On Earth, audiences are entranced by the musical entertainments staged by an alien troupe, the Ninth Company of the planet Rlaru. Dame Isabel Grayce (one of a long line of formidable society matrons in Vance’s works) has sponsored the entertainments; when the Ninth Company disappears without a trace, she proposes to recoup her losses and bring culture to the wastes of space by forming an opera company which Adolph Gondar (the discoverer of Rlaru) will pilot on a tour of suitable planets, with Rlaru as ultimate destination. Singers, orchestra, a British conductor (Sir Henry Rixon) are engaged; an argumentative critic, Bernard Bickel, who thinks the Ninth Company were fakes, is hired as musical consultant. Dame Isabel’s indolent and aptly named nephew Roger Wool (one of a long line of Vancian put-upon nephews) tags along also, smuggling his new girlfriend Madoc Roswyn, who claims to be a simple girl from Merioneth in Wales, aboard the ship as a stowaway. Like many of Vance’s works, the novel is a picaresque; Gondar has his own reasons for not returning to Rlaru, and diverts the company half way round the galaxy, with various adventures or humiliations occurring on the different planets they touch down on. (There are some similarities with Vance’s later novel Showboat World, which has a travelling company presenting performances of Shakespeare’s Macbeth to generally uncomprehending audiences along an immense river on a distant planet.) Over the course of the voyage, the company stages several celebrated works, such as Beethoven’s Fidelio, Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Così fan tutte, Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Flying Dutchman. These are performed before various human or non-human audiences, the libretti and costumes sometimes having to be adapted to become understandable to alien cultures. On the whole, due to such cultural disparities, their reception is far from that expected by Dame Isabel: on a penal colony planet, for instance, the performances are made the cover for a jail-break; on a planet inhabited by a race priding themselves on their musical talents, the productions are vetted by an artistic inspector and the company is fined for every unresolved dissonance in the scores performed; on still another, the performance is mistaken for a trade exhibition and the aliens attempt to buy some of the singers. While Gondar is confined to his cabin, apparently insane, Madoc Roswyn induces his deputy to take the ship to the distant planet Yan. It emerges that her remote ancestors inhabited a land now sunk beneath the Bay of Biscay whose people had colonized that planet and there developed a high civilization. (Here we detect the germ of Vance’s later major fantasy trilogy Lyonesse, the heroine of whose third volume is named Madouc.) A group had returned to Earth thousands of years later, but their spacecraft was destroyed and they were forced to settle in Wales, ever intending to return to Yan. Madoc is their last descendant. She is disappointed by what she finds: Yan’s cities are dust and its folk have reverted to barbarism, hiding in the forests. Although the company present Debussy''s Pelléas to try to establish communication with the unseen inhabitants, they barely escape with their lives. Eventually the voyage ends at Rlaru. It turns out that Gondar had abducted the Ninth Company from the planet; he is suitably punished by the natives, who demonstrate a capacity to creatively manipulate illusion and environment far beyond anything their Earth visitors can achieve. They listen to several operas with mounting boredom, but are utterly entranced by an impromptu washboard jazz band formed by some members of the crew, which has been a source of annoyance to the opera-lovers throughout the voyage. (Vance was at one time a jazz musician.) Dame Isabel returns to Earth, chastened but determined not to admit it; Roger marries Madoc Roswyn and begins writing a book describing the voyage.

Space Opera

Changing Places is a comic novel with serious undercurrents. It tells the story of the six-month academic exchange between fictional universities located in Rummidge (modelled on Birmingham in England) and Plotinus, in the state of Euphoria (modeled on Berkeley in California). The two academics taking part in the exchange are both aged 40, but appear at first to otherwise have little in common, mainly because of the differing academic systems of their native countries. The English participant, Philip Swallow, is a very conventional and conformist British academic, and somewhat in awe of the American way of life. By contrast the American, Morris Zapp, is a top-ranking American professor who only agrees to go to Rummidge because his wife agrees to postpone long-threatened divorce proceedings on condition that he move out of the marital home for six months. Zapp is at first both contemptuous of, and amused by, what he perceives as the amateurism of British academia. As the exchange progresses, however, both Swallow and Zapp find that they begin to fit in surprisingly well to their new environments. In the course of the story, each man has an affair with the other''s wife. Before that, Swallow sleeps with Zapp''s daughter Melanie, without realizing who she is. She, however, takes up with a former undergraduate student of his, Charles Boon. Swallow and Zapp even consider remaining permanently. The book ends with the two couples convened in a New York hotel room to decide their fates. The novel ends without a clear-cut decision, though the sequel Small World: An Academic Romance, reveals that Swallow and Zapp returned to their respective countries and domestic situations.

