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Out (novel)
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The novel tells the tales of four women, working the graveyard shift at a Japanese bento factory. All four women live hard lives. Masako, the leader of the four women, feels completely alienated from her estranged husband and teenage son. Kuniko, a plump and rather vain girl, has recently been ditched by her boyfriend after the couple were driven into debt, leaving Kuniko to fend off a loan shark. Yoshie is a single mother and reluctant caretaker of her mother-in-law, who was left partly paralyzed after a stroke. Yayoi is a thirty-four-year-old mother of two small boys who she is forced to leave home alone, where they are abused by their drunken, gambling father, Kenji.
When Yayoi returns home one night, Kenji tells her that he has gambled all their savings away in a baccarat game. Yayoi becomes upset and questions Kenji about Anna, a hostess of the club where Kenji gambles, with whom she suspects he's having an affair. Earlier that night the club owner, Satake, ordered Kenji to stop stalking Anna. Kenji became belligerent and started assailing Satake, forcing him to kick Kenji down some stairs in the club. Nonetheless, Kenji, furious after Yayoi mentions Anna, begins hitting her. The following night, Yayoi snaps and strangles Kenji to death.
Yayoi desperately persuades Masako, with the eventual aid of Yoshie and Kuniko, to help her dispose of Kenji's body. The body is dismembered, secured in many black garbage bags, and hidden all over Tokyo. It isn't long before one carelessly hidden bag is discovered, and the police begin to ask questions. As if things weren't bad enough, the women begin to blackmail each other, the loan shark is requiring their services, and Satake, who has lost everything because of their antics, has begun to hunt the women down.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_(novel)
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The Blending (novel series)
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[No dedicated plot section found] The Blending is a fantasy series by Sharon Green. There are five novels in The Blending series, and an additional three novels in The Blending Enthroned. The covers for all the books were illustrated by Thomas Canty.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blending_(novel_series)
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The Big Wave
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Kino lives with his family on a farm on the side of a mountain in Japan while his friend, Jiya, lives in the fishing village below. Though everyone in the area has heard of the big wave no one suspects that when the next one comes, it will wipe out Jiya's entire family and fishing village below the mountain. Jiya soon must leave his family behind in order to keep the fisherman traditions alive.
Jiya, now orphaned, struggles to overcome his sadness and is adopted into Kino's family. He and Kino live like brothers and Jiya takes on the life of a farmer. Even when the wise Old Gentleman offers Jiya a wealthy life at his rich castle, Jiya refuses. Though Jiya is able to find happiness again in his adopted family, particularly with Kino's younger sister, Setsu, Jiya wishes to live as a fisherman again as he comes of age.
When Jiya tells Kino that he wishes to marry Setsu and return to the fishing village, Kino fears that Jiya and Setsu will suffer and it is safer for them to remain on the mountain as a farmer, thinking of the potential consequences should another big wave come. However, Jiya reveals his understanding that it is in the presence of danger that one learns to be brave, and to appreciate how wonderful life can be.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Wave
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The Baby-Sitters Club
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[No dedicated plot section found] The Baby-Sitters Club (also known as BSC) is a series of novels, written by Ann M. Martin and published by Scholastic between 1986 and 2000, that sold more than 190 million copies. Martin wrote an estimated 60-80 novels in the series while subsequent titles were written by ghostwriters, such as Peter Lerangis. The Baby-Sitters Club is about a group of friends living in the fictional, suburban town in Stoneybrook, Connecticut who run a local babysitting service called "The Baby-Sitters Club". The original four members were Kristy Thomas (founder and president), Mary Anne Spier (secretary), Claudia Kishi (vice-president), and Stacey McGill (treasurer), but the number of members varies throughout the series. The novels are told in first-person narrative and deal with issues such as illness, moving, and divorce.
As the series progressed, Dawn Schafer (Alternate Officer), Mallory Pike and Jessi Ramsey (Junior Officers), Logan Bruno (Associate Member), Shannon Kilbourne (second Associate Member), and Abby Stevenson (Replacement Alternate Officer for Dawn) joined the club.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baby-Sitters_Club
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The Coroner (novel)
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[No dedicated plot section found] The Coroner is M.R. Hall's first novel. It was published by PanMacmillan in 2009, and became the first in a series based around the fictional Jenny Cooper, a former solicitor appointed as coroner in the 'Severn Vale District' (effectively Bristol, England).
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coroner_(novel)
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Barrayar
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Cordelia and Aral Vorkosigan are expecting their first child. Before crafty old Emperor Ezar Vorbarra dies, he maneuvers a very reluctant Aral into agreeing to serve as regent for Ezar's young grandson Gregor. A plot to assassinate the Vorkosigans with poison gas fails, but the antidote, while effective, is also a powerful teratogen that poses a grave threat to the bone development of their unborn son. In a desperate attempt to save the fetus, Cordelia has it transferred to a uterine replicator—an artificial womb—to undergo experimental treatment that may partially combat the otherwise-fatal bone damage. Barrayar, due to its harsh environment, has fostered a deep loathing for mutations, and babies with even minor birth defects are routinely euthanized. Aral's father, Count Piotr Vorkosigan, seeks to abort the fetus rather than have the Vorkosigan name and title passed on to a "deformed mutant," but a furious Cordelia keeps him at bay.
When Count Vidal Vordarian attempts a coup, five-year-old Gregor is rescued by his loyal security chief, Captain Negri, and reunited with the Vorkosigans. Cordelia, Gregor and bodyguard Konstantin Bothari hide from Vordarian's men in the hills, while Aral and his father organize the resistance.
After Cordelia rejoins Aral, they learn that the replicator containing their child, whom they have named Miles, needs periodic maintenance. Without it, the fetus will succumb within six days, but Aral refuses to attempt a rescue when there are far greater concerns. However, Cordelia's personal bodyguard, Ludmilla Droushnakovi, was previously stationed at the palace and knows several top-secret ways to slip inside undetected. Cordelia, Droushnakovi and Bothari set out to rescue Miles and hopefully Gregor's mother, Princess Kareen. When Clement Koudelka, one of Aral's officers, finds out, they kidnap him and persuade him to help out.
In the city, they witness the capture of Lady Alys Vorpatril and the murder of her husband, Padma. They rescue Alys, who is pregnant with Ivan Vorpatril. While in hiding, she delivers her son with Bothari's help. Cordelia dispatches Koudelka to get her to safety and sets out with Bothari and Droushnakovi to get Miles.
Once in the palace, Cordelia and her party are caught in a trap. They manage to overpower their captors, but Princess Kareen is killed. In the ensuing confusion, Bothari sets fire to part of the Imperial Palace to cover their retreat as they take Vordarian himself hostage. When Vordarian defies Cordelia, she orders Bothari to behead him. They escape with the replicator—and Vordarian's head. Cordelia returns to Aral's base and deposits the head on a table in front of some of Vordarian's wavering allies. Without its leader, the coup falls apart.
Miles is born, fragile and deformed. Five years later, he has very brittle bones, but is very active, rambunctious and intelligent, capturing even Piotr's affection.
In a side plot, Koudelka and Droushnakovi fall in love before the coup and indulge in sex at Vorkosigan House. Cordelia, being a liberal-minded Betan, sees no harm in this, but they are ashamed, and a misunderstanding arises. While they are in hiding during the coup, Cordelia acts as a traditional "go-between" to patch up their relationship. After the coup, they marry, and in novels set later, are the parents of four young women who combine brains, beauty and, thanks to their mother's training, unarmed combat skills.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrayar
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The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (TV series)
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Nils Holgersson is a 14-year-old farm boy, the son of poor farmers. He is lazy and disrespectful to others. In his spare time he enjoys tormenting the animals that live on his family farm.
One Sunday, while his parents are at church and have left him home to read the day's homily in the family Bible, Nils captures a tomte in a net. In exchange for his freedom, the tomte offers Nils a large gold coin. Nils rejects the offer, and so the tomte transforms Nils into a tomte himself, shrinking him and his pet hamster Carrot to a tiny size and granting him the ability to talk with animals. The farm animals are delighted to see their tormentor reduced to their size and become angry and hungry for revenge. Meanwhile, wild geese are flying over the farm during their spring migration, and they taunt a white farm goose named Morten (whom Nils has also tormented by typing a rope around his neck). Morten decides he wants to join the wild flock. Escaping from the angry animals, Nils scrambles onto Morten's back with his new friend Carrot, and they join the flock of wild geese flying towards Lapland for the summer.
The wild geese, who are not pleased at all to be joined by a boy and a domestic goose, eventually take him on an adventurous trip across all the historical provinces of Sweden. They encounter many adventures and characters such as Smirre the fox. Nils's adventures, as well as the characters and situations he encounters, teach him to help other people and not to be selfish. In the course of the trip, Nils learns that if he can prove he has changed for the better, the tomte might be disposed to change him back to his normal size.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_Adventures_of_Nils_(TV_series)
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Two Thousand Seasons
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[No dedicated plot section found] Two Thousand Seasons is a novel by Ghanaian novelist Ayi Kwei Armah. The novel was first published in 1973 and subsequently published a number of times, including in the influential Heinemann African Writers Series. It is an epic historical novel, attempting to depict the last "two thousand seasons" of African history in one narrative arc following a Pan-African approach.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Thousand_Seasons
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The Blackheath Poisonings
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Two families, the Collards and Vandervents have lived together for many years in the same elegant house in the wealthy London suburb of Blackheath. The two have grown intermingled over the years, with numerous secrets. When they begin falling dead to mysterious stomach complaints, Paul Vandervent begins investigating.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blackheath_Poisonings
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The Riding Club Crime
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Nancy, George and Elsa are enjoying a horse ride, when Nancy's horse falls into a hole while attempting a four-foot jump over a post-and-rail.
Elsa is a counselor at Green Spring Pony Club summer camp, which has been vandalised by unknown persons. The owner, Mrs Rogers, is getting worried. Nancy, disguised as a counselor, tries to figure out who the culprit is. As more incidents happen, the more Nancy realizes she has to work quickly. Will Nancy and her friends be able to keep the Green Spring Farm going?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Riding_Club_Crime
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The Art of Keeping Cool
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The Art of Keeping Cool deals with the difficulties of childhood during World War II. in 1942, making sense of his family is especially difficult for thirteen-year-old Robert, whose father has been deployed in Europe with the Royal Canadian Air Force for more than six months. After Pearl Harbor, Robert and his family moved from their farm in Ohio to live with his father's parents in Rhode Island.
This living situation is strange to Robert, who has never met his grandparents or his cousin Elliot who also lives in Rhode Island. He finds it even more odd that neither his mother nor his extended family ever discuss his father. Robert must search to find reason for the unexplainable family dynamic. With the help of Elliot and an exiled German painter named Abel Hoffman, Robert uncovers with the dark history of his father's family.
After a little time, Elliot starts going to Abel Hoffman's house to sketch.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Keeping_Cool
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Fyodor Dostoevsky bibliography
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[No dedicated plot section found] The bibliography of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) comprises novels, novellas, short stories, essays and other literary works. Raised by a literate family, Dostoyevsky discovered literature at an early age, beginning when his mother introduced the Bible to him. Nannies near the hospitals—in the grounds of which he was raised—introduced Dostoyevsky to fairy tales, legends and sagas. His mother's subscription to the Library of Reading gave him access to the leading contemporary Russian and non-Russian literature. After his mother's death, Dostoyevsky moved from a boarding school to a military academy and despite the resulting lack of money, he was captivated by literature until his death.
Dostoyevsky started his writing career after finishing university. He started translating literature from French—which he learnt at the boarding school—into Russian, and then wrote short stories. With the success of his first novel, Poor Folk, he became known throughout Saint Petersburg and Russia. Vissarion Belinsky, Alexander Herzen and others praised Poor Folk's depiction of poverty, and Belinsky called it Russia's "first social novel". This success did not continue with his second novel, The Double, and other short stories published mainly in left-wing magazines. These magazines included Notes of the Fatherland and The Contemporary.
Dostoyevsky's renewed financial troubles led him to join several political circles. Because of his participation in the Petrashevsky Circle, in which he distributed and read several Belinsky articles deemed as anti-religious and anti-government, he and other members were sentenced to capital punishment. He was pardoned at the last minute, but they were imprisoned in Siberia—Dostoyevsky for four years. During his detention he wrote several works, including the autobiographical The House of the Dead. A New Testament booklet, which had been given shortly before his imprisonment, and other literature obtained outside of the barracks, were the only books he read at that time.
Following his release, Dostoyevsky read a myriad of literature and gradually became interested in nationalistic and conservative philosophies and increasingly sceptical towards contemporary movements—especially the Nihilists. Dostoyevsky wrote his most important works after his time in Siberia, including Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Gambler and The Brothers Karamazov. With the help of his brother Mikhail, Dostoyevsky opened two magazines—Vremya and Epoch—in which some of his stories appeared. Following their closures, most of his works were issued in the conservative The Russian Messenger until the introduction of A Writer's Diary, which comprised most of his works—including essays and articles. Several drafts and plans, especially those begun during his honeymoon, were unfinished at his death.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky_bibliography
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Mission to Moulokin
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The novel follows the continuing adventures of Skua September, Ethan Fortune and Milliken Williams on the frozen world of Tran-Ky-Ky as they try to help the native race, the Tran, win admission to the Commonwealth. During their struggle they deal with corrupt Commonwealth officials and an insane Tran leader, find the fabled city of Moulokin and learn of the history of the Tran.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_to_Moulokin
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Aleister Crowley
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[No dedicated plot section found] Aleister Crowley ( AL-ist-ər KROH-lee; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, novelist, mountaineer, and painter. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the prophet entrusted with guiding humanity into the Æon of Horus in the early 20th century. A prolific writer, he published widely over the course of his life.
