In the book, environment, famine, overpopulation, climate changes, floods, tornadoes, hothouse effect (now commonly referred to as greenhouse effect), etc. are generally predicted to worsen and become acute by the end of the 20th century. Berlitz lists of doomsday years is long. He starts with the year 999, December 31 when many expected Jesus to return, and goes through a great many doomsday prophecies by scientists, prophets, astrologers and others. In chapter 8, he asks whether the world has ended before, mentioning Atlantis, an idea which he revisits later in his books The Mystery of Atlantis and Atlantis: The Lost Continent Revealed. Berlitz suggests that there may have been a flood, an idea which he explores further in his book The Lost Ship of Noah: In Search of the Ark at Ararat (1987) and in chapter 9 where he cites the tales of a great flood from the Bible and the Torah, Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Greek, Indian, Persian, Welsh, Norse, Lithuanian, Irish, Chinese, Aztec-Toltec, Maya records and Chibcha tales.

Doomsday 1999 A.D.

When Pat and Isabel arrive at school, they are surprised to meet a new matron. Then French teacher Mam''zelle introduces Claudine, her niece, who will be joining them for this term. Alison O''Sullivan, the twins'' rather silly cousin, meets and befriends Angela, who is rich, beautiful and well dressed. Soon, Alison is completely under the spoilt, snobbish Angela''s thumb. The new Matron''s daughter Eileen is a reserved girl who is later identified as a sneak. Pauline is soon discovered to be a snobbish and conceited girl who continuously brags about her family''s ''wealth''. During the inevitable midnight feast the girls find themselves in trouble when Matron is spitefully locked for hours in a broom cupboard by Claudine while they were having the feast. She is furious to find that she is released by her daughter, Eileen, and thinks that she was with the other girls, while actually she was speaking with her brother Eddie, who lost his job but doesn''t dare to tell his mother. Eileen is in trouble. Pauline suffers a worse fate than Eileen when her mother visits unexpectedly and is happened upon by Alison and Angela, who mistake the poor, worn-out woman for one of the cooks. Pauline, like Eileen, is exposed as working class. Angela is scornful to discover that all Pauline''s boasts of wealth are lies, and that she is ashamed of her lower-class background. The more compassionate Alison, however, takes pity on Pauline''s mother, and to her credit, stands up to Angela''s snobbish and domineering attitude, vowing to be less in her thrall in future. Alison also makes this action because of the awful behavior of Angela''s mother at half-term. Even she felt that though beautiful, Angela''s mother was horrible and was also secretly pleased when the brave and mischievous Claudine fell into the water from a balcony so that Angela''s mother gets wet even though Claudine hates the water. Near the end of the book Matron reveals that someone is stealing food, money and even stamps from her. It is written that Eileen stole the things in order to feed Eddie and apply for a new job. When Eddie does get employed, Eileen and Eddie go to Miss Theobald to confess about the stealing, for they heard that Pauline had been accused of this even though she had been taking money from her mother''s bank account (In a short section also Claudine is suspected for stealing, for she suddenly has a lot of money and buys expensive birthday presents, but it turns out that she sold her lovely cushion cover that Mam''zelle showed to everyone at half term to Alison''s mother.) Miss Theobald sends Eileen and Eddie into her other room next door, and calls for Matron. She tells her that she knows who stole from her, and asks Matron whether the girl should be expelled or not, since it was Matron who had been stolen from. The unkind Matron insists that the girl should be expelled, and is then lead to Eileen and Eddie. Matron cannot believe her eyes, and then sees the trap she fell into. She leaves St. Claire''s at the end of the year with her children, but Eileen sends a last letter to Alison thanking her for inviting her to eat together at half-term.

Claudine at St.Clare''s

Giovanni ''Nino'' Culotta is an Italian immigrant, who comes to Australia as a journalist, employed by an Italian publishing house, to write articles about Australians and their way of life for those Italians that might want to emigrate to Australia. In order to learn about real Australians, Nino takes a job as a brickie''s labourer with a man named Joe Kennedy. The comedy of the novel revolves around his attempts to understand English as it was spoken in Australia by the working classes in the 1950s and 1960s. Nino had previously only learned ''good'' English from a textbook. The novel is a social commentary on Australian society of the period; specifically male, working class society. Women mostly feature as cameos in the story with the exception of Kay (whose surname is not revealed in the novel), who becomes Nino''s wife. In the novel, Nino meets Kay in a cafe in Manly and their introduction is effected by Nino trying to teach Kay that she cannot eat spaghetti using a spoon. The final message of the novel is that immigrants to Australia should count themselves fortunate and should make efforts to assimilate into Australian society, including learning to speak Australian English. However, there is also a satirical undercurrent aimed at Australian society as a country of migrants.