Changing Places

Born in 1916 in a well-to-do family in America, Sarah Thompson married Freddie, a man who had time for everything except her. He drank all night and mingled with prostitutes. Sarah became pregnant, but miscarried. She got a divorce and moped around all day. Her concerned parents dragged her to Europe where well-meaning friends and family forced their nephews, sons and grandsons on her. She met William Whitfield, the Duke of Whitfield, 13th in line for succession to the British throne. Captivated by him, she finally became his companion in London. He cast aside her fears of a public scandal and finally convinced Sarah to marry him. On their honeymoon France, Sarah and William happened upon Chateau de la Meuze. According to Sarah''s wishes, William bought the Chateau as a Christmas present. They worked hard to restore the estate, but it was mainly Sarah''s work that did the job. The world was in for a bad time. World War II had begun. Reluctantly, after the birth of their first child Phillip, William left to join the RAF when England declared war on Germany. The Germans took possession of France, and German troops, led by the courtly commandant Joachim von Mannheim, seized the chateau to establish a care center for the wounded and dying soldiers, removing Sarah and Phillip to the caretaker''s cottage. Joachim fell in love with Sarah, but Sarah was still faithful to William. She discovered she was pregnant, and gave birth to a daughter Elizabeth, who died soon of a fever, due to few medical supplies. Soon, Joachim had to leave, and William returned from the war, but he had lost the use of his legs. In later years, Sarah went on to have more kids - Julian, Isabelle, Xavier. William died on the night of Xavier''s first birthday. After William''s funeral, Joachim returned, only to find that Sarah had no place in her heart for another man. The book then goes on to tell us of how Sarah spends the rest of her days till her 75th birthday, busy with her kids and her jewelry store - Whitfield Jewelers - jewelers to the Crown. Steel paints a portrait of a family, imperfect as they may be, and the powerful matriarch who reminds them of the bond that transcends titles, money, and borders.

Jewels

The story begins in the Soviet Union, just after the end of the Russian Civil War. A lonely engineer, Mstislav Los'', designs and constructs a revolutionary pulse detonation rocket and decides to set course for Mars. Looking for a companion for the travel, he finally leaves Earth with a retired soldier, Alexei Gusev. Arriving on Mars, they discover that the planet is inhabited by an advanced civilization. However, the gap between the ruling class and the workers is very strong and reminiscent of the early capitalism, with workers living in underground corridors near their machines. Later in the novel, it is explained that Martians are descendants of both local races and of Atlanteans who came there after the sinking of their home continent. Mars is now ruled by Engineers but all is not well. While speaking before an assembly, their leader, Toscoob, says that the city must be destroyed to ease the fall of Mars. Aelita, Toscoob''s beautiful daughter and the princess of Mars, later reveals to Los'' that the planet is dying, that the polar ice caps are not melting as they once did and the planet is facing an environmental catastrophe. While the adventurous Gusev takes the lead of a popular uprising against the ruler the more intellectual Los'' becomes enamored with Aelita. When the rebellion is crushed, they are forced to flee Mars and eventually make it back to Earth. The trip is prolonged with the effects of high speed and time dilation resulting in a loss of over three years and the exact fate of Aelita herself is unknown. It is hinted that she actually survived because Los'' receives radio messages from Mars mentioning his name.