Born to a wealthy family in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, Crowley rejected his parents' fundamentalist Christian Plymouth Brethren faith to pursue an interest in Western esotericism. He was educated at Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, where he focused his attention upon mountaineering and poetry, resulting in several publications. Some biographers allege that here he was recruited into a British intelligence agency, further suggesting that he remained a spy throughout his life. In 1898, he joined the esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where he was trained in ceremonial magic by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers and Allan Bennett. He went mountaineering in Mexico with Oscar Eckenstein, before studying Hindu and Buddhist practices in India. In 1904, he married Rose Edith Kelly, and they honeymooned in Cairo, Egypt, where Crowley wrote down The Book of the Law—a sacred text that serves as the basis for Thelema, which he said had been dictated to him by a supernatural entity named Aiwass. The Book announced the start of the Æon of Horus, and declared that its followers should "Do what thou wilt", and seek to align themselves with their True Will via the practice of ceremonial magic.
After the unsuccessful 1905 Kanchenjunga expedition, and a visit to India and China, Crowley returned to Britain, where he attracted attention as a prolific author of poetry, novels, and occult literature. In 1907, he and George Cecil Jones co-founded an esoteric order—the A∴A∴, through which they propagated Thelema. After spending time in Algeria, in 1912 he was initiated into another esoteric order—the German-based Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), in which he rose to become the leader of its British branch, which he reformulated in accordance with his Thelemite beliefs. Through O.T.O., Thelemite groups were established in Britain, Australia, and North America. Crowley spent the First World War in the United States, where he took up painting, and campaigned for the German war effort against Britain. His biographers later revealed that he had infiltrated the pro-German movement to assist the British intelligence services. In 1920, he established the Abbey of Thelema—a religious commune in Cefalù, Sicily, where he lived with various followers. His libertine lifestyle led to denunciations in the British press, and the Italian government evicted him in 1923. He divided the following two decades between France, Germany, and England, and continued to promote Thelema until his death.
Crowley gained widespread notoriety during his lifetime, being a drug user, a bisexual, and an individualist social critic. Crowley has remained a highly influential figure over western esotericism and the counterculture of the 1960s, and he continues to be considered a prophet in Thelema. He is the subject of various biographies and academic studies.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley
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How I Learned Geography
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Driven from home by a "war [that] devastated the land," a family flees to a remote city in the steppes. One day, the father returns from the market not with bread for supper but with a wall-filling map of the world. "'No supper tonight,' Mother said bitterly. 'We'll have the map instead.'" Although hungry, the boy finds sustenance of a different sort in the multicolored map, which provides a literal spot of brightness in the otherwise spare, earth-toned illustrations, as well as a catalyst for soaring, pretend visits to exotic lands. Shulevitz's rhythmic, first-person narrative reads like a fable for young children. Its autobiographical dimension, however, will open up the audience to older grade-schoolers, with an endnote describing Shulevitz's life as a refugee in Turkestan after the Warsaw blitz, (in World War II) including his childhood sketch of the real map. Whether enjoyed as a reflection of readers' own imaginative travels or used as a creative entree to classroom geography units, this simple, poignant offering will transport children as surely as the map it celebrates.
According to Elizabeth Devereaux, the children’s reviews editor at Publishers Weekly, there is a common theme among Shulevitz's children's books: The destruction of family happiness, the reversal of fortune, the foolish bargain, the impossible task: all these classic themes control this story. She continues to say, "In framing his own story, replacing autobiographical fact with archetypal forms, Shulevitz keeps the focus on the inner world that he has so consistently illuminated. Once again, he reminds us that folly is not the opposite of wisdom, but so close a relative that the two are often mistaken."
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_I_Learned_Geography
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Manvini Bhavai
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[No dedicated plot section found] Manvi Ni Bhavai (English: Endurance: A Droll Saga) is a 1947 Gujarati novel written by Pannalal Patel. It is set in the period of the Indian famine of 1899–1900, locally known as the Chhappaniyo Dukal (The Famine of Samvat 1956) in Gujarat. The novel centres around the love story of Kalu and Raju as well as the difficult and often tragic life of farmers during the famine. It was translated into English by V. Y Kantak in 1995. It was adapted into a Gujarati film scene in 1993.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manvini_Bhavai
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The Boys in the Island
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In the 1950s teenage Frank dreams of leaving Tasmania for Melbourne.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_in_the_Island
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Death of a Superhero
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Don, a 15-year-old with terminal cancer, attempts suicide by the train tracks, but ultimately lets the train rush past him. Don draws comic stories and suffers from hallucinations. During a scan, he sees a twisted woman laughing at him.
In an effort to stop his suicide attempts, his parents send him to therapy. Eventually, he is sent to see psychiatrist Dr. Adrian King.
Don walks home from school and balances on the wall of a bridge as cars rush past below him. He cautiously walks across, unaware that he has been spotted by King.
Don shows his opinion on King's methods by painting a Skull 'n' Crossbones on the latter's boat. Don later cleans it off and King offers love advice for his crush Shelly.
Shelly "reads out" an essay from her book. Don realises that she has not done her homework and is improvising. While leaving the classroom, Don "compliments" her essay. She smiles.
At a party, Don and his friends "perfect" a recipe for a drink made from alcoholic wines and beers. Grinning, Don takes a sip. On the way home, he spots the woman again, and this inspires him. In the morning, there is graffitied woman on the school window. Don is suspended from school for a week. Eventually, he is made to scrub it off. While he is doing this, Shelly appears and helps him. Don returns to King and notices a picture of the latter's dead wife.
Don and Shelly eventually decide to attend a party on the weekend. Don asks King for 'love advice' and attends the party with Shelly. Before the party, Shelly reveals that she likes Don's drawings. Flattered, Don says that she is the smartest girl in the class and beautiful. Shelly does not think that that is a 'talent' and would do anything for one like Don's. The party goes well until they discover a video of Shelly exposing her breasts and lying on the floor and beginning to strip off her clothes. Someone jokes to Don about his girlfriend being 'dirty' and 'crazy'. Embarrassed, Don claims that she is not his girlfriend and that they hardly know each other. Shelly hears him and leaves on her motorbike without him.
Don arrives home, heartbroken, and is spotted by King, who asks what is wrong. Don tells him to go away and leaves shouting. He than has a panic attack and needs to be rushed to the hospital. Don is informed his cancer has got worse and has a few days left to live. His father decides to spend time with him smoking. When Don's mother finds out, she tells his father to drive him to hospital.
Don talks to a younger patient who has cancer too. She claims that she wants to be a dancer when she is older. Billy says that he will be a prince and Don reveals that he wants to be a superhero.
Don's brother confesses to Don's friend that he does not want Don to die a virgin. They go around the school asking girls if they will have sex with Don, but all of them say no. Eventually, they find girls who are willing. Don is embarrassed when they show him pictures of the girls and ask for him to pick one. With the help of King, they get one to agree.
Don is nervous while talking with the girl, and they stumble across the subject of 'true love'. She then asks Don to show her some of his pictures. The girl is impressed and says that she would do anything for a talent like his. He is reminded of Shelly. In a hallucination he sees a medic woman who tried to kill him with a kiss. He leaves the girl, goes to Shelly and apologises.
The two walk along a beach. Don makes her promise that if she is ever upset, she will visit the beach and think of him. Don eventually dies on his bed, in peace.
King boards his sailboat, on which he has painted a Skull 'n' Crossbones. Shelly, meanwhile, is on a rock by the waterside.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_a_Superhero
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Beyond This Horizon
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[No dedicated plot section found] Beyond This Horizon is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. It was originally published as a two-part serial in Astounding Science Fiction (April, May 1942, under the pseudonym Anson MacDonald) and then as a single volume by Fantasy Press in 1948. It was awarded a Retro-Hugo award for best novel in 2018.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_This_Horizon
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The Egyptian (film)
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In 18th dynasty Egypt, while lion hunting with his friend Horemheb, struggling physician Sinuhe discovers Egypt's newly ascendant pharaoh Akhnaton, who has sought the solitude of the desert in the midst of a religious epiphany. While praying, the ruler is stricken with an epileptic seizure, with which Sinuhe helps him. The grateful Akhnaton makes Sinuhe court physician and gives Horemheb a post in the Royal Guard, a career previously denied to him by low birth. Akhnaton becomes devoted to a new religion that he feels has been divinely revealed to him. This faith rejects Egypt's traditional gods in favor of monolatristic worship of the sun, referred to as Aten. Akhnaton intends to promote Atenism throughout Egypt, which earns him the hatred of the country's corrupt and politically active traditional priesthood.
Life in court drags Sinuhe away from his previous ambition of helping the poor, and he falls obsessively in love with Babylonian courtesan Nefer. He squanders all of his and his parents' property in order to buy her gifts, only to have her reject him nonetheless. Returning home, Sinuhe learns that his parents have committed suicide over his behavior. He has their bodies embalmed so that they can pass on to the afterlife, and, having no way to pay for the service, works off his debts in the embalming house.
Lacking a tomb in which to put his parents' mummies, Sinuhe buries them in the sand amid the lavish funerary complexes of the Valley of the Kings. Tavern maid Merit finds him there and warns him that Akhnaton has condemned him to death; one of the pharaoh's daughters fell ill and died while Sinuhe was working as an embalmer, and the tragedy is being blamed on his desertion of the court. Merit urges Sinuhe to flee Egypt and rebuild his career elsewhere, and the two of them have sex before he takes ship out of the country.
For the next ten years, Sinuhe and his servant Kaptah wander the known world, where Sinuhe's Egyptian medical training gives him a reputation as a healer. After saving enough money from his fees to return home, Sinuhe buys his way back into the favor of the court with a piece of military intelligence he learned abroad, informing Horemheb (now commander of the Egyptian army) that the barbarian Hittites plan to attack the country with iron weapons.
Akhnaton is ready to forgive Sinuhe, according to his religion's doctrine of mercy and pacifism. These qualities have made Aten-worship popular amid the common people, including Merit, with whom Sinuhe is reunited. He finds that she had a son named Thoth, as a result of their night together years before, who shares Sinuhe's interest in medicine.
Meanwhile, the priests of the old gods have been fomenting hate crimes against the Aten's devotees, and now urge Sinuhe to help them kill Akhnaton and put Horemheb on the throne instead. The physician is given extra inducement by the princess Baketamun; she reveals that he is actually the son of the previous pharaoh by a concubine, discarded at birth because of the jealousy of the old queen and raised by foster parents. The princess now suggests that Sinuhe could poison both Akhnaton and Horemheb and rule Egypt himself (with her at his side).
Sinuhe is still reluctant to perform this deed until the Egyptian army mounts a full attack on worshipers of the Aten. Kaptah smuggles Thoth out of the country, but Merit is killed while seeking refuge at the new god's altar. In his grief, Sinuhe blames Akhnaton for these tragedies and poisons him at their next meeting. Realizing what has been done, Akhnaton accepts his fate. He still believes his faith is true, but that he has understood it imperfectly; future generations will be able to spread the it better than he. Enlightened by Akhnaton's dying words, Sinuhe warns Horemheb that his wine is also poisoned, thus allowing him to marry the Princess and become Pharaoh.
Later, Sinuhe is brought before his old friend for preaching the ideals Akhnaton believed in and is sentenced to be exiled to the shores of the Red Sea, where he spends his remaining days writing down his life story, in the hope that it may be found by Thoth or his descendants. Ultimately it is revealed that "These things happened thirteen centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ".
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Egyptian_(film)
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Hank Green
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[No dedicated plot section found] William Henry Green II (born May 5, 1980) is an American YouTuber, science communicator, novelist, stand-up comedian, and entrepreneur. He produces the YouTube channel Vlogbrothers with his older brother, author John Green, and hosts the educational YouTube channels Crash Course and SciShow. He has advocated for and organized social activism, created and hosted a number of other YouTube channels and podcasts, released music albums, and amassed a large following on TikTok.
With his brother John, Hank co-created VidCon, the world's largest conference about online videos, and the Project for Awesome, an annual online charity event, as well as the now-defunct conference NerdCon: Stories, focused on storytelling. He is the co-creator of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (2012–2013), an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice in the style of video blogs that was the first web series to win an Emmy. He is also the co-founder of merchandise company DFTBA Records, crowdfunding platform Subbable (acquired by Patreon), game company DFTBA Games, and online video production company Pemberley Digital, which produces video blog adaptations of classic novels in the public domain. Green is the founder of the environmental technology blog EcoGeek, which evolved into Complexly, an online video and audio production company of which he was the CEO until late 2023. Green also hosts the podcasts Dear Hank & John and Delete This with his brother and wife respectively, along with the podcast SciShow Tangents.
Green's debut novel, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, was published on September 25, 2018; its sequel A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor was published on July 7, 2020. Both novels debuted as New York Times Best Sellers. In response to being diagnosed and treated for Hodgkin lymphoma in 2023, Green stepped down as CEO of his companies. While recovering, Green began performing stand-up about his experience. His comedy special titled Pissing Out Cancer was released on the streaming service Dropout on June 21, 2024.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Green
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Manon Lescaut
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The seventeen-year-old Chevalier des Grieux, a seminary student and the younger son of a noble family, falls in love at first sight with Manon, a common woman on her way to a convent. He persuades her to run away with him, disappointing his father and forfeiting his hereditary wealth. In Paris, the young lovers enjoy a blissful cohabitation, while des Grieux struggles to satisfy Manon's taste for luxury. He acquires money by increasingly desperate means: borrowing from his unwaveringly loyal friend Tiberge, cheating gamblers, stealing, and murder. On three occasions, des Grieux's wealth evaporates (by theft, in a house fire, etc.), prompting Manon to pursue a richer man for money because she cannot stand living in penury.