They''re a Weird Mob

The Lord Saukendar, Imperial sword master and stalwart supporter of the Emperor is betrayed, falsely accused of an affair with his childhood sweetheart Lady Meiya, now the Emperor''s wife. Meiya is dead, and hostile forces have command of the Emperor''s regency. Wounded, desperate and cut off from his supporters, Saukendar runs for the border. In a homemade cabin high in the hills Saukendar survives crippled and alone, his warhorse Jiro and his regrets his only company, while the empire is bled by the rapacious warlords that are regent to the Emperor. Only occasional assassins dispatched by the Regent disturb his morose existence. Taizu, a country girl from Hua locates him, demands he teach her sufficient swordsmanship to extract her revenge for her people''s suffering. Despite his better judgment and strenuous efforts to discourage her, she forces him to take her on as apprentice swordswoman. Shoka, as he prefers to be known to his friends, becomes fond of the girl. In the process of teaching her and supporting her cause, they become embroiled in the affairs of empire, becoming the spearhead of a revolt that rescues the Emperor from his Regent and his people from the clutches of the warlords.

The Paladin

There is no plot in the usual sense of specific individuals going through particular events. The novel is told in the first person plural, from the point of view of many girls and women, none of whom is individualized as a continuing character, but all of whom are vividly described in a sentence or two. The first chapter, "Come, Japanese!" describes a boatload of Japanese picture brides coming to California to marry men they have never met. The next chapter, "First Night", is about the consummation of their marriages with their new husbands, most of whom are nothing like the descriptions they had given. The third chapter, "Whites", describes the women''s lives in their new country and their relationship with their American bosses and neighbors. Some of the women become migrant laborers living in rural shacks, some are domestic workers living in the servants'' quarters of suburban homes, and some set up businesses and living quarters in the "Japantown", or "J-Town", area of big cities. "Babies" tells about giving birth and "Children" about raising American-born children, who want to speak only English and are ashamed of their immigrant parents, but are discriminated against by most of their classmates, neighbors and merchants. "Traitors" describes the effect of the Pearl Harbor attack and World War II on the families: the rumors and increasingly the reality of Japanese men being arrested without warning, the fear and eventually the reality of entire families being sent away to parts unknown. "Last Day" tells of the departure of the Japanese from their homes, jobs and schools. The final chapter, "A Disappearance," is told from the point of view of the white American families left behind, who at first miss their Japanese neighbors but gradually forget about them.

The Buddha in the Attic

After Kasturi Rangappa Nayaka II dies in 1754 without an heir, 12-year old Madakari Nayaka, son of Bharamappa Nayaka of Jaanakalludurga (a small fort town close to Chitradurga), is named his successor and ascends to the throne. The young king is trained in the art of kingship by KaLLi Narasappayya, the able prime minister of Chitradurga, and Obavvanaagati, mother of Kasturi Rangappa Nayaka II, and soon blossoms into a capable administrator and fearless warrior. His brother, Parashurama Nayaka, meanwhile is trained in the art of prime ministership by Narasappayya. Madakari Nayaka soon faces challenges from neighbouring enemies of Chitradurga such as Rayadurga and HarapanahaLLi, whose rulers have long eyed this fort and try to take advantage of Madakari''s youth and relative ineperience and defeat him in battle. However, young Madakari is up to the challenge and leads his forces successfully against the would-be usurpers. Soon, he establishes himself as a kind ruler of his subjects and iron-fisted vanquisher of his enemies. He weds Bangaravva (daughter of the Nayaka of Jarimale) and Padma, while also maintaining a concubinal relationship with a young woman named KaDoori and her sister Nagavva. Meanwhile, Hyder Ali begins extending the empire of Mysore all across South India. He has faced off with the English and the Mughals and only the Marathas are like a thorn in his flesh. He asks for Madakari Nayaka''s friendship and assistance in defeating the Marathas. In turn, the Marathas, under Madhava Rao I, also ask for Madakari''s help in their campaign against Hyder. Madakari, who leads a pack of BeDa warriors famed for their bravery and ferocity, agrees to help the Marathas (despite being prodded in Hyder''s direction by prime minister Narasappayya) and, using his trained warriors, crushes the rulers of several forts in battle, the most famous being the battle of Nijagalhttp://www.sandeepweb.com/2008/10/29/the-battle-of-nijagal. He hands over these forts to the Marathas in exchange for their friendship and money. With time, however, the Marathas become disunited and their internal strife leads to Hyder Ali gaining an upper hand once again. Madakari then begins helping Hyder in several campaigns against the Marathas (this time heeding Narasappayya''s advice). It seems that the Chitradurga-Mysore friendship is genuine and strong. Soon, however, the representatives of Hyder Ali in Chitradurga are discovered (by Madakari''s brother, Parashurama Nayaka, an apprentice to Narasappayya) to be spying and collecting confidential information about the fort, its strengths and weaknesses, the army, the weapons in the Durga arsenal and other sensitive areas. The spies are punished and Narasappayya, shocked over his failure to nab these culprits, takes responsibility for it and resigns. He leaves for a pilgrimage with his wife as Parashurama Nayaka takes over as prime minister of Chitradurga. Relations between Chitradurga and Mysore slowly begin showing signs of strain. The rest of the novel is about the inexorable progress of the two kingdoms towards an epic confrontation.