Aelita

The plot of the novel hinges on the actions of a modest technical journalist, Keith Stewart, whose life has been focused on the design and engineering of scale-model machinery. Stewart writes serial articles about how to create scale models in a magazine called the Miniature Mechanic, which are extremely well regarded in the modelling community — as is he. Stewart is called upon to hide a metal box in his sister''s and brother in law''s sailboat just before they plan to leave in it to emigrate to Canada. Until they are settled in British Columbia, their daughter, Keith''s niece, is to remain with Keith and his wife. His in-laws are lost at sea in French Polynesia. After the deaths are confirmed, Keith is told by his in-laws'' solicitor, that there is almost no money in the estate, but there is evidence that Keith''s brother-in-law has converted his wealth into diamonds to take with him abroad, to evade export and currency restrictions intended to prevent capital leaving Britain. Keith''s guardianship of his niece is now permanent, and he becomes her trustee (hence the title), but where is her money? Keith knows that the metal box he secreted contained the diamonds, and he starts to investigate how he may travel to retrieve it from the wreck. It is a difficult problem. Keith, while not poor, has chosen to do work he loves in place of better-paying work, and cannot afford to travel to Polynesia. He is able to call on connections in the model engineering world to deadhead his way on a flight as far as Hawaii. Finding no conventional way to get further which is within his means, he takes passage on the hand-built sailing ship of a half-Polynesian from Oregon, Jack Donelly. Somewhat to the consternation of Keith''s friends, he and Jack sail off (Keith having received a quick lesson in navigation) with little regard for paperwork. One of the crew that took Keith to Hawaii, upon his return, worriedly approaches Keith''s editor. The editor, somewhat shocked at the risks that Keith is taking, starts trolling the close-knit world of miniature mechanics for someone who could help Keith. Eventually, Mr. Solomon Hirzhorn, who controls much of the lumber of the Pacific Northwest from his home and business near Tacoma, Washington, is informed. As it happens, Hirzhorn, an inexperienced modeller, has sent lengthy letters asking for elementary clarifications of Keith''s modelling articles, which Keith always patiently answered. Hirzhorn is currently building one of Keith''s designs, a Congreve clock, and jumps at the chance to help Keith. Hirzhorn arranges for the yacht of a business associate, Chuck Ferris (coincidentally, the yacht whose captain was consulted by Keith and Jack in Honolulu for advice on the proper course to Tahiti) to proceed to Tahiti to help Keith out. As it happens, Keith is in great need of that help, for he and Jack have arrived in Tahiti without any ship''s papers, and the two are in danger of jail. The captain smooths over the situation, and leaves with Keith on board the yacht for the island where the wreck is located. Keith reaches the island, meditates on the fate that has brought him so far, takes many pictures, erects a headstone—and leaves with the wreck''s engine, which he proposes to ship back to Britain and sell. After an amusing incident where Ferris''s much-married daughter, Dawn, runs off with Jack Donelly, the yacht proceeds to Washington State, where Hirzhorn is anxious to meet the engineer he so admires. Keith arranges to have the engine shipped home, then spends several days visiting Hirzhorn and helping him with the clock, and is able to help him out by catching an engineering error in the contract between Hirzhorn''s company and Ferris''s that might have cost a couple of million dollars. Hirzhorn arranges for a large consultancy fee to be paid to Stewart by Ferris''s company and has his own company pay Stewart''s airfare home. Keith arrives home. The consultancy fee enables his wife to stop working and take care of their niece. The diamonds are "discovered" by Keith in the oil in the engine''s sump soon after it arrives, and proceeds from their sale enable them to take care of their niece''s education and other needs. The other characters proceed on their lives happily, we are told at the end of what is probably Shute''s most villain-free novel.

