Operation Fortitude was an Allied counter-intelligence operation run during World War II. Its goal was to convince the German military that D-Day landings were to occur at Calais and not Normandy. As a part of Fortitude the fictitious First United States Army Group (FUSAG) was created. FUSAG used fake tanks, buildings and radio traffic to create an illusion of an army being formed to land at Calais. In 1940 Henry Faber is a German spy working at a London railway depot, collecting information on troop movements. Faber is halfway through radioing this information to Berlin when his landlady stumbles into his room hoping for intimacy. Faber fears that Mrs. Garden will eventually realize that he was using a transmitter and that he is a spy. Faber kills her with his stiletto. He then resumes his transmission. His repeated use of this stiletto leads to his nickname ''Die Nadel'' (''The Needle''). The book then introduces David, a trainee RAF pilot, and his bride Lucy. On their honeymoon David and Lucy are involved in a car crash. David loses the use of both his legs. Unable to fly in the Battle of Britain David grows embittered as he and Lucy retire to the isolated Storm Island off the coast of Scotland. Meanwhile British Intelligence has executed or recruited all German spies. Faber is the only successful one still at large. A history professor, Godliman, and a widowed ex-policeman, Bloggs, are employed by MI5 to catch him. They start with the interrupted broadcast and his codename Die Nadel. They connect the landlady’s murder to Faber by him having used his ‘needle’ during the transmission. They then interview Faber’s fellow tenants from 1940. One identifies Faber from a photo of him as a young army officer. Faber is told by Berlin to investigate whether the FUSAG is real or not. Faber discovers the army is a fake. He takes photos of an army base constructed only to look real from the air. Faber realizes that Normandy is where D-Day is going to occur. Several soldiers try to arrest Faber, but he kills them with his stiletto. He then heads to Aberdeen, Scotland, where a U-boat will take him and his photos back to Germany. Godliman and Bloggs realize what Faber is trying to achieve. There follows a long chase across Northern England and Scotland with both Hitler and Churchill getting personally involved. Faber escapes many times but his repeated killings allow MI5 to track him to Aberdeen. Exhausted Faber finally sets out on a small trawler to meet the U-Boat. Caught by a fierce storm, he is shipwrecked on Storm Island. He collapses in front of the lonely house where David and Lucy live. He is tended to by Lucy. Stuck in a loveless marriage to the crippled David she begins a physical relationship with Faber. David soon discovers both Lucy''s infidelity and Faber’s FUSAG photos. David then tries to kill Faber. After a struggle Faber kills David by rolling him and his Jeep off a cliff. Faber tells Lucy it was another accident. However, she discovers her husband''s body and realizes the truth. Faber realizes he may be caught so he decides to radio the information about FUSAG directly to Germany. Lucy stops him by short-circuiting the electricity in the cottage. Unable to send a radio message, Faber attempts to descend the cliff and swim to the waiting U-boat. Lucy throws a rock at him, striking him and causing him to lose his balance and fall to his death. The RAF then appears and drives the U-boat away. A fictitious radio message is sent over Faber''s call code, persuading the Germans that the invasion is targeting Calais. Bloggs comforts the widowed Lucy, eventually marrying her.

