman agrees, then admits that he has recognized the pretended ''Williams'' as David Starr of the Council of Science. When Starr meets Bigman that night outside the dome, he reveals that he believes in Benson''s Martians, and that the crevasse into which Griswold fell is an entrance to their caverns. Starr descends into the crevasse and is captured by the Martians;–––disembodied intelligences curious about the Earthmen on the surface, and who know nothing of the poisoned food. They give Starr the name ''Space Ranger'' because he travels through space, and give him an immaterial mask that will act as a personal force field and disguise him from other humans. Starr uses the mask to shield himself from a Martian dust storm as he returns to Makian''s farm, where he is questioned how he survived the storm and answers (truthfully) that he was returned by a masked man called the Space Ranger. Benson tells him that while he was gone, all the farm owners received a letter from the poisoner, who claims that unless the farm owners surrender control to him within thirty-six hours, the poisoner will increase the amount of poisoned food a thousandfold. After Benson leaves, another of Hennes'' minions tries to shoot Starr. Later, Hennes accuses Starr of poisoning the food; whereupon Bigman enters with Dr. Silvers of the Council of Science, who announces that the government has declared a System Emergency and that the Council will take control of all the farms on Mars. If the mystery is not solved by the time the deadline expires, all Martian food exports to Earth will stop, and food rationing will be instituted. Starr arranges with Silvers to be publicly removed from the Makian farm, then allowed to secretly return. Disguised by his mask, he confronts Hennes, who blinds himself firing a blaster at him; searches Hennes; and, once undisguised, persuades Silvers to meet with Makian, Hennes, and Benson the next day. At the meeting, Starr appears in disguise and reveals that Benson poisoned the food while pretending to take samples of it, while Hennes kept in contact with Benson''s henchmen in the Asteroid Belt. Following Benson''s confession, Bigman reveals that despite the disguise of the Martian mask, he recognized Starr by his uniquely colorless black-and-white boots.

David Starr, Space Ranger

The magician Prospero, rightful Duke of Milan, and his daughter, Miranda, have been stranded for twelve years on an island after Prospero''s jealous brother Antonio (helped by Alonso, the King of Naples) deposed him and set him adrift with the then-3-year-old Miranda. Gonzalo, the King''s counsellor, had secretly supplied their boat with plenty of food, water, clothes and the most-prized books from Prospero''s library. Possessing magic powers due to his great learning, Prospero is reluctantly served by a spirit, Ariel, whom Prospero had rescued from a tree in which he had been trapped by the witch Sycorax. Prospero maintains Ariel''s loyalty by repeatedly promising to release the "airy spirit" from servitude. Sycorax had been banished to the island, and had died before Prospero''s arrival. Her son, Caliban, a deformed monster and the only non-spiritual inhabitant before the arrival of Prospero, was initially adopted and raised by him. He taught Prospero how to survive on the island, while Prospero and Miranda taught Caliban religion and their own language. Following Caliban''s attempted rape of Miranda, he had been compelled by Prospero to serve as the magician''s slave. In slavery, Caliban has come to view Prospero as a usurper and has grown to resent him and his daughter. Prospero and Miranda in turn view Caliban with contempt and disgust. The play opens as Prospero, having divined that his brother, Antonio, is on a ship passing close by the island, has raised a tempest which causes the ship to run aground. Also on the ship are Antonio''s friend and fellow conspirator, King Alonso of Naples, Alonso''s brother and son (Sebastian and Ferdinand), and Alonso''s advisor, Gonzalo. All these passengers are returning from the wedding of Alonso''s daughter Claribel with the King of Tunis. Prospero contrives to separate the shipwreck survivors into several groups by his spells, and so Alonso and Ferdinand are separated, each believing the other to be dead. Three plots then alternate through the play. In one, Caliban falls in with Stephano and Trinculo, two drunkards, whom he believes to have come from the moon. They attempt to raise a rebellion against Prospero, which ultimately fails. In another, Prospero works to establish a romantic relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda; the two fall immediately in love, but Prospero worries that "too light winning [may] make the prize light", and compels Ferdinand to become his servant, pretending that he regards him as a spy. In the third subplot, Antonio and Sebastian conspire to kill Alonso and Gonzalo so that Sebastian can become King. They are thwarted by Ariel, at Prospero''s command. Ariel appears to the "three men of sin" (Alonso, Antonio and Sebastian) as a harpy, reprimanding them for their betrayal of Prospero. Prospero manipulates the course of his enemies'' path through the island, drawing them closer and closer to him. In the conclusion, all the main characters are brought together before Prospero, who forgives Alonso. He also forgives Antonio and Sebastian, but warns them against further betrayal. Ariel is charged to prepare the proper sailing weather to guide Alonso and his entourage (including Prospero and Miranda) back to the Royal fleet and then to Naples, where Ferdinand and Miranda will be married. After discharging this task, Ariel will finally be free. Prospero pardons Caliban, who is sent to prepare Prospero''s cell, to which Alonso and his party are invited for a final night before their departure. Prospero indicates that he intends to entertain them with the story of his life on the island. Prospero has resolved to break and bury his magic staff, and "drown" his book of magic, and in his epilogue, shorn of his magic powers, he invites the audience to set him free from the island with their applause.