Trustee from the Toolroom

The story is narrated in the first person by Frank Chambers, a young drifter who stops at a rural California diner for a meal, and ends up working there. The diner is operated by a young, beautiful woman, Cora, and her much older husband, Nick Papadakis, sometimes called "the Greek". There is an immediate attraction between Frank and Cora, and they begin a passionate affair with sadomasochistic qualities (when they first embrace, Cora commands Frank to bite her lip, and Frank does so hard enough to draw blood). Cora, a femme fatale figure, is tired of her situation, married to a man she does not love, and working at a diner that she wishes to own and improve. Frank and Cora scheme to murder the Greek in order to start a new life together without Cora losing the diner. They plan on striking Nick''s head and making it seem he fell and drowned in the bathtub. Cora fells Nick with a solid blow, but, due to a sudden power outage and the appearance of a policeman, the scheme fails. Nick recovers and because of retrograde amnesia does not suspect that he narrowly avoided being killed. Determined to kill Nick, Frank and Cora fake a car accident. They ply Nick with wine, strike him on the head, and crash the car. Frank and Cora are injured. The local prosecutor suspects what has actually occurred, but doesn''t have enough evidence to prove it. As a tactic intended to get Cora and Frank to turn on one another, he charges only Cora with the crime of Nick''s murder, coercing Frank to sign a complaint against her. Cora, furious and indignant, insists upon offering a full confession detailing both their roles. Her lawyer tricks her into dictating that confession to a member of his own staff. Cora, believing her confession made, returns to prison. Though Cora would be sure to learn of the trickery, a few valuable hours are gained. The lawyer uses the time to manipulate those financially interested in the trial to have their private detective recant his testimony, which was the final remaining weapon in the prosecution''s arsenal. The state is forced to grant Cora a plea agreement, under which she is given a suspended sentence and no jail time. Frank and Cora patch things up and plan a happy-family future. Then Cora is killed in a car accident while Frank is driving. The book ends with Frank, from death row, summarizing the events that followed, explaining that he was wrongly convicted of having murdered Cora. The text, he hopes, will be published after his execution.

The Postman Always Rings Twice

Written in a series of internal monologues and reflections, the book is told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator who lives next to Tinker Creek, in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Roanoke, Virginia. Over the course of a year, the narrator observes and reflects upon the changing of the seasons as well as the flora and fauna near her home. Pilgrim is thematically divided into four sections—one for each season—consisting of separate, named chapters: "Heaven and Earth in Jest", "Seeing", "Winter", "The Fixed", "The Knot", "The Present", "Spring", "Intricacy", "Flood", "Fecundity", "Stalking", "Nightwatch", "The Horns of the Altar", "Northing", and "The Waters of Separation". The first chapter, "Heaven and Earth in Jest", serves as an introduction to the book. The narrator describes the location as well as her connection to it: I live by a creek, Tinker Creek, in a valley in Virginia''s Blue Ridge. An anchorite''s hermitage is called an anchor-hold; some anchor-holds were simple sheds clamped to the side of a church like a barnacle or a rock. I think of this house clamped to the side of Tinker Creek as an anchor-hold. It holds me at anchor to the rock bottom of the creek itself and keeps me steadied in the current, as a sea anchor does, facing the stream of light pouring down. It''s a good place to live; there''s a lot to think about. In the afterword of the 1999 Harper Perennial Modern Classics edition, Dillard states that the book&#39;s other, two-part structure mirrors the two routes to God according to Neoplatonic Christianity: the via positiva and the via negativa. The first half of the book, the via positiva, beginning with the second chapter, &#34;accumulates the world&#39;s goodness and God&#39;s.&#34; The second half, the via negativa, ends with the chapter &#34;Northing&#34; which Dillard notes is the counterpart of the second chapter, &#34;Seeing&#34;. The first and last chapters of the book serve as the introduction and conclusion, respectively. The narrative is composed of vignettes detailing the narrator&#39;s wanderings around the creek. In &#34;The Present&#34; the narrator encounters a puppy at a gas station off the highway, and pats its belly while contemplating the view of the nearby mountain range; the reflective act of &#34;petting the puppy&#34; is referred to in several other chapters. In &#34;Stalking&#34;, the narrator pursues a group of muskrats in the creek during summer. One of the most famous passages comes from the beginning of the book, when the narrator witnesses a frog being drained and devoured by a water beetle.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Le Meneur de Loups is set around 1780 in Dumas'' native town of Villers-Cotterêts, and is supposedly based on a local folk-tale Dumas heard as a child. The story concerns Thibault, a shoe-maker, who is beaten by the gamekeeper of the Lord of Vez for interfering with the lord''s hunting. Afterwards he encounters a huge wolf, walking on its hind legs like a man, who offers him vengeance; Thibault may wish harm on any person in return for one of his own hairs for each wish. To seal the agreement, the two exchange rings. As a result of this bargain he also finds himself able to command the local wolves, and hence gradually gains the reputation of being a werewolf. Thibault''s first two wishes kill the gamekeeper and injure the Lord of Vez. The wishes turn two hairs on his head long and red, as do his subsequent ones, which, though equally successful, also backfire against him in unexpected ways, leaving him scorned and hated by others in his community. Finally one of his wishes causes him to trade bodies with Lord Raoul of Vauparfond, who is having an affair with the wife of the Count de Mont-Gobert. Caught with the lady by the count as the result of an earlier wish against Lord Raoul, he is mortally wounded. He manages to keep himself alive until transferred back into his own body, only to find himself trapped in his own home, to which the townsfolk have set fire. Escaping, Thibault takes to the forest, where he subsists on animals caught for him by his wolves and hunts and is hunted by the Lord of Vez. He has but one human hair left on his head. The conclusion of the book, however, brings him an unusual redemption.