Durgaastamana

Former journalist Danny Pastor has relaxed in Puerto Vallarta over the past year with María de la Luz Santos, a 22-year-old woman whom he''d first met as a cantina waitress. They moved in together shortly thereafter, and Luz asked Danny to marry her, but he kept her at arms'' length. One night when Luz went off by herself, she got pregnant by a drunken college student. Danny paid for her to have an abortion, and that incident made up his mind about her. One night as they relaxed in the El Niño cantina, Danny heard a gunshot and rushes outside to see two men dead. One was an American Navy officer, and the other was a software engineer ready to sell his company''s work on failure analysis to the Taiwanese government. Back at their apartment, Danny and Luz met a man who identifies himself as "Peter Schumann" and needs to get north of the Rio Grande quickly. Paying Danny five thousand in cash, Schumann arranges his passage in a rusting Ford Bronco named Vito. The film adaptation featured a Jeep Wagoneer instead of a Ford Bronco. Unaware at first of the nature of their journey, Luz wants to go with them to see her grandparents'' graves along the coast. When she met with them for the trip, Luz wore blue jeans and a shirt that read "Puerto Vallarta Squeeze" with two halves of a lime dripping down the center. Danny saw in the story of this trip a great opportunity for a literary comeback. As they travelled north, Danny, Luz, and Schumann evade American military and Mexican authorities. Schumann later revealed that he''s really former Marine sniper turned mercenary Clayton Price; he was commissioned to kill the engineer, but he took his job personally when he shot the naval officer. During the Vietnam War, Price was abandoned behind enemy lines by the officer who commanded the helicopter. After commandeering the backroads of rural Mexico, Price arranged to have a helicopter meet him near an abandoned silver mine at Zapata. After a fiesta the night before, Luz decided to go with Price because she''s fallen in love with him. As Price put it, "I''m not sure I''m capable of loving at all. But, Danny, you love too timidly. I''m not sure which is worse. You have this offhand way of treating her most of the time, as if she''s a partially reformed street whore. . . . She told me about her past. She says I treat her with respect. You figure it out." In a standoff with authorities, Price and Luz are killed. Danny heads back to Puerto Vallarta through Mazatlán, but he''s arrested when the gun Price used in the double murder is found behind his apartment''s toilet. Despite the evidence being circumstantial, Danny serves seventeen months of a ten-year prison sentence before he''s released with a one-way ticket to Laredo. Although ordered never to return to Mexico again, Danny does so to find Price and Luz''s graves in the Zapata cemetery. Price''s marker was removed, but Danny exhumed Luz''s coffin and reburied it in Celaya, where her grandparents were buried. During his time in prison, Danny wrote a manuscript about his adventures with Price and Luz as they rode north, but he never saw it again.