Manon is deported to New Orleans as a prostitute and des Grieux travels with her. They pretend to be married and live in idyllic peace for a while. Des Grieux reveals their unmarried state to the Governor, Étienne Perier, and asks to be wed to Manon. Perier's nephew, Synnelet, sets his sights on winning Manon's hand. In despair, des Grieux challenges Synnelet to a duel and knocks him unconscious. Thinking he has killed the man and fearing retribution, the couple flee New Orleans. They venture into the wilderness of Louisiana, hoping to reach an English settlement. Manon dies of exposure and exhaustion and des Grieux buries her, in the tragic climax of the tale. Heartbroken, he is taken back to France by Tiberge.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manon_Lescaut
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Intrigo: Samaria
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While cycling late night, 19-year-old Vera Kall arrives at a farm. She leaves her bike and sneaks quietly in through a kitchen door. She hadn't had time to realize that she is not alone, when a sudden blow to the head knocks her onto the kitchen floor where she is left lying. Meanwhile, a successful copywriter at Antwerp, Henry, is approached by Paula, a documentarian, with whom, upon talking, revealed that she once studied with Vera. Her task is to make a film about Vera Kall, and she wants Henry's help in writing a script for it, while she will travel to Münster and start filming. At the same time, Vera's father, Jakob, is convicted in her murder and sent to prison. Paula and Henry team up to unravel the truth and why and where Vera's body disappeared, while at the same time try to hide the whereabouts.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrigo:_Samaria
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The Ghosts of Watt O'Hugh
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From the Boston Phoenix:
The title hero – a Western legend, Civil War Veteran, and Wild West Show star – has, like Billy Pilgrim in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five become unstuck in time. Also like Pilgrim, who was forever traumatized by the Allied bombing of Dresden during World War II, at the heart of Watt's chronological peregrinations is a tragic historical event, in his case the 1863 New York City Draft Riots during which uncounted African-Americans were lynched.
Love also plays a major part in Watt's tale: he's lost his heart to Lucy Billings, a beautiful firebrand and fighter for justice who unfortunately has taken up with someone whose revolutionary commitment is greater than his own. But there are other amorous solaces with which he passes the time, or times; like Emelina, a bawdy barmaid and apparently immortal revenant.
So you could say there's a lot going on in this teeming tome, including cameos by Oscar Wilde and J.P. Morgan, the latter of whom is responsible for one of Watt's grimmer misadventures when he has the redoubtable cowpoke tossed into the Wyoming Territorial Prison in Laramie on a bogus murder charge.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghosts_of_Watt_O%27Hugh
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The Last Station (novel)
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Set in 1910, the novel tells the true story of Tolstoy's life in his last days, before he ran away from his wife and his family home, taking to the road, where he died in a small railway station called Astapovo, with only his doctor and his favourite daughter, Sasha, in attendance (the film of this novel adds Valentin Bulgakov and others to the deathbed scene who were not, in fact, present).
The various narrators, and others in the Tolstoy household and outside of it, were pulling at him, trying to get his attention. He was pulled in a thousand directions at once, and this wore him down. In particular, he found the entreaties of his wife, Sofya, difficult, as she suspected (correctly) that he was plotting with his closest friend, Chertkov, to betray the family by giving away the copyright to his works. Sofya's main concern was the family and the difficulty of maintaining their style of life after her husband's death (he was, after all, 82).
A major subplot of the novel involves Tolstoy's young secretary, Valentin Bulgakov, who comes to work with his hero in 1910 and bears witness to the controversies and difficulties surrounding him. Bulgakov falls in love with Masha, a Tolstoyan, who lives at a nearby compound called Telyatink, where a group of “Tolstoyans” have gathered to live communally and put into practice his ideas: chastity, vegetarianism, and nonviolent resistance to evil. Like Tolstoy, these were pacifists who opposed the Tsarist regime.
The novel builds dramatically to a climax at the railway station at Astapovo, where Tolstoy thought he was dying alone, although a small army of reporters had gathered from around the world to report on the death of the famous author, who had the status of a saint or rock star in Russian society. His death was major news throughout the world.
This novel mines the contradictions between Tolstoy's religious and political convictions, and those of his followers, and the luxurious life he found himself living – having been born into the Russian aristocracy and inherited a major estate.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Station_(novel)
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The Human Condition (film series)
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The Criterion Collection website summarises the plot of the film thus: "The Human Condition follows the journey of the well-intentioned, yet naïve Kaji who transitions from being a labor camp supervisor to an Imperial Army soldier and eventually Soviet POW. Constantly trying to rise above a corrupt system, Kaji time and time again finds his morals an impediment rather than an advantage."
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Human_Condition_(film_series)
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Evil Angels (novel)
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[No dedicated plot section found] Evil Angels is a 1981 novel by the French writer Pascal Bruckner. The French title is Lunes de fiel, which literally means "moons of bile", a pun on "lune de miel", "honeymoon". The story takes place on a passenger ship heading from Marseille to Istanbul, and focuses on a couple who meet a man determined to break them apart. The book was published by Éditions du Seuil. It was published in English in 1987, translated by William R. Beer.
It was adapted into the 1992 film Bitter Moon, directed by Roman Polanski.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_Angels_(novel)
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Pushpa: The Rise
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In the late 1990s, Pushpa Raj, a self-esteemed porter, and his friend Kesava resort to logging red sandalwood for notorious smuggler Konda Reddy. Pushpa quickly rises through ranks by saving the stock from being seized by DSP Govindappa and suggesting novel ideas to smuggle the logs bypassing checkpoints. Mangalam Srinu, Konda Reddy's ruthless boss, entrusts him with his consignment and in turn, Konda Reddy tasks Pushpa with safeguarding the consignment from the police and shipping it. Nevertheless, Konda Reddy's lecherous youngest brother Jaali Reddy loathes Pushpa's increasing fame and intentionally sabotages the dispatching of consignment to let the police arrest him but Pushpa manages to save the stock once again. At a party hosted by Srinu, Pushpa discovers that the latter has been double-crossing the syndicate by embezzling the profits obtained through smuggling. He promptly informs Konda Reddy, who refuses to confront Srinu and Pushpa too agrees with him.
Meanwhile, Pushpa develops feelings for Srivalli, a milk vendor and daughter of one of Konda Reddy's henchmen. Their engagement is interrupted by Mohan, Pushpa's eldest half-brother, who refuses to acknowledge Pushpa as his father's son and reveals that he is illegitimate. Pushpa's mother Parvatamma is injured in the ensuing scuffle and her agony moves Pushpa, who decides to earn a name for himself. He withdraws from working for Srinu and strikes a deal with Chennai-based smuggler Murugan, splitting profits with Konda Reddy. Elsewhere, Jaali Reddy captures Srivalli's father upon discovering that he has been working as a mole for Govindappa and threatens her to sleep with him in exchange for sparing his life. She confides in Pushpa and confesses her feelings for him; he promptly retaliates by thrashing Jaali, who gets temporarily paralyzed. He refuses to tell his brothers about Pushpa and vows to seek vengeance himself after recuperating. However, Konda Reddy eavesdrops on a conversation between Pushpa and Kesava and discovers that the former beat Jaali. He takes Pushpa to a secluded location to kill him but they face an ambush by Srinu's brother-in-law Mogileesu and his henchmen; Pushpa subdues them and kills Mogileesu while rescuing Konda Reddy's younger brother Jakka Reddy, reigniting their friendship. However, Konda Reddy dies in the attack. At his funeral, MP Siddhappa Naidu tries to make peace between Pushpa and Srinu but ends up appointing the former to run the syndicate in Srinu's stead, upon being apprised of his fraud.
Days pass by and Pushpa establishes himself as a formidable personality. Srinu's wife Dakshayani swears vengeance against Pushpa for Mogileesu's death. Meanwhile, Bhanwar Singh Shekawat, a callous cop, replaces Govindappa and is approached by Pushpa days before the latter's marriage with Srivalli. He offers Bhanwar monthly bribes and haughtily asks him to cooperate. Bhanwar arrogantly responds by humiliating Pushpa's birth and instructs him to be meek and submissive. Pushpa subsides for the time being but on his wedding day, while partying with him, he abruptly confesses to being hurt by Shekawat's words and forces him to strip down to his underwear. He does the same and declares that he derives his prestige from himself while Shekawat is nothing without his uniform and that even his dog wouldn't identify him without it. He then departs to marry Srivalli while Shekawat walks home semi-clothed and shoots his dog when it barks, having failed to recognize him just as Pushpa anticipated. He angrily incinerates the money sent by Pushpa and vows vengeance. Elsewhere, Srivalli asks Pushpa if his conflict is solved but he declares that it has just begun.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushpa:_The_Rise
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Old Gringo
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American schoolteacher Harriet Winslow goes to Mexico to work as a governess for the Miranda family and becomes caught up in the Mexican Revolution. The Mexicans transporting her from Chihuahua, secretly soldiers in Pancho Villa's army, use her luggage to smuggle weapons to the servants at the Miranda hacienda. The servants, in turn, aid the attacking revolutionary army of General Tomas Arroyo. During the attack, a sardonic "Old Gringo," American author Ambrose Bierce, joins the fighting on the side of the revolutionaries; he operates a railway switch that sends a railroad flatcar laden with explosives to its target.
After the Miranda hacienda is taken, Winslow becomes romantically attracted, alternating between Bierce and Arroyo. Bierce has come to Mexico to die in anonymity, feeling that his fifty years as a writer have earned him praise only for his style, not for the truth he has tried to convey. Arroyo, by contrast, has returned to the hacienda where he was born. His father was a Miranda who had raped his peasant mother, and later in his youth, Arroyo murdered his father.
While his army enjoys previously unknown luxuries on the war-damaged palatial estate, Arroyo becomes obsessed with his past. Transfixed by childhood memories of his family buried there, he fails to move his army when ordered by Villa. To bring Arroyo to his senses and avert a mutiny among his officers, Bierce burns papers that the illiterate Arroyo considers sacred—documents that supposedly entitle the peasants to the hacienda land. In response, Arroyo shoots Bierce in the back, killing him. Bierce dies in Winslow's arms.
Winslow goes to the U.S. embassy in Mexico to claim Bierce's body and bring it back to the United States. She claims that he was her long-lost father. This puts Villa in a predicament, as a U.S. citizen has been murdered by one of his generals. Wishing to avoid American interference in the revolution, Villa has Winslow sign a statement that her father had joined the revolution and was executed for disobeying orders, as was General Arroyo, who had shot him, and that she witnessed both executions. She signs the statement, is provided with the coffin bearing Bierce's body, and witnesses Arroyo's execution.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Gringo
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Flashman and the Mountain of Light
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At the end of events in Flashman's Lady, Flashman is sent to India when the English are anticipating conflict with the Sikh Army, the Khalsa. He is dispatched by Major George Broadfoot to the Punjab, masquerading as a solicitor attempting to settle the Soochet legacy. Flashman becomes entangled in the intrigues of the Punjabi court before being forced to flee at the outbreak of war, then becomes involved in plans by the Punjabi nobility to curb the power of the Khalsa.
Returning to the relative safety of the British forces, Flashman arrives just in time to become an unwilling participant in the attack on Ferozeshah. Injured, he attempts to avoid the rest of the war in a sick bed, but is called personally by the Maharani of the Punjab to attend to an urgent mission: smuggling her son Daleep Singh and the Koh-i-Noor diamond out of the country.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashman_and_the_Mountain_of_Light
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Five Survive
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Five Survive follows six high school seniors going on a road trip during their spring break. 17 year old Red Kenny, the protagonist, joins her friends on a journey in a borrowed RV, hoping to find some normalcy and fun after experiencing personal challenges, including the death of her mother. Red is accompanied by her best friend Maddy, Maddy's brother Oliver, his girlfriend Reyna, and their friends Simon and Arthur. As they drive through a desolate part of Pennsylvania, a series of unexpected events turns their holiday into a nightmare. The trouble begins when the group takes a wrong turn and ends up on a desolate road far from their planned route.
First, the RV gets a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, leaving them stranded without a way to call for help due to poor reception. They think they have just hit a sharp rock and while they attempt to fix it, they discover that the damage appears intentional, as if someone had purposely sabotaged their vehicle. While outside of the vehicle trying to make sense of what happened to the tires, Red sees something out of the ordinary. A small red dot is moving slowly against the RV, coming from somewhere in the forest. Before they can make sense of this, they find themselves under attack. Someone is shooting at the RV from the darkness. Panic sets in as they realize they are being targeted. Suddenly an unfamiliar voice comes through a hidden walkie-talkie, revealing that someone is out there with a sniper rifle, and they are not just stranded by chance. The sniper gives them a chilling ultimatum. One of the six holds a secret, and until that secret is revealed, they will not be allowed to leave. They must find the truth within the group or none of them will survive. At first, the group is in disbelief, thinking it's some sort of sick joke or misunderstanding. But when the sniper proves his deadly seriousness by shooting objects near them, their fears are confirmed. Trapped and surrounded, the group of teens are forced to take the sniper's demands seriously. They realize the sniper knows intimate details about them and is willing to kill if they do not comply. The group becomes frantic, searching for the secret that could save their lives.
Oliver quickly takes charge. As they start to turn on each other, it becomes apparent that there are fractures within their friend group that the sniper is making use of. The claustrophobic atmosphere of the RV, combined with the terror of being hunted, pushes everyone to their breaking points. With the clock ticking, the group tries to escape multiple times, but every plan fails. The sniper's aim is too good and every failed attempt makes them more desperate. As their fear grows, secrets begin to spill out. Oliver and Maddy's mom, Catherine, is an assistant district attorney who is involved in a case against a member of the Philadelphia mafia, Frank Grotti. Oliver believes the secret could have something to do with the case.
Oliver starts accusing Red, Arthur and Simon of working with the sniper. Red then realizes that there is a chance that she is the one the sniper is after. Red reveals that she herself is an eyewitness in the Frank Gotti case. Oliver quickly decides that Red must be the one the sniper is after. He forces her out of the RV into the darkness. The sniper does not shoot and Red survives. This makes Oliver suspicious of her involvement with the sniper. Oliver then decides to have his sister Maddy pretend to be Red and get outside of the RV. Because of Oliver's plan, Maddy gets shot by the sniper. Red then admits that she hasn't been telling the truth. Catherine, Oliver's and Maddy's mom, made her lie. Red isn't actually an eyewitness. Catherine had told Red that Frank Gotti killed Red's mom and then promised her money for false testimony.
After that, Red manages to get through radio interference on the walkie-talkie but then Arthur abruptly smashes it. It is revealed that the sniper outside of the RV is Arthur's brother Mike and that they are Frank Gotti's sons. Arthur then confesses that Frank did not kill Red's mom at all. That's when Red finally realizes that Catherine had made up a story and lied to her. The one who killed Red's mom was Catherine. Maddy then speaks up, admitting that she already knew that her mom Catherine was responsible for Red's mother's death.