Eye of the Needle

The prologue of Radiant Shadows shows Devlin, the high court''s Assassin, agreeing to shelter a spectral girl name Rae in faerie without his queen''s knowledge. It then skips forward about a century, to show the high queen, Sorcha, ordering Devlin to kill a baby halfling, the child of the Gabriel, along with a warning that it should "never enter faerie". The novel then cuts to the present day, to Ani, the halfling whose life Devlin spared, as she tries to fit in with the other hounds, but cannot, due to her father''s protectiveness and her mortal blood. Devlin, meanwhile, has been told by Sorcha to stay in the mortal world to keep an eye on her son, Seth. Devlin and Ani meet at the crows nest, where she drains his energy and he leaves with a taste of her blood. Ani is different from other hounds, due to her ability to feed on both emotions and touch, and mortal and faery. Irial, the former dark king, has been performing tests to identify what about her is different and introduce it to his court to strengthen them. This also, however, draws the attention of Devlin and Sorcha''s other sister, Bananach, the essence of war. She tells Ani that she has to kill Seth and Niall, or give Bananach her blood. Ani can do neither, and is soon found by an unclaimed steed. Ani, Devlin and the steed -which Ani names Barry, short for Barracuda- leave the state to get away from Bananach. In faerie, meanwhile, Rae, who is a dreamwalker, enters Sorcha''s dream and gives her a way to watch Seth in the mortal world. Unfortunately, she becomes obsessed with this, and without her rulership faerie starts to dissolve. Bananach pays a visit, and starts killing members of the high court. Scared, Rae contacts Devlin through a dream and informs him of this turn of events. Devlin and Ani return to huntsdale only to find that Bananach has killed Ani''s sister Tish. Ani demands that they should then kill Bananach, "breath for breath", but Devlin informs her that neither of the twins can be killed without killing all of faerie. Bananach later goes to stab Ani, but Irial throws himself in front of her, taking the wound that would be hers. The knife dissolves inside him, poisoning him, and Bananach says that he will not last the fortnight. Irial tells his successor and love interest, Niall, that he "wishes he hadn''t been king when they met", referring to Niall''s backstory as revealed in Ink Exchange, then Ani, Devlin, Rabbit and Seth leave for faerie. Devlin was injured in the fight, and Ani allows him to drink her blood, healing him and binding them together. With Seth returned to faerie, Sorcha awakens, and together Devlin, Ani and Rae form the shadow court to balance the high court. (This, however, leaves the dark court out of balance, this will presumably be remedied in the final book, Darkest Mercy.) They also seal the veil between the mortal and faerie worlds so that one cannot return to the mortal world without both the High and Shadow court''s help. it:Radiant Shadows

Radiant Shadows

The story focuses on the border disputes between the countries of Inner and Outer Horner, the former of which is "so small that only one Inner Hornerite at a time could fit inside, and the other six Inner Hornerites had to wait their turns to live in their own country while standing very timidly in the surrounding country of outer Horner." Phil, an embittered Outer Hornerite, decides that the puny Inner Hornerites do nothing but stand around very close together solving math proofs all day, and have to stretch one at a time every morning; Seen as an evil threat to the leisure of the five Outer Hornerites, they are understood as abusing the vast good will that they have received courtesy of the Outer Hornerites. As they stand in the short-term residency zone in Outer Horner, they wait their turn to reenter their country. So Phil, gaining the support of the other Outer Hornerites and hiring two giants as his personal policy enforcers, begins to tax the Inner Hornerites for staying in his country. He settles in the end to accept the disassembling of the Inner Hornerites as sufficient payment. The story chronicles Phil''s tyrannical rise to power and his attempted Inner Hornerite genocide.

The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

The book follows the story of two 13-year old boys named Brian and Gregory (who are friends, but total opposites) who visit a mansion in Vermont owned by Gregory''s Uncle Max. Uncle Max is a strange character who uses complicated words from the past such as "effluents" and "insalubrities" and acts very much like an Edwardian-era aristocrat. The two boys uncover the board of the Game of Sunken Places in the nursery and unintentionally set the game into motion. They also meet Gregory''s cousin Prudance, a girl from the area. Thus they become involved in an age-old ritual conflict between enchanted supernatural races. Once they go out into the woods and begin playing the game, they meet unlikely allies such as Kalgrash the troll and work together to accomplish all the challenges using the game board as a map. In the final challenge, Gregory is about to win and Brian is being strangled by Jack Stimple. By believing that Jack was their opponent, the two almost fell into his trap. Jack was not playing the game at all. Gregory was the player for the Thusser Hordes and was about to win when Brian stopped him. Jack Stimple was meanwhile being dragged away by monks for strangling Brian. Gregory trusts Brian, and lets him win the game and so another battle had been won in the name of the Norumbegans.