Puerto Vallarta Squeeze

Revolution is Not a Dinner Party begins in the weeks before the Cultural Revolution in China. Ling Chang is a nine year old girl whose parents are doctors which are part of the upper class society in China. When Ling''s father, Dr. Chang, had free time, he would teach Ling English and they would listen to American radio shows such as Voice of America. Dr. Chang''s colleague from the United States, Dr. Smith, kept close contact with Dr. Chang in the time before the Cultural Revolution via mail. In the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, a political officer, Comrade Li, moves into part of the Chang''s apartment room and begins conducts his operations from there. With the presence of Comarade Li next door, the Changs were forced to speak about controversial topics in hushed voices and listen to the American radio underneath blankets as well as displaying a revolutionary mindset through putting up pictures of Chairman Mao Zedong and assisting Comrade Li. Shortly after the officer moved in, Ling''s closest friend''s (Niu) father was taken away and branded as an antirevolutionary. After this, Ling was fearful her father would be taken as well. Shortly thereafter, Niu''s mother was taken away as well and Niu was forced to live with her. Shortly after moving in, Niu is sent away to labor on farms because he is in high school and was a member of the aristocracy, from there he tries to escape to Hong Kong. However, Niu is caught and forced to join a revolutionary gang. Meanwhile Ling is constantly being harassed at school by children of the working class who believe Ling is bourgeois; Ling''s clothing and long hair are constantly used as a means to make her look bourgeois. Ling''s family were marked as bourgeois sympathizers and her father was removed from surgery and was forced to work as a janitor at the hospital. One day, Ling and her father rescue an counter-revolutionary writer who was trying to commit suicide by drowning himself. Because the Ling and Dr. Chang rescued him, Niu and his gang, the Red Guard, came and arrested her father for being an antirevolutionary. Ling is forced to take care of herself during the night because her mother worked nights in the emergency room and her father was no longer there. She became old enough to take over shopping for her mother and began to haggle and barter for more and better goods than could be bought with the ration tickets. Then one day at school the teacher is thrown out and Gao, one of the young revolutionaries tries to cut her hair. Ling retaliates and him with her schoolbag and gets away unscathed. She then receives news that her father will be operating on Gao’s father at the hospital. As Ling attempts to sneak into the compound, the guards catch her and throw her into a room with mats that are infected with lice. Tired and unknowing that the mats are infected with lice, Ling sleeps on them and gets lice infested in her hair. The next morning, the gardener came into the room and let her go. When Ling got back to her apartment, her mother had to cut all of her hair. Six weeks later, Ling is publicly forced to apologize to Gao for beating him by walking about the town with a blackboard on her chest; Chairman Mao had died shortly before and Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife, was arrested and accused of plotting to overthrow the government. When Ling arrived at the hospital during her forced march around town, Comrade Li, the officer living in her study, was arrested for being associated with Jiang Qing. Ling''s father was shortly released thereafter and Ling, her mother, and Dr. Chang go home together after finally being reunited.

Revolution is Not a Dinner Party

The novel tells the story of Riccetto, a street urchin who the audience is first introduced to during his Confirmation and First Communion. Not too long afterwards, Riccetto is stealing from a blind beggar and a convent. Over the next few years, the reader follows along with Riccetto as he goes from robbery to scam to prostituting himself and back again while drifting around. During this time, many of his companions are killed or die off and there is constant immorality at hand. He is finally arrested and put in jail after trying to steal some iron in order to buy his fiancée an engagement ring. He is released afterwards and goes back to his same street life. Pasolini makes it clear to the reader that Riccetto and his peers are wanderers by nature, they have no life plans or goals and don’t care to; Riccetto is a more deviant Dean Moriarty of sorts. This is the way in which Pasolini finds this subclass of people to be free from modernity and rooted in a way of life that has since been lost. He also admired “what he considered their pre-political rebelliousness”; they were separated from the partisan politics that plagued post-war modern Italy. Pasolini wished to bring to the attention of the public the existence of this underground class they thought extinct. As he saw it, “They were thought of as a closed book. Yet, poor devils they really did exist”. He wrote the book in lowbrow language and derogatory slang that the real life “lumpen proletariat” would use that made the book not easily accessible for mainstream Italy, the Italy that Pasolini was against. He would later write in Heretical Empiricism that literature should be “written in a language substantially different from that of the writer, not leaving out of consideration a certain naturalism”. Another alienating characteristic of the book is the fact that the narrator does not provide any background information to a society who know nothing of what he is writing. His narration puts himself on the same level as the people he is writing of; he does not narrate from above. He saw the underground class as the only ones who survived the corruption brought about of industrialization and modernity; a sort of human time capsule. He saw them as the only ones who are truly free. He respects them for this, and sees them as being the true underclass; that even the Communist Party sees themselves as being above. <!--SEE MAIN ARTICLE ABOUT PASOLINI PLEASE