The Tempest

The novel begins in the 1790s in the coastal town of Monkshaven against the background of the practice of impressment during the early phases of the Napoleonic Wars. Sylvia Robson lives happily with her parents on a farm, and is passionately loved by her rather dull Quaker cousin Philip. She, however, meets and falls in love with Charlie Kinraid, a dashing sailor on a whaling vessel, and they become secretly engaged. When Kinraid goes back to his ship, he is forcibly enlisted in the Royal Navy by a press gang, a scene witnessed by Philip. Philip does not tell Sylvia of the incident nor relay to her Philip''s parting message and, believing her lover is dead, Sylvia eventually marries her cousin. This act is primarily prompted out of gratefulness for Philip''s assistance during a difficult time following her father''s imprisonment and subsequent execution for leading a revengeful raid on press-gang collaborators. They have a daughter. Inevitably, Kinraid returns to claim Sylvia and she discovers that Philip knew all the time that he was still alive. Philip leaves her in despair at her subsequent rage and rejection, but she refuses to leave with Kinraid because of her child. Philip joins the army under a pseudonym, and ends up fighting in the Napoleonic wars, where he saves Kinraid''s life. Kinraid returns to Britain, and marries. His wife, who knows nothing of their history together, informs Sylvia that her husband is a great military leader. Kinraid''s marriage suggests to Sylvia that he was not as faithful to her as she had remained to him, and she then realizes she is actually in love with Philip. Philip, meanwhile horribly disfigured by a shipboard explosion, returns to the small Northumbrian village to try to secretly get a glimpse of his child. He ends up staying with the sister of a servant of Sylvia''s deceased parents, and rescues his child when she nearly drowns. He is fatally injured while saving his daughter, but his identity then becomes known and he is reconciled with his wife on his deathbed.

Sylvia''s Lovers

Janey Wilcox''s flagging career was revived when, in the closing pages of Four Blondes, she accepted a contract with Victoria''s Secret. Trading Up stars a slightly older and wiser Janey Wilcox, one who is determined to make it to the top. Wilcox begins the novel as an older but still quite popular lingerie and runway model whose aspirations now include breaking into show business. Fortunately, the New York social scene is dominated by powerful media mogul/starlet couples. Spending a summer in the Hamptons, Janey Wilcox befriends Mimi Kilroy, wife of media mogul George Paxton. Kilroy introduces her new model friend to Selden Rose, an up-and-coming CEO of cable television network MovieTime. At first Janey is uninterested in Selden and is instead enamored with Zizi, a young Argentinian polo player with model looks and the countenance of a member of the European elite. Only in an attempt to attract Zizi does she begin dating Selden. Janey and Selden are quickly married, while Zizi begins an affair with Mimi. Janey continually struggles with her torrid past as a consummate seducer of powerful men and is known in many circles as a semi-prostitute. Determined to become a movie producer, Janey attempts to maneuver her way to the top of the New York social scene by any means necessary, including using her younger sister and her brother-in-law, a popular rock star, for her own ends. Eventually it is revealed that Janey''s reputation as a prostitute is rather well-deserved and a past indiscretion with a powerful media mogul is publicly revealed. Janey''s reputation is ruined and she splits from her husband, fleeing to Los Angeles. In the end Janey has managed to get an old, crudely-written screenplay (written years earlier) into the hands of the right people in Hollywood and is poised to embark on a new path as a Hollywood movie producer. The story ends on an unexpectedly triumphant note, with Janey poised to conquer Hollywood. There is a sense that the ends have justified the means. Janey''s shameless ambition, her hard headed cool determination to get whatever she wants - at any cost - wins through. This isn''t the expected tale of a grasping, gold digger who gets her comeuppance. It is more the tale of a beautiful woman who uses her looks as a tool to operate in a world where male ruthlessness is admired and feared, and yet her own casual callousness is deplored and scorned by those around her.