The Game of Sunken Places

The epic follows the life narrative of Shaka the Great and is narrated from a third person perspective. The book begins with the apparently legitimate love affair of Nandi with Shaka''s father Senzangakhona. However, Senzangakhona mistreats Nandi, and drives her from the Zulu kingdom. She flees the kingdom and spends many years travelling amongst kingdoms friendly to her own tribe. While abroad she gives birth to Shaka and raises him. They finally settle in the kingdom where Shaka grows, quickly showing himself as having a sharp mind and military prowess. He quickly gains command of his own regiment, which he retrains in a new fighting system. Instead of fighting with throwing spears from afar, which was the traditional method of warfare, Shaka suggested that a large shield and a short stabbing spear should be used. His strategy relies on a quick approach to the enemy under the shield so that they could stab the enemy before the enemy could throw many spears. He earns a reputation as both a fighter and warrior. When Senzangakhona dies, Shaka, with pardon of the King whose kingdom he has lived in, leads a military force into Zululand. Soldiers and the populace flock to this great warrior and Shaka ascends to the throne usurping his more legitimate brothers. With his ascension to the throne Shaka radically reorganizes the military system. With this new organization and the tactics he perfected with the short spear, Shaka begins expanding into neighbouring regions, suppressing Kings and bandit armies and assimilating these peoples into the Zulu nation. Soon, the first white people come in contact with the Zulu''s led by a man named King. Though Shaka does not totally trust these people, he allows them to settle in a small part of his land so that he can learn about their ways. He also sends an Uncle as a mission to King George of England. Meanwhile Shaka''s mother, Nandi, dies and Shaka declares a national year of mourning. As the nation mourns, the economy begins to fall apart. Finally Shaka is persuaded to allow everyone to replant the fields and have children. Gradually, Shaka''s brothers and Aunts become frustrated with his rule and plot to overthrow him. One of Shaka''s most trusted advisers agrees to help them, and they kill Shaka while he is holding court.

Emperor Shaka the Great

The Lay of the Land takes place in the fall of 2000, and Ford''s character Frank Bascome is preparing for Thanksgiving at his home in Sea Clift, New Jersey. His son Paul, who is now a greeting card designer in Kansas City, Paul''s girlfriend, who has only one hand, and Frank''s daughter, Clarissa, who is an on-and-off lesbian, are all expected to attend. Frank has ordered a ready-made organic meal to be delivered on the holiday. Frank''s second wife, Sally, has reunited with her formerly AWOL and presumed-dead husband Wally, and they now live in the British Isles. Frank is in the last throes of a fight against prostate cancer, and Frank''s first wife, Ann, has moved back to Haddam, New Jersey, after the death of her second husband. Frank has started RealtyWise, his own company, and employs Mike Mahoney, a Tibetan who has adopted an American Republican lifestyle, except inasmuch as he believes in Buddhist philosophy. Over the course of three days, Frank has a range of painful experiences with everyone he meets, including potential home buyers, the father of an old flame, his former wife, his son, and an old acquaintance whom Frank assaults in a bar. Frank''s most redeeming moments as a character are in a lesbian bar where he waits for repair work on his Chevrolet Suburban, and when he gets shot in the chest by teenagers who have murdered his unlikable neighbors. In the end, Frank and Sally are flying to the Mayo Clinic to get the final word on his prostate.

