ReviewA funny, fast-moving, endearing book that [readers] will lap up! (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) From the PublisherThe Great Brain is Tom D. Fitzgerald, aged ten. The story is told by J.D., a sometimes confounded but always admiring younger brother. Such people as Mr. Standish, the mean schoolmaster, regret the day they came up against The Great Brain. But others, like the Jensen kids lost in Skeleton Cave, Basil, the Greek kid, or Andy, who has lost his leg and his friends, know that Tom's great brain never fails to find a way home. Views: 125
Centuries ago, the Star Folk had left Earth on twelve spaceships on a generations-long mission to colonize the distant stars. Ten of the ships had reached their destinations. Two had failed-and nobody, in the hundreds of years since the disaster, had the slightest inkling of what had happened. ~ ~~ ~ Joneny, a student of galactic anthropology, was assigned the problem. It had seemed routine to him. Just some faster-than-light travel to the two wrecked ships, a bit of poking around, and then writing up his findings. ~ ~~ ~ But he was ill-prepared for what he found in space at the site of the two ancient wrecks. One, the Sigma-9, was not subject to the laws of time-stasis (the only exception to a universal law), and it was covered entirely with a mysterious green fire that shimmered so much that it seemed alive! And the other ship, the Beta-2, was nowhere to be found. Only a fragment of a mysterious poem could possibly provide a clue. Views: 125
Split from Modern Japanese Literature by Donald Keene. Views: 123
The tale of murder and revenge set on a remote oil rig, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. Views: 123
Set in London, A Game of Murder features a young Scotland Yard CIT officer who is on leave when his father dies in a golfing accident. But Harry Dawson won't let the mystery go, for mystery it is. Who is the young man seen on the golf links? Why is everyone so interested in a dog collar? What is the connection with the man in the pet shop? Is it really possible that the housekeeper's nephew can be inept as he seems? And where is the housekeeper? Francis Durbridge's twisting, turning plot drips suspense on every page, quickening into a flood of action and mystery that keeps the reader guessing till the very end. Views: 122
Once again, the setting of the novel is rural California, where Chan has been invited as a houseguest. He meets a world-famous soprano, Ellen Landini, who is murdered not too long after the meeting. Chan does not have far to look for suspects -- the host is her ex-husband, as are three of the other house guests. Her servants, entourage and husbands all come under suspicion. Once again, Chan is expected to solve the murder, which he does by understanding the key clues -- the actions of a little dog named Trouble, two scarves, and two little boxes. When he understands how the murder is committed, he learns the role of elderly house servant Ah Sing -- the keeper of the keys. Views: 120
A Life in HidingWhen the German army occupied Holland, Annie de Leeuw was eight years old. Because she was Jewish, the occupation put her in grave danger-she knew that to stay alive she would have to hide. Fortunately, a Gentile family, the Oostervelds, offered to help. For two years they hid Annie and her sister, Sini, in the cramped upstairs room of their farmhouse.Most people thought the war wouldn't last long. But for Annie and Sini -- separated from their family and confined to one tiny room -- the war seemed to go on forever.In the part of the marketplace where flowers had been sold twice a week-tulips in the spring, roses in the summer-stood German tanks and German soldiers. Annie de Leeuw was eight years old in 1940 when the Germans attacked Holland and marched into the town of Winterswijk where she lived. Annie was ten when, because she was Jewish and in great danger of being cap-tured by the invaders, she and her sister Sini had to leave their father, mother, and older sister Rachel to go into hiding in the upstairs room of a remote farmhouse.Johanna de Leeuw Reiss has written a remarkably fresh and moving account of her own experiences as a young girl during World War II. Like many adults she was innocent of the German plans for Jews, and she might have gone to a labor camp as scores of families did. "It won't be for long and the Germans have told us we'll be treated well," those families said. "What can happen?" They did not know, and they could not imagine.... But millions of Jews found out.Mrs. Reiss's picture of the Oosterveld family with whom she lived, and of Annie and Sini, reflects a deep spirit of optimism, a faith in the ingenuity, backbone, and even humor with which ordinary human beings meet extraordinary challenges. In the steady, matter-of-fact, day-by-day courage they all showed lies a profound strength that transcends the horrors of the long and frightening war. Here is a memorable book, one that will be read and reread for years to come. Views: 120
Ellaby's society was a perfect democracy, where all men were equal. But some still wanted more personal attention, and they got it, like— The Dictator. Views: 119
In Ireland in 1826 millions knew only famine, oppression and degradation. The landlords ground down the tenant famers; tithe wars and injustice were rife.But Dualta Duane battles against tyranny, struggling to survive the evils of hunger, poverty and disease. Courageous and fortified by an enduring love, Duane's unconquerable spirit personifies the love of freedom that raged in the soul of Ireland. Views: 119
In Flowers for Hitler, Leonard Cohen's third collection of poetry, Cohen first experiments with his self-consciously "anti-art" gestures: an attempt, in his own words, to move "from the world of the golden-boy poet into the dung pile of the front-line writer." Haunted by the image of the Nazi concentration camps, the poems within are deliberately ugly, tasteless, and confrontational, setting out to destroy the image of Cohen as a sweet romantic poet. Instead, it celebrates the failed careers and destroyed minds of such "beautiful losers" as Alexander Trocchi, Kerensky, and even Queen Victoria. Cohen, in Flowers for Hitler, is an author auditioning himself for all the parts in an unwritten play, underlining the process of self-recovery and self-discovery that is at the center of these poems. Views: 119
All through the war, Belle Boyd, the Rebel Spy, had hoped to meet Tollinger and Barmain, the leaders of the mob which had murdered her parents and burned her home to the ground. At last, with the war over, she found them. Accompanied by the Ysabel Kid and his father, Belle set out to take her revenge.To do so, she had to enter the camp of a renegade revolutionary leader in Mexico and become involved in a plot that might plunge the United States into another costly, bloody war.LAST IN THE SERIES Views: 118