The Wolf Leader

The book begins with an argument between Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, and Julius Caesar, in which Caesar belittles the accomplishments of the Egyptian people. Infuriated, Cleopatra makes a wager with Caesar promising to build a new palace in Alexandria within three months. Cleopatra summons Edifis, who claims to be the best architect in Egypt. She promises Edifis that if he builds the palace on time he will be covered with gold; if he fails, he will be a meal for the sacred crocodiles. A worried Edifis thinks he needs magic to help him, enlists the help of the Gauls, Asterix, Obelix, Getafix, and Dogmatix. Thanks to Getafix and his magic potion, the work goes forward on schedule, despite multiple attempts by Edifis''s arch rival, Artifis, to sabotage the construction after Edifis says he doesn''t want to get help of them. Artifis tells the workers to demand less whipping, which would slow construction. However Getafix gives the workers magic potion. Artifis bribes the stone-delivery man to throw his quarry away, before Obelix beats him up, causing him to reveal the truth, a henchman tries to lock the Gauls inside a pyramid but Dogmatix helps him find his way out, he tries to frame the Gauls by sending a poisoned cake to Cleopatra, but Getafix makes an antidote enabling the Gauls to eat it, then cures the taster and claims eating too much rich food was giving him a bad stomach. Edifis is kidnapped and hidden in a sarcophagus in the house of Artifis, but Obelix frees him. Artfis and his henchman are forced to work on the palace, but without magic potion. Just before the palace is due to be completed, Caesar intervenes by sending legions to try to arrest the Gauls, after he realises the three Gauls are in Egypt when a spy disguises himself as a worker, and sees the effects of the magic potion. The Gauls fight off the Roman soldiers, but the commanding officer proceeds to shell the building with his catapults. In desperation, Asterix and Dogmatix deliver the news to Cleopatra. A furious Cleopatra then hurries to the construction site to berate Caesar. Caesar''s legions are required to fix the damage they caused (without any magic potion to help them) and the palace is successfully completed on time. Cleopatra wins her bet and covers Edifis with gold. Edifis and Artifis reconcile and agree to build pyramids together, and Cleopatra gives Getafix some papyrus manuscripts from the Library of Alexandria as a gift.