The Lay of the Land

Ten years had passed since the final events of The Monastery, during which Halbert had been knighted for his services to the regent, and Lady Avenel had adopted Roland, whom her dog had saved from drowning. The boy grew up petted by his mistress, but disliked by her chaplain and servants; and at length, having threatened to dirk the falconer, he was dismissed to seek his fortune. He had been secretly taught the Romish faith by Father Ambrose, and led by his grandmother to believe that he was of gentle birth. She now introduced him to Catherine Seyton, and then accompanied him to the abbey, where the revels of some masqueraders were interrupted by the arrival of Sir Halbert on his way to Edinburgh, who attached the youth to his train. On reaching the capital he aided Lord Seyton in a street fray, and was introduced to the Earl of Murray, who desired him to be ready to travel at short notice. In company with Adam Woodcock he adjourned to an inn, and was entrusted by Henry Seyton (whom he believed to be Catherine in male attire) with a sword, which he was not to unsheath until commanded by his rightful sovereign. He then learnt that he was to be attached to the household of Queen Mary, and accompanied Lord Lindesay to the castle of Lochleven, situated on an island, where he found Catherine in attendance on her, and was present when, in compliance with a note contained in his sword-sheath, she signed her abdication at the behest of the Secret Council. After a lapse of several months, during which Henderson attempted to convert him, Roland learnt from Catherine that Father Ambrose had been evicted from his monastery, and he pledged himself, for her sake, to assist the imprisoned queen in recovering her freedom. A plan of escape arranged by George Douglas having failed through the vigilance of the Lady of Lochleven, Roland undertook to forge a false set of keys, and the abbot arrived disguised as a man-at-arms sent by Sir William to take part in guarding the castle. As soon as the curfew had tolled, a preconcerted signal was made from the shore, and Roland contrived to substitute his forged keys for the real ones. At midnight the garden gate was unlocked, a boat was in waiting, Henry Seyton came forward, and the queen, with all her adherents, was safely afloat, when the alarm was given. Roland, however, had run back, ere they started, to turn the locks on their jailers, and, until they were out of reach of musketry, George Douglas protected Mary by placing himself before her. On landing, horses were in readiness, and before daybreak they reached Lord Seyton''s castle in West Lothian, which was strongly garrisoned. The next morning, as the queen was endeavouring to make peace between Roland and Henry Seyton, who treated the page as a churl, his grandmother emerged from a recess and declared him to be the son of Julian Avenel, who was killed in the battle with Sir John Foster; Lord Seyton also recognised him, and insisted that his son should shake hands with him. Supported by a considerable number of adherents in battle array, and accompanied by the abbot, the royal party moved onwards for Dumbarton, where help from France was expected. They were, however, intercepted by the regent''s forces, and a desperate battle ensued. The queen stood near a yew tree, guarded by her devoted admirer George Douglas in close armour, while her page pushed forward to watch the conflict. It had lasted nearly an hour, when Sir Halbert attacked the flank of Mary''s supporters, and they were completely routed, Henry Seyton was killed, and Douglas, who was mortally wounded, expired without withdrawing his eyes from her face. Hopeless of further aid, the queen adopted the fatal resolution of trusting to Elizabeth''s mercy, and, having bid adieu to her followers, took ship for England. Roland soon afterwards succeeded in obtaining proofs of his claim as the heir of Avenel, and was married to Catherine on her return from two years residence with her unhappy mistress.

The Abbot

Squire tells the story of Keladry of Mindelan''s years as a squire, between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. Having passed the "big examinations", Kel becomes a squire without a knight-master. While she becomes frustrated at waiting for offers from knights, her best friend, Nealan of Queenscove becomes squire to Alanna the Lioness, the first lady knight in Tortall, and Kel''s personal hero. While Kel is disappointed at not becoming the Lioness''s squire, she shortly receives an equally prestigious offer from Lord Raoul of Goldenlake, commander of the elite King''s Own and a personal friend to the Lioness. As Lord Raoul''s squire, she travels with the King''s Own and participates in routine duties ranging from chasing rogue centaurs to helping to rebuilt villages afflicted by natural disasters such as mudslides. Along the way, Kel acquires a baby griffin from the bandits who kidnapped him from his parents'' nest. Due to the high incidence of kidnapping immature griffins for their magical powers, griffin parents attack any human who has ever touched one of their offspring, so this task is not without its dangers. As knight-master, Raoul teaches Kel the fineries of command, and hones her proven skills in jousting, eventually entering her into tournaments where she jousts against other squires and knights. She jousts twice against Wyldon of Cavall, her previous training master, a political conservative who was initially vehemently opposed to Kel''s training to be a knight. After the second time, she meets three girls, two of them sisters, who explain that they wish to train for knighthood as well. Kel gives them some advice, noting that the sisters appear serious about it while the third girl seems more like the type that jumps around from idea to idea. When a political marriage is arranged for Prince Roald, the heir apparent, the Yamani Princess he is betrothed to, turns out to be Shinkokami (nicknamed Shinko), a friend from Kel''s childhood years in the Yamani Islands; one of her ladies-in-waiting is Yukimi noh Daiomoru, another of Kel''s old friends. Shinko''s anxiety about her upcoming marriage, and the prospect of integrating into Tortallan society, become catalysts for the three to reforge their friendship, as Kel introduces Shinko to various aspects of Tortallan culture. She also introduces Yuki to her squire friends, and she and Neal strike up a quick romance. Joren of Stone Mountain is found to be the noble who paid two men to kidnap Lalasa Isran, Kel''s maid. He is, however, acquitted with a fine. Kel protests the unfairness of the law to the monarchs and gets them to attempt to change it. Princess Shinkokami''s introduction to the subjects of Tortall provides an excuse for the Grand Progress, a progress of the royal family, nobility and other notables. Against his wishes, Raoul joins the progress, with Kel in tow. This becomes a chance that lets Kel strike up a secret romance with Cleon of Kennan, and Raoul becomes involved with the commander of the Queen''s Riders, Queen Thayet''s former bodyguard and right-hand lady, Buriram Tourakom. Kel''s second Midwinter as a squire sees her facing the ordeals of knighthoods of her older friends Prince Roald and Cleon of Kennan (who is at this point Kel''s sweetheart). Their Age group includes Joren of Stone Mountain, who dies in the Chamber, and Vinson of Genlith, who is punished by the Chamber for all the evil deeds he has done to women, namely by feeling every injury done to them. On the Midwinter after her eighteenth birthday, Kel is scheduled to undergo the Ordeal of Knighthood, a ritual that determines if a squire is worthy to become a knight. Of all her year-mates, her name is drawn for the last day of midwinter. Kel waits anxiously while all her friends pass their Ordeals, but her anxiety is disproven; she passes the Ordeal and receives her knight''s shield after seeing a disturbing vision in the Chamber, as well as a sword from the Lioness, who had been anonymously sending her gifts of weapons and training equipment throughout her page and squire years.