Trading Up (Candace Bushnell))

Arabella, the beautiful daughter of a country vicar, sets out to London to have a season and make an advantageous marriage. On her way there, her carriage has an accident and she has to stop over at the hunting box of Robert Beaumaris, the Nonpareil of the town and one of the wealthiest men in England. Mr Beaumaris suspects the ''accident'' to be a ruse on the part of someone chasing him for his fortune. Overhearing him make a remark to this effect, Arabella impulsively pretends to be an heiress. Mr. Beaumaris, knowing this to be untrue is amused by her daring to put him in his place, and decides to encourage his friend''s belief in this falsehood. He is bored by Society and views the town cynically. He is also amused by the fact that society will follow whomever leads, irrespective of the wisdom of the person''s behavior. Arabella requests that Mr Beaumaris and his friend Lord Fleetwood not reveal her "fortune". She continues on her journey to London to stay with her godmother, Lady Bridlington, blithely believing that nothing will come of this interlude. However, Lord Fleetwood is not very discreet, and the town soon believes Arabella to be an heiress. To amuse himself, Mr Beaumaris decides to make Arabella the rage of the town by flirting with her and driving her out in his carriage. Arabella is aware that his intentions are not serious, but plays along because to be admired by him makes her a social success. Arabella feels that she cannot make a good match when all the town falsely believe her to be wealthy and knowing that Mr Beaumaris can have no designs on her supposed fortune and is only amusing himself with her, she is most comfortable in his company. She enchants him with her unusual behaviour (which includes foisting a climbing boy and a mongrel on him) and the fact that she does not appear to fancy him. Mr Beaumaris eventually falls in love with Arabella and proposes. Arabella, not knowing him to be aware of her deception from the start, tearfully refuses, realising that she is indeed in love with him, but cannot reveal her deception without risking his love. Meanwhile, Arabella''s brother Bertram has come to town on 100 pounds that he won. The wealthy friends he makes soon lead him into debt and Arabella decides she must accept Mr Beaumaris''s proposal in order to pay off Bertram''s debts. Mr Beaumaris guesses the cause of her sudden reversal and is amused, knowing her to be in love with him, despite the appearance of the situation. She insists they elope together since she''s desperate and he agrees, but instead takes her to visit his grandmother''s house. Once they arrive, she reveals that she is not a wealthy woman, he reveals that he knew all along and that he went to visit her family. All is resolved by the fact that his fortune is so massive, the lack of hers will never be noticed, and the lack of fortune for her brothers and sisters will be explained away by an eccentric uncle who left the money to Arabella.

Arabella

Birthright takes place before the games Diablo and Diablo II take place. It tells the story of Uldyssian ul-Diomed, a farmer whose only remaining family is his brother, Mendeln. Initially the story starts out with some background information. Uldyssian''s family falls victims to a plague, which only he and his brother survive. Not too far into the novel, a terrible murder is unearthed in the woods near his home village, Seram. In this time he has already become infatuated with a stranger to the town named Lylia, and he has started to possess eerie powers, like a thunderstorm that left many dead, including the men of the Cathedral of Light who accused him of the murder and were there to arrest him. Uldyssian and Lylia, along with Uldyssian''s brother Mendeln, a woman from their village named Serenthia, and a skilled hunter named Achilios, escape under cover of the storm for the nearby forests. Once there, Lylia explains to Uldyssian that his power is a gift and he accepts this, and comes to awaken the same power in Serenthia and Achilios. Not long after their escape, they are set upon by Peace Warders and a priest from the Temple of the Triune, which stands in opposition to the Cathedral of Light, but Uldyssian easily routs them with the help of Lylia and they continue on to her desired destination. Meanwhile, the priest of the Triune who led the attack against Uldyssian--Malic--returns to the Primus of the Triune, Lucion, who tortures him for his failure. The torture ends with Lucion''s gifting Malic with a demonic arm and several vicious morlu to aid his second chance at capturing Uldyssian and bringing him back to the main Temple.

Birthright

The childhood romance between neighbours blossoms into passionate love during adolescence. Majeed''s father was rich once, so could send him to a school in the distant town, although he was not very good at studies. Suhra''s father on the other hand had trouble making both ends meet. Even then he wanted to send his daughter, who was good at studies to the school. But after her father''s death, all her hopes of further studies was ruined. Majeed begs his father to sponsor Suhra''s education, but he refuses. Majeed leaves home after a skirmish with his father, and wanders over distant lands for a long time before returning home. On his return, he finds that his family''s former affluence is all gone, and that his beloved Suhra has married someone else. He is grief struck at the loss of love, and this is when Suhra turns up at his home. She is a shadow of her former self. The beautiful, sunshiny, vibrant Suhra of old is now a woman worn out by life, battered hard by a loveless marriage to an abusive husband. Majeed commands her, "Suhra, don''t go back!" and she stays. Majeed leaves home once again, but this time with plans on his mind. He needs to find a job, to ward off poverty, and thus he reaches a North Indian city. He finds work as a salesman but one day he meets with a bicycle accident in which he loses a leg. The day after he is discharged from hospital, he is informed that he''s fired from his job. He again sets off on a job quest knocking at every door, wearing off his soles. He finds work as a dish-washer in a hotel. As he scrubs dirty dishes each day, he dreams of Suhra back home waiting for him to return. He must make enough money to return home and repay debts, before he can finally get married to the woman of his life. His mother writes him that Suhra is sick and subsequently of Suhara''s death.

Baalyakaalasakhi

The main figure, Clerfayt, is an automobile racer who goes to a Swiss hospital to visit a fellow racer, Holman. There he meets the young Belgian woman Lillian suffering from tuberculosis. She is in its terminal stage with no chance of a cure, and she wants to enjoy her last months rather than waiting for her death. Therefore, after a few days in Switzerland she decides to leave the Bela Vista sanatorium with Clerfayt. Together they travel over Europe, while Lillian enjoyed things she did not know before. Eventually they fall in love and Clerfayt starts to hope for a future with her. However, when he expresses his wish to settle down and wants to get her visited by a doctor, she starts feeling trapped and refuses the idea. Although she loves him, she decides to leave him before they start an actual life together. In one race Clerfayt is seriously injured and dies in the hospital. Lillian, devastated, returns to Switzerland. On her way there she encounters Holman, now healed, who has been offered the former job of Clerfayt. Six weeks later, Lillian dies. It is described as a peaceful moment, as if even the landscape had stopped breathing.

Heaven Has No Favorites

Sam Peebles is asked to give a speech to the Rotary Club. An office assistant (Naomi) directs him to the public library to check out two books that might help with speech writing. In doing so he runs across Ardelia Lortz, the librarian. He checks out two books with the warning that they must be returned or he should beware of the Library Policeman. Naomi eventually informs us that Ardelia Lortz is not living and is not spoken of any more. Through a series of events we are introduced to Dave "Dirty Dave" Duncan, a former lover of Ardelia''s. He finds that Ardelia is not a person but a being which feeds on fear and that Duncan was a sometimes unwilling companion/conspirator in helping her feed from the fear of children. We find that Ardelia had "died" in 1960 after killing two children and a police officer. She is now back and Duncan believes she seeks revenge and a new host. The Library Policeman turns out to be a recreation by Ardelia of a man Peebles had run into as a child at his local library who had raped and threatened him. The Library Policeman however is not just a recreation but also an embodiment of Ardelia who sought access to Sam as her new host. Dave dies defending them from Ardelia. They appear to have beaten the Library Policeman/Ardelia, only to discover at the end that she has already attached to Naomi. Sam removes her from Naomi''s neck and destroys her under the wheels of a passing train.

The Library Policeman

Rebecca Tignor is mistaken for another woman named Hazel Jones one afternoon in the woods nearby Chatauqua Falls, New York in the fall of 1959. Over 20 years later, Rebecca finds out that the man who approached her is a serial killer. In a secondary plot, Rebecca''s parents escape from the Nazis in 1936, foreseeing the oncoming Holocaust; Rebecca is born in the boat crossing over. When Rebecca is 13, her father, Jacob Schwart, who has lost his intellectual dreams and has become a gravedigger and cemetery caretaker in Milburn, abruptly kills her mother, Anna, and nearly kills Rebecca, before committing suicide. At the time of the footpath crossing, Rebecca is just weeks away from being beaten and almost killed by her own husband, the brutal Niles Tignor. She and her only son, Niles Jr., flee, and she becomes the woman for whom she has been recently mistaken, purposefully adopting the identity of Hazel Jones. Niles Jr. assumes the alias of Zacharias. As Hazel, Rebecca seeks many livelihoods, as alternately a waitress, clerk and finally, the mistress of the overwhelmingly wealthy heir of the Gallagher media fortune, a man in whom she never felt the need to confide her past.