Asterix and Cleopatra

The novel begins with Saffron searching through the colour chart pinned up in her house, looking for her name. The characters are introduced. While Saffron searches, the health visitor is checking up on Rose, her new sister. The health visitor then discovers Rose has been sucking Caddy''s paint tubes. The health visitor threatens to take Rose to Casualty. Saffron finds out that she was adopted by Bill and Eve, after Saffron''s mother, who is Eve''s sister, is killed in a car crash and becomes deeply upset, despite being comforted by her family. The story fast forwards to when Rose is 6 years old. Rose starts school (a year late according to the health visitor) and draws her first picture, which her teacher pastes to the wall. Rose is very upset and persuades Indigo to steal her picture and Caddy to draw an identical one to go up on the wall instead. Rose, Indigo, Saffron and Caddy''s grandfather visits and Caddy has another disastrous driving lesson and tells her driving instructor, Michael about failing all her exams. Soon after their grandfather visits, he dies and leaves something to each of the children. For Cadmium, his property in Wales. For Indigo, his car. For Saffron, his angel in the garden. And for Rose, his money. After the will is read, Bill heads back down to London and while running after him, Saffron meets Sarah. Caddy has another lesson, meanwhile Saffron goes round to Sarah''s house and meets her mother, Mrs Warbeck, the headmistress of the private school. Sarah begins the idea of visiting Siena, where Saffron believes the stone angel is. Sarah persuades her mother and father to take her to Siena during the term, and Sarah''s mother begins to trust the two friends, and lets them go into town together. They meet up with some girls their age who all have their noses pierced. Sarah wants one too and persuades Saffron to get one done. When Sarah''s mother finds out Sarah is in lots of trouble, but Saffron''s nose ring is admired by her family. Soon after, Caddy scatters her revision books across the house, in order to revise everywhere and to beat her driving instructor''s talented (made-up) girlfriend. Sarah perfects her plan to smuggle Saffron into Siena in her car and Saffron is forced to agree by her sisters and brother. Caddy passes her written driving test and Saffron heads off to Siena with Sarah''s family. When they arrive at Siena, Sarah''s family having found out three-quarters of the way there, Mrs Warbeck, Sarah and Saffron set off to find the stone angel. They discover a locked door and go back very disappointed. Sarah''s father starts up a rude game marking Italians'' bottoms out of ten. Saffron makes a call home and talks to her mother. Caddy is still revising to beat Michael''s girlfriend, Rose is doing her art and Indigo is conquering more fears of his. Saffron and Sarah try again and again, until on the last day they find Saffron''s forgotten neighbour. The neighbour tells Saffron that her grandfather took the stone angel away long ago, when he took Saffron. Meanwhile, Caddy takes her driving test. Rose and Indigo decide to look in the Banana House for Saffy''s angel. Caddy is very disappointed to find she passed her driving test, because she can''t have driving lessons with Michael anymore. However, Indigo and Rose persuade Caddy to drive to Wales to find Saffy''s angel, Indigo''s car and Caddy''s house after Indigo has a brainwave. On the way there, Rose holds up lots of signs to make up for Caddy''s nervous driving. When they arrive in Wales, they find barbed wire around Caddy''s house with a large ''Keep Out'' sign plastered on. But, they climb over and find Indigo''s wrecked car with a chest in the back, nailed tightly shut. They return home to find Saffy and Sarah back from Siena. Bill also has arrived home, and has to have everything explained to him by Saffron and the rest of the family. Bill opens the box and finds Saffy''s stone angel in pieces. Saffron is delighted to have found the box. Caddy is going to university in London, after passing all of her exams. Before Caddy goes, however, Caddy finds the perfect resin and paint, to stick Saffy''s angel back together right before she leaves. Saffy finds out that she belongs in the casson family and there is no place like home.

Saffy''s Angel

Frederick Altamont Cornwalis Twistleton, fifth Earl of Ickenham, known to all as Uncle Fred, is on the loose once again (Lady Ickenham having decamped for a wedding in Trinidad), and Reginald ("Pongo") Twistleton, his long-suffering nephew (and Drones Club member) has every right to be petrified. Uncle Fred has just arrived at Ashenden Manor, home of Sir Aylmer Bostock, Pongo''s future father-in-law. Pongo is already in residence and has committed two rank floaters: accidentally smashing a whatnot from Sir Aylmer''s collection of African curios, and (in the course of demonstrating how Brazilian natives kill birds with rude slings) smashing a coveted bust of his host. Pongo''s solution is to replace the busted bust with another one, abstracted from Ickenham hall. But unknown to him, the replacement bust was fashioned by his former fiancée Sally Painter, and conceals valuable jewellery that a friend of hers was planning to smuggle through New York Customs. Sally tries to replace the bust with another of Sir Aylmer she sculpted (but had had returned to her, after an unfortunate incident relating to her brother Otis'' publication of Sir Aylmer''s memoirs), but this comes to naught, and both busts end up in Sir Aylmer''s collection room. Uncle Fred sees these not as reverses, but as opportunities to show his stuff. Having met Bill Oakshott (the nominal owner of Ashenden Manor, but under the thumb of his uncle Sir Aylmer) on the train, he contrives to get invited to the house&mdash;under the name of Major Brabazon-Plank. Unfortunately, the local Constable, Harold Potter, happens to have grown up with Major Plank (and also happens to remember arresting Uncle Fred and Pongo at the dog races under the names of Edwin Smith of Nasturtium Road, East Dulwich). Potter, intimately tied to the household through his fiancée, the housemaid Elsie Bean, becomes suspicious, and watches the house. Uncle Fred''s tasks before him are to snatch the bust for Sally Painter; get Sir Aylmer to drop his suit against Otis, so Sally will not lose the money she invested in his firm; convince Pongo to turn down Hermione Bostock and marry Sally instead; restore Bill Oakshott to his place as head of his family home; and convince Constable Potter not only to not arrest him, but indeed to quit the force so he and Elsie Bean may live happily ever after. The only obstacles in his way are the real Major Brabazon-Plank and the irresistible opportunity to judge the Bonnie Babies competition at the Ashenden Oakshott Fête. Bill Oakshott finds inspiration in the dominant hero of Ethel M. Dell''s ''The Way of an Eagle''. This real-life female novelist was a model for another of Wodehouse''s characters, Rosie M. Banks. The story has also been adapted as a serial in six half-hour episodes for BBC Radio 4, starring Richard Briers as Uncle Fred and Hugh Grant as Pongo, with narration by Paul Eddington. Uncle Fred and Pongo would return in Cocktail Time (1958) and Service With a Smile (1961).