Squire by Tamora Pierce

The novel begins a bit after Gia and Vicky recover from the accident brought by the yenceri. Gia, as always persuades Jack to do some fix-its, on the condition that he does not risk too much. The persuasion was followed when a middle-aged woman named Christy Pickering asks for Jack''s help. Jack finds that Christy has been having a problem with her daughter Dawn, she is dating a man Jerry Bethlehem, about twice her age (or as Christy puts it: "Old enough to be her father"). The problem is actually with her PI who has just disappeared. Along the way of looking into Bethlehem life, Jack begins to realize a connection between Bethlehem and the leader(Hank Thompson) of a new movement called the Kickers. It seems that both Hank and Jerry went to the same criminal institute known to take extremely violent criminals, the Creighton Institute. Further investigation leads Jack to finding the detective murdered in ways of a water torture. Jack later finds that not only are Hank and Jerry related by Creighton but also by the newfound mysterious oDNA found there. It comes to Jack that the ''o'' stands for the wrong side of his life, the Other. He also finds that Jerry is not his real name, it is actually Jeremy Bolton, a sociopath who was captured for a crime far down in Atlanta, GA: the Atlanta Abortion Murders. After getting Dawn pregnant he starts acting differently, showing his true self to her. Upon finding out of her daughters pregnancy, Christy is found dead, presumed suicide by slashing her wrists. Before her death, Jack investigates on the whereabouts of Dawn''s father who has never been mentioned by Christy, only to be enlightened with the truth that Dawn is a rape-baby. Further investigation in the oDNA it is realized that Hank, Moonglow(Christy), and Jeremy are all the children of the mysterious oDNA filled Jonah Stevens. As all the pieces come together Jack finds the final piece revealing a dark secret, Jeremy is Dawn''s father.

Bloodline

The Arrangement is the first-person story of Evangelos Arness, aka Evans Arness, aka Eddie Anderson, a second-generation Greek-American World War II veteran, a son of an Anatolian rug merchant who went broke after the 1929 Depression. He has come to use the name "Eddie Anderson" in his career as a self-loathing advertising executive and the name "Evans Arness" in his second career as a muck-raking magazine reporter, the career in which he ostensibly takes pride (Lincoln Steffens is his role model). His personal life is just as duplicitous: to outsiders he is happily married but is in fact a compulsive adulterer with his wife Florence''s "don''t ask - don''t tell" tacit approval, one aspect of the titular "arrangement". His serial adultery ends when he begins a liaison with a female assistant at his advertising firm, Gwen Hunt, whose independent mind fascinates him; he becomes obsessed with her, perhaps even feeling true love towards her. He fails to lock a drawer with their nude photographs, perhaps subsconsciously wanting to be found out; a prying maid discovers them and shows them to Florence (and before that, it turns out, to their adopted daughter, now a university student). Florence persuades him to leave Gwen and to re-invigorate their life with a self-improvement regimen; both seem perfectly content though somewhat dull but after several months he crashes his car in an apparent suicide attempt. The rest of the novel deals with his inability to return to his old role as he attempts to find a new life in which he can be who he authentically is rather than who others desire him to be or whom he has sold people on his being. He has to returns to New York City where he had left his parents and brother after college to deal with his father''s dying. After several false starts, in which the newly "authentic" Eddie is arrested for indecent exposure, burns down his parents'' former house that had become a symbol of father''s tyranny over the family, is shot by Gwen''s jealous suitor, and is committed to a mental hospital, Eddie settles down with Gwen in Connecticut as a liquor dealer and starts to write short stories.