Ragazzi di vita

Rogue Ship is a standalone novel in a form of a Fixup, because of its form of 3 short stories re-hashed into one, the reader can tell without difficulty when the story changes from one original short story to the next. Because of this, Rogue Ship can sometimes lose some continuity, as there are ''large gaps'' in the plot/story line. Centaurus is the destination of the space ship, The Hope of Man. It has been traveling through space for almost twenty years, and still has nine years of flight remaining before Centaurus will be reached. For many on board the craft, Earth has become a vague memory, while for others it is a mere dot in the vast starry reaches of space. Restlessness is evident everywhere; the people want to return to a place they know is inhabited - not continue to an unknown where life is uncertain. Mutiny seems inevitable. Captain Lesbee (the ship''s main officer) knows that mutiny breeds mutiny, but what is more significant is his knowledge of Earth''s possible obliteration. The one hope is Centaurus. Now more than ever, there can be no turning back. Order has to be maintained even at the price of human life. After reaching Centaurus and finding it unsuitable to live on, The Hope of Man heads towards the next destination, the Alta system; because the ship at this time is unable to attain light speed it takes decades to travel there. Upon arriving in the system, after mutiny and treachery, The Hope of Man is now captained by Browne, a descendant of the ship''s original First Officer. The Hope of Man starts to orbit Alta III in search of a new planet to settle on, but again they find it already inhabited and come under attack from the occupants. During this time we see a struggle for power by various groups. Control changes quickly from one character to another until the arrival of the ship''s owner, Avil Hewitt. The novel concludes with Hewitt in charge and the ship finding many planets to inhabit.

Rogue Ship

Birthright spans a timeline of nearly 17 millennia, beginning at a very early stage of expansion from Earth and ending with the death of the last humans. In between, it chronicles a slow but (despite some set-backs) steady conquest of the entire galaxy - inhabited by thousands of sentient alien races, which are overpowered and oppressed using whatever tool it takes: economic pressure, diplomatic finesse, or simple military power. Not all chapters deal with mankind''s treatment of aliens; some also cover the "internal" politics that result in a development of the growing human empire from a democracy to a monarchy. But the biggest theme is undeniably the search for the elusive quality that allows mankind to overcome all opposition and manage the unique feat of conquering the entire galaxy. It is never clearly defined but manifests perhaps most succinctly when it also results in the failure of an attempt to cross the void between galaxies. Then, after there is no more room for conquest, the only way left is down: internal struggles as well as deep-seated resentment of aliens result in a decline of human power that takes nearly as long as the rise, but is described far less extensively. Somehow, despite whatever enabled humans to achieve total power, they were unable to keep it. Displaying a particular brand of irony, one of the chapters reveals the "literary genre of fiction" as another of mankind''s peculiarities, not shared by any alien race.

Birthright: The Book of Man

Early in 1940 Jenkins joins his regiment in Wales as a second lieutenant. We are introduced to his commanding officer, the officious Captain Gwatkin, and the alcoholic Lieutenant Bithel. The battalion is moved to Northern Ireland where Gwatkin disastrously muddles instructions during an exercise and there is a snap inspection by General Liddament. En route to a training course at Aldershot Nick makes friends with David Pennistone. At Aldershot, Jenkins meets Odo Stevens and also Jimmy Brent who gives an account of his affair with Jean. Stevens gives Nick a lift to spend weekend leave at Frederica Budd''s house, where his wife Isobel, Robert Tolland and Priscilla are all staying. Robert Tolland''s leave is suddenly cancelled. Meanwhile Stevens has made a hit with Priscilla. On rejoining his regiment at Castlemallock, Nick finds Gwatkin in unrequited passion for a barmaid, and engaged in a running battle with the preposterous Bithel. Jenkins is instructed to report to the DAAG at Divisional HQ, who turns out to be Widmerpool. *Adapted in part from material published by the Anthony Powell Society with consent

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Doomsday 1999 A.D.

By Charles Berlitz

Claudine at St.Clare's

No Author Listed

They're a Weird Mob

By John O''Grady

The Paladin

By C. J. Cherryh

The Buddha in the Attic

By Julie Otsuka

Durgaastamana

No Author Listed

Puerto Vallarta Squeeze

By Robert James Waller

Revolution is Not a Dinner Party

No Author Listed

Ragazzi di vita

By Pier Paolo Pasolini

Rogue Ship

By A. E. van Vogt

Birthright: The Book of Man

By Mike Resnick

The Valley of Bones

By Anthony Powell