Uncle Dynamite

From diary-style notes and personal memories and conversations, the fictive narrator Reverend Busch reconstructs and documents the stepwise fall of his missing friend, the teacher Konrad Zündel. During many summer weeks, the life of the depressive, intellectual, quixotic protagonist is destroyed step by step. In the reader’s eyes, Zündel simply suffers one mishap after another, but for the unstable teacher - that says, he never was happy in his life - these mishaps lead into mania and into the planning and execution of his departure. Konrad Zündel and his wife Magda, whose relationship after five years breaks down because of everyday things, decide to spend their holidays separately. While Magda spends some days with her friend Helen, Konrad decides to visit Greece. But in Italy, he suddenly loses an incisor and travels back to Switzerland per train. While travelling, his wallet gets stolen and he, into the bargain, finds a severed finger on the train closet. This severed finger’s origins and meaning never are explained. In his Swiss flat, the caretaker denotes, Magda did something with another man. Later, this statement turns out to be a lie – but the thought of losing his wife throws Zündel out of his way. He travels to Genua, where he once was sired by a Swiss sick-nurse and an irresponsible globetrotter. In Genua, he is drunken nearly all the time and tries to write down his philosophical – often cynic – gnosis. It is about – like the whole novel – the relation between Konrad and Magda, between man and woman, between womanhood and manhood. The guilty for his departure, due to Magda, who represent the totality of all women, who destroy men with their will to self-actualization. Zündel has two important meetings in Genua: In a bar, he meets Serafin (not only his name reminds angels) a Spanish sailor with an Austrian dialect. The two men are constating a relation between their souls – and leave each other. Not less surreal is the meeting with the French woman Nounou; Zündel spends a night with her, again discovering relation of souls. He leaves her in dawn, before the situation would necessitate hundred knives to separate us. After these two meetings, Zündel wants to fulfil the main goal of his voyage: Getting an illegal handgun. This plan shipwrecks, too. Because of his naivety and gentleman''s style, Zündel is frauded. Afterwards, he travels home. Extremely confused, undernutrited and now heavily addicted to alcohol, he enters the flat, where the distressed Magda has expected his return for days. A normal conversation, that would clear these misunderstandings (e.g. the not existing lover), isn''t possible, because Zündel now is mentally ill. The next morning, the teacher Zündel only gives another two lessons, which turn out to be very strange. Then he breaks down in school, is brought to the hospital and then to mental clinic. The psychiatrists fail in making a diagnosis. Zündel escapes from the clinic to his weekend house in the mountains, where he hides armed and dangerous. The narrator, Busch, is the last person who is able to get close to him, before he departs finally.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Space Opera

By Jack Vance

Changing Places

By David Lodge

Jewels

By Danielle Steel

Aelita

By Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy

Trustee from the Toolroom

By Nevil Shute

The Postman Always Rings Twice

By James M. Cain

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

By Annie Dillard

The Wolf Leader

By Alexandre Dumas

Asterix and Cleopatra

By René Goscinny

Saffy's Angel

By Hilary McKay

Uncle Dynamite

By P. G. Wodehouse

Zündels Abgang

By Markus Werner