The Gravedigger''s Daughter

Pushing Ice begins in the distant future, where the elected rulers of the Congress of the Lindblad Ring gather to decide on a suitable ceremony to honour a woman they consider responsible for the technological advancement and territorial expansion of the future human race, Bella Lind. To explain her role, the chronology is then pushed back to the early days of humanity''s manned exploration of the solar system, where it is explained that Lind is the captain of the Rockhopper, a spacecraft used for mining cometary ice. While on a routine mission, Lind is informed that Saturn''s moon Janus has deviated from its normal orbit, and is accelerating out of the solar system. The Rockhopper, deemed the only ship capable of catching up to Janus, is asked to undertake the task of pursuing the moon, and sending back as much information as possible before being forced to turn back by the limitations of fuel and supplies. However, on their approach to the moon, revealed to be a camouflaged alien spacecraft, Lind and her crew are caught in the field of the ship''s inertialess drive, causing them to travel further and faster than expected, and beyond their capacity to return to Earth. Realising their predicament, the crew decide to land on the moon and attempt to survive the flight out of the solar system, wherever it may take them. Eventually it becomes apparent that ship is heading towards Spica, a close binary pair in the constellation of Virgo. At one point before the landing, Bella''s closest friend and subordinate, Svetlana Barseghian, pushes for Bella to turn the ship around while there is still a chance to return to Earth. Bella decides that turning back is too dangerous, angering Svetlana, who then leads a mutiny and, after the ship lands, exiles Bella to a structure set apart from the main colony. The novel traces the life of the colony for many years as they try to eke out an existence on Janus and determine why it is moving through space. They work out a way of deriving power from some alien technology they find, and slowly start to improve their living conditions. They eventually arrive at a vast megastructure where they meet an alien species, called ''Fountainheads''. The encounter with the benevolent aliens improves the colonists'' situation dramatically. The alien presence is played poorly by Svetlana who loses control of the colony to Bella. Bella does not exile Svetlana, even if she chooses a form of self-exile. The Fountainheads are able to rejuvenate humans, healing injuries and making them younger. The only restriction is that they cannot heal brain damage without the patient losing part of his/her personality. Bella and several others undergo rejuvenation to make themselves younger. Those that are rejuvenated still age, but more slowly. Another several decades go by as the Fountainheads and the humans co-exist. The Fountainheads are trading advanced technology with the colony in exchange for drilling rights on Janus, whose core is a vast energy resource. The Fountainheads warn Bella of the arrival of another, repulsive (by human standards) race called Musk Dogs that will infect the colony and tear it apart in an effort to get at Janus'' core. When they arrive, Svetlana meets with the Musk Dogs and trades with them, she tries to regain control of the colony, but her actions set off a chain of events that destroys Janus and requires everyone to evacuate. Svetlana, with the assistance of the Fountainheads, leaves the structure through the gap created by the explosion. Pictures from her ship reveal the structure to be a Torus the size of a planetary system, with part of the structure missing at its center (believed to be the Spicans'' quarters). Bella dies during the evacuation of Janus, but her body is nonetheless brought along with the evacuating colony. Her body remains in stasis for decades, waiting for the Fountainheads to restore her to life; she eventually awakens to learn that a new human colony has been established elsewhere in the structure.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

This Side of Paradise

By Fitzgerald

David Starr, Space Ranger

By Isaac Asimov

The Tempest

By William Shakespeare

Sylvia's Lovers

By Elizabeth Gaskell

Trading Up (Candace Bushnell))

By Candace Bushnell

Arabella

By Georgette Heyer

Birthright

By Richard A. Knaak

Baalyakaalasakhi

By Vaikom Muhammad Basheer

Heaven Has No Favorites

By Erich Maria Remarque

The Library Policeman

By Stephen King

The Gravedigger's Daughter

By Joyce Carol Oates

Pushing Ice

By Alastair Reynolds