Finally a police car arrives at the scene. Red rushes out of the RV and Arthur runs after her. Oliver also follows close behind, intent on killing Arthur. In the chaos Red gets shot by a police officer since he accidentally thought that the walkie-talkie in her hand was a gun and Oliver gets shot by the sniper. The last part of the book includes a newsletter, a police radio transcript and a letter from Arthur to Red where it is revealed that Red survived.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Survive
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Set in Stone (novel)
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Samuel Godwin, an aspiring artist, is forced to drop out of art school following his father's death. Without any qualifications, he contemplates what to do for work. Wealthy businessman Ernest Farrow advertises for an art tutor for his two daughters, and Godwin successfully applies for the position.
He moves into Farrow's mansion, Fourwinds, with adequate time to pursue his own art. Godwin becomes infatuated with Farrow's youngest daughter, Marianne, but questions remain unanswered. Marianne wanders the grounds at night, while her sister, Juliana, is always quiet and sad. Godwin discovers the previous art tutor, a talented sculptor, was sent away from Fourwinds before he finished his masterpiece.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_in_Stone_(novel)
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Diary of a Madman (Lu Xun)
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The story begins with a note from the narrator written in Classical Chinese, describing his reunion with an old friend. Having heard that the friend's brother was ill, he visits them, but discovers that the brother has recovered and taken up an official post. The rest of the story consists of 13 fragments the narrator has copied from a diary the brother kept while "mad", written in vernacular Chinese.
The diary reveals that he suffered a "persecution complex", and became suspicious of everyone's actions, including people's stares, a doctor's treatment, his brother's behavior, and even dogs barking. He came to believe that the people in his village had a grudge against him and were cannibals who carried the intent of consuming him. Reading a history book, the "madman" saw the words "eat people" written between the lines, as commentary placed in classical Chinese texts. As his "madness" progressed, he experiences psychosis thinking the villagers are attempting to force him into suicide, that his brother ate his sister and that he might have done so as well. He attempts to persuade the villagers to "change from the heart", but concludes that people have been eating each other for millennia. The last chapter concludes with a plea to "save the children".
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diary_of_a_Madman_(Lu_Xun)
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Cherry Valance
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Ponyboy Curtis, a fourteen-year-old boy who is a member of a "gang of greasers", is leaving a movie theater when he is jumped by "Socs", the greasers' rival gang. Several greasers, including Ponyboy's two older brothers—the paternal Darry and the popular Sodapop—come to his rescue. The next night, Ponyboy and two greaser friends, the hardened Dally and the quiet Johnny, meet Cherry and Marcia, a pair of Soc girls, at a drive-in movie theater. Cherry scorns Dally's rude advances, but Ponyboy speaks civilly with Cherry, emotionally connecting with a Soc for the first time in his life.
Afterward, Ponyboy, Johnny, and their wisecracking friend Two-Bit begin to walk Cherry and Marcia home, when they are stopped by Cherry's boyfriend Bob, who badly beat up Johnny a few months back. Bob and the greasers exchange taunts, but Cherry prevents a fight by willingly leaving with Bob. Ponyboy gets home at two in the morning, enraging Darry until he suddenly slaps Ponyboy. As Darry tries to apologize, Pony runs out the door and meets up with Johnny, expressing his anger at Darry's increasing coldness in the wake of his parents' recent deaths in a car crash.
Running away from home, Ponyboy and Johnny wander into a park, where Bob and four other Socs surround them. After some heated talk, Ponyboy spits at the Socs, prompting them to attempt to drown him in a nearby fountain, but Johnny stabs Bob, killing him and dispersing the rest. Terrified as to what to do next, Ponyboy and Johnny rush to find Dally, who gives them money and a loaded firearm, directing them to hide in an abandoned church in Windrixville. During their stay there, Pony cuts and dyes his hair as a disguise, reads Gone with the Wind to Johnny, and, upon viewing a beautiful sunrise, recites the poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost.
Days later, Dally comes to check on them, revealing that violence between the greasers and Socs has escalated since Bob's death into all-out city-wide warfare, with Cherry acting out of guilt as a spy for the greasers. Johnny decides to turn himself in and Dally agrees to take the boys back home. As they attempt to leave, they notice the church has caught fire and several local schoolchildren have become trapped inside. The greasers run inside the burning church to save the children, but Ponyboy is rendered unconscious by the fumes. At the hospital he discovers that he and Dally are not badly injured, but a piece of the church roof fell on Johnny and broke his back. Sodapop and Darry come to the hospital; Darry breaks down and cries. Ponyboy then realizes that Darry cares about him, and is only hard on him because he loves him and cares about his future.
The following morning the newspapers declare Pony and Johnny heroes, but Johnny will be charged with manslaughter for Bob's death. Two-Bit tells them that the greaser–Soc rivalry is to be settled in a final rumble. Ponyboy and Two-Bit are approached by a Soc named Randy, Bob's best friend, who expresses remorse for his involvement in the gang war, lacks confidence about the rumble ending the feud, and says he will not participate.
Later, Ponyboy visits Johnny at the hospital, where he is in critical condition. On their way home, Pony spots Cherry and they talk. Cherry says she is unwilling to visit Johnny in the hospital because he killed her boyfriend. Pony calls her a traitor, but after she explains herself they end on good terms. After escaping the hospital, Dally shows up just in time for the rumble. The greasers win the fight. Afterward, Pony and Dally hurry back to the hospital to see Johnny, but he dies moments later and a hysterical Dally runs out of the room. Pony returns home that night feeling confused and disoriented. Dally calls the house to say that he has robbed a store and is running from the police. The greasers find Dally deliberately pointing an unloaded firearm at the police, causing them to shoot and kill him. Overwhelmed, Ponyboy faints and is sick in bed for many days due to the resulting concussion from the rumble. When the hearing finally comes, the judge frees Ponyboy from responsibility for Bob's death and allows Pony to remain at home with Darry and Sodapop.
Ponyboy returns to school, but his grades drop. Although he is failing English, his teacher, Mr. Syme, says he will pass him if he writes a decent theme. In the copy of Gone with the Wind that Johnny gave him before dying, Ponyboy finds a letter from Johnny describing how he will die proudly after saving the kids from the fire. Johnny also urges Ponyboy to "stay golden". Ponyboy decides to write his English assignment about the recent events, and begins his essay with the opening line of the novel: "When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home".
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsiders_(novel)
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Habibi (novel)
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[No dedicated plot section found] Habibi is a 1997 young adult novel by Naomi Shihab Nye. It tells the story of 14-year-old Liyana Abboud and her family, her Arab father, American mother, and brother Rafik, who move from their home in St. Louis to Mr. Abboud's native home of Palestine in the 1970s. It is semi-autobiographical.
Nye's debut novel was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, an ALA Notable Book, a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, and a Texas Institute of Letters Best Book for Young Readers. It received the Jane Addams Children's Book Award, given annually to a children's book that advances the causes of peace and social equality. In 2000, it also received the Middle East Book Award for Youth Literature.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habibi_(novel)
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L'âne de Carpizan
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[No dedicated plot section found] L'âne de Carpizan is a satirical novel from Quebec written by louperivian writer Raymond Goulet, dancer and dance professor, autopublished in 1957. and re-edited by Moult Éditions in 2019.
When published, the book was described as being the most irreverencious quebec novel , and later as a punch, an anticlerical charge, an ubuesque crazy and surrealist pamphlet
It is the first known novel written in Quebec in which the narratives revolves around trans identity.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27%C3%A2ne_de_Carpizan
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The Mississippi Bubble
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[No dedicated plot section found] The Mississippi Bubble is a 1902 novel by American author Emerson Hough. It was Hough's first bestseller, and the fourth-best selling novel in the United States in 1902.
The historical novel revolves around the story of John Law (1671-1729) and the "Mississippi Bubble", an economic bubble of speculative investment in the French colony of Louisiana.
The book sold well from the time of its release, with The New York Times reporting 1,000 copies selling per day in the first month of its release. It became the number one best-selling book in America for the month in the August 1902 issue of The Bookman.
Hough wrote the book at night, working between 10pm and 4am, after his day job at Forest and Stream magazine in Chicago. He earned $11,640.15 from it.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mississippi_Bubble
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C. Leigh Purtill
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Plot summary not found.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Leigh_Purtill
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Odd Thomas (novel)
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In the beginning of the book, Odd Thomas is silently approached by the ghost of a young girl brutally raped and murdered, and through his unique ability to understand the dead, is psychically led to her killer, a former schoolmate named Harlo Landerson. Koontz discloses how Odd was named and begins, layer by layer, to show how Odd's dysfunctional upbringing has shaped his life, and as those details are uncovered, his supernatural abilities begin to make more sense.
While working as a short order cook in a California desert town, Odd meets a suspicious-looking man in the diner followed by bodachs, shadowy spirit creatures who appear only during times of death and disaster. This man, who Odd nicknames "Fungus Man" (due to his waxy complexion and blond hair that resembles mold), has an unusually large swarm of bodachs following him, and Odd is convinced that this man is connected to some terrible catastrophe that is about to occur. To gather more information about him, Odd uses his gift of supernatural intuition, which his soulmate Bronwen (a.k.a. Stormy) Llewellyn calls "psychic magnetism," to track him down.
Odd's sixth sense leads him to Fungus Man's home, and Odd begins to uncover more details about the man and a mysterious other-worldly link to the dark forces about to be unleashed on the town of Pico Mundo. Accompanied sometimes by the ghost of Elvis Presley and encountering other memorable spirits, including a murdered prostitute, Odd is soon deeply involved in an attempt to prevent the disastrous bloodshed he knows will happen the next day.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd_Thomas_(novel)
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The Circus in Winter
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Display No. 1: WALLACE PORTER - or What It Means to See the Elephant
Wallace Porter from Lima, Indiana ran a large livery stable. The struggling 'Hollenbach Circus and Menagerie' paused at the town and Wallace decides to buy the circus, which became the Great Porter Circus.
Display No. 2: JENNIE DIXIANNA - or The Secret to the Spin of Death
During the winter months the circus retires to Lima. Jennie Dixianna speciality was the Spanish rope who lured Wallace and became his mistress.
Display No. 3: THE LAST MEMBER OF THE BOELA TRIBE:
Chapter the First - How Boscombe Bowles Went from Honey-bucket Boy to Pinhead
Zip the Pinhead was displayed by P. T. Barnum. Hollenbach asked Boscombe Bowles to pose as a pinhead, starting the Boela tribe. Boscombe then married Pearly the 'Zulu Queen' and had a son named Gordon, royal prince of the Boela Tribe of African Pinheads.
Chapter the Second - How Gordon Bowles Came to Know More Than He Ever Wanted to Know About Elephants
Gordon grew up in the Great Porter Circus, in the spring of 1901, Caesar the elephant broke free, killing the trainer, Hans Hofstadter. The elephant was shot but it was revealed that it was mistreated.
Chapter the Third - How Verna Bowles Learned about the Relative Nature of Beauty and Truth
Verna Bowles was Gordon's daughter, born long after the circus was sold in 1939. She lived in Lima where her father told her about tales of the circus.
Chapter the Last - How Chicky Bowles Avenged Caesar and Found His Place in the World
Chicky was the son of Verna, born a dwarf. He stole Caesar's skull from the town's museum and threw it in the river, to try to bury Caesar's story of killing his trainer. Chick then set off for Gibsonton to be with other dwarves.
Display No. 4: THE CIRCUS HOUSE - or The Prettiest Little Thing in the Whole Goddamn Place
Wallace Porter in 1900 hired the Colonel Ford from P. T. Barnum. Ford's wife wanted to remain in Lima so Wallace agreed that she could live in his old house. Mrs. Ford asked the circus painter to decorate the house with scenes from the circus.
Display No. 5: WINNESAW - or Nothing Ever Stops Happening When It's Over
In 1913 the Winnesaw river floods Lima, killing many animals and also Jennie Dixianna.
Display No. 6: THE LONE STAR COWBOY - or Don't Fence Me In
In 1957 Stella, her husband Wayne and her twin sons Ray and Ricky moved to Lima to Wallace's old house, with its circus themed murals. Stella imagines the pictures on the walls coming to life. Then tragedy strikes as Ricky accidentally shoots Ray.
Display No. 7: THE JUNGLE GOOLAH BOY:
Preface - So Many Stories Begin Just Like This, on a Ship Sailing to a Place That's Not Yet America
Chapter the First - The Jungle Goolah Boy's Family Tree, According to the Tree's Proprietors
Chapter the Second - The Jungle Goolah Boy's Circus Career, According to the Circus's Proprietors
Chapter the Last - How Sugar Church became the Jungle Goolah Boy - According to his Brother - According to the WPA
Display No. 8: THE KING AND HIS COURT - or Boy Meets Girl, Boy Marries Girl, The End
In 1967 Ethan Perdido was the best baseball player in the state. Ethan was ready to join The King and His Court when his girlfriend Laura Hofstadter became pregnant. He proposes to her and he decides to join the family Funeral Parlour business in Lima where Laura toys with disappearing to Chicago.
Display No. 9: BOSS MAN - or The Gypsies Appear and Poof! They're Gone
Earl Richards is to become the new manager of the KOA Kampgrounds in Lima, but when the gypsies arrive they cause problems...
Display No. 10: THE BULLHOOK
Ollie was born in a blizzard in 1900, the son of Hans Hofstadter the elephant trainer. He married Mildred and they had a daughter Laura, but their marriage was not a happy one, and later Laura disappeared.
Display No. 11: THE CIRCUS PEOPLE - or WMLA, Your Hometown Music Station, 1060 on the AM Dial
Jenny returns to Lima for her grandfather Ollie's funeral, where her father Ethan runs the Funeral Parlour.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circus_in_Winter
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Hajime Taguchi
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[No dedicated plot section found] Hajime Taguchi (田口一, Taguchi Hajime) (born 1975) is a Japanese novelist who is best known for his work Nakaimo - My Sister is Among Them!. In 2007, his novel Majo Rumika no Akai Ito won the Honorable Mention at the F Bunko J light novel rookie award.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajime_Taguchi
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Count Belisarius
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[No dedicated plot section found] Count Belisarius is a historical novel by Robert Graves, first published in 1938, recounting the life of the Roman general Belisarius (AD 500–565).
Just as Graves's Claudius novels (I, Claudius and Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina) were based on The Twelve Caesars of Suetonius and other Roman sources, Count Belisarius is largely based on Procopius's History of Justinian's Wars and Secret History. However, Graves's treatment of his sources has been criticised by the historian Anthony Kaldellis, who writes that "There are many historical novels set in the early sixth century, but none can be recommended that are both historically accurate and well-written. R. Graves's Count Belisarius... is at least well-written."
Count Belisarius purports to be a biography written by Eugenius, a eunuch who is a servant of Belisarius' wife Antonina. The novel covers the entire life of Belisarius, with the bulk of the text being devoted to accounts of his life while on campaign in North Africa and Italy. Antonina was often with him during these years, and Graves uses stories about her connections to the court of the Emperor Justinian and his Empress Theodora to incorporate political intrigue and other information into the story of Belisarius' military exploits.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Belisarius
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James BeauSeigneur
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[No dedicated plot section found] James BeauSeigneur (born 1953) is an American novelist. He is a former intelligence analyst who has worked for the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency. As an author, he has worked with the Department of Homeland Security by serving on “Terrorist Red Cells” to speculate on possible terrorist targets and tactics. He is a former newspaper publisher, and he taught political science for two years at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. His background brings a special focus on scientific and political realism to his novels, which are heavily footnoted. His Christ Clone Trilogy has been published in 12 languages.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_BeauSeigneur
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Petro Marko
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[No dedicated plot section found] Petro Marko (November 25, 1913 – December 27, 1991) was an Albanian writer. His best-known novel is titled Hasta La Vista and recounts his experiences as a volunteer of the Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War. Petro Marko is widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern Albanian prose.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petro_Marko
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Found Floating
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[No dedicated plot section found] Found Floating is a 1937 detective novel by the Irish writer Freeman Wills Crofts. It is the sixteenth in his series of novels featuring Inspector French, a Scotland Yard detective of the Golden Age known for his methodical technique.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_Floating
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Worth Dying For (novel)
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Following the events of 61 Hours, Jack Reacher is on his way to Virginia to meet Major Susan Turner, the current commanding officer of his old Army unit, the elite 110th Military Police Special Investigations Unit. En route, he stops for the night at the Apollo Inn, a fading motel in rural Nebraska. In the motel's bar he overhears a drunken doctor refuse to take a house call for a woman named Eleanor Duncan, the abused wife of Seth Duncan, whose adoptive father and uncles run a trucking company that extorts business from surrounding farms. The Duncans employ ten ex-Nebraska Cornhusker offensive linemen as enforcers. Despite being warned that Eleanor is off-limits, Reacher persuades the doctor to treat her nosebleed. He then tracks Seth to a local steakhouse, gives one of the Cornhuskers who is Seth's bodyguard a concussion, and breaks Seth's nose. The Duncans retaliate by sending two Cornhuskers to smash the doctor's car, and after Reacher beats them up, the Duncans force the motel owner, Vincent, to throw Reacher out.
Reacher pretends to leave, but slips back into his room for the night. The next day, he meets Dorothy Coe, who works part-time as the maid. She takes Reacher to her house for breakfast, and reveals that the Duncans drove her family into poverty years ago after she accused them of kidnapping her daughter Margaret, leading her husband Arthur to commit suicide. Rossi, an Italian-American mobster in Las Vegas who works with the Duncans, sends two men to help them find Reacher, but he manages to evade them when they arrive at Dorothy's farm. Rossi's Lebanese contact Safir and his Iranian boss Mahmeni subsequently send four more men when it becomes clear that the Duncans are incapable of dealing with Reacher. They both instruct their men to kill the others when possible to eliminate their competition. Meanwhile, Reacher puts another Cornhusker out of commission who was trying to kill him with his truck.
At the County seat, Reacher receives files through the County police on Margaret's disappearance, which seemingly clear the Duncans of any involvement. On his way back, he kills one of the Iranians, leading his partner to believe that he was murdered by the Italians. Reacher talks Eleanor into luring the lone Cornhusker who is guarding the road from town into following her. Reacher captures the Cornhusker, the nastiest of the crew, whose name is John, by parking his car across the road which forces John into a panic stop. Reacher takes John back to the Cornhuskers' living quarters, and challenges John to a fight. When John refuses to fight, Reacher tells John to stay out of the battle with the Duncans and takes his vehicle. While Reacher is meeting with the doctor and Dorothy to discuss what he found, Seth and five Cornhuskers arrive, having forced Eleanor to reveal Reacher's plan, and lock them inside, breaking Reacher's nose and throwing him in the basement. The Italians pretend to form an alliance with Safir's men to dispose of the other Iranian and cut his boss out of the plan, then shoot them dead and set fire to the bodies, which Vincent witnesses.
Seth leaves, and Reacher manages to lure his two Cornhusker guards downstairs, where he subdues them, as well as two others when they arrive for breakfast. The last two Cornhuskers standing arrive next. One of them is the one who broke Reacher's nose. The other is John, which disappoints Reacher. Reacher forces the Cornhusker who broke his nose to immobilize John with duct tape. Reacher then challenges the Cornhusker to a fight, which Reacher wins easily, breaking the Cornhusker's nose in the process. The Italians kill the final Iranian as he interrogates the Duncans (having concluded that they murdered his partner after finding him in Seth's car where Reacher had put him) and leave to collect Reacher. After getting frustrated after a fruitless search and stopping at Vincent's inn for the night, they are lured outside and killed by Reacher.
With the Duncans believing him to be dead, Reacher makes his way to the old barn where Margaret was last seen, where he kills Eldrige Tyler, a friend of the Duncans guarding the barn who he fingers as her killer. Upon opening the barn and finding it full of decaying remains, he calls the townspeople over and reveals the truth: the Duncans have been engaging in human trafficking, bringing women and girls from Southeast Asia for the prostitution trade in Las Vegas. However, they also kept some of their cargo for purposes of sexual abuse, and Margaret was an easy opportunistic target.
Horrified, the doctor, his wife, and Dorothy agree to help Reacher exact revenge on the Duncans. After setting fire to their compound, Reacher kills Seth's step-father and uncles with a rifle, before running down and killing Seth himself. The doctor and his wife chase down Seth's step-father, and Dorothy kills him. Eleanor liberates a shipment of women that her family planned to send to Vegas, and informs Reacher that she will take the girls to Denver so they can assimilate into the Thai community there or try to get back home. Thankful that justice has been delivered, Reacher resumes his journey to Virginia to find Major Turner.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worth_Dying_For_(novel)
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Cold Skin (novel)
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The novel chronicles the story of a former fighter for the independence of Ireland who, unmotivated by the events of the Western World, decides to escape from the society in which he lives. He accepts a job offer as a weather official on a remote island in the south Atlantic close to the Antarctic Circle.
On this island there is only one inhabitant, the signals official Batis Caffo, who does not help the Irishman, and hides all the information which he has on the island. So the hero has to spend a night alone, where he suffers the attack of strange monsters that are similar to frogs.
Through his cunning he manages to stay in the lighthouse with Caffo, and thus he can withstand attacks from the big frogs. After some days, he finds out that Caffo has sex with a domesticated monster, the female Aneris. Although the Irishman first thinks that the monsters are evil and murderous, after meeting Aneris, he changes his mind.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Skin_(novel)
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Duddu Shah
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Plot summary not found.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duddu_Shah
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Argenis
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[No dedicated plot section found] Argenis is a book by John Barclay. It is a work of historical allegory which tells the story of the religious conflict in France under Henry III of France and Henry IV of France, and also touches on more contemporary English events, such as the Overbury scandal. The tendency is royalist, anti-aristocratic; it is told from the angle of a king who reduces the landed aristocrats' power in the interest of the "country", the interest of which is identified with that of the king.
Jennifer Morrish describes Argenis as one of "the two most influential Neo-Latin novels", along with Thomas More's Utopia.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argenis
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Out of Bounds (McDermid novel)
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Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie walks the streets of Leith in the small hours. She cannot sleep as her lover and colleague, Phil Parhatka, was killed in the last outing in this series (The Skeleton Road). At night she encounters displaced Syrian refugees in alleyways and under bridges gathered together to try to be a community, as since coming to Scotland, they have nowhere to meet up.
In 2016, a group of joyriders crash their stolen vehicle and the driver ends up in intensive care. The DNA of the offender leads Pirie to an unsolved rape/murder of a hairdresser from Partick in 1996. Tina McDonald was on a night out with some friends in Glasgow when she disappeared from the group before being found dead the next morning.
A supposed suicide of Gabriel, a Kinross man, also leads to Karen unofficially opening a cold case on a 1994 aircraft crash. The aircraft contained 4 people, the pilot was an MP and one of the passengers was Gabriel's mother. It was always believed that an incendiary device had caused the aircraft to crash and that the IRA were responsible. As Karen digs deeper, she finds more and more and comes to believe that the terrorists were far from responsible.
Amongst all of this, Karen has to come to terms with Phil's death, worry about her young, naïve colleague who makes errors in judgment and procedure, whilst combatting the open dislike that her superior, Assistant Chief Constable Lees, has for her. She even finds the time and opportunity to help the refugees.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_Bounds_(McDermid_novel)
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Little Brother (Baillie novel)
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[No dedicated plot section found] Little Brother is a 1985 children's novel by award winning Australian author Allan Baillie about life in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. It was illustrated by Elizabeth Honey.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Brother_(Baillie_novel)
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The Kid (novel)
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[No dedicated plot section found] The Kid is a 2016 historical western novel written by Ron Hansen. It is about the legendary Old West outlaw, Billy the Kid, including his involvement in the Lincoln County War of New Mexico.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kid_(novel)
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King of the Castle (1926 film)
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[No dedicated plot section found] King of the Castle is a 1926 British silent drama film directed by Henry Edwards and starring Marjorie Hume, Brian Aherne and Dawson Millward. It was based on a 1922 novel by Keble Howard, who approved the scenario and wrote some of the intertitles.
Many of the outdoor scenes were filmed in Cornwall.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_the_Castle_(1926_film)
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Arabesque (film)
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Major Sloane kills Professor Ragheeb, an ancient hieroglyphics expert at Oxford University and steals a hieroglyph-encrypted message. Sloane then asks David Pollock, another professor working there, to meet with shipping magnate Nejim Beshraavi on a business matter. David, however, declines. He is later kidnapped by the prime minister of a Middle Eastern country, Hassan Jena and his ambassador to the United Kingdom, Mohammed Lufti. Jena makes David accept Beshraavi's offer of employment.
Beshraavi wants to decode Ragheeb's message. He had Ragheeb killed and secretly plans to do the same to David once the latter deciphers it. Beshraavi's girlfriend Yasmin Azir manages to tells this to David before he can decode the note. Aided by Yasmin, David hides and wraps the cipher in a red candy. David is eventually forced to show himself and decides to seemingly abduct Yasmin. While they flee, he struggles with one of Beshraavi's henchmen, whom a man named Webster eventually kills. Webster then knocks David unconscious.
David awakes in the presence of Webster, Yasmin and another of Yasmin's boyfriends, Yussef Kassim, who is after the cipher. David says that Beshraavi has the cipher. They use truth serum on David, who talks what they believe is gibberish about the candy. Believing that he was telling the truth about Beshraavi, Yussef tells Yasmin to work on Beshraavi.
The next morning, Yasmin tells Beshraavi that Yussef, for whom the cipher was originally intended, killed David and the henchman but does not yet know the coded message. Beshraavi says that David has the cipher. Later, Yasmin visits David. Yasmin convinces him that she hates Yussef and that she pretends to help him because his boss Ali, a general orchestrating a military takeover, has her mother and sisters hostage. Yasmin says that David needs to crack the cipher so she can report back to the embassy, which will ensure their safety.
David and Yasmin go to the construction site Yussef uses as his front. Nearby, Webster takes the candies to eat and discovers the cipher. David and Yasmin later overhear Webster and Beshraavi planning to meet at the Ascot racetrack to betray Yussef.
At the Ascot racetrack, Yasmin is with Beshraavi. Meanwhile, David spots Webster rendezvousing with Sloane, who hands over an envelope of money. David steals the cipher from Webster, who fights back. Sloane attempts to stab David, accidentally killing Webster.
David later notices newspaper headlines which implicate him as Webster's killer. David visits Mrs. Ragheeb and asks her about the cipher, also giving her the news that her husband has been killed. Mrs. Ragheeb revals that Yasmin is lying, in that she has no mother or sisters. Yasmin's father is actually Ali.
That night, David lies to Yasmin, saying that he does not have the cipher but has decoded the message and makes up a nonsense meaning. She relays that information to the embassy via telephone. Later, David secretly follows Yasmin to Yussef's construction site. There, Yussef attempts to kill Yasmin. David rushes to save her and Yussef is electrocuted to death by a live wire.
The hieroglyphics turn out to be a version of a nursery rhyme. David looks for secret writing on it. After getting it wet, the ink washes away, leaving a microdot. It reads "Beshraavi plans assassinate Jena twelve thirty June eighteenth" which is in twenty minutes. Meanwhile, Jena lands at the airport. David shoves past security guards to reach Jena, who is beginning a welcoming speech. David knocks Jena to the ground, saving him from Sloane's machine gun fire. Lufti then kills Jena with a pistol. However, the man who was shot later turns out to be an imposter of Jena.
The real Jena was abducted by Beshraavi and locked in the back of a truck. David and Yasmin hide in the truck and free Jena as the van arrives at Beshraavi's country estate. David, Yasmin and Jena escape on horses from his stables, being pursued through crop fields by a farm combine with blades. Beshraavi and Sloane approach them in a helicopter. While crossing the disused Crumlin steel-girder railway viaduct, David drops a ladder down into the helicopter's rotors as Beshraavi and Sloane pass underneath, causing them to crash and burn.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabesque_(film)
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The Technician (novel)
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[No dedicated plot section found] The Technician is a 2011 science fiction novel by Neal Asher. The story is set on the world of Masada approximately 20 years after the events of The Line of Polity. The title refers to an unusual albino hooder that creates sculptures from the bones of other creatures. The book provides further background on a number of characters that recur in Asher's novels including the hooders and gabbleducks, the black AI Penny Royal, the war drone Amistad and the apparently extinct Atheter race. It is eventually revealed that the gabbleducks are the remains of the Atheter after they reduced themselves to the intelligence of animals to avoid the dangers of Jain technology and the eponymous Technician is an ancient war machine of stupendous power.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Technician_(novel)
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Rogue Star (novel)
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In The Reefs of Space, the main character, Steve Ryeland, is a genius scientist trying to build a new type of rocket drive. In Starchild there is an unknown person or group called "Starchild" who stands up to the "Plan of Man" computer, leading a bloody rebellion.
In Rogue Star, the "Plan of Man" computer's totalitarian domination is ended when humans meet advanced "civilizations and godlike beings" from nearby galaxies who have created utopian societies. Nevertheless, Andreas Quamodian is still unhappy in his home on Exion Four, even though it is a model society. He gets a strained message from an old girlfriend on Earth, Molly Zaldivar. When he teleports to get to her, he is abducted by a rogue star. On Earth, Molly's inventor boyfriend Cliff Hawk is examining rogue stars and tries to "play God" by creating one in his laboratory.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Star_(novel)
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Speak (Anderson novel)
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The summer before her freshman year of high school, Melinda Sordino meets senior Andy Evans at a high school party, who rapes her while she is drunk. Melinda immediately calls 9-1-1, but her shock renders her unable to speak and she flees to go home. The police arrive and break up the party, and several people are arrested. When word spreads that Melinda called the police, she becomes ostracized by her peers and abandoned by her friends.
Melinda is befriended by Heather, a girl from Ohio who is new to the community. However, once Heather realizes that Melinda is an outcast, she abandons her in favor of the "Marthas," a group of girls who seem charitable and outgoing but are actually selfish and cruel. As Melinda's depression worsens, she begins to skip school, withdrawing from her already distant (and somewhat neglectful) parents and other authority figures, who see her reclusiveness as a cry for attention. She slowly befriends her lab partner, David Petrakis, who encourages her to speak up for herself.
Melinda summons the courage to tell her former best friend Rachel, who has been dating Andy, about what happened at the party. While Rachel initially doesn't believe Melinda, she realizes that this is the truth on prom night after Andy groped her. Enraged at Melinda for exposing him, Andy attacks Melinda in an abandoned janitor's closet. Melinda fights back against Andy, attracting the attention of fellow students. When word spreads about Andy's assaults against Melinda, the students no longer treat her as an outcast, but rather as a hero. Melinda finally regains her voice and tells her story to her art teacher.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speak_(Anderson_novel)
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Where the Body Was
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[No dedicated plot section found] Where the Body Was is a standalone graphic novel, created by the duo Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. It was published by Image Comics on December 13, 2023. The plot revolves around a murder mystery in the suburbs on the summer of 1984. The story is told from the perspective of multiple characters and jumps back and forth in time.
Brubaker called the story "the strangest and most experimental thing" he and Phillips have made during their collaboration of over 20 years. The plot of the book was inspired by events in Brubaker's life as a teenager in Southern California.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_the_Body_Was
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So Big (novel)
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The story follows the life of a young woman, Selina Peake De Jong, who decides to be a school teacher in farming country. During her stay on the Pool family farm, she encourages the young Roelf Pool to follow his interests, which include art. Upon his mother's death, Roelf runs away to France. Meanwhile, Selina marries a Dutch farmer named Pervus. They have a child together, Dirk, whom she nicknames "So Big," from the common question and answer "How big is baby? " "So-o-o-o big!" (Ferber, 2). Pervus becomes ill and dies, and Selina is forced to take over working on the farm to give Dirk a future. As Dirk gets older, he works as an architect but is more interested in making money than creating buildings and becomes a stock broker, much to his mother's disappointment. His love interest, Dallas O'Mara, an acclaimed artist, echoes this sentiment by trying to convince Dirk that there is more to life than money. Much later in life, Selina is visited by Roelf Pool, who has since become a famous sculptor. Dirk grows very distressed when, after visiting his mother's farm, he realizes that Dallas and Roelf love each other and he cannot compete with the artistically minded sculptor. In the end, Dirk comes to appreciate the wisdom of his mother, who always valued aesthetics and beauty even as she scraped out a living in a stern Dutch community. Ultimately, Dirk is left alone in his sumptuous apartment, saddened by his abandonment of artistic values.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Big_(novel)
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Odd and the Frost Giants
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Odd is a young Norseman whose father, a woodcutter, drowned during a Viking raid. Soon after he accidentally crushes his leg and his Scottish mother marries a fat widower who neglects him in favor of his own children, and when soon after the winter drags on unnaturally long, Odd leaves his village for the forest. There he meets a fox, an eagle and a bear, the latter with its paw trapped in a tree. Odd aids the bear, and tries to feed him. The bear accepted and was actually hungry. Therefore Odd would always feed him. But as time passed by, he learns that these are not normal animals, but the gods Loki, Odin and Thor. The gods have been transformed and cast out of Asgard by a Frost Giant who tricked Loki into giving him Thor's hammer by taking the form of a woman, granting him rule over Asgard and causing the endless winter, but whether they were gods or not, Odd couldn't continue to feed them. But he realises that the gods had nowhere to go and couldn't feed themselves.
Deciding to help the stranded gods, Odd travels with them to Asgard. There, Thor leads him to Mimir's Well, and he receives wisdom and a vision of his parents in their youth. He eventually speaks with the Giant, who reveals his brother built the walls of Asgard but was tricked out of payment and killed by Thor. Odd convinces the Giant to return home. In return, the goddess Freya heals his leg, though she cannot mend it completely, and Odin gives him a staff. He returns to Midgard, somewhat bigger than when he left due to drinking from Mimir's Well, and as the winter ends he reunites with his mother.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd_and_the_Frost_Giants
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Nicholas Tchkotoua
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[No dedicated plot section found] His Serene Highness Prince Nicholas Tchkotoua (1909-1984) was a Georgian writer and a prominent member of the Order of Malta. He fled his homeland after the takeover by the Bolsheviks in 1921.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Tchkotoua
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Caravan (novel)
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[No dedicated plot section found] Caravan is a melodramatic novel by the British writer Lady Eleanor Smith first published in 1942. A young Englishman James Darrell goes on the road living with the Romany people in England while trying to make enough money as a writer to marry his sweetheart Oriana. However, she does not wait for him and marries a wealthy young Englishman. James then undertakes a mission to Spain for a business friend, while there he is attacked and robbed. He is rescued by a gypsy woman but he has lost his memory. Having lost his memory, he marries the gypsy girl, Rosal, without knowing of his former life in Britain. When his memory returns he resents the gypsy girl for deceiving him but stays with her and works as a secretary for a famous bullfighter. When Rosal is accidentally killed by the bullfighter the hero goes to Morocco. Upon his return to England his book on his journeys in Spain make him a famous and wealthy man. He reunites with his first love, Oriana, who is trapped in a loveless marriage. The book is written as a young reporter is sent to interview James Darrell on the occasion of his 70th birthday, and is written as a "flashback" by the old author.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravan_(novel)
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Angel Angel
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The Irises, a typical suburban family in Connecticut, are thrown into disarray upon the discovery of the patriarch's extra-marital affair. With his absence in the marital home, his wife, Augusta, struggles to understand or come to terms with the betrayal and takes to her bed for weeks. Her two sons, Matthew and Henry, face their own demons and are little help to their mother. However the introduction of Henry's sassy live-in girlfriend forces the family out of their emotional downward spiral.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Angel
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Beneath the Magic
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[No dedicated plot section found] Beneath the Magic is a 1950 novel by the British writer Robert Hichens about a concert pianist. It was released in the United States under the alternative title of Strange Lady. It was one of the final works of Hichens, a romantic novelist whose career stretched back to the Victorian era.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneath_the_Magic
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Tim (novel)
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[No dedicated plot section found] Tim is a novel by Australian writer Colleen McCullough, published by Harper and Row in 1974. Her literary agent was Frieda Fishbein.
It portrays the story of the developing relationship between an older, middle-class woman, Mary Horton, who lives on her own and a handsome, developmentally impaired 24-year-old gardener, Tim Melville, whom she hires.
It inspired the 1979 film of the same name, starring Piper Laurie and Mel Gibson and the 1996 film Mary & Tim starring Candice Bergen and Tom McCarthy.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_(novel)
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The Dream Room
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[No dedicated plot section found] The Dream Room (German: Die Traumbude) was Erich Maria Remarque's first novel, published under the name Erich Remark. He started writing it at the age of sixteen and completed it after his service in World War I, but it was not published until 1920.
When he published All Quiet on the Western Front in 1928, Remarque changed his middle name in memory of his mother and reverted to the earlier spelling of the family name to dissociate himself from Die Traumbude. The original family name, Remarque, had been changed to Remark by his grandfather in the 19th century.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_Room
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The Last September (film)
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Set in the early 1920s, Anglo-Irish landowners Sir Richard and Lady Myra Naylor reside in their country estate with their high-spirited niece, Lois, and their nephew Laurence during the twilight of British rule in southern Ireland. They are joined by the Montmorencys who hide the fact that they are presently homeless. Lois is being courted by a British officer stationed in Ireland during the Irish War of Independence. The arrival of Marda Norton causes an upheaval amongst all in the house as does an escaped commander of the Irish Volunteers who is on the run from local British soldiers and police.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_September_(film)
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Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site
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[No dedicated plot section found] The Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site (also known as the Vassall-Craigie-Longfellow House and, until December 2010, Longfellow National Historic Site) is a historic site located at 105 Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was the home of noted American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for almost 50 years, and it had previously served as the headquarters of General George Washington (1775–76).
The house was built in 1759 for Jamaican plantation owner John Vassall Jr., who fled the Cambridge area at the beginning of the American Revolutionary War because of his loyalty to the king of England. George Washington occupied it as his headquarters beginning on July 16, 1775, and it served as his base of operations during the Siege of Boston until he moved out on April 4, 1776. Andrew Craigie, Washington's Apothecary General, was the next person to own the home for a significant period of time. He purchased the house in 1791 and instigated its only major addition. Craigie's financial situation at the time of his death in 1819 forced his widow Elizabeth to take in boarders, and one of those boarders was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He became its owner in 1843 when his father-in-law Nathan Appleton purchased it as a wedding gift. He lived in the home until his death in 1882.
The last family to live in the home was the Longfellow family, who established the Longfellow Trust in 1913 for its preservation. In 1972, the home and all of its furnishings were donated to the National Park Service, and it is open to the public seasonally. It presents an example of mid-Georgian architecture style.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longfellow_House%E2%80%93Washington%27s_Headquarters_National_Historic_Site
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Madeleine Férat
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[No dedicated plot section found] Madeleine Férat is an 1868 novel by the French writer Émile Zola. It was Zola's fourth novel, written immediately after Thérèse Raquin, which had been Zola's first commercial and artistic success. It was published in 1868, first under the title La Honte (The Shame/Disgrace) in serial form (in L'Evénement Illustrée, from September 2 to October 20, 1868), then in volume under the title Madeleine Férat by Albert Lacroix, with a dedication to the painter Manet. It is the fictionalised version of a play which had not been accepted.
Madeleine Ferat deals with a beautiful woman in love with her husband William, but hopelessly attracted to her former lover, Jacques. This obsession leads to the destruction of her life, her marriage, and eventually drives her to suicide, while her husband, for his part, goes insane.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_F%C3%A9rat
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Night School (novel)
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In 1996, U.S. Army Major Jack Reacher is in Virginia to receive a medal for eliminating two war criminals in the Balkans when he receives orders from his superior officer and trusted friend, Leon Garber, to attend a special "inter-agency cooperation" school alongside Casey Watterman, an FBI agent, and John White, a CIA officer. Reacher quickly realizes that there is no school: the entire thing is a secret joint-agency operation overseen by Alfred Ratcliffe, the National Security Advisor, and his deputy, Dr. Marian Sinclair. Ratcliffe informs the three men that, through a CIA double agent, the government has learned that a sleeper cell in Hamburg controlled by a Middle Eastern terrorist group has cut a deal with an unidentified American for $100 million. The three men are ordered to identify the American and whatever he's selling, and are given full access to anything they need, including bringing in their own staff. Reacher chooses Frances Neagley, his former Sergeant.
Reacher and Neagley travel to Hamburg to begin their investigation, during which they get in a fight in a skinhead bar. Unbeknownst to Reacher, the men inform on him to their friends in the Neo-nazi movement. Reacher and Neagley are summoned back to America to follow up on a lead. The CIA believes that the merchandise on sale is a computer virus and the seller could be using an IT conference in Hamburg to cover his travel. However, the lead turns out to be a red herring.
Reacher and Neagley return to Hamburg and meet the local chief of detectives, Griezman, who helps them with several leads: a municipal worker who claims to have witnessed an exchange between an American and a man of Middle Eastern origin, the murder of a prostitute and two black market dealers with ties to a local forger who provided the American with false documents.
The witness, Helmut Klopp, describes the American he purported to have seen to Reacher and Griezman, but also shares the information with Dremmler, a shoe importer and an influential Neo-nazi leader. In turn, Dremmler has Muller, Griezman's deputy chief, secretly shadow Reacher's investigation.
The terrorists, meanwhile, arrange for the courier who had originally met with the American to be murdered in Kyiv for their own protection, and send a new messenger, to complete the deal.
The team contacts the US Army and learn that the American is Horace Wiley, a front-line artilleryman who has been AWOL from his post for several months. Despite Griezman's attempts to intercept her, the messenger meets with Wiley and confirms the deal before leaving Germany. Reacher, through an extensive search of Wiley's past as well as meeting with both his "uncle" Arnold Mason and an aging commander who served alongside Mason during the Korean War, determines that the items being sold are "Davy Crocketts", miniature nuclear bombs developed during the Cold War. A stash of ten bombs had accidentally been left behind by the US Army in a German supply depot, and Wiley had dedicated his entire service career to finding and selling them to purchase a ranch in Argentina. Wiley murders the forger in his apartment and rents a van to move the bombs, which both the team and Dremmler learn about.
After setting an explosion to distract the authorities and narrowly evading Reacher's team when they search his apartment, Wiley is stabbed to death by two of Dremmler's men, who steal the van and the codes required to detonate the bombs. The team arrives at the same time as the crew hired by the terrorists to transport the goods; Reacher kills the workers and captures the messenger. With Griezman's help, he figures out that the van is being kept at Dremmler's shoe warehouse and takes Neagley and two military cops, Hooper and Orozco, to retrieve it. He finds and kills Dremmler in his office to cover up the theft. The military covers up all the other evidence and the bombs are returned to the United States. Reacher and Neagley are both awarded a Commendation Medal for their service.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_School_(novel)
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Mina's Matchbox
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The novel, set in 1972, follows a twelve-year-old girl named Tomoko who leaves Tokyo to stay with her aunt in Ashiya. There, she lives in a large, pristine mansion with her aunt, uncle, and great-aunt, who's German. She also meets her cousin, Mina, whom she befriends and gets closer to.
The novel briefly touches upon certain events of the time, such as Yasunari Kawabata's suicide and the Munich Olympic Massacre.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mina%27s_Matchbox
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Eyvindur P. Eiríksson
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[No dedicated plot section found] Eyvindur Pétur Eiríksson (born 13 December 1935) is an Icelandic writer. He has written poetry, novels and plays. His works address concerns about modern alienation and the relationship between man and nature, often approached with dark humour. His novel Landið handan fjarskans received the Halldór Laxness Literary Prize and was nominated for the Icelandic Literary Prize in 1997.
Eyvindur was a teacher and worked in Icelandic radio and television before writing became his main occupation. He is the father of the rappers Sesar A and Blaz Roca. He is a regional leader within the neopagan organisation Ásatrúarfélagið.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyvindur_P._Eir%C3%ADksson
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House of Stairs (Sleator novel)
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The story is told largely from the point of view of Peter, a boy who has been labeled as slightly slow and tends to follow authority. The others are Lola, a rebellious juvenile delinquent who doesn't trust anyone; Blossom, an overweight, spoiled girl who grew up in pampered wealth but who has recently been orphaned; Oliver, a generous, self-confident, and arrogant athlete who has always been successful and popular; and Abigail, a pretty girl who is shy and kind but is easily misguided, and worries about what others think of her. Peter idolizes and seems to have a crush on Oliver, a boy who resembles someone Peter once knew. Peter bonds with Lola, who takes a protective stance toward him from the beginning.
As time drags on, the children need food, and during an argument where all of them are moving at once, a machine near them blinks its lights and releases a food pellet. The children hypothesize that it’s their specific movements altogether that enabled them to get the pellet, so they repeat the movements and actions to get another.
The pellets do not come out unless a very specific series of actions is taken, including positioning and movement, with no way to know what action to take next aside from trying it and hoping for a pellet. They spend their time “dancing” this way and adjusting their dance repeatedly until a pellet comes out, often blaming one another if the dance is even slightly off and a food pellet isn’t dispensed. There is a sense of reverence for the machine, as they do not wish to make it “mad” by getting the dance wrong and risking no food. By the end, with days and possibly weeks of dancing, the dance is intricate and very complex, with many steps, and the dance is so well rehearsed that each participant knows their role by heart, despite the actions being nonsensical yet hyperspecific.
The book ends with the explanation of the social experiment from a scientist and the children leaving the building of stairs and finally heading back to civilization. On their way they notice a stoplight; when the stoplight turns red, the children automatically begin to dance, just as they did when the food machine began to blink in the building, suggesting the conditioning to have lasting effects despite them being far away from the original stimulus.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Stairs_(Sleator_novel)
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Bing Crosby's Last Song
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[No dedicated plot section found] Bing Crosby's Last Song is a novel by the American writer Lester Goran set in 1968 in the Oakland neighbourhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
It tells the story of Daly Racklin, a Pittsburgh attorney who on a spring day learns from his doctor that he has one year to live. Racklin is a de facto voice of a dying Irish neighborhood, and he is also torn by his father's shadow and ambitions of his own.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bing_Crosby%27s_Last_Song
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Deewangee
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Raj Goyal (Akshaye Khanna), a young and successful criminal lawyer, famous for never having lost a case, is introduced to popular singer Sargam (Urmila Matondkar) by music magnate Ashwin Mehta (Vijayendra Ghatge). The following day, Ashwin is brutally murdered in his own house. The murderer, Tarang Bharadwaj (Ajay Devgn), who is Sargam's childhood friend and music mentor, is caught red-handed at the crime scene. He claims he is innocent, and Sargam, who believes in Tarang's innocence, approaches Raj to defend him, to which he agrees after meeting Tarang.
Realising Tarang has a mental illness, Raj hires a psychiatrist (Seema Biswas) to study his case. The psychiatrist finds out that Tarang has dissociative identity disorder, and his other personality goes by the name of Ranjeet. Meanwhile, Raj and Sargam grow closer due to their frequent meetings and eventually fall in love.
Raj speaks to Ranjeet, who is the complete opposite of the innocent and simple Tarang. Ranjeet admits to killing Ashwin, who had tried to molest Sargam at the party. Ranjeet sees Tarang as his friend, who in turn considers Sargam his wife. Bringing his split personality to the court, Raj is able to win the case and free Tarang.
Right after Tarang is acquitted, Raj finds out that the split personality disorder was an act put up by Tarang to get out of jail. Tarang then tells him to stay away from Sargam. Raj tries to reopen the case in order to protect Sargam but fails, and Tarang is moved to a mental hospital for treatment. Raj extends Tarang's stay in the mental hospital by proving that he is sick and needs further treatment, but Tarang wriggles out of Raj's attempt and is released. Raj appoints personal security for Sargam to ensure her safety, while Tarang relentlessly tries to reach her, during which he seriously injures Yana, Sargam's assistant.
Raj says that they can trap Tarang with Sargam performing a show and Tarang coming there. But Tarang kidnaps Sargam and takes her to an old fort where he has booked a vehicle to go abroad. Sargam secretly gives her location to Raj. Sargam, while trying to escape, tells Tarang that she loves Raj, to which Tarang responds by saying that then he has to kill Raj. Soon Raj arrives, and a fight ensues, which ends with Sargam overpowering Tarang and pushing him into a nearby river.
The next morning, the police are unsuccessful in finding his body. The film ends with Sargam and Raj, now married, enjoying a vacation, and they hear someone sing one of Tarang's songs. Raj believes it cannot be Tarang, and because the song is so popular, anyone can sing it. However a person is seen on a faraway bridge walking with crutches, seeming to be Tarang.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deewangee
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Yes and No (novel)
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During an election to Parliament, the stridently radical Whig Oakley stands against the liberal Canningite Tory Germain. Thanks to dealmaking organised by the rakish dandy Fitzalbert, Germain is elected thanks to a deal with the Ultra-Tory Steadman and his reactionary supporters. Oakley then inherits his uncle's estate and titles and enters Parliament as a lord, but is killed in a duel with Fitzalbert. Ultimately Germain makes a happy marriage with a politically shrewd wife and enjoys a successful career in Parliament, succeeding where Oakley through his hot-heated manner has ultimately failed.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_and_No_(novel)
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Margit Sandemo
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[No dedicated plot section found] Margit Sandemo (née Underdal, 23 April 1924 – 1 September 2018) was a Norwegian-Swedish historical fantasy author. She had been the best-selling author in the Nordic countries since the 1980s, when her novel series of 47 books, The Legend of the Ice People, was published. She also wrote many other book series such as Häxmästaren and Legenden om Ljusets rike.
Typical features for works of Margit Sandemo are among other things history, fantasy, romance, suspense and supernatural phenomena. The plots of her books are often very complex and meandering, and continue from one book to another. In the central role are distinct amulets, old writings and symbols, which the main characters decipher in order to solve riddles stage by time, while fighting against evil powers. The events of the majority of her novels take place in Europe in the Middle Ages and in the beginning of Modern Times, especially in Norway and Iceland. Sometimes the main characters have adventures further away, such as in Spain and Austria. Medieval knight castles, bewitched forests and old-fashioned, idyllic manor milieu are among the settings the stories take place in.
Among her literary role models, Sandemo named William Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoevsky, J.R.R. Tolkien, Agatha Christie and Kjersti Scheen. She read the whole of works of Shakespeare at the age of eight years, and wasn't much older when she turned to crime novels. Kalevala, the national epic of the Finnish people, Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne and King Lear were her favourites. In the adult age she has read significantly less, fearing subconscious plagiarizing. She says that she has got artistic influences also from the Kalevala motifed paintings of Akseli Gallen-Kallela and goblin motifed paintings of Gerhard Munthe. Other sources of inspiration have been classical music, such as the compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as well as old Europeans folk stories. Besides these she is fond of Star Wars films, thriller film The Silence of the Lambs directed by Jonathan Demme and earliest episodes of TV-series The X-Files. To her mind the newest episodes of the series are pure rubbish.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margit_Sandemo
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Dreamland (Baker novel)
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[No dedicated plot section found] Dreamland is a 1999 novel by American author Kevin Baker, published by HarperCollins Publishers. It centers on the colorful underworld of turn-of-the-century New York City, with much of the action taking place at Dreamland amusement park in Coney Island.
Many of the characters and events in Dreamland are based on real, historical accounts and people. For example; Kid Twist, Gyp the Blood, General Tom Thumb, his wife Lavinia Warren and Timothy Sullivan are all central characters in the book, and a major story arc follows a popular criminal trial of the period. Dreamland is the first volume in publication order of Baker's City of Fire trilogy of historical novels on New York City, the others being Paradise Alley (2002) and Striver's Row (2006).
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamland_(Baker_novel)
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Dating Dead Men
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[No dedicated plot section found] Dating Dead Men is a book written by Harley Jane Kozak and published by Doubleday (owned and operated by Penguin Random House) on 20 January 2004, which later went on to win the Anthony Award for Best First Novel in 2005.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_Dead_Men
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Waterless Mountain
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Younger Brother, a Navajo Indian living in Arizona in the 1920s, wishes to follow in the footsteps of his uncle and become a medicine man. To accomplish this task, he must undergo several arduous years of training to learn the ancient songs and customs of his ancestors. This includes a journey to the Pacific Ocean in the far west, participating in traditional ceremonies, and climbing the nearby Waterless Mountain. Throughout his training, his Uncle shares numerous legends of their culture.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterless_Mountain
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The Lonely Skier
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[No dedicated plot section found] The Lonely Skier is a 1947 thriller novel by British writer Hammond Innes. It is set in the Dolomites where a number of people are hunting a stash of buried Nazi treasure. The hero Neil Blair, recently demobbed from the army and unemployed, is hired to go to an isolated ski resort and pretend he is writing a screenplay.
In 1948 it was adapted into a film Snowbound directed by David MacDonald for Gainsborough Pictures and starring Dennis Price, Robert Newton and Herbert Lom.
Jack Adrian relates how Innes completed an arduous skiing course in the Italian Dolomites before he was demobbed. It was, said Innes, "Stiffer than any army course I was ever on, including battle training." His experiences were used as the background for the novel.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lonely_Skier
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The Strangers in the House (film)
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Hector Loursat, attorney at law, lives with his daughter, Nicole, in a vast and shabby mansion in a provincial town. Their conversation with each other is limited, each somehow holding the other one responsible for the situation: Hector Loursat used to be one of the great attorneys until his wife left him for another man eighteen years ago. He has been drinking ever since, and given up living altogether, intoxicated every night. Hector did not care much about his daughter, who was brought up by Fine, the old woman servant in the house.
One night, gunshots are heard upstairs in the house and Hector spots a shadow running away. Hector goes upstairs with Nicole and finds a dead man lying on an old bed in the attic. The police arrive and investigate. Hector soon finds out his daughter has a kind of secret life with a band of young idle bourgeois from the town; they have regular meetings in the attic.
The police soon determine that the dead man is called Gros Louis, with a criminal record. Nicole and her friends are being interrogated by the police. But how is Gros Louis linked to the group? They find out the young group have set up amongst themselves a sort of pact, a theft competition which started by stealing a ballpoint or a lighter, and was amplified by boredom up to grand theft auto. Thus, they were turned delinquents by ennui. The police also finds out that one of them, Emile, is Nicole's boyfriend. Did he kill Gros Louis because of jealousy? Emile is suspected, and arrested. In jail, Emile asks Hector Loursat to be his attorney. Hector, scenting a miscarriage of justice, agrees to be his defense attorney.
At the trial, the prosecution produces many bona fide witnesses, all bourgeois parents. Hector Loursat does not budge, has no questions to ask the witnesses, doesn't seem to be there altogether, to the point where people, and his daughter among them, wonder, with awe, if he is not still drinking. When finally Hector Loursat stands up and speaks, everyone is bewildered by his speech and strategy. First, he does not want to call any defense witnesses, but instead wants all the prosecution witnesses to come back to the stand, and accuses them all of being responsible for the boredom of the town, responsible for the boredom and nonsense and stupid behavior of their young ones, then singles out the fact that only one girl - his own daughter, Nicole - was in the group. By interrogating each of the young men, he shows that every one of them was in love with her, except, apparently, one, Luska. But Hector Loursat soon proves Luska was the one most in love with Nicole, that he found out Emile was Nicole's boyfriend, and that he killed Gros Louis to have Emile accused, moved aside and framed. At this point, Luska cracks up, confesses, and is arrested. Nicole falls into her father's arms.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strangers_in_the_House_(film)
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Call Me Bandicoot
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[No dedicated plot section found] Call Me Bandicoot is a 1970 young adult novel written by U.S. author William Pène du Bois. The novel takes place on the Staten Island Ferry and focuses on the relationship between an adult passenger and a young man who spins tall tales in exchange for food.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_Me_Bandicoot
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The Green Ribbon (novel)
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[No dedicated plot section found] The Green Ribbon is a 1929 crime novel by the British writer Edgar Wallace. Like a number of Wallace's novels it is set against the backdrop of the horseracing world.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Ribbon_(novel)
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Hobgoblin (novel)
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[No dedicated plot section found] Hobgoblin is a 1981 horror novel by American writer John Coyne about Scott Gardiner, a teenaged boy who becomes obsessed with Hobgoblin, a fantasy roleplaying game based on Irish mythology, as his life in the game and in reality slowly blend.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobgoblin_(novel)
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Taxi (pinball)
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[No dedicated plot section found] Taxi is a pinball machine designed by Mark Ritchie and Python Anghelo. It was released in 1988 by Williams Electronics.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_(pinball)
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Freedom™
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Deceased genius game developer Matthew Sobol's distributed artificial intelligence The Daemon has infiltrated the computer systems of numerous companies and governments. Many companies have surrendered, either out of fear of annihilation or because they have been converted to the fairer and more efficient system using a kind of government by algorithm. While the Daemon is a technological creation, much of the work is performed by humans, compelled by the Daemon to change the world, according to the vision of Sobol.
Connected by the Darknet, the human followers, using Sobol's game engine (for his award-winning game The Gate) as a base, have created their own ranking system and economy. Online identities mimic an massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), with operatives performing tasks to gain status and access to new technologies and help from the Daemon in an effort to advance their communities. Numerous US towns have slowly joined the Daemon's network as a means to improve their own situations and their society as a whole.
The rest of the world believes the Daemon is still a hoax, due to the efforts of the US government (and its allies) to appear to the general public that they are still in control. In truth, the American political and economic system is collapsing, with the price of fuel and the unemployment rate both skyrocketing.
As with the first book, the interweaving stories follows specific characters.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom%E2%84%A2
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Volker Kutscher
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[No dedicated plot section found] Volker Kutscher (German pronunciation: [ˈfɔlkɐ ˈkʊtʃɐ] ; born 26 December 1962) is a German novelist, best known for his Berlin-based Gereon Rath crime series, which serves as the basis for the Sky thriller series Babylon Berlin.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volker_Kutscher
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After the Banquet
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It follows Kazu, a middle-age proprietress of an upscale Japanese restaurant that caters to politicians. She meets a semi-retired ambassador, Noguchi, grows to like him, and eventually marries him. From there the novel explores the conflicts that rise up between the two, as the tensions between the political world, Kazu's formerly well-ordered life, and Noguchi's integrity flare up. It is written in a distinctly Japanese style, dwelling on the minutiae of clothing and food in great detail.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_the_Banquet
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Odd Girl Out (novel)
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Laura Landon is a sheltered freshman at a fictional university in a midwestern town. Intensely shy and introverted, she is drawn to the president of the student union, Beth Cullison. Beth is outgoing and friendly, experienced socially (with men, particularly) but feels a void in her life. She doesn't understand how the other girls are so fulfilled by the men in their lives, despite having tried. Every time she allows herself to be intimate with one, she breaks it off out of disappointment.
Beth shares a room in the sorority house with Emmy, and convinces Laura to pledge the sorority. Feeling a pull to Beth, Laura delights in her presence and experiences jealousy and confusion in her attachment to the older woman. They go on dates together, and Beth considers Laura something of an enigma, unsure of how to reach out to her to get to know her well. Laura finds herself especially jealous of Beth's most recent beau, Charlie, who to Beth's surprise has awoken some new feelings in her. Laura is often so at odds with her unemotional upbringing conflicting with the intensity of the emotions she experiences for Beth that she practices self-injury.
Beth begins to realize what effect she has on Laura and teases her good-naturedly to watch what happens to her, but she is taken back by Laura's intense attraction, and they begin an affair. This is compounded by her escalating relationship with Charlie, who is frustrated with Beth's vacillating between affection for him and her guilt for hurting Laura.
Beth loses faith with her sorority and the university when, during a costume party, Emmy gets drunk and her boyfriend, Bud, hoists her scantily clad over his shoulder and the top of her costume falls off. The sorority kicks her out after she is caught in the middle of coitus with Bud, having previously been told not to see him. Bud is angered by this and feels partly to blame. He reassures Emmy and promises to marry her. Whether or not he will fulfill his promise remains ambiguous. Emmy writes to Beth about her frustration when she doesn't hear from Bud, and about her feelings of estrangement from her community.
Disillusioned and not sure what to do, Beth agrees to leave school to be with Laura. They plan to run away to Greenwich Village. When Charlie corners Laura, she tells him about their relationship, triumphant that she can have what Charlie cannot. Charlie then confronts Beth when she is on her way to meet Laura at the train station. He calls her relationship with Laura childish, to which Beth admits that she only loves Laura, not him. Charlie drops her off at the station and says she must make her own decision, but he will wait nearby for half an hour, just in case. Beth finally reveals the truth to Laura when she meets her at the station. Laura stays on the train resolute her love for Beth and even thanks her for teaching her who she is. Beth says her goodbyes to Laura and rushes off to catch Charlie.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd_Girl_Out_(novel)
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Inevitable (novel)
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[No dedicated plot section found] The Inevitable, The Law Inevitable or Inevitable, (Dutch: Langs lijnen van geleidelijkheid, literally Along lines of graduality) is a novel by Dutch author Louis Couperus, published in 1900. It was first translated into English by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos and published in New York in 1920 by Dodd Mead and Company, and in London ('The Law Inevitable', 1921) by Thornton Butterworth. Both editions were reprinted once in 1921. In 2005, a new edition was published by Pushkin Press, New York, titled 'Inevitable' without the definite article.
It tells the story of a 23-year-old Dutch divorcee, Cornélie de Retz van Loo, from an upper-class The Hague background who seeks to start a new emancipated, culturally fulfilling life in Italy.
In Britain the novel's erotic explicitness and the social issues it deals with provoked significant criticism upon its publication.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inevitable_(novel)
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The Angel Makers
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During World War I, the men of a Hungarian village leave to fight. In their absence, the women form powerful bonds. Their village is made into a camp for Italian prisoners of war and some women fall for these soldiers. When their men return and begin to mistreat them, the women become murderous in their fight to keep their freedom.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Angel_Makers
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Rosa María Britton
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Plot summary not found.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Mar%C3%ADa_Britton
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A Choice of Enemies
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[No dedicated plot section found] A Choice of Enemies is the third novel by Canadian author Mordecai Richler. It was first published in 1957 by André Deutsch.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Choice_of_Enemies
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Bhimaa
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SI Bhimaa has been transferred to a place called Mahendragiri in Karnataka, where the gangsters control the place. Bhimaa meets Vidya, a school teacher and a follower of Ayurvedic practitioner Ravindra Varma. One night, Bhimaa discovers a tanker engaged in the illicit transportation of young children, where he learns that Ravindra Varma has been conducting illegal experiments to invent Sanjeevini, a herbal plant which could revive a dead person. Bhimaa arrives at Ravindra Varma's hideout and tries to stop him, but Ravindra Varma holds Vidya and the children hostage. Ravindra Varma uses the opportunity and kills Bhimaa, Vidya and the children. Bhimaa's twin brother Ramaa, a temple priest, learns about Bhimaa's death and realized his mistake of not understanding Bhimaa. Bhimaa's spirit enters Ramaa, where he finds Ravindra Varma and kills him, thus avenging Vidya and the children's death.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhimaa
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Pictures from an Institution
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[No dedicated plot section found] Pictures from an Institution: a Comedy is a 1954 novel by American poet Randall Jarrell. It is an academic satire, focusing on the oddities of academic life, in particular the relationships between the characters and their private lives. The nameless narrator, a Jarrell-like figure who teaches at a women's college called Benton, makes humorous observations about his students and his fellow academics; especially the latter, and in particular the offensively tactless novelist Gertrude, modeled on Mary McCarthy.
Some believe Benton was modeled after Sarah Lawrence College, where Jarrell taught but in an interview with the New York Times, Jarrell stated that "Benton is supposed to be just a type ... I've taken things from real places, but mostly have made them up".
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictures_from_an_Institution
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The Lovely Bones
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On December 6, 1973, 14-year-old Susie Salmon takes a shortcut home from school through a cornfield in Norristown, Pennsylvania. George Harvey, her 36-year-old neighbor, a bachelor who builds doll houses for a living, persuades her to look at an underground kid's hideout he constructed in the field. After she goes into the hideout, he rapes and murders her. He puts her remains in a safe that he dumps in a sinkhole, and throws her charm bracelet into a pond. Susie's spirit flees toward her personal Heaven; it rushes past her classmate, social outcast Ruth Connors, who sees Susie's ghostly spirit.
The Salmon family initially refuses to believe that Susie is dead, until a neighbor's dog finds Susie's elbow. The police talk to Harvey, finding him odd but not suspicious. Susie's father, Jack, gradually suspects Harvey. Jack's surviving daughter, Lindsey, eventually shares this sentiment. Jack takes an extended leave from work. Meanwhile, another of Susie's classmates, Ray Singh, who had a crush on Susie in school, develops a friendship with Ruth, drawn together by their connection with Susie.
Later, Detective Len Fenerman tells the Salmons that the police have exhausted all leads and are dropping the investigation. That night, Jack peers out of his den window and sees a flashlight in the cornfield. Believing Harvey is returning to destroy evidence, Jack runs out to confront him, armed with a baseball bat. The figure is not Harvey, but Clarissa, Susie's best friend who is dating Brian, one of Susie's classmates. As Susie watches in horror from heaven, Brian—who was going to meet Clarissa in the cornfield—nearly beats Jack to death, and Clarissa breaks Jack's knee, as they believed he was after them. While Jack recovers from knee replacement surgery, Susie's grieving mother, Abigail, begins an affair with the widowed Det. Fenerman.
Trying to help her father prove his suspicions, Lindsey sneaks into Harvey's house and finds a diagram of the underground den. She leaves when Harvey unexpectedly returns. The police do not arrest Lindsey for breaking and entering. Harvey flees from Norristown. Later, evidence is discovered that links Harvey to Susie's murder and those of several other girls. In heaven, Susie meets Harvey's other victims and sees into his traumatic childhood.
Abigail leaves Jack and eventually takes a job at a winery in California. Abigail's mother, Grandma Lynn, moves into the Salmons' home to care for Lindsey and Buckley (the younger brother). Eight years later, Lindsey and her boyfriend, Samuel Heckler, become engaged after finishing college. They find an old house in the woods, owned by a classmate's father, and decide to fix it up and live there. Sometime after the celebration, while arguing with his son Buckley, Jack suffers a heart attack. The emergency prompts Abigail to return from California, but the reunion is tempered by Buckley's lingering bitterness for her having abandoned the family for most of his childhood.
Meanwhile, Harvey returns to Norristown, which has become more developed. He explores his old neighborhood and notices the school is being expanded into the cornfield where he murdered Susie. He drives by the sinkhole where Susie's body rests and where Ruth and Ray are standing. Ruth senses the women Harvey has killed and is physically overcome. Susie, watching from heaven, is also overwhelmed with emotion. She feels that she and Ruth transcend their present existence; her spirit enters Ruth's body. Ray senses her and is stunned. The two make love as Susie has longed to do after seeing her sister and Samuel's love. Afterward, Susie returns to heaven and Ruth to her earthly body.
Susie moves to a larger part of Heaven, but occasionally watches earthbound events. Lindsey and Samuel have a daughter they name Abigail Suzanne. While stalking a young woman in New Hampshire, Harvey is hit on the shoulder by an icicle and falls to his death down a snow-covered slope into the ravine below. At the end of the novel, a Norristown couple finds Susie's charm bracelet but don't realize its significance. Susie closes the story by wishing the reader "a long and happy life".
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lovely_Bones
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Danny Ramadan
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[No dedicated plot section found] Ahmad Danny Ramadan (Arabic: أحمد داني رمضان; born May 31, 1984) is a Syrian–Canadian novelist, public speaker, and LGBTQ-refugee activist who was born in Damascus, Syria. Ramadan's work focuses on themes of immigration, identity, diaspora and belonging. His debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, won multiple awards. The Foghorn Echoes won the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction.
Currently, Ramadan lives in Vancouver, British Columbia with his husband.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Ramadan
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Malegalalli Madumagalu
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[No dedicated plot section found] Kuppalli Venkatappa Puttappa (29 December 1904 – 11 November 1994), popularly known by his pen name Kuvempu , was an Indian poet, playwright, novelist and critic. He is widely regarded as the greatest Kannada poet of the 20th century. He was the first Kannada writer to receive the Jnanpith Award.
Kuvempu studied at Mysuru University in the 1920s, taught there for nearly three decades and served as its vice-chancellor from 1956 to 1960. He initiated education in Kannada as the language medium. For his contributions to Kannada Literature, the Government of Karnataka decorated him with the honorific Rashtrakavi ("National Poet") in 1964 and Karnataka Ratna ("The Gem of Karnataka") in 1992. He was conferred the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India in 1988. He penned the Karnataka State Anthem Jaya Bharata Jananiya Tanujate.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuvempu
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Claudine Griggs
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[No dedicated plot section found] Claudine Griggs (born July 27, 1953) is an American author and transgender woman.
Griggs first came out as transgender in 1974. In 1991, at age 37, she underwent gender-affirming surgery with Dr. Stanley Biber in Trinidad, Colorado. She kept a detailed, clinical and darkly humorous journal of the experience that later became her first book, 1995's Passage Through Trinidad: Journal of a Surgical Sex Change. This was followed by 1998's S/he: Changing Sex and Changing Clothes, in which Griggs interviewed numerous other transgender people to examine "the pressures and motivations to conform to expected gender roles, and the ways in which these are affected by social, educational, and professional status."
In 2004, her first book was republished in an expanded edition under the alternative title Journal of a Sex Change: Passage Through Trinidad. In 2021, the story of her surgery was featured in the book Going to Trinidad: A Doctor, a Colorado Town and Stories from an Unlikely Gender Crossroads by Martin J. Smith.
From 2009 onwards, Griggs has mostly written science fiction and speculative fiction. In 2019, her short story "Helping Hand" was adapted into an episode of the Netflix series Love, Death and Robots. Her first novel, the crime thriller Don't Ask, Don't Tell, was published in 2020. A short story collection entitled Firestorm was published in 2022, and her second novel Dwarf Days followed in 2024.
Griggs has taught writing professionally for many years at various universities across the United States. She ran Rhode Island College's Writing Center from 2009 to 2019. While currently semi-retired, she now works part-time as a writing specialist at Texas A&M University's Bush School of Government & Public Service.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudine_Griggs
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