The Arrangement

Halidom and Troth are two adjacent principalities within the Land of Oz, both resembling medieval kingdoms. Heir to the throne of Halidom is Prince Gules. The people of Halidom have always derived their physical and mental abilities from three golden circlets worn by their ruler: the first around his forehead, the second on his right forearm, the third on his right thumb. The first and third circlets have been lost, with attendant loss of abilities by the subjects of Halidom. Fess is a young pageboy in the household of Prince Gules, but Fess was born in Troth, so the circlets have no effect on him. Awakening one day to discover that all the natives of Halidom are strangely languid, Fess learns that the second (and last remaining) circlet has been stolen. He embarks on a quest with Prince Gules, aided by a unicorn and a Flittermouse (a mouse with wings) to retrieve all three. Meanwhile, Dorothy Gale and the Cowardly Lion temporarily leave the Emerald City to place an order with the Easter Bunny, whose underground domain is conveniently accessible from Oz. When Dorothy escapes from an orphanage, she and the Lion join the Prince and Fess in their quest. Robin Brown, an orphan from Oregon, USA, rides a magic merry-go-round horse to the Land of Oz. The horse whisks him to the Quadling and Munchkin Countries of Oz, where Robin has adventures in View Halloo (a region dedicated to fox-hunting) and Roundabout (a land where everything is round, inhabited by Roundheads). Eventually, Robin must help find the missing magic circlets of Halidom.

Merry-Go-Round in Oz

As the novel opens, Wadzek, owner of a factory that produces steam engines, is locked in a struggle with his more powerful rival Rommel, whose much larger concern manufactures turbines. He can be seen as representing a new type of entrepreneur, more technologically advanced and less scrupulous than Wadzek. Losing value, the stock of Wadzek''s company is being bought up by Rommel; in desperation, Wadzek teams up with Schneemann, an engineer working at one of Rommel''s factories, to thwart his company''s takeover by Rommel. This effort includes the misguided theft of some of Rommel''s business correspondence. Fearing legal retribution for this theft, Wadzek, accompanied by Schneemann, flees with his wife Pauline and daughter Herta to his house in Reinickendorf, where the two men fortify the house in delusional preparation for a siege that never comes. Financially and spiritually broken, Wadzek returns to Berlin and with Schneemann attempts to turn himself in at a police station, where they learn that no warrant has even been issued for their arrest. There follows a temporary reconciliation with his estranged family and the first attempts to begin a new career in education—Wadzek would instruct his students in a new, moralistic and humane approach to technology. However, after walking in on an erotically and exotically charged debauch held in his own parlor (the aftermath of an African-themed birthday party Pauline held with her two new friends from Reinickendorf), Wadzek suffers a further breakdown. The novel ends aboard a ship bound for America, Wadzek eloping with Gaby, an old acquaintance and erstwhile lover of Rommel''s, to begin a new life.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Eye of the Needle

By Ken Follett

Radiant Shadows

By Melissa Marr

The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

By George Saunders

The Game of Sunken Places

By Matthew Tobin Anderson

Emperor Shaka the Great

No Author Listed

The Lay of the Land

By Richard Ford

The Abbot

By Walter Scott

Squire by Tamora Pierce

By Tamora Pierce

Bloodline

By F. Paul Wilson

The Arrangement

By Elia Kazan

Merry-Go-Round in Oz

By Eloise McGraw

Wadzeks Kampf mit der Dampfturbine

By Alfred